The Forest Beyond the Earth by Matthew S. Cox

Author:Matthew S. Cox [Cox, Matthew S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: survival, drama, post apocalyptic, adventure
Publisher: Matthew S. Cox
Published: 2018-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

Zen

-21-

At the bottom of the hill, Wisp pulled out the Mother Twig and let it spin.

It guided her left to a section of road she hadn’t seen before with another rocky wall straight in front of her, leaving her no choice other than following the paving to the right or left. This time, the twig pointed right, putting the sun at her back.

“East again… That’s good. Thank you, Mother.”

She wound the twine around the twig, stuffed it again in the side pocket on the backpack, and proceeded to follow the road. Still on edge from the marauders trying to grab her, she carried the rifle. The thicker leather flap in the middle of her skirt slapped against her legs as she walked, creating a regular pat-pat-pat. She thought back to the boy slicing at the marauder with his knife, but not cutting his chest.

At least if someone tried to stab her in the skirt, she’d be protected. She didn’t want to get into knife fights, but she decided it would probably be a good idea to ask Dad to make her some chest armor. So far, she’d sent three monsters to the Other Place all on her own, so she had to be ‘ready’ to go on trips with him. No more hiding in the Haven for Wisp. Nope. Once she found Dad, she would follow his third rule perfectly: never again would she be more than three steps away. Even if he made ngh, she’d stay close.

She grimaced at the memory of how bad it could smell sometimes. What about Dad made it so powerful? Was that a Dad thing or a man thing? Heck, Dad’s ngh stank so bad it could probably keep marauders away. Maybe even Tree Walkers.

“We’ll make an ngh thrower. He’ll destroy all the monsters.”

Wisp laughed.

The road passed into a section with high rock walls on both sides, too sheer to climb. Strange fuzzy paint writing covered the left side, but she couldn’t make out what any of it said, aside from recognizing one or two individual letters. Since the canyon limited her choice of direction, she kept going along the road, which increasingly took on a steeper downhill grade.

By midday, she’d finished the water in the marauders’ canteens and put the empties in her backpack, which had about reached the limit of what it could hold. Walking on road for so long made her feet hurt, so she stuck to a narrow strip of dirt by the wall. The road swerved around a sweeping left after another hour, where the tops of the walls shrank lower and lower. Two hours past midday, the incline walls on either side of the road flattened out from vertical to steep hills she might be able to climb. Another bend curved to the right, and when she peeked around the corner, she stopped short.

The paved strip became a pin-straight line heading out into flat dirt―no trees anywhere in sight. A few small green bushes sprouted here and there,

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