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

and holding the perimeter, due to some military instinct from another life. Waiting for their share of the meat to be brought down to them. Not expecting the headshots that send them toppling sideways.

Gritting my teeth, I release a rocket-propelled grenade from the launcher on my shoulder. I'm hovering a hundred meters in the air, so I'm hurled in the opposite direction by the recoil. But I manage to course-correct in time to see the front entrance of the Homeplace explode and cave in completely, dust billowing into the air as the opening is sealed shut. Hopefully setting off a chain reaction of collapses inside the entire cave network.

There's another opening on the other side of the mountain, so I fly over there in a matter of seconds and line up my second shot. This side was left completely undamaged by that missile strike, and the mouth yawns wide enough to aim an RPG deep inside.

I wait for any signs of daemons trying to escape. Ten minutes pass, then twenty without any movement. Automatic gunfire echoes from the mountain's west side, where my friends fight the daemons on the ground. Part of me wants to join them, to use my speed to disarm every last hideous creature in less than a minute. But I'm the only one who can fly, so here I am, floating in mid-air with a rocket-launcher on my shoulder and the second of three RPGs prepped and ready to go.

But I'm not alone.

"Your friends." The Julia-spirit hovers beside me and smiles. I do my best not to be distracted by her beauty. Emerald eyes glinting in the hot sun, golden hair undulating in the breeze. "They really are, aren't they? You've come a long way, Milton. No longer a lone survivor, you're part of a tribe now."

"A dwindling tribe," I mutter. Only fifteen of us left, and two are just babies.

I hope Victoria is doing alright with them. As soon as these daemons are exterminated, I'll be flying northward to those ruins to check on her and the little ones.

"You love her." Julia nods with a knowing look.

"What?" I frown at her. "No, I don't. I mean, I care about her, sure. She's a new mother, and she's in charge of two very demanding—"

"You don't have to hide it. I'm not jealous." Julia winks at me.

Well, that's a relief.

The gunfire in the distance has abated. I hope we've won.

"You have." Julia nods. "The only creatures left are skulking inside this mountain."

I almost don't want to ask, but I have to know. "Did we...lose anybody?"

Her smile fades away. She nods grimly. "Five."

I clench my jaw. "Who?"

"Burke, Ethan, Connor, Deven...and Margo."

The sudden loss hits me like a punch to the gut. My eyes well up with hot tears. I can't believe they're gone, just like that. I saw each of them, spoke to them, only minutes ago. Now I never will again.

"They took down multiple daemons before they were killed." She reaches out to touch my shoulder. "They gave their lives for your future. So you could live without fear."

"They were good…" I choke.

The sheer volume of people we've lost has finally caught up with me. Now, at the end of our offensive, with my finger on the trigger, waiting for the first daemon to rear its ugly head from the collapsed cave network, reality sets in.

There are only ten of us now.

"They deserved better." My tears dry, replaced by a slow-burning rage. "Margo—after all she endured in Eden, she deserved to live in peace!"

"She will now."

I shake my head. "Don't you dare tell me she's in a better place."

"Even if it's true?"

My laugh is bitter as I look over our dead surroundings. "So why don't we all just kill ourselves? Why have we struggled to survive every day for the past two years?"

"Every life has a purpose, Milton. Just as Margo and the others lived out their purpose, so must you."

I curse under my breath. "What purpose? We're just living for the sake of living. Postponing the inevitable."

Dust stirs at the cave's mouth as deformed figures half-stumble, half-crawl out into the light. A couple of them at first, followed by half a dozen more. Bulbous yellow eyes staring as they snort and bark angrily at each other. One seems to notice me.

I send the second RPG rocketing past them to detonate deep inside the caves. The explosion throws the daemons attempting to escape to the ground as dust and rocks fly upward and outward. I load the last RPG and fire it at the roof of the cave's mouth, crushing any daemons who survived the first blast.

When the dust eventually clears, carried off by the desert breeze, there is no movement. The caves have been destroyed, along with everything inside. The daemons who've made our lives hell for so long...are no more.

Someone slow-claps on the ground below me: the Jackson-spirit.

"Bravo!" he calls out.

He grins as I descend, my boots touching down with twin puffs of dust. Even if I had another RPG in my launcher, it would be useless against him.

"I should be able to retire early, what with you doing my work for me. Only ten of you left?" He snickers.

"Your monsters are extinct." I jerk my head toward the demolition above.

"You don't think I can make more?"

The Julia-spirit lands beside me with no evidence that her feet have touched the earth. "You promised not to interfere," she chides him.

He shrugs his bulky shoulders, garbed in the same jumpsuit he wore down in the bunker. "I don't have to. Just wait and see. Once the food starts running out, and the oxygen—"

"That won't affect them," Julia counters.

"Not talking about them." He nods at me. "They're golden. Blessed, you might say. But anybody who's been breathing filtered air up to now? As soon as their lungs try to squeeze out what little O2 is left…" He shakes his head. "It won't be pretty."

With no plants or trees anywhere in sight, I've often wondered how we've managed to