Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (38 page)

“He went missing while scavenging,” I said to Reno as the kid climbed on the back of the quad with me, he wrapped his arms around me in a death grip. “We’ll be back in two days. If anything goes wrong we’ll be sleeping by the ruins outside of Donnely, send off a fire work or something.” The radio wouldn’t reach that far, not ours anyways. If they did need us they would either need a quad or a trike. The terrain was too shitty for a truck to get there.

Reno nodded, I could tell he hated not coming with us, but we had to do what we had to do. It was my fault the ACL was coming this soon.

Without another word, I pushed the throttle. As the deacon dogs started to go insane near the north gate, telling me the mercer was close. I drove east. The boy behind me and the rocky broken greywastes in front.

Chapter 19

Killian

It was about two hours into our journey into the greywastes that I started to feel like I might not throw up from sheer terror. Being out of Aras again had made my gut turn to churning ice.

I thought I would have an panic attack when the walls of Aras disappeared into the hazy rocky distance, and another one when Reaver pointed out a crucified human to me (it might have been a raver, I wasn’t sure it was pretty rotten) I’m not sure why he felt like he had to do that, but I wasn’t sure about a lot of things Reaver did.

I kept telling myself that I would be safe, that I was with Reaver. We had armor and lots of guns and a tank full of gas. I knew Reaver wouldn’t let anything happen to me. But we were miles and miles away from Aras now, with no one else in sight. The world was deserted, the greywastes just that, a wasteland. Miles and miles of black withering trees in a war ravaged limbo, thousands of abandoned shells of houses and streets broken like shattered glass. It was called the greywastes for a reason, nothing grew in the dead ashy soil and what did was old before it took its first radiated breath.

The greywastes mirrored its self, though to wield a more accurate reflection perhaps it should have been called the redwastes. What looked back at you was dull and lifeless, but only on the surface. Under its mask was a growling monster ready to eat you in small gnawing bites and coat the grey rocks in blood. The wasteland was only empty to the foolish. Inside there was life, though it was deformed and twisted.

Living, though perhaps not alive.

I felt Reaver’s body under my hands. He would protect me, like the mercenaries had on the way to Aras. Though like Reaver had said Donnely hadn’t been open to the wasters for very long, so hopefully no one would have settled there..

I squeezed Reaver’s back and buried my head into his neck. The wounds he had gotten on his neck from the blast was just half healed scabs now. We hadn’t even bothered bandaging it anymore, or cleaning it. Just scratching to relieve some of the itch. I had been demoted from Reaver’s little doctor, to the official back scratcher, but I didn’t mind.

The greywastes passed around us quickly, I hadn’t been to this side of the wastes yet. My family had come in from the opposite side of Aras, more north around the canyons, and that’s where the legionnaires had kidnapped me too. I had never been to the east before. There were a lot more abandoned buildings and more broken up roads. Not occupied though, which was a relief.

The buildings were in horrible condition. Most had partially collapsed roofs and others were just burnt out shells. Mountains of greywaste ash and dirt had been blown into every crevice and opening in the houses, filling them to the point were the only shelter they provided would be to the animals.

I could see bigger more intact houses in the distance but Reaver steered far away from them. I think they might have been occupied but I wasn’t sure. Some of them looked huge though, old office buildings perhaps or apartments all just hazy silhouettes in the beating sun.

I loved scavenging in apartments, or even better hotel rooms. My dad had been great at busting into them even if they were boarded up with sheet metal. I had found some really neat and valuable treasures inside. Once I had even found an old soda bottle that still had soda in it. Though Mom wouldn’t let me drink it. I ended selling it in the next town we stayed in. An old collector gave me five dollars for it and a bag of marshmallow bananas.

I hoped Donnely had apartment buildings, or a grocery store. Though I don’t know how much we would be able to carry back on the quad. There was a basket in the front and bungee cables in the back plus I had my bag with me. At least we could bury the stuff we couldn’t carry, like Reaver did with his drug supplies he had buried in different places.

Wow, since I was taking this scavenging mission with Reaver it meant I was helping the block. It’s silly but it took me three hours into our journey for me to realize that. The most I had been able to do was help Doc around the clinic. Besides that I was well... the idiot with the books, rather useless.

Reaver slowed the quad down a bit as he started up a string of rocky slopes. I held onto him harder as we started to bump around. Which unfortunately didn’t help the nausea I had been feeling on and off. I tried to hold it back but soon I desperately was patting Reaver’s shoulder blade.

He stopped and as soon as he did, I jumped off and threw up behind the quad.

“I’m going to pull the quad up by that burnt out farmstead and we can take a break.” I heard Reaver say, then the crunching of gravel and rock as he moved the quad forward.

I spat, before puking my guts out again. I wiped my mouth and tried to cover the puke with dirt before walking towards the burnt house I had seen before I made him pull over.

Around us were rusted out trucks and tractors on the old over grown property, and a collapsed barn a little ways back behind the remains of a fence. The whole area surrounding us was flat, once holding crops or farm animals but now it was covered in yellow grass, bushes and twists of old barbwire.

Reaver killed the quad engine and jumped off. He reached into the bag Reno had given him and handed me a bottle of water and took one for himself. He leaned up against the charred wooden beams and cracked it open.

I took a drink and rinsed out my mouth before I swallowed it. I bet Reno hadn’t packed me a toothbrush, and there was no way I was asking Reaver. He would never let me live it down since his personal hygiene left a lot to be desired (he hadn’t even washed his bullet proof vest yet, it stank of stale blood). At least I had a spare one in my bag though it was very old. Better than nothing.

I took another drink and walked around the quad a bit to stretch my legs. I looked up and noticed Reaver’s pale face was lined and troubled. He put his goggles up and rested them over his blue bandana he was wearing over his head. His black eyes staring forward.

“I’m sorry for all this,” I said sullenly.

“I’ll be okay.” I didn’t really now what else to say.

His black eyes found mine, I found myself wondering for a second if I could see the brown flecks in the sunlight. “You’re not okay, you just puked your guts out and your heart was racing almost this whole trip.”

I walked up to him and leaned on the beam beside his. “It’s slower now though.” I looked down at my chest. Since there wasn’t anyone else around, I put my hand over his and squeezed it.

I gave him a smile, which got me a confused look. Sure enough I could see the dark brown flecks in his eyes, and even a streak or two from the pieces of hair sticking out of his kerchief. “This is just how life is. I’m a lot more resilient than you think. I was on the road for months with my family when we defected. My father and mother were just as bad as me and... and we made it.”

Reaver didn’t look convinced. I didn’t blame him, I barely knew what I was saying. I opened my mouth to try and sell my case a bit more, but before I could stop it, I whirled around and threw up again.

To my embarrassment and annoyance... he stifled a laugh. I felt his hand pat my back.

“So brave!” he mock gasped. I turned around and hit him in the shoulder, he smiled and ducked away from it.

I took another drink of water to rinse the new puke out of my mouth. “The road is all twisted and hilly, it ticked off my stomach,” I said in my defense, though I didn’t even buy that excuse.

He rolled his eyes and took a drink too, downing almost half the bottle in one gulp. I cringed, I wanted to remind him we had to ration it but maybe Donnely had a water source. I didn’t want to say anything. He was the expert at this not me.

“If you’re up for it, want to try a few buildings farther south east? Greyson was mentioning them the other day, it might have some cool shit in it,” he asked, motioning past the farmstead. Though there wasn’t much to see, just thick black trees and more rocks. “We can leave tomorrow for Donnely, for the rest of the day we can explore there and find a shelter nearby. We have more time to kill since the ACL fucks will be doing their thing in Aras today and tomorrow.”

“Sure,” I said putting the bottle away. “Do you know what places have wasters in them?” I turned to see if I could see any of the buildings from where I was.

“No, but I don’t expect to see any one around here. If I see anyone though they’re getting shot.”

Reaver said, he threw his half empty bottle into the bag too and disappeared behind the house. I heard his pants unzip. I might as well pee too, Reaver wouldn’t be impressed if I asked him to stop again.

We hopped back onto the quad after relieving ourselves and Reaver carried on past the old barn and away from the farmstead. There was broken remnants of a road in front of us, mostly covered by dirt and rock but Reaver followed it as best he could. It seemed like he was avoiding the steeper hills, I liked to think he was doing that for me.

I started to see buildings in the distance. It looked like the outskirts to a small town, suburbs perhaps since it was just a normal road, not a highway. The trees were starting to get thicker though so it was hard to tell.

“That’s Donnely,” Reaver shouted to me, pointing towards the suburbs. “It’s a medium size city, at least two pharmacies in it I bet.” His hand moved to the side and as he pointed I noticed ruins of blue tape. “That’s Skytech’s warning tape, they wraps it around trees and puts up medians to show the town is closed. It was open a couple years ago I think.”

This I did know, I had seen many trees covered in the familiar blue tape. Usually our chips would start to vibrate as soon as we got near the trees. The mercenaries stayed far away from anything covered in the tape. We had eaten through most of our iodine pills getting through the badland highways and the dump sites. We didn’t have any to spare to start poking around forbidden areas.

Reaver slowed the quad down as the road started to get congested with cars and trucks. He moved further off of the road and started to slowly weave in-between the vehicles. I looked inside and spotted a few skeletons and even some old world suitcases that looked intact. Though I didn’t ask Reaver to stop.

We passed a bullet riddled stop sign and a mold streaked concrete block wall holding back part of a cliff face, and then took a twisted left turn. In front of us I saw a building with what remained of a parking lot and gas pumps in front of it.

The sign read
Greenvalley Gas n Grocery
in blue curled paint, but it had fallen off of its rusted chains long ago and was now leaning up against the single story brick building. The brick was crumbling, but most of it had remained standing. What had broken off had stayed where it had fallen covered in with dirt, roots and rocks.

All of the windows were boarded shut with rust stained sheet metal over glass long broken. It didn’t look occupied at first glance. The cars had spindly bushes growing around them and sapling size trees. I could even see a few trees growing up out of the rusted gas pumps, I don’t think people had been here for a long time.

Reaver steered the quad into a small space between a fallen over median and a steep hill. He turned it around, I’m assuming so we could get away quickly if needed, and turned it off.

I stepped onto the parking lot, though I wobbled a bit since I wasn’t used to not being in motion. I turned around and started surveying the area.

Windows boarded, door boarded, easy exit if needed, no spray paint or carcasses indicating it had been claimed by ravers. Just faded advertisements for soda and cigarettes and something inside that was 2 for 1.

I stopped and craned my ears. Everything was quiet, except for a few hoppers. It looked safe.

I walked across the pavement, tuffs of yellow grass had started growing through the hot surface, and remnants of long dead spiny brush. Probably grown during the rainy seasons only to die once it became dry again. The greenery they once had everywhere before the Fallocaust never got a proper chance to grow here from either drought or radiation. Though it did try, but the world kept poisoning it.

Reaver appeared beside me, he handed me my assault rifle and an over the chest holster for it. I slipped it over my head, and took the combat knife he was also holding. I looked like a Reaver double now. Bullet proof vest, rifle, knife, I was even all dressed in black like he usually was.

I must admit that did make me feel a bit dangerous, though I probably looked like a moron. Either way, it helped calm my nerves and hopefully my heart rate. How inconvenient it was to have a boyfriend who could hear your heartbeat, I couldn’t hide any emotions from him.

“One rule,” Reaver said as we walked towards the old gas station. “If I say get to the quad and get the fuck out of here. You do it. No questions, no trying to be a hero. Understand?”

I didn’t really like that rule at all, but I knew better than to argue with him. “Understood,” I said, though I didn’t know if I would be able to do that if it came to it. I wonder if he felt that way when Greyson ordered him around.

The dark haired arian nodded and stepped onto the side walk like front of the grocer. He was silent and I could tell he was listening for anyone inside. He must have been satisfied that it was empty because a moment later he got out a hatchet and started prying the sheet metal off of the door making an awful noise. I hadn’t even seen him grab that from the bag.