“Aye, you should have fuckin’ told me, ye wee cunt. Then ye’d only be getting ten lashes of the belt. Now you’re getting twenty.”
Dad threw my Sister up against the near wall, right beside the open door. She landed with another sickly thud.
“Put your fuckin’ hands up against the wall.”
My sister did what he asked. No questions. Her tears had ceased all together and she appeared eerily calm. I backed gently away, unseen by either of them, until I felt the frame of my bed digging hard into my back. I wanted to crawl underneath the bed and hide from it all, but I instinctively knew that if I did such a cowardly thing dad would swiftly drag me back out again and make me stand against the wall too.
I watched dad unwind his belt a few more wraps then position himself behind my sister. I saw her gently stiffen up, preparing herself for the worst beating of her life and the very first horrific whack of the twenty lashes to come.
Out of dad’s eyeline, she casually turned her head to the left and unleashed another sly little comforting smile directly at me. When the first strike from the buckled belt lashed across the thin night shirt of her upper back and shoulders, I closed my eyes and covered my ears. I couldn’t watch. Couldn’t listen.
My fearless sister hardly let out whimper or a moan as dad gave her twenty of his best all over her back and legs.
Chapter 9
If I’d thought dad’s outburst of violence in the bedroom that night was bad, then the following weekend did I truly did get to witness his monstrous and psychotic tendencies in the cold, hard flesh.
I kind of knew that he’d killed at least three times before in his life. The woman in the cellar, who my sister and I never mentioned or spoke about for the time being. The road rage incident a few years back with the driver he’d beaten to death right in front of our very eyes, whilst my sister and I watched on with wildly different emotions. Then the camper/hiker in the forest from the other week—although I could never be one hundred percent certain what his fate truly was, I just went with my general gut feeling which told me that he was now food for the plants, trees, and insects in some dark and remote region of the forest a few miles along the coast from our home.
Of course, these were the only deaths that I knew about thus far. I had no idea about my father’s actions before I was born or even before I started forming any kind of memories, and anything he did out of my line of sight was another black void of mystery to me all together. So, to say there had only been two killings on his part since the beginning of his existence on the planet was a great misconception and a wide berth of naivety on my part.
I was outside feeding our small army of chickens in the back garden on a sunny Saturday, mid-June afternoon. In fact, it could have been the weekend of the longest day of the year or, perhaps, the weekend before.
My father suddenly stepped out from the shadows of the back-kitchen doorway and told me that we were driving down to Glasgow in exactly twenty minutes time to partake in a new survival exercise, and to get a general taste of how the plague of humanity worked.
He told me to go fetch my sister who had been out fishing down at one of the rocky beaches nearby for most of the afternoon, and that we were both to bring our hunting knives too for the drive down along with our wits. We were also to leave any ‘silly fucking questions’ that we may have regarding what might happen down in Glasgow, back at the house.
Down on the beach, my sister looked most excited when I told her the news. Her eyes even glistened as she sliced and gutted another fish she’d recently caught from the cold, calm sea, casually adding it to the basket of dozens of other dead fish she’d caught and gutted that day.
As we drove through the late evening sunshine, first driving down miles upon miles of B roads through the secluded mountains, lochs, and glens before emerging onto the bigger and better laid out A roads, dad told us some stories about Glasgow and the upcoming apocalypse that would one day hit the city harder than any other place on God’s green Earth.
“When the end comes, Glasgow will be the first fuckin’ place tae turn on itself. No doubt aboot that. It’s the biggest cesspit of human filth, decay and misery by a long country mile on this shitehole of an Island. All the scum of Scotland seems tae wash up on its dirty, rancid streets at some point. When the end does come, it certainly willnae be a place that’ll be fuckin missed, that’s for bloody sure. No like Edinburgh. Nay fuckin’ chance. Now there’s a city that will last the test of time. Solid as a fuckin rock that city with its magnificent castle and its glorious auld toon streets—solid as the fuckin’ volcanic rock it was built upon. When the shit truly does hit the fan, if you’re no up in the Highlands like us smart cunts, learning tae live off the land and survive with nothing in your pocket but your savy and wits, then your next fuckin’ option is tae locate the biggest, baddest, fuck off castle you can find and hoard yourself up in there for as long as ye can. And that’s whit half the fuckin’ city will be trying tae dae in all when the time comes. Every cunt in Edinburgh will fightin’ over that fuckin’ castle. It’ll be a bloodbath.”
I wanted to ask more about this Edinburgh place. Of course, I’d seen pictures of it, just like I’d seen the pictures of Glasgow when we attended school. And it did look mightily spectacular. Especially with its roaming populated hills and huge, ancient stone castle that sat way up high on its volcano perch, lording over the rest of the land while the surrounding town and suburbs sat quivering in its shadow, gazing up at its majestic power and beauty in great, stupendous awe.
I wanted to ask if we’d be going to Edinburgh someday soon. At school, before we were cruelly yanked away without even a say in the matter, there had been talk about a trip down to the old city for educational purposes. But that little adventure was well and truly off the table for the time being.
I wanted to ask if we could go there sometime. And I almost did. I wanted to know if dad was actually from the city or had lived there at some point in his past, since he clearly spoke about the place with so much more fondness and pride than any of the other places he’d been to.
But it wasn’t worth the risk to ask a question or to even interrupt him while he was off on one of his long rants or singing along to one of his stupid songs on the radio. Like I said, it was always hard to tell which direction his mood might swing. And if he thought it was a stupid question then, boy, oh boy, were you in trouble.
And that’s when memories of the last question I’d ever asked him, about our mother no less, pulsated through my mind, and a shiver ran up and down my spine with the painful memory of it all.
From that day forward, I’d learned my lesson to never bring up the subject of my mother again, or to ask any kind of burning questions that I may have had. Even now the questions consumed me about what I’d seen in that cellar. The letter with the address still wedged in like a bookmark in amongst the pages of the book I’d hidden underneath the floorboards of my bed. I’d read the book twice already and loved the story. So romantic, beautiful and tragic. I’d never read words like it before and couldn’t believe it had been written by a woman too. It was the first book I’d ever read by a female author. It made me keen and eager to read more. But if and when that would ever be was still a long way off.
So, I hope you can understand my reservations of questioning dad further in the future or even answering him back again anytime soon. No, not until I was old enough and smart enough to get the hell away from his manic clutches for good - not until that day would I ever provoke him or get on his bad side again. I would just bide my time until I could make my eventual escape and only with my sister in tow. That was the plan.
I’d never been to a big city before, especially one as massive and as densely populated as Glasgow. I’d read about it in books and seen various pictures of it at school. My dad didn’t believe in televisions or computers or the internet. Devices of the devil, he’d always referred to them. Pointless objects that would have no use whatsoever when it came to survive after t
he apocalypse. So, we never really had access to any of them inside our home. Although, I’d bet everything I owned including my own sanitary on dad having access to all of it at his work.
So, I suppose, looking at pictures of something wasn’t quite the same as actually being there, walking there, looking at the streets and buildings there, and watching the people go about there lives, hearing the many different sounds, accents, and voices while taking in all those various, new and wickedly wonderful scents and also the horrendously stinky ones too.
When we drove into the heart of the city just an hour or so after the late-night sunset, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the amazing, hypnotic lights. My sister too was caught up in the complete fascination and utter awe of all the wonderful, different coloured lights and fast-moving cars and various people of all shapes, sizes, colour, and creed, all out on the streets as she glanced out through one window and I glanced out through the other.
“Dinnae let that shite oot there seduce ye girls either, eh,” dad casually chimed in, interrupting our new viewing pleasure and experience. “Aye, it all looks pretty enough fae the ootside, ah dare say. But looks can be deceiving tae in this world. A lesson ye’s are both aboot tae learn, as a matter of fact. Tonight, ah want ye’s tae look beyond the lights. Beyond the glitz and the glamor. Ah want ye’s tae see the sick, infested guts of this fuckin’ rat hole, sewar pit. The shite, scum, and bile that sits behind the seduction of it all.”
When I made a quick glance over at my dad, I caught his face in the rear-view mirror. The glint in his eyes and the devilish grin upon his face, chilled me to the bone. I swiftly turned my attention back to the beautiful, hypnotic lights as we continued to drive even deeper into the heart of the city.
Dad parked on a little side street that overlooked a great big square surrounded by some grand old buildings. High upon one of those buildings, directly in front of us, towering over all the rest, I noticed a huge banner that seemed to beam out, projecting itself over the entire world.
The banner read ‘People Make Glasgow.’
I kind of liked it. It made me smile. I could imagine living here and walking the streets and seeing that sign every time I glanced up and then feel proud that I was one of those good people who made the city what it was. Maybe I liked the thought of it because it went totally against every single word that my father had spoken throughout the entire four-hour journey south.
I was tempted to point the banner out to him, well at least point it out to my sister, but then I thought better of it. I didn’t think either he or her would appreciate the words of that humble message. Then, like he had just read my mind, dad glanced up at the huge banner way up in the sky too. He smirked then gave out a loud, disgusting snort.
“‘People make Glasgow. Ha. Ma fuckin’ fat hairy arse they dae.”
We watched for the next few hours as hundreds and hundreds of excitable people, mostly young men and women, passed by our parked car in the city centre. The ones in large groups all looked so merry, particularly the women who were all dressed up so nice and sparkly and in different pretty shoes and beautiful tight-fitting dresses and skirts—skirts that my sister and I would never be allowed to wear in a million years because they seemed so short and revealing.
“Av got fuckin’ belts that would dae a better job of hiding ma modesty than what they fuckin’ tramps are wearing,” dad casually remarked.
Most of the beautiful and sparkly-dressed girls were singing in unison as they went on their merry way along the busy streets. The majority of whom I thought were even better singers than dad, but there was no way on this earth that I was ever going to tell him that.
When they weren’t singing to each other, then those same young women and men were chatting loud, vibrantly and erratically, with each other like they were talking to someone on the other side of the street, even though they were only yards apart. None of them seemed to care a jot though whether the other people passing them by heard their volatile conversations or not.
What struck me the most was that they all seemed so happy. Like they were having so much fun and really enjoying themselves just chatting away doing nothing. Enjoying each other’s company. I’d never seen anything like it before. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I became a little bit caught up in the moment myself.
In that instant I felt like running away from dad’s car, running as fast as my little legs could carry me to join in with them. Join in with their fun and laughter and joy. Disappear into that vibrant Glasgow nightlife with them forever. Never to return to my miserable life under my father’s rule of thumb ever again.
But it was only a fleeting fantasy. No more, no less. I could never leave my sister in his manipulative, strong holding grasp. What would ever become of her if I abandoned her then? I shuddered at the thought. If we had nothing else in this world, then we had each other. We always had each other no matter what. Whatever happened in the future, at least, my father would never be able to take that away from us.
“Look at them.” Dad sneered. “They’re all pissed as fuckin’ farts,” dad stated as if that explained the happy and merry peoples’ crazy and boisterous behaviour from birth until that very moment in time. “They’re all drunk on booze and drugs and fuck kens what else shite they been shovelling intae their bodies. High as fuckin’ kites they are. Oh aye, at the start of the night and on the shallow surface, it all looks like grand old fun and games, ken. But just gie it a few mare hoors for all that shite in their veins tae wash off. You’ll soon see the chaos and carnage it brings. You’ll soon see their true colours then, ma girls.”
We drove around some more. From the back seat, my sister and I continued to eagerly watch the brightly lit city come even more crazily to life as more and more excited and energetic bodies bounced and skipped, back and forth, through the vibrant streets.
Later dad pulled up outside a late-night café and surprisingly took us inside for a late-night meal. This was something most unexpected and something that dad never did. He didn’t believe in having other people cook meals for you or having big chain stores like Asda, Tesco, and Sainsburys to supply you with all their contaminated processed crap. He only believed in growing your own, hunting your own. What you caught and killed, you ate and made good of. Nothing else. Hence, we only ever enjoyed junk food when we were out on our own little adventures, stealing and acquiring it for ourselves from the unlucky campers and tourists who crossed our path.
But dad said it was our special treat for surviving out in the forest for three days and three nights, all by ourselves and for the first time of asking too. He said we could choose anything on the menu, anything at all. So, we both chose a cheeseburger and strawberry milkshake (my sister had chocolate) and a side of fries.
We’d never been allowed anything of the sort before, so we were both a little cautious at first that it might be some kind of test. Some dirty trick that as soon as we’d decided what we’d like to eat from the menu, dad would swiftly grab us both by the roots of the hair and drag us the hell out of there, back to the car. Back up the long winding road leading home. Another test failed.
But he didn’t. In fact, he overly insisted and even bought a single sloppy bacon burger for himself too just to prove to us how serious he was. However, once we’d sat down at a free table and finally ordered, did the twisted screw finally reveal itself.
“Make the most of this, ma girls. Cuz, it’ll never fuckin happen again. Not while you’re both sure as shite living under ma roof, that’s for fuckin’ sure.”
When the waitress brought the food over, me and my sister swiftly tucked into the goods immediately, devouring our tasty, salty meals almost as quickly as they’d been placed down in front of us. I was eating so fast because I couldn’t believe our luck. For me, the quicker we ate the less chance there’d be for dad to change his mind and slap our plates away from underneath our noses, right off the table, just as soon as his mood changed.
But all he did the entire time w
as chuckle at our eagerness. It was the first time I’d ever seen him so laid back and almost, well, almost so normal and nice. He was unrecognizable, in fact. For a brief, heartfelt moment, I thought that it might be a small sign of some good, positive changes to come. That this was what it felt like to be part of a proper, normal family. To sit down and enjoy a meal with your loved ones without fear of failure and disappointment.
Turned out though I was very wrong.
Once dad had finished his burger, he grabbed one of the late-night café newspapers lying in a nearby rack for customers to help themselves to. He opened the thick tabloid and started to read out loud.
“Let’s see what rancid shite am missing out on in the world the day then, eh,” he said with a sinister scoff and so excruciatingly loud that everybody inside the half-full café could hear.
“Whit a fuckin load of pish!” he cried as he flicked through all the colourful tabloid gossip stories, before unexpectedly throwing the paper in disgust at a young couple sitting at the table beside us. It almost knocked over the girl’s milkshake, but neither of the two said a single word in protest once they caught a glance of the evil, sadistic snarl coming from dad’s face.
“Fuck ye’s looking at?”
The couple quickly went back to minding their own business. Dad turned back to us and immediately went into one of his rants, full throttle this time, like nothing I’d ever heard or seen from him before, unless he was talking about his beloved apocalypse.
“…That's the fuckin’ problem with people in this country the day likes, ken. They’re all media driven, zombified, tabloid fuckin’ junky bastards. It's their bible, ken. Tabloid newspapers are bibles for the working and lower-class cunts of this new shitey Britain of the twenty-first century.”
“If there’s something in they horse-shite, slanderous, no-even-good-tae-wipe-your-own-backside papers, aboot some celebrity fuckwit fae the X factor sleeping aroond with some married TV slut, host, whore, or some bloody, premiere-league football player, snorting a tram line of coke while shagging his way through the spice girls, then it just has tae be the only important fuckin’ thing going on in the world right now, eh? Nothing else seems tae matter a fuck tae these cunts! Oh, so David and Natasha have been voted off Britain's got fuck all talent, aye. Superb! But in other, less significant news, two hundred thousand brown people died in a massive earthquake on the other side of the fuckin’ planet. Oh well. Nay luck. Back tae Dermot on fuckin 'strictly cum all over ma fuckin’ chebs, dancing,’ ye prick. If it’s no news aboot rich, white, western celebrity-folk then we dinnae wantae fuckin’ ken aboot it, dae we?”
My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands. Page 7