Read The Road to Hell for Free Online Page B

write. You don’t visit. I come to see you and you think I’m fleecing you. Can’t a guy visit a friend without there being an ulterior motive?”
    “ Did you get her pregnant?” the old man asked with a wry smile.
    “ It’s not like that,” said Harrison. “Honest. We’ve had a little trouble with the law, that’s all, but it’ll blow over. It’s no big deal. Hey, tell me what you know about the daemon? Are they fact or fiction?”
    Susan pulled out the photos and handed them to Brains as she sat down, warming herself by the fire.
    “ Daemon?” the old man replied, reaching for a magnifying glass and looking closely at the grainy images.
    “ Damn, Brains,” said Harrison, looking at the absurdly thick magnifying glass. “You’re going as blind as a bat.”
    “ Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, pretty soon I’ll need a scanning electron microscope to look at pictures like these. Ha ha ha.”
    Flicking slowly through the images, he added. “The daemon. They’re not fiction, Harry. But you don’t want to mess with them.”
    “ What can you tell me about them?”
    “ Back in the Great War, I was stationed just outside of Charleston during the siege. We had one of them pass through there. I met him, but I never saw him in action. Hell, I thought it was just a myth. But the colonel took it pretty damn serious.”
    “ And?” asked Susan, intrigued by the old man's recollections.
    “ It was all pretty hush hush. Hard to separate rumours from reality. They said he could walk through walls, that blaster rounds would pass right through him, but he seemed pretty real to me. All I know is, that night the presidential general was murdered in his sleep. Three days later the city fell to us. Rumour was the daemon crossed no man’s land, walked past the defenders like they weren’t even there, passed through the command centre unseen and slit his throat while he dreamt of victory. No one knew it had happened until they found him dead in the morning.”
    “ So you think they’re real?” asked Harrison.
    “ Oh, they’re real alright,” replied Brains.
    “ Where would I find them?”
    “ They were part of the 23rd, based outside of Joliet. I would have thought they were wiped out when Chicago got nuked. Certainly, I never heard of them again.”
    “ But what if someone survived?”
    “ You won't find the daemon. If they're still around, and that's a pretty big if, then you won't find them, they'll find you. This is serious stuff, Harry, these guys don’t play games. You won’t even know they’re around until they’re gone and all you’re left with are corpses.”
    “ Come on, Brains, you must know how to get in contact with these guys. You were part of the resistance for years.”
    Brains scratched his forehead, lost deep in thought.
    “ If any of them survived, they never tried to help us.”
    He paused before continuing.
    “ Alexander would know, or at least he’d be able to point you in the right direction.”
    “ Is he still down in engineering?”
    “ Yeah,” said Brains, still lost in thought. “He’s still down there somewhere.”
    Harrison stood up. Susan went to get up as well.
    “ You. Stay here,” said Harrison, pointing at her as he headed for the door.
    “ But-”
    “ No buts. You’re a lot safer in here than you are out there. And besides, where I’m going, I don’t need any extra attention.”
    “ But-”
    “ Trust, remember,” said Harrison, grabbing his shotgun. “It’s all about trust. I’ll be back before curfew.”
    The solid iron door slammed shut behind him and Susan felt abandoned, again.
    There was silence for a few seconds, an awkward silence.
    “ You like him, don’t you,” said Brains. “I can tell. Always had a nose for these things.”
    “ I-” said Susan. But she caught herself. Why deny it? It would only strengthen the old man’s resolve and, besides, she did think Harrison was cute, a little old for her tastes, but cute nonetheless.
    “ Hungry?”