Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (118 page)

The pearly beads dripped into the hole. I had to dig faster, I had to dig more. I leaned against the shovel and stared off into the darkness as I allowed myself a brief moment to catch my breath.

Now I could smell them... the aroma was choking my nostrils. I was getting close. I wiped my mouth with a dirty hand and kept on digging. Grunting with every shovel full.

The next slam of the shovel brought a sickening wet sound. I had pierced something. I threw the shovel over my head and dropped to my knees. When I was on my knees the edges of the grave fell past my head. I was surrounded by blackness. Just me and my Perry, on a date.

I looked down, and realized I was sinking into a ribcage.

Stained rib bones encased my left knee, my right was crushing the other set against its weight. I could feel his bones snapping with every shift.

I stared.

The mouth on his skull was open in a grin, he was laughing at me.

Perish was having a great laugh, because there was only one explanation for why I would be seeing his grinning face. Only one reason why I would be on top of him, sinking into him.

Asher wasn’t there. Asher wasn’t in the grave I had put him in.

“Killian!” Reaver’s voice was an echo, far away.

I picked up the skull, and held it in my hands.

“Asher isn’t here...”

ASHER ISN’T HERE.

Only my Perish. My Perish. My Perry... he laid alone in this desecrated grave, he had always been alone.

I held the skull to me with my left hand, and with the other I dug through his body. Pushing back mounds of rotting flesh and writhing maggots, I felt through the muck trying to feel for any parts that might’ve been Asher; but no, only one body.

Asher isn’t here, Killian. Asher isn’t here!

“Killian? Oh... my fucking god...
Killian
?”
“He isn’t here!” I screamed, I got up, holding Perish’s skull. My feet sinking into the body’s cavity. “He isn’t here!” I shrieked. I watched as my reality crumbled around me, nothing but a mass of rubble under the thunderous earthquake that was shaking my very existence.

“Who isn’t?!” Reaver’s voice was strangled. He pulled me out of the grave. I fell onto the ground, and got to my feet, swaying off to my side before I could right myself. I looked back at the grave, I rubbed my hands together and started pacing around the open pit.

“Who isn’t...Killian?”

My head snapped up as he said my name. He had said it through a sob.

I looked at him, knocking the knuckles on my clenched fists together. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. His face was a depiction of torment, a canvas holding an image not even my nightmares dared show me. I didn’t understand what I was looking at at first, my brain told me it wasn’t him; because it wasn’t possible.

Reaver was crying.

I saw glistening in his black eyes, and down his cheeks. Those black gems all the more beautiful with the glimmer and sheen rimming the corners. They bore into me with such intense sorrow I found, even in my madness, staring back unblinking.

Reaver was scared? My raven eyed chimera was never scared, he was the portrait of strength, he was the rock in which I stood on. He didn’t know how to be scared, not even when the ravers were after him did he show fear.

I looked away from him and paced in front of the grave. “He isn’t here... he isn’t here, Reaver.”

“Who!” Reaver demanded, his hands were clenched in front of him as if pleading at me to do something to explain my bizarre actions.

Suddenly I felt his hands grasp my shoulders and he shook me so hard my teeth rattled in my head. “Who, Killian! Perish?” He walked to the grave and pointed to it. “He’s right there, he’s still just bones now.”

“NO! NOT HIM!” I couldn’t control my own voice, everything came out shrill and flooded in panic. Every cell inside of me felt like it was being touched with a live wire.

My knees felt weak. I felt a hard impact and realized I had dropped to me knees. I started to sob. “I killed him... I killed him!”
I saw his legs as he stood in front of me, then he lowered so we were facing each other. I looked at him, my teeth chattering, no, my whole body was shaking back and forth like I was having a tremor. I couldn’t look away, I had to be a man. I had to be a man like Asher, or Reaver would leave me.

I tried to inhale, but my throat was a vice. I choked on my own words “I killed Asher, I killed Asher that night. He didn’t get away. I killed him Reaver.”

“What?” Reaver’s voice dropped. He gripped my shoulders. “You killed him? No, no Killi. That’s just your mind playing tricks. I promise-”

“No!” I screamed and wrenched away from him, I clenched a ball of my hair into my fists. “I killed him. He drugged me with ressin, and blackmailed me with the recorder. When I was fucking him with the dildo I slipped pills inside him, dozens. He brought me here. I put a bag over his head. I suffocated him!” I rambled. I paused as I choked on the stench of my own body and gagged. I clenched my teeth as I resisted the urge to scream. “He was cold when I buried him. I buried him on top of Perish. He’s dead, I killed him, Reaver.”

When I saw the look of doubt on his face, I lost it. I broke down and started to feel the hysterical sobs spill from my mouth one by one. “You have to believe me, he’s alive Reaver. Asher’s alive. He’s in Aras, he’s been following me. He was just here. He’s real, he came back from the dead.

“Please, Reaver... believe me.” I begged, he kept looking at me like I was a dying puppy squealing before I was put out of my misery. I grabbed his arm with my trembling, rot covered hand. “Please.”

Reaver looked at my arm, I saw his lips tighten, and his jaw clench. I looked down too and realized he could see my bruised, white arm, covered in track marks.

Then his eyes fell to the skull right beside us. Perish’s skull. Still laughing at the joke only he and Asher would have found funny.

Smiling Perish... my Perry.

Wordlessly he rose, before leaning down and picking me up. Still without a word spoken between us he started to carry me out of the cemetery.

When he got to the bottom of the largest refuse pile he set me gently down on a fridge and got out his radio. I didn’t dare speak.

“Greyson!” he said through clenched teeth. He was angry, he was angry at me. I was more trouble than I was worth. “Greyson!”

He leaned forward on a cement wall, a casted shadow making it look almost like a doorway; and lowered his head, the radio up against his forehead.

“Reaver, what’s wrong?”

“Get your fucking ass out of bed, get some hot water in the bathtub, get peroxide, baking soda, something...” Reaver took a breath, and slammed a hand against the concrete in stifled rage. He let out a frustrated noise through clenched lips. “Get Leo home. Quickly.”

I could see his shoulders rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“Reaver, what happened?”

My boyfriend gave a frustrated yell and screamed into the radio. “Just fucking do it!

He jammed the radio back into his pocket and picked me back up. I was too scared to talk. I kept looking around for Asher. He was here, he was just here... I tried to sit up higher in Reaver’s arms, but Reaver tightened his grip.

I couldn’t understand the expression on his face. He was clenching his teeth like he was in physical pain, and his breathing was so hoarse. Was Reaver sad because he thought I was crazy? I wasn’t crazy, I had killed him. I’d strangled him... I overdosed him...

“I’m not crazy,” I whispered. “I’m not crazy.”

Chapter 50

Reaver

Greyson looked at Killian like he was carrying plague, he gave me a wide berth as I walked past him and into the house.

“What the fuck is he... what the fuck, Reaver?” Greyson gagged, keeping the door open to let the air escape. “What the fuck? Are those... is that rotten blood?”

I stalked past him to their bathroom. He had obeyed my orders, there was warm vinegary water in the tub.

Gently and slowly I lowered Killian into it and started taking off what little clothes he had on. Peeling off the blood stained pants, revealing the sickly, pale skin underneath. Killian stared forward, his lips slowly moving. Telling me he wasn’t crazy.

I threw his clothes into the garbage and started squeezing every container full of soap I could find. I washed my own hands in the hot water and got up.

I walked up the stairs and into my bedroom, I took out a Discman I had stashed in my cabinet and casually walked down and back to the bathroom.

I put the ear phones over his ears and turned it on. “This isn’t the shit you usually like, I don’t have any Matthew Good Band, but listen to it really loudly and scrub up.” I kissed his forehead and gave him a smile. I waited until I could hear the music blasting in his ears before I left again.

I walked into the living room, and saw Greyson standing by the couch with his arms crossed.

I calmly walked up to him and punched him right in his fucking face.

The punch threw Greyson right off of his feet, he flipped over the couch and crashed into the coffee table.

“Next time you want to pass of a corpse as Perish Dekker, don’t forget to match the skull’s fucking teeth!” I spat. “You stupid fucking old man do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done?!” I tried to lower my voice but I was too angry to have any control over myself.

They brought him home, they fucking brought home Perish Dekker to keep him as their prisoner. Perish was immortal like King Silas and they had known it the whole time. It all made sense, every fucking thing made sense. It wasn’t until I saw the bruise shaped handprints on Killian’s arms, then moments later the confirmation with Perish’s skull.

Killian hadn’t been hallucinating.

Greyson gawked at me from the floor, he looked absolutely shell shocked. “You... Reaver you don’t understand. Inside his head... are things that could help everyone. Secrets that could fix everything...”

The mayor scrambled to his feet, but kept a good distance from me. “Reaver listen. Perish is seventy years old, Silas doesn’t care where he is, what he does... he can offer us vital information. We’ve already gotten so much.” Greyson carried on rambling but I was a bit done.

“We have a chance to bring down King Silas. We have a chance to finally do some good.”

I laughed. “You have a chance to bring down King Silas.” I walked over to him, my chest heaving. I couldn’t contain it, I couldn’t whisper it. The anger was seeping from my lips. I shouted it, with every ounce of anger I had in me.

“ASHER IS KING SILAS YOU FUCKING IDIOT.” I screamed. “King Silas is in Aras! He has been in fucking Aras for over two fucking months. You brought him here! You didn’t even recognise your own fucking king?”

I think in every human there is an off switch. Where the emotions get to be too much, where the information overloads your circuits and you just... burn out. The wheels stop turning, the lights go out, you just sit and stare into darkness as your brain jumpstarts its self like a shitty PC.

Greyson hit that state, he looked at me like a radrat in a flashlight. I don’t think he believed me. I hadn’t believed myself, but as soon as I realized they had given us a fake body to pass off as Perish. I knew. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together. Perish disappeared, Silas came and decided to pass himself off as a waster to find out where his pet went. Ta da, he’s in Aras.

Fucking Greyson and Leo not only stole a chimera, they lured his master right to our home. I bet he would massacre us all now, especially since my boyfriend had killed both of them.

Greyson was looking forward, when suddenly his mind snapped back to reality. He got to his feet. “I need to fucking check the bunker...” he groaned, his voice strained. “I have to make sure Perish is still in there.”

The bunker, of course. Where Leo had been spending his days when he had moved out of the house. Another piece fits into the fucking puzzle.

“I’m not going with you, I need to take care of my boyfriend. I can only rely on the fact he still thinks we don’t know.” I turned my back to him and walked towards the bathroom. “I’m not doing anything about this until he’s stable.”

“Reaver...” Greyson said. “You need to leave Aras and quickly. Get him stable and both of you... both of you disappear for a few weeks.”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “Fuck off, I’m not leaving, not in this season, with that kid, in this weather. He’ll get sick and die.”

Greyson got his jacket on. “We’ll...I’ll... I’ll talk to you about it later. I have to check on him... if Silas... fuck.” Greyson disappeared into the darkness.

I grabbed the heroin out of my pocket and the several syringes I had snatched as well. I got the rest of the supplies from the kitchen and brought a chair into the bathroom.

Killian still had his head above the water so that was a plus, and the earphones on his head. Since he didn’t stroke out I assumed he hadn’t heard anything.

I sat down beside him and started preparing him a dose.

“I’m sorry,” Killian said after I had taken the ear phones off of his head. He sounded more alert. “For not telling you.”

“Not telling me what? There are so many things you haven’t been telling me lately.” I grabbed a scratchy brush and gave it to him so he could scrape his skin. At least a bit of time soaking had softened the muck he had on him. Fuck did he ever smell. I could see digging him up to see if he was there but did he have to dance around in Fake Perish’s rotting body?

“Everything...” Killian whispered, he eyed the needle. “Reaver... do you love me?”

I gave him the best smile I could muster. “More than anything.”

“I’m not crazy.”

I snorted, only because at this point I would have rather him been crazy and hallucinating. I couldn’t tell him right now that everything he had seen was rather real. With a possible exception to Perish, but knowing Asher Silas and his nature of fucking with people who’s to know.
“I know you’re not, I’m handling it. Don’t worry.” I started burning the heroin and the water together. “Don’t think about it. Not right this second.”
I tapped the now full needle and started tying off his arm, he looked at his arm surprised. As if he just realized what I was doing. “What... you’re letting me have heroin?”