Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (16 page)

I shifted around feeling a bit nervous about it. “I shouldn’t have people I don’t know in my house…”

“But you do know me.” Jasper smiled but then his smile turned to a frown. “Well, it would be dark before I get home… but I can leave right now. I might run out of gas if I travel too fast and the urson and carracats don’t hibernate…”

I kept shifting. I felt hot in the ears and it dripped down to my face like burning sludge. Everything on me was burning and I felt uncomfortable.

“I just thought we could be friends but I guess that was stupid of me…”

“No…” I said hastily. I felt awful for making him cross with me already. He had come all the way here with a present for me. I’d never gotten a present before. “You… I just need to ask Barry.”

Jasper gave me a funny look. “Wait… you have someone else here?” His eyes looked sharply towards the hallway and I saw his mouth purse.

I shook my head and held up Barry by his paw. “No, he’s my friend.”

“Oh… ohhh… hah, alright,” Jasper chuckled. He scratched his short beard and nodded. “Go ahead, it’s all up to Barry then.”

The greywaster smiled a warm smile and patted me on the shoulder. “Maybe we can watch one of those movies or something. I brought candy too, you can’t tell me you don’t like candy, I know you do.”

Candy too? I looked over at Barry.

Barry’s fuzzy brown ears were sticking up and his black eyes were wide but bright and friendly. When he saw me looking at him he grinned and nodded his head.

“He sounds great, Sami. Be his friend.”

I looked away, still feeling uncomfortable in my spot. I kind of wanted him to go away right now and maybe come back another time when I had some notice… but I didn’t want him to get eaten by carracats or else I wouldn’t have any friends to talk to besides Barry.

And he seemed to want to be my friend, unlike Cory and the other greywasters who I had to force to be my friends, or Nero and Ellis who left soon after.

So maybe I was being mean for my hesitation…

“Barry says it’s okay,” I replied in a small voice.

“Great,” said Jasper. He walked over to me and ruffled my hair, then he pressed the button on the portable DVD player. “I fried up some arian meat I have. Want to eat some with me?”

My eyes transfixed onto the screen as it lit up with a bright blue light that hurt my eyes. I nodded dumbly with my eyes glued to the screen and heard Jasper take out dishes.

We sat on the couch together with our food and the DVD player on the coffee table in front of us. The arian steak tasted fresh and great. I’d have to ask Jasper later who he got it from but maybe he got it from Melchai.

Halfway through the movie I realized something though. “How did you know where I lived?” I asked confused. No one knew I was here but Nero and Ellis.

“Oh I guess it was just luck and a couple places where I saw blood spots,” Jasper said, his voice was always so cheerful. I never sounded that happy, I didn’t have much to be happy about. “Did you hurt yourself?”

I nodded and drew my sleeve back so he could see my bandaged arm. There was a bit of brown blood that had soaked through and I needed to change it.

Jasper sucked in a breath and ran a caring hand over it. “Poor boy, did someone do that to you?”

I shook my head and drew my sleeve back. I grabbed a piece of soft caramel candy. “I did it to myself because I’m a bad person.”

“You… cut yourself?” Jasper gave me another funny look.

I nodded. “I’m evil, that’s why I don’t have any friends.”

“Is it because of your eyes?”

“It’s because I burned two people alive and I killed a lot of greywasters,” I said darkly. Then I stood up a bit straighter when I realized he was a greywaster. “But… you’re my friend so I won’t hurt you.”

“But… you’re only… what, ten?”

“I’m almost nine, on the first warm day of spring I’m nine, Nana says.” I shrugged and started playing with a hole the blanket I had over me. “I’ve been living by myself since I was six.”

“Wow, it’s a big surprise that you’re still alive… it’s pretty harsh out there.” Jasper popped a piece of meat into his mouth. “It’s not like people really adopt kids anymore, they have enough trouble feeding the ones they have. I guess it was even worse with your eyes and teeth, eh?”

“I don’t really want to talk about that…” I looked back at the portable DVD player and watched Timon and Pumbaa sing. “Want to play legionary later?”

“Sure,” Jasper said. “We can do whatever you want.”

Whatever I want? That made me look forward to the rest of the day… maybe Jasper was going to be my first real non-Barry friend. I didn’t even have to tie him up and make him stay for him to play with me. That meant he wouldn’t die too and we could be friends and visit each other all the time.

After the movie was done we played legionaries and greywasters, and he was the greywaster and I shot him soooo many times. Jasper was a great friend to have and super nice too. He let me play whatever I wanted with him.

We played the entire day but Jasper had to stop a few times to rest because like Nan he said he was
gettin’ old
I asked him how old he was and he said he was thirty-five which wasn’t as old as Nan but still ancient.

We even shared a smoke and that was a big deal since they were some of my blue-embered ones. He said he hadn’t seen one in years and that they’re only available in Skyfall. They’re called Blueleaf and there was a chemical in the tobacco leafs to make them glow blue. He also said they had other cigarettes that were laced with drugs and those cigarettes had funny-coloured smoke. I had smoked one with green smoke once and when I told Jasper that he laughed and said it was laced with cocaine. He found that really funny for some reason, I was more interested in the fact that he said he had a lot of different cigarettes on his farm!

That night I fell asleep happy, which was the first time I had been happy in a long time. I didn’t cry once because I was lonely because I wasn’t lonely. I had a friend now and tomorrow I was going to meet a boy my age that had teeth and eyes like me. It was like Jasper had been sent by the universe to be my friend. Maybe it was to make up for all the bad stuff that happened to me. My life was finally looking up and I hoped from now on everything would be okay.

Maybe Jasper and Tristan could even be my family. That… that made me squirm in my bed with a big smile on my face and it made me hug Barry even more. I was so excited for tomorrow! I couldn’t wait to go to the farm.

And on top of Tristan being there he had cigarettes I could try, and he even said he had whisky that tasted better than the whisky I had on me, and lots of cartoons and kid’s books for me to read. That place sounded like a fun paradise.

I was right in the middle of having a good dream. I was a legionary with a huge assault rifle and I was shooting greywasters that were popping up from the rocks behind my house. I was tall and all grown up and when I laughed it was in an adult tone. It was a great dream and I was mad when something woke me up from it.

I opened my eyes just a little bit and saw that it was still dark outside but I felt the hair on my neck prickle like there was someone in the room with me. This had happened before so I shut my eyes again feeling a spark of fear in me.

Then my ears started to adjust to the sounds of the room and of outside and, oddly… I heard something strange. It was heavy breathing and a strange sound like someone was smacking their hand against their skin. I didn’t know if I was still dreaming or if it was my imagination but I was too scared to look. I pulled my covers over my head and for a moment my ears were filled with the sounds of my blankets rustling and not the strange smacking noise.

Once my ears started to adjust again I listened for the noise but it was gone. There was no more noises around me so maybe it had been in my head.

When I woke up the next morning everything was normal. I didn’t even remember the noise for the first little while but when I did it didn’t seem as spooky now that it was daylight. I shrugged it off as me just being half-asleep and ran into the living room to say hi to Jasper.

And Jasper was still here! I was almost scared he was going to disappear the next morning like Nero and Ellis had when I had woken up but he was here. He had slept on the couch since my second bedroom was full of firewood and bugs.

“Good morning!” I said happily. Jasper looked at me and smiled. He pushed some cold arian meat towards me and I saw he was putting the portable DVD player in his duffle bag. It made me feel good that when he looked at me he didn’t cringe like some people who saw my eyes and teeth.

“Morning, Mr. Sami, are you all ready to go to the farm?” Jasper asked. I saw in his duffle bag some bottles of water. I had forgotten to pack water, my backpack was all full of my toys and some tact crackers. I only brought four though since I wasn’t planning on staying more than a day or so. I didn’t want to be far from home for long since Nero did say he would visit me and I’d feel bad if I missed him.

“Yeah, I’m all ready… everything is packed,” I said with a nod. I looked around the house to make sure there was nothing else I needed. I wouldn’t even bother to light the fire, it would just be a waste of wood.

“Good, let’s go then,” Jasper said and got up. He looked around. “You know… it looks like this place is pretty maintained. Did you just find it?”

“Nope.” I started heading towards the door. “My friends let me stay here. They’re legionary and we fought celldwellers together and I watched a man being pulled in half.”

Jasper was quiet behind me, I turned around with my hand on the doorknob and saw he was giving me another funny look.

“Gotcha,” Jasper said with a chuckle and he went out the door with me.

I ran all the way to the trike and started running my hand along the smooth metal. It was painted grey with indoor paint that was already starting to chip.

“Can I drive it?” I asked eagerly.

“Maybe on the way back,” Jasper said. “There are some nice riding areas on my farm, it’s all flat ground and you can ride it around there too. How about that?”

“Really!” I squealed. I bounced around and jumped onto the trike. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

“Okay, okay!” Jasper got on behind me and turned it on. The motor roared to life and made me feel a bit nervous for a moment. I looked to my side at a half-fallen fence and, behind that, all the rocks, and briefly wanted to go back inside. I was a bit nervous being away from home but I reminded myself that Jasper was my friend and there was another friend waiting for me.

I would be back soon anyways… I wouldn’t be gone for long.

Everything would be alright.

Still though when the trike started to move and my house was getting far behind me I started to squirm in my seat. My eyes started to burn so I looked ahead and made the wind dry them.

Thankfully Jasper couldn’t see. I didn’t want him to tease me or anything or think that I didn’t want to meet Tristan. It would hurt his feelings and he already got sad when I had implied I didn’t want him inside of my house without giving me notice.

He – he would bring me back soon enough and I was an adult now – I could take care of myself.

And Barry had said he was okay… so…

So everything would be alright.

It was a long trike ride… a long long trike ride. We were off-road mostly and sometimes Jasper even had us both get off so he could get the trike up steep places. The terrain was all rocky and in some places there were hidden concrete dividers or rough crumbly concrete that Jasper said was from fallen buildings.

We stopped to rest but Jasper didn’t play with me, he just ate and drank some of his whisky. I played a bit with a black tree I could climb, I climbed to the very top to see if I could see the farm but Jasper said it was still quite a ways away. This would take a long time to walk so I was happy he had the three-wheeler.

I ran around and ‘burned off some energy’ as Jasper put it and we were on the road again.

I was starting to get tired of the trike. By the afternoon and once evening was starting to creep in my body was squirming and my imagination was my only entertainment.

Barry was good entertainment – he could fly now. At first he could only jump really high up in the air but soon he had black wings. He was starting to look like one of those lost boys that you saw in Peter Pan. Barry flew around carefree, laughing and having a great time. He was so fun to watch and more entertaining than the barren greywastes.

Finally. FINALLY! Jasper pointed out a small blur in the distance and said that was his farm. I jumped up and down in my seat and squealed from happiness. I wanted to jump right off of the trike and run all the way there because my entire body was bursting with energy and I hadn’t moved much all day. I stayed still though and behaved, but I looked at every structure we drove past. First we drove past a couple old-looking houses that Jasper said were dangerous and I shouldn’t go inside and then we drove past a big big red farm house with the roof that had new wood on it. The wood looked raw and still had peach colouring in it so I looked at that until it disappeared from view. Jasper said that was where he created the stuff he sold to merchants, a drug called meth. I noticed before it disappeared that it had a lock on it and Jasper said that was to keep greywasters out though he said none ever came but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.