THE HIGH LIFE
BY
Killian H. Gore
At around
two-minutes-thirty into the launch Marvin heard they were already at 39 miles
altitude and travelling at more than 3000 miles an hour. He closed his eyes. He
wanted to turn off the headset, although it was out of his control. These
figures were incredible, and incredibly scary. But they also revealed to him
that the rocket was now in a galaxy far, far away… well, not exactly. He knew
that 62 miles was considered outer space, but at the speed they were going it
was now just a short time before everything would calm down and he’d be able to
chill out and enjoy his first experience of floating around inside a spaceship,
gazing out of the window and seeing the planet Earth from an alien invader’s
eye view.
John
goofily said, “Welcome to space, Marvin!” and the go-ahead was given to remove
the restraints and drift, gravity-free, around the capsule.
Being
weightless wasn’t an entirely new feeling to Marvin – he’d taken a few trips on
vomit-comet flights before. Nevertheless, being devoid of gravity inside a
craft that was currently coasting amongst the stars over a massive and glowing
planet was something very different. Now he felt like a proper astronaut. Had
he had any real drive in life, and not just been handed everything on a plate,
he’d likely have pursued a career with NASA. As a child, it was one of his
first aspirations – to fly to the moon and beyond. Being brought up around so
much money his father had assured him that they’d build their own rocket one
day and head off into space. In a way, that was almost the truth. Although,
true to Marvin’s lifestyle, he hadn’t had to do any of the building himself.
As Marvin
looked out through the large window on his left side he stared in awe at the
vastness of the planet Earth below him, crowned by the infinity of space. It
was worth every cent of his (not so) hard earned money. It truly was an amazing
spectacle and, by far, the best view he had ever seen in his whole life – and
he’d seen just about everything. Nothing topped this. But it was to be a
short-lived ogle.
Something
caught Marvin’s eye at the edge of the capsule.
Something
slimy-looking.
Primarily he thought he was looking at
a leak of some kind – possibly oil or maybe something they’d picked up as the
ship had accelerated up into space. He didn’t know. He had absolutely no idea!
Despite his interest in astronomy and space exploration he wasn’t particularly
knowledgeable on how it all actually worked. He had no time for that. John
clearly hadn’t seen it – he was looking out of another window, undistracted by
the anomaly he wasn’t privy to, the grin on his face now probably damn-near
nearly pulling his face apart.
Marvin pushed away from the window and
glided over to another window at the top of the capsule, away from whatever the
gooey stuff was. This was supposed to be a magical experience, he didn’t want
it marred by anything. Ugliness always seemed to want to drape its clammy arm
around him and spoil everything. But not this time. Not on this one. He was a
King and now he drifted over the globe like a god; elevated in stature. The
world below him had always been all his – his very own gigantic playground and
looking down on it really elucidated this belief.
A hand.
It had been a hand, hadn’t it?
It wasn’t some aberrant blob of oil.
It had fingers.
The full story features in the Gremlins Unauthorized Quiz Book
Available now from Amazon!
We’re Here! Over 200 cute, clever, mischievous, intelligent and dangerous trivia-filled questions about Joe Dante’s fantastic movie, Gremlins! If you stick to the rules you should answer them all correctly!
Features bonus sections on Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Creature-Features and the Movies of 1984… PLUS some monstrously difficult Gremlins questions!
AND… the Gremlins-inspired out-of-this-world new horror story by Killian H. Gore, The High Life – featuring a rather grotesque little monster on the side of a commercial spaceflight.
Now you have another reason to love Gremlins!
Please don’t get this book wet, expose it to bright light or read it after midnight!!! And remember, with this quiz book comes much responsibility!
PRAISE FOR KILLIAN H. GORE
“Killian H. Gore will test the most ardent horror geek!” – HorrorConUK
“A Gore-ious quiz book!” – Steven Monkey Mason
“Bitchin’ quiz book!” – Dan Palmer
“Insanely interesting trivia!” – Nathan Head
“A Cracking gift for any horror fan” – Peter Laws
“Another awesome quiz book!” – Tony Newton
