Virginia Field

The Earth Dies Screaming

Human bodies are scattered around an English village, apparently dead in a sudden cataclysm. A small group of survivors gather in the local hotel bar, led by an American jet test pilot, Jeff Nolan. It appears a mysterious gas attack has killed off most of the Earth's population. Figures in space suits appear in the streets; Vi Courtland thinks they have come to rescue them but they turn and kill her with their touch. Several of these bulletproof killers stalk the streets. The remaining group goes to a local Territorial Army drill hall to look for weapons. The group arm themselves and struggle for survival against the invaders in the first step in an alien invasion. Vi rises from her death bed as a zombie with white eyes. Quinn Taggart shoots and kills her. Quinn knocks out Jeff and heads north with Peggy Hatton in a sports car. She runs off when he stops for petrol. She gets trapped in a house pursued by invaders and zombies, and she hides in a wardrobe. She then runs outside and is saved by Jeff who is looking for her. He runs down a space suited creature in his Land Rover, revealing it is a robot. They go back to the drill hall where young Lorna Brenard is about to give birth to a daughter. Meanwhile Ed Otis cannot face it and is drinking anything alcoholic he can find. Jeff and Mel Brenard use a short wave radio and triangulation to work out from where the aliens are transmitting their control signals to the robots. They locate the transmitter tower and are going to blow it up when robots start to appear. However, when the tower is destroyed the robots collapse. Quinn returns to the village as a zombie and Otis shoots him, saving Peggy. The survivors commandeer a plane and fly south in search of other survivors.