by Matt Shaw
“He was lying. A sick joke. There was a bomb. The world is broken out there…” Father turned to me, “Tell them. Tell them you were joking. Not that it was very funny.”
“No. I wasn’t. It was the truth.”
Father lunged forward and put his hands around my throat. Before I had a chance to do anything he pushed me back against the wall. I put my hands up to his and tried to pull his grip from my neck but I couldn’t. Too weak. I’m not sure if it is the lack of food or the fact he’s stronger.
“I don’t know what is going on in that fucking head of yours but you need to stop!”
Sister screamed, “Get off him!”
Father turned to her as my vision started to blur, “Shut up, whore!”
He released one hand long enough to smack her across the face. She dropped to the floor with a thud. I tried to get away from him but - even with only one hand around my throat - I still couldn’t move. Mother rushed to Sister as Father turned his attention back to me. She screamed for him to stop what he was doing but he wasn’t listening. He didn’t care about the pain (and fear) he was causing us.
Sister screamed. She got up to her feet and ran for the back door. She pulled it open, ready to make her escape - away from the danger - and screamed again when one of the infected staggered into the room. It was only when Mother also screamed that Father turned to see what the problem was. He released his grip and I slid down the wall onto my arse, gasping for breath. By the time Father crossed the room - the yellow, skinned bastard had a hold of Sister’s head and was biting her neck with his black-stained teeth. The black tar spilling from its mouth into the fresh, open wound. Father grabbed the thing by the scruff of its neck and ripped it away from Sister - who fell to the floor as soon as she was free. I pulled myself to my feet and watched in horror as the thing turned and hit Father with a firm back-hander which sent him flying across the room where he slammed into the far wall. Mother screamed as it lurched towards her.
I dashed forward and jumped on the back of the infected. My distraction was enough for Mother to get to the other side of the room. Even Sister had dragged herself away from imminent danger. I - on the other hand - had placed myself right into the thick of it. I’d forgotten how strong these things were. Their yellow skin, their red eyes, the black ooze leaking from their mouths - they look as though as they should be weak and easy to take down. Need to remember these bastards are a government experiment. God only knows the shit flowing through their veins and what it was intended for. A government thing designed to enhance their soldiers that hadn’t worked out quite as they had planned?
Father roared as loud as the thing trying to shake me from its back. He ran across the room with a knife, taken from the drawer, and plunged it directly into the thing’s throat. A jet of black sprayed from the wound as he withdrew the blade. Father didn’t stop there. He stabbed it again - right in the eye. He pulled the blade out and the eye slopped out too. He stabbed it in the forehead and the blade came out with pieces of brain attached. Another stab went through the cheek and another back through the forehead. This time the thing dropped to its knees - me still holding onto its back. Father pulled the knife from the head again and it dropped to the floor - lifeless. I let go of it and stood up. Soon froze again when I realised Father was staring at me - knife in hand - with that look of anger on his face.
“I think it’s dead,” I said in an effort to snap him back to the present.
“Government experiment?” he asked. “Radiation poisoning from the blast, that’s what caused this.”
Mother screamed from the other side of the room. I looked to her - as did Father. She was crouched by Sister.
“I think something is wrong!” she shouted at us.
Sister was twitching violently. There was black shit coming from her mouth, just as there had been from the mouth of her attacker.
“What’s happening?” Mother screamed.
Father put the knife on the side and hurried over to Sister. He knelt on the floor and pulled Sister up so that she was leaning back on his lap.
Mother screamed again, “What is happening?!”
“I don’t know!” Father shouted back. “I don’t fucking know!”
I was just standing there. I felt useless. Nothing I could do.
Sister gasped and went limp. Her eyes slowly rolled to the back of her head.
“What’s happening? What’s she doing? What’s going on?” Mother was frantic.
Father didn’t move. He just stared down at the body of Sister.
I dreaded the question I had to ask, “Is she… Is she dead?”
Father pushed her body to the side. She slumped onto the floor.
I asked again. I needed to hear it.
“Is she dead?”
Mother started to weep as Father said yes. I felt sick. Was this my fault? Had I not said anything - in the car… Had I not told the truth about our situation… Would she still have been alive? Of course she would. We would all be in the car, right now, heading for the wall. She would have seen it herself. The shock would have been greater but… She would have been alive. It is my fault.
“Maybe you’re right,” Father said, pulling me back to our current situation. He pulled himself to his feet and stepped away from Sister’s corpse as Mother swapped positions with him - clutching the cold body of Sister as tightly as she could. Father was looking at me. Whatever the point he was making, it was between the two of us.
“What?”
“Maybe we’re not family.” He looked at Sister’s body. “I mean, if we were family, surely I’d feel something for this but… I feel nothing. No sense of loss, no grief, no anger at the thing which did this to her. I feel absolutely fuck all.”
CHAPTER SIX
BEFORE
Home Truths
I was sitting with dad. It was just the two of us. We were in the dining room, waiting for mum to dish up the Sunday Roast. Dad had been off with me from the moment I had walked into ‘his’ home. I’m guessing my arrival was the first he had known of mum’s invitation to dinner. Have to say - conversation wasn’t exactly free-flowing.
“Going to be like this every Sunday?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You. Here.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are you planning on coming around here every Sunday? You know - we need to know these things to ensure we have enough food in the house…”
“What? Mum invited me.”
“Course she did. What - did you give her the guilt trip? Phone her up complaining about the lack of food in the house? Something like that?”
“No. She phoned me. She asked if I wanted to join you for dinner.”
“Haven’t even been out of the house for a whole week and yet - here you are - back here. Scrounging.”
“I’m not scrounging. I accepted an invitation.”
There was silence between the two of us. I took a deep breath and asked the question I had posed before but never really had an answer to, “Was there ever a time when you wanted me around?” I asked.
Dad didn’t answer me with words exactly but - the look… The look said it all. I wasn’t surprised. What I was surprised about was that I wasn’t bothered. He didn’t love me. He didn’t want me around. It should have hurt to learn this but I didn’t care. Maybe it was the constant put downs? Maybe it was always living in his shadow? Maybe I had just gotten used to the idea of not being wanted by him? Not sure. I just didn’t care.
Mum walked into the room, a beaming smile on her face, “Dinner is five minutes from being done,” she said.
“That’s great. Can I give you a hand with anything?” I asked. I hoped she’d say there was something I could do. Anything to get away from staying in dad’s poisonous company.
“No, that’s fine. You just put your feet up and relax,” she said.
She walked from the room, leaving me with dad.
He smiled. He knew why I was offering to help. “So,”
he said, “got a job yet?”
* * * * *
NOW
Coming to a Head
“What did you say?”
I was staring at Father in utter disbelief. Did he really just say that? He feels nothing that Sister is dead? Even if we aren’t family - was there no empathy there for the passing of a fellow human being?
He smirked, “You should be pleased, means I might just start listening to your stories…”
He walked over to the back door - previously opened by Sister - and slammed it shut to stop anymore of the infected wandering in.
“Tell me from the top - and try not to miss anything out - what did you find out there?”
“Now isn’t the time…”
“Now is the perfect time. We need to know what we’re about to run into…”
“Look!” Mother called out from where she sat with Sister. “She moved. She’s not dead! Get a towel, or something, to push against her wound to help stop the bleeding!”
Both Father and I turned to look at what had caught her eye. Sister was indeed twitching. Her head was lolling from side to side. A strange gasping noise coming from her mouth, accompanied by dribbles of black.
“Get away from her!” I dashed forward and pulled Mother away from Sister’s convulsing body. She wasn’t alive. She was far from it. Whatever was happening to her now - it wasn’t good and, more to the point, it wasn’t really her. The black stuff oozing from her - it must have had something to do with that. Maybe a contaminate?
We all jumped when Sister bolted upright into a sitting position. Lips curling upwards as she snarled at us. She just sat there looking vacantly around the room. Definitely not Sister anymore.
“Don’t just stand there!” Mother said. “Help her up.”
Mother made a move to help Sister but I stopped her in her tracks.
“It’s not her,” I told her.
“Don’t be silly. Of course it is,” Mother tried to pull away from my grip.
Sister scrambled to her feet.
“It’s not her,” I repeated.
Father didn’t need telling twice. He grabbed the knife from the side and lunged for her sticking it through her eyeball and into her brain. Sister’s mouth opened wide and black ooze poured out in a spew of vomit. Mother screamed out loud and lunged for Father, stopped (again) by my vice-like grip on her arm.
“What have you done? What have you done?!” she kept screaming again and again.
I pulled her from the room and slammed the kitchen door on Father. He didn’t seem to be fazed by Mother’s shouting or the fact he’d just put a knife through his make-believe daughter’s eye.
I pushed Mother through to the living room and closed that door too. And then I pulled her in close and hugged her tight. She pulled away from my embrace and moved the settee so it was blocking the doorway. She was screaming that Father had killed Sister. As much as I wanted her to hate Father as much as I did - I couldn’t let her think that. He wasn’t a good person by any stretch of the imagination but he didn’t kill Sister. She was already dead. Killed by the Infected person and then - I don’t know - taken over by whatever shit flows through their veins. I tried to reassure her that she had already been killed - not that there was much reassurance to be taken from that.
Father started banging on the closed door when he realised he couldn’t get in.
“Let me in!” he said.
Mother shouted, “Go away! Leave us alone!”
“I said open this fucking door!”
“Fuck off!”
It didn’t matter what I said to her - she was in a state. Clearly she wanted nothing to do with him now. The sight of him killing Sister being too much for her to handle, especially so soon after he had been throttling me and pushing everyone around. I was the bad guy for lying to them but he had painted himself far worse than I could have ever been perceived. No sense trying to change her mind about him. Get him out of the house. Get him gone from our lives. Let him go his own way and let us go our own way.
“You heard her. Just go. We don’t want you here.”
There was silence for a moment. He was still there though; the other side of the door.
“If I go,” he said after a pause, “I won’t be coming back.”
Mother was crying but didn’t seem to be bothered by what he was saying. I didn’t argue with him either. His footsteps clumped down the hallway towards the front door. I moved across the room, to the window, and watched as he left the house and headed back towards the car. Well, when we are ready to go, it looks like we’re walking.
I turned to Mother.
“He’s gone,” I said.
She dropped to her knees in floods of tears.
* * * * *
BEFORE
Options
“Why don’t you leave him?”
I handed mum a cup of tea after she made herself comfortable on the settee in my tiny flat. She thanked me and took a careful sip.
“Well?” I pushed her.
“Because I love him.”
“He’s an asshole. The way he treats you, the other he treats others… Pisses me off. People just let him get away with it. They don’t stand up to him. What are they afraid of?”
Mum set the cup of tea to one side and cast her eyes around the flat. She gave me a look.
“What?” I asked.
“People don’t stand up to him? You mean - the way you did when you ‘decided’ to move out and go it alone?”
“This was my choice,” I corrected her.
She nodded. We both knew it hadn’t been my choice to live in this shit-hole.
“I just think things would be better for everyone if he just vanished,” I changed the subject.
* * * * *
NOW
Old Habits
Mother and I were still in the living room of the abandoned house. I was sitting on the sofa. She was laying next to me with her head in my lap. I was stroking her hair; gently running my hand through it with a soft tenderness. She had calmed down now. Had taken a while. Her head must have been spinning; the news that this whole situation was brought about by a forced government test, the fact we weren’t family and now one of us was dead and one of us had (thankfully) vanished into the outside world beyond the four walls of this house and possibly the four walls of the compound too.
“Do you think he will come back?” she asked; her voice breaking the comfortable silence.
“Did you want him to?” I asked.
She didn't say anything. I didn’t know the answer to the question I posed. Not how she felt about it anyway. All I knew was that I didn’t want him coming back. I wanted him long gone. Didn’t even care if he found himself running around in the outside world. As long as he wasn’t near me - I didn’t give a shit.
“Just the two of us now,” she said.
I nodded, not that she saw. We fell into another comfortable silence.
“Did you love her?” she asked.
I knew she was talking about Sister.
“I had feelings for her,” I said.
“Even though she wasn’t your sister?”
“Yes.”
Mother fell silent again. I didn’t have anything to say either as my mind drifted to thoughts of Sister. I wondered whether she’d have stuck with me - out there in the real world - or whether she’d have moved on with her life and tried to forget about me (us) and the things that we had done. Guess I’ll never know.
“Who was she?” Mother asked.
I tried hard to remember her real name; the one I read in that file. I couldn’t recall it. Nor could I recall Mother’s real name, or even Father’s. I remembered mine but that was mostly because my own memories were slowly coming back to me - even though they weren’t necessarily wanted.
“I can’t remember,” I admitted after a few more seconds of frantically trying to recall her name. I was already dreading the next question.
“And who am I?”
“I don’
t remember. I’m sorry.”
She turned so that her head was facing me.
“Maybe it’s a blessing?” she said.
“What?”
“You not remembering who we are. Maybe that’s a good thing. Gives us a chance to start again. Be whoever we want to be. You said this was a government experiment?”
“That’s right.”
“Well - we must have signed up for it.”
“We did.”
“Then our lives couldn’t have been that good to start with.”
I knew mine wasn’t; debt, father issues, lack of girlfriend… Couldn’t say the same for Mother though but - going by my own life - she was probably right.
“So - just the two of us then - we can be whoever we want to be,” she continued.
“Yes. We can.”
“And you can stop calling me Mother.”
Her hand moved up to my crotch. She started rubbing it through my jeans.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
With everything going on in our lives, currently, this was the last thing I thought she would have wanted. She shushed me quiet as she started to fumble with the buttons keeping my jeans closed and my cock out of her hands.
“Go with it,” she sighed.
She managed to undo my jeans. She reached into my pants and pulled out my penis. It hadn’t taken much for it to become erect. Never did when I had someone touching it. She gave it a flick of her tongue and I closed my eyes. There was nothing stopping us from doing this. We weren’t son and mother. There was no reason why we couldn’t be lovers. No reason at all - especially seeing as it was just the two of us and especially after everything we have gone through together. My cock slid to the back of her throat and I gasped in delight. No reason at all as to why we shouldn’t be doing this. She took my hand as my brain continued its feeble attempts at convincing me that this was the acceptable thing to do. She reached down with it and made me touch her between her legs. I didn’t need further prompting. I pulled away from the gentle grip of her hand and slid my hand between leggings, knickers and skin until I was touching her (wet) pussy. She let my cock slide from her mouth as she took her turn to sigh and enjoy the feeling of my fingers sliding into her cunt. I suddenly stopped.
