The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (10 page)

Despair tightened my throat, filling it with that tingly feeling that told me I was seconds away from losing it. I felt like the butt of a cruel joke right now, that the universe was beholding my ironic misery with a right-fucking chuckle.

Here I was in front of Aras... in front of the only home I had ever known, and I had never felt more lonely, more lost... more homesick.

I stared at the empty deacon cages, then at the legionary on the walls. I felt like I was going to crumble with the amount of despair I felt on my shoulders.

“Nothing...” I whispered with a shake of my head. I could never go home, because Aras was no longer my home. It was Silas’s now. “I’ll... I’ll be going now.”

I just want to go home. I just want to be in Aras with Reaver and Killian.

Unable to contain it anymore I let out a stifled sob. I put my hand over my mouth and turned away. I started walking back towards the bunker.

They laughed at me.

“Did he leave his balls behind? Maybe that’s what he forgot!”

“What a fucking loser.”

Yeah... yeah, I know.

I walked back into the bunker feeling worse than ever. It had been a stupid idea to try and see Aras. But having it so close-by...

Maybe I was hoping it would still feel like home.

I looked behind me only once, to the rocky crags that held my old cabin inside of it, now being used by my older brother Vegas. I didn’t even want to try to go there; I knew it would be the same feeling if not worse. Vegas and my siblings shared my humor and need to not take things seriously. They would fucking tease me even more than the legionaries did.

I opened the steel door of the bunker and went inside.

Even the bunker held too many reminders.

Reaver, as I now knew, had been brought to his bunker when he was a newborn and here he lived for the first two years of his life. It was obvious now as I became more familiar with this place – there were bite marks on everything.

I had been stuck in this place for several days now and not having someone to talk to was driving me crazy. I was used to being around people; they’re what gave me energy. I wasn’t all... deep-thinker-introvert like Reaver was. I needed that constant stimulus or I was just alone with my own thoughts, and my own thoughts were boring. I didn’t have much of an imagination; TV was my imagination.

I walked down the narrow hallway to my bedroom. I had completely ignored the left wing of the bunker. It was locked but it hadn’t taken long for me to find the key. I peeked in and immediately knew I had made a mistake. That was where they had left Perish and it was nothing but rotten, brown blood stains, and dirty torture tools.

Leo had done that... or Lycos the chimera. That most of all disturbed me. This whole time he played himself off as being a kind mayor when in reality...

I shuddered. They had bloodied scalpels in that room, bone-saws, and bloodstained rope still holding bits of skin... they had done a complete fucking work-up on that crazy guy. Our mayors...

Chimeras were scary.

I flopped down on the bed and put my arms behind my head.

I stared up at the ceiling. I had learned quickly that chimeras were scary people, but I think the reality of it was starting to hit me. Even the kind, sciencey, smart chimera types had that mean streak to them. I had unfortunately seen that in my ex-fiancé. The one chimera I was sure had been different.

The one who had grabbed me and chained me to the bed...

My eyes burned and because no one was inside this bunker to judge or laugh at me, I clutched my pillow to my chest and cried. I cried so hard it would put Killian to shame.

I was a homeless, fiancéless, friendless idiot. And I was so fucking depressed and lonely – I didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to go home so bad, but my home didn’t exist anymore.

I jumped a mile high when the phone Elish had given me rang. I looked around, my heart banging inside of my chest, and picked it up.

“Hello?” I sniffed. My heart pulled for it to be Reaver on the other end, telling me that they had Killian and Jade.

“Reno, we need your help.” My heart sank, it was only stupid Elish. He continued talking even though I was sniffing like an idiot. “You must find the key for the cell Lycos was keeping Perish –”

“I already looked,” I replied sullenly.

“Does it look like he performed brain surgery?”

How the fuck was I supposed to know? I asked him this and I felt his temperature start to rise. He had no patience with my attitude and I had no patience for any chimeras right now.

“Is there medical tools? Anything that suggests he –”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I saw a bone-saw, scalpels; they were torturing him pretty good.”

Reaver said something in the background. My heart lurched at his voice, and more tears burned my eyes.

Elish responded to Reaver, “No, he disabled all cameras and hid all the proof, if that is what he did.”

“What’s going on?” I sniffed. “Do you have the boys?”

“No,” Elish said sharply back. I clamped my mouth shut and tried to force down the constriction in my neck that told me if I spoke any more words I was going to start sobbing like an idiot.

They hadn’t found the boys yet... but why did they want to know if Leo performed brain surgery?

Elish was talking to Reaver; Reaver didn’t sound happy at all. I stayed on the phone watching my boots become speckled with tears.

I hated it here, I hated being alone.

“Elish?” I croaked. “Can I take the quad to Tintown? I don’t want to stay here.”

Why was I asking him permission? Maybe I was used to answering to chimeras now.

“Yes, I insist that you do. Go to Tintown and keep the phone charged and ready. We are tracking Jade and Killian now.”

Did that mean they found signs of them? I knew better than to ask.

“We’ll keep in touch. Don’t travel to any location that doesn’t have cell reception and don’t take the blocker off of the phone either,” Elish said, and with a quick goodbye he was gone.

And here I was alone again but at least there was some light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how faint. I could get out of this bunker that I felt was slowly squeezing the life out of me.

So I was a vagabond, but at least I had a lot of money and a quad, so maybe in a way I had just emotionally freed myself. If there was one thing I had going for me it was that being in the company of chimeras gave me a lot of fringe benefits. Though black cards were as good as worthless in the greywastes I had a couple thousand dollars stuffed on my person.

There were no teary goodbyes to the bunker, or to Aras. As I rolled the quad out of those steel doors I realized I had been saying a slow goodbye to my home for the last couple of months.

I rolled into Tintown three days later. A town twice the size of Aras, with large walls made up of concrete blocks, rusted sheets of metal, and old cars. There were no deacons but like Aras they had sentries, dozens of them. Standing like crows behind the rust streaked walls, all of them wearing thick wool jackets and ear-flapped hats.

“Hey, mate! I haven’t seen you around before.” I smiled to myself as the cheerful boy looked down at me with a friendly grin. It was such a contrasting response to what I got in Aras I felt my spirits get lifted. This might not be home but they had greywasters on the walls and right now that meant the world to me.

“My name is Reno formerly from Aras,” I called up to him. “That place has gone to shit and I need a town to bunk in for a little while and a place to stash my quad.”

The young man nodded; his eyes squinted as he looked up at the grey sun. “Yeah, we have been getting a few of them since legion law came into play there. Come on in and make yourself at home. Paul stashes the vehicles for travellers just leave it where it is and you can collect and pay once you leave. Half a buck a night, is that alright?”

I nodded. We had similar arrangements in Aras. “Sounds good, bro.”

The sound of rusted metal scraping together could be heard. In front of me two flat pieces of sheet metal reinforced with a bolted on chain-link fence scraped open. It was like the rusty old gates of heaven opening up for me, though anything that wasn’t that bunker was heaven.

I walked through the doors and was immediately greeted by the smell of smoke, rotting meat, and dirt. There was nothing more greywaster than that; it put another smile to my face. Skyfall smelled like fucking flowers and pretention and I was more than happy to get back to my roots.

I gave the gate keeper an appreciative wave and walked into Tintown, deliberately taking in deep breaths as I found the main street. It was a single road with concrete medians that acted as fences. Abandoned structures stood in their dilapidated state behind these medians, most with collapsed roofs and sunken in faces. It looked like the occupied, repaired houses weren’t for another half block down the road.

I walked past a couple of kids, two girls, swinging their feet as they perched on these barriers. Both of them giggling and whispering things to each other. I had twin sisters so I knew annoying girls well, they were always whispering and laughing at shit.

“Hey... where is a good bar?” I asked one of them.

They looked at me and laughed some more, before one of them jumped off and pointed ahead of us. “Dust Devil... it’s down there,” she said. She wasn’t scared of strangers at all, the kids here were either little morons or perhaps it was just that safe here. “And there’s Tazzy’s way, way back near the east entrance.”

“Thanks.” I dug into my pocket and found one of the chocolate bars I had stashed in my jacket. I gave it to her and with a girlish squeal I made two best friends. They jumped up and down screaming in each others faces. With a shake of my head I continued on my way. My younger brother and the sisters were all older now. Though I had a couple nieces and nephews somewhere out there but we didn’t get a chance to visit that much anymore.

I checked out some of the people walking up and down the streets, most dust-covered greywasters with a few uniformed officers in the mix. No legionaries to be seen though which put me at ease.

Tintown wasn’t a block; it was a free town so some of them could be a little rough around the edges. I had never been to this town but I had been to Anvil visiting relatives and so far I was impressed. The structures here were mostly one or two storeys with the market district contained in a strip mall separated by a four-lane road with street lights still standing. I could even see separate buildings, not made from refurbished buildings but jerry-rigged together with walls from houses and slabs of concrete.

One of them looked like an ammo store. I might visit that place just to stock up, though I liked it here you never know when you have to piss off and run.

I walked into the bar, busy and noisy with a billow of smoke above everyone’s heads. The ceilings were stained with brown and the walls held the drippy run offs from the remains of the rainy season. There were pictures on the walls too, half-naked men and women showing off bikinis and tight-fitting underwear, and framed pictures of landscapes and old world people wearing ruffles and powdered wigs.

I weaved through the bar tables, most holding drunk men and women smoking cigarettes over half full bottles of beer, and found a place in a corner to sit down. I chose one underneath a poster of a twink-looking boy with a sheepish grin, tugging on his grey underwear. Reminded me of Tinky.

I think I missed a golden opportunity not calling him Twinkerbell. I wish I had thought of that.

A guy my age realized I was there a few minutes later. Wearing a black apron and too much gel in his hair he gave me a smile. “What can I get you?”

He looked kind of cute; I decided to turn on my charm. “One beer and a shot of whisky for starters. It’s been a long trip.” I winked at him, even though I technically just broken off an engagement I was really too miserable with my life right now to care. Flirting would make me feel better. “When are you getting off?”

I watched his face, either he was going to behold me in absolute horror because I had the wrong thing between my legs, look at me like I was an ugly cockroach unworthy of his company... or he was going to smile.

And he smiled and shook his head. “My family owns this bar; they don’t pay me so I can sit down when I want. As long as you don’t slip anything in my drink that is.”

I pursed my lips and slammed my hand down on the table which made him laugh. He shook his head and disappeared into the cigarette smoke. As I waited for him to come back I lit myself a cigarette and brought out a chocolate bar. It was warm in this bar and with my body heat they would melt soon, even with it still being winter.

The kid came back with my order plus a bottle of beer for himself. He sat down and looked me up and down. “You’re a Skyfaller aren’t you?”

I stared at him helplessly, but I gave him a bit of leave because my hair was still mostly silver and my clothing, though now sweaty and dusty, were still good quality.

I gave out a loud sigh and cracked the seal on my beer bottle.

“I’m from Aras, but I... got shot and I had a Skyfaller friend who had good docs. I then...” I paused; I didn’t want to say escaped. “Well, I left my fiancé and I missed home and... Aras isn’t quite my home anymore.”