by Quil Carter
I unclenched my fists, forcing my body to reject any physical signs I was troubled. My heart might betray me readily in my own thoughts, but I wouldn’t allow my body to follow suit.
I blew a cold breath and shook out the tense feeling in my limbs. What was the use? It was what it was, and I wouldn’t waste my pride feeling emotional about it. No use being sad, there wasn’t anything I could do or was willing to do. I was who I was and Greyson had known me since I was two. If he expected me to be someone I was not, that was his own problem. And if he expected me to be the mayor I was not, he was twice the fool.
I dropped my shoulders and crossed the backyard to my shed. The promise of drugs, of Killian’s fragrant soapy smell, and my basement was enough to relax me.
I saw the rosy dawn break over the town’s wall when I ducked into my shed. With a rattling of keys I opened the last of my many locked barriers and slid inside my warm, comfortable basement.
The couch was empty. I had wished Killian would sleep the entire night, but he was prone to his night terrors. I felt a fleeting sense of guilt if that was the case, but reminded myself that I’d had the radio on me all night. If he had needed me, I was only minutes away.
I popped a few pills to help me sleep, and made my way to the bedroom after a quick change of clothes.
My slight and slender boy was bundled up in the blankets. He was tucked up into a ball, small and unassuming but, of course, right in the middle of the bed.
I carefully lay down beside him, not wanting to wake him up
I don’t know if it was because I was tired or maybe the drugs were hitting me, but I drew him close to me and spooned him; his soft body warm against my own. I took in his scent and revelled in my pride of not recoiling from the feel of human touch. I was getting better, I would give myself that victory.
I kissed his blond hair and closed my eyes, and with my night with Asher still replaying in my mind, I fell asleep.
I managed to get a good four hours of sleep before I woke up to the smell of frying meat. After some food, some drugs, and a few hours of hanging out in the basement, we made our way towards where Killian had planted our stash of seeds.
It was cold this morning, the coldest day we’d had yet. Killian had his hoody on and had insisted he bring one for me, just in case. It would be a couple more weeks until I needed it but I appreciated the gesture.
I could smell winter coming upon us. The cold air was dry inside of my nose and biting. The rains would soon follow, though by that time we should have completed everything I was planning.
Killian had originally wanted to build a greenhouse, but the thought of building something and cold-proofing it when we had a billion abandoned houses didn’t make sense to me. Not to mention I wasn’t an excellent carpenter. I hated having to measure things and Greyson never trusted me around power tools. Salvaging and repairing was more my thing.
“You’re right, it would be easier to just make raised beds and put them inside a house that’s already insulated,” Killian agreed when I told him my plan. We were walking down the street towards where we had left the fruit seeds. He had planted them in the city’s park, which faced a row of townhouses, one of which I was planning on using as our new greenhouse.
The park, which had once been vibrant and full of life, decorated with trees of all types and crystal clear ponds, was now nothing but a bleak, desolate desert.
Broken, soulless houses surrounded the small piece of grey barren ground. Black trees of unknown origin grew stunted and weak in the ashy soil, surrounded by twisted bushes and patches of yellow grass. In the middle, the skeletal remains of a kid’s park long rusted and useless, and off towards the far end, an irradiated lake that held neither life nor drinkable water.
It was a nameless park now, no matter how beautiful it may have been at one time, today it was just a piece of the greywastes that managed to make it through the gates.
I studied each building as we made our way past the row of townhouses. Most of them had collapsed roofs but there were a few I thought might do the job, all two-storey carbon copies of each other. Their windows were broken, some boarded up, their doors kicked in or taken altogether. At one time these houses were new, expensive and only for the wealthy, facing the green, luscious park, with single-lane traffic and a school nearby. Great place to raise a family, great place for the husband who worked in the offices in the east.
Now their eyes were blinded by boards and their mouths silenced by two-by-fours and nails. Those were the lucky ones, the ones left bare and screaming were now collapsed or at least partially, their doors open in mournful howls and their broken windows staring off into the abyss, seeing horrors our eyes couldn’t.
I picked out a better-looking house and ran up a half flight of stone steps and peeked into a window. The ceiling was caved in and the house was stripped to the beams. I wanted insulation if possible. I turned and jumped onto the ground and checked the next house.
I heard a creak as Killian looked inside a metal mailbox; he looked up as he saw me check out the houses. “This would be a great place to live, with a view of the park.”
“You can, I don’t like windows for people to shoot me through,” I said. I climbed up onto the window frame and grabbed onto the brick ledge with my fingers. I hoisted myself up to the second level and looked into the upper window. It was dry, but half the floor was missing, the whole second floor had partially collapsed into a heap of pink insulation, crumbling drywall, and wires. It was a radrat’s paradise but that was about it.
I grabbed back onto the ledge and made my way back down.
“Looks like we’ll have to radrat proof; those cats need to do a better job at maintenance. Would radrats eat plants? Do they even eat green stuff?”
I saw Killian nod. “But we can use their carcasses for fertilizer. Perish showed me how he waters them, and what lights to use… he also used chalky stuff in the soil to give it nutrients.”
I felt an annoyed prick go through me. “Perish was really smart, huh?”
Killian nodded again, not noticing my tone. “He was. I wish I could read that computer and get some better information. I’m horrible at this. Planting the seeds so near winter outdoors? I’m a retard.”
I had a few mean retorts to that comment, but I restrained myself. “Kinda, but we all are. Like we know how to fucking grow fruit; the soil is ground bones and the sun is cloaked in dust. Nothing grows here. I watered my plants every day during the summer and you’ve seen the pathetic shit I get out of the ground.”
“I guess,” Killian said. He walked up the steps of the next townhouse and peeked inside.
About a block away I finally found a house I liked. I pried the boards off of the white door and we both went in to scout it out. It had been gutted many years ago but the ceilings and the roof were intact, and I couldn’t spot anything bad but black mould and spiders.
We spent the next several hours putting up boards in the biggest bedroom, and sealing up the inside so the cold couldn’t get in. Then when it was to my liking, we started yanking boards from the surrounding houses to prepare for the raised beds.
When the inside had been sealed, and we had a good stack of wood to start building the beds, we decided we had both worked enough. I appeased Killian’s need to be clean and went with him to wash our faces and arms in the clouded lake adjacent to us. The water was freezing cold and it made our Geigerchips buzz, but it did the job.
On our way home I was surprised to encounter the raticater of the wastes, my new resident Asher. From the looks of it, the deacdog had found him and was bothering him. As soon as the dog saw me he bounded over with his tongue hanging out.
“Hi, Asher!” Killian said cheerfully. “I see you’ve already made a friend.”
Asher gave us both a half-smile. He was still limping around on his cane.
“He found me as soon as I crossed your boundaries,” Asher said. I could see blood soaking through his pant leg, I assumed Killian would be hove
ring over it soon. “I did a small patrol for you, Reaver. Though I didn’t see anything to be suspicious over.”
Killian gave me a confused look.
“I found him hanging out on a stack of cars while I was out walking last night,” I explained. “He walked with me almost the whole night.”
I was interested to see Killian bristle a bit, his pulse rising. I wondered if he was jealous, or just annoyed I hadn’t told him. Either one brought amusing possibilities. I had killed for him, risked my life for him, and I was having sex with him; if he was going to get insecure about me walking around with another guy that was his own problem. I knew Asher was of no risk, and Killian needed to trust me.
“We’re done with our project,” I said, and gave Asher a glance. His eyes, once cold and pale in the previous night’s darkness were back to their emerald green. “Why don’t we go look at this new house of yours.”
Asher nodded. “I was in there a few hours ago. Cleaned up a few things and got a good bearing of it. Two bedrooms, one bathroom. Though the bathroom looks unusable, but nothing a hole in the ground couldn’t fix.”
Interesting. Killian was trying his hardest to remain calm, but I could feel his anxiety. He didn’t like Asher, that was getting more obvious with every word the raticater said.
That kid had horrible judgement. His trust of Perish was proof enough of that.
Asher limped along on his cane and I kept pace with him even though he was slow. We turned into his street and I looked up at the faded green street sign that hung over a spray-painted stop sign.
“Think of a name for your street. Might as well since they’re mine now,” I said. I tried to read the lettering on the sign but it was too faded and worn, I thought I saw a P somewhere in it though.
“So far I’ve seen Quil Street and Stone Street on the signs, in newer paint. What did you name yours Killian?” Asher said.
Killian was checking all the mailboxes. I don’t know why he did that, though I had noticed him doing it a few times when I used to follow him. It wasn’t as if there was buried treasure in them or anything.
Killian looked up and closed the door, the rusted hinges squealing from decades of being undisturbed. “We never named our street.”
“Really? You name everything.” I turned to Asher. I decided to try and lighten the mood Killian had encased himself in, help him get an air of who Asher was, perhaps when he saw he was just a quiet kid who stuck to himself, Killian might give him a chance. “He named every single cat around his house, and even put their names on their grave markers when they died. What were their names? Like Binky and Bosco or something?”
“Moggy and Beanie.” His voice was soft but taut.
Asher gave Killian a warm smile, but my boy’s face didn’t change, nor did his anxiety waiver. We crossed Asher’s new yard and walked up the rotting wooden stairs of the balcony. “That was nice of you to bury them. I’ve never been to a block that had a cemetery in use.”
Killian checked his mailbox. He didn’t answer so I answered for him.
“We don’t have one, Killian has his own small one out west from here, Dr. Frankenfuck is buried there.”
“Perish? Really?” Asher’s green eyes widened a bit. “I thought you would have feasted on his flesh after what traumas he enforced on you.”
“He didn’t do anything to me,” Killian said defensively. He stepped back as I tried the door handle. It was loose but it still worked well enough to have let Asher in earlier. I gave it a rough push, and there was a whine of more rusted hinges as it swung open. The smell of dry mould and decaying wood filled my nostrils.
“You sound like a rather willing prisoner.” Asher’s voice had more of a level of curiosity to it than accusation, but I knew Killian would miss it. I stepped inside, coughing from the dust, hoping that Killian wouldn’t flip out on him.
“I wasn’t, I just don’t want him condemned for things he didn’t do. He’s being condemned enough for the things he did do.”
Killian’s voice wasn’t in danger mode, so I filtered them out and walked into the dusty, old home, leaving those two to get to know each other. For better or for worse.
The raticater had done a fair job cleaning, considering he was a cripple right now. The old radrat-chewed furniture in the living room was stacked into a pile, and the floor had been swept.
The wallpaper was stripping off the walls, and the paint on the ceiling was broken and curling. I could see speckles of mould in the corners but the ceiling was still intact. It had been patched sometime in the last hundred years by wood from other houses and slabs of sheet metal.
I slammed my foot against the floor, and it held my weight on it. I carefully walked along the living room testing each board until I was happy. This place didn’t have a basement so if Asher did fall through at least it wouldn’t be far.
The bedrooms each had chunks of drywall missing, exposing the beams, insulation, and wires, but the windows were still intact underneath their boards and the frames solid.
“Good house you have here.” I stepped into the kitchen and heard the two of them in conversation. Killian had his arms crossed in an almost defensive way. Asher was oblivious, he was opening and closing cabinets and drawers, puffs of decaying wood following him with each slam.
“Hey, Perish made those little mutants fight each other, didn’t he?” Asher asked without turning around. He opened the fridge but shut it immediately with a shudder.
“Yeah, I watched them on the cameras,” I replied. I gravitated to the counter tops. They were strewn with junk and garbage but I could see a few small appliances in the mess. My specialty.
I picked up a toaster and wiped the dust off with my sleeve.
Killian walked over and handed me a rag; he looked kind of disturbed. “You never told me that.”
I started picking through the other appliances, deep down hoping for a waffle maker in better condition than the one I had in my shed. “What was the point? It’s over with now.”
“I guess,” Killian said, though his face still held that distant look.
“How would you even know? Did he have an audience?” I asked.
I had been joking, but I watched as Asher’s pale face tightened, he gave a slight nod. He started throwing some of the unsalvageable trash into a corner of the kitchen by a rust-streaked stove, perhaps trying to hide his reaction with noise and dust. “The two-way mirror, he would flick it on and make us watch,” he explained. “Literally made us. He loved people watching him. We would line up in front of the mirror as he beat them, made them fight, executed them. He loved the reactions and being the center of attention.”
Killian left the room. Asher watched him go with a shrug and continued with his voice dropped. “Not only that, he would save the heads of the wasters he killed and stick them on spikes with their eyes held open by toothpicks. They were above us, looking down on him. Eventually he had to stop. We made a long pole with the femur and arm bones of a man we killed; we used it to knock the heads down for us to eat.” Asher’s mouth was tight, he looked a bit green.
“How did it taste?” I asked.
Asher didn’t flinch. His eyes found mine and for a moment I expected him to burst into tears like Killian, or tell me to fuck off like Reno would. Instead he bore his coloured eyes into my own and said in the quietest of whispers:
“Like shit.”
I burst out laughing at the same time he did. I realized in that moment we were both depraved lunatics. I was starting to like this one. “The brain too?”
His eyes seemed to flash as he gave me a nod. “Did you eat Perish’s head? Greyson said Killian cut off his head for you to eat.”
“Nah.” I picked up a hammer from Killian’s satchel and started to pry a board off of the kitchen window. “Greyson and Leo took his body and I’m assuming dissected it. We got him back as a rotting, greasy pile of maggots.”
“Too bad.” Asher took the opposite end of the board and helped me pull it off. We both
squinted as the sunlight shone through and lit up the kitchen. “At least he died in confusion and agony under his lover’s knife. I wonder if their eyes locked.”
“They did,” I said, throwing the board into our growing pile of shit.
I heard a slam and saw Killian walk off the deck and head towards the street. I examined the window frames for a second before pushing the window open.
“Where are you off to?” I called while waving away the swirls of disturbed dust.
Killian’s eyes were on the verge of welling, he pulled his hoody closer. “The dust is bothering me. I’m going to go the Slaught House and get dinner. Take your time, hun.”
Hm, I smelled bullshit, but if he was upset about our talk about Perish I knew I was in for a fight. It was starting to bother me more and more that he was defending the piece of shit that had imprisoned us. My sympathies for Killian’s reasonings for Perish’s mental issues were wearing thin. I knew I wouldn’t have the patience to deal with him at this moment, and if we fought I would say things that he would never forget or forgive me for. I would rather busy myself with clearing out the house and getting a better feel for my new resident.
“Alright,” I said.
Killian’s face fell when I said that. I knew he had wanted me to follow him. He wanted me to ask him what was wrong, and make it all alright, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t fight about Perish again. I wouldn’t be able to hold my tongue.
“I’ll be home in a bit.” I turned away from the window.
Asher was bagging expired food that had sat undisturbed in the cupboards. “Did our conversation make him mad?”
“It’s complicated, way too complicated to explain.” And the fact was I wasn’t going to explain anything to some guy I just met a couple days ago. “Killian has too much love, and it bleeds onto pathetic things in need of nurturing. No matter how fucked up they are he still fucking feels bad for them.”
Asher snorted, then I realized that I had just unknowingly insulted myself. He certainly did have a sense of humour.
“Very funny, you crippled fuck.”
