Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse (2014) anthology

Edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse (Holstein, Ont.: Exile Editions, 2014) is an anthology of 23 stories exploring possible scenarios on Canadian soil after the world ends.

The Mist (1980) novella

Stephen King's 1980 novella The Mist, originally published as a short story of the same title and later a 2007 movie, contains a far bleaker ending than what was depicted in the movie, though that too was pretty horrific. The movie pretty well follows the novella up until the point at which the group of characters including the "hero", David Drayton, leave the supermarket to try and escape. The impression you are left with in the novella is that The Mist has enveloped all of Massachusetts and possibly even more of the New England states so that the end of the world may very well be at hand. The Mist is in many ways a precursor to Stephen King's epic novel Under the Dome (2009), except in the latter there are no extra-dimensional monsters. Quoting Stephen King, the Wikipedia entry on Under the Dome notes that the novel "concerns itself with how people behave when they are cut off from the society they've always belonged to." This is exactly what happens in both the novella and movie versions of The Mist.

The Mammoth Book of the End of the World (2010) anthology

Editor Mike Ashley has compiled an apocalyptic fiction anthology titled The Mammoth Book of the End of the World (2010). The collection includes several original pieces for this anthology and the oldest work is Fritz Leiber's "A Pail of Air" from 1951. For any collector of apocalyptic tales, this is an essential publication.

The Last Man on Earth (1982) anthology

Edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh, The Last Man on Earth (1982) anthology of short fiction contains the following gems of speculative fiction:

"The Underdweller" (1957) by William F. Nolan
"Flight to Forever" (1950) by Poul Anderson
"Trouble with Ants" (1951) by Clifford Simak
"The Coming of the Ice" (1926) by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
"The Most Sentimental Man" (1957) by Evelyn E. Smith
"Eddie for Short" (1953) by Wallace West
"Knock" (1948) by Frederic Brown
"Original Sin" (1949) by S. Fowler Wright
"A Man Spekith" (1969) by Richard Wilson
"In the World's Dusk" (1936) by Edmund Hamilton
"Kindness" (1944) by Lester del Rey
"Lucifer" (1964) by Roger Zelazny
"Resurrection" (1948) by A.E. van Vogt
"The Second-Class Citizen" (1963) by Damon Knight
"Day of Judgement" (1946) by Edmund Hamilton
"Continuous Performance" (1974) by Gordon Eklund
"The New Reality" (1950) by Charles L. Harness

The Rest is Speculation (2009) short story

Eric Brown's short story "The Rest is Speculation" was first published in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF edited by Mike Ashley. The story is compelling and mindblowing indeed as we witness the tragic and grand end of Earth and the solar system while simultaneously witnessing the birth of a new universe, about which, as the title says, the rest is speculation.

Armageddon (1941) short story

Fredric Brown specialized in short stories with a surprise ending. In his 1941 tale "Armageddon" a boy at a magic show manages to save the world from certain satanic doom with something very special inside his water pistol. And for that he gets punished by his father.

History Lesson (1949) short story

Venusians visit an Earth in the far future that is still experiencing a devastating, global ice age. What they discover hidden atop a mountain cave that has survived the glaciers will both stun and amuse you. Arthur C. Clarke's 1949 short story "History Lesson" is a true gem.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (2008) anthology

Edited by John Joseph Adams, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is an anthology of stories about human survival after the collapse of civilization through one means or another. The story dates are their copyright dates. The anthology includes a bibliography of post-apocalyptic fiction. The book's Web site includes the edictor's introduction to each story, story excerpts, information about the story authors and a book video trailer created by Tobias S. Buckell, with music by Jack Kincaid.

The stories are:

"The End of the Whole Mess" (1986) by Stephen King
"Salvage" (1986) by Orson Scott Card
"The People of Sand and Slag" (2004) by Paolo Bacigalupi
"Bread and Bombs" (2003) by M. Rickert
"How We Got in Town and Out Again" (1996) by Jonathan Lethem
"Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels" (1973) by George R.R. Martin
"Waiting for the Zephyr" (2002) by Tobias S. Buckell
"Never Despair" (1997) by Jack McDevitt
"When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" (2006) by Cory Doctorow
"The Last of the O-Forms" (2002) by James Van Pelt
"Still Life with Apocalypse" (2002) by Richard Kadrey
"Artie's Angels" (2001) by Catherine Wells Dimenstein
"Judgment Passed" (2008) by Jerry Oltion
"Mute" (2002) by Gene Wolfe
"Inertia" (1990) by Nancy Kress
"And the Deep Blue Sea" (2005) by Elizabeth Bear
"Speech Sounds" (1983) by Octavia E. Butler
"Killers" (2006) by Carol Emshwiller
"Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus" (1988) by Neal Barrett, Jr.
"The End of the World as We Know It" (2004) by Dale Bailey
"A Song Before Sunset" (1976) by David Rowland Grigg
"Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers" (2007) by John Langan

No Morning After (1954) short story

In his darkly humorous look at doomsday, "No Morning After," Arthur C. Clarke has a telepathic race of extraterrestrials contact a man to warn him of the Earth's imminent destruction from its sun going nova. In order to save the Earth's population, the aliens will create wormholes all over the Earth and through which people can enter to instantly find themselves on a new world. All the contactee has to do is inform others of what to do. Due to his personal problems, however, things don't go as planned for the aliens, except for the part about the sun exploding just as they had calculated it.

The Nine Billion Names of God (1953) short story

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), one of my favorite science fiction authors, like several other sci-fi authors, has written his share of short stories and novels around the general theme of planetary destruction, the destruction of civilization as we know it, or far-future societies on the verge of experiencing their end. One of his best short stories, first published in 1953, on the theme of not just planetary destruction but the destruction of the universe is "The Nine Billion Names of God." In this story Tibetan monks utilize modern technology (a device Clarke calls an Automatic Sequence Computer) to complete their list of all the names of God. When their work is done, the world will end.