Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (50 page)

“What day is today, Perish?” I asked nonchalantly.

“August 12
^th
”

Oh fuck... my mouth went dry, I busied myself eating a piece of ham. I would need to tell Reaver this. If I got the password and the detonator before Nero came, he would find his brother either tied up and beaten or... if Reaver got a hold of him... dead. If Nero only visited every three months, our safest thing would be to escape after. Fuck, Reaver wasn’t going to like this.

“Thank you, I don’t want to meet Nero,” I said, making myself say something. Inside my chest was clenched. “Do you have a nice brother at all? One that treats you like you deserve.”
Perish pursed his lips and shook his head. “Garrett is nice to me but I barely see him, Elish does not hurt me but he isn’t nice. Drake is nice but he’s our cicaro so he has to be. I have been gone a lot doing science though. They forget about me. I miss them though. I love my brothers.”

“That must have been nice to have so many siblings, I always wanted a brother,” I said patting his leg. “Maybe you can splice me one.”

“I really could if I had my right lab.” Perish laughed, but suddenly he clapped his hands together. “Want to see my splices?”

“Sure,” I said and we both got up. I didn’t know what exactly to expect, but I was curious. What sort of things could a manic genius invent? Apparently a few creatures if King Silas had taken them from him.

The world was full of abominations, some happened naturally under the radiation, others were released or escaped out of the labs. They mostly used the abandoned towns as their homes when they escaped, but quite a few had migrated away and managed to breed and survive. Looks like Perish was responsible for some of those abominations. I had only seen one that the mercenary had told us had come from a lab, it was a giant insect, a centipede with hundreds and hundreds of legs. It had come into our camp looking for food. I can still smell the stink it gave off when the mercenary shot it. It was absolutely disgusting I was scrubbing myself raw for a week.

Perish led me down a flight of pocked metal stairs, at the bottom was another white door but unlike the others this wasn’t covered in wire mesh and plastic. It had thick steel bars on it.

He swiped it with his card and opened it up for me and I entered.

In front of us was a long hallway with a double door at the end. The hall was the same sterile white with only a single additional door on the right hand side about half way down.

“Red means locked,” Perish said, he grabbed my hand and held it we started walking. Once again I wondered if Reaver was watching us. I hope he believed in my love for him enough to know this hand holding didn’t mean anything to me. I knew he knew. We had been through enough together by now.

Perish stopped in front of the single door. It didn’t have windows on it. “Never go in there without me.” And without another word we continued walking. Well, that sparked my curiosity but it wasn’t like I had my own key card. I couldn’t go in there and check myself.

There was another beep and another door which he held open for me. I walked inside and immediately was greeted by rabid barking and screaming.

Perish jumped in front of me and in spite of myself I ducked behind him. He held up his hands and started shouting at the creatures.

I peeked behind him. In front of us was a large room with a switch board, metal tables and equipment tucked into corners. To my side was a giant mirror that took up almost the entire wall.

As I looked at the mirror, I saw what was in front of us. Half a dozen barred doors with a big glass viewing window in each, all set into the wall.

When I saw movement, I looked towards the imbedded prisons.

A ghastly creatures was throwing its self at the Plexiglas. Injuring its self as it did. Blood and drool shot from its mouths whenever it lunged, slamming its entire bodies against the windows. I couldn’t even make out its shape it looked like a tangle of gnashing teeth, limbs and fur.

My eyes didn’t know where to focus first, they shot in every direction trying to take it all in.

“Don’t be scared, sweety,” Perish purred at me, he put his arm around me and walked me towards the cages. My feet dragged on the ground, I tried to pull away. I didn’t want to see them. I looked around the room for a place to duck and hide. There were lots of computers in the walls, labs set up with decanters, wires and tubes. Further on were even bigger clear windows, with more lab equipment and computers on the other side in large separate rooms. All protected by the key cards.

“Gianni riled up the babies, I’ll calm them,” Perish said to me over the shrieking. He reached in front of me and pressed a switch that was imbedded on the wall.

A shrill and deafening sound exploded all around us. For a few moments the creatures screamed louder, before they fell silent. Perish took his finger away from the switch and continued to pull me towards the first Plexiglas window.

“Please... let go of me,” I pleaded, digging my socked feet into the floor, but he kept pulling me. As he did I looked into one of the glass windows off to our side. Until he pushed me out of view I caught a glance at a cut open carcass of a arian human, with black insect like legs growing out of it. It was laying on a slab, a bloodied saw resting beside it.

“You’ll be fine, they’re very fascinating!” Perish said happily. He stopped, and I could see we were in front of the first glass enclosure. The cage smelled terrible.

“Look,” Perish urged, I felt his hand dig into my side. “He’s looking at you.”

I made myself glance in and saw one of the most horrifying creatures I had ever seen.

It was human, or at least... a part of it was. It had dozens of tiny glistening black eyes in its fleshy hairless face and four arms on each side growing out of an elongated torso. When it saw me and Perish looking at it, it screamed. A terrible low, buzzing scream. It backed away into the corner of its room, using all of its limbs to crawl backwards at an incredible speed. Its teeth pinchers clicked on me, over a vertical mouth, before it looked towards a small door with a plastic flap. I think behind it was the rest of its cage.

It blinked sideways eyelids at us. It looked frightened, and I felt sorry for it. The first thing I wanted to do was kill it and put it out of its misery.

“My little gnasher,” Perish said in the same growly purr. He put his hand up to the cage. The gnasher recoiled and held three of the spindly arms on the left hand side of its body over its face. I realized that it didn’t have legs, its arms were its legs. “I gave breeding pairs to my master a few years ago, but he was upset it was timid. So I’m trying to breed more violent ones,” Perish explained, before banging on the window. The creature screamed. “I make him fight, he’s getting better. He kills his own food now.”

Perish tugged on my hand and took me to the next window.

“Oh... fuck...” I groaned when I saw it.

A fat, disgusting lump of flesh was looking back at me with slits of small, human like eyes. It tried to move away from Perish too but it was too fat to move. It was pink and hairless like the skin of a newborn mouse, with rolls of fat and excess skin spilling over its naked body. Its nose was snubbed and its ears flopped down like... like.

“It’s a pig human isn’t it?” I said feeling sick.

“Boras. We’re going to start canning them as soon as our numbers reach one thousand breeding pairs. They’re full grown at three years old like your wasteland rats.” Perish’s voice was so filled with pride it was unsettling. The pig human stared at us, making grunting noises. It started to nod its head up and down. “Want to feed him? He’s hungry.”

“No...” I swallowed and turned from it. Perish noticed.

“You don’t like him? He will help feed people, they breed faster than bosen.” Perish sounded offended but couldn’t look at these creatures anymore. The radanimals with their patchy skin and scabby bodies I could handle, the scavers, croaches, all of them. But these things looked... to human, too arian. If they were mindless, mad rats that would be one thing but the pig human... it looked intelligent.

“It’s just... I still feel sick from earlier I guess.”
“Oh, okay,” Perish put a hand supportively on my side and rubbed it. “Killian, we ate his sister last night, you liked it.”
Did he think that would make me feel less sick? I gagged a bit in  my mouth. I thought it had just been ham.

“This cage has the babies,” Perish said in a hush voice, he peeked in and grinned. I steeled myself and looked in too.

This cage had three metal cages on each side of it, inside were smaller abominations, each looking only a few weeks old to around two. There looked like there were two different types. Three of them looked like little bears covered in thick brown fur, with a human face and blue eyes.

The next weren’t quite as cute, they looked like fat balls of flesh with little sausages for arms and legs. Their faces looked that that of a drowned mans, puffed and swollen under two black eyes.

“Those little fluffy ones look almost cute,” I said, one of them looked at me and blinked as I waved at it.

“That’s a baby whipwolf, their eyes wont stay blue unfortunately. Want to see an adult?”
No...
I said in my mind, but I had to behave. “Sure.”

“He’s one is my favourite...” Perish pulled on my lab coat. “Stand back though.” I turned, mostly to just get it over with, but as soon as I turned something big and furry lunged at the window. I screamed and jumped, it was the same one that had made the racket when we first entered the room. Perish held a supportive hand on me.

“Back! Back Gianni,” Perish yelled, he banged on the Plexiglas.

The mass of fur retreated, but it turned around and lunged at it again. I couldn’t even get a proper look at it.

“He would rip me to shreds if I let him out!” Perish laughed, clasping his hands together again. This one definitely wasn’t a cute whipwolf pup, it was more rabid and out of control than our deacons.

Perish banged on the door and yelled at it until I stopped him. He might trust the glass but I didn’t.

“That’s a whipwolf?” I asked, pulling his arm back. “What’s he spliced with?”

The creature took his food dish and chucked it at the wall. It’s face was... fuck, its face was like a dog, and it walked on two legs; though its arms were long and defined enough I was sure it could walk on all fours.

“Deacon human! I call him Gianni, pretty boy.” Perish beamed, he grabbed onto my shoulder and shook it. “Isn’t he beautiful? Oh, I had to kill so many pups, I kept getting it wrong. Their brains wouldn’t form correctly or they would have hydrocephalus or hip dysplasia from how their bones grew, but look at him! Beautiful, so beautiful. Nero’s taking him soon and his mate. Oh I’m hoping so bad Master Silas will praise me. Isn’t he beautiful?”
I found myself studying the creature. His nose was extended and black like a dogs; with pointed fur covered ears, the same thick fur that seemed to cover his body. His eyes were yellow as the sun and had a soullessness to them that the deacons had.

It snarled loudly and gave a mock advance on me, I jumped and let out a scream. It hung its tongue out and I could swear he was laughing at me.

“Stay still,” Perish warned. It stood up and walked towards me, licking its snout.

“Don’t break eye contact.”

The whipwolf glared at me, I watched as its lips split open, baring rows of pointed stained teeth at me. A intimidating growl rumbled to life in its throat, making my chest vibrate like the deacon’s growl did in Aras.

The eyes were piercing and void of any human emotion, but I didn’t look away, not for bravery, but for fear. It growled at me, and raised a human like hand, though its fingers were thick with fur and clawed. It pressed it up against the Plexiglas. Fuck it had thumbs.

I stared back shaking, I could see every hair on its face and every bit of moisture on its black nose. The window fogged as it breathed a steady stream of hot breath. It looked human, it looked intelligent, it looked like it wanted to talk.

“Enough, get!” Perish suddenly said. I jumped back as he banged on the glass. The whipwolf turned around, it walked away hunched over, it walked like an ape almost. It didn’t turn back to us.

I wanted to leave.

“Perry... I’m scared, I want to go,” I whispered, now it was my turn to pull on his sleeve. I didn’t trust this place, I would have felt safer in the deacon’s pen. The air was heavy with their stink, and alive with their energy. It was overwhelming, I needed clean cold air and some drugs.

I turned away from the cages, though now I was looking at myself in the large mirror. I could see Perish giving me a disappointed and rather pouty look behind me.

“They wont hurt you, the glass is everything proof...”
I caught his eye in the mirror. “Please? Let’s watch a movie, please, Perry?”

His shoulders slumped, he looked at the floor for a second and nodded. “Okay, Killian. You get scared a lot huh?”
“I’m a coward,” I said silently, turning away from the mirror. “I’m scared of everything.”

He nodded at this, well it wasn’t a lie. Without Reaver I think I was in a permanent state of fear and living one minute at a time.

“Do you still like me, even if I’m a coward?” I asked, I felt like asking Reaver the same thing everyday. I think in my head this was the only way I could ever ask that. Because I know he would tell me the truth.

“You have nothing to be... to be cowardly over now, you’re safe inside. But until your brain knows that, when you’re scared. I’ll be there,” Perish said, he started towards the door. “I am scared when I am outside in the greywastes. So they put me underground in labs. I’ll teach you to be a scientist and you’ll never have to go to the surface.”

I gave him a fake smile, and he gave me an all too real one back. I followed him into the living room area, and he turned on a video for us.

“Can I get Reaver to watch with us?” I asked sweetly.

Perish looked nervous, but he nodded. “I have the... the detonator, it will be beside me the whole time.”
I sprung up and ran to the surveillance room; he followed behind me with his card.