Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

"Maybe so. Or maybe she's one of 'em. She could be, you know."

How dare he? The fool—he wants her for himself, can't stand it that I have the only woman left in Eden. My Eve. Since he knows he can't have her and never will, he doesn't want me to enjoy her. He's nothing but an overgrown child.

"And how'd you arrive at this great epiphany?" I raise an eyebrow.

He shakes his head, taking a step toward me. "You're in it too deep, sir—in her way too deep to see things clearly."

"Careful, soldier," I warn him.

He apologizes. "But think about it. How many women were in the bunker with us? Near forty, yeah? And how many of them were infected?" He waits, eyes locked with mine. "All of 'em, because they went topside. So damn curious. But she's the only one not affected? What are the odds?"

I grin at him. "I'd say it qualifies as a bona fide miracle. Wouldn't you?"

He shakes his head vehemently. "She's hiding it somehow. Her infection. Meanwhile she's convinced you to keep these freaks—her patients—alive when they should be shot down like rabid dogs!"

"You've made your point." I nod toward Mathis. "Now take care of this one like I said, and meet us in the monitoring station. On the double."

He stands rigid as I leave the room. On the catwalk outside, I blink beneath Eden's lights and glance down the line of steel doors. Twelve recovery rooms, each with an infected freak inside, hooked up to all manner of machines that drain our power, use up our resources. For what purpose?

It makes her happy, I suppose. Keeps her happy. And she makes me happy. A vicious cycle of happiness is what it is.

I couldn't tell Perch that. Not that I should have. I don't answer to him. But I don't answer to her, either. I'm Captain of the Eden Guard, and if I decide at some point that these ash freaks should be put down, so be it.

She won't stand against me. She'll be standing alone. She knows better. She needs me as much as I need her.

Regardless, there's only one priority right now: get Tucker up on the surface and have him bring down that shortwave radio. Where could the transmission be coming from? The breeders in Sector 50? 51? Eden needs some baby-makers pronto, and that's a fact. Sector 43? We could definitely use some relief around here from all the grunt work. Or maybe trade workers, trapped somewhere beneath the rubble of their own city—all-natural children of God in need of a savior? We could send a Hummer out to them, one of the old gas-powered models we found in that parking garage at the end of the south tunnel. Send Tucker to chauffeur them right here where they belong. We'll welcome them with open arms.

Tucker. What the hell's happened to him? What kind of genetic transmutation makes a body go invisible?

When we returned from our first excursion through the tunnels—Jamison, Perch, Margo, and I—we found that Catherine and Mathis had fixed the elevator and gotten the guns from up top. They'd also gotten everybody all riled up about the supposed lies I told. While they'd come across what was left of the infected women's remains, there'd been no sign of Tucker. They hadn't opened the bunker door—hadn't dared to, obviously. They could tell by the fangs and claws on the corpses that I hadn't lied about the mutations. Who knew what might be lurking outside?

Of course I had to talk fast, make them think I'd been protecting them from the awful truth, et cetera. I did pretty well; I usually do. Told them Tucker had been hauled out by the freaks before I could shut the bunker door. Told them nobody had been trying to get down the elevator, every time the DOWN arrow lit up with a ding. Nope, that was just a knee-jerk type response from me cutting the hard lines. Then why'd I tell them something topside was trying to come down? To protect them, of course. Everything was dead up there, I knew that. I just wanted to spare them the gruesome particulars.

That was the official story, and it just about saved my neck. Most of them gobbled it up. Made sense to them, surprisingly. But I kept my eye on the riot instigators, watched them close from then on for any signs of mutation. Didn't take long.

But what really happened? Sometimes even I believe the lies I tell. Not now. I have to figure out how Tucker managed to survive out there.

After that she-cat attacked me and left me bleeding out, I made it to the elevator. I heard shots fired—must've been Tucker with the gun, taking out the last of the ash freaks. I rode the elevator down and left him, and he tried to follow me. Ding. Ding. Maybe thirty-six hours went by. We broke through the southwest tunnel and ran into the nuke. Meanwhile, Mathis fixed the elevator, and he and Catherine went up top. By then, Tucker must've managed to get outside and shut the bunker door behind him.

During the days that followed, he somehow survived in the desolation outside and found the city ruins to the southwest while we were relocating through the tunnels underground. As we dismantled that first nuke we found, he was inhaling the demon-dust. When we came upon the subterranean dome and started building Eden, he was scavenging through the ruins above us. And he was as invisible as the air.

Tucker's hauntings began almost as soon as we had Eden's bare necessities up and running: filtered air cycle, reclaimed water—recycled from our hydropacks and from our own bodies, purified for drinking and showering. While we made a new life for ourselves, he played ghost, trying to scare the hell out of me.

Did I think I'd killed him? Of course. Maybe I even felt a little guilty about it.

But not anymore. Now I've got the prankster freak