After They Came

by Tom Kavanagh

Could it make me ill that quickly?

  Or maybe Mr. Thomas really had poisoned me . . .

  What if I hadn’t been able to get rid of all the chicken?

  All of these questions and more made the rounds through my head, and I was unable to escape the realisation that the people around me, whom I’d known and loved, were no longer the same people. Something had happened after the storm, something sinister and altogether evil. I came to the conclusion that those things I’d seen were now inhabiting the people of the town; people I could no longer trust surrounded me.

  But what had happened to my dad?

  Was he now gone forever?

  Or maybe he had just been temporarily taken over . . .

  But I couldn’t think about any of those questions. I had one goal in mind: I needed to find out who had been left behind and who they had inhabited. The only way to do that would be to always ask the same questions and then judge their answers against my own. Once I knew whom I could trust, I could either tell them about the others or try to save that person. My only true fear was finding out that I was the only one left. If I found myself completely alone, I didn’t know what I’d do . . .

  I pushed those negative thoughts out of my head, grabbed the notepad out of my bedside table, and scribbled down questions, writing down the first few things that felt most important.

  1) Have you killed an animal in the last week?

  This was important. It seemed that killing animals was a telltale sign of being taken over by them. If a person had killed an animal, it was likely they’d kill again, and maybe even go so far as to kill me. Always beware of someone who will so easily kill an animal.

  2) What would you do if an animal were sick?

  If the first response to this was “kill them,” I could be pretty sure that they’d been taken over. If they tried to evade the question, it would also be a strong indicator of them being taken over. If they said they would try to save it, I could be pretty sure they were safe. But if they answered question one with the wrong answer, I should be aware that they could be trying to deceive me.

  3) Where were you when the lighting struck?

  This probably wasn’t as important, as it had been a while since the lighting had struck, so they could have spread by now. But if they hadn’t been able to spread, they would have leaped into the closest people. It also happened at night, so they could have used the darkness to travel a little farther than usual.

  Those questions couldn’t prove whether they had inhabited a person, but it would give me a good indication. I’d have to trust my gut reactions to do the rest. The most important thing was to stay calm while asking the questions. I didn’t want to act too suspicious, because then they might find out what I was doing and attack me.

  I’d have to find a way of bringing it up in conversation or pretend that it was for an assignment at school. If I did it in that way, it would be very difficult for the other person to come to the conclusion that I was snooping, but I couldn’t be sure that it would work until I tested it on someone.

  And I knew exactly who that person would be.

  “Isabelle, are you coming down for breakfast?” Dad yelled up the stairs.

  “I’m coming!”

  As I made my way down the stairs, I acted out the questions in my head. I needed to make them sound as natural as possible, instead of a stringent line of questioning like a detective would do.

  “Stop mucking around on the stairs; your porridge is getting cold. Hurry up and eat so we can get started.”

  “Okay.”

  I took the seat opposite to Dad and stirred my porridge, trying to act as natural as possible. The radio was always on in the morning, and so Dad didn’t really pay any attention to me or my movements, which was probably a good thing, as I looked as calm as a steaming kettle.

  “And that’s the news where you are.”

  While the adverts were on, I took my opportunity to start my line of questioning.

  “Dad, other than the ewe, have you . . . I mean, have any other animals died?”

  “Have any other animals died? Well, the chicken we had on Sunday.”

  “It just died?” I asked, needing to hear the words come out of his mouth.

  “Of course it didn’t just die. I killed it. If I hadn’t, we would have just been eating roast potatoes. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “And we’re back. In international news, a group of armed robbers . . .”

  “One second; I just want to listen to this,” Dad said.

  Another few minutes passed as we were told about a hostage situation in another country, and then came a short segment on the fluctuation of a particular stock.

  “What if the chicken hadn’t died and had got sick? What would you do then?”

  “We’re still talking about the chicken?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess if it wasn’t laying eggs, I would probably kill it.”

  “Now on to the weather. It looks like this bad patch of weather we’ve been having is going to continue. A new weather system is moving down from the north, bringing with it gusts of winds in the high eighties and heavy rain. Red and yellow warnings have been issued for many regions, so check online to see whether you will be affected.”

  “There’s going to be another storm? That means another bunch of hours just fixing fences,” Dad said.

  “Hopefully it won’t be like the storm we had a few weeks ago. That was a really strong one.

  “It really was.”

  “Where were you when the storm hit?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was in my room; I even saw the tree get hit. Where were you?”

  “I was in the back trying to stop the damn chicken coop from leaking. Why do you want to know where I was?”

  So he was closer to the storm—maybe that’s how they got into him.

  “I was just curious.”

  “A bit of a weird thing to be curious about . . .”

  “Well, I am a bit weird,” I said jokingly in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  “Anyway, have you finished? We should get to work.”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  * * * * *

  After breakfast I watched my dad closely as I helped him with the morning chores.

  He was trying to fix a part of the fence that had been damaged in the storm, kneeling on his arthritic knees, sinking into a few inches of muck and dead leaves to do it. He’d usually be grunting and groaning at this point, even on a good day, but not a sound came from his mouth. It seemed as if he was working faster, as if his hands and knees weren’t bothering him anymore. I’d never seen him this motivated to get things done so quickly.

  While my dad tried to fix the fence, it was my job to check on the sheep. It was something I had done a thousand times before. But every so often, he’d call over to me to make sure I was working, and wouldn’t stop asking me about when I’d be finished.

  “Dad, would you chill out? We have time,” I grumbled after wandering over to him.

  “We need to get all of this stuff done. We need to get it done quickly.”

  “Why?”

  “Never you mind. Can you help me with the fence?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Pass me that level.”

  He was never this precise. He usually just dug up a little bit of ground, stuck the fence post in, and hoped that it stayed in place. But now he was measuring everything, making sure that it was level and solid. The whole situation was made stranger by the fact that it had been raining for the past hour. It had started lightly, but had become so heavy that it probably could have pressed down on the keys of a piano.

  The sludge around his knees only grew deeper as he fought with the fallen posts. It looked like he was being slowly enveloped, trapped in a patch of muddy quicksand. The rain continued to lash down from the sky, beating down on our heads and pummelling our jackets. I stood there quietly listen
ing to the rain as it struck the leaves above our heads, waiting for Dad to finally give up and throw his tools into the forest like he usually did. But that didn’t happen. He continued to work along with the rhythm of the beaten leaves and bending trees.

  There was something mesmerizing about the way he worked. It had its own particular rhythm, separate from the sounds of nature, but somehow entwined with them.

  “I won’t be using these tools anymore,” Dad proclaimed, breaking his rhythm, and by extension, his hold on me. “Can you put them in the shed and get started on your other chores?”

  “Okay. You sure you don’t need any more help?”

  “Nope. I’ll be fine.”

  I scooped up the various tools he didn’t need and made my way slowly back to the outhouses. The ground was slick beneath me, and it took everything in my power not to slip and fall. It would be a long slide down to the bottom, and there wasn’t anything particularly nice waiting for me there. Little rivers had begun to form, streaming down the hillside, filling every little dent. My foot occasionally found these holes, plunging my wellington boot inches into the ground. As I fought to free my foot, I couldn’t help but think about how few of the other kids my age were forced into doing this type of work. I couldn’t imagine that many kids were even up at this time. They were probably still in bed, occasionally flipping their pillows to feel their cold embrace, with the heat of their rooms becoming too much. If only they could feel what I felt every morning; they wouldn’t be reaching for the cold side of their pillows.

  All I had was the cold wind.

  By the time I’d got back up the hill, I was ready to give up and move away to anywhere but here. And yet, as I stared down the hill, I could still see my dad toiling away.

  There was no sign of him stopping, no sign of fatigue or doubt.

  There were no outbursts of rage at his arthritis or the horrible weather.

  He was simply going through the motions. It was as if the fire that had burned within him had been snuffed out, taking with it any resemblance of the man I’d once known.

  I approached him again as he was putting feed out for the pigs, shovelling food out of the bags and quickly hurling it around the pen. There was something off about the way he was behaving, and I needed to find out what it was.

  “Dad?”

  He continued to shovel out food in a fast and almost robotic way. He had locked into this job, and it seemed as if nothing would tear him away.

  “Dad?” I said again, touching his arm lightly, scared that it would be cold and metallic, devoid of a pulse.

  “Huh? Yes?” he replied, the spell momentarily broken.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  He closed up the bag of feed, locked the pigpen, and made his way towards the house. I followed along, but only of my own accord. He probably would have walked to the house if I’d been there or not.

  “Are you finished with your jobs?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Nearly.”

  “Okay. Well, I need to pop out. Are you going to be okay getting everything finished on your own?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Great. Oh, and are you alright getting dinner ready for yourself tonight?”

  The question stopped me dead in my tracks.

  Get dinner ready by myself?

  I could. I knew how to turn on the oven without setting myself, or the house, on fire. I could cook the meat and cut the vegetables and boil and mash and whatever else was needed to cook a meal. But the surprising, almost unbelievable thing was that he had never asked me to do that.

  He was always there for dinner.

  We would sit down together at the same time every night in front of our meat and two veg and talk about what we’d done that day. It was never a particularly interesting conversation. I doubt he really cared about what I learnt in maths, and I didn’t really want to hear about his fascinating story about why the tractor wouldn’t start that morning. But that didn’t matter. It was our tradition.

  This was a completely new and out of left field request.

  “Get dinner ready by myself?” I asked in disbelief, making sure I hadn’t misheard him.

  “Yes, by yourself. Everything you need is in the fridge. You just need to pop it in the oven to warm it up.”

  I nodded and quietly agreed, almost unable to speak.

  This wasn’t my dad.

  It couldn’t be.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, wanting to know where this thing pretending to be my dad was going.

  “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you? Nowhere special. I’ll see you later.”

  He turned and made his way hurriedly to the house, leaving me to stand and wonder what the hell had happened to him. He had completed work in a few hours that usually would have taken him most of the day.

  It wasn’t my dad.

  It was one of them.

  * * * * *

  Dad eventually came back just before midnight. He’d never been out that late before. He’d quite literally never been out past ten since my mum passed away. He always made sure he was there to make me dinner and to make sure I’d brushed my teeth and got into bed.

  He must have been somewhere very important. It couldn’t have been just a normal gathering of the other farmers or a few pints down at the pub. He would have told me if it were any of those things.

  This was something secretive, and he was obviously either scared or ashamed to admit what it was.

  I tossed and turned for a few hours, wondering what the hell he could be up to. There wasn’t any way of finding out. He didn’t really use phones—didn’t trust them. He wasn’t on social media sites—didn’t trust them. The only way to find out was to either ask him or do some investigating. He wouldn’t react too kindly if I went snooping around behind his back, and I don’t think he would be upfront with me if I asked him outright. I’d need to find another way of getting it out of him, through any means necessary.

  * * * * *

  I was actually quite glad when Monday came around. It had been a stressful weekend, what with having to help Mr. Thomas and then having my suspicions raised after seeing my dad’s new behaviour. School wasn’t my favourite place, but at least it gave me a relatively safe place to contemplate a new game plan to protect myself and get my dad back.

  Once again, like I had the day before, I watched him closely for signs of them. He was sluggish this morning, less robotic. But then again, that was probably because he stayed out late last night. Although they might have noticed my questioning, causing them to change behaviour, making themselves seem more human.

  “Isabelle, what are you looking at?” Dad asked me over his scrambled eggs.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just staring into space,” I replied quickly.

  “Really? Because it looked like you were staring at me.”

  “I wasn’t. I swear.”

  He plunked his fork down on his plate, slightly too hard and controlled to be accidental.

  “What’s the matter? You haven’t seemed yourself the last few days, you know. Are you sure you’re okay? Is that new medication making you sick?”

  “No. It’s fine. I mean . . . it’s working.”

  “Really? Because you haven’t eaten any of your eggs.”

  I looked down at my full plate of eggs, suddenly realising I had spent the whole morning staring at my dad, completely forgetting about the fact I actually needed to eat so I wouldn’t seem suspicious.

  “Like I said, I was just staring into space. I think the new medication is just spacing me out a bit, but it’s definitely not making me sick . . . definitely not.”

  “Okay,” he responded begrudgingly. “But let me know if you start to feel sick. We’ll go straight back to the doctor’s if you do.”

  “Okay. I’m fine, though. No need to go to the doctor’s.”

  “Alright. Ready for school?”

  “Yep. Let’s go.”

 
I shoved another forkful of eggs into my mouth for show, hoping that it would alleviate some of my dad’s (if I could still call him that) concerns. I couldn’t be sure as to whether he’d messed with the eggs, but I’d eaten such a small amount that I didn’t think I could have been poisoned. At least that’s what I’d hoped.

  I could only wait and see . . .

  * * * * *

  Lunchtime at school wasn’t an easy experience for me for so many reasons. I’d found it hard making friends, and so there wasn’t someone I could just go and meet when the bell rang. I’d walk around, trying to find an empty bench or section of wall that wasn’t already taken by a group of students. I’d usually end up sitting outside a classroom or in the library till my next lesson, but I thought it better for me to be surrounded by people. I didn’t want to be on my own if one of them came and attacked me.

  “Hi. Can I sit here?”

  Someone had approached me from behind. I didn’t want to turn round to see who it was. If I turned round, it meant I’d have to interact with them. I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard them.

  “Excuse me?”

  I still didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure whether this student had been taken over; I couldn’t risk it.

  “Hello?”

  I continued to stare at my notepad, hoping that he would go away.

  “Can you not hear me?”

  He was being persistent. In fact, he was being a little bit too persistent.

  It was time to test my theory.

  “I have three questions,” I said, seemingly much too abruptly for him.

  “What?” he asked, obviously taken aback by my questioning.

  “I have three questions to ask you.”

  “Three questions?”

  “Yes. And if you answer them right, you can talk to me.”

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “Have you killed an animal in the last week?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “What would you do if an animal were sick?”

  “I don’t know . . . I guess I would take it to a vet. I don’t have any pets so I don’t really know what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Where were you when the lightning struck?”

  “Are you talking about the lightning last week? I was outside watching it. It was pretty cool.”