Apocalyptic Short Stories

Zone guide Yuri Bonyev escorts three scientists to an uncharted sector in the Zone chasing rumors of an old military bunker. Not everyone is who they appear to be, and Yuri learns perhaps some secrets are better left buried.

It is months beyond the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. A father and his two young children are trying to make it through the wintry back woods of Oregon state to somewhere, anywhere safe. They have been without food for far too long now and are weak from evading the walking dead they call PUDS. Between the cold, lack of proper shelter, and their fear, life is wearing them down. On top of all this, it feels like they are being followed, but it has become hard to tell if it is a normal, an afterlife creature, or...

With the fraudulent election of President Venalis Proditor, the Union does not stand a chance, because after his election, a powder keg of chaos erupts in the torn nation, and a rebellion forms to overthrow the US government. However, what the rebels fail to foresee is that Proditor has been in alliance with the corrupt UN, who, in turn, combine forces with the NATO troops and stage a war on American soil. With the use of highly advanced nano-biotechnology, the invading forces trigger the beginning of the end of humanity....

It had been a long time since the wars had devastated the surface of the earth. There were survivors, but they were deep underground in bunkered cities. In the earliest days after the calamity, this was fine....

Cows are turning up incinerated in farms across America. People wonder if it's aliens, satanic cattle mutilation, or something worse. It turns out it's the 5G cellphone towers being tested out. This information leak reaches the public, which laughs it off even though Sam, a cellphone tower technician, was the first to blow the whistle on it. What will happen to the human race, Sam included, when things start to come out?

All zombies all the time. Included in The Bus Stops Here and Other Zombie Tales are five zombie short stories by Bryan Cassiday that are together for the first time in one anthology. "The Bus Stops Here" is a brand-new short story that has never before been published. The zombie action is nonstop and lethal. During a zombie apocalypse, everybody is caught up in a Hobbesian world where life is nasty, brutish, and short. Along with graphic zombie mayhem, these tales depict the lengths that individuals will go to to survive.

The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London, was the first example of a post-apocalyptic fiction novel in modern literature. Set in a ravaged and wild America, the story takes place in 2073, 60 years after the spread of the Red Death, an uncontrollable epidemic that depopulated and nearly destroyed the world in 2013. One of the few survivors, James Howard Smith, alias “Granser”, tells his incredulous and near-savage grandsons how the pandemic spread in the world and about the reactions of the people to contagion and death.

News reports speak of mass panic and violence spreading across the globe. Negligent leaders hide behind misinformation. But in an age of paranoia and suspicion, who can say what is true anymore? Struggling to survive against a sweeping epidemic that has engulfed the planet, survivors will have to make hard choices in a world that no longer makes sense.

No declaration of war or acts of aggression have been made against our nation. Our military is on the highest alert. We will do everything in our power to protect our people.... What I say next is of the most importance. We must remain calm. I cannot express this enough. This is integral to our future and way of life. As we get more information, we will be in contact with broadcasts like this one. Let me assure you, your nation and this government has made prior arrangements for this awful circumstance we find ourselves in. All will be taken care of.

The first three episodes of best-selling author Joe Nobody's highly regarded serial, Apocalypse Trails, begins the story of Commander Jack Cisco and his harrowing journey to reunite with his family.

The End. Those two little words can mean so much. But how will things end...and will it hurt? That's what we really want to know. Delve into the darkness and join us at the end of the world. From a blighted sky to an invasion from beyond, from untethered time to one person driven beyond the edge of sanity, from a child's game to an unseen apocalypse...it's all imagined here, and imagined darkly.

Follow Aapeli, Tinker, Liberty, Harmony, Rat, a tiny robot named Boy, and a droid who always believes they're on the verge of dying in this post-apocalyptic collection by Regina Puckett. The Liberty and Forbidden Collection includes six stories surrounding the events of The Great War that changed the face of the Earth, killing millions and destroying most of the world's technologies.

Esmeralda, one of the human survivors of an apocalyptic war, now lives a precarious life as a servant to a family of zombies. She knows she’s better off than many other humans, who are imprisoned in breeding camps and slaughtered for food. Her masters treat her well, and their young daughter reminds Esme of her own little girl, killed during the war. But Esme can’t forget everything she’s lost—or the knowledge that her masters could turn on her at any moment. When rebels interrupt the zombies’ supply of human food, Esme’s position becomes even more dangerous. And this time, the price of survival may be more than she is prepared to pay.

In 1927, German filmmaker Fritz Lang brought to the screen one of the most ground-breaking sci-fi melodramas of all time, based on the screenplay he co-wrote with his wife, novelist Thea von Harbou. It is regarded as a classic and one of the first full-length movies in the genre. Five visionary new pulp writers have envisioned four dramatic tales to guide readers back to those vaulted, shining towers of Metropolis in this new collection inspired by Lang’s masterpiece.

Van Dorn is 18 and running solo, dodging the bloodthirsty hordes and militias that have emerged since the country went haywire. His dead father's voice rings in his head as Van Dorn sets his sights not just on survival but also on an old-fashioned system of justice. Meanwhile, a leader has risen among the gangs - and around him swirls the cast of brawlers from Donnybrook, with their own brutal sense of right and wrong, of loyalty and justice through strength. This is not the distant post-apocalyptic future - this is tomorrow, in a world Bill has already introduced us to.

The Destroyer of Earth did not set out to be one. A perfect storm of catastrophes, a touch of hubris, and a lot of human ingenuity, and you get yourself deeper than ever. The button has been pressed, the world is in ruins. Will humanity figure out how to survive? What is Antigravel? What did you think was the road-stop for man to explore the empty reaches of space? Faster than light travel? Interstellar navigation? Time dilation? Puh. We beat all that by sheer force of will. No. It was micrometeoroids. Rocks. F--king space rocks.

It's the start of summer vacation, and poor Tony has just lost his grandfather. His father is deployed overseas, and his mother is raising him and his little brother all alone. But that's not what's bothering Tony. It's that his nana will be all alone in her small, rural home during the heat of summer, doing the yard work, the laundry, and all the things around the house, while mourning her husband. That won't sit for Tony. With his mother's permission he moves in with Nana for the summer.

Brutale Reality-Live-Shows in der Zukunft, Flugmaschinen, die gnadenlose Jagd auf Menschen machen, ein Tierarzt, der seine Familie auslöscht, um ihr Proben aus dem Rückenmark zu entnehmen, und der erfinderische Testpilot Ian Goodwin, der auf einem merkwürdigen Asteroiden notlandet und nur noch zwei Stunden zum Überleben hat. In Grubers Fantasien liegt die Côte d'Azur in Schutt und Asche.

Origins of the Outbreak follows the chain of infection from one person to another after a university researcher in a small Texas town unwittingly develops a disease that turns its victims into zombies and threatens to destroy the world as we know it.

In this short story, which takes place directly before The Change: Life, you will meet Jacob and Mia and get a tiny glimpse into how their very lives are tied in to the fate of the world - to the Changed themselves - and to the enigmatic creature that appears out of nowhere to destroy all that it sees, both humans and Changed alike.