Hell on Earth by Dafydd Ab Hugh Read Free Book Online Page A

never bring it up,” I said.
    â€œThere’s another reason I’m telling you this,” she went on. “I became obsessed with Mormonism while he was with them. I read books by them and against them. I even read the Book of Mormon.”
    â€œMaybe that could come in useful,” I suggested.
    â€œI doubt it. It just makes me more prejudiced. Look, Fly, if we find living human beings at the end of this, we must stand with them and fight with them. I’m promising you right now I won’t discuss religion with any of those patriarchal . . .”
    She paused long enough for me to jump in: “I get the picture.”
    â€œDo you have any opinions abut them?” she asked, quite fairly.
    â€œWell, I read an article about them having a strong survivalist streak; that they stockpile a year’s supply of food and stuff like that. You’ll get a kick out of this! When I visited L.A. once, I took in the sights: Disneyland, the La Brea Tar Pits, Paramount studios, the Acker Mansion, and I even found time to go into their big temple at the end of Overland Avenue. There’s an angel up top with a trumpet; I mistakenly called him Gabriel.”
    â€œThey must have loved that; it’s the Angel Moroni.”
    â€œWell, now I know.”
    â€œHeh. I used to drop the i off that name when I used it.”
    I took a deep breath. “Arlene, I’m going to hold you to that promise not to talk theology with them.”
    â€œScout’s honor,” she said.
    â€œWere you ever a Scout?”
    She didn’t answer again.
    We kept the flashlights off; the glow on the horizon was the only illumination I wanted in that desert. It was easy to follow the direction at night. We made sure that we didn’t waste opportunities.
    â€œYou’re burning night-light,” Arlene would say when it was her turn to wake me up. Then she’d snicker. Something amused her, but she didn’t let me in on it.
    Turned out that we ran out of food, but we had more water than we needed. It took us five days to get to Salt Lake City, the center of what once had been the Mormon world. And by God, it still was!
    We lay on our bellies in some brush, shielding out eyes from the sun, leaning against a side-paneled truck.
    â€œThey’re people!” marveled Arlene as we watched hundreds of men on the streets in the early dawn. They relieved other men who’d obviously been doing the night shift.
    â€œWhere do you think the women are?” I whispered.
    â€œHome, minding the kids. Mormons are so damned patriarchal.”
    â€œArlene . . .”
    We were in a good spot to see plenty, behind a wrecked truck on a rise. As the sun crawled up the sky, shafts of light came through the broken windows like laser beams, one blinding me for a second. We positioned ourselves to see more. There was plenty to see.
    The streets of this garrison town had over a thousand men with guns, and to my surprise I made out a few women and teenage girls toting heavy artillery. Arlene gave me one of her funny looks.
    I didn’t make her take back anything she’d said; when a society is threatened, it will do what it must or go down fast.
    â€œYou don’t think they might be working with the aliens?” asked my buddy. I had the same thought. But they didn’t act zombified, and we’d learned that the monsters preferred human lackeys in that condition. The spidermind had made only one exception when it needed knowledge in the human brain of poor Bill Ritch.
    We had to make contact with these people, but I preferred doing it in a way that wouldn’t get us shot. While I was formulating a plan, Arlene tapped me on the shoulder.
    I turned and found myself staring down both barrels of a twelve-gauge duck gun. It had gorgeous, inlaid detail work running all seventy-five centimeters of the stock and barrel . . . and it was attached to a beefy hand connected to a large