Siblings Michael and Ellery Lisbon are desperate for a fresh start. Reeling after a series of misfortunes, the pair settle down in the quiet town of Plum Hollow in the hopes of kick-starting their stalled lives. The house they move into is unbelievably affordable—a seeming gem in a ferociously competitive market. But it was in this house that, two years prior, a family was savagely butchered. Despised by their neighbors, the siblings are left to grapple with the grisly reality of the house's past—and with the possibility that the evil behind the slayings is still present.

Under 30,000 feet of water, the experimental exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it. But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

This short story collection will take you into the depths of Beck’s dark imagination: from what happens when the deepest bore hole on Earth has just passed nine miles and hits a strange open space – and it's hellishly hot down there; to an Antarctic research team examining fragments from a deep ice glacier and discovers a tiny seed that, once thawed, grows into something terrifyingly unexpected.

It was just another fishing trip for Stew, his wife, and their friends until the storm. Forced off-course to avoid the worst of the swells and lightning, the boat floats into a dead zone filled with large, glowing jellies. Upon investigating an adrift boat, the creatures attack them, sickening one of their party. With the Coast Guard on their way to evacuate them, the four have to survive until help arrives.

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a scream. In the remote mountains of Northern Alaska, Dr. Riley Middleton and her team of archeologists discover a burial site containing mummified remains dating to the last ice age. None of them notice the warning carved into the entrance or realize that the tomb had been deliberately sealed from the outside until they’ve already released a virus that turns ordinary people into murderous monsters. But there’s something even more terrifying inside...something ancient...something unspeakably evil.

Carpenter Lowell is a disgraced Marine assigned to a remote US research station on Saturn's moon Enceladus, where scientists have made an extraordinary discovery in the ocean below. A special forces team, led by Lowell’s murderous former commanding officer, shows up to investigate. Almost immediately, everything begins to unravel. Something beneath the surface has been activated.

On the precipice of a cliff, contemplating suicide, dishonorably discharged US Army Ranger Rowan Baer is invited to provide security to a research team visiting the most dangerous island in the world - North Sentinel Island in the Sea of Bengal. Seeking redemption, he accepts. Living among Amazon rainforest tribes, eccentric Israeli anthropologist Talia Mayer is recruited to study the island's elusive inhabitants - the Sentinelese - who have resided on the tropical island since the dawn of mankind.

A stranger staggers out of the wilderness under the cover of a blizzard and stumbles into a diner full of people. He collapses in the entryway, unzips his jacket, and allows the object hidden inside to fall out. Screaming commences.

The mountains and forests of Washington State harbor a secret. It has remained hidden for millennia. An apex predator that has mastered the art of the hunt. Intelligent... savage... destructive... and now, gone rogue. It no longer sticks to the shadows. The hunt is on, and we are its prey. Nina Lee is a Forest Ranger assigned to numerous missing persons cases across Mount Rainier National Park and beyond. She knows some come up here to disappear. And she knows most will never be found. But something has changed.

Billionaire Ben Myer, sick of the limelight, wants to leave the world of paparazzi and parties behind him. Buying a large piece of land in Alaska, he sets his sights on building an epic, compound like mansion there. Unfortunately for Ben, the land is inhabited by a creature of dark legends...and it isn't about to share.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Compiled by intrepid journalist Neve Pride, this archive of recordings spans the months after dragons emerged on earth, chronicling the communities that sprang up amid the destruction, the scientists, military leaders, and experts searching for a defense, and those steadfastly seeking the missing. Neve and her young daughter Bex travel among the wreckage speaking to those left behind and surviving, against all odds. Neve records everything for history, and in the hopes of locating a clue as to where the dragons came from and how one might stop them.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

It was supposed to be a simple rescue mission—supposed to be. If Corporal John Harden had learned anything from his time in the 1215th Legion, it was that no mission went the way you expected. The Mission: Board the derelict cargo hauler DFMS Lumo, rescue any survivors, secure the vessel for return to the closest Dagdan Federation Port, and return safely to the Dagdan Federation Battlecruiser Nathanial B. Hughes. Now, he’s trapped aboard a derelict cargo hauler, low on ammo, and running out of options. Not the best showing for a freshly minted fire team leader.

The first mission to Europa – Jupiter's enigmatic moon – has landed, and humanity’s darkest fears are about to awaken. For years, mankind has speculated that this frozen world harbours a hidden ocean twice the size of all Earth’s oceans combined – an ocean potentially teeming with life. Driven by this tantalising mystery, they venture forth to unlock its secrets. But what they discover in the abyssal depths is far beyond anything they could have imagined.

John Sagis once served the tyrants dominating the flooded world of Vaelrika, until he joined a rebellion to sweep them from power. Indifferent to those who name him champion or traitor, John struggles to make amends for his past. Ten years later, John is sheriff in a small logging town and doing his best at keeping his promise to watch over Kyle and Alex, two young brothers orphaned by war. After a pirate raid upends the tentative peace, John escapes with the boys and their housekeeper, Mrs. Miriam, aboard a warsub bound on a secret mission within the vast undersea expanse known as the Deep.

Jeffrey Holt tears apart decommissioned ships that have been crash-landed in the Nevada desert. He's a shipbreaker, no one of consequence, just as he wants it. However, decades after his role in the world mattered, someone is trying to kill him. Searching for a reason, he tears into the bridge of a derelict Kappa-Class freighter and finds corpses. As he stands on the bridge considering how to stay alive, a hand grips his leg...

My name is James Thorne, and I wasn't supposed to matter. Before the invasion, I was just a guy in a dead-end job, keeping my head down and my past buried. The Gehenna want our annihilation. Thankfully, they angered the Aetherion who may help humanity not only fight back, but turn the tide. When I’m offered the chance to be Cleansed, to become something more than I was, I take it. And it turns out I’m special. No, I’m not the Chosen One. And yes, there are others like me, but as a Psyker, I can do things most can't. Things that make me very dangerous.

An unusual distress call sends Captain Remy Eskar and his crew on a rescue mission in the asteroid belt for a dying military cargo ship, where a sole survivor clings to life. Upon extraction, the incredible story Major Dillon (Deke) Temkin tells is hard to believe.

Emperor Hazard is Dead! When the Teddy Bears ambush the ship carrying Emperor Hazard to a peace conference in the Zenkarr system, Britannia once again finds itself at war. The Teddy Bears have a plan, but Gathii Kong, now in command of the Imperial Force, doesn’t take the bait. He follows Hazard’s last order to fight smart and foils the Zenkarr Intelligence Minister’s plan to destroy Britannia’s fleet by not charging deeper into the system. But now Kong has the lion by the tail—he can’t follow the enemy fleet into the gravity well, nor can he let them out to terrorize the nearby systems.

An accident during the construction of a tunnel beneath the Bering Strait leads to the discovery of a network of caverns and evidence that hints at the survival of a primitive human species. Led by DARPA technologist Reinhard Thyssen, a team of experts from around the globe is dispatched into the subterranean maze to discover all they can before the caves completely flood. Something lurks in the darkness, though. A creature has evolved into a predator unlike any the world has ever known, and it's up to the scientists to make sure that it never reaches the surface.

A stranger staggers out of the wilderness under the cover of a blizzard and stumbles into a diner full of people. He collapses in the entryway, unzips his jacket, and allows the object hidden inside to fall out. Screaming commences.

Blaise is a shifter collared from birth to keep her from her abilities. It's been her dream to get the collar off and vanish into the countryside. Working as a highly paid whore has gotten her close - she can almost taste it. Until her Mistress dies, and the new Master burns her contract. Now everything is gone, and Blaise has to fight just to keep herself out of his hands. Keepers are charged with keeping the peace amongst shifters, mages, and humans. The Six Horsemen are an elite, high ranking, team, but to those who rule the kingdom, these six men are little more than ...

The fossilized remains of a previously unclassified hominin species are discovered in the Altai Mountains, prompting teams of scientists from around the globe to converge upon this isolated region of Siberia in search of further evidence to corroborate the revolutionary theory that a third protohuman ancestor coexisted with Neanderthals and primitive Homo sapiens. What awaits them is anything but extinct.

Astronaut Lee Rifkin's life is about to change. NASA has done the math. The space object named Cassandra 22007 is not behaving as expected. He will lead a team on a cutting-edge ship to get a closer look. But another group wants to get there first. Who is this shadow organization that seems to be one step ahead of them? Agent Jenna Haynes works to put together the pieces that will pull the veil off those who seem to have known about Cassandra's arrival since long before NASA spotted it. What is their goal?

In the aftermath of a painful breakup, Mike and his friend Wade seek solace in the remote beauty of Devil's Cup State Park, Colorado. Their quest for peace is abruptly ended when a meteor strike causes a rock to fall, trapping them and a diverse group of campers within the ancient volcanic caldera. As they grapple with their new reality, a far more sinister challenge emerges from the depths of the earth.

Travel along a backcountry road as two bickering siblings encounter a sadistic masked menace. Watch from a couple’s window as a mysterious figure lurks through the darkness of the vacant house next door. Witness a malevolent presence threaten to unravel a man’s sanity decades after testing an urban legend.

When the people of Waxahachie, Texas wake to find themselves cut off from the rest of the world and surrounded by an unfamiliar and dangerous wilderness, they must work together to survive and unravel the cause of the mysterious "seam".