Thirteen-year-old Cherie starts her day on April 3rd like any other Saturday. Shopping, fun and friends are on the agenda, with only one slight alteration:
April 3rd is the day that the end of the world arrives.
Mysterious creatures known only as the Skins have been lurking in remote parts of the countryside, and April 3rd is the day that the Skins arrive in the big city for all to see. What follows is a horrifying discovery of what the creatures really are, and what that means for the future of the human race. Cherie is caught in the middle of the apocalypse with one mission in mind: to help her horrifyingly injured best friend find help. Her journey takes her to dark and gruesome places, where isolation, panic and death await.
Cherie will have to find strength within her fears to survive The Day The World Ended.
The much-anticipated horror series debut of Amazon bestselling author K.C. Finn has arrived. The Day The World Ended is a young adult horror novella, and the exciting prequel to full novel The Skin Revolt, releasing August 2015. Recommended for readers aged fourteen and above due to tense scenes, gore and violence.
To my distress, the news was on the wall-mounted TV here too, and it seemed now that the simultaneous sightings in Brecon and Pembrokeshire were not the only ones to have happened. This time, the report was focusing on a little town that I vaguely recognised, where a long, lumpy thing was lying in the middle of the road, covered by a sheet. Cariad had her back to the telly and she was totally engrossed in her phone. I’m not sure I could have alerted her to what was on the screen if I’d wanted to, for I was so transfixed by the sight of the mysterious covered lump in the road. It was only an animal, that’s what the Government had told us. Why was everyone so afraid to even try to move it? Bright yellow subtitles delivered broken chunks of what the reporter was saying.
THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH WALES CLAIM THAT THIS IS THEIR WORST NIGHTMARE REALISED. A SKIN HAS BEEN DISCOVERED IN THE BUSTLING CENTRE OF SWANSEA TOWN. THE CREATURE WAS ATTACKED AND KILLED BY MR GWYLL POWELL, WHO IS NOW BEING DETAINED BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.
The subtitles must have been a few seconds behind the pictures, because suddenly the lump in the road was gone, and a sobbing woman was talking.
WE GO NOW TO MRS POWELL, WHO WITNESSED HER HUSBAND’S ACTIONS.
In an effort to catch up with themselves, the yellow words became a sudden scramble of letters. What replaced them was green text, part of what the crying woman was telling the reporter. I watched the tears streak down the lady’s pale face, and a shiver ran through me as the subtitles rolled on.
– AND I REMEMBER ITS SKIN. NO WONDER THE POLICE CALL THEM SKINS. IT HANGS ON THE THING’S BONES LIKE IT’S READY TO FALL OFF. PALE AND SEE-THROUGH, JUST LIKE A GHOST.
A loud clatter made me jump, and I nearly had a tray full of tea and cakes spilled over me. Cariad’s mum gave me a panicked look as she set down our snacks. She put a hand to my brow, and it took me a moment to remember where I was. Everything was normal in that little tea shop. Everything was safe there.
“Sorry I frightened you, Cherie love,” she said kindly. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes,” I stammered. “Sorry, Mrs Thomas.”
“No matter then. You girls eat up and enjoy yourselves,” she replied.
Cariad had barely looked up from her phone the whole time her mother was there. Mrs Thomas flicked the lid of her daughter’s Yankees cap, and Cariad spared her a cheeky half-grin before her mum walked away. Whatever was happening on Cariad’s phone was far too important for her to stop and really look at her mother. I wish they had looked at each other, thinking back on that moment. I wish they had shared one last bright smile together.
If they had known that one of those faces would never see the other again, I’m sure that they would have paid a little more attention.
About K.C. Finn
K. C. Finn was born and raised in Cardiff, South Wales, where her love for storytelling grew at a precociously young age. After developing the medical condition M.E. / C.F.S., Kim turned to writing to escape the pressures of disabled living, only to become hooked on the incredible world of publishing.
As an author for Clean Teen Publishing and Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Press, Kim spends most of her time locked in the writing cave with an obscenely large mug of tea. When not writing, she can be found studying for her MA in Linguistics, watching classic British comedy, or concocting evil schemes in the secret laboratory in her attic.
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Until the next time….
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