by Quil Carter
I was blissfully alone too. Darkness came early now, and instead of the late-nighters wandering the streets with bottles of booze or joints they mostly stayed inside or clustered near Melpin’s.
I didn’t see a single soul as I ventured to the south area of Aras, just empty houses, shadows of refuse piles stretching to the sky, and the sullen faces of rusted vehicles.
Each street I went down held new things for me to look at. I found the movie theatre Reaver had once promised to show me. I walked past that and turned east. There I found the office buildings Aras got a lot of their furniture from. It still had some office furniture left behind, but mostly all that remained was the decay of a building rotting from the inside out. Boarded up but with the door ajar, people were free to come and go.
I cut through that parking lot, and gave my head a shake to free it from the rain water. I should have brought soap; this would be a nice time to bathe in the river with all the fresh water.
I turned left from the parking lot and started walking towards another cleared street. Shops on either side, all closed off and dead to the world. After this street I would start to make my way back to the basement.
The rain would be seeping into Asher’s corpse too; rain sped up the rotting process. I bet by now, even if someone had found my cemetery, they wouldn’t know who he was. He could be anyone now… but no one would find him. I had buried him discreetly and deeply.
Who’s a stupid waster now?
My body shivered and it wasn’t because of the increasingly cold rain. I shivered when I remembered him touching me.
I had been remembering that a lot. It confusing to recall, because my body still responded in ways I didn’t like. I rationalized it to not having sex with Reaver, we hadn’t done anything like that since the incident. He had kept his hands off of me, he didn’t even kiss me anymore except for pecks on the cheek. I knew he was respecting my feeling because of what had happened, but it was bringing up the wrong feelings.
It had been the ressin, like Reaver had said. I don’t know if he knew I was listening when he had told me that, but I was. I had been reassured by the fact that Reaver had been drugged with scopa but… the fact that I hadn’t… it didn’t sit well.
I kicked a piece of metal. It flew down the cracked pavement with a series of clattering bangs, all of them drowned out by the rain.
It was starting to come down even harder now. I blinked away the rain drops, wishing I hadn’t thrown my jacket away. I rubbed my rain-washed arms and shook my whole body like a dog. The road looked like it bent back towards the north so I decided to follow it.
I crossed my arms around my chest to try and conserve some warmth and pressed on.
I was dismayed to see that, a block after the curve I had been following, the road ended in a pile of debris I’d never be able to climb. I let out a nervous breath and looked around. I’d have to go further east but I would eventually come across a way to get to one of the main roads. Eventually I would get behind the Slaught House and if I made it there I could radio for Reaver to come and get me.
I shook the rain from my head again. As I did my teeth gave their first chatter.
It was getting darker now and the wind was picking up. I reached into my pocket and took out some heroin. I ducked into an abandoned building with my supplies and started to prepare myself another dose. The drugs would warm me up and give me a bit more energy. I could feel my last dose fading and if I was going to get home quickly I needed a boost.
I leaned up against the crumbling hallway and tied off my arm with my belt. I stuck the needle in, searching for a vein.
I noticed the track marks, rosy pink on my skin. I was lucky Reaver hadn’t touched me in a week; I kept myself bundled up and covered. No one was any the wiser. If Reaver knew I had been injecting drugs… gosh, he would kill me.
I stayed in the building for a few more minutes, enjoying the first pleasurable wave flow through me, wrapping me in its cozy blanket. Then I stepped outside. The rain that had been so refreshing and beautiful was now a cold threat and an unwelcome friend.
Odd…
I stepped into the street and looked ahead. I could see a bluelamps in a nearby building. I didn’t think anyone lived in this side of Aras, but I had probably walked farther than I thought. I must be close to the Slaught House.
I felt relieved and quickly walked towards the cold light. They would hopefully have a radio and I could call Reaver. Though the heroin had gotten rid of the pain in my backside and the aching cold from being out in the elements, I wanted him to help me home.
I walked into the abandoned building; it seemed warm inside though it wasn’t boarded up from the outside. I called out, “Is anyone home?”
There was no answer. I wrung out my shirt and started walking up the old stairs; they creaked with every step. “Anyone?” I called again. I leaned against the railing but stopped after it wobbled under my weight. This whole building was falling apart, who would live here?
There was a landing between every half-flight of stairs. I think this was another office building or something. I kept calling until I concluded there was no one home. Well, unless the door was locked I was borrowing their radio. I’d apologize once I was warm and not freezing and wet. Everyone in the town was afraid of Reaver anyway and they knew we were together.
I walked through a propped open door that led into a hallway. I could see the faint glow of the bluelamp down the narrow corridor, illuminating the building’s decay. Exposed building joists and chipped paint mixed in with the crumbling drywall. The floor looked unsafe, patches of it were sinking into rooms below. Whoever was living here shouldn’t be.
“Hello?” I whispered now. I tiptoed down the hallway, my boots crunching against the dirt and building refuse. I didn’t keep my weight in one spot for long. I was at least three-storeys up now.
When I got to the room my heart was hammering in my chest. I tried to envision myself seeing a radio. Hoping that might will it to happen.
I peeked through the door.
The bluelamp I could see was resting on a metal cabinet, beside it – I looked closer and took a small step forward – it was something orange. It looked so out of place in the shades of cold grey and black.
My chest felt strangely cool as I leaned down and picked it up. It was soft, plushy.
It was…
It was Perish’s stuffed dinosaur.
“Hi, Killian.”
That voice… my body froze in place. The stuffed dinosaur slipped from my hands and fell soundlessly onto the floor.
It couldn't be.
I slowly turned around, the clawed hand over my heart crushing it with all its will.
Perish was smiling nervously, his eyes shifted as soon as I looked at him. He was standing in the doorway to another office, to my left. Standing there… he had his lab coat on, his cloth pants. The glasses he didn’t need, and his ebony-coloured hair I always had to remind him to brush, standing there, perfect, alive, healthy.
“Perry…” My voice caught in my throat.
No… his neck, he looked normal, he was uninjured – but he was dead, buried. I had held his skull in my hands. It was impossible.
“I miss you, Killian.”
I started to back away, the tears springing to my eyes. He wasn’t real… he wasn’t real… but he was right there. I… if I walked to him, could I touch him?
I took a step forward, and as I did he faded into the darkness.
Suddenly I felt icy arms wrap around me, pulling me backwards and off of my feet. I thrashed my legs and pulled away as I felt them constrict me.
The hands locked, they were cold and clammy; they felt like the hands of a corpse.
“Do you miss me?” Asher growled into my ear. “Bona mea?”
My vocal cords broke as I screamed from pure, hysterical panic. I thrashed out of his grasp and stumbled forward. I heard him laughing. Fuck, the smell… I could smell them.
He grabbed my arm.
I whirled around to pry his dead hands away from my flesh but he had them clamped, digging into my skin. So cold and lifeless, so dead.
I spun around and as I faced him, I got a good look at him.
The dead man I had murdered, and buried under the moonlight.
There was a blue collar around his neck, the remains of the plastic bag, secure and tight and bordered with dead flesh from the seeping wounds beneath. Above was a face smeared with dirt and bruises which blended like oil paint with his black-pooled lips. His teeth were split in a Cheshire grin, showing white pearls that contrasted with his face like snow on coal.
And his eyes. Death had done nothing to dim them. The emerald gems flashed with psychotic glee as he grinned at me, though the whites of his eyes were grey.
I tried to push him away, but at the same time he pushed me out of the room. I slammed hard against the hallway gyprock, feeling the crumbling chalk shower around me.
I crawled on my hands and knees until I was able to upright myself. I flew down the hallway and started desperately down the stairs, my mouth open in a continuous scream.
I could hear them behind me, I could hear the creaking of the steps. They were going to catch up to me, they were going to kill me. Asher was going to fuck me, Perish was going to watch. Every corpse in Aras would rise from their graves to spectate my descent into delirium.
I swung over the railing, missing the last half-flight of steps and landed hard in the welcome area of the building. I struggled to my feet and limped out. My backside hurt, my legs hurt.
“Killian? Killian?” Asher called in a rumbled growl, thick with almost tangible threats. That voice was everywhere around me. It was inside of me, in my bones, my flesh, and my mind. I would never forget that voice, that whisper.
I tripped on my own feet as I tried to jump over a bumper and fell to my knees, the rain falling in sheets around me.
“A body reveals its most shocking of secrets, after the last breath is drawn.”
I felt Asher’s breath on my neck. I looked up and saw his reflection in the window.
Like an over-tightened bow string, my mind snapped.
Reaver
I ran after the deacdog as he bounded down the road towards the east section of Aras. I didn’t know if he was leading me to Killian, but I had been running around for over an hour looking for him with no luck.
The town in front of me was draped in a vale of black and grey, just tall shadows on either side, with rooms and hallways that could hold anything, including Killian. Would he take shelter in one of them? I had wanted to hope so, for his own health, but if he had it would take days to check out every house. I hoped I could run every road in Aras by daybreak, sooner if my friends stayed out with me.
The dark buildings passed by, smelling of wet wood and paint. This area wasn’t boarded up or closed off; so many things could be hiding here waiting to pounce. Tonight though… the winds were sweeping, carrying heavy sheets of slanted rain and a chill brought in from the arctic. Not only was it freezing, it was ominous and daunting; just the type of atmosphere that scared him.
So why was he out here?
When I had walked away from my and Greyson’s argument, I couldn’t believe Killian had gone. I didn’t know if the yelling had spooked him, or if he just forgot where I was, but he was gone. He slipped out unnoticed.
Greyson was looking in the south, and we had Matt and Reno taking the other cardinal directions. I had searched up and down east Aras but had come up empty-handed. The rain had washed away any tracks I could have followed, and on top of that, it had messed with my hearing too. When I tried to focus, I just heard the rain and the wind.
The deacdog had found me only half an hour before. As soon as the bugger spotted me he gave a bark. It was as if he wanted to show me something. Unless he had found some rain-soaked kittens in need of saving, I could only hope he was directing me to Killian.
What was happening to my boyfriend? He never used to do this.
My gut felt sick, and not all of it was from Killian’s disappearance tonight. It was because I felt like I was losing him, that he was going to some place I didn’t understand, deep inside that tormented little brain of his. I wanted to help him, but I just didn’t know how. I wasn’t used to that feeling. I had helped him with everything before. That was my job.
But now… I had never been raped, I didn’t know what was going on in his brain. At least he hadn’t been penetrated by Asher himself. I’m assuming that would have made him worse but I don’t know. I didn’t know how it worked; I wasn’t the type of guy to get all emotionally devastated over things like that. I just had Reno to compare him to and, after we started fooling around, he’d seemed fine.
Deek shook his fur. His nose was fixed in the air, his small black nostrils flexing as he picked up a scent. I weaved between a pile of cars, and followed him down the next bleak road.
The deacdog was going down streets no one went down, where there was nothing but debris and old buildings beyond habitation. It was almost as bad as my West Aras, except the roads were a bit clearer.
Come on, Killian… where are you? Come back to me. Not just now, but… in all ways, just come back. I miss your laugh, your smile…
I had been the one to put that smile back on his face and I had taken it off too. It was my fault I hadn’t seen Asher for who he was. Killian had and now he was paying the price. I had let all of this happen to him.
The dog suddenly barked. I wiped the rain from my eyes and looked ahead.
A small, stick-thin figure was pacing around the middle of the street.
“Killian?” I hollered. I felt an unimaginable amount of relief. I ran up to him and took him into my arms.
The boy didn’t even have a jacket. He was ice-cold and shaking violently; he felt so frail as I held him to me.
“Asher’s here, Asher’s here!” Killian screamed in a panic. “He’s here. I saw him!”
Up until that moment I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel more cold, but inside my flesh had turned to ice.
“Where?” I pulled back.
Killian’s rain-blasted face was stricken with fear, even his blue eyes looked like shards of ice. “Building… with the bluelamp.”
I hated to do it but I sat him down underneath an apartment’s overhang and gave him my jacket, then I headed towards the office building.
“He has Perish too!” Killian cried behind me. “Perish is alive. Perish is in there too.”
My heart hit the floor. I stopped in my tracks, realizing with crushing numbness that he hadn’t really seen anything. Nothing outside his damaged mind anyway.
I felt sick. I steadied myself against the building and wiped my face with both hands. I took a rattled breath to keep myself from losing it.
There was no Asher… just like all the other times he saw him. There was no Asher, and there certainly was no Perish.
“Please… please tell them to stop following me.” Killian was still crying, his voice sounded so… sure. “If you ask Perish nicely, he will. I know he will.”
I picked up my radio. “I found him.” My voice was quivering. “He’s okay, go home.”
I turned the radio off so I didn’t have to listen to their responses before I bent down and picked Killian up. He was so light, so frail.
He looked behind me, his lips blue and chattering. “You need to find them,” he pleaded weakly.
“I will, Killi,” I whispered. I held him close to me and started walking home. “I’ll kill them as many times as it takes, I promise.”
“Okay.”
Reno was waiting for me, leaning up against the wall of the house. Waterfalls of water fell over him in sheets, dripping from the overhang. I made brief eye contact with him, trying to make my steps as solid and confident as I could.
He must have seen it in my eyes, but whatever questions he had, he respected the situation enough to not give them voice. He only made a motion towards Asher’s house, asking if I
wanted him to go home. I nodded and carried Killian inside.
Quiet as a mouse, trembling in his soaked clothing, Killian stared ahead without a single twitch of his eyes. I tried to get him out of his clothes.
“No, no!” He shot back to reality and yanked his shirt away from my hands.
Did he just not want to be naked and exposed? I guess that might be some rape side-effect; it sounded like something he might get crazy about. I passed him a blanket and dragged the heater up to him. “Put the blanket over you and take your clothes off. I won’t look.”
Killian pulled the blanket over him and I turned around. Was he afraid of me? The prospect made my stomach twist.
He shuffled past me to put his wet clothes into the laundry corner. I sighed, not even bothering telling him I would do it. He always had to clean things.
I didn’t know what to do, so I put on a movie and sat down by the desk, near enough to be close to him but not close enough to make him antsy. I debated getting the couch cushions again; perhaps he was uncomfortable sleeping beside me too. Maybe that’s why he kept attacking me at night, even though he was always hollering that I was Asher.
“Reaver?” Killian whispered.
I looked up from the desk. I was starting to get out a book Killian had been bugging me to read. I was hoping it would earn me some brownie points.
“I’m not crazy. I saw them.”
I gave him a smile, though it was fake and I knew he knew it. “I know, Killibee.”
“A body reveals its most shocking of secrets, after the last breath is drawn,” Killian said in an automatic, almost robotic voice. “He said that before he… left.”
This was the most I had heard him talk in a week. I wanted to urge him to say more. “What else did he say?”
Killian was quiet. His eyes glazed over slightly and I knew he was back inside his little world. Hopefully it was a world where he felt safe.