The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (35 page)

I looked past the slaves, black hair, blond hair, brown hair, and saw the ruins in the distance. Ruins of broken houses that for some reason still remained standing. We were in the town right now, but all the other buildings had deteriorated. Now the only telltale sign we were in a town were the two-lane paved roads and lopsided sidewalks.

“Don’t piss him off…” I said again. I looked and saw a red mailbox, still standing, behind it only the foundation of a house.

I walked up to the mailbox and opened it. I looked inside and closed it, everyone quiet behind me. No one was fighting anymore.

I looked behind me, unsettled from the silence. I saw the four of them staring at me as I held the mailbox open. Not able to take their oddly interrogating gaze, I closed the lid with a rusted creak and continued towards the town.

I led them; they stayed behind me, all of them. No one wanted to walk with me anymore; they didn’t like how I made their Geigerchips go off sometimes.

How was I making that happen? Something Perish must have done to me. I would probably be dead soon. I didn’t have any Iodine pills on me and soon I bet my Geigerchip would break.

I tensed my hands and wrung them together; loose strands of my hair in my palms. I crossed the road and cut across a parking lot, past that were the backyards of the houses we’d seen.

There was a tricycle in the backyard, and rusted remains of a barbwire fence. I walked along the edge of the house and without permission I went inside.

It was uninhabitable. I walked out but on the second step Perish was there again.

“Get back in, we’re staying there tonight,” Perish commanded.

“There’s a better looking group of houses further on the road,” Teejay’s voice sounded from somewhere; I think he was walking along the side of the house. “If a radanimal finds us here we’re fucked.”

“That’s east and we’re not heading east,” Perish snapped. I cowered when he glared back at me. “Get inside. Go be crazy in a corner where I don’t have to fucking see you.”

“Okay,” I whispered and walked back inside. I found a patch of light where the roof had collapsed in on itself, and wedged myself in between a rain-warped dresser and something that had once had a metal frame.

I put my hands over the back of my head and stared at the ground, then closed my eyes and tried to pull up Reaver’s image.

My face crumpled as I saw him in my head. Though it wasn’t because I missed him, it was because his face was starting to get blurry in my mind. It was hard to remember what he looked like. I used to be able to bring up every detail. His little ears, his perfect nose, the small scar on his chin, and the remains of the scars on his back from when he rescued me. A lot of them had healed over when he resurrected but I had still traced my fingers over them in bed.

What did his body feel like under my touch? A cold body that no longer shied away from my hands. A body that melted into my own when we were intimate, when he was mine and only mine.

His face was distorted; the details were no longer there. Instead of him being a crisp image in front of me he was now fuzzy, like a dirty VHS tape.

And his voice was gone too. I just remembered it was strong.

Perish had told me Reaver was with Silas but for all I knew he was still in a cell under the Legion’s control. Under Nero’s control. Maybe he was slowly forgetting what I looked like too.

Or maybe he won’t even want you back when he sees you. You’re ugly now, an ugly, crazed lunatic.

“No,” I said out loud and I shook my head. “He loves me, and my hair will grow back. And I can shave my beard and bathe. I can be me again.”

No, you lost yourself long ago.

And I was lost. I was lost inside of my own head, watching the background music of the slaves and Perish making a fire. We had no food though; we had eaten the rest of Edward’s arm long ago. Edward had even eaten a bit himself. I wonder how that made him feel, or if he was conscious enough, and lucid enough, to care.

They found cans of things. It wasn’t until later that Danny came over with a spoon.

He put the can on my lap. Behind him Perish was sitting on a plastic chair cleaning his gun, Edward was asleep or half-dead, and Teejay was warming his hands.

Danny wasn’t leaving though. He kneeled down and looked behind him before glancing back at me.

“Eat… just don’t talk,” Danny whispered. “Stay as invisible as you can.”

I stared at him; I could see red on the side of his face, another hot spot.

“He’s leading us into the plaguelands.” Danny took the spoon and scooped up some cream corn. It looked like he was trying to feed me.“We all have radiation poisoning. Killian, you’re starting to get rashes on your face.” He put the spoon up to my mouth. I took it though even in my insanity it made me feel stupid. “We need to get out of here soon, kid.”

“Don’t make him mad,” I whispered, staring at his pant leg. My eyes were dry; I tried to blink them. “Please, Danny. He’ll kill all of us, he’ll rape you again and me… and me.”

Suddenly my throat tightened. I shook my head back and forth. “And me, and me, and –”

“Shut him up!” Perish suddenly snarled. Danny got pushed to the side and the can fell to the floor with a clank, upsetting the contents and spilling it onto the floor.

Perish kicked me in the side. I gasped and bunched myself up but he wasn’t done with me. Perish grabbed me by my remaining hair and pulled my neck back.

“Are you too ugly for me to fuck, Silas?” His eyes froze me, encapsulated me in ice, every muscle in my body was tight. All I could manage was a whimper, a wheeze that escaped my lips. “Or should I just fuck one of them? They’re better looking than you, you fucking ugly shit.”

“Well? Well? Answer me?” He tried to shake me but he ended up dropping me instead. I fell to my knees and, knowing what he wanted, I started unbuttoning his pants.

“Jeez, look at you, you’re such a little slut,” Perish laughed. I hadn’t heard him laugh I didn’t like it. “Can’t help yourself, can you?” I pulled his penis out and felt the blood start to rush into it. I put it in my mouth and heard Danny start swearing at him. Calling him something, pervert I think, rapist… something, I don’t know. I could only hear my own sucking. Getting it done like he wanted, distracting him. If I made him cum he wouldn’t fuck Danny and he wouldn’t fuck me. He wouldn’t hurt us.

Perish swore back at Danny and I felt his hand against my hat, pushing my head into his groin. It got hard in my mouth and he sunk down to his knees.

I continued to do my job. I licked the head, deep-throated it and did all the tricks I had learned long ago, back when I had a boyfriend.

I no longer imagined it was Reaver, or tried to convince myself of some other fantasy to help me deal with this reality I was in. My imagination had left me with every other fringe benefit that sanity gave you. Now I knew very well what I was doing, what I was tasting, and who I was doing it to.

Then Perish removed it from my mouth. I tried to take it back in again but he pushed me back with his hand.

“Turn around.”

I stared at it and felt the coldness crawl up my body. My ears started to burn, a fire that spread to my face and finally my brain. I shook my head and put my arms around myself. I squeezed myself tight knowing I had nothing else in the world to comfort me.

“I’ll give you two options,” Perish said. “I can fuck you when I’m already close to my peak, or you can wait for me to do it tonight. Where I swear I will fuck you raw until the sun comes up. Either way, I am fucking you tonight, Silas.”

I’m not Silas.

I couldn’t move. My mind might be telling me I had no choice but every muscle in my body had seized itself to rigor mortis. I froze still as a statue, hoping that an asteroid, another Fallocaust, something, something would stop time, something would end the world.

Reaver would come bursting in, bursting in to save me. His M16, he would have it, and he would shoot Perish – no, he would keep him alive and… and…

Perish grabbed my hair again and pulled me towards the fire. I was dragged across the floor and I laid there, the warmth of the flames stinging my raw, chapped face. The fire warmed me to the point of burning but the pain only made me want to come closer. That was a pain I was used to. I… could deal with that.

I suddenly became aware of my Geigerchip. It was vibrating like it was an angry hornet, an insect trying to escape from my chest. I thought it was going to make my heart stop. There was radiation, there was radiation all around me and I didn’t know where it was coming from. What was happening? What was happening to me. My body felt like it was covered in flaming static.

“Take his pants off…” There was silence before his voice raised to a booming roar. “DO IT!”

Someone, maybe Teejay, pulled my pants off of me. I felt the cold air on my backside, and with a whimper I pulled on my hair. Then I tucked my head down into my hunched shoulders.

I could pretend I was the Reaper too.

Reaver could be the Reaper. I remember when he told me about Perish saying he was a dinosaur, because they had no emotions. Then he said how he told himself… I am the Reaper, I am the Reaper.

What could…
My eyes closed. I could feel him pushing my hip down, then the cold air on the inside of my cheeks. I squeezed my eyes tight, my mind drowning in the buzzing inside of my chest.

What could I be...?

Perish spat on me. I felt his fingers.

“Don’t do that to him… for fuck sakes. What’s happening to you? You were fucking normal when we first saw you.”

“Perish, please, man-to-man… don’t do this to him. He’s lost his mind; he can’t handle what you’re –”

A scream, my scream. A cry, my cry. I clamped down on my bottom lip and heard a choking sob break through my locked jaw. The pressure of his fingers, many fingers, the overwhelming burning pressure like he was skewering me with a white-hot poker. I felt a hand on my head and one of the slaves pulling my hat over my eyes. Like he was soothing a scared animal by blinding them to what was happening around them.

He pushed his fingers into me and started thrusting them in and out, laughing like his master had done. Quick and brutal, without mercy, without care. I knew I’d feel his cock soon; there was no getting out of it this time.

Buzzing, buzzing… so much vibrating, it was burning everything, burning my face, my chest. I was going to die; I was going to die here from radiation poisoning.

I could feel the wool hat become damp with my screaming, my own heavy breathing. My whole face was on fire, but not from the flames in front of me, the ones I could still feel warm my face. It was my body; every inch of me was heating up, melting the bite of the air around me.

And my Geigerchip… crackling, vibrating, and snapping, getting louder and louder.

I could be the Reaper if I wanted. I just had never wanted
.

The crackling swept itself through my body, not just remaining inside of my ears to knock against this broken fortress that had been my mind. It got into everything like it was the radiation itself. Permeating and infiltrating, destroying worlds, and gathering like paperclips to a magnet when it was focused on one spot. I could feel this crackling like it was solid. I knew as I felt and heard Perish behind me, that it was slowly collecting inside of my brain. Pressure and pressure. I didn’t know how much more I could take. I felt like something was going to happen, something I didn’t understand or know how to control.

I felt… I felt… fuck, like I was going to explode.

He was right against my ear. I felt his breath and then a faint, ragged whisper. “Take a deep breath, Si-guy.”

I tried to take in a rattling breath but I ended up choking. I sobbed and inhaled as my throat tightened, awaiting what I knew was coming.

It was coming, this was it. He was going to fuck me – Perish would finally get what he had always wanted from me.

He was going to do it this time – he was going to do it this time. He was…

Silence.

Perish paused, his fingers still inside of me. A heavy void had fallen over every single one of us, like time had ceased to flow forward. There was no noise, no taunting, no screaming.

He was frozen; I felt a heat coming from his fingers but nothing else.

When I heard who I knew was Sky speak, it was nothing but a harsh whisper.

“The radiation is no longer sinking into you,” I heard him say.

Then he chuckled.

“Well, brother, it looks like it worked. You got what you wanted just in time...”

“… I was so close too.”

“Killian?” Perish suddenly screamed.

I quickly turned around and tried to shift my body away from him; shocked by his sudden high toned voice.

Perry?

Perish was looking at me in horror; his eyes wide and full of a terrorized fear. They jutted from left to right before he put a hand over his mouth.

“Sky said he wouldn’t make me rape you; Sky promised me he wouldn’t take it that far…” Perish stammered. The hand covering his mouth slipped to his head. He clenched it and looked around the room with a whimper. “Put your pants on. It’s okay, it’s okay. He got what he wanted. Maybe, maybe he’ll let me stop hurting you. Prolonged, c-concentrated exposure, it worked. Put your pants on, okay? Okay, Killian?”