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

bizarre abilities. Maybe not so far from the truth. Anyone they suspect of being infected is tested, then summarily executed.

For the first month or so after All-Clear, their numbers dwindled drastically as every day some among them—usually women—were found to manifest some type of mutation. Eventually, everyone who'd set foot on the surface was eliminated. Those who remained, close to fifty men, set about creating a subterranean paradise in one of the old groundwater storage domes, deep beneath the city. They call it Eden.

But that's where Tucker's story breaks down. He says they have purified air, running water, real food, even apartments where they enjoy all the conveniences we had prior to D-Day. They have everything they could ever want, he says—except women. And they're more than willing to share their bounty with any all-natural children of God who come their way.

"What will they do to my friends?"

"Are they like you and me?"

"They have…special abilities." Gifts, Mother Lairen called them. I never thought they'd be cause for a death sentence.

"He'll try to cure 'em first," Tucker says. "That's what he calls it. Always ends up killing 'em, though. He's an engineer, not a healer. He can build things, take 'em apart, then fix 'em and make 'em better than ever. That's his gift. A structural engineer. But it's not the same with folks. And besides," he adds with a sniff. "I think he wants 'em all dead."

I clench my jaw and try to keep my voice even. "Don't they fight back?" Luther's claws, Samson's strength—they would not be subdued easily.

"I'm sure they try. I know I would. But he's got all his men working together like some kind of military organization. They even call 'im captain now, like it's official."

"What's his name?" I grate out. I close my hand on the rifle.

"Arthur Willard. A real bastard, that one. Left me to die, once." He chuckles. An odd moment to find humor. "But I've been able to get back at 'im plenty. He thinks I'm haunting him for what he did to me. I show up when he least expects it and whisper things into his ear. Scares the crap out of him, let me tell you!"

"He has no idea you're alive?"

"Nope. Oddly enough, the lights down there don't make my shadow stand out like the sun does. I'm pretty sure he thinks it's my ghost coming after 'im. Payback's a bitch!"

"Ever thought of killing him?"

"I'm no killer," he answers sharply.

Our boots echo against the concrete all around us.

"What does he do to—" The daemons. "—those creatures outside?"

His hand on my shoulder tightens and relaxes. Agitated again. "The mutos? He runs tests on 'em, tries to figure out why they don't show any other mutations—besides the obvious deformities. No special abilities or anything like that. He doesn't understand it. But he doesn't have to, not in order to use 'em like he does."

I wait, but he doesn't go on. "Use them how?"

He mutters to himself and curses, sniffing. "Like slaves, wired to fetch. Remote-controlled to get what he wants from the surface. So he never has to leave Eden."

I hope I'm hearing only the paranoid ravings of an invisible madman, that just a fraction of what he's saying is true. But even that much would be disturbing.

It's entirely possible we'll find the engineers from Sector 30 down here. With their varied skills, I'm sure they could have survived well enough for months beneath the surface of a trade sector with plenty to scavenge. But the rest—all this talk of executions and tests and programmed daemons. It's insane. It can't be true.

A dozen meters ahead, the tunnel dead-ends with another ladder leading down. My pace slows.

"What do you see?" His breath gusts past my ear as he strains to peer ahead.

"Another ladder—"

"Take off your boots. Quick." He releases my shoulder and scuffles across the concrete, unbuckling his pair. "We're getting close. Leave 'em here," he whispers. "So they don't hear us."

How close are we for it to matter? But I do as he says. He grasps my shoulder, and we proceed to the ladder. It stretches for what could be a hundred meters, straight down. At the bottom, the concrete is illuminated in a small patch of light.

"Might not want to jump this time," he mutters.

"What's down there?"

"Old access tunnel, big enough to drive a truck through. They use it for storage on this side." He chuckles. "I get some of my best stuff down there. Usually a couple guards posted. Armed."

"You go first." They won't see him, and by the time I reach him, he can lend me a hand and share his invisibility. He mutters to himself at first, sounding like he'll protest. But then he squeezes past me and starts down the ladder as quietly as possible. I follow, one rung at a time. Slow going. I can't remember the last time I used a ladder instead of leaping. Back in the caves, Mother Lairen had us construct ramparts and catwalks with ladders for the sisters not gifted with agility. I helped in the construction, using pipework and other materials we'd gleaned from the bunker. But I never climbed them. There was no need.

I glance down between my stocking feet, straight through Tucker. Have I jumped this far before? I doubt it, but I'm sure I could do it. I'd use the ladder to slow my descent if it turned out to be too long a drop for my knees to cushion the fall.

Not an option now. He's in the way.

Rung by tedious rung, we approach the bottom where the patch of light gradually enlarges. We don't speak. If our boots on this ladder would be heard, so would our voices.

Soon I'll find out how much of Tucker's stories are true and how much are the result of his solitude in the ruins above. I can't imagine what that must have been like for him. Scavenging, avoiding the daemons, avoiding his own kind—if what he said about these naturals