by Quil Carter
“The whipwolf…?”
“The scientist took him, freed him I think,” Asher rasped. He leaned onto Greyson and looked towards the door. “Where is he? Is the scientist gone?” Asher’s hands were twitchy and nervous. Though he was right in the head his time inside the prison was apparent. “He just threw the gates open… right open. What about the younger one, the blond one?”
“He is from my town, he’s safe. Perish is dead.” Greyson helped the man walk towards the exit of the door. He was light but muscular underneath his layers of rags. Though he was weak; he seemed to have trouble holding his head up. “Do you have a town? Somewhere we can take you? Family?”
Asher shook his head; the scrapes on his dirt-caked face were red and angry with infection. “We’ve always travelled from raver den to raver den. We sold them to Tallrock mostly, a block further east.”
Greyson had heard of these travelling slavers before, commonly called raticaters, though none of them ever made it to Aras. They were big enough, almost two hundred people, to have their own raver trappers. Usually they were good people, it was the arian slavers that were the sneaky fucks. His clothes told enough of a story though. The illegal slave trade was profitable and booming, whereas the legal rat and raver trade was not. A slaver wore new Skyfall clothing and wore watches and gold; the raticaters were tough as nails, strong and fast, and cared nothing for appearances. Heavy and flashy clothing would bog you down and get you eaten.
Greyson helped Asher through the door and into the hallway. Leo and Gini gave both of them a wide berth; their hands never far away from their weapons.
“Are you hurt? We have a doctor here,” Leo said.
“The wolf creature got my leg and my arm; besides that just a touch of food poisoning I think. The meat has turned but it was all I had. I would be grateful for a glass of water. Blood congealed days ago.”
He seemed surprisingly polite. He reminded Greyson of Killian in that sense, but this man seemed to be made from stronger stuff. Most wasters were, though usually it was either intelligence or balls, you didn’t often see both.
Greyson walked the kid over to the small camp they had made inside an office building’s lobby. Doc was waiting for them; he already had his supplies out.
“This is Don, or Doc as we call him. Doc this is Asher. Looks like he survived the whipwolf attack and has been living off of the dead. He’s injured though.”
Greyson got out a small tin cup and poured the kid some water from their blue jug.
This wasn’t something he’d expected, but he couldn’t have left the boy to die inside the prison. He brought the water to the kid, and noticed Doc cringing as he pulled Asher’s pant leg up. “This isn’t pretty, Grey; I don’t have the stuff to treat it here.”
Greyson swore, he’d made the mistake of looking down. The kid’s leg had two long lacerations on it, rimmed with thick white pus over the top of swollen red skin. The wounds were split open, yellow bubbles of fat fully exposed and frothing in the creamy secretion. He could smell them now that they were out of the prison area, they smelled worse than Reaver’s had. No doubt the whipwolf’s mouth had been brimming with bacteria.
“I’ll be okay.” Asher downed the water glass and tried to get up. He was wobbly but he managed to stand, but Doc grabbed his shoulder and made him sit back down. Greyson filled his glass again.
“You’ll lose that leg, and your life,” Doc said. “As soon as a single fly gets to it, it will be a wiggling hive for maggots and blowfly larva. I’ve gotten everything I need here. I want to take him to Aras.”
“Aras? I’ve heard of Aras,” Asher said. “I have some caches a few miles from here, I’ll pay you for a ride. Hell, I’ll pay to stay there. Is Greyson Merrik still leading?”
“I’m Greyson Merrik,” Greyson said. “We don’t ask for an entry fee, just a skill or enough money to pay taxes for six months.”
“I’ll pay, or I can work. My mother, father, and I hunted. Or I can find my cache and I’ll buy mercenaries to take me to Tintown.”
Greyson looked at the boy, wishing he was Reaver and able to sniff out lies or deceit. The man seemed trustworthy though; there was no evidence to doubt his story. Still, he wasn’t going to risk Aras’s only doctor taking him there.
“Owen can take him back to Aras on the quad. Don, I want you here still, we’ll be back by tomorrow night anyway,” Greyson said. He turned to Asher. “We don’t usually accept residents this close to winter, but if you will make yourself an asset…”
Asher coughed into his sleeve and nodded. “I’ve never been a burden to anyone and I never will be. I’ll earn my way for a roof over my head, the rest I can take care of.”
“Do you know the block law?”
Asher nodded again. “I’ve stayed in a few blocks with my family.”
Leo was behind Greyson; he put his hand on his shoulder and turned him around. “Do you think this is wise? We won’t be there to keep an eye on him.”
“Reaver will though, and he will keep a better eye on him than we will, and we’ll be back soon enough,” Greyson said quietly, then he dropped his voice. “If he comes while Reaver is in charge Reaver will feel responsible for him, there is no one better to make sure he stays in line.”
Leo shot a nervous look towards the waster, his teeth scraping against his lip.
“He’s strong, we need his strength for the winter. Not to mention we need to organize a raver mission soon before the rain.”
Leo gave him a small nod. “We can’t just leave him for the whipwolves… okay. Send him to Aras.”
Chapter 31
Killian
I was in bed when Reaver finally returned. I had decided that he obviously didn’t need me around so I made my way back to the basement and spent my time with Biff. I also did a bit of his drugs just to relax me.
I was still in a foul mood. Since Reaver had caused my bad mood, the drugs he scavenged could help fix it. It didn’t fix it but it did make me not care as much.
I didn’t want to use any fuel so I just turned on a bluelamp and read for a bit; my psychology books as usual, though I did read a couple chapters of Stephen King.
After my third hour of doing drugs I went to bed, and within twenty minutes Reaver was home. He called my name when he entered and I gave a small grunt to tell him I was there.
“Greyson has been fucking slacking like you wouldn’t believe,” Reaver said. I could hear him rustling around the living room. “He had three people already in holding cells awaiting trial. It’s going to take a week before I can execute the drunk I just arrested. You know what that means right? They’ll be back by then and you bet your ass Greyson will let him off easy. Hollis is stressed and annoyed because the shady fucks of the block know Greyson and Leo are busy, they’ve been trying and succeeding in getting away with illegal shit.”
I was a bit annoyed Reaver didn’t even care I was mad at him, but that was Reaver I guess.
“Oh yeah?” I said, trying to be supportive, at least he sounded like he was taking his temporary job seriously.
“This Harold dick is a wife-beating drunk and he’s had enough chances. The others are some idiot who stole from Tulley and one who tried to poison his neighbour’s meat. Which the neighbour is now blaming for his daughter’s death, and these people are still alive? Because of what? Some shitty trial where we know they’ll be found guilty? This democracy is bullshit,” Reaver ranted. There was a pause and I heard him inhaling some of my left-over Dilaudid powder. “I’m going to talk to the council tomorrow. If meat is going to be short soon I don’t want to feed four men until their trials. Especially when they aren’t even working. I see no point.”
Unfortunately the council would never agree to that. There were rules the block had to follow and a trial was one of them, even if the suspects were caught red-handed. Innocent until proven guilty; that was what they did pre-Fallocaust and that was one of Greyson’s laws. It was not negotiable and would have the families in an uproar.
“If I was an officer I would have just beaten them all to death and said it was self-defence.”
Which is why you aren’t a law enforcement officer, Reaver.
“Greyson will execute them when he gets home,” I said. I looked through the crack of the door and saw Reaver drinking water and eating a piece of dried jerky.
“No, he won’t, he’s too busy in Donnely and he’ll be too tired and distracted to care. He’ll let them go like he always does, he’s too soft. We can’t feed these scum suckers anymore. Why should they take food from our mouths? Why are we feeding the rule-breaking losers? Their jobs aren’t anything special, they possess no special skills.” Reaver swallowed his mouthful of food. “It’s like every fucking person forgets how bad it can get in winter. We’re usually one disease breakout from half the block starving.”
Reaver put the glass down and walked into the bedroom. I watched as he started to change into his underclothes. “I’m mayor for now. Greyson needs a kick in the ass. The town’s gotten complacent, they’ve gotten comfortable and they’re not respecting authority. I’m the authority now.”
Reaver lay down beside me and rolled over until we were facing each other. “Greyson wants me to be a leader, I’ll be a leader – my way.”
The way he said it made me a bit uneasy, but before I could respond Reaver started kissing me and soon his hand was down my boxers. With a gasp my cross feelings with Reaver started to disappear and when, after a bit of foreplay, Reaver slipped inside me they were forgotten completely.
I moaned and pressed my forehead into the bed, gasping into the pillow. With the prospect of execution and death in my boyfriend’s mind, his thrusts were sharp and passionate. He barely gave me a moments rest as he pushed into me in an almost animal-like fashion.
When we were finished, I crawled into Reaver’s arms and stroked his stomach with a clammy hand.
“In the next couple of days I’m going to show you the theatre, would you like that?” Reaver said after we had been silent for a few minutes, each off in our own post-orgasm world.
I couldn’t hide the happiness, I smiled and wiggled around a bit in excitement. “Yes!”
Reaver smiled. He leaned down and kissed my hair. “Good, we can go before dark. I want to show you the roof. It has a great view of the sun haze.”
The sun haze, or the post-Fallocaust sunset; the sun disappearing behind the mountains would turn the sky around it a rosy pink on clearer days, and from the heat we had been experiencing chances are we would see it. It sounded so romantic! Reaver must’ve felt bad for yelling at me, or else he was just excited at the prospect of executing the condemned.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to question it. At least he had seemed to have forgotten me stumbling over his box full of baby things. Which was good…
… Because I was planning on looking for more things tomorrow while Reaver was at work. I had carefully gone through the rest of the box. Besides the pacifier, onesie, and ball, I had found blankets, baby shoes, a rattle with chew marks, a teething ring with a lot of chew marks, and a few stuffed animals.
They had to be Reaver’s things. Greyson and Leo would have mentioned if they had cared for another child at some point and besides, why would it say Chance on the box??
My best guess was that it had been a part of his parents’ supplies and they wanted to keep it since they had taken Reaver in. Maybe they wanted to hold onto it for sentimental value, or maybe to give to Reaver’s kids one day.
Now that I had found the box I was filled with a curiosity for what else I would find. I wanted to find out who his parents were, their names and last names. Why they came to Aras and why Greyson and Leo decided to take Reaver in and not just kill him or adopt him out to another family. One that didn’t treat him like a puppy for the first few years of his adoption.
This would be my only opportunity to find it and I just had to.
Reaver would be stocking up our new shop tomorrow, doing his mayor stuff, and then working. I would have the entire evening to investigate.
I couldn’t wait.
I decided to dress particularly nicely as I would be working and hanging out with Reaver at our new shop. I rummaged through my clean clothes and threw on a blue t-shirt and a pair of Perish’s cloth pants. I straightened them out and brushed my hair in the mirror.
Reaver was dressed in a grey t-shirt with an open black button-down and his usual black fatigues. As I fed and watered the cat, he was quickly shaving. He had to shave every other day at least, I on the other hand, could go for weeks and even then my facial hair only rivalled that of a thirteen-year-old. I wasn’t that manly.
“Why don’t you wear something a bit lighter? It’s hot,” I asked grabbing my satchel. “You always wear those cargo pants.”
“All the stuff I need is already in the pockets,” Reaver said, as if this was the obvious answer. “If I put on different pants the pockets would be different, and jeans only have two anyway. No room.”
“But you don’t need a grenade with you all the time,” I replied with a sigh. “Or a stick of C4.”
Reaver gave me an unimpressed look. “Stay out of my pockets.”
“I was going to wash them.”
“Washing them means you’ll have to empty my pockets, and you’ll lose shit if you–”
“Okay, okay, you win.” I threw up my hands in defeat. Reaver snickered. I started up the tank hatch, making a promise to myself I would wash those god damn pants.
When I opened the shed door though I was surprised. A chilly wave swept over me. I looked up and saw the sun was nowhere to be found, just dark hazy clouds blocking out what little sunshine the atmospheric plumes would allow.
I felt a small shiver of anxiety as I walked into Reaver’s backyard. I looked around but all was quiet. “Reaver? Better grab a couple sweatshirts.”
“Really? Shit…” Reaver’s voice was faint but audible from the underground basement. A few minutes later he shut the tank’s lid.
“Well, fuck,” my boyfriend murmured. He handed me a hoody though he didn’t have one for himself. Cold never seemed to affect him.
“If this doesn’t convince Hollis to execute those prisoners…” he said. “Winter is coming early. It’s what? What is it right now?”
“Almost September, we should have a few more weeks at the very least. Does this mean winter will be bad?”
“It could, more rain at least.” Reaver and I started walking towards Leo and Greyson’s house. “You’ve been here what? Two years?”
“Yeah, about that.” Wow, it seemed like I had been here forever. It had almost been a year since my parents died. It was incredible how much my life had changed.
“The last two winters have been rather mild, this will probably be your worst,” Reaver said. I felt a flicker of anxiety over that and I guess he sensed it. “But we’re rich as fuck so it will probably be your easiest winter.”
That made me smile. “And we’ll be even richer when we sell some of our loot. I have some money and tokens still at my house as well. If we ever need more money we can raid that too.”
Reaver nodded and brought out a quil. “We’ll be boarding your place up for winter, and we can finally go through your shit too. We can store it the main level of my place. The heat from my woodstove below it will keep the damp out. If we keep it here it’ll probably mould.”
Eef, I have been putting off going back there for a long time. “Good idea, I think I’m ready to move out of there for good.” I meant it too. Maybe I was feeling more like an adult since we had come back from Donnely. If I could do what I did there, and help me and my boyfriend get through our ordeal… I could tackle packing up my old house.
We spend the next couple of hours setting up our little store, using the merchants’ items still stored in the shed, and some other things Reaver had been keeping in there. When we were almost finished Redmond walked into the square.
His already creased face was troubled and firm. I could already tel
l he wasn’t going to be telling us anything good.
“Reaver, the Kerry family –” Redmond cleared his throat and glanced at me for a moment before his eyes flickered back to Reaver’s. “Walk with me.”
“He’s my Leo in this, might as well tell both of us.” Reaver took a drag of his quil. That made my heart flutter. Any sign he didn’t think I was as useless as I was when we first started dating made my day.
“Not for naught, but it’s rather the nature of it. Mr. Massey’s parents were…”
My mouth went dry, this was the worst thing that could happen. “It’s trideath isn’t it?” That was the mutation of kuru that killed my parents. It was extremely infectious; they hadn’t been the only ones to die. Greyson had said it was a miracle I hadn’t died too.
“It is,” Redmond’s voice lowered. “Reaver, you’re going to have to make some difficult decisions.”
Reaver looked around to make sure the square was empty. The overcast sky probably had every one looking around the block for firewood.
“The decisions won’t be difficult.” Reaver handed me the quil. “Mind the store, don’t be stupid with the prices. If anyone asks, you don’t know where I am, or Redmond, alright?”
I nodded. “Please, be careful.”
Reaver patted my shoulder. I knew I wouldn’t get a kiss in public, especially when he was trying to establish himself as a leader. “I’ve dealt with this before, I know what to do.” He nodded towards Redmond. “Let’s get to the sheds first.”
I reached into my satchel when Reaver was out of sight and pulled out the drugs. After I had some in my system I got one of the chairs we had pulled out of the shed and sat down behind our cart. We had used one of the merchants’ carts that Greyson and Leo had brought back from the overpass where the Legion had left them. It was a pretty fancy set up, we even leaned my sign against the top shelf. Not much to look at as far as the sign went. Like Reaver had asked it just said ‘shop’, though eventually I might paint a smiley face on it.
