‘And make no mistake, the time is coming when these bloodthirsty maniacs will reveal themselves fully in their true colours. For so long they’ve stayed half-hidden in the shadows, but as our society crumbles and falls ever further into moral decay, they’re no longer afraid to come creeping out into the open. Some of them are the richest and most powerful people on the planet. They appear on television, telling us what a wonderful new world they’re going to create for the benefit of all humanity, while openly wearing the upside-down cross of the Antichrist around their necks. Taunting us. Testing our response so they can push their agenda even further, spreading their filth relentlessly everywhere, seeping into every corner and crevice of our world. Evil never rests. The signs are all around, and we ignore them at our peril. What does it take for people to open their eyes? How many people even truly recognised the terrifying warning that was the ceremonial opening of the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland?’

Ben was vaguely aware that the inauguration of the world’s longest railway tunnel, through the Gotthard Pass in the Swiss Alps, had caused some sort of minor media stir a few years earlier, but he really couldn’t recall why.

‘No?’ Shelton said, seeing the blank look on their faces. ‘Then I suppose you must have missed the brazen and shameless display of Satanic worship right there in the faces of the media and the world, attended by an assembly of EU diplomats and complete with scenes of orgiastic dancing, demonic symbols, strange howling monsters from the underworld and goat-horned depictions of the Devil himself.’

‘You’re shitting us,’ Wolf said. ‘Would they come out in the open like that?’

‘Don’t believe me? Think I’m making this stuff up? I only wish I was. Go and check it out online. It was the most chilling spectacle ever performed for public viewing, as though the gates of hell had opened and they weren’t even trying to hide it any more. Right-thinking people the world over were shocked and appalled – and yet, now you hardly find a dissenting voice aired anywhere. Why? Because the secret powers that rule the media use disinformation and censorship to quell all opposition out of existence. Their goal is twofold. The first stage is to make their diabolical agenda seem so normal to the public that we simply get used to it all.’

‘And the second?’ Ben asked.

‘To infiltrate our minds with their poison until the day when every person on this earth is ensnared and enslaved, and the whole of humanity becomes just like Dave Dobbs, trapped in a living hell with the Mark of the Beast branded on their flesh. The Satanic takeover will be complete. That’s what’s coming to us, if these people aren’t destroyed.’