Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (96 page)

After a lot of video games and a couple movies, we decided to go for a walk and check on the plants in the townhome.  We were both feeling pretty good from all the pain killers we had done. The cooler air outside also made me feel more energetic, the heat just zapped all of my energy.

As I walked past the street that Asher was on though, I slowed down. The short glance turned into a long stare, and soon I was looking behind me as the two of us carried on.

“Reno... what do you think of Asher?” I tore my gaze away and took a few quick steps to catch up to him.

“Really nice cock, rough in bed, pillow biter,” Reno said. “Gives fucking
amazing
head.”

I didn’t try to hide my unimpressed face. “Did you really have sex with him?”

Reno put up his hands in his own defense. “Hey, he’s hot as fuck and I’m only human. If you and Reaver weren’t banging you would’ve done the same thing.”

“No I wouldn’t,” I said. “I still dislike him... greatly in fact.”
We both carefully stepped over a fallen chain link fence, I noticed Reno was a bit quiet.

“You don’t like him either do you?” I narrowed my eyes when I sensed the atmosphere changed around us.

“I never said I liked him, I only said he had a wicked body and endless stamina, in the liking Reaver department... I’ll honestly say you’re on to something.” Reno shrugged his shoulders, he raised an eye brow at me. “I’ll tell you this much, I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of me when I was banging him those nights.”

“What... do you... mean,” I said slowly.

Reno let out a breath, making a few strands of his black hair fly up. “Well I guess you were real with me earlier. When we fucked while he was wasted... he might have been calling me someone else.”

I felt the back of my neck go hot.

“Reaver?”
“Yep.”

I gripped my hands, a hissing noise escaped through my clenched teeth. “I fucking knew he wanted Reaver, I fucking knew it!” I started to rage. I couldn’t believe it, I was right! If that fucking dumb ass of a sentry doesn’t believe me now I was going to beat him with a hammer.

“Did he do anything else?” I demanded. “You said
those nights
? How long has this being going on?”

Reno took a cautious step away from me. “Alright but... you gotta stand there, and I’m going to stand here while I tell you this.” I glared at him, I think my lip was twitching. “The first time we fucked, was after Reaver got drunk and went home. He radioed me, and called me down. I was there for three minutes before he was taking my clothes off. In five his mouth was between my legs. He was hot and heavy, full salute.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!” I shrieked. Reno jumped back further. I balled my fists so hard my fingernails dug into my palms. “I knew he was fucking doing something! Reaver came home all fucking horny. Begging to fuck me. When I was on top of him, he asked
me
if I could fuck
him
one day! Reaver said that! REAVER!”

Reno’s mouth dropped open. “Oh... fuck.”

I felt nauseas, I felt like I wanted to throw up. I leaned up against a traffic light poll and as I started to feel dizzy I sank to my knees.

“He’ll never believe me.” I felt my breathing get laboured. “Even if I tell him Asher called you after... he’ll never believe Asher was trying to fool around with him.”
“Trying, the key word is trying, Killian,” Reno pointed out. “If they had fucked, they wouldn’t have been so horny after and Reaver would have spent the night.”

I buried my face into my hands and shook my head. He was right, but that did little to quell the churning slough of fear and doubt growing inside of me.

“Reaver would have never done  anything...”

I looked up at Reno. “I know, which means Asher did something to him.”

My friend’s face blanked, but then slowly he nodded as if he himself had finally put the pieces together. “I think you’re right, bro. You want the two of us to sit his ass down and talk to him?”

I had already talked to him many times already. The topic fell on deaf ears at the mere mention of my suspicions of Asher. “That’s the last thing that will get through to him. I need proof, or he’ll just think it’s me convincing you of my paranoid conspiracies... no I need proof. I need evidence.”

I raised my head, and felt my anxious brain start to piece together a plan. I turned and looked to Asher’s house, then past that, towards Aras.

“Let’s check on the plants...” I said finally, still staring in the direction of the square. “We’re going to go to Greyson’s after. He has two devices I’m going to need to borrow.”

Reno kneeled in front of me, his defined eye brows were knitted over his blue eyes. “If you’re looking for the voice recorders, they sold them back to Carson. I’ll be able to get them for you in a cinch. Let’s go.”

Chapter 40

Reaver

“I wasn’t prepared for this development.” Asher’s voice was so bitter I could taste it on my own lips.

The raticater, dressed in my bullet proof vest under a leather jacket was to my left, laying down on the red stained rocks. We were shoulder to shoulder as we pressed ourselves down on the edge of the canyon face, making our bodies as invisible as possible. Below us was the Fallon cache town.

And living in it was a group of wasters... not ravers... arian wasters.

The town wasn’t really a town at all. It was a plaza and a few out buildings, dropped in the middle of the wasteland like an after thought. No useable structures or houses for miles, just scraped together raver’s dens or the remains of waster’s camps. Bordered by the edges of the red canyons, that touched the outskirts of the plaza like water lapping the shore. Half a mile and you would officially be in raver country.

I scanned the people below us, and tried to map out every escape plan I could see in my head. The terrain would be an asset to us. The black trees were more closer together here than where we had come from, we would be able to use them for cover. I knew by experience bullets wouldn’t cut through them. The canyon shelf we were laying against would do well also, but once we jumped down there would be no getting back up. We would have to follow the broken road and go around.

I shifted and looked behind me at the quad. We had hidden it behind a crescent shaped rock. It was out of view, and the mechanic had made it quick to start.

“They’re all weak, I can tell.” I heard Asher say under his breath. I turned back to the cache town.

“There are only four of them,” I mumbled, my eyes were better than his, since they were better than anyone's. I could see a grey haired man sitting on a lawn chair, tending to a small smokeless fire, two men who might be his sons and a single female who appeared to be missing half her leg. The way she stuck around the older looking man I assumed it was her husband or son. They seemed like some thrown together family, or a group that decided to stick together for survival. It was common to start clustering up when most of the  greywastes were trying to kill you.

I could hear a scraping sound as his jacket scuffed against the chalky rocks. “They must have killed the ravers, or drove them off.” We had passed our third raver’s den a few miles back, sticking well clear of it. That might have been where they settled.

“I don’t recognise any of my things. My box is in the gas station in a utility closet, or the hollowed out hot water tank rather. It’s locked well with a combination... I just hope they didn’t blow it open.”

I wanted to light a cigarette. “I suppose we should walk down and introduce ourselves then.”

I was amused to hear his heartbeat quicken, I cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t like that idea?”

Asher looked at me, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What gave you that idea?”
I shrugged playfully and gave him a very aloof look. “I have my ways.” I rose and stretched very obviously, making a grunting noise. Then I kicked a large rock off of the ridge.

I saw the old man look up in shock as the rock tumbled down, hitting a fallen electricity pole. He took one look at us and ran into one of the houses.

“Cover me,” I said cheerfully. I jumped down off of the canyon ridge. Jumping from one jutted out slab of rock to the next.

Not surprisingly as my feet hit level ground I could hear the scraping of loosening gravel. There was a thud beside me. Asher dusted himself off, he gave me a dirty look.

“Cover you? Come now, you can’t have all the fun.” The corners of Asher’s lips hooked just slightly to make a smile. His smile wasn’t what caught my interest though. I could see a faint spark of bloodlust in those dark green eyes. Or maybe I was just seeing at my own reflection.

As we strolled casually towards the plaza we were greeted by the entire clan. I could smell them before they were even half way to us.

The typical putrid, disgusting arian waster. Greasy hair, black teeth and disgusting patchwork clothes. Corpses with geigerchip it seemed. At this point they wouldn’t have even been accepted into Aras. We didn’t take in the sick or the starving unless you had a fuck load of money. No wasted supplies on charity cases.

“We have no water here to spare...” The old man stepped ahead of the other three. He had a grey beard and a wrinkled leathery face that had seen too many summers. He smelled like piss and stale beer.

“I left a cache here, I would like to retrieve it,” Asher said, his voice was polite but authorative. “It’s in the gas station. We will only be a moment and then we’ll be on our way.”

The old man looked at him before his eyes fell to my face. I think he was trying to analyse us, but what that would that  do I didn’t know. I was good at hiding my emotions physically, I had been doing it since I was younger. And Asher was a raticater, no doubt during all of his trading with the blocks and towns he had learned the same.

I glanced over to get a feel for Asher’s state. My auburn haired friend was stone faced and stoic, though he had made sure to soften his eyes. Appear as honest as possible, but do not appear weak.

In my head I felt a swell of approval. My trust in him slowly grew.

Asher knew the game. Where as I had had to train my sentries to hone these skills when talking to merchants or wasters. Asher’s talents rivalled mine. It was an intriguing thing to have a companion that was as skilled as me. We could do create a lot of havoc together.

I studied the old man’s face as he reacted to Asher’s words. His shoulders relaxed and his movements became less robotic. I knew we had his compliance.

Sure enough he gave us a nod. “Margie is living there, right now. She’ll show you in...” The old man glanced behind him and nodded to his younger companions. “Keep your hands in front of you, we’re all armed. We don’t want any funny business.”

“Neither do we, we want the crate and we’ll be gone.” Asher nodded me in front of him. I didn’t like taking the lead, I was more comfortable watching our backs but I wasn’t going to correct him in front of the wasters. We would appear as a unit and any problems we would talk out after the job was done so we could do better next time. Greyson had taught me that. You don’t appear disorganized in front of the enemy.

When we got close to the gas station and as we did, the old man started shouting for whoever Margie was. My hands itched to hold my M16 just to be cautious, but these arians didn’t look like they wanted a fight. I was happy getting Asher’s shit and heading home.

I stepped onto the waning boards of the gas station deck and quickly glanced over my shoulder. Asher was walking behind the three arians. I praised him for that in my head. Another one of Greyson’s rules, never turn your back on them not even when they’re leading you somewhere.

I fixed my eyes forward, feeling safe with him covering us and stood by the door as the old man stepped into the worn door frame of the gas station.

One day it would be Killian covering me like this. Or I hoped it would. It was fun doing these things with Reno and Asher, but there was something about me and my boyfriend going on these trips that I felt alluring. I mean our trip to Donnely had been going well before I got kinda-.

Oh shit.

Margie’s face fell as soon as she saw me, and my mouth almost dropped open in surprise. I regained myself though, pushing away the feelings of bewilderment; and gave her a smirk.

“Did you count all the way to one hundred already?” I made my voice as cheerful as possible, mostly because I found it hilarious she was looking at me like I was a three headed monster.

The old lady from the gas station outside of Donnely, many miles from where we were now gasped and held a hand over her mouth. She stumbled backwards and looked around for something to defend herself with.

“You-” she choked, her yellowing eyes squinted, “Donnely...you were... Donnely!”

I laughed and was about to tell her it was alright then to my shock... her fucking head exploded with a deafening, ear splitting crack.

I whirled around as the noise echoed in the canyons. I grabbing my M16 as I did. I thought one of them had been aiming for me but missed, but to my further confusion...

Asher had his combat shot gun in his grasp. I watched as a puff of smoke and another loud crack sounded. The old man went down.

I held my M16 to my side and rained bullets into the remaining three. My gun was a semi-automatic but I managed to empty half a clip into their heads before they dropped lifelessly to the wasteland floor.

As the gun shot echoes faded from the canyons around us, we both fell silent. Our eyes fixed on the lifeless bodies, their gaping bullet wounds running blood down their bodies into the grey dirt below. The pools getting larger as specks of dirt and grass rimmed the edges keeping them contained.

His head rose and so did mine, we locked eyes. I stared at him for a moment, my ears still ringing from the combat shot gun blast.

“Why did you do that!” I exclaimed

Asher gave me the most bullshit innocent look he could muster. He looked behind him and pointed. “One of them has a dirt bike.”