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

"Stay close, huh." I shake my head.

This must be some sort of initiation into her clan. She's from a cave-dwelling, mountain-climbing bunch of survivors, and this is their rite of passage in order to join the tribe. If so, then I should consider my current humiliation an honor. Maybe she'll look past my grunting and gasping and slug's pace and see the effort I'm making here. That's got to be worth something. If I make the cut, I'll be part of a community again. No more going it alone.

As long as there isn't anybody like Jackson in the mix, count me in.

"Hungry?" I call up to her and reach into my pocket for a protein pack.

"We'll eat when we get there."

"Anybody I know?" I chuckle as I tear open the pack and take a bite.

"You've got to hurry." Her tone has changed. There's an urgency to it now. She looks below us, past me, as if something may be following.

"Okay." I lose my contagious sense of humor for the moment and drop the pack into my pocket, doubling my efforts at keeping up.

I've never had a fear of heights, and I'm glad of it now. Between my boots, there's a good twenty-five meters or more that we've climbed already, and who knows how much farther we have to go. One thing's for certain: my companion knows the way. Her familiarity with every crevice and outcropping proves that she's made this trip many times before.

She must be fairly muscular underneath all those loose, billowing garments. She moves with such ease and grace. My arms are already sore and trembling, and I've tried to keep in shape over the years with hundreds of push-ups every day. But I'm using different muscles now—pulling instead of pushing. Guess I trained for the wrong Olympic event.

Thoughts of Adam and Eve cross my mind again, but I have to dismiss them. Even if she is the most perfect, beautiful woman I've ever seen (and after these past months of solitude, I know she would be), I have a feeling she's not alone. She didn't seem shocked to find me. There will be others waiting for us, maybe all from the same bunker. They weren't all like Sector 43. They couldn't be. And for all I know, she might be married to a polygamist—some kind of mountain tribe living off their stockpile of nourishment packs. Or maybe they're all women who outlived the men from their sector and set off on their own to live out their days in peace. If that's the case, then I'm sure I'll be very popular. We'll have this entire continent to repopulate, and we'll need to get started on that right away. Good things definitely come to those who wait.

Don't tell them you're sterile.

Everyone in Sector 43 was. Jackson said he wasn't, but I never believed him. We were a labor sector, and the government geniuses didn't want us reproducing while underground—consuming carefully planned resources, space, and oxygen. Sterilization was mandatory unless you were one of the sectors' best and brightest. Rumor had it that there were bunkers designated for all-male and all-female populations. Carefully selected based on the results of genetic and intelligence tests, they were the hand-picked gene pool of the future. Of course they weren't sterilized. They had one purpose in life: making plenty of whoopee. And babies, too, when the time was right.

My companion could hail from an entire enclave of prime female specimens, all eagerly awaiting the arrival of a virile young male to get our species back on the road to recovery...

Dream on.

I reach a rock ledge and pull with my left hand curled into a crevice. I throw my right forearm over the top to brace myself. Strong hands take hold of my shoulder and the back of my dusty jumpsuit, helping me onto a level sheet of rock. Gasping from the effort, I roll onto my back.

"Thanks," I manage.

My companion stands over me, and I see myself in her goggles again. I look pathetic lying there with my lungs heaving.

"We're here," her voice comes through the material wrapped around her face, but her tone is difficult to interpret.

Behind her, the yawning mouth of a cave opens into the side of the mountain. The first few meters in there look safe enough, shielded from the sun's rays but with sufficient light. Farther back it's pitch black, and I can't tell where it leads or what could be lurking inside. I try to quell my overactive imagination.

"By here you mean..." I leave the blank for her to fill in.

She turns away and enters the cave. "Follow me." Her voice echoes against the earthen walls.

Except for the sound of my slightly labored breathing, silence reigns supreme. I listen to it, remembering all too well what it's been like to live completely alone. Not a single living thing since All-Clear. No vehicles passing me by on the InterSector, no planes flying overhead, no animals, not even insects to prey upon me. One thought has kept me sane all along: the hope of finding life.

So that's why I struggle to my feet and follow this stranger into the cave. I have no idea what awaits me, but I can honestly say I feel no fear, no dread. I may be walking to my death, but at least I won't die alone.

I find my companion seated on a large rock inside the cave, her goggles already off as she works to remove the wrappings from her head. I disconnect my face shield and throw back my hood, letting it fall to my shoulders. I take a seat on a rock across from her.

"You're one hell of a climber," I thoughtfully articulate.

Her eyes dart to me briefly—long enough for me to see they're a pair of dark chocolates with matching eyelashes. They focus on the ground as she frees the rest of her head from the cloth strips binding it.

I catch my breath and run