Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (42 page)

“Stay close to me you coked up fool,” Reaver said, he sounded amused but I had a feeling he was very close to getting annoyed with me. I stayed behind him but he was walking so god damn slow. I busied myself checking the list, before grabbing the bag of coke.

“No, you’ve had enough, give me the bag.”

I whined and held the bag. Reaver gave me a flat look but rolled his eyes. He did however give me one last warning. “If you go more than ten feet from me, I’m going to cut your legs off and beat you with them.”
“Yes, sir!” I said happily. When his back was turned I snuck some more drugs, I made believe I was just coughing. I shuddered as my mouth went numb again. Man, my mom would be in tears if she saw me. Reaver was a horrible influence.

We stuck to the main street, Reaver still going way to slow for me. So I busied myself trying to recognise shop signs. A lot of them were in fair condition, a little weather streaked from our short rainy seasons but still visible. I tried to make a game out of recognising the logos. I found several chain restaurants, a coffee shop. By the time we were a few blocks into the city I started to see boarded up windows and doors, but the wood was greying with age and brittle from the looks of it. They had been boarded up before the labs and possibly during the Fallocaust.

Suddenly Reaver turned to me, he stared me down with such an unimpressed look I stopped dead in my tracks. Well, my eye and my hands were twitching a bit.

“TUNK TUNK TUNK TUNKTUNKTUNK!” Reaver said annoyed. I looked at him bewildered.

“Your fucking heart, it’s about to explode. I can’t hear anything with that drumming in my ear... put... down... the... drugs.”

I gave him a goofy grin and handed him the bag, which he stuffed inside of the bag Reno had given him. He zipped it up and continued walking, shaking his head. It was his fault for letting me have my first taste. I was enjoying this stuff, it was...

“What was that!” I turned around wildly, I was sure I heard a noise coming from one of the buildings. Rusted hinges squeaking, a door closing perhaps.

“And now comes the paranoia,” Reaver mumbled, he stopped and let me catch up. He then took my hand. I thought he was doing it to be loving, but he grasped it rather hard. I realized it was more of a means for me not to wander off. “We’re looking into that building.” I looked to where he was pointing. The sign had fallen off of the front, and was laying in broken ruins underneath the door. But on the inside I could see rows of metal shelves and dusty merchandise.

“Stay close, I’m serious, I need to look for the things now not babysit you, okay?” he said, his voice was low and warning. I gave him a serious nod, feeling my eye twitch a bit. Reaver nodded and turned away, he started walking up the shelves. Checking the grey dusted lumps that under many layers of dust, held things inside. Like little greywaste presents.

I decided to help, I turned around and started dusting off items with my sleeve, before Reaver tossed me a rag. The first thing I found was makeup, eye shadow to be more specific. Nothing we could use, but I did put some in my bag for Sadii or Jess, maybe as a thank you for Jess for covering for Reaver when I had that panic attack. It wasn’t that heavy to pack around.

The next several things I found were also makeup chick stuff, and Reaver must have noticed too. He clicked me over and we walked to the next isle. I got an idea, and climbed to the top of one of the metal shelving and started dusting off the signs that showed you what was in each isle. Reaver saw me.

“Oh, smart thinking,” he commented. I beamed and wiped the rest of the dust away.

“Hair care, facial care, foot care,” I read. “I’ll dust off the other signs.”

“I’ll get some foot powder, keep the mushrooms off people’s feet,” Reaver said, checking the shelves carefully. “Don’t go more than one isle away from me.”

“I’ll be on the shelves anyways you can see me,” I called as I started climbing the next shelf. The chain on this one was broken, only a single link was holding the isle sign up. I got out my rag and started cleaning.

It was like I was an archeologist dusting off the bones of the Fallocaust. Uncovering treasures from pre-war one swipe of my cloth at a time. Everything was in much better condition, even the plastic isle signs were readable, the lettering was so straight and perfect. The dark blue was beautiful.

I showed Reaver the sign. “Look how blue it is.”

Reaver glanced up, he was holding a bottle of something. “Matches your eyes.” He smiled, which made me blush. He was so sweet at times. “Greeting cards? Those will be long gone by now.” He straightened himself up so he could see the other sign. “Oh-ral hi-gee-eney.”
“Oral Hygiene,” I laughed, jumping down from the metal shelving. I walked down the isle but to my dismay only a few dusted boxes remained. They must have taken all of it while they were evacuating, or maybe the Legion that could have been here when it was closed down. That was disappointing, I loved collecting toothbrushes and toothpaste. I hoarded as much as I could. Which was probably why I still had all my teeth.

We cleared the rest of the shelves, by this time I was coughing pretty hard into my sleeve. The dust was incredibly thick and rubbing the labels of so many packages and bottles was stirring up the air. I bet the greywaste ash wasn’t just dirt, I bet it was all just compacted dust. This stuff was everywhere there might be good scavenging. Though two hundred years would do that.

“Bingo, get over here, Killian,” Reaver called. He was leaning over a counter. It had the words Pharmacist on top of it. This would be where the good pills were of course. I felt a pang of excitement as I hopped over the counter.

Behind us were several cracked leather chairs, and what I think was a blood pressure machine. I had seen them in Doc’s medical books. Off behind Reaver was another counter and a piece of plastic glass wrapped around it. I walked behind there and started dusting off bottles. Trying my hardest to remember the kinds that Reaver took. They all had such stupid and annoying names though.

I started dusting off just the first bottle of each row, settling them aside for Reaver to look at when he had a chance. The bottles were in good condition and the labels cracked through readable. They were lined up in neat little rows, of all shapes and sizes.

I had never seen so much pre-Fallocaust stuff in one corner, or at least untouched like this. It was hard to believe the last person to touch these lived so long ago. Not expecting that they would sit here for so long. It was a sobering thought...

Things had changed slowly yet quickly. Civilization had been warring for so long and then apparently King Silas appeared and stopped it.

Who was he? No one knew. One thing was for sure... he was immortal. God though? No... a demon perhaps. The horned, winged kind I would see in books. That tortured, controlled, destroyed and corrupted. That was the king and his chimeras.

I had never seen him before not even in pictures, and we didn’t get Skyfall TV in Tamerlan. I had only seen him in drawings or represented as a cougar scorpion emblem on things like the Legion’s logo.

Apparently he was extremely attractive though, with golden blond hair, green eyes and a face of the gods, or so they said. Every person in the higher districts of Skyfall was good looking, or else they were refused breeding rights, something that had to be registered for or your kid got taken away and tossed in Moros. King Silas had to maintain his perfect world, and that meant beauty.

I had seen pictures of some of his chimeras and had seen Elish, all of them either looked like the models you would see in magazines or movie stars. I don’t know how much engineering King Silas had done to make them, but it must have been a lot.

I put the bottle back, and read the label, still feeling very sonder about all of it. King Silas stopped the world from being completely destroyed, but in turn... he took over the shattered remains. No more video games being made, or movies or even ivory soap. Everything had died when the Fallocaust happened and anything created or born now had Dek’ko or Skytech stamped onto them.

My hand found my geiger chip. Literally.

“Alright I got suchers, needless, bottles of crap. What did you dig up?” Reaver said after an hour had passed. My rag was now black, and so were my hands and probably my face too since I wiped it a few times. I got up and shook my cramped up legs.

“I wiped off the first of every bottle, I don’t know which ones are your drugs.”

“Hmm, okay move aside. I’ll take a look.” Reaver handed me the bag and started looking at all the pill bottles. I watched him for a few minutes, as he made a pile of what bottles he wanted until I realized I had the powder bag. So I busied myself and went to find a quiet corner to do some more coke.

I sat on one of the leather chairs and took a quick bit of powder. I shuddered like Reaver had done as I felt my mouth and throat go numb. I was really starting to enjoy this stuff.

The rest of the day I spent scavenging with Reaver. I cleared off the signs and the pill bottles or the packages and he picked out what we would bring, what we didn’t need and what we would hide for later. We made a note on a makeshift map I had made, where Reaver had stashed things. He said he never forgot, but I wanted to be sure.

We found everything on the list, though some things like antiseptic and bandages were harder to find. Reaver was really pleased to find a big bottle of dilaudids and oxycodone, he also found xanax which he said was for me. I wasn’t sure what that was, he said it would make me calm and for panic attacks. I think he had had enough of me sneaking coke. He put some of the blue pills into Reno’s bag.

Reaver kept watching the windows while we were rummaging around. Soon enough when we were an hour into scavenging an office he decided we were done for the night. I couldn’t have been happier, he confiscated the drugs a few hours ago and I was crashing hard.

With our arms full of bags we headed back to the quad a few blocks down. The hazy sun had set behind the buildings now taking the warmth with it and shrouding us in a permanent shadow. Everything suddenly got quiet and rather eerie. I tried to remind myself it was probably the drugs.

Our boots echoed as we walked own the street. Reaver, carrying most of the bags, stared forward. His black eyes fixed but firm in concentration. Probably thinking of the best place to make shelter, and what he would do during his patrol. I hoped he didn’t patrol tonight, too many buildings around us. Unboarded up windows and rusted hinges, rooms and rooms empty but exposed. Anything could be in there...

I shook away the feeling,  no this place was abandoned. We hadn’t even seen a radrat or even a croach. We were the only ones were. Anything else would have left their mark in one way or another.

When we slung the bags on the back of the quad, I saw a bit of nervousness in Reaver’s eyes, but as soon as he saw me looking it disappeared.

“What is it?” I asked warily.

Reaver looked up at the sky. “I made a mistake. It gets darker quicker in towns obviously, the buildings block out the sun instead of a horizon thousands of miles away... I thought we had more time to find shelter or even go back to where we were last night. We don’t...” Reaver kicked the brake from the quad and rolled it towards an alley. He put it behind a dumpster and grabbed our bag from last night and the blanket. He handed both to me and beckoned me to follow him.

I was silent as he started to look around. I knew he was analysing everything like his sentry training had taught him. What place would be safest for us to camp out in for the evening. High enough to avoid anyone seeing us, but low enough that if we did run into trouble we could escape. What places had the most rooms, a better ledge for us to climb and probably dozens of things I didn’t even consider. It was fascinating, like watching a computer work.

“I don’t want us too many stories above ground,” Reaver decided. “I want us near enough to the quad, I don’t know this city at all and if we’re running from shit we’ll both get lost.”
I didn’t like this idea...  but I humored him. “Where then?”

“The apartment buildings we walked past earlier,” Reaver said, they weren’t far only half a block. “We’ll get a room in there, with a window I can scout from, second story. We can both jump if we need to.”

My anxiety started to come back, Reaver sensed it. He fell back and walked right beside me as we made our way to the apartments. He didn’t leave me outside this time though, we both cautiously walked into the apartment building. Our guns drawn and ready to fire. I brought out my flash light and looked in every corner that I could. But everything was blanketed in grey, with only our foot steps disturbing the perfectly preserved lobby.

Everything looked even more spooky with the oncoming darkness. The peeling paint and deformed wood made the lobby and stairwell look ominous and haunting. I quickly and closely followed Reaver up the stairs, he wasn’t testing them like he did the house we had slept in the previous night.

“It’s not that big of a deal, Killi. Don’t be so scared,” he said to me when we reached the top. I watched him walk confidently down the hallway, his gun in his hand. He carefully pulled each door knob to see if they would open.

He didn’t look scared... he looked just fine. Reaver had this nonchalant way of dealing with these situations that I wished I could pick up from him. I got paranoid and anxious, he remained calm and collected.

He had been calm when he found me, kind of. I remembered him saying my name. I remember being shocked he was saying my name, he had never so much as looked at me before he saved me. His ear was partially blown off, his back was raw and  burnt from shielding me from the blast. Even with a brain injury that he still feels the effects of he still drove us home.

This made me square my shoulders and stand up a bit straighter, I forced my worries down. I would strive to be more like him. I would be confident, fearless and brave. I would need to be if I wanted to keep being his partner. I couldn’t be a scared little bitch hiding out in Aras, who would want to be with that? No one would, so someone as amazing as Reaver never would.