The Plot Against Heaven by Mark Kirkbride

Release date: October 3, 2020

Subgenre: Dark fantasy 

About The Plot Against Heaven:

 

Hell-bent on confronting God after the death of wife Kate, Paul gate-crashes Heaven. With immigration problems and a wall, Heaven turns out to be nowhere near as welcoming as expected. Both Heaven and Hell are modern and militarized, and the cold war that exists between them is about to heat up, with him in the middle of it. Caught on the wrong side of Heaven, Paul faces an impossible choice if he's to have any hope of seeing his wife again.

Death doesn't stand a chance against love.

 

Excerpt:

 

I’m standing in the office of the Superbeing watching the towers of heaven fall, knowing that it’s all my fault.

Jets dash across the sky, missiles streaking.

I never intended to get involved in the eternal struggle between heaven and hell but events had other plans for me. I opened the gate that let the forces of hell in, turned the cold war hot.

A helicopter passes over the city. Rockets shoot from pods slung either side of the airframe.

The building shudders. An alarm blares.

Smoke darkens another clutch of towers.

“Repair to the bunkers,” a voice repeats over the PA.

Behind me, through the doorway, bodies lie as if in mimicry of the postures in which they fell.

I’m still staring out of the floor-to-ceiling window.

A bug-headed helicopter heads this way.

“You know what to do,” says a voice in my ear.

Yeah, to stop the war I have to commit an act that would make me the enemy of heaven and earth, if I’m not already.

The thing is, my wife’s down there, in all that chaos. Some borders you can cross but can you get back?

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About Mark Kirkbride:

Mark Kirkbride lives in Shepperton, England. He is the author of The Plot Against Heaven, Game Changers of the Apocalypse and Satan’s Fan Club, all published by Omnium Gatherum. Game Changers of the Apocalypse was a semi-finalist in the Kindle Book Awards 2019. His short stories can be found in Under the Bed, Sci Phi Journal, Disclaimer Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. His poetry has appeared in the Big Issue, the Morning Star, the Daily Mirror, Sein und Werden and Horror Writers Association chapbooks. 

 

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Game Changers of the Apocalypse by Mark Kirkbride

Release date: January 7, 2019

Subgenre: Post-Apocalyptic Horror

About Game Changers of the Apocalypse:

 

It’s always the end of the world when you break up with someone. This time it really is...

Everyone on the planet has mysteriously disappeared, leaving exes Greg and Polly. They’ve survived the apocalypse, yet shouldn’t have. Battling each other and a malevolent entity that teases them with their fate, how long can they remain ahead? Even more terrifying than everyone else on the planet disappearing is what’s about to take their place…

 

Excerpt:

 

They descended stone steps to the Thames Path. Black water shimmered in the light from globular lamps, which recast the world in black and white. Water lapped the wall below. A pair of shadow-giants stalked the buildings above.

Their footsteps echoed in the lonely night.

Furry moths clustered thickly around the lamps.

A dog barked on the other side of the river. Running feral or spooked by something?

Greg shivered.

The breeze caught him side on, making him wish he’d taken Polly’s advice and put something on over his GANT short-sleeved shirt.

He reached for her hand.

She grasped his.

‘Where do you think they went?’ he said.

In her Joules dress, on her Ravel wedges, she looked round. ‘What?’

‘Everybody.’ He glanced at some charcoaly flowerbeds. ‘I mean, where are they?’

‘The Mardi Gras?’

Laughter erupted from him.

She smiled.

Then the smile fled her face. ‘Think it was another Chernobyl?’

He held his other hand out, turned it over. ‘How come we’re all right?’

‘What’s that bomb that gets rid of people but leaves buildings intact?’

‘Oh, the neutron bomb, yes, yeah, that’s a good one. Surely we’d have heard it, though. And there’d have had to have been lots.’

‘I guess.’

‘What about a gamma-ray burst from a hypernova?’

‘Come again?’

‘The celestial equivalent. Thing is, there’s none near enough.’

‘Oh.’ A gentle snuff.

He swallowed. ‘Maybe the chosen rose and we… didn’t.’

Her head jerked back. ‘What are you saying? We overslept on Judgement Day?’

He coughed. ‘Well, the thing we need to try and work out is…’ A moth blundered against his lips. Swiping it out of his face, he dry-spat.

Bloody things.

Her hand slipped through his and out. ‘Oh, my God.’

He stopped, whirled around. ‘What, baby?’ Her hand cupped her mouth. ‘Baby, what?’

He followed her line of sight. High up on the brickwork above, something small, pale and round protruded from the mortar.

She pointed, transfixed.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s just fungus, love.’

‘No it’s not, it’s…’

‘What?’

‘It’s a…’

He could feel her trembling.

‘What, love?’

‘Ear.’

He couldn’t have heard right. ‘What?’

‘An ear.’

He positioned himself in line with it, a few feet away from the wall, stared up and had to concede that it did have the convolutions, flutes, knobbles and fleshy colouring of an ear. Yet it couldn’t be. Could it?

It waggled.

‘Fuck.’ He jumped back.

Polly let out a moan. ‘You know what it’s doing, don’t you?’

‘What?’ He shifted his weight from foot to foot.

‘Listening.’

‘You’re...’

She turned. ‘Oh, no…’

‘What?’ He spun round. ‘Oh, shit.’

The lights along the river went out one by one. Blocks of darkness caught up with them.

A click from her throat as cavernous night swallowed them. ‘Oh, God… It’s all starting again.’

 

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About Mark Kirkbride:

Mark Kirkbride lives in Shepperton, England. He is the author of two novels, Game Changers of the Apocalypse and Satan’s Fan Club, both published by Omnium Gatherum. His short stories can be found in Under the Bed, Sci Phi Journal, Disclaimer Magazine and Flash Fiction Magazine. His poetry has appeared in the Big Issue, the Morning Star, the Mirror and Horror Writers Association chapbooks. 

 

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