by Quil Carter
The chimera’s bodyguards. Like King Silas had his bodyguards.
Reaver stepped onto the fountain and stood in the middle of the metal platform. Hollis and Redmond stood behind him, one on each side. All three of them were in the middle of the swing set frame, piles and piles of wood behind them stacked several feet high.
I was shocked as I heard the crowd hush. It was as if someone had turned the radio down, the low buzzing of noise died down to almost silence.
Reaver was a chimera… Reaver was one of them.
Reaver was one of them.
No, no no… you don’t know that. You don’t know that!
“He’s beautiful.”
I jumped and quickly turned around.
Asher was beside me. Fuck, he was sneaky and fast, considering his bad leg. He was leaning on a cane and staring out the window.
“That’s my boyfriend Reaver,” I whispered, trying to hide the despair in my voice. I turned back to the window. Asher leaned up against the wooden frame and shook his head in disbelief. I felt uneasy as I saw him drink in my boyfriend. He did nothing to hide the fact that he was interested in him. I could practically see the drool dripping from his mouth as he watched Reaver’s every move. Like a starving cat eyeing someone’s dinner.
I felt an uncharacteristic burn in my chest as I watched Asher. I realized as I saw those blazing shards of emerald that the feeling was jealousy. Not just jealousy, protectiveness. Brought on by a grim understanding of what Leo and Greyson had been doing with Reaver the entire time.
Protecting him from a fate that had been determined since before he had been born. They had been hiding him, but not for the reasons he had thought.
“Reaver.” I heard Asher’s silk-draped voice whisper, then he turned his head towards me, though his eyes were still on Reaver. “What is he doing?”
“Greyson left him in charge for a few days.”
Reaver stood with a smile on his face. He held out his hand and as he did Sadii ran up to him with a megaphone. There was a whine and a crackle, before his voice could be heard loud and clear through the entire square.
“My dear residents!” my chimera said. He swept his hand out in front of him. “This town meeting has been called to order.”
Reaver
I watched the faces of the people in the crowd below me, a mixture of all expressions but everyone was staying in place and being obedient. I took a step forward and held the megaphone to my mouth.
“Now, as everyone knows, I am in charge of Aras as of late and I have been dealing with troubling news.” I deliberately paused to add a little drama. “Plague… trideath.”
That was my hook and they snapped at it. The crowd exploded in a frenzy of panicked voices and nervous cries. Their heartbeats rose and joined together in a continuous beat that sounded like the wings of hundreds of insects. I felt my chest tingle and my body go light. It was difficult to hide the smile but I managed.
“You killed the Kerry’s though,” a man spoke up over the crowd. It was John Tulley, the winemaker. “It’s been contained.”
“Yes, John, I did execute the Kerry family. For your safety, I didn’t wait until they were crawling with maggots like others may. My faction and my people have decontaminated and cleaned the Kerry’s to what would surpass the best of our abilities.”
I could feel the tension die from the crowd as they sighed with relief. That would be short-lived.
“But we have another problem,” I spoke into the megaphone. “Three of our prisoners, Karl, Irvine and Cam decided to murder and consume Sophie White last night, who infected herself while robbing the Kerry residents with the same Karl and Irvine.”
I let this sink in, and enjoyed the energy of the people amplifying with each personal realization.
The infection wasn’t contained! Oh no!!
Their fear trickled through our surroundings with such a thick electricity I swore I could see it. Everyone was speaking, everyone was shouting, crying, holding their mouths in panic. Their fear was acting like its own infection. People I had seen calm just moments ago were talking to each other in rushed, desperate voices, a look of absolute dread on their faces.
Husbands consoled wives, children clung to parents. Their sea of white faces were stricken and pale, stretching back to the very edge of the square. They looked like grey and brown worms writhing in a wound, desperate for any consolation, any hope, any chance to rid themselves of such a bad feeling.
“You have my husband Harold,” the woman I had seen my first night in charge called. “I want him home before court. Greyson’s law says there is court for each crime. I demand a trial for him!”
I spoke into the megaphone again. “This woman is right. It is Greyson’s law to hold court for every crime, but there is a problem with that. We have three men infected and four men who had been housed with them. Because of overcrowding it is assumed they are infected as well. So there are decisions to make.” My eyes moved across the crowd. “Do we risk criminals infecting the rest of us? When there is a ninety percent chance they have trideath as well?”
I turned around and nodded at Redmond. Without another look he turned and walked from the platform towards where we had the trucks waiting. When Matt saw him leave he glanced up at me for my orders and I gave him a nod too. They both knew what to do.
“I will leave it up to you, fellow residents, because your opinions are important.” I laughed to myself, they were such idiots. But I was learning a lot from being mayor, and one of the most important things I had learned was that idiots liked the illusion of choice. “Do we wait until Greyson comes back to try men caught red-handed? Do we wait knowing they could spread the plague to everyone with a sneeze?” A gross over-estimation; trideath wasn’t that infectious but they didn’t care.
“Infect your sons, your daughters, our elderly, and our able-bodied working men and women? Eat your food, drink your water, all while coughing, dying, vomiting, and pissing their plague? Aras, are we not smarter than that? Have we not learned from past experience? Aras… my people… are we not more important than criminals?”
The rush I felt when they started to cheer was almost orgasmic. The tingling in my chest grew stronger and spread to my entire body. I felt light as air, almost intoxicated. I raised my hands and took in an euphoric breath as they cheered harder. I closed my eyes for a moment and just enjoyed it.
“I say we are more important, I say we are above these law-breakers. Why put us at risk, for what? Scum, lessers, people below us? People, our taxes are paying to incubate a deadly plague that could kill us all?”
With another eruption of cheers, I raised my hands to the grey, overcast sky, the megaphone still in hand, and listened to them cheer. I smiled. I had them, they were mine.
“Aras…” I spoke. I turned around and watched the truck back up to the fountain. In the back were the seven, tied up with rope as I had asked, and gagged. All of them shocked and petrified. “You are my court of law, my residents are my council. Tell me… do we exterminate?”
“Yes! Yes!” they all continued to shout. Arian hands shot up and pumped the air as Redmond and Hollis started tying the prisoners by their necks to the rusted swing seat. I could hear muffled screams and grunts as the condemned struggled. I turned back around to the crowd. Now the very last hook.
“It is decided then?” Burn the infected?” I said loudly into the megaphone. The cheering intensified. “Well, Aras? Burn the infected?”
They started saying it back to me, and in moments the words were being chanted. The residents continued to raise their hands. A roaring mob, demanding their justice. I watched the crowd as they chanted, looking up at me like I was their new god.
“Burn the infected! Burn the infected!”
A portion of them looked nervous, and a few were even shouting ‘no’, but their voices were easily drowned out by the masses. Harold’s woman was crying, but two people beside her were talking sharply to her and she was cowering. The others were a s
mall number and not enough to turn the tide.
The parasites were pleased; they were caught up in the fear and excitement that a mass gathering always caused. I could have said anything right now and they would go for it.
“Burn the infected!”
“Criminals burn!” I shouted and, sure enough, they started shouting that too.
Mickey and Matt appeared, wheeling trolleys in front of them. One contained a barrel full of sticks, the other, a barrel full of refuse and coal soaked in fuel. They placed them down in front of my thrown together stage. I felt their excitement rise as they saw what was about to happen.
Mickey looked nervous but Matt was loving it. The crowd’s eyes were on them. Mickey reached into his pocket and pulled out a match; he lit it and threw it into the barrel. The top immediately burst into flames.
“If you are for the extermination, send up the head of each family and grab a stick,” I said into the megaphone. “Light it on the flames and approach the stage. Everyone clear a way for them and let them pass.”
I could see movement in the sea of people as the men approached me. I turned to Hollis who had secured the last of the prisoners.
“Hollis,” I said away from the megaphone, “bring our bullcook to the stage. Once they’re dead I want three prepared for consumption. Take the other four to Gary.
Hollis gave me a nod. He had been cooperative during all of this though he had never voiced approval directly. His obedience was proof enough that he was all for what I was doing.
Redmond had been the same way; not once did he disagree with me or tell me this wasn’t a good idea. He wanted it as badly as Hollis and I did, they both just didn’t want to admit it out loud. Morals were so funny, but it would save their asses if Greyson disagreed with my methods.
The seven were strung up by their necks, their feet barely able to touch the ground. The chains were wrapped several times along the rusty swing set. Their eyes were uncovered but their mouths gagged. The black grease I had made Redmond smear on their faces had made them look like rats.
They stared at me and cried muffled pleas that would fall to no one’s ears but their own; though with the amplified noise around us I doubt they could even hear their own thoughts.
“Criminals burn! Burn the infected! Criminals burn!”
I gave all of them a smile and walked in front of them, the mob on one side of me and the condemned on the other.
I saw a flicker of fire and turned my head to observe over fifteen men watching me, waiting for orders. Each was holding a stick. The fuel soaked rags I had gotten Mickey to tie to them were burning a deep orange flame. There were no more sticks left. I laughed in my head as I saw Sadii’s husband Rudo holding a paint stirring stick that he had managed to keep alight. “What are we waiting for?” I said into the megaphone. I stepped away from the prisoners and waved a hand towards them. “BURN THEM!”
“BURN THEM! BURN THEM! BURN THEM!”
Killian
My mouth was dry, my hands trembling. What I was seeing happen below me was a thousand times more terrifying since realizing who my boyfriend was. I was watching him become someone Greyson and Leo had been trying to prevent. I was watching a creature hatch from the waster orphan I had always thought he was.
I swallowed, feeling my anxiety boil inside of me. I watched with dread as the residents all walked onto the stage with their burning sticks. At the beck and call of their new chimera mayor.
No… you aren’t even sure, it could be something else… there could be another explanation.
But I wasn’t stupid… it was painted all over his pale and perfectly handsome face.
My stolen chimera had his hand in the air, egging on the crowd and chanting with them, riling them up to the point where they were acting more like ravers than arians. Controlling them as I had seen the chimera brothers control Skyfall. From Elish to Garrett, Kessler to Artemis, they did what they were born to do and did it well. I didn’t know what Reaver had originally been born to do but from what I was seeing it probably involved controlling and killing people.
I had only seen maybe twenty of the residents leave and all of them were either women with small babies who were getting upset by the noise or the elderly. Everyone else was staying for the show, even young children. This would serve as a valuable lesson to them, though what the lesson was I wasn’t sure. Don’t challenge Reaver’s authority might be a good one.
Especially when he eventually did come into power.
I shuddered at the thought. He was no longer my wasteland orphan, he was my sociopathic chimera. My hands had been wrung and gripped so hard they were bruised, tender, and in some places bleeding.
Reaver was right… my god, he was right, he could never be leader. Did he know this is what would happen to him? No, there was no way of him knowing. Perhaps he knew that his hatred for the residents would eventually affect his leadership. That he would, in turn, abuse his power to see just what he could get them to do. Was that a part of his genetics? I wish I knew more about these genetically engineered disciples of Silas.
“BURN THE INFECTED!”
He had them… my god, Reaver had them. My quiet, introverted, people-hating boyfriend had manipulated the entire town to burn seven men alive for crimes ranging from stealing to breaking and entering.
In not even three days.
This was bad. We needed Greyson and Leo here, we needed someone who knew what Reaver was predisposed to.
But then again, they had all been caught red-handed and had been trouble-makers in the past. Was what he was doing really that ruthless or was he just getting done what needed to be done? He was right, Greyson wasn’t here to hold court and they were diseased. Reaver might be dark-hearted and cruel when he could be, but he was also rational. He just didn’t have the morals to stop him like most people did.
Maybe I was overthinking this. Not all chimeras were evil; Elish seemed cold but nice. He had treated that cicaro of his with respect when I had met him briefly at our house in Tamerlan, and Garrett the leader of Skytech was supposed to be a nice man too.
I was confused. I kneaded my hands together. I could hear Asher breathing beside me, quick and excited. I didn’t want to glance at him, I was afraid of the shock and bewilderment I would see in his eyes. What did he think of me now? I was dating this guy and all he was seeing was well… the carnage and chaos that was happening below us.
I looked back down and saw the wood smouldering and burning around the seven. Strips of painted house siding and ceiling beams all bundled around them, sticking out in all directions like stacks of quartz. The dry wood burned well and quickly.
The crowd chanted and my showman egged them on.
Behind him the prisoners started to struggle through plumes of grey smoke, thrashing their heads from side to side and contorting their dangling bodies in feeble attempts to get free. The men with the torches stood on stage and watched, some turning and saying things to each other before laughing.
Then one guy lit his stick again and held it to one of the prisoner’s heads, lighting his greasy hair on fire. Another joined in and held his stick to another’s clothing. The clothing smouldered and started to burn, now I could hear their screaming.
I wondered which one was Cam, the guy who had tried to rob me. Reaver had had their faces blackened with used cooking grease, and their clothing too. He was dehumanizing them, making them look more like the people we ate every day and less like the ones we ate with. Making it easier to justify their actions perhaps? I didn’t know. From the way the people chanted and shouted, they would have burned a well-groomed man in a suit and tie right now.
The crowd jeered, some even threw things at the condemned. They shouted at them, taunted them, and laughed as they died. Their own residents, their own people, and, in some cases, their own family. They didn’t care, no one cared, the prisoners had no voice. This was no longer Greyson’s democracy, this was Reaver’s dictatorship.
And the people were loving i
t.
The fire spread quickly, and the prisoners thrashed in panic as the flames started to lick their bodies. Some screams were high-pitched and desperate, others were baritone low moans. The many screams of dying men.
I couldn’t look away.
Their clothing burned to ashes, revealing blackened flesh that started to peel off in grey chunks. Soon it was too hot for the gathering men to stay on stage. They jumped down to stand in front of the crowd, leaving only Reaver in front of the burning men.
Smoke started rising from their bodies, not just their clothing burning but their hair and flesh. All of them were screaming now, and with each agonizing, pleading noise I felt my chest tense. I had heard those screams too many times now. The last desperate shrieks of people in the throes of an excruciating death.
My first time had been when the ravers had eaten one of the mercenaries, my last one had been Perish when he killed his creations. I would be no Angel of Mercy to these men as I was to my second chimera. They were solely in the clutches of the demon dressed in black.
One by one the screaming stopped, and after five minutes of watching them burn, they were dead. Dead from either smoke inhalation, or their organs being cooked inside of them.
With the flesh of the burnt corpses blackened, and the steam rising off the barbequed meat, Tom the bullcook came and slit their stomachs open. Organs and body contents spilled onto the burning coals below. The sound of sizzling joined the already noisy air and soon there rose the smell of hot meat and boiling innards.
A moment later Redmond dropped the chains and three of the prisoners fell onto the glowing red embers below them, shooting a plume of red sparks into the air.
Then Tom got out a jug and started dousing the bodies with something, a baste perhaps. Behind him another cook, his assistant I assumed, came with a tote full of peeled onions and brown potatoes. The residents started to cheer as he dumped the vegetables into the cavities and started sewing them up with a hook and tendon string, then stepped back as Matt started shovelling coals and more wood onto the bodies.
