Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (3 page)

“Anyone after you, Reaver?” one of the other sentries asked as I approached the gate.
“No,” I said simply.

Her name was Sadii, and had the same job of sentry as I did, though she only worked half of the time since she started spitting out brats.
I heard the familiar sound of rusted metal grinding together as Sadii started to bring the gate down from behind me. There were two entry gates on this side of the block, both of them requiring hand cranking to raise and lower them. Inside the ‘quarantine area’ as we called the space between the two gates, was a third gate that would open to the grey area of the fence which was the deacon's territory. It was our own special solution if we got any guests we weren’t to keen on letting in the block.
“Are you on tonight?” Sadii called as I walked through the second gate. She lowered the night vision goggles that had been resting on her head over her eyes. I heard a high pitch mechanical whine as she turned them on.
“No, not tonight,” I said. I looked up and watched as Killian started walking down the main street, probably heading home.
“Have a nice night then,” she said, I gave her a nod and continued down the road. I was about to follow Killian when I heard Greyson behind me.
“Reaver, want to help me feed the deacons?” he called. I tore my gaze away from Killian and shrugged.
“Sure,” I said quickly. I felt a pull to follow Killian, just to make sure he got there safely, but I knew he would be okay.

I took a drink from my stolen soda bottle, and followed Greyson to the Slaught House.
The Slaught House, was exactly what it sounded like. It was a huge gutted warehouse were we kept and bred our rats for food.

A majority of our work force worked at the slaughter house, making sure we had enough food for ourselves and for our deacons. It was a full time job, making sure everything was clean enough to not breed disease, and making sure we were breeding and capturing enough rats to continue to feed our block and the dogs. I didn’t envy them, I couldn’t stand the smell of the place. The dogs didn’t mind the smell though, food was food, they would eat themselves if they got hungry enough.

I looked back behind me, and I could see our guard dogs clearly, pacing the chain link fence that kept the rabid bastards from escaping into the greywastes. I could hear their blood thirsty panting from here, and I knew that they were hungry. They were fed twice a day at the same times each day, they knew food was coming.

The feral deacons were fucking crazy. Lost their minds from the radiation long ago, but I liked them. They were my backup, an extra set of eyes to help me keep Aras safe. There was no question when we had strangers approaching the block, they let out a scream that would make your ears ring if you were within twenty feet of them, and their growls would make your rib cage shake. The half breeds we raised and sold to the merchants and legionnaires were harmless compared to those fuckers, but they were chipped so the radiation hadn’t had a chance to rot their brains.

We kept them separated from the block by large concrete slabs fifteen feet high and two feet thick, wide enough for us to be able to sentry on them. They had a fifteen foot wide run, that surrounded the entire town. The concrete blocks kept them from getting to us, and a tall chain link fence, covered with razor wire, kept them from escaping into the vast wasteland. So anyone suicidal enough to try and get in here without asking would have to go through a few obstacles to get the privilege. The dogs were too wild, and savage to be trusted to be let loose to freely roam around us or around the greywastes, so the fences were there to keep them in as much as it was to keep everyone out.

I followed Greyson towards the Slaught House, down a street we had named Rat Street. The street signs for Aras were long gone, but we still kept track of them through spray painted stop signs, or the windshields of abandoned cars. I had named the street I lived on Quil Road after my favourite homemade cigarettes spiked with opiate powder. Before I moved there it was called something different, but I had gotten bored one night and decided to personalize it. Though I made sure no one in town besides Greyson, Leo and Reno knew which house I lived in. I slept better that way.
After we walked a few more blocks down Rat Street we started to approach the parking lot of the warehouse. The parking lot though was in name only. The pavement was long broken and missing chunks, with rusted cars and refuse pushed off to the side to make way for the distribution truck. The piles like many of the debris mounds in Aras were occupied by our resident feral cats. One of the only animals that got geiger chipped to prevent them becoming radiated and crazy. They kept the radrat and scaver population at a minimum.

There was a few working cars and trucks parked in the front of the building, and a few more parked in the back near the loading area. The wasteland didn’t have many working vehicles, lots of them had rusted out, but the few that we did have were vital. The last thing we needed was an escaped group of rats making trouble. Though the target practise was always fun when they did.

In Aras, everyone got around by just walking, most of the roads were blocked by rusted cars, or debris without any room for a car to maneuver. The only place you could move a vehicle was from the Slaught House to the square.

Outside in the greywastes, everyone either got around by caravans pulled by bosen, your own two feet, or if you had the funds a quad or some other all terrain vehicle. The wasteland was such a piece of shit to get around in, walking was really the easiest thing to do, the roads were too old and broken up to drive on, at least in this remote area.

Greyson banged on the front of the Slaught House doors and we both stood back. A few moments later the double steel doors opened and an older man, with salt and pepper hair appeared.
“Ah, feeding time for the mongrels?” the man grinned, he had more than a few teeth missing. I had known him all my life as the boss of the Slaught House, he had been working there since I could remember.
“Sure is,” Greyson said cheerfully. He took a step to walk inside but the old man, named Gary, didn’t move to let us through. Instead he crossed his arms in front of his chest and cocked us both an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Is he coming in too?” he took a nod towards me, but I could see from his eyes he was looking past me. Greyson and I turned around to see what he was talking about.
My eye brows raise in surprise as I saw the last person I had expected to see. Standing behind us, probably about ten paces back.
Killian shifted his weight uncomfortably, he looked very uneasy as he saw all of us staring at him. He looked at Greyson, and then at the cracked pavement.
 

Chapter 2

Reaver

“I... I was wondering if I could help too?” he said quietly.
I wasn’t expecting that at all. Killian sometimes helped at Doc’s, but for the most part he just stuck to himself. He hadn’t been assigned a job yet, everyone basically let him do whatever he wanted to after his parents died. I think they thought he wouldn’t be that useful at anything.
“Sure, come on in son,” Greyson said in the same cheerful voice, he waved Killian in, and the four of us walked inside the large warehouse.
I immediately started feeling uneasy myself. Half of me wished that Greyson had told him to piss off, but I knew that that wasn’t in Greyson’s nature at all. He loved teaching everyone who showed an interest in learning. Himself and Leo were the ones who had taught most of the younger kids, including me and Reno, how to read and write.
We all walked through the warehouse towards the back. The large steel warehouse was dark inside, it was one of the few places in town that was still wired for electricity but because the wiring was so old, and we were tired of the electrical fires; we had switched to running it mostly with extension cords.

We all walked through a large steel double door, and by the horrible stink that hit all of our noses I knew we were entering the pit.
I smirked as I heard Killian gag. I could sympathize, I had been in the same position when I first entered the pit, but it still made me laugh inside. The pit smelled like hell, the rats were not clean people, hence why we called them rats. They were worse than ravers, heck they were worse than most of the wild animals we had in the greywastes. Nothing but smelly, loud, crazed beasts, only good for food.
The other thing that I knew hit Killian just as much as the smell, was the noise. As soon as we walked across the steel grating, the loud screams and cries of the rats could be heard.
Killian who was a few paces ahead of me, stopped for a moment to look down from the railing to the pit below. I looked too, just so I could see it through Killian’s eyes.
I heard him whisper
wow
as we both looked down to the pit. It wasn’t lit very well, which was never a problem for me, I was gifted with good night vision and could make out the mass of moving figures perfectly.
How many were down there? I wasn’t sure; they were dark skinned from the radiation so that mixed in with the darkness below. Probably hundreds though, and those were the ones that were ready for slaughter. On another floor the breeding ones were kept separate, and same with the ones in quarantine. Disease prevention was always a top priority in the Slaught House, it had to be or we would all go the way of Killian’s parents, and countless others before them.
I glanced at Killian from the corner of my eye. He was still looking at the moving mass. It wasn’t often I was this close to Killian, when I watched over him I kept my distance. I liked it though, I don’t know why, but I did.
What he was doing here was another question. Last I had seen he was walking back to his house, and I thought that was where he was going to stay. I guess it’s no surprise that he decided to do the complete opposite, just like he was always sneaking out of the block to read those stupid books. Keeping an eye on him was like trying to pin a fly in midair.
“Hey, come on you two,” Greyson called. Killian jumped slightly, then immediately started fast walking towards the end of the grate walkway. I followed behind him, still trying to figure out this odd behaviour.

It was almost like he was following
me
this time.
I shook it off and pressed on, walking through another set of doors to where several men and women were standing with two rats, both of whom were hog tied and whimpering in large plastic boxes. Beside them, in another plastic container, tonight’s meat rations were wrapped in brown paper, waiting to be distributed throughout the community. The decons were fed live food, saved on the time it took to butcher them since they didn’t give a shit anyways. Our block residents though were given a ration of butchered meat every week for their families.
“Looks good, did everyone in the building secure their rations?” Greyson asked, he motioned me over and I started dragging one of the boxes over to the loading ramp.
“Yes, and we already punched their ration cards as well,” one of the ladies said with a nod.

Gary started helping me push the plastic container over to the ramp, and behind him I could hear Greyson and Killian start to push the other one. We had a special trolley we were suppose to use for loading, but with an extra set of hands here to help us, it was just as easy dragging everything to the truck.
The truck rumbled to life, it backfired and grumbled, worn out from many years of service and shoddy repairs. The truck was as old as the end times its self, and survived where many trucks and cars had not. I had heard that this truck, plus all the other ones we were able to use, were under cover when the Fallocaust happened, shielding it from the elements and from the war ravaged people before the sestic radiation killed them. I suppose that’s all that saved them from becoming rusted out wrecks like the ones outside.

As soon as we got the container into the truck bed, I gave it a shove with my foot and watched it skid to the back of the truck, making sure my mouth was closed to prevent myself from having to inhale too much of the rat’s dirty, piss smelling body. Even hosed off and disinfected they still stank. I then jumped onto the roof of the truck and sat on top of it, watching as Greyson and Killian hauled up the other container, and a couple of the butchers followed by with the last box of meat.
Killian stayed on the truck bed after the others had jumped off, and sat down on the raised wheel as Greyson slammed the tailgate, and said goodbye to Gary and the others. Killian said a very polite thank you to Gary and I did my respectful nod towards the group. A few moments later the truck gave a jerk, and started rumbling towards the north gate, the one closest to the square, and also the one we had just come from.

I felt a bit more comfortable now that I was sitting on top of the roof of the truck. Killian was below me, watching the block go by as we drove on. I wondered to myself if this had been the first time he had ever been in a truck before. He did have a white knuckle grip on the side of the truck so it very well could have been.
He looked calm though, though I could barely see his face from the angle he was at. All I could see was the back of his head, his blond hair blowing in the breeze, and his skin was pale white as the cold wind blasted it.
He must have tossed his books and jacket off to the side of the road when he decided to follow us,
I thought to myself.
What a dummy.

I smiled as I thought it though, I was a bit intrigued that this boy has decided to follow me, made me wonder if he did indeed like it when I followed him. I didn’t really know if he did like it, or if he possibly was just indifferent to the fact that I was always trailing him. I knew one day I had to make the step and actually talk to him, but well, not today.
The truck screeched to a halt, and as Greyson turned off the engine, I quickly jumped down from the roof of the truck onto the cobblestone street. Greyson circled to the back of the truck, and waited as Leo appeared behind us, dragging the ramp with him.
“Oh, look at you, decided to learn how to feed the mutts?” Leo said to Killian. I watched as Killian smiled sheepishly, as he started helping Greyson unload the containers.
“Yeah,” he said quietly with a small timid shrug of his shoulders. “Didn’t have anything better to do.”
Leo laughed, his laugh holding just slight flickers of amusement. “Sure, that’s the reason,” he said and winked at Killian. I immediately felt my face go a bit hot, knowing exactly what he meant by that. I quickly helped unload the rats and did my best to avoid any eye contact with both Killian and Leo.
After a bit of moving, and swearing, we loaded the containers onto the trolley and moved them up the steep ramp leading to the top of the decon pen. By this time the rats had started panicking, and though they were muffled, they still loudly screamed and cried as we dumped them out of their containers.
Leo had stayed behind to distribute the meat from this week’s rations, and was nice enough to set some aside for me and Killian. The three of us were now on top of the concrete area of the gate, looking down at the beasts that were the deacons.