The Cellar: A Post-Apocalyptic Novella Read Online Free PDF

time.
    “Did I say you could leave your post?” She halted in front of him and tightened her fists.
    “I was taking a break.” Daren hated how small his voice sounded.
    “You take breaks when I say so,” Arianna said. “Is that clear?”
    “I know, but there’s something that—”
    “Where’d Logan go off to?”
    Daren shrugged. “I don’t know. He got pissed and left.” He reached into his pocket and pressed his fingertip against the cold rim of the can. “Mom, I just wanted to—”
    “You just wanted to get back and do your work like I told you to,” Arianna finished.
    “Mom, if you’d just listen—”
    “Get back to the latrine!” She pointed at the unfinished trench. “Now!”
    Daren knew better than to argue with his mother. He knew what she’d make him do next if he pushed too far. He could almost smell the stench as he saw himself go door to door collecting pots.
    He kept his head down and his mouth shut as he walked back to the trench. His mother’s one-eyed glare shadowed him until he climbed in and grabbed the stone slab. He lifted it up and slammed it on the trench with more force than necessary.
    “Fine,” he muttered under his breath. “If she won’t listen then I don’t have to tell her anything.”
    Logan returned two hours later. By that time, Daren had already finished the latrine. It was worth completing the job on his own to see the utter wretchedness on Logan’s face as he pushed a wheelbarrow to the first shack. By the end of his route, Logan was on the verge of tears, likely overwhelmed by the foul stench sneaking up his nostrils while he hauled away a dozen toilet pots and all the horrors they contained.
    “Try not to tip it over,” called Daren, standing by the open gate as he watched Logan’s progress. “Because you’ll be shoveling the whole mess up. Oh, that’s right.” He grinned widely. “You broke all the shovels.”
    Logan narrowed his eyes into slits as he quickly exited the gate.

    ⊕   ⊕   ⊕

    D AREN TUGGED AT THE STRAPS of the empty backpack resting on his shoulders. It was already mid-afternoon. Digging the latrine had caused him the late start, but his mother was adamant that he serve out his punishment. “It will be good for your character,” she had said. He had argued that the villagers couldn’t care less about his character as long as they had food, but Arianna remained unmoved.
    He exited the gate and glanced at the forest. There wasn’t much daylight left to hunt, and he felt the pressure to get a move on. But the can he found earlier intrigued him. It lay there in his pocket—shiny, unblemished, taunting him with its secrets. Did it have anything to do with the green phantasm?
    Deciding that investigating would only take a few minutes, he walked towards the trees. But once he made it over to the edge of the woods, he felt an uneasy twinge. The feeling of being watched pricked at the back of his neck, and he turned around once in a while to make sure no one was there. He made his way to the place where he had seen the can. Kneeling down, he looked around to check if there was anything else left behind. There was no other can as far as he could see, but he spotted some unnatural indentations on the ground just a few feet ahead of him. He walked over to the markings and traced them with his fingers. There were two parallel tracks going straight ahead, and they seemed to follow the exact route the phantom had taken.
    Wheels .
    Flushed with excitement, he got up and followed the tracks. His fear had given way to an intense desire to find out who was under the robe. Questions raced through his mind. Who was he? Why was he pretending to be a phantom? Daren felt relieved and disappointed that it was an actual human under the robe. In spite of the terror he went through, the presence of a phantom had given him a strange rush. A part of him wanted to believe in a world beyond his own.
    He pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He had to