Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (4 page)

I nodded and dug my fingernail further into my toes, I made them hurt until I couldn’t take it anymore. The hurt from that was much better than the feelings I had inside about everything that happened. It made me feel better for the moment but after it was gone I felt rotten inside. Rotten and bad. Especially now that we were going to have to starve again this winter; I would start collecting some more food and bones to last me then, just in case.

Stupid Gabe and stupid Pauly. They started all of this, if they had just minded their own business none of this would’ve happened.

I stayed in bed for four whole days with only books to keep me happy and I read those so much I could recite them and I proved that to Missy when she came up with my soup and told me I was fibbing. I think she was just saying that so I would tell her the story from the beginning. The story was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I felt like Alexander but I don’t think he got his face shoved into a burning anthill and I don’t think he was a monster either, plus one of the bad things he had happen to him was having gum in his hair. If I had gum I would never complain about a single thing for the rest of my life.

Though while I was stuck in bed I thought up a plan as to how I was going to pay back Gabe and Pauly for what they had done to me and for upsetting Nan. At first the plan made me giggle and hide under my Power Rangers pillow because it seemed overwhelming but as the days went on and I went over it again and again I started to get excited!

On the fourth day Nan said I was well enough to leave my room! I ran all the way downstairs and played nicely the entire day. Though when no one was looking I started collecting what I would need for my prank on Gabe and Pauly. Missy and her brother Payton usually were the ones who hung out in the front yards but they were helping Nana clean rats for jerky and since I had been cooped up I was allowed free play. The other kids were all too small to interfere or see me, baby Pat and three-year-old Ari just toddled around and minded their own business. Everyone else had chores or couldn’t walk yet.

By dinner time I was all ready, even the cloth I made for my plan was all ready.

Every time I thought of what was going to happen tonight I was filled with so many prickles, like needles were pricking my skin and each one of them was full of sparks.

Pauly and Gabe shared their own house now since they were teens and Nan said teens do things at night that kids shouldn’t see. I wasn’t sure what that was but I think they were smoking. I tried a cigarette that Gabe gave me when I was five and Nan made him howl for it. I liked how it burned though; I tried to smoke the yellow grass once but it wasn’t the same.

It was the best thing that Gabe and Pauly had their own house a ways away to stay in, my plan wouldn’t work any other way. People would hear them and I’d get spanked and Nan would be mad. I knew Nan would already be mad but I didn’t care. This was between me and Pauly and Gabe and it was none of Nan’s business.

I was so excited I had to pretend I was sleepy when Missy came up to read to me, it was her turn and Nan was a bit more busy since we had two new babies in the main house. They were both from the same caravan some ravers tried to eat and they cried all the time. Chippy from the east, an old nomad man found them hanging from light poles wailing with their parents all eaten and stuff. They had tied them up there when the ravers started running towards them. I wonder if they were old enough to see. My mom was named Lydia and she had gotten sick and died, I didn’t remember any of that.

Missy left and I dragged my white chair to my window and looked out it. Even though it faced the backyard I could see Nan’s light was still on. I had all my supplies in a backpack except for my plastic container that I had to carry since I didn’t want to spill it.

When it was eleven Nan’s light turned off, when it was twelve Gabe and Pauly’s did too. I waited until two in the morning before I grabbed my navy blue backpack and started to quietly walk down the steps.

Though I had planned this with a smile on my face, when I walked out of the boys’ dorm and into the warm summer night the light approach to my prank slowly slipped away. With the influence of the dark night filling me with awareness and adrenaline, and the reality of what I would get to do tonight, I felt myself become just a bit more serious about it.

This was apparent when I approached Gabe and Pauly’s door. Strangely with every step I felt lightness to my movements and an eagerness that compelled me to do it faster.

I opened the door and sneaked in. I looked around the room and saw Gabe and Pauly both sleeping in their single beds. They were surrounded by old boxes full of comic books they never let me read, and drawings from them trying to draw the characters in those comics. The entire one room cabin was full of things they had collected, some boxes stacked all the way to the ceiling.

I reached into my pocket and was immediately greeted by the smell of sour rope. I had soaked the strips of cloth I had made in water earlier today. I sneaked over as quietly as I could and kneeled down beside Gabe. With my breath trying to quicken in my chest I tied the first piece of cloth to Gabe’s hand before tying it to the bed. Then I did the other one and then both of his feet.

I had always been what Nana called ‘stealthy’. She always said I was sneaking up on her even when I didn’t mean to. So that just meant when I really wanted to be stealthy I could sneak around like an invisible man. This was proven to me when I was able to tie both of the boys to the bed rungs without them even waking up.

I took a moment to check every knot to make sure they were secure and dug into my backpack again. I took out my bottle that I had earlier screwed a sprayer on top of. I had gotten it from one of Nan’s Windex bottles.

I took out my lighter too and walked up to Gabe.

I held up the bottle to the side of his face, right where they had shoved my face into the burning ants nest. I squeezed it and sprayed the side of his face, the smell of sour chemicals seeping from the gas bottle and filling the musty-smelling room with my favourite smell in the world: gasoline.

Then Gabe’s eyes snapped open but I was ready. As soon as he woke up I slapped a sticky rat trap over his mouth, the sticky side down to muffle his screaming.

Though Gabe was still making noise! I gasped when I heard Pauly wake up in a daze, but quick as a bunny I turned around and did the same to him!

The two teens looked at me in shock; a shock which only got worse when they realized I had tied them up. My eyes switched to their glow-in-the-dark mode I called night bright and that made their eyes start to shine white. They were staring at me in shock, struggling and hollering. They struggled so much I thought the cloth might break, but it didn’t.

Without wasting time I started squirting the side of Pauly’s face. He had an ugly face like a rat so a nice burn would be an improvement. I squirted it, hearing another muffled scream come out as it got into his eyes.

I wanted to say something to them; I had planned to say something. I had planned a big speech in my head telling them to not bully me anymore or call me demon-monkey, but as I watched the two teens struggling and screamin’ muffled scream, with their terrified eyes rolling inside of their heads, I found myself silent.

I think I just wanted to watch them. I liked the terror on their faces.

There was a taste on the air tonight, something was different. I found myself almost frozen on the spot, feeling a quiver inside of my chest that pulled me into these dark thoughts that had always been my friends in my head. They whispered things to me that I had once dismissed with a nervous giggle but now…

Yes, something was different tonight, not just the chemical sour smell of gasoline or the relished screams that were muffled on my enemies’ lips. A new emotion was rolling through the childish glee I was experiencing and it was telling me… it was telling me…

I picked up the spray bottle of gasoline and, in a solid movement, I walked to Gabe and started spraying his neck, then his face which brought out shriller screams. Then I moved down and soaked his chest, then I soaked his private area and then I soaked his knees. When I was done I turned around and I soaked Pauly too. I even unscrewed the bottle when it was starting to run out and I sprinkled the rest onto his thrashing body.

I walked back to the middle of the room and turned around, ignoring the sounds of the beds knocking to the floor as they thrashed
. Clunk, clunk, clunk
… hysterical screams, thrashing…

Each one of these screams was making an explosion rock my chest. I wanted to stay here and listen to them scream forever but I knew eventually they would hear us.

And why watch the opening act forever? Then you would miss the play.

I took out my lighter and lit it, the flame flared so big from the fumes it burned my hand but I felt nothing. My eyes were fixed on Gabe who was glistening with gasoline and sweat. I walked up to him with a smile big enough for him to see the pointy teeth starting to grow on the front row.

I leaned down, not breaking eye contact, and I… don’t know why but I whispered in his ear.

“
Valeo
.”

I lowered the lighter, and before it could even make contact with his skin he erupted into flames. He was a ball of flames so hot I had to jump back; I backed away until I hit Pauly’s bed, unable to take my eyes off of Gabe.

So much fire, Gabe was literally a human fireball. His shape was perfect, still human and I could still see thrashing arms but everything else was a beautiful mixture of yellows and oranges. That with the shrill agonizing screams made him the most prettiest thing I had ever seen. I wanted to touch it; I wanted a camera to take pictures. Even though Pauly wasn’t on fire yet I couldn’t turn away from this scene I had created. I was mesmerized. I was awestruck. I felt a tingling rush through my body that compelled me to do something but I didn’t know what that was so I just stared.

I wish I had more words, I wish I was a poet so I could describe just what I was seeing. I knew for the rest of my life I would never get this beautiful image out of my head. I wished for nothing else but to bottle this feeling inside of me.

Then Gabe’s screaming stopped and disappointment darkened the bright thoughts inside of my head. Though the smell of cooking meat was delicious and made my mouth water I wanted the screams… I needed more…

Pauly.

I turned around, easily ignoring the searing pain going through my own body from the heat of the flames, not just on Gabe, but now crawling up the walls and getting into the boxes. I looked down at him thrashing and shrieking and lit my lighter again.

This time I pulled off the rat paper though I burned my hands more. I backed away towards the door as the open window stopped being able to get rid of all the smoke, and stood in the doorway as Pauly screamed his pain.

And, boy, did he scream. No longer muffled by the rat paper I enjoyed the music to my ears even though my own body was hot from just being so near the flames.

I smiled when I saw Gabe was still moving, the ties now burned off of his wrists and feet but his hands were lifting up before falling down. Pauly was thrashing and after a moment he rolled himself off of the bed, a fireball in the shape of a human.

There was nothing else in my life that made me happy. I realized this as the flames reached the roof. Fire and screaming I realized were the best things in the world.

“SAMI!”

I whirled around and felt myself get snapped out of my dream-like trance. Nan was running towards me with the older kids following behind. “Sami! Oh god… Sami what did you do!”

Nan grabbed me and backhanded me across the face but I didn’t cry.

I got mad.

“They burned me! And they made me stay inside for four days!” I yelled. Nan took one step into the burning cabin before she turned around. Her eyes were so wide they were like moons; her face was different too.

I decided to try and reason with her – I didn’t want a spanking. “You said this winter we would starve and now we have two more meats for our food,” I suddenly said. “It’s okay, Nana. We won’t starve this winter now. Right, Nana?”

Nan put her hand to her mouth. She looked up at the older kids, all of them, I realized, had began screaming. The summer night was nothing but screaming and the fire that was now turning the sky a deep red; big big flames that sent sparks to the universe to become stars.

“Nana, do you think fire sparks make stars?” I asked looking up at the sky.

“Nana?”

I looked over and saw Nan staring at me, tears running down her face. I didn’t like making Nan mad but I’d take my spanking for this, I didn’t mind. I had carried out my prank and I had seen all this fire and that made me happy.

What a nice evening this ended up being.

Sami age 6

If not all of the kids at Sunshine House hated me before, they certainly hated me now. In the weeks after I played my prank on Pauly and Gabe I couldn’t be anywhere away from Nan. I got rocks thrown at me and Tomis even threatened me with a knife and was going to cut me before Nan came and screamed at him.

But eventually Nan just put me in my room. She was tired of me being around; I think maybe because I liked to read out loud to myself because I was still learning and it was easier that way.

Though maybe she was angry at me too. Everyone was treating me like I was bad, even badder than before because they always teased me anyways.

I stayed in my room for a long time and Missy didn’t come up to read to me or bring me food. Nan came to bring me food but sometimes she forgot for an entire day and then it was just a small amount. I asked for more but I stopped because she slapped me when I asked where Pauly and Gabe’s meat was.

So Nan was cross with me which meant no one liked me. I dug my fingernail into my toenail even more until it made me say
Ow
. I kept doing it though to punish myself for everyone hating me. It made me feel better so I did it a lot.

I also chewed on my bed frame and my books because my teeth were itchy itchy. I’d rather have a bone to chew on, something that wouldn’t break because I was chewing through the spines of these big fairytale books.

Every day my teeth grew in more and this morning I lost another two teeth, two of my lower ones which had been loose. I could already see pointed tips poking up over my pink gums. The gums were all red from me chewing and from the teeth growing in; everything ached inside of my mouth. I was just miserable.

That night I heard Gill coming back. I stayed away from the window so he couldn’t see me and started to listen.

The voices started out normal but soon they started rising. I heard Gill yell first, then Nan, and soon they were just screaming at each other.

It was scary when adults yelled.

I winded up Barry and held his stomach to my ear. I sang along to his jingle loud enough so I wouldn’t hear Gill yelling at Nana. Though behind the musical box I could still hear Nan screaming at him. She kept saying I was just a six-year-old boy and I wasn’t evil.

Evil?

Evil people were ravers, the ones with the dark colours in the Disney books, and the people who gave Nan babies who were close to death. I wasn’t any of those people though – maybe I was a brand-new kind of evil.

Maybe that was why everyone teased me, because I was evil and bad not because I had different eyes and my teeth were growing in wrong. They just knew I was a bad person before I did and they were just defeating me like the good guys defeated the bad guys in my books and the movies we sometimes watched.

This made me look at the bad people differently. Maybe they didn’t want to be bad but everyone else kept telling them they were supposed to be bad, so one day they just decided to go with it. In the Disney books all the bad guys have dark clothes or dark fur but it wasn’t their fault they were born that way or that was the clothing they liked to wear. Maybe if Mufasa was nice to Scar and told Scar he could be king on weekends then Scar wouldn’t have killed him.

I pressed my right ear into Barry’s fur even more when I heard a crash downstairs and then my free hand I pressed my other ear. Barry was on
‘I’m half-crazy’
for the second time and I would need to wind him again soon.

Suddenly the door slammed open. I screamed from shock and clutched Barry. Then I screamed from fright as Gill appeared in the doorway with an angry look on his face. I backed up as far away on my bed as I could but he snatched me quickly.

Gill threw me against the wall. I smacked my back against the drywall and it crumbled around me. I lay there stunned but he grabbed me again and started carrying me downstairs.

Nan was screaming and that scared me even more. I kicked and tried to twist around yelling loudly for an older kid since Nan was scared too. Richard would help, he never minded me as much as some of the others.

My head hurt and I was so scared I couldn’t stop the tears coming down my face. Gill pulled me out of the boys’ dorm with everyone getting up and watching and he took me outside.

Everyone was yelling but it wasn’t bad yelling; every one of the kids outside were cheering at Gill. They were egging him on and telling Gill to beat me.

Gill took me into the main house; I almost dropped Barry but I didn’t. I held him tight but Gill was holding me tighter. I tried to kick him but he dodged me. He walked me into the kitchen where Nan baked and cooked.

Then in a flash Gill put me down and grabbed my arm. I tried to pull it back away from him but he held it hard. I could smell something hot and I screamed when I realized he was pulling my arm towards a turned on stove element.

It was bright red. I cried and hollered. I tried to yank my arm away; I tried to plead with him
no no no
but he moved my arm closer and closer and I could feel the heat hitting it.

Then a pain I had never felt before. I screamed and smelled the burned skin like with Pauly and Gabe. Right before my eyes closed I could see the smoke bursting from my arm and my wrist and my own fingers outstretched.

Everyone was cheering for him. My arm hurt so badly I thought I was going to die. This must be how much it hurts before you die because I had never felt this way before.

“See how that feels? What do you think those boys went through?” Gill snarled at me.

But then all of a sudden I felt something different. I felt mad; I felt angry. When Gill let me go I was ready; I turned around and bit him on the arm as hard as I could.

He hit me hard on the head and the kids cheered more. I snapped my jaw shut, using all the anger inside of me to bite harder. Then my teeth clipped together, my new ones just growing in and I ripped the meat from his arm.

Nan suddenly was there. She grabbed Gill by the arm to pull him away from me; the meat fell out of my mouth as I warned Nan to watch out but Gill was quick. He hit Nan on the face and she stumbled backwards onto the floor.

I stared in shock holding my bad arm which was screaming in pain. Nan groaned on the floor.

Gill grabbed me again and made me look at him. “Open your mouth.” I was too stunned to do anything but stare so he shook me hard.

“Open your mouth!” he bellowed. He turned me towards the stove element and I found my voice again and screamed “NO!”

I opened my mouth and he looked in it and swore.

“His adult teeth are fucking growing in pointed…” Gill dropped me and turned to Nan. “I’m ending this tonight. Something I should have done the moment I saw those eyes.”

Nan looked up her face shocked. “Gill…” But Gill walked past her and went outside.

She looked at me and her face crumpled. When she jumped up and ran towards me I shrunk back scared. Nan grabbed my good arm and Barry, and then she ran with me outside.

But Gill was there and behind him Tomis and Payton were carrying boards with tools. Gill snatched me before I could get more than five steps and held my hands behind my back. I screamed as loud as I could and screamed for Nan. My arm hurt so bad; I knew it was going to fall off. It was unbearable.

Nan grabbed Gill again but this time Gill didn’t hit her. He yanked me back hard and started walking me towards one of the bigger black trees I used to climb.

“If you interfere I’m gone, Linda.” Gill told her. “You can starve; I swear on the king you can fucking starve if you’re going to house demons.”

“I’m not a demon!” I yelled and Gill shook me harder.

I looked at Nan. She was the only adult who helped me and Nan was my Nana… but this time…

… this time she looked away from me.

“Nana?” I whimpered but Gill pulled me away and started walking me into the greywastes. It was dark but my night bright could see Tomis and Payton with the planks of wood, then the sound of hammering.

“Nana?” I started to get scared but I didn’t know what was going on. I just knew I had to get away and I had to thrash. I struggled and started screaming but Gill kept walking me further into the greywastes.

The rest of the kids of Sunshine House were clustered around the porch light in front of the main house. I craned my head just once to look behind me and saw them staring at me. The younger ones looked shocked and some were crying but a lot of the older ones looked eager and happy.

“Gill… he’s just a boy…”

“He’s a demon and he’ll be treated like one,” Gill said angrily. “He burned two boys alive, Linda. How can you be so blind to what he is? His eyes… his teeth… we need to stop these mutations not foster them.”

He kept dragging me until I was in front of Tomis and Payton. The two boys were securing the boards, now nailed together, in a small gathering of rocks. I was confused as to why they were there and what they were hammering. I didn’t understand what Gill was going to do, was he going to kill me? Was he going to shoot me?

Then Payton grabbed my hand and then so did Tomis. I kept thrashing as hard as I could, twisting myself and my body back and forth but they grabbed me hard and didn’t let go. I looked at Gill and tried to look at Nan but Nan wasn’t looking at me.

Why wasn’t Nan looking at me?

They held my hands and pulled me up onto the gathering of rocks, beside the boards of wood that were nailed together to make an X. It wasn’t until Tomis slammed my hand against one of the boards that I realized what they were going to do.

I started to cry and when I heard the sound of a hammer and a sharp, intense pain in my hands I screamed as loud as I could. So loud my voice broke and I started throwing up.

My hand had a nail sticking out of it, it was leaking blood around the metal and dripping down. Panic was in me so much I felt like I was drowning but suddenly I was frozen I couldn’t move.

Another hammer and another stab of pain. My eyes kept filling with tears and the tears stung them. I tried to pull my hands away but I was stuck. I was stuck on the board with nails through my hands and only a small plank underneath my feet.

Gill smacked me across the face twice before he spat on me. Then Payton and Tomis spat on me too and walked behind me towards Sunshine House. I cried and tried to call for Nan but my voice was strangled and whenever I tried I just coughed.

My hands hurt… every time I tried to pull them more pain burst from the nails. I shifted my feet and tried to keep as much weight as I could off of them but all I could do was make them hurt less.

I called for Nan and called for Nan and I said I was sorry… but no one came back for me. I was here all alone with just the greywastes ahead of me and the twisted trees.

No one came for me that night… I stayed in the greywastes my hands throbbing, not just my palms but my entire hand was hurting and all red.

That morning some of the kids from Sunshine House came to look at me. The younger ones looked and ran away and some picked up rocks and threw them. I didn’t cry when one hit me but soon all the younger ones were throwing rocks. Even Tracy who was only five; he had a bunch of them he threw until he got bored and went away. Some of the other kids didn’t throw rocks but they made faces at me. I think I hated that even more.

I called for Nan again but Nana never came. The people in Sunshine House were too far away, all back in the houses and I couldn’t hear them. I only heard when the kids approached and even then none of them would help me get down, even when I said please.

My throat was dry too, when an older kid Roland came to look at me I asked him for some water but he threw a rock and it hit the side of my face. He was Gabe’s friend so I don’t know what I expected.

I sniffed and wondered when Nan was going to give me water or some food. I had learned my lesson… I wanted to get down.

The blood had dried around my palms and now flies were starting to buzz around the wounds. I wanted to pull my hands right through but the top of the nail I had been nailed with were too big. I tried a few times though but it hurt too much; everything hurt too much.

Why was no one coming to see me? I couldn’t look behind me I could only look ahead, usually when I was in trouble Nan came or Missy came with my food but everyone was ignoring me now.

The thirst was the worst, even worse than the hurt from my wrists and the hunger. I felt myself desperate for some water, any water at all. The thirst burned my throat like fire, a flame that made my mouth feel like a desert. Even my tongue was raw and dry, it flopped around my mouth like a sandpapery piece of meat.

I called for Nan and called for Nan until my throat hurt too much so I stopped. I even stopped crying because I just didn’t have the energy to do it. I just stayed and looked at the grey landscape in front of me and stared.

That night when the sun went down I heard boots behind me. I didn’t turn to see who it was, it was probably more kids to laugh and throw rocks at me.

Then I saw a dark-skinned hand. I opened my mouth to say hello to Nana but she put her finger to her lips for me to be quiet.

Nana held some water up to my lips and I drank. It was such a relief on my aching dry mouth. I drank and drank until it was all gone; it was the best thing I had ever tasted.