Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (11 page)

That had passed though and I remembered sighing, sitting down on the ledge of one of the red canyons. I felt defeat when I realized I didn’t care. If he rapes me, he will probably kill me after since he wouldn’t want anyone to find out.
Let him do it, let him fuck me, I didn’t care as long as I could die after. He can have my virginity, at least I would know what sex was like before I died. He can have his fun, and I could make him happy before I died. Even if he didn’t want to kill me after, he was armed, I could probably grab a gun or something while he was doing it and blow my brains out. He’s a sick fuck apparently, he would probably get off on it.
I shuddered. I felt bad for thinking about Reaver that way back then, there was many things Reaver was but he wasn’t a rapist. According to Leo he had never even been in a relationship, he was a lone wolf.

So why was he following me?
I started strumming again and soon found myself playing one of my favourite songs. I had bought the CD back where we used to live, a guy who was alive before the Fallocaust named Eddie Vedder. I was starting to have a nice collection of CDs and tapes. I even had two CD players before I accidently dropped one down the canyon. I swear I heard Reaver snicker at me, but I wasn’t sure, I was swearing rather loud.
I also had some sheet music for guitar and some piano though the piano we had bought from Carson was out of tune. I could still play it but I missed the one back home. Most of my playing ability came from listening to the CDs and tapes over and over again then figuring them out on my instruments. I had gotten rather good at the new one I learned.
I started to play the song, my guitar thankfully still tuned and sounding pretty nice. I had sung this song a few times when I was alone in my house but never had the nerve to do it in public, especially not with Reaver around.

“
There’s a big big hard sun, beaten all of these people, in a big hard world
,” Greyson’s voice suddenly sang, I couldn’t help but smile as I continued to play. Greyson leaned up against the concrete block I was sitting on and caught up in the moment I started to sing with him.
My heart swelled in those few minutes, all my troubled thoughts seemed to melt away as I sung with Greyson. I hadn’t felt this happy in a long time, I wonder if Reaver thought we were idiots… maybe he was liking it?
After the song had finished Greyson laughed, to my embarrassment he looked behind me to the shack roof.
“I saw your lips move, don’t give me that look, you little shit,” he called, then chuckled again. “And he’s gone.” He turned to me and winked. “He won’t go far. Just the heads up, the caravan is approaching. So get out your loot.”
“For how long?” I asked, jumping off of the concrete block. I pushed the guitar so it was resting against my back.
“They told me they’re leaving the day after tomorrow, in the morning. Leo’s already rounding up some pups and I have Redmond taking last inventory. We just had the caravan a few weeks ago so I don’t think we’ll be stripping them of all their shit, but who’s to know. Depends on what they have.”
I nodded, and tightened my leather guitar strap. “I’ll be back then.” I walked off and started jogging towards my house. I knew I had the rest of today and tomorrow to buy stuff but I didn’t want the rest of the block to get there before me. People here can be greedy, especially over food.

My dad had left me some money I always kept hidden in the top of the closet in my bedroom. I wanted to buy some spices if they had any; I was running low on a few. I hated eating rat just cooked like most of the block did. I never cared for the taste of Aras rat, I guess I had been spoiled back home, my dad usually brought home bosen or convict meat.

I quickly walked into my house and started running up the steps to the second story. I kicked my shoes off and started climbing barefoot up the wall. My bare skin made my feet stick better to the paneling.

When I was almost a foot up from the door frame I grabbed the brown envelope stuck in a small alcove in the ceiling. I took out some money and a few tokens and put the rest back and climbed down. Chances were good that a Dek’ko caravan would be with the group, they usually tagged along with the merchants.

Dek’ko representatives only took Dek’ko tokens, this encouraged people to sell their crops and raw materials to the company. Thankfully my parents had stashed these too, my father had worked for Dek’ko back in the day and they only paid them in tokens.
I walked out the door, slamming it behind me and started making my way back.
When I got there the caravan was just pulling into the square. It was a bigger one than usual. I could count at least a nine men with them, including as I suspected the blue, clean looking Dek’ko caravan.

They looked worn like all roamers outside of Aras. They all had red dirt stained on their bodies from coming northeast near the canyons. They were all wearing multiple layers of soiled, dusty clothing, a lot of it sewn and patched with leather or strips of cloth. They were all heavily armed and each were wearing biker goggles. Probably from all the dust blowing around in the canyons.
One of the men pulled his goggles up. The skin underneath his goggles was white, it was quite the contrast from the rest of his dirt stained face. He squinted and held his hands out to meet Greyson's.
“Welcome back, Menkin,” Greyson said in a friendly tone. Behind him Reaver stood with Leo, his arms crossed. His face stern, serious and intimidating. He was wearing his full combat armor now, with his M16 strapped to his back; he must have changed while I ran back to my house. He looked every bit a soldier now. I had always liked that look.
“Thanks Greyson it has been a harrowing ride. A group of fucking legionnaires decided to toll the road north east of Gosslin, bunch of fucking retards,” Menkin grumbled. “If it wasn’t for Dek’ko coming along they would have probably charged double.”

Reaver’s face tensed, I could tell he was probably making a note to kill them. I had heard his favourite pass time was to snipe any legionary that came close to Aras. I wish I had balls like that.
“Well, come in. Melpin has the bar fully stocked, we can have a drink,” Greyson said slapping him on the back a puff of red dust burst into the air from the impact.
“Sounds good, the grunts can unpack all of this shit,” Menkin said. Him and Greyson turned around and started heading towards the old pub. Leo looked on, watching everyone unpack.
“We have beds above Melpin’s for you to use,” Leo started to say, before one of the younger grunts waved him off.

“We know the drill Merrik, go have a drink with that drunken hack. We work better undisturbed.”
Leo laughed. “I don’t need to be told twice.” He walked away, leaving just the other men, and me and Reaver.

I sat on the fountain in the middle of the square and started to watch them set up the caravans for business. When to my surprise one of the men started walking up to Reaver.
“Who is this ugly son of a bitch?” he said, he swayed cockily up to Reaver. My throat went dry. Did this guy have a death wish?
Reaver stared at him with out so much of a mouth twitch. “You look like a rat with your face that stained.”
The man laughed and took his goggles off. He shook his black hair, a puff of red dust flew up into the air.

“Decided to bodyguard the merchants, eh?” Reaver asked with a cough. “Did they pay you well?”
“Yeah, I saw them coming and thought I might as well see if I could early bird some shit. I need more booze, more food and more drugs. You got some to sell your ol buddy Reno?”
Oh it was him. I hadn’t recognised him covered in red dust. He was suppose to be Reaver’s only friend. Though I hadn’t seen much of him, when he was in Aras Reaver didn’t really follow me as much since they were too busy hanging out. He was a field sentry though, that I knew, and he had a cabin in the rocky crags behind the west wall, I had heard him on the radio many times.

I tried to get a better look at him. He had black hair and a friendly cheerful face with large blue eyes I could see easily with the backdrop of red. From my guess he was about Reaver’s age if not a bit older.

I wonder why Reaver had befriended him and no one else? I looked at him trying to unpeel his persona in front of my eyes to see what was so special about him. I didn’t want to admit it but I think I was looking for hints and pointers. Just in case... you know, I ever became his friend. Maybe...
“I found some dilaudid pills in the stash of penicillin I found, we can do some of those tonight.” I heard Reaver say.

I couldn’t help but feel a bit weird, I didn’t know Reaver did drugs, besides those weird smelling cigarettes. I guess he was the type, though he was really good at hiding it. My dad had been a drug user, and he was horrible at hiding it. After seeing how it destroyed him I felt a bit ill thinking of Reaver taking drugs. But I guess he must have control over it, if even I didn’t pick up on it.
I guess Reno must have liked that plan because before I knew it Reaver was walking off with Reno towards the west side of Aras. I didn’t want to admit it to myself but I felt a bit jealous. He usually walked me home before it got dark, or walked behind me.

I couldn’t help but feel a little bit abandoned.
I shook my head, a bit mad at myself. I had no claim over Reaver, just because he followed me didn’t mean he had any loyalty to me or any obligation. He was probably being paid by Greyson. I think that must be it, that’s why he was always so distant. He probably couldn’t stand me.
I watched as the grunts continued to set up the caravans.

“See anything you like, boy?” A gruff voice said. A man probably in his forties with dirty blond hair asked. He had sharp brown eyes, he made me a bit uneasy but all outsiders did. It wasn’t anything personal.
“Do you have any spices?” I asked walking over to the three caravans that were almost fully set up.
“Aye, a few, let me dig them out,” he said with a friendly nod.
I looked at each caravan. They were wagons in actuality, built with a metal cover that covered the back, it was attached to rollers. The metal cover was fashioned so that one side of it could be rolled off of the wagon and lifted up as a sort of shelf. It transformed the top of the caravan to a small little kiosk almost.

They were all old and worn like most caravans, except for the Dek’ko one that was being set up on the far left. Those ones were always clean and well maintained. It was spray painted blue, with Dek’ko’s label painted on every side of the wagon. I guess they wanted to make it stand out so people knew to leave it alone. Messing with a Dek’ko caravan meant death for you and your family.
I looked around the first two caravans. A few things caught my eye. A metal ladle, mine was plastic I had always wanted a metal one. A small TV set, though probably too expensive for me. Some Cds I had never seen before, and various cans of food.

I walked over to the Dek’ko caravan, sure enough the Dek’ko representative was already changed into his suit. He was a straight cut man with a large moustache and droopy blue eyes. He was wearing a stained black suit with the Dek’ko logo on the chest. He also wore a patched bowler hat. I always thought the Dek’ko representatives looked foolish but apparently King Silas made them wear the suits. Dad had said it was to create a sense of uniformity.
“Any canned meat?” I asked, hoping for anything that wasn’t Aras rat.
The man nodded and pointed towards a row of Dek’ko cans. The labels were dark blue and the letters white. Various cartoons of what was inside the can graced every label. I could see chicken, rat, bosen, fois ras and Dek’ko’s special brand called Good Boy. It didn’t take a stretch of the imagination to know what was inside that can. It was a bit crude, since it was frowned upon out in the greywastes to eat arian but the president of Dek’ko, a chimera named Apollo, had proclaimed that all Good Boy meat were from men that died of natural causes or were convicts. That was a good enough explanation for me, arian tasted so much better than rat.

I picked up a few cans and moved a few more off to the side to look for different types I might have missed. I was a bit disappointed there wasn’t any pork but I was happy to see fois ras. It was a delicacy for wastelanders though the process in which to make it was a bit grisly. Rats got tubes shoved down their throats into their stomachs, pumping them full of a greasy slop that made their livers grow to horrible sizes. Then their livers were  harvested and turned into fois ras. It tasted great but the way it was made made me cringe.

I bought a few cans of Good Boy, some fois ras, and several cans of the other meats. I also purchased some water filters, some flour and some salt from the caravan beside it. The flour was the most expensive, it was real, not the alternative shit Dek’ko sold. I only knew of a couple farms that had been able to wield real wheat around here. The rest had to come straight from Skyfall.
The man was kind enough to give me a bag to carry my food. I walked slowly back over to the other caravan, eyeing up the ladle, when the man with the piercing eyes came up to me.
“I found pepper, oregano and…” the man stared at the plastic package. “Paper-ikee.”
“Paprika?” I said holding out my hands, the man placed the small plastic wrapped packages in my hand. The labels were faded but I could still read them.
“How much?” I asked excited, I knew I shouldn’t show my excitement, but I couldn’t help it.
“Five dollars for the three, more than fair,” the man said. I nodded, I wasn’t in the mood for haggling. I paid him the money and put the spices into the bag.
After thanking him, I started walking back to my house. I could see other people from around the block start to trickle in. I looked into my bag, admiring all my purchases. I was excited to make something good with the fois ras and to finally have some real arian meat as well.

I wonder what Reaver was doing right now. I looked around at the abandoned houses as I made my way up the street. I knew there were lots of times he wasn’t following me. But I never could be sure when those times were. I didn’t know when he worked, or what area, and I knew he spent time at Leo and Greyson’s too and Reno’s cabin. But I was never sure, so I always had the sense that he could be watching out for me and that was enough in my head.
I guess I was just used to it. It was his damn fault for making me so used to having him around. I guess Greyson got his money’s worth.