Search Worlds Without End

In this horrifying science fiction novel, the dead walk the streets, resurrected by technology to become servants to the living.

Resurrection, Inc. found a profitable way to do it: a microprocessor brain, a synthetic heart, artificial blood--and anyone with money could buy a Servant with no mind of its own, trained to obey any command. But for every Servant created, a living worker was out of a job, and suddenly the profits of Resurrection, Inc. became everyone else's loss.

Some take to rioting in the streets, their rampages ruthlessly ended by heavily armed Enforcers, eager for the kill. Others join the ever-growing cult of Neo-Satanism, seeking Heaven in the depths of Hell.

Only one man tries to save the world. His name is Danal, and he is the last hope of the living. He is dead, but he remembers everything.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield. Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

The apocalypse begins on the day Rabi, Miguel and Joe are practicing baseball near their town's local meatpacking plant and nearly get knocked out by a really big stink. Little do they know the plant's toxic cattle feed is turning cows into flesh-craving monsters... ZOMBIES!!!

The boys decide to launch a stealth investigation into the plant's dangerous practices, unknowingly discovering a greedy corporation's plot to look the other way as tainted meat is sold to thousands all over the country. With no grownups left they can trust, Rabi and his friends will have to grab their bats to protect themselves (and a few of their enemies) if they want to stay alive... and maybe even save the world.

A remote area of the Scottish Highlands has been cordoned off and is being guarded by an army of I.R.A. mercenaries and ex-Nazi thugs. Local rumour has it that eccentric laird James Fraser Clyde is looking for buried treasure, but the British government fears he might be building an atomic bomb in an attempt to win Scottish independence. Yet the truth may be something far worse: a mysterious contagion is turning the locals into deformed, grunting creatures, with a single-minded urge to kill and spread their infection. Sir Marcus Levin, the Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist, must find a way to halt the epidemic before it gets out of hand and destroys the world. But what is causing it? Who started it, and why? And can it be stopped?

First published in 1976, John Blackburn's horror thriller The Face of the Lion capitalized on the popularity of apocalyptic zombie tales in the wake of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). This edition includes a new introduction by Greg Gbur, which situates Blackburn's novel within the tradition of zombie literature.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - The Small Assassin - (1946) - short story
• 26 - The Next in Line - (1947) - novelette
• 63 - The Lake - (1944) - short story
• 70 - The Crowd - (1943) - short story
• 80 - Jack-in-the-Box - (1947) - short story
• 98 - The Man Upstairs - (1947) - short story
• 111 - The Cistern - (1947) - short story
• 119 - The Tombstone - (1945) - short story
• 126 - The Smiling People - (1946) - short story
• 137 - The Handler - (1947) - short story
• 148 - Let's Play "Poison" - (1946) - short story
• 154 - The Night - [Dandelion Wine] - (1946) - short story
• 163 - The Dead Man - (1945) - short story

Table of Contents:

• Slime - (1953) - novelette
• Levitation - shortstory
• The Calamander Chest - (1954) - shortstory
• Death in Peru - (1954) - shortstory
• On the Elevator - (1953) - shortstory
• The Green Parrot - (1952) - shortstory
• Canavan's Back Yard - shortstory
• I'm Murdering Mr. Massington - shortfiction
• The Hunt - shortstory
• The Mail for Juniper Hill - shortfiction

The walking dead from 15 centuries haunt this compendium of ghostly visitations through the ages, exploring the history of our fascination with zombies and other restless souls.

Since ancient times, accounts of supernatural activity have mystified us. Ghost stories as we know them did not develop until the late nineteenth century, but the restless dead haunted the premodern imagination in many forms, as recorded in historical narratives, theological texts, and personal letters. The Penguin Book of the Undead teems with roving hordes of dead warriors, corpses trailed by packs of barking dogs, moaning phantoms haunting deserted ruins, evil spirits emerging from burning carcasses in the form of crows, and zombies with pestilential breath. Spanning from the Hebrew scriptures to the Roman Empire, the Scandinavian sagas to medieval Europe, the Protestant Reformation to the Renaissance, this beguiling array of accounts charts our relationship with spirits and apparitions, wraiths and demons over fifteen hundred years, showing the evolution in our thinking about the ability of dead souls to return to the realm of the living--and to warn us about what awaits us in the afterlife.

When archaeologist Thomas Ashley is invited to remote Devonshire by Lucian Mallory to examine and decipher millennia-old papyrus scrolls, he is unable to resist the offer, despite knowing of Mallory's sinister and unsavory reputation. The scrolls, retrieved from an ancient necropolis, purportedly contain Egyptian secrets of resurrection and immortality.

From the moment of Ashley's arrival, it is clear something is terribly wrong: a gruesome murder has been committed, and everyone is fearful a madman is on the loose. But the truth is far more shocking. As the murders continue, Ashley works to uncover the secrets contained in the scrolls and begins to glimpse the horrific reality of Mallory's inscrutable plan...

Fifty years ago, the town of Gouldens Falls was evacuated, flooded, and submerged under two hundred feet of water. Along with its secrets. Just as well it was buried. There was always something not quite right about that town.

Today, on the anniversary of its watery fate, the man-made lake that was once Gouldens Falls is the source of fascination for a visiting journalist. And a cause for alarm. Because something else is down there. Something evil. And on this special anniversary, it's going to surface.

What if you could fix the worst parts of yourself by confronting your worst fears?

Dr. Jennifer Webb has invented proprietary virtual reality technology that purports to heal psychological wounds by running clients through scenarios straight out of horror movies and nightmares. In a carefully controlled environment, with a medical cocktail running through their veins, sisters might develop a bond they've been missing their whole lives -- while running from the bogeyman through a simulated forest. But... can real change come so easily?

Esther Hoffman doubts it. Esther has spent her entire journalism career debunking pseudoscience, after phony regression therapy ruined her father's life. She's determined to unearth the truth about Dr. Webb's budding company. Dr. Webb's willing to let her, of course, for reasons of her own. What better advertisement could she get than that of a convinced skeptic? But Esther's not the only one curious about how this technology works. Enter real-world threats just as frightening as those created in the lab. Dr. Webb and Esther are at odds, but they may also be each other's only hope of survival.

From award-winning author Daryl Gregory, whom Library Journal called "[a] bright new voice of the twenty-first century," comes a new breed of zombie novel--a surprisingly funny, vividly frightening, and ultimately deeply moving story of self-discovery and family love.

In 1968, after the first zombie outbreak, Wanda Mayhall and her three young daughters discover the body of a teenage mother during a snowstorm. Wrapped in the woman's arms is a baby, stone-cold, not breathing, and without a pulse. But then his eyes open and look up at Wanda--and he begins to move.

The family hides the child--whom they name Stony--rather than turn him over to authorities that would destroy him. Against all scientific reason, the undead boy begins to grow. For years his adoptive mother and sisters manage to keep his existence a secret--until one terrifying night when Stony is forced to run and he learns that he is not the only living dead boy left in the world.

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the twenty-first century: they are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction. We've again dug up the best stories published in the last few years and compiled them into an anthology to feed your insatiable hunger...

Contents:

• 7 - Return of the Preshamble - essay by Paula Guran
• 15 - The Afflicted - (2012) - novelette by Matthew Johnson
• 35 - Dead Song - (2012) - short fiction by Jay Wilburn
• 45 - Iphigenia in Aulis - [The Hungry Plague] - (2012) - novelette by Mike Carey
• 68 - Pollution - (2014) - short story by Don Webb
• 78 - Becca at the End of the World - (2013) - short story by Shira Lipkin
• 82 - The Naturalist - (2010) - novelette by Maureen F. McHugh
• 104 - Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) - (2013) - short fiction by Alex Dally MacFarlane
• 108 - What Maisie Knew - (2010) - short fiction by David Liss
• 138 - Rocket Man - (2011) - short story by Stephen Graham Jones
• 146 - The Day the Music Died - (2011) - short fiction by Joe McKinney
• 161 - The Children's Hour - poem by Marge Simon
• 162 - Delice - (2010) - short fiction by Holly Newstein
• 171 - Trail of Dead - (2007) - short story by Joanne Anderton
• 183 - The Death and Life of Bob - (2013) - short fiction by William Jablonsky
• 195 - Stemming the Tide - (2013) - short story by Simon Strantzas
• 201 - Those Beneath the Bog - (2013) - short story by Jacques L. Condor and Maka Tai Meh
• 222 - What Still Abides - (2013) - short fiction by Marie Brennan
• 227 - Jack and Jill - juvenile - [Rot & Ruin - 0.25] - (2012) - short fiction by Jonathan Maberry
• 260 - In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection - (2007) - short story by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• 268 - Rigormarole - (2005) - poem by Michael A. Arnzen
• 270 - Kitty's Zombie New Year - [Kitty Short Fiction] - (2007) - short story by Carrie Vaughn
• 278 - The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring - (2012) - short story by Genevieve Valentine
• 287 - Chew - (2013) - short story by Tamsyn Muir
• 295 - 'Til Death Do Us Part - (2012) - short fiction by Shaun Jeffrey
• 304 - There Is No "E" in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You or We - (2010) - short fiction by Roxane Gay
• 308 - What Once We Feared - (2013) - short fiction by Carrie Ryan
• 324 - The Harrowers - (2011) - short story by Eric Gregory
• 342 - Resurgam - (2010) - short fiction by Lisa Mannetti
• 360 - I Waltzed with a Zombie - (2009) - novelette by Ron Goulart
• 377 - Aftermath - (2012) - novelette by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill
• 397 - A Shepherd of the Valley - (2011) - short story by Maggie Slater
• 414 - The Day the Saucers Came - (2006) - poem by Neil Gaiman
• 416 - Love, Resurrected - [Tabat Short Fiction] - (2011) - short story by Cat Rambo
• 428 - Present - (2014) - short story by Nicole Kornher-Stace
• 439 - The Hunt: Before, and the Aftermath - (2012) - short fiction by Joe R. Lansdale
• 452 - Bit Rot - [Saturn's Children] - (2010) - novelette by Charles Stross

The land is contaminated, electronics are defunct, the ravenous undead remain, and life has fallen into a nasty and brutish state of nature. Welcome to Bridge City, in what was once Arkansas: part medieval fortress, part Western outpost, and the precarious last stand for civilization. A ten-year-old prodigy when the world ended, Gus is now a battle-hardened young man. He designed Bridge City to protect the living few from the shamblers eternally at the gates. Now he's being groomed by his physician mother, Lucy, and the gentle giant Knock-Out to become the next leader of men. But an army of slavers is on its way, and the war they'll wage for the city's resources could mean the end of mankind as we know it.

Can Gus become humanity's savior? And if so, will it mean becoming a dictator, a martyr... or maybe something far worse than even the zombies that plague the land?

"Chapter Six", by Stephen Graham Jones, is an anthropological zombie story about Crain, a grad student, who has a theory of mankind's evolution. As he and his former professor scavenge on bone marrow left behind by the local zombie horde, he makes his well-reasoned argument.

This story can be found in the Ellen Datlow anthology The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Seven (2015)

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

It's time for the annual Recipe Days bake-off in Lubbock, Texas. Soccer moms and grandmothers gather to show off their family recipes, learn new secrets for the perfect shortcake, and perhaps earn a chance to be on the famous cooking show, How Would You Cook It, Then?

When the bake-off is crashed by a federation of pro wrestlers -- including American Badass, Jersey Devil Jill, Tiny Giant, The Village Person, Jonah the Whale, the Hellbillies, and the fan favorite Xombie -- all hell is set to break loose. Your heart beats faster as you anticipate who will come out on top in the ultimate showdown of the century: soccer moms or pro wrestlers. Anything can happen.

An infected batch of donuts has transformed most of the wrestlers into mindless brain-eaters and the doors of the convention center have been chained shut, leaving the survivors locked inside, forced to fend for themselves against the hungry dead.

Possessing the intensity of a shotgun to the face, Zombie Bake-Off is a stripped-down masterpiece of blood and doughnuts from celebrated author Stephen Graham Jones.

Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.

That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos. They cannot seem to escape tragedy...or the feelings that someone--or something--is stalking them. Whether it's a curse from the beautiful Tamsen Donner (who some think might be a witch), their ill-advised choice of route through uncharted terrain, or just plain bad luck, the ninety men, women, and children of the Donner Party are heading into one of one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history.

As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains...and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along.

Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.

The city streets are no longer safe. They are filled instead with the living dead, rotting predators driven only by a need to kill and eat. Some of the living still struggle to survive, but with each passing day, their odds grow worse. Some survivors have fled, frantically searching for a place to escape, even briefly, the slaughter around them. For Lamar Reed and a handful of others, that safe haven is an old Coast Guard ship out at sea, with plenty of water between them and the zombies. These desperate survivors are completely isolated from the dangers of the mainland. But their haven will soon become a deathtrap, and they'll learn that isolation can also mean no escape!

It has been several months since the disease known as Hamelin's Revenge decimated the world. Civilization has collapsed and the dead far outnumber the living. The survivors seek refuge from the roaming zombie hordes, but one-by-one, those shelters are falling.

Twenty-five survivors barricade themselves inside a former military bunker buried deep beneath a luxury hotel. They are safe from the zombies... but are they safe from one another? As supplies run low and despair sets in, each of them will find out just how far they're willing to go to survive.

Tiptree nominated story originally published at Strange Horizons where it can still be read for free (part 1, part 2). Later anthologized in Paula Guran's Zombies: The Recent Dead (2010).

On October 1st, God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He's just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He's already picked up a gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he'll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay's feeling good about the future.

That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone's cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization's darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature...and then begins to evolve.

There are 193 million cell phones in the United States alone. Who doesn't have one? Stephen King's utterly gripping, gory, and fascinating novel doesn't just ask the question "Can you hear me now?" It answers it with a vengeance.

With numerous unforgettable movies based on his short stories--including Shawshank Redemption, 1408, and The Green Mile--readers will be delighted to rediscover this classic collection, also released as a television mini-series and on DVD. Featuring twenty short horror stories, a television script, an essay, and a poem, Nightmares and Dreamscapes contains unique and chilling plots including everything from dead rock star zombies to evil toys seeking murderous revenge. It will be treasured by King fans new and old.

Table of Contents:

• Dolan's Cadillac
• The End of the Whole Mess
• Suffer the Little Children
• The Night Flier
• Popsy
• Masques II
• It Grows on You
• Chattery Teeth
• Dedication
• The Moving Finger
• Sneakers
• You Know They Got a Hell of a Band
• Home Delivery
• Rainy Season
• My Pretty Pony
• Sorry, Right Number
• The Ten O'Clock People
• Crouch End
• The House on Maple Street
• The Fifth Quarter
• The Doctor's Case
• Umney's Last Case
• Head Down
• Brooklyn August
• The Beggar and the Diamond

"Sometimes dead is better...."

When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son -- and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all...right down to the friendly cat.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth -- more terrifying than death itself...and hideously more powerful.

"I want to be like John Langan when I grow up, okay? He blends meticulously crafted traditional narratives with joyous genre-bending and narrative rule-breaking. His stories are fiercely smart, timely, timeless, heartbreaking, and of course, flat-out scary. Langan fearlessly commits to his monsters, his characters, his readers, to his vision of the horror story and the messed-up, broken, frightening world we inhabit. Wide, Carnivorous Sky, indeed."-Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and Swallowing a Donkey's Eye.

John Langan has, in the last few years, established himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary horror literature. Gifted with a supple and mellifluous prose style, an imagination that can conjure up clutching terrors with seeming effortlessness, and a thorough knowledge of the rich heritage of weird fiction, Langan has already garnered his share of accolades. This new collection of nine substantial stories includes such masterworks as "Technicolor," an ingenious riff on Poe's "Masque of the Red Death"; "How the Day Runs Down," a gripping tale of the undead; and "The Shallows," a powerful tale of the Cthulhu Mythos. The capstone to the collection is a previously unpublished novella of supernatural terror, "Mother of Stone." With an introduction by Jeffrey Ford and an afterword by Laird Barron.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Reading Langan, by Jeffrey Ford
• Kids
• How the Day Runs Down
• Technicolor
• The Wide, Carnivorous Sky
• City of the Dog
• The Shallows
• The Revel
• June, 1987. Hitchhiking. Mr. Norris.
• Mother of Stone
• Story Notes
• Afterword: Note Found in a Glenfiddich Bottle, by Laird Barron
• Acknowledgments

The army had said it was a training accident. But why had the coffin they sent home been sealed?

On a dark night, in a deserted field, Tom begins to unearth the mass grave where he hopes - and fears - that he will find his son's remains. He finds instead madness: corpses in chains and dead bodies that still move and grasp and clutch.

And one little girl, dead and rotting, who promises to help Tom find what he's looking for, if only he will free her.

Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead.

The risen corpses are known as "bone houses," and legend says that they're the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?

Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the deeply-buried truths about themselves.

Bram Stoker Award winner Jonathan Maberry is a master of the zombie tale.Empty Graves: Tales of the Living Dead is emotionally charged and disturbing. These stories range across the genres of horror, science fiction, and biological thriller without ever straying from the fascinating humanity at the core.

Together in a single action-packed collection, these 15 gritty tales of the living dead span Maberry's career, including an exclusive never-before-published short story.

Table of Contents:

• ix - Introduction (Empty Graves: Tales of the Living Dead) - essay by Ken Foree
• 1 - Chokepoint
• 26 - Fat Girl with a Knife
• 51 - Lone Gunman - [Night Universe]
• 71 - Not This War, Not This World
• 89 - Calling Death
• 106 - Gavin Funke's Monster Movie Marathon
• 126 - Cadaver Dog
• 155 - Overdue Books - [Rot & Ruin]
• 162 - A Small Taste of the Old Country
• 186 - Sisters - [Rot & Ruin]
• 210 - Jack and Jill - [Rot & Ruin]
• 252 - The Wind Through the Fence
• 267 - Jingo and the Hammerman
• 285 - The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro
• 326 - Son of the Devil
• 352 - Pegleg and Paddy Save the World

It begins when hard-headed mountain matriarch Granny Mustard decides she wants to live forever. Then she dies. Her slow-witted but equally hard-headed granddaughter, Jenkie, decides to pick up the ball and run with it, taking Granny's unperfected immortality moonshine recipe, a socially-inept friend named Bink, and dreams of fame and fortune to an abandoned, isolated trailer up in Desper Hollow.

But slow-witted doesn't stand against the terrible mountain power Granny initiated. Jenkie's experiments with the immortality moonshine only worsen the trouble with Granny's original recipe, bringing dead critters and a few stray folks back to a state of hungry, vicious, mindless animation. Now a stash of the living dead is locked up in the back of the trailer, a howling herd that has Jenkie terrified. And Armistead, one of the red-eyed living dead, seems way too alert for comfort.

It starts in a laboratory. A man-made strain of flesh-eating virus. Created by a power-hungry cartel. Capable of turning victims into brain-dead carnivores. Smuggled aboard a cruise ship that's about to set sail...One by one, the passengers are exposed. A U.S. senator. A young couple. An undercover agent. A beautiful assassin. Some will be infected. Others will survive. But no one will be spared if the outbreak isn't contained - and the dead outnumber the living...

Enter Delta Force operative Juan Perez. He's fought the deadliest killers in the darkest hellholes on earth. But he's never seen anything like this - an apocalyptic cargo of pure zombie mayhem heading for the coast. If Perez and his SEAL team can't stop it, America, and quickly the entire population of the world, are finished. The plague years will begin...

Ronald T. Turner is prepared for anything. And the zombies are prepared for him.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Note: listed under his pen-name Jeremy Bishop.

Jeremy Bishop's first pulse-pounding novel is a horrific tale of post-apocalyptic terror that is one part zombie story and one part Dante's Inferno. The story asks hard questions and generates strong emotions in everyone who reads it--anger, excitement, and most of all: FEAR. This book asks the question that everyone is afraid to answer: Are you ready?

STORY DESCRIPTION:

Small town reporter, Mia Durante, finds herself having brunch with the President of the United States on the day civilization comes to an end. An electromagnetic pulse blinds the U.S. Cars crash. Planes fall. Chaos reigns. Power is restored within minutes, but it's already too late. Russian nukes are falling. U.S. allies around the world are all ready wiped out. The United States will cease to exist inside of five minutes.

After giving the order to launch a full-scale retaliation, dooming the planet, the president, White House staff, Secret Service and those lucky enough to be visiting the white house, are whisked below ground where they board several Earth Escape Pods. As the EEPs launch into Earth orbit, missiles descend.

Less than forty survive the end of the world. When they return, they're greeted by survivors of a different sort. The bloodbath that follows leaves Durante and nine other survivors on the run. They find themselves fighting for survival in a world in which only torment remains and where death is the only escape.

Lawrence M. Schoen's "Sweet Potato Pie" laughs at labels and caused me to reread several early sentences, just to make sure that psychedelic drugs weren't at work (on me, I'm sure Schoen's mind is in an alternate state of reality)... Here's a rural, fantasy, horror, maybe science fiction, cooking story. As chances are you've never read one of those, you should grab this one as quick as you can. It starts with Zachary gathering up some of the sweet potatoes that rained down from the sky, as they are like to do, in order to make a pie. Yes, he wants a pie, not a mess of zombies and... Perhaps I should stop right there. This is a tale that defies summarizing. It's weird and wonderful and will dig into you more with its strangeness than with its deep meaning. - Tangent Online

In "Fries with That," a fast-food restaurant manager explains the advantages of hiring zombies for the late-night shift. In "The Novice," a noncharismatic vampire discovers that he can attract unwitting blood donors at a role-playing-game convention. In "Thirst for Knowledge," a cultured vampire assumes the identity of a college professor and selects students for his private wine cellar. More impressive and entertaining are a couple of longer pieces: "The Sky's the Limit," a deft Damon Runyon pastiche, and "Golem Summer," whose animated characters will make readers smile. - Publishers Weekly

• Sweet Potato Pie - (2005)
• A Fool's Death - (2006)
• The Figurative Gryphon - (2002) Poetry
• The Amulet of Winter - (2008)
• Snowball - (1999) Poetry
• Candeloro's Magic - (1999)
• Cat Futures - (2006)
• Dragon Math - (2000) Poetry
• Chasing the Bear - (2002)
• Death and Loss - (2010)
• Just Add Water - (2010)
• Coyote Librarian - (2002) Poetry
• Schroedinger's Closet - (2010)
• Fries with That - (2010)
• The Epistemology of Bread - (2005)
• Fitzwell's Oracle - (2007)
• Every Janitor's a Goblin - (2000) Poetry
• In Case - (2010)
• The Novice - (1999)
• Choral Reef - (2000) Poetry
• Past Waves - (1990)
• The Sky's the Limit - (2004)
• Golem Summer - (2003)
• Brown Bagging - (1999) Poetry
• Solitaire - (2001)
• Thirst for Knowledge - (1999)
• The Grapes of Rathbone - (2010)
• The Gargoyle and the Bully - (2000) Poetry
• What Doesn't Stay in Vegas - (2007)
• The Vampire Jamboree - (2010) Poetry
• The Wrestler and the Spear Fisher - (2010)
• Historical Trolls - (2001) Poetry
• Names - (1998)
• The Game of Leaf and Smile - (2005)

In 1897, aliens observing Earth accidentally unleash a horde of zombies across the planet. Anita Hemmings joins Samuel Clemens and Edith Wharton in a desperate fight for their lives, while the aliens seek assistance from Voltaire, Caravaggio, and Alexander Hamilton to help save Earth from an ignominiously chewy death.

This story originally appaered in the John Joseph Adams anthology The Living Dead 2.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Kate and Michael are roommates living in the Oakland hills, working at the same Trader Joes supermarket. A night of drunken revelry changes their lives forever, but not in the way that anyone would expect. A slow-spreading plague of zombie-ism breaks out at their house party, spreading amongst their circle of friends, and simultaneously through the Bay Area. This zombie plague - an STD of sorts - is spread through sex and kissing, turning its victims into mindless, horny, voracious killers. Thrust into extremes by this slow- motion tragedy, Kate and Michael are forced to confront the choices they've made in their lives, and their fears of commitment, while trying to stay alive and reunite in the one place in the Bay Area that's likely to be safe and secure from the zombie hoards: Alcatraz.

Johnny Grissom—nicknamed "Johnny Gruesome" by his high school classmates—is a heavy metal hellion who loves to party, watch horror movies, and get into fights. One winter night, Johnny's car, The Death Mobile, is discovered submerged beneath the icy surface of Willow Creek, with Johnny's waterlogged corpse inside. The townspeople believe that his death was accidental. But soon the murders begin—horrible acts of violent vengeance that hint at a deepening mystery and terror yet to come. A headless body is discovered at the high school, a priest is forced to confront his own misdeeds, and a mortician encounters the impossible. The sound of a car engine and maniacal laughter fill the night, and one by one, Johnny's enemies meet a grisly demise. The students at Red Hill High School begin to fear for their lives—especially Johnny's closest friends, who all harbor a dark secret.

The morning that the world ends, Katie is getting ready for court and housewife Jenni is taking care of her family. Less than two hours later, they are fleeing for their lives from a zombie horde.

Thrown together by circumstance, Jenni and Katie become a powerful zombie-killing partnership, mowing down zombies as they rescue Jenni's stepson, Jason, from an infected campground.

They find sanctuary in a tiny, roughly fortified Texas town. There Jenni and Katie find they are both attracted to Travis, leader of the survivors; and the refugees must slaughter people they know, who have returned in zombie form.

Fast-paced and exciting, filled with characters who grab your heart, The First Days: As the World Dies is the beginning of a frightening trilogy.

The zombie illness has shattered civilization. The survivors who have found tenuous safety in Texas defend their fort against the walking dead and living bandits.

Katie has made peace with the death of her wife and is pregnant and married to Travis, who has been elected Mayor. Jenni, her stepson, Jason; and Juan--Travis's righthand man--are a happy family, though Jenni suffers from PTSD. Both women are deadly zombie killers.

In Siege, the people of Ashley Oaks are stunned to discover that the vice president of the United States is alive and commanding the remnants of the US military. What's left of the US government has plans for this group of determined survivors.

In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother, Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash—but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

Acclaimed horror author Jonathan Maberry makes his young adult debut with this detail-rich depiction of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has fallen, the dead have risen, and danger is always imminent.

Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also been six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny’s zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny’s best friend Lou Chong are going with them.

But before they even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town, and as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, and insane murderers, and face the horrors of Gameland—where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all…could the evil Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?

In the great Rot & Ruin, everything wants to kill you—and not everyone in Benny’s small band of travelers will survive....

From his corner office on the forty-fourth floor of the Bank of the Americas tower on Wall Street, Tom Smith, global managing director for security, could see the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park--and a ravening zombie horde.

Officially, Smith was paid to preserve the lives and fortunes of employees, billionaires, and other clients. And with an implacable virus that turned the infected into ravenous zombies tearing through the city, the country, and the world, his job just got a lot harder.

Good thing Smith, late of the Australian special forces, isn't a man to give up easily. But saving civilization is going to take more than the traditional banking toolbox of lawyers, guns, and money. Smith needs infected human spinal tissue to formulate a vaccine--and he needs it by the truckload. To get it, he will have to forge a shady alliance with both the politicians of the City of New York and some of its less savory entrepreneurs.

But all of his back-alley dealing may amount to nothing if he can't stave off the fast-moving disease as it sweeps across the planet, leaving billions dead in its wake. And if he fails, his only fallback is an incomplete plan to move enough personnel to safe havens and prepare to restart civilization.

What's more, there are others who have similar plans--and believe it or not, they're even less charitable than a Wall Street investment banker. Sooner or later Smith will have to deal with them.

But first he has to survive the Fall.

THROUGH THE RAGING PLAGUE

At Tom Smith's previous gig, he was the global managing director for security of an international bank. Then the zombies emerged. And New York burned. His plan to save the city long enough to find a cure for the zombie virus didn't survive a bloody scrimmage between angry cops, cunning gangsters, and rapacious officials.

Tom and a few trusted allies were able to stay one step ahead and barely escape. Now they seek refuge in the bank's prepared evacuation retreat in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee. But between Tom's people and relative safety are hundreds of miles of clogged roads, burnt-out towns and howling mobs of infected humans who know only hunger. Plus there are gangs of the non-infected who would like nothing more than to defeat and enslave any weary travelers who happen their way.

And finally, if Tom does pull off the journey, no one is sure how they are going to restart civilization. But even for that, Tom Smith has the spark of an idea. And, as always, the beginnings of a plan. Which he is certain will change completely when the enemy strikes.

CASTAWAYS IN A ZOMBIE PLAGUE

Six kids ranging from suburban geeks to street-smart pariahs. A British captain who rarely talks and never smiles. All on the 70-foot pilot house ketch Crosscurrent Voyager, bound on a senior summer cruise to adventure and serious fun.

Except most of the kids don't get along. And they'll be gone all summer. And none of them have sailed before. And worst of all--because they booked at the last minute--they got the destination nobody else wanted: the frigid and remote South Georgia Islands.

But there's one other hitch: they'll never see their families or friends again. Just days after they leave, a plague starts spreading like wildfire, turning most of its survivors into shrieking, cannibalistic rage-monsters. So with their past dying as fast as the world that shaped it, the kids' hated destination becomes their one hope for survival.

But it's an uncertain hope. Not only are other hostile survivors headed there, but South Georgia Island is unable to support permanent habitation. So if the strange crew of the Voyager doesn't come up with a further plan, they are--in every sense--heading straight toward the end of the world.

It was supposed to be fun. Six teenagers and their British captain aboard the ketch Crosscurrent Voyager, headed on a senior year summer cruise to excitement and adventure. Then the world as they knew it ended.

A plague spread throughout the globe, killing millions and turning the survivors into cannibalistic rage monsters--zombies, in so many words. Only by putting aside their differences were the young crew able to survive.

Now, they seek others like them, those fortunate souls who have made it through the zombie apocalypse. After all, maybe it's not the end of the world so long as GPS can help survivors navigate deadly terrain, to link up, and maybe--just maybe--ensure the continuation of the human race.

But the Earth's GPS systems are failing. It falls to those aboard the Crosscurrent Voyager to keep the unthinkable from happening. In order to do so, they must traverse dangerous seas to a European Space Agency complex in French Guiana.

And thousands of infected stand in the way.

If they succeed, humankind has a chance of rebuiling. If they fail, humanity may well be at the end of its journey.

TOP NAME WRITERS ENTER THE REALM OF JOHN RINGO'S BLACK TIDE RISING ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE SERIES!

A collection of all-original stories set in the Black Tide Rising series of novels created by multiple New York Times best-selling author John Ringo Stories by John Ringo, Eric Flint, John Scalzi & Dave Klecha, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z. Williamson and more.

The news that humanity had been dreading for ages had come true. Zombies are real. Worst of all, we created them. The apocalypse was upon us, and every man, woman and child had to answer a simple question of themselves: "What do we do now?" For a group of neighbors in the Chicago suburbs of Northern Indiana, it was "work together or die" ...and figure out how to live on top of oil storage tanks to keep the zombies at bay. For the Biological Emergency Response Teams in New York City, it was "how long can we fight off the infected before it's too late" ...as well as having to fight other groups all out to claim a dwindling stock of supplies and safety. And for a group of cheerleaders, it was about the end of their world. And about what happens when you get a group of physically fit young women really, really angry.

Contents:

• ix - Foreword (Black Tide Rising) - essay by Gary Poole
• 1 - Never Been Kissed - short story by John Ringo
• 5 - Up on the Roof - novella by Eric Flint
• 57 - Staying Human - short story by Jody Lynn Nye
• 71 - On the Wall - short story by David Klecha and John Scalzi
• 89 - Do No Harm - short fiction by Sarah A. Hoyt
• 109 - Not in Vain - novelette by Kacey Ezell
• 135 - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Grandpa? - novelette by Michael Z. Williamson
• 159 - Battle of the BERTs - novelette by Mike Massa
• 199 - The Road to Good Intentions - novelette by Tedd Roberts
• 227 - 200 Miles to Nashville - novelette by Christopher L. Smith
• 253 - Best Laid Plans - novelette by Eric S. Brown and Jason Cordova
• 267 - The Meaning of Freedom - short story by John Ringo
• 281 - Afterword (Black Tide Rising) - essay by John Ringo

Contents:

• ix - Foreword (Voices of the Fall) - essay by Gary Poole
• 1 - Starry, Starry Night - short story by John Ringo
• 11 - Spectrum - novelette by Mike Massa
• 37 - Storming the Tower of Babel - short story by Sarah A. Hoyt
• 61 - Return to Mayberry - novelette by Rob Hampson
• 93 - It Just Might Matter in the End - novelette by Travis S. Taylor
• 121 - Inhale to the King, Baby! - short story by Michael Z. Williamson
• 137 - Ham Sandwich - novelette by Jody Lynn Nye
• 163 - The Downeasters - novelette by Brendan DuBois
• 197 - The Species As Big As the Ritz - novelette by Robert Buettner
• 225 - The Cat Hunters - novelette by Dave Freer
• 255 - Alpha Gamers - short story by Griffin Barber
• 269 - True Faith and Allegiance - novelette by Michael Gants
• 299 - The Killer Awoke - short story by John Birmingham
• 317 - About the Authors (Voices of the Fall) - essay by uncredited

Contents:

• ix - Foreword (We Shall Rise) - essay by Gary Poole
• 1 - Social Distance - novelette by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta
• 37 - Liberation Day - short story by Brendan DuBois
• 53 - Appalachia Rex - short story by Jason Cordova
• 79 - Maligator Country - novelette by Lydia Sherrer
• 117 - Fire in the Sky - short story by Stephanie Osborn and Michael Z. Williamson
• 139 - Just Like Home - short story by Jody Lynn Nye
• 163 - Chase the Sunset - short story by Jamie Ibson
• 187 - Descent into the Underworld - short story by Brian Trent
• 215 - A Thing or Two - short story by Kacey Ezell
• 233 - Ex Fide Absurdo - short story by Brent Roeder and Christopher L. Smith
• 261 - The Best Part of Waking Up - short story by Mike Massa
• 288 - About the Editors and Authors - essay by uncredited

Shirley Jackson Award-nominated Novella

Searching for clues about her best friend's mysterious suicide, Danielle ventures to the squatter, utopian town of Freedom, Iowa, and witnesses a protector spirit -- in the form of a blood-red, three-antlered deer -- begin to turn on its summoners. She and her new friends have to act fast if they're going to save the town -- or get out alive.

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang... but a bite.

Battered by five cataclysmic hurricanes in three weeks, the Texas Gulf Coast and half of the Lone Star State is reeling from the worst devastation in history. Thousands are dead or dying - but the worst is only beginning. Amid the wreckage, something unimaginable is happening: a deadly virus has broken out, returning the dead to life - with an insatiable hunger for human flesh...

The Nightmare Begins Within hours, the plague has spread all over Texas. San Antonio police officer Eddie Hudson finds his city overrun by a voracious army of the living dead. Along with a small group of survivors, Eddie must fight off the savage horde in a race to save his family...There's no place to run. No place to hide. The zombie horde is growing as the virus runs rampant. Eddie knows he has to find a way to destroy these walking horrors...but he doesn't know the price he will have to pay...

Two hellish years. That's how long it's been since the hurricanes flooded the Gulf Coast, and the dead rose up from the ruins. The cities were quarantined; the infected, contained. Any unlucky survivors were left to fend for themselves. One boatload of refugees manages to make it out alive - but one passenger carries the virus. Within weeks, the zombie epidemic spreads across the globe. Now, retired U.S. Marshal Ed Moore must lead a group of strangers to safety, searching for sanctuary from the dead. In the North Dakota Grasslands, bands of survivors converge upon a single outpost. Run by a self-appointed preacher of fierce conviction - and frightening beliefs - it may be humanity's only hope. But Ed Moore and the others refuse to enter a suicide pact. They'd rather stand and fight in the final battle against the zombies.

They Rise...Out of the flooded streets of Houston, they emerge from plague-ridden waters. Dead. Rotting. Hungry. And as human survivors scramble to their rooftops for safety, the zombie hordes circle like sharks. The ultimate killing machines. They Feed...Houston is quarantined to halt the spread of the zombie plague. Anyone trying to escape is shot on sight - living and dead. Emergency Ops sergeant Eleanor Norton has her work cut out for her. Salvaging boats and gathering explosives, Eleanor and her team struggle to maintain order. But when civilization finally breaks down, the feeding frenzy begins. They Multiply...Biting, gnawing, feasting - but always craving more - the flesheaters increase their ranks every hour. With doomsday looming, Eleanor must focus on the people she loves - her husband and daughter - and a band of other survivors adrift in zombie-infested waters. If she can't bring them into the quarantine zone, they're all dead meat.

They Outnumber The Living...

25 to 1. Those are the odds of being struck down--and resurrected--by the savage plague that's sweeping the country, forcing survivors to band together against the dead.

They're Growing Stronger...

Even among the living, there is dissention. A new leader known as the Red Man has risen up and taken charge--and he's nearly as dangerous as the hungry dead. Some, like Bob Richardson and his friends, strike out on their own. Because if the men with guns don't get them, the zombies will.

They're Getting Smarter...

Fleeing the cities, Richardson and his crew find sanctuary in an abandoned farm. But their stronghold may not be strong enough. Something strange and terrifying is happening to the undead. They're banding together. Working as a group. Hungering for a common goal: human flesh. And lots of it.

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania--derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

But there are also opportunities--and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society's expectations.

But that's not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn't pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

The night of the plague follows sunset on April Fool's Day around the world. By sunrise, less than fifteen percent of the world's population is uninfected. The airborne disease is invulnerable to any air filter or disease barrier. The fifteen percent uninfected are still vulnerable to the disease when spread via bodily fluids as the infected seek to spread their disease. These are the stories of those just trying to survive. Airman First Class Caleb White, dorm rat, burned out on monitoring computer displays eight hours a day in a small cubicle in a large cubicle farm. His few interests off duty, bar hopping, taking care of his beloved truck, and managing to find trouble. A spur of the moment decision sets him up for a night of adventure and more excitement than he ever had in the Air Force. Major General William 'Willy Pete' Peters, has a rotten night. Preparing for his third divorce, he wakes to find his one night stand trying to eat him. She ends up having a fireplace poker sticking out of her skull as he learns that's the least of his problems. By morning, he comes to the realization he is the senior ranking survivor of all the services.

Lieutenant Gloria 'Grits' Alban awakens among dozens of corpses on a bridge. Her uniform is torn and saturated in blood. She has no memory of the long night. She joins her fellow survivors and finds it hard to accept their stories of zombies the night before. Equally hard to believe is the new abilities she's slowly learning she now has.

When the infection hit the world, it was originally airborne, impervious to any filters or barriers. Initially eighty to ninety percent of the world's population, those with RH positive blood, was infected. The disease was then further spread by the infected through transmission of bodily fluids, usually through bites and scratches.

Major population centers quickly fell to the infected; only those areas with sparse populations were able to mount a defense against the infected. The remaining survivors began to band together in pockets in small towns and the countryside.

The largest contingent of survivors were those evacuated to the desolate state of Wyoming. Military units and civilians answered the call from Air Force Major General Peters, senior surviving general of the entire military. From the small town of Douglas in the center of Wyoming the military has begun to clear out the infected as the first step to recover the country. The next vital step is to link up and organize with survivors throughout the country to setup outposts while there are still survivors. Freshly minted Lt Caleb White will lead the first mission to establish contact with a band of survivors in Arizona. Unfortunately, the infected are only one of the many dangers in the apocalypse.

Major General William 'Willy Pete' Peters tries to rein in the new president who wants to lock up survivors who will not support him. The President is also demanding the military stretch itself even thinner by liberating more towns and cities, and by eliminating loyal military personnel who are infected but capable of honorably performing their duties.

Lieutenant Caleb White, deployed to Arizona, is forewarned by the General and released from duty. He uses the opportunity to attempt to return to his home in Texas to find his family.Lieutenant Gloria 'Grits' Alban works under a major who happens to be the brother of the man she killed after being raped. He immediately sends out a patrol to find her and bring her back for elimination. Grits deserts, joining Caleb on his trip to Texas with plans to continue on to Georgia to find her own family.

Major General Peters' plan to use survivors of the 10th Special Forces group hinges on locating the two lieutenants. Their special abilities are vital to attack the aliens responsible for the infection and stop a further invasion.

Note: Published under the pen-name Jeremy Bishop.

An angry clash between professional whale hunters and the environmental activists out to stop them takes a deadly turn when sabotage sends both vessels to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Stranded in the aftermath on a desolate island off the coast of Greenland, survivors from both sides reluctantly join forces to stay alive in the frigid wasteland. But they swiftly discover that those who perished in the unforgiving sea were the lucky ones...

Jane Harper, an undercover government agent who's quick with her wits and fists, knows punishing cold and dwindling supplies are to be feared. But in the ruins of an ancient Nordic outpost, a centuries-old message warns of a threat far worse: the Draugar--the dreaded "again walkers" of Viking lore, the terrifying living dead that spawned the legends of vampires and zombies. Now, roused from their cursed slumber, these gruesome Viking warriors and their monstrous queen are hungry for living flesh--and eager to spread a ghoulish contagion from their long-buried prison across the globe.

Note: published under the pen-name Jeremy Bishop.

A battle to the death with six-hundred-year-old zombie Vikings in the frozen far North was just the beginning...

Undercover activist Jane Harper and father-and-son whalers Jakob and Willem Olavson thought they sent the walking corpses to their graves for good, but the intelligent parasites controlling the dead flesh lived on to keep fighting, and infecting.

Now Jane's Nordic allies and a motley crew of mates are shoving off on a new monster-killing ship to take the battle to the insidious creatures before they infect the world. This time, though, they're up against more than just a handful of ancient zombies on an isolated island. Even if Jane and her crew can conquer an army of the swimming dead--murderous and cunning zombie whales--they'll still face a floating graveyard of ghost ships packed stem to stern with the next wave of the ravenous undead...who are hungry to settle the score with the last hope of humankind.

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance....

A heartwarming tale of terror in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.Meet Sarah and David.Once upon a time they met and fell in love. But now they're on the verge of divorce and going to couples' counseling. On a routine trip to their counselor, they notice a few odd things - the lack of cars on the highway, the missing security guard, and the fact that their counselor, Dr. Kelly, is ripping out her previous client's throat.

Meet the Zombies.Now, Sarah and David are fighting for survival in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. But, just because there are zombies, doesn't mean your other problems go away. If the zombies don't eat their brains, they might just kill each other.

The Zombie Apocalypse has been good to Sarah and David. Their marriage is better than ever. They communicate well, share responsibilities, and now, they're starting a business. ZombieBusters-for all your zombie extermination needs.

There are lots of zombies and that means lots of customers...

Except one of them doesn't want the zombies dead, he wants them alive and ready for experimentation. Mad scientists make for difficult clients and this time, Sarah and David might have bitten off more than they can chew.

Sarah and David have survived the zombie apocalypse. They stood side by side and fought the undead, mad scientists, and even bionic monsters until the unthinkable happened. A zombie bite. But not even that could stop them. Now, with a possible cure in hand, they're headed east, looking for a safe zone behind the rumored 'Wall.' They're feeling pretty optimistic.

That is until Dave stops sleeping and starts lifting huge objects.Eat. Slay. Love.

Because they haven't got a prayer.

It's one month after a global disaster. The most "developed" nations of the world have fallen to the shambling zombie masses. Only a few pockets of humanity survive -- in places rife with high-powered weaponry, such as Somalia. In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. One amongst them is different; though he shares their appetites he has retained his human intelligence. Alone among the mindless zombies, Gary Fleck is an eyewitness to the end of the world -- and perhaps the evil genius behind it all.

From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily-armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers has come in search of desperately needed medicine. Dekalb, a former United Nations weapons inspector, leads them as their local guide. Ayaan, a crack shot at the age of sixteen, will stop at nothing to complete her mission. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than being undead, as Gary learns the true price of survival.

In the heart of America, in the world's most secure prison, something horrible is growing in the dark. A wave of cannibalism and fear is sweeping across the heartland, spreading carnage and infection in its wake. Captain Bannerman Clark of the National Guard has been tasked with an impossible mission: discover what is happening -- and then stop it before it annihilates Los Angeles. In California, he discovers a woman trapped in a hospital overrun with violent madmen. She may hold the secret to the Epidemic but she has lost everything -- even her name.

Monster Island explored a world overcome by horror and the few people strong enough to survive. Now David Wellington takes us back in time to where it all began -- to the day the dead began to rise.

Surviving the end of the world was the easy part. It's twelve years since the dead came back. Ravening, mindless zombies have devoured almost every living thing on the planet. The few, scattered survivors are surviving on canned goods and a refusal to give in and die. They are lead by Ayaan, a former child soldier turned brilliant strategist. She's twenty-eight years old, in a world where the average life expectancy is twenty-five. Together with her adopted ward Sarah, who has the psychic ability to see the life-force of the undead, she's gathered a few hundred survivors in Africa and given them safety, something to eat, and the possibility of a future. It would be a lot easier if the zombies weren't so well organized.

Out of the east a dead prince has risen. The Tsarevich, the most powerful lich the world has yet seen, is able to command his fellow zombies and has crafted them into an unstoppable army. He has swept across Russia and eastern Europe, hunting down every survivor he can find. He's about to come down on Ayaan and her desert oasis like a tidal wave of death and horror. Yet quickly enough Ayaan realizes he's not just out for her destruction. He has something else in mind, a goal that will take him--and her--across oceans, all the way back to Colorado where the first zombies rose from the grave. He's going back to the Source and when he reaches it, no one will ever be safe again.

The fate of all life on the planet is up for grabs, and if Ayaan and Sarah can't stop him there will be no more second chances.

MATT RICHTER MAY BE DEAD, BUT HE'LL STILL CRACK THIS CASE

Meet Matt Richter. Private Eye. Zombie. His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis.

This place has always been ruled by the vampire overlords. Now they're plotting to destroy the city.

... over his dead body.

The return of Matt Richter. Private Eye. Zombie.

MATT RICHTER'S GOING TO PIECES - LITERALLY.

You've got to keep your head to survive in the teeming undead city known as Nekropolis. It's a pity crazed genius Victor Baron couldn't manage that. Now everyone wants a piece of him.

Zombie detective Matt Richter and his glamorous she-vampire companion Devona are back on the case, with another wild and wonderful investigation.

Meet Matt Richter. Zombie. PI.

From his arrival at Nekropolis, Matt has found himself embroiled in disputes with the city's vampire lords, shapeshifters, golems and other monstrosities.

Nothing has prepared him for the Dark War.

Hugo-nominated Novella

"Countdown" is the first novella set in the world of Feed, and tracks the early days of the Rising, from well-meaning medical research to the dead beginning to walk. Meet the accidental creators of the zombie apocalypse, and ask yourself for the first time: When will you Rise?

The year is 2014, the year everything changed. We cured cancer. We cured the common cold. We died.

This is the story of how we rose.

Republished in 2012 by Subterranean Press as When Will You Rise? Stories to End the World, including the unrelated Mira Grant short story, "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box".

Post-Rising Australia can be a dangerous place, especially if you're a member of the government-sponsored Australia Conservation Corps, a group of people dedicated to preserving their continent's natural wealth until a cure can be found. Between the zombie kangaroos at the fences and the zombie elephant seals turning the penguin rookery at Prince Phillip Island into a slaughterhouse, the work of an animal conservationist is truly never done -- and is often done at the end of a sniper rifle.

As Dr. Abbey knows, there are difficulties in running an underground virology lab in a post-Rising America.

And unwanted guests must be dealt with.

Collected here for the first time is every piece of short fiction from New York Times Bestseller Mira Grant's acclaimed Newsflesh series, with two new never-before-published novellas and all eight short works available for the first time in one volume.

We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, a man-made virus taking over bodies and minds, filling them with one, unstoppable command... FEED.

Mira Grant creates a chilling portrait of an America paralyzed with fear. No one leaves their houses and entire swaths of the country have been abandoned. And only the brave, the determined, or the very stupid venture out into the wild...

Contents:

• Countdown
• Everglades
• San Diego 2014
• How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea
• The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell
• Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus
• All the Pretty Little Horses (Never Before Published)
• Coming to You Live (Never Before Published)

Hugo-nominated Novella

It was the summer of 2014, and the true horrors of the Rising were only just beginning to reveal themselves. Fans from all over the world gathered in San Diego, California for the annual comic book and media convention, planning to forget about the troubling rumors of new diseases and walking dead by immersing themselves in a familiar environment. Over the course of five grueling days and nights, it became clear that the news was very close to home... and that most of the people who picked up their badges would never make it out alive.

Outside the classroom walls the Rising was spreading, but inside was a carefully protected sanctuary against the growing threat.

Or so the teachers and students thought.

In 2014, two experimental viruses--a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as "Marburg Amberlee"--escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

It raised the dead.

Millions died in the chaos that followed. The summer of 2014 was dubbed "The Rising," and only the lessons learned from a thousand zombie movies allowed mankind to survive. Even then, the world was changed forever. The mainstream media fell, Internet news acquired an undeniable new legitimacy, and the CDC rose to a new level of power.

Set twenty years after the Rising, the Newsflesh trilogy follows a team of bloggers, led by Georgia and Shaun Mason, as they search for the brutal truths behind the infection. Danger, deceit, and betrayal lurk around every corner, as does the hardest question of them all:

When will you rise?

When Senator Peter Ryman of Wisconsin decides to take a team of bloggers along on his run for the White House, Georgia and Shaun Mason are quick to submit their application. They, along with their friend Georgette "Buffy" M. are selected, and view this as the chance to launch their careers to a whole new level... that is, if they can survive the campaign trail.”

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn't seem as fun when you've lost as much as he has.

But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news-he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

Rise up while you can. - Georgia Mason

The year was 2014. The year we cured cancer. The year we cured the common cold. And the year the dead started to walk. The year of the Rising.

The year was 2039. The world didn't end when the zombies came, it just got worse. Georgia and Shaun Mason set out on the biggest story of their generation. The uncovered the biggest conspiracy since the Rising and realized that to tell the truth, sacrifices have to be made.

Now, the year is 2041, and the investigation that began with the election of President Ryman is much bigger than anyone had assumed. With too much left to do and not much time left to do it in, the surviving staff of After the End Times must face mad scientists, zombie bears, rogue government agencies-and if there's one thing they know is true in post-zombie America, it's this:

Things can always get worse.

BLACKOUT is the conclusion to the epic trilogy that began in the Hugo-nominated FEED and the sequel, DEADLINE.

FEEDBACK is a full-length Newsflesh novel which overlaps the events of the acclaimed and New York Times bestselling novel FEED. For the first time it reveals what happened from the perspective of reporters covering the Democrats' side of the story.

There are two sides to every story...

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we unleashed something horrifying and unstoppable. The infection spread leaving those afflicted with a single uncontrollable impulse: FEED.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, a team of scrappy underdog reporters relentlessly pursue the truth while competing against the superstar Masons, surrounded by the infected, and facing more insidious forces working in the shadows.

Zombies have infested a fallen America. A young girl named Temple is on the run. Haunted by her past and pursued by a killer, Temple is surrounded by death and danger, hoping to be set free.

For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can't remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks.

At the end of days, what price salvation?

In a world where the undead outnumber the living, Moses Todd roams the post-apocalyptic plains of America. His reprobate brother, Abraham - his only companion - has known little else. Together they journey because they have to; because they have nowhere to go, and no one to answer to other than themselves.

Travelling the bloody wastelands of this ruined world, Moses is looking for a kernel of truth, and a reason to keep going. And a chance encounter presents him with Vestal Amata, a beguiling and mysterious woman who may hold the key to salvation.

But he is not the only one seeking the Vestal. For the Vestal has a gift: a gift that might help save what is left of humanity. And it may take everything he has to free her from the clutches of those who most desire her.

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

But, slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness.

When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future-between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She's content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry's mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother's past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.

Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.

But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?

The Girl With All The Gifts is a groundbreaking thriller, emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.

When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into a wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie is a very special girl.

Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy.

The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world.

To where the monsters lived.

An anthology of zombie short fiction from some of the biggest names in horror and speculative fiction - including Stephen King, George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!

From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west.

Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today's most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead covers the broad spectrum of zombie short fiction.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Living Dead) - (2008) - essay by John Joseph Adams
• This Year's Class Picture - (1992) - shortstory by Dan Simmons
• Some Zombie Contingency Plans - (2005) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Death and Suffrage - (2002) - novelette by Dale Bailey
• Ghost Dance - (2003) - shortstory by Sherman Alexie
• Blossom - (1989) - shortstory by David J. Schow
• The Third Dead Body - (1993) - shortstory by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
• The Dead - (1996) - shortstory by Michael Swanwick
• The Dead Kid - (2002) - shortstory by Darrell Schweitzer
• Malthusian's Zombie - (2000) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Beautiful Stuff - (2004) - shortstory by Susan Palwick
• Sex, Death and Starshine - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• Stockholm Syndrome - (2007) - shortstory by David Tallerman
• Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead - (2005) - shortstory by Joe Hill
• Those Who Seek Forgiveness - (2006) - shortstory by Laurell K. Hamilton
• In Beauty, Like the Night - (1992) - shortstory by Norman Partridge
• Prairie - (1997) - shortstory by Brian Evenson
• Everything Is Better with Zombies - (2006) - shortstory by Hannah Wolf Bowen
• Home Delivery - (1989) - novelette by Stephen King
• Less Than Zombie - (1989) - shortstory by Douglas E. Winter
• Sparks Fly Upward - (2005) - shortstory by Lisa Morton
• Meathouse Man - (1976) - novelette by George R. R. Martin
• Deadman's Road - (2007) - novelette by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Skull-Faced Boy - (2002) - shortstory by David Barr Kirtley
• The Age of Sorrow - (2007) - shortstory by Nancy Kilpatrick
• Bitter Grounds - (2003) - novelette by Neil Gaiman
• She's Taking Her Tits to the Grave - (2008) - shortstory by Catherine Cheek
• Dead Like Me - (2000) - shortstory by Adam-Troy Castro
• Zora and the Zombie - (2004) - novelette by Andy Duncan
• Calcutta, Lord of Nerves - (1992) - shortstory by Poppy Z. Brite
• Followed - (2006) - shortstory by Will McIntosh
• The Song the Zombie Sang - (1970) - shortstory by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg
• Passion Play - (1992) - shortstory by Nancy Holder
• Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man - (2007) - novelette by Scott Edelman
• How the Day Runs Down - novelette by John Langan

Nothing stays dead for long. The dead are returning to life, intelligent, determined... and very hungry. Escape seems impossible for Jim Thurmond, one of the few left alive in this nightmare world. But Jim's young son is also alive and in grave danger hundreds of miles away. Despite astronomical odds, Jim vows to find him--or die trying.

Joined by an elderly preacher, a guilt-ridden scientist and an ex-prostitute, Jim sets out on a cross-country rescue mission. Together they must battle both the living and the living dead... and the even greater evil that awaits them at the end of their journey.

The sequel to one of those most popular zombies of all time in a new, uncut, author's preferred edition!

In this sequel to THE RISING, cities are overrun with legions of the undead, intent on destroying what's left of the living. Trapped inside a fortified skyscraper, a handful of survivors prepare to make their last stand against an unstoppable, merciless enemy. With every hour their chances diminish and their numbers dwindle, while the ranks of the dead continue to rise. Because sooner or later, everything dies. And then it comes back, ready to kill.

Stranded in the desert, the last of mankind is kept safe by a large border fence... Until the fence falls.

Squid is a young orphan living under the oppressive rule of his uncle in the outskirts of the Territory. Lynn is a headstrong girl with an influential father who has spent her entire life within the walled city of Alice.

When the border fence is breached, the Territory is invaded by the largest horde of undead ghouls seen in two hundred years. Squid is soon conscripted into the Diggers-the armed forces of the Territory. And after Lynn finds herself at odds with the Territory's powerful church, she too escapes to join the Diggers.

Together Squid and Lynn form an unlikely friendship as they march to battle against the ghouls. Their journey will take them further than they ever imagined, leading them closer to discovering secrets about themselves, their world, and a conspiracy that may spell the end of the Territory as they know it.

The battle was only the beginning; the real danger is beyond the fence...

The Diggers have been destroyed, a horde of ghouls is moving inland and the High Priestess has seized control of the Central Territory. Together with Nim, a Nomad boy seeking vengeance against the ghouls, Squid and Lynn begin their long journey toward the city of Big Smoke, a city that may not even exist.

Pursued by forces that wish to see them fail, facing threats on all sides and conflict from within, Squid, Lynn and Nim search for a weapon against the ghouls. It is a search that will lead them into forbidden lands where long-held beliefs about their world are tested and Squid may finally unravel the truth of his identity.

But even if they survive their journey, the teenagers on whom the fate of the Territory now rests have no idea what dangers await them beyond the fence.

The world has fallen to a relentless enemy beyond reason or mercy. With no remorse they rend the planet with tooth and nail.

One man stands against the scourge of death that consumes all.

Teamed with a genius survivalist and a teenage girl, he must flee the teeming dead, the evils of humans left unchecked, and those that would seek to use him. His best weapon to stave off the horrors of this new world? His wit.

Immunity. Everyone wants it. One man has it. Our hero, if you can call him that, must escape from the government facility he is incarcerated in. Escape the certifiable, alphabet-agency super-spook who seized him and dragged him across the country. Elude an army of doctors and soldiers who think he is the answer to the plague of the living dead. Flee back to his friends, a continent away.

Can he safely traverse a ruined United States crawling with insatiable, infected cannibals? Should he stay in the impregnable fortress, do his duty, and submit to the testing in hopes he can save everyone?

What's an immune, arrogant, rude, criminal to do?

Plague. Infection. Death. Civilization is gone, assaulted by the walking dead. Within these pages lies a man's tale of unspeakable horror and humor told during the zombie apocalypse. One man stands immune to the greatest plague in human history. Our hero, should you choose to call him that, is now hunted by organizations that would use him for his immunity. Chased by relentless forces incapable of mercy or pity, our hero and his friends must fight off those that seek to destroy them. Government scientists seek him. The dead want to eat him. Humanity needs him.

No longer is our hero a useless plebe, unable to tell the difference between a clip and a magazine. No longer is he a fool who continually makes mistakes. He is now an utter badass who continually makes mistakes.

Join him as he chronicles his successes and failures in a world where success means finding an unopened can of Spam, and failure means death.

In the year 2243, the Moon belongs to the dead.

The largest graveyard in the solar system, it was the perfect solution to the overcrowding and environmental problems that had plagued mankind for centuries. And the perfect place for Cali Washington to run away from her past.

But when a mysterious meteor crashes into one of the Moon's cemeteries, Cali and her fellow Caretakers find themselves surrounded by a terrifying enemy force that outnumbers them more than a thousand to one. An enemy not hindered by the lack of air or warmth or sustenance.

An enemy that is already dead.

Now Cali and her compatriots must fight to survive. Because if they don't, everyone on the Moon may be joining the dead.

And maybe everyone on Earth, too....

A DREAD TIDE!

The Olivers have a chance to make a new home by the Salton Sea. Looking forward to Californian fun, sun and adventure they are unprepared for the ecological devastation they find. The sea is rotting, the town of Bombay Beach is dying and the citizens are like bait, waiting to be plucked from their homes by what comes from the sea. For just off the coast something lies in wait, a government secret gone wrong, a deadly experiment that has created a breed of zombie like no other. Beware the coming of the green, the townsfolk say. Beware the coming of the night!

Northern Europe, 976 AD. Bjólf and the viking crew of the ship Hrafn flee up an unknown river after a bitter battle, only to find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence. The dead don't lie down, but become draugr - the undead - returning to feed on the flesh of their kin. Terrible stories are told of a dark castle in a hidden fjord, and of black ships that come raiding with invincible draugr berserkers. And no sooner has Bjólf resolved to leave, than the black ships appear... Now stranded, his men cursed by the contagion of walking death, Bjólf has one choice: fight his way through a forest teeming with zombies, invade the castle and find the secret of the horrific condition - or submit to an eternity of shambling, soulless undeath!

A VAMPIRE IN ZOMBIELAND

You wouldn't like Coburn. People don't, as a rule. And that's okay, because he doesn't like people much either. People are food.

Five years ago, Coburn went to sleep -- wasn't exactly planned -- and he's just woken up to find most everybody in the world dead. Not dead like him; he looks human, drinks blood. He's smart. They're... none of those things. They outnumber him by about a million to one, and their clotted blood cannot sustain him.

Now he's starving, and on the run. He has to find blood, soon, and -- like it or not -- he's gonna have to keep an eye on the frail flesh-bags he finds it in. Time for the wolf to turn shepherd.

No, Coburn doesn't like people. But he'll have to learn to.

'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

The New York Times bestseller Warm Bodies captured hearts worldwide in twenty-five languages, inspiring a major film and a cult fandom. Now R the reluctant zombie continues his journey in this much-anticipated sequel.

Being alive is hard. Being human is harder. But since his recent recovery from death, R is making progress. He's learning how to read, how to speak, maybe even how to love, and the city's undead population is showing signs of life. R can almost imagine a future with Julie, this girl who restarted his heart--building a new world from the ashes of the old one.

And then helicopters appear on the horizon. Someone is coming to restore order. To silence all this noise. To return things to the way they were, the good old days of stability and control and the strong eating the weak. The plague is ancient and ambitious, and the Dead were never its only weapon.

How do you fight an enemy that's in everyone? Can the world ever really change? With their home overrun by madmen, R, Julie, and their ragged group of refugees plunge into the otherworldly wastelands of America in search of answers. But there are some answers R doesn't want to find. A past life, an old shadow, crawling up from the basement.