Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (18 page)

Most of the highway interchanges were useless. The exit ramps that would have them accessible had collapsed long ago. So they just towered over everyone, like relics of the times passed, waiting for the elements to take them. In ancient times the world preserved the pyramids, the coliseums, the works of art. The only thing the pre-Fallocaust folks had in this part of the wastes were the broken pieces of highway. Not much of a work of art.

Leo saw a flash of grey out of the corner of his eye. He looked over to see the deacdog running happily beside them. He had started following them as soon as they headed out into the greywastes. Leo had forgotten to give him back to Murry.
He had been on the wall, facing the northwest of Aras all morning waiting for his husband to come home. Wishing and wishing he would have Reaver with him, safe... probably crazy and injured, but safe.

He just wanted his family back in Aras, he would deal with the aftermath of Killian’s death after they were home. It would be bad, the boy had been the first person to worm his way past Reaver’s barriers, and he would be hurting on the inside for a long time, but he was still young. Though Leo had been Killian’s age when he first met his future husband. The thought of losing him, even back then was terrifying.

Leo pursed his lips, he thought back to the feeling of dread he had when he read the note attached to the deacdog. Writing in god damn blood? If it wasn’t signed with Reaver’s mark he would have thought that was where he would find his husband’s body.
Still... Greyson wouldn’t just be sitting there waiting for him.
Leo swallowed hard.
Unless he had been hurt...
Leo loved Reaver like a son, but he also knew him well. Reaver would be crazy for a very long time over losing Killian, especially in the manner he had died. He would probably be dangerous and unpredictable as well. The kid was a bit sociopathic as it was, experiencing actual grief over a loss would be catastrophic to his mental state. Reaver was strong though, stronger than any of them. He would survive, he wouldn’t have a choice. Loss was something everyone had to get used to.
He hated admitting it to himself, Reaver meant a lot to him, but he feared for his partner’s life. Greyson didn’t sugar coat things... he could say the wrong thing to him very easily. Greyson saw Reaver as a soldier to be trained, and sometimes it was hard to see him as their kid. No fault of his own, just his upbringing; his own father had treated him the same.

Leo looked ahead, wishing the exit ramp bridge would come into view sooner.

What if Greyson was mortally wounded... and Reaver didn’t want to leave his side?
Leo swallowed the needles that seemed to stick in his throat; that... that sounded like it could be it.

Time passed slowly, but eventually Reno drove up the bridge that crossed the Typhus River. He glanced over at Reno’s gas gage, thankfully he still had a little under half a tank. Unless the third exit ramp was an extremely long ways away they should be able to get home safely. He was planning on giving Reno a raise after all of this. The kid was a happy go lucky, horny, drug addict but he was dependable and loyal; and Reaver liked him which always a bonus. The more people Reaver tolerated the better, god knows that kid needed to learn social skills.
Leo leaned back as the road momentarily got smoother and kept his eyes peeled on his surroundings. Besides what he thought might be a cluster of croaches they hadn’t seen any radanimals or any soldiers.
He craned his neck to try and get a better view, they were near the middle of the bridge when he saw the third exit ramp off in the distance. Feeling his heart start to fill again he tried to swallow down the anxiety. Though willing himself to be strong was easier than actually doing it.
“See it?” Reno called to him, his voice faint on the catching wind.
“Yeah,” Leo called back, he leaned forward and put his feet up against the metal foot rests and stood up. The third exit ramp wasn’t too far off. He could see it was covered in almost bumper to bumper vehicles, including a large bus laying diagonal across the road.

The raised highway seemed to go on for a good mile south, before crumbling into nothing. He could see where it began again stretched off into the distance only to disappearing into the grey.

It looked abandoned. He wasn’t afraid of encountering more legionnaires, he was more afraid of stumbling onto a raver colony. But they usually liked to announce their location to the other colonies with spray paint and mutilated bodies. So it looked like that area was safe.
Leo’s eyes travelled to the sheltered area underneath the exit ramp. His heart leapt.
“I see a bosen, yeah that’s the merchant’s caravan.” Leo’s heart jumped. He felt his chest tighten in a mixture of excitement and dread.
Just let them be safe...
Underneith’s GRY.
With his heart threatening to bust his rib cage he kept his eyes pinned on the caravan. He had to be around here somewhere... maybe he hasn’t heard the quad, or he’s making sure it’s us.
As soon as Reno slowed the quad down Leo jumped off.
“Greyson? Reaver?” Leo called.
There was no answer.
He felt his heart plummet, behind him Reno cut the engine and started calling them too.

The leader of Aras started to walk around the cars and piles of crumbling concrete. Stepping carefully over the snares of rebar that broke through like rusted fingers. Everything was silent, though the silence came with its own deafening noise.

I won’t go there yet.
“Hey Leo, the night vision goggles I gave Greyson.” Reno jogged up to him, holding up the small pair of mechanical lenses. He kneeled down in front of the deacdog which had been sniffing the bosen and held it out to him.

“Find Greyson,” Reno said to him.

The grey deacon dog, with black paws and a stupid smile sniffed the goggles and looked up at him, he wagged his tail. Leo watched as the dog ran beside the deteriorating off ramp. Its grey black markings blending in almost perfectly with the black stained, crumbling concrete blocks behind him. The dog to his surprise, stopped beside an almost entirely hidden station wagon. It sat down and barked with its tongue lolling out happily.
As Leo sped down the incline to where the dog was sitting, the animal got up and started pushing the trunk of the car with his nose. The silent air was broken only by the dog’s excited sniffing.
He heard a groan.
Leo let out a cry of relief. He opened the trunk up and put his hands on his husband’s sweaty face.
“What happened?” Leo choked, unable to hold down his emotions any longer.

His partner looked horrible. His rugged face was covered in sweat and dirt and his eyes were barely open.
“That little fucker,” Greyson moaned. He tried to sit up, but he fell back with a clenched groan. “He didn’t want me to come.”
“Come? Where? Where is he?” Alarm bells rung in Leo’s head. He took his partner’s gloved hand and hoisted him up. Sweat was running down his greying temples. Leo could see drying blood on the back of his head. He looked down to see a dark stain on the trunk floor where his head had laid.
“Did he knock you out?”
Greyson didn’t answer, as soon as his feet touched the ground he keeled over and threw up. He sat down on the rim of the trunk and spat onto the ground.
Leo picked Greyson’s satchel up and took out his bottle of water, and gently handed it to him. Greyson took a generous drink and poured a bit of it onto his head.
“Little psychopath. Fucking hell he snapped. Killian might be alive, they sold him alive to Typhus Canyon.” He scratched his prickly beard and wiped his wet face with his sleeve.
“Holy shit!” Reno exclaimed behind them. The field sentry put his hand on the back of his head and whooped. “Alive? Fuck, Reaver must have shit himself. When did he leave?”
Greyson glanced up at the sun, then back at Leo. “He left in the morning. Reaver got hit by rubber bullets, he was knocked out until morning.”
Leo stared at him for a second before he swore. “But he was okay?”
Greyson nodded, taking another drink. “I think he’s going kamikaze on the factory. That’s why he knocked me out, he knew I wanted to go with him to find the kid.”

“What do we do?” Reno asked, he was up at the merchants caravan rummaging around.
Greyson looked at Leo. “I don’t know, Leo... what do we do?”
Leo sighed and shook his head. “Nothing we can do, we need to trust Reaver will do the right thing. I think we should gather some of this shit and get home. I want Doc to check out your head too.”
Reno stared at them like they had just suggested flying to the moon. “Go back to Aras? Are you shitting me? We need to fucking help Reaver.”
Leo shook his head, he grabbed the bosen’s nose ring and started encouraging the large creature to walk back up to the level ground. “Be realistic, Reno. There is nothing we can do, but wait for Reaver to come home.”
Reno gritted his teeth, his usual cheerful face was sad. Leo felt for him but the kid was young. They were impulsive and emotional. Leo was old enough to know the reality of the situation. Even if they all headed towards the factory, it would cause more trouble for Reaver than help. And it would put a red mark on Aras as well. All they could do was secure the free food and supplies and get it home to the block.
Greyson wiped his face and groaned. Leo pushed the water bottle into his hand. His partner looked exhausted and defeated.
“Hey Reno, hook the two caravans together and get everything secure. I need to talk to Leo in private,” Greyson said.

Leo was afraid of this. Anything he couldn’t say in front of Reno was probably regarding Reaver, and was probably bad.
Reno let out an annoyed breath. The rugged faced, black haired arian nodded and without another word, grabbed the rope attached to the bosen’s nose ring.
Greyson followed Leo up the road, and onto the off ramp. It didn’t take him long to start seeing dried brown streaks of blood and tissue. The deacdog bounded ahead and started eating the bigger pieces.

“How was he?” Leo’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper. All he wanted to do was be close to his husband, but he had to push this small relief aside. There was still one more family member out there.

Leo swallowed as he saw Killian’s gun leaning up against an old pickup truck. Possibly two family members.

With the guitar resting unharmed against the truck, Greyson leaned over it and into the bed; a moment later he pulled out five assault rifles.
He leaned the rifles next to the guitar and motioned Leo to follow him. He walked around the large bus that was stretched out at a fifty degree angle and disappeared behind it without a word.
Leo followed, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

When he turned the corner, his stomach lurched. He felt a wave of sickening nausea as his eyes took in the grisly scene in front of them.
“Did he do this?” Leo whispered in shock.
The dead corpse of the father and son were still in the same position they had died in. The sun light illuminating every bit of carnage on the grisly scene. The boy was still kneeling over his father, half naked. The handle of the machete still sticking out of him.

His ass was covered in dry, caked blood and there were already flies everywhere. The father had a gun shot wound on the side of his head, his shrivelled up, blood shot eyes were staring off in the void. He was stripped to almost nothing as well, and... it looked like his legs had been half cut off.

Leo looked down at the other legionnaire’s knees, his were as well. Though the hack marks did look deep, the black flies eating away at their wounds only made them appear deeper.

Leo had seen many fucked up, gruesome scenes in his life, but this might top them all. This wasn’t just gruesome... it was twisted.
“They were father and son,” Greyson said, his voice was emotionless. “As soon as Reaver found that out, he used the boy to get the legionnaire leader to talk. That’s how he found out Killian was alive. When he talked, he killed the boy anyways, and had a good laugh about it.”
Leo’s partner of nineteen years let out a breath and wiped his head, before taking a deliberately long drink. He looked like he was going to throw up again.
“He almost tore off the head of the watchman, then ripped his heart out,” he continued with a grim thin voice.“There were three more he chased down, literally chased down. He ate the throat of one of them, cut the head off the other and the third committed suicide as soon as he was cornered from the looks of it.”
Greyson’s face tensed, he looked uncomfortable with what he was about to say next.
“He had me hold the leader’s legs back. I swear to god I thought he was going to rape him. Though I think I might have preferred that to what we actually did.”
“As long as he didn’t hurt you.”
The hard faced arian shook his head. “I knew when to get out of his line of vision. Fuck Leo, he had blood all over his face, his eyes were blazing like a demon. I could barely see any white in those black pits of his.”
Leo pushed the boy off of his father with his foot. The machete handle making an odd clunking noise as he rolled onto the pavement. A burst of black flies flew up into the air in a swarm of angry buzzing.

“Killing is one thing, but... fuck, you should have seen his face. He... I saw him in him.”
Leo’s heart froze with his body, he tried to hide the sense of dread that was washing over him. He couldn’t let Greyson see how much power those words had on him. “Worse? Do you think he’s getting worse?”
“I know he is,” Greyson’s voice was flat. “Every year he gets worse, are you blind?”

Leo stared at him, his eyes turning cold hazel slabs at Greyson’s words. A thousand thoughts were racing through his head, but he only whispered three words to his husband.
“I warned you.”

There was a long silence between the two of them. The only sounds were the buzzing of the flies and Reno packing up below them. It was a few minutes before Greyson finally spoke.

“Are they all suppose to be like this?”

Leo stared down at the carnage around them.

“No, he wanted him to be worse,” Leo whispered back. “You know that.”
“Do you think he’ll ever be ready?”

Leo’s eyes turned away, and shook his head.“If you would have asked me, when we realized he was developing feelings for Killian I would have said yes,” he whispered, “but now? No. If he’s dead, this will just spiral and it will keep spiraling.”
“That kid was having a good fucking affect on him,” Greyson hissed bitterly. “I wish that boy hadn’t been such a moron. Maybe we can use Killian’s death to our advantage. We’re going to have to come up with a plan as to how we’re going to handle Reaver when he comes home. Increase his training, we’ll keep him distracted.”
Suddenly Leo got angry. “YOU will, this was your god damn idea in the first place. If you want to continue training him have at it, I’m going to support him like a father, not use the kid’s grisly death as a tool to manipulate your fucking agenda.”
“Well you’re not his god damn father, he doesn’t have a father,” Greyson snapped. Leo scoffed angrily and threw his hands up in the air. He walked back down the onramp. The fear he had felt so strongly only an hour before now long gone. They were back to fighting about Reaver again, it had been a ongoing trend since they had gotten the boy.
“All you’re doing is going against his nature,” Greyson called after his partner. “Why do I need to remind someone like you of that?”