Hell Followed With Us Commentary
SPOILERS AHEAD!
“When I was born, Mom named me after a woman in the Old Testament. She was a Jewish queen and one of the most beautiful women her kingdom had ever known. When her cousin offended the king’s adviser, the adviser gained permission from the king to slaughter her people— but Esther foiled the plan and instead allowed her people to slaughter their enemies in turn. Mom thought she could name me Esther and not even consider the woman who saved those she loved? Or is the Angels’ persecution complex so deep-rooted they think they are the ones who need saving?”
Andrew Jospeh White’s YA horror novel Hell Followed With Us is about a group of queer and trans teens surviving Armageddon, heralded by a religious cult, the Angelic Movement, that took over the world using a bioweapon— a disease called the Flood. Our protagonist Benji escapes the cult at New Nazareth and stumbles into the arms of The Watch, a small group from the LGTBQIA+ center in Acheson, Pennsylvania, where he finds community he desperately needs, even and especially at the end of the world. But no matter how far Benji runs, he can’t escape the Flood in his body, implanted intentionally by his mother, one of the leaders of the cult. The other kids at the center (the ALC) don’t know Benji is called “Seraph” by the cult; the monster inside him fueled by the Flood is waiting to bring about the end of humanity. But maybe there’s a way Benji can stop the violence and destruction written into his blood by turning that weapon on those who made him. Is it possible for a small gang of queer teens to take on a highly militarized and well-funded religious organization? Can Benji face his family, his ex-fiancée, and the monsters they created as the boy he really is? A story about young love, body horror and dysphoria, religious trauma, shedding our skins, grief, being good, and the complexity of having multiple selves, Hell Followed With Us is a gory yet propulsive book for readers who might also like Camp Damascus or The Last of Us.
“The Angels describe themselves as an interdenominational Protestant movement founded in 2025 by Ian Clevenger, pastor and conservative Virginia state senator. However, they are described by critics as ‘evangelical eco-fascists’ and a Christian terrorist group.”
Only two years after Judgment Day, when the Flood was unleashed on the world, Benji is transported into the city, escorted by a team of Angels— the movement’s militia, when they encounter The Watch in a stand-off. Benji is taken in by the group of queer teens and they bring him back to the Acheson LGBTQ Center, their home base, hidden from the movement. There, Benji befriends the group’s leader, Nick and the full breadth of characters who color the center brightly.
“Most of us were here on That Day… We had a great summer program for at-risk teens. So when everything happened, a lot of kids just didn’t leave.”
The warmth and love at the ALC differs wildly from the oppressive, hateful, violence of New Nazareth. Benji finds people who see him for who he truly is. Unlike New Nazareth, the ALC takes all that violence and degradation and pain, and locks it outside the walls.
“In a place like the ALC, after Judgment Day, it’s easy to forget you’re trans. Or maybe a better way to word it would be, it gets easier for me to forget the pain of being trans. Being transgender is who you are, and the pain is what the outside does to you. The pain is what happens when you and the world go for each other’s throats. In the ALC, I almost forget that being trans can hurt.”
But soon, the ALC is as at-risk as its inhabitants. To survive in this post-apocalyptic city-scape, The Watch trade ears from dead Angels for supplies from a group of adults called the Vanguard. But The Watch’s activities are catching up with them. When The Watch interrupt an Angel squad’s rituals, a battle unfolds where Benji reunites with the one person from New Nazareth he missed even a little bit— Theo, his fiancée. Though Theo accepts that Benji is a boy and treats him like a boyfriend, Theo is still heavily indoctrinated by the movement and wants Benji to return with him. Suddenly one night the ALC is attacked— set ablaze, nearly killing the teens. Benji realizes it was Theo who gave away their location. Enraged, he decides to let himself be taken back to New Nazareth with Theo, where he will unleash the vicious power they created against them.
Hell Followed With Us follows in the horror tradition of connecting trans identity experiences to the terror born from the realization that we all contain multitudes—many faces, different names, dead selves and monstrous selves and beautiful selves. Benji has two bodies— his human form and his Seraph form. Benji’s body is a place of great change, transformation, and power. He’s not only a trans boy, he’s Seraph— morphing into a totally new being with a body meant to shock and awe.
“This is what I was made for. Romans 12:19— Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. The Angels were made to be servants of God, but I am the wrath, the flaming sword, the six-winged beast.”
When Benji eventually transforms into Seraph, his trans identity is tied to his new body.
“I have no sense of myself anymore besides the fact that I am not what I once was. I’m too tired to see my body from the eyes of others, in the terrible way transness demands— always existing both inside and outside myself, judging as an observer. Now, I am a pile of flesh on the floor, everything hurts, and I do not give a shit.”
As Benji embodies Seraph, he can communicate with and control the “Graces”— humans infected with the Flood who have physically turned into monsters, designed for mass violence. The Angels include Graces on their squads to kill non-believers, but Benji has a special bond with them and can turn them in whatever direction he wants. Their bodies are contorted painfully, becoming so unrecognizable that Angels forget they used to be people like them. A distancing effect. But Benji refuses to distance himself from them, and highlights their similarities. When he and Nick encounter a Grace on their own, Benji is able to communicate with it and spells it out for the audience: we are the same.
“It. I can’t keep saying it. That’s not right. I want to press my hands to its, their, their skin, reach into their organs… whisper to them, We’re the same thing, we’re the same, can you tell?”
Parallel to Benji’s view of the Graces runs Nick’s view of Benji. When he finds out that Benji is Seraph, Nick decides to look at Benji differently to protect himself emotionally. Not Benji, but “it.” But after being confronted by Benji, Nick tries again.
“Benji. So instead he says the name over and over. Not Seraph. Benji. He, him, his, not it. Benji’s real name comes so much easier than any other name ever did, and it is a relief to let go of the wrong pronouns. The actual ones are a blessing because they are the truth, and as much time as Nick spends lying, the truth is beautiful.”
In the final battle between The Watch and the Angels, Benji faces Theo in his dead body— no Flood, no testosterone, just Esther and the General’s son. But on the other side, after all the violence, the teens know that the Angelic Movement is dead, and they can live in peace as they’ve always craved, in their unique bodies and identities. Safe.