by Tom Kavanagh
“Question three, where were you when the lighting struck?”
“What lighting?”
“The lightning that happened during the storm.”
“Which storm are you talking about? Irene? Matthews? We haven’t exactly got the best weather up here now, have we?”
“The lightning that struck last week.”
“Ah yes, that storm. I think I was at home at the time. Yes, I think I was at home. I was trying to watch a movie—can’t remember which one—and the noise that was going on outside was incredible, wasn’t it? Now, what was that film . . . I know it was one of those new sci-fi ones. I think it had guns . . . or were they swords? Yes, they were swords, but they were made out of light or something . . .”
“Okay, thanks for your help,” I mumbled, trying my best to stop the conversation before he told me about every other film he couldn’t remember. “Thanks for your time.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Come back anytime! Maybe I’ll remember the name of that film when you come back!”
I made my way back down the path towards Simon, wagging my head to say I’d been unsuccessful.
“Let’s try another house,” Simon said with a positive tone, as if it were a negative thing that we hadn’t yet found one of them.
“Thanks a lot for helping me, Simon. I don’t think I could have done this if I had been on my own.”
“That’s okay. But can I ask you something about them? I’m just curious about something.”
“Go ahead.”
“You say they take people over, but then you said you saw them in the doctor’s office and behind the trees near your farm? If they can walk around without needing humans, why don’t they just do that?”
“I guess the simplest way to explain it is that they’re like puppetmasters. They make humans into their puppets, objects to do their bidding, and pull on the strings. They can do things on their own, but they need puppets to do their job.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know yet; that’s what we’re trying to find out. Do you have any more questions?”
“What are you going to do if we find one of them while we’re asking people questions?”
“I think we’re going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“But you’re hoping we won’t have to cross that particular bridge?”
“With every fibre of my being.”
After talking to another five people, we were no closer to finding someone who had been taken over. They had all shown tendencies, but not one of them had answered all three questions incorrectly. I wouldn’t be able to do anything serious without hard evidence, and so they were free to carry out whatever plan they had plotted.
Searching for them reminded me of being young, flipping rotten logs over to see what lurked beneath. The ground would churn and writhe as insects fled from the light, searching out somewhere darker and damper. Every rock or log I’d turn over revealed creepy-crawlies, and every time they would run away or shrink back as my fingers outstretched to touch them.
They were exactly like creepy-crawlies.
They’d hidden themselves in dark places, always out of sight from preying eyes or the sting of daylight.
I didn’t even know who they had replaced and who was left. They had taken over my dad and had probably infested the world around us, too. But how would I truly know the difference?
I needed to find a way of differentiating between who had been replaced and who was left. It was going to be difficult, but I needed to do it if I was going to survive.
* * * * *
We finally gave up our questioning once the sun began to set. It was time to give up for the day, and we were no closer to finding out who they had taken.
“I better get home.” Simon mentioned after a long bout of silence.
“Same. My dad will hit the ceiling if I’m late for dinner.”
We stood awkwardly in front of the church, not quite knowing how to break off our contact.
“Thanks for helping me today,” I mumbled, hoping that it would be enough for us to end the conversation.
“That’s alright. See you tomorrow?”
“Yep, see you tomorrow.”
I stepped on each frozen puddle I came across as I walked home, putting pressure on the ice until it would splinter, sending spiderwebs across its surface like the broken windshield of my dad’s car. There was something oddly familiar about the sight of the ice cracking and splintering. There were things shattering all around me, sending splinters across everything in my path.
I got home just before the sun set. As I opened the door, I was met with the eerily smiling face of my dad. He startled me, causing me to drop my keys and expel a little squeal of fright.
“Dad, you scared me! What were you doing standing in front of the door?”
“I’m sorry. I was just waiting for you to come home.”
“Why? Did you not think I was coming back?”
“Well, yes. I did. But I was just excited to see you.”
“Why? We have dinner together every night.”
And then a glint in the kitchen caught my eye. I turned my head towards the kitchen, casting my eyes on the worm-eaten, crusty, wooden table that we would eat on every night. Except it was different. I didn’t know whether it was the same table or not; whichever it was, it had a tablecloth on it. Three candles were sitting in silver holders, burning away, sending little ripples of heat towards the ceiling. The whole setup looked like something you’d see in a fancy restaurant, not in a run-down farmhouse that looked like it had been transported from the sixties.
And then something struck me.
There were three places set at the dinner table.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet . . .”
A figure emerged from around the corner.
There was no way out.
They had found me.
Seven
Accusations
“Who’s this?” I whispered harshly, angry that my dad would spring someone on me when he knew I didn’t like meeting new people, especially so when I knew that person was one of them.
“This is Mary.”
“Mary?”
“Yes. She’s a dairy farmer in the next valley over.”
I looked Mary up and down. She was only slightly taller than me, and had hair about the same length, although there it had streaks of grey. Her clothes were typical of a farmer. They were probably made by her and were focused on durability rather than being fashionable.
“I thought Mr. Morris was the dairy farmer in that valley?” I responded, still with my eyes fixed on her.
“That was my father. He passed away recently, so I’ve moved back to take over the farm. It was all very sudden and unexpected,” Mary chimed in, letting out a nervous giggle at the end of her sentence in an attempt to break the tension.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I thought.
“It was very unexpected. But you’ve been handling it very well. It was all running so smoothly that we hadn’t realised Mr. Morris had died. If I hadn’t knocked on your door to ask if you had a spare machine part, I wouldn’t have known you’d moved in.”
“Why is she here, Dad?”
“Mary is here to have dinner with us. You see, we’ve been seeing each other recently, and I wanted you to meet her.”
“You’ve been seeing her?”
“Yes. And I think it’s going rather well.”
They exchanged a sickly sweet smile, and then Mary turned her attention towards me again, probably getting ready to do any number of unspeakable things to me.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Isabelle. Your father has told me so much about you.”
Her arm stretched out, making me flinch. Dad gave a reassuring nod; although I can’t say it filled me with hope. I took her hand begrudgingly, wary of who she was and what my dad had told her.
“Okay, so shall we go and sit down? Dinner should be ready now.”
I followed them both into the kitchen, wondering how on earth I was going to escape. I couldn’t tell him that I felt sick, because then he might take the chance to kill me. I would just have to sit down and pretend to eat, and then leave as quickly as I could without it seeming suspicious. And besides, Dad (the dad before he was taken) wasn’t one for cooking lavish three-course meals. He had probably cooked his usual “meat and two veg” meal. There was just the added bonus of a guest to make the whole experience horribly tense.
Dad brought the food in a few minutes later on surprisingly fancy plates. I’d never seen them before. I guess I wasn’t special enough for the fancy plates.
The normal dinner guest things were said, like “Oh, it looks wonderful” and “It smells lovely,” followed by the normal dinner host sayings like, “It was no problem at all.”
And then silence fell on the table.
After a few more awkward moments, with the only sound coming from cutlery on plates, Mary cleared her throat, obviously hell-bent on adding awkward small talk to an already awkward situation.
“So, Isabelle, do you like working on the farm with your father?”
“It’s okay.”
We slipped quickly back into an awkward silence, but I should have known that it wouldn’t last.
“What lessons do you enjoy at school?” Mary asked, clearing her throat with that same annoying, guttural sound.
There was something strange about Mary. She was too chirpy, too eager to get to know me.
“Isabelle, aren’t you going to answer Mary’s question?” Dad asked.
“I like English.”
“I liked English, too. When I was in school . . .” Mary began, her voice drifting off as my attention turned to the room. I couldn’t get over what Dad had done to the kitchen. It was so unlike him. He’d dusted off a few knickknacks and put them on the shelves, and had even cleaned the oven for the first time in months. All of it coalesced into a sterile, unsettling feeling that permeated our surroundings, infecting the food and the water and even my skin.
Mary continued to talk, so I settled my eyes on the candles in front of me. They were casting a long shadow on the wall behind Mary. After a while, I noticed that it had the same distorted look of the shadow in the doctor’s office, the one that had settled behind the man with the large stomach.
There were long, black arms coming out from a dark ball, as if a beast were unfurling its talons, preparing itself for an attack. It continued to creep up the wall, growing in size, almost reaching the ceiling. As I watched it grow, a hot tingling sensation careened through my body as my fight or flight response kicked in. Little beads of sweat had formed on my brow, giving a clear signal to them that I was worried and wanted to run away.
“What do you think of that, Isabelle?” Dad asked.
“Think of what?”
I quickly realised that Mary had been speaking for the entire time I’d spent staring at the shadow, and now I had no idea where I stood in the conversation.
“Mary has just offered to help you with some of your schoolwork. What do you think? She’d do so much better than me.”
Just as I was about to respond, another violent coughing fit decided to rear its ugly head.
“Isabelle, are you okay? Sounds like you’re getting a bit of a cough.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Let me get the thermometer.”
“Why do you need the thermometer?”
“I need the thermometer so that I can check your temperature. You might be coming down with a fever.”
“Why do you want to know if I’m coming down with a fever?”
“Because if you’re sick, then we would need to go to the hospital.”
“The hospital? Is that where you would take me? Really?”
“Isabelle, what are you talking about?”
“You wouldn’t take me down to the ravine and slit my throat?”
“What? Of course I wouldn’t. What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? You killed that ewe, and you didn’t even need to.”
“Isabelle, why are you bringing that up all of a sudden? That ewe was injured. We might have had to put her down anyway.”
“Yes, but you didn’t even try.”
“Isabelle, it had to be done.”
And then I remembered a conversation I’d had with Dad, so similar to this one that it couldn’t help but flood my mind.
It was during my mum’s final hospital stay. At the time, I thought she would come home again. I’d been to see her a few times, and it seemed like just another hospital visit. She would go in, get treatment, and then come back with us. During treatment, she’d lose a lot of weight and would take on a drawn, tired look. But she looked different this time.
There’s only one way I can describe it. During bad storms on the farm, thick, dark clouds roll over us, blocking out the sun. But you know that the sun’s still there and that it’ll come out again soon. As I looked at Mum lying in that hospital bed, it was as if the sun had disappeared. There was nothing but grey, thunderous clouds inside of her.
Shortly after that visit, Dad told me that she had decided to stop taking her medicine. He said that she was tired of fighting a losing battle and didn’t want to put anyone through any more pain and suffering. He said that it had to be done and that there was nothing more that they could do.
It was funny, though. On my last hospital visit, as I sat there talking to Mum about school and the farm and Pickle, I could see a little glimmer inside of her. It was faint, like the first beam of light that breaks through the clouds. Maybe it was because she knew her struggle would be over soon. But the way she smiled and laughed with me, it almost felt as if she didn’t want to give up, that there was a renewed hope inside of her. Maybe the sun was just waiting to break through the clouds but hadn’t been allowed to.
Did Dad think of her as a burden? Did he force Mum to stop taking her medication? Or had Dad just flat out killed her?
Had he been an impostor for much longer than I’d thought?
And now, was he working with Mary to kill me?
I had to find out.
“Did it have to be done with Mum?”
“Excuse me?”
“I really shouldn’t be here. This is personal,” Mary said.
“No, Mary. Please stay. Isabelle is just being difficult.”
“You said she stopped taking her meds.”
“She did. It was her decision, Isabelle. You know that the meds would have only given her a few more months. She didn’t want to be in pain anymore.”
“Are you sure I should be here?” Mary cut in.
“Yes. We’ll sort this out and then finish up with dinner.”
“How do I know that you didn’t lie? How do I know that she didn’t want to take the meds?”
“For god’s sake, why would I have lied to you, Isabelle?”
“Because you were trying to hide something from me.”
“Oh, come on. This is just silly. I’m walking away from this. We can talk when you’re feeling more stable.”
He was hiding something. I knew that he was. He was walking away because I was getting too close to the truth.
I was scaring him.
It was time to drop a bomb.
“You killed her, didn’t you?”
He froze in step, and for a moment he stood motionless. But then he turned round, visibly shaking.
“What did you just say?” he asked, almost spitting the question at me.
“You killed Mum, didn’t you?”
“I killed your mother?”
“Yeah. She was sick, so you killed her. Didn’t you?”
“How dare you say that!”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Of course it fucking isn’t! How can you even think that?”
“She was sick, so
you killed her. You killed her just like you killed the ewe.”
“That’s insane. Of course I didn’t kill your mum. I loved her. How the hell could I have brought myself to kill her?”
“Because she was sick. And sick things don’t serve any purpose, so you kill them. You killed the ewe, so why wouldn’t you kill Mum? And if you killed Mum, then why wouldn’t you kill me?”
“Isabelle, I honestly can’t believe you’re saying this. How can you believe that I would ever hurt you or your mum?”
“Because she couldn’t do anything useful, so you had to kill her. They kill anything that isn’t useful. And I’m next!”
“What do you mean ‘they’? I don’t understand. Have you not been taking your pills?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I take my pills and then get sick, and then all you have to do is slit my throat.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Isabelle? Of course I wouldn’t slit your throat. I want you to feel better. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. That’s all your mum ever wanted.”
“But she’s not here anymore, so you can do whatever you want!”
Dad’s hand lunged towards my arm and grabbed me tightly.
“You do not speak to me like that!”
I began to panic as my dad’s grip tightened. Usually his arthritis wouldn’t allow him to grip, but he was in such a rage that he probably couldn’t feel the pain.
They must have fixed his arthritis.
“Get off me!” I screamed, fighting against his hand, clawing at it feverishly.
“Not until you calm down!”
“Get off me! Get off me!”
“No!”
I’d had enough. A split second later, my teeth bit down hard, sinking a centimetre or two into his hand. He let out a groan and released my arm from his grip.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he asked as he wrapped a tea towel around his bloodied hand.
“Go back to where you came from!” I screeched, my eyes filling with tears, blurring the scene.
I bolted out of the kitchen and ran into the safety of the night.