After decades of planning, Project Wildfire has been initiated, but even the most carefully laid plans can fall apart...
Michael Evans is only in St. Davids to maintain a low profile after his time spent as a city cop ended in disaster. The town is perfect for him: Isolated. A tiny population. Virtually no crime.
Until the night the strange canisters fall from the sky and the town priests starts killing people with his teeth. To Michael, the bloodbath looks like a murder case that the quiet town's two police officers can't possible handle.
But this isn't just a crime scene.
And the priest is just the beginning...
Excerpt
In the confusion that swept through the square, panic spread like a virulent fever.
Those who saw the blood-letting, who knew even as they struggled to comprehend the signals sent from eyes to brain that an atrocity was emerging, something ancient and primal and unstoppable, simply turned and ran blindly. Several, paying no heed to the limited visibility of the morning, smashed into walls or posts, and were swiftly set upon. Others found that the beings that now chased them down seemed indefatigable, reeling in the yards inexorably, until they were close enough to claw and rend their victims.
James Thomas, retired gardener and still-going-strong octogenarian, had only set out for his morning paper that day, but with his knees playing up, had taken the car.
James preferred to walk, even when the pain was present, because he understood that opportunities to get out and enjoy the world, or spend time with others, should always be taken. That was one thing about reaching what the TV euphemistically and poetically referred to as your twilight years: if you were lucky enough to hang on to your senses (as many of James’ long-time friends had sadly not been) then the world was brought into sharp focus as the timer ticked down toward zero.
So much of the modern world seemed designed to segregate and isolate, everyone sitting in protective bubbles of their own design: they travelled everywhere in cars, knowing only the destination and nothing of the journey that took them there, or they became slaves to their television or their computer or their office, living like ghosts, never connecting with those around them.
James often thought of the time he had visited his grandson living in Bristol, discovering that his evenings were spent lost in an online game of some sort, and that he didn’t even know his neighbours’ names. James had left after a few days to return home with a heavy heart.
On this day however, the fire that lived in his ancient knees had just been too much, his joints protesting loudly that the previous day’s gardening – long hours of planting daffodils and azaleas and rhododendron bushes – had been just a tad too optimistic.
So he took the car, but compromised. He would stop for a cup of tea somewhere and read his paper, hopefully finding a few people to have a natter with before returning to the hollow silence of his empty house.
Now he sat, stunned, behind the wheel as the car trundled to a halt, and he saw the scene unfolding in the square before him, and found to his surprise, that eight decades on the planet did not mean he had quite seen it all before.
All around him were people running and screaming, dropping to the floor in sprays of blood, or pouncing on the people who had been their lifetime friends until moments before and tearing them apart with teeth and fingers.
It was incomprehensible, and for a moment he felt the mind that he worked so hard to keep alert with puzzles and hobbies drifting like a leaf on the surface of a fast-moving stream, and he was back there in the unending nightmare, the one he worked so hard to submerge, the furious crimson skies glowering over the lowest ebb in human history. The broken bodies as skin clashed with industrial steel and the insanity of men that had grown too powerful, and too greedy.
This was something different though, something that was immediately apparent. There was no order here, no purpose, no matter how evil or misjudged. Not war. Just chaos and disintegration.
It was only when a man, covered in blood, strips of flesh hanging from his face and eyes that looked like ready-to-burst boils, leapt onto the bonnet of the car and threw himself bodily into the windscreen, sending sharp cracks right across it, that James snapped back into the present and found that age hadn’t quite dulled his reactions entirely.
He threw the car into reverse, and stamped on the accelerator, never taking his eyes away from the bloody horror that clung to the breaking glass.
He would, he thought, readily throw himself out of the door when that glass fell away, and, dodgy knees or not, he would run like a teenager.
Such was his focus on the monster trying to get in that he entirely lost the direction of the car, swerving blindly, glancing off the brickwork off one of the buildings that crowded around the narrow streets, the collision threatening to rip the steering wheel from his grasp. The impact made the car shudder and lurch, and suddenly the abomination that had gripped his bonnet was gone, lost in the fog.
James began to give a silent thanks to whatever god was clearly watching over him, and ploughed into the petrol station he hadn’t even seen racing toward his rear view mirror.
The world ignited.
Professional Reviews
Panic review by horrorchannel.co.uk
Confident with a savage streak, Panic is one of those books that really grabs your attention and grasps the reader like a limpet on a rock. A rather blood-drenched, gut-munching limpet that is!
Michael Evans, disgraced police officer, thought isolated St. David's made a good place to hide from the past that haunts him. For Rachel Roberts it had been home, the only place she could go when the life she dreamed of turned sour. Victor lurked in St. David's because he knew the horror that approached. Because he helped to create it. Because isolation might just be the only way to survive.
Tightly written, fast paced and gruesome as hell, Panic feels like a bloody, adult version of Doctor Who, in fact what Torchwood should have been like. From the rather gory start the book introduces strong characters and a plotline that keeps you wanting to know more. Griffiths has a natural ability to form interesting people that you care for and when this infestation takes hold and the way they all interconnect and deal with such an unpredictable situation is written very honestly.
This being a first novel you’d expect some the chapters to have raggy edges but Griffiths keeps it tight and smooth but never stops himself from letting the reader know that the horror here is of the very brutal kind and some of the deaths sequences are very detailed. This adds to the book’s impact and staying power. It also stops itself from answering too many questions that are thrown up during some of the events. It keeps itself very grounded even when bizarre things are happening and is played totally straight throughout. There’s no ironic tone to the book, it’s very bleak in places but this adds to the alienation the main leads begin to feel and is quite unnerving at times.
If you like your horror strong and bloody then this is for you and I for one can’t wait to read what Mr Griffiths has lined up for the next book in this series.
Strange capsules have dropped out of the sky and delivered their payload, a virus. A really nasty one at that!
One capsule/canister drops into the sleepy little town of St. David's and the carnage begins at the Bay Restaurant where a customer is nursing a pretty grim hangover. Suddenly the door opens and in walks the local Priest carrying a recently severed head.
There are only two Policeman in St.David's one is Michael Evans the other Carl Wilkins. Carl loves his food but his Wife insists he only eats Muesli for breakfast so they go up to the Bay Restaurant where Carl can have a decent meal. What greets them there is carnage.
Apart from Michael, the only other main players are Rachel her Brother Jason and a strange man called Victor who lives in a kind of nuclear bunker in the woods.
Now starts the game of cat and mouse, the first three desperately trying to avoid being bitten.
Victor who has lived in total isolation for many years has something to do with this virus but what part did he play?
An excellent first novel written very fluidly and leaving you wanting to keep on reading and reading until you reach the end.
Leaves you wanting more!
This is pretty impressive for a first novel. I liked the characters, and the plot moves along at a good, fast pace, dragging the reader along with it. Its suspenseful, and very difficult to finish a chapter without being sucked into the next one. Nice, underused setting for this type of story too.
Seems very polished, none of the basic errors that a lot of these kindle books can have which is a blessing.
I'd have liked to have spent a bit more time with one of the characters, and for me personally I could have stood it being a bit more gory, but the level of gore is enough for an adult, and not too much for a young adult. These are minor quibbles really. Well worth a read and it ends with a hint of a sequel which I'll definitely get if/when it comes!
A great read!
A hugely enjoyable page turner with a gripping storyline, well rounded believable characters and good old fashioned suspense to pull you in.
From the start the author created a strong believable world for his characters to exist in, the storyline expanded at a good pace always holding your attention and leaving you wanting to know more. The scares and horror of the story were delivered with great skill whilst still making the characters believable and likeable, you wanted them to succeed even though the odds were becoming greatly stacked against them.
This is definitely a standout novel in its genre with powerful story telling and character development that is often missing from a lot of the indie horror genre. Liked this a lot and would certainly recommend!
After Satan negotiates a pact with God and unleashes his army of demons, a secret sect battles a diabolical prophecy that threatens humanity.
Release Date: November 21, 2018
WEIRD RHODY is a short story collection featuring five strange tales all set in Rhode Island and written by five Rhode Island authors. The anthology is a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, the Ocean State's famed author of pulp horror.
