Sick Bastards

by Shaw, Matt

  I left the cabin.

  Would I find similar stories in the other cabins too? My heart sank a little. I was hoping to find a way out from this nightmare, not more corpses. I stopped myself from calling out again. If those things are around here, I don’t want to attract attention to myself.

  I hurried across to the next cabin - only a few short feet away from the last one - and tried the door. Just as the last one had, this one opened with a quick twist of the handle too. The stink of death hit me immediately but it wasn’t the sight of the dead bodies inside - four or five of them at a glance - which shocked me the most.

  PART FIFTEEN

  Before

  The House

  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.

  * * * * *

  Now

  The picture was what caught my attention more than anything else in the cabin. It stuck out like a sore thumb next to the bodies. More people in lab coats with name badges hanging around their necks. One, sitting on a chair in front of where the photograph was stuck, with a screwdriver sticking from his ear, the tip poking through the hole of the other ear. I pushed him to the side and he slumped to the floor with a satisfying thud. I reached up and took the photograph from where it was stuck on a line of monitors. What the hell is this doing here?

  And then I noticed the monitors. They lined the walls all around me. Some of them were just showing static. The ones directly in front of me, where this picture was, were live though. A sign above them read ‘Zone B - House 3’. I looked at them in turn. My heart raced when I realised it was showing images of the house I had shared with Sister. A live broadcast? There appeared to be a camera in each room. My heart stopped when I noticed the bottom left camera. I dropped the photograph. One of the cameras was set up in the lounge. Sister was sitting there, on the settee, with her legs spread. Father was on his knees. His head buried between her legs. I felt a pang of jealousy and an urge to vomit. No vomit though. Just a scream of rage. What the hell was this? We were being spied on? People could see what we were doing and yet no one came to help? What the fuck?

  I jumped from the chair I was sitting on and picked it up. Without thinking I brought it crashing down onto the monitors in front of me, smashing them in the process.

  I fell to the floor, exhausted by the sudden surge of aggression and adrenalin. I wanted to keep screaming but I couldn’t. I could barely catch my breath. What the hell is going on? I clambered to my feet, pulling myself up with the help of some of the unbroken monitors. They were showing live broadcasts too. A sign, above the top row of monitors, read ‘Zone B - House 2’. A quick glance at the pictures displayed as I pulled myself to my feet and another sickening feeling as I realised it was the other house I had stumbled across. The two dead bodies lying in the bed.

  What the fuck.

  I stumbled from the cabin before I noticed anything else. I already felt as though my head was going to explode. Just above the eyes was raging with an excruciating headache, the likes of which I had never felt before - or at least remembered feeling before.

  Outside I didn’t care if those things were around anymore. I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs, burning my throat, for someone to help me...For someone to explain what was going on.

  Another cabin a few feet up a little dirt track. I was almost scared to venture into it, for fear of what was inside, but I knew there was little choice. I had come this far. I needed to finish the journey. I ran towards the door and pushed it open with ease; just like the others it hadn’t been locked. A room full of filing cabinets. A desk in the corner with a lamp still shining brightly as though there was never an issue with the power. Each of the cabinets was labelled up to show the contents within. My eyes were drawn to ‘Zone B - House 3’.

  * * * * *

  Before

  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.

  * * * * *

  Now

  Inside the filing cabinet’s top drawer there were a series of beige folders stored in suspension files, the first of which was filled with various photos of Father, Mother, Sister and me. I pulled the folder out and rested it on top of the drawer so that I could sift through them. So many pictures of us. Either together or by ourselves. There were even pictures where we’d be standing with someone else, or what appeared to be another family. Not all of us together, just me. Me standing with two strangers. Sister standing with four strangers. Mother standing with another man. Father standing alone, a fishing rod in his hand. A smile on his face.

  I dropped the photographs back into the folder and pushed it all onto the floor before turning my attention back to the contents of the cabinet. The next four folders were labelled at the top...

  KELLY DETHLEFS

  BRIAN BIGELOW

  CARMEN REYES

  JOHN BURLEY

  I pulled the first one (KELLY DETHLEFS) out and flicked it open to the first of many pages contained within. Some of them handwritten, some of them typed. Reports of some description and various interviews.

  * * * * *

  Before

  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.

  * * * * *

  Now

  My heart skipped a beat when I turned one of the pages and found a small Polaroid picture of my mother clipped to the back of it. I lifted the photo up so that I could see underneath. A questionnaire of some description. The form had the name Kelly Dethlefs written upon it. Under relationship status it read as widowed. Next of kin had a name I didn’t recognise next to it and then it went into various questions as to why she wanted to take part in the project and why she thought she’d mak
e a suitable candidate. One of the answers which stood out more than any of the others (at a glance) was finances.

  I tossed the folder to one side and pulled the next one out. A few pages in, there was a similar page with a picture of Father attached to it. Brian Bigelow. Single. More of the same as per the last file. Again, I threw it to one side. I felt my eyes start to well up as I realised we weren’t who we were forced into thinking we were. None of us were.

  The next file, Carmen Reyes, was the woman who I had previously believed to be my sister. I didn’t go much further into it as I realised the next folder would have been all about me.

  I hesitated for a moment, having dismissed Carmen’s folder onto the floor with the others. I was nervous about what I’d find by looking into the flimsy file. I picked it out from the cabinet and opened it regardless, seemingly unable to stop my hands from doing so.

  John Burley.

  A tear rolled down my cheek. Just the one. More seemed unable to follow. I had come out looking for salvation and merely found more death and questions. A noise suddenly caught my attention. I turned to the desk, from where it came from, and noticed the chair was moving slightly.

  On closer inspection I noticed a foot underneath the solid looking desk. Someone was hiding.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Please don’t hurt me!” They sounded as panicked as I felt. Slowly, they came out with their hands raised to the air as though they believed the folder (still in my hands) was actually a pistol. Like the others - the corpses - I had seen, they were wearing a lab coat with a name badge hanging from their neck. Michael Bray.

  “What is this?” I raised the folder.

  “Please...I can explain...Please...”

  PART SIXTEEN

  Before

  The Last Days

  The man whose head Father had split with the axe was consumed fairly quickly over a couple of days with not a lot of him going to waste. Sister had a fair amount (certainly more than I could stomach) but it was Father and Mother who seemed to eat the most. No doubt spurned on by Father’s ill-conceived belief that he felt stronger for eating the flesh of another human. Again, there was no sense arguing with him.

  “The God you pray to... he hears you,” I had heard him tell Sister one afternoon. “He hears you and that’s how we keep getting sent more people, like these two. Come now, eat...Be thankful. It’s what your God would have wanted. If it wasn’t - why are we feeling stronger when we consume the flesh of others as opposed to getting ill? If it were a sin, like your brother seems to suggest, surely God would make us suffer? We are blessed. We survived the blast, we have each other - one big happy family - and he keeps sending us more food...”

  I was in the other room. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to hear. Since our conversation in the lounge the other day, he had more or less given up talking to me - unless ordering me to keep watch out of the windows. I guess he knew my mind could not be swayed. Sister’s mind though was still in the balance. One minute she seemed okay, the next she seemed to take Father’s side. This conversation, another little act of brainwashing on Father’s part, would tip the balance back towards him, I feared.

  Mother walked into the room where I was sitting.

  “What are you doing in here all alone then?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer her. Not because I was being rude. I just knew she didn’t care. There was only one reason Mother would walk into a room with me when there was no one else around. Again, our ‘normal’ conversations were at an all time low since the last two people came by the house and since she first started using me for her own sexual gratification.

  She sat with me on the sofa.

  “You look sad!” she said.

  Of course I was sad. Sister was being brainwashed by a father who was desperate to bend her will into his line of thinking. Father had completely lost his mind - as had Mother - and I was close to losing mine too. Not forgetting my daily diet is human and I had killed a man - something else which was still weighing heavily on my conscience.

  I killed a man to protect a family. A family I felt I was growing distant from.

  “How ever can I cheer you up?” she asked. A schoolgirl giggle.

  Again I stayed silent. She didn’t need an answer and wouldn’t have listened to the one that I had given her anyway. She never listened when I asked her to leave me alone. She moved closer to me on the sofa and ran her hand up my leg to my crotch. She gave it a squeeze. I felt my penis betray my mind as it responded to her touch.

  “What about this?” she asked. “Does this cheer you up?”

  Just let her get it over with, I thought to myself. She fumbled around with the buttons on my jeans before reaching in and taking a hold of my shaft. I tilted my head back against the sofa and closed my eyes so I could pretend I was somewhere else. Somewhere normal. The world wasn’t broken. The world was perfect. I was with a loving girlfriend. We had been invited out for the night but chose to stay in instead. Chose to stay in together. Just the two of us. Some soft lighting, quiet music playing. One thing had led to another and my loving girlfriend had decided to give me some oral.

  Not my mother.

  Sister’s voice, in the other room with Father, killed my imagination.

  “God isn’t sending these people to us,” she told Father, “it’s not in his control anymore. The Devil won. The Devil and his minions...Humans in disguise...People like us. They’ve broken the world. They’ve made God blind to us. All we can do now is beg for his forgiveness. That’s what I do every day when we eat. I ask for his forgiveness. You should too.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. I wish I could see his face.

  Mother stopped what she was doing and looked up at me, a naughty glint in her eye, “You like that?”

  “Yes.” It meant sister wasn’t lost yet.

  Mother suddenly jumped up from me when a door slammed from the other room. Clearly Father didn’t appreciate Sister’s comments as much as I had.

  “You’ll have to sort yourself out!” Mother said.

  I quickly put myself away and did my jeans up - just in time too as Father came into the room. His face; he looked angry. Yet when he saw me, his expression seemed to darken even more.

  He slumped down in the armchair across the other side of the room.

  “Everything okay?” Mother asked him.

  “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother. Why any of us do.”

  I took the cue to leave the room, doing my best to hide my grin. I cast my eyes into the dining room. There was no one in there. Sister must have gone upstairs. I hurried up to see her. She was in the bedroom as per usual. I closed the door behind myself.

  “Father thinks this is all about God...The people he sends us...”

  I cut her short by kissing her. She responded. I still had the erection that had been kick started by Mother’s touch (and Mother’s mouth). I shoved Sister back and she toppled on top of the mattress.

  She looked at me with the same amount of lust in her eyes that I felt surging through me. I kicked my clothes off and she did the same with her own until we were both naked. She went to say something to me but I didn’t let her. I threw myself on top of her and kissed her again, my hands roaming over her perfect body.

  “So fucking hot!” I told her. I spat in my hand and rubbed it against her vagina. To my surprise it was already sopping.

  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.