Solomon heard them coming just before dawn. He shook me awake and then I woke the kid, putting my hand across his mouth, just in case he made a noise. He didn’t. He was becoming a proper little soldier.

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The alien thing – white and oblong like a small refrigerator – was still smouldering and popping as Brad slid down the loose soil into the great gouge it had cut into the earth. Suddenly isolated Brad felt his drunken bravado slither away.

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We buried Calum’s da today. We put him in the same patch of ground that we’d pretended to put Calum in. Eighteen months. I never thought the old man would last so long.

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“Five…” The astronaut scanned the console. All green. Good to go. “…four…” Far away engines roared, his helmet muffled the noises but vibrations still rattled his teeth. “…three…” He thought of the crowd, miles away, cheering. He imagined his parents and his wife and child. He smiled. “…two…” He would be a hero. The first […]

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I’ve got two old shirts wrapped around my mouth and nose but, even so, I can still feel the dust coating my teeth, prickling on my tongue, and the thought of breathing it in, of swallowing it, is making me feel sick, The world is gyrating insanely, like a child’s spinning top just before it […]

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She kissed me once and I was lost. “Come,” she said. Like a lamb, I went.

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The editor called at about five. I’d been waiting for the call, so I let the answerphone take it. As I say, I’d been expecting the call, but not for it to start: “Fucking hell, Wilksy, this is the best thing you’ve ever written -” I snatched the phone from the cradle.

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The girl was skinny, skinny like one of them you see on teevee. Not the pretty ones, the starving ones – though my momma says sometimes you can’t always tell which is which, these days.

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“Who’s that?” There was darkness, the tang of decay and breathing, rasping and loud. “I’m here.” Petr shuffled forward, arms outstretched, almost blind.

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