When Rod and Marge Applewhite decide to expand their horizons by joining the Mahjong Club at the community centre, nothing can prepare them, or their new acquaintances, for the avalanche of social disgraces which follow!When Rod and Marge Applewhite decide to expand their horizons by joining the Mahjong Club at the community centre, nothing can prepare them, or their new acquaintances, for the avalanche of social disgraces which follow!This fourth short story from Brian Parker looks at what can happen when a young woman with healthy cleavage and a low cut dress sits opposite a man who can't keep his focus on the job at hand!

In this short story by Brian Parker, a few words uttered by a lunch companion bring back a flood of memories from another lifetime.In The Fourth Man, Brian Parker explores one of the most powerful mental health issues we can all face - repressed trauma. Four men go to lunch, but for one of them, a benign conversation resurrects an inner turmoil for which he has never forgiven himself. It raises the question of how do we move on? How do we let go of the past, and our guilt, yet still remember someone with the warmth and respect we had for them while they were still alive?

In 1946 the United States Navy conducted Operation Highjump, an expedition to evaluate the effect of extreme Antarctic cold on US equipment. However, their true purpose remains shrouded in mystery. Were the reports of Nazi activity on the Southern Continent accurate?After engaging unknown forces in aerial combat, weather forced the Navy to abandon operations. Undeterred, the US returned every Antarctic summer until escalating tensions in Southeast Asia forced the government to secretly detonate three nuclear warheads over the continent in 1958. With the threat eliminated, the files were sealed and forgotten by all but the men who fought there.Now the enemy has returned with a genetically superior army, indoctrinated from birth to hate Americans for their savagery, and they’re intent on exacting revenge for the loss of their homeland and banishment to the icy wastes.

An ancient fundamentalist organization has chosen to lash out against its enemies by conducting several attacks simultaneously across the globe. One of the assaults unleashes a deadly virus within the Pentagon. When the virus mutates beyond anything the terrorists expected, the nation's capital is plunged into a violent zombie outbreak that threatens to infect everyone in the region. A desperate attempt to stop the potential global epidemic backfires as the infected survive a brutal pre-emptive strike and continue to wreak havoc on the human population when they reemerge from the bowels of the ruined city. Meanwhile, Grayson Donnelly, a former Army officer who is stranded in the Midwest during the outbreak, is forced to fight for his life and for the survival of his adopted community while his fiance, Emory, is trapped in the Washington, D.C. quarantine zone. She struggles to come to terms with her own survival while living in a government-operated refugee camp just outside of the city. In a nation that is nearing anarchy as the terrorists' heinous scheme takes on a life of its own, the two of them must learn to adapt and do whatever is necessary in order to survive.

Post-nuclear war America is a dangerous place. Mutated animals and deadly plants kill within seconds, while marauding gangs threaten to wipe out what's left of humanity. Aeric Traxx, given the name after months of torture at the hands of the Vulture street gang left him hideously scarred, leads the city of San Angelo through these troublesome times as diseases decimate the population and acid rains make the soil virtually unusable after the war. The residents of the city are barely surviving in the harsh west Texas wastelands, but in a rare stroke of luck, Traxx finds an engineer who helps to convert the engines of the city's construction equipment to steam power, allowing them to build full-sized walls for defense and power their vehicles for patrols outside of the fences. They're learning to fight back against the evils of the wastes and how to grow crops that will supplement their poor diets. However, the Vultures aren't finished with Traxx. Their hatred of the man's past actions has festered through the years. They've infiltrated San Angelo and have a plan to destroy his beloved city. If successful, the gang's move will irrevocably shift the power in the region and could cause the final extinction of man. Read More