Ahead, the dust darkens to black, the smoking rubble of our vehicle. A body lies face down, covered in soot.
Shechara! I fall to my knees beside her and roll her over. There's no blood. Her neck—her jugular—there's a pulse. She must have been thrown clear of the jeep, the blast knocking her out. Or the fall knocked the wind out of her.
I jostle her with both hands. She has to wake up. They're coming, and the dust is beginning to dissipate.
You must save her.
What about Luther? Where is he?
Shechara stirs, coughing. The head covering around her mouth pulses outward. I help her up, and she touches her ears instinctively, dismayed by the deafness and ringing. I pull her to her feet, draping her arm over my shoulder.
Straight ahead is the boulder and Samson. But what about Luther? Will I have time to come back?
Run.
Shots ring out behind me, sharp popping sounds. They send a jolt of adrenaline through my system, and I take off as fast as I can, half-carrying, half-dragging Shechara as she stumbles along. I risk a glance back in time to see Luther emerge through the clearing dust, staggering backward with a rifle held low, firing blindly across the jeep's remains. He sees me, slings the rifle over his shoulder and breaks into a run. Catching up with us, he takes Shechara's other arm, and we carry her ten paces, then ten more.
We should be at the boulder by now. Only there is no boulder. No Samson. In the dust cloud, I've lost my way.
"Keep moving!" Luther's voice sounds garbled, like he's under water.
Where are we? Where's Samson?
"Daiyna—they're coming!" Luther pulls Shechara forward and me along with her.
More shots punctuate the distance, but this time they come from the opposite direction. The daemons have us surrounded. Luther pulls us to the ground and holds his rifle ready on one knee, swinging side to side, aiming for the first daemon to show itself.
The spirits said they would go with us, that we would have nothing to fear. Where are they now?
Get down.
"Luther—get down!" I grab hold of his arm and tug him to the ground just as a massive figure charges out of the dust with a rifle in each hand.
Samson.
Three hideous shapes emerge behind us. Grunting, the daemons rub at their bulbous eyes, irritated by the dust.
"Stay down!" Samson roars at us, leveling his weapons over our heads and squeezing the triggers, holding them tight. A twin burst of automatic fire explodes from the muzzles, and the three daemons convulse as the rounds hit their marks. The mutants flail their arms and scream, weapons hitting the ground moments before they do as well, torn and bloody and lying still.
Then everything is quiet. Samson discards empty magazines as he steps over us and scavenges what he needs from the fallen weapons. He looks at me.
"That was suicide. You going back." He glances at Shechara and Luther. "But good work, Daiyna."
I don't need his praise. I get to my feet and take up two of the daemons' rifles—one for me, one for Shechara.
"You're hurt." I gesture at Samson's back.
"Flesh wounds." He shrugs.
"The dust... It's providing cover." Luther gazes around us.
"They're doing it." I offer Shechara the butt of her rifle, and she pulls herself to her feet. "But it won't last."
"The spirits." He nods. "They fight with us."
"How many, do you think?" I give one of the daemons a kick to make sure it's dead.
"Three fewer now." Samson clears his throat. "They hit us with some kind of grenade launcher. A Stinger, I think."
"I didn't see it," Shechara says quietly. "I'm so sorry, Daiyna."
"No way you could have." Samson faces her. "They took us by surprise."
Shots pop in the distance, farther away than before. They'll leave us stranded out here, then come back and take us out one at a time. What were we thinking? Why'd we travel so far from the caves? We should have waited for Milton, for his speed. He could have run them down, disarmed them, and shot them before they even had a chance to see him.
But that doesn't matter now.
"We need another jeep," Samson states the obvious. He stands rooted, looking toward where the shots originated.
Luther nods. "What do you have in mind, my friend?"
"We take one."
Luther turns to me. "Would the spirits be willing to help us?"
I don't know. "How?"
"A full-on sandstorm would be nice—one that targets only the daemons. Think they could swing that?" Samson shifts his weight. He looks like he's ready to take off running. "I mean, from what you said, they did a good job attacking Milton."
"Those were evil spirits," I mutter.
How do I explain something I don't understand? Are the same spirits who speak to me the ones that stirred up the sand and attacked us in the past? Is the voice I hear from the same entity that ravaged Rehana's skin? What voice did Mother Lairen hear? What did Milton hear before he tried to kill himself?
"Can the spirits go on the offensive, or do they only defend us?" Luther asks. He seems to believe without questioning. What kind of faith is that?
"I don't know, I really don't." I shake my head. "They haven't told me."
Samson shrugs again. "How about you ask them?"
I wish I could. "It doesn't work that way. They speak to me only when they want to."
"Convenient," Samson mutters.
"It's almost gone," Shechara says.
She's right. It's happening quickly now, like a vacuum is sucking away all the dust. In moments, we'll be completely exposed.
"Can you see any daemons?" I ask her.
Her goggles face north, beyond the charred ruin of our vehicle.
"They're moving off." She stands tall now. "Four of them. One carries a long pipe on his shoulder."
"That'd be the Stinger," Samson says.
"You don't see a vehicle?" Luther steps beside her.
She shakes her head. The last of the dust cloud has settled, and the dark figures moving in the distance are too small for my eyes to distinguish any details.
"We must be close to their camp, if they attacked us on foot." He sounds eager to pursue them.
"We've just managed to escape with our lives," I caution him.
He points after the retreating shapes. "This is why we've come, Daiyna. Now we'll know what we're up against, what other weapons or technology they possess. There may be communication devices, ways to contact other survivors—"
"Condoms?" Samson chuckles. No one joins him. "What? Don't tell me it didn't cross your mind."
"Honestly? No." I face Luther. "We're stranded out here. We need to find a way back to the caves."
"Agreed. We'll take one of their vehicles after we've surveyed their camp. We have to know how many there are before we can mount a full assault."
We can't journey north to the Preserve until the daemon threat is neutralized. And we can't risk a full-scale attack on them without knowing their numbers. We need to find their base camp or whatever hell-hole they live in before we do anything else. But the thought of being on foot, unable to flee from potentially dozens of these creatures when they come back for us...
It's enough to turn my legs to ash.
"I sure hope you can still see 'em, Small Fry, because they're just about off my radar." Samson shields his goggles against the sun's glare with one hand.
"I can see them," she replies evenly.
Luther steps forward and turns, walking backward. "Shall we, my friends?"
"Count me in." Samson follows.
Shechara turns to me. "Daiyna?"
I sigh, watching Luther with his hands out to the sides, seeming to invite an embrace as he backs away.
"I think they need us, Daiyna." Shechara pats my arm. "We should go with them."
Maybe she's right. It's what we came out here for, anyway. We've lost our means of transportation and escape, but we've gained two more rifles, so now each of us is ar
med. That's something. And so far, the spirits have helped us. I can't deny that.
I have to hope they'll continue to do so. If they do...then we'll have nothing to fear, just like they said in my dream.
But in my dream, we still had the jeep at this point.
"All right, if you say so." I shoulder the rifle by its strap. The UW insignia on the stock catches the sunlight. I hope we find an explanation for that among everything else that lies ahead of us. "We're in," I call to Luther as Shechara and I catch up. "On one condition."
He turns mid-stride as I come alongside him. "And that would be?"
"We make finding a vehicle our top priority. Before we do anything else."
"Always have an exit strategy. One of the primary rules of engagement." Samson chuckles. "Just what I was thinking. Great minds think alike, eh Daiyna?"
If I didn't know he was from Sector 51, I'd seriously doubt he has a mind at all in that huge head. Maybe that's unfair. He does know how to drive, after all.
"Reasonable enough." Luther nods.
"They're dropping into a crater, out of sight now." Shechara picks up her pace. "We should hurry."
We break into an easy jog, passing what's left of the jeep as we continue northward. Hills and craters lie ahead, lifeless, crumbling into ash. Do the daemons know we're following them? What if only a few of them broke away from the pack, and the rest lie in wait to ambush us again?
"Keep your eyes open, folks," Samson says, seeming to hear my thoughts. He holds his rifle low, at the ready. "We don't want them doubling back to surprise us."
Eyes darting, I wipe at the dust caked on my goggle lenses. Now they're smeared, but I can't waste a hydropack to clean them. The sun beats relentlessly against my head, my shoulders, my back. Sweat trickles across my skin, beneath my garments. I wish I could take them off. I wish the sun wouldn't scorch me if I did.
"They climbed out of the crater, but they dropped down an embankment on the other side." Shechara points. "I can't see them anymore."
"Think they caught sight of us?" Samson scratches his chin through his head covering.
"They haven't looked back." Shechara breaks into a run, beckoning. "Let's go!"
We follow close behind. It seems too easy—tracking these creatures straight to their home. They must know we survived their attack and killed three of their own in the process. Could it be they simply don't care?
I can't shake the feeling we're not alone. Maybe because we're not. The Presence I feel could be the spirits, moving with us, keeping the evil ones at bay who would rise against us in the rocks and sand. They told me we had nothing to fear. Do I doubt them?
I hope they'll warn me again if trouble heads our way.
"Great spot for an ambush," Samson remarks, clearing his throat. He surveys the low hill formation up ahead and an outcropping of rock across from it. We'll have to pass in between to remain on course. "If they've got any brains left in those mutant skulls, they would've thought to leave a couple sharpshooters there and there. Pick us off as we pass by."
I drop the rifle from my shoulder and hold it ready as our pace slows.
"Anything, Daiyna?" Luther asks.
I shake my head.
"Then we must assume it's safe. If they haven't warned you..." He looks at me for a moment. Then he runs ahead, beckoning us to follow.
Samson charges after him, then Shechara. As they pass by the rocks, my abdomen tightens. I half-expect to see a well-armed band of daemons rise up for the slaughter.
But Luther and the others make it through without incident, and I quickly join them.
"Didn't think we'd make it, huh?" Samson mutters to me.
Of course he noticed my hesitation. "I was covering you." I raise my rifle.
"Sure you were." He chuckles.
Shechara points out a massive crater in the earth ahead of us, one that would take just as long to circumvent as it would to cross. "That's where they dropped out of sight before."
Samson curses. "They sure did bomb the hell out of this place."
"Indeed they did," Luther muses. Not referring to the daemons but rather the United World government that unleashed nuclear hellfire on D-Day.
"All because of those stupid rebels."
"Misguided, perhaps," Luther corrects him. "But far from stupid. They thought they were patriots, but their homeland was a figment of their collective imagination."
"Exactly. Stupid idiots. What were they thinking?" Samson curses again and moves ahead.
"I heard they wanted to drive out the UW and unite the sectors." I frown, trying to remember history that wasn't included in the bunker database. "The United Sectors of America, they wanted to call it. Their posters and graffiti were all over the place when I was a kid."
Luther nods. "No one took them seriously. Until the end."
"How many sectors did they infect?"
"At first? Merely a handful. There were no symptoms for weeks. They targeted sectors with a large UW presence. Then they started shifting to global targets, and they made their demands known once the symptoms emerged. It didn't take long for the plagues to spread worldwide."
He remembers more details than I do. I guess he would have been a little older at the time.
"That's why the bombs fell."
"A teacher in one of my secondary courses taught us ancient world history." He pauses. "He told us that the original nations of the UW, back in the twenty-first century, held in their possession enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth a hundred times over. And he found that peculiar, since destroying the planet once would probably be bad enough."
"And here we are." I sum up the devastation of the world in a trite statement.
"Yes. Here we are."
We stop at the rim of the crater, the toes of our dust-covered boots sending small cascades of gravel down the side. The drop is fifty meters down from here, and it's a kilometer or more before another fifty-meter climb up the opposite side. I could make the leap downward with ease, but the climb will take some doing with the shifting sand and ash.
"What do you think?" A hot breeze ripples Samson's garments as he stands with arms crossed and the rifle slung over his shoulder. "Across or around?"
Luther tilts his head to one side. "Which would be faster?"
"The drop's easy enough. We can slide down. But I don't know about the other side." Samson shuffles his large boot and sends another ashen trickle off the rim.
Luther moves toward the left. "Then around it is."
I turn to Shechara. "Where did they drop out of sight?"
She points straight ahead at the opposite rim. We're close. Is she afraid?
"If they're hiding in a depression over the other side, we'll be too exposed if we go around." I point down. "We should go across."
Samson shakes his head. "That will give them the higher ground while we're climbing out."
"Only if they're expecting us."
"You don't think they are?"
"They never looked back," Shechara says.
Luther watches her. "We split up. I'll look out for you as you cross the crater. Shechara can come with me. If you reach the opposite rim before we do, you can let us know how to proceed."
I'd rather go with Shechara, but it makes sense for her to go around with her far-sight unobstructed and for me to go across with my agility at climbing. There's no time to argue, anyway. It won't be long before the daemons meet up with others of their kind and come back for us.
"Let's go." I leap from the rim and fall quickly, the side of the crater rushing behind me as the bottom rises up to meet my boots. I land in a crouched position, then spring to my feet.
Luther pats Samson on the back and jogs around the side with Shechara. The big oaf is left alone, looking like a small child standing at the deep end during his first swimming lesson. Will he decide to follow Luther instead? I can hope.
Before I know it, he's on his backside, sliding feet-first with a plume of dust flying upward in his wake, grave
l flinging from his boots as he makes his way down to the bottom of the crater. He holds the rifle out in front like a kayak paddle and shifts his weight awkwardly as he hits larger rocks. I can only imagine what his rear end will feel like once he touches down. Will there be any material left to cover it? A scary thought. An image of a hairy gorilla passes through my mind as he lands on both feet and stumbles toward me, righting himself after almost pitching forward face-first.
"Impressive," I offer, then turn and break into a run.
Surprisingly, he's able to keep up. "Thought you'd like that."
"Sore?"
"Like you wouldn't believe," he mutters.
As we cross the level ground, I glance over my shoulder to check on Shechara and Luther's progress. They're making good time, but we'll reach the opposite side long before they do.
"Can you climb?" I face Samson mid-stride as we pass the center of the crater. "Gravity won't be working in your favor."
His goggles glance my way. "Are you asking if I can get up?" He waits for his lame double entendre to sink in. Then he chuckles. "Not a problem."
If he can't make it, I won't be able to help him. He's too heavy. And I won't wait for him. Get a vehicle and get out—that's our priority. If he ends up stuck in this crater, we'll tow him out later. Might take his arrogance down a few pegs. Not a bad idea at all.
Within minutes, we reach the steep, sloping wall of sand and gravel at the other side, and without a word to him, I take a running leap, launching myself upward and clearing the first ten meters. My boots sink instantly into the shifting, cascading mix. I hurl myself forward and upward, pausing long enough between lunges only to take a breath until I reach the rim and crouch down quickly.
A desolate valley opens below. The descent from here is a short drop, then a gradual slope downward. Four small, distinct shapes move at a leisurely pace across the hardpan in the distance, the ash-colored earth rising up around them at an even grade. Less than five kilometers ahead of them, spread out across the valley floor like a child's sand castle smashed by bullies, lie the broken remains of a large city.
The devastation is incredible. Mangled frames of what were once skyscrapers lean sideways at awkward angles. Rubble in mounds nearly as high cover what would have been urban neighborhoods. Everything lies caked in a thick layer of ashen dust, making it look like it's been forced up out of the earth and rejected.
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 14
