Post Apocalyptica! Written completelyfor shits and giggles. Leo/Elliot & others. Chaptered fic.
"Abomination of Desolation" is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the Apocalypse/the end of mankind.
and upon the wing of abominations one that maketh desolate; and even unto the full end, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolate.
The following are the contents of a black leather-bound journal that was found during a small excavation mission. (Archeologist: Jack Vessalius, age 25. Project Leader: Glen Baskerville, age 27.)
The pages are unnamed, undated, and unsigned.
The time at which this journal was written is uncertain, but we are to believe that it was written at an early point after the large breakout of Illegal Contractors, when the Chains were first introduced into mainstream activity
The book was found abandoned in the desert. December 13th 2023.
—Glen Baskerville
And there's a bullet in the middle of the forehead. Bang.
Human beings are very adaptable creatures. If they do the same thing everyday—no matter how bloodsoaked or violent or fucking disgusting—they can eventually adapt to it. Just repeat yourself day in and day out, darling. You could probably get used to even death itself if you managed to find a way to kill yourself over and over and over again.
(It would probably get boring after a while. Death, I mean.)
The car's parked and still running. The hotrodred stands out against the tanyellow sand like an eyesore. A soft buzz and a crackling radio can possibly be heard over the sound of slaughter if one listens closely enough. And I really ought to be less critical because, honestly, he doesn't find that much joy in burying lead into the skulls of the empty husks of decomposing half-alive human corpses. And their sweet little pet Monster Masters; the objects that control their every thought and action.
Don't let me get ahead of myself, now. I need to write this down for you, in hopes someone sees what I have to say. And allow me to congratulate you, my dear reader, on staying alive for this long. I can only hope to be so deeply blessed, but I'm sure I'm long dead by the time of your reading this.
I suppose I should begin at the begging. Isn't that how the saying goes? Begin at the beginning, go on until you reach the end, then stop. Forgive my misquoting. I'm paraphrasing here. (My copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was burned along with all of my other precious, precious books left at the orphanage. Along with all of the important footnotes I'd taken in them. An essay for every novel I'd read, and I've only made it through half of the library's collection. Ah, they all burned equally, regardless of what I had/hadn't read or written in. Up in flames. Down the rabbit hole, perhaps.)
My deepest apologies for veering so constantly off topic. Concentration is hard to come by these days, particularly when screams and gunshots and the grisly cacklecrackle of the radio are all noises one acquaints himself with over the long and slowly passing days. Bangbang. There's that noise again. As much as I prefer it when he shoots things (swords equal closer range which equals more blood which gives me more to wash), the sharp ring of bullets leaving their home and entering a body is so…so very loud. And unsettling.
Maybe it's just the Monster in Me (Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, but we'll get there later), but when he gets into a Chain-slaying mood, it doesn't exactly give me a good feeling. I trust him with my life, sure, but if ever finds me worthless I'm dead. Not that I see how he finds use of me now, but it's a nice thought. That he thinks I actually do something other than take up space and fill the sad little space in his heart left by beloved big brothers and sisters. (He doesn't talk about it much; we don't really talk much in general. Arguments don't count as conversation.)
His name is Elliot.
Bang. There goes another one.
That makes…three corpses, if my count is correct. Elliot always hits his mark, so I know none of the bullets have gone to waste. I'd count the grotesque malformed bodies if I could see that far ahead of my own face, but I wear glasses and they're not mine and horribly inaccurate and it's a wonder the pen and paper in front of me can blend together and form words for all I can see right now. Elliot and I found them lying amongst the wreckage of his house and I think he said they used to be in ownership of one of his brothers (Fred?) before slice and his head was cut off. No one knew, but there was a Chain and a Contractor lurking about the mansion and did it love to killkillkill Elly's family. Only he and his two adopted brothers survive.
Supposedly, we're supposed to be on our search and looking for them now, but how I would be lying if I said I believed we could find them easily.
(We're also looking for that son of a bitch Contractor so Elliot can maybe stuff a bullet or a dozen in him. He is nowhere near above revenge, my little companion.)
"Come help me out, here," He growls. (And I need to write down his words exactly how he says them because one day this bastard is going to get himself massacred and I don't want to forget what his voice sounded like or what an asshole he was.) "Bring the tank."
[Oil smudges litter the pages. Finger prints.]
And he yelled at me to come help, and I stashed your sweet little leather bound pages away. Cautiously and sensibly, because God forbid he sees it. "Only little girls write in diaries." He's such a Neanderthal. I carried the gas can to him and was blessed with the honor of raining fire down onto cadavers. Four of them. I must've missed something amidst my thoughts and the radio's white noise. One of them is wearing a labcoat, and we ponder on this for a moment.
"Abyss," He says, getting in the car and lighting a cigarette. I used to yell at him for the nasty habit he'd picked up from one of his brothers, but he told me, damnit, he gets to pick his own poison and he'll be a fucking lucky bastard if he fucking lives long enough to fucking die of fucking lung cancer. (His words, not mine.) I stopped harassing him after that, and starting silently praying to whatever God is left in this abandoned desert for a quick, horrifying, painless case of termination-via-secondhand-smoke. "Her coat," motioning to the pile of burning, burning, burning behind us, "was from those labs. She must've come from a source. One must be close by."
If we're getting close to a Lab, then we're proverbially fucked.
Leather gloves grip the steering wheel and his heel grinds into the pedal. This car is old and rotting but it's fast and Elliot is still a stupid teenage boy and likes fast convertibles. I can't complain much, though, because speeding through the desert in a topless car makes the wind smack into my face and it makes me feel so cold like I'm not one of the last few goddamn people left on the Earth and stuck in this Hellhole.
His fingers drift to the knobs on the radio, and he flips through stations like he doesn't already know all the airwaves are dead. The cigarette clenched in his jaw will already be worn down to a nub by the time he gives up and shoves a cassette into the radio's open mouth. Screaming and guitars and a chord of pointlessnothing fill our ears, and we've both memorized every word to every song on the damn tape, but we still like it. I do, at least, and Elliot keeps playing it so he must, too. It's unlike Elliot to do anything for the benefit of others, so he can't be playing it out of the goodness of his heart or anything.
We're going at an unbearable speed, and I'm always afraid my glasses are going to fall off my face despite the fact that I know they won't. Pages flutter and I can almost feel his eyes glance my way as he tries to discern my words.
I know he can't do it. I smile to myself.
We're ruining out of gasoline, I tell him. He swears. We're going to be needing a lot if we'll be hitting an Abyss soon. He could really use a new shirt, too. His ratty white t-shirt dyed red and reeking of gasoline and burnt flesh. He growls at the comment, but knows I'm right, so doesn't create any further remarks. He spits the worn-down stick of poison out onto the asphalt and, like clockwork, puts the tape into the cassette player. Familiar loud, obnoxious noises fill my ears and I subconsciously reach my hand to turn the dial to the right and make the music much louder.
Elliot smacks my hand away. "No. We're talking now. And, damnit, if we're stopping to get gas and your clothes then we're getting a fucking new cassette." I don't care too much. So long as the old one is held onto. It's got quite catchy songs wound into its outdated recording. I mention something about wanting a new jacket—maybe a red one—and he tells me the one I have is not gasoline soaked or completely bloodcolored so it's fine.
But I want a red jacket, I have to remind him, for that very reason. The crimson of the jacket would hide the bloodstains ohso nicely.
"Idiot." and he accelerates. He loves looking for ways to kill us that don't involve Chains. Every time we stop to sleep at an outdated building he always leads us to roof. Stares at the pavement and tells me how he'd rather die like this. "We don't get to choose how we're born or how we live or what the Hell happens to us, so wouldn't it be nice to have control over this one thing…?"
"Where should we stop, anyway? You still have that map or have you lost it yet?" He knows I haven't lost it. It's neatly tucked away in the glove compartment, amidst a sea or pretzels, cigarettes, and Skittles. We have a box of Coca-Cola cans in the backseat and that's the basic diet we survive on.
I look at the map, and it tells me we're not to far from ***** [I have omitted city names and surnames from my report, Sir, with all due respect. I wish for this unknown author to hold his anonymity.] It's a big enough place, so there must be somewhere for us to steal a few halfway decent shirts. Maybe a jacket, but God forbid I get my hopes up.
"You should sleep," he tells me. In the soft voice I like that he sometimes uses. "It'll take us about two hours to get there," one and a half, tops, with the way he drives. "and we don't know what we'll run into. One of us should have some sleep in our bones."
Elliot tends to use words like "bones," "blood," and "death," a lot. I think he's disturbed. Or maybe just very sad.
His one hand lingers on the armrest between the driver and passenger seat. I don't know why the Hell he wears black leather gloves in this scorching heat, but I have my denim jacket on, so I can't say too much. I stretch out like a cat, meow, and casually place my pale hand to cover his black-encased one. It's given a soft pat—out of comfort? I couldn't even tell you—before I retract it.
Some sleep may be nice right now.
(Even though I still haven't properly introduced my story, have I?)
