Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series Book 1)

by Quil Carter

  “Like everything’s a dream,” Killian replied in a small voice. I looked over at him. He closed his eyes and shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “Everything seems so surreal; I keep waiting to wake up.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said. I took out some powder, a sniffer, and a razor blade. I grabbed a large tray from beside the couch. “This will help.”

  Killian looked a bit taken aback. “What’s… what’s that?”

  “Crushed up pain killers. It will make you feel better. You’ve never done them?” I looked at him a bit confused. I thought everyone had tried them. Heck, even Greyson and Leo had done them with me.

  Killian shook his head, looking a bit worried. “Aren’t they bad for you?”

  Jesus, now I felt like I was corrupting the kid. This was probably what everyone had warned him about. Reaver the bad influence. It was just fucking pharmaceuticals; just in powder form and taken in the nose.

  “Not any worse than normal pills.” I shrugged, making lines on the tray. He still looked a bit concerned, which made me want to roll my eyes. Drugs were rampant in the greywastes and just a way we all coped. I would have gone nuts without them long ago. His mom was a bit of a goody-goody bitch though; she’d probably drilled the horrors of addiction into his head over the years.

  “I got some Tylenol, want some of that instead?” I asked, feeling proud of myself for being so considerate. And they said I was a heartless beast.

  Killian shook his head. “I want to do what you do.”

  I looked at him strangely; he noticed and looked at the floor, his face flushed under my confused stare.

  Chapter 14

  Killian

  I felt my face get even more red. I was such an idiot… waiting so long for him to just look at me and now I was looking away from him. I wanted to disappear, I wasn’t used to… being… here!

  “What do you mean by that?”

  I don’t know!! my mind screamed. I could feel him staring at me; my face flushed with heat.

  “I want to be like you,” I managed to mumble, trying to make myself as small as possible in his couch.

  Who wouldn’t want to be like him? He was like a god. He was amazing. He had… he had saved me. He was powerful, brave, skilled, heroic, he was perfect… how could he not see this? He… he used himself as a human shield when the bomb went off. He protected me with his own body. Fuck, don’t think about that, not now.

  I swallowed, trying to push the feelings of absolute terror deep into my subconscious.

  It had taken me a few moments when I woke up to realize where I was. For a moment, I thought I was lying against one of the dead merchants, or his torso anyway. Thankfully, I hadn’t jumped. I didn’t want to worry Reaver, he had done so much for me that I didn’t want him to have to worry about my stupid head. I was a pro at dealing with terrifying experiences; I would be okay.

  No, actually I was horrible at dealing with terrifying experiences. I guess I was ready to go as far as to manipulate my own mind to convince myself I was okay.

  Those drugs though, they had helped Dad cope. This one time maybe? I mean… one time isn’t what got you hooked; it was doing it all the time, and I wouldn’t let that happen.

  “You… why? Why would someone like you want to be someone like me?” Reaver raised an eyebrow and looked at me with both surprise and curiosity.

  His gaze completely froze me, but I managed a shrug. I didn’t know what he meant by someone like me… a useless idiot probably. He was right, I could never be like him. I didn’t even know how to fire a gun properly, I didn’t know anything. How could I ever even hope to be as tough as him? I was weak and useless.

  The more I talked the more I made an idiot out of myself. It had been going so well until I decided to start talking.

  I watched as Reaver took the cut up straw and did a couple lines. I didn’t like drugs. Dad had gotten hooked on them after he had been fired so I had pretty big aversion to them. But I understood what they did, and I understood how much they would help Reaver at that moment. And well, I knew they would help me too. My stomach twisted in anxious knots at the thought of them though.

  “This is really hard, eh?” Reaver said out of the blue. He put the tray between us. I looked at him, surprised at his admission.

  “What… what is?”

  Reaver smiled and my heart fluttered a bit. I loved that smile.

  He shrugged and I saw a split second of shyness, before he caught himself and it disappeared as quickly as it came.

  “Talking.”

  I felt a flood of relief wash over me. He had hit it on the head. We were both fried, tired, and in pain right now. At the same time we were alone, talking to each other for the first time.

  Reaver noticed my sigh of relief; his smile grew wider.

  “It is a lot at once,” I agreed, feeling the shyness hit me next. I looked down at the drugs, before my eyes found Reaver’s again.

  “They’ll help, trust me,” he urged.

  He was still covered in dried blood, still dirty and stained from the road. He’s not even changed into clean clothes, or even eaten but he was smiling at me. His eyes had a glint in them I had never seen before. He was everything I had hoped he would be. He wasn’t the emotionless sentry that he showed when he was around Aras. He was… he was real.

  He was showing me this side of him now; I think he did like me.

  “How do I do it?” I asked warily. My dad had injected Skytech’s synthesized heroin; I’d never paid attention to how snorting was supposed to be done.

  A smirk creased the corner of Reaver’s face and he shook his head, obviously very amused. “You were a sheltered little thing, weren’t you?”

  I gave him a flat look. Though the more of the greywastes I saw, the more I realized how sheltered I had been. Reaver seemed even more amused as he saw my unimpressed look.

  “No,” I said stubbornly.

  Reaver, still with the same smirky expression, motioned at me to pick up the straw. I did, and he pointed to one of the lines. “Plug one nostril, snort. Repeat.”

  I leaned down and took a line in each nostril. I sniffed and rubbed my nose.

  “It will burn for a second but it won’t last.” Reaver smiled. Sure enough, a few seconds later my nose started to burn and my eyes started to water.

  “Now just wait.”

  I sniffed again and leaned back into his couch. I could feel him watching me, then a few moments later I could hear him take a few more lines. I wished he would touch me again, but I knew I had already been spoilt. My mom had told me he once broke Matt’s fingers when he touched his shoulder. Mom said it was after Greyson got mad at him for killing a legionary too close to Aras. Matt was just trying to be sympathetic too.

  Well, he was a far cry from the Reaver everyone had told me about. I had always known they were wrong though, I knew they were just scared of him. He was pretty intimidating.

  I sighed and felt a warm glow start to envelope my body. They said those things though, because Reaver was all those things, but with me he was different. If he was the Reaver they had warned me about, he would never have saved me.

  “How do you feel?” Reaver asked, sounding as relaxed as I felt. The warmth had filled me with a light. I felt weightless, warm, and almost completely out of pain. I also felt… well, lots of gratitude towards Reaver.

  “The pain of everything is dripping away,” I said. I think I understood why my father liked these things so much. “I… I don’t feel as scared anymore.”

  “Your heartbeat has slowed too,” Reaver said.

  I looked at him, confused. “How do you know?”

  Reaver moved the sniffer along his fingers. “I’ve always had this odd enhanced hearing. If it’s quiet, I can hear people’s hearts. Also I can hear electronics; it’s a high pitch whining noise no one else can seem to pick up but me.”

  “Wow,” I said in awe. That must have been one of the reasons he was such an amazing sentry.

&
nbsp; “What does mine sound like?” I asked. I put my hand up against my chest and tried to feel for it.

  “Right now? It’s speeding up,” Reaver said. “I can tell what someone’s feeling sometimes with just their heartbeat. It’s useful for dealing with merchants, or interrogating legionaries.”

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t hide anything from him. I don’t know how I felt about that.

  “Most of the time, I don’t listen though,” Reaver said, getting up off the couch. “I have to pay attention to hear it, and usually I don’t really care.”

  I gasped as Reaver turned around. His back was half-exposed, revealing lots of small painful cuts and some larger ones that had been stitched. They looked red and angry, even blackened and burned in some areas.

  “Is it really that bad?” Reaver tried to look over his shoulder.

  “I can see bits of metal in the lamp light!” I exclaimed. I shot up from my seat. “Tweezers? Doc taught me how to pick out shrapnel.”

  Reaver made a dismissive noise, and started rummaging through a few cans on his counter. “They’ll come off in the water. I need to wash myself anyway.”

  I was a bit crestfallen. Reaver must have noticed. He sighed as he started opening the lid of a can of ravioli. “What about this then? We both bathe tomorrow, and then you can hack at me with tweezers and get out the rest.”

  I beamed. I felt like I had won my very first victory against the steel will of Reaver. He shook his head and proceeded to dump a can of ravioli and a can of corned bosen into a pot. He turned the stove on.

  I should bring my spices over when I get back to my house, I thought. I could make that food taste really good.

  I stopped myself, surprised at where my head was going. I had never even thought of that, what the hell was going to happen after today? Was I going back home? Would I have to go back to sleeping in the house by myself, and seeing Reaver around the block? What was going to happen?

  The drugs massaging my brain told me to shut-up and I listened. A few minutes later, Reaver and I sat down with some food and some water. I was amazed at the fact that he had water rigged up to come all the way into his basement. It was a garden hose with a lever and Reaver just turned the lever and the cold water came out. I was impressed. I got all of my water from the river, and I just put it in a big bucket. I had to keep a lid on it because the cats kept drinking from it. His place was just amazing, though I wished there were windows. I didn’t even know if it was dark outside yet.

  My house had so many windows; I spent every night looking at the stars until I fell asleep.

  I ate all my food. Ravioli was expensive; I had only eaten it a few times before and I felt pretty flattered that he had made such fancy food for us.

  I looked down as Reaver put half of his food into my bowl. “Eat.”

  “Oh, no I’m okay.” I flushed. I felt bad, it was his food after all, and he had been hurt more than me.

  Reaver didn’t seem to care though. “You’re too skinny, you need to take better care of yourself.”

  I got even more flustered. I was pretty bad at eating; I kind of gave up on surviving for a while and I guess it had become a habit. I was embarrassed that Reaver had noticed – I had hoped my baggy clothes would hide it. Though, of course, in the factory he had seen me completely naked. There was no hiding how unhealthy I looked.

  I picked up the bowl and busied myself with eating. He was silent, watching me.

  “Did you have a death wish?” Reaver suddenly said. I looked at him, surprised by his brashness. He hadn’t spoken in a mocking way, or rudely, and his expression was completely genuine. I would have preferred that he said it to be mean or patronizing, then I could have brushed it off.

  I stared at him, wondering if he could feel my heartbeat speed up. He didn’t break his gaze from me though. I was reminded… well, that he was Reaver.

  “I… I sold my old guitar–”

  “No –” Reaver stopped me, “– not this time. Before, all the other times.”

  I looked back. I wanted to look away but I felt I couldn’t. His black eyes stared right into me. He already knew the answer; why did he want me to say it?

  “Yeah,” I said. I felt ashamed.

  Reaver nodded. “I’m… I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  I hid the excitement that flared in my chest, realizing that it meant a lot coming from someone like Reaver.

  “But if you leave the block ever again without me, I will do bad things to you.”

  I smiled at him. He tried not to but he smiled back at me. The drugs were making me a bold.

  “What things?”

  Reaver thought for a second. “I’ll break your legs.”

  I don’t know why that made my grin widen. “What if I try and crawl through the gates?”

  He pursed his lips like he was thinking. “I’ll cut your arms off, so you’re just a torso and a head.”

  I laughed and Reaver smiled back. “You’re a weird one.”

  I blushed and moved the tray towards me; taking the straw, I did another two lines. They burned in my nose again, but I kind of liked the feeling. I was starting to understand my father even more. He had endured a lot in his last several years of life. After being fired after his personal visit from the chimera Elish, he had gone downhill with his drug use. These things must’ve helped him cope with life in the greywastes. It had been hard for him.

  “These do make me feel better,” I said. Reaver looked pleased with himself; he seemed more relaxed too. I was loving this; he was actually talking to me. Talking! Teasing! He did like me… he didn’t think I was an idiot. I wanted to ask him if Greyson had paid for him to follow me, but I couldn’t do that yet.

  “Yeah, I do them a lot,” Reaver said, motioning towards his suitcase. “I make sure the case is well-stocked.”

  “Did you get them all scavenging?” I asked. He must have so many stories to tell me; he had probably lived such an exciting life. I felt boring compared to him. I had spent most of my time in my mom’s bookstore ringing up customers.

  He nodded, taking a long drink from his water glass.

  “I have a few stashes in various cities around here. I go on foot usually, or go with Reno and his quad. I can’t carry all the boxes back so I bury them, or hide them in caches.”

  “Wow,” I said in awe. “Can… can I come one day?”

  Reaver let out an amused laugh and shook his head. “No, you’re going to stay in Aras forever. You’re never stepping foot out of the block ever again.”

  My face fell. He looked at me, probably noticing how sad I looked.

  “Okay, maybe.”

  My face lit up. Reaver gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. I had scored another victory! I didn’t want to leave the block for an extremely long time, but I still liked the idea of going on an adventure with him. I could really pull my weight in the block then. I wouldn’t be useless.

  “Will you make me more like you?”

  Reaver’s brow creased. “This again? I don’t understand why would you want that?” This time I didn’t think I could just shrug the question off.

  “I don’t want to be useless,” I said in a low tone.

  “You’re not useless,” Reaver said, his voice was almost gentle. “You just don’t realize how dangerous it is out there. I think you know now.”

  I looked at the floor feeling ashamed, and nodded. A cold chill ran up my spine. He was sure right about that. I had seen horrible things when my family had been journeying here but besides that, my old town had been pretty sheltered.

  “You… you just… why? Why did you leave? How was it worth the risk for an instrument?” Reaver said, his voice sounding strained.

  I couldn’t look up. I felt so ashamed. I could feel his eyes drill into me.

  “It would have taken me a year to find the material to make a new guitar, maybe never to find the strings,” I said quietly. I suddenly felt even more stupid for my foolish logic.

  “You
could have asked me. I would have found you one.”

  “You wouldn’t even look at me.” My voice dropped to such a level I hoped he wouldn’t hear it, then I remembered he could hear heartbeats.

  Reaver shifted around a bit and I could tell he was very uncomfortable. This made me feel even worse. I could see him looking around, probably for something to distract from this conversation. His eyes came back to the drugs. Leaning forward, he did another line, motioning for me to do the same.

  Well, it was a good distraction at least. I took some more, and afterwards Reaver put the tray on the side table behind him. He got up and to my surprise, turned on the TV and the game system. He picked up the controllers and handed me one.

  “Have you ever played Mario?” Reaver asked.

  I perked up and smiled. We had owned a game system before we’d had to leave town. I loved playing it.

  “No,” I said with a smile. Yeah, I was lying; I wanted him to teach me. “What’s Mario?”

  The corner of his mouth went up in a crooked smile. I sighed, feeling the tension subside. Stupid me for bringing up those damn things. I had to be careful; I didn’t want to scare him away. I kind of felt like he was a stray cat I had been trying to feed outside my house. Slow movements, not too much at once.

  Fuck, I didn’t want to screw this up. I couldn’t bear the thought of him asking me to leave.

  I quietly promised myself to stop being an idiot. I had finally broken the ice with Reaver, I finally had him talking to me. I wasn’t going to scare him off by talking about feelings. Reaver was the type of guy that hated feelings. He was probably feeling really awkward.

  Reaver pressed some buttons and we started the game. I knew we both felt relieved, we had ourselves a distraction.

  The game started, it was the racing Mario game. My heart jumped. I owned this one! I was great at it; I played it constantly when I was a child. I was really going to have to work on not being good at it.

  Reaver gave me a short introduction and pretty soon we were playing. I started driving in reverse. Reaver smiled and corrected me very nicely. He was really nice at first, instructing me, giving me tips, not shooting shells at me. But after I started to get a little bit better at it… well, that ended.