The reason: to pretend they are hiding away from an apocalyptic zombie plague.

    Forget summer. Forget warmth. Forget anything that doesn’t help you survive.Lynn McBride has learned much since society collapsed in the face of nuclear war and the relentless spread of disease. As memories of her old life haunt her, she has been forced to forge ahead in the snow-covered Canadian Yukon, learning how to hunt and trap to survive.But her fragile existence is about to be shattered. Shadows of the world before have found her tiny community—most prominently in the enigmatic figure of Jax, who sets in motion a chain of events that will force Lynn to fulfill a destiny she never imagined.

    It detailed our culture, accumulated mathematical knowledge, and the finer points of human physiology. Now, years later, they have finally received a reply... The Western Hemisphere is plunged into chaos, as exposure to the alien radio signal transforms millions of ordinary citizens into savage lunatics, their re-programmed minds relentlessly driving them to spread mayhem and death. From the southernmost point of Chile to the farthest reaches of Northern Canada, the day dawns upon a desperate struggle for survival. Fleeing from raging fires, disastrous havoc, and the murderous rampaging of the infected, the survivors must try to overcome the odds and survive to see tomorrow - but, with a mentally unstable President contemplating full-scale nuclear war on the East, will there even be a tomorrow? Originally published as a condensed serial on Reddit.com, in the SubReddit Library of Shadows, 99 Brief Scenes From the End of The World is a taut, adrenaline-fueled excursion into the darkest depths of the human id. It takes the reader from the embattled streets of suburbia to a besieged church in a Texan border town; to top-secret government facilities, where powerful men play a game of political chess, using people as pawns. Will the alien transmission succeed in destroying us all - or does salvation lie within the extraordinary mind of a catatonic little girl?

    Disturbing news footage is flooding the cable news channels. People are worried. People are frightened. But Zed Zane is oblivious. Zed 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 Zed 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.

    But it seems as though there is no place sacred, no place secure. First the aliens attacked the sun, making it dimmer, weaker, and half what it used to be. Then they attacked the water supply, killing one-third of Earth’s population with a bitter contaminate. And when they unleash a new terror on humankind, the victims will wish for death, but will not find it…When the world shatters to pieces around her, will Jennie find the strength she needs to keep going?

    No one can leave. No one knows what is going on.At first, there's the novelty of being stuck in a mega mall with free food and a gift certificate. But with each passing day, it becomes harder to ignore the dwindling supplies, inadequate information, and mounting panic.Then people start getting sick.Told from the point of view of two guys and two girls, this is a harrowing look at what can happen under the most desperate of circumstances, when regular people are faced with impossible choices. Some rise to the occasion. Some don't.And for some - it's too late.

    When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

    Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication.In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans—a single mother disconcerted by her daughter's menacing "smart" toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a "pacification unit" go haywire—but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.When the Robot War ignites—at a moment known later as Zero Hour—humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us ... and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

    They didn't expect the world to end. Kasker Rampart: a derelict refinery platform moored in the Arctic Ocean. A skeleton crew of fifteen fight boredom and despair as they wait for a relief ship to take them home. But the world beyond their frozen wasteland has gone to hell. Cities lie ravaged by a global pandemic. One by one TV channels die, replaced by silent wavebands. The Rampart crew are marooned. They must survive the long Arctic winter, then make their way home alone. They battle starvation and hypothermia, unaware that the deadly contagion that has devastated the world is heading their way...

    Just home from his sixth combat tour in Afghanistan, His wife has left him, his house is in foreclosure, and he feels like his entire world has disintegrated. With almost thirty years’ military and civilian police experience, he’s always been able to make the right decisions in tight spots, but waking to find he’s the sole survivor, after the entire Earth’s population is dead from an unknown calamity from the cosmos, he’s at a loss. Or is he? Follow him across a Continent, and then an Ocean, to find his fate, to see if one man can change the world, make a difference, make the hardest decision of his life, and save humanity once and for all…

    From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: The nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction - including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King - Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core. --back coverContains the following stories:Introduction by John Joseph AdamsThe End of the Whole Mess by Stephen KingSalvage by Orson Scott CardThe People of Sand and Slag by Paolo BacigalupiBread and Bombs by M. RickertHow We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan LethemDark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. MartinWaiting for the Zephyr by Tobias S. BuckellNever Despair by Jack McDevittWhen Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory DoctorowThe Last of the O-Forms by James Van PeltStill Life With Apocalypse by Richard KadreyArtie’s Angels by Catherine WellsJudgment Passed by Jerry OltionMute by Gene WolfeInertia by Nancy KressAnd the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth BearSpeech Sounds by Octavia E. ButlerKillers by Carol EmshwillerGinny Sweethips’ Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr.The End of the World as We Know It by Dale BaileyA Song Before Sunset by David GriggEpisode Seven... by John LanganAppendix: For Further Reading

    Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he's secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when a fellow tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure for the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip, exchanging gunfire with enemy gangs, escaping cults and militias, braving the wilds of the subway - all in order to save humankind.

     Survival. Murder. Snow. Winter is here. The cold spreads over the land, shriveling and choking out all the plant life. Harsh. Unforgiving. The first winter without electricity will surely claim more human lives as well. The isolation may do more damage than the cold, however. Too much time alone drives people to unthinkable acts.

    Scattered refugees - a priest with a bloody past, a college girl turned sniper, escaped San Quentin inmates and others - will quickly learn the three most important rules of survival: Make your bullets count. Don't fall behind. Don't...get...bitten!Fast-paced and packed with zombie action, Book One of the Omega Days series lights off the apocalypse with a scream, and tears California to pieces!

    They’re the misfits and the troublemakers—the ones who jump their high school’s fence to skip class regularly. So when a deadly virus breaks out, they’re the only ones with a chance of surviving.The virus turns Brian’s classmates and teachers into bloodthirsty attackers who don’t die easily. The whole school goes on lockdown, but Brian and his best friend, Chad, are safe (and stuck) in the theater department—far from Brian’s sister, Kenzie, and his ex-girlfriend with a panic attack problem, Laura. Brian and Chad, along with some of the theater kids Brian had never given the time of day before, decide to find the girls and bring them to the safety of the theater. But it won’t be easy, and it will test everything they thought they knew about themselves and their classmates.