Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen - from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City - will fight for survival. In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth's last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity.

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.

Peaceful suburbia on Poplar Street in Wentworth, Ohio, takes a turn for the ugly when four vans containing armed "regulators" terrorize the street's residents, cold-bloodedly killing anyone foolish enough to step outside their homes. Houses mysteriously transform into log cabins, and the street now ends in what looks like a child's hand-drawn Western landscape. Masterminding this sudden onslaught is the evil creature Tak, who has taken over the body of an autistic eight-year-old boy, Seth Garin.

It’s the summer of 1960 and in the small town of Elm Haven, Illinois, five twelve-year-old boys are forging the powerful bonds that a lifetime of change will not break. From sunset bike rides to shaded hiding places in the woods, the boys’ days are marked by all of the secrets and silences of an idyllic childhood. But amid the sun-drenched cornfields, their loyalty will be pitilessly tested.

One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward, taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets back to earth, a magical sack that thrusts the down-on-his-luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus.

Refuge, New Hampshire, is a small town. The kind found on postcards. Their biggest concern is the rowdy summertime revelers making their way up from Massachusetts and New York. And with most of the town's residents in neighboring Ashland, for the Fourth of July fireworks show, Refuge is quieter than usual. That is, until the Baptist church's bell starts ringing - on its own. The bell chimes faster and faster, reaching a frenetic pace, as though rung by the Devil himself. But the bell is just the beginning.

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication.

Something evil is at work in Hyde River, an isolated mining town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Under the cover of darkness, a predator strikes without warning—taking life in the most chilling and savage fashion. The community of Hyde River watches in terror as residents suddenly vanish. Yet, the more locals are pressed for information, the more they close ranks, sworn to secrecy by their forefathers’ hidden sins. Only when Hyde River’s secrets are exposed is the true extent of the danger fully revealed.

When Tom, the son of a powerful senator, becomes stranded in the Plagued States while searching for his lost sister, his only hope of survival rests in the hands of a few grizzled veteran zombie hunters and a mysterious half-breed zombie woman he thinks may know where to find his sister....

It looked like another ordinary day in Los Angeles. Then night came...Evil as old as the centuries has descended upon the City of Angels - it comes as a kiss from the terrifying but seductive immortals. Slowly at first, then by the legions, the ravenous undead choke Los Angeles with bloodthirsty determination - and the hordes of monstrous victims steadily mount each night.

The end of the world is only the beginning as an odd band of survivors pull together to construct a modern-day castle amid the burning ruins of suburbia lost. As undead hordes and strange otherworldly monsters ravage what's left of civilization, things begin to go from worse to weird as each survivor's dark past unfolds, revealing that reality might be more than anyone ever thought, and that an ancient force from the outer dark has finally arrived to conquer.

Summer 1977. The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon's Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster - another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents - unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers - that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world.

The West Texas desert towns of Inferno and Bordertown have been slowly dying. The Snake River isn’t the only thing that divides them. Racism and gang wars have turned the sun-scorched flatlands into a powder keg. If anything can unite them now, it’s the UFO that comes crashing through the clouds. It brings with it a young alien named Daufin, a fugitive who has taken human form. She knows the terror that awaits this planet—because it’s looking for her.

Christy Barnett is sleeping when her aging German shepherd Molly growls into the darkness outside her bedroom. She wakes to a dim glow provided by her Kindle's screen, thankful that she had fallen asleep while reading again. The power has gone out, the world outside her window is eerily dark and silent. And Molly is weary of something that waits in the hallway, hiding in the shadows. A dark cloud has fallen over the city of Aberdeen, MD. The population disappears in an instant.

Summer 1977. The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon's Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster - another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents - unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers - that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world.

All the official reports say they are dead—extinct since the late ’80s, when a fed named Arkeley nailed the last vampire in a fight that nearly killed him. But Arkeley knows what most people don’t: there is one left. In an abandoned asylum she is rotting, plotting, and biding her time in a way that only the undead can. When state trooper Laura Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment.

There are things in the darkness, things much worse than the tracks and abandoned pieces of equipment that trip the children up and gash at their feet and legs, things that brush silently past them, touching their faces before disappearing again....

Ben McKelvie believes he's moving up in the world when he and his fiancée buy a house in the cushy Washington, DC, suburb of Barcroft. Instead he's moving down - way down - thanks to Madeleine Roux, the crazy neighbor whose vermin-infested property is a permanent eyesore and looming hazard to public health. First Ben's fiancée leaves him; then his dog dies, apparently killed by a predator drawn into Barcroft by Madeleine's noxious menagerie. But the worst is yet to come for Ben.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

When police chief Nathan Slaughter settles in the tiny mountain community of Potter’s Field, Wyoming, his most fervent prayer is that he has left behind him forever the nightmare he barely survived on a blizzardy night in Detroit. But nothing prepares him for the greater sanity-threatening nightmare he is about to confront. Beginning with the discovery of mutilated cattle on outlying ranches, Slaughter is drawn deeper and deeper into a vortex of terror as animals become savage and children go insane, trapping the entire town in a frenzy of violence. As Slaughter races against time to expose the horrifying secret behind the increasingly savage attacks, he also struggles to overcome his deepest fears.

One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward, taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets back to earth, a magical sack that thrusts the down-on-his-luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus.

In the darkness of a vast cave system, cut off from the world for millennia, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed. Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death. Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family's only chance of survival. They must leave their home, shun others, and find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?

George A. Romero terrified a generation with his iconic horror film and with this cult-classic novel. Immerse yourself in this unparalleled vision from the revered master of the zombie apocalypse...and be terrified all over again. Zombies have overpowered the living and ravaged the world. Society has collapsed as humans race to save themselves. No one knows how far the creatures have spread or how to stop them. In downtown Philadelphia four people escape the chaos and find shelter in a vacated shopping mall.

The New York Public Library: a 100-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and long hallways. For one night this building is to be the venue for a contest. The rules are simple: seven contestants will enter, only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Stephen Swain is plunged into a fight for survival. In this contest, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all.

John is a father, but that wasn't his day job before the Zombie Apocalypse. Seven months after the events in 900 Miles, we pick up with John and Kyle who are bunkered down with their newfound community back at Avalon. Unexpectedly thrust outside the protection of Avalon's walls, they're forced back into the world of the dead on a scavenging run that should be routine. However, they quickly learn that there are forces at play making this journey anything but...

The Seven Wonders adventures continue in this bind-up of The Select and The Orphan. The Select tells the story of thirteen-year-old Burt Wenders, the first documented carrier of the G7W gene, and his fated voyage to the island that would eventually come to house the Karai Institute. In The Orphan, learn the story of Daria, orphaned at a young age and enslaved by the Babylonians, and her valiant battle to escape the only city she's ever called home. These titles are together for the first time ever.

A survivor of undead suburbia, mountain man Augustus “Gus” Berry is extremely careful when it comes to his actions and movements. He takes no chances and painstakingly weighs every decision—until he sets out for the hospital at the edge of town, hoping to discover a treasure trove of essential supplies. Soon, Gus will experience terror the likes of which he's never encountered before . . .

Filled with adventurous human drama-and shocking inhuman horror - Rise Again is a vivid and powerful debut novel of the zombie apocalypse.