Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series Book 1)

by Quil Carter

  He smiled and my heart jumped. I shed the hard shell that I’d had wrapped around myself, and became emotionally naked beside him. Every wall I had up was torn down.

  One moment of eye contact and he would see through my cold visage. I could never meet his gaze because of that.

  I could feel his lips kiss the corner of my mouth, and as I felt them warm and soft I smiled. I breathed him in, I took him in. Light all around us, warmth all around us. He was safe in my arms. Happy, warm, safe… loved.

  Then the cold darkness came back.

  I stared at the jeans. I brought them up to my nose and inhaled his scent. And as my hands started to shake from the clenching, I fell to my knees and let out an agonized scream.

  My chest heaved and burned, my voice broke under my scream. After a while I keeled over, my shoulders shaking with sobs. I was too far gone to cry, there were no tears. I could hear Reno pacing behind me. I knew he didn’t know what to do. Neither did I.

  I was done, I had reached my threshold. There was no way in hell I wanted to live through the repercussions that letting Killian die would bring. Even now as my eyes stared at his bloodstained underwear, I couldn’t fully comprehend what it would do to me. He was my responsibility, he was mine… he was mine.

  I closed my eyes and held the jeans tight. My brain brought me back to a few nights ago when I had stood beside his bed. I could have touched him then, I could have held him. I could have done things so differently.

  “Reaver… these are legion tracks.” Reno’s voice was a whisper in a colourless void.

  Those words brought me back. My eyes snapped open. Almost robotically I found myself standing up. I turned around to see Reno with the night vision goggles back on looking down at the greywaste ground.

  I looked down too. I hadn’t noticed them before.

  So many of them, all legionary tracks… except…

  I took a step back and took in the scene in front of me.

  Killian’s footprints were distorted; he had struggled and struggled hard. The tracks became drag marks several feet away until they ended in a pit of disturbed dirt and drying blood.

  As I looked at the spot where they had led him, his jeans dropped from my hand.

  Images came into my mind, horrible images.

  I knew from his bloodstained clothing that he had been raped before they killed him. From the blood, probably brutally and by the legionary count, many times. He had died in an agony and fear that was beyond comprehension. He had died wondering where I was, why I wasn’t following him, protecting him. This I knew was true.

  At that moment, I knew Reaver had died with him. Every bit of feeling in me slipped away, every emotion that made me human was dead. The only thing that was left was nothing more than a living machine. I had one purpose now, to find the legionaries and make their last moments as painful as possible.

  I would kill them. I would murder the legionaries that hurt Killian then find their base and take out as many of the others as I could. I would take so many of those fucks down with me.

  I turned and walked towards the exit ramp. Reno started to follow behind me. I could probably get a good view from the top of it. If I was lucky I would be able to spot their fires.

  “Reaver?” Reno’s voice was a quiet whisper behind me. He was smart and kept his distance.

  I didn’t answer. Without thinking I seamlessly navigated through the cars and debris and started walking down the road leading underneath the exit ramp. I felt sick as I saw more blood.

  I started looking around a bit more carefully. I had trouble admitting it to myself but I was looking for his body parts. I knew they would butcher him after… legionaries had a taste for arian boys.

  There was a large pickup truck that was blocking off almost the whole road, with a concrete sheet of broken exit ramp leaning up against it. I jumped onto the tire, and then balanced myself on the rim of the truck bed. Then I jumped onto the top of the concrete.

  I didn’t feel anything when I saw his guitar leaning up against a windshield; I had no emotions left to feel. My increasingly bloodthirsty mind had eaten alive any feelings that might have survived the initial shock.

  I jumped down onto the pavement and walked over to the guitar. I could see smears of blood and bits of cloth all around me.

  Reno gasped behind me.

  As I picked up Killian’s guitar I realized why. The blond merchant’s head was leaning against the guitar and as I picked it up it rolled against the windshield. It hit the glass with a thunk, his vacant eyes staring up at the sky. I knew, without a doubt, that his head had been cut cleanly by a legionary’s machete.

  I held the guitar with one hand and took a closer look around. Behind the hood of the car I saw five other heads. None of them with the soft blond strands of Killian’s fragrant hair.

  “All the merchants are dead.” My voice was a hollow shell of itself. “The legionaries attacked and killed everyone.”

  “Robbed them too,” Reno whispered. “Fucking hell.”

  I turned around and jumped back onto the truck, still holding the guitar.

  They butchered them down here, but they raped Killian up where the road had flattened out. They singled him out; maybe they even attacked the caravan because they wanted him.

  With cold tendrils tightening around my body, I looked ahead. As I reached the top of the hill, I could see a flashlight coming from the east.

  “Reaver?” I heard Greyson’s booming voice call, breaking up the sullen night air. I had expected him to stick with the search party but it looked like he was alone.

  “Over here, Greyson,” Reno called. I could hear the relief in his voice – he didn’t know what to do with me. I had always been the strong one in our friendship. I had never wavered, never faltered once. This was all new to Reno, new to me.

  I didn’t care about that though, inside was just ice. I stood on the pavement, holding Killian’s guitar as Greyson ran towards us. He slowed down when he saw what I was holding.

  I could see Greyson staring at me. I wondered what he saw… madness? Despair? Or did he just see absolutely nothing.

  “Fuck… Reaver,” Greyson whispered. He lowered his flashlight; I could see him watching my face. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

  “It was legionaries, they killed the merchants,” Reno said quietly behind me.

  “And… Killian?” Greyson seemed to have trouble even saying his name.

  “They raped him, then killed him,” I said, my voice still emotionless. Greyson turned around, holding his hand against his head. He started swearing.

  “Look for his body,” the dead voice from my mouth said before I turned around. I started walking towards the exit ramp. I slung the guitar strap over my chest and moved the instrument to my back so it was resting behind my M16.

  I jumped over the median and onto the exit ramp and started walking.

  I could hear Greyson talking into his radio behind me. I knew he was telling them to call off the search. He was being as quiet as he could, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of the block knowing I got Killian killed. I would most likely be dead by then and, hopefully, so would hundreds of others.

  I clenched the leather strap of the guitar and walked up the ramp.

  I rested my foot up against the bound together metal rods and pressed down. It was solid. I had no idea how those legionary managed to get the bosen to walk on the rods but they must have. I could see faint tracks leading to the other side. Somehow they had managed to temporarily make a ramp joining the broken structure.

  My empty, cold mind started calculating like a computer. There were three caravans and unless they had ditched some of them into the river, they were still pulling three. They couldn’t make it that far. I would be able to catch up with them in the next hour or so if I ran.

  “Jesus, they wanted to get the fuck out of here quickly.” I heard Greyson say behind me. I looked ahead at the long raised road, stretching out in front of
me like my path to hell. It was moonlit and glowing in an eerie light. Vehicles were pushed off to the side to make room for the caravans. They stared at me with their vacant dead eyes. In the darkness and within my madness it was almost as if they were deliberately pressing themselves up against the medians to get as far away from me as they could.

  I didn’t answer Greyson. I walked down the middle of the derelict highway. I heard Greyson continue to walk behind me. I didn’t hear Reno’s footsteps anymore, I wondered if Greyson had sent him away.

  “Go home to Leo,” I said quietly. I was surprised at how dead my voice sounded.

  “I’m going to help you kill them,” Greyson said. I could hear the mechanical whir as he turned on his night vision goggles.

  “I’m not coming home, Greyson,” I said.

  Greyson stopped behind me. I glanced into each car I passed, just in case the legionaries had stashed a part of Killian in there.

  “I…” Greyson paused. “I’ll help you kill them, then take you and Killian home after. I… I don’t want them to eat you or him.”

  I was surprised at this, I was sure Greyson would try and stop me. He did see me as family as well as his soldier. My cold blank mind was glad of this. I didn’t want to argue with him about it, he wasn’t going to convince me to come home.

  I couldn’t… I couldn’t…

  I couldn’t come home empty-handed. I couldn’t face their stares. Looks of pity, fucking looks of pity, sadness, maybe smugness. Happy to see the sentry fall from fucking grace. Happy to see him torn to pieces. Fuck them all.

  “Okay,” I said back. I felt my hands wrap around the guitar strap again. The highway began to slope downwards. I looked over the greywastes in front of us.

  The road started to separate a few miles off, leading to different groups of abandoned structures. There were more ruins the further northwest we got, apparently it eventually led to Tintown though I had never been there.

  My eye caught something. On another disintegrating exit ramp quite a few miles away I could see the small flicker of a flame, blue and cold in my night vision. I narrowed my eyes and felt the first stir of my primal instincts. There was my scent.

  “I think that’s them,” Greyson said from behind me. “No waster would make a fire in the open like that.”

  “We’ll be able to get there an hour or so past midnight,” I said, already increasing my pace. “Usually they only have one watch after midnight. I’ll take him out but I want the others alive. All of them.”

  I heard Greyson let out a breath, I could feel his dread and anxiety from here. I wish he would go home, but at least he would be able to tell everyone what horrible atrocities I did to the legionaries before I died. The Raven would go down in a blaze of glory.

  I found myself fingering the combat knife that was hitched to my belt. I was glad I had sharpened it yesterday. I would do that heart thing I had been meaning to try. I wanted my victim conscious when I detached it.

  Perhaps I could rape them like they raped Killian.

  I shut my eyes momentarily. I knew I couldn’t do that. No way I could get hard. I would have to settle on raping them with my combat knife.

  Yes… that was a must.

  I clutched the knife as Killian’s face flashed through my thoughts. More vividly than I ever thought I could conjure. He smiled at me for a split second before I watched his expression change. It twisted in pain and agonized fear.

  I had seen that face before, when he was having night terrors. But it was worse now; the pain was real, not just in his head. They were raping him, brutally. Holding him down. Taunting, yelling, laughing, egging each other on.

  The last thing he had ever heard. The last images he ever saw…

  “Reaver, take your hand away from the knife.” Greyson’s voice was a hushed calm.

  I stared forward, my face blank. I could see Greyson looking at me. For his sake I moved my hand away from the blade. Without another word spoken between us, we carried on towards the flickering firelight.

  Time no longer mattered. As I walked on, with the chill of the night air on my face, my thoughts became my reality.

  Though I found it almost driving me further into the maddening cesspool that was my mind. I kept slowly replaying our last few days together, trying to memorize every movement I had seen him make, holding those brief memories to me with fierce fervour.

  The last time I saw him, he was asleep. I had slept outside his bedroom window. I had felt comfortable there, like I belonged in that twisted black tree.

  What were the last words I heard him say? Goodbye to Greyson? I couldn’t remember. Why didn’t I pay more attention? Why did I let him out of my sight just to get high with Reno?

  I needed to find him; I needed to see him, or what was left of him. One last time. I needed to touch him even if his skin was cold. I had to have him near me. I had to be beside him. I owed him eye contact, I owed him touch.

  My mouth tensed as an overwhelming wave of despair rushed through me. I tried to put my mind back into the robotic state it had been in before. I had never felt so much regret in my life. So many things I should’ve done differently, I couldn’t even begin to list them all. I was a coward and an idiot, and this is where it brought me.

  I stared ahead, as those thoughts haunted me. I might as well face the questions I had been asking myself. I had nothing to lose now.

  What had been happening to me? Why Killian? Why did I feel these feelings when I was around him? Empathy? Wanting to make him feel better? I didn’t fucking care when it came to anyone else. That was my trademark, that was me. I had driven Leo and Greyson insane growing up for being such a sociopathic asshole.

  Why had I become so obsessed over a boy I had never even exchanged words with? Why had I become such a different person inside since I had noticed him? My head had slowly been changing. I had started to feel… happy.

  “Greyson?” I said. My voice was cracked and hoarse.

  I could see Greyson looking at me, he seemed a bit surprised. “Yes, son?”

  “What happened to me?” I said, still looking ahead. I knew no more words were needed.

  “You fell in love, Reaver.”

  I stopped, my eyes still never leaving that flickering flame.

  I had fallen in love with him. How was that possible? I didn’t… love anything. I didn’t even love myself that much. I thought love was another emotion, like empathy, that I couldn’t grasp no matter how many times it was explained to me. I had never cared about anyone else like that before.

  “We…” Greyson let out a weak laugh, I could hear him sniffing. “Boy, we were having such a laugh watching you fall for him. So stupid, didn’t even see it and it was right in front of you. We were waiting for you to realize it and make a move, it was so obvious.” I heard Greyson sniff again. He gave another weak chuckle, though it was distorted through his falling tears.

  “I’m sorry it took this for you to realize it.”

  Those words hit me like a dagger to my heart. He was right, it had been obvious, and it had taken Killian dying for me to finally get it.

  Did my mind not even want to fathom the idea of falling for someone? Or had my mind been too convinced he would never feel the same way?

  I could almost feel the mental wall I had put up being torn down. So many emotions flooded over me I could feel my shoulders shake. I felt stupid, it had been right in front of me. No wonder they had been having a laugh behind my back.

  I found myself dropping down to my knees, my arms out in front of me. I could sense Greyson beside me. I looked at the ground, barely breathing.

  Why did it have to be like this? Why did I have to realize I loved him now?

  My heart started to ache. I felt a pain in my throat. I didn’t know if I was going to start crying, start screaming, or start shooting. All I knew was that something was building up inside of me and every breath was feeding it.

  “I’m sorry, son.” Greyson whispered. “I’m so… sorry.”


  Suddenly I could hear the squeal of truck brakes. My mind snapped me back to reality and I looked towards the north road. I could see several miles away the faint outline of a pickup truck making its way up a steep hill.

  “The truck is going north,” Greyson said. He had put his night vision goggles back on. “I can’t see how many people are in the cab but the back appears empty. They’re still camped on the exit ramp, probably only a mile and a half now.”

  My black eyes fixed forward, seeing the fire not far off in the distance. A flickering beacon calling me and taunting me with every passing moment.

  I felt a wave of rage rush through my body. Those were the assholes that killed the boy I loved. Those were the fucking dead men who took him from me. Who tortured him, raped him, ate him.

  I could feel my chest start to heave as the mania started to build up inside of me. I heard Greyson say my name, but he seemed miles away from me now.

  I drew my combat knife and to my surprise, I let out a low menacing laugh.

  I started to run.

  Chapter 10

  Reaver

  I jumped soundlessly beside the legionary on watch and snapped his neck. I loved that gratifying crunching noise that seemed to reverberate through my hands. It was a quiet and very satisfying way to end a life.

  I twisted his neck so far it was facing me by the time he started twitching. The legionaries were camped in front of a bus, so I lay the body on top of the vehicle and silently jumped down into their camp.

  I stood beside the fiery flames and watched them sleep. They were almost all younger than I thought they would be but I wasn’t surprised. Older legionaries knew the rules, because the ones who made it to that age had followed them.

  I resisted every urge to start shooting.

  No… it had to be perfect. It couldn’t be this easy.

  I walked over and grabbed their guns, all assault rifles. I knew they had machetes on their sides but they wouldn’t have time enough to use them on me. I carried all five assault rifles and put them in the back of a nearby truck. Then I rested Killian’s guitar up against the hatch. Greyson was ten minutes behind me; this would be enough of a sign to shut the fuck up and let me do my thing.