by Shaw, Matt
His voice was quiet. I hadn’t seen him like this before.
“Did you return as the hero? Some food for us? Some help? Or did you return with your tail between your legs and another mouth to feed?”
I couldn’t help but feel it was a rhetorical question.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked.
With no words (or warning) I spun round on the spot, with the axe in hand, and struck the stranger’s neck with so much force that his head separated clean from his body. The body just stood there for a moment with a fine jet of red mist spurting from the stump painting the blue skies (and then splattering the floor). After a couple of seconds the body then slumped to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Father jumped.
The girls screamed.
The severed head rolled to a standstill.
“What the hell are you doing?” Father shouted.
He stepped from the house and closed the door behind him to stop Mother and Sister seeing anymore than what they had to - even though we both knew they had already seen more than they needed to.
Father snatched the axe from my hand and asked me again, “What the hell are you doing?”
“There’s nothing out there!” I told him. “Nothing but those things and whoever this was...I bumped into him in the middle of the woods. He told me he had seen those infected people too. He said there was a lot of them and not a lot of anything else...”
“So you killed him?” Father hissed.
“He was going to come this way with or without me!” I said. In truth, I hadn’t planned to kill the man. It was only because of the change in his personality that I realised he couldn’t be trusted. Too unpredictable. Too dangerous. I couldn’t shake the thought from my mind of the man being a looter; the worry that he’d attack my family and me just as soon as we entered the house. “I didn’t have a choice!”
Father didn’t say anything.
Another thought (albeit disgusting) flashed through my mind. I could see from Father’s face that he too had had the same troubling, yet necessary, thought.
“And now we have something to eat.”
I dropped the bloodied axe onto the floor of the porch.
PART FIVE
Now
A Welcome Solitude
I couldn’t take my eyes off the broken bowl and strips of meat next to where I had thrown them, before Father had come into the room. My mind was continually telling me that they were there because of me. Had it not been for me trying to be the big man and rescue our family - we would never have gone down that dark path. I knew there was little point in thinking about it. I couldn’t turn the clock back no matter how much I had wanted to. And yet I couldn’t stop from procrastinating about what had come to be and where I (the hero) had led his own family.
My mind was always louder when I was by myself. A constant chattering in my brain about things I’d rather forget about yet, today at least, I preferred it to the warped wittering of my mother, father and sister. A guilt-filled break from the crazy.
“Without Father we would have starved!” Sister had been known to tell me on down days.
Down days? It seems they are becoming more and more frequent now. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we had an up day. Was there even such a day since waking up in this prison?
Anyway - if it wasn’t for me - Father wouldn’t have stopped us from starving. The meat I brought up that day was at least a week (maybe two) before the second piece of meat stumbled in from the cold; just as confused and scared as the first piece. Had it not been for the piece I walked home I’m pretty sure the second person would have come by a house filled with the bodies of four family members.
Can’t turn the clock back, stop wishing it possible. What’s done is done.
My mind drifted to thoughts of leaving the house. I could just turn my back on the whole family and go off and find some help by myself. There has to be something out there. And if there isn’t, and I do end up dying from starvation or running into other forms of trouble...Would that be such a bad thing? It wasn’t the first time I’d had such thoughts. Staying here can only end badly too. Survivors aren’t frequent and we can’t rely on them stumbling into the house forever. Soon they’ll stop coming and we’ll be faced with starvation again. Then what? Would Father turn on his family? I couldn’t say for sure but if I were a betting man - I was pretty sure I know what he’d do...
The door opened and Sister walked in.
“I had to tell him!” she said. There was a defiant tone in her voice. Her defiance was also obvious by the way she strode into the room without daring to knock first. No chance of an apology then. “He had already suspected something was wrong by the way you behaved at the table. You only have yourself to blame!”
“Yeah well, it doesn’t matter.”
My mind was already telling me that leaving the house (and finding my own way) was the right thing to do.
“You’re not angry?”
I stood up and walked over to a stained mirror which hung on the wall. I beckoned Sister to join me until we were both standing side by side looking at our reflections.
“How old do you think I am?” I asked.
“What?”
“How old are you?”
Looking at our reflections, hers in particular, I reckon I could have given a good guesstimate to her age easier than my own age. Her skin was smooth, without so much of a single wrinkle and there was a shine of innocence (dulling with each passing day we stayed in the house) in her eyes which suggested she wasn’t a day over eighteen.
My own reflection, though, was a different story: a worn, tired face; wrinkles around my dark eyes. I know a lot of that was down to stress but, even so, it made it hard to give an accurate age. Was I just wearing badly and only in my teens like my sister? Was I older? Twenties perhaps? Maybe even early thirties?
“I don’t know how old I am. I don’t know my name. There’s lots that I don’t know. There is something I do know though...”
“What’s that?”
“I know that I want to remember and that is something I’ll never do all the time I stay in this house.”
Sister smirked, “You’re leaving again?”
It wasn’t the first time I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to leave. The first time I mentioned it and Father said I couldn’t go anywhere. I had to stay with the family - where it was safe. The second time he said the same thing. The third time he told me that I knew where the door was. The other times the thoughts crossed my mind, I kept it to myself. Looking back - I guess the first few times I mentioned anything were just a cry for help. Now I felt different though. Inside. I meant it. I wanted to leave. It was the best thing to do for the sake of my own survival and sanity (what was left of it).
“I mean it this time!” I told her. I tried to explain my reasons even though I had no idea whether she’d even want to hear them. “People won’t keep stumbling into this house from the outside world. Father doesn’t go out looking for them and nor does anyone else. The fact we’ve had a few people come by this way in the first place is a miracle...”
“God is looking out for us!” Sister shouted.
“Damn you with your God. There is no God. If there was then we wouldn’t be in this position. No one would. The world wouldn’t be ruined.” I continued, “What happens when people stop coming by? We starve to death? I don’t think so. How long before Father - or Mother - decides their survival is more important than ours?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you love them? Mother and Father, do you love them?”
“Yes!”
“Really? And they love you?”
“Yes!”
“Because I feel like I don’t know them and I wonder whether they feel the same about us.”
“They wouldn’t turn on us.”
“What about each other? What about going downstairs one day to find Mother on the table with Father standing above her with that knife in his
hand?”
“He wouldn’t!”
“You can’t say that for definite.”
She didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say. She knew - deep down - that what I was saying had an element of truth in it. Neither one of us had heard Mother or Father tell us that they loved us. Not that we could remember anyway. And despite what Sister said - she couldn’t pretend there wasn’t the possibility of Father (or Mother) turning on either one of us (although I think it was fair to say they’d probably start with me).
“So that’s it then? You’re going?”
There was a hint of sadness in her eyes which reminded me of how she used to be before things turned ugly for us. Not a lot. Just a hint. Enough to make me realise that (perhaps) she was still in there - deep down lost in the blackness consuming her soul. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. I couldn’t help but wish she would...
“Come with me!” I said.
“What?”
“We can leave - together...Mother and Father can’t stop us. We can just leave and try and find some help. We can come back with the army, if we find them, and collect Mother and Father or we can just start again by ourselves - just the two of us.”
“You tried to leave before. Remember what happened?”
“That was before. We just need to be more clever about it - go out there quietly and try and sneak past anyone that we stumble across as opposed to fight them.”
“I don’t want to go. I like it here.”
“No you don’t. Not really. You just think you do. This is a prison though. Not just for me and you but for Mother and Father too. They think it’s a sanctuary but it’s not. Come on - come with me. We can start afresh. We can choose ourselves names - it’s clear our own names are lost. We can start a new life. One which is better than this...”
“What about Mother and Father?”
“They won’t leave with us.”
“I could talk to them.”
“They won’t.”
“I can try. I don’t want to leave without them.”
The poor girl still thought they were her mother and father. I had long since come to the conclusion that they weren’t. They were monsters. Mother and Father were as lost as our names.
“It needs to be you and me. They’ll slow us down...We have to do this.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But...”
Father’s voice boomed from the doorway, causing me to jump. I hadn’t even noticed him standing there.
“She said she doesn’t want to go!” he said.
I spun around to face him. His eyes were black again. His skin red as though flushed through with rage. This wasn’t good.
Nothing Stopping You
“We’re leaving!” I told him. “You can’t keep us here.”
“How many more times are we going to have this conversation? Same old, same old...You eat a little food, you start to feel guilty about your desire to survive and what you’ve done, you talk about leaving, you go quiet, you bang your sister, all is right in the world...You eat...You feel guilty...Just go. We don’t want you here. It’s hard enough surviving without someone as negative as you trying to make things harder for us. So - yeah - leave. You want to go, I want you to go and your mother wants you to go...Your sister, though, she isn’t going anywhere.”
“I’m not leaving her here with you!” I told him.
I don’t know why I said that. I should have just gone whilst he was letting me. That little glimmer of the sister I once knew flashing in her eyes though - I didn’t want to leave that. I didn’t want to lose it. I wanted to bring her back from the dark place she found herself in at the moment. I still felt I could. The blackness in Father’s eyes now showed me that for him, it was too late. He was lost for good. But not my sister...
“Then we have a problem.” Father turned to my sister and asked her, “What do you want to do? Do you want to leave too?”
“Not without you and Mother...”
“We’re not leaving though. Someone will come by and find us. They’ll come and take us to safety. It’s just a question of waiting...”
“And when they do come - what makes you so sure you won’t just kill them before they reveal who they are? After all - how do you know they’ll be your saviour as opposed to another lump of meat for the table?” I blurted out. I turned back to Sister, “We need to leave - he’s lost the plot. Look in his eyes.”
Sister looked at Father and then back to me, “What about them?” she asked.
Her own eyes had dulled once more. The sparkle had once again slipped away.
“Please,” I begged her, “come with me.”
She shook her head, “Not without Mother and Father.”
“And we’re not going anywhere,” he said with a smug look on his face.
I wished I had the axe to hand. I would have stuck it in his face right there and then. I’m not sure whether the thought was from the darkness battling inside of me or whether it was part of my good side. After all, killing something evil - surely that’s not a bad thing to do? The line between right and wrong has become blurred since the bomb.
“I can’t stay here,” I told Sister, trying to ignore the look on my father’s face.
“And I can’t go. Not without my family.”
I wanted to tell her that they weren’t her family but I couldn’t. At the end of the day - despite what they have become in the bad days - they’ll always be her parents. They’ll always be our parents.
“What are you waiting for?” Father asked, that same smug look on his face. “We’ll even move the barricade from the front door. Save you from having to leave via the window again.”
I hate him.
“Fine,” I said after a slight hesitation - trying to decide whether Sister would change her mind or not. It appeared not.
“You might want to eat that,” said Father as he pointed to the meat on the bedroom floor, “you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday. You’ll need your strength out there if you’re going to survive for long...Lot of walking to do. Could be miles.”
I looked at the meat. Father was right. I didn’t want to eat it but I had to. If I left on an empty stomach I’d get hungry even quicker once I had walked for a bit. At least staying in the house, doing nothing, kept hunger at bay for a little longer. Out there, doing the exercise, though - I’d definitely need a full stomach before I left...
“We’ll leave you to your meal.” He smirked at me as he beckoned Sister from the room. She didn’t even look back at me as he closed the door behind them.
I walked over to the meat and picked it up. Certainly not as fresh as it was yesterday but it will do. In my mind I pictured a nice fillet steak. And then I bit down on a section which squelched between my teeth.
To think - this used to be hard.
PART SIX
Before
The First Bite
We were all sat around the dinner table, empty plates in front of us. Father was sitting at the head of the table, Mother was sitting next to Sister and I was alone on the other side despite having the option to sit at the other end of the table opposite Father.
He had called us there to discuss what had to be spoken about. The man I had killed earlier, with the axe, was still lying in a pool of clotted blood at the front of the house - no doubt already attracting the attention of swarms of flies and other insects all looking for an easy meal.
Father had told us that it was just meat. He had told us that we were supposed to picture something else - like a steak - when we bit down into it. He told us that it would be easy if we didn’t think about what we were doing. If we over-thought it then we would find it harder.
Of course it wasn’t just a case of Father telling us how to go about eating the meat. There was also some protesting too. Mother didn’t really say anything; she agreed with Father that we didn’t really have a choice. Sister was against it though. One hundred percent. I was too - despite my initial thought
that it was the best option. Now it was laid out in front of me (so to speak) the idea repulsed me.
“I’ll take the first bite,” said Father, “I’ll tell you what it tastes like. Prepare you.”
Sister still didn’t look convinced. Would it really have made a difference whether Father went first or not? The idea of him reporting back saying it tasted as disgusting as we thought it would be surely wouldn’t have helped us conquer our own fears of eating human flesh.
Can’t think of it as human.
It’s not human.