The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (16 page)

“Think of a name for yourself, or do you want to stick with your roots and go with Chance?” Elish asked.

I nodded. “Might as well.”

“I will be going with my usual James.” Elish then looked up and said loudly, “We’re travellers, we need to buy supplies. We’ll be spending the night.”

There were two of them, though they didn’t address us from the walls like we did back in Aras, they climbed down on steady feet, their shotguns strapped to their backs. Two young men, one with glasses and one not.

“Are you ravers?” The one without the glasses looked suspiciously at us.

I could taste the annoyance coming from Elish. “Do I look like a raver, boy? Do ravers talk?”

The kid, no older than thirteen immediately shrunk under Elish’s cold stare.

“I guess not.” The grinding of rusty hinges in desperate need of oil filled the air around us. The young man stepped back and let us in, though he seemed to be watching our every movement. “What’s five times twelve?”

I blinked and hoped that question wasn’t directed at me, because fucked if I knew.

“Sixty,” Elish replied coolly. “Now where is your store district?”

He was still eyeing us like we were aliens who had just landed on earth but he didn’t press the subject further. Instead he pointed straight ahead. “Just follow the road. We made this town around a plaza; the store is inside the Save On and the bar is as well. The hotel is also in the same area, made in an old retirement home. We put up signs just last winter.”

Elish nodded. “Yes, I suspected this town was new. What is it called?”

“We named it after our founder: Mantis.”

To my surprise Elish did a double take. “Mantis? Is that man here now?”

The boy shook his head. “No, he left last year and hasn’t come back. We are hoping perhaps he will come in the summer, he is the mayor after all.”

“Is he now?” Elish muttered before his eyes shot to the road the boy had pointed us down. “Well then, let’s go, Chance.”

I was not a stupid person, though at a few points in time Leo and Greyson had both told me the other had dropped me on my head as an infant. Either way, I might not be the most colourful crayon in the crayon box, but it didn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out who Mantis was.

“Another greywaster chimera?” I asked nonchalantly.

I got a look for that. “Do not mention that word here. We can discuss it tonight in the discretion of a hotel room,” Elish said under his breath.

I let it slide, because though I was curious, finding Killian was more important. As we walked to the plaza I kept my eyes peeled for any blond heads belonging to my little boyfriend but no one came even close to Killian’s appearance. I knew my boyfriend inside and out and it didn’t take long for my hopes to fade.

The Save On was an old grocery store. The building had been patched with sheets of metal streaked with rust, and held together by bad welding jobs and loose screws. There were windows too but most were hidden behind shutters made from plywood and metal.

We crossed a broken parking lot which was buzzing with people, some were wheeling shopping carts full of junk but most of them were keeping to themselves, either eating or drinking bad smelling liquor. This place was more occupied than I had initially thought it was, this area was definitely the hub of the town.

I kicked an old can with my foot; it bounced forward with a series of clanks before resting beside an old shopping cart corral. An old man looked up from his dose of heroin and gave me the stink eye but didn’t say anything to me. I was tempted to ask him where he got his smack, though I might settle for robbing him tonight.

Elish lit another cigarette. “Killian and Perish are normal in appearance, but I hold hope my cicaro’s eyes will make him stand out.” We both stepped onto the concrete walkway and started towards two open double doors, I could hear faint music and the buzzing of voices inside.

I didn’t like it here, even though there was nothing in particular I didn’t like. I just knew Killian wasn’t in this place and I wanted to get out of this town so we could continue to track them.

Perish wouldn’t let anything happen to Killian...
I sighed as I said those words over and over inside of my head. It filled me with bitterness to know I had to rely on Perish’s devotion to my boyfriend to give myself that hope that he was okay.

Though admittedly Killian might not be okay, there was no telling what Perish would do to him. But on the same hand, if Killian was alive... that was all that mattered. The thought of Perish touching him filled me with rage but it was nothing I couldn’t help him get through.

My teeth clenched as a rush of that very same rage washed through me. I hated that the fact that my boyfriend might get raped was okay with me, but right now I was worried about more extreme things, like him being dead. No matter how I twisted it in my already darkening mind it was my fucking reality that Perish fucking him would be the least bad thing that could happen to my boyfriend.

I felt like shit for that, but it was better than him being gone. If he had to pretend to be Perish’s boyfriend again, I could live with that. Killian excelled at manipulating that retard.

No... he wasn’t a retard anymore. I don’t know what he was but apparently he wasn’t the hyper, shifty scientist I had known.

Just be okay, Killian. We can get through our issues together. I can make you feel better by telling you the several weeks of hell I experienced.

Fuck, I needed a drink. I don’t think I knew what I was saying anymore. I didn’t know how to handle these feelings of desperation and helplessness. Great fucking Reaper I was.

Elish and I walked inside of the bar. It was dark with the stale smell of body odor and stale liquor The building inside was also just as bad as the outside but they had made up for it by nailing old highway and street signs onto the walls. I even saw a couple pre-Fallocaust licence plates and some store signs. Well, make due with what you have.

We sat down at the bar and ordered a beer for both of us. I could tell Elish was trying to hide his displeasure at the taste. I assumed they had premium beer at Skyfall, or maybe he was just missing his tea.

After a few minutes of drinking Elish glanced towards the bartender. “We’re looking for three men,” he said in the most casual voice I had heard from him. “One of them you would recognise if you saw him. He has yellow eyes.”

The bartender, a man in his thirties with red hair, shook his head. “We get a lot of travellers in these parts and most of them want to remain anonymous, but I can tell you with honesty I haven’t seen any yellow-eyed ones.”

My heart sank. I tried to hide my disappointment by taking a deep drink of beer. I put the glass down with a clink and got up off of the bar stool. “Let’s go then.” Back to the highway, and quickly.

Elish shook his head and slid my beer glass back towards me. “No, we’re spending the night here. It’s already too late in the evening.”

We’re spending the night in a hotel room? For all I know Killian is miles and miles away being fucked by that psychotic scientist. The thought made my teeth grind together, and the anger start to churn inside of my chest.

“You would be a fool to rely on one person for intel, Chance. Now drink.” I hated how that asshole talked to me like I was his kid. No wonder Jade was how he was.

But Elish didn’t care. He looked at the bartender before reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a folded wad of cash and raised it to the bartender. “This is five hundred dollars. I don’t care who you ask but ask. If anyone in this town has seen a young man of eighteen with black hair and yellow eyes, I want to know. He would be travelling with a boy of eighteen, blond hair, blue eyes and a man of twenty-four, black hair, light blue eyes. Now do you have the people and resources to get this done?”

The bartender looked at him a bit perplexed, the look of a man who had thought that today was just going to be another normal day. He stared at the folded up money and then back at Elish.

“Are they wanted?”

“It doesn’t matter... are you going to do what I want or not?” Elish replied coolly.

The bartender swallowed and nodded, looking with hunger at the bills. “Yes... names?”

“I doubt they would be using their names, the boy’s odd appearance will be enough.” Elish drained his glass and rose. “We’ll be staying in the hotel for the evening. I’ll be giving the man or woman in charge instructions to let you and only you knock on our door. Get the word around quickly, we will be leaving at first light. Get me a solid lead and the money is yours, but don’t try and falsify information. I will know if you’re lying.”

There was a clink as Elish set his beer glass down. The bartender was still giving us confused looks but he was smart enough to just nod. We left silently after that and went towards the store to stock up on our supplies.

“I don’t want to spend the night here,” I said darkly to Elish as we checked into the hotel room. It was late in the evening now and we had our knapsacks full of supplies and ammo. “They could be getting further from us as we speak. I have energy, we can make a couple miles on the highway before we need to rest.”

Elish put down his bags and started picking out some of the things we had bought. “I know your body as I do mine. We have been running off of an hour of sleep here or there for a long time. Our bodies need a satisfactory rest and after we can continue our grueling pace. If we go to that highway with the garbage we have been eating and twenty-one hour days we will not only be intolerable to each other, our minds will start to deteriorate, and yours is fragile enough as it is. I know more about this than you, and I want to find Jade as much as you want to find Killian, but I will not go out there half-asleep when we need our wits about us.”

I unwrapped a brown package which contained some restaurant food we had picked up and started eating. He was right and I knew he was right, so I didn’t say anything back. This wasn’t in my nature... to... listen to people, but I had to push aside my own hot-headed, hard-nosed, asshole ways and do what I knew would help us find Killian.

I sat down and automatically put a chair up by the window, more out of habit than anything. I was a sentry after all.

Well, I
had
been a sentry.

I sighed. My heart ached for my old life. One I had never appreciated until it had been snatched away from me. I missed being a sentry, I missed Aras, I missed... my dads.

Automatically the barriers inside of my mind snapped shut, as they most often did whenever my mind grazed on the raw and festering wound that was my fathers’ memories. It had been months now since they had died, months since that day in Aras when I had seen them get shot. And I still hadn’t been able to deal with it. Anger helped... hating them helped... but I knew that was just me trying to protect myself.

And now where was I?

Fuck, Killian... I’m sorry. Though what choice did I have? If it had been Kessler torturing you when he had me prisoner... I would’ve told them everything.

I had to leave you... I just wasn’t aware of who I was leaving you with.

I cracked open a bottle of whisky and took a long drink. I tapped it against my knuckles before automatically the bottle touched my lips again.

“You don’t need to sentry. No one knows we’re here,” Elish replied behind me. I saw his hand reach and grab the other wrapper of shredded rat meat that we had gotten from the restaurant. He then put a kettle of water on with his free hand.

“I thought that last time,” I muttered under my breath, then said in a normal tone, “Do you think this Mantis guy will have any idea where Perish might be heading?”

“No. I don’t believe Mantis has spoken to Perish in a long time, but once we find Jade and Killian, I will try and reach him. He has been absent from the family for many years and it is time he gets over his problems with us. He is an odd man.”

“You all are,” I said under my breath.

Elish ignored me. “He and I have a bit of a past and he has been living in the greywastes for quite a while. He is on our side and an ally, though as of right now, I don’t know where he is and I see no way that Perish could know where he is either.”

“Is he a chimera?”

Elish shook his head. “No, he’s one of the few arians to be made immortal and adopted by our family. He used to be a psychologist for the Dekker family but events led him to take his leave from Skyfall. Now he lives in a house of an unknown location and though he has called once or twice... I don’t hear from him often.”

“Are you sure Perish wouldn’t find him?”

“No.”

I was surprised at that.

Elish continued, “But even if he did I still wouldn’t know where Mantis was. Since he isn’t here and I don’t know where to find him... he is irrelevant.”

I let out a breath. I thought Elish had tabs on everyone but I guess this greywaster immortal was different. I took one more drink of whisky and set my M16 down on the bed beside me.

I put my hands behind my head but no sooner had I closed my eyes did I hear an odd noise.

The snipping of scissors.

I opened one eye and saw Elish snipping off his long blond hair, leaving only six or seven inches of it, barely enough to fall past his ears. I remember he had his hair cut short once when he came to Aras.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked curiously.

Elish took another handful of hair and snipped it away, before throwing it into the fire. “It’s getting in the way, and I don’t have the time to take care of it.”

My brow furrowed. “I thought your hair was like your glory or something. It always made you look so regal and important. I assumed you took a lot of pride in having it so long and... shiny.”

Elish’s cold face didn’t waver; he snipped off another chunk and threw it. “Do you know why my hair was short when I came to Aras last winter?”

I shook my head.

“I saved Jade from certain death at the hands of King Silas. I refused to leave Jade with him and, to humiliate me, Silas cut off my hair in front of my brothers,” Elish explained. “To dehumanize me, to make me appear lesser... to cause me a great shame.”

Another snip, the fire start spitting and snapping as more hair was thrown onto it. Before I had a chance to ask him why he was doing that now, he continued. “My brothers and Silas, and you apparently, think I take such pride in my hair. That it is some sort of status symbol I carry around to flaunt my greatness... or some nonsense.” Another snip. “When really, it is more of a decoy and I don’t mind cutting it off once it becomes a hassle.”

I stared at him. “Decoy?”

Elish glanced behind him to try and get the scissors right. He was doing a bad job of it. I got up off of the bed and took the scissors from him. Elish didn’t raise an objection so I started finishing off the job.

“Once Joaquin angered King Silas, and do you know what Silas did to him? In front of our brothers?” I could see his smirk from the mirror he had positioned in front of him.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“Silas severed his penis and his testicles, and forced him to remain that way for a year before he let him resurrect it back.”

I choked on the laugh that burst from my lips. I was smart enough to take the scissors away from the back of his head. “I understand now. You gave him something else to cut off, something that will grow back on its own?”

Elish nodded his head. “Indeed, I learned that trick many years ago and I have remained intact ever since. In truth my hair is a hassle, but to cut it short now would only raise suspicion. There are pills available from Skytech that will have it grown back to its length in three months, so until I am home, I’d rather have it short.”

I started snipping away at the last strands. “Joining the greywasters one small alteration at a time. You have a beard now and short hair, besides those eyes no one will be able to tell who you are.”

“That’s the idea, but no one will recognised us here. Mantis is gone and any person who might have, at one point, seen me has been dead for decades.” When I was finished he rose himself and dusted the remaining hair from his coat.

Elish looked entirely different now, but the coldness on his face and the way he carried himself was something physical appearances couldn’t change. He was still Elish Dekker and still a chimera.

“Let us sleep now. With our strength up tomorrow we should be able to cover good ground.” Elish got into bed with his boots still on and closed his eyes. “It will not be long now... we will catch up to them.”

The nightmares came back that night. The ones that sunk into my brain like poison and stuck to my every last hope like glue. Telling me with all the confidence in the world that I would never hold that boy again in my arms.

So much anger... those voices taunted me, poked at me, and laughed at every single mistake I had made. I felt like a bear in a cage surrounded by a dozen laughing kids prodding me with long sticks. It made me want to tear myself out of my own skin, I was so frustrated and mad.

I woke up with a start and realized that it was still dark out, but there was an orange glow reflecting against the stained ceiling, one that was drawing a brightness to my closed eyelids. I immediately jumped out of bed and saw that, at the exact same time, Elish had woken up too.

We both wordlessly walked to the window and saw half a dozen men with torches. I stared down, and for a moment I thought it was more people looking for us, but it wasn’t.

There were six people shouting at a group of men, loudly. We both grabbed our guns and ran down the steps, into the cold night air.

“What’s going on?” Elish demanded.

One of the men looked our way; he was holding a torch with a white knuckle grip. “Ravers... ravers killed our chief officer’s sister in Velstoke, and her children! They were travelling by caravan. We’re organizing a group and we’re killing them tonight. They’re at the Cobbleton Motel.”

Elish stared at him for a moment. “Are ravers active here?”

The man nodded. “They move into the abandoned hotels and resorts during the winter. We usually ignore them but... they’re getting bold. We’re putting a stop to it before it gets bad. Velstoke’s men are several hours away now. We will be joining up with them.”

“Where is Velstoke?”

“Ten days walk past Garnertown but the men have already started rallying.”

I looked at Elish. “I wouldn’t mind letting off some steam.”

But he shook his head and turned around to walk back into the hotel. “No, though I have all the faith in your abilities if you get eaten alive by ravers it could take you months to resurrect. We’re going back to sleep for another couple hours and we’ll be on our way. This is not our fight.”

I looked behind me at the sea of torches, the men and women’s faces stern with determination. I wanted to go with them, I needed to kill something, let off some of that pent-up aggression. It had been too long since I had tasted blood, tasted the life leak out of someone.

But he was right, once again I knew that asshole was right. This wasn’t about me, it was about finding the boys.

Still though...

I turned from the active scene behind me and followed Elish back up the stairs, leaving the villagers to their frenzy and their, most likely, certain deaths.

Chapter 42

Killian

Little roads, five of them, roads that were drag marks on a mirror. Drag marks that started out in thick straight lines but as they drew down they started to warp and bend until the dust enclosed on them once again.

I looked at the stranger. His ash-covered face stared back with dead eyes, the thin reflective ribbons contrasting with the grime seemed to encage him like he was behind bars.

Iron rungs of hardened dust and mirror, staring back at me with a sullen gaunt sanguine.

I held a pale hand up to the streaks in the mirror and rested my finger in each of the lines, imagining who made them though they were never good images. There was no blood here though, no bodies. Death hadn’t reached this house.

Perhaps the next house, or the next, or the next we would find something to eat.

A shuffling of clothing, dry cloth rubbing against dry cloth, crackling paint and plaster crunching under my feet. I pressed my foot deeper and twisted it around. The sound reminded me where reality was, or where it should be at least. Perish had taken most of my reality from me, only the slaves gave me hope of getting it back.

Not slaves… they were my friends, because I was a slave too.

I looked behind me and saw Teejay holding an empty, rusty can in his dirty hands. He looked just as hopeless as I did. Though he had been a slave longer than I.

I think he had lost hope long ago.

The house we had found was aged and tired. Time had blanketed it in black spots of mould, with gouges taken out of it that suggested a beast rather than natural wear. I wouldn’t be surprised, the radanimals here were huge. Just last night Perish had shot an urson with his assault rifle, though he had spotted it from a telephone pole that had climbing rungs on it. He had told us to climb up them too, me first.

Though it had ran away once it had been shot in the shoulder. We could’ve eaten it if Perish was a better shot, though I kept that information to myself.

There was a clang as Teejay dropped the empty can onto the floor and started pulling out wooden drawers to check inside. I saw sawdust and ash rise up from every drawer he disturbed, making him cough into his hand.

“I think he would taste the best.” I jumped as Perish hissed that into my ear. Automatically I started walking away from him, down a hall with a ripped up yellow carpet.

If we don’t find food, we’re eating one of them.

If you don’t find food, Killian, it will be your fault.

I walked into a living room, with cream-coloured curtains dotted with blurry, black spots. The grey sun shone through the curtains bathing the room in a yellowy hue. Around it was warped, twisted paneling and the yellow carpet littered in chunks of plaster and insulation fluff. A soiled couch was in a corner, missing its cushions, and beside it a table lamp without a shade. The entire house gave off a musty, stale smell that seemed to take residence in your nose.

Though I didn’t expect there to be any food, I walked around and pulled open the drawer the lamp was resting on.

Old papers, stiff and brittle with age… but behind it I saw a small disk-like can. I picked it up and twisted it open.

Breath mints? I shrugged and popped one into my mouth. I turned around and saw Perish staring at me from the doorway. His arms crossed over his black duster and Garrett’s old school hat on his head. The scientist didn’t look happy, he never looked happy. The old Perish –

– Was gone, stop thinking about it, Killian.
I went up to him and held out the tin. “Want one?”

Perish stared at me before taking a mint; his eyes never leaving my face. “You four have five more minutes until we’re leaving.”

Yes, we had fifteen minutes in each house and we had a few more to look into before we went on our way. The area we had found had nice, two-storey houses on each side, separated by a quaint two-lane road. The black trees were tall, with thick limbs that hinted to being maple or oak at one point. We could climb them if needed be, in case we encountered another urson or even ravers.

I nodded at him, and with my head lowered, I left the living room and started to check the basement.

The basement was spooky but my life was already full of nightmares and horror stories so I walked down the wooden steps without fear. I brought out the flashlight Perish had given me and swept it around the basement.

It was a finished basement, not a decrepit lower room full of bare brick, chains, and concrete floors like my imagination had suggested. This one had carpet too, though grey not yellow, and what remained of plaster on the walls. In all corners were stacks of brittle boxes holding plastic dishes and old papers, all of it coated and covered in dust.

Though just a minute ago I was telling myself how brave I was, as the light of the upstairs faded I started to feel a bit spooked. It was pitch black here after all, and who knows what had been down here last.