I look about the living room. There is a cabinet in the corner. It has a glass front. There are champagne glasses, wine glasses, and tumblers on show. I fall on to all fours and crawl over to it. I open the cabinet beneath the glasses. Joy. There is a whole bar of drinks in here. I stare at the bottles. Jack Daniels. Baileys. Brandy. Choices, choices. I grab a brand new bottle of vodka, crack it open and have a sniff. Whoa. It is exactly as I remember. I laugh as I recall the night I got smashed with my friends. Mum was not happy. Dad laughed. I laugh now. Memories, they are a blessing. They are a release from the crushing present.
With the vodka in tow, I crawl back up the stairs and into the bathroom. I sit on the edge of the bath. It is one of those corner baths, a Jacuzzi bath, it must have been nice while it lasted. Anyway, here goes. I pour some vodka on to a clean flannel. I hold my breath and get ready for the sting. I very lightly dab my foot with the alcohol-soaked material. It stings like Hell. The pain shoots up through my foot, up through my leg, and up to my brain in an instant.
“Ahhhh,” I scream.
It throbs. My face heats up. This is the worst pain I have ever felt. I grit my teeth. Come on Isabel. My hand is shaking as I bring the flannel closer to my foot again. This time I try to wipe off all the dirt from around the cut first, but when I wipe too close to the wound, the electric pains shoot through me and I wince and whip my hand and the flannel away. The only good thing I can see is that there is only one cut. One big, massive, stupid cut. I stare at it. There is a slice down through the ball of my foot which is about an inch and half long. It really is quite deep too. No wonder it was bleeding so much yesterday. Fuck. How the Hell did that even happen? How was I unaware of it until I stopped running? Those bastards. This is all their fault. I huff and I puff, I rage. I hate them. If I ever see them again I will kill them.
I keep cleaning up around the wound, one dab at a time. Gently and determinedly. But the wound. I need to go deeper. I need to get all the grit out of it. I need it completely clean, it won’t get better otherwise. How am I going to do this? The idea comes to me. I shake my head. I have to do this. I put the plug into the bath and pour a little bit of vodka in to it creating a small puddle. This is really going to hurt. I grab another clean flannel and roll it up and put it into my mouth. I’m going to need it. I’m going to need something. Shit, shit, shit. Do it, do it, do it. I slowly lower my foot into the vodka. The stinging is so intense my foot flies upwards, I fall out of the bath and on to the floor. My teeth are almost biting through the flannel. My jaw is aching. My whole body can feel the pain, the stinging. My foot is burning. My whole leg is burning. My eyes blur. I bite even harder. I can’t take it. I cry. I am paralysed. I lay on the cool tiled floor waiting for the pain to subside while I sob quietly to myself. Why me? Even as it fades drops of vodka slide back over it and paralyse me once more. I hyperventilate. I hold my breath and wait. This must be what it feels like to be tortured. I shudder. How some people have suffered? Come on Izzy. Come on. I shake my head and try to push myself up, but my leg is weak, it isn’t working. The cut may as well extend all the way up to my stomach. Come on Izzy, mind over matter. Mind over matter. I have to do this. Fight, fight, fight. I push myself back up and on to the edge of the bath. I lift up the vodka bottle and have a swig. Gross. I swallow it. I feel the effects. I have another swig. Then one more for luck. My body feels instantly more relaxed. My leg begins to work again. I put the flannel back in my mouth and sigh heavily.
Time for a different tact. I put my cut foot on the bottom of the bath. I slowly slide it in to the puddle of vodka a millimetre at a time. Little by little I push my foot deeper and deeper into the vodka. I hyperventilate. I bite down. I ball my fists. Be strong, be strong, be strong. My entire body is enduring the pain. I am screaming through the flannel. I am tensing up muscles I never knew existed. I almost faint, my eyes glaze over. I bite down even harder onto the flannel. I sweat. My eyes water. I feel sick. I dig my fingernails into my palms. Somehow I bring myself back around from the brink of fainting. I grab the vodka bottle. I spit out the flannel and swig long and hard. This pain is violent. It feels like violins are playing in perfect discord deep in my ears. It is like the opening to a horror movie. Someone is going to get murdered. Me. I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. I have to, I have to, I have to. To endure is the only way. To endure is how I will survive. To endure, to suffer, to survive, and live. This is the only way. I imagine the gangrene if I don’t do this. I imagine being a cripple. I imagine a hot poker being forced on to the wound and the burn and the agony and the gaping wound. That is much worse, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Oh God. Oh God. I rock back and forth through the pain. I can’t keep still. The vodka is numbing me, but the noise is still biting into me at every turn. I grab the flannel and shove it back into my mouth. I scream.
Yet, by degrees, the stinging begins to subside. My foot is becoming numb. My cells must be dying, or I am just getting used to it. Is that possible? Can you actually get used to torture? I wait. I force myself to wait. Every second in the vodka counts. Finally, I lift my foot up and out. My heart rate begins to slow. It is completely numb. It no longer belongs to me. I am staring at it as though it is a piece of meat. It is alien from me. I soak a clean corner of the flannel in the vodka and I rest my foot on my lap. I wipe off all the remaining dirt. I stare at the wound. The edges have gone white and in between is a river of red, bright red. It could be worse, I guess, but it is going to take days to heal, which means… I’m not going anywhere for a while. What a mess. I can’t stay here that long, but what else am I supposed to do?
I hobble about the house looking for medical supplies. There has to be something here, we always had antiseptic gels and plasters, and other bits and pieces in our house. There must be something, especially considering they had a little girl. I pick up a photo in the living room. It is of the three of them standing in a country park, the little girl is in her
Father’s arms. The couple are arm in arm. Unbounded happiness in the little girls face. Her blond locks are tied up in bunches. All her life ahead of her. Not anymore. I put the photo down and sit on the sofa. I remember being at the park with my Mum when I was about the little girls age. I remember falling over in the playground and cutting my hand. I remember crying and running over to my Mum. She kissed the injury and rubbed some antiseptic cream over it, something she always kept in her handbag, ‘just in case’, she would say. Then she stuck a plaster over my wound. She applied it so gently, so lovingly. Then she kissed the plaster and I was ready to go and play again. She always took the pain away. I miss her attention and affection, I miss her unrelenting love. I remember crying and sitting on her lap in our living room, and hugging her until all my worries were gone. How I wish I could do that now. How I wish she was here to apply a plaster to my foot. I miss her so much. My stomach lurches forwards. I feel as if I have been punched. I fall sideways onto the sofa and cry for my loss. Grief comes out in waves. In bursts and fits of desperation. I never knew how much I could miss a person. I never imagined what it would feel like to have a part of me ripped out. There is so much I didn’t know. So much I will never know. I sob, uncontrollably.
Reality comes crashing down around me. The motion of the crying is making my foot hurt more. The sobs and the retching is pushing blood down into my foot. It is increasing the pressure: whoomph, whoomph, whoomph. It is exploding in my foot over and over and over. Soon it is all I can feel. I sit back up and try and calm myself down. I am wretched and lonely, and useless. I look at the alcohol cupboard. I want to drink more. I shake my head, no, no, no. That will only make things worse. I must find something to help my foot first. I wipe away the tears. I force myself to continue searching.
Underneath the sink I find a first aid kit. I sit down on the kitchen floor and rip it open. It is brand new. Everything on the list is still in there. I allow myself a smile, albeit, a pathetic attempt, but a smile it is. First I use an antiseptic wipe on my cut. I wince and grit
my teeth as the stinging begins again, but this pain bares no comparison to dousing my foot in vodka. I take another look at the gaping wound. It looks clean, from what I can tell anyway. I open one of the sterile dressings and stick it over the wound. In fact I need to use two dressings. If this was normal times, I would be going to a hospital now. I wouldn’t even have to look at the stupid cut. It is so gross, so ugly. I wouldn’t be feeling this stupid pain. But now, in these times, I have to do everything myself and I don’t even know where the nearest hospital is anyway, let alone find my way there. In fact finding a hospital would be a clever thing to do. If I ever see Stephen and Olly again I will suggest the idea to them. Not if, when. I will see them again. I stick the dressing in place with some microporous tape, then bandage up my foot. God I hope this works. I hop into the living room, crash onto the sofa, take a large swig of vodka and pass out.
twenty-five
It takes a few days until my foot has healed enough to leave. I can’t stand it in here any longer. It is like an asylum. I am so bored and lonely. Today is the day I get the Hell out of here and find my brother. I grab the backpack and step downstairs for the last time. But as I do a cold wave passes through me. What is happening? I creep down the steps slower and slower, rolling my feet from the ball to the heel. I tiptoe down onto the bottom step. I stop. I listen. I wait for a moment, two moments, three moments, something is wrong, something is different. I close my eyes. I see Olly in my mind’s eye. The image of his face has grown stronger, more detailed. He is telling me to run. I know it. No, I’m being paranoid. It’s the thought of leaving here, it’s the long journey, it’s freaking me out. I enter the kitchen.
Shit. I feel the blood disappear from my skin. It is all rushing to my heart. I am a shell. I sway. I almost collapse to my knees as my legs buckle beneath me. I push myself up using the wall for balance. I almost puke. I fight it. There they sit. My adversaries. The men. Those two horrible men. They are perfectly calm. What the fuck is going on? I fizz inside. I stare at them, eyes wide and fearful. I shake. I turn and run to the front door. One of them catches me and pushes me face first into the sofa.
“Did you honestly think you were going to get away from us that easily?” it is the older man, he is practically lying on top of me, my rucksack pushing into my back.
He laughs in my face. I start to cry. Why is this happening to me...again!
“Well?” He says shaking me.
I nod pathetically. They both laugh. The older man pushes me down as he stands up. I can’t move. I am beaten. I cry onto the sofa.
“You should have been more careful. You shouldn’t have touched the curtains, you should have covered your foot better,” the older one says. “It’s like you wanted us to find you.” He cackles.
My jaw drops. I can’t believe it. My stomach turns. I can’t believe my own stupidity. He grabs me by the arm and yanks me up. I am furious.
“You won’t be so lucky next time.”
He drags me into the kitchen and pushes me into a chair. He slams down an opened can in front of me. Peas fly out of the top and scatter all over the table and floor. I glare up at him. He barely notices the hate oozing out of me.
“Eat,” he demands.
I push the can away with the back of my hand, cross my arms, and look up and away from him. The younger man slaps me around the head, hard. I start to cry again. With that slap, all the strength is knocked out of me. The older man shoves a teaspoon into my hand.
“Eat,” he demands again.
This time I do as I am ordered. The older man watches me while the younger man shoves his hand into my backpack, roughly pulling my things out and inspecting them. He rolls his eyes then tips the lot out, all over the floor. I bite my tongue and hold back my protest. My eyes are welling up. My throat is tightening. My hand is shaking. The world seems to be contracting around me. I am fading to black. The older man starts to laugh. I force myself still. I force myself to be strong. I eat until every last pea is gone. The older man shoves a can of coke into my hand. I stare up at him nervously. I click it open.
“Drink,” he says.
I am in Hell. I lift the can to my lips and take a large swig. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Finish it,” he growls.
I do. I force the whole lot in. I slam the empty can down on the table and let out a huge burp. He grabs me and pulls me up yanking my elbow and shoulder out of its socket. I wince, but I do not cry out. I am slowly learning how to suffer in silence.
“Put your bag on.”
I do. He unzips it and shoves a whole load of cans into it. He hauls me outside the front of the house.
“Please, I need those trainers, by the front door, my foot, please,” I cry.
The older man grabs the trainers and throws them at me. I quickly pull them on before getting dragged down the street, they are a size too big but they will do. We go back the way I came on that sunny day, back when I had so much hope. It is all completely wiped away now. The dread is eating me up. I feel sick. I am hollow and drained. I want to cry, but I have too much fear inside me. I am shell-shocked. We walk to a car. They shove me inside. It is like a rerun of a few days ago. Like a horrifying mirror image. I hate myself for allowing this to happen again.
We drive until we reach a crash. The same accident I had to climb over on the way here. The rotting corpses smell worse than I remember. Everything is worse. I hold my breath. How do they seem not to notice? I can’t hold my breath forever, I have to breathe, I retch, they laugh. Fuck them.
I rush to the cars and climb over. They still have to get their bags from the boot. This is my chance. I’m a good runner, always have been. Even though my foot is still tender, I can do it. Go Izzy go. I start to feel free. I start to have hope once more. I keep on going and going but my foot begins to suffer, it isn’t a hundred percent yet. It is slowing me down. Mind over matter, mind over matter. I scan the hedgerow looking for the gap, searching for a way through. Where is it? Come on, where is it? No, Oh God, it was much further away. I look forward and run. The sound of running boots on the tarmac behind me fills me with foreboding. Oh God. Must run faster, but I can’t. I can’t. My legs are like iron and my bag is getting heavier and heavier. Stupid cans. I drop the bag and peek over my shoulder as I do. The younger of the men is nearly on top of me. I try to speed up, but I can’t. He grabs my arm. I am halted. He swings me around.
“Don’t do that again,” he warns, barely out of breath.
“Fuck you,” I shout without thinking.
He slaps me around the face hard. I fall to the floor. I am dazed. I can’t see properly. I blink over and over. I cough. I have never been hit so hard in my whole life. I didn’t know it was possible to get slapped like that. I can barely breathe. I have a ringing in my ears. I touch my mouth. My fingers come away coated in blood. I shake and start crying.
“That’s one-tenth of what I’ve got,” he says. “Don’t piss me off again.”
The older man is laughing as he swaggers closer. This all seems like some perverse joke. I can’t actually believe this is happening. I knew it was too good to be true to actually get away from them. They are bigger, stronger, and faster than me, and they understand the land. They have no empathy. They do not feel sorry for me in any way shape or form. They are not attracted to me. I can’t manipulate them. They are like robots. In fact, they are worse than robots. The older man seems to enjoy my suffering, while the younger one appears to have absolutely no feelings at all. They are the perfect soldiers for a job like this. I am totally at their mercy, and they appear to have very little of that. I look down at the road and cry. My heart beats black, a soulless energy is polluting my veins. I am losing it. What am I going to do? The older man grabs my elbow and pulls me up and onto my feet. He forces the bag back onto my back.
“Walk,” he orders.
twenty-six
Day after day I suffer, chained into place, struck down with misery, a dog on a leash. As we march onwards,
I can’t help but wonder, how did these men get turn so quickly? I mean, it has only been six or so months since the world we knew died. Were they always like this, cruel and mean, but stuck behind social laws and graces? I never appreciated all the subtleties of our life before. I understand better now what we had than I ever did when I was stuck inside it. How quickly these men have changed, how fast they have become more themselves. They have no respect for me. They have no respect for anything, they shoot animals, they litter the land. How quickly they were able to mutate into this version of themselves.
As I wonder about the men, my mind slips into wondering about all people. I am doubting everything as I walk across the countryside chained into place. I doubt that I ever really knew anyone in the world before. Did everyone have a secret life inside their own minds? Something this world is able to make real without fear of reprisal. I was too young to know any better, I wanted change, I wanted a break from tradition, from the social hierarchy, well it’s all gone now, never to return, what a fool am I? Now I am learning about the true nature of human beings. I honestly believed everyone was like me, sweet and innocent and true. I actually believed all that lovey-dovey crap on the television and in magazines. I knew nothing. I believed that how my parents and my teachers and my aunts and uncles were, and how they treated me, was how everyone behaved. All adults, always. I knew very little of the real world. I know that now. I actually believed that deep down inside every human being was a nice, humane person. I was wrong and they are not. I am changing. I have to change. These men are teaching me some valuable life lessons. Actual reality is a far cry from perceived reality. Everything true was hidden. I am living in the real world now. It was all fake before. Veneered. Civil. Unreal. The lies needed to be dressed. Society was dressed. The world was dressed. The truth now stands free. The ugly truth. And the truth was always there hidden beneath, never gone, waiting, always waiting, a prisoner of lies, poised and ready for the moment to strike and pierce you absolutely. I am awake now. Wide awake, and my eyes are aching.
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