The results of government-sponsored hedonism were not unexpected. Drug addiction and group orgies became accepted. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy soared, as did sexual disease and even deaths. Public displays of sexuality and nudity became pandemic. The young stopped studying. They stopped working. Across America, by the millions, the nation’s youth—the hope of its future—entered a euphoric nether world that was part psychic, part psychedelic, and patently self-destructive.

Whatever they did to themselves was not the issue. They were no longer a potential threat to Mark Beaulieu and the Union for Peace. That was why he jammed through Congress legislation that completely legalized the distribution and use of previously banned chemical hallucinogens. At the same time, Congress voted to grant privileged status to those who engaged in even the most bizarre sex acts—pedophilia, incest, and bestiality. All forms of pornography were legalized—including the sexual exploitation of children. “In the new America,” the posters read, “anything goes!”

AS PEOPLE BEGAN TO RECOVER their senses from the suffering that had been inflicted on them by the hordes of demons, something else happened as well. Those who had suffered began to turn on those who had not suffered. First, there was envy, then bitterness, then physical violence. Over and over again, the same words were heard, “While we suffered, the unaffected made money. We couldn’t work, so the unaffected took our jobs. The unaffected caused our suffering to happen, so that they could grow rich. They’re responsible for five months of hell. Now, they’ve got to pay!”

Since so many of the affected by demon powers were called “good Christians,” the angry mobs were hard-pressed to blame Christians in general for their sufferings. So they narrowed the charge. Those responsible were the “goody-goody fundamentalists.” It was the fundamentalists who were unaffected, not the good Christians.

Soon they devised a term “fundamentalist unaffected” to identify the real enemies, and the acronym F/UN began to be spray-painted on cars, fences, mailboxes, houses, and places of business. People with the F/UN label found their houses fire-bombed, their businesses ransacked, their families terrorized.

When they appealed to the police, they found no support. Over and over again, they were given the same stock answer: “Folks are all stirred up because they were affected and you weren’t. Now, you’re going to have to pay for what you’ve done!”

There no longer seemed any doubt that the F/UN people were different from everybody else. They dressed differently, they talked differently, they acted differently. Clearly, the country would be better off without them. “Who knows what these smiling, profiteering people might try next,” some reasoned.