Here Be Demons

Sometimes even devils get bored ... a short horror story by David Wesley Hill. Not for the squeamish!"We called them Martians for they had no other name. When they bore down upon us in droves from on high, they offered no treatise, no declarations, and certainly no gentleman's agreement. Had they called out to us, we would have responded, would have bartered, bargained or surrendered. Instead, the only sounds uttered unto us were the clicking of multiplicitous claws, sinewy carapaces sucking and frothing as they slid together like fleshy armour, and the vague sound of chittering when they moved."1914. An alien invasion decimates London, forcing a pair of reluctant soldiers to lead a ragtag group of refugees out of the city and to safety through a country that they no longer recognise. Along the way, they encounter horrors of both a terrestrial and extra-terrestrial nature, encounters which bring about an end to everything that they've ever known. Equal parts action and philosophy, their story is not a celebration of war, nor of the soldiers themselves, rather it concerns that inner darkness that lies under the surface of all authority, and the resulting effect upon society when the true horror of humanity, unburdened by any sense of propriety, awakens in violent fashion.