Showing results by author "Peter Meredith" in All Categories

Quite simply, what could go wrong did go wrong. Given the choice between assuming leadership of a situation that is pure chaos, where the National Guard is forced into a position of going to war against a trapped and possibly infected citizenry, the President chooses to punt. He knows what enforcing a quarantined zone will require: the massacre of tens of thousands of terrified people demanding to get out, and there is no way he's going to have his name and legacy sullied.

The Corsairs have been driven away but only temporarily. Jillybean knows they'll be back in even greater numbers, lusting for vengeance. Yet she is trapped on the hilltop surrounded by thousands of zombies, and worse, she is out of medicine and fast becoming dangerously unpredictable. Things spiral quickly out of control when she is charged with cold-blooded murder, barely escapes a fire that turns the hilltop and half the state to ash, and flees to a city that is being ravaged by a deadly disease

A hundred million on-line players with thousands of choices, but everyone knows there's only one game: Infinite Reality. When a judge declares it a monopoly, the co-creators become competitors and then very quickly become murder victims with one thing in common: they were all online when they died. Everything points to the sole-surviving creator, Atticus Arching. When the FBI can't find Arching in the real world, they send Agent Daniel Roan and his team to the other side to track him down, only to find out that the game is more than just a game and Arching is more than just a computer programmer. He's the most dangerous person in two worlds and can kill in both.

Savage fighting rages from one end of the bay to the other as the still-dangerous Corsairs splinter into factions, each battling to see who will end up in ultimate control. Trapped in the middle of the bay on a little nub of an island, Jenn Lockhart and her shattered defenders can only watch helplessly, knowing full well that they will be the eventual prize. And Jenn can do nothing. The battle has left them fearfully low on ammunition, and they have no way to cross the zombie-infested waters. Only Jillybean’s return gives them any hope - and yet this is the same woman who started the war in the first place.

With the great battle between man and the undead apparently won and the situation seemingly in hand, the president leaps into action to take all the credit he can for saving the country and defending the Quarantine Zone. Surrounded by battalions of television news crews, he authorizes Operation Swift Stand in which he commits the nation's entire rapid deployment force in a show-stopping extravaganza designed more to rekindle patriotic fervor and to lift his own sagging poll numbers than to stop the undead.

In The Apocalypse, the great majority of the men and women who fought with honor - with a sense of duty and loyalty - gave their lives for others, leaving those without honor to flourish and rule. Their rule is not marked by decency or civility, but by wicked brutality. Yet, in some very rare cases, the kind and the noble survived. These hardened survivors learned to live among the undead, but now they must learn how to stay alive among creatures that are far more monstrous: their fellow man.

Tales of horror from one of the masters of the genre. Peter Meredith delivers stories that will keep you devouring them one after another. From the Pen - a gift that just keeps on killing, to "The Eyes in the Storm" - a beast that feeds on those who dare to go out when nature is at its cruelest, to "The Haunting at Red Feathers" - a true haunting that has the young couple trapped in the woods with a demonic presence, begging: "Don't let the night catch me here!"

It's been twelve years since the undead hordes swept over the earth forcing mankind to the brink of extinction. We now live like rats, scavenging in the ruins of our fallen civilization as the dead hunt us night and day. There is little left to scavenge, however. Grocery stores were emptied ages ago, gas tanks have long been dry and bullets are so precious that a man is lucky to have two to his name. Still, we survive. But for how much longer? Instinct and love have combined to turn Darwin's theory on its head. The strongest didn't survive in this world. They were the first to die, leaving behind a generation of orphans. It's a generation that's never had a full belly. It's a generation that has no idea what an Xbox did, or what algebra is for. It's a generation of children who never laugh out loud, and who have learned to cry softly because the dead are always near and the dead are always so very, very hungry.

With zombie hordes swallowing the earth, mankind had no choice except to launch every nuke on the planet to stop them. Now, 150 years later, we live in over-crowded polluted cities, surrounded by vast radioactive wastelands. And no, we did not get all the zombies. They live among us, sometimes hiding in plain sight. Although the tattoos and piercings help them blend in, and the drugs help to contain their rage, they can never fully control their hunger. It’s endless.

Having survived what felt like an impossible journey, Maddy Whitmore and Bryce Carter discover that there is no time to rest. Not only is New York still slated for nuclear annihilation, they are hounded by demons more horrible than anything they’ve yet encountered. Virtual armies of undead, using a “collective mind”, lay siege to the Federal Building, and the two are forced to their new and astounding limits just to survive. Yes, they’ve grown stronger and faster, but so have their opponents who will do anything to destroy them.

There are no happily ever afters in the new Undead World. There are no vacations or time-outs or do-overs. There's only the endless daily grind of living or the shockingly horrific fact of death that hangs over every living creature left on the face of the earth. For some, that death lies in a single mistake or a moment of bad luck, or simply in fate. For others, that hard death hounds them day and night, relentlessly.

Jesse Clarke is about to find out there is something worse than being hated and friendless in a new school: the murderer living next door. Having just moved to Ashton, Michigan she's shocked to discover that it's home to its very own serial killer. Stalked by a ferocious murderer and set against an entire town, Jesse's life becomes a torturous hell that only grows worse when she falls for the one boy who can't possibly love her without killing her.

Her name is Odd. Twelve-year-old Audrey Wyatt bears the unfortunate nickname "Odd", a name even her bar-hopping, alcoholic mother uses when she's sober enough to recognize the girl. Cowed by life, Odd doesn't protest, not when she's deformed as she is. Born with a combination of rare birth defects, Odd's eyes are a startling and dreadful red. Demon eyes is the first thought that springs to mind. The little girl takes care to hide them behind dark sunglasses, something her mother insists on, except when she's trading freak-show peeks for dollars or drinks.

Two weeks before the trial of Atticus Arching, his radical followers, the Infinite Assassins, decide to take the law into their own hands. Using the bodies of innocent Online players, these unkillable assassins target the entire prosecution team, including the only witness in the case, FBI Special Agent Daniel Roan. Escaping by the skin of his teeth, Roan is forced to go on the run. Hounded day and night by the assassins, he finds the only way he can strike back is to go Online and infiltrate the very group that’s after him.

Eighteen months have passed since New York City was destroyed and Jack Dreyden is still crisscrossing the nation, going after stray demons, only he isn't taking them on as a necromancer dealing in the currency of stolen souls. No, Jack is battling as a sorcerer using his own soul to power spells that he is just beginning to master. Jack thinks that he is the hunter, hot on the trail of his cousin, Robert Montgomery, but in truth, he is being played.

Some have been in the cursed house for years, their minds warped into insanity by the fear and pain. Curt is new and can't understand why no one speaks and why the only sounds come from the night. He wonders what it is that comes out of the basement when the sun goes down.

When Commander William Jern and his wife, Gayle, are given an opportunity to move into one of the spacious colonial homes on the Village Green, they jump at the chance. Only the Jerns' new dream home quickly becomes an icy nightmare, as death stalks them relentlessly. It comes unheralded out of the night, and like all of us, they are woefully unprepared. Regardless of his state of readiness, William Jern must face terrors beyond imagination in order to save his daughter.

Ella came to the magical Hidden Lands thinking she was on the greatest adventure of a lifetime. Instead she accidentally helped to destroy the beautiful valley of the Fey. Now, hunted as criminals by the Den, she and Aric must flee the destruction they have wrought. America beckons and so does one last mystery; one that can only bring more death. As much as Eireden wants to join Ella, his honor won't allow it - she has chosen Aric, and besides he has a name and a throne to fight for.

Ella's life could not have been duller. She works, she breathes, and she follows the rules. But once she's swept off her feet by the mysterious and alluring Eireden, Ella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn as she becomes enmeshed in a deadly, magical game where lives and hidden kingdoms hang in the balance and where no one asks who she is. Instead they wonder what she is. To be precise, she is bait.

Phil Tarsus is a dreadful instrument of State justice. He's an Inquisitor, a man who makes a living rooting out and executing those people who have been charged with treason. Guilt or innocence mean little to him - he has quotas to fill after all. Yet when he unwittingly stumbles upon a secret involving someone high up in the new American government, he becomes a target himself. Unfortunately for Phil, there's nowhere to run that the government can't find him.