by Quil Carter
Greyson followed Leo up the road and onto the off ramp, the concrete streaked with dried blood and tissue. The deacdog bounded ahead and started eating the bigger pieces.
“How was he?” Leo’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper. All he wanted to do was be close to his husband, but he had to push this feeling aside. There was still one more family member out there.
Leo swallowed as he saw Killian’s guitar leaning up against an old pickup truck. Possibly two family members.
Greyson leaned over the guitar and reached into the bed; a moment later he pulled out five assault rifles.
He leaned the rifles next to the guitar and motioned Leo to follow him. He walked around the large bus that was stretched out at a fifty degree angle and disappeared behind it without a word.
Leo followed, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle.
When he turned the corner, his stomach lurched. He felt a wave of sickening nausea as his eyes took in the grisly scene in front of them.
“Did he do this?” Leo whispered in shock.
The dead corpse of the father and son were in the same position in which they had died, the sunlight illuminating every bit of carnage in the grisly scene. The boy was still kneeling over his father, half-naked, the handle of the machete still sticking out of him.
His ass was covered in dry, caked blood and there were already flies everywhere. The father had a gunshot wound on the side of his head. His shrivelled up, bloodshot eyes staring off in the void. He was stripped to almost nothing as well, and… it looked like his legs had been partially cut off.
Leo looked down at the other legionary’s knees, his were cut up as well. Though the hack marks did look deep, the black flies eating away at their wounds only made them appear deeper.
Leo had seen many fucked up, gruesome scenes in his life but this might top them all. This wasn’t just gruesome… it was twisted.
“They were father and son,” Greyson said, his voice emotionless. “As soon as Reaver found that out, he used the boy to get the legion leader to talk. That’s how he found out Killian was alive. When the father talked, Reaver killed the boy anyway and had a good laugh about it.”
Greyson let out a breath and wiped his head, before taking a deliberately long drink. He looked like he was going to throw up again.
“He almost tore off the head of the watchman, then ripped his heart out,” he continued in a grim, thin voice. “There were three more he chased down – literally chased down. He ate the throat of one of them, cut the head off the other, and the third committed suicide as soon as he was cornered from the looks of it.”
Greyson’s face tensed. He looked uncomfortable with what he was about to say next.
“He had me hold the leader’s legs back. I swear to god I thought he was going to rape him. Though I think I might’ve preferred that to what he actually did.”
“As long as he didn’t hurt you.”
Greyson shook his head. “I knew when to get out of his line of vision. Fuck, Leo, he had blood all over his face, his eyes were blazing like a demon. I could barely see any white in those black pits of his.”
Leo pushed the boy off of his father with his foot, the machete handle making an odd clunking noise as he rolled onto the pavement. A burst of black flies flew up into the air in a swarm of angry buzzing.
“Killing is one thing, but… fuck, you should have seen his face. He… I saw him in him.”
Leo’s heart froze with his body. He tried to hide the sense of dread that was washing over him. He couldn’t let Greyson see how much power those words had on him. “Do you think he’s getting worse?”
“I know he is.” Greyson’s voice was flat. “Every year he gets worse, are you blind?”
Leo stared at him, his eyes turning cold at Greyson’s words. A thousand thoughts were racing through his head, but he only whispered three words to his husband.
“I warned you.”
There was a long silence between the two of them. The only sounds were the buzzing of the flies and Reno packing up below them. It was a few minutes before Greyson finally spoke.
“Are they all supposed to be like this?”
Leo stared down at the carnage around them.
“No, he wanted him to be worse,” Leo whispered back. “You know that.”
“Do you think he’ll ever be ready?”
Leo’s eyes turned away and he shook his head. “If you had asked me when we realized he was developing feelings for Killian, I would have said yes,” he whispered, “but now? No. If Killian’s dead, this will just spiral and it will keep spiraling.”
“That kid was having such a good fucking effect on him,” Greyson hissed bitterly. “I wish that boy hadn’t been such a moron. Maybe we can use Killian’s death to our advantage. We’re going to have to come up with a plan as to how we’re going to handle Reaver when he comes home. Increase his training, keep him distracted.”
Suddenly Leo was angry. “YOU will. This was your goddamn idea in the first place. If you want to continue training him, go ahead. But I’m going to support him like a father, not use the kid’s grisly death as a tool to manipulate your fucking agenda.”
“Well, you’re not his goddamn father, he doesn’t have a father,” Greyson snapped. Leo scoffed angrily and threw his hands up in the air. He walked back down the onramp. The fear he had felt so strongly only an hour before was now long gone. They were back to fighting about Reaver again. It had been an ongoing trend since they had gotten the boy.
“All you’re doing is going against his nature,” Greyson called after his partner. “Why do I need to remind someone like you of that?”
Leo whirled around, his face cold.
“He’s still a nineteen-year-old boy, Greyson.” The ice in his voice seemed to chill the humid air around them. “He needs some goddamn support and guidance.”
Greyson guffawed, filling Leo with even more rage. “He’s Reaver, Lycos. R-E-A-V-E-R. Stop treating him like he’s normal. He’ll laugh in your face if he doesn’t eat it first. I love the kid too, but we have to respect that he is who he is. What we need to do–”
“Shut the fuck up, Greyson,” Leo suddenly snarled. Greyson clamped his mouth shut. Leo didn’t use that vicious tone often and when he did, Greyson knew to be quiet. Nineteen years together had taught him that. Even calm and placid Leo had his switch and when he did, things got very bad very quick.
Cursing his partner under his breath, Greyson followed him down the exit ramp. The deacon dog sprinted ahead of them, holding a legionary’s heart proudly in his jaws.
Chapter 12
Reaver
I scanned the overpass above me, trying to detect any movement, but thankfully everything was clear. I hadn’t seen anyone during my run here. I had kept my eyes trained on the hill and the few abandoned structures I had passed. I thought I might have to dodge some ravers since they liked infesting the buildings but then I realized that was a stupid thought. The Dek’ko harvesters and legionaries would have turned them into meat long ago.
As the shadow of the overpass loomed over me, I stuck to the concrete. The road cut directly through the hill, the dirt on either side of me walled off with grey concrete blocks. It was good temporary shelter, though I still kept my senses sharp.
I tried to control my breathing. I knew I had to calm down and keep calm if I wanted to do this right. The first thing I had to do was to see if Killian was alive. I didn’t want to work myself up into a blind rage until I knew for sure it was hopeless. I had to remain calm, focused and on my guard. I was in enemy territory now, unlike my greywastes sniping where I had the home advantage. They knew the factory better than I did.
As the hill started to slope down, I grabbed my M16 and held it close to me. I did a quick check of all my weapons before leaving the protection of the hill.
And then I saw it. The factory was large, larger than any structure I had ever seen outside of the abandoned cities. It was more wide than tall, I only counted fi
ve storeys.
It was red brick and, though dusty and crumbling, still remained a deep shade of red, even bolder than the chalky dirt of the canyons. It had rows and rows of unbroken windows, a lot of them illuminated by the cold LED glow of the lights, with a chain-link fence topped with razor wire covering the entire lot.
There was a single road going into the south entrance, the one I was standing on.
I tuned my hearing towards the building. I could hear the generators in the distance; surprisingly it looked like the old electrical poles were working. Of course, King Silas could restore power for his factories, but he couldn’t be bothered to give the technology to bigger blocks like Anvil or Gaushall.
On the far north side I could see smoke stacks and large cylinder structures which had several blue stripes painted on top of them. The smokestacks were streaked with sooty black grease, and it didn’t take me long to realize why. Those stacks must have led directly to where they incinerated their waste.
The factory itself looked isolated. Though there were a few structures around the area, it seemed to be the only occupied building in the vicinity.
I studied the concrete covering the grounds of the factory. It was once a parking lot but was now cracked and badly warped. Bushes and stringy rows of grass grew freely out of most of the pavement.
From what I could tell, it seemed that where the road led to was a loading and unloading area. There were two large garage-type doors on the south side of the building, and a ramp leading down to them. Above the ramp was a metal grate catwalk, with stairs leading up to several doors on the second level.
I leaned up against a tree and spent a few moments analyzing every damn corner of the building I could see. By the time I was done I had already spotted a security camera and a sentry station on top of one of the cylinders. I could even see the movement of their sniper. The Dek’ko company was not stupid; they knew the greywastes were dangerous. They knew starving people could get desperate but I was smarter than them. I could already spot several blind spots and several vents.
I badly wanted to shoot the sniper, but even though my M16 had a silencer it was still going to make noise. My best bet was to get the fuck across the parking lot, hug the brick wall as tightly as I could and get the hell into an air vent. I was no stranger to air vents; I had crawled through the vents in the abandoned school dozens of times. One thing I knew was that they had to lead somewhere… eventually.
My heart skipped as I brought a pair of wire cutters out of the sack.
Killian was in there.
My mind tried to go on lockdown as his face popped up into my mind, but the excitement was too strong. The thought that he could still be alive was what was keeping me going. Keeping me from just running through the front door with my M16 in one hand and a stick of C4 in the other.
Sure enough, my heartbeat rose and my speed did as well. I crouched down and lizard crawled towards the chain-link fence, the wire cutters clenched in my jaw.
Before the sun set tonight, I would either be watching it with him… or not watching it at all.
As I started to cut the fence I exhaled, a puff of grey dirt and ash rose with my breath. Though I knew what my end game in this mission might be, it hadn’t sunk in. I had never feared death, never thought of it.
Mortality was in my face every day, but I knew the finality of it was lost on me and I did nothing to enlighten myself. All my brain wanted was for the pain to end, and I hated not having control over when I felt pain. This was the only way for me to control those devastating emotions, either kill myself and end the pain… or save Killian and end the pain.
I pressed the wire chain-link apart and tried to make the hole as wide as I could. I listened for any noises at all but there weren’t any. I couldn’t hear the mechanical whines of electronics either, so there weren’t any cameras here.
I started to squeeze myself through, contorting and moving myself around almost like a snake.
As soon as I slipped through I partially closed the hole in the fence and took one last look around. I got up and broke into a silent run, my black army boots barely even hitting the ground as I crossed the abandoned parking lot.
I pressed myself up against the rough brick, and tried to shorten my breathing as I listened for the noise of a camera I might’ve missed. As I listened though, I heard another noise. I got out my M16 and crouched down. I knew that noise, it sounded like Reno’s quad.
My head peeked out of the corner of the building, just in time to see a soldier speeding towards the gate leading up to the overpass.
I brought the M16 scope up to my eyes and tried to weigh my options. The last thing I wanted to do was make noise, but I also needed to find a way to get me and Killian home. I hadn’t even let my thoughts get that far, I had been too busy trying to just rescue the damn kid.
All in all though, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass.
I watched him on the scope. He had a delivery satchel strapped to his side – he was probably a courier. He drove straight through the gate, not bothering to close it behind him, quality workers here in Dek’ko apparently.
I tracked him with my scope until he was right by the overpass on level ground, and before he could disappear I locked on him.
Only one chance at this.
I braced myself up against the wall of the building and fired.
The kid jolted and fell off to the side. I suppressed an excited yell, clenching my teeth instead, and hitched my M16 back to the holder. I could hear the quad sputter for a few moments before it stalled.
Perfect, the courier was dead and the quad was mine.
I ran into a recessed area of the factory, feeling good about myself. The small, closed-in area had several rusted out dumpsters leaning up against the east wall and was littered with trash, mostly paper and plastic bottles.
I swore, I was wasting time. If Killian was alive I didn’t know how long it would be until they slaughtered him. I had heard from the representative’s ramblings that Dek’ko did blood tests on all their arians up for processing to make sure they were allowed to slaughter them, but I had a feeling the scum suckers who bought Killian weren’t into following the rules.
I dug into my bag and took out a stick of C4. I turned it on, peeled off the adhesive, and stuck it to the wall behind the dumpsters. I walked to the corner of the building and looked to my right.
No one yet.
I climbed quietly up onto one of the dumpsters and tried a vent I had spotted from the fence. I took out the wire cutters and started twisting the bolts that were securing it. After a few annoying moments I got the grate partially off. It was going to be too small for me but not too small for some explosives.
I turned on the switch for the C4 and listened for the buzzing noise. These bricks, sold by Dek’ko of course, were attached to a detonator I had in my cargo pants pocket. They were sold in groups of five, and would only detonate with the switch if they were turned on and synced with the detonator. I still had three more bricks in my bag. Hopefully enough to do some damage.
I slid the brick through the vent and heard it clang lightly as it reached the end of the shaft. I reached into my pocket and pressed the sync switch, and felt the vibration through my pocket as it registered.
I couldn’t help but feel a sick sadistic joy as I queued up the C4. So many people were going to die today, and so many families were going to be in devastated ruins tomorrow. They would feel what they made me feel.
I hated myself for the quivering giddiness in my gut. Killian being so close and the thought he might be alive were getting me a bit high. I knew it was a pipe dream but it was all I had, and it was giving me the high I needed to keep on with my plan and not just blatantly murder.
I was about to jump off of the dumpsters when I heard footsteps crunching against the dirt on the concrete.
I hopped onto a ledge just above the vent; it seemed to wrap around the entire building, not unlike the Red House back home, except this ledge was
jutting out by about a foot. I jumped up and grabbed the ledge with my fingers and pulled myself up. I flattened myself up against the wall and quickly made my way to the far side, hopefully out of view unless the asshole looked up. My M16 was strapped to my back and I wouldn’t be able to reach it without risking unbalancing, so I grabbed my pistol and hovered my other hand over my combat knife.
Then I waited.
Moments later a factory worker, dressed in a white coat with a blue collar, walked into the building recess. He was whistling and holding a white trash bag.
He walked over to the dumpster and raised it. The dumpster let out a loud rusted creak. He wasn’t even paying attention and he didn’t see me. He threw the bag in and moved to walk away. I jumped down on the dumpsters behind him.
He jumped and turned around and stared at me wide-eyed. I pointed the gun at him.
“You scream, I’ll blow your head off,” I said. I noticed he was wearing an ID tag. “Then I’ll track down your fucking family and kill them too.”
The man put his hands up. He looked like a fucking coward, one of the spoiled little shits from planet Skyfall. This wouldn’t be hard.
“Don’t hurt me!” he said, his voice full of fear. “I have two kids at home, my wife is sick.”
I smiled. It always amused me when they tried to get me to feel sorry for them.
“Great, I always liked the taste of fried up kidlet. What does your company call it? Good Boy? The picture on it is a smiling little child. Do your kids look like that?”
The worker looked horrified and dropped down to his knees. “What do you want?”
I raised my smile and jumped down onto the concrete floor with a muffled thunk. I spun my pistol around on my finger.
“Well, my friend, the company you work for took something very dear to me, and you’re about to help me get it back,” I said happily, a dangerous glint in my eye. “They brought in a blond boy last night. Where is he?”
“We… we just got a crate of rats yesterday, their hair is so dirty but I didn’t see any blond ones,” he stammered quickly. His words fell easily and without thought or manipulation. I could tell he was telling the truth.
