Sick Bastards by Matt Shaw Read Free Book Online Page A

momentarily rolled to the back of his head as he let out a sigh. He slammed his hand down on the table, “Goddamn!” he shouted. He quickly tried to cover his tracks even though we all knew there was no point, “So what are you going to do with your day now then, Son?”
     
    I shrugged.
     
    “I can think of something,” Sister laughed, her toes still buried into my crotch. Suddenly her foot was pulled from my lap and the toes were replaced with stroking fingers. I heard Mother laugh.
     
    Sister just looked pissed.
     
    I kicked Mother away and jumped to my feet, sending my chair flying in the process, before she had a chance to unbutton  my jeans. Father and Sister just looked at me as though I had lost the plot.
     
    “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m not feeling very well. I think I’ll just go for a lie down.”
     
    I started towards the door but Father stopped me, “Son...”
     
    Slowly I turned to face him.
     
    “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