Sick Bastards

© Matt Shaw

The right of Matt Shaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any format without written consent from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

The characters, and story, in this book are purely fictitious. Any likeness to person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

WITH THANKS TO SUZANNE DELANEY FOR HER HARD WORK EDITING THIS BOOK

The following book contains scenes which some readers may find distressing.

The book is intended for a mature horror audience.

You have been warned.

SICK

BASTARDS

M A T T    S H A W

PART ONE

Now

Family Time

I thrust forward and she let out a squeal. Had it not been for her facial expression - a look of sheer lust - I’d have thought I had hurt her. At least I think her expression is one of lust. It’s hard to tell in the light offered by a gentle flame licking away at the darkness of the room. Not that that would have bothered me if the expression was one of pain. So much pain in the world - what’s a little bit more? I pulled back a little and thrust forward again with the same level of aggression. She yelped again and buried her face down in the pillow whilst, at the same time, lifting her arse in the air to allow for deeper penetration. Definitely wasn’t an expression of pain. I didn’t need telling twice and I upped the speed and hardness with which I penetrated her. We don’t make love. We never have. We fuck.

I pulled out and flipped her onto her back. Her response was a hard, heavy slap to my face. I smiled at her. She spat back.

“Fuck me!” she ordered.

I positioned myself on top of her and pushed in again. A heavy sigh from the pair of us. Feels so good. So wet and yet so incredibly tight. I breathed in her scent. No perfume. She never wore perfume anymore. No matter. I’ve grown accustomed to the smell of her scent as it mixes with my own. I kind of like it now. I breathed in hard as I continued to pound her hard and fast - the way we both liked it. I was close to the climax but could tell she needed longer. Either that or she wanted me to up the game a bit. I put my hands around her neck and squeezed hard - cutting off her air as she liked. She gasped and struggled which made the sensations I was feeling that little bit nicer. Her face was flushing now. Not sure if she is close or whether it’s because I’ve stopped all of the blood.

A knock on the door distracted us both. Before we’d a chance to hide ourselves, the door opened a crack and Mother stuck her head through. “I’ve been calling you for hours!” she moaned. “Put your sister down! Dinner’s ready.”

I pulled out with my vinegar stroke ruined; a jet of sticky white semen splashing across sister’s stomach. Sister looked just as frustrated as I was. My orgasm ruined by the appearance of mother and her orgasm denied completely right at the last minute.

Thanks Mum, thanks a lot. Great timing as usual.

“You owe me,” my sister huffed as she pulled up her French knickers, ignoring the cum trickling down her belly. I flashed her a wink as if to tell her she’d be getting it later and threw my trousers on, followed by my shirt.

We went downstairs together with me leading the way - the candle from the bedroom stretched out in front of us, with my left hand, lighting our pathway so we didn’t stumble upon the stairs. Mother had already returned to the table where Father was waiting for us. He was standing above the meat with a knife in his hand, ready to do the carving.

Just for once I wished he’d let me carve the meat. I’d start with the throat.

And as for the meat - it was staring at my sister and I. Eyes wide with fear. It was shaking its head and mumbling through the sodden rag stuffed into its mouth for us to help it. Same old, same old. It was disturbing the first time we heard the meat beg for its life. Almost completely ruined the banquet (and at the time it was a banquet - a heavenly one). Now it’s just part of the starter. I never knew, or understood, why Father didn’t start by cutting the tongue out as soon as the meat was strapped to the old dining room table. Part of me thinks he must like the interaction with it.

Male meat this time. I feel a little bit disappointed. I prefer the female variety as I find the skin easier to chew. Always seems tougher on the male stocks. I’m not sure if that really is the case or whether it’s my imagination making me believe it to be the truth. It’s not something I’ve ever discussed with any of my family. I don’t want them thinking I am ungrateful. I’m never ungrateful. None of us is. I’m just a little guilty afterwards for what we have done to a fellow human.

I sat down next to Mother and blew the candle out before placing it onto the table next to my plate. No need for the candle in here - this is one of the best lit rooms of the old country house with at least four candles in all corners of the room. But then, it needs to be bright in here, to stop us from accidentally chomping down on a small fragment of bone.

Mother winked at me, “See you’ve picked up some of the tricks I taught you. Told you she’d enjoy it.”

I shot my mother a glance to quieten her. We don’t talk about such things at the dinner table. It’s not right. In fact we don’t talk about such things in the company of Father and Sister. It was supposed to be our dirty little secret. That’s what she told me that evening when she first crept into my bedroom wearing nothing but black underwear and ripped stockings. Our dirty yet highly enjoyable little secret and that’s the way I wanted it to remain. I didn’t want Sister to think I’d been cheating on her. She gets overly jealous sometimes. I remember the time she caught me with a piece of female meat just before dinner. I wasn’t doing anything but she didn’t like the fact that I was engaging with it in conversation. Apparently the look in my eye was wrong.

I looked over at Sister to see if she’d heard. She hadn’t. She was already sitting there - next to Father’s seat - with her hands pressed together as she addressed the Lord.

“Dear Father, thank you for what we are about to receive...”

“Don’t know why you bother with that,” said Father, “he never listens.” And - with that - he plunged the knife into the meat’s leg. The meat screamed. The meat always screamed. Again - the first time we’d a meal as such I found it off-putting. So did Sister. Both Mother and Sister cried at the time but we knew we had to eat it or else it would have been all for nothing. Even Father looked sickened. Now it’s normal to us. In yesterday’s world I’d have likened it to the sounds of a lobster screaming when you dropped it into a pot of boiling water...

The meat screamed again as Father tore a large chunk of flesh from its thigh.

Mother held her plate up and Father dropped the slab of flesh onto it for her. A little bit of blood splashed her hand but it didn’t bother her. She just licked it off. A glint in her eye.

The first time any of us tried blood we gagged. It was to be expected. We gagged as we chewed the meat too. The first time. No one sicked it back up though. We knew we couldn’t afford to. We knew we’d to work through the gagging feeling. Be grateful for what we got as there wasn’t a lot else on offer at the time. Now though - months later - things have changed and we’ve all grown quite accustomed to the coppery taste. Can’t have too much though as that does lead to sickness. Sister found out the hard way and taught us all a valuable lesson.

A piece of flesh slopped onto my plate, after Sister had been given hers. The meat had gone silent now just as it always did. It wasn’t dead. You could still see it breathing. As per usual it’d just fallen unconscious.

This was also normal.

We started quietly eating when Father sat down with his own plate of meat - a large section cut from the other leg. He looked up at us and smiled as he forked the first cut of flesh into his mouth as though it were a tender piece of chicken. I looked around to my sister and my mother and they too were shuffling in their first mouthfuls.

It hasn’t always been like this.

It used to be different.

A Different Time

The skies used to be blue (on a good day) in some parts of the world. If we were lucky we’d get to see some of those blue skies over the United Kingdom too but mostly we settled for the grey that we’d been accustomed to. Grass was green. Trees were swaying, in whatever winds were stirring on the day you happened to look upon them, full of life as they danced from side to side occasionally shaking free a leaf or two. Rivers flowed with clear(ish) waters which were also full of life with fish of all sizes darting around seeking food and warmth. Birds sung in the skies as they glided around, whether by themselves or part of a migration. And people - so many people - everywhere going about their daily lives: some of them happy and merry, a handful grumpy and a good proportion quiet and just getting on with things which needed to be done.

These were different times all right. A world full of life. A world full of hope. At least as much hope as it could muster when certain groups and countries failed to get along and saw fit to scream at each other from opposite sides of the globe, each of them believing they’d more rights than the person (or people) they were addressing when - truth be told - they were always equal.

That’s as much as I remember.

As much of what I remember of the old world anyway.

The new world is a far bleaker place. I’ve been outside and the yellow skies have seemingly returned to normal and the trees near our house seem to still have some life in them but I’m sure it won’t be long before they wither and die like the others have done so before them. Maybe the yellow tinge my father described, hanging in the heavy atmosphere, will creep its way around to where we live too? Maybe these things take time? And when it does get to us the remaining birds, taking shelter in the trees we’ve somehow managed to keep a hold of, will just spiral to the floor dead?

I’d been the first to wake up - after Father of course. One of my clearest memories. I could play it back perfectly as though it all took place yesterday. It wasn’t yesterday though. It was months ago. I’m not sure how many. The clocks don’t work anymore just as the electricity doesn’t. Our mobile phones died long ago too, stopping us from using them as time-keeping devices or calendars.

Father was looking out of the window. I remember how scared he looked. I also remember not recognising him.

“Where am I?” I’d asked him but he shushed me quiet. At the time I thought it was because he didn’t want me waking Sister and Mother who were both asleep next to me. All of us crowded together on the same bed. I remember feeling uneasy about being there - next to them. Not because I’m shy about sharing a bed but because I didn’t know who they were.

I climbed from the bed and walked over to the window, next to Father.

He whispered, “I don’t think I was followed.”
_____

Even if I wanted to forget I don’t think I could get the image of how pale he looked on that day out of my head. His eyes were surrounded by heavy black rings; his dark hair looked greasy and messed up. More noticeably - he looked petrified.

He turned and looked at me blankly. He didn’t recognise me just as I hadn’t recognised him.

The first thing he asked me was my name. I couldn’t tell him. Even today, I still can’t tell him. He couldn’t tell me his either. Nor could he tell me the name of the two ladies on the bed. He did show me a photograph though. It was the four of us standing together in a captured moment of happiness. I don’t remember when the picture was taken.

He’d told me that it was on the sun visor in the car. Stuck there with a piece of tape. A clue to who we were. He had been in the driving seat and apparently Mother was in the passenger seat with my sister and I in the back. In the boot of the car was a suitcase. He had pointed across the room to the suitcase. He had opened it whilst we slept. The clothes inside were a mishmash of various sizes and styles. Clearly the bag hadn’t been packed with any thought. Whoever did the packing had just grabbed whatever they could find and simply tossed it in there.

I had asked him how we got out of the car and up the stairs of this house. I didn’t think to ask whose house it was - not immediately anyway - but when I did ask him he told me that it was ours now.

Apparently he had woken up in the car. The force of the blast must have knocked him out just as it had done so with us too. That must have been what took our memories too. Some kind of reaction to the shockwave. He didn’t know where he was driving - he just told me that he pressed down on the accelerator and drove. It was purely chance that we came by this house and that it had been empty.

I asked him what blast and that’s when he told me about the bomb. He didn’t know exactly where it went off. He could only remember snippets of information. The biggest explosion in history and millions dead upon impact.

“We must have grabbed what we could and jumped into the car.”

“To head where?” I asked him but he shrugged. If we’d a plan he couldn’t remember what it was. For now he seemed content to wait in this house. To this day I’m not sure if that was because he felt it was safe or because, as he later told me, the car had run out of petrol as we pulled up. A blind bit of luck.

I looked out of the window to where he was looking and asked what he was keeping an eye out for.

“Looters.”

He’d told me that when bad things happen, society tends to fall apart and everyone is out for themselves. They don’t care about who they hurt in the process. They just want to protect themselves and keep on surviving.

“I don’t know where the owners of this house are,” he’d told me, “but it’s ours now and we must protect it. You hear me, Son?”

I heard him all right. The word ‘son’ sounded strange coming from his mouth. Alien. I looked down at the photograph; father, mother, daughter and son.