by Quil Carter
My eyes swept our backyard and the houses across the street. I couldn’t see anything but it had only been a day. The giant one would be slow and even the normal ones must have their limit and eventually need rest.
Which made me uneasy. I knew nothing of these creatures. All I knew was that they were smart enough to lure and ambush that raddeer, and even more fucked up… I’d had one in my own fucking brain without even realizing it. The urge to kill Killian, thinking he was the one infected, had been overpowering, and I wasn’t going to fuck with that.
“We’re going to Melchai,” I turned around and told him as I walked into the house. “Bring our personal things, enough for a few weeks. They could be coming towards us, and if they do…” I couldn’t help the shudder as I realized something.
I looked up at Killian and made eye contact with him. “If we get infected…”
“… that’s it for us,” Killian said in a hushed whisper. “We’re immortal… we’d just come back to them still in us.” There was no argument from Killian. He turned and ran into the living room and started packing our important belongings. I went to the bedroom and did the same.
We met in the living room a quarter hour later. We both left the house, and as I boarded up the door, he fuelled up the quad and tied down our stuff.
There were no words exchanged but a quick kiss that I knew he needed. The fact that we had just made a home here, and now had to leave it behind, left a bitter taste in my mouth. But this wouldn’t be the end to our life in the plaguelands… we just had to leave until we knew the parasites wouldn’t be coming to get us. I could come back and check on the house in a few weeks, and if everything was the way it was… we’d be okay.
Just… no more deep plagueland visits, I guess. I wasn’t going to fuck with a mind controlling parasite; because that could mean me and Killian spending the next five hundred years wandering around the dead world without anyone in the greywastes, or Skyfall, knowing.
What the fuck, plaguelands? If I found out this was Perish’s invention I was going to piss on those white flames.
There was a bright side to this at least. These things couldn’t survive out of the plaguelands or they would be all over the greywastes. Maybe they needed radiation to survive? Hell, I wasn’t sure. Who else knew about these things? Elish never mentioned them.
I could feel Killian shifting around behind me, then I felt his face bury itself into my back and shoulder. He couldn’t see anyway and I knew he was freaked out. It looked like brave Killian came in spurts; he was terrified right now.
For a moment I took my hand off of the quad and moved it behind my back. Killian put his hand in mine and I squeezed it. We were on the highway now, and besides having to occasionally steer the quad around cars or fallen light poles, I was able to steer it with one hand on the handlebar, and the other one in his.
Suddenly I slammed on the breaks; there was something in the middle of the road. Killian gasped and his head knocked into mine just as the thing thrashed and twisted around.
I saw a paw… and I saw a foot. Not another paw. A foot. But the noises it was making sounded like two deacons going at each other, but this thing wasn’t a deacon…
I swore loudly and backed up the quad. I knew what that was. Yep, I knew what that was.
And I was right, as the quad backed up I saw two reflective eyes shining at me, eyes that slowly rose as the beast got up on two legs. It was eight feet tall, covered in hair, with a snout, and opposable thumbs…
… and had once ripped a cage full of prisoners to bloodied shreds.
You’ve been travelling, Gianni. Or is this your wife? Hell, for how long it’s been it could’ve been one of his kids.
The whipwolf’s lips peeled back and my chest shook as it growled. Killian, blind in the darkness, gave out a whimper, and when I turned on the headlights to try and blind it, Killian screamed.
The whipwolf squinted before opening up its mouth and letting out an ear-splitting roar. And as its long and burly arms lunged forward so he could run towards us on four legs… I saw five snake-like tails flail on his back. He was infected; he’d been running from the fucking worms.
I gave the quad the throttle and gunned it. It shot forward and I sped off of the road and onto the plagueland ash. I heard Killian get his Magnum before he let out a panicked and desperate scream. I knew his different screams though, this was his scared-but-I-don’t-see-anything scream, not his I’m-about-to-die scream. I turned the quad and got back on the road and brought the four-wheeler to full speed. I wasn’t going to stop for anything. I didn’t care if Leo waved me down that fucker would be on his own.
“Can you see him?” I yelled to Killian, the wind catching my words and making specks of hard dust fly into my mouth. My eyes were already stinging but I had to push through it.
“No,” Killian yelled back. “But I can barely fucking see. I can only see with the moonlight, just… just keep driving. If he’s infected the worms can’t survive out of the radiation, I think.”
He’d come to the same conclusion I had. I nodded and turned back to the winding road, dodging cars and askew medians like the most fucked up obstacle course in existence. If we got a flat tire right about now we were both fucked.
When I started seeing the yellow Keep out by order of Skytech signs I gave out a loud sigh of relief. “I see the signs, Killian. We’ll be in Melchai in just a few…” I looked ahead and another sigh came to my lips. I could see lights. I pointed them out to Killian and squeezed his hand.
“It’s over… they can’t get us now,” I said, and I felt two arms wrap around my waist and a muffled sob. As Killian cried softly into my jacket, I drove us towards the gates of Melchai.
I killed the quad and got off of it, the engine popped and clicked behind me and in record time, guns cocked as well. I looked up and saw two dark figures, their pale faces shining silver underneath the moon’s glow.
“I’m Chance and I’m with Jeff. We were here last month,” I said. “And–”
“Chance and Jeff?!” one of them exclaimed, or as much as you can exclaim when you’re trying to talk quietly. “The slave rescuers? But… but you… you survived the radiation?”
Oh right… that. “Ah, yeah,” I said. I wracked my brains to try and come up with an excuse. “Where we’re from, we have a better immunity. So–” My voice trailed when the two Blood Crows turned their backs to us and started talking in quiet whispers. Unfortunately they were up too high for me to hear it.
Killian and I stood in front of the gate as the two conversed, but then they disappeared altogether. I was about to give up and find shelter in the garage we’d originally parked the quad in, when the gates opened.
Like ten of them were there, all of them standing side by side… staring at us.
“I… we don’t really feel like talking,” I said. The last thing I needed was to explain our ordeal to these whackjobs, or explain why we took off after we jumped over the wall. I fucking had to get Killian inside and decompress from almost becoming worm slaves. “Can we just talk about this shit in the morning?”
One of them stepped out of the shadows, it was Zachariah and he was smiling at us. He looked mighty thrilled to see us; he was fucking grinning like a shark-toothed jack o’lantern.
“You’re here for our festival, aren’t you?” Zach said. He reached out and clasped my hand, his hand clammy and gross. I resisted the incredible urge to pull it away, however, but it was hard.
“Ah, yeah, I guess,” I said. “We want to… pay our respects to Sanguine too.” I just wanted to fucking lay down, you fucking whackjobs.
Zach nodded, looking excited. “Excellent. Yes, yes. Okay, I will escort you to the residents you stayed in before. Yes, yes, you’re wounded. Will you be in need of medical help?”
I sighed internally with relief, and shook my head. “No, it’s not that bad,” I said. “Nothing Jeff can’t take care of. We’re just… really fucking tired.”
Their heads bobb
ed up and down as they all nodded. “Yes, Chance and Jeff. It does seem like you’ve endured quite the ordeal. Come with me, I will escort you to your home.”
The mini home had never been more welcome. I shook off Zach and left him with his creepy cultists and locked the door behind us.
And as soon as the door was locked, Killian lunged into my arms and started sobbing hysterically.
I squeezed him to me and shushed him as best as I could. I rubbed his back in small circles and just waited it out as he completely broke down.
He had a reason to though. Killian had had to fight and outsmart me to get that parasite out of me, then he’d been the one to drive us twenty miles back to the house and get me into the basement, and there he waited for a day until I resurrected. Not to mention our eventful ride out of the plaguelands and into the greywastes.
A faint smile spread across my lips and I gently pulled him away from me. Killian, a complete messy wreck with tears and snot all down his face, looked up at me as he shook like a half-drowned kitten.
“I’m so fucking proud of you,” I whispered as I cupped his chin. “You are growing up, eh? You keep acting like this you can have my back anytime, Killer Bee.”
Killian stared at me before he threw his arms around me again and continued to cry. Eventually I got him onto the bed, and I held him against me as his tears started to dissipate to whimpers and hiccups.
“I’m scared,” Killian whimpered into my tear-soaked shirt.
“You don’t need to be, baby,” I said to him and I patted his back. “The parasites can’t survive out here.”
But Killian shook his head. “We can’t go back into the plaguelands. They know where we are now and if they don’t… we’ll never be able to relax knowing they’re out there, or scavenge, or anything. We’re going to have to stay here, and they’re going to fucking find us; eventually they’ll find us.”
He was right… but I couldn’t let him know that. “If I think it’s safe, we’ll stay here for a few weeks and then I, or both of us, can go and grab Perish’s laptop and his research records. I don’t know if he created them, but since there are whipwolves with fur in the radiation zone it means Perish has either dropped animals off here, or it could’ve even been Sky since he had his lab out there. We can look up information on them and… who knows, if they’re isolated to this area we can go to the East or something. Far away from where they would be.”
“We don’t know how far they’ve spread,” Killian whimpered. “For all we know they’re not Perish’s and the entire rest of the world is infested with them. Or they are Perish’s, and have spread everywhere.”
“Or they’re Perish’s and are localized to a small area,” I said back. “We don’t know, but what we do know… is that we made it out and we’re safe. Our next move will be planned and calculated. I’ll think of something, you know I will.”
Killian nodded wiped his eyes with the side of his hand. “I knew it was too good to be true, being safe and happy. I knew it wouldn’t last.”
If I believed in superstition like these crazy Sanguine-worshipping whackjobs I’d say I jinxed it, but I knew better than that. I still wouldn’t tell Killian about my internal comments of feeling like I was stuck in Groundhog Day, and calling the plaguelands boring.
My thoughts took me to the twenty-foot-high mass of dead animals shifting back and forth with the parasites’ movements, and the tall and long-limbed humanoid walking with its jerking spider walk – Yeah, the plaguelands were anything but boring.
“It never does,” I said back, hiding the bitterness in my voice, “but we’ll be safe here for now.”
“What about Man on the Hill? And Angel Adi?” Killian said. “I think it could be Mantis…”
I shrugged. “Even if it is, he doesn’t know what we look like, right? Elish hasn’t talked to him in a long time he said. And even if he does know about us from Elish’s mentions, there is no way for him to know what we look like. And we don’t have purple eyes or anything to make us look chimera-like. We’ll be fine, and the plane we saw wasn’t anywhere near Melchai either, so they weren’t being dropped off there.” I kissed his nose. I knew when I had to spread the reassurance on thick. “And if Man on the Hill is Mantis, he’s hiding from Silas anyway, possibly with a chimera, that Angel Adi. So if we are going to encounter family members, they might as well be ones hiding from Silas too, right? They could even help us, or possibly explain the–” I didn’t even bother finishing my sentence because Killian pulled away from me and gave me a look of horror.
“Alright, we won’t ask them to help us,” I said with a thin smile.
Killian look of horror didn’t dissipate, and in my head I mentally counted down to the breakdown I knew was coming.
Three…
Two…
“I think I want to know who they are too.”
Wha…? I looked at Killian and he looked at me back. I was surprised to see a hardness come to his eyes; it was an alien expression on him, and one that didn’t suit the terror I was so used to seeing.
“Just a look at first to see if we recognize them,” Killian said slowly, and I had a feeling it was more to himself than me. He was looking at the full picture, not just immediate threats, and I think he was seeing what I had been seeing… that we had to know who was around us.
“Perish didn’t recognize you, even though you’re Silas’s clone with a lot of Sky in your DNA,” Killian said, his brow wrinkling from thought. “Elish didn’t brief you on chimeras still out there?”
I shook my head. “No, just the immortal greywaster Mantis, but… from what I remember, Elish never said where he was. Unfortunately anything else Elish told me about him I don’t remember. Perish didn’t say anything helpful?”
Killian thought for a moment. “Perish said Mantis helped him a lot. He’s the one that got him water and made sure the power worked and… whatever else. He might’ve even told me in a note he left, but all of his belongings are back at the house. I… I wish I looked but it hurts to think about him.” Killian sniffed again and I saw his eyes brim. “If it is Mantis… he wouldn’t recognize us, I don’t think. But… I don’t know. Elish mentioned him, Perish knew him… maybe we shouldn’t.”
My mind was decided though. I wanted to know who those two were, and Killian’s brief agreeance to my plan only solidified it. We were going to that festival, and we were going to find out just who Man on the Hill and Angel Adi were.
They wouldn’t recognize us and on the off-chance they did… well, one thing was obvious, these two immortals were hiding from Silas just like us, and I wasn’t above using that to my advantage.
If I was going to be spending a few weeks here with Killian, I had to know who those two were. For Killian’s safety and mine. I wanted to know if I had to take Killian back into the greywastes away from this town, before it was too late.
At least I had some time to snoop around these Blood Crows and ask questions, maybe pretend I’m interested in their cult. So when the festival did come, I was prepared. I knew how to be quiet and how to move around without being noticed. Though I did suspect most of my time would be spent in this room with Killian. Out of sight, and hopefully out of mind.
I missed Groundhog Day already.
Chapter 14
Elish
“What a stupid game. How could you even stand playing this?” Elish muttered. “If that stupid cow is going to use rollout on me I’m never going to get enough hits in before she kills me. Really, you beat this game, how did you manage to get past that bitch?”
Jade didn’t answer, but Elish never expected him to answer, and it really wasn’t the point. He was half-lying on the couch with Jade lying on him as well; the boy’s back on Elish’s front and Elish’s arms wrapped around him so he could see the Gameboy Advance he’d been playing for the last hour.
Elish reached over and picked up the Pokémon Gold and Silver guide that Jade kept in his drawer, and flipped over to the Pokémon in question.
>
“Weak against… fighting,” he mumbled to himself. “Well, I have your Gold game already completed and you have that machop.” Jade had named him Nero. “We might as well level him up since Jade the charizard is useless, much like you.” Elish rubbed Jade’s head and reset the game. He’d been resetting every time he lost against the cursed miltank Pokémon, if he didn’t he’d go broke and that was unacceptable.
But then Elish glanced at the clock. “It looks like beating that cow will have to wait. I need to get some work done.” Elish gently slid Jade off of him and brought him to the recliner. Then he took the remote and found a television show for him to watch.
His life for the past four days had been taking care of Jade and running Skyfall from his apartment. His feet hadn’t touched terra firma since he’d come back from Alegria, where he’d witnessing Sanguine, or Crow rather, be shoved into the Falconer screaming and shrieking like the damn demon animal he was.
Silas had been silent since then, and Elish had no idea what he was doing or who was tending to him with Sanguine gone. Elish assumed it was Garrett, or Jack since he seemed to have weakened under Silas’s snivelling breakdown.
Jack was the kind of chimera to retreat into darkness, however; so he could very well be in Black Tower with that gothic-looking sengil of his. Elish decided he would have to ask Luca, who had been sneaking in visits to Juni for the past several months. Elish had been turning a blind eye to their secret love but eventually it would have to be squashed. There would be no Romeo and Julian in Skyland, but for now he allowed it – he wanted spiders in Jack’s tower. That Grim Reaper was in emotional agony without Sanguine, and he could end up doing something Elish would make him regret.
When Elish was in the middle of feeding Jade, Luca came home; and the expression on his face told Elish that perhaps his spider had just been scooped up in a plastic cup and tossed outside.
Luca wiped his nose and picked up his vest. “Would you like me to finish feeding him, Master Elish?” he said as he buttoned the black vest. Classic to the sengil, he was refusing to show emotion on his face, but it was obvious he was upset.