Hell on Earth (11 page)

Arlene never lost her ability to surprise me. “Lucky?” I echoed. “Why do you say that?”

“She's past puberty, Fly. They'd probably marry her off to one of these . . .” She didn't finish.

I recognized that the conversation was on the slippery slope to more trouble than a barrel of pumpkins. Arlene's prejudice against anything and everything religious, and especially against Mormons, was disturbing; the people in this compound, Mormons and others alike, had done nothing to warrant such anger. Time for a strategic retreat. “So, what do you think of the President?”

“What do you think?” she threw it back at me.

“Well, as I've said before, you don't have to like
someone in power to recognize that you need cooperation from the boss. This man is no fool; he's playing his own game.”

Arlene shook her head, but it wasn't because she disagreed with me. “I always understand a leader,” she said. “It's the followers who confuse me. This man is a master of transferring authority. His followers won't argue with someone who says he gets his marching orders direct from God.”

“Yeah, but in the war we're about to fight, let's hope God really
is
on our side. Or we're on God's side, I mean.”

She took a stick of gum out of her pocket, popped the contents in her mouth, and gave forth with her considered opinion: “Agreed. Any god, any goddess, anything to give us an edge is fine by me.”

I ignored the blasphemy. Honestly, she does it just to needle me. “Where did you get the gum?” I asked.

“Jill,” she said between chews. “Want a stick?”

“No thanks.” Gum is not one of my vices. But I was impressed with how quickly Arlene had been won over.

We went back in the compound, expecting to return to the room we'd been in before. A matronly woman we hadn't seen before greeted us. “Hello, my name is Marie,” she said. “I'm here to show the young woman to the female quarters.”

Arlene and I exchanged knowing glances. I think we both did a commendable job of not bursting out laughing. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept without Arlene taking watch. We'd already been through the sexual-tension zone and popped out the other end with the understanding that we were buddies, pals, comrades.

But now we were back in the Adam and Eve department. The only question that really mattered
was, did we trust these guys to keep us alive while we slept? The fact that they were still here was pretty good evidence.

“What kind of security do you have here?” I asked the woman.

She didn't understand. “Good enough to keep you out of the henhouse,” she answered with a slight smirk.

I rolled my eyes. That wasn't what I meant, but—ah, skip it.

“See you in the morning,” I said to Arlene.

For the first time in a long time, I was alone. Maybe the President still had doubts about me, but they put me on a long leash.

Suddenly I realized I didn't know where I was supposed to sleep. The room we'd been in before made sense. We'd been allowed to use it when we freshened up, but we were under guard then. I wished I'd thought to ask the woman if that was where I was supposed to go.

I didn't know anyone in the hallways, but they didn't pay any attention to me as I went past; they weren't afraid . . . what a strange concept that had become. I could have asked them about a men's quarters, but I wasn't in a rush to have the old YMCA experience if I could avoid it. If I wasn't going to bunk with Arlene, then I wanted to be alone.

Privacy suddenly exerted a strong appeal: to be alone without a hell-prince stomping on my face, to sleep without worry of a zombie who used to be a friend cuddling up next to me and sharing the rot of the grave, just to enjoy silence and solitude, without spinys fudging it up. Yeah, the more I thought of it, the better I liked it.

I retraced my way back to the room. After the corridors on Deimos, this was almost too easy. The
door wasn't locked. Then I noticed that the lock had been removed. Now that I thought about it, there were no locks anywhere. But the room was empty, gloriously empty, and that was good enough.

I went in, closed the door, flipped on the light. There was a miracle. The light came on. No conservation or blackout measures in this small, windowless room. Which meant I could do something more important than sleeping.

The book was where I'd left it. Normally, the Book of Mormon would not be my first choice of reading material; the sisters would not approve. Under the circumstances, I was grateful to have it.

I started at the beginning, with the testimonies of the witnesses and the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This told the story of the finding of the gold plates with the Holy Book written thereon. Reminded me of the old joke about the founding of the Unitarian Church: a prophet found gold plates on which was written . . . absolutely nothing!

As I read, I remembered an old Hollywood movie about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, founders of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. Hollywood . . . where we would be going. Hollywood was in the hands of the monsters. Vincent Price starred in the Mormon movie and also in a million monster movies. I was sure this all meant something.

I started the first book, made it to the second and the third; and kept reading until I reached Chapter Five in the Book of Alma, Verse 59:

For what shepherd is there among you having many sheep doth not watch over them, that the wolves enter not and devour his flock? And behold, if a wolf enter his flock doth he not drive him out? Yea, and at the last, if he can, he will destroy him.

That seemed like a good place to stop because I doubted I would find a more agreeable sentiment anywhere else in the Mormon scriptures.

D
id you sleep well?” Arlene asked, winking.

“Not bad,” I said. “I think it's the first night I didn't dream about monsters.”

The sun was up, the sky was clear, and for a moment it was possible to believe that none of this had ever happened. A dog ran by, a healthy mutt that someone was feeding—not a sign of impending starvation, but perhaps an overgenerous use of resources.

“Guess what?” she said with an impish smile. “I didn't dream about monsters either. But I did dream.”

Teasing was simply not Arlene's style. She really surprised me. “Maybe that's why they segregate the boys and the girls,” I said. “To make everyone think about it.”

“We can't keep any secrets from you,” said Albert, joining us outside the main cafeteria.

“Except the ones that count,” I replied, not altogether innocently. I was still thinking about secrets and closed doors, and an unknown, upcoming mission.

“Where's Jill?” asked Arlene.

“Already inside, having breakfast,” he said. “We should join her. Afterward, we'll receive our briefing.”

It had been a long, long time since I'd eaten pancakes, with real maple syrup yet. I didn't think I'd be able to get coffee in Salt Lake City, but there was plenty of it for those with the morning caffeine monkey on their back. This was a pretty trivial monster in the grand scheme of things.

And then we got down to business. We returned to the ops room from the day before. The President was waiting for us dressed in a conservative black suit. He could've passed as an undertaker, not the most inspiring image to send us off to California.

“The entire state of California is in enemy hands,” he said, then led us over to a map of the relevant states. Red lines marked all the existing train tracks. “There used to be a high speed train between L. A. and Salt Lake City. We destroyed the train to prevent the aliens from sending us a cargo of themselves. I refuse to refer to those creatures as soldiers. We also thought the train might be used to send us an atomic bomb.”

“Would they even know how to use the trains?” asked Arlene.

“You fought them, didn't you? They can use anything we can. Machinery is machinery. It offends me how they used our own, God-given atomic weapons against us. We are fortunate the radiation and poisons have not contaminated this area. God has intervened.” Atomic, not nuclear; an interesting word choice.

“We'll be going into radiation?” asked Jill. She had not thought of this until now.

“You'll be entering undestroyed areas, and our scientists tell us that the invaders have neutralized much of the fallout in the areas they control.”

Arlene interrupted, as usual. “When we fought them on Phobos and Deimos, they were comfortable with higher radiation levels than a human being; but that doesn't mean they could survive H-bomb fallout.”

For a moment I thought the President was going to bite her head off, but then he controlled his temper. “We have antiradiation pills for you to take and wrist bands that will glow red if you get a near-lethal dose. In addition, you'll have some protective gear if you require it. And any weapons you can bear, of course.”

“How do we get to L.A.?” I asked.

“Take the train,” answered Albert.

“Great. How do we get to the tracks? I thought they were all ripped up.”

“Not all the track was destroyed,” said the President. “You can take one of our Humvees south, following the railroad track to a good spot for getting aboard the train.”
Getting aboard
 . . . How easily he breezed over that slight difficulty!

And another small difficulty. “Um . . . the aliens are going to let us drive right out in a Humvee?”

Albert snorted. The President glowered at him, then returned to the question. “Of course not. You'll leave here and pass underneath enemy lines. The Humvee is hidden in a safe location—Albert knows where it is.”

“I do?”

“Where you hid after blowing the tracks three weeks ago.”

“Ah.” Albert nodded, remembering the spot. Well, that made one of us.

“Underneath the aliens,” I asked, “you have a tunnel?”

“It's always wise to build in a way to expedite escape,” said Albert. “All our safe houses use them—including
this facility. Usually exit from a basement, dive down thirty or forty feet, then continue a long way, miles perhaps.”

“How did you build all that without anyone knowing?”

“We had a lot of time on our hands.” He grinned. “And a lot of members in street maintenance positions.”

“You must ride the train into Phoenix,” continued the President, producing a pointer and stabbing Phoenix.

“Why Phoenix?” asked Arlene.

“The train that goes from Phoenix into L.A. can't be stopped and can't be boarded; Phoenix is under demonic possession. If you stow away
before
Phoenix and escape detection, you might not be boarded. Then it's smooth riding all the way into L.A.” He put down the pointer with a flourish.

Jill laughed. She sounded a lot older than she was, listening to the scorn in her laugh; it suggested a lifetime of frustration.

The President did not act as defensive as I would have expected. “I know it's a long shot,” he said. “I'm open to any better suggestions.”

“I wish I had one,” said Albert.

I expected Jill to launch into a tirade, but instead she kept her mouth taped.

“The plan sounds workable to me,” I said. “Everything is a long shot from now on.”

At no point had anyone talked about who would lead this mission; I suspected the President would want his own man in charge, and I prepared myself for an argument.

Then Albert surprised me:
“Corporal
Taggart is in charge, of course.” He surprised the President too, who started to object, then bit off whatever he'd been
about to say. Leadership was clearly already determined.

The President allowed us to pick our own weapons: a double-barreled scattergun for me, and a .41 caliber hunting rifle with a scope for long-range work. Arlene was back to her perennial AB-10 machine pistol and a scoped .30-30. Albert surprised me by picking some foreign-made Uzi clone I'd never seen before; I didn't think a Marine would go in for that kind of flash. But I guess it wasn't really different from Arlene's AB-10, though a bit bigger; and even that might give it more stability in a firefight. Albert said he would just use Arlene's .30-30 for any sniping . . . and Jill already had her AR-19, of course.

We also took pistols, ammo, grenades, day-to-night goggles—we had to be careful to conserve the battery power, using them only when absolutely necessary; no recharges—and one of the more exotic energy weapons I never liked; not a BFG, which they'd never heard of, but a gas-plasma pulse rifle. We packed food and blankets and other useful items, including a complement of mountaineering (or wall-scaling) equipment: knotted rope, a grappling hook, crampons and pitons, the usual usual.

The Humvee waited—God and Albert knew where. Would we find it? Would it run if we did? I tried not to think about such questions as, with great solemnity, the President of the Twelve led us through the inner compound to a small, cinder-block building . . . and to the escape tunnel.

O
ther members of the community gathered around us before we departed. Somewhere back in my mind, I wondered why we weren't hearing a heroic anthem to speed us on our way. Where was the brass band? Where were the speeches? In my mind, I heard fragments of the speech: “Never before have so few faced so many in the defense of so few.” Well, that wasn't exactly right.

There were a large number of heavy barrels of fuel oil in the building, seemingly stacked somewhat haphazardly. A pair of soldiers approached one particular barrel carrying an odd tool that looked like a giant-sized jar opener.

They lowered the prongs over the barrel and pushed levers forward, running steel rods through the lip. Then they put their shoulders to the two ends of the “jar opener” and walked counterclockwise. Rather than tip over, the barrel
unscrewed
like a light bulb; they lifted the heavy, false barrel from the narrow tunnel, just barely wide enough to admit a single man of my size.