by Shaw, Matt
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day...”
“I know but I’m really not feeling very well. I think I’ll just skip it today...”
“...And the meat won’t last forever. It’s already started to turn. We need to eat whilst we can,” he continued. “Maybe you should take your food upstairs with you on the off-chance you get peckish.”
The look in his eyes hinted it wasn’t so much of a suggestion as opposed to more of an order. I flashed him a smile.
“Of course.”
I walked back over to the table and collected my bowl of off-cuts. Sister was staring at me, meat hanging from her mouth, shaking her head disapprovingly. She knew I didn’t feel tired, or unwell. She knew I just wanted to escape from my family like the ungrateful bastard that I am.
I hoped the look in my eyes was enough for her to not tell Father what was really going on in my mind.
Father and Son
I closed my bedroom door and sat in the small beam of sunlight which managed to find its way in through the gaps in the barricade. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. The last fragment of my humanity wasn’t quite enough for tears. Instead I just felt a rage slowly build within me as I thought about my family and what they had become: a mother pleasing a father beneath the dinner table whilst kids are present - and then trying to do the same for son; a sister sitting there, aware of what is happening, whilst eating slithers of a person. I felt sick. The bowl of food I was forced to take with me, resting to my side, reminding me of what we had become. I shoved it across the room. It crashed against the wall and the contents flew out leaving splatter marks where they landed.
I couldn’t help but think of how long it had taken for us to get to this level. Or how long it hadn’t taken us to be more precise. Without society here dictating what was right and wrong, things have changed quickly. We had become more animalistic in our nature and I hated it.
I looked beyond the barricade blocking the window and wished that I had the guts to pull it all away and just leap from the ledge. End it all. Hope to God that I’d still be entitled to a seat by his side despite what I had done since the blast.
Something might come along, a nagging thought kept whispering in my head.
The nagging thought was right. Something might have come along any day now. If I killed myself now I’d never know. But if something did come by - could I really live my life to the full knowing the things I had partaken in? Was there any hope I could become normal again? But then what is normal? Is society all that’s wrong in the world and how we are now - is that normal? Is this how we are supposed to behave as humans? Is this what we really are? The thought made me feel uncomfortable. Who was it (in the first place) who deemed the difference between rights and wrongs anyway? Who was to say they were right in what they initially said?
I tried not to think about it. It’s not as though there’d ever be anyone there to answer the question for me. I was just tormenting myself further.
With no advance warning (of a knock or such-like) the bedroom door swung open and Father appeared. He looked angrier than he had done downstairs when we were talking. I could only presume Sister had told him the things I had been saying to her.
“You don’t have to stay here, Son.”
“What?”
“If the way we live doesn’t meet your requirements then you’re more than welcome to try and go it alone...”
Sister had told him then. Damn her. I couldn’t help but wonder whether she would have kept her mouth shut if it weren’t for the fact that Mother had pushed her foot from my crotch. I saw the ugliness of jealousy on her face at the time and knew there’d be repercussions.
“I don’t know where you’ll go,” Father continued, “but I’m sure it will be better than here.”
I wanted to argue with him and explain how I felt and that I was surprised the rest of the family didn’t feel the same. I wanted to tell him that I felt shame for what I had done (on many levels) and that they should too but there was little point. I could see it, in his eyes, that he wasn’t in the mood for arguments or someone challenging him. Besides - I wasn’t ready to leave the house. I had nowhere to go and those things are still out there.
I welcome death, yes, but I’m too afraid to run towards it with open arms; the ever hopeful belief lingering that - soon - a group may come by and help us.
“Perhaps you should use today to think about what you really want. You can stay here and fit in with our ways or you can leave and make your own path in life. You’ll always be welcome here but not whilst you’re continually challenging me. Not under my roof.”
It’s not your roof, I wanted to tell him. My tongue didn’t move. Clearly it had more sense than my tired brain.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” I told him.
He didn’t say anything immediately. He was just standing in the doorway looking down to where I was sitting on the floor. That look in his eyes still blazing away, burning a hole through what was left of my soul.
“Well you be sure. Stay up here today. No sense you ruining everyone else’s day just because you’re struggling with your thoughts. You stay up here and decide what you want to do with your life and where you want to go. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He waited for an answer but I didn’t have one for him. Not one that he would have liked anyway. I remained silent. He grunted and stepped from the room, closing the door behind him.
I still can’t cry.
My mind is still too poisoned for that.
All I could think about was what had brought us to this moment.
It was all my fault.
Sister was right.
PART FOUR
Before
Alone
It was the first time I had left the house since leaving - a couple of days earlier - with my father when we originally went out looking for some food (or help). Trapped inside the house, even for a couple of days, I had forgotten how beautiful it was out here. Surprising really, considering the supposed state of the world. I kind of felt stupid for bringing Father’s axe along with me as some form of protection.
The air tasted fresh. The scent of the trees and earth lingered in the air. Nature at its most fragrant. The mid-morning sun beamed down upon my face, warming my skin and making me feel more alive than I had felt for as long as I could remember. The birds were singing in various trees around the house, music to my ears which had grown accustomed to the infrequent creaking of the old house and hushed mutterings of my family.
I would have given anything for my sister to be here with me, so she could feel what I was experiencing, but I knew it wasn’t as safe as I was being fooled into believing. I knew there were dangers within the woods which had the potential to claim our lives within the blink of an eye and that, that, I didn’t wish upon my sister.
I stopped walking at the edge of the grass. A line of trees was in front of me. I turned back to the house. No obvious movement from within. Clearly they hadn’t discovered I was missing yet. Should I just turn back? Go home before they say anything?
I can’t.
I need to go on - no matter how scared I am of what I might find.
I closed my eyes and took the first step into the woodland. Okay. That’s it. I opened my eyes again. No turning back now. I’ve done the hard bit; the first step. Now it’s just a question of baby steps making sure to keep quiet in case any of those things are nearby.
I continued forward, careful of where I placed my feet. I knew it would be impossible not to make a noise but it didn’t mean I had to be carefree about traipsing through the woods. I didn’t want to accidentally snap any twigs or branches which may be lying on the floor. Not when the noise could attract the attention of possible trouble.
* * * * *
The sun had made a fair amount of progress across the sky by the time I heard the sounds of footsteps heading my way. Naturally I dived behind some cover (a large oak tree) on the off-chance it was one of them or - worse yet - a group of them.<
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I had been walking for so long, in such blissful and beautiful settings, that I had gotten used to the idea of being alone and my mind stopped from even thinking about running into anyone (or anything). Until now anyway. Now my mind was chastising me for being so stupid and not staying more alert to the reality of my surroundings.
My heart was beating ten to the dozen as the footsteps continued to get closer. Pushing myself against the tree - wishing I could remain invisible - it was impossible for me to see who (or what) it was. My hand gripped the axe handle tighter and I readied my mind for a plan of attack. Even if this thing walked straight past me, I couldn’t leave it to wander with its own devices. I’d have to deal with it just as Father dealt with the last one.
A swift swing of the axe, aimed at its neck.
With any luck, despite my obvious weight disadvantage compared to that of my stocky father, it would only take one hit to detach head from neck.
I steadied my breathing as the footsteps got closer. With any luck (whoever it was) they wouldn’t hear me.
Please walk past.
Please walk past.
Please walk past.
Closer.
Closer.
They stopped at the other side of the tree. Human. Definitely human. And they sounded out of breath. The thing from the other day, even with a knife sticking from its back, didn’t sound as though it was out of breath. This has to be a person. A normal person.
I stepped out from behind the log with the axe raised up, ready to bring it crashing down into the skull of whoever it may have been. I kept it up there, even when I realised it was indeed a normal person (much to my relief). He jumped when he noticed me.
“Scared the shit out of me!” he said. “I thought you were one of them.”
By them, I presumed he meant the things which my father and I stumbled into when we first left the house.
“What the fuck are they anyway?”
I lowered the axe. Despite his aggressive language, he didn’t look as though he was about to try and attack me. If anything, the medium built man seemed happy to see me.
“I don’t know,” I told him, “something to do with the blast I guess.”
“The blast? What fucking blast? What the fuck is going on?”
Clearly he had lost his memory too. I didn’t have time to fill him in on the details.
“What’s that way?” I asked him referring to the direction he had come from.
“You don’t want to go that way!” he said.
That wasn’t the answer I had been hoping for but it was one I was expecting. After all, he’d hardly be heading my way if there was anything good over there.
“What about that way?” he asked. He nodded towards where I had just come from. “What was over in that direction? Anything?”
“No food,” I told him. I didn’t really want to go into details about what was in that direction. He seemed harmless enough to talk to but that might have been because I had the axe in my hands (and he was unarmed as far as I could tell).
“But what about shelter?”
My mind flashed through the three options I had for a response. My first thought was to take the axe and split him down the middle of his body. The second thought was to lie and tell him there was nothing that way either. The final thought - the one I knew I should listen to least out of the other given options - was the loudest one: tell him about the house. I knew Father wouldn’t be impressed given his fear of looters and keeping our family safe in these dark times but (telling the man) it was the right thing to do. The human thing.
“There’s a house...” I told him.
The human side won.
Meet the Family
Walking back through the woods with the man by my side felt both strange and comforting at the same time. On the one hand I didn’t know him and he could have been anyone. On the other hand it was nice to have a bit of company.
“So it’s your house?” he asked. “Your father’s, I mean?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t want to tell him that we took it from someone who was either dead or had run away. I couldn’t help but think it would have potentially painted us in a bad light. More to the point, I didn’t want him thinking it would then be acceptable to take it from us. After all, if we had done the same to someone else then surely it would be okay for someone to come along and take it away from us again.
“So you can tell me where we are then?”
“What do you mean?”
I looked at the man and could tell by his face that he had no idea where he was. The whole place was alien to him.
“I just woke up here in the woods. I have no idea where I am or even how I got here.”
If I hadn’t lied about owning the house then I could have put his mind at ease and told him that my family and I were the same. We woke up in the house, moved there by Father who woke up in a car in the middle of the woods.
“I believe it’s something to do with the blast. The things, the memory loss - I believe it’s all connected. My family and I have gaps in our memory too,” I told him, skirting around the question of where we were.
He actually looked relieved to hear he wasn’t the only one with memory loss.
“I don’t even know about any fucking blasts!” he said. “What the fuck happened?”
We still had a way to walk so I figured now would be as good a time as any to fill him in with what had happened (according to my father at least). “I’m not sure of all the details,” I started, “my father told me about this so I can’t answer any further questions you may have but apparently political arguments escalated. One thing led to another. It started with rockets, then invasions and then - eventually - someone just dropped a bomb and ended it all...”
“A nuke?”
“I guess.”
“I thought there’d be a dust cloud, or something. Ruin for miles and miles but look!” he pointed skywards. Past the trees (overhead) and out into the blue sky, the sun was still shining brightly despite making efforts to go down for the night. “I thought things like this were supposed to vanish behind layers of radioactive smog?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen. All I knew was that it had happened and this is how we lived our life now. We were starving and it was us and them.
The man stopped asking questions. He looked pale. I’m not sure whether he had run out of questions or because he didn’t want to hear any more of the answers I had for him. I wanted to ask him whether he was okay but didn’t bother. It was a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay. He had woken up, in a strange place, and discovered his world had more or less ended. Suddenly it dawned on me that I might have had some good news to share with him.
“Planes!” I blurted out. “Occasionally, back at the house, we see planes flying overhead.”
The man looked at me blankly.
“It means we aren’t the only ones alive. There are more survivors. My father thinks they’re military. He says they’ll be looking for people like us and that they probably have somewhere safe to take us. That’s something, right?”
The man didn’t look as impressed (or hopeful) as I had hoped he would.
“They’re up there and we’re down here. It’s a lot of ground to cover and I doubt they can even see us from up in the skies,” he said.
I didn’t let his words bring me down. I’d rather have a little hope than no hope.
“My father said that if we’re to survive, we need to remain optimistic.”
The man didn’t respond. I could tell by his face he had lost all hope already. We continued the rest of the walk in silence with only the noises of our footsteps crunching on the woodland debris underfoot to break the uncomfortable atmosphere.
* * * * *
By the time we reached the house I couldn’t help but think I had made a mistake. The man’s silence was uncomfortable and made me feel nervous. At first I thought he was a victim but now I had the unpleasant f
eeling he was nothing more than a looter; someone who was out to take what he could get in this shitty world.
I stepped up onto the porch, by the front door. The man waited on the drive a step or two behind me. He looked apprehensive too. I raised my hand to knock on the door but it swung open before I had the chance to do so. Father was standing there. Mother and Sister were behind him - watching from further down the hallway.
Mother and Sister looked relieved to see me but Father - he wasn’t even looking at me. I was invisible to him. His eyes were transfixed on the man standing behind me.
“So...” he said.
