My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands.

by Sean-Paul Thomas

  ***

  Before anyone starts feeling sorry for me, let me just say that I am not a nice guy. I want to get that out there into the polluted airwaves from the beginning. I mean, I'm not an utterly insane, mind-fuck, George Bush/Tony Blair mass murderer of millions and a shit pit of festering evil. Nor am I anywhere near the peak of Mother Teresa's rich, heavenly, Mount Everest of eternal goodness. I'd like to think of myself on the just-below-sea-level-mark on that particular scale. If I'd been born a country, I'd like to have been Serbia. Stuffed with a few deeply rooted rugged charms and not a complete and total fuck-up loss to humanity by any means, just 'not a nice guy' when it came to people. Especially relations and feelings with people of the feminine kind. Although, recently I had been trying. I really had. I battled constantly with this conflict more and more as the days rolled by. Like, the more I aged, the worse of an arsehole I moulded myself into. In all fairness, it was just too damn easy to be an arsehole… but an arsehole who, deep down inside, wanted nothing better in life than to settle with his own demons. To be completely devoted and faithful to one woman and one woman only. A woman whom I loved wholeheartedly and who loved me, without all the other mind-trap relationship bullshit games getting in the way.

  I thought a lot about living in a house that filled me with pride, in a suburb and city I wasn't ashamed to call home. A home I'd be able to speak fondly and openly of some day while chatting with like-minded strangers on a family holiday abroad. Yes, this was what I dreamed about sometimes in the darkest hours of the night. A good life and a good home, surrounded by gardens, flowers, and freshly cut green fields. Surrounded by friends, family, and children I adored with all my heart, who adored me in equal measures. But for some people, life doesn't quite pan out like that. And the longer you resist putting off this comfort and happiness and fantasy bullshit of a good life, the harder it becomes with each passing day to find it again. To accept it and finally come to peace with it before letting go of all your insecurities and grasping it with all your heart, passion, soul, and desire.

  Lately, I'd been coming to terms with the fact that I would most certainly die alone someday. And way before I'd been diagnosed with this untreatable brain cancer inconvenience. Yes, dying alone. Like some sad, old, lonely, sex-crazed fool with no friends, wife, children, or family to call my own. All I seemed to care about was where my next shag was coming from. This insatiable lust, which had infected my body and soul ever since my very first sexual awakening in my teenage years. A guilty lust which felt far worse than any incurable physical decease. Some days I woke up in the morning and felt, deep within my bones, that I could be truly happy with just one special someone in my life. Someone to love, protect, and come home to at night, cuddling up on the couch and spending free time together. A reason to get up in the morning. A reason to live and fight onwards and upwards.

  On some rare occasions, I even longed to find that perfect someone who could make me want to be a better man. But alas, I knew it was useless and just prolonging the inevitable. What if I finally found that perfect someone and spilt my seed deep inside her soul and everything felt good and perfect for that short, singular, orgasmic heartbeat, trapped inside that perfectly wrapped, bubbled moment of harmony for one priceless and meaningful second, only for me to realise there was no such thing as a perfect compatible soul mate and that dark, sinking loneliness would eventually consume me and my feelings for her, just like everyone else who'd come and gone before her. Ultimately it would all disappear, fading like dusk from dawn. Evaporating into thin air, faster than a steam of hot piss in a frozen winter field, like those feelings always did. Always. And I, once more, would begin to long for something different, someone new. The never-ending monotonous circle of my daily life. That addictive chase for a new day. A new dawn. The grass is always greener...

  I knew at the heart of this mental affliction I was what some might call a 'Selfish Narcissistic Prick.’ Sex had always been a weakness and a downfall. I knew I needed sex a lot, and with as many partners who'd give themselves willingly to my cause as possible. It had always been quantity over quality over the years, that's for damn sure. And maybe that's the problem. Who knew? Certainly not me. I didn't really believe it mattered any longer whether someone was that perfect one for me. I really didn't. I knew I had this other horrible terminal lustful cancer embedded deep within my soul, and it was only spreading further and deeper through my veins with every new notch I claimed. This need, want, urge, curse… this longing. This goddamn disease which would absolutely be the end of me even before the real cancer had its wicked way. I needed to fuck. I wanted to fuck all the time and with as many different women as I possibly could. Christ, didn't all heterosexual red-blooded males want the same when you got down to the bare-knuckled nitty-gritty of it? I just didn't act upon it anymore as much as I'd like to, that's all. Maybe settling into a comfortable suburban lifestyle and approaching middle age had finally grasped a hold of my balls and slowly squeezed the final droplets of lust and zest for life right out of me.

  But at the other end of that scale, I'd considered cutting off my own damn balls just to spite the suffering and finally live that so-called normal life. To end this cursed pleasurable and insatiable torment. But I was too weak… too goddamn weak to do it. Or then again, in hindsight, maybe I wasn’t weak after all! Maybe I was just a man.

  'How far would you go to avenge the ONE thing you ever lived for?'

  'THE WRATH OF DAVID'

  'Vengeance is the ONLY thing keeping him alive?'

  Great Britain... In the not too distant future, after a brutal, civil race war against immigrants and anyone non-white British, David, an ex-soldier with a tragic past and nothing left to live for sets off on a perilous journey of revenge and redemption into the heart of a lawless and unrecognisable, un-United Kingdom.

  As David seeks the barbaric racist murderers who brutally butchered his own, mixed raced lover, he is joined on this dangerous journey into the stunning, yet unforgiving, Scottish Highlands by Louise, a young black Muslim girl, searching for her own missing family, in amongst the chaotic aftermath.

  'A roller-coaster ride of violence, raw emotions, heart-breaking tragedy and some rip-roaring storytelling.'

  'Perhaps a terrifying glimpse into our very near future.'

  Chapter 1

  David slept naked and alone. It was an unusually humid early summer's night in the town of Douglas on the Isle of Man. David tossed and turned in his sleep for the umpteenth night in a row as his dreams became nightmares yet again. Even without the added heat lingering in the air, David always had trouble sleeping these nights, ever since the love of his life had been brutally taken from him almost a year ago.

  Now he was dreaming again, dreaming about that time when he'd lost his beautiful angel. His beloved Ashley. The only real love of his long and miserable existence on this planet. He dreamed of being up on that high clifftop again, not far from the holiday cottage they used to rent and hole themselves up in for weeks on end, way up in the north west coastal corner of the Scottish Highlands, whenever they could get their annual leave away together. The good, normal times before the war.

  In the dreams, David always wore a casual black vest with his favourite black jeans as he stood over the edge of a high clifftop a few dozen yards from their secluded cottage. He gazed out at the vast sea and waves and the grim, grey water that stretched out as far and as wide as the eye could see.

  After a deep inhale of the salty sea air, he turned around slowly, not to face the cottage, but to glance a little bit in front of the cottage, where a big old thick oak tree loomed beside the edge of the cliff, like something from an old ghost movie.

  Casually hanging from one of the higher, thicker branches was a short stretch of rope with a small noose tied at its end, big enough to fit a person's head inside. The noose swung eerily all by itself, back and forth, in the cool sea breeze. David breathed in another gulp of salty sea air. But all he could taste and smell was the stale
stench of death that engulfed him from every way he turned.

  Above, the clouds had turned a thick grey, mirroring the sea below, getting darker by the second. A big fuck-off storm was coming, that much was clear. But to David, in that hollow dreamlike moment, it didn't matter. None of it mattered anymore. The storm could take him, engulf him, chew him up and spit him back out again on the rocks of the distant beaches below. He. Did. Not. Give. A. Damn.

  David turned his attention back towards the rough grey sea that stretched onwards and outwards like a never-ending blanket. Finally, he closed his eyes and did not open them again. Gradually he extended his arms, turning his entire body into a cross-like figure as he perched upon the edge of the cliff.

  He remained firmly rooted in that pose. Only the sound of the sea and the waves crashing off the base of the cliff rocks way below rang through his ears. It felt like only a few moments, but darkness had suddenly swept in like a plague, covering the sky across the land. Suddenly, David leaned into the wind, right over the clifftop. After an agonising pause, he let himself fall down the side of the steep cliff face, towards the crashing sea waves and hard, jagged rocks below - waves that seemed to be calling his name every time they crashed against the rocks and stones, over and over ... David ... David ... David...

  Halfway into his descent, David's fall became a majestic dive as he soared like an eagle, raging ferociously straight for the sea. Just before he smashed into the rocks and crashing waves like some violent force of nature... He awoke.

  With a start, he sat up in his bed. He was sweating profusely and breathing deep and hard, in and out, like he'd just come back from one of his long morning runs along the coast of the island. It took him a few deep breaths to realise just where the hell he was. Who he was. Where he'd been. Where he'd come from. And hardest to fathom of all, just what he'd lost during this new and great tragic shift in the world.

  After some time spent wrestling with the same guilt demons and emotional pain and anguish that always kept him awake these days, he fell back to sleep again.

  ***

  David woke up early. The sun shone hard as it did most mornings at the beginning of those long summer days in the old United Kingdom, or the Un-United Kingdom as most people referred to that chaotic and lawless hellhole on the other side of the water. But only the lucky ones. The lucky few who had gotten out in time.

  David jogged to work like he did every day. Always wanting to keep himself fit and alert and his heart rate up, just in case ... just in case something happened. Just in case some slight missed information was found on his behalf. Something for him to act upon so he could finally unleash that pent-up demon rage and fury of vengeance that swished and swirled around inside him like a never-ending hurricane. Only then would his constant fight, desire and struggle to stay at peak physical condition be worth all the sacrifice.

  David worked as a forklift driver down at the docks. Paid jobs were few and far between in the new world, but special vacancies were always open for retired or ex-military servicemen or sometimes even those who just happened to be related to one.

  He'd been working there for the better part of a year now, ever since he'd left behind the tragic horrors of the mainland and reached the safe zone of the Isle of Man – horrors that were still happening and increasing in frequency to this very day.

  The Isle of Man had become a temporary safe/quarantine zone for most immigrants – any immigrants fleeing the countries of England, Scotland and Wales after the brutal and violent uprising of the British White National Extremists.

  Their staggering increase in numbers and supporters in just a matter of months had taken everyone by surprise, as had their eventual brutal overthrowing of an out-of-touch government. This had been followed by the armed forces, who, based on their own extremist beliefs, were tragically split as to how the country should be run.

  Looking back with hindsight, it was so easy to see it coming. Yet no one at the time could or would do a damn thing to stop it or even stand up against it. Even the media had their chances to calm and ease the tensions of the people and the nation around them, promoting kindness to others and uniting all men and women of Britain regardless of their accent, colour and creed. But that was never going to sell newspapers or bring in more viewers than their rival media outlets and news channels, so the media continued to do what they did best – pouring even more fuel onto the raging fires of tension and hate for all foreigners and immigrants.

  But where was all the help from the outside world? Especially when the concentration camps were set up and anyone not looking like they were white British was callously and brutally cut down in the streets like rabid dogs, or rounded up and taken to the camps, where, if no use could be made of them, were either executed outright or put to work as slaves.

  Where was the help from the outside world?

  There was none.

  That was the cold, hard truth of it.

  Britain became the spark and igniting catalyst for most other countries around Europe, then America and then the rest of the Westernized world, for the nationalists and neo-Nazi, right-wing, racist regimes to rise up from the bile and take back their so-called polluted countries for themselves.

  It all happened at a time when the human race appeared to be at a point in its history where it might actually have been seen as moving forward, ever so slightly, with its humanity, especially with technology, new ideas and compassion for others less fortunate than themselves.

  But it was all just a pipe dream in the end.

  And with the second huge economic crash in 20 years, the spiralling world population and a lack of new jobs, more wars, fewer homes, fewer schools and hospitals, less land to build on and less unprocessed food and clean water to go around – something had to give.

  And instead of blaming themselves or the corrupt governments that had taken their people for granted by investing more in weapons, nuclear power and fracking, or the banks that had bled them dry for more years than anyone could remember, the people had turned to hatred of other races and cultures arriving and already living in their country. A hatred of something and someone very different from their own values and beliefs, moving into their territory to share their dwindling resources.

  No, not since Hitler and the Second World War had it been such a shameful time to consider yourself a human being.

  Then, with the overthrowing of the British government and most of the armed forces, a small remaining fragment of the British military that had sided with the government and wished for a peaceful compromise to the terrifying uprising were now running things on the Isle of Man – a small island on the west coast of England which had become a kind of gateway to the more peaceful and immigrant-friendly land of Ireland, just across the water.

  Ireland was where the survivors of the old British government and the minority British public who wanted no part of the new hateful racist uprising had fled, along with the remaining loyal armed forces and even a few surviving members of the royal family.

  People with money and stature were always the first to find the quickest and safest route out of hell.

  But Ireland had taken on more than its fair share of incoming refugees, both British and foreign, and was now at absolute breaking point.

  The world all around had fallen into carnage, ripping itself apart at the seams and from the inside out, and no one knew what to do about it or even how humanity was ever going to put itself back together again. It would take numerous lifetimes and countless generations of healthy, educated beings to even attempt to lay down the building-block foundations for a new and stable world – that was for damn sure.

  In the main dockyards of the Isle of Man, David's job was to unload any incoming cargo from the newly docked ships that came in from the mainland. He would then, with his fellow forklift drivers and ground force workers, load that cargo into the military bays on the opposite side of the harbour.

  After the newly arrived cargo had been unloaded, the military
trucks would take everything to their base on the outskirts of Douglas before rationing and distributing the supplies as they saw fit. This would be to: a) the remaining white British citizens living freely on the island, and then b) the thousands upon thousands of foreign immigrants and non-white British refugees who had fled the mainland. Most of the latter were detained in processing camps on the western side of the island, where they would be held until passage could be organised back to their home countries, or to a fellow neutral country willing to take them in. Which, by the way things were unfolding all over the world, wasn't going to be any time soon.