Sick Bastards (2 page)

Surviving

None of us could remember our names when we woke up. And try as we might - they never came back to us. To this day I often wonder what my name could have been. Sister says I look as though I could have been a ‘Ben’. I don’t see a ‘Ben’ when I look in the mirror though.

I’m not sure when we gave up trying to remember. Starting afresh in this strange, but comfortable given the circumstances, house - we could have taken the opportunity to choose ourselves new names. We decided against it though on the off-chance our memories came back to us - one day - just as they had so easily disappeared in the first place. We’d rather wait to see what happens as opposed to lose the names forever; hidden behind some fakes plucked from thin air. As it turned out we rarely bothered addressing each other with names or labels. On the rare occasions we did, we kept it simple; mother was Mother, father was Father and sister was Sister. To my sister, I was Brother. To our parents, we were Daughter and Son.

The owners of the house never came back much to our relief. We had claimed it as ours and - at the time - I wasn’t sure how far we’d go to keep it as such. Ask me today and the answer is simple; we’d go as far as we would have to to keep a hold of what we believe to be ours. We never knew where they went either. I suggested that they may have done what we had tried - loaded up a car and just hit the open road to try and escape the destruction. Father dismissed the idea though. He’d say that if they had done that then they would have taken the food from the cupboards. As it was, the cupboards were brimming with foods of all sorts. Something for everyone. A stroke of good luck considering we had no idea where the nearest operating shops were (if indeed there were any shops). Not just food either but candles and (gas-powered) lanterns stashed in the garage. Just as well too, considering there was no power to the property.

Did the previous occupants of the house know something we didn’t? The amount of preparation they appeared to have done. No. Had to just be luck. After all - if they had prepared for the end of the world then I am sure they wouldn’t have left their house. Certainly not without taking the candles and food anyway.

The first few weeks were spent using the car’s radio to try and get a station - any news from the outside world that could be useful to know. Father hoped that there’d be a camp set up, or something, nearby that we could make our way to. Father would fiddle with the radio. The girls were in the house and I would be instructed to stand outside of the car keeping watch for possible looters.

Of course the radio was useless. Static on every channel we continually tried and then - after a while - the car’s battery just gave up the ghost entirely, killing any chance of finding salvation on the radio. In the end we ended up doing nothing. We had food, we had each other and we decided, as a group, that sooner or later help must come by; hopes raised by the fact that, from time to time, we’d see what must have been military aircraft flying overhead.

Food-wise - we ate well. Looking back, it was silly really. We should have rationed what we had. Tried to make it last longer than it actually did. I think we managed to eat well for just over a month, maybe longer but not by much. When Father realised the food supplies were diminishing quicker than anticipated - he did start rationing but, of course, by then it was too little too late. Our meals had been reduced to nothing and we were living off the smallest of portions, all of us getting hungrier and hungrier.

I think I miss shortbread biscuits the most.

And real steak.

The slices of meat we got to eat before this happened.

“What did happen?” Sister would occasionally ask Father.

He’d sit next to the open fire - burning away logs we had collected from outside with an old axe we found in the garage next to the house - and tell us bits and pieces of what led to the bomb being dropped. To this day I’m not sure if he was telling the truth or simply using his imagination to give what happened a reason.

The summary: one man’s greed led to the end of the world.

Father told us how he saw the mushroom cloud billow up into the air and the bright, near- blinding light of the explosion. He described how the bang vibrated his guts to the very core making him instantly queasy and fearful that something important was going to rupture. Again - I’m not sure how much of it was truth and how much of it was fabricated for our benefit; a little bedtime story to tell the children.

Soon enough the day that we feared came by. The food was practically gone (other than a few crumbs here and there) and our stomachs were rumbling.

“We need to leave the house,” Father told me as I came down to a non-existent breakfast one morning. “We need to see if we can find some food before we all starve to death.”

I didn’t argue with him. I knew if we didn’t do something (and soon) then his words wouldn’t be as melodramatic as how they sounded. I didn’t even question whether it was worth one of us staying behind, at the house, with one of the women whilst the other woman went out with Father. That way, there’s a man outside to find food and a man inside to defend the property.

Chauvinistic thoughts?

Before the bomb went off and things changed, I’m sure women would have been just as capable as men (in some ways more so) but now - in this new world - I couldn’t help but feel that way. No doubt something to do with all the tales of looters Father told us during the cold nights.

Armed with a knife from the kitchen, an axe from the garage and a torch - Father and I left the house in search of supplies. We didn’t know what we were going to come across. Perhaps some wildlife wandering the woods with the same goal as us? Perhaps some other survivors? Perhaps some glimmer of hope? Whatever it was - soon after leaving the property we realised just how bad things actually were and that nothing would ever be the same again despite our hopes for a rescue party plucking us away from the destruction to some safe haven we could learn to call home.

* * * * *

The first time Father and I left the house, we had been walking for what seemed to be hours. In reality it was probably no more than thirty minutes but - of course - it was impossible to tell.

My first impression was that everything seemed normal. It just made it that little bit more heartbreaking when you realised it wasn’t. Despite the way it looked, the world was ruined and chances were we were breathing in radiation with every breath. An invisible killer.

Father was the first to hear it; the sounds of branches snapping nearby to where we were. He held his finger up to his mouth as though to silence me before I even opened my mouth. I did as his gesture suggested and kept quiet. If there was a chance for a meal, at the end of this, I didn’t want to be the one responsible for scaring it off.

I held back as Father went forward with the axe in his hands - poised ready to swing it at the neck of whatever he stumbled across. I had the knife in hand - not that it was going to be of much use. Or so I thought. Looking back, I’m glad I had it. Had we left it back at the house, had we not bothered with it, then I’m pretty sure things would have been different.

“I thought you were a deer!” my father said.

I couldn’t see who he was talking to. Not from where I was standing. I remember getting my hopes up though. The thought of him talking to another person. It showed that, despite how it appeared, we weren’t alone. For a minute - I’d felt a glimmer of hope.

It was around that point that Father had sworn. He even took a step back from where he was standing. Something he’d seen had knocked him off-guard. I called out to him, quietly, to see if everything was okay but he didn’t reply to me. He just raised the axe in the air and told - whoever was there - not to come any closer. His voice filled with threat. His body defying his tones and visibly quaking with fear.

I think I called out for his attention a couple of times but he didn’t reply either occasion and then - from the other side of the tree - I saw why.

Present Day

The meat was stirring again bringing me back to the now. I noticed Father was looking directly at me. He was chewing his food and seemed bothered that I wasn’t eating mine. A quick glance to Mother and Sister - they were staring at me too. Wasting food is sinful.

“You aren’t hungry?” asked Father.

His dark eyes looked as though they were slowly turning black. Something which happened when he was angry. I tried to ignore it. Could just be the dim light of the candles making them appear that way.

“Sorry!” I said. “Drifted off for a moment.”

“That’s okay.”

He forked the last of his own meal into his mouth and swallowed it down before asking the awkward question, “So what has everyone been doing today?”

When things changed - after the first
meat
we ate - Father often asked this question. Of course he knew what we were doing with our days. The house wasn’t big enough to hide our activities. Not from anyone who
really
wanted to know what was going on anyway and Father was definitely that sort of person. He had to know what was going on. He made it his mission. If he knew where everyone was and what was happening within his four walls, it gave him a little more control over the situation. It led to fewer opportunities for things to go wrong. With that in mind - when he asked the question - he didn’t want to know the truth. He didn’t want to know what we were really doing, just as we didn’t want to discuss it with him.

He wanted a lie. Perhaps - considering what (or who) was stretched out on the table in front of us - he wanted the chance to feel normal again. Even if it was a lie.

* * * * *

“What have you been doing today?” Father would ask us.

Our first answers were that we had been watching out of the window for
them
.

“Don’t tell me that,” he had stopped us, “tell me what you would have been doing. On a normal day. That’s what I want to hear. Your mother and I. That’s what we want to hear.”

* * * * *

“I met this guy,” said Sister. She was looking directly at the meat who was continuing to slowly come round despite the blood loss. I’m surprised. Normally they don’t wake up again once they fall unconscious. “He’s just moved to the area from up north. For some reason he took a shine to me and introduced himself to me before introducing himself to anyone else in the class. It’s funny,” she continued, “we’ve only just met but we have so much in common. We like the same television shows, we both want to become doctors, both have a love of animals...He’s really nice. We’re going to meet for lunch tomorrow. You never know, I might get asked to the end of year dance yet...”

“And why wouldn’t you? You’re beautiful!” Father smiled.

Father was right. She was beautiful. Brilliant blue eyes that dazzled like precious stones despite the dim light offered by the candles dotted around the room. Long eyelashes. The blondest of hair and full, kissable lips. A perfect size eight although I’m not sure whether that’s because she’s naturally slim or because of the lack of food. I suspect, given the rest of her features, it’s the first of the two options.

To this day I still don’t understand how such a creature could come from Mother and Father. Neither of them were skinny, neither of them had blonde hair (both had dark) and neither had blue eyes (Father had dark brown and Mother had green eyes). Other than the weight (I’m pretty slim too) at least I appear to have inherited the same genes as Mother and Father with the dark eyes and dark hair. Thankfully I got Father’s height - the pair of us knocking on six foot two inches.

The meat started to get more vocal as it realised it hadn’t been dreaming. We did our best to ignore it as Father looked to me - expecting my answer to his question. I hated these questions. It was hard to remember what I enjoyed doing before the bomb, before all this. Did I do normal activities before any of this? I don’t remember them. Did I play computer games with friends? Did I like to go out drinking and dancing? Was I even social? I don’t feel as though I may have been. I feel as though I could have preferred my own company. Maybe.

“Well?” Father asked.

Mother sensed that I was struggling to think of something that would be deemed satisfactory so she chipped in with her own day, “I went shopping!” she said as she took another bite of the fleshy mess upon her plate. She licked her lips.

“Oh?”

“I found the most beautiful dress. It was long, flowing...”

“What colour?”

“Red.”

“Matching shoes?” Father was getting into Mother’s scenario with a smile on his face. He relished the chance to escape to a different (better) world.

“High heels. Admittedly, I don’t have anywhere to wear the clothes but I was hoping that - when you saw me in them - you’d want to take me to...”

Father interrupted, “The finest restaurant! There’d be a piano in the corner of the room. A pianist effortlessly playing a quiet tune as the diners - on surrounding tables - enjoy the finest cuisine from around the world. The low murmur of happy chitter-chatter from the patrons as staff busy themselves making sure everyone is catered for. The occasional chinking sound as wines glasses come together to toast various celebrations. I’d have the fish,” he continued. “What would you have?”

Mother’s eyes lit up at the prospect of fish. We hadn’t had fish since all of this kicked off. Not real fresh fish. The original owner of the house had some fish fingers in the freezer, which we ate, but they’re not the same. “I’d have the fish as well!”

“And then, as we enjoy our starters - I’d have pate by the way - I’d tell you how beautiful you looked in the dress.”

“And I would thank you...”

“And then I’d ask whether it was purchased with my credit card.”

“And I’d smile innocently and flutter my eyelids.”

“And I’d have my answer,” he laughed. He sighed as he picked up the carving knife from next to the top end of the meat. “Anyone for seconds?” he asked as he ran the blade across the neckline of the meat causing blood to spurt across the room.

Waste not, want not.