Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (85 page)

But if Killian had had that be a part of him, I wouldn’t love him as I do now. My fleeting attraction was based on my own vile nature and a human need to find like minded people, no matter how depraved. This man was no threat to Killian, only a threat to my gentle boyfriend’s futile attempts make me a good person.

“I’ve felt it.” I replied back, then from the darkened corners of my own nefarious mind I added. “I like to put my mouth over the wound. Feel the pressure fade as the heart dies... sense the life leaving them one pathetic pump at a time. Until it’s nothing but a dribbling, warm pulse.”

I wanted to close my eyes to resurrect the feeling I loved so much. “Even when my stomach is full I’ll drink until it stops.”

He took in a sharp intake of breath, I felt his chest shudder. When he spoke his voice was rasped.

“Show me one day.”
The corner of my mouth raised. “Yeah.” Was all I said back.

I walked him to the hotel and woke Deider up to get him a room. Deider was indeed present at the executions so he didn’t complain. Asher paid for the room in dusty dollar bills mentioning them as the last three he had. He then bid me good bye, carrying on with only the stained jacket on his back.

I watched him until the spiral stairs took him from my view. When I left the hotel I noticed my mind was reliving the last several hours I had spent with him. The few words we had exchanged, but more the silence we had had between us. I wondered what had been going through his mind, if by chance he was analysing me as much as I was him. Though I had my hearing on my side, perhaps he had tricks he had picked up as well. It would be in the nature of a raticater they did deal with merchants and mayors all across the wastes. Certainly he had picked up some tips on body language.

Or maybe he didn’t care as much as I did. In reality I was the one in a place to be suspicious, he was the new comer not me. But he had everything to lose, his life mostly and he would do well to not trust me with it. Because though I found myself enjoying this new resident, I knew better than to trust people outside of my small core group (which had now been reduced to two instead of four). I would give him the benefit of the doubt, and until he gave me reason to kill him he could live on my land.

I took the long way home, and pulled a couple boards off of Asher’s new house and looked inside. It was dusty, with some trash on the floor and old rat ripped furniture but the roof was strong. It had been lived in since the Fallocaust but I didn’t remember it being occupied in my life time.

It would do, I’d help fix it up for him, I always enjoyed fixing up houses and it would give me a good excuse to be around him. I couldn’t follow him as I had done Killian, but I wanted to get close to him while I was figuring him out. Close enough to see his body language and more importantly hear it. Perhaps if he was very devious he could put on a mask for one night, but eventually it would fall and his real self would show through. I didn’t suspect that was the case, but after everything Killian and I had been through; fuck taking chances.

I needed some distraction anyways, what had happened between Greyson and I had been gnawing at me, though I’d been trying to numb it with drugs. Not thinking about it was my preferred way of dealing with it right now. Save it for another day, or let it fade in time with each line of bitter powder.

Drugs may not heal my wounds, but it sanded the edges off well enough. Time would take care of the rest. That was how I delta with most things.

Though deep inside me it still burned, a slow and prolonged burn, like water on the edge of boiling.

It was a humiliating thing to admit that his words had hurt me, that they had penetrated my armor. It was admitting that the mayor had power over me, and I had been fighting that since the day I saw the walls of Aras.

Greyson and I had been through a lot, I thought saving Killian would make us closer but instead it seemed that he expected me to be someone I wasn’t. Emotional, compassionate and all that unsavory bullshit.

If he hadn’t changed even after twenty years of being with the (usually) kind and friendly Leo, a few months with Killian or even three life times wouldn’t change me. If he would accept me for who I was, we would get along better.

He was too stubborn to accept me as I was. I knew from the looks he gave me that I had disappointed him more times than I could count. At least he was used to being disappointed I guess.

This time it wasn’t on complete purpose though. I thought I had done the town a great service, I just didn’t care about the morality of it. Something Greyson and Leo seemed to feel strongly about. Morals? Peh, morals have a way of clouding even the most beneficial of things. Take your morals and give me hard, cruel justice. Do morals instill fear and obedience in the masses? Do morals make bottom feeding lowlifes obedient? No, you needed fear, authority and respect... and a fucking lit torch over converted gallows never hurt either.

I unclenched my fists, forcing my body to reject any physical signs I was troubled. My heart might betray me readily in my own thoughts, but I wouldn’t allow my body to follow suit.

I blew a cold breath and shook out the tense feeling in my limbs. What was the use? It was what it was, and I wouldn’t waste my pride feeling emotional about it. No use being sad, there wasn’t anything I could do or was willing to do. I was who I was and Greyson had known me since I was two. If he expected me to be someone I was not, that was his own problem with being naive. And if he expected me to be the
mayor
I was not, he was twice the fool.

I dropped my shoulders which had stiffened under my inner monologue and crossed my backyard to my shed. The promise of drugs, of Killian’s fragrant soapy smell and my basement was enough to relax me.

I saw the rosy dawn break over the town’s wall when I ducked into my shed. With a rattling of keys I opened the last of my many locked barriers and slid inside my warm, comfortable basement.

The couch was empty, I had wished Killian would sleep the entire night, but he was prone to his night terrors. I felt a fleeting sense of guilt if that was the case, but reminded myself that I had had the radio on me all night. If he had needed me, I was only minutes away.

I popped a few pills to help me sleep, and made my way to my bedroom after a quick change of clothes.

My slight and slender boy was bundled up in my mixture of blankets. He was tucked up into a ball, small and unassuming but of course, right in the middle of the bed.

I carefully laid down beside him, not wanting to wake him up

I don’t know if it was because I was tired or maybe the drugs were hitting me, but I drew him close to me, and spooned him, his soft body warm against my own. I took in his scent, and revelled in my pride of not recoiling from the feel of human touch. I was getting better, I would give myself that victory.

I kissed his blond hair and closed my eyes. And with my night with Asher still replaying in my mind. I fell asleep.

I managed to get a good four hours of sleep before I woke up to the smell of frying meat. After some food, some drugs and a few hours of hanging out in the basement we made our way towards where Killian had planted our stash of seeds.

It was cold this morning, the coldest day we had had yet. Killian had his hoody on and had insisted he bring one for me, just in case. It would be a couple more weeks until I needed it but I appreciated the gesture.

I could smell winter coming upon us. The cold air was dry inside of my nose and biting. The rains would soon follow, though by that time we should have completed everything I was planning.

Killian had originally wanted to build a green house, but the thought of building something and cold proofing it when we had a billion abandoned houses didn’t make sense to me. Not to mention I wasn’t an excellent carpenter. I hated having to measure things and Greyson never trusted me around power tools. Salvaging and repairing was more my thing.

“You’re right, it would be easier to just make raised beds and put them inside a house, that’s already insulated,” Killian agreed when I told him my plan. We were walking down the street towards where we had left the fruit seeds. He had planted them in the city’s park, which faced a row of town houses. One of which I was planning on using as our new green house.

The park, which had once been vibrant and full of life, decorated in trees of all types and crystal clear ponds, was now nothing but a bleak, desolate desert.

Broken, soulless houses surrounded the small piece of grey barren ground. Black trees of unknown origin grew stunted and weak in the ashy soil, surrounded by twisted bushes and patches of yellow grass. In the middle, the skeletal remains of a kid’s park long rusted and useless. And off towards the far end, an irritated lake that held neither life nor drinkable water.

It was a nameless park now, no matter how beautiful it may have been at one time today it was just a piece of the greywaste that managed to make it through the gates.

I studied each building as we made our way past the row of townhouses. Most of them had their roofs collapsed but there were a few I thought might do the job. All two story carbon copies of each other. Their windows broken, some boarded up, their doors kicked in or taken all together. At one time these houses were new, expensive and only for the wealthy. Facing the green, luscious park, with single lane traffic and a school near by. Great place to raise a family, great place for the husband who worked in the offices in the east.

Now their eyes were blinded by boards and their mouths silenced by two by fours and nails. Those were the lucky ones, the ones left bare and screaming were now collapsed or at least partially. Their doors open in mournful howls and their broken windows staring off into the abyss, seeing horrors our eyes couldn’t.

I picked out a better looking house and ran up a half flight of stone steps and peeked into a window. The ceiling was caved in and the house was stripped to the beams, I wanted insulation if it could be helped. I turned and jumped onto the ground and checked the next house.

I heard a creak as Killian looked inside a metal mail box, he looked up as he saw me check out the houses. “This would be a great place to live with a view of the park.”

“You can, I don’t like windows for people to shoot me through,” I said. I climbed up onto the window frame and grabbed onto the brick ledge with my fingers. I hoisted myself up to the second level and looked into the upper window. It was dry, but half the floor was missing, the whole second floor had partially collapsed into a heap of pink insulation, crumbling drywall and wires. It was a rat’s paradise but that was about it. I grabbed back onto the ledge and made my way back down.

“Looks like we’ll have to radrat proof, those cats need to do a better job at maintenance. Would they eat plants? Do they even eat green stuff?”

I saw Killian nod. “But we can use their carcasses for fertilizer. Perish showed me how he waters them, and what lights to use... he also used chalky stuff in the soil to give it nutrients.”
I felt an annoyed prick go through me. “Perish was really smart, huh?”
Killian nodded again, not noticing my tone. “He was, I wish I could read that computer and get some better information. I’m horrible at this. Planting the seeds so near winter outdoors? I’m a retard.”

I had a few mean retorts to that comment, but I restrained. “Kinda, but we all are. Like we know how to fucking grow fruit, the soil is ground bones and the sun is cloaked in dust. Nothing grows here. I watered my plants every day during the summer and you’ve seen the pathetic shit I get out of the ground.”

“I guess,” Killian said, he walked up the steps of the next townhouse and peeked inside.

About a block away I finally found a house I liked. I pried the boards off of the white door and we both went in to scouted it out. It had been gutted many years ago, but the ceilings and the roof were intact and I couldn’t spot anything bad but black mold and spiders.

We spent the next several hours putting up boards in the biggest bedroom and sealing up the inside so the cold couldn’t get in. Then when it was to my liking we started yanking boards from the surrounding houses to prepare for the raised beds.

When the inside had been sealed and we had a good stack of wood to start building the beds we decided we had both had enough of the work. I appeased Killian’s need to be clean and went with him to wash our faces and arms in the clouded lake adjacent to us. The water was freezing cold, and it made our geigerchip buzz but it did the job.

On our way home I was surprised to encounter the raticater of the wastes, my new resident Asher. From the looks of it the deacdog had found him and was bothering him. As soon as the dog saw me he bounded over with his tongue hanging out.

“Hi Asher!” Killian said cheerfully. “I see you’ve already made a friend.”

Asher gave us both this half smile, he was still limping around on his cane.

“He found me as soon as I crossed your boundaries,” Asher said, I could see blood soaking through his pant leg. I assumed Killian would be hovering over it soon. “I did a small patrol for you, Reaver. Though I didn’t see anything to be suspicious over.”

Killian gave me a confused look.

“I found him hanging out on a stack of cars while I was out walking last night,” I explained. “He walked with me almost the whole night.”

I was interested to see Killian bristle a bit, his pulse rose. I wondered if he was jealous, or just annoyed I hadn’t told him. Either one brought amusing possibilities. I had killed for him, risked my life for him and I was having sex with him, if he was going to get insecure about me walking around with another guy that was his own problem. I knew Asher was of no risk, and he needed to trust me.

“We’re done with our project,” I said and gave Asher a glance. His eyes, once cold and paled in the previous nights darkness were back to their emerald green. “Why don’t we go look at this new house of yours.”

Asher nodded and we started walking towards the house he had picked out the previous night. “I was in there a few hours ago. Cleaned up a few things and got a good bearing of it. Two bedrooms, one bathroom. Though the bathroom looks un-useable, but nothing a hole in the ground couldn’t fix.”