Free Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 by James Harden Page A

wake suddenly, snapping my eyes open.
It is early morning. Early dawn. And my heart is racing.
    My instincts… my gut is telling me
something is wrong. I turn my head slightly.
    Kenji is on his knees, with his rifle
shouldered and raised. He is aiming at the water.
    Someone shouts at him. “Drop the weapon!”
    Kenji slowly and reluctantly lowers his
rifle.
    I realize that I have woken to the sounds
of a standoff. And not knowing what else to do, I roll over, reaching for my
rifle.
    A shot is fired right next to my hand, a
puff of red dust explodes in my face.
    I freeze.
    “Do not move!” a voice demands. “The next
shot will not be a warning.”
    I put my hands in the air. Sarah and Kenji
do the same.
    We have surrendered. But to who?
    Billy remains still. He appears to be calm.
He appears to be completely unafraid.
    “Stay down and no one gets hurt.”
    I turn my head in the direction of the
voice, careful not to make any sudden movements. I look out over the narrow
river.
    I see them.
    They come up and out of the water. They are
Evo Agents. Two of them.
    Sent by the company.
    Sent to kill.
    They are faceless killer robots.
    One of them has a long barreled rifle with
a silencer attached to it. This is a sniper rifle. And if this guy is half as
good as Kenji is, he could kill us all, he could kill
us right now. He could’ve killed us from a mile away.
    The other guy moves forward, leading the
way. I get the feeling he is in charge.
    They quickly make their way over to us and
they take our weapons. All of them.
    The three handguns.
    The two rifles.
    Kenji’s knife.
    Billy’s knife.
    Wait. Billy had a knife? How did we miss
that yesterday?
    The Evo Agents unload the guns and throw
them a short distance away.
    “What are you guys doing here?” Kenji asks.
    “That’s none of your damn business,” the
sniper says.
    “Are you looking for someone?”
    No answer.
    “You’re looking for the doctors,” Kenji
says. “Aren’t you?”
    “What the hell do you know about that?”
    “If you promise to let us go, I’ll tell you
everything I know.”
    “Don’t try and bargain your way out of
this.”
    “Have you seen anyone down here?” the other
one, the leader asks. He points to a nearby rock. A flat boulder. “See the
blood?”
    There’s a small amount of blood splatter.
We didn’t see it yesterday. Was it too dark when we got here? Or were we too
distracted by the prospect of fresh water, by the beauty of this oasis.
    Maybe we were just too damn exhausted to
notice.
    “We know one of them has been here,” the
sniper says. “Maybe both of them.”
    “Doctor Kumar Singh,” I say under my
breath.
    The man in the gas mask.
    This is where he would come. I begin to see
more splatters of blood on the rocks, on the ground near the banks of the
river. I imagine him kneeling down at the water’s edge, drinking, cleaning his
wounds.
    He would know to come here. Of course he
would. He is a survivor. He is a warrior. He knows the terrain of his
battlefield. He knows everything.
    Was he stalking me last night?
    Despite the rising heat of the desert, I
shiver. I feel cold.
    “Anything you want to tell us?” the leader
asks.
    “You won’t find him,” I whisper. “You won’t
stop him.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I said, you won’t find him.”
    He is a ghost.
    “Tell us what you know,” the leader says.
“Tell us right now.”
    “We know they were evacuated from the
Fortress,” Kenji answers.
    “And we know you’ve tried to get them out
before,” I add. “Same for Maria Marsh. Same for Kim Richards. But they keep
failing. You keep failing . You fail
because there are too many forces working against you. And he won’t let you
win.”
    “You were down there?” the leader asks. “In
the Fortress?”
    I nod my head slowly.
    The sniper swears under his breath. “We’re gonna have to call this in. We’ll need to bring these
people with us.” He then takes his helmet off.
    And I can’t believe how