Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (115 page)

The rain would be seeping into Asher’s corpse too, rain sped up the rotting process. I bet by now, even if someone had found my cemetery, they wouldn’t know who he was. He could be anyone now... but no one would find him. I had buried him discreetly and deeply.

Who’s a stupid waster now?

My body shivered, and it wasn’t because of the increasingly cold rain. I shivered when I remembered him touching me.

I had been remembering those parts a lot. They were confusing to recall, because my body still responded in ways I didn’t like. I coped it up to not having sex with Reaver, we hadn’t done anything like that since the incident. He had kept his hands off of me, he didn’t even kiss me anymore except for pecks on the cheek. I knew he was respecting me for what happened, but I think it was bringing up the wrong feelings.

It had been the ressin, like Reaver had said. I don’t know if he knew I was listening when he had told me that, but I was. I had liked being reassured Reaver had been drugged with scopa but... the fact that I hadn’t... it didn’t sit well.

I kicked a piece of metal, it flew down the cracked pavement with a series of clattering bangs, all of them drowned out by the rain.

It was starting to come down even harder now. I blinked away the rain drops, wishing I hadn’t thrown my jacket away. I rubbed my rain washed arms and shook my whole body like a dog. The road looked like it bent back towards north so I decided to follow it.

I crossed my arms around my chest to try and conserve some warmth and pressed on.

I was dismayed to see that, a block after the curve I had been following, the road ended in a pile of debris I’d never be able to climb. I let out a nervous breath and looked around. I’d have to go further east but I would eventually come across a way to get to one of the main roads. Eventually I would get behind the Slaught House and if I made it there I could radio for Reaver to come and get me.

I lowered my head and shook the rain from my head again, as I did my teeth gave their first chatter.

It was getting darker now, and I could hear a wind pick up. I reached into my pocket and took out some of the heroin. I ducked into an abandoned building with my supplies and started to prepare myself another dose. The drugs would warm me up, and give me a bit more energy. I could feel my last dose fading and if I was going to get home quickly I needed a boost.

I leaned up against the houses crumbling hallway once I had the heroin in the needle and tied off my arm with my belt. I stuck the needle in, searching for a vein. I noticed the track marks, rosy pink on my skin. I was lucky Reaver hadn’t touched me in a week, I kept myself bundled up and covered. No one was none the wiser. If Reaver knew I had been injecting drugs... gosh, he would kill me.

I stayed in the building for a few more minutes, enjoying the first pleasurable wave flow through me, wrapping me in its cozy blanket. I raised myself and stepped outside. The rain that had been so refreshing and beautiful now a cold threat and an unwelcome friend.

Odd...

I stepped into the street and looked ahead; I could see a bluelamps in a nearby building, I didn’t think anyone lived in this side of Aras, but I had probably walked farther than I thought. I must be close to the Slaught House.

I felt relieved and quickly walked towards the cold light. They would hopefully have a radio and I could call Reaver. Though the heroin had gotten rid of the pain in my backside and the aching cold from being out in the elements I wanted him to help me home.

I walked into the abandoned building, it seemed warm inside though it wasn’t boarded up from the outside. I leaned in and called out. “Is anyone home?”

There was no answer, I wrung out my shirt and started walking up the old stairs, they creaked with every step. “Anyone?” I called again. I leaned against the railing but stopped after it wobbled under my weight. This whole building was falling apart, who would live here?

There was a landing between every half flight before it turned to the next set of stairs. I think this was another office building or something. I kept calling until I concluded there was no one home. Well unless the door was locked I was borrowing their radio. I’d apologize once I was warm and not freezing and wet. Everyone in the town was afraid of Reaver anyways and they knew we were together.

I walked into the propped open door leading to a hallway, I could see the faint glow of the bluelamp down the narrow corridor. It illuminated the building’s decay in its light. Exposed building joists, chipped paint mixed in with the crumbling drywall. The floor looked unsafe also, I could see patches of it sinking into rooms below. Whoever was living here shouldn’t be.

“Hello?” I whispered now. I tiptoed down the hallway, my boots crunching against the dirt and building refuse. I didn’t keep my weight in one spot for long. I was at least three stories up now.

When I got to the room my heart was hammering in my chest, I tried to envision myself seeing a radio. Hoping that might will it to happen.

I peeked through the door.

The bluelamp I could see was resting on a metal cabinet, beside it... I looked closer and took a small step forward. It was something orange, it looked so out of place in the shades of cold grey and black.

My chest felt strangely cool as I leaned down and picked it up, it was soft, plushy.

It was...

It was Perish’s stuffed dinosaur.

“Hi Killian.”

That voice... my body froze in place, the stuffed dinosaur slipped from my hands and fell soundlessly onto the floor.

It couldn't be.

I slowly turned around, the clawed hand over my heart crushing it with all its will.

Perish was smiling nervously, his eyes shifted as soon as I made eye contact with him. He was standing in the doorway to another office, to my left. Standing there... he had his lab coat on, his cloth pants. His glasses he didn’t need, and his ebony coloured hair I always had to remind him to brush. Standing there perfect, alive, well, healthy.

“Perry...” My voice caught in my throat.

No... his neck, he looked normal, he was uninjured, and he was dead, buried. I had held his skull in my hands. It was impossible.

“I miss you, Killian.”

I started to back away, the tears springing to my eyes. He wasn’t real... he wasn’t real... but he was right there. I... if I walked to him, could I touch him?

I took a step forward, and as I did he faded into the darkness.

Suddenly I felt icy arms wrap around me, pulling me backwards and off of my feet. I thrashed my legs and pulled away as I felt them constrict me. The hands locked and I heard breathing, they were cold and clammy. They felt like the hands of a corpse.

“Do you miss me?” Asher growled into my ear. “
Bona mea
?”

My vocal cords broke as I screamed from pure, hysterical panic. I thrashed out of his grasp and stumbled forward. I heard him laughing. Fuck the smell... I could smell them.

He grabbed onto my arm and clenched it.

When I whirled around to pry his dead hands away from my flesh but he had them clamped, digging into my skin. So cold and lifeless, so dead.

I spun around and as I faced him, I got a good look at him.

The dead man I had murdered, and buried under the moonlight.

There was a blue collar around his neck, the remains of the plastic bag. Secure and tight bordered with dead flesh from the seeping wounds beneath. Above was a face of smeared with dirt and bruises which blended like oil paint with his black pooled lips. His teeth split in a cheshire grin, showing white pearls that contrasted his face like snow on coal.

And his eyes, death did nothing to dim them. The emerald gems flashed with psychotic glee as he grinned at me. Though the whites of his eyes were grey.

I tried to push him away, but at the same time he pushed me out of the room. I slammed hard against the hallway jip rock, feeling the crumbling chalk shower around me as I broke it.

I crawled on my hands and knees until I was able to upright myself. I flew down the hallway and started desperately down the stairs. My mouth open in a continuous scream.

I could hear them behind me, I could hear the creaking of the steps, they were going to catch up to me, they were going to kill me. Asher was going to fuck me, Perish was going to watch. Every corpse in Aras would rise from their graves to spectate my decent into delirium.

I swung over the railing, missing the last half flight of steps and landed hard in the welcome area of the building. I struggled to my feet and limped out, my backside hurt, my legs hurt.

“Killian? Killian?” Asher called in a rumbled growl, thick with threats almost tangible to my brain. That voice was everywhere around me. It was inside of me, in my bones, my flesh and my mind. I would never forget that voice, that whisper.

I tripped on my own feet as I tried to jump over a bumper and fell to my knees, the rain falling in sheets around me.

“A body reveals its most shocking of secrets, after the last breath is drawn.”

I felt Asher’s breath on my neck. I looked up and saw his reflection in the window.

Like an over tightened bow string, my mind snapped.

Reaver

I ran after the deacdog as he bounded down the road towards the east section of Aras, I didn’t know if he was leading me to Killian but I had been running around for over an hour looking for him with no luck.

The town in front of me was draped in a vale of black and grey, just tall shadows on either side, with rooms and hallways that could hold anything, including my boyfriend. Would he take shelter in one of them? I had wanted to hope so, for his own health, but if he had it would take days to check out every house. I hoped I could run every road in Aras by day break, sooner if my friends stayed out with me.

The dark buildings passed by, smelling of wet wood and paint. This area wasn’t boarded up or closed off, so many things could be hiding in here waiting to pounce. Tonight though... the winds were sweeping, carrying on it heavy sheets of slanted rain and a chill brought in from the arctic. Not only was it freezing, it was ominous and daunting; just the type of atmosphere that scared him.

So why was he out here?
I couldn’t believe he was gone when I had walked down the stairs after we had moved our bad but necessary argument upstairs. I didn’t know if the yelling at spooked him or if he just forgot where I was, but he was gone. He slipped out unnoticed.

Greyson was looking in the south, and we had Matt and Reno taking the other nautical directions. I had searched up and down east Aras but had come up empty handed. The rain washing away any tracks I could have followed, and on top of that, it had messed with my hearing too. When I tried to focus my hearing I just heard the rain and the wind.

The deacdog had found me only half an hour before, as soon as the bugger spotted me he gave a bark. I didn’t know dog barks but it looked like he wanted to show me something. Unless he had found some rain soaked kittens in need of saving I could only hope he was directing me to Killian.

What was happening to my boyfriend? He never used to do this.

My gut felt sick, and not all of it was from Killian’s disappearance tonight. It was because I felt like I was losing him. That he was going some place I couldn’t understand. Deep inside that tormented little brain of his. I wanted to help him, but I just didn’t know how. I wasn’t used to it... I had helped him with everything before.  That was my job.

But now... I had never been raped, I didn’t know what was going on in his brain. At least he hadn’t been penetrated from Asher himself, I’m assuming that would have made him worse but I don’t know. I didn’t know how it worked, I wasn’t the type of guy to get all emotionally devastated over things like that. I just had Reno to compare him to and after we started fooling around he seemed fine.

Deek shook his fur, I could see his nose fixed in the air, his small black nostrils flexing as he picked up the scent. I weaved between a pile of cars, and followed him down the next bleak road.

The deacdog was going down streets no one went down, where there was nothing but debris and old buildings beyond habitation. It was almost as bad as my West Aras except the roads were a bit clearer.

Come on, Killian... where are you? Come back to me. Not just now, but... in all ways, just come back. I miss your laugh, your smile...

I had been the one to put that smile back on his face and I had taken it off too. It was my fault I didn’t see Asher for who he was. Killian had and now he was paying the price, I had let all of this happen to him.

The dog suddenly barked. I wiped the rain from my eyes and looked ahead.

A small, stick thin figure was pacing around the middle of the street.

“Killian?” I hollered, I felt a unimaginable amount of relief. I ran up to him and took him into my arms.

The boy didn’t even have a jacket. He was ice cold and shaking violently, he felt so frail as I held him to me.
“Asher’s here, Asher’s here!” Killian screamed in a panic. “He’s here I saw him!”

Up until that moment I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel more cold, but inside my flesh had turned to ice. I felt an empty, chilling feeling go through me.

“Where?” I pulled back.

His rain blasted face was stricken with fear, even his blue eyes looked like shards of ice. “Building... with the bluelamp.”
I hated to do it, I sat him down underneath an apartment’s over hang and gave him my jacket. I started to run towards the direction.

“He has Perish too!” Killian cried behind me. “Perish is alive, Perish is in there too.”

My heart hit the floor, I stopped in my tracks. Realizing with crushing numbness that he hadn’t really seen anything. Nothing outside his damaged mind anyways.

I felt sick, I steadied myself against the building and wiped my face with both hands. I took a rattled breath to keep myself from losing it.

There was no Asher... just like all the other times he saw him. There was no Asher, and there certainly was no Perish.

“Please... please tell them to stop following me.” Killian was still crying, his voice sounded so... sure. “If you ask Perish nicely, he will. I know he will.”