Isolation: a gripping psychological suspense thriller full of twists

by Sarah K Stephens

  That’s when I knew I was going to kill him.

  They told me to stay in a hotel that night, and then a social worker would help me find another temporary place to live while insurance and the funeral were worked out. It was all so sterile and bureaucratic.

  I vaguely remember calling my mom, and the first words out of her mouth being, “Did you do it?” I’d been a troubled kid, growing up. But I’d gotten my life straightened out, except Mom was never going to forgive me for what I’d put her through when I was younger.

  So I left the hotel they put me up in and I came back home. It smelled like a huge bonfire night, like on the Fourth of July when all the families on a block might get together and cook hotdogs outside on one big fire pit.

  It was like a jagged streak running through my mind as I smelled the fire—this thought that part of what I was smelling was Colleen and the baby, drifting on the wind with the ashes.

  Jack was standing in front of the house, smoking—of all things. He didn’t hear me come up from behind him. I didn’t have any weapons on me, not that I had any weapons at that point anyway. So I’d stooped down as I walked over to him and picked up a rock from the edge of the driveway. I remember it was smooth on one side, with a cleaved edge that some sheet of ice probably cracked open a thousand years ago.

  I didn’t think. Instead, I brought that rock down on Jack’s skull, one smooth motion to make him pay for taking my life from me, both before Colleen died and then after too.

  But it wasn’t that simple. Some instinct perked up in him as I swung and he flinched slightly, enough that the rock smacked into his ear and down his collarbone. He crumpled to the ground, whimpered in pain. I’d assumed it would only take one clean hit to do it.

  I hadn’t thought I’d have to look him in the eyes as he begged for his life.

  Like Darren looked into mine, as Brenna kept barking in the back of my head to do it, just fucking do it. He needs to die.

  And so I went to prison for assault, not murder.

  Because I wanted to have mercy. Because, back then, I wasn’t a killer.

  42

  Felix

  The panic room is so quiet. The walls are soundproofed so anyone screaming from outside, for help or to scare me or to warn me, won’t get in. And no one can hear me from inside these walls either.

  Not that having people overhear me has ever stopped me from crying like a loser. Like a baby.

  My mouth shakes and tears pour down my face. I’m so pathetic. Of course I don’t have any friends. Of course my own sister thinks I’m awful, and my parents look at me like I’m a disappointment. Like they wish they’d never had me.

  I should have helped her. Instead, I left her there to die, because I was too scared that the same thing would happen to me. That whoever knocked me out when I was coming from Darren’s apartment was coming back, to finish what they started.

  There’s something evil in this house. It keeps growing, day after day. Bigger and crueler. Footsteps on the stairs when no one is there. Wails and moans coming from rooms that are empty. Shadows hanging around outside my door, blocking the hallway light that seeps underneath the crack at night.

  Why didn’t I help Margot? Because I was scared.

  There she was, lying on the floor, covered in blood and grasping at her neck for air, and all I did was run away like a coward.

  I bet Daphne would have stayed and held Margot’s hand. But Daphne’s not here.

  I can’t stop picturing the way Margot looked when I left her. The unblinking eyes. The grasping hands. I see the broken vase and the blood pooling around her. And then, unwelcome but unstoppable at the same time, my mind zooms in on what I saw. Margot’s mouth was open. And her chest, stiff but still moving, if only slightly.

  That’s when the thought hits me. The certainty of it.

  Daphne would have looked longer, and she would have realized what was happening.She would have run to Margot’s bedroom and grabbed the EpiPen and stabbed her in the leg with it.

  Oh no. Oh my God.

  I stop mid-sob, rubbing my hands over my eyes to clear out my vision and run to the door. There’s no one on the video monitor. I put in the code, draw in a ragged deep breath, and rush through the door as soon as it opens.

  I don’t look at my watch, because I can’t let myself think I’m too late after that massive pity party I just threw for myself. The layout of the house appears in my mind like a map, and I keep running forward as I consider all the possible routes that I could take to get to Margot’s room, get the EpiPen she needs for the allergic reaction she’s having, and get to her in as short a span of time as possible.

  My heart thrums like a techno beat in my chest, one of those dance songs that never ends that the kids at school blast from their phones at lunch. I can’t hear anything over the blood rushing into my brain, muffling all the sounds around me. Or maybe it’s the concussion from whatever happened outside earlier.

  I take the back stairs, run through the hallway that used to be the servants’ hidden entrance, and come out outside Margot’s room. It only takes a few seconds, because my legs are longer and I’m flying on adrenaline. My body is pulsing me along.

  I can do this, I think.

  I can save her.

  I don’t stop to consider that there are other people in this house. Or other people who might be watching me, waiting for the right moment while I try for once to be the hero.

  In Margot’s room I know exactly where her medicine is. I’m not proud to say that I snooped around in her bedroom a few times. It was after I’d caught her and Mom kissing, at night in the dark when they thought Daphne and I were asleep. I wanted to know what Margot was like.

  I didn’t find much. In the table by the bed there was a jumble of coins, a pocketknife, and a framed picture of six women, one of them much older than the other five. They all had dark hair, like Margot. They all looked like Margot, but different enough to seem like they were coming through separate filters on the phone. Wider eyes or pointier chins. All of them were smiling, except for the older woman.

  I snatch the EpiPen from underneath her socks in the dresser, not bothering to close the drawer, and run down the hallway to the main stairs. Ahead of me as I turn the corner, the dark smudge on the carpet changes as I get closer, but I try not to look at it. At her, with the blood darkening everything around her, until I’m close enough to actually help.

  The pounding in my ears is so loud, like someone’s cranked that dance beat higher and higher until my head is ready to burst.

  When I get to her, I can’t believe it. She’s moving, a little. Her hands are still warm as I move them from her throat with one hand and then jab the pen in her leg with the other, like Margot showed me one time when I asked her to.

  I wait a second. Two. Three.

  I’m sweating all over my body and I think I might die while I’m waiting to fix this awful mistake of mine.

  And then Margot shudders and her shoulders heave. I squeeze her hand, hard and firm because I want to let her know she’s not alone. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.

  She inhales a rasping breath like a death rattle, but in reverse. Margot sits up suddenly, winces, and then grabs at her side. I watch her take another breath, and another.

  “You’re going to be okay,” I tell her. Her eyes aren’t focused yet, but I keep talking to her because that’s what I think I’m supposed to do. “Everything’s okay.”

  We sit there a few moments, Margot coming back to life and me marveling at the wonder of science and how it can correct for so many human mistakes.

  “What happened?” Margot’s breaths are coming steady, so I feel like it’s okay to ask her this. I picture the jar of peanut butter my classmates stuffed into my bag. Mom did something with it. “Did somebody give you something?”

  Margot blinks and tries to focus them on me, but it’s clearly a struggle for her.

  “Darren,” she says finally, her voice rough and scratchy.
r />   “What do you mean? What about Darren?”

  “He’s here.”

  I reflexively reach up and touch the tender spot on my head, where a bump has risen like a hard shell of an egg over the last few hours.

  “Daphne,” I whisper, and then shout. “We need to find my sister!”

  I start to pull Margot up, but she’s so heavy and her legs wobble underneath her.

  “It’s too late,” a voice says behind me. A voice I haven’t heard for weeks. I don’t need to turn around, but I do anyway. I shift so I can look at Darren, pale and thin like a ghost. “You can’t help her now.”

  43

  Mark

  I’m getting pretty good at playing dead. What I have to do is figure out if I’m good at being alive still. Darren was just here, shooting Brenna full of what I’m assuming is a sedative and then catching a glimpse of something or someone through the window before rushing out.

  I sit up in bed, my mind ready for action. I’m weak from not eating much these last few days, but luckily Tobias had snuck me a storehouse of protein bars and granola a few weeks ago, when this lockdown started, and I’ve been able to live off those for the last few days instead of the food that people brought to me.

  I’d suspected for a while that I was being poisoned, but I haven’t had the energy or the mental focus to prove it up until I saw my boy, my Felix, staring at his mother the day Margot fell off the horse. He looked so scared. Like he was certain his mother and I couldn’t protect him. I told him that day that somebody was coming because I wanted him to be on his guard, but as the drugs wore off and the more my mind cleared I knew I needed to do something. Felix is a survivor, but he’s not a fighter. I couldn’t leave my children with their mother any longer.

  So I stopped eating the food they brought me. Things were getting a little lax anyway, as food supplies dwindled and Brenna became more and more preoccupied with what the lockdown meant for everyone at Granfield. She’d still come in and work from my rooms often enough, but if I’d pretend to be too sleepy to eat she wouldn’t push it. Or I’d take a few sips of broth or tea and then have it dribble down my chin, because everyone was coming to expect me to not have much control of my body. My speech was slurring more and more, and even the people closest to me couldn’t understand much of what I was saying.

  At first, that was exactly how I thought I was going to live the rest of my life. But then Felix’s face that day trickled through my fog of pills and self-pity and I knew that I couldn’t give up on myself, because that would mean giving up on them—my kids. I wasn’t going to accept this lot in life, not without a fight. The doctors we went to see—oh, so many doctors Brenna dragged me to—could never diagnose what was wrong.

  But cutting out the food wasn’t enough. In the dark hours the next day, I thought about how else someone might be able to hurt me, and then it came: the IVs Margot was told to pump into me each morning. They were supposed to hydrate, and replenish certain essential minerals and fluids. That could do it. And then there are the pills. Pills in the morning and the evening. One big fat pill in the afternoon. On cloudy or rainy days, the only way I could tell how many hours had passed was by the types of pills I was given by Margot. Or Brenna.

  Sometimes, even, by Felix or Daphne. Because they’d want to help, I heard them say.

  So, I learned to detach my IV and to empty it into my bedpan or into the bathroom, if I could get out of bed without anyone noticing. I also mouthed the pills they gave me. I’d push them underneath my mattress, usually, after I was left alone again. It was easier to do this with Margot gone. She was the one who liked to sit with me and talk for a while. That would have been hard, if I had to keep the pills in my mouth while she told me about her life.

  Turns out, after several days of avoiding all the “care” people were giving me, I’m feeling much better. Apparently the treatment was worse than the cure. Not that I’m going to let anyone know I’m feeling back to normal yet.

  Brenna and I really loved each other, at first. Or maybe I should say that I really loved her. I can’t speak for my wife. Never could. She was a riddle I was certain I could figure out, if I had enough time. Beautiful and calculating and so damn magnetic. I felt like the luckiest man alive when she agreed to marry me.

  A small snore escapes from Brenna’s mouth, and I decide it’s time. I move off the bed, my legs wobbly at first but gaining strength as I move my body more and more, loosening the stiffness that’s crept into my bones these last months. I don’t know what the poison is that’s been slowly eating away at me, but I know Darren stored a lot of chemicals in the greenhouse for the plants and lawn. Any one of those in small enough doses could probably do this damage.

  All my clothes are in the bedroom I used to share with Brenna. The only things I have here are hospital scrub tops and pants, loose and thin enough to be easily moved on and off of me when Margot or Brenna would have to change me.

  Oh, Margot. Why did she have to come to this house? She doesn’t deserve any of this.

  I slip on a new shirt and pants, working as quietly as I can and keeping one eye on Brenna at all times. I know I’m not the only one who can pretend to be asleep.

  We had a lot of success in our early careers. We were the golden couple, both of us running top-notch power tech companies with fantastic buy-in. Brenna’s went public first, with video chat quickly becoming the most influential platform in the world of online companies. The kids came next, and I was so incredibly happy every day with my amazing family, Brenna and I poring over renovation plans by the fire at night with a glass of wine, and Felix and Daphne being both healthy and curious. I loved being a dad. I still do, although I haven’t had much of a chance to be a dad to either of them for a while.

  Because someone in this house decided to poison me.

  And not just my body, but my mind. I never wanted to hurt myself, until I was forced into this hospital bed.

  I lunge over to the bathroom, my legs shifting between Charlie-horse stiffness and a looseness that feels foreign, like my muscles can’t remember how to work. I turn on the sink and greedily drink several handfuls of water. The liquid seems to immediately rush into my head, like a dam lifting, and my thoughts crystallize into pristine targets.

  I have a plan. I know what I need to do.

  When I come back out into my room from the bathroom, I notice first thing that Brenna has moved. The smallest bit, so she’s slumped over further than I remembered.

  I don’t have a key card, which means I can’t even get out of my own medical wing of my own house. Thankfully Tobias has been willing to help me move in and out, otherwise I would have been housebound for the last nine months.

  I’ll have to search her for her key card. I’ve already scanned the counters and the top of the cabinets and it’s not lying anywhere for me to easily grab.

  When I go over to Brenna, gingerly bending down to her on the floor, a sudden wooziness overpowers me. I’ll have to be careful, I remind myself. I need to stay strong. Don’t be stupid. Take it slow and steady.

  Brenna’s wearing jeans today, not her usual put-together office outfit she’s worn for most of our days in quarantine. I know she’s been running her business from home, video chatting for hours at a time. I guess video chat is more necessary than ever, when no one can get out to see each other.

  She must be making a fortune.

  Or, we are, I suppose. Which is exactly the point. It won’t be enough for the two of us.

  I study my wife’s face, and she seems totally out of it. Her breathing is heavy and regular. I lift her arm, and it drops, making a soft thud as it lands on her thigh.

  It’s now or never. I reach into her pockets and feel for the key card. Her right pocket is empty, and her left is bunched up. I’ll have to turn her over slightly in order to get to it.

  I’m anxiously aware of the time slipping by since Darren left. I need to go. Now.

  I move my sedated wife’s body over to the side so that I
can reach into her pocket and hopefully get myself out of here, locking her inside behind me. Her arms dangle across me as I shift her over my shoulder.

  And that’s when I feel it. Her nails, digging hard and fast into my back.

  44

  Margot

  “What do you mean, it’s too late?” Felix says, and the words jumble inside my mind like clothes in a dryer.

  Darren says something, but I can’t hear it over the whooshing inside my ears.

  Darren, who was dead.

  “Why are you here?” I ask, interrupting whatever they’re saying. My mouth must not be working quite right because they both look at me strangely, and then Darren slowly moves to stand up from where he’d been crouching beside me.

  “You needed my help,” he says. “I saw you through the window. But, luckily, someone was here before me.”

  Felix flinches.

  I turn to the dark-haired boy. “Thank you. Thank you for saving me.”

  I don’t ask him about the EpiPen or how he knew where to find it. None of that seems to matter.

  Felix’s dark eyes stare back at me, and there’s so much pain in them in that moment that I have to look away. I start to get up, and Darren reaches out a hand to steady me as I stand.

  Felix and I talk at the same time.

  “Why are you here?” I repeat to Darren.

  “What happened?” Felix asks me.

  No one speaks for a few breaths. The three of us move down the hallway and towards the stairs that will lead us outside. It’s unspoken, but I think we’re all instinctively trying to get out of this house.

  And then I remember, as if through a cloud of fog.

  The coffee cup and the bitter taste mixed with a slight sweetness as I took a few sips. And then my throat closing in on itself, as if I didn’t deserve to breathe after being so easily tricked.