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

a sudden wave of nausea. "We were going to find you...on our way to the Preserve. That was the plan, to start a new life together."

"It's all gone, Luther. The Preserve—" He makes an explosive sound that puffs out his hollow cheeks, and he gestures with both hands. "Kaput. We're in a forbidden zone here—the whole continent. Or what's left of it. The rest of the world doesn't want to have anything to do with us." He chuckles dryly. "Sounds like you really need to be brought up to speed on a few things."

My head swims. I can no longer hold it up. The muscles in my neck give way, and my skull snaps backward, dangling. Willard says something before he leaves, but his words are slow and garbled. The door slams shut, and the walls reverberate again. So does my brain.

I can't lose consciousness. I don't want to be shocked awake again. But I don't want to be awake anymore. My eyelids close, falling like a black curtain, and the last thing I see is the metal cart behind me.

I can't sleep long. I need to wake up before Perch returns with his prod. Water? Is he bringing water? I'm so thirsty.

I should dive into the lake and swim past the buoy, something I always did with my brothers during those hot summers at our lake house in the Preserve. Gone forever? Was the Preserve obliterated on D-Day? What does that mean for us? How can we survive in this barren wasteland? Perhaps it's a moot point. My eyelids crack open to glaring white lights and bloody fingers dangling without feeling from the shackles. I may not survive this room, let alone anything beyond it.

What did he mean about a forbidden zone and the rest of the world? Has he been in contact with survivors on other continents? How many of them are there? How could he possibly communicate with them?

My eyelids collapse against my will. This time, I have no strength left to deny them, and I surrender to whatever comes next.

When I see light again, I find myself lying on a narrow bed with clean white sheets. Medical machines sit on each side; tubes and hoses of all sizes protrude from my arms and groin, connecting me to these machines. The walls are not steel as they were in that torture chamber. I'm now in a hospital room without any windows, and the only light emanates from above the headboard of my bed, fluorescent and jittery.

Just beyond the foot of my bed, a lone figure stands in the shadows with its back to me. Garbed in a white medical coat that hangs limply from its thin frame. Dark, matted locks of shoulder-length hair. Who is this person?

My wrists, raw from the shackles, are no longer restrained. Yet I can't move a muscle. Am I paralyzed? What have they done to me now?

I take a breath to steady my nerves and look over the equipment around me. Then I try to ask Where am I? only to find a weak, unintelligible moan come out of me instead of a voice.

The lone figure doesn't stir. "You may not be able to articulate speech for a while," a woman's voice emerges from behind that curtain of unkempt hair. She sounds as lifeless as she looks. "We have you pumped full of muscle relaxants, sedatives. Probably feels like you're paralyzed, but that's temporary. Just while we run some tests."

Willard said there would be tests. I survey the hoses attached to my body. What are they taking from me? Or injecting me with?

I close my eyes and struggle to take in another deep breath, but it comes shallow. How long have I been here? Why didn't I wake up when they removed my chains? The one named Perch didn't seem able to keep his prod to himself. But if I blacked out completely, they may have had to bring me here to revive me. That would mean these tubes are for my benefit, feeding me nutrients, keeping me hydrated. But what about my groin? What could that possibly be for?

"So far, you've checked out. The best case we've seen so far. For most of the others, there's no going back, not once the physiological transformations have become permanent." She drops what sounds like a file folder onto the cart at the foot of the bed. Then she turns, and the light illuminates her skeletal features, bruised and swollen. At the base of her neck is a thin strip of metal with a blinking red light. "It looks like you're actually going to make it." Her heavy-lidded eyes stare at me bleakly from their hollow sockets. "Good for you, Luther."

Who are you? I want to ask, but another moan shudders out of me instead. I frown, mouthing the words. No recognition sparks in her vacant eyes. I try again, working my mouth sluggishly around the silent words. Despite my best efforts, I'm not rewarded with a response of any kind from the woman. She looks directly at me, but she doesn't seem to see me.

"My name is Margo. That's who I am." Her voice takes on a haunted quality. "That's who I was...before."

I blink, a poor substitute for a nod. What do you do here? I mouth the question once, twice, three times before she responds.

"I'm the closest thing they have to a doctor." Her bony shoulders twitch up and down. "I was a nuclear engineer, but I also studied genetics, and I had some medical training. It's the only reason I'm still alive. All of the rest are—"

Her head jerks suddenly as the light on her collar flares brightly. She falls back a step but steadies herself with a hand on the footboard of the bed, her eyes wide in their deep-set sockets. She whimpers involuntarily and hangs her head as the light on her collar fades, returning to a steady pulse.

The room must be bugged, as Samson calls it. Willard or