Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (73 page)

I moaned and pressed my forehead into the bed, gasping into the pillow. With the prospect of execution, and death in my boyfriend’s mind, his thrusts were sharp and passionate. He barely gave me a moments rest as he pushed into me in an almost animal like fashion.

When we were finished, I crawled into Reaver’s arms and stroked his stomach with a clammy hand.

“In the next couple days I’m going to show you the theater, would you like that?” Reaver said after we had been silent for a few minutes, each off in our own post orgasm world.

I couldn’t hide the happiness, I smiled and wiggled around a bit in excitement. “Yes!”
Reaver smiled, he leaned down and kissed my hair. “Good, we can go before dark. I want to show you the view. It has a great view of the sun haze.”

The sun haze, or the post-Fallocaust sunset. The sun disappearing behind the mountains would turn the sky around it a rosy pink on clearer days, and from the heat we had been experiencing chances are we would see it. It sounded so romantic! He must have felt bad for yelling at me, or else he was just excited at the prospect of executing the condemned.

Whatever it is, I wasn’t going to question it. At least he had seemed to have forgotten me stumbling over his box full of baby things. Which was good...

Because I was planning on looking for more things tomorrow, while Reaver was at work. I had carefully gone through what the rest of the box had. Besides the pacifier, onesie and ball I had found blankets, baby shoes (very small ones), a rattle (with chew marks), a teething ring (with a lot of chew marks) and a few stuffed animals.

It had to be Reaver’s things. Greyson and Leo would have mentioned if they had cared for a child at one point and why would it say Chance?

My best guess was that it had been a part of his parents supplies and they wanted to keep it since they had taken Reaver in. Maybe they wanted to hold onto it for sentimental value or maybe to give to Reaver’s kids one day.

Now that I had found the box, it only filled me with a curiosity for what else I would find. I wanted to find out who his parents were, their names and last names. Why they came to Aras and why they decided to take Reaver in and not just kill him or adopt him out to another family. One that didn’t treat him like a puppy for the first few years of his adoption.

This would be my only opportunity to find it, and I just had to.

Reaver would be stocking up our new shop tomorrow, doing his mayor stuff and finally at around two in the morning he would be working while I slept. I only had Doc’s clinic from eight until six so I would have the entire evening to do my investigating.

I couldn’t wait.

I decided to dress particularly nice today since I would be working and hanging out with Reaver at our new shop. I rummaged through my clean clothes and threw on a blue t-shirt and a pair of Perish’s cloth pants. I straightened them out and brushed my hair in the mirror.

Reaver was dressed in a grey t-shirt with an open black button down, and his usual black fatigues. As I fed and watered the cat, he was quickly shaving. He had to shave every other day at least, I on the other hand could go for weeks and even then my facial hair only rivalled that of a thirteen year old. I wasn’t that manly.

“Why don’t you wear something a bit lighter? It’s hot,” I asked grabbing my satchel. “You always wear those cargo pants.”

“All the stuff I need is already in the pockets,” Reaver said like this was the obvious answer. “If I put on different pants the pockets would be different, and jeans only have two anyways. No room.”

“But you don’t need a grenade with you all the time...” I replied with a sigh. “Or a stick of C4.”

Reaver gave me an unimpressed look. “Stay out of my pockets.”
“I was going to wash them.”

“Washing them means you’ll have to empty my pockets, and you’ll lose shit if you-”

“Okay, okay, you win.” I threw up my hands in defeat and heard Reaver snicker. I started up the tank hatch, making a promise to myself I would wash those god damn pants.

When I opened the shed door though I was surprised. A chilly wave swept over me. I looked up and saw the sun was no where to be found, just dark hazy clouds blocking out what little sunshine the atmospheric plumes would allow.

I felt a small shiver of anxiety as I walked into Reaver’s back yard. I looked around but all was quiet. “Reaver? Better grab a couple sweat shirts.”
“Really? Shit...” Reaver’s voice was faint but audible from the underground basement. I heard him a few minutes later shut the tank lid.

“Well fuck,” my boyfriend murmured, he handed me a hoody though he didn’t have one for himself. Cold never seemed to effect him as much.

“If this doesn’t convince Hollis to execute those prisoners,” he mumbled “Winter is coming early, it’s what? What is it right now?”

“Almost September, we should have a few more weeks at the very least. Does this mean winter will be bad?”

“It could, more rain at least.” Reaver and I started walking towards Leo and Greyson’s house. “You’ve been here what? Two years?”
“Yeah, about that.” Wow it seemed like I had been here forever. It’s almost been a year since my parents died. It was incredible how much my life had changed.

“The last two winters have been rather mild, this will probably be your worst,” Reaver said, I felt a flicker of anxiety over that, I guess he sensed it. “But we’re rich as fuck so it will probably be your easiest winter.”
That made me smile. “And we’ll be even richer when we sell some of our loot. I have some money and tokens still at my house as well. If we ever need more money we can raid that too.”

He nodded, and brought out a quil. “We’ll be boarding your place up for winter, and we can finally go through your shit too. We can store it the main level of my place. The heat from my woodstove below it will keep the damp out. If we keep it at your place it will probably mold.”

Eef, I have been putting off going back there for a long time. “Good idea, I think I’m ready to move out of there for good.” I think I meant it too, maybe I was feeling more like an adult now since we had come back from Donnely. If I could do what I did there, and help me and my boyfriend get through our ordeal... I could tackle packing up my old house.

We spend the next couple hours setting up our little store. Using the merchants items still stored in the shed, and some other things Reaver had been keeping in there. When we were almost finished Redmond walked into the square.

His already creased face was troubled and firm, I could already tell he wasn’t going to be telling us anything good.

“Reaver, the Kerry family-” Redmond cleared his throat and glanced at me for a moment before his eyes flickered back to Reaver’s. “Walk with me.”
“He’s my Leo in this, might as well tell both of us.” Reaver took a drag of his quil. I got to admit that made my heart flutter. Any sign he didn’t think I was as useless as I was when we first started dating made my day.

“Not for naught, but it’s rather the nature of it, Mr. Massey’s parents were-”

My mouth went dry, this was the worst thing that could happen. “It’s trideath isn’t it?” That’s the mutation of kuru that killed my parents. It was extremely infectious, they hadn’t been the only ones to die. Greyson said it was a miracle I hadn’t died too.

“It is.” Redmon’s voice lowered. “Reaver, you’re going to have to make some difficult decisions...”
Reaver looked around to make sure the square was empty, it was. The overcast sky probably had every one looking around the block for firewood. There wasn’t any bigger sign that it was going to get cold really fast.

“The decisions wont be difficult.” Reaver handed me the quil. “Mind the store, don’t be stupid with the prices. If anyone asks you don’t know where I am, or Redmond, alright?”
I nodded. “Please be careful.”

Reaver patted my shoulder, I knew I wouldn’t get a kiss in public, especially when he was trying to establish himself in a leader role. “I’ve dealt with this before, I know what to do.” He nodded towards Redmond. “Let’s get to the sheds first.”

I reached into my satchel when Reaver was out of sight and pulled out the drugs. After I did some I sat in one of the chairs we had pulled out of the shed and sat down behind our cart. We had used one of the merchants carts that Greyson and Leo had brought back from the overpass where the Legion had left them. It was a pretty fancy set up, we even leaned my sign against the top shelf. Not much to look at as far as the sign went. Like Reaver had asked it just said Shop, eventually I might paint a smiley face on it.

We had a impressive spread as far as variety went. All of the merchants things: scrap electronics, kitchen utensils, kid toys, chap stick, makeup, toiletries and more, and Reaver’s surplus supplies which were mostly spare household items and electronics he didn’t feel like repairing.

By the third hour I had sold over a hundred dollars worth of merchandise! I had even sold a TV to John Tulley for thirty dollars and three bottles of greyboy wine.

As it came to afternoon the square was abuzz, like I had suspected people were out collecting firewood and had trickled into the square for conversation, news and buying supplies. I had been chatting with an elderly resident named Juan who had just bought a bag of silverware and a can of Comet from me. At the same time I was trying to sell a serrated knife to another resident named Cam a tall gangly guy with auburn hair and a round face. It was getting pretty busy, but well that was the point when you ran a store.

“Some weather we’re having, eh?” Juan said, he had a baseball cap over long stringy grey hair, he glanced up the sky and sucked his teeth. “I’ll be out for the next week scavenging wood, the places Greyson marked off are ripe for dismantling. The whole neighbourhood has been collapsing on the east side.”

“I’ve heard some of the houses collapsing at night, nothing spookier,” Cam said running the serrated knife over his fingers. “Back in Greendale we had giant ants, they would chew the wood and collapse the houses that way. Now that is a sound you never forget, gets in your bones that noise.”

I shuddered, I wonder if Perish had made those.

“Either way, I’ll be off.” Juan gave me a kind smile. “I might be back for that potato peeler, if you decide to knock that dollar off...” he let that drag with a friendly chuckle, we had been unable to reach an agreement by just a dollar. If it was just us I would have let him have it but I didn’t want everyone to think they could haggle me down. Juan turned and left, weaving between a couple of kids walking a deacdog on a long rope leash. Tolerating kids was a part of their training which the kids loved. I should volunteer there agai-.

All at once the deacdog pulled away from the kids, making the rope leash raise right in front of Juan’s feet. The poor guy tripped and spilled the bag of silverware and the Comet.

I jumped to my feet and ran over to help him up.

“Thanks Killian, I’m not as agile as I used to be,” Juan chuckled. I bent down and helped gather all the silverware.

“Oh don’t worry about it, I’ll get you another bag.” I turned around and started walking to the cart.

Something got my attention though, Cam was gone, the serrated knife left forgotten. I looked around as I walked towards the cart and noticed something else, my satchel was gone. Not only did that have all of my stuff in it...it had all of the money I had made today in it too.

My eyes immediately scanned the square behind my cart, and it didn’t take me long to find him. He was walking fast, with his head crouched down and his arms holding something in front of him. He was heading for the nearest alley in between Carson’s shop and the storage sheds. If he escaped into the east area he could easily disappear into the abandoned houses.

I looked back at my cart. “Juan, watch my shop.” Juan gave me a sober nod and I turned and ran after Cam.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I said when I was near enough to grab his shoulder.

Cam whirled around and looked at me surprised. His round face went stricken as his eyes jutted to behind me, then back to my face.

Like a coward he turned and ran, my satchel still in hand.

“THIEF!” I shouted, hoping to alert one of the officers or a sentry. I ran after the asshole as he ducked into dumpster lined alley. I don’t know where the fuck he was planning on going, unless he was going to leave Aras. Eventually he would have to fucking come back.

He was an idiot and a slow one at that. I was fast and like Reaver had told me, I was agile. I played to my strengths and jumped over a stack of medians that had partially blocked off the exit of the alleyway. I landed in front of him, essentially cutting him off.

Cam skidded to a surprised stop as I jumped in front of him. For a fraction of a second he froze, staring at me wide eyed. When he regained himself he turned and went to run in the opposite direction. I was still faster though, I reached out and grabbed my satchel from him and pulled.

Cam pulled back and gave it one good yank.

I was about to call for help again when I felt a blow to my jaw and a rush of dizziness and sunbursts. I fell to the ground and blacked out for a second. The ground met me, I sucked in a breath and smelled the cold pavement.

I heard who I think was Matt then, and then a lot of shouting and struggling. I grabbed onto my mouth and pulled my hand away, seeing a bit of blood on my lips. Then strong arms around me pulling me to my feet.

“You okay, Tinky?” It was still Matt, I guess Reno’s nickname for me had spread.

“I’m fine.” I shook my head free of the fuzziness and saw Jess cuffing Cam very roughly. He had found his voice and was apologizing. One of the officers named Houston was on his radio.

My heart dropped when he said Reaver’s name into the handheld.

“No, no, no please don’t tell him...” I pleaded, but Houston ignored me. Fuck he was going to lock me into the bedroom for the rest of my life.

“We’ll take you to Marley,” Matt said, he nodded towards the holding prisons. “Take that asshole to the cells.” Then an amused chuckle escaped his lips. “You have some balls trying to rob Reaver’s boyfriend, I hope you’ve spent all the time you want with them though because that psycho is going to cut them off.”
Cam gave me a look of horror, that was amusing. I guess he didn’t know I was dating Reaver. That just might be the last mistake he made. It was bad enough he pissed off a person the whole block steered clear of, but to do it while he was in charge of Aras? Suicide.