Ian's Gang: Pretty Grim

By Ian Kidd

In the wickedly inventive season 8 premiere of Ian's Gang, a series of mysterious deaths in a small country town set Ian's Gang on a confrontation course with the Grim Reaper himself...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Kidd
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311247711

Ian Kidd

I grew up in South Yorkshire, England, before emigrating to South Australia at the age of sixteen. My writing ambitions began as a child, when I became notorious in my class for writing short horror stories that would probably have them calling in the child psychologists nowadays! I have written everything from non-fiction ebooks to published short fiction, and served as script editor on two proposed horror feature film scripts for an LA based director. In terms of fiction I have written dozens of novellas, including more than 70 stories in the "Ian's Gang" sci-fi adventure series. I still live in Queensland, where I work as a freelance writer.

Book preview

IAN'S GANG - PRETTY GRIM

BY

IAN KIDD

Ian’s Gang (c) Ian Kidd 2014

Published by Smashwords

IAN'S GANG

Are:

Ian Williams

Matthew Parker

Steve Botham

Philip Vasquez

Sean O'Reilly

Commander Wilburts

CHAPTER ONE

Six years ago...

Lieutenant Elton Harbert, a thin young man with fair hair in his mid-twenties, walked down the high street of his home town, nodding to people as he went. The village of Cornell, a quiet little country town not far from Lancashire, had been Elton's home for as long as he could remember. Born here, grew up, probably die here, he thought. And soon - hopefully - marry here. Elton felt the weight of the engagement ring in his left trouser pocket, and smirked. Bianca would be surprised. He just hoped the answer would be yes.

KA - BOO - OOM!

Elton flinched, his romantic ruminations dispersed by an ear-splitting crack that almost seemed to shake the town. Thunder? Elton considered incredulously. He looked at his fellow townsfolk. They were staring up into the sky, entranced. Elton looked up, and his jaw dropped. "What the... hell?" he breathed.

The sky above Cornell - bright and blue and cloudless only a few moments ago - was...well, flickering, changing colour... black, white, red, green, pink, purple, yellow... not just that, though, the actual sky seemed to be shuddering... like it might collapse on them at any moment. Then it began to rain. Black rain, pouring down, dousing the ground, the buildings, the people. Elton stuck his tongue our as a droplet hit. It tasted like oil. Then, just as Elton thought the situation could get no more bizarre or surreal... it began to unrain. The droplets rose from the ground, from their clothes, the black colour fading as they did so, and began to rise back up into the multi-coloured, shuddering sky. Then, the shuddering stopped and the sky returned to a peaceful, cloudless blue. Elton looked around at the townsfolk, staring at him in equal bewilderment. There was now no indication that anything had even happened.

* * * *

Back to the future...

Ian stood on the road outside and looked at the new Ian's Gang Base -or