The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (41 page)

I couldn’t make eye contact. I stared at the ribbon and said quietly to him, “You did that to me, Perish. You said Sk-”

“No, no… I’d never do such a thing.” His voice became a higher octave, sweet and dripping honey. “I love you, why would I ever hurt you?”

“You always hurt me.”

He glanced behind me as the slaves’ boot steps started to come closer. He quietly led me away and we started walking towards the highway. There were no buildings here, everything was rolling terrain with mountains around us. I knew there had been fire here though, the medians were covered in scorch marks.

I touched one, my bleeding black fingernails leaving prints all over the scorched medians. It felt rough and uncomfortable underneath my hands, but oddly warm. Though the warmth could have been coming from my own hands; I felt warm with the radiation inside of my body. I wonder if death was warm?

No, it was cold. Winter might be disappearing from the greywastes, but I knew in my grave it could be cold and dark.

I looked around wondering if there were any signs that winter was leaving, but the dense grey landscape never changed. Only the temperature of the air and small shoots of yellow grass could tell you which season it was; the flies never left, the desolation never left, the grey and red never left.

I left red on the grey, in the form of my own blood, and kept walking beside Perish.

“Can we rest?” Danny’s dry voice sounded. I turned around and saw the ghost of the slave staggering on. His face was sunken, gaunt, and completely covered in flaking red blisters, several of which had burst, coating his patchy beard in hardened pus.

Their hair was falling out from the radiation. I didn’t know if mine was; I had pulled most of it out.

Perish stopped and stared at him before nodding slowly. “Yes, you can share the can of dog food. Killian come rest with me up ahead. We’ll sit on that median together.”

I looked at Danny’s hand, holding our sack of food. The dog food was the last big can we had left then all we had was a smaller tin of mystery food. Smaller tins usually meant tuna or other fish we couldn’t eat, though I got bamboo shoots once.

“Killian? Walk with me…”

I had never had bamboo shoots before, they didn’t taste like much but I enjoyed the textu–

My heart jumped as Perish grabbed my shoulder, though it wasn’t a forceful grab, he was only bringing me back to reality. I turned around and walked with him towards a median, scorched and crumbling off on the far end. In the distance telephone poles still stood, becoming more shrouded as they stretched off towards what the rest of the planet was now.

Nothing.

Perish handed me an energy bar, warped and twisted from the heat of his body. I took it with my bloodied hands and started eating it. Though as I chewed on the blueberry flavoured bar I saw Perish looking at me.

Then he looked behind him and I heard him take in a shaking breath. “Did you see how Danny asked us to rest? He wants us to take as long as we can to get to the lab; he’s waiting for you to die. Danny, Teejay, and Edward are planning on eating you as soon as the last can is gone.”

“And it’s almost gone, Killian.”

“The food is almost gone, and it’ll be time for them to eat you. I’ve been holding them off right now, but I’m only one man.”

Danny was sitting on the ground with the other two staring forward, holding the can of dog food in his hand, a spoon sticking out of it. Edward was facing him; I could see him the most. His eyes looked so strange now and his skin was getting darker and darker.

“See how he refuses to look at you?” Perish whispered. He stroked my neck before running the hand down to mine. I winced from pain as he grabbed my hand and held it. “Watch him, watch the way he looks at you, watch the things he says. He wants to kill you; he’s already raped you once. We can’t let it happen again.”

He already… did it before?

I shook my head and felt my body constrict, like a sea anemone recoiling at a strange foreign touch. The memories of what had happened in that house so fresh inside of my mind, but in the same thread of thought they had become a haze. A blur of faces and physical objects, only the feelings and the fear were bright inside of my head.

The horror of feeling his fingers dig into me. The pain was nothing; I was friends with pain, but the disgusting violating feelings…

I shuddered and turned away, not realizing I had turned into the crook of Perish’s arms.

Taking that opportunity, Perish put a hand on the back of my head and shushed me. “I’ll never let them hurt you, sweety. I did all of this just so… no one would hurt you anymore. Look, sweety, not even the radiation will hurt you. Soon you’ll be all healed.”

“Kill me,” I whispered. I shut my eyes but no tears came. I felt like my body had been sucked of all liquids, my mouth was dry, my eyes dry, everything was just dry pain. “Perry… show me the same love I showed you. Kill me.”

Perish clucked his tongue, lips pressed against my forehead. “I’ll show you that and more, you just need to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“Poor Killian, he’s so confused. You’re forgetting what everyone has done to you?” he murmured.

Danny in the distance raised the spoon to his lips before passing it to Teejay. Teejay weakly took it and held it frozen in his hand, as if he didn’t even have the strength to lift the spoon to his lips.

Were they trying to kill me?

My face felt hot. I took in a sharp breath, my lungs burning.

Did I trust Perish? I tried to search his voice. I tried to search him for any signs of hostility, but oddly I saw none.

Was I confused?

Danny took the can back and I heard scraping as the spoon ran along the edges.

Perish let out a breath at this and squeezed me again. “Look, he didn’t even save any for you or me. That’s our last big can of food and he didn’t save any for us. They’re only out for themselves now. You need to watch yourself, Killian, they’re going to try and eat you.”

I did watch them, like Perish had told me to. Three men passing around a can of dog food, all of them looking like they would collapse at any moment. Danny, it seemed, was the most conscious. Edward was the worst.

Was it true?

I tried to think back to earlier memories, now just smudges and stains on the crumbled, derelict walls of my mind. The memories were painful and hard to read, but I forced myself to concentrate on remembering them.

“He fed you creamed corn, then suddenly he jumped on you while I was tending to Edward. He had you on your stomach, his fingers thrusting in and out of you as you screamed,” Perish whispered in my ear. “It was horrible, you were screaming and crying. He wanted to fuck you, Killian. I had to pull him off of you. Don’t you remember what I whispered in your ear? I’d never hurt you, Killian. I love you too much. I forced Danny off of you, right when he was about to penetrate you. Don’t you remember? Your Geigerchip died shortly after.”

I kept staring at Danny. He took the can of dog food and threw it behind a scorched median with an echoing
clunk
.

Perish continued, “I feel so badly that I let that happen, but rest assured: I’ll kill him if he even looks at you. I promise.”

I looked down, feeling something wet and saw that I had been clenching the median with my fingers. I groaned as I saw I had torn several fingernails off, their black shells hanging loosely by bits of red flesh. A sick nausea swept me and I felt like I was going to throw up.

Perish put his arms around me and pulled me onto his lap. He started rocking me back and forth, his grip tight.

“It’s okay, sweety, it’s okay. In the end, everything will be fine. I promise you, my sweet sweet boy. We’ll show them all, Silas. I’ll protect you, always.”

My face crumpled, but no tears came. I might be in the plaguelands, I might be surrounded by enemies but in that moment – I so dearly missed being held. It brought into my chest a comfort I had thought had been forgotten, memories and recollections of a moment in time I could no longer recall, but the feelings it brought I remembered.

Slowly, and if only for a moment, I relaxed and embraced the feeling; a small fleeting moment of security in this inner and outer hell.

Yes, I knew this feeling, I knew this feeling – even when my world was falling to black flames I would be held against him and it would all disappear. His tight embrace, his low but dominant voice, his smell, his… his small little ears, one that had once knitted itself back together after an explosion.

I gave into him in that moment; I gave into the feeling and held onto the only comfort I had. My mind drawing me to the feeling like flies to carnage.

Yes, I remember him. I remember that man. I thought I had lost him.

“You… you’ll protect me?” I whispered. He held me tighter and my face twisted. Not from pain though, not from agony or fear – but from relief.

He was here.

“Of course… I’ll protect you, Killi Cat.”

My teeth clenched and a whine escaped my lips. I held onto him tight and sobbed.

I had him… was it really him? I don’t… I don’t remember him. I just…

He called me Killi Cat.

In the darkness, after we had made each other sweaty and tired, he called me his Killi Cat, his Killibee. He had so many nicknames for me but all I had called him was mine, my very own.

“We can be safe in my lab, my radioactive kitten, but we might not make it with the slaves. They’re trying to stop us, they want to eat us, Killi Cat,” the man whispered as he kissed my forehead. “You’ll watch out for them?”

I nodded and buried my face into his jacket. “I will.”

“That’s a good boy; you just watch them. Watch how they look at you, watch what they say. You’ll see, we’re in danger,” he whispered before pulling away.

I looked at him and searched his face, though looking into his blue eyes didn’t bring me the same relief that hearing him did. It confused me but not enough to cause alarm. We had all changed out here, me most of all.

“Who are you?” I whispered to him. I reached out and touched his face. “You are so many people in one body – who are you now?”

The man smiled, but his eyes didn’t smile, just his mouth. He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Silly, Killi. I’m Perish. The same man who has been protecting you for months now. It’s just me and you Killian, just me and you, okay?”

I couldn’t stop staring at him, wondering in my own madness if I could see the other one if I looked hard enough. The one named Sky and the one who held me.

I shifted myself back into him, not able to keep his gaze and let out a relieved sigh as he held me.

The signs disappeared behind us, left in the greywastes where people could see them. There were no signs in the plaguelands, or anything besides the burnt shells of houses and the same blackened roads and medians. Even the rocks here had burn marks on them, there must’ve been a great fire here at one point in time.

Perish was walking slowly with me, matching my footsteps so he wouldn’t pull too hard on my hand. He was holding my hand now, gently with a soft touch, though I couldn’t feel his skin through my bandages.

I had many bandages on me, snowy white ones, grey ones, and a blue tenser bandage he put on my feet. I had been wrapped like a mummy and I walked like one too.

He had decided it was to be done last night, last night when we camped on the side of the road because there were no houses around for us to sleep in. The burned skeletons of buildings in the distance offered no more shelter than a median on the side of the road so we didn’t bother.

The can of food we had opened this morning was cat food, just our luck. I ate some and it tasted good. I think it was chicken and I could feel the ground up bones in my teeth. I only had a bit to eat before the slaves took the rest.

The slaves took all the food.

Perish raised my hand and petted it, shaking his head back and forth. “My poor thing, we’ll get to the lab soon and we’ll clean you up. How are the burns on your face? Do they hurt?”

I brought my hand to my face and brushed over the hot spots, the one on the right side was the worst, but I found they were slowly getting better. I remember someone telling me they would, but I couldn’t remember why…

I just… had trouble remembering things now.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, drawing my hand away from my face and looking at it. My skin was peeling off like I had a bad sunburn. My neck was worse. “Am I still ugly?”

He shook his head and leaned in to kiss my lips. I shyed away but I was too slow. Perish kissed me slowly and only withdrew when I whimpered.

“You’re beautiful, so beautiful,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry anymore, it’s almost over. Sky will be gone soon.”

What’s almost over? I wanted to ask but behind me there was a noise.

We both turned around at the same time and saw Edward on his knees, his hand up to his face, cradling his head like he was unable to hold it up any longer.

“We need to rest… he’s… I think he’s turning into a raver,” Danny choked, the emotion heavy on his voice. “Should… should we –” Danny’s flaked and chapped lips pursed, barely visible under the matted remains of his beard. He turned away from Edward and staggered up to us.