Release date: June 28, 2015
Subgenre: Post-apocalyptic
About IMPACT:
IT'S BEEN NINE MONTHS SINCE THE METEORITES HIT.
They brought both destruction and disease, carrying a mysterious pathogen that has killed untold millions, while turning others into Meteorwraiths -- zombie-like human relics.
Now, the tattered remnants of humanity do their best to survive.
Alice and Adrian
have lost everything except each other. Both barely twelve-years-old, they fight their way across the ruins of Europe, in a desperate search for their family.
James Walscombe
is senior safety specialist trapped inside top-secret US nuclear facility Atlantis with two colleagues. They survived the impact, unscathed. But now, one of them has turned into a psychotic murderer.
Father Paul
struggles to keep his faith in a world resentful towards its gods. His life isn't the one he thought he'd chosen when he entered the seminary, and now new, dark deities are creeping out from the shadows.
Earth's survivors are trying to adapt to the harsh realities of the post-impact world.
But the worst is yet to come.
IMPACT is a post-apocalyptic serial novel. This is book one.
They brought both destruction and disease, carrying a mysterious pathogen that has killed untold millions, while turning others into Meteorwraiths -- zombie-like human relics.
Now, the tattered remnants of humanity do their best to survive.
Alice and Adrian
have lost everything except each other. Both barely twelve-years-old, they fight their way across the ruins of Europe, in a desperate search for their family.
James Walscombe
is senior safety specialist trapped inside top-secret US nuclear facility Atlantis with two colleagues. They survived the impact, unscathed. But now, one of them has turned into a psychotic murderer.
Father Paul
struggles to keep his faith in a world resentful towards its gods. His life isn't the one he thought he'd chosen when he entered the seminary, and now new, dark deities are creeping out from the shadows.
Earth's survivors are trying to adapt to the harsh realities of the post-impact world.
But the worst is yet to come.
IMPACT is a post-apocalyptic serial novel. This is book one.
Excerpt:
Adrian
and Alice
Twelve-year-old
Adrian stood shivering in the dark.
With
one hand, he held the trembling wrist belonging to the love of his
brief, unfortunate life. In the other, a butcher’s knife.
The
creature, the meteorwraith, was somewhere close. Too close.
Alice,
one year his junior, buried her face in his shoulder.
“Adrian…
I’m scared,”
she whispered. Her body was shaking. Despite his own fear, he
couldn’t help notice the cold tip of her nose against his thin
neck. She was so young, so vulnerable. They both were.
“I
know. It’s okay. We need to be quiet.” He hoped he sounded brave
and confident, capable of defending her. They were words he thought a
grown-up might utter – one willing to protect them, perhaps. There
had been very few of those since their journey began. Other than
Maurice of course, but no help would come from him ever again.
Adrian
freed her wrist, and passed an arm around her shoulder, embracing
her. She snuggled up against him. How odd his life had become. How
unfair.
Love, in the form of this delicate, trembling girl with its unfocused
promise of happiness, and the shy intimacy that constantly sent waves
of indecipherable warmth through his chest, contrasted bleakly with
the world of constant threats, horror, and pain which he was
currently trying to fight back with the butcher’s knife in his
right hand. The opposite worlds of love and death, balanced on his
brave, but oh-so-narrow shoulders.
They
had entered the cave two days ago. It had seemed safe. Thick woods
surrounding it, and a small entrance partly concealed by thorny
shrubbery. Its deep, dark recesses would provide some degree of
safety. Secrecy and concealment – these were the grim, necessary
requirements of survival on post-impact Earth.
“Do
you like it here?” he had asked.
Alice
had shrugged with a smile. A sad smile. It’ll
have to do.
Now,
as he tried his best to keep himself and his friend alive, Adrian
bitterly considered the ruthlessness with which fate had brought an
end to their childhood. What they had received in return was neither
the innocence of youth, nor the experience of adulthood.
Something
was moving in the shadow ahead. Although meteorwraiths generally
travelled in packs, Adrian believed there was only one of them in the
cave. He desperately hoped so. His eyes darted from left to right,
scanning the dark cave, trying to spot a movement, trying to catch a
glimpse of their hunter. Then, the creature spoke.
“Vous
etes ici. Je sais,”
it hissed. “Viens.
Viens ici, mes cheris…”
It
was a male. They were the worst. Alice tightened her embrace around
him. He tightened his grip around the knife.
The
thing moved. They heard the faint crackling of stones and pebbles
beneath its feet.
“Viens
ici, mes amis…”
Then
he saw it. A skinny, hunched silhouette crawling towards them.
Adrian
had to think fast."
Amazon
About Matthew Eliot:
Hello, I'm Matthew Eliot. I'm British, and live in a somewhat
surreal Italian town featuring both a medieval castle and a beautiful
lake, just north of Rome, with my wife and baby daughter.
IMPACT, A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, is my first book. I hope you enjoy it.
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