The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (69 page)

We both paused as the very familiar sound of Killian bursting into tears could be heard.

I closed my eyes for a second, took a deep breath and fell behind a few steps so I could address this.

Sure enough, Killian’s face was dissolved into tears. When he saw me he buried his face into his hands and shook his head. “They’re going to kill him?”

The lead slaver nodded solemnly. He twitched his mouth to the side but that was it for his sympathies. “Sorry, little Twinkles, we’re slavers, we ain’t the Peace Corps.”

All around us the slavers were giving us glances and snickering to each other. Jade on the other hand was stone-faced, staring forward with a silence to him that made it all too known he was screaming in his head.

This I didn’t need... this I
really
didn’t need. I wanted to just kill that stupid little mute right then and there to save having to deal with the fallout of Killian’s newest realization.

Really though I suspected as much. Slaves were usually sold as either free labour, sex workers, or food, rarely ever did they get sold as maids. Only elites could afford an arian as a maid and from Jade’s stories about Elish’s sengil Luca they trained those little creatures from toddlers.

I put a hand on Killian’s shoulder but he jerked it away. I didn’t give a shit though so I put it back on.

I rubbed it and said as gently as I could, “Killi... we can’t save them all.”

The boy looked up at me, his eyes red and full of tears. He stared into me with such emotion I felt my cold dead heart give a flicker of empathy.

“Please, Reaver?”

I hated the pull that kid had on me at times.

“He’s-not-for-sale,” Hopper piped up beside me. “I told ya, he ain’t for –”

I shook my head and swore oaths under my breath, but I had an idea... and it might just be a happy medium.

“Look, what if we take the kid with us to Mariano, and we’ll sell him to some nice elite that will probably use him as a sex slave or a maidservant... if you think that’s a better life, Killian.” I let out a sigh and glanced over at the mute who was kicking a rock for Deekoi. “In return I’ll bring you back a healthy slave to replace him from the town, and get you your stupid fucking goggles for free. How’s that?”

Hopper opened his mouth in a way that told me he was about to disagree but he closed it as soon as his slow slaver brain caught up to him.

He nodded and put his goggles back over his head. “Alright, Merrik, you got a deal. You get the mute and I want a healthy arian in return.”

Killian let out a squeal and I felt his arms around my neck. I grimaced as he planted a kiss on my cheek. Then he seemed to remember my hatred for showing affection in public so he settled for a beaming smile. “Thank you, thank you, baby. I won’t forget this.”

I wouldn’t let him.

Chapter 25

Reaver

Chally rubbed his neck; his long dirt-caked fingers grazing over the swollen, rash-covered flesh of his neck. Hopper had taken his collar off a couple of hours ago and he kept putting his hands up to stroke where it used to be as if not believing what was actually going on.

When he saw me looking at him he smiled and signed something to me as he moved his mouth. I could read his lips though.

“Thank you,” he signed and mouthed to me.

I glared at him and his smile disappeared. “Don’t thank me; you’re probably going to wish you were dead once we sell you to some fat elite with a cactus-dildo fetish.”

“Reaver!” Killian elbowed me in the ribs. I reciprocated by digging my hand into his side making him give out a squawk.

We were all in pretty good moods considering everything. I was happy to be on my way to Mariano to charge the Ieon. I had to get that intel to Elish as soon as I could. I was also happy to just be away from Hopper’s caravan, and to a lesser extent Perish and Jade. Those two grated on my every last nerve.

Killian, of course, was just happy I decided to save Chally from his fate, and Chally was obviously happy to be temporarily free. Those two seemed to be getting along rather well, which was okay I guess.

“Reaver!” My inner thoughts were broken by Killian’s laughing voice. “Look...”

I glanced over at the grubby little mute kid and watched him make like he was holding a knife. He then stabbed his pretend knife into his clenched fist before his hand made another shape.

“Fascinating.” I looked back to the greywastes but the giggle-buddies started laughing.

“He’s killing an
E
then an
N
. Kill-
E
-
N
. That’s how he signs my name!” Killian said.

I let out a breath through my nose. “So when I finally cut out your tongue to stop you from nattering at me we can still communicate?”

Killian smiled at me before shaping something to Chally.

They both burst out laughing as they glanced back at me.

My mouth dropped open. “Are you fucking kidding me? What did you say? You can’t talk behind my fucking back!”

They laughed some more. I shook my head and got out my M16 and started scouting ahead, leaving the little budgies to have fun with each other. He was getting sold soon so Killian might as well get all his laughs in. He was going to be wailing when I handed over Chally to the ugliest, most creepiest-looking elite I could find.

My eyes scanned the make-shift map that Chomper had drawn for us, which looked like useless scribbles but the landmarks did their job. I had a plan as to where we would sleep tonight and which hotel in Mariano would be the safest for us to stay in once we arrived.

Unless we walked into the wee hours of the morning we would be sleeping in the basement or bedroom of an old rancher home. Most towns were closed down for the night anyways so chances are we wouldn’t be allowed in. Giving the kids a good night sleep would be worth spending the night out in the barren greywastes, even if I didn’t like it. I would be the only one to keep watch so I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight. I certainly wasn’t going to trust Killian or the mute kid to keep watch that was for damn sure.

I climbed up a small incline that was still being held back from the road with a grey concrete barrier, though it had a large fissure slowly splitting it in two. I then hopped onto a median and scanned the greywastes around us.

Same landscape, rocks sticking out of the grey ground with the occasional twisted tree or spindly bush. Sometimes when I would spend days out here it would confuse me once I came back to my basement, came back to blue water jugs and my red Coca Cola signs. You forget colour exists out here sometimes.

I remember how blue his eyes looked compared to the grey.

“Killi?” I turned around and called.

Killian, who had been learning signs from Chally as they walked, looked up at me. “Yes, hun?” His blue eyes just as vivid as I remembered them in my head, like deep blue pools of water. They contrasted the area around us to the point where they looked like fallen stars. He held the only natural colour around us right now.

I just felt like seeing them for some reason.

“Nothing,” I smirked and turned back around to scale the other side of the incline. He didn’t answer back but I knew he was probably signing something to his new friend.

We spent an uneventful day following the road. During the last two hours of daylight I led the boys off the pavement and down a steady incline into a small valley. Sure enough, Chomper’s map was right and there was a small little ranch house surrounded by grassy flatlands.

I tucked the kids behind a woodshed like they were cougar cubs and crossed the yard towards a closed door. The door to the inside of the house once had red paint on it, but it had all been chipped and sloughed off, only laying as crinkled ruins against the bone-dry wood.

But the chips were not disturbed; they had been there long enough to gather a good amount of greywaste dust so no one had been here for a while. Still though a radanimal or something could’ve snuck in, so I kicked the door open.

The door swung and half fell off of its hinges. I grabbed it and made it stand up right before I froze my movements and listened.

No heartbeats and the smell inside was of the thick must and sour that all old houses had. No animal stink or rotting carcasses.

I let out a whistle and sure to their cue the kittens peeked their heads out from behind the shed. How did I end up with two timid blond kids? I swear with my luck I would find out he was a long lost brother or something and then we would be forced to keep him.

I walked in, my boots crunching against plaster. I quietly walked into every room and surveyed what would be our safest spot.

“The kitchen is clear, see if you can find us some food. If this place is this desolate I’d rather we sleep on the second floor than the cellar. I want to be able to see shit not just hide from it,” I said behind me. I pointed towards a half-crumbled wall, its dry beams sticking out and chewed on from long gone radrats. I could see the bottom of a fridge through it. “It’s behind that wall.”

Killian nodded, Chally beside him with his eyes wide. He was holding a flashlight even though it was still daylight outside. He seemed to be sticking pretty close to Killian.

I started testing the stairs and wiggling the railing as I climbed up. These stairs seemed shoddy at best but they were supporting my weight. If they could support me the two marshmallow fluff boys would be able to walk up here.

I coughed into my sleeve as the disturbed dust tickled my nostrils. The walls had shredded all of their plaster but the insulation had remained in their partitions; though it collected dust like a magnet and it seemed even the slightest of movements was making it fly.

I walked into a bedroom and saw an old crib pressed up against the wall and a soiled mattress on the ground. I saw a skeleton with a rat-chewed blanket draped over top, and though the black stain on the mattress made it hard to tell, I think I saw the kid’s skull tucked under her arm. Poor ol’ bitch probably died during a winter. If she had been killed there would be no way her body would’ve been allowed to go to waste, or the kid’s – kids tasted great.

I closed the door and checked out the next room but it was just a bathroom with a rust streaked tub and a cream-coloured toilet without a lid. We could piss in that tonight if we needed to, the floor looked decent enough.

No mattresses to be found besides the one that had the years old bodies rotten on top of it. The master bedroom’s mattress shredded under the kicks of my boots so I knew once our weight was on it the springs would be digging into us. But we were more than used to sleeping on the ground and the mute kid would be too.

I walked to a warped window frame with glass long since broken, laying in shards underneath the sill mixed in with the ground-in dirt of the carpet. This room hadn’t seen a living soul in a long time from the looks of it; even before the Fallocaust it seemed to have been an older home. It still had wallpaper on the gyprock, peeling down in long ribbons one layer after another. I counted five layers of wallpaper, all different floral patterns.

I scratched my finger against the thin paper and stripped off a few to see the bright blue pattern underneath. I tossed it into a corner and coughed again into my sleeve.

“Alright, come up stairs now. I want us in one room before night falls,” I called down to them. I laid my M16 against the door and walked down the stairs. I wanted to push an old couch I had seen against the door to the outside.

Killian appeared with two cans of mystery food, the label faded and already falling onto the floor with even his gentle touch. “I think this might be beans.” He coughed too and tapped the can as I pushed the couch.

The mute kid appeared and gave me a hand which I appreciated, though I think it was more to suck up than to be useful, but who’s to know.

When night fell I turned on one of our flashlights and put it underneath the blankets. We didn’t have a bluelamp to call our own anymore so this would have to do. I didn’t want to waste the batteries so I fed the kids as quickly as I could. Though the can wasn’t beans it was beets but whatever, those tasted alright though it stained all of our fingers. Chally was just thrilled to get something other than Ratmeal so he didn’t bitch, or sign a bitch anyways.

I wonder if he could do that.

After Chally curled up with his thin blanket I brought up a chair to the window and watched the dark moonless landscape around us.

As I heard rustling I looked over and saw Killian drape his blanket over Chally. I sighed and shook my head though I bit my tongue.

So caring and so sweet... but this wasn’t Skyfall, this wasn’t Tamerlan...

“Come here.” I motioned him over and shifted back on the chair.

Killian gave me a shy smile and sat down on my lap. I put my arms around him and kissed behind his ear.

He tilted his head back to try and kiss me with a pucker of his lips, he couldn’t reach though which he giggled about, so I craned my head and did the rest of the work.