by Quil Carter
I watched giant worms slither in from around the lab, then the spider-human came out and started eating them. Crawling around on those thin little arms, pinchers clicking and clacking. Tearing away the soft, warm flesh of the giant maggot, letting dull yellow goo spill out of its wounds as it writhed on its back. Little legs moving in the air, moving and moving in unison.
Transfixing… hypnotising…
I kept watching the screens.
Chapter 23
Killian
The next morning Perish nudged me awake softly. I jerked up, and as I did he took a quick step back.
He had his hands behind his back and he was balancing on the balls of his feet. “I made you breakfast,” he said quickly, his teeth scraping his lower lip.
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a sleepy smile.
Perish nodded and rapidly left the room.
I dressed myself in the usual grey cloth pants and a button-down, and quickly brushed my teeth and washed up in the bathroom.
As I walked from the bathroom to the kitchen I was greeted by wonderful smells of frying food. My mouth started watering. I bet Reaver could smell all the good aromas too. Even if I had to beg I would make sure Reaver got some, it smelled too good to not share it with my boyfriend.
Perish was wearing a blue apron and was holding a spatula. In front of him was the stove with a frying pan sizzling bacon and an appliance with some batter in it.
“Sit down, almost done. I have orange juice be careful when you drink it it’s probably sour to you, okay?” Perish said as he stirred something in a pot.
“Okay,” I said kindly back. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can help you with–” I thought of my poor Reaver sitting in that horrible room. “– sweety?”
Perish’s face lit up, he gave me a big toothy grin. “No, I’m almost done.”
I had him in my pocket this morning, good. I could get some good food for Reaver and later I could pocket some of those tetanus shots and look for the collars. Perish spent a good amount of time in his lab so I would have some time to rummage and see what I could find.
At least we had Reaver’s detonator now. Though he was still in danger, Perish wouldn’t be able to kill him as easily as he wanted, if it was Perish versus Reaver, it was obvious who would win.
Perish put a big plate of food in front of me. Though I recognized big slabs of bacon (or I guess borasbacon), and sausage, I didn’t recognize the thing on my plate covered in strawberry sauce.
I heard a giggle. I looked up and saw that Perish had been enjoying himself. “It’s called a waffle, the thing –” he pointed to the steel appliance I had seen. “– is a waffle maker. They’re really good, I cut up strawberries and cooked them with sugar it’s good together, try, try!”
“Okay, okay.” I smiled. I felt guilty but seeing me make him happy kind of made me feel happy. My heart tugged as I thought of Reaver though. He wasn’t happy, so really I shouldn’t be either.
I promised myself I would get food for him, and that helped me push through the guilt and take my first bite of the waffle.
“Holy crap, this is good!” I exclaimed. Perish clasped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously, his smile a mile long.
“It’s just pancake batter in the machine thing, good right? Easy to make too, I’ll always make you some whenever you like.”
I thanked him profusely and dug in. I ate slowly since I was really afraid I would throw it up like my first day here. The borasbacon was delicious, and the sausages too. Gosh, I was going to miss this great food. Even the orange juice was great; it was a bit sour but Perish poured some sugar into it and it tasted better. He was such a nice guy, it was really too bad he was so crazy. If only he’d had someone here to stay with him maybe he wouldn’t be so mentally troubled.
But no, I couldn’t feel bad for him. He was holding us against our will, I had to remember that. He was the enemy and I couldn’t forget that fact.
“Perry, hun?” I helped him clear our plates. As I put them in the sink I noticed a lot of leftover food, including waffles. “Can I bring some to Reaver? He would love to try waffles.”
Perish chewed on the bottom of his lip. “Reaver has been very good, okay.” He nodded to himself and gave me the fake detonator. “Be careful though, Killian. He’s very dangerous.”
“Of course, I’ll be careful,” I said with forced understanding and started making Reaver a generous plate of food. The way Perish’s mind worked fascinated me. It was like in his mind, since I had become his boyfriend, Reaver was a threat to me now, and he was no longer my mercenary and protector.
I guess he had only seen us on the TV screens, he hadn’t seen us be affectionate or anything like that, but still, the thought that he really believed Reaver would hurt me was baffling. At least it gave me time with Reaver alone, so Perish could keep on thinking it.
To fully cement my place in Perish’s good books I kissed his cheek as I left the kitchen. I felt his skin tighten as he smiled, and he blushed. With that done I stuffed the detonator into my pocket and went to Reaver’s surveillance room, food in hand.
I gave a small knock, and opened the door with the card key.
The stale sweat smell hit me first, and then the stuffy heat. I took my shoe off and propped the door open so I could air the room out a bit. Reaver would be able to tell if Perish was in ear shot anyway.
“Hun? I brought food,” I said quietly.
Reaver’s eyes were fixed on the ground, but a moment later his nose twitched. He looked up and saw the food.
He took the plate and started eating with his hands. I opened my mouth to point out the fork but I stopped myself. There were more important things than table manners, like getting him to eat and drink enough water. I had given up on asking him to sleep.
I watched Reaver eat and I didn’t talk to him. I just wanted him to concentrate on eating and being as healthy as he could. He polished off the meat really quickly and moved onto the waffle. He folded it in half like a sandwich and started demolishing it in big bites. When he only had two bites left he held it up and looked at it. “What’s this?”
“It’s called a waffle, you need a special appliance to make it.” I tried to sound as relaxed and cheerful as I could for him. My heart pulled to touch him though, to stroke his hair back and kiss his little ears, but I knew better. It didn’t stop me from wanting it though.
He examined the waffle and took the last bite. “I have one in my shed, didn’t know what it did so I never bothered fixing it. I’ll fix it now.”
“It has the same ingredients as the pancake mix Dek’ko sells. We can buy some eggs when we get home.” I could no longer resist. I put my hand on his head to brush his dark hair back, but he recoiled from me. I withdrew my hands and put them behind my back. I tried not to be offended but my lower lip tightened.
“Have you slept, hun?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer me, so I said it again… still nothing. I sighed and leaned up against the wall. I was losing him and I think he was losing himself, but he had to hold on, we had to be strong for each other. Nero would be here soon and then we could do what had to be done and leave. He just had to hold onto his sanity for a little while longer.
When he was finished he just left the plate on his lap and stared blankly at the screens. I could see bits of strawberry sauce in his growing facial hair but he made no move to wipe his face.
I slowly reached down to pick up his plate.
I let out a startled yelp as he grabbed my wrist with reflexes like a cat. His head turned and his glassy black eyes shot to mine. When he realized who I was his hand snapped open.
He pulled away and paused, gave a slow blink, and turned back to the screens without saying a word.
I just stood there, feeling almost intimidated by him. That scared me more than it should have… for a moment there I thought he was going to break my arm.
“Killian? Are you okay?” I could hear Perish’s feet pattering on t
he floor as he ran over. I turned around to greet him.
“The plate just fell and it startled me, that’s all. Everything is fine, Perry,” I said. I turned and took the plate from Reaver. I wanted to give him a hug or at least say goodbye, but I knew it was too dangerous. I stepped out of the door with Perish and closed it behind me.
“Oh, alright, was he good? I have a surprise for you, come with me, okay?” Perish started walking, his white lab coat trailing behind him.
Well, it wasn’t like I had a choice. I gave the surveillance room one last glance and followed him down the winding halls.
Perish brought me to the same room that he had electrocuted me in, the room with the padded operating table in the middle surrounded by cabinets full of medical supplies, machines, counters, and lights.
Perish started taking things out of the counter. I looked at the labels.
Scalpels, elastic bands, sutures, bandages. Yep, all of the medical supplies. I wondered if there were different vaccines around. That would be useful for everyone back home.
Perish pulled a plastic wrapped package out of a clear box and placed it beside some sutures and a scalpel. It was about then that I felt my first prickle of anxiety.
The scientist shut the door.
“Perish…” I said nervously.
He smiled at me and patted the operating table. “Killian, how old are you?”
I pressed my back up against the door. “Seventeen…”
“You were born near Skyfall, yes?”
I nodded.
“I want to give you a present, something only my brothers and I and higher, very higher-ups get. It’s called the X-ON-3 Geigerchip. It gets rid of the radiation four times better, plus it injects you with supplements like vitamins too, which will last five years before it needs recharging but you’ll be here anyway. It’s only for important people, but you’re important. I want you to be healthy, okay?”
Perish held out the package to me. I carefully examined it. It did indeed have X-ON-3 underneath Dek’ko’s label. Inside was a small little tube, silver with blue tips with a serial number on it.
“Sit on the table, lie down and relax,” Perish said. He was laying his tools out on a metal table. I gave a cautious step forward and let out a nervous breath.
I lay down on the table and looked up at the ceiling. Silver air vents, wires, lots of lights, white ceiling tiles, the ones you could push up.
I felt the sound of Velcro and then pressure on my wrist. I looked down and immediately tried to pull my hand away as Perish strapped it down.
“What are you doing!?” I exclaimed. Perish took my other wrist, and though I tried to struggle he strapped that one down too.
“You’re going to start to struggle and if you struggle too much my hand will slip,” Perish said in a manner that told me he knew this as fact. “Just relax, pain is a part of life, that’s what master always said.”
I tried to worm my arms away but it was no use. My heart was racing; my instincts told me to scream and fight until he undid the binds, but my brain was telling me to relax and let him put the chip in. He was right, I would start struggling and he would end up cutting me. That was logical, at least in Perish’s mind.
I took a deep breath, though I flinched away when I felt him unbutton my shirt. My Geigerchip was in my shoulder blade like everyone else’s.
He pulled my shirt back and I felt his warm fingers trace my collarbone and the nape of my neck. I knew he was looking for the chip, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe he wasn’t also getting some touching in.
He found the bump under my skin and put some pressure on it. He smiled and took his glasses off.
His blue eyes seemed brighter outside of the lenses, but could he still see?
“Don’t you need those?” I asked nervously.
Perish gave a lighthearted laugh then he rubbed some black mediciney smelling stuff on the skin above my chip. “Silly boy, I don’t need those glasses. I just like how they make me look like a doctor, like Doctor Malcolm on Jurassic Park. They’re just glass, not prescriptioned.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at how silly that was but I didn’t. He had been alone for a long time, this was just one of his many, many quirks.
I flinched when he put the scalpel against my skin; he immediately retracted it and rubbed the area like he was soothing it.
“What’s the most pain you’ve ever experienced?” he asked in an almost whisper. I sucked in a breath as I felt the first slice and bit down on my lip.
I felt the cold stainless steel pull away and another small rub. I didn’t have to think of an answer to his question. If it was emotional pain, I would be conflicted over thinking Reaver left me, my parents dying, and when I was in the fois ras tube. But physical pain? It was only recently.
“When the legionaries beat me,” I whispered, then to help my past lie, added, “and when they raped me.”
I felt another cut. I gasped as it went in deeper. I could feel the pressure of the cold metal inside of me now.
I jerked away when I felt his finger brush my wound. Just like with my stitches he started licking the blood on his finger. He did this several times, ignoring my struggles to move away from him.
“Why do you do that?” I whispered.
I knew he had heard me but he didn’t answer. The cold steel came back to my chest and I felt him cut deeper and deeper.
His blue eyes were focused, his free hand now over my wound, stretching the skin so he could slice away to the chip. His movements were still slow, like he was enjoying every second of it.
I had tried to hold back being creeped out, but my anxiety was getting a hold of me. My justifications for Perish’s weird behaviour were no longer working for me. He was… taking way to much joy in hurting me.
Like when he had electrocuted me… I gave out a cry as the scalpel dug in deeper. Then his fingers brushed the wound again.
Stop forgetting he’s crazy – fuck, I was constantly forgetting how unstable he was. I had no choice though. He had me tied, I had to obey. He was in control, he was always in control.
Then he brought his face up to my wound, and started to lick the blood away with his tongue. I shifted away from him but I couldn’t move my body away.
His tongue penetrated the cut, and then there was a suction as he sucked my blood out. When he lifted up his head this time though, he turned to his steel cart and brought out the tweezers.
“That hurt,” I said defensively. It hadn’t really, but I didn’t have the balls to tell him how fucked up I thought it was.
“Pain is in your mind, don’t let it control you,” Perish said in a reassuring voice. “Make pain bow to you, make it pleasurable. Like you enjoyed cutting your arms, no? Make it a release.”
Is this how he coped with what King Silas and his brothers did to him?
“What about you?” I asked him, hoping perhaps that might break through his weird behaviour, snap him back a bit to reality. “What is the most pain you’ve felt?”
When I saw his eyes harden I immediately regretted my question. He roughly dug the tweezers into my wound and started pinching the flesh inside, trying to snag the chip.
I gave out a cry as he jabbed me particularly hard. “You did that on fucking purpose!” I snapped out of anger.
Perish glared at me. I felt my body go cold. “You think this is bad? You think –” he dug the tweezers into the scalpel wound. I clenched my teeth through a scream. “– that is a horrible pain? Pain is a part of life.” He glared at me, an edge to his usual sweet voice. “You think getting beaten up and raped by one person is pain? You don’t know pain, or suffering.”
I twisted my arms in their Velcro binds, my heart panicked and racing. Perish yanked the small Geigerchip out. He put his finger inside the bleeding hole in my chest and dug it in. I cried out and felt my head go faint as he pushed up against bone. I could only see his finger knuckle sticking out of the wound.
“Please, Perish – I know pain,
” I stammered before I clenched my eyes shut and let my head fall onto the operating table.
“You don’t know pain, Killian,” Perish said angrily.
What the hell did he want me to say? Everything seemed to make him more mad. I clamped my teeth over my lip and bit down. “You’re right, I don’t, Perry.” I gritted my teeth as I felt him put the new Geigerchip in, then a moment later the stinging of the hook needle, then the pulling of thread. “I’m sorry you do, you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
I thought this would make him happy, but he gave me a bewildered, shocked look. He roughly pulled the thread out before digging the hook in.
“I do deserve it, I do. Master says I did. I failed. I’m too stupid, I’m not like Sky at all. I should be dead.” Perish continued to ramble as he put the last several stitches in. When he was finished he tied off the thread and looked around the room desperately. He started rubbing his hands together.
“Perish?” I said when his rambling had toned down to a slight movement in his lips. “Why don’t you undo my binds and we can watch a movie together? I’ll hold your hand.”
There was a ripping sound as he yanked the Velcro off my left hand. Surprisingly as I undid my right one, he picked up the tray that he’d had resting on the metal cart and left the room without another word.
I felt a pang as I heard him sniff, I knew that sound. I knew he had lost control and I knew his tormented mind was making him pay for it now.
I sighed, relieved I wasn’t bound anymore. I looked down and examined my newest injury. At least the wound was nicely stitched up and covered in a white adhesive band aid.
Rising off of the chair, I realized I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
So I followed him, stepping over the plastic wrapping of my new Geigerchip on the floor and several strips of bloodied cloth.
