The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (41 page)

My sigh of relief was short-lived, a moment later we could hear Reaver’s muffled voice shouting above us. I shifted to climb back up the ladder but Jade held onto my hand. “No, they’re immortal, we’re not. You popping your head up will only distract him.”

He was right, I would offer nothing but turning his attention away from shooting those creatures but I still felt useless. If anything Reaver becoming immortal had put me on an even shorter leash with him, now he could literally kill himself for me.

I jumped as the manhole cover slid off of the concrete, the scraping noise bouncing off of the walls and echoing down to the fork in the sewer tunnel. I looked up and saw the grey darkness above us, before it was eclipsed by a body.

“Take him, Jade, and get out of the way so I can jump down, Killian. Perish got his neck snapped.” Reaver was out of breath. “I couldn’t get the dog to come, he was too busy chasing them but we’ll get him tomorrow.”

“Perish is dead?” A sense of dread washed over me, fearing for not only us but for Deekoi still out there. I had to trust that he would be okay. He was much faster than the creatures, and twice as big so I knew he must be.

I stood by the ladder as Jade pulled the scientist down to the ground with a rough thud.

“It’s only a neck break... wait a second.” Reaver disappeared to shoot off several more rounds. He then swung his body onto the ladder and closed the cover with another scraping creak.

The smell of damp blood was all over my boyfriend but smell was all I could sense. I heard rustling as Reaver put Perish over his shoulder before I felt a hand on my head.

“Are you okay?” Reaver asked.

I nodded and I felt him take my hand. We started walking down the tunnel; Jade’s clicking boot steps in front of us. The smell of musty damp and the usual stale rot of the world permeated my nose, crawling up my nostrils and laying itself right in the middle of my brain stem. It was an overwhelming stench.

“It’s all flat ground, don’t worry, just keep walking,” Reaver said calmly, though he was still out of breath. I couldn’t hear anything coming from Perish. “Jade? Do you have any idea where we’re supposed to go to get underneath this building?”

“No... Elish said Perish would know.” I heard Jade jog ahead, before letting out a long breath. “Did you really have to let him get his neck broken? Why did you two hang around up there anyways? You had a clean break.”

I jumped a mile high as I heard one of the creatures above us give a shriek, Reaver tightened his hold on my hand. “You won’t believe it... he was acting normal up there, or what I assumed was his normal.”

My eyes widened, even though it was still pitch black. I looked towards where I had heard Reaver’s voice. “Normal? What...?”

As we took what I assumed was the only viable path in the sewer fork, Reaver and Jade both filled me in on the conversation they had had before the lizard creatures had come. By the time they were done my mouth was dry, and my head filled with both awe and disbelief.

“He’s not seventy?” I whispered, swallowing down the nervous pit in my stomach, hearing ahead of us Jade checking what I think were random doors. They sounded old, the hinges long since rusted to nothing from the dampness of the sewers.

“Nope, he told me Silas cut out a piece of his brain – to make him forget those memories I am to assume. It was mind blowing how steady he was, it was like I was talking to a normal person.” Reaver led me towards a door, before he stopped and I heard the sound of a bag unzipping.

“Reaver... I think we should keep it dark,” Jade cautioned, a moment later a blinding light infiltrated the pitch blackness I had been walking in. “Radanimals will be attracted to that light... and it will also screw up our night vision, it’s better the kid is blind than us.”

Reaver shone the light onto the floor; a moment later it became dimmer as he wrapped a green kerchief around it. Stifling the illuminating glow into what looked like a little green orb, he handed it to me. “I can’t hear anything down here but rest assured if there is anything here they can already hear us. We’ll be fine.”

I smiled at him thinking about me, and turned the covered flashlight over to the sewers before sweeping it past Reaver; I decided to ignore the bleeding rag over his head. He was injured but I knew if I drew attention to it he would shush me and tell me he was okay. Why waste the energy arguing with him? I couldn’t see bone, brain, or guts so my Reaver was okay.

I shuddered as the glow shed its light on the damp brick, leaking water through rusted pipes which trickled down to a small river of muck and garbage. This place reminded me of some sort of brick tomb and I could tell we were walking on an incline too... we were only heading deeper and deeper underground and no one knew where we were going.

“No, left,” Jade whispered.

I shined the light onto the ground and saw the eerie reflecting orbs of Jade’s eyes, shining in the darkness like he was a wild animal; he seemed like one sometimes.

“Why? We’re walking in a maze anyways, my gut says right.” Reaver shifted Perish who was still dangling on his shoulders.

Jade’s gloved hands gently drew down the mortar of the sewers. “This has been repaired more recently. This is Dek’ko stucco; it doesn’t flake like the others.” The pet put a hand on the metal door handle and pulled it open. He looked in and sighed. “More darkness, but come here and smell... it smells cleaner doesn’t it?”

I was impressed at that; this guy seemed to know his stuff. I stepped back and started shining the light on the area I was standing in. The green glow shone against the damp brick walls until it was swallowed up by the darkness, for what could be seven feet or seven miles. Darkness had no boundaries.

Reaver took a step into the metal doors. “It doesn’t smell better, it just smells different.” The darkness of his jacket blended in with the tunnel he had stepped into, until I could see no more of him.

Since they were in the tunnel I took the green kerchief off of the flashlight, I jumped down onto the damp channel in the middle of the sewer and started walking up it.

I cringed as I saw a rat, ten paces ahead of the door Jade and Reaver were in, its pink tail covered in mud, bumping along the floor as it crawled away from me. I shone the flashlight past it and saw several more, staring at me with bright eyes. My feet took me towards them but even with the kerchief off of the light the darkness still swallowed the beam.

“Squeak, squeak,” I said. I dug into my pocket and broke off a piece of tact and gave it to the rat. As soon as one took a piece others from all around started to come for their share.

I broke off another piece, feeling like some sort of rat king, before I just got out the entire piece and started throwing all of them crumbs, more and more little rats coming out to eat.

“You’re much cuter than our radrats,” I whispered to them. “They’re as big as house cats but you all are so small.” I gave a big piece to a scrawny looking one who wiggled his whiskers at me. He chewed on it with little teeth, his beady eyes shining up at me.

Then I felt an eerie feeling in the back of my brain, and as I looked away from the rats I tried to direct my ears towards the dark pit in front of me and my community of rats. With the rodents squeaking around me I shone the light ahead of where I was crouched down.

The heart inside of my chest gave one last normal beat before it plummeted to my feet, and as my light fell on the grey skin and yellowing teeth of a deformed looking lizard man, a string of nonsensical pleads to Reaver started to come out of my mouth.

Though this creature was different, in the brief and all fleeting moments before I called for Reaver I saw the thing crouching in a corner, its spine protruding like rocky ridges as it ate the top-half of a rat that was clenched between long boney fingers.

It had hair, black stringy hair, and small but glaring eyes that, unlike the ones above us, had whites and pupils; it also had a nose and straight legs and arms. It was more human than I felt comfortable with.

I wanted to run, but I found myself frozen in fear. The only solid thought coming to my mind was that if I took the flashlight off of it, it would immediately attack me. Instead I kept the light fixed on it and tried to find a higher octave to my voice.

I couldn’t raise my voice, I watched as the creature leaned down and took another bite off of the rats head, a sinewy strand of fur and tissue coming off of it. He didn’t seem to see me, or the light, and if he did he was ignoring it.

“Reaver?” I managed to say faintly, suddenly the light began to shake as my hands trembled. I weakly said his name again before a flicker of silver came into my vision.

I moved the flashlight over, and when the light scanned a half-dozen glowing eyes and the distinct sound of sandpaper scraping together, I found my voice.

“Reaver!” I screamed.

In a moment Reaver burst out of the door, I heard him call to Jade before he grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backwards.

“Jade!” he called. He whipped me around and pulled me towards the metal door.

The next thing I knew he pushed me into Jade, and I heard the sound of the metal door slamming. I looked behind me, before to my horror Jade took the flashlight and turned it off.

“The door latches into place,” Reaver said hurriedly. “We need to find this lab quickly. I fucking saw a dozen of them out there. There is one in there that can stand too. Killi, are you alright?”

I was blind and I couldn’t see a thing. My breathing started to become short as I looked around wildly, but without comfort or a moment to wait for my answer Jade grabbed my arm and Reaver grabbed my shoulder and they started quickly walking me into the darkness.

I stumbled and felt Jade grab onto me harder, our collective breathing following us like our bootsteps. I glanced behind me to try and see if they were following us but it was darkness, everything was just darkness. My anxiety flared as my mind started to power up senses that, at this point, I didn’t want to have.

“Jade, how’s your strength?” Reaver’s voice echoed behind me. I could tell he was looking back towards the metal door, I did as well and I could hear the sounds of claws scraping against metal. I tripped again, this time almost falling on my face.

Suddenly I was being picked up, and a moment later Reaver and Jade started to run. This act was followed by a crashing noise behind us, and more scraping.

I couldn’t see anything. It was driving me crazy. I had to see where they were, how many were in this sewer. My mind was compensating for its lack of stimulation; my imagination was telling me there were thousands, just inches away from my face.

“Jade? Come on, fucking look!” Reaver yelled. I looked around wildly in my blind panic, feeling Jade’s breath become laboured.

“We need to go to the surface, find a house or...”

“They’re swarming the fucking surface!”

“They’re swarming here too!” Jade snapped back. He turned around with me, and suddenly the entire underground sewer flashed like lightning as Jade shot his gun off with one hand.

They were behind us, dozens of them, and behind the writhing, lizard-like movements I saw the tall, gangly silhouette of the standing one. He was lumbering back and forth as he followed the crawlers; his blank eyes staring forward with no expression on his hollow face.

They were coming closer.

“Let me down, I have a grenade!” I shifted to try and get Jade to drop me but he held on tight. He rained the creatures with bullets before he turned back around towards where he could see Reaver.

Their sandpapery movements and nail scrapes echoed off of the walls, infiltrating all of my senses and filling me with a sort of madness. I felt in a limbo of incomprehensible fear mixed in with a streak of bravery to actually do something. It seemed to nullify as soon as it got to my limbs though, I felt limp and frozen in the iron-locked hold of Jade.

I could hear them right behind us, the sounds were digging into my brain, pulling out every string of bravery I had and twisting them around their long, boney fingers. Not being able to see them was driving me the most crazy, every time Jade slowed down in my brain I could see them only inches away. Lizard-like faces, black slits for eyes... and the standing one, lumbering on like he was only following his friends. He gave me the most chills. He looked so human.

“Jade! I see a red light, please for fuck sakes tell me –”

“It is. Run towards it, run!” Jade suddenly yelled. He sped up and I started digging into my pocket to find a handgun but the angle I was at was making it impossible.

I looked ahead instead and saw the red light in front of us; I saw it disappear for a moment as Reaver approached it, then I was put down.

With the click of a suitcase Jade got the key card out of Elish’s protective sleeve. Reaver and I took out our guns and started shooting the mass of writhing grey that came closer and closer to us.

When we were shooting I noticed something though, the tall one that had been eating the rat wasn’t hissing or coming towards us. He was looking around like he was confused, following the group like he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.

That was odd... but then I remembered how he acted when I shone a light on him; he had ignored me completely. I had been the one to hear and notice him; he had just been there quietly minding his own business.