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

it. She isn’t really here talking to me. I decided on my own to climb to higher ground. It only makes sense.

“We are spirits of the earth.”

“Like ghosts?” I almost chuckle. Might as well enjoy the ride.

“Careful there—lift your right boot a little higher.”

I raise it as high as I can, fighting the unwieldy suit for every centimeter. “So you’re able to appear as people from my life? How does that work exactly?”

“We are able to see your memories.”

“You can read my mind.” Figured as much. A hallucination would obviously know my own thoughts. “Okay then. What am I thinking right now?”

Her grip on me does not falter. “You think I am a figment of your imagination, induced by hyperthermia. Your suit is offline, and you feel as if you’re being cooked alive inside it.”

Not bad.

Engines hum in the distance. They have to be real; no reason for me to hallucinate them into being. So even with my fractured helmet, I’m able to hear ambient noise. Good to know.

“Get down!” She pulls me to the ground, and I drop to my knees, feeling sand and gravel shift beneath me, slipping away. “Do not move.”

I don’t plan to. Gritting my teeth, I refrain from cursing the OFFLINE message glaring in my face. It’s ridiculous to ask a hallucination such a thing, but I have to know: “Any chance you could fix this?” I bob my head a little to draw attention to the helmet. “I can’t see a thing.”

And it’s driving me crazy!

“We are unable to interact with your technology,” she whispers into my ear again—as impossible as that is. “We can only interfere with it.”

Sweat dribbles down from my upper lip, and I spit against the inside of my face shield. “They’re not ghosts, are they?”

“The daemons?”

Hostiles. “Whatever. Yeah.”

“They were like you once. But they were...damaged.”

I frown. How can these be my own thoughts? “What do you mean?”

“I must leave you now. But I will return. Remain here, and be still.”

Winds gust with a sudden burst, and I flinch as gravel pings against the exterior of my helmet. I reach for her, patting at the ground. My gloved fingers collide with granite. I feel along the uneven surface and find that it reaches high above me. She’s led me to safety, and now I’m trapped on three sides by igneous rock.

I shake my head. No one led me here. I found cover on my own.

Focus. I strain to listen.

One of the solar jeeps draws near, maybe five to ten meters below. Difficult to gauge exactly by the sound. It grinds to a halt as boots hit the sand, two, three pair, charging off in different directions. No verbal communication that I can hear.

The footsteps stop. Everything is still.

Then a guttural roar tears through the silence. A blast of wind howls past me, showering me with grit. I fight to raise my arms instinctively to shield myself. Something cracks nearby like a dry branch or a broken spine, and another feral wail erupts into the air.

Shots fired—automatic weapons. Submachine guns by the sound of them, standard-issue UW Uzi Type 4’s or something similar.

Another scream and another crack, this time accompanied by the sound of a rib cage crunched, piercing the heart and lungs and muting the victim mid-shriek. What the hell is going on down there?

More shots, aimed now in my direction. I cower as the rounds chip the granite above me. My hazard suit sports some next-gen Kevlar, but my helmet is a different story. I don’t know how much more abuse it can take, and I don’t want to stick around to find out. But what choice do I have? Like Granger said, I’m blind as a bat.

Where is he now? And what about the others?

The machine gun below is silenced abruptly as a third and final scream takes its place. The wind returns, raging among the rocks and pelting me without mercy. I have never been in the middle of the Sahara or the Gobi during a sandstorm, but I imagine it to be something like this: powerful and wild, a ravenous beast.

Then everything is still once again.

I remain crouched as low as this cumbersome suit will allow, my arms out to the sides, braced against the granite. I listen, barely breathing. There is no sound.

I start to rise but rethink that idea. One well-aimed shot is all it would take to shatter my helmet in its current condition, and then I’ll be at the mercy of the contaminated air. But I can’t stay hidden indefinitely. I have to find Granger and contact Captain Mutegi. That’s the priority.

“Captain—how the hell did you make it up there?”

I reel around in an awkward slow motion, fighting against the suit. “Granger?” I call down. “You’re alive.”

“Can’t say the same for these guys.” He clears his throat. “Or whatever they were.”

“What do you see?”

“I thought you said his HUD was malfunctioning,” says a familiar voice on comms.

“Sinclair?”

Granger chuckles. “Gang’s all here, Fearless Leader.”

“And the hostiles?”

“Scared off, man,” Morley says. “Two jeeps took off due east, soon as that dust devil started up.”

“They must have known.” Harris sounds like he’s investigating something, thinking out loud in the process. “They’ve seen such an occurrence before.”

What the hell is he talking about?

“Help me get him down from there,” Granger grumbles, his boots digging into the hillside below me.

“I’m fine.” All I have to do is backtrack the trip I took with my hallucination-wife, recalling each step in reverse. “But feel free to catch me if I slip.”

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Harris says. “That whirlwind seemed to have a mind of its own, and what it did to these...creatures—”

“Describe them.” I judge the placement of each boot before giving it my full weight.

“They’re…unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Granger curses. “You can say that again.”

“Humanoid physiology, Sergeant,” Harris continues, “but they have evolved to adapt to these harsh conditions. Their skin is...”

Morley groans and retreats a few steps. “Oh, don’t go touchin’ it like that!”

“I’d