Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (56 page)

I realized then... what Reaver had already sensed in me. I didn’t want him to die.

I stuffed my satchel with spices whenever he left the kitchen while he cooked. My satchel which never left my side was stuffed with things now. It was heavy on my arm when I carried it, but with such great contents inside I toughed it out.

We didn’t have time to do it, but Perish read me off how to make my own egg noodles. He had chickens at one point but they ended up dying, so he had been having to use egg substitute. We had a few chickens in Aras, owned by the Dill family but they only laid one egg a day and they usually ate or sold it. To buy it usually set you back at least three dollars. I might save though, noodles were hard to come by, or at least the egg noodle kinds. The merchants sold out long before they got to Aras, if they even got far enough to Aras.

“I wish you looked at me like you look at that package of chilli powder.” Perish said in a light tone, he looked at me and smiled. I was stirring meat, onions and spices in a frying pan.

“Unfortunately chilli powder is just as rare in the greywastes as nice guys, luckily I have both.” I moved to the side as Perish dumped in some canned tomato sauce and started dashing in more spices. I hoped to be able to bring some to Reaver, though I was rather sore towards him now.

I jumped as he reached over and squeezed my backside. I moved away and smacked him with the spoon, I had the smile on my lips as he laughed. I hit him a few more times for good measure both of us smiling and laughing.

Then everything changed.

A siren sound came from a speaker in the wall of the living room. It echoed all around us, coming from every speaker in the rooms.

Perish’s face fell. He grabbed the cooked spaghetti noodles and dumped them into the pan of sauce and meat. Before running out of the room without saying another word.

I stirred the noodles in and started cleaning up. I didn’t know if I should hide, or stand here and keep cleaning. So I just cleaned.

Eventually Perish came bursting back into the kitchen, he was dressed in a fresh lab coat. “Hide, hide, hide he’s coming!” Perish said anxiously. For fuck sakes he said
he
was going to hide us.

I grabbed my satchel and turned to him, he looked terrified.

“Where?” I asked. As he pulled me towards the stairs towards the labs I pulled back. “I want to stay with Reaver, bring me to his room.”

Perish nodded and ran ahead of me towards the surveillance room. I quickly followed.

“Please be quiet, please please be quiet,” Perish pleaded to me, I felt awful for him. “I can’t lose you, please be quiet. Not a word, no watching turn the TVs off. Please, be quiet.” He was begging and begging, all I could do was keep repeating that we would be quiet.

His poor hands were shaking, before he could open the door to Reaver’s I stopped him. I put my hands on his face. His vivid blue eyes were rimmed with red, he couldn’t keep still.

“You’ll be fine,” I whispered and kissed him quickly but softly on the lips. “Perish, what’s the password for outside? If I think he’s going to find us. We can hide in the city until you come get us?”

“No... it’s... it’s unsafe,” Perish whispered, I could barely hear him over the loud sirens.

I hugged him. “I understand, I just don’t want anything to happen to me, in case he looks. If he starts looking we can see on the cameras and just hide out. Then I’ll return to you.”

Perish pulled back, he wiped his eyes and shook his head. “No, sweety.”

My heart clenched, I nodded and kissed him again a bit more slowly, for what I knew would be the last time, before I opened the door and slipped into Reaver’s room.

“Reaver, he’s coming,” I said, ignoring the intense smell of dirt and rotting garbage.

Reaver was sitting in the metal chair again. Still dressed in his new clothes. He didn’t look at me he just gave me a slight nod.

“We need be as quiet as we can, okay?” I said, I extended my hand out to touch his shoulder but retracted it. Remembering the fights it was starting to cause when I touched him.

Reaver

I fiddled with all of the dials to see if I could get any audio, most of the feeds didn’t have sound but there were ones that did. The bedroom where I heard Killian finger fuck the scientist was one of them, and the lab with the embryos and the carcass. Also the living room, kitchen and a few hallways. I turned the audio up on all of them, just enough for my ears to hear. Not Killian’s or anyone outside of my cage.

The boy was behind me, his voice was just a low thrumming of mashed words. He was distracting me from the screens. I had to watch each one. All of them at once. I only looked away when they started to melt and bleed the coloured goo everywhere. Squint my eyes and look at the ceiling light and it would fix its self.

I watched as Nero Dekker came into the feed. Entering through a secret door I hadn’t seen on any of the video cameras. On the second level, possibly in a level I didn’t know about yet without cameras. When he entered, the sirens stopped.

Silence now... but low talking. Killian talked to me, he put his hand on my shoulder but I didn’t move. I was watching Nero, and watching Perish.

The wimpy little scientist was cowering, doing his clasping hands tick and nodding a lot. He bowed his head to Nero and they walked to his kitchen.

Nero was taller than Perish, and bigger too. He towered over Perish not just from height, but from dominance. He had cut short black hair and a thick perfectly muscular body hidden underneath  leather combat armor, black pants and a cape that stopped a foot from the ground. I also observed a silver chain was around his neck and wrists.

Like Perish in a traditional sense he was very handsome. His jaw was defined, and he had a neatly trimmed beard. He carried himself like royalty, unlike his younger chimera brother. Who carried himself like a cowering dog most of the time.

As Dr. Perish showed him papers and things on the computer screen, I watched them interact with each other. It was very fascinating. Perish would never stop moving, he kept pointing and showing him things he probably hoped he could impress his master with. Nero looked at each thing, nodding his head sometimes, but mostly seemed uninterested.

I turned my gaze to another TV for a moment. Nero had with him a group of legionnaires waiting on the other end of the lower level in a kind of air lock. They were settling in with food and handheld game systems so I think they were prepared to be there for awhile. Sometimes one of them would come over and take boxes from Nero full of disks and vials, but that was it.

Killian mumbled something to me, but I didn’t hear him. Perish was leading Nero to the room with the abominations now. He was showing him each one.

Nero didn’t look happy, which I was mildly surprised at. I would think it would take a lot of work to get those human hybrids to function on their own. I reached up to turn up the audio but I could only hear muffled voices from the next video camera a room away.

Nero banged on the deacon human’s window. I smirked to myself thinking it was going to scare the shit out of him, but when the dog man lunged at the glass Nero didn’t flinch. He turned to Perish and started screaming at him.

“Useless, untameable, what good will it do to the Legion.” Those were the words I could read from his lips. Perish backed away, putting his hands up submissively and led him to the cage with the babies.

Nero still wasn’t impressed, he poked the deacon human baby in the face making it bite him. That seemed to tick him off. He smacked the little fuzz ball in the face. I could hear the squeal from the camera in the other room. Perish didn’t move, he rubbed his hands and paced around. Talking rapidly to Nero.

Then it was to the garden. Perish ran around some more and showed him all the shit he had grown and after that it was to the living room for the food Killian had made for them.

This one did have audio. I turned it up a slight bit and listened in.

“Can I hear too?” A meek voice said behind me, I told him to fuck off. He could go melt in a corner. Which I think he did because he started murmuring through whimpers.

“It’s a very hard process, Nero,” Perish said, they had sat down with the noodles and sauce, with cold pop beside them. Nero had rum in his. “The dog spicing makes them too docile, the deacon spicing makes them into werewolves.”
Use deacdogs then you retarded fuck.

“Werewolves?” Nero looked at him, putting some more rum into his pop. He took a swig of the bottle and set it down with a clank. I could see the ice melting off of the bottle, god dammit I wanted one.

“They’re... mythology. A human who turns into a human wolf hybrid on the full moon, legend says-”

Nero put up a hand. “I don’t need to hear your magical shit, Perish.”
“Okay,” Perish said, his submissive voice rivalled Killian’s.

“How’s master?” Perish asked. “Does he ask about me?”

“Never.”
There was a whimper. “Not... once? Not even after I gave him the embryos?”

Nero shook his head and kept eating. Perish did too, his head hung low and his shoulders slumped. What a fucking wimp, I would have sic’d the human dog thing on him by now. No wonder Killian had his nose up his ass, he loved mothering weakness.

“How’s Drake? Does he miss me?” Perish said when Nero pushed his empty plate towards him. As he picked it up and cleared it. Nero took the last drink of his pop and got up.

“No one misses you Perish, when you look in the mirror do you see someone that would be missed?”

I heard Killian gasp behind me. I managed to look in his direction.

The boy’s eyes were red, I suppose he could hear everything. He was sitting there grabbing the sleeves of his arm coat. I shifted back in my chair.

“Sit,” I said, I wanted him to hear Nero. Or I just wanted a larger audience as I heard Nero berate the retard.

Killian sat between my legs, his eyes glued to the screen.

“I’m disappointed Perish,” Nero said getting up from the kitchen table. “I would have thought the deacon splice would be ready and breeding soon. Now you’ve set the Legion back six months at the very least.”
Perish leaned up against his stove, his fingers were clenching it nervously. “The Boras... if you see, this one weighs a hundred extra pounds... and... the bananas...”
“I promised Kessler I would be bringing him back at least two adolescent whipwolves, all you have for me is a rabid beast that will kill anyone who comes near it and puppies,” Nero snapped. “Not to mention the fact that your last week of labs have half the work they usually do. You expect me to bring this back to Silas? It’s garbage all of it.”

“But the Boras, the food...”
“Silas doesn’t give a fuck about feeding these disgusting dirt covered savages, he wants to keep them in line.”

Surprisingly Perish started to look angry, he slammed his hands against the stove. “I have been busy, okay?” His shoulders rose and fell, his face twitched and his arms ticked. “I... I’m not ashamed of the deacon human, I have plans for him. He’s... he’s exactly what I wanted him to be. Don’t talk bad about Gianni.”

“You’re a fucking retard,” Nero snapped, he started stalking out of the doorway. Perish followed him like a dog. I turned the audio on into the hall and heard them both walk by.

“- and I’m getting tired of being disappointed every time I visit you.”
“I’m not a disappointment.” I could hear Perish cry off screen. “I’m... I’m gifted scientist. I do great work and you’re wrong. Someone would miss me, someone does love me.”

I could feel Killian go rigid, Nero gave a cruel laugh. I could only see his shoulder from the video feed. “Oh? Did you train the dog human to fuck you? Or are you sticking your cock in the feed humans again?”

“Just leave me alone, Nero!” Perish screamed, like a little kid fighting with his brother. “Get what you need and just leave. I don’t want you here and you-”

The smack was loud, I could see a flash of Nero’s fist though I couldn’t see the impact on Perish’s face. I gave a laugh and heard a sob come from Killian. A moment later there was a thunk as Perish hit the floor. I laughed.

“Shut up, Reaver,” Killian sobbed. “It’s not funny.”
Yeah, it is funny.

Nero turned around and walked down the hallway, he had something in his hands. I smiled with glee as I realized he had hit Perish with the bunt of his gun.

“I don’t want to watch this.” Killian tried to get up, but I wasn’t leaving my TV show. I sat him back down and he stayed.

The scientist stumbled after him, he was holding his jaw, blood leaking from between his fingers and leaving droplets on the white tile. He was shaky on his feet and looked dazed, wiping the blood onto his white lab coat.

Nero walked back into the lab, he still had the gun in his hand.

I could hear Perish screaming from the feed in the lab with the carcass. I raised myself in my seat and watched as Nero cocked his gun. He was in front of the abomination. Perish came running and tried to pull the gun away from him. There was a struggle between the two, I could hear the whipwolf snarling and barking.

Shoot him Nero...shoot him.

Nero decked him again, and the scientist fell to the floor. A spray of red spewed from his mouth like spray paint. Leaving a beautiful mosaic behind on the white tile. Nero turned to the pig human’s enclosure and opened the door and I heard and saw the gun go off five times.

Perish screamed
NO!
At him, and I could hear Killian saying
no
under his breath over and over. More blood splattered on the Plexiglas and the whole room erupted into screams. The other abomination cried and ran around crazy in their cages from the noise.

“You need to concentrate on the whipwolves, not these other fucking failures.” Nero’s lips said to Perish.

I thought for a second he was going to shoot Perish. The scientist was in the cage holding one of the whipwolf babies in his arms.

Nero watched in disgust, before turning to the spider creature. Nero let out another sob and begged him, though he didn’t move. Nero lowered his gun and shot the freak, I only saw a flail of limbs as it writhed and died.