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

my shoulder. Two other sentries have crept up behind me, uncanny in their ability to move with absolute silence. Must be their gift.

They’ve got me surrounded. And I’m not liking it.

“What’s he got there?” one of them barks, gesturing toward my shadow on the ground. My profile makes it clear that I’m carrying something bulky across my chest and my back.

“Howdy,” I greet the newcomers with a friendly salute.

“Get on your knees. Do it now!”

I hold out my hands. “Hey, you don’t understand. I’m unarmed. These—” I reach for the incubation pod strapped across my shoulders.

“Don’t even think about it.” The sentry at my eight o’clock steps forward, the muzzle of his assault rifle trained on the area where he thinks my head might be. Good guess. “I said kneel! Hands up, where we can see them.” He catches himself. “Put your hands behind your damn head!”

“Alright, it’s all right,” I mutter. “Just calm down.”

“We’re calm, pal. Dead calm. You wouldn’t want to see us when we’re not calm. It’s you who should watch yourself.”

I drop first to one knee, then both, careful not to jostle the little ones I’m carrying. I keep my hands up in the air, their respective shadows clear to see. The last thing I want is to set off one of these self-important trigger fingers. All it would take is a single round, and either of the incubation canisters could be irreparably damaged. Not to mention myself in the process.

“She always said they’d come after us,” says the hillside sentry, now descending with cascades of sand. Did he summon the others, somehow? Maybe they share a form of telepathy, like Margo.

“How many from Eden are with you?” The eight o’clock sentry advances another step. It won’t be long before he tries poking me in the back, clinking his rifle against the young male’s pod. “C’mon, speak up!”

“I don’t want to disappoint you, because it sure seems like you’re itching for trouble.” I shrug again. “But I’m it. There’s nobody else.”

They curse at that, muttering to each other. Why strung so tight? What’s been going on out here?

“You can’t expect us to believe you came all this way on foot—and alone—”

“Yet here I am.”

They confer among themselves for a moment. The sentry from the hillside grumbles, “We should just take him to see Luther.”

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” I agree.

“First we find out what he’s carrying,” says Eight O’Clock. “We don’t want an invisible suicide bomber walking into the Homeplace.”

I don’t like the sound of that—them touching the pods or thinking I’m some kind of rebel, like those Patriots back before D-Day. Margo doesn’t want anybody but Luther and Daiyna touching the incubation units. Not this crew, that’s for sure.

“Listen.” I hold out a hand. They watch my shadow on the baked earth. “What I’ve got here, it’s meant for Luther. Sensitive cargo—”

The two behind me close in, shouting orders and kicking where they assume the backs of my legs should be. One boot makes contact, and I groan, tipping sideways with sudden pain shooting through my hamstring. I try to make them understand I’m no threat, that what I’m carrying isn’t dangerous in any way. It’s fragile and has to be handled with care. The hillside sentry fires his rifle into the air, a short burst to silence me.

“You shut your mouth and do as you’re told. I don’t care who you are or why you’re here. We’re taking whatever you’re carrying. Got it?”

I nod, biting my lip. Margo sure didn’t prepare me for such a hostile welcome. The mutos are one thing; I know what to expect with them. But this?

One of the men shoulders his weapon and reaches out a tentative hand toward me, gloved fingers grasping through the air. Judging by the shadow and the angle of the sun, he eventually makes contact, his hand landing heavily on my shoulder and throwing me forward a bit.

“What the hell?” The other two sentries jump back a step, seeing something they can’t quite believe.

“What?” The sentry with his hand on me frowns, unsure of himself all of a sudden. His buddies curse a string of foul obscenities. “What is it?”

“They can’t see you,” I tell him. “You’re like me now.”

He jerks his hand back and reappears, darting glances from his buddies to his own torso.

“I’ll be damned,” says the hillside sentry. He whistles, shaking his head slowly.

“If I didn’t just see that with my own two eyes…” Eight O’Clock trails off.

“What are you talking about?”

“You vanished, man. Into thin air, soon as you touched him.”

“What? No, I could see my—”

“I can see myself just fine,” I explain. “It’s other folks, everybody else, who thinks I’m the invisible man.”

“What did we tell you? Shut the hell up!” Hillside jams the butt of his rifle into what he thinks is my throat. I flinch to avoid having an eyeball ruptured.

“I’m not touching him again. What if I don’t come back the next time?”

“You think it’s catching?” snickers Eight O’Clock.

“How the hell should I know?”

He curses, keeping his distance. They argue among themselves for a bit, but in the end, it’s decided that I’ll remove both of the objects from my person myself, and I’ll set them on the ground in front of Hillside. I explain that, as soon as these objects leave my grasp, they will become visible. They nod mutely.

I make one more attempt at convincing them to summon Luther, but they’ll have none of it, threatening to break my nose instead. I’ve got to calm them down. I can’t have men like this, all amped up and prone to violence, welcoming these little ones into the world. But what other choice do I have?

Carefully, I unbuckle the incubation pod strapped to my chest and place it on the cracked earth. My hands linger on the chamber door. Inside, through a liquid haze of artificial amniotic fluid, the female floats contentedly, eyes closed, thumb tucked away in lips that have yet to utter their