Isolation: a gripping psychological suspense thriller full of twists

by Sarah K Stephens

  The figure lurches back into a stream of sunshine and the smudges that were their face come into clear focus. I know this person. I know who has my husband.

  I shake my head, trying to clear my vision and letting the adrenaline seep out of my body and into the air around me.

  “I came after the lockdown orders,” Tobias says, a judgy tinge at the tip of his words, like he’s critiquing me for not being with Mark. “I didn’t want him to be alone.”

  I look at Tobias, then Felix. Both of them stare back at me intently.

  Finally, I look at my husband, and see that Mark’s eyes are bright and clear. “Brenna, everything’s okay,” he tells me. Some of his words are slurred a little, but like I learned the special sounds that Felix and Daphne made when they were first learning to speak, I can understand what my husband says as he loses his ability to talk.

  “I was so worried,” I tell him.

  “He wanted to go out into the sunshine,” Tobias gives as way of explanation.

  He puts Mark gently back on his bed, and I hit the buzzer by Mark’s pillows that automatically calls Margot to the room. I start putting the different tubes and monitor pads back in place.

  Tobias stands on the edge of the room. There are two dark impressions where his shoes left mud stains on the carpet.

  “Get out,” I hiss.

  “I’m sorry…” Tobias begins.

  “Sweetheart,” Mark starts to say.

  “I said, get out,” I repeat.

  I let my eyes fall on Tobias, and then onto Felix. I try to soften them as I look at my son, but it’s hard to do.

  There’s a high-pitched click followed by rustling behind Tobias, and Margot appears through the doorframe and pushes herself into the room.

  She turns to Tobias for a moment and then comes over to Mark’s bed, snapping over her shoulder, “What did you do?”

  Felix just stands in the center of the room, not moving. He stares at his father, at the wrist of his right arm.

  Tobias has already left, leaving his trail of dirty footprints behind him.

  And that’s when I see it. I turn Mark’s wrist over, gingerly, and move it out of the pool of red soaking into the sheets around it. The wound doesn’t look entirely fresh, but it’s still oozing blood. A straight line lies along his wrist, in parallel to the bones of his forearm.

  “Who did this?” I ask Mark. “Who hurt you?”

  Mark doesn’t respond. He just closes his eyes.

  I look at Margot, and then my son.

  Neither of them look back.

  5

  Felix

  Daphne thinks this is all just one big extended summer break.

  When Mom told her she didn’t have to go to school today—that we weren’t going to school for at least a few weeks, in fact—she actually did a little spin-hop thing and then put her arms in the air like she was a cheerleader in a movie.

  “Woohoo!” she cried out.

  I can’t believe she’s the only other kid I will see for the indeterminate future. I’m already dying a little inside.

  After the news, I retreated to the third floor, which is kind of my space. “My lair.” That’s what Mom refers to it as sometimes, right before she reaches out and tousles my hair like Dad used to be able to. It doesn’t feel the same when she does it.

  I don’t necessarily like the term “lair”—I’m not some evil genius in a comic book movie—but I have migrated a lot of my things up to the old apartment Daphne’s baby nanny used to occupy. I have my books, and my laptop and a few video game systems set up with a big TV screen, although I’m not much of a video gamer. I think Mom and Dad bought them for me a few years ago, hoping that I’d go online and make friends with other kids like me.

  And my telescope. I have that set up at the far window, facing out into the fields and stables towards the east. I know it’s the east because, when I sleep up here sometimes, that’s where the sun comes in first.

  I climb up from where I’ve been sitting, flipping through an old Biology textbook one of our nannies must have left behind from an online college class they were taking, and move over to the window. The eyepiece fits perfectly into the smooth edges of my sphenoid bone, like it was meant to be there.

  Looking out, I don’t see anyone. Only green fields stretching out for what seems like forever, until they’re met by the deep green edge of the forest. I see the stables, and the open barn doors, and the fenced-in pen where Tobias or one of his handlers will work with the horses or saddle Mom up for a ride.

  Since Dad got sick, it seems like Mom’s taken over everything that Dad used to do.

  Almost everything.

  I keep scanning the horizon, hoping to spot a hawk or a blue heron, maybe. One time I saw a hawk swoop down from the sky and snatch a field mouse straight out of the tall grass.

  It was over in a few seconds, like a snap of God’s fingers that said, “Little mouse, it’s your time.”

  It’s a real grown-up telescope. Dad told me so when he and Mom gave it to me for my ninth birthday.

  “This isn’t some kid-friendly version, Felix,” he’d said. “So make sure to treat it with respect. It’s a scientific instrument. Not a plaything.”

  That’s my dad.

  Correction. That was my dad.

  I could tell Mom was really shaken up about everything that happened in Dad’s room. I know Tobias and Dad were pretty good friends, and they’d hang out sometimes at the stables in the evening. Even after Dad had to stay in bed most of the time, Tobias would stop by to chat and give Dad updates on the horses.

  I’d hear them talking about Jasmine or Julie. Sometimes whether one of the new studs was ready to send out for breeding or something else equally scientific and gross at the same time.

  I saw Dad’s cut on his wrist before Mom did. I should have told her that he was bleeding, but I didn’t. I think I wanted to see what she’d do if she found out herself.

  In the past, when I’ve told her about awful things happening, I could see on her face that she didn’t quite believe me. That she thought I had something to do with it.

  Dad never looked at me that way.

  I press the eyepiece further into my skin, hoping it’ll leave an impression on my cheek and forehead that will look like a monocle. I read in one of my books that Louis Pasteur used to go around his lab with permanent dents in his face from looking through a microscope for so many hours.

  But pressing into the telescope doesn’t seem to help me see anything. In lockdown, there’s going to be even less to look at.

  Mom. Dad. Daphne. Margot. Tobias. Greta.

  I’m counting the human beings I’ll be seeing for these next weeks.

  No, Greta left already.

  Who else? The horses, I guess.

  Is that really it? Just five people to watch now.

  I look out at the fields again. There’s a dark smudge moving across the pathway from the house to the stables. I blink, not sure of what I’m seeing.

  I shift the telescope’s focus away from the field, and pull the viewer closer and refocus on the smudge and the small cloud of dust kicking up at the back as it travels across the viewer.

  When I shift the focus, it takes me a moment but I recognize who it is. Darren, the guy who handles our gardens and the other landscaping stuff for the most part, is driving down the connecting road between the stables and the tool barn in the little golf-cart vehicle he uses to navigate around the property. One time I asked Mom why we needed so many people working at the house all the time, and she said that big houses need big help. Or something like that. There are always things that need doing and fixing, she’d said.

  My mom’s hands are really smooth, like ivory soap carved into the shape of a woman’s hand. She doesn’t cook, or clean, or touch much of anything, really. Just buttons on her phone or laptop or the keypad to Dad’s rooms.

  I’d forgotten about Darren.

  I move from the telescope, pull open the window, and yell
to him over the cool stream of air that rushes in. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

  He doesn’t look up from his seat in the cart.

  Darren stands up when he gets to the stable and leaves the cart parked in front. He glances around him, like he’s trying to see who’s spotted him in the unfamiliar territory of the horses. Usually he stays clear of Tobias’ area. They don’t really like each other.

  I keep looking as Darren turns, wipes a hand across his forehead, and I see him weave as he finds his footing on the gravel drive, and then walk in through the open door of the stables. But not before I try again.

  “Get out!” I tell him.

  But he doesn’t turn around. Instead, I watch Darren move further into the shadows of the stables until he blends in with the dark edges.

  Six people.

  There are six people for me to watch.

  6

  Margot

  I slink into bed like a feral cat, whiplike and then all tense, vigilant energy. Today was spent trying to keep my patient comfortable and safe, despite the nervous energy swirling around him.

  Anxiety is the worst thing for someone who is slowly, painfully dying. I keep trying to tell Brenna that, but she doesn’t seem to listen. Or maybe she can’t listen. Her worry seeps off her like an expensive perfume, and I know Mark can sense it anytime she’s around.

  And now, with us being told to shelter at home while this wild virus rips through our country, I think the tension in the air is going to hit a point where Mark won’t be able to breathe with the weight of it all.

  Today wasn’t the first time he’d tried to harm himself. Whenever I take his pulse I feel with my fingertips the soft ridges of scars. He’s been creative in the past, finding edges on his bedside railings where the metal wasn’t welded perfectly, or the ragged lines of IV tubing that we used to store in his bedside table drawer. Apparently, if you pull unfinished plastic against skin you can tear it like a knife would. You just have to be persistent.

  And Mark Stone is nothing if not persistent.

  My room sits on the second floor of the main house of Granfield estate. It faces the west wing, and from my window I see the hard angles of the building as it bends into the side structure of the house where Mark lives. Brenna’s bedroom is on my side of the house too, although she seems to sleep in the sitting room outside Mark’s bedroom at least a few times a week.

  I know because I’ve gone to find her, in the middle of the night when the loneliness just won’t go away, and she’s not in her bedroom. Those nights, I find myself inexplicably wandering into the children’s section of the house and peering in as their small bodies breathe that satisfying sleep that children only seem to experience. Sometimes though, Daphne’s door is closed already or Felix’s room is locked and I have to stare at the dim edges of their nightlights seeping out underneath the bottom crack of their doors. Even then, it’s some comfort. Sometimes Felix has his fits, and I’ve learned that it’s best to leave him to it. Nursing him through it only seems to make it worse.

  The bedding I sink into isn’t my own. It came with the job. Egyptian cotton and some-hundred-count sheets in a crisp stylish grey with a bright white comforter. The rest of my room is the same style. A slim modern desk. A dresser in shabby chic white that matches the blue swirls in the wallpaper. When I first came here, I thought maybe Brenna had made this room just for me, thinking of the ocean and heavy wild skies, but when I asked her she said that Mark was really the designer of the two of them. He’d chosen most of the pieces and color schemes for this section of the house. Brenna only oversaw the most recent renovation, the one she did when Mark was too sick to do it himself.

  I close my eyes, exhausted but satisfied at the same time. I was a good nurse today. I wrapped Mark’s wound, changed his bandage when needed, measured his vitals, chatted with him a little. I’ve gotten pretty good at understanding what he’s trying to say. I hope I made him as comfortable as possible. I hope I didn’t let the news affect my work.

  We’re trapped here, but Mark doesn’t need to know that.

  I must be drifting off when I hear a creak outside my door. The house has lots of sounds, and I’ve come to know them pretty well, but I don’t recognize this one. It’s like someone snapped a board of wood, and then tried to muffle the sound with their body. I throw off my covers and rush to the door, ready to confront whoever might be there.

  I didn’t lock my bedroom at first when I arrived at Granfield House, but after Tobias crept in a few times—sleepwalking, he said—I started locking myself in tight. He never touched me, and I’d start awake to find him standing in the center of my room, staring off into the distance or looking intently at a corner. It was more than creepy.

  When I fling the door open though, no one is there. Only the soft settling of the house around me. Thick carpets and brass fittings. The chandelier in the main stairway catches in the moonlight that’s streaming through the windows.

  But then I hear it. That same, insistent crack shattering the quiet.

  I follow the sound down the hallway, away from the main entrance and towards the children’s area of the house. My feet are bare, and the soft nap of the carpet absorbs the sounds of my footsteps so I can move silently through the house, like a ghost of myself.

  Felix and Daphne’s rooms are in the same hallway, caddy-corner to each other. I pass by a few nondescript rooms, including Mark’s old office and a library-like room with tall bookcases in light, Scandinavian wood and a refurbished fireplace that’s been converted to gas instead of wood-burning. I don’t think it gets used all that often. I’ve never seen anyone in there, except for Greta when she would dust and vacuum it.

  The snapping wood comes once more, and I’m certain now that it’s coming somewhere from the children’s rooms, although I can’t tell whether it’s Felix, or Daphne’s, or something else close by. Both doors to the children’s rooms are cracked, with the light from their nightlights glowing gently through the smaller openings. I’m almost to Felix’s door when I feel someone grab me by the shoulder, and twist my body around.

  I let out a scream, and the hand moves to cover my mouth and stifle me.

  I try to focus my gaze on the form in front of me, and finally I get my eyes to settle on their face. The terror inside my gut immediately dissipates.

  It’s only Brenna.

  I take in her expression, and that pit inside me ratchets itself up my throat again. She’s pale, and in the moonlight her chiseled features give her a gaunt appearance. I blink, because for a moment all I can see is the skull beneath her skin.

  “I need your help,” she whispers. “I need you now.”

  “What’s wrong?” I automatically blush as a hint of satisfaction creeps into my question, because hearing her say she needs me is everything.

  “It’s Mark.”

  She turns and starts to half walk, half run down the hallway and down the staircase, towards the west wing.

  “He was fine when I did my pre-bedtime check,” I assure her. He couldn’t have hurt himself again, I think. Usually it’s several weeks between episodes. And I’d surveyed that entire room, looking for anything that might be used to self-injure.

  Although, I remind myself, Mark’s proved really creative in the past.

  “Did he hurt himself again?” I follow-up, trying to move my tired body forward to keep up with her.

  Brenna doesn’t respond. She just keeps walking, until we’re at the keypad and she’s pushing the heavy door open and we’re inside Mark’s sanctum of care.

  But I hear what’s happening before I even step through the doorway.

  “Someone was here!” Mark’s voice carries through the adjoining rooms. “Someone tried to kill me!”

  It’s the loudest I’ve heard him speak. Ever.

  His voice is raspy from underuse, and some of his words merge into each other. But, even still, what he’s saying is unmistakable.

  When we come into the room, he’s writhing on th
e ground. We installed hand and foot straps a while ago, but we only use them when we absolutely need to—when Mark’s too agitated or angry and he won’t rest. They aren’t a foolproof way to keep him safe. A few times he’s rubbed his wrists on the guards and hurt himself that way. Brenna lets me make a judgment call, depending on how Mark is feeling that evening.

  Sometimes she overrules me.

  Tonight I didn’t put them on. After what happened earlier, I thought binding him to the bed would only make him worse, and give him a sense of claustrophobia.

  But now I wish I had.

  He’s sprawled on the floor. There are random alarms coming from sensors that are detached and machines disconnected from my patient.

  “Why didn’t you use the intercom?” I ask Brenna. I can’t believe she left him like this to get me.

  “I did,” Brenna tells me through gritted teeth. She’s bent over her husband, trying to press the palms of her hands down onto his shoulders and whispering soothing sounds under her breath. “You didn’t answer.”

  Because I was standing outside her children’s rooms, I think.

  “Did something happen?” I run across the room to our medical supplies cabinet, and search for the strongest sedative we have and a fresh needle to push through Mark’s IV, which is thankfully still attached.

  Mark doesn’t seem to be soothed by Brenna’s presence, and despite her efforts he continues to thrash his arms and legs. His eyes are wide open and blank with terror.

  “They were here,” he insists, and a small spray of spit flies from his mouth and lands on Brenna’s face. She bends her neck to wipe her face on her shoulder, keeping her hands on her husband’s like she’s offering some sort of prayer through her touch.

  Please let him be okay.

  “Nobody was here, my love. I was right in the other room. Nobody can get in. You’re safe,” she tells him, trying to move her eyes to meet his. “You’re safe.”