Showing results by author "Joseph Hansen" in All Categories

His perfect life in its late autumn years, Bob Johnson is offered the chance of using a prototype technology to traverse gateways into alternate realities. A chance to change the course of history and possibly the nature of certain people. Bob seizes the opportunity to rescue his soul and get revenge on those who are trying ruin everything he cherishes. His reality will never be the same again.

Hair of the dog - as people used to say after an all-night binge - but prayin’ to the porcelain gods was the one Lisa enjoyed saying back in the day - back in the days when someone could afford to lose consciousness without fears of ending up in a stomach of the dead. No. Those days were gone - the good old days as they would come to say. 

It spread fast - no time to understand it - let alone learn how to fight it. Once it reached you, it was too late. All you could do is run. Rumored safe zones and potential for a cure drifted across the populace, forcing tough decisions to be made. They say only the strong survive. Well, they forgot about the smart, the inventive, and the lucky.

El Paso wasn’t the Promised Land that Ian and his crew had hoped for, but it wasn’t a total bust either. The concept of a safe haven in today’s world was a fool’s errand at best. This was the consensus of their tiny band and to keep moving their only salvation. While others waited in their pens, the four from the private security company moved on, taking on as many they could help, in hopes that they too would join the fight. Their journey was long and arduous, but it was worth it...they hope.  

New to the Hot Springs PD, Lisa Reynolds was not all that welcomed by her coworkers, especially those who were passed over for the position. But it didn't matter anymore. Her 30-day probation period ended on the same day of the Z-poc's arrival. Overnight the world goes from bad to worse as thousands die in the initial onslaught. National Guard and regular military units deployed the day before to the north leave the city in mayhem. All directions lead to death until one unlikely candidate steps forward with a plan.

The age of plenty is dead. Wars and rumors of wars - from economic collapse to cult driven genocide. Flesh eating cannibals were blamed but no one really knew the truth, no one really wanted to know the truth. Where there was once life and hope there is now only suffrage, where the remnants; struggle onward, attempting to squeeze something of worth from a dying world. Every decade brings a new war, new battles and conflicts from newly formed factions - ideologies that were previously unknown. 

The crew has split. Toby has been placed in charge of a small group headed north to combat the Great Lakes Navy whose M.O. is to acquire all remaining resources and peddle flesh. Americans young and weak have become their currency, their objects of dominance. Ian and Kinsey are still on mission to get to D.C. accompanied with new recruits from Mingo Junction and Albuquerque. Both groups trying to restore a little bit of sanity to a world that won’t cooperate. 

Ian and crew had reached the end of their road. Hundreds of enemy invaders expending all resources to seize the small sanctuary left to the crew. With hundreds of thousands of infected bearing down on the enemy forces from behind, the situation had turned desperate. Their mission, to stop the invaders from taking the base, their survival...secondary. With more than half their numbers already killed or consumed they fought with a ferocity that only those who had survived this long could possess.

A personal tragedy throws Sonny into a world of cruelty and neglect. Drugged into being the raging beast that all of humanity fears, Sonny finds himself on the run and pursued by authorities with orders to kill on sight. Without the physical ability to speak to humans, he is forced to rely on wit and guile, as well as the purity of his very nature in order to survive and make it to somewhere safe, a place he might call home. Yet, what is home? That's a question he must answer before he can have any hope of finding it.

Treat yourself to a glimpse into the dark future world of New Orleans, where humanity's base desires have overshadowed common decency, and very few are willing to stand in the way. With 10 stories by seven well-known independent authors, High Tech/Low Life is guaranteed to please.

Life is not what it used to be. The goodwill of a stranger is a godsend that must be questioned as a necessary risk. Trust and safety, once taken for granted, are now the barest necessity for survival.... Lisa and Krupp had accomplished their mission to stop the horde, but at what cost? Little Rock's booty was still the objective as multiple truck and tractors headed down the road toward their dangerous goal. The survival of all is at stake as they come up against gangs and stubborn homeowners in their quest for resources....

Normal was still less than a week in the past; those who still fought felt as though it was much, much more. The quest for resources has begun as does the hunt for the Good Doctor who plans his greatest feat. The majority of the living left to bear witness of his macabre utopia as a new predator takes up his trail. Survivors flee the capital city of Little Rock drawing a horde of a magnitude never imagined. They flowed like a river with nothing but two Hot Springs cops to lead the willing against insurmountable odds. Brawn and steel blended into creative intellect would have to be enough against a quarter million marching dead.