“And the other reason?” Carys asked scornfully.
“The other reason,” Marco seemed glad to impart, “is your high intelligence. It’s like cross breeding any species: you start with traits you wish to enhance, and pick breeding pairs accordingly. Didn’t you learn natural selection in your psychology courses?” Carys didn’t bother answering.
“Are you not worried Ebe would have gained my other attributes… my bipolar?” she asked.
“He’s not exactly normal, now is he?” he chuckled again. He put his hands up in placatory fashion. “Don’t worry,” he assured, “The father is so devoid of emotion, it was never a real concern, and, well, he’s turned out just great.”
Carys sat in stunned silence. She’d been used by these creatures her whole life. Since before her life had even begun. She felt as though any choice she’d ever made had been manipulated and tinkered with to bring results she didn’t even understand.
Every decision she’d ever made had really been made for her. She felt a fool. Terrified beyond endurance to give birth to a son who ultimately would be the demise of the human race? Had she got that right?
“How could you do that?” she demanded indignantly “Why would you want to destroy humanity?”
“Ha!” Carys had barely finished speaking when Marco interjected. “Destroy humanity? We made humanity.” He was shaking his head in rueful disdain. We made you from Neanderthals! Careful selective breeding again. I’m surprised you hadn’t thought of that with your experiences and your intelligence!” he exclaimed.
Carys was at a loss for words.
“It’s not your planet,” Marco said with a sneer of contempt. “We’ve been here for thousands and thousands of years. Before you were even dreamed up!”
“What about Dan and Natalia?” Carys asked deliriously.
“Human. I wasn’t always Marco. Or rather, Marco wasn’t always me. We had to cobble together an alternative plan when Andy Walker let us down. Very unfortunate.” It took a while for the name to register.
“Andy… Walker..? The boy who drowned?” Marco was nodding and smiling, like he was imparting celebrity gossip.
“That’s right, you remember him, do you? Had quite a thing for you. We’d foreseen you getting together. Ebe growing up near Cambridge, with some of the best schools in the country on his doorstep. That was the plan. But needs must, eh?”
Carys was silent. What on earth did this all mean?
“We discovered he wasn’t strong enough in plenty of time to come up with Marco, fortunately.” Answering Carys’s unasked question, he added. “We didn’t kill him. He had an accident because he was weak, that was all. But Marco. He had it all. I’ve scarcely had to do anything. He came up with the whole, “Carys is possessed” thing. That bought us a few years.
“What do you mean? You aren’t Marco?”
“I am now. Completely. But there were aspects of, let’s say, the original Marco, that were very useful. It’s called a walk-in. It happens all the time; and to far more well-known individuals than me. And you know who I really am, don’t you, my love?”
Why was he calling her that? Who was her husband?
She had a dozen questions all pop into her head at once when she was prevented from asking them by Marco laughing hysterically. He was rolling in his chair, tears running down his cheeks.
“What’s so fucking funny?” Carys demanded.
“Sorry. I was imagining you telling the staff here about our little chat!” he laughed uncontrollably again. “Sorry…sorry.”
“I could find someone to listen. I’ve got plenty of time to write to anybody I choose,” she blustered.
Marco looked taken aback, as though Carys speaking to anyone outside of the facility hadn’t occurred to him. He looked sternly at her.
“I would just deny everything, of course.” He laughed again, more callously this time. “Seriously, Carys. You are such a fool. How do you know I haven’t just been spouting the crap I’ve had to listen to you watching on Discovery Channel for years? Maybe I’ve just told you all this to mess with your mind.” He made a show of crossing his eyes ludicrously and circling his fingers around his temples. “To make the divorce easier. How do you know? Eh?” he prodded.
“Well. Have you?” she asked. Her mind raced. “Why would you? You wouldn’t need to keep me in here to get a divorce. I don’t want to stay with you if you don’t want me. It doesn’t make any sense,” she almost mumbled.
“It makes perfect sense,” Marco maintained. “I think you’ll see the sense of it,” he said.
He stood up, and in front of Carys’s eyes, he morphed instantly and intentionally into a grotesque, inhuman, reptilian creature. Carys leaped from her chair and backed instinctively into the furthest corner of the room from her husband. She felt trapped and regretted it instantly.
Far taller than his usual frame, his skin was light green and covered in scales. He let his forked tongue slither in and out of his mouth a couple of times before standing and looming over her.
She lashed out, but he was too strong. But her quickness was just enough to avoid his scaly grip. She broke free, and hit him in the eyes as she had done in the car. He squealed in pain and she hit out again.
Luck, or super-human strength in the face of adversity, prevailed, and somehow, she was able to knock this huge creature to the floor.
The door flew open. Three nurses rushed in and she received one of the injections again. She could hear profuse apologies being given to Marco about how she’d been fine for days.
As she was led, supported down the corridor, she looked back at her husband. He was, of course, in human form now and smiling broadly at her. She knew now that she had just walked into his trap and he was extremely happy with himself. Why? She couldn’t begin to imagine.
Chapter Thirty-six
Carys takes action
She was back in the secure unit, and delirious. Hitting her head, she had to remember; were there camera’s that would support her wild claims and vindicate her? She asked one of the nurses if they had seen what had happened.
“There are cameras, but by law we have to make it clear to visitors that we’re using them. Your visitor was adamant that we were not to film. He cited religious reasons, and we were obligated to respect his wishes.
How convenient, thought Carys as the nurse left her to herself, and to her disturbing thoughts.
She didn’t cope with solitary confinement well this time. The memory of her ordeal with Marco flashed before her eyes whenever she allowed herself to attempt to rest. She was very clear that it had been real in one moment, and totally convinced she was completely deluded the next.
Her fellow patients seemed utterly convinced by their self-created little worlds. Helen fervently believed she was God most of the time. Carwyn sincerely believed he was an alien (was he though? her mind stalled at trying to comprehend what that would mean) and Mike believed he was a guitar playing, singing pool champion when he was none of those things.
How can you tell if anything is real? She wondered. What makes it real? If you can see it and touch it but no-one else can, is it unreal? If a crowd, or even the whole world were fooled by the same illusion, did that make the one person seeing it differently wrong? They might be the only one seeing the truth.
She wept. Unable to answer her own question, she felt detached from reality, and didn’t know what to do to make it better.
She fretted constantly. Day and night. Haunted by visions of aliens; of herself fighting The Amish man and the Rebecca; hallucinations she knew deep down weren’t real. Sleep evaded her. The only rest she achieved was drug induced, and the medicine’s effects were waning noticeably.
She cried a lot, and when she wasn’t crying, she rocked back and fore dementedly.
Unaware how long had passed, a week? A day? A month, she was called again to the interview room. She had another visitor.
The anxiety she felt walking down the corridor was severe this time. She di
dn’t have the strength for more attacks on her sanity. When she arrived at the door to the room a sob of tentative joy cracked her throat; it was Ebe.
This time she wasn’t allowed to be alone with her visitor. She could have caused a scene but decided better of it. She just wanted to be with her son.
Rushing over, she threw her arms around him with such vigour, the CPN rocked on her heals, concerned for a second that another incident was imminent. She settled down when she detected the sobs shaking her patient’s body. Ebe hugged her back with his learned response at affection before the two of them sat down.
“Ignore me,” the nurse instructed. Sitting in the furthest corner, she began reading a magazine. Carys and Ebe chatted in hushed tones, but soon became oblivious to her presence.
“I’m so sorry I missed your graduation, cariad,” she began. Ebe said he wasn’t too bothered.
“I worried seeing you in the hospital. You looked in a bad way.” Carys apologised.
“Do you know what happened, Ebe?” she asked.
Explaining her horrific experience with Marco and the UFO, and about Marco’s reptilian nature, she was shocked when Ebe didn’t seem in the slightest perturbed.
“Why did that make you want to get away? Didn’t you know about Marco?”
“You mean you did?” she asked of her son. He nodded.
“I’m going away with him. To Alaska,” he said with the brilliant excitement he always had in his eyes when he was really passionate about something. She almost asked what he’d be doing there, when Ebe volunteered the information first.
“They’re coming, Mum!” he said enthusiastically. “I’m going to build a portal, and then they can come.”
“Who are coming, Ebe? Aliens?”
“Not the ones you’re used to. Different ones. They’ve been here before, but their portals have been broken. I’m going to build another one. They’ll be here soon, and everything will be different. They know things, you see? They can show us how to do everything better. It’s so exciting, Mum,” he concluded breathlessly.
Carys was speechless. Was Ebe as crazy as everyone thought she was? She didn’t think so. He was an undeniable genius. Not crazy. After discussing the ins and outs of where Ebe would stay the nurse suggested that it might be time to bring the visit to an end.
“When they come, which won’t be long, I’ll come and get you, yeah? And then you can help me. It’s going to be the most important and amazing thing ever!”
Carys, remembering Marco’s speech questioned the possibility of Ebe’s promise. “Marco said no-one will be able to cope with the frequency, Ebe. You won’t be able to come and get me. I won’t be here. No-one will.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as though he hadn’t expected her to know so much.
“That is a slight risk,” he admitted. “I’m quite sure it’ll be fine, really. Marco doesn’t understand as well as I do.”
Carys felt comforted. Apart from worrying that the two visits may well turn out to be some drug-induced dream, she trusted what her son was telling her.
“I’ll miss you,” she managed through her thick throat. Talk of portals made her remember Ebe’s woollen structure of two decades ago. She had to ask before she lost the chance.
“What was the wool all about, Ebe?” He frowned, as though struggling to recall.
“Oh, that. It was kind of a portal, but it wasn’t real, Mum!” he explained as if she was being really silly for not understanding. He even tutted good-naturedly. “I was just a kid. I was only playing!”
“But how? How did you do it?” He beamed at her.
“Maths! It’s all maths. If you understand the numbers, you can do anything.”
Carys couldn’t help but be amused. She had so many questions, but she knew she wouldn’t understand the answers. Playing at building interdimensional portals. Ah… bless him. How cute!
Her wry smile never made it beyond a slight turning of her mouth before the crushing reality of her situation hit her hard again.
They hugged more, Carys careful to hold onto her emotions until he had left. She didn’t want to worry him.
“See you soon, Mum. Real soon, okay?” he said comfortingly, whilst walking through the door.
Carys nodded with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She was escorted back to her solitary room where she finally allowed herself to break down into the emotional wreck she felt.
So that’s what the future held, was it? Ebe far away, and them. They were coming.
Ebe might be excited by the prospect, but for Carys?
For Carys, it was her worst nightmare. She’d been desperate for the truth her entire life.
Now she knew it, she wished she could un-know it.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The worst solution
Of course Ebe was enthusiastic. It was his vocation. He was one of them, half one of them, after all. And she couldn’t tell anyone, or they’d think she was insane
Anti-depressants could do nothing to stem the force of emotion that erupted from Carys now. Everything was utterly hopeless.
It began with her simply not taking care of herself. She wouldn’t wash, even when placed in the shower by staff. She went further down the slippery slope when she couldn’t be bothered to leave her bed to go to the toilet.
She lay in her own mess and stared: at the ceiling, at the walls and out of the window, but she saw nothing. Just an inky blackness that had swallowed her and was now deciding how to digest her, and which way to spit her out.
Medication was tinkered with and therapy offered: CBT, DBT and other initials that meant little to her.
“You have to engage with the treatment for it to work,” she was warned by the nurses and doctors. Why did they bother stating the obvious? She knew that! She didn’t connect with the therapies, because she didn’t want to.
Everything they said was utterly ridiculous, Every time she heard the platitudes and pathetic, baby-simple advice ‘is that a way of thinking that is useful for you?’, ‘what about if you thought this way instead?’ she felt like throwing a chair at them.
They said, ‘You don’t want to get better, do you?’ which annoyed her further. What was the point in getting better? So she could engage with the wonderful life of partying with crazy people that Marco had subjected her?
They persisted with stronger and stronger medication, hoping that one day, they’d have made enough difference for Carys to want to change.
Maybe some of the medication made a difference, and maybe it didn’t, but one day Carys decided to take action.
She didn’t rush to the nurses’ station to sign herself onto one of the therapies. She did something else. She did what she had always done before: found something sharp, and cut herself. It was stupid, she knew, but more than that, she felt pain. And more than that, she felt alive.
But what use was feeling alive? Her life was miserable. Yes she was depressed, but for bloody good reason. Her depression merely fulfilling its evolutionary purpose: to keep her lying low until things changed.
Things hadn’t changed though had they? Could she make them change? That was the crucial question now. There must be something she could do.
Allowing any sort of feeling may well prove regrettable, but something had led her onto the first rung of the very long ladder back to a semblance of normality; of normal feelings. She could take the next step, or she could just as easily slip down again.
Over the coming days she asked to make endeavours to contact Ebe in Alaska. And find her dad, who had seemingly forgotten his daughter on his trip around Asia. That’s if he even was in Asia. It was an assumption she’d made when he hadn’t shown up to visit her.
Or maybe he didn’t know! Maybe Marco had told him a different story. She imagined the torture he could have gone through hearing about her accident, but not that she’d pulled through. Traipsing round the Far East, believing he’d lost his wife and his daughter. She had to find him and tell him. There had
to be a way.
The staff seemed happy to assist with her enterprise. They were pleased she’d made plans. It was a good sign, although they had un-voiced concerns she might be a bit manic—a symptom of her bipolar, but they were glad to help for now.
And then nothing happened. Ebe was untraceable, and there was no word from Geraint.
Carys’s attempts started to receive less and less support. She was sure they were being cagey, holding back; but could do nothing.
Weeks turned into months, and still no news.
When would Ebe come for her? Soon. Very soon, she fervently hoped.
She had no other plans. There was nothing to do in St Caradog’s. Occupying herself with games of solitaire, walks around the garden, and any other simple pleasure she could rally, she kept out of the way of God/ Helen, Raymond, and Mike with his guitar and screeching songs. And whenever she saw alien Carwyn, her blood ran cold and she walked in the opposite direction.
She waited.
She waited for news.
Of anything that would justify her slow climb from oblivion.
Some validation.
She had done all she could do.
There was no option but to wait.
So she waited.
She waited for as long as she could possibly wait.
But then it became unfeasible, impractical and just downright impossible for her to wait any longer.
Inertia being abhorrent in nature, she had to do something; even if it meant falling back down the ladder of her well-being.
She’d tried everything in her power to make things better, but it had all been elusively outside her control. So now she had to take control; the only way she knew how.
It began in the queue for medication that she joined whenever she was not locked in solitary confinement. She hadn’t had any psychotic outbursts, as the staff called it, or need to defend herself, as Carys herself called it, for a while. Her self-imposed solitude had encouraged that.
The HUM: The complete novel Page 30
