The Way Up is Death

by Dan Hanks

Genres: General Fiction; Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Crime & Mystery; Humorous sci-fi; High-tech & Sci-fi Thrillers

Synopsis

A SFF thriller where a mysterious, otherworldly tower appears in the sky above the UK with a single word emblazoned above its doorway... ascend. A great read for fans of Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart.

When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.

As a grieving teacher, a reclusive artist, and a narcissistic celebrity children’s author lead the others in trying to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone… is up.

And so begins a race to the top, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares, as the group fights to hold onto its humanity, while the twisted horror of why they’re here grows ever more apparent – and death stalks their every move.

Release date: January 14, 2025

Publisher: Angry Robot

Print pages: 368

Sample

Prologue

The tower appeared in the skies above the UK on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday afternoon in the middle of May.

A tall, twisting fortress of the purest crimson, atop a floating island, it shimmered in the midst of swirling clouds tinged with blues and purples and pinks that were not of this world.

That it cast a shadow over the town of Hope, nestled in the lush hills of the Peak District, was a fact many would deliberate over later. But at the time they simply craned their necks and stared up at this illusion, this heavenly painting, thinking it a drone lightshow or a gigantic advertisement for a new cologne, or perhaps marketing for the latest streaming TV show that wouldn’t last beyond a season.

Within twenty minutes of the tower’s appearance, there were five car crashes along the wooded road through the hills to the town, fifty escaped sheep from an abandoned truck on the way to the slaughterhouse, and at least three dropped sandwiches at a family picnic. Within thirty minutes, the sight had become global news. Within an hour, the tower had become a meme. Within two hours, the constant sharing of the meme had brought down three social media platforms.

By midday the next day, two paranormal experts from the nearby town of Dark Peak had turned up, realised they were out of their depth, and left. Meanwhile, the prime minister of the UK had arrived to address the sight by megaphone, bluffing his way through a speech about shared values between us and whoever lived in the tower among the clouds. An hour later, with no response from the tower and a drop in his ratings among his rabid right-wing fanbase, he U-turned, and was on television declaring war.

Monday saw Hope cordoned off and the first armed vehicles arrive, while helicopters circled the behemoth in the skies above from a safe distance. Tuesday saw the first attempt by an airborne sniper to shoot the tower, only for the bullet to simply disappear before reaching it. Wednesday saw a fly-by by two Typhoon fighters, followed by a missile strike that again failed to do any conceivable damage.

Thursday saw a vote of no confidence in the prime minister, who resigned and was immediately replaced by his deputy, only for him to quit after being outed in a sex scandal that same lunchtime. At this point, the chancellor of the exchequer took over. She flew up to the Peak District, took one look at the tower, and also resigned.

For the entirety of Thursday night, the UK was leaderless. Some said it was the most stable the country had been in decades. Others put together a petition for Larry the Downing Street cat to take over. It reached forty million signatures by three in the morning.

By nine o’clock Friday morning, the foreign secretary had taken over and decided there was little to no threat, seeing as the tower hadn’t actually done anything of note in all the time it had been hanging in the skies above middle England. He declared the country must “Keep Calm and Carry On”, which, remarkably, everyone did.

And so, by Saturday afternoon, exactly one week later, the world had already forgotten about the floating tower, bored of its twisting, blood-red minarets and unwavering presence among the clouds.

Until a very definitive timer in bright golden light appeared on its façade. A timer that began a countdown, which experts quickly worked out would reach its zero hour in exactly two days.

And a single word appeared emblazoned over a foreboding, arched gateway everyone could see at its base. A word that spoke to the world of what the tower, and whoever sent it, required of them:

ASCEND.

CHAPTER ONE

Gone

Alden shifted nervously, a flicker of warmth rising in his chest as the woman reached across the pub table and placed her hand on his.

“It’s not easy, is it?” she said, holding his gaze with the kind of casual confidence that seemed so easy for everyone else, but only ever found him after a couple of beers. Right now, his belief was still paddling around at the bottom of his first drink. “Life, I mean. It seems to be hard for everyone these days, don’t you think? We’re all a bit lost, struggling to find ourselves.”

He nodded and took another sip, not daring to move the hand she held, lest she pull away. His chest was tight with that prickly, tingly, awful anxiety that haunted him relentlessly these days. But there was a gravity to the comfort of her touch, and he wanted to let it pull him in. After everything else lately, the relief of it was overwhelming.

Don’t you dare cry, he warned himself. Don’t ruin the first glimmer of happiness you’ve had in months, you absolute tool.

He took a deep breath, tried to centre himself.

“Do I have the look of the lost about me, then?” he said, jokingly. “Late twenties loser who needs his bandmates to set him up with women who are far too good for him. Or did Jess tell you my life story already?”

His date, Michelle, squeezed his fingers. “Jess told me that you’re a teacher by day, rock star by night, but hinted you haven’t had a great time for a while now and…” She paused. “Yeah, I could kind of sense it when you walked in. But isn’t that the backstory of all lead singers in bands? I’d kind of be disappointed if you’d turned up cheery! The brooding look suits you, by the way.”

Feeling his cheeks flush, he quickly hid his face behind another swig of beer. If only she knew it wasn’t really brooding that kept him quiet these days and had his unkempt hair falling over his face most of the time.

“Gotta brood if you sing in a band,” he agreed, then grinned. “Admittedly, it’s less effective with the kids at school, who just think you’re grumpy.”

“You enjoy being a teacher?”

“Love it. Hard work, but it’s the best.”

“Inspiring, too, I bet?”

“Oh, for sure,” he said, knowing it had been once. Right now? The feeling was like a colour he couldn’t fathom in a monochrome world. He gave his spiel regardless. “It’s a heck of a thing to know you’re changing lives, even in a small way, watching kids learn and discover new ways of thinking that you’re responsible for putting in front of them.”

In truth, he hadn’t been present in his classroom for weeks. There in person, sure, but his spirit set to autopilot. He didn’t think he’d been missed, either, seeing as the children didn’t pay that much attention even when he was engaged.

“And the band? You’ve played all around Manchester, haven’t you?”

“We have. You name a sticky-carpeted dive in town, and I’ve sung there and had a pint

or two spilled over me. Always fun.”

“I’ve seen you at work online. You’re good.”

He smiled. “There’s only so much of the beer-soaked experience you can get from YouTube, but thank you.”

“And yet Jess tells me you guys haven’t played for a while, because you’ve not been in the right headspace.” She tilted her head. “Want to talk about it?”

Alden swirled his drink around a little before placing the glass down. He really didn’t. Yet he didn’t want the conversation to dry up, either. There was something happening he hadn’t experienced in a while. A lightness he wanted to hold on to.

“I think that stuff is all second date conversation material?” he said tentatively, feeling buoyed by the idea he might see her again. Maybe it was the alcohol starting to work its magic, but there was a very small, very real sense of happiness forming inside him. Just a smidge of colour. Not enough for him to drop the façade, though. “I’m fine. I… uh…”

“I like the idea of a second date.”

He looked up in surprise. “You do?”

“I do.” Michelle held his gaze as she sipped her Guinness. “But you’d rather I talk about myself now, wouldn’t you?”

“Ha… well, yes. Actually that would be pretty great.”

Pulling her hand back, she swept her long blonde curls over her shoulders with a theatrical flourish and beamed at him. “OK, my friend, well, I can do that all night. It’s probably the thing I’m best at, if I’m honest. But I have to warn you, you’re in for quite the ride. Buckle up!”

His fingers flexed against the absence of her touch, but he quickly forgot as she proceeded to talk, her voice like the music he missed, her words like lyrics written for him. It was a symphony just loud and beautiful enough to distract him from the all-encompassing emptiness that had been burying him. The grief of what had been lost. The finality of the loneliness, and the terror that had tormented him with the likelihood he’d drift through life without purpose, departing this world without anyone or anything to miss him. Just one more insignificant soul who’d made no impact, no difference. 

He’d just slip away and nobody would notice.

For a moment, he thought of the tree on the hill which he took his dog, Leia, on walks to sit beneath. Their place of solitude. Just them, away from the noise and chaos. And he realised that’s when he’d last felt what he was feeling at that moment. That sense of companionship. Peace. Happiness.

He’d somehow caught a glimpse of it again here, with this person, in this pub, with the neon lights of the bar sparkling in the sticky rings across the table. Hope bloomed within him, along with the inevitable concern he might somehow ruin it, make it stop, cause her to up and leave. And then the emptiness would claim him again, wouldn’t it?

Except, no. Stop that. He’d been watching a lot of therapy videos on Instagram and that wasn’t the right way to be thinking, was it. Sometimes things just worked out! Wasn’t that what those thirty-second therapists and endless memes said? What if this was one of those times? He’d had enough shit to last him a lifetime. He was due something. A new chapter. A turning of the page. To be at peace again.

In the end, though, it wasn’t her who left.

As Michelle swept from one story into another, regaling him with the tale of how she’d first met Jess on a night out in Cambridge, a horrendous smashing of glass ripped through the bar.

Both swivelled their heads towards the noise, where a ponytailed barman had dropped a tray of drinks. But he was ignoring the liquid pooling at his boots and was instead gawping at the window.

Alden and Michelle turned to follow his gaze.

And as they peered out through the glass, beyond the city buildings, they saw

something amazing.

Not the sight of the mysterious red tower suspended above the clouds over the distant hills. Everyone had grown bored of that already, thanks to the thousands of TikTok sensations who had made it the focus of their videos in the week since it had first appeared.

No. It was that the tower – until then completely lifeless – was suddenly glowing.

Strange, shimmering lights blazed up its sides, forming hundreds of rows that pulsated in time with the heartbeat thumping against Alden’s ribcage. The rows looked very much like notches – markers of some kind. And, after a few moments, the very top one disappeared.

It’s a countdown, Alden thought.

Which is when he felt a strange burning sensation rippling along the inside of his skin, from his feet, all the way up and out to his fingers.

He looked to Michelle for help and she saw his panic. But as she asked, “You all right?” and reached across to him again, he saw with horror that her hand, her body, the bar, and the entire world around him, was growing blurry and indistinct.

“Help?” he said, before he inexplicably faded into nothingness.

Nia sat with her back straight in her home office chair, as her slouched colleague Matt and the bearded film director Rupert stared blankly at her from their respective boxes on the laptop screen.

“I still don’t get it,” Rupert droned in his monotonous, bored voice, his mouth slightly out of sync with his words, as his reception struggled to cope with the video call. He pushed his glasses up his nose in staccato motion and Nia half hoped the connection would simply drop out so she could go back to drawing. The director had been talking about the design of a new fantastical city she was screen-sharing. The one she’d spent all last night reworking after being told the same thing yesterday. That he didn’t get it… whatever that meant. How could she bloody well revise anything with such vague feedback?

“Perhaps if you tell me exactly what you don’t get, I can better rework it for you?” she suggested patiently, like talking to a child. “Is it the world you don’t understand, or the colours, or–”

Matt cut her off. His connection was irritatingly fine.

“Yeah, we’ve been hard at work on this one, boss, and we’re dying to get it right for you! Doesn’t matter if we pull more up-all-nighters, we’ll get it done

Won’t we, Nia?”

The pale, twirly-moustached man-child grinned at her as though they were some kind of partnership, a collaboration. But the truth of it was, he did nothing. He faffed about doing his own freelance work most days, while she revised and revised these designs as best she could, all by herself, because she couldn’t trust him to hit deadline.

“Sure, Matt,” she said, forcing a smile and not bothering to correct him. There was no point arguing the point; she was helpless, as she always was. No director she’d met ever listened, nor even cared what a lowly concept artist had to say. Which is why she preferred working from her tiny apartment in London, away from the chaos of the world, and had as little real-life interaction with people as possible. It was better that way. Just her, a digital pen and her imagination. That was a world she could control.

At least, it usually was. Creating art by committee was an entirely different story.

Holding in a sigh, she took a moment to gauge the likelihood of being interrupted again, then continued, “As I was saying, if you could just give me specifics about the design, maybe I could–”

Rupert cleared his throat, a disgusting phlegmy sound that dribbled through her speakers, just in advance of her seeing his jowls ripple on the screen. He then launched into a long monologue, ignoring her request for feedback and instead started telling her how to do her job. Nia just took it, too tired, overworked and over this process to fight her corner. She thought about faking an internet outage. It was tempting. But she knew they’d only have to pick it up later. It wouldn’t make any difference to anything. She was locked into sitting there and doing as she was bid.

Her shoulders sagged as the emotional scaffolding she’d constructed to get through the day began to collapse. If she got anything through this round of concept art for the latest Space Battles movie, it’d be a miracle.

“…and here, what’s this? A fountain? Why is there a fountain in this city? Is that something

you’ve brought in from back home in India? No, sorry, I don’t like it. I don’t think we should have water features here.”

“Once again, I’m British, sir,” Nia sighed, wanting to strangle him force-style across the video connection. “And no, you said you wanted to see more of the gravity-defying water features in the city. You asked for them in the last iteration. Here, look, I’ve still got the notes you sent that prove–”

“I think we can all see what Nia was trying to do,” Matt interrupted again. This time, she came very close to screaming at the screen. The dipshit leaned forward into his camera, elbows on the table, almost conspiratorially talking to the director. “She really went to town with including the upside-down fountains and those vertical pools, yeah. But too much, right? Far too much. That’s not what you wanted, was it?”

She glared at him. You little shit, she thought.

The words wouldn’t escape her mouth, though. Her lips almost formed them, but they’d almost formed them a hundred times before, and no matter how hard she wanted to say them, she couldn’t. She didn’t have the courage. She always felt stupid sticking up for herself, or chastising others for rudeness, or chasing those who didn’t put the effort into her that she put into them. She was permanently helpless, at the mercy of the whim of others.

Her gaze drifted to the top of a framed photo at the back of the desk. Two heads, together. One hers, younger than she was now. The other a pair of brown eyes framed by similarly dark hair, only just visible over the clutter across Nia’s workspace.

She didn’t bother moving any of it to get a better look. She knew there was nothing but cheesy grins and regret lurking there.

“Continue, Matt,” the director said with a nod.

“Right, well, what I envisaged was a little more subtle, less brash and on the nose, in keeping with your excellent notes. I think we can all agree that’s the best way to go. Nia’s stuff was probably pulling too obviously on her roots, but I’ve gone with something a little more normal. See what you think of this?”

Matt flushed Nia’s work from the video screen and replaced it with his absolutely piss-poor efforts. It wasn’t even finished in one corner of the image! It was as if he’d rushed sketching the revisions in the five

minutes before the call – which she knew he probably had. There was also very little to distinguish it from the work he’d shown yesterday, other than maybe a few more scribbled pillars and a fountain that looked suspiciously like a breast.

Of course, that’s what worked.

The director was leaning in. He nodded sagely and tapped his pen on the screen.

“Great work, my friend. Brilliant. Follow that line and make sure she does too, OK?”

“OK, boss, will do, thanks!” Matt said, as Rupert left the call. Matt then gave Nia a nod. “I think that went well, don’t you? Now, can you get on to that for me? I’m swamped with all the art for the new spaceship. Thanks, Nia, you’re a love!”

His face disappeared, too, and Nia’s visage of resignation filled the screen.

“Ughhhhh,” she groaned at herself, then shut the laptop lid.

This wasn’t how her life was meant to have gone. She had started out with dreams, for fuck’s sake. Had always wanted to seize the damn day. Perhaps even one day run her own business, make the decisions, be the one to say “no” when she bloody well wanted.

But regardless of the industry she’d stumbled hopefully into, it had always gone the same way. She was talented as anything, experienced as an artist in everything from movie production to video game design. Through her twenties and thirties she’d done the work, paid her dues, always felt that somewhere along the line it would just work out and she’d be allowed to finally control her own destiny.

Now the future was here, she was in her mid-forties, and still at the mercy of dickheads. What’s worse, she knew there wasn’t a damn thing that could change. She was too old. It was too late. She was screwed.

Feeling a sudden burning sensation around her chest, Nia very casually wondered if she was having a heart attack. There was no panic at all. No reaching for the phone in case she needed to call an ambulance. Given the amount of stress she endured, trying to just keep her head above water

in the choppy seas of life, she knew it was long overdue. She almost welcomed the sweet release of eternal rest.

And yet, as she tentatively felt around and realised the pain was only skin deep, she realised she wasn’t dying. With a frown, she tugged aside the nape of her blouse and looked down to see a strange mark appear on her chest.

It was in the shape of a leaf.

“Huh?” she said, touching a finger to it curiously.

Then her finger disappeared and so did she.

Dirk drew to a halt in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales, having just finished his brisk afternoon trail run. Barely out of breath, he checked his Garmin fēnix watch and grinned.

“Out-fucking-standing,” he crowed, letting his voice carry over the hills. He’d outdone his personal best by a good ten minutes and the world needed to know it. He punched the air. “Fuck yeah, dawg! One hour fifteen? You are on fire!”

A couple of sheep in a nearby field looked up and Dirk could almost see the envy in their little beady eyes.

And why shouldn’t they be envious of this exquisite statue of a man? He was Dirk Gentson, baller American, famous Instagram Reels comedian, and international bestselling celebrity children’s author. He was the fittest, hottest fifty-five-year-old around – way more than any of the other scrawny, bumbling British authors he’d suffered on the UK leg of his book tour – and he had the world figured out and bent over, waiting to be pounded into submission.

Slipping his phone from his running backpack, he felt it prudent to mark the occasion, knowing he probably looked pretty great. He did, too, just a slight sheen of sweat dampening his well-trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard, and giving his chiselled cheekbones that glow women loved.

He took a photo of the stats on his watch, then gave his best smouldering look and took a dozen more selfies – ensuring his button-down T-shirt was pulled open enough to show off his chest tattoos in the afternoon light. Pausing to scroll through to the ones he figured would get his female following thirsty, he plastered them across his social media.

The response was instant, and he couldn’t help getting a bit of a semi as the notifications and likes began pouring in.

“Goddamn influencing sensation,” he sung happily. He’d been milking his good looks all his life and was able to dazzle the entire world with the tap of a screen. Social media was magic. Designed to lift people like him above the masses. He felt it his God-given right to take advantage of that. Not only did it help sell his books, making him and his publisher even richer, but it was fun! He lived for that instant-gratification high, as well as the spicy DMs and conference encounters with hot single mums, flustered female interviewers – and, heck, even some of the event staff – that came with being famous and hot.

One hundred per cent wouldn’t change a thing. Perfect life. No notes.

Dirk grinned as he scrolled today’s incoming comments. He paused on one that said “Hottie” with several heart-eye emojis and checked the profile of the fan. He hadn’t seen her before, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d got to know most of the regulars who fawned over him, yet there were always new ones appearing daily. This one was a super-attractive redhead, striking a pose in her profile photo with a book on her lap and just enough hint of cleavage to make his shorts even tighter and get his pulse racing more than his watch suggested it had been.

He added her to his close friends list on Instagram – the one where he posted all his smouldering, sexier photos, for those women he fantasised about meeting for a future rendezvous. Then he swung his bag fully off his shoulder and on to the trail, lifted his T-shirt to show off his glistening abs, and pouted at the screen, ensuring the camera angle gave just a hint of his bulging shorts at the edge of the shot.

That one’s for you, Red, he thought, as his finger hovered over the button to post to the carefully curated list he’d just added the woman to.

But his finger never found the phone. As he went to press down, he felt his head go light, a burning sensation in his arm, and he promptly vanished from

the trail.

They weren’t the only ones who disappeared from their lives that Saturday afternoon. Ten other people vanished inexplicably from across the UK, taken from what experts would conclude was approximately a three-hundred-mile radius of the tower, just after the moment when it came to life and the timer appeared.

There was the missing father and daughter, Earl and Rakie, who had been playing at a fairground in Llandudno in North Wales, one second standing at a claw machine, trying to win a Jurassic World plush dinosaur, the next second gone, just as the winning toy dropped into the hole.

There was the shaven-headed football fanatic, Mel, who was also a leading financier in London, dressed in the best suit money could buy, on his way to a football match.

A French air stewardess, Monique, was serving drinks aboard Flight 113 from Paris to New York, flying just over the edge of Cornwall, when suddenly she was no more. The drinks trolley rolled into first class and crashed into an open toilet door, spilling champagne everywhere.

Bryan, a famous-in-the-Eighties TV personality, was waiting to talk about his new show, pacing nervously in the green room of a London studio, when the producer popped his head around the door and discovered he’d gone.

A widow in her sixties, Kim, with grey hair and a penchant for after dinner mints, only got through half a box during her afternoon watch of CSI: Miami, before she vanished without finding out who killed the stripper.

A young Manchester lad, Dev, bright and funny, had been playing five-a-side football at the local Pitz when he completely missed an open goal and subsequently went missing himself.

A thirty-something model, Mason, and a twenty-something PR executive, Casey, vanished on their way to very different photo shoots in Leeds and Liverpool.

And a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed priest was preparing for that evening’s Mass when he felt the warmth of the Lord marking him. He held his breath as he accepted it – he was being called home.

CHAPTER TWO

The Thirteen

Thirteen people was how they started.

Alden counted them not long after they all materialised at the base of the tower. It had taken him a few minutes to gather himself, one second sitting at a table feeling something akin to happiness, the next falling backwards onto a patch of grass. Materialised. That was the word that popped into his head as he dug his fingers into the mud and stared out over the Peak District from like a mile above it. Materialised, like in some kind of science fiction show.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, then opened them again, but it made no difference to the view, nor the fierce brightness of the sky, ...