After They Came

by Tom Kavanagh

  “Isabelle? Isabelle, can you hear me?” my dad shouted

  “Please don’t . . . please don’t hurt me,” I murmured as my arms swung erratically in front of me.

  “She’s here! Dad! Call an ambulance!” Simon’s voice called out

  “Get away . . . Get them away! Please don’t hurt me.”

  I continued to fight, even though I barely had enough energy to raise my arms.

  “Hello? Yes, I need an ambulance. A young girl has collapsed in a field close to my farm. Thank you, and hurry.”

  “Stay away!” I continued to yell.

  “Isabelle, it’s me. It’s Dad. I’m here. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I must have blacked out shortly after that. All I can remember is the flashing lights of an air ambulance, its rotor spinning overhead, cutting lines in the pitch-black sky.

  Thirteen

  They Leave

  I woke up in hospital the next day.

  To my right, Dad was sitting in a chair next to my bed, watching the news on a crackling TV hung from the wall. I looked to my left and saw various tubes and monitors. There was a needle stuck into my hand, pumping in a substance held within a bag suspended above my head, and small circles stuck on my chest that looked like little suction cups.

  I had no idea what the substance was or why the circles were on my chest, and no real way of finding out.

  I looked back to my right, making sure to move as slowly as possible so Dad wouldn’t notice. He looked peaceful, unencumbered by the stress I’d created over the last few months. I wanted to pretend that I was still sleeping, but I needed to find out what had happened.

  I kept my eyes closed but stirred slightly, just enough to get Dad’s attention without a dramatic awakening or display of emotion.

  “Hi,” I ventured with a croaky voice, gradually opening my eyes.

  “Morning. Finally decided to wake up, then?”

  “The sheep won’t feed themselves, will they?”

  He smiled and let out a little laugh, putting his hand on my arm, giving it a little squeeze.

  “What happened, Isabelle?”

  “Well . . .”

  I pulled at the bed sheets, trying to pick off little bits of fabric and lint. I couldn’t think of how to put the last few months into words.

  It felt impossible.

  And I still didn’t know who he was or whether I could trust him, so there was no way of knowing what he would do with the information. For all I knew, he could take that information to the others and then use this opportunity to strike.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I replied, buying time.

  “We’ve got time.”

  He wasn’t going to give up. There was a grave look painted across his face that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It seemed that there was no way of getting out of this. And so I told him everything. I told him how I believed everybody wasn’t who they said they were. I told him about all the paranoia and worry I had been through. I told him all of these things without fear. I still didn’t know for sure whether I was safe, but I was in hospital. They had trapped me. There was no way of getting out now.

  “You were going through all of that? Thinking that everybody around you were impostors?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” I said, more out of not knowing what to say than a genuine feeling of remorse.

  “It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re in here and that you’re going to get better,” he said assuredly, putting his big farmer arms around me. The familiar smell of damp grass and firewood hit my nostrils, surprisingly filling me with a sense of calm. I could see the fog creeping along the valley floor, swallowing up sheep as it went. I could see the outhouses and barns, the chickens and cows. I could see Pickle running up to meet me. I could see it all in my mind, and there was a very strong urge to see it in real life, even if it had been taken over by impostors.

  Dad eventually pulled away, taking the smell with him.

  “Let me go and get the doctor. He’ll want to know that you’re awake.”

  He got up and walked through the ward, searching for my doctor.

  I thought for a second about pulling the needle from my hand and making a run for it. But what would it solve? I’d tried it twice before and had failed both times. It seemed that my fate was sealed. All I could do was lie there, helpless and drugged to the eyeballs, and wait for the doctor to come.

  “Isabelle?”

  It wasn’t the doctor.

  It was Simon.

  “Hi, Isabelle.”

  I turned my head towards the window, unwilling to hear him out after he had betrayed me.

  “How are you feeling?”

  I continued to stare vacantly on to the grounds of the hospital, hoping that Simon would take the hint and leave. I was in no mood to hear his excuses. There was enough for me to think about without him chiming in.

  “Isabelle, please speak to me.”

  He wasn’t giving up, and the silence was becoming unbearable. All I could do was respond with as much hatred as I could muster so that he would get the point and leave.

  “Why are you here?” I spat, as if my words were laced with acid.

  “I just wanted to come in and apologise.”

  “What are you apologising for? Ratting me out? Lying to me? Pick one. They’re all good.”

  “I wanted to apologise for everything.”

  I turned my head towards him, noticing how small and meek he seemed after dealing out his apology.

  “Let me ask you something, Simon. Did you think this was all just some kind of game?”

  “No, I didn’t. I mean . . . okay it kind of felt like a game in the beginning, but then you were acting so serious, and I wanted to make sure you were alright, so I stuck around. I didn’t think it would ever go as far as it did.”

  “This isn’t a game, Simon. Games are fun. Games are things you play with your friends. I don’t get to play this game with friends. I have to do this alone. I have to do this alone every single day. There aren’t any time outs or do-overs. This is my life.”

  “I know. It’s got to suck.”

  “It’s got to suck? It does a little bit more than suck. Can you just for a second imagine what it’s like to be me? You probably get up in the morning feeling okay. At a stretch, you might be feeling a bit anxious about a test that day, or maybe you forgot to do your homework and you don’t want that awkward conversation with the teacher about why you didn’t do it. Now, that does suck. I’m not saying it doesn’t. I wouldn’t wish anxiety on anyone. But you know how I wake up? Usually with a jolt, out of breath and terrified because I’ve just had a night terror. And then it goes downhill from there. My medication makes me sick, so I sometimes spend the morning throwing up. And then I have to go to school, where I’m the resident freak, surrounded by people who get to live their teenage lives. They have worries. They get anxious. And they get sad. You know what they don’t have to live with? Hearing noises that aren’t there, or getting unbelievably mad at nothing, or believing that the people around them are trying to kill them. So, yeah, I guess it really does suck being me.”

  “I should just go . . .”

  Simon turned towards the door, thinking that he could just slink away and forget about everything that had happened between us since we first met. But I didn’t want to make it that easy for him. It was vindictive, but I wanted to torture him as much as I felt I’d been tortured by them. I don’t know why I was taking it all out on him, but I felt I couldn’t stop.

  “Do you know what the worst thing is?” I asked, causing him to halt just before he had got to the doorway. “I thought you actually believed me. I thought for once I wasn’t alone.”

  “I wanted to believe you, Isabelle. I really did. I wanted to believe that the other kids and adults were being assholes for a reason. I wanted to believe that there was a reason they didn’t like me. I really did. But it turns out there is a reason. They don’t like me because . . . they don’t like me, I guess. An
d you know something? That really sucks, too.”

  I felt a twinge inside of me. It was the first time in a month I’d really felt something from a direct action I’d taken. I’d made a conscious effort to attack Simon, to attempt to rip him to shreds, and it hadn’t made me feel any better. In fact, it had made me feel worse. But it had done something else. It had humanized him. It had shown his flaw, and I felt that in that moment, I could trust him. And I knew that I also owed him an apology. He hadn’t asked for this. He had just been a confused participant in this crazy journey I’d been on.

  “Wait.”

  “What? Need to tell me I’m scum?”

  “No. I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” he asked, his voice timid as he probably wondered whether this was some kind of trick.

  “I’m sorry for dragging you into my insanity. I shouldn’t have done that. You couldn’t have known what was going on. I should have gone at it alone.”

  “I know what it’s like to be alone. I didn’t want you to go through that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It was fun being alone together, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “So, once you get back to school, do you want to be alone together again?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Okay, cool.”

  Just as we finished speaking, the curtain was swung to the side, revealing a tall man in blue scrubs.

  “Hello, Isabelle. I’m Doctor Martin.”

  Dad had come back in with the doctor, limping slightly behind him.

  His arthritis must be playing up again. I guess they don’t know how to fix that after all.

  “Hi,” I responded automatically, not wanting to show any fear or weakness.

  “It’s great to see you awake. You had us worried when you came in.”

  And then he noticed Simon was in the room, and his face suddenly changed from friendly to a cold blank stare.

  “Oh, I didn’t see you there. Could you give us a moment? I need to talk to Isabelle in private.”

  “Okay. Bye, Isabelle. See you in school?”

  “Yeah, see you there.”

  Simon squeezed past the doctor as he flicked through a few pages on my chart, scribbling little notes as he went along. He waited till Simon had left the room, and then his face returned to that glossy smile that made me feel like I’d eaten twenty sugar-glazed doughnuts.

  “Everything looks a lot better now, though. Other than a bit of dehydration and a few cuts and scrapes, you’re doing fine.”

  I almost didn’t ask. I didn’t really want to know. But I guessed that now was the best time. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “What’s wrong with me, doctor?”

  “Well, luckily it’s nothing too serious. Other than the dehydration that I mentioned, you seem to have had a touch of the flu for a few days, but that is subsiding.”

  “Could that have been caused by the medication?” Dad asked, probably patting himself on the back for having brought this concern up when it was another doctor who told us about the potential risks that came with the new medication.

  “Potentially. It does interfere with the body’s natural defences.”

  What he didn’t know was that I hadn’t been taking my medication. I’d stop taking it the day we found the dead ewe after the first storm. I obviously hadn’t told him, mainly because I didn’t trust him or anyone else around me. But I couldn’t lie anymore. This was the end of the road. It was time to leave everything on the table.

  “Doctor?”

  “Yes, Isabelle?”

  “I haven’t been taking my meds.”

  “What?” my dad yelled. He’d been restrained till that point, but his tolerance for my lies had reached its end.

  “Like I said to you, I didn’t trust anyone. And I didn’t trust the medication, either. So I didn’t take any.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Dad said under his breath, unable to comprehend why I would do such a thing.

  The doctor said, “That would explain your recent paranoia. I’m sorry, but with that information, I’m afraid it’s my recommendation that we should section you again, once you’re up and about of course. I hope that you can both understand why.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  And I really did this time.

  I knew what had to be done.

  It was time to stop running.

  * * * * *

  “Now it’s over to the weather where you are—”

  I looked around the room, waiting for my eyes to readjust. I could barely see the blurry outline of the TV, but I could hear it. The news was on, and they were just getting to the local weather. “Hello and good morning. It was a blustery night, seeing winds as fast as seventy-five miles per hour. This will drop in the next few days, giving way to calmer, but also colder, conditions. Temperatures will be around nine to twelve degrees, dropping to three degrees during the night. This means that there will likely be icy conditions on the roads, and so motorists should take care when driving early on in the day. Overall, it’ll be clear skies and cold mornings. Now back to the news.”

  “Thank you, Katie. UK unemployment has risen by . . .”

  Winter was here, but there weren’t any more storms in sight.

  It wasn’t completely different from the sight I’d been welcomed with the night I was taken to hospital, but I couldn’t have felt more different.

  “You ready to go, Isabelle?”

  Dad had come back in with my discharge forms, a big gleaming smile on his face.

  I’d been in the centre for six weeks. But things had been different this time around. I had actually been taking my medication, attending counselling sessions, and just generally trying to get better.

  I was no longer fighting the nurses.

  I wasn’t plotting my escape.

  I wasn’t stealing spoons so I could tunnel my way out of the centre.

  I was there to get better.

  And for the first time in a very long time, I was actually feeling better. I could see my hallucinations for exactly what they were—hallucinations. There were no others. There were just a lot of people who had tried to care for me, but were unable to. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want their help. I did. But my disorder didn’t. It wanted me to suffer alone.

  No one should ever have to suffer alone.

  “Isabelle?” my dad said again, wondering where on earth I had disappeared off to inside my mind.

  “Yes, I’m ready to go.”

  But it wasn’t over just yet.

  We went straight from the centre to the GP. It was basically a final exam and a chance for the doctor to sign off on a new round of medication. They didn’t want me to relapse before I could get my new medication, so it was all happening on the same day. It was a lot to process, but I was glad it was all happening.

  And so once again, like I had done all those weeks before, I sat in the waiting room of the doctor’s surgery, watching the board to see when my name would be called.

  It was the same office.

  It was the same chairs.

  It was the same receptionist.

  But it felt different this time.

  There weren’t any creatures hiding in the shadows. The paranoia I’d felt all those weeks ago had gone. I could now sit there in relative peace, just watching as each patient entered and then left.

  I didn’t even jump when the beeping sound above the help desk alerted me that the doctor had called us in. It may seem small, but it felt like another little victory.

  As I made my way into Dr. Andrews’s office, I was greeted with one of the biggest smiles I’d ever seen. He seemed so happy to see me, but I was just another patient. I was just another name on his patient list.

  Why was he so happy to see me?

  I cast my eyes around the office like I usually did, noticing the scarcity and coldness of it all. But then I noticed something completely out of the ordinary. If I had seen it during
my relapse, I would have thought they had put it there.

  “So, Isabelle, how are you feeling?”

  But how could they have added it? I hadn’t felt their presence in weeks.

  So it must have been Dr. Andrews.

  He had added a picture to his desk. Dr. Andrews, a man who up until now had had only one picture on his desk through fear of cluttering and germs, had added a picture to his desk.

  “Isabelle?”

  They wouldn’t have added a picture.

  They weren’t sentimental.

  Maybe they really had gone.

  “Isabelle?”

  “I’m feeling much better, Dr. Andrews. Thank you.”

  There was a collective sigh at my response. I could almost feel the room itself breathe and relax.

  “And I also wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “I’m sorry for my behaviour. I’m sorry that I didn’t see that you and Dad and the nurses were just trying to help. I’m sorry for not trusting you. I guess I’m just sorry for everything that has happened over the past few months.”

  “It’s alright, Isabelle. You weren’t in the right state of mind. Your lack of medication caused you to have a severe relapse. I also believe that you may have developed some of the symptoms associated with Capgras delusion, where you believe that other people aren’t who they appear to be. So really, we can’t blame you for your actions. Anyone else with those same issues would have done exactly the same thing.”

  “But Dr. Andrews, it was my fault. It was my decision to stop taking medication.”

  “It’s not always as simple as that, Isabelle. Your medication probably wasn’t the right medication for you, and so it wasn’t working to its full effect. That’s why I wanted to put you on new medication. But by that time, it was too late.”

  “The side effects from not taking my medication hadn’t taken hold . . .”