Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series Book 1)

by Quil Carter

  The stars were bright and consuming in the sky when we both descended to the half-broken house below us; the milky way splashing stars in all directions, the big dipper gathering them up with each slow rotation of the earth. What a beautiful night, what a beautiful moon. Shining down on a world I knew would never be the same.

  “You’re so fucking gullible,” I heard him whisper.

  My gaze turned from the sky, and I walked through the living room to the half torn down wall. I stepped into the clearing, more silvery and brighter than I had ever seen it at night. A sweeping, flat oasis in the rubble, ominous and haunting like the last scene of a horror movie.

  Hello, Mom, Dad, Perish… hello, cats.

  “So… fucking… gullible.”

  My heart jumped into my throat as I saw him take a shaky step towards Perish’s tombstone. I could see his legs ebbing and wobbling, until they finally gave out from under him. He fell to his knees, and tried to get up.

  Asher made it to a stack of siding behind Perish’s half-open grave, and turned around to lean against it. I watched as his eyes fixed on the back of the tombstone, glassy and confused.

  He leaned down to pick up Perish’s skull from the plastic bag. He looked down at it, and I saw the faint whispers of his cocky smirk, now hidden in the dazed, hollow eyes, and the trickle of blood running unnoticed down his nose.

  I took a step towards him and watched him struggle to upright himself. The skull rolled off of his palm and landed on the dirt with a thunk, forgotten and cold, beside the body it had been stolen from.

  I picked up the skull with my hands, and glanced at it before my eyes met his. “What did you want to show me?”

  The scraping of the compacted dirt echoed around the enclosed graveyard. I watched with sober eyes as he struggled to balance himself. The drugs I had pushed inside of him were destroying more of his motor skills with every passing moment.

  The Skylander took a few steps forward towards me.

  He almost fell into my arms. I tensed my body and braced to hold him as he tried to remain standing.

  “A body reveals its most shocking of secrets, after the last breath is drawn,” he whispered, before I let him collapsed to his knees.

  I stepped away as he keeled over and threw up, though nothing came out. He struggled to raise his head and as he did I heard the raspy, desperate gasps of breath.

  “Very clever… cicaro. How did you do it?”

  I grabbed the bag that’d had Perish’s skull in it and flicked it open.

  “You’re not as smart as you think,” I whispered.

  In a flash I had the bag over his head. As his hands reached up to claw it away, I held them down and twisted the excess of the bag tighter and tighter, wrenching his head back to the point where I though his vertebrae would snap.

  His hands grabbed mine but he was too weak. I watched the bag retract against his face, so tight I could see the imprints of his nostrils, and the hollow opening of a soundless scream. It encased his face like a mask, his death mask, a totem he could carry with him to the afterlife.

  You might be the best at your game, Asher. You might be the god of all the games you decide to play, but I had something none of your players ever had. Awareness. And what is the one way you can stop playing a game?

  Turn off the fucking system.

  Asher Fallon contorted himself and tried to twist his mouth away from my hands, but I held him firm. Staring up at the beautiful midnight above me I steeled myself to retain my balance.

  I could feel his life slipping away, slower than Perish’s had been. Perish’s I had wanted quick, Asher on the other hand? The satisfaction of being able to feel his life slip from his body was more intoxicating than any drug or any amount of sex. I could feel it in my hands, my mouth, my body. I could feel it in my soul. In every way I could, I was watching him die.

  I felt the last desperate jolt, the last wheezing gasp for breath. By now the bag was partially down his throat. He had died inhaling the smell of Perish’s rotting skull. How fitting.

  I dropped his corpse beside Perish’s half-open grave, and stared at it. My mind was numb and my body was at a point of exhaustion I had never experienced before.

  My conscience screamed at me: What have you done!? But my brain had never felt so satisfied. I took the bag away from his face and saw his lifeless, bloodshot eyes staring off into nothing, his mouth open wide in a death scream.

  I picked up my shovel, and drove it into the ground.

  Chapter 45

  Killian

  There was dirt-caked in my fingernails and in my hands. Not grey ash, but putrid, wet soil, from where I had left him.

  I buried him on top of Perish. I had buried him deep.

  The stench of the soil made the air thick and stifling. Its brown colouring darkened the lines of my palms and any wrinkle that creased my once white skin.

  Brown… a bit of red. From where I had brushed my hand over my backside. The blood soaked through my cloth pants and up my stomach and side. Caked all throughout me, in my pubic hair, in my belly button, in every crevice it seeped and dried.

  My jacket… I had taken it off when the heat of my expended energy brought my body to boiling. Or maybe it was my body’s desperate attempt to warm me as it slowly shut itself down.

  I was dressed in practically nothing now, just my cloth pants and my boots.

  The cold air stung my skin and the marks on my body, I could feel the dried blood crack and shift with my movements.

  But I was walking…

  I looked down and saw my dirt-caked boots, scraping along the dark grey pavement. It was light out now. Yes, I was still walking, at least I was still walking.

  No… I saw my boots drag themselves against the ground, scraping, grinding, struggling. I reduced my speed to smaller steps. I think I might lie down soon, I was cold.

  Where was I going? I had no answer for myself. I looked around but every street looked the same. Corpses of cars, beaten to a rusted brown or a dull grey from the dying planet. Abandoned houses, no chance to be overgrown from the withering trees and the tuffs of dry grass. Nature was dead; she no longer grew to reclaim a planet that had once been all hers. Now we sat on a dusted mass waiting for time to take the rest of us.

  What a horrible existence.

  Another step. I felt a sharp pain that I tried to ignore. The blood was starting to dry and every step unstuck it from my backside, breaking through the blood that had caked in it. Or maybe the tears inside of me were opening back up. I didn’t know.

  I had committed murder, but had I been raped? I wasn’t good enough to receive his dick, I had been fucked mercilessly with his dildo. I was a whore but not a good enough whore. Did it still count though? What silly things to think of.

  “Killian!”

  That was my name, who was saying it? My mind was only watching a collapsed corner store. Half of it had caved in, it looked like it had two faces, one normal, the other a ruined mask of splintered wood, concrete, and shingles. The door had been ripped off, the window a bare shell. The house was a face. It looked like it was screaming.

  Screaming at me.

  “KILLIAN?”

  Breathing, breathing, breathing… footsteps, footsteps, footsteps.

  My eyes turned away from the screaming house, just in time for Reaver to pull him into his arms.

  He was swearing, hysterical, I’d never heard this tone from him. He made a noise… like he was choking. He smelled of vomit, the basement, and stale sweat.

  “What happened? Killian?” He pulled me away and took my jaw into his hands.

  Just like Asher had. Asher… fuck. Asher, Asher.

  Asher, Asher, Asher.

  “Asher,” I sobbed. I felt my knees go weak. He steadied me and made me look at him. Oh god, Asher had made me look at him, the entire time. Oh my god, last night… oh fuck, oh my god, what had I done? What had I let happen. What if he finds out, I can’t have him hate me. I can’t have him not believe me. W
hat if he thinks I’m lying?

  “Where is he? Is he hurt too? Who hurt you?” Reaver demanded.

  His eyes… black pits. He looked like a demon right now.

  “Asher did.”

  The silence was cold, like his hands on my body. I felt his fingers dig into my frozen goose bumped flesh. I stared at the corner store and watched it disappear from my vision as I felt my head fall backwards. My mind saw colours as my legs became jello.

  “RENO!” Reaver suddenly screamed. I felt myself being picked up. I cried out in pain as he started running with me. He held me tight against him, so tight I couldn’t breathe.

  Reaver screamed his name again, each time he sounded more shrill and desperate. His voice was breaking, like mine did when I screamed.

  “Reaver?” I heard Reno, he was out of breath. I could hear him gasping. “Reaver, what happened?”

  “Asher!” His voice was a strangled cry, the name half screamed, half snarled. I felt terrified, I started trembling from fear. I had never heard Reaver sound so unhinged, so angry. “ASHER!”

  “Reaver… Reaver, calm down.” Reno tried to take me but Reaver only held me closer. Finally he gave me up to him. “What did Asher do to him?”

  Then Reaver’s black eyes fell to his hands, now exposed as he handed off my weakened body to Reno. They were streaked with red, wet red blood.

  “Oh fuck… no,” Reno moaned, “anything but that.”

  Reaver’s eyes found Reno’s and then mine. I saw them blaze like a black sun. A cold fire, those obsidian flames. “Killian…” His voice had changed again, it dropped. It was a deep, hollow rasp. He had screamed the last of his emotions out, and now the shadows and the darkness were all that remained.

  “Where is he?”

  Where is he?

  Where is he?

  Not in the graveyard, not in the graveyard.

  Not in the graveyard.

  Notinthegraveyardnotinthegraveyard.

  “Gone.”

  Gone.

  Reaver’s face darkened; he turned and started walking towards our house. He was walking away from me, he was leaving me? He couldn’t leave me now!

  “Reaver!” I cried, my voice hysterical, but he didn’t stop. He kept walking.

  “Reaver!”

  Then Reno called after him. “Reaver!” he yelled. “You need to be with Killian right now, not me. I can’t replace you.”

  Reaver kept walking, fresh tears overwhelmed my face; I buried into Reno’s chest.

  “Reaver, after everything you put him through, this is the least that you owe him.”

  My boyfriend stopped, he turned around. The anguish was back on his face. He walked towards Reno and took me back in his arms. “Get Doc to my basement… get Greyson… organize a hunting party but make them mercs. I don’t want any residents to know. Tell the sentries to watch for him but nothing else.”

  I think Reno must have nodded because a moment later Reaver was running with me again.

  I looked up and saw his eyes heavy. I wondered if he was going to cry, I wondered if he was capable of it.

  He held me in front of him as we both slid down the tunnel together. I tried to brace my feet when they hit the floor but they gave out. Reaver steadied me though.

  He turned on the generator and lay me down on our bed.

  Reaver brushed my bangs back. For a second I thought he was going to lie with me. But the moment I tried to look at him, he reflected his eyes.

  I watched his back heave, his knuckles became white as his fists clenched. Then with an agonizing yell he slammed his fists up against the basement walls. He raised them and hammered them again and again, until the cement was streaked in red smears and splatters.

  He whirled around then and swept everything off of his dresser, before over-turning the whole thing with one angry push. He gave out another terrifying scream. I began to feel afraid.

  I started to cry as he lost control. I curled up as small as I could and sobbed.

  “I’m sorry,” I heard Reaver say in the same strangled choke. “I’m so sorry.”

  As I cried I felt his touch on my cheek. I drew back from the suddenness of it and I felt him retract his hand like he had just touched something electric.

  I closed my eyes and tried to make myself disappear.

  Asher was gone, never coming back. He had gone back to Skyfall… back to Skyfall. That’s how it would be, that is how it will stay and we can all live happily ever after. I just had to get through everything I was feeling.

  He didn’t rape me, he sodomized me but he didn’t rape me… that made it a bit better, didn’t it? My fragmented mind went back to the bedroom. His mouth going up and down on my hard cock, his eyes fixated on me. I stared back down at him. I came in his mouth. I lapped my semen from his palm like an animal. He had degraded me, humiliated me by drugging my own body against me, he made me his pet, his whore. He had brought me to my knees, made me submit.

  He even showed how unworthy I was of him by not fucking me.

  “I promise –” Reaver sniffed, his breath kept breaking up, his chest kept shuddering. “– I will devote my life to making this up to you. Killi, I’m… I’m yours to command forever. If you want me to leave Aras I will, if you want me to kill myself I will. Anything that will make you feel better. I’ll do anything.”

  “Hold me,” I whispered to him.

  With strong arms that could protect me from everything but myself and him, he pulled me close. I rested my head against his chest and he rocked me slowly. I closed my eyes and melted into him, trying to will us to be anywhere but here, any time period but here.

  I don’t know how long it was, but eventually we both heard the creak of the tank hatch. Reaver squeezed me tight and left me on the bed. Cold and alone.

  I heard murmuring, and Doc’s voice. He only spoke in low solemn tones now, his usual cheery voice gone. They spoke together far out of earshot.

  “Killian?” Doc’s voice said softly.

  I opened my eyes. I was laying on my side, blankets all around me.

  I heard the door close. I didn’t know if Reaver was in the room with us.

  “Killian… I understand this is the last thing you want, but I need to examine you. Reaver and Reno both told me you’re bleeding heavily.”

  I sniffed. I let out a sob but nodded.

  I felt the covers pull away, and I moved myself onto my back.

  Reaver was there, he stroked my cheek and my hair as Doc prodded me. I bit my lip and winced as he found the tears inside of me.

  When he was done, I heard the gloves snapping. “He won’t need surgery, but unfortunately he needs to starve himself for a few days or else bacteria in his waste might cause an infection. It looks like he used protection at least. We don’t need to worry about diseases.”

  I had to tell him. I didn’t know how so I just said it. “He did it with a dildo, not himself,” I said feeling my throat tighten. “He made me do other things mostly.”

  Doc’s brow furrowed but I felt Reaver’s hands tense against the side of my head. “Do you have any other injuries?” Doc asked.

  “He hit my head a lot,” I said quietly, “and my jaw.”

  “I can feel bumps on his head,” Reaver said. I felt a gentle trace on my skull. “A few small cuts… I can take care of those.”

  Doc picked up his bloodied glove and got up. “Nothing but liquids for three days and… I know you won’t but…”

  “You don’t even have to say it,” Reaver said uncomfortably. I was confused for a second, then I realized what they both were talking about.

  “Two weeks at least, and gentle after until you know he’s physically okay, I won’t even make an attempt at the mental okay.”

  I saw the back of Reaver’s head as he walked Doc to the door. It closed almost fully and I could hear them murmuring again.

  When Reaver came back he laid down beside me and held me again.

  I turned around and let him hold me against his che
st. I closed my eyes. I was so tired. I hadn’t slept all night, but my mind was still racing. Still a sordid movie of all the confusing events that happened last night. How could a memory be so fresh and raw in my mind but seem like it happened years ago? Not just years ago, but to someone else on a distant planet.

  I killed him…

  A relieved breath escaped my lips before I could silence it. Reaver’s arms tensed around me.

  “Say something,” he whispered, only a few inches from my ear. “You’re quiet, too quiet. Let me know you’re still in there.”

  I wanted to say something to him, to let him know I would be okay, but only one thought was in my mind. “Are you okay?”

  I heard the strangled choking noise again, and a squeeze so hard I felt my ribs creak under the pressure. “Why would you ask that?”

  “He’s been drugging you.”

  There was a sniff, and I was surprised to feel him nod. “I kind of suspected that this morning.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Of that night? Nothing. I woke up covered in blood, piss, and puke.”

  Nothing prepared me for the relief I felt. He didn’t remember anything, he didn’t remember chasing me, yelling at me, or any of the horrible things he had wanted to do to me. He would feel enough guilt over what had happened to me last night. Knowing what Asher had been trying to make him do would ruin him. It would destroy what happiness he allowed himself to have.

  I knew a perfect and quiet lie, one that would hopefully prevent any questions from ever being asked. “I saw him through the window, he was touching you. I confronted him and… and he took me to his bedroom.”

  “I just… laid there and listened?”

  My mind raced for an excuse. “He told you to go home and you did.”

  I had to get back to his house… I had to find those voice recorders. I had to destroy them, tape over them, do something. They were in his room somewhere.

  His cache box would be in there too… I could see what was inside of it. Maybe I could find out what that screen was, what those devices were and the papers. I could find out who he was.