Apocalypse Novels & Stories

Elena nodded. Once the family was back in the van, she explained one step at a time. “I lived through at least eight years of the apocalypse. First came the Floodfall, then the Megatsunami, the Inferno, and the Acidstorm. After that came Icebound, the Sundrought, the Everdark, and the Greatquake. “Our priority is stockpiling. Food, water, supplies, transportation, and everything we’ll need to survive each of those disasters. “After the world ends, everything falls apart. Factories shut down, society collapses, and everyone struggles just to survive. That means supplies won’t be made anymore—we have to buy everything now, while we still can.

The third day of the apocalypse was a study in desolation. The satellite uplink showed a world transformed, its familiar landmarks buried under ice and snow, its streets empty of life. The city was dead, its population reduced to a few thousand scattered survivors who huddled in basements and tunnels, their bodies struggling to generate enough heat to keep their vital organs functioning. The cold had killed the vast majority, their bodies frozen into grotesque sculptures that littered the streets like macabre decorations.

He was right. Vincent Reed buying Apex. The military moving into the area earlier than she remembered. The countdown changing to eleven days. None of it was normal. And now something from the apocalypse was already appearing in the city. They were still supposed to have eleven days. But this was already happening. “This is bigger than food and fuel,” Amelia said. Ian looked at her. “Has this ever happened in your first timeline?” “No.” She kept her eyes on the truck. "The air didn't turn toxic until long after civilization fell. By the time this started happening, people were already fighting over food.”

I slid behind the living room window, pinched the blackout curtain back one inch, and looked down at Elm Street. The world had gone strange. Without power, the avenue looked like the bottom of a well. Shapes moved through the violet dusk—a man dragging a shopping cart piled with canned goods, two teenagers carrying a flatscreen TV they could never plug in, a woman walking in circles with her phone held up to the sky, as if one more bar of signal might fall out of it. Somewhere a car alarm gave one last wail and died. Somewhere else, glass broke.

Ding! The blue screen pulsed once, standard gold text floating up. [PROMPT: THE APOCALYPSE SYSTEM IS A HIGHER-DIMENSIONAL SURVIVAL INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGNED TO FACILITATE HOST ADAPTATION DURING PLANETARY RESTRUCTURING EVENTS.] Evelyn let out a low, breathy sigh, leaning her head back against the plush leather cushion. "That’s a canned response. You’ve given me that script before."

The air horn blew for the third time, but it was much further away now. "Oh my God, Thomas." My hands covered my mouth. "Tell me they're not doing what I'm thinking. They couldn't be. Not after Derek." Zombies of all shapes and sizes, in all states of decay, continued pouring out of the trees. This horde was colossal. The color drained from Thomas's face as he watched the multitudes of biters trampling over the terrain below. The air horn blew again, far away this time. "We have to do something." My hands landed on the top of my head, clawing through my hair. What in the hell could they be thinking?

Thanks to an explosion that had occurred in a research lab, an unknown substance was leaked to the world. This was the start of the apocalyptic era, where humans could get infected by the substance, thus transforming into zombies. Three years after the zombie apocalypse started, I died in the maws of the zombies. To make things worse, my kindness was the reason behind my eventual death. Surprisingly enough, I was reborn to the timeframe where there were six hours left before the zombie outbreak began.

"This is the Elysium Refuge. I'm in charge here." Elysium Refuge. I had heard that before. In the third year of the apocalypse, it became the largest and most stable human settlement known to exist. Rumor had it that it was equipped with a complete defense system, ample food supplies, and even had an ongoing research of the virus. "How did I..." I began, my voice hoarse. "Our scout team found you in the ruins," Iris said, her gaze studying me closely. "You were running a dangerously high fever. Your skin was cracked and healing in cycles. We almost thought you wouldn't make it."

A desperate, terrible option. Because in twelve days, the apocalypse would begin. The temperature would drop to negative forty degrees. Power would fail. And in the chaos of a frozen world, people disappeared every day. Including hired killers. Including the Hart family. Maya picked up her phone with trembling hands and opened her notes app. She began typing, planning, calculating. If she couldn't beat them before the freeze, she would survive it. And in the aftermath, when civilization had crumbled and the old rules no longer applied, she would make every single person who had hurt her pay.

I let my guard down, leaning on the car and finally taking a breath. Everything seemed so much sharper now. Smells, sounds, even my eyes seemed to work better all of a sudden. It could have been a result of the virus. Or maybe it was the system. I was yet to fully understand how a person could even become a zombie hybrid. Not that I understood much about the apocalypse anyway. It happened so suddenly. First had been the black rain. Acid rain, whatever you wished to call it. It burned through your skin like acid and left it like melted plastic.