Sick Bastards Read Free Page A

Perhaps some other survivors? Perhaps some glimmer of hope? Whatever it was - soon after leaving the property we realised just how bad things actually were and that nothing would ever be the same again despite our hopes for a rescue party plucking us away from the destruction to some safe haven we could learn to call home.
     
     
    * * * * *
     
    The first time Father and I left the house, we had been walking for what seemed to be hours. In reality it was probably no more than thirty minutes but - of course - it was impossible to tell.
     
    My first impression was that everything seemed normal. It just made it that little bit more heartbreaking when you realised it wasn’t. Despite the way it looked, the world was ruined and chances were we were breathing in radiation with every breath. An invisible killer.
     
    Father was the first to hear it; the sounds of branches snapping nearby to where we were. He held his finger up to his mouth as though to silence me before I even opened my mouth. I did as his gesture suggested and kept quiet. If there was a chance for a meal, at the end of this, I didn’t want to be the one responsible for scaring it off.
     
    I held back as Father went forward with the axe in his hands - poised ready to swing it at the neck of whatever he stumbled across. I had the knife in hand - not that it was going to be of much use. Or so I thought. Looking back, I’m glad I had it. Had we left it back at the house, had we not bothered with it, then I’m pretty sure things would have been different.
     
    “I thought you were a deer!” my father said.
     
    I couldn’t see who he was talking to. Not from where I was standing. I remember getting my hopes up though. The thought of him talking to another person. It showed that, despite how it appeared, we weren’t alone. For a minute - I’d felt a glimmer of hope.
     
    It was around that point that Father had sworn. He even took a step back from where he was standing. Something he’d seen had knocked him off-guard. I called out to him, quietly, to see if everything was okay but he didn’t reply to me. He just raised the axe in the air and told - whoever was there - not to come any closer. His voice filled with threat. His body defying his tones and visibly quaking with fear.
     
    I think I called out for his attention a couple of times but he didn’t reply either occasion and then - from the other side of the tree - I saw why.
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Present Day
     
    The meat was stirring again bringing me back to the now. I noticed Father was looking directly at me. He was chewing his food and seemed bothered that I wasn’t eating mine. A quick glance to Mother and Sister - they were staring at me too. Wasting food is sinful.
     
    “You aren’t hungry?” asked Father.
     
    His dark eyes looked as though they were slowly turning black. Something which happened when he was angry. I tried to ignore it. Could just be the dim light of the candles making them appear that way.
     
    “Sorry!” I said. “Drifted off for a moment.”
     
    “That’s okay.”
     
    He forked the last of his own meal into his mouth and swallowed it down before asking the awkward question, “So what has everyone been doing today?”
     
    When things changed - after the first meat we ate - Father often asked this question. Of course he knew what we were doing with our days. The house wasn’t big enough to hide our activities. Not from anyone who really wanted to know what was going on anyway and Father was definitely that sort of person. He had to know what was going on. He made it his mission. If he knew where everyone was and what was happening within his four walls, it gave him a little more control over the situation. It led to fewer opportunities for things to go wrong. With that in mind - when he asked the question - he didn’t want to know the truth. He didn’t want to know what we were really doing, just as we didn’t want to discuss it with him.
     
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