Garden of Spiders Volume 1: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3

by Quil Carter

  I looked at Cristo, just as the elevator gave a slight lurch and started travelling down to his and Dylan’s shared apartment. His blue eyes were cradling distress and his lips were pursed together.

  “Silas is drunk,” he told me with slow words, words that seemed to not want to leave his mouth. “He received some bad news today and came home in an angry state.”

  “To put it lightly,” Dylan mumbled. He placed a hand on Nero’s short black hair and rubbed it. I realized then that my brother had a red patch on his cheek. It appears that Silas had struck him, and when I observed Garrett touching the back of his head and wincing, I assumed he hadn’t been spared of Silas’s anger either.

  But whereas these four fled from Silas’s bad moods, I didn’t feel the need to flee. If Silas was this upset, it meant he was in an incredibly compromised state. He didn’t need us running from him, Silas needed our love and support.

  No, he needed my love and support.

  And then that cold voice in the back of my head chimed in, and I also realized I’d be able to use this situation to advance my own progress. If I found out what was making Silas this upset, I’d be able to avoid it in the future. Just like my decision three years ago to eliminate all attachments, so I wouldn’t lash out like Silas did about Sky’s clone not being effective.

  Wait…

  “Wasn’t Silas set to visit the laboratory in the greywastes?” I asked. Two years ago Silas began building another laboratory in the greywastes in an old city called Gosselin, and it had been up and running for about six months now. This was a brand-new lab built to the specifications of Perish and Perish’s partner, another scientist named Peter. Perish was the best scientist in the world and it was because of him that we chimeras had been created.

  Perish went on long expeditions in the plaguelands, a name for the rest of the world that had radiation levels too lethal to support human life. Many years ago, Perish and a bunch of mechanics managed to repair a small jet plane, one that had been a private jet for a rich person before the Fallocaust. With that jet, he’d travelled all around the world to collect scientific research and had been as far as a place called Germany. It was because of him that we’d been able to grow extinct fruits and vegetables and clone animals that weren’t in the pre-Fallocaust zoo in what would become Skyfall.

  When I was little, I didn’t like Perish because he was always prickly and mean, and he fought with Silas a lot. Now that I was older however, I liked him because he was really smart and he brought us things that didn’t exist in this world anymore. Whenever I spent time with Perish, I learned so much from him, and I enjoyed that.

  Cristo nodded his head to my question. “Yes, Silas was visiting the lab,” Cristo replied. “And it wasn’t good news…”

  Garrett wrapped his arms around Dylan’s waist. “Silas gets scary when he gets bad science news,” he said meekly. “He always finds reasons for us to get into trouble. Last time he spanked me with his belt.”

  “Yeah… I know, Gare. That’s why we decided on a sleep-over tonight,” Dylan said. He rubbed Garrett’s head, a troubled expression on his face. “He just needs some time alone and he’ll be fine.”

  My younger brother’s eyes shone from unshed tears. Garrett was always the first one to cry, even before Ellis. He was sensitive and hated confrontation and conflict. It was always him trying to make peace with the family when someone was mad at someone else. Garrett was a good brother but he was also a tag-along and he’d pester me when I wanted my alone time. Nero also picked on him a lot because he was an easy target and Nero liked making him cry because that made him feel powerful. For a while, Silas expressed concern that Garrett was going to grow up to be a coward and a prissy, but he’d been standing up for himself a bit more since making friends with Mantis. Uzeyer was Garrett’s protector.

  But Uzi wasn’t here right now, so Garrett clung to Dylan and let the tears roll freely down his face.

  Then, to my surprise, Nero gave Garrett a supportive smile. “Cristo and Dylan have Pokémon Monopoly!” he said to Garrett. “I bet we can play later. You can be the banker, you’re good at the math stuff.”

  Garrett smiled through his tears, just as the elevator was stopping. “Yeah… can we?” When Cristo and Dylan said he could, Garrett’s face brightened and the tears went away. Usually Nero was a complete bully to him. This made me concerned about Silas, because if Nero was being nice to Garrett… it meant that Silas must’ve been really upset up there. I didn’t want to leave him all alone when he was that sad. Silas wouldn’t have left me alone…

  We all walked into Cristo and Dylan’s apartment. It was on the fifteenth floor and it wasn’t as elegant as our apartment on the top floor, but it was still nice-looking. They didn’t have as many books as I would’ve liked and the TV was small, they also didn’t have a laptop or a water dispenser in their fridge, but it wasn’t that bad. Like our apartment and all the other ones in Alegria, it had windows from floor to ceiling and was really bright, the walls were painted light brown and they had paintings and pictures hung up, and the floor was laminate with comfy area rugs everywhere so our feet wouldn’t be cold. They also had a bunch of plants and three cats too.

  Nero and Garrett took off their shoes and ran in, I stayed behind with Cristo and Dylan, unsure if I wanted to be here.

  Cristo must’ve seen the look on my face. He knew me, Cristo was my best friend and I loved him. Even though I was determined not to have any attachments, Cristo didn’t count since I also believed we needed to have friends and people we could trust. I trusted Cristo with all of my heart and if I was going to get married one day, which I wasn’t, I would marry him.

  Dylan followed Garrett and Nero who started pulling out Pokémon Monopoly. Cristo gave me a smile and winked. “Want to play Monopoly with them? I think it would mean a lot to Garrett if you did, you know how shaken up he gets when Silas is in one of his moods.”

  I would rather read or practice my piano, but I knew it would make Garrett happy and I wanted to be a good older brother.

  Hopefully, it would get my mind off of King Silas too. I was worried about him and I didn’t like him being alone upstairs all by himself. What I’d learned at five years old had been reiterated again and again over the past three years, Silas wanted to clone Sky and he kept failing. This was one of the only things that got Silas really upset, that and when Perish told him my siblings and I were going to die one day. I think Silas had trouble accepting that people die and that made me sad. The only other person who couldn’t die was Perish and Perish could be really mean to Silas; he was the only person who treated Silas that way.

  We all sat around with the Monopoly game and I decided to be charmander. Like Nero had promised him, Garrett got to be banker and he got to be pikachu too since that was his favourite.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but I was having fun playing with everyone. I was able to get boardwalk during my second trip around the board, and later in the game, I traded two of my red properties for Nero’s park place, even though Garrett was begging him not to do it because he knew I would be a powerhouse with it. Then, after getting some money from my other properties, and having Dylan land on boardwalk, I was able to get houses on boardwalk and park place, and eventually, hotels. Well, in the Pokémon game they were Pokémon gyms and Pokémon centers.

  I rubbed my hands together with a cackle as I put down my last hotel, then drank in the stricken looks on my brothers and Dylan and Cristo. They knew the moment they landed on those two properties, their butts were mine!

  “I haven’t seen him smile like that for months!” Cristo said. “Look how happy he is when he gets a taste of power. You’re a tyrant, Elish.”

  I giggled and watched Nero roll the dice. He wasn’t near my property though but he was getting close. “Just wait. I’ll own this entire row soon, death row I shall call it. Don’t worry, dear Cristo. I’m a good ruler, I’ll allow you to continue living on your property… for a fee.”

  “Oh piss
, I’m going to jail!” Nero exclaimed. “Can I bribe the cop?”

  Cristo chuckled and slid Nero’s squirtle Pokémon to jail. “No, this isn’t Skyfall rules. You wouldn’t even need to bribe the cop. They’ll be so scared of you; they’ll let you get away with everything.”

  Nero’s indigo eyes got large. “Really?” he said. He looked to the window, dusk now painting the sky dark blue. “I can do whatever I want?”

  “Cristo…” Dylan said cautiously, his dark eyes full of warning. I got the impression that he didn’t want Cristo telling Nero these types of things. The reason why was obvious, my brother was impulsive, hot-headed, violent, and the older he got, the more he challenged Silas. He didn’t need to know that no thien would dare arrest Silas’s chimera.

  But it didn’t look like Cristo cared. He winked at Nero, then tapped his own nose with his finger. Nero grinned big and handed the dice to Garrett. “I’m going to have so much fun. I hope Silas makes us immoral.”

  “Immortal, dumb dumb,” Garrett snorted. But then he cried out in pain when Nero punched him in the arm. He didn’t say anything back, probably because he knew he deserved it.

  We played Pokémon Monopoly for another hour and during that time my brothers and Cristo and Dylan dropped like flies. First Dylan landed on my boardwalk and he went bankrupt, then with that money I was able to put hotels on my other properties, Nero was next and he was so angry he threatened to kick the board so he had to go into Cristo’s bedroom with the lights off. That was something the sengils and Silas did when Nero was upset, it helped him calm down and sometimes Silas gave him an Ativan.

  After Nero was gone, Garrett was next because he landed on Cristos’ green properties which had hotels, but Cristo went broke soon after from hitting two of my hotel properties at once. So I won! Bedtime was after that and I was excited to have my very own bedroom tonight. Silas says we weren’t allowed our own bedrooms until we were ten, even though there were three bedrooms downstairs we could use with some moving around of stuff. Ellis got her own room though because she was the only girl, I didn’t think that was fair at all.

  Cristo tucked me into bed and brought out the book he’d been reading to me. He was reading me Harry Potter and we were on book three right now. I loved reading time and I hung on his every word. It just didn’t seem right when I went to sleep without Cristo reading to me, he’d been doing it since I remember.

  When he was finished, he tucked the bookmark between the pages and kissed me on the forehead. “It’ll be a sad day when we finish the last book.” Cristo looked behind him and I saw all of the Harry Potter books in the bookshelf. The next ones were all really huge.

  “At least they’re so big, they’ll take us forever to read,” I said to him sleepily, then I yawned. “Is the ending good?”

  Cristo put the book away and yawned too. “We’ll never know. The world ended after The Half-blood Prince so the author wasn’t able to finish the last book. It’ll remain a mystery.”

  My heart sank. “That’s horrible,” I said sadly. Then, remembering just who had ended the world, I scowled and thought bad things about Silas. “Stupid King Silas and Sky ending the world. Now we’ll never know, all because of him.” I crossed my arms over my blanket-covered chest.

  “There’s a lot of things we lost when the world ended,” Cristo said. He grabbed Tangerine and placed him beside my head. “A book not being finished is just a small thing compared to everything else the world lost.” Surprisingly, his expression got dark and I sensed hostility on him. It looked like he wanted to say more, but he turned from me and walked to the door. “Have a nice sleep, Eli. We’ll make french toast in the morning if you want.”

  “Yeah,” I said and nestled into my blankets. “Good night, Cristo.”

  “Good night, Eli. Sleep tight.”

  Then we both said at the same time. “Don’t let the ravers bite.”

  Sometime in the middle of the night, I heard a door click open, and then the living room light turned on. My bedroom was down the hallway but my door was ajar so I could see the glow of the lights brighten up my room. I looked sleepily at the sliver of hallway I could see. What was going on?

  “Where are my boys?”

  My heart jumped, before shooting up to my throat like it was attached to a rocket ship. That was King Silas! I jumped out of bed and walked out into the hallway and towards the living room.

  I stopped when I saw Cristo just walking into the living room, Dylan behind him coming out of the same room.

  “Silas… what are you doing here?” Cristo said.

  Silas stepped into view. His eyes were glassy and red, his face sweaty and grey. When he walked, he also stumbled a lot.

  I’d seen him like this before… King Silas was drunk.

  Inside of me my tummy was a mess. It was spinning around really fast like the washing machine on a spin cycle. I didn’t feel good at all right now, I wanted to run back to my room and hide under the bed. Master Silas always acted so strange and unlike himself when he was drunk and I didn’t like how he’d lose control of himself.

  I decided then that I would never get drunk. I already had sipped Silas’s wine and I hated the taste anyway. He said I’d like it when I got older, but if I did, I’d only have a small amount.

  I saw Silas’s eyes become narrow as he shot daggers at Cristo. “I own this god damn skyscraper, Cristo. Hell, I own this entire world. I can be wherever I want to be… now where’s my boys?”

  “They’re all asleep; it’s three thirty in the morning,” Cristo said. There was a tightness to his voice, like it was pressing itself against a door trying to keep hostility from spilling out. “Let me walk you back to your apartment. I’ll spend the night with you and Dylan can bring up the boys tomorrow.”

  Silas’s face twisted. He held a brown bottle to his lips and took a drink. When his lips broke the seal, he pointed the tip of the bottle at Cristo and sneered. “Stay with me for the night? Such bullshit. I stopped sticking my cock up your ass two years ago, sengil.”

  I gasped. I’d never heard him speak like that before. Even when he was drunk before he’d never said such audacious and rude things.

  But I didn’t have time to turn around and run. Silas’s glassy eyes looked past Cristo and Dylan, right to me.

  “Come here, boy, and get your brothers,” Silas said, his words slurred. “You’re going back home. I want you boys back home.”

  I stood there frozen and unable to move. My heart was making up for me not moving. I was surprised I couldn’t see it knocking against my chest with how fast and powerful it was going. I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself in my head, but I was scared. I didn’t want to go with him, it made me uncomfortable when he was like this.

  “They’re fine here tonight, Master Silas,” Cristo said. He looked behind his shoulder. “Go back to bed, Eli.” Behind Cristo, Silas’s face became that of an angry beast. Cristo saw my own expression turn fearful and he looked back at Silas.

  Just in time for Silas to backhand Cristo. And when Cristo’s head smashed against the wall, I heard a crack and a framed picture rocked back and forth.

  I screamed and ran to him, just as Cristo lost his balance and fell onto his hands and knees. “Cristo!” I cried. I put a hand on his shoulder and felt tears spring to my eyes. Unable to control myself or my emotions in the heat of the moment, I looked up accusingly at Silas. “Go away!” I screamed. “Go home, you stupid drunk!”

  Silas stared at me, his eyes so wide the whites seemed to glow. I knew he was shocked at what I’d said, but I refused to back down. He was the one being weak right now. I didn’t care if he was sad about Sky. He had to get over him and see that Sky was making him miserable.

  I was Elish Dekker, first born chimera and Silas’s future successor. I would stand by my–

  Silas raised his hand up into the air, and smacked me right across the face. Hard.

  And there was nothing held back from that blow. When we got spankings, he never
used his full strength, and definitely not with the belt. But in this hard blow was everything he had, and not only was I knocked off of my feet, it spun me around and I stumbled and landed on the ground.

  I got up quickly and balled my fists. “Fuck you!” I screamed, seeing red. “It’s your fault the world ended! It’s your fault we don’t know the ending of Harry Potter. It’s your fault we don’t have tigers and kangaroos! I HATE YOU!”

  Silas’s face fell, and for a brief moment I saw despair in his eyes. But the alcohol quickly drowned those feelings like an unwanted puppy, and rage drenched his face.

  I saw his hand raise, but that was it, everything else was pain and physical blows against my body.

  I lay there as he beat me, absolutely stunned and paralyzed – then heard a bellow of rage sound behind me.

  Someone ran past me in bare feet. I looked up and saw Nero with his fists flying. Already five-foot-one, he punched Silas in the jaw, then swung the other one and hit him on the chin.

  Silas’s head snapped back and a burst of blood erupted from his nose. He stumbled backwards but he didn’t fall, Silas braced himself with his left foot… and as Nero looked at him, his shoulders heaving and the muscles, already prominent on his forearms, twitching, Silas glared him down.

  He glared at my younger brother like he was looking at a diseased rat. “I’m about tired of you, Nero,” he whispered. “So, very tired of you.”

  Nero took a step back, looked behind his shoulder nervously, then his eyes went back to Silas. “I just don’t want you hurting my brother. That’s not too much to ask.”

  Silas didn’t answer him, he just stared down at Nero with disgust. “You’re a moronic, untrainable, beast of a child. A disappointment on every caliber.” Then his eyes flashed to me. “And you, Elias. As smart as they come, yet I know I’ll never be able to trust you. The world revolves around Elish, doesn’t it? Perfect – fucking – Elish. You were both mistakes.” Silas threw the brown bottle towards the wall, it smashed, creating a deafeningly loud noise. Tears welled in my eyes from the horrible things he’d said to me.