Edge Of The Apocalypse Novels & Stories

I choked out, my fingers searching for the obsidian pendant. From the wreckage of the glass behind us, a low, subsonic growl began to build. It wasn’t the sound of a wounded man. It was the sound of the earth breaking open. A white light began to glow from beneath the shards, growing brighter and hotter until the very air began to sing with the frequency of the stars. The Apex was rising, and this time, he wasn’t bringing mercy. He was bringing the end of the Monet line.

] The mechanical voice rang in my ears. At the same second, the power grid died. The internet cut out. Lights in the distance blinked off one by one. It felt like someone hit pause on the world. Even the rustle of leaves sounded sharp. I eased up to the booth window and looked out. Inside my old apartment stood three figures—Alan, Bella, and Dylan. Of course they'd teamed up. A loudspeaker slid out the window. Alan's voice blasted across the complex. "Everyone, the apocalypse has started. I know you're looking for protection. I've got Caucasian Shepherds, a lion, and crocodiles. Any one of them can handle zombies. If you don't want to die, come join me. However..."

Some doors still hung open. Others had blood smeared across them. No military. No police. No rescue convoys. Only silence, which was broken occasionally by distant sirens echoing through the valley below. The apocalypse had moved beyond panic. Now came the collapse. Evelyn stepped over scattered belongings near the edge of the motel lot while Rowan crouched briefly beside an abandoned SUV. “Tank’s empty,” he muttered. Of course it was. Fuel had already become survival. The electronic tone rang softly through Evelyn’s skull.

Make all thresholds one threshold. Open it. Let everything trapped move. Let everything outside enter. No more lost dead. The next trouble arrived with dirt under its nails. In the false shrines, symbols had weight. It stained sleeves, cracked floors, moved through crowds, and made ordinary people choose sides before they understood the question. The cold incense smoke pressed against every window while wet footsteps marked the next turn of the case. Nothing about the Shrine War felt clean. It felt like another emergency arriving before the last one had been wiped off the stones.

I collapsed in the street with my clothes in disarray. Vanessa Coleman looked at me with eyes full of aching concern and draped a jacket over me. "Don't talk about it," she comforted me. "Let's go home first." The eyes of neighbors and acquaintances cut into me like knives. I shuddered all over and finally believed that I really had been reborn. In my previous life, I had been kidnapped for no clear reason. Twenty-four hours later, I was dumped outside my own home.

He started convulsing intensely, gasping for air as blood spilled from his nose and mouth. Everything happened too fast. Before anyone could react, Nicholas was torn apart by the strength of his blood. His body went limp, his pupils dilated, and his breathing stopped. Tobias watched as Nicholas died right in front of him. Then, he threw his head back and unleashed a deep, guttural howl. Everything within a five-mile radius was destroyed by the force of his aura. By the time he came back to his senses, Whitney was already dead, her body lying twisted and mangled in front of him.

And we walk out of the library together, leaving the Rilke book open to the page where Impossible has been crossed out and Keep Going gleams fresh. The Penobscot Building blinks red. The Vernor's sign flashes gold. The QLine bell fades into the distance. And somewhere in Detroit, Victor Strand is waiting, not realizing that the apex predator has found his partner. Not realizing we're coming for him side by side. The phone vibrates again on the table. Another message. Another threat. We don't look back.

could survive, could get his revenge, and could get a decent first kiss, even in the middle of this insane apocalypse. He burst out of the minimarket, met by the stinging glare of the sun. In the distance, atop a partially collapsed high-rise, he saw the silhouette of someone who seemed to be filming something with a camera, right in the direction of the northeast.

Handwriting from twelve years ago — the strokes heavier than they were now, the flourishes drawn wide and loose, like someone who wasn't afraid of wasting paper. I turned to page twelve. A layout diagram of the bunker. Seven bunks, one incubation unit, the storeroom at the end of the hallway, the concrete-sealed door nearly two feet thick. In the bottom right corner of the diagram, a note in my own handwriting: "The apocalypse has to feel real. Push the heat up, make the water filthy — let the audience practically smell it. Rotate the insiders every season, keep one genuinely unwitting participant — protects the ratings." After "genuinely unwitting," there was a note in parentheses. Just one

The door slammed as Clarissa rushed out of the car and into the shabby looking apartment complex. Very aware that the ten-floored building had a very non-functional elevator, she took the stairs two at a time, Flynn right at her heels. It was well past ten minutes so she knew Sydney had to be in her apartment, waiting already.