Garden of Spiders Volume 1: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3 Read online

  GARDEN OF SPIDERS

  A COMPANION BOOK TO THE FALLOCAUST SERIES BOOK 3

  Volume 1 of 2

  By Quil Carter

  © 2016 Quil Carter

  All Rights Reserved

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  Also in The Fallocaust Series

  Fallocaust Book 1

  Breaking Jade - A Companion Book to Fallocaust Book 1

  Fallocaust Book 2 - The Ghost and the Darkness Vol. 1

  Fallocaust Book 2 - The Ghost and the Darkness Vol. 2

  Severing Sanguine – A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2

  Fallocaust Book 3 – The Suicide King Vol. 1

  Fallocaust Book 3 – The Suicide King Vol. 2

  This book is dedicated to the FalloCult. So many of you have been beside me since I first started this journey, and have watched me grow from a guy with no idea what he’s doing, to a guy who kind of knows what he’s doing, but not really. Thank you for brightening up my days and for helping me achieve my lifelong dream of becoming an author. I can honestly say I have the best fan base in the entire world, and without you guys my life wouldn’t be nearly as rich and colourful.

  ‘All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that’s the tragedy of living’ – Iain Thomas

  BOOK 1

  The Ghost

  CHAPTER 1

  As one would expect from a book that is named for the King Who Ended the World, eventually you will read of chaos, of verbal, physical, emotional abuse. In time, each page will be weighed down by dark words and bad memories, until one cannot turn another.

  But this book does not start out in darkness, nor does it remain there at all times. Even on a moonless night one will see stars, satellites, lamps in windows, and the smell of wood fire beckoning the lost man to come and seek shelter. And that is where this book will start. But yet, not with a light… this book starts off with the first memories of a little boy whose name was only known to him, watching a powerful king sweep him up into his arms, before handing him a floating red balloon – the first one I had ever seen.

  This balloon meant the world to me; I had never seen anything like it. How could it float? It was explained to me by Silas that the Crown’s scavenging party had found a quantity of helium bottles in the greywastes.

  “This is some from our new stash of bottles,” Silas explained in a light voice. He rarely spoke to us in baby talk, that was mainly used on the family cats. “We’re using the rest to try and get an MRI machine working, but I demanded a balloon for my golden boy to have on our special day, little one-year-old.” He tied the green ribbon to my wrist and took me to the edge of the concrete enclosure. There were baby lion cubs, and the caretakers of the animals had named the four cubs after me and my siblings.

  “That one is Elias,” Silas said. He raised a hand and pointed to a golden cub playing on a used tire, green grass surrounding him. This lion had on a purple dog collar. “He was the first born and the biggest.”

  Stop calling me Elias! My face became tight as did my lips. I opened my mouth to try and explain to Master Silas that Elias was not my name, but unable to find the words, I began to cry instead.

  “What now?” Silas sighed. He adjusted me so I was being held up higher, then looked behind me and waved someone over.

  Cristo, a tall and skinny man with short blond hair, came over with my bag, my unique bag that was purple with a squirrel on it. He offered Silas Tangerine, which was my favourite stuffed animal, an orange cat, but Silas shook his head and motioned towards a blue balloon. I watched him take the floating balloon, quite deep in my crying, but when he put the balloon up to his mouth I stopped crying and observed him to see why he was doing such a strange thing.

  Silas sucked up some of the balloon and smiled at me.

  And then he spoke, but it was no longer his voice, it was high, like a munchkin’s.

  “Why are you crying?” Silas said to me.

  I burst into giggles and threw my hands over my face.

  “Oh, now you’re laughing? Do you find issue with my speech impediment?” Silas said. I laughed harder, and when Silas began laughing too, his voice still squeaky and high, I couldn’t stop.

  Everything was forgotten after that, and with a smile on my face and a balloon tied around my wrist, I continued on my birthday outing. That day I saw not only lions, but bears, deer, mink, colourful birds, wolves, and cougars. I even got to pet the lion cubs which was a highlight. Their fur was coarse and their whiskers tickled my cheeks. The entire time the keepers who tended to the animals fussed over me and I was given gifts which I opened during my lunch break. My favourite was a red plastic device that spoke things whenever you pressed the button. I recognized the buttons as having letters from the alphabet, something I had been working on for weeks now. I also received clothing which I wasn’t too interested in, but Silas liked, candy which was taken from me to my chagrin, and two new books made out of cloth.

  Usually my siblings would be here with us, but Silas had told me that it was my day today. He says it’s my birthday, but I share a birthday with my siblings so I wasn’t sure why today was solely mine. Once I was older, I realized that he’d given us each our own birthdays to keep us as individuals and to give us our own special day, but as time went on we went back to celebrating the day we were pulled out of our steel mothers… February 7th 141 A.F.

  The day ended with me falling asleep in my car seat, and the next thing I knew, I was being walked into the family’s house, resting peacefully in my master’s arms.

  “Oh… that’s never a good sign,” Cristo said beside Silas. I was adjusted and given to Cristo, and woke up to see Silas looking down at an empty, but clean, diaper. It was resting in front of the door, unassuming and innocent beside a couple Hot Wheels.

  “That’s it… I’m going to start duct taping them to his ass,” Silas said in an angry voice. “Put Elias into some clean clothes. He smells like a barn.”

  I smell like a barn? I looked down at myself. I was wearing my red overalls and a purple shirt, and my brown boots. I didn’t agree with his comment at all, the barn down the road smelled like manure and hay.

  Cristo walked with me towards my and my brothers’ bedroom, but stopped when a blur of skin and giggles ran from our bedroom to Silas’s. The giggling stopped then, and a large fat baby with dark hair, my brother Nero, doubled back and stood in the hallway.

  He was without clothing, including his diaper, and was staring up at Cristo with a devious grin. His purple-blue eyes were squinted from his fat cheeks, and a string of drool was dripping down his chin and dangling.

  “Why are you without your diaper?” Cristo said to him, his blue eyes narrowing. He tried to swipe Nero but my brother ran off with a squeal. I watched Nero as he dashed into Silas’s bedroom, his fat little backside wiggling like Jello as he ran.

  “Daddy!” a shrill voice rang. I scrunched my face and buried it into Cristo’s neck, then put my hands up to my ears. It only got worse when there was a thunk in Silas’s bedroom, followed by a wail from my second brother Garrett, and Nero’s rolling laugh.

  “I know, Eli, you hate noise,” Cristo said. He walked into the bedroom and put me on the wooden changing table, then turned and closed the door. I watched him with a crumpled look and he laughed. Cristo walked towards me,
a crib to his left, one to his right, and one beside the changing table and undid the clasps of my overalls. “Put up your hands,” he said, gently taking off the ribbon leading to my balloon. I put up my hands with a smile and he took off my shirt, then my overalls and my favourite boots.

  I was bathed in our bathroom and while I was washed I heard screams and squeals coming from outside of the door. Silas’s sharp voice broke through the commotion several times, and Nero’s ringing laugh trailed. I tried to look to see if I could observe what they were doing, but I only saw the blue and purple walls of our bedroom, and the Sonic the Hedgehog decal stickers that were stuck above Garrett’s crib.

  Sometime during my bath, Squish our family pug came in to see what was going on, and behind him was one of the family cats named Alex. I thought this was the best thing in the world, and when Alex sniffed the bath water I howled with laughter which made Cristo laugh too. Afterwards, I was put into a purple onesie, and a towel that had a hood made to look like a grey cat was wrapped around me. I was then brought into the living room.

  The living room was loud and busy, but though I hated the noise, I was used to it. In a house with two younger brothers and a little sister, plus three helpers, called sengils, and Master Silas, and four cats and two dogs, it was rarely quiet here.

  ~

  Our house was huge though, and even today as a ninety-one-year-old immortal I have fond memories of that place. It was a large house with two storeys and a basement, there were six bedrooms, three on the top floor, a bedroom made into an office on the main floor, and the sengils that aided Silas with our care were in the basement. This house also had a large yard with green grass and big trees, a playground for us, and down the road was a barn which had our bosen cows, chickens, geese, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, and two horses.

  I didn’t know at the time, but these were some of the last remaining animals from before the Fallocaust happened. King Silas had rescued their ancestors, some from zoos around what would eventually become Skyfall, and had brought them and other animals down into the sewers for safety. While we were developing inside of our steel mothers he had brought them here and had the helpers build them a barn. This provided us with fresh milk for our formula, wool for the sengils to make us clothes and blankets, and other benefits that I’d one day realize no other child of the Fallocaust got.

  It wasn’t until I was older that I realized just how much Silas had prepared for our arrival. This house was specifically built for our needs, and everything was crafted to give us the childhood King Silas had wanted us to have. He spared no expense on me or my siblings, and even our caretakers had been trained for a year before being given us as their charges, and had on-going training so they could be on top of our development.

  Our caretakers were three sengils, their names Cristo, Caleb, and Dylan. I enjoyed Cristo the most, he understood me more than the others, and preferred the quiet. Caleb and Dylan were both louder and more energetic, and liked to run around with my other siblings rather than sit quietly with a picture book like me.

  ~

  I held out my arms when I saw Silas sitting on the couch with Ellis on his knee. My little sister was dressed in a blue dress and matching striped leggings, and had a bow in her hair. Silas looked up and smiled when he saw me, and beckoned Cristo over. I was placed on his other knee.

  “E!” Ellis said happily. She held up a hand which was holding a digestive cookie and offered me some.

  “Good sharing,” Silas praised. I recoiled from the cookie, it was half-dissolved in her hand and there was an unknown yellow substance on her fingers, cheese sauce most likely since I could smell Dekky Din. “Go ahead and take it, Elias.”

  This again? That’s not my name, fool! “No!” I said loudly and clearly. I shook my head and threw my head back, then raised my torso with an unhappy grunt.

  “Then you can sit on the floor,” Silas said sharply. To my absolute aghastment, Silas grabbed me by the shoulder and put me on the floor. And while I sat down there a piece of cookie slipped from Ellis’s hand and fell on my head.

  “No!” I cried again. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t upset about the cookie, that it was because of him constantly calling me Elias, but I didn’t know how. “No… no…” I looked around and saw my brother Garrett on the floor stacking blocks, then beside him, Nero chewing on the coffee table leg, but there was nothing I could find to help me explain my frustration.

  I was about to start crying again when Silas leaned down and handed me a fresh cookie, one that was free of the drool of my sister. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I took it anyway and sat on the floor by Silas’s feet.

  “I don’t understand this child,” Silas said above me. “He’s so mellow and content. He enjoys being by himself and he can entertain himself better than any of them… but every once in a while, he just freaks the fuck out and I don’t understand why.”

  I chewed on my cookie and was further thrilled when Caleb brought me my red electronic with the alphabet buttons. I ate with one hand, and with the other, I mashed the keys.

  “A… A… A…” the robot voice said. “E… F, G… H H H H H.”

  “Oh, that’s not going to get annoying at all,” Silas said above me.

  “H H H H H… H H H.”

  “Salazar gave it to him, of course. Give the child a noisy and annoying toy to be passive aggressive, the oldest trick in the book.”

  “H H H H H H.”

  “Press another button, love.”

  I looked down at it and pressed a random button.

  “E…”

  My brow furrowed. I knew somehow these letters were connected to the things they said around me. The alphabet made words. Cristo had been showing me flashcards and it looked like this device was like an electronic Cristo. I could learn the letter without waiting for my daily lessons. This was excellent.

  “E E E E…” Hmmm. “E E E E.” I kept pressing the button, then looked at it to find the button that would say lish. E… lish.

  I looked up. “Da,” I called to Silas, hoping to enlist his help.

  Silas sighed and shook his head. He was holding a phone in his hand, a real one, not my Playschool phone. “Love, I’m not Da… I’m Silas. I asked you to not call me that, little love.”

  “Da!” Ellis said cheerfully. She hugged Silas who was still holding her on his knee. I scowled at this. I never understood why Ellis called him Dad but I could not. It didn’t make sense to me and it wasn’t fair that his name was harder to pronounce than Dad.

  It must be because she’s stupider than us.

  Yes, that was it.

  But then something occurred to me. It wasn’t fair at all that Master Silas had requested me to call him a certain name when he didn’t even know mine. If he wanted me to call him Silas, he must call me Elish. That was my name after all.

  “Da… Dad,” I said defiantly and when an annoyed look crossed Silas’s face, I only smiled. “Dad. Dad. Dad. Daddy. Da.”

  To my shock, Silas grabbed my hand and slapped it. “When I ask something of you, Elias, you will listen. And I know you’re smart enough to listen.”

  I looked down at my stinging hand, and for the first time in my young life, I felt a swell of anger. I took in a deep breath, yanked my hands away and made them into fists, then stared up at him.

  “ELISH!” I screamed right in his face. “ELISH!” Silas swept me up and marched me down to my bedroom. He put me into my purple crib as I howled from the injustice of it, and he left me in my anger and misery. I screamed and screamed, rattled the bars of my crib, and jumped up and down, then finally I tired myself out, and I fell asleep.

  Six months passed and during that time I was devoted to my lessons with Cristo. I was determined to learn how to turn the alphabet letters into written words, and tell Silas what my real name was.

  Today found me sitting on our daycare floor in Skyfall. Above us was King Silas’s office in a skyscraper called Alegria.

  ~

  N
ow back then Skyfall was different. There was no Nyx, Eros, or Cypress, there was just Skyland and Moros. The class system had already been enacted years before my birth, but at the time the divide between the rich and the poor had no in between shades, just black and white. The separation of the districts would happen when I was fourteen years old, when Silas decided to let in greywaster refugees to help stoke Skyfall’s population. The greywasters helped fill up Moros and soon-to-be-created Cypress, and the Morosians were fine because they got to apply for residence in the two new districts, Eros and Nyx.

  However, this would not happen for many years and as a one and a half-year-old, it was nothing I cared about. My life was full of education, siblings, my master, and new things for me to learn and experience every day. It was a memorable time in my life, because my determination to learn how to use the alphabet and communicate with my master, had taken over all other things. It was the first time I can recall having a sense of self, knowing who I was and who I would be for my adult life. Nero, Garrett, and Ellis still ran around like hellions, screaming and laughing, fighting and howling with only a firm voice and a threat of a spank getting them to sit down for their lessons.

  But as for me…

  ~

  “Eli, it’s not time for your lessons yet,” Cristo said to me. He was in the middle of changing Garrett’s diaper and I was standing below him with my flashcards in my hand.

  “Please now?” was my response. I stepped back as Garrett was lowered onto the floor, my little brother with dark hair and expressive green eyes babbling quietly to himself.

  “No, pwees play?” Garrett cut in. I looked at him to see what he wanted and Garrett proceeded to take my hand and lead me towards our caterpillar on wheels. Garrett got onto it and grinned at me. “Push me, Eli.”