Haven’t written a flash fiction in a while, thought it might be good to get my hand back in!

Paul was an only child. He was also small for age, a little sickly, and blond. None of this, however, was important. What was important was that the was an only child, a lonely only child, but that it had not always been this way.

Because Paul could remember a time when he had had brothers, and a sister. He could remember a time when he had had cousins who came to visit for the summer, and a best friend who lived two doors down. Paul remembered when there had been a school, instead of a quiet, empty building which was called whatever you called a school without children in it. The adults didn’t seem to notice, and if they did then none of them would talk about it. It was as if every other child Paul had ever met was some elaborate imaginary friend, a complex delusion that seemed more real to him than the possibility that there were no other children in the village, and that there never had been.

What convinced Paul more than anything else though, was the forest. Just as all the other the children had disappeared from the village, so the forest seemed to have crept undoubtedly closer. Vast, dark, and teeming with un-quiet and malevolent life, Paul was sure that the forest had somehow swallowed up the intervening fields that had once sat between it and the village, that it had crept somehow closer while no-one was looking. He would go it, sometimes, when the adults were busy doing whatever they did that preoccupied them enough that they could ignore the fact that their children were vanishing. He would creep along its outer edge, where the grass in the fields turned dry and brown and papery, where the gnarled roots of the ancient trees twisted up around each other like snakes grasping for Paul’s ankles. He wondered how trees so impossibly old could have moved, or sprouted here where once there had been only open, grassy fields. He would listen to the strange noises that emanated from within; the popping of branches, the crunch of leaves, the rasping whispers of wind squeezing between the densely backed trunks. He would listen in the hope that there might be an answer in there somewhere, that somewhere in the deep dark bowels of the forest that he dared not penetrate, might be the reason that the children and vanished and that he was so utterly alone.

It was a nondescript day in August when the forest finally answered.

The sun was high overhead, and it was one of the days when Paul found moments in which he could enjoy his isolation and forget for a moment that he was the only child in the village, the only child in his whole world. He was laying on his back in the long grass, a light breeze running low across the ground and turning the tiny patch of field that remained between the forest and the village into a bright green sea. He dreamt of being a pirate on the high seas, but had long since forgotten the faces of the other children that would have crewed his mighty pirate ship. They were nothing but blurs now, thick limbed creatures of his imagination with faces made of formless pink sponge.

He was boarding a French trading ship when he became of the eyes in the forest, the eyes that were watching him. He caught a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye at first, freezing him where he lay. His pirate ship, and his sponge-faced crew, vanished in an instance. Captain Paul the Terrible was once again Paul the boy, and he was at the edge of the forest that took children.

And it was looking at him.

Painfully slowly, Paul stood up. He didn’t turn his back on the forest for a moment, keeping his eyes on the patch of tangled roots a few feet below where the eyes were. The eyes did not waver, and did not blink. They just stared, two silver almond shaped eyes, staring out of the woods. Eventually, Paul lifted his gaze and looked directly into those strange eyes, those eyes that were right there and yet so very far away. Eyes from inside, looking outside, eyes from wherever it was the wood came from. Eyes that were fixed on Paul and did not move.

Paul swallowed, mustering his courage. “Well,” he said, his voice never more that of a lonely, little boy than in that moment, “Are you going to take me too?”

Without an answer, the eyes blinked, and were gone. No arms encircled Paul, no trees moved to grasp at him with their rough, wooden boughs. The earth did not open up, there were no thorny vines whipping out from the darkness to take him. There was nothing at all.

Just a boy, and a forest. A forest that didn’t like sickly, lonely boys. A forest that liked a challenge.

Derek’s environment suit creaked and hissed as he clambered awkwardly down the moss covered slope. Vines coiled around his boots with each step, snagging his ankles, constantly threatening to trip him and send him toppling head first towards the valley floor. A fall was the thing that all of the explorers feared the most. The environment suits were sturdy, but something about the atmosphere of this new planet made their joints brittle. They wheezed and groaned more than they should, and sometimes stiffened unexpectedly. Worst of all, the face-plates had become prone to cracking at the slightest impact. The soft crinkling of the plastic, the sudden whistle as the pressurised air escaped, these were the sounds that death made on this planet on the far side of everything.

They had planned to use the suits only for the first few weeks, whilst they bodies adjusted to a new gravity and they convinced themselves that there were no dangerous toxins or virii lurking in what should have been fresh, clean, compatible air. A few weeks. That’s what it should have been.

Six months into the mission, however, and the planet still had surprises for them.

As the resident xeno-biologist, it was supposed to be Derek’s job to catalogue the flora and fauna, in particular the vegetation. He had predicted viable food sources, even possible bio-fuels. So far, he had held only a single piece of native vegetation with an ungloved hand, and had spent three days in the infirmary as a result. As best he could now guess, the entire planet was completely toxic to human life.

A thriving eco-system, full of seemingly boundless life and variety, and all of it poison.

Derek suspected that was the reason they had just started calling it “the planet”. “New Earth” somehow stuck in the throat now. It was also the reason that all of them, with the exception of the Captain, had stopped sending messages home. What could make you send a message across the cosmos if all it was going to say was “We failed, you’re all doomed.”

For all Derek knew, Earth was dead by now anyway. Either that, or Earth had abandoned its explorers and gone on to “Plan B”, whatever that might have been. In either case, the seven of them were the last humans that Derek was ever likely to see and, to him, that made them the last seven humans in the entire universe.

The environment suit pinged, and a green dot floated across Derek’s heads-up display.

“Finally,” he muttered. He had been searching for the ship’s engineer, Peter “Heavy” Hudson, for two hours; ever since Hudson’s location beacon had vanished from the ships radar, along with his vital signs.

The ankle joints of the suit cracked and gasped as Derek dropped the last few inches off the mossy slope to the valley floor. Beneath his feet, the crushed vegetation let out a tiny cloud of mustard yellow spores. Derek knew the spores well. It was the spores that had put him in the infirmary, it was the spores that caked every seam and joint of his environment suit. It was the spores that had fried the insides of the ships main drive, making escape from the planet impossible.

What Derek couldn’t work out was why every plant, every flower and creeper and vine and fungus on this whole planet released the same yellow spores. Yellow spores, everywhere he looked. Yellow spores, slowly encrusting everything.

Except, it wasn’t everything, Derek knew that.

It was just them. Just the humans

Derek headed towards the green dot, carefully stepping over the gnarled roots and twisted vines. The yellow spores, seemingly caught his wake, drifted along behind him, landing one by one onto the environment suit.

Crack, hiss, pop.

Crack, hiss, pop.

Derek might have found the sounds of his suit comforting, like listening to summer rain on a rooftop, if he hadn’t been so terrified.

Peter “Heavy” Hudson had been sixteen pounds over flight weight on the day of the launch. They had all known about his weight issues, and his appalling impulse control. They were indulgences the mission team would never had allowed, had it not been for the fact that half the technology in the ship was Hudson’s design. They all knew that if they had a chance of getting from one side of the universe to another, any chance at all, it was only with Hudson on board.

Two days before the launch, he’d given the mission a four thousand three hundred and twenty one to one against chance of success. Derek had made a note of it, it was the lowest odds that Hudson had ever given and he gave odds on everything.

Derek tried not to guess what the odds were that Hudson was still alive.

Rounding the corner, he got his answer. Hudson was sitting in a small clearing of four inch high, dew kissed grass, strew with mustard yellow topped mushrooms. Sitting cross legged, letting a thin mist of yellow spores settle gently on him. Sitting with his helmet on the floor next to him.

“Hudson!”

Derek’s voice rattled the intercom as he reflexively called out his team mate’s name. Without his helmet on, Derek couldn’t be sure if Hudson had heard him or not.

Derek raced awkwardly across the small clearing. The right knee joint of his environment suit let out a loud crack and refused to bend, leaving him dragging one stiff leg behind him. He couldn’t hear any air leaving the suit, but over the sound of his own ragged breathing in his ears it was hard to tell. The suits amplified everything that you didn’t want to hear.

“Hudson!”

The engineer slowed turned, cocking his head as if the sounds of Derek crashing across the clearing were coming from somewhere much further away. His eyes finally focussed on Derek, a broad smile creasing his wide face. His eyes were glazed over, a mist turning them entirely white. Juice from the yellow capped mushrooms ran from his lips and dripped from his chin.

Derek came to a juddering halt.

“What are you doing, Hudson? Get your helmet back on!”

Hudson raised his hand, and offered Derek a palm full of half chewed mushrooms.

“Mush … room?” he slurred.

Derek jabbed the radio controls on the forearm of his suit. Static filled him helmet, as if every joint and seal of his suit had burst at once. Whatever had blocked Hudson’s locator was blocking Derek’s radio as well.

“Damn, damn,” Derek muttered, switching off the radio. He grabbed Hudson by the hand, scattering the half eaten mushrooms. Something squealed in his shoulder joint as he tried to haul the corpulent engineer to his feet. “Come on Heavy, help me out,” Derek gasped.

“Mush … room?” Heavy asked again, groping with his free hand in the grass for more of the mysterious fungi. “Mush … room?”

Derek lost his grip on Heavy and stumbled backwards. His boots slithered underneath him on the wet grass, refusing to grip and, for a moment, the suit didn’t make a sound at all. Derek held his breath as he felt his centre of gravity shift, and he knew that he was falling.

With a thud, Derek landed flat on this back. He didn’t breath out, didn’t dare, concentrating instead on listening intently for any sound of air escaping his suit, any hint that the fragile plastic face plate might have cracked.

He didn’t hear Hudson plodding closer, and he didn’t see Hudson pick up the twisted branch from the ground. He didn’t hear the strange, alien sounds that came from the engineer as he crept closer to him. He didn’t see the cloud of spores that burst from the mushrooms that littered the floor rush into Hudson’s nose and mouth.

All he heard, was a crinkling of plastic crumpling under pressure.

All he heard, was a thin hiss as the safe, clean air of his environment rushed out.

All he could see was a thin silver spiderweb, growing across his field of vision as his faceplate cracked.

When Hudson’s shadow fell over Derek, it was almost a relief.

He held out a handful of mushrooms again, and cocked his head to one side. When he spoke, it wasn’t with his voice, but none of his normal inflection or personality. It was as if someone else was speaking, someone else who had slipped on a suit made out of Hudson and was slowing getting used to the way that it moved, to the way that Hudson’s bones and muscles and skin popped, and wheezed, and groaned.

“It tastes … it tastes … tastes … a little like … grilled cheese …”

The mushrooms fell through the air, a rain of partly masticated fungus, as the thing in the Hudson suit raised the tree branch over its head.

Inside the suit, Derek closed his eyes and listened as the gentle rain of pops and cracks became a thunderstorm.

The audio recording of my Bristol Comic Expo panel, “Signs and Portents“, is now available from the Sidekick Cast website, iTunes, and anywhere where good podcasts can be found.

Before I write anything about this panel, I want to send out a huge thanks to both the boys from Sidekick Cast and to everyone who turned up to make the panel a success. We had some great questions, an incredible game of Secrets and Lies, and the whole process was made significantly less nerve racking and markedly more awesome by having a room full of friendly faces.

Gushing over.

If you missed the panel, other than a potted history of The Dark and MWM, some shameless plugging (including a new personal best for me), and some light hearted ribbing of a certain missing monkey, you probably missed me talking about codes, fiction, stories inside stories, fringe science, how thinly read I really am, and trying to answer some questions from people who had clearly thought about them beforehand. The swines. (Barry Nugent, I’m looking at you).

We had a lot of positive feedback about the panel throughout the show, so if you did miss it and would like to catch up, download the “Signs and Portents” podcast today.

For anyone wondering what the mysterious “merchandise” that I’ve been alluding to on Twitter is, it’s badges. 100 lovely, 25mm badges, lovingly made by my new best friends at Badge Planet.

If you want to get hold of one, you need to track me down with your copy of The Dark for signing or perhaps try asking one of “The Darkettes”.

Yes, I have Darkettes.

I don’t think you can get too excited about the Bristol Comic Con, can you?

The Dark went live on the Playstation Digital Comics network last week and my good friend Lee was kind enough to tweet me these shots of the comic up and running on his PSP!

I heard from Harry at Markosia that the book has been doing very well indeed in terms of downloads and the guys at Sony have tweeted me recently to say there has been a lot of positive fan feedback. Great news!

If you’ve got a PSP and you have downloaded the book, I’d love to know what you think.

The Dark has pride of place today on Sony’s Digital Comics Blog.

Click here to read their article.

I’m still thrilled not only to see The Dark on this platform, but also with all the support that Sony are showing the book since signing us up exclusively. If you have a PSP and have downloaded the book(s), we’d love to hear from you!

Omnicomic give us their take on the coded messages hidden throughout “The Dark” today …

See what they did there? They’ve “encoded” secrets into the comic that will give the reader the chance to solve the mystery before Abbot himself can figure it all out. Definitely not a conventional means of relating to the reader but I’m definitely digging it. I mean, how often do even books engage you on this level?

Preview pages etc. can be found at Omnicomic.

Yesterday “The Dark” and “Freeman of the Armed Services” were officially launched at Ace Comics in Richmond. Behold, the beautiful picture of creators and books below …

First off, many thanks to Ace for hosting the signing. If you’ve never been, it is an absolutely great store. Lovely layout, brilliant stock, and really great staff … a true gem. It also seems pretty easy to get to, at least if the District Line is running (more on that later, thankfully I was chauffer driven to London like the fabulous celebrity I am).

The signing went very well, with lots of very positive feedback on the book. A lot of people already knew about the book as well, so it’s good to know that all the podcasting and reviewer stalking has been worth it and everyone’s support for the book is working.

Obviously London is fair distance from my usual stomping grounds and with my FP signing, Cribbs Causeway, and then Bristol not that far around the corner, I was hard pressed to convince many of the faithful that they should make the epic journey to the big smoke. Fortunately, Huw J is quite clearly the King of London, knows just about everyone, and was immensely gracious in sending many of his visitors, friends, family, etc. my way to take a look at Te Dark.

Despite it being as difficult to pitch without spoilers as ever, a number of people bought copies and hopefully they enjoy the book and appreciate me not giving away any secrets!

So, one down and many to go. My next signing is in the evening on April 8th at Forbidden Planet in Cardiff. This is the home town gig, and hopefully I’ll see you there!

Rich Clements (he of Hi Ex, FutureQuake, and Turning Tiger fame) has reviewed The Dark for the Forces of Geek website.

Early on, just as I was settling into the groove, Lynch pulled the rug from under me in a glorious and unexpected way. Which is impressive enough to do once, but he manages to do it another two or three times throughout the book.

The plotting in dense and impressively done. The writing is multi-layered and clever and demands that the reader pays attention (this is a good thing, by the way).

As Rich himself would say … “Thank Grud it’s good”.

Read the complete review at Forces of Geek

After months of of top-secret work behind the scenes, we can finally reveal that The Dark has a new digital home … the Sony Playstation Digital Comics Network.

As of March 25th The Dark will available for download in four installments to your PSP. All of the installments have the same release date, so you will be able to pick up the equivalent of the entire trade from day one.The Dark is taking  pride of place alongside Markosia’s critically acclaimed “Dark Mists” as the first Markosia titles to launch on the platform. Markosia were also able to reveal today that The Dark is also one of two Markosia titles that have been signed up exclusively by Sony for the platform!

‘These are exciting times for us,’ says publisher Harry Markos, ‘there is no denying that the digital comic is here to stay and it will have a major say over the next year or two. We are delighted to be partnering with Sony in this venture and from what I have seen so far; this is very much an exciting step forward. The graphics look amazing on PSP, crystal clear and surprisingly user-friendly thanks to the Autoflow feature.’

For those who remember the early days of “The Dark” as a project, digital was always a key medium for us, and I’m delighted that Sony have put their weight behind us by signing the project exclusively.

I’ll see you all on the Playstation forums!