by Shaw, Matt
Father had spent so long telling us about the looters that it was hard to think of a person as anything but. If I did meet up with anyone, would they attack me before I had the chance to figure out what I was going to do or how I was going to react?
I couldn’t help but wish someone had come with me.
My sister.
There she is again; popping into my mind.
What are you doing in there?
Please don’t leave me! I could hear her in my mind. That lost puppy look on her face. The eyes welling up. The uncomfortable cramping in my heart as is twisted within my chest cavity - pained by what I had left behind.
Stop it. Stop thinking about her. Sister. Stop thinking about her. She made her mind up. She chose to stay behind. She chose to stay with Mother and Father.
In my mind I watched from a doorway as Father pinned her to her own mattress. The mattress we had shared on many occasions. Naked, he was pounding her hard and deep. She was screaming for him to get off. Clawing at his back and scratching at his face. Of course, Mother was of no use. She was sitting in the corner with her panties pulled aside, rubbing herself with a piece of left-over meat from an old meal. Sighing with pleasure as her eyes fixed upon what Father (husband) was doing to Sister (daughter).
I knew it wasn’t happening. I knew it was my mind trying to get me to turn around (I won’t). I knew if I were to go home, Mother and Father would be in one room and Sister would be in another. None of them really talking. All of them waiting for a meal to head their way. Father wouldn’t be fucking Sister. Not whilst Mother kept him in line so often with regular services and emptying. Something I’m sure she did so as to keep him away from their daughter. I’m sure one day it will come to be. I’m sure one day he’ll lie with her. When Mother loses what is left of her looks and he fancies something younger and tighter. Something which doesn’t require spit to get wet.
The thought of Father and Sister fucking popped into my head again.
I shook it from my mind as best I could and continued to walk.
As my mind continued to tease me with imagery I’d rather not see and possible outcomes as to what will happen in the home I left behind, I realised the feeling that was burning within me was not one of worry for my sister but rather one of jealousy. The thought of Father being inside her. The thought of him ejaculating into her pussy. The shared moment as they look into each other’s eyes. I’m not worried for her. I’m jealous. I want to be the one inside of her. I want to be the one who shares those moments. I want to be with her.
When did this happen? My diseased mind corrupted from imprisonment within that house. Broken by the change in the world. How did this happen so fast and how did I not see it coming in time to stop it?
I dropped to my knees and retched at the thought of what I had become. Seconds later and there was a puddle of puke soaking into the earth in front of me.
When did this happen?
I remembered. It happened when I made it so.
PART EIGHT
Before
Siblings
As I lay on the floor, I couldn’t help but think about the dream that I had. My first thought, when I woke up and despite the erection, was that it had been bad. Not just bad but sick. But as I lay there, watching my sister sleep in the warm glow of the fragmented moonlight, I couldn’t help but wish it weren’t just a dream. I couldn’t help but wish it were real.
I wanted to feel her touch.
I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss her.
I wanted to be inside of her.
Without giving it much thought, I crawled from underneath my bed sheet and made my way to the mattress where she lay. She was lying on her side, one hand under her face and the other at her side. She looked so peaceful. Carefully I crawled onto the mattress, and under the sheet, behind her. When I knew she hadn’t stirred, I moved closer until we were touching skin to skin. She still didn’t stir so I carefully put my arm over her as though cuddling in.
She stirred.
“What are you doing?” she asked, still half-asleep.
“I’m sorry. I was freezing down there. Don’t mind, do you?” I asked.
“You don’t feel cold.”
“You’re nice and warm. Is it okay?”
“Don’t snore!” she ordered me.
“I won’t.”
We both fell silent for a moment. By her breathing I guessed that she had fallen asleep again. I arched my back as thoughts of touching her snuck back into the forefront of my mind once more and my erection slowly started to pulse into life. An arching of the back to stop from poking her with it.
I held my breath, occasionally sipping the air like a fine wine, scared that she’d hear my heavy breathing. A quick sniff of her hair. She smells so good. A natural odour that hasn’t been disguised with various products due to not having them to hand.
You can fuck me if you want! I was dying to hear the words come from her mouth but they didn’t.
My heart skipped a beat when a thought popped into my mind. A single crystal clear thought to touch her. I hadn’t even moved yet but I was shaking.
“You’re shivering!” Sister suddenly said.
I thought she was asleep.
She backed into me. Was that a come-on? Or was she offering more of her own body warmth to try and warm me up? She must be able to feel my erection. It’s pressing right against her buttock. She can’t not feel it. Definitely a come-on.
I nervously reached my hand down to her knicker line. She made a sound of satisfaction like an mmmm type noise. I slid my hand underneath her knickers and she suddenly pulled away and jumped up from the mattress.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted.
I jumped up too, “I’m sorry - I thought that’s what you wanted...”
“What I wanted? You’re my brother!”
I tried to gesture for her to keep her voice down so Mother and Father didn’t hear and come barging in to see what was happening.
“Jesus Christ...” she continued.
“I’m sorry. Okay? I misread the signs...”
“You’re my brother!” she repeated.
“I just got confused.”
“Confused?”
“I don’t feel like your brother sometimes. I’m sorry!”
She didn’t say anything. I wanted to hug her and reassure her that everything was okay but I didn’t dare raise a finger on the off-chance she kicked off again. There was a brief moment of silence between the two of us as neither one knew what to say.
“I feel the same,” she said, “sometimes.”
She seemed calmer now.
I had a feeling she was referring to the fact that sometimes I don’t feel like I’m her brother. Going from her reaction it’s fair to say she didn’t feel the same as me when it came to my stupid sexual advances. Stupid.
With regards to feeling like family, I guess everyone is in the same boat since the memory loss, and from time to time we all feel as though we’re with strangers in this house. A weird feeling considering these people are actually your family.
“Can we pretend this didn’t happen?” I asked her. “I just got confused. It won’t happen again...”
She didn’t say anything. She looked just as confused as me to be fair. I couldn’t help but think she was stunned by the whole episode. With everything happening at the moment - was this the final straw?
I stepped forward to offer some comfort - even though I couldn’t help but think a hug probably wasn’t the best way to go, given the circumstances. Before I had taken two steps, she suddenly stepped forward and pulled me in close to her. Within seconds we were kissing.
I pulled away, “What are you doing?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
She pulled me back in for another kiss. I didn’t understand but I didn’t care. Moments later we were still kissing having fallen back on the mattress, she on top of me.
It should feel wrong but it doesn’t.
; It feels right.
Natural.
She pulled at my boxers, tearing them down to my ankles where I kicked them off. She unhooked her bra allowing her small but pert breasts to be free. I pulled her knickers off just as she had done with my boxers. It seemed only fair. I rolled her onto her back with ease and found myself between her legs. Both of us were flustered. Both were breathing heavy. Both didn’t seem to care we were siblings. Neither of us felt as though we were.
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
She responded by pulling me into her. I slipped in with ease.
* * * * *
Now
Remembering how Sister and I had first ‘got together’; I’d fallen asleep after we had finished. I hadn’t meant to. I’d meant to stay awake and talk to her about what had happened but my eyelids were so heavy. We were supposed to talk about what happened next and that it was supposed to be our secret...We were supposed to anyway. I’m not sure how long I had slept for but I awoke to the sound of her quietly sobbing by my side.
When I looked into those perfect eyes - the windows to her tainted soul - I didn’t look at her as though she were a sister. I couldn’t. Not after what we had done. Looking back at it now, I realised that I looked at her as though she were a girlfriend; a lover even. It was only now that I was realising this.
I slumped back against one of the many trees close to me, and slid down the trunk until I was on my arse in the dirt. I felt sick again. Not because of the feelings I was having about my sister but rather the worry that I had left her in that situation.
I want to go back for her but know I can’t. There’s no point. She won’t leave without Mother and Father and I don’t want them coming with me. The whole point of leaving was to get away from them. I should distance myself from Sister too. The feelings I am having for her aren’t natural. They aren’t right. They’re a product of a forced situation. It’s just harder to distance myself from her mentally. I don’t want to. I want to keep her with me.
I couldn’t help it when I started to cry. The tears spilt from my eyes in a never-ending cascade. Months of build-up finally released. Not because of the loss of my sister but because of my confused state. The lack of memory, what’s happened to the world and what has been happening to me (and us) over the weeks. It’s too much for me. I can’t take it...
A scream from somewhere behind me snapped me from my thoughts of despair. A woman in trouble. I carefully peered around the side of the tree that I was leaning on. In the distance I saw a woman. She was on the floor. Crowding in around her were those people...not people...things...
I went to make a move. To do what, exactly, I’m not sure. It didn’t matter. Before I even realised it, I had stopped in my tracks and stayed against the tree. If anything I seemed to push myself harder against it.
The woman screamed again. She was calling out for someone to help her. Her next scream was cut short as one of those things tore into her neck with its teeth. I turned away from the carnage as the others started to bite into the woman too. The scream was now nothing but gargled noises. And then, moments later, the sound stopped, from the woman at least. Despite being a little way away from her - I could still hear a sound...A crunching. Teeth ripping through flesh and hitting bone. Gnawing, mashing, chomping and chewing. Lips smacking together in a feeding frenzy. A roar. Of satisfaction from eating the woman?
I carefully leaned round the corner. The things feasting upon the woman seem to have finished. They’re lurching off. Thankfully not towards me. They’re headed in the opposite direction groaning as they walked. Watching them now, they look slow but I know (from our first encounter) that’s not the case. When they need to move, they can with frightening (almost inhuman) speed. I certainly don’t think I’d have been able to outrun them if they’d seen me. I cast my eyes back to the body of the woman. I can’t see for sure but it looks as though she’s nothing more than a pile of bones and gore. Certainly not recognisable as a person. Jesus. The speed with which those things tore through her.
Rooted to the spot and unable to take my eyes off the mangled remains of the poor woman, my mind couldn’t help but drift back to the second piece of meat I ate and another turning point for my family.
One step further into the darkness which consumed them (us)...
PART NINE
Before
Turning Sour
When Sister and I came down stairs, the following morning, Mother and Father were distracted by the arrival of a scared looking woman. We hadn’t heard the knock on the door - no doubt too absorbed in what we were doing and the awkward conversation we awoke to.
The woman was sitting at the dining room table. Mother and Father were with her. She had blood on her face. I’m not sure where it came from. She was crying whilst Mother and Father were trying to comfort her. The presence of the woman was probably a blessing as it took the attention away from Sister and me. I had guilt written all over my face and Sister had red-raw eyes from where she had been crying whilst I was sleeping.
“What’s going on?” I asked from the doorway.
“Came by the house,” Father told me, “petrified and cold...You didn’t hear the banging?”
Both Sister and I shook our heads.
“She was chased by those things. They’re still out there.”
“What were they?” she asked.
“We don’t know.”
The woman sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She turned to Mother and asked, “May I have a cup of water?”
Mother looked to Father as though wondering whether he’d permit this stranger to have a glass of water. Father shot me a glance. He had a look in his eye that I couldn’t understand.
“Take your sister upstairs,” he said, “give the woman some privacy.”
I stepped back from the room and led Sister back up the stairs to our bedroom. It was only as I went into the room, and closed the door behind us, that I realised what was about to happen downstairs. There was no fridge. There was no way of keeping the meat from the man fresh for long. We would starve again...
Whilst it was obvious the woman downstairs wasn’t a looter (she was just another survivor like us) she had already made it apparent she’d be another mouth to feed - or in this case water. As we didn’t even have enough food for us, we couldn’t go taking in anyone else. They’d only be a liability.
We hadn’t been in the room for very long, certainly not long enough to talk properly, before there was a knock at the door. The door opened and Mother walked in.
“You can come down again,” she said. She looked pale. I’m not sure whether she just looked ill or whether she had seen something that had haunted her. Sister and I both went to leave the room but Mother suddenly blocked us, “Just remember the world has changed now and we need to do things that we aren’t proud of in order to survive...”
Her words hit home instantly (with me at least). I knew what she meant and I knew why she was pale. My fears had been confirmed. We’d been sent upstairs in order to avoid having to watch father dispose of the liability.
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say. Words wouldn’t bring the woman back and, although we all knew it was wrong, there wasn’t really an option. Not that we could see anyway. Not stuck here in this house. Even less options now the woman had confirmed those things were still outside too.
It really was a case of us versus the world.
Sister left the room. I still wasn’t sure if she knew what she was about to be faced with but I worried for her. What with what happened between us and what we ate yesterday; she was about to be confronted with yet another warm corpse. A corpse we were supposed to devour.
Mother blocked my path.
“A word?”
Sister turned back, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, dear, we’ll be right behind you.”
She waited until Sister took the hint and continued downstairs, urged on by a smile from Mother.
“What is it
?” I asked her.
“I heard you.”
“You heard me?”
