Mother Lairen scoffs, clenching her teeth. "You won't kill me, child. They know that." She turns to the others. "Come, my children!"
They surge forward in a stampede. An arrow downs one of them before the crossbow is wrestled free from Rehana's grasp. They come at me, but I spring upward, clinging to the rock wall above their heads. Others gifted in climbing and agility pursue me, and I launch myself through the air, over the throng, landing on all fours in the center of the cavern below.
"Run!" Rehana screams. The others are upon her now, tearing away her sheet and clawing at her ravaged flesh. "Run, Daiyna!"
Where are our other sisters with shaved heads? We have to help her—
You cannot save her, says a voice from deep inside me. You must escape. His life will depend on it.
I stand rooted, staring without really seeing. Listening, but not hearing the screams as Rehana dies.
"Who...are you?" I manage.
You already know.
Part II
Connections
4 Milton
Nine Months after All-Clear
I'm totally in the dark.
I blink my blind eyes and see only impenetrable black, oppressive and smothering. I've given up calling out. It got a little eerie (and pathetic) to hear my voice echo throughout these caverns.
We're here, she said. Then she left me. That was what—two hours ago?
I shouldn't have gotten rough with her. But I'd had it, and she seemed perfectly able to fend for herself. The throbbing pain in my temple is proof enough. I apologized of course, and I'm sure she heard me calling after her, wherever she was going. I just needed some answers.
Now all I want is to get out of here. I've already tried feeling around on my hands and knees, but I almost fell off a ledge. I caught myself in time, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping as my arm plunged through empty space, unable to tell how far the drop was. That got me to stop and think.
I haven't moved since.
But I can't sit here forever. There have to be other survivors around somewhere...besides crazy bald girl. I have to find them.
Why would she abandon me like this? It seemed like she was helping me, leading me through the cave, guiding me through the dark. Somehow, she could see. How was that even possible?
If only I'd thought to pack some glowsticks when I left the bunker. Guess I didn't plan on doing any impromptu spelunking.
I blow out a frustrated sigh, and it echoes like a beast in slumber. I need to focus, figure out some kind of strategy here.
Big hands clamp my shoulders, squeezing as they lift me off my feet. I struggle, carried through the darkness, kicking as viciously as I can, but my boots don't make contact with anything.
"Who are you?" I scream.
The hands swing me sideways and release their grip. I sprawl tumbling against the cave wall. Groaning on impact with the unyielding rock, I curse and struggle to my feet. Terrified but furious, I reel unsteadily, hurling my fists at my invisible opponent. Something cracks.
A bright light burns my eyes, and I shield them with both arms.
"Take his suit," a man's voice says with quiet authority.
"What?" I squint against the light. Two shadowy forms approach, their hands reaching for me. "No!"
They grab at my jumpsuit and dodge my punches, my kicks. One knocks me down and I fall flailing, landing a few good blows. One of them groans, and my adrenaline surges at that small victory. I release something like a wild war cry.
My windpipe closes thanks to a sudden headlock from behind. I choke as my suit is ripped from my body. Its liquid reserves splash across my bare legs, filling the cave with the strong reek of urine.
"Boots, too?" a bass voice rumbles.
A man grunts in the affirmative.
I keep thrashing until I'm thrown to the ground and someone sits on me, nearly crushing my ribs until my boots are tugged off. Then I'm left alone. I cough on hands and knees, naked in the harsh glare of green light.
"Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did," I croak, rubbing my neck.
A hydropack flies at me, slapping against my shoulder.
"Wash yourself," says the authoritative voice.
"You gonna watch?"
No response. I smirk and shake my head, hoping to regain as much of my composure as possible, considering the circumstances. Who are they? What do they want with me—besides my clothes? Are they in league with that bald girl?
It's been months since I had a bath—not since I've been out of the bunker, that's for sure. I probably smell like piss mixed with the foulest of body odors. Good thing I'm immune to my own natural scent by this point.
I tear open the pack and splash the water-like fluid down my chest and back, along my arms and legs and between them, saving some at the end for my face. Refreshing. These folks must have hydropacks to spare if they can waste one like this.
A wad of cotton clothes much like Bald Girl wore comes flying at me, and I catch it. I squint into the light.
"You want me to wear these?" Bet I'm coming across as very astute.
"Yes," the voice of authority says.
"Please," adds the bass voice with a short rumbling chuckle.
I dry my face on the long tunic before I pull it on, then tug the baggy pants on underneath. I stand facing the light, my muscles tensed, arms down at my sides. I can't see anything beyond the light. They've got me cornered, that much I can tell.
"Now what?" my voice echoes, sounding more confident than I feel.
"Now we talk." A shadow steps toward me, and with another crack, the glowstick in his hand flares green, illuminating the sharp features of a well-built man a decade or so older than I am. He comes within a meter of me and stands at ease, his eyes piercing. "I'm Luther. Tell me what you're called."
Introductions after I'm roughed up? What is this?
"Milton," I mutter.
He nods slowly. "Paradise Lost, indeed."
"What?"
"The name you were given in your bunker—"
"My parents." I swallow. I haven't thought about them for a long time. I can't believe how much I suddenly miss them. I clear my throat as hazy images of a former life fill my mind. "My parents...they named me. When I was born."
"I see."
"Where's the girl?" I force myself to focus on the moment. "She found me outside, brought me in here." Before abandoning me to these cave dwellers.
"She'll return. Please." He gestures toward large rocks on my left that have been arranged around a flat-topped boulder. Like seats around a table, if I used my imagination. "Join me."
He sits down and sets the glowstick in the middle of the table. He moves with confidence, like a leader. Like Jackson.
Maybe he was the boss man of his bunker, and they all moved up into these caves after All-Clear to avoid the sun. But what sector would they be from? Sector 43 was the only one on the west side of these mountains, the only one for kilometers around. I should know. I walked most of them. Then I ran…
Like I've never run in my life.
"Where are you from?" I take my seat across from him and glance toward the other light, the first one that blinded me in the dark. A massive shadow of a man stands with it mounted on the end of a spear. "What sector?"
"51. You?"
"43. So you were on the other side of these mountains. East of here." Again, I probably appear quite astute. But I don't know what else to say.
"Fifty kilometers due east. So much of this terrain has changed since D-Day."
True enough. An image of the mangled InterSector, my companion for so much of my journey, passes through my mind. "How did you wind up in here?" I gesture toward the earthen ceiling.
He parts his lips to speak, but pauses before saying, "I'd like to hear your story first, Milton. Will you indulge me?"
I contemplate telling him to screw off. But I'm outnumbered, and they did give me this nice new set of duds, so I figure what the heck. It's not like I have anywhere else to be, and
he did say the bald girl would be back. I'd like to see her again.
What's her part in all of this? From what I remember, Sector 51 was one of the all-male bunkers full of virile young studs waiting to sow their seed. How did she fall in with them?
"Sure." I shrug. "Where do you want me to start?"
A slight smile plays on the sharp features of his unshaven face. "Start at the beginning, Milton. At your beginning."
My beginning. There isn't a whole lot to tell, but I give it a shot.
"Well, I was born to two members of Sector 43, their only allotted child, before they were both sterilized. I grew up with my mother working the twelve-hour day shift and my father working the night. Trade school started for me when I was four years old, and I progressed well enough through all the requisite levels."
I learned all about the cold wars and other times of peace and conflict in between. It was after the second cold war that half the continent was nuked, leaving it uninhabitable. When the third cold war started to thaw, everybody knew it wouldn't bode well. I was fourteen by then. We heard rumors of bioweapons and other forms of impending doom, but I thought it was just talk. Nobody would intentionally screw over the entire planet. By then, I was on the day shift, and I had more than enough to keep me busy.
"So one day the work bus takes a slight detour, and I end up in a cattle car headed on a one-way trip, straight down." Julia's face fills my mind: her soft blonde hair and green eyes, her warm smile. The way our fingers interlaced, our hands together a perfect fit. "And twenty years later, the bunker door opens. Outside..." I look down with a heavy feeling in my gut. "I found this mess of a world they saved us for."
"It was a long time for all of us." Luther watches me. "How did you cope?"
"Underground?" I feel my face sag. I don't even want to think about that. "Hated every minute."
"How many of you were there?"
I look at the glowstick. How long can it burn? "Fifty, I think."
"Mixed. Male and female?"
I remember Julia's scent as she slept beside me. She smelled sweet, like fresh cut flowers. She tasted even better.
"You were sterilized, then."
Why does he have to bring that up? "We all were."
"Of course. To avoid..." He chooses his words carefully now. "Overpopulation in the bunker, nourishment shortages—"
That was the idea. "Not you, huh? Bursting at the seams with seed, right?" I smirk. "Didn't waste any of it on your bunker buddies?"
He looks a little taken aback. "I didn't mean to offend you."
A little late for that. I glance at the giant with the spear. "Got any food? I was told there would be." Unless that was just part of Bald Girl's ploy to get me to come along.
"Of course." He holds his hand out to the giant. "Samson?"
A protein pack sails through the air, landing in Luther's hand. He offers it to me. With a grunt of appreciation, I take the pack and tear open the plastic seal. Bite off a big tasteless chunk.
"Milton," Luther says, "where are the other survivors from Sector 43?"
"Dead."
"All of them?"
I look him in the eye and nod. Now he'll want the sordid details. But I don't feel like talking about it. None of his business, really.
"How about you?" I say around another mouthful. "How many of you survived?"
"All fifty at All-Clear." He sighs, watching me closely. "But in the weeks that followed..." He leans forward. "How did they die—your companions? Was it on the surface?"
I shake my head, staring into the light on the table. I chew slowly. All I can see is blood, gruesome scenes flashing behind my eyes like an old horror interactive.
"In the bunker, then?"
I nod once, my chin sinking and staying there. I drop the rest of the pack, no longer hungry.
"But how?" He sounds stunned. "Was there a malfunction in the environmental systems? A revolt?" He waits for a response, his eyes boring into me. "Please, Milton... If you were attacked, we may have a common enemy—"
"I don't think so." My voice sounds strange. Lifeless. Why am I telling him this? "His name was Jackson."
"Jackson." Luther sits back slowly, waiting for me to continue. He looks genuinely interested, maybe even concerned. Why should he care?
"Jackson was our leader. He said there was a food shortage." I clench my fists. Why didn't I stop him? "He lied." I was weak, and he was the strongest. But I could have stopped him. "And they all died," I grate out, my eyes stinging all of a sudden. Tears? "He killed them, one at a time...until it was just him and me left."
That was my reward. My punishment. He let me live. He kept my name out of the lottery until the very end.
There was no food shortage, no need for the lottery every four months, no reason why one of us had to be selected at random to die every time. Jackson said he had it all figured out, that there would be enough nourishment packs if we did it this way. All fifty of us wouldn't survive until All-Clear as things were, he said. But he had to make it, of course, since he was the only virile male among us. The future would depend on men like him. The rest of us were expendable.
"The new earth won't need a sterile labor force," he told me in private. "More than anything, we'll need to repopulate. And we'll need food." He cursed, shaking his head. "I don't know what those government jerk-offs were thinking! There's no way we'll survive out there with the limited supply we've got. Cutting back now is our only option, and that means less food down here so there'll be enough up there." He pointed to the surface far above us. "You understand, Milton? We've got to think of the future!"
After he explained the situation to everyone, he instituted the lottery. Every time, one of our group was selected to die. Jackson made a big deal out of it, and we always celebrated our bunker mates for an entire day before their time was up. Then I would take them back into one of the storerooms and shut the door. We didn't have anything painless they could take in their sleep. I don't think the government geniuses had planned for us to kill ourselves while we were underground.
But we did have rope.
"Then what happened?"
"What?" I swallow.
"When only you and Jackson were left—"
"I killed him." I cut him open, again and again, and his blood covered the floor in a thick layer of crimson liquid mercury. "It was either him or me. I wasn't going to let him kill me."
Luther nods slowly, watching me. "I can't imagine what it must have been like for you. To lose everyone—and then face this new world alone." He pauses. "You've been out there for nearly ten months."
"Yeah." I relax my hands and rub between my eyes. I can't think about it anymore.
It will drive you crazy.
"She was the first person you've seen in all that time?"
She was my first love: Julia. I managed to keep her name out of the lottery for years—until Jackson found out. When her name was selected, my heart nearly stopped. The others celebrated her all that day, but I couldn't. I met Jackson in the back storeroom, and I hit him as hard as I could. He beat me down hard because of it, and I couldn't walk straight for a week after.
He knew I loved her. He knew she loved me. He couldn't stand to see us happy together.
"Yes," I manage. "She was the first."
Slipping the noose down around the nape of her neck... I couldn't look her in the eye.
"Don't hate yourself, Milton." She gazed at me, her green eyes glistening. "Be strong. We have to think about the future."
"There is no future," I grated out through clenched teeth. "Not without you."
"Milton." She touched my cheek, swollen from my fight with Jackson. "The future is a whole lot bigger than you and me. I'm helping others to live by doing this, so the future will be secure for our species."
Jackson's rhetoric leaking from her lips.
"There was no other—not in all that time?" Luther sounds uncertain, like he's having trouble believing me. "You haven't met any other survivors?"
/>
Well, there was Adam and other skeletons like him, and there was Rocky my erstwhile pet... I should probably keep that to myself. "Just remains in the rubble. Bones. That's all I've found."
I was a scavenger from the moment I stepped out of the bunker. I took all the nourishment packs I could carry, wrapped them in my bedroll, and headed east for no other reason than to see what lay on the other side of these mountains off in the distance. I left Jackson to decay in an empty storeroom. Julia deserved a proper burial. They all did, every one that I'd killed. But I heaved the bunker door shut and left it.
A dark, festering tomb.
"You were running when she found you."
I ran away and left them all behind. But now Luther knows where I came from. If he finds the bunker—
"She says you were...under attack."
"Yeah." I look him in the eye. "Like the earth itself was out to get me. What the hell?"
The giant rumbles with a low chuckle.
"Wasn't funny." It was the weirdest, most frightening thing ever. "What was that all about? She wouldn't tell me anything."
Luther hesitates, again choosing his words carefully. "There are a few opinions circulating among us at present. But suffice it to say, you're not the only one to have experienced something like this. Had you not been wearing that jumpsuit, your skin would have been completely ravaged."
"So why'd you take it from me?"
A sheepish expression crosses his face. "Some of the women don't like the suits."
"And we aim to please," the giant adds, chuckling again.
"This is Samson," Luther introduces him. "He was with me in Sector 51."
Samson brings the light down to illuminate his massive, bearded face. His eyes gleam with good-natured humor as he says, "Howdy." The light rises, leaving him in shadow again.
"Howdy," I mutter. His name suits him. I face Luther. "Women, you say. From what sector?"
"Fifty." He smiles ironically. "Our wives, supposedly—the other half of the equation necessary for our planet's repopulation. The government scientists had everything planned out, but they failed to factor in something very important: free will. They never considered the possibility that the women would want nothing to do with us as far as procreation is concerned."
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 8
