Ends Meat: An introductory short story to Neon Sands

Ends Meat

There it was again – the smell. Barrick glanced at his father, who had his eyes closed but he probably wasn't asleep, just too exhausted by hunger to keep them open. His cheeks were shallow, as though sucking air, his lips two thin lines of scabs.

Father's hemp shirt had become a shawl these last few weeks. The same was true for Barrick, his brothers and his sister.

Finally, father's eyes opened, his nostrils twitched, and with energy summoned from a dark place, he rose. "Again..." he said, barely moving his lips; ension in the jaw and scabs that would split.

"I don't know how they can do it," said mother, head limp and resting on her raised knees.

Father swung his legs from the bed and stared into space. The look was a disease, and they all had it. Barrick had seen it first in the faces of the eldest; at night, sharing a bowl of thin soup and disappearing as the first songs began, taking a bottle of moonshine with them. One by one, others caught the look and stopped turning up at all. He'd see them by day, afflicted by the vacant gaze as they sat beside the transparent wall of the dome. They'd stare at the sands but Barrick had no idea what they were looking at; perhaps they saw mirages of visiting caravans that no longer came.

And then, it seemed, a cure appeared. At night the tinkling of music and singing voices began again and, in the daytime, neighbours whispered into the ears of neighbours. On the second night of singing, he and his brothers asked if they could go, but their father told them "No," and had such anger in his eyes they said little else.

The smell first arrived the following night. Barrick was playing cards with Sam when he lifted his head to the air and sniffed.

"What is it?" asked Sam as he took a deep breath. "Smells good."

"Smells like barbecue." Barrick shook his head. "But it can't be... we ain't got no animals left."

"That's right, son. We haven't," his father said.

His mother called out to his father, but he was already out the door.

"What's happening?" Barrick asked.

His mother looked at him, glassy-eyed, mouth constantly agape. She looked at her other sons – so young – and slowly, slowly closed her eyes. "No good's happening."

The next day, Barrick was in the courtyard and learned all about it from Euron, a boy about his age. "My father saw it coming, he said... saw what was happening here, what with all the orphans we kept taking in. Said it was unsustainable or something, and now look. Not enough food to go round. People are dying, Barrick."

The Decomposting Unit had had a lot of business lately.

"So, father found Gilles the other day—dead—and instead of throwing him in the DC, he boiled him."

Barrick had almost wretched right there, all over Euron. He looked away. How could anyone look someone in the eye, knowing they had eaten... human?

"And you... ate him?"

Euron said yes. As if to confirm reality, Barrick turned back. Euron was smiling.

"And so that... last night..." He recalled Sam's comment about how good it smelled. If there had been anything in his belly it would have ended up splashed on the hardtop.