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

drop one of the unconscious soldiers against the wall. Willard stares, wide-eyed, as his men are piled on top of each other like sandbags, unarmed, dead to the world. The stack rises, spilling across the couch and against Willard himself, pinning him where he sits. The bodies come too fast for him to avoid the onslaught.

As suddenly as the mayhem began, it's over. Milton stands in the middle of the room. On one side of him sits a pile of countless firearms. On the other side are the unconscious soldiers, stacked around Willard. The steel door yawns open, allowing harsh white light from outside to flood in.

"So, what were you saying?" Not even the least bit out of breath, Milton turns to wink at Willard.

"I think he's speechless." Luther rises and offers me a hand. I take it. "A welcome change, I must say."

Willard squirms, struggling against the bodies that wedge him in tightly where he sits. He curses and fumes but eventually grates out, "You have nowhere to go. Why are you so hell-bent on leaving? You're safe here, for God's sake."

"Safe?" I step toward him with fury boiling in my belly. I pull up the dress to expose my stitched abdomen, just above the waistline of the jeans Luther gave me. "How dare you?"

"You're the first virile survivors we've come across, in all this time. We built Eden for you—to protect the future. Our future!"

"You built this place for yourself." Luther picks up a rifle and jams a handgun into the waist of his pants. He beckons me to join him at the pile of weapons.

"I know all about you. You and your naturals." I lean in closer so Willard can see the hate burning in my eyes. But he doesn't look up. "Look at me!"

Slowly his eyes rotate upward. "From Tucker, right? Everything you think you know, you heard from half-baked ol' Tucker."

Luther steps toward me. "Don't listen to this man."

Milton glances outside. "We should get going."

Blood oozes from Willard's nose into his mustache. Arms pinned to his sides by the weight of his own men, he's unable to wipe it. "Tucker told you only half the story. It's all he knows."

I'm listening, but I don't know why. I shouldn't be.

"He's a lunatic. Been alone too long up there on the surface. My fault, truth be told. I left 'im…for the good of the many."

"Are we leaving him here?" Milton glances at Luther, who nods.

"Daiyna." Luther's voice is quiet. He touches my arm.

"You're not safe. You have no idea. It's not just the mutos and the demon-dust anymore." Willard licks his lips as the blood dribbles across them. "They know what you are. And they're coming for you. Just like they've done everywhere else." His eyes implore me.

I frown at him. What's he talking about? They who?

Luther takes my arm gently but firmly. He tells me we have to get Shechara, Samson, and another one whose name I don't recognize. He hands me a rifle. I take it, but I watch Willard. A tear leaves his eye as we step outside onto a steel catwalk suspended over an expanse of concrete littered with crates.

"I'm sorry," he calls after us. "I tried to fix you, but it's too late. God have mercy on you—on us all!"

Milton heaves the steel door shut and locks it. "Wacko," he mutters.

We're inside an enormous dome, lit by bright lights mounted at intervals high above us. I blink in the glare. The steel beneath my bare feet vibrates with the low hum of distant machinery.

"How many remain?" Luther scans the vacant floor below us, his weapon at the ready.

Milton jerks a thumb toward the steel door behind him. "Close to forty in there...so that should leave less than a dozen. Probably hiding out somewhere, waiting to ambush us." He grins.

I glance at the large bolt on the door. "Shouldn't we take their weapons?"

Milton pats the pockets of his jumpsuit, which I notice are bulging beyond capacity. "Got all the ammo."

Luther moves toward the ladder. "Margo should be finished with Samson soon." He slings the rifle across his back and heads quickly down the steel rungs.

"Margo?" I watch him go.

"Another gifted type." Milton sweeps the floor below us with his rifle as Luther descends. "She was their doctor here. More like their slave. But she's with us now."

Us. I watch him, this man who wanted to kill me. This man I saved from the spirits of the earth when they intended to drown him in sand and dust, stone him to death as he ran. He who was possessed by evil...who now has been set free. To set us free.

Was this the spirits' purpose all along?

"What is it?" He catches me looking at him.

"It's good to see you, Milton."

He almost smiles. "Good to see you too."

Luther beckons us to follow. I leap over the railing and plummet to the ground, landing in a crouched position at his side. Milton does the same, but instead of falling as I do and landing cat-like, he seems to glide, floating down the twenty meters to the floor.

I can only stare.

"Something new he's picked up," Luther says with half a grin.

"He's certainly full of surprises." I press a hand against my sore abdomen.

"Meet you guys at the recovery rooms, after I take a quick look around." Milton turns away.

"God's speed," Luther says.

Milton glances at him. "Maybe." Then he's off in a blur of speed with a blast of air in his wake.

"This way." Luther touches my side and jogs across the dome's main floor.

I do my best to keep up, but my stomach cramps immediately, and I have to slow down.

"Are you all right?" He stops.

"Fine," I gasp. "How did he find us?"

"Milton? The spirits told him. They...appeared to him as people from his past, from his sector. Good and evil, as he puts it. They showed him a way into the tunnels from the east, and he was able to enter Eden without Willard's men or cameras