Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (12 page)

Sanguine shifted around and whimpered again but became still when Nero rested a hand on his head. “He will… and I bet he’ll be a bigger little bad ass than all of us. He’ll be okay… he’s been okay so far.”

The legion truck’s headlights shone against grey sun bleached wood and a covered deck. A rocking chair sat next to a dirty coffee table with the varnish peeling off, and behind it a screen door that led into a two-storey house. All the windows were boarded up with new nails, not the rusted picks one would see in the greywastes, even the boards looked new.

Nero stepped out holding the still sleeping Sanguine. Ellis went in front of him and opened the screen door.

“Start taking the boards off the windows and be quiet about it,” Ellis said to the legionary who had been driving them. The entire greywastes became cloaked in silence as the truck engine died, though the headlights remained on.

Nero walked in and Ellis followed with a bluelamp. “I’m going to check and make sure the well is still working. I can see evidence of radrats so he’ll be able to eat those,” Ellis said.

Nero adjusted his hold on the sleeping child and nodded, glancing behind him at a kitchen covered in plastic, though there was little dust on it, everything seemed intact and in fair condition. “I’ll put him in his new bed then I guess. If we want to leave before he wakes up we should hurry.”

Ellis turned without a word and left. Nero walked up the single flight of stairs which opened up to a small room with three doors leading off to bedrooms and an unusable bathroom. Though well water could be had in the greywastes indoor plumbing was a benefit only reserved for Skyfall and the surrounding factory towns.

Nero walked into the bigger bedroom, a king size mattress on the floor surrounded by blankets, sheets, and old cloths. All of it smelling heavily of mildew but in the greywastes sense everything had been well-preserved.

Gently he lay Sanguine in the bed and put a blanket over him. Then, with a quick glance behind him, he reached into his jacket pocket and tossed all four packs of his cigarettes onto the bed.

He met Ellis downstairs. “All good?”

Ellis nodded; she was holding Sanguine’s backpack in her hand and in another was a jug of water. “Even more signs of radrats; as long as he isn’t stupid enough to piss off a carracat this is the best he can hope for. It’s northeast enough that he won’t meet many greywasters. Even Melchai is scantly populated just the occasional greywaster and merchant. This is the best chance he has.”

“Then we might as well fuck off then…” Nero looked around and let out a breath. “Just seems stupid.”

“Silas is our king… it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah… I know.” Nero shrugged and walked out the door, then towards the awaiting legionary vehicle. “I just have a sinking feeling that he’s going to regret this.”

Sami age 8

The radrat’s whiskers stuck out just slightly from behind the rock. I waited, staying as still as I could, as he started to become braver. At first he only poked out his nose to smell the peanut butter I had smeared on a wooden plank, but then he finally started walking towards it.

My back bowed until my stomach was almost grazing the ground. I took another step on all fours, my eyes fixed and a growl tickling my throat.

Then in a flash, as soon as the radrat put a paw on the board, I pounced. In a quick movement I grabbed the rat by the neck and bit down, the taste of greasy fur and dirt filled my mouth but I bit harder and thrashed my head from side to side.

There was a squeal which made my pulse race from excitement. I thrashed my head and heard a snap then let the dead rat slip from my jaws.

I picked it up by the tail and started jumping down from the rocky hills I had climbed up to hunt. My house was below these rocks, sheltered from the main road and hidden from anyone who wasn’t looking for it. I had been here for six months now though it could have been longer or it could’ve been shorter… I didn’t have a calendar or anything to keep track of time. I just knew it was the middle of winter now.

Like the greywastes were waiting for me to mention winter, my left boot slipped out from under me, but I caught myself on a ledge of grey rock and managed to remain upright with the rat still in my hand. I jumped down the rest of the way and started walking down the dirt path that led to my backyard.

My backyard was nice though I hadn’t been able to find enough bricks to make an outside oven like Nan had. This house was the only structure for miles and the other houses I had scavenged were all made of wood. I had been inside one of them that had a brick fireplace but I had to carry back cans of food and things for my own use so I couldn’t carry back the bricks. So instead of making big batches of jerky I could only make small ones inside my stove oven. It wasn’t that bad because a bunch of rats lived in the rocks and even some scavers would come.

Though that was summer… it was winter here now and even the rats were starting to get few and far between. I didn’t know if the big rats slept during the winter like the urson bears did, but they sure liked to keep hidden in those rocks.

I caught this one though which I was thankful for… this was the first rat I had seen in the last ten days and my canned food was starting to run out. I had to save the jar of peanut butter I found for the rats even though I kept dipping my finger into it.

I quickly cleaned the rat and walked inside of my house, then I put some more wood inside of the stove and started warming myself up. It was freezing cold outside and it was great to be back indoors.

“I caught a rat,” I said to Barry and my new friends Zoom and Snappy. They were radrats but I kept their skin and stuffed them with fluff I had gotten from a couch I had found in the basement.

“That’s a big rat, good job, Sami!”
Barry said in a cheerful voice. I showed him the now skinned rat and smiled at him. He called me Sami even though a lot of the times I called myself Sanguine. Though my friends only called me Sami; my enemies called me Sanguine so I guess that meant I was still my own enemy.

“Thanks, I broke his neck. You can feel his neck flopping to and fro, it’s neat.” I put the cast iron frying pan on the stove and cut off the lower half of the rat. I kept his tail though because I could use it as bait for the scavers who loved eating radrats. I put it outside near my stack of winter wood since Zoom and Snappy already stank the house up enough as it was. I didn’t know how to make them not smell like they did other stuffed animals.

“What are you going to do with the rat? Just pan fry it?”
Snappy asked. He was Barry’s boyfriend; they were going to get married one day.

“Yeah, I still have salt and I have some pepper too. Remember when I found those salt and pepper shakers a few months ago?” I picked up my flipper and smacked the rat’s naked pink skin. Its little paws were still on so I took each one and twisted them off before throwing them near the door. I would make soup with them later but not yet so they could just hang out on the floor.

“Yes, I went with you,”
Barry responded. He did most of the talking, Zoom and Snappy only talked sometimes. I think Barry was really lonely so I always tried to include him in conversations and give him special attention.

I ran into my kitchen, just a few feet away from my stove in the living room, and started routing around for my salt and pepper shakers. This kitchen was a small kitchen in a corner with cupboards that were white with wooden knobs. I also had many pull out drawers, though some were missing the drawer part, and linoleum floors. I liked the floors, they were my favourite because in some places the linoleum had peeled back and you could see an entirely different design underneath. What was even more fun was in some places even
that
pattern was peeling back and yet
another
design was underneath that! I laughed for a long time when I realized what I was seeing.

I walked back into the living room with my shakers, a big big living room with two whole couches and a yellow chair with flowers on it. I had my very own lamp but it didn’t work and I had accidently smashed it a month ago when a scaver got into the house. I also had a TV but it also didn’t work, and lots and lots of bookshelves. The bookshelves were my favourite but they all had adult books on it, big thick novels with boring covers. I still read them though and since there was a dictionary in the books I had learned new words too. I learned what extravagant really meant, and I also learned the word stupendous – that was another word for amazing. I liked learning new words and since we didn’t have school anymore I made sure I schooled myself so I didn’t grow up stupid. Nana always said we should learn all these things so we can go to Skyfall one day and become bankers. I didn’t know what a banker was but it was a hell of a lot better than a greywaster.

One day maybe I could go to Skyfall, when I was all grown up. I think Nero and Ellis had been from Skyfall and that’s why they were dressed nice and had those cigarettes. Nero had left me with four whole packs of cigarettes. I still had five cigarettes left. I loved them so much I savoured each and every one. I especially liked how they made my head dizzy and light and made my insides feel all warm and cozy.

Today was a good day today, I decided. I got an entire rat and that would last me for three days but I was still uneasy as to what I would do after that. Ten days had gone by between rats and I only had a can of mushroom soup left to eat and that would only last two days.

It seemed my entire life now was worrying about having enough food. I had water though inside the big well but food was a constant bug in my brain. There were no greywasters here that I could eat, I hadn’t had a single taste of human flesh since I had come here and that was the longest in my entire life. I missed the taste but I also missed just how much of it there was. I knew that the time was coming for me to start hunting greywasters again. I remember hearing that there was a big road a few miles from here that eventually led to a town called Melchai. I wanted to pick off a couple greywasters or, if I was lucky, a merchant so I could loot them. But I was sure the merchants would have mercenaries with them, mostly all of them did.

Though going to the town might not be too bad. I still had my sunglasses and if I mumbled people wouldn’t be able to see my teeth, they wouldn’t know I was evil.

“But the people might try and take your sunglasses away
,” Barry reminded me.

I nodded and flipped over my frying piece of rat before putting a cover over it. “But then I can just run, right? Or maybe they won’t care because I would have money. Nero put two hundred entire dollars in my backpack.”

And he did too! That could buy me a lot of food and even a room in a hotel! Like Cory had told me a long time ago I could spend the winter in a hotel room and eat pub food but I think that would be expensive though. I couldn’t work in town because eventually they would find out I was a demon.

And it wasn’t like they would know for sure I was evil and bad, only I knew that because only I knew me. I could act all sweet and friendly and maybe they would ease up enough for me to be able to run. Though that never happened before and probably wouldn’t happen now but I could pretend.

When my dinner was ready I laid on the couch and ate it. While I was eating I told Barry, Zoom, and Snappy about the time Nero and I ran from the long-limbed humans that I heard Nero call celldwellers. Sometimes I had bad nightmares that they were attacking my house but so far so good.

I told them how I bit through one’s neck, and how Nero called me a little cocksucker. I knew what that was because Gabe and Pauly told me what cock meant and I thought it was hilarious to call me that.

My three friends all laughed at my jokes and when I was all done eating I put my dishes away in the sink like Nana had taught me and read a bit before bed.

Before bed like I did every night I wound Barry’s butt and let him play me
Daisy Daisy
. It helped me not feel so lonely but usually before bed was when I cried. I only cried a little bit though. I wasn’t a baby… I was going to be nine next and nine-year-olds didn’t cry. I decided as soon as I hit nine I was done crying forever but until then I could a little bit.

Now that I was older though I cried for different things. I cried because I missed Nero even though I only got to know him for a few hours. I also cried because my feelings were still hurt that Daddy Cory tried to kill me…

No, not Daddy Cory just Cory. It was stupid that sometimes I still called him that inside of my head but I think it was a forced habit.

I didn’t cry about Nan anymore because I think as I got older I started becoming mad at her. Cory wanted to kill me and Ellis and Nero saved me. Gill wanted to kill me and Nan let him burn me and put the nails through my hands and all she did was cry. It wasn’t even that she was a lady either because Ellis was really powerful and she was a lady too.

Stupid Nan… she should’ve helped me since I was only six and I had just been a kid and helpless. Now that I was eight I was an adult and I could take care of myself and I even had friends now.

The next day was normal and so was the next one after that. It was on day three after I had killed that radrat that I started to get worried about hunting.

I flicked off one of the bugs on Zoom’s fur and picked him up. Though as I picked him up his fur started shedding off of his skin. My nose curled and I put him down with a disgusted noise.

“Zoom and Snappy, you stink…” I said with a sigh. I picked them both up so they could go outside and maybe the freezing air would help kill their smell. I didn’t like the bugs crawling off of them as much either, but maybe outside they would attract some sort of animals.

I opened the door and placed my two rat friends outside and closed it. I wanted to say I would let them back in but they stank so much maybe they would be outside friends…

Rotting gross smells reached my nose as I walked away from the door. I shuddered and wiped my fingers on a rag I kept by the door. At least Barry still smelled okay though he had blood stains on him and his brown fur was all dusty. Barry might miss his boyfriend though but they could always be pen pals. Maybe if I did go to the…

“Why did you let them outside?”

I paused and looked at Barry.

“What?”

“They’re going to be cold outside!” Barry said in an unimpressed voice. Weirdly – his voice sounded clearer than usual. “They’ll freeze their asses off, Sami.”

Then something happened, something that a part of my brain told me shouldn’t be happening… but yet I fully accepted that it was okay.

A young boy my age stepped out from the kitchen. He had curly brown hair the same colour as Barry’s and he had bear ears where his real ears should be. The boy looked at me with the same black eyes Barry had and smiled. When he smiled I saw he had teeth just like mine – I had never met someone like me before.

But… he wasn’t real…

“They did stink though, didn’t they?” He laughed and ran past me towards the door. Barry looked out of it and turned back to me. “Do you think you’ll get any snow before spring? We could go sledding outside. We have that hard plastic we found in the attic, right, Sami?”

I looked at him feeling perplexed, then nodded and let out my own laugh. I ran to the window and looked out of it with him. I could picture the black trees we had surrounding the house all covered in a blanket of grey snow, and Barry was right there were a lot of nice sledding places.

“Maybe we can start looking for planks we could use when we go scavenging,” Barry suggested. He jumped up and down with his hands still on the windowsill. He was excited and that was making me excited too. “Or the town? Didn’t we need to go to the town to get food?”

I nodded and felt my stomach rumbling underneath my jacket. “We ran out of food… I ate the last of the rat this morning and there wasn’t too much on it.”

Barry tapped his foot against the floor. I laughed as he made a funny face before putting a finger up to his cheek. Then he made a face like he was deep in thought.

“Why don’t we go to the town tomorrow? We can bring a bottle of water and all your moneys and you can smoke a cigarette on the way. That sounds fun. Remember when the merchants would tell the kids about rat chips and bread? And ketchup too. We can have pub food with all your money,” Barry suggested. He jumped up and down at the thought before doing a cartwheel across the floor.