Self-Sacrifice. Unconditional Love. These are the qualities of the heroic animals in this collection.The Walking Dead meets The Incredible Journey in 14 amazing tales by today’s most talented independent authors. Seven stories set in all-new dystopian landscapes. Seven stories set in the bestselling post-apocalyptic worlds of David Adams’s Symphony of War, Michael Bunker’s Pennsylvania, Nick Cole’s Wasteland Saga, Hank Garner’s Weston Files, E.E. Giorgi’s Mayake Chronicles, Deirdre Gould’s After the Cure, and Edward W. Robertson’s Breakers.When the world ends, the humans who survive will learn an old lesson anew—that friendship with animals can make the difference between a lonely death among the debris and a life well lived, with hope for the future.

    Kyle, Sara, and Tim are scavengers, hiding in the remains of human civilization from the hungry things that destroyed it. Living on the few items that haven’t rotted in the thirteen years since civilization was wiped out. But something has shown itself: A terrible creature that betrays an intelligence in the madness of the beings that rule the planet. When the group finds Kaylee, a little girl who claims to know of a safe haven somewhere in Tennessee, they embark on a desperate journey to find it. Memory and loss, depravity and salvation— their last run will put them face to face with horrors of both man and monsters the likes of which they’ve never seen.

    Disturbing news footage is flooding the cable news channels. People are worried and frightened. But Zed Zane is oblivious. He needs to borrow rent money from his parents. He gets up Sunday morning, drinks enough tequila to stifle his pride and heads to his mom’s house for a lunch of begging, again. But something is wrong. There’s blood in the foyer. His mother’s corpse is on the living room floor. Zed’s stepdad, Dan is wild with crazy-eyed violence and attacks Zed when he comes into the house. They struggle into the kitchen. Dan’s yellow teeth tear at Zed’s arm but he grabs a knife and stabs Dan, thirty-seven times, or so the police later say. With infection burning in his blood, Zed is arrested for murder but the world is falling apart and he soon finds himself back on the street, fighting for his life among the infected who would kill him and the normal people, who fear him. Book 2 Slow Burn: Infected picks up the story of Zed, Murphy, and Jerome where Slow Burn: Zero Day ended. All three have been infected but have not succumbed to the most pernicious symptoms of the virus. Nevertheless, their band of fearful survivors, have ostracized them. Back on the street, with weapons to defend themselves but little food in their packs, they embark on a search for Murphy’s family while following a rumor of safe haven in the form of a doomsday bunker in east Austin. But the world is more hazardous than they know. They expect violence from the voracious infected but they have harsh lessons to learn about the uninfected. And humans to support the infrastructure of modern civilization, they find that danger comes in many forms. Book 3 Zed is saying goodbye to one friend and pressing forward with two new ones, Mandi, whom Zed and Murphy rescued from the bunker, is immune to the virus, and Russell, also a slow burn, but lower-functioning, childlike and docile. After seeing the carnage at the dormitory, a raging, vengeful Zed wants only to kill Mark, his nemesis and the former leader of the ROTC squad. Since Mark has disappeared, Zed unleashes his fury on untold numbers of infected in his path as he makes his way back to the hospital, in an attempt to rescue Steph, a nurse whom he befriended while seeking help for the feverish Murphy shortly after the prison riot. But the brave medical staff, holed up on the tenth floor of the hospital, and running out of provisions, has decided to take matters in hand by exposing themselves to the virus, and shooting those who “turn.” Zed is determined not to face another loss, but time is running out. The Slow Burn Series Book 1 – Slow Burn: Zero Day Book 2 – Slow Burn: Infected Book 3 & 4 - Box Set Slow Burn: Destroyer & Dead Fire Book 3 – Slow Burn: Destroyer Book 4 - Slow Burn: Dead Fire Book 5 - Slow Burn: Torrent

    Her younger brother, Jordan, is having no problem fitting in and making friends.Everyone on Castine Island is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the purple moon, caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists expected this thrilling phenomenon and food companies are churning out purple-colored products in celebration of the comet’s arrival.The morning following the comet’s debut Abby and Jordan make a chilling discovery: every adult on the island is dead. The children of the island band together to withstand their new circumstances, and the older kids quickly learn a gripping truth about their own ticking clocks. It's only a matter of time before they succumb to the comet bacteria, but can they raise the next generation to survive?"Frightening and inspiring" - Kirkus Reviews. Riveting dystopian drama for all ages (13+)Alternate Cover edition for ISBN 9780615637082

    But when the plague killed their parents, along with everyone over the age of seventeen, Jimmy suddenly became head of the household.Then the oldest kid in town turned eighteen and the plague chased him down. Now Jimmy has one more thing to worry about--and he’s running out of time.Hunter finds a little girl named Catherine under a cottonwood tree in the middle of nowhere. When Catherine magically heals Hunter’s broken arm, Jimmy hopes he will survive his eighteenth birthday if he can protect her from the horseman responsible for unleashing the plague.

    They spend their days searching for survivors, their nights fighting endless hordes of “Bellows”—creatures that roam the dark, roaring for flesh. And at this Game, Michael and Patrick are very good.But The Game is changing.The Bellows are evolving.The Game Master is leading Michael and Patrick to other survivors—survivors who don’t play by the rules.And the brothers will never be the same.T. Michael Martin’s debut novel is a transcendent thriller filled with electrifying action, searing emotional insight, and unexpected romance.

    He never has. But when a fiery-headed cowgirl saunters through the saloon doors, wielding shotguns and a know-how for killing the living dead, he believes he just may be the luckiest man alive. Trace wants to join "Red’s" posse, but she prefers to work alone—less messy that way. In order to become her traveling companion, Trace has to agree to her terms: no names, no questions, and if he gets bit, he can’t beg for mercy when she severs his brain stem. He agrees, knowing only that Red is the sharpest shooter he’s ever encountered. The fact she’s stunning hasn’t escaped his attention either. What he doesn’t know, is that Red has a very good reason to be on top of her game. She not only has the answer for how they can all outlive the plague taking over the wild, wild west, she is the answer.

    THE APOCALYPSE. A nuclear fallout wiped out every living thing on the planet, except for a few thousand of us who took shelter in underground bunkers across the globe. Now, after thirteen long years, we were finally able to return to the topside to begin to rebuild. We thought we were alone. We were never more wrong. Before the fallout, scientists had worked on creating an anti-radiation vaccine (ARV). The first two attempts failed, but despite the incomplete tests and results, the government approved and distributed the third serum to the masses in an effort to aid those who had no shelter. It worked. Keeping those who remained on the topside alive, but it also altered and mutated them. This new and infectious threat had completely outnumbered us. Now, we not only had to rebuild our planet. We would have to fight for it. My name is Abigail Park. I’m seventeen, and this is my story.

    These are some of those stories. This collection of six short stories from a world ravaged by the LZR-1143 virus tell the tale of six different people, all of whom fell victim, in different ways, to the deadly plague. From the pilot of a commercial aircraft, overwhelmed in midair, to the lonely soldier stranded high above a world of the undead, the six characters each face their own fears and mortality in different ways. This 20,000 word short-story collection features a unique selection of characters from the original zombie novel by Bryan James, LZR-1143: Infection, and from the recently released sequel, LZR-1143: Evolution. Each character appears only fleetingly in the longer novels, but each has their own unique thread in the LZR-1143 storyline, all of which are exposed in these short excerpts from their final hours alive. The collection includes The Pilot, The Boy, The Inmate, The Fry Cook, The Subway Passenger, and The Sniper. In The Pilot, a commercial aviator sees his last flight end in a way he never could have imagined. In The Boy, a family trip is cut short, and a lonely homecoming is not at all as he anticipated. We see the surprising genesis and true identity of a traveling companion in The Inmate, while The Fry Cook reveals the final moments of a teenage fast food worker. In The Subway Passenger, we learn that in the case of zombie apocalypse, you’d probably rather be aboveground. And in The Sniper, the surprising truth that there are some fates that cannot be fought, even with a fifty caliber rifle.

    With skillful prose, he enthralls even as he horrifies; with uncanny insight, he disturbs as profoundly as he reveals. Evoking revulsion and admiration, anticipation and dread, Barker's works explore the darkest contradictions of the human condition: our fear of life and our dreams of death.

    That was all awful enough, but it was more than that. I remember being young and thinking, when I grow up, I'll have a nice big house. I'll get an exciting, interesting job. I'll meet the man of my dreams and we'll fall in love and stay together forever.But that all disappeared the first time I tripped 20 years into the future and found the houses burned, the handsome boys dead, and the only jobs were the ones young girls gave hairy old survivors in tents in exchange for a little food and water. Nobody asked little girls what they wanted to be when they grew up anymore. Nobody wanted to draw attention to the fact that most of them wouldn't live that long.There was no hope, no peace for anyone. At least I had it better than they did. When my trip was over, I would get to go back. Back to the normalcy of 2015. Back to iPhones and Twitter and buying so much food it went bad before you could eat it. Back to laughing over foamy cappuccinos and iced lattes at the mall, window shopping and flirting with hot guys (not that I ever did that, mind you - but I always wanted to). And I still could. That was the point. Unlike everybody else, for whom 2015 was 20 years ago - long before humanity was destroyed - it was my reality. At least, it was some of the time.But after seeing the future; after struggling to make it to the end of the day; after my first kill - none of those other things were the least bit enjoyable. All I could think when I got back to the real world, is how can I stop what's coming?Prescient is a young adult time-travel dystopia, this is Part One of the first book in the series.

    There are tales of murder, death, loss, revenge, greed, and hate. There are also tales of hope, survival, and love.For the sea was a fair master.

    What will happen when humans can live forever? Or die with just a few keystrokes? How will our governments react as they lose control of their citizens' data? And how do you feel about uploading your mind into a computer so that you may live on after death?The Post-Human Omnibus is the perfect book for these times. It's an epic series of stories that explore all sides of humanity's future through science fiction, from both near-future dystopias to far-future utopias (and everything in between). Written by award winning author & TEDx speaker David Simpson, this collection explores many different genres from thrillers to romances to mysteries and much more.

    Fax is the most reliable method of communication and the local newspaper is the main source of outside information.When a freak car accident occurs on the outside of town, no one thinks much of it. That is until deer are found sick and covered in an unusual growth, and they lose contact with the next town.Cut off and isolated from the rest of the world, Griffin is unaware of the threat growing outside the safety of their little town. One that could endanger their entire existence.