Snatchers, is an apocalyptic horror, which sees the slow destruction of mankind, due to an unknown virus that is sweeping the globe.
This free novel tells the story of four sets of characters, trying to survive and coming to terms with the 'new world.'
The story focuses on a variety of individuals, including the Pointer family, Nurse Karen Bradley, Jack Slade who is searching for his son, and prison officers and inmates who have been released, who come together to survive the pandemic.
These set of characters, who are worlds apart as far as personality are concerned, are brought together, and find that as time goes by, their quandary becomes tougher by the hour.
The book ends with an explosive climax. Who will survive?
Excerpt:
The evening was dragging gloriously to the twenty-three-year-old woman's delight, as another shift at the hospital was something she wasn't looking forward to at all. Karen Bradley's eyes reluctantly glared at the clock on the kitchen wall once again, as she supped on a cup of tepid tea. She had four hours to go. Great!
What could she do in four hours?
She could sit and watch a film, then have a long hot soak in the new bath that was fitted in five weeks ago. Then sit back on the leather couch to count down the remainder of the minutes, before having to go through the same rigmarole of putting on her uniform, styling her hair, applying her light make-up, and mentally bracing herself for another arduous shift in the accident and emergency department.
The early evening was quiet, as her partner had gone on his usual night out on a Saturday. Despite that he had been working all week, she couldn't help but feel a little unhappy with his social expedition. Most people were going out, and she was about to endure another long shift. She admitted that her disdain toward her boyfriend was plain old jealousy, as it had been a while since she had been out with the girls or with her boyfriend, and she was looking forward to her next set of days off.
Karen poured more scolding water into her cup to freshen it up, grabbed a chocolate bar from the cupboard and walked into the living room. She then threw her legs to her side and put the TV on.
The first channel to come on was the twenty-four hour BBC news. She was about to put her romantic comedy TV programme on, which came with the package of the cable deal she had received, but her fingers remained still. The remote remained untouched, as her tired eyes continued to look at the TV.
The anchorman was called Ben Foster, and the individual he was interviewing was a woman called Helen Reading, who was an author of a book about the breakdown of society. Karen Bradley brushed her short brown hair behind her ears and listened to the interview, but it all seemed very bizarre. Ben Foster was in his late forties and she had always despised him, as she thought he was a bit of a letch that leered at his big-breasted guests, as well as Alison Jones, the weather girl.
The author was a doctor—a doctor of what, Karen didn't know—and although sitting, she seemed tall, gangly and wore thick brown-rimmed spectacles that matched her hair colour that sat in an old-fashioned bob style.
Over the last week or so, Karen had noticed that the news, as well as the local news, had been reporting an alarming increase of missing persons, attacks, murders and cases of insanity, amongst people across the country. People had been attacked by their own family and violence in hospitals had increased, especially when it came to bites. She was more than aware of this, as she had three cases of bitten victims in her hospital the night before.
The night before, she saw on SKY news that passengers on a plane from London to New York had been evacuated at JFK airport, after a series of bites had taken place while over the Atlantic. The six attackers had been restrained by other passengers and were arrested, but had to be rushed to hospital under police guard, due to the severity of their wounds. These kinds of incidents were becoming more frequent as the days went by, and it unnerved her.