BILLY STEELE CHAPTER FIVE: MENACE OF THE MOLE PEOPLE

Billy and Cassidy managed to scatter away like mice as they felt the creatures' infernally hot breath on the scruff of their necks.

Billy feared for his own safety, but even more for Cassidy's as the mutant mole people led them into a throne room adorned in technological wizardry. Billy could see these creatures had the power to conquer his beloved frontier home. And with the mysterious loss of his Lightning Warrior magic, how could the ill equipped settlers alone defend themselves against this futuristic menace?

The half human, half mole king Agar was attired all in black, a long coat and wide brimmed hat that shielded his large, hepatitis yellow eyes. Agar carried a Bible in his paw and resembled a rodent, preacher man. His pedantic glare sent shivers through the souls of the adolescents.

"This time Cassidy, you will join your parents in death," Agar screamed while shaking his Bible at the girl. Billy bravely shielded her. Both Billy and Cassidy felt the painful loss of their respective parents-all maliciously murdered by madmen. And they were unified in turning their grief to grit when facing their enemies.

"You leave her alone, creep. I'm Billy Steele of the US Cavalry. My unit, Holt's Rangers will be here in seconds and they'll save us," the kid ranger screamed to his inhuman jailer.

Mole guards quickly pointed their ray guns at the boy as he and Cassidy heard the origin of this strange race. Agar explained how they were the human townspeople of Young's Haven a generation ago until the rampaging radiation pulled them from the Earth's surface. Agar enthralled his listeners as he told them how he was the town's religious leader and how he and his disciples managed to harness the radiation's power and use it to create a great, dazzling kingdom deep beneath the ground. The radiation also created the fearsome tremors of terror. But the mole people mutants managed to tame these misshapen monsters and breed them for a greater survival not unlike Noah rescued the world's beasts. Agar convinced his followers that this mysterious power was a gift from the Almighty-a sign that they were destined to be rule below and above in their maker's name.

Neither Billy, Cassidy, nor Agar knew the same radiation that could work miracles and create mutants came from the Knox family mine-the object of Billy' s quest.

As Agar continued, he sadly told of how the radiation that created an amazing empire was now painfully poisoning his flock of followers. "This magnificent power, the force I believe was God's gift to Young's Haven is now taking the lives of our children. That is why we must resurface and reclaim the world above as our righteous paradise."

Billy looked above and saw an image televised on a glass screen. He witnessed mole people, but these were mere children, in what appeared to be a hospital. Each bed ridden mole child was consumed by a feverish glow as they tossed and turned in a burning pain. Billy's heart went out to these poor innocents.

"Before we return to the surface," Agar explained, "We must rid your world of those who live in sin. The gamblers, criminals, flesh peddlers and pleasure-seekers, must be conquered by us. We must throttle the sinful masses so that our dying young, the true disciples of God's bidding shall be free to walk the surface, and then we will show the upper world how to flourish as we once flourished here.