They kill us for their sport: new uncanny novel explores tragedy

Chris Flynn uses archetypal characters to show us how trauma makes people respond. By Joanne Anderton

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Chris Flynn's latest novel, Orpheus Nine, explores the small-town fallout of a global catastrophe: something so inexplicably cruel that it forces its characters, and us, to reassess the very point of existence.

How do you continue when it seems like all hope, like any chance for a future, is gone?

It's Saturday morning in the rural Australian town of Gattan and the kids are playing football. Everything's pretty normal. While the children play, the parents unofficially coach from the sidelines, when they aren't sniping at each other, that is.

We meet Jess, whose nine-year-old son Tyler is excelling on the field; Dirk, whose 10-year-old son Alex is also playing, despite technically being a little too old for the team; and Hayley, whose eight-year-old daughter Ebony wishes she was old enough to play.

Then, at 11am, everything changes. The children stop playing. They stand stock-still, fear on their faces, and begin to sing a line from King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." And then they die. Horribly.

That is, all the players except Alex. Only the nine-year-olds are affected by this terrible, inexplicable event. Helpless, Jess is forced to watch Tyler die. Dirk is spared that horror; Alex has, just a week ago, turned 10. And Hayley's entire world is now steeped in dread, because it keeps happening.

Every morning since, on the day a child turns nine, they freeze, they sing and they die. No one knows why.

And no one can stop it.