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

I load up my guns, my hydro and nutrition packs, the flask, and the idiot's environmental suit, stuffing them all into my extra-large satchel. With my wounded shoulder, I can't carry both rifles, so I take the mag from the dented one. I put on the helmet so I don't have to carry it. I wish I could take the solar panels from my jeep. They'll be ripe for the picking should any marauders pass this way and decide to cannibalize the parts. But if I pick up a new battery over in Stack and am able to return in time, it should be alright. I hope so, anyway.

That's funny: I still have hope.

"So, Stack." Rehana walks beside me as I begin my trek, heading north by northwest. "That's where we're headed."

She can talk to herself all she wants. I'm not saying a thing. The spirit that alternates between manifesting itself as Mother Lairen and Willard has already vanished, probably planning to pop up again at an inopportune moment. Spirit-Rehana is welcome to follow them wherever they went. I really don't care at this point.

"Been a while," Rehana continues. "Sure you'll be welcome there?"

I've got this suit, and I'm willing to trade. I'm sure I'll be welcome just about anywhere there's barter to be had.

"Someone may have heard about Luther, whatever he's up to lately." She leans toward me. "Might be able to give you an update."

I don't want an update. Spirit-Rehana herself could give me one at any time. Her fellow spirits of the earth are active all across the continent, if what she's told me is true, and they communicate via some sort of ethereal telepathy. Even though she's trudging along here beside me, she knows what Luther is doing at this very moment.

Probably sticking his neck out for somebody. Or boring some unsuspecting survivor with quotes from his holy scriptures. More likely, he's trying to sneak onto a freighter bound for Eurasia, a place just as unwelcoming to our kind as Eden, but much more bountiful where food and other necessities are concerned. Rumor has it, the domed cities are as much like life prior to D-Day as you can imagine—and then some. The most advanced human civilization ever in recorded history, contained inside ten massive, self-sustaining biospheres. Millions of all-natural human beings who've never breathed the contaminated air of the outside world.

Or seen sun-bleached skulls like these, spiked into the lifeless sands on lengths of rebar. New territorial markings by the local marauders. Cannibals, if I'm to believe the rumors. Their dominion must be spreading.

As if we need any more dangers out here.

Daylight passes into evening, and the only sound is the rhythm of my boots. By the time dusk falls, I'm still drenched in sweat. I take a few gulps from a hydropack every now and then, just to keep myself coherent. It's already twenty degrees cooler than it was a couple hours ago. As soon as darkness claims the night, it will be even colder, and I'll be shivering with my teeth-chattering like crazy. Something to look forward to.

"She should have waited and traveled in the cool of the evening," Mother Lairen says. Of course she returns to make me second-guess myself. "Then she wouldn't be soaked like this. Her constant movement would have kept her warm. Now she'll get chilled and make herself sick."

Like she cares at all. But if I have to pick an evil ghost to haunt me, I'd choose her over Willard any day of the week.

Too bad I have no say in the matter.

"It would have been difficult for her to find her way after dark," Rehana replies. "She's almost there. She'll be fine."

I curse out loud, bringing them up short. "What do you want from me? Why won't you leave me the hell alone?"

"We care about you, Daiyna—"

"Worry about yourselves. After we're dead and gone, you'll still be floating around this hellscape with nobody left to annoy." I shake my head, depressed by the prospect. "Don't you miss it? Being what you were?" The countless animal species that once filled this planet with life.

Rehana nods. "We yearn for what it was like. In the beginning, the Creator intended for us to be companions of humankind—"

"And look what we did to you." I scoff. Why would they ever want to have anything to do with us after that? Maybe the evil spirits have had it right, all along. "We should be obliterated."

Mother Lairen smiles like a proud mother. "She's beginning to see reason."

Now that's a scary thought.

Almost there. Maybe a kilometer or two to go. Then I'll reach the pile of shipping containers repurposed as a post-apocalyptic trading post.

Stack has grown over the years, from only three of those seven-meter-long containers to over a dozen. The last time I stopped by, not sure exactly when that was, the original trading post had expanded to include a hotel and a bar. There was also a machine shop, apartments for the permanent residents, and storage for goods and materials to be traded. The standing army of twenty gifted guns keeps Stack safe from marauders, and as of yet, the UW raiders haven't seen a need to plunder their stores.

I'm sure that will change once the Sector ruins run dry. For now, those of us without a death wish keep out of their way, steering clear of their regular routes, and the raiders don't bother us.

But as I climb the last hill and approach Stack, even from a distance, I can tell things may have changed. The place looks different.

It's on fire.

3 Hawthorne22 Years After All-Clear

The sun shines through the blue-tinted surface of Dome 1, a warm, radiation-neutralized light that reflects from the mirrored glass of forty-three high-rise buildings and brings to life the lush, green leaves of every tree lining the streets. Sunlight glints from aerocars in mid-flight, hundreds of them floating by serenely in their well-organized lanes of aerial traffic, crisscrossing