Showing results by narrator "Chris Patton" in All Categories

Can humanity survive what it never saw coming? On October 15 at 2:15 a.m. Earth vanished. A scattered few woke alone in a world with no rules, other than survival at any cost. These survivors aren't truly alone... Someone or something is watching them. And waiting... Strangers unite. Sides are chosen.

A group finds itself taking refuge at The Sanctuary, a religious compound with an enigmatic leader called The Prophet. A serial killer finds himself leading an unlikely group of survivors. A young man searches to prove himself to his group, and avoid being bullied ever again. A young child is called to perform another miracle at great personal cost. Every decision. Every action. Every dream. Every alliance. Every secret. Every betrayal.

Alex is magnetic. His vibrant personality and easy smiles draw people toward him. No one would guess he’s secretly hurting. Shiloh is quiet. His social awkwardness and anxious mind make it hard for him to make connections. He’s always felt different. A little broken.

Listeners know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here. All the novellas in this collection revolve around the theme of love gone wrong - horribly, shockingly wrong.

The year is 1987. The boys wear pink Izod shirts, the girls wear big hair, everyone has a stash box, and AIDS is just an ugly rumor rumbling like a thunderstorm from the cities. A teenage runaway wanders the side of the road, a heartbeat away from despair, and is rescued by a long-haired angel on a Harley. But that's just the beginning of their story.

Humanity is first subjugated by haughty alien colonizers calling themselves the Jao when Earth is unexpectedly attacked by the implacable and nearly-unstoppable Ekhat, exterminators of all intelligent life not their own. Now the fragile Human-Jao alliance is put to the test. A devastating encounter with the Ekhat in a distant nebula reveals a powerful alien society that may hold the key to defeating the Ekhat once and for all. There’s one big problem: they utterly loathe humanity's ally, the Jao.

Time is running out. As the Great Flood threatens to consume the silo, Ace and a team of divers are in a desperate battle to avert disaster. When a terrible accident destroys the person he cares about most, Ace has little left to live for. After nearly succumbing to the silo's flooded depths, Ace realizes that drastic measures must be taken in order to save their underground home. But those in charge deem his ideas too dangerous, his methods too forbidden, and he is shunned for his sin of toxic words.

Conquered by the Jao twenty years ago, the Earth is shackled under alien tyranny - and threatened by the even more dangerous Ekhat, one of whose genocidal extermination fleets is coming to the solar system. The only chance for human survival is in the hands of an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers. But, as their tentative alliance takes shape, they are under pressure from all sides.

Dan Fisher is a fun-loving slacker from SSU with a passion for partying and dancing. When rich girl Avery Wakefield offers him a brand-new designer wardrobe in exchange for posing as her boyfriend, he reluctantly agrees. He hates lying, but it's hard to turn down nice clothes and a chance to live in a historic mansion in Savannah for two weeks. What he doesn't count on is falling hard for her mysterious, straight brother.

Montese Crandall is a downtrodden writer whose rare collection of baseball cards won't sustain him, financially or emotionally, through the grave illness of his wife. Luckily, he swindles himself a job churning out a novelization of the 2025 remake of a 1963 horror classic, "The Crawling Hand." Crandall tells therein of the United States, in a bid to regain global eminence, launching at last its doomed manned mission to the desolation of Mars.

Gabriel's inevitable transformation into a merman brings him both great joy and great sadness. Though he must soon leave his human family, he is eager to experience the beauty of Emralis, the Mer city, together with his water-dwelling lover, Casillus.

Matt Turner grew up witnessing firsthand the worst crimes imaginable. At age nine, he discovered his special ability to "read" the emotional imprints people leave on objects. Against better judgment, his police detective father used his son’s talent to help him solve crimes. Now, at 26, Matt tries to keep to himself, but an enemy he thought long gone interrupts his tropical vacation, flying him all over the globe to help track a 3,500-year-old Egyptian opal found sealed in a Cuban tree trunk.

Could Martin Talbot's elderly, Alzheimer-stricken mother, Judy, really have been the Black Stiletto? When Martin discovers several volumes of her diaries hidden by his mother, he is stunned beyond all imagination. His mother, the underground heroine of yesteryear? The famed, still unidentified woman who battled Communist spies, took on the Mafia, and preyed on common crooks? The woman who exacted punishment on evildoers without mercy? But it is all described, in great detail, in the diaries. Could it be true? Talbot is filled with doubt and disbelief.

Now acknowledged as one of the most important classics of 20th-century gothic literature, S.P. Somtow's tale of a 12-year-old rock star vampire, his Jungian analyst, and the Wagnerian conductor who is his nemesis turned the entire genre upside down in the 1980s and is considered the ancestor of the "splatterpunk" movement. Vampire Junction has been voted one of the top 40 horror books of all time.

In this chilling tale of Internet horror, a friendly freelance computer technician finds himself gradually drawn into a seedier side of the Web. When he stumbles across a photograph of a female coworker on a less-than-reputable Web site, it’s clear she had not volunteered for the modeling position, the anger apparent in both her facial expression and body language. There is only one explanation: her boyfriend forced her to do it. As the man fights back his anger and annoyance, he contemplates his options.

A steady stream of meaningless sex is all Tristan has left when he discovers the grandmother who raised him is dying and his best friend is getting married. He is lost; and the dark secrets in his past keep coming back to remind him of this. Until Tristan has an idea that will change his life and fulfill his dying grandmother's wishes: Abandon his playboy ways and settle down.

Claire has finally found her forever home, and she and Chris soon find themselves falling in love. Then Chris' dreams of musical stardom and Claire's need for a stable home soon put their love in jeopardy. Chris struggles deeply with his plans for the future, entirely reluctant to leave Claire behind; until Claire does something that may break their love - and the only home she's comes to know - forever.

This stunning novel of friendship, guilt, and madness tells the story of two friends torn apart by a terrible secret - and the dark adventure that neither of them ever meant to embark upon. It's been ten years since the "incident," and Adam has long decided he's better off without his former best friend, Thomas. Adam is working as a tutor, sleeping with the mother of a student, spending lonely nights looking up his ex-girlfriend on Facebook, and pretending that he has some more meaningful plan for an adult life.

After a kayaking accident took Josh Donald's sight, he's faced with learning to negotiate the world as a blind man. In short order, his boyfriend leaves him behind, making it clear he's not inclined to deal with special needs. Reeling from the blow, Josh flounders. In an attempt to help, Josh's friends take him to a camp for the blind, where he falls for the camp organizer, Charlie Cooper.

Xander Miyamoto would rather do almost anything than listen to his sixth grade teacher, Mr. Stedman, drone on about weather disasters happening around the globe. When spring break begins at last, Xander plans to spend it playing computer games with his best friend, Peyton. Xander's father briefly distracts him with a comic book about some samurai warrior who pops out of a peach pit. Little does either boy know that the comic is a warning that they are about to be thrust into the biggest adventure of their lives.