Cycle Thriller

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

Master Sergeant Reed Beckham has led his Delta Force Team, codenamed Ghost, through every kind of hell imaginable and never lost a man. When a top-secret Medical Corps research facility goes dark, Team Ghost is called in to face their deadliest enemy yet - a variant strain of Ebola that turns men into monsters.

Scrap Allenbach is a living legend to the Steel Bones MC. A vigilante hero. Ten years ago, he gave up his freedom for me. I never asked him to. Now he's back, with some idea about how it's gonna be. He's wrong. Things are different now. I'm not the same girl he knew. After what happened, I'll never be that person again. Not with the baggage I carry and the secrets I keep.

Welcome to Silvertown, Washington. Population 602 (for now). Despite its small size, the small mountain town is home to more conspiracy theories than any other place in America. Officer Mary Whittaker is slowly acclimating to the daily weirdness of life here, but when the chief of police takes a leave of absence, she is left alone to confront a series of abnormal incidents - strange even by Silvertown standards.

Rachel is a computer genius whose personal life is hell. While she continues to climb the corporate ranks, her beloved twin sister is plagued by a chronic illness that will eventually kill her, leaving Rachel all alone.Serendipity in the form of a mysterious email lands in Rachel's lap one day, but not without a price. Thousands of miles away, archeologist John Tanek sits trapped inside a collapsed tomb with a laptop. He knows that Rachel is the only person who can help him, but time is quickly running out.

Jace is a brother, now turned president, of the Cerberus Legends Motorcycle club. It wasn't by choice. The presidency came at the cost of his best friend's, Fork's, life. Fork was shot by a rival motorcycle gang, the Chiron Knights. Jace is forced to finish the job. It tears holes inside of him bigger than any bullet could do.

Mackinac Island is a peaceful summer resort town where everyone coasts through the streets on bicycles. But after someone sends a prominent local on her final ride, it's up to one resourceful visitor to get things running again.

For thousands of years, the truth about human history has intentionally been suppressed and exploited. For decades, scholars have been saying that the truth about human history will be found inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, but up till now no one has ever been able to find it. Those who tried have been ridiculed and persecuted. The Tenth Cycle is a provocative technothriller about human history, conspiracies, and an ancient society with power and money that will stop at nothing to reach their sinister goals.

Au cœur de la Ville éternelle ensevelie sous la neige, dans le très populaire et très branché quartier romain de Testaccio, une troisième jeune fille vient d'être assassinée, au beau milieu des fêtes de fin d'année. Le commissaire D'Innocenzo ne croit pas à l'hypothèse du tueur en série que les journaux se plaisent à rabâcher, mais ne sait plus comment maîtriser la peur qui gagne les habitants du quartier et cette population jeune et nombreuse qui fréquente, le soir, ses restaurants et ses discothèques, son théâtre et son cinéma.

In November 2002, a special US Navy SEAL team is sent to Antarctica to locate and rescue a film crew that has become lost. No trace of them is found, except for film footage of strange artifacts buried under the ice. Everyone who saw the film is warned to never talk about what they have seen - ever again. More than a decade later in Boulder, Colorado, Professor Charles Summers is intrigued by the discovery of a 16th century map showing the coastline of Antarctica.

Captains Skyler Luiken and Gloria Tsandi (and their respective crews) have smashed through the deadly Swarm Blockade but now find themselves scattered around the planet Carthage and the space stations she holds in her orbit. Their mission is now twofold: destroy the military compounds of a race of nefarious alien overlords and find a way back home to Earth. Standing in their way are a race of horrifying, technologically advanced aliens armed with incredible weapons.

The future of democracy is about to implode. After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured 30 years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order.

The Change is coming, and the world as we know it is ending. Sixteen-year-old Ellie has changed. She looks the same, but her mother detects someone else looking out through her blue eyes. Ellie builds a "shelter" in her room with an entrance that leads...elsewhere. And what of the convoy of tractor trailers Hari Tate watches drive up a mountain road and return without the trailers...leaving nothing on the mountain. What are they shipping? And the writer who finds a hole in the floor of his NYC apartment and tumbles through into...elsewhere.

Major Crimes Detective Samantha Reilly prefers to work alone - she’s seen as a maverick, and she still struggles privately with the death of her partner. The only person who ever sees her softer side is Michael Turcotte, a teenager she’s known since she rescued him eleven years ago from the aftermath of his parents’ murder-suicide.

After a dozen years of practicing medicine as a family physician, Dr. Alan Bulmer discovers one day that he can cure any illness with the mere touch of his hand. At first his scientific nature refuses to accept what is happening to him, but there is no rational explanation to be found. So Alan gives himself over to this mysterious power, reveling in the ability to cure the incurable, to give hope to the hopeless - for one hour each day. Although he tries to hide his power, word inevitably leaks out, and soon Alan's life begins to unravel.

The end of the world begins at dawn, when the sun rises later than it should. Then the holes appear. The first forms in Central Park, within sight of an apartment where Repairman Jack and a man as old as time watch with growing dread. Gaping holes, bottomless and empty…until sundown, when the first unearthly, hungry creatures appear.

Moving from Los Angeles to small, picturesque Mackinac Island to work in a bike shop might seem crazy, but Evie knows it's the best decision she's ever made. But things go downhill when a ferry full of tourists - including Evie's friend Fiona's former boss, the editor of a sleazy rag in LA - arrives on the island. No one knows why Peephole Perry came all the way to Mackinac, but things aren't looking good for Fiona when Peep is found dead. Now Evie has to gear up and get a grip on the truth if she wants to clear her friend's name....

The last time Information held an election, a global network outage, two counts of sabotage by major world governments, and a devastating earthquake almost shook micro-democracy apart. Five years later, it's time to vote again, and the system that has ensured global peace for 25 years is more vulnerable than ever. Unknown enemies are attacking Information's network infrastructure. Information's best agents question whether the data monopoly they've served all their lives is worth saving or whether it's time to burn the world down and start anew.

The town of Northfall, Minnesota, will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omnimetal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source…and a weapon. John Frontier returns for his sister’s wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government.

Dr. Roderick Hanley, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, dies in a plane crash. His last words: "The boy! They’ll find out about the boy! He’ll find out about himself!" When Jim Stevens, an orphan and struggling writer, learns that he is the sole heir to the Hanley estate, he is sure he has at last found his biological father. But he’s only half right. The true nature of his inheritance - and the truth about his conception - will crush him. In New York City a group of Charismatics has been drawn together - without invitation, simply showing up at a Murray Hill brownstone - with a sense of great purpose. Satan is coming....