Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (58 page)

I took a step back, willing myself the nerve to turn around and leave.

But before I could convince myself to the scientist took my arm and pulled me further into the room. The arians were all outstretching hands trying to grab me. Their desperate flailing limbs poking through the bars looked like worms crawling from something rotten. Most of them missing arms and legs, some missing ears, noses and eyes. It was a horrific and gruesome sight.

This couldn’t be real, it was against Silas’s own law to use arians as food unless they had committed a crime by the Legion or Skyfall. These just looked like normal arians, people you would see in Aras. I could see children, I could see families. These people were normal...

Just scavengers.

This is why Donnely was empty, this is why everything was so intact. Perish imprisoned anyone who came to Donnely to scavenge; that’s what he had done to us. Only I... I was different.

I tried to move away from the hands that kept grabbing at me, I tried to steel myself towards their pleas. They were crying, begging... these were our people. These weren’t rats, these people... were just like me. Captured illegally and condemned to food.

What I would have done to have had someone help me when I had been enslaved.

“Please Perish, let them go,” I begged.

The scientist stopped, and when he did I realized it was because he was opening a cage. I wiped my eyes and looked inside to see what he was doing. My jaw hit the floor.

The two legionaries: Martin Peele and Jake Geist, were staring back at me. Just as shocked to see me as I was to see them.

The gun clicked and the room went silent, save a few people still crying. Perish reached over and took a dog noose from the concrete wall. I could see rows and rows of tools from where he had pulled it down.

Torture tools.

Saws, scalpels, needles, forceps, knives, pinchers, rods and at the end, another door that had blood smeared on the knob.

Perish had a look in his eyes that I found very unsettling. Reminding me of the cold, dead gaze that Reaver had had for the last several days.

Surprisingly he handed me handcuffs and turned away.

Then in a sudden motion he shoved the dog noose through the bars and got it over Jake’s head. He viciously pulled the noose back, slamming and pinning him against the bars. He twisted the noose so it stayed in place. Jake made a grab for his neck, but it was too tight. He had to push his face between the bars to keep it from strangling him.

Then Perish opened the door, I looked at see that Martin was already handcuffed and... I swallowed hard, he was missing one of his legs. Perish grabbed him and dragged him to the second door.

“I didn’t touch him!” Martin screamed, Perish pushed him ahead and he stumbled into the doorway. He turned around and made eye contact. “Come on man, tell him I didn’t fuck you.”
“You tried to buy me,” I said, my voice sounded dead too. My emotions were conflicting with me. They were fighting between me wanting to watch him die, and just wanting to put him back in the cage. I was scared, and I was scared of Perish right now.

The door opened and Perish brought all three of us into another room. Then he turned around to get Jake.

Suddenly Martin started screaming. I looked to see what he was hollering at, and then I saw the room I was in.

Hooks holding naked bodies were strung up from the ceiling. Dangling on wire and chains, their blotchy feet, blackened from pooled blood, swaying on dead air. Most were decapitated, all of them were missing at least a few of their limbs. Though the stumps looked like they had had time to heal.

There were slabs in the room too, some of them were holding more arians, some of them  just held severed limbs. A pile of arms, a pile of legs, then torsos. All sorted neatly for food like we did with the rat meat. A row of freezers were behind all of us, probably stuffed to the brim with meat.

Martin was still screaming when he brought in Jake.

Perish threw him up against the wall, and as he fell he started beating the living shit out of him. I backed away until my back was up against the door. He kicked and beat on Jake, before moving to Martin where he did the same. Martin cried and pleaded, Jake groaned and gasped a blood choked breath. I could see drops of blood sticking to the wall behind them as Perish rained blow after blow onto his face.

When he was exhausted, he turned to me.

“Finish them off, Killian,” Perish said through ragged breaths. His eyes were crazed and glassy. “Want to fuck them? Or just kill? Come here, Killian. I’ll fuck one you fuck one, we’ll do it together.”

“I... I’m not a really that type of person,” I said quietly, my body was clenched and trembling. In all my time here this was the first time I had ever been this terrified. “Just kill them, Perry.”

“I got you a present, Joel found them. Don’t you like your present?” Perish said, his chest heaved. Behind him Martin and Jake were curled up like cowards, their faces blackened and bloodied. My anger for them had disappeared, they were pathetic. Just a heap of cowardice and fear.

“I do, hunny,” I said, my hand finding the door knob. It rattled in my hands as my grip shook “Thank you, you’re so... nice to me.”

Perish walked over to me, and pressed something in my hand. I looked down to see that it was a combat knife... shit it was Reaver’s combat knife. I took it from him, and he nodded at me and grabbed my hand. He made me walk towards them, when they saw me coming they just stared. Like a scaver in flood lights they looked at me.

I looked back, we locked eyes for a moment before I looked at Perish. “You kill them for me... I’m... I want you to do it.”

“You are a coward,” Perish snapped, he whirled around and grabbed both Martin and Jake by their collars, he hoisted them up and started dragging them back to their cages. I followed them, but Perish didn’t put them back in their cells. He left them out in the open, only shoving them both into a corner and walked out. I followed.

“Sweety... let’s go back up, you should sleep a bit... Perry?” I forced my tone to be as kind as I could get it. I just wanted to get out of here. Get back to Reaver in his room, plan our escape... go home. I just wanted to go home.

The door to the abominations opened again and the whipwolf lunged at the Plexiglas window. Perish stalked over to him, noose in hand.

I ran into the dead gnasher’s cage the moment Perish started opening its enclosure. I shut the door and watched as he let the thrashing animal out, the noose around its neck. I noticed he had something in his hand, a switch similar to Reaver’s detonator. He pressed it and the whipwolf went rigid and yelped. It calmed down after that and let Perish lead it.

Then I realized where he was leading it.

As soon as the door to the hallway closed, I ran out of the cage and watched as he led the growling and drooling human deacon into the room with the arian cages. My mouth went dry as he pushed the animal in and closed the door behind him.

I stepped back as he walked towards me, a smile breaking his face that radiated madness. Before I had a chance to say anything he flicked a switch that was right beside the one that made the ear piercing sound. There was a flash in front of me, and a window appeared. The large mirror on the side was two way.

My eyes looked just in time to see the whipwolf rip Martin’s head from his body. A string of bloodied spine coming with the legionary’s lacerated head like a he was de-boning a fish. He threw Martin’s head into a corner, and started trying to pull the rest of his spine out with his teeth.

I couldn’t hear any sound coming from the room, and I was thankful for that. All the prisoners in their cages were going completely insane. Arians... greywasters like me.

The whipwolf dug its nose into Martin’s stomach and started nipping at his innards. I looked to my left and saw Jake, huddled in a corner, his face was green and he had the blank look of someone who knew death was imminent.

He must have made a noise because the whipwolf got up and walked towards him, still with the ape like walk. Jake didn’t move. He didn’t move until the animal grabbed onto his neck and flung him.

The young man was thrown through the air like a doll, as he fell he slid into the corner. The whipwolf ran after him and picked him up again. He flung him a second time, like a cat with a mouse.

This time he dove into his stomach like he had done Martin. I could see Jake’s mouth open and close, his chest compressing and convulsing as he screamed.

The kidneys flopped out with his large intestines, and more red organs I couldn’t recognise. The whipwolf started eating him, pulling at his innards until they shredded apart in his mouth. Jake gave one last shudder before he died.

I looked at Perish, the smile on his face a deranged and content look that seemed to encapsulate the crazy chimera. It looked like he had enjoyed every bit of that. I was just too grossed out to enjoy it. They were dead now, that’s all that mattered.

“Could you release the arians, Perry?” I asked quietly, I put a hand on his shoulder and rubbed it. “They’re not condemned are they? Why are they caged?”
“They came into my city, took my things,” Perish’s voice was cruel and dark, “and I needed them for food, to feed my... my splices.” As the scientist said this, he looked behind him. The expression on his face changed from menacing to devastated. The temporary distraction from what Nero had done to him faded like the legionaries’ lives.

As his broken and devastated face fell, he turned away, clenching his bloodied fists.

“He killed them!” Perish cried, he walked over to his gnasher, but shut his eyes as soon as he saw it and turned away. He started to pace around, rubbing his hands together. I could almost hear his teeth grind as he gritted them back and forth. “Nero killed them he killed my gnasher, he killed my boras. I have to kill Gianni. He... he...” Perish rubbed his hands together again, then started to wring them. Another angry cry stung the tense atmosphere in the room.

He went into one of the enclosures and to my horror he came back with two of the whipwolf babies.

He grabbed each one by their legs and smashed their heads against the floor.

I screamed, before I clasped my hands over my mouth to muffle it. I stood there frozen, my back against the mirror. The mutant babies twitched, their heads broken shells of red and pink. Blood and brains were everywhere.

Perish gave a scream heavy with despair, he clenched his hair again and kicked one of the bodies across the room.

I had to calm him, I had to let him know I understood, that I really did care.

“I’m sorry he raped you, Perry,” I said quietly. I immediately regretted it.

Perish looked at me, his expression changing from shock and surprise to anger. “I SAID NO TV!” Perish suddenly shrieked, he lunged at me and pushed me to the floor. He grabbed his hair again and pulled on it before turning around and pacing again. I had never seen any one have a break down like this. I wanted to leave, but I was stuck in here with him. What luck if he decides to kill me in this rage. Fuck what do I do?

“Perish, calm down, please.” I tried to put my hand on his shoulder but he whirled around. He took a swing at me but I dodged it.
“You want the arians free?” Perish snarled, he walked past me, to a small control panel with a dozen black switches and one off to the side. He looked at me, with anger burning in his eyes. “There… free, okay?”

He flicked the switch and I heard a loud mechanical clang, then a second one. I turned as I saw movement in the two way mirror.

The prison bars flung open, exposing every single arian to the whipwolf, now gnawing on the chewed up lower leg of Jake.

The creature looked up. Its snout was stained red. I could see bits of flesh falling out of its canine teeth.  He was hunched over the carcass, the black hair on his spine sticking up like spikes. He did look like a werewolf.

The arians were screaming and crying, all backing to the edges of their cages, some making breaks for the door. Their eyes were wide like saucers, their faces drained of colour.

I watched helplessly as they pounded on the two way window and clawed like maniacs. I could see several amputation wounds split open as they desperately hammered the door. Bloodied stumps against concrete walls, grey doors and cages. All on a sea made from the whites of terrified eyes.

There was a flicker of black out of the corner of my eye, my vision automatically fell to it. Gianni was on his hind legs, he was walking towards the door. The man with the open stump took one look at him and started shouting. Then mass panic, like a plague of mice they scurried and ran, tripping over each other as they sought a dark place to hide.

As I dropped my gaze from the panicked furor. I made eye contact with a woman crouched in the corner of the last cage. She couldn’t see me though, she was looking at her reflection She had her hands wrapped around her child’s neck.

He was limp and blue, his lips were black and his eyes dull. Just then a black mass shot into my vision. I jumped back as Gianni grabbed the lady by the neck and flung her against the cage.

“All free,” Perish said behind me.

I turned away, Perish didn’t, he watched. I could see the reflections in his glasses, a flurry of activity dancing around the lenses. I swallowed my fear and put my hand over his. I squeezed it.

He looked at me, his face suddenly went blank, devoid of any emotion.

I watched as he slowly turned around to where his dead animals lay. The gnasher, the boras, the pups.

Perish let out a strangled sob, he fell to his knees and started wailing. A heart breaking, desperate noise that only someone who had lost everything would make. As quickly as his sanity had escaped him, it had come back. I could feel the weight of reality on his shoulders as he sobbed. My heart hurt for him, I hated myself for it, but it did. Only I could make it better.

I threw my hands over him and held him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I’m sorry.” His voice was rapid and pleading. I shushed him, and rocked him like Reaver had done me. The anger dissipated, just pity now, and guilt. My poor lost scientist, I was all he had. Only I understood him, only I could save him from himself and his family. From pain and misery. It was on my shoulders now.