A Scent of New-Mown Hay
Tony looked through the glass and suddenly his head seemed to swell. There was a roaring in his ears and his eyes were very painful. He gripped the case and forced himself to go on working.
So that was it. That was what stood at the end of the maze. That was the thing that ran behind you in a dream and which you must never see.
He turned blindly away from the case, groping for a chair and fighting his desire to vomit.
Now Tony knew what it was, the nameless thing that was destroying humanity. But where had it come from, and how long had they got to find the antidote?
John Blackburn
John Fenwick Blackburn (1923–1993) was a British novelist who wrote thrillers, horror novels, and The Flame and the Wind (1967), an unusual historical novel set in Roman times, in which a nephew of Pontius Pilate tries to discover the facts about the crucifixion of Jesus.
His horror novels are often structured as thrillers, with detective story plots involving international espionage, but leading to a supernatural resolution. This means that, as with some of the books of James Herbert, many of Blackburn's horror novels are notable for pace and plotting rather than for atmospheric effects. Blackburn specialised in mixing modern concerns such as germ warfare and international conspiracies with ancient traditions and curses, often to ingenious effect.
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