Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (5 page)

Then another surprise. Nana had a hammer in her hand, quietly and gently she pried the nails out of my hands and when I fell forward she took me into her arms.

I whimpered and she held me. She shushed me and kissed my cheek.

“You need to leave, Sami, you need to run away,” Nan whispered. Her grip on me tightened and she kissed my head.

I pulled away and shook my head. “I don’t want to go.”

Nan gently took my shoulder and started walking with me into the dark. I glanced behind me once and saw the lights of Sunshine House far away. They looked so warm and welcoming… I wanted to go back home and go sleep in my car bed.

“Gill’s leaving you up here to die, Sami.” Nan looked behind her and sucked in a breath. “I got you a bag with Barry inside and some water and jerky. You need to run for Nan.”

“Linda!”

I jumped and so did Nan as Gill’s booming voice sounded behind us. We both turned around and froze when a shadow could be seen in front of the Sunshine House lights.

Nan grabbed my shoulder and pushed me towards the greywastes. She gave me a pack.

“Where do I go? When can I come back?” I cried. Nan looked behind her again. She was crying and her hands and everything were now shaking.

Gill was looking around; we were in the dark and he was looking for us. My night bright started showing me more of him and I realized he was carrying an axe.

“Go towards where the sun sets, go to the west towards the towns. You can’t come back, Sami. You’ll do fine, you’re a smart smart boy.” Nan suddenly let out a sob and hugged me, but Gill heard her crying and he started walking towards us with the axe. In the chaos kids were looking out the dorm windows and some walked outside behind him, and when they saw that Gill had an axe, I heard some of them cheer. They all wanted me to get axed and they wanted me with the nails in my hands.

Everyone but Nan.

I was bad.

“Run. Go, Sami… run for Nan. I have Barry inside of the bag,” Nan sobbed, putting the bag into my arms since my hands hurt too much. She turned me around and gave me a push. I walked a few steps but everything was so dark I turned around. Everything outside was scary, the kids were scary and Gill was especially scary… Nan was all I had.

“Nana…” I took a step towards her but she shook her head and started walking backwards. Nan blew me a kiss but I was too scared and I didn’t catch it.

“Linda!” Gill suddenly bellowed. “I said not to fucking touch him!” I jumped and gasped and as he came closer and closer I took one last look at Nan and I ran. I ran into the greywastes with Barry.

Sami age 6

I ran and ran where I had seen the sun set every evening and I didn’t stop until I had to throw up.

I looked behind me and saw Sunshine House was nothing but a glowing blue light. It was the only light I could see besides the moon up in the sky. I couldn’t hear yelling at all – but I couldn’t hear anything.

I wasn’t tired though and I could see darker shadows in the distance. I had never been this far away from Sunshine House except when I was a baby and I had a mom, so I wasn’t sure if it was a shack or a town. So I decided to walk towards them and maybe there I could sleep until morning.

I bet I wouldn’t be able to sleep though; all the stuff happening around me had numbed the pain in my wrists and arm but it was coming back now. It was throbbing and nothing helped. I cried about it at first but eventually the tears stopped. I knew there wouldn’t be any water to dunk my burns in like Nan used to do when we had burns. Sunshine House had a well but there weren’t any wells here and if there was I didn’t know about them.

Eventually I saw that the shadows were abandoned houses. I was too tired and in pain to feel relief about it though. I went inside one of the houses with a half-open door and I started looking around.

Everything was a mess. There was a ripped up couch with all the fluff everywhere and the fluff was covered in dust from the broken plaster and dirt. I checked the kitchen but it was dirty too, and all the appliances were pulled out and thrown around. They were all rusty and spooky-looking; I didn’t want to sleep there.

Then I went upstairs and I found a mattress. It was piled and heaped with blankets and the blankets stank but it was warm tonight so I didn’t need them. I laid down on the mattress and picked the black skin from my wrist and arm, it was starting to bubble and go redder. It took me awhile but I managed to fall asleep in the smelly abandoned house.

When I woke up the sun was shining and my arm was feeling a bit better but when I accidently brushed it against a quilt blanket it yelled at me. I sat up and looked around and almost called for Nan but I remembered where I was.

This wasn’t my car bed and I wasn’t in the loft above the boys’ dorm. I was far away and I couldn’t go back or Gill would kill me with the axe.

I wish I was brave like in the Disney books, but I just cried cause I was so lonely. Then I remembered that crying wouldn't do anything but bring ravers,
so I got up and started pulling off the blankets from the big ol’ mound.

I gasped and jumped back when I pulled the last blanket off. It was a shrively human! He was all black and his eyes were missing and his skin so tight it was like jerky. This gave me an idea and I leaned down and bit his finger but it tasted gross.

Though as I pulled off the rest of the blankets I saw he had pants on and a jacket. I checked his pants and I found a pack of stained cigarettes, a lighter, and a knife holder on his belt. I spent the next long while pulling his belt off of him with the knife. I looped it through my own pants and I think I looked mighty fine.

If I was going to be a greywaster now I had to look the part and I think I did. I had a knife which was on my hip and I had cigarettes though they smelled like the man tasted. I walked downstairs and lit a cigarette so I could stand on the porch and have a morning smoke like Gill always did.

Today I decided I was an adult. Maybe I would say I was fifteen if I met anyone so they wouldn’t pick on me or try and eat me.

I lit my cigarette to celebrate my passage into adulthood and took a long inhale. Though no sooner than I did the smoke burned my throat and I was coughing, then I threw up again.

Cigarettes tasted gross but in that grossness I felt my whole body jitter and I felt energy so I kept it in my mouth and looked around the kitchen for any cans.

The merchants and greywasters who would stay with Nan in exchange for food would tell us stories around the fire some nights. They said greywasters survived on human meat and scavenging in abandoned houses. They said there were cans in the houses that were good to eat and houses could keep your ass protected from the greywastes.

I wasn’t allowed to say ass but I was an adult now, I bet I could say worse.

“SHIT!” I yelled before clasping my hand over my mouth with a nervous giggle. I expected Nan to come bursting through the door to give me a spanking but then I remembered I was all alone now.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I said out loud as I walked into the kitchen and started kicking aside broken dinner plates. I hopped up onto a counter after brushing away some dishes and papers and started looking through the cabinets. “Fuck, shit… piss ass fuckface.”

I laughed but sneezed when a puff of sawdust tickled my nose. It looked like radrats had eaten some of the wood around here. I loved killing radrats they were as big as the cats at Sunshine House.

There were packaged plastic things, they had once been inside of boxes but the boxes had dissolved into papery shreds. The plastic inside of the box sat inside of the papery shreds like it was an egg inside of a nest. I opened the plastic but it was yellow rice and I didn’t have any water. I put it in my pocket anyways and kept looking.

Nothing above me, though there were rust rings so maybe there had been but it had been scavenged. I checked the underneath and poked my head way in.

I found something! Way in the back behind a pile of sour-smelling rags and a bucket I saw two dented cans. I picked them up and grabbed the bucket too and put it inside. Then I went into the living room to look for books but there weren’t any that I could read. I found some black markers though so I saved those and I also saved some fluff so maybe tonight I could have my very own campfire.

Then I stabbed one of the cans with my knife until I got a hole inside of it. I was pleased that inside was mixed vegetables and I ate all of it through the hole. It made my stomach feel gross for a moment since it was a lot of food but I didn’t throw up.

I left my abandoned house not soon after and spent the rest of the day scrounging the other houses. I found a couple more cans, some books, and a thin blanket that was pale pink but I didn’t care. I loaded everything in my bucket and started walking back to where the sun set every night.

So far my first day of being an adult was a success, though I kept looking in the direction I had came from… back where Nan was. A part of me wondered if maybe Gill wasn’t mad anymore and I could go home, but Nan said I couldn’t.

I missed Nan. This made my eyes burn and my lip tremble but I didn’t cry this time. I felt like a grown-up right then because only babies cried and I wasn’t a baby anymore. When the kids at Sunshine House reached adulthood they went off to find their own way. Except for Missy because she was a helper and Richard was Nan’s son so he stayed too. Nan told me that they go to the towns where the sun sets and I guess that was where I was heading. I should have been with Nan for another eight years at least but I guess since I was bad I had to leave early.

But since my teeth were growing in all pointy that would make me better able to live out here… but then maybe that meant the towns wouldn’t like me.

It was lonely out here but at least I had Barry. I wound up his butt and wedged him inside of the box so he wouldn’t fall out. I sang along to Barry’s Daisy Daisy song and walked towards the west, seeing grey rocks in the distance and structures that might have been a town but it was too far away to know for sure.

I examined my arm during my walking and I saw that the stove element had left spirals on my arm and wrist. There were three spirals which made a neat design, though it hurt at least it would look cool when it scarred up and stuff.

When I finally reached the town I had looked at it was night time again. I had been walking all day and I didn’t even stop to play once. It wasn’t much of a town anymore though and there was no one here. There were shops and big building, the biggest I had ever seen. All of the buildings had the glass broken and were streaked with dried black stuff and brown rust. Most of the buildings were also missing huge chunks from their outside paneling showing the wooden beams inside like it was their guts. I was too tired to check all the buildings though so I found one that was once a store and went inside of there to rest and eat. I hoped one of the cans had liquid inside of it, I hadn’t had anything to drink since this morning’s can which was peas.

I brought out a book and started stabbing the can I was disappointed though because it was something solid. I twisted the knife making the tin pop up and become sharp and jagged and smelled it.

It smelled like meat so it must be dog food. I ate some of it and opened the bag of little noodles to eat.

Though as soon as I popped one in my mouth I spat it out. I looked at the noodle and realized it wasn’t a noodle but a yellow pellet. I smelled it and it smelled like chemicals.

I stared at it with my brow furrowed but then it clicked. That place had been chewed on by radrats and there must be a reason they didn’t taste this stuff; because it was poison. I brushed my tongue with my fingers and put it back in the bucket. Maybe I could poison animals here and get some food. I could hunt like that until I was big enough to hunt like Gill did.

So far I was doing pretty good, I still didn’t have any water though and my throat was parched and dry.

That night I slept in the back of the store on top of some cardboard boxes. My arm didn’t hurt anymore but my heart hurt because I missed Nan and Sunshine House, also my throat because I was thirsty and there was no water around here at all.

The next morning I woke up and my throat was screaming for something to drink. All this dust I was breathing in was making it worse too. If I didn’t find water I didn’t know what I would do. I was days away from Sunshine House now and even if I asked Nan for some water I bet she would chase me away now.

I got up and grabbed my bucket with Barry inside and walked around the store for some food but everything was cleared out. All the shelves were dusty with curly paint that bubbled and blistered and the lights that hung down from the tall ceilings had all fallen or were only hanging from loose wires. Even parts of this store had daylight in them from the holes in the roofs; I could see the dust bits floating around as I passed them.

Then my ears picked up something. I froze and made my hearing go super good and started listening.

Voices? There were people outside now. I felt a shock of excitement go through me but that was quickly replaced by caution. I quietly walked to one of the big windows and peeked my head out of it to see who it was.

There were three greywasters outside. A part of me wanted to go back into the back room and hide but my scratchy throat reminded me that I was thirsty and they must have water. Nan had always been cautious about who she let stay with us, it was always only people Gill knew or merchants. I didn’t know who these people were and Nan said most greywasters ate each other when they met unless they were carrying big guns. I didn’t have any guns on me and I might be an adult now but I still looked little.

I didn’t want to be eaten but I was so thirsty. I watched the three greywasters who were stopping outside of a building I didn’t have time to look in. They were all men which wasn’t surprising since most greywasters were and they all had guns on them. One person even had a big assault rifle which was on his back. I could smell their sweat and body odour from here and they all had matted dark hair.

Then another one came out.

“Nothing in there – this town’s been picked dry.” It felt so weird to hear voices, almost jarring, I was used to just hearing Barry’s song or me saying swear words out loud.

“I don’t want to give up yet, too many good lookin’ structures,” a tall man with sticking out ears said. “Let’s keep going.”

“You three can. I want to heat up one of our cans,” the one who had come out of the building said. “I’ll be in the parking lot of the apartments we passed with the burnt-out cars.”

The others agreed and three went off to check out other buildings giving the guy staying behind their bags.

My heart perked up when I heard the swishing of water in one of those bags. I looked closer and saw they were carrying around what looked like a backpack full of water. It was white and all plastic and I could see a spout on the end. It made my throat burn even more and every time I thought about tasting it my body tingled from anticipation.

He had the water so I would follow him. When the others had gone into the next building I started stalking him but not before grabbing my bucket with Barry just in case I had to run. I could move faster with them even if the bucket had two cans still inside; Nan had always said I was sneaky and quick.

And he didn’t suspect me at all. I felt so dangerous like I was a carracat stalking his prey. I was only exposed for a few seconds before I found another building to hide behind. I hid behind building after building until finally I hid inside the open entrance of the apartment the greywasters had talked about. The entire roof had collapsed into the third floor and the weight had squished the floors down so they were all compacted. It was not a good place to stay in but there were lots of half-standing walls for me to hide behind and watch my prey!

The greywaster didn’t suspect a darn thing. I watched him get out a can and open it with a real can opener before pouring what looked like soup into it. Then he added a bit of water and started making a fire from some black tree sticks that had fallen from some of the trees nearby.