Hell on Earth Trilogy
Books 1, 2, & 3
Iain Rob Wright
SalGad Publishing Group
Contents
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The Gates
Quotes
Part I
~Elizabeth Creasy~
~Rick Bastion~
~Mina Magar~
~Tony Cross~
~Samantha Smart~
~Guy Granger~
~Rick Bastion~
~Mina Magar~
~Tony Cross~
Part II
~Guy Granger~
~Rick Bastion~
~Mina Magar~
~Guy Granger~
~Mina Magar~
~Rick Bastion~
~Tony Cross~
~Mina Magar~
~Rick Bastion~
~Tony Cross~
~Guy Granger~
~Mina Magar~
Part III
~Tony Cross~
~Rick Bastion~
~David Davids~
~Rick Bastion~
~David Davids~
~Rick Bastion~
~Tony Cross~
~Guy Granger~
~David Davids~
~Vamps~
Collateral Damage
Takao
Monty
Nancy Granger
Hans
Damien Banks
Legion
Quotes
Tony Cross
John Windsor
Vamps
Richard Honeywell
Lieutenant Hernandez
Vamps
Richard Honeywell
Rick Bastion
Vamps
Commander Hernandez
Richard Honeywell
Vamps
Hernandez
Rick Bastion
Richard Honeywell
Vamps
Hernandez
Vamps
Rick Bastion
Guy Granger
Collateral Damage
Takao
Nancy Granger
Cheese Burger
Damien Banks
Extinction
Quotes
Marcy
Guy Granger
Vamps
Richard Honeywell
Guy Granger
Vamps
Richard Honeywell
Guy Granger
Vamps
John Windsor
Guy Granger
Vamps
Richard Honeywell
Hernandez
Lord Amon
Guy granger
Vamps
General Wickstaff
Richard Honeywell
Guy Granger
Richard Honeywell
Hernandez
Skullface
Richard Honeywell
Guy Granger
General Wickstaff
Guy Granger
Richard Honeywell
General Wickstaff
Vamps
Guy Granger
Vamps
Vamps
General Wickstaff
Vamps
Mass
General Wickstaff
Lucas
Tony Cross
Damien Banks 2
Tar
Quotes
Prologue
Endings
Fuel
Fire
Flames
Embers
Ashes
Ruins
Earth
Blood
Sweat
Tears
Guilt
Confusion
Beginnings
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Dedicated to my wife
for all that she goes through.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Winston Churchill
“War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”
Bertrand Russell
“Fear is the most basic emotion we have, Fear is primal.”
Max Brooks, World War Z
Part One
“Every war has its demons.”
--Richard Engel
~Elizabeth Creasy~
Devonshire, England
Elizabeth Creasy froze.
The mother bird and her fluffy grey ducklings marched single-file from the hedge on one side of the road to the embankment on the other. When the mother noticed Elizabeth, and her agitated cocker spaniel, Boycie, she picked up speed. Her brood, in turn, picked up their speed—a cute little army marching on the double. Their feathery advance took them into the long grass where they promptly disappeared.
Elizabeth grinned. “Oh, what a lovely day, Boycie.”
Boycie looked up, tongue lolling out, but said nothing.
It was indeed a lovely day. The greens were green, and the sky was as blue as a crystal ocean. If not for a slight thickness to the air heralding a possible storm, it was the perfect afternoon.
Two years retired now and yet to become restless, Elizabeth’s daily jaunts through the fields and farms surrounding her home never failed to exhilarate her. After decades toiling in an office she’d all but forgotten the benefits of simple fresh air, and it’d been an invigorating experience reacquainting with the joyous beauty of nature. If only her beloved Dennis were still alive to enjoy it with her, but that was not to be. At fifty-eight, an aortic rupture had snatched her husband away while he drove his evening bus route. The ensuing low-speed crash had not injured anyone, but Elizabeth had been left a heart-broken widow. She lamented on the time they could have spent together—‘cuddling’ in bed all morning and spending the afternoon feeding ducks by the lake. Simple pleasures sure, but oh, the absolute best.
She hadn’t been with a man since her beloved Dennis had passed, but Lord knows she had felt the need. Lately, she’d even been considering joining an online dating site just to get a man between her legs. Only so much batteries and plastic could do for a woman of her age—and Colin Firth wasn’t cutting it anymore. She needed a real man, with real man parts.
Up ahead, the little knoll she enjoyed climbing came into view. Twelve months ago, the act of hiking up it would have assaulted her knees, but now she could assail it briskly. From atop she could gaze right across the rolling fields to the sleepy village of Crapstone where she kept a modest two-bedroom cottage. The house in Torquay she had shared with Dennis had been too painful to keep, so she’d sold up a year after his death to purchase the cosy home she and Boycie now lived in.
At the bottom of the hill, she wheezed a little. The muggy weather made it harder to breathe and she was getting out of breath. Her daily hike would have to be a little more leisurely today. You could never be too careful at her age.
“Come on, Boycie, up we go.”
Obedient as always, her cocker spaniel started up the hill at an ambling pace matching her own, and toge
ther they trampled the thick, green grass as they progressed towards the top. Birds chirped, and the sunshine was so potent that it seemed to massage her shoulders with invisible hands.
She started singing—“All things bright and beautiful…”
Boycie barked.
“Settle down, Boycie. I don’t want a duet.”
Boycie barked again.
“Now, now, Boycie, settle down.” The cocker spaniel hopped from paw to paw, floppy brown ears twitching. Elizabeth was about to scold him when she saw what had got him so worked up. “Hmm, that wasn’t there yesterday, was it, boy?”
The smooth black stone was the size of a football, and out of place up on the lonely hill. No other rocks or boulders lay around, and certainly none that were jet-black like this one. It more resembled volcanic glass than anything that should be found in the English countryside. If not for the delicate grey veins snaking over its surface, it could have been an old-fashioned bowling ball, or one of those cartoon bombs with the fuses and ACME written on the side. The closer she got to it, the less smooth the stone appeared—like how a television picture degraded when you went right up to the screen.
Boycie tugged on his lead, hard enough he almost yanked free of her grasp. She gave it a swift tug and brought the spaniel back to heel. “Behave, Boycie! What’s got into you?”
The birds stopped chirping and the warmth of the sun disappeared, yet it was still so muggy that it was hard to take a breath. A distant roll of thunder, but not a single cloud hanging in the sky.
Elizabeth’s eyes fixed on the strange black stone. The word ‘obsidian’ popped into her mind. She reached out to touch it, not knowing why other than something inside of her demanded it. Her fingertips were just about to make contact when Boycie bit her.
“Damn it!”
The leash slipped out of her grasp and Boycie fled, running down the hill full pelt like a greyhound chasing a rabbit.
“Boycie, come back here!”
“Damn it.” Her hand throbbed something terrible; a purplish-blue blotch forming where one long canine had crushed her skin. Boycie had never snapped at her like that before. Never. What had got into him?
Then came more pain.
Thwump thwump thwump…
Elizabeth turned and clutched her forehead. The delicate grey veins on the stone’s surface had started to pulse and vibrate. It was calling out to her. She couldn’t help herself. She reached out.
Pressed her fingertips against the stone.
Ice cold. Like running her hand down the inside of a fridge.
It felt… wrong. Unnatural.
Elizabeth was just about to pull away when something seized her. Her fingertips fused against the stone’s icy surface. A powerful force snatched her mind and showed her unbelievable things. Distressing images seared themselves into her soul and boiled the blood in her veins.
She saw horrors—exquisite tortures of the worst kind.
A vast legion of monstrous creatures.
She saw Hell.
The pictures in Elizabeth’s mind were so wondrous and terrifying that her eyeballs melted inside her skull and leaked down her cheeks while her heart burst in her chest like a pin pricked balloon. When her sixty seven year old body slumped to the ground it was an empty husk and her days of ambling through fields were over—her retirement irrevocably ended.
The cold black stone went back to sleep.
~Rick Bastion~
Devonshire, England
When Rick’s song came on the radio he winced and pulled out the plug. Few things upset him more than hearing his number 1 hit, Cross to Bear. It was fingernails on a blackboard, and its title had become more than a little apt. Its existence was his cross to bear.
Sitting in the kitchen of his vast country home, he poured himself another whiskey and switched on the wall-mounted television. Evening had not yet arrived, and the only programmes airing were a couple of convoluted quiz shows and a mock-court case with Judge Kettleby. Today, the gesticulating gavel-wielder heard a case about a stolen Xbox. Riveting stuff.
Rick slid off his stool and took his whiskey into the living room, where he ambled over to the sleek black piano in the corner. Despite the melancholic feelings playing always stirred in him, he never lost affection for his beloved parlour grand. He’d saved six long years for it back in the days before he’d acquired his fortune. The sense of achievement of finally making enough money to buy the beautiful instrument had made him cherish it even more. Now he could buy a piano worth twice as much, but it wouldn’t mean half so much.
Sitting down at the piano, Rick placed his whiskey on the coaster already on the shiny black lid. His fingers began to play automatically.
House of the Rising Sun.
Closing his eyes, he slipped away and became a vessel through which the music flowed. It was impossible not to smile against the haunting onslaught of well-played piano music. It was that feeling of peace and calm that he felt as he caressed the keys that had first attracted him to the music industry. Life contained so much misery, so if he was going to devote his life to something, it would be this—creating beauty with his fingertips.
A bum note.
He lifted both hands away from the keys in horror. The uninvited C Major had been unmistakable. His ears did not lie.
The doorbell rang again.
He sighed.
He hadn’t played a bum note after all—someone had pressed the doorbell in the midst of his playing.
He leapt up with a grunt. Unannounced visitors were not something he often received, thanks to the imposing iron gate that stood at the end of his long gravel driveway. He had no idea who would be calling on him now.
The security panel in the entrance hallway illuminated and the CCTV-controlled video feed had activated. The LCD monitor showed a man outside, dressed in a suit and tie, despite the balmy weather.
Rick activated the intercom and spoke into the microphone. “Who is it?”
The suited gentleman spotted the CCTV camera and waved. “Don’t you recognise your own brother? That tiny bit of fame must have gone to your head.”
Rick groaned. “Long time no see, Keith. Come on in.”
What the hell was his brother doing here?
He pressed the gate release and then went and unlocked the front door. He waited on the front step while a burgundy Range Rover crunched up his pebble driveway. It’d been an age since he and Keith had seen each other, so this unexpected visit was rather…unexpected.
The Range Rover pulled up next to Rick’s imported Mustang in front of the property’s detached double garage where Keith switched off the engine and got out. He looked smug and proud for no reason, but that was ordinary for him. “Hello, brother,” he said.
“Nice motor,” said Rick. “I remember you always wanted a Range.”
“Best thing England ever made. Got her last year after a particularly lucrative month.” He patted the bonnet lovingly then shot a thumb at Rick’s sky-blue 2009 Mustang. “I don’t know how you can drive that foreign abomination.”
“Seemed a good purchase at the time.” Truth was, Rick had never been much of a car fanatic and only got the American import because it felt like something rich people did. For the amount he drove it, it’d been a waste of money, but it was nice to look at and roared like a dragon on the highways.
Keith didn’t wait to be invited. He stepped through the doorway into the entrance hall where he glanced around nosily. “Place is a little big for just you, isn’t it?”
Rick glanced at his property and considered the truth of it. The Edwardian mansion, with its rough stone floors and gnarled mahogany beams, was perhaps a trifle grand for a single, essentially unemployed man, but it was also the only thing that reminded him of the success he’d once been. Win or lose, he’d made enough money to live in a massive house like this. He shrugged. “I like it here. Doesn’t feel so big after a while.”
Keith nodded, but said nothing.
They both went into
the living room, which was modern compared to the rest of the lower floor which still retained its Edwardian charms. They gave each other an awkward hug.
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 1
