The Cellar

by Natasha Preston

  I walked over to his DVDs and started scanning the titles. “Need a scary movie,” I replied, turning my nose up.

  “You don’t like scary movies,” Lewis said. “You being forced into it?”

  “Yep. Kerri and Rachel want to spend the evening hiding behind cushions. Idiots. ” Scary movies were the worst.

  Lewis grinned. His perfect white teeth stood out against his natural tan. Why was he so good-looking? It wasn’t fair. “Why don’t you watch it in here?” he said.

  Henry’s head snapped up and he frowned. Oh, big bro was not going to like that. “What are you doing?”

  I tried to keep the silly grin off my face, but there was no stopping it this time. He wanted us to watch it with him, and I couldn’t have been happier.

  “This game sucks now anyway,” Lewis said and shrugged his shoulders casually. Wait, was he just bored or did he want to spend time with me? Boys say girls were confusing when they’re the ones that are total head fucks.

  “Fine! I’ll go tell them to come in here, and I’m picking the movie,” Henry said, sighing in defeat. He walked out of his messy room, muttering something colorful under his breath. Loser.

  Lewis patted the bed next to him and smiled. My tummy flipped. Okay, maybe he did want to spend time with me. I walked over slowly and got on the bed, trying not to seem too eager. Kerri and Rachel came bouncing into the room. They seemed happy we were watching in Henry’s room. They constantly went on about how Lewis liked me too. I wanted them to be right so badly.

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  I shuffled over, closer to Lewis so they could all fit on the king-size bed Henry absolutely had to have. We were still crammed together but since I was squished against Lewis’s side, I didn’t mind at all. In fact I wished my parents weren’t such softies and had made Henry get a double instead.

  “Oh, come on,” I exclaimed. My heart sunk as the title for the movie appeared. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Much worse than I thought it would be. Now I was going to be all scared and make a complete fool out of myself in front of Lewis. Just great. I didn’t even have a pillow to hide behind. I pulled my legs up and rested my head on my knees.

  “Er, Sum, he hasn’t even pressed play yet,” Lewis joked, bumping his shoulder against mine. I elbowed him in the side playfully, making him laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kerri raise her eyebrow at me. Oh crap, if she says anything, I will actually die!

  The film started and that was my cue to hide away and pretend it wasn’t happening. Of all the movies my idiot brother could have picked, he chose this one. I needed to man up, but every time some crazy jumped out from behind a door I freaked.

  About halfway through the movie, I dared to look up. Nothing much was happening but I knew there was still a while to go. Why did people like this kind of thing? They were sick. Something on the screen made a bang and I dropped my head back to my knees. Screw that. I was a baby and completely happy with that title.

  I jumped as something brushed the outside of my leg. Lewis’s hand? My breath caught in my throat. Okay, that was a better way to make me forget about the movie. I doubt hiding would ever help again after that. I didn’t dare look at him, but I sensed his smile.

  There was no way I was going to be able to concentrate on the movie now, so I raised my head from my knees. Just look at him. Man, I really was a baby. I flicked my eyes up and Lewis looked at me at the same time.

  “Okay?” he mouthed, and I nodded. I was more okay with the back of his index finger drawing circles on my leg. Wow, my skin actually tingled wherever he touched.

  “Boo!” Henry shouted at the top of his lungs. My heart leaped out of my chest and I jumped in the air, screaming.

  What the heck!

  “What’s wrong with you?” I yelled. He doubled over with his face planted in the quilt, laughing his arse off. Lewis, Kerri, and Rachel were no better, although I think they jumped too. “Seriously, Henry, I almost had a heart attack. ”

  “Overdramatic wuss,” he said, rolling his eyes. I gave him the death glare.

  I felt Lewis’s body shaking beside me as he laughed. “Damn, that was funny,” Lewis said breathlessly, as he continued laughing.

  “Yeah, hilarious,” I replied sarcastically. My heart was still pumping. My brother sucked. They all did.

  Finally the hideous movie finished and Henry went downstairs to get the pizza menu so we could order dinner, since none of us could cook without burning the house down. Thankfully, Mum and Dad left some cash for us. They wouldn’t be back from their dinner with Dad’s old boring university friend and his equally boring wife until late.

  Kerri fake coughed. “I need a drink. Rachel, come help me. ” Oh. My. God. Can she be any more obvious? I widened my eyes at her and she smiled innocently. Come on, ground, swallow me up. Please?

  They left and the room fell silent. I literally couldn’t think of one thing to say. Everything I thought of sounded lame in my head.

  “You’re quiet,” Lewis said, stating the obvious.

  “So are you,” I replied.

  He chuckled and moved slightly so he was facing me. “Enjoy the movie?”

  “Not one little bit. ”

  “Baby. ”

  I rolled my eyes at him and he did that sexy half smile thing. Wow. I heard Henry, Rachel, and Kerri talking at the bottom of the stairs and I wanted to pout that they were coming back so soon. Lewis bit his full lip. “I’ve wanted to do this for a while. ”

  “Do what?” I asked. He leaned forward and his lips pressed to mine, lingering for only a second. My heart beat so fast I felt like it was going to explode. He pulled back and looked at me. Oh my God, Lewis just kissed me! I was in a total daze but he seemed unaffected. He threw one leg over the other and looked up at the door just as they came back.

  “What pizza did you order?” Lewis asked. I didn’t hear Henry’s reply. I couldn’t have cared less what pizza he ordered. I bit my lip to try to disguise the huge smile that was making my jaw ache. I kissed Lewis, I kissed Lewis, I kissed Lewis! Damn it, why did they have to come back so soon?

  6

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  SUMMER

  Sunday, July 25th (Present)

  “Let’s get this cleaned up,” Rose said, clapping her hands together as if it was going to be the most fun in the world. I got up to help, just to have something to do. Rose washed the pans, plastic cutlery, and dishes while I dried them and Poppy put them away. We cleaned and tidied in silence, filling the room with the lemon scent that tingled my nose. I had a million questions I wanted to ask.

  Finally, after the whole place was clean, we sat on the sofa. I realized I was acting just like one of them and I burst into tears. I curled up into a ball and sobbed so hard, my lungs started to burn. This can’t be my life. Never before had I felt so utterly alone.

  “Oh, Lily, it’s going to be okay,” Violet said and rubbed my back.

  “N-No. Not okay. ” I sobbed harder. Tears poured down my face, soaking my knees.

  “Shh,” Rose cooed. “Take deep breaths and calm down. You’re not alone, Lily. ” Yes, I am.

  “We’re all in this together,” Poppy added.

  I took a deep breath and tried to stop sobbing. “How can he?” Wiping my tears away, my blurry vision cleared. “He’s going out tonight. How can he do all this and still be normal to everyone else?”

  Rose sighed. “It’s not a pub he’s going to, Lily. ”

  “Stop calling me Lily,” I snapped.

  Rose ignored my outburst as if it never happened. Maybe in Rose’s world it didn’t. “As far as I’m aware, he doesn’t socialize a lot. Most of his time is spent either at work or in here. ”

  “What’s he doing tonight then?” I questioned. “And how do you know what he does out there anyway?”

  “He is quite an honest person. If you ask him something, he will give you a straight res
ponse. Please think about what you ask, though,” Rose warned. “Clover doesn’t like certain people and what he does occasionally is…” She trailed off, frowning into the distance.

  “Is?” I prompted.

  “He…disposes of people that do harm. ”

  My mouth fell open. “He murders them?” No, he couldn’t.

  “Yes. That’s not quite how he sees it, though. The women, prostitutes, are doing harm. Harm to the innocent families of men that use them. ”

  “Bloody hell, listen to yourself,” I whispered, shocked. “You’re defending him. ”

  “I’m not defending him. ”

  “Yes you are. You’re making it sound like it’s okay. ”

  “It’s not, and I’m not. I’m just trying to explain how he did, that’s all. ”

  “So he spends his evenings out murdering prostitutes?” It couldn’t be true. Maybe he only said that to scare them into doing what he said. If prostitutes were being murdered all over the place it would be on the bloody news!

  Rose frowned. “You make it sound like he’s doing it every night, and that’s not true. ” How do you know? Well, it couldn’t be true. He couldn’t kill on a daily basis and still not have been caught. Surely.

  I couldn’t believe how calmly I was talking about it. Shouldn’t I be freaking out and clawing at the door? Should I even worry about how I should or shouldn’t think, feel, or act? “How does he get away with it?”

  “They’re prostitutes, Lily. Most of them have run away from home or have always been alone. ” But still, for no one to notice. “He thinks they’re dirty and represent everything that’s wrong with humanity. ” Rose looked at Poppy and Violet. “We think something happened when he was younger—no one just starts thinking that—but we’ve never asked. ” Of course they hadn’t. It wasn’t worth their life.

  “What does he do with them? How many?” I questioned. This was getting crazier by the second. He was like a character from a horror movie.

  “I don’t know,” Violet replied.

  “This is crazy. Totally screwed-up crazy. We need to get out of here. We can do it together. I know we can, but we have to work together. ”

  “No, Lily,” Rose said sternly, she reminded me of my teachers at school. “We can’t. There is no way out, so you need to get this idea out of your head now. You have no real idea of what he’s capable of. He has no concept of what is truly right and wrong. He can be very…brutal and unforgiving. ”

  A shiver ran through my entire body at her blunt warning. Brutal and unforgiving. I witnessed what he did to Violet, how angry he got and how he threatened her with a knife. How much worse could it get? I didn’t want to give up, that wasn’t me, but I was terrified.

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  Rose took a deep breath and stood up. “Now I’m going to clean the bathroom and then we can watch a movie. ”

  Wiping the tears from my eyes, I gulped down the rising sickly feeling in my stomach. “I can’t stay here. I need to go home. ” Why wouldn’t they understand that?

  Poppy shook her head and squeezed my hand. “I wish you could, Lily. Please don’t do anything stupid,” she said and got up. Her words whirled around my head. Please don’t do anything stupid. My mind instantly conjured the image of him holding a knife up to me and it sent a bolt of pure horror right to my bones. I shuddered.

  “Which movie?” Rose asked.

  Violet shrugged. “Some old romantic chick flick. ” Was this what would happen every night? I felt a suffocating weight press down on my chest.

  Rose put the movie on, and they both sat on the sofa with me. They quickly became absorbed in what was happening on the screen. How could they care about a movie when he was out there preying on some poor girl? I pictured her scared and confused, fighting him for her freedom. Her eyes, completely made up in my imagination, were too wide, popping out of her head in horror. But was he really doing that? For all we knew, he could be going to bingo and just making himself sound scarier to force us to behave and not fight him. My heart clenched. I wanted to know which one was true.

  “Can we get normal TV?” I asked, blinking hard to get the girl’s eyes out of my mind. Would I be on the news? I must be by now.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Poppy shake her head. “No. ” Of course not. We were literally cut off from absolutely everything and everyone. We completely depended on him. I wished I had never gone out that night. I should have listened to Lewis and my family’s worries and let one of them take me. Every time one of them went on about it not being safe to walk alone at night, I would brush it off or tell them to stop being stupid. Looking back, I wanted to punch myself at how cocky I was about it. I felt invincible because I was naïve enough to think bad things only happen to other people.

  “We need to start dinner,” Rose said and switched the TV off after a while. “Do you want to help, Lily?” Summer.

  Did I have a choice? “Sure. ” What else was there to do to pass the time? It was better than sitting down thinking all the time. Although I did like thinking of my family because it took me away from here, I needed to stop sometimes and do something that would distract from how much I missed them. I would give absolutely anything just to talk to them.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked. They had already gotten everything out and were filling two pans with water. They all worked perfectly together. It looked like they were colleagues in a restaurant kitchen.

  “Would you peel the carrots and potatoes?” Poppy handed me the peeler, which was plastic apart from the blade in the middle. It didn’t look particularly sharp, but it was a possibility. Could it do enough damage, though? Knowing I was probably being watched by one or both of them, I looked away from the peeler and grabbed a potato.

  “Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?” I asked as I peeled.

  Rose sighed and it wasn’t in sadness; it was a frustrated sigh. Frustrated with me? “No. ”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Violet, can you get me an oven dish, please?” Rose asked, completely ignoring my question.

  That’s a no then. I felt so sorry for her. He had really screwed with her mind. Rose shoved the chicken in the oven dish and put it in the oven. She was pretending she hadn’t heard me, but I knew she would be thinking about it. How could she not? Did she know she was brainwashed?

  I’d finished peeling and chopping, so I chucked the potatoes and carrots in the water and turned the electric stovetop on. That was officially the most cooking I’d ever done. Mum would be shocked and proud at the same time; she might even check my forehead to see if I was ill.

  The atmosphere had changed; you could cut it with a knife and I knew it was because of my question. They kept their heads down and concentrated on what they were doing. Someone had to say it, though. Rose needed to realize, or re-realize, what he was doing was wrong.

  Staring at the water in the pan slowly start to bubble, I shook my head. I had just helped make him dinner. I had never even made Lewis dinner before. I smiled at the memory of the one and only time I had offered. He laughed and made a joke about not wanting to be poisoned. I was notoriously bad at cooking.

  The time Clover would be back was getting close. I could tell by the way they fussed around, double-checking everything was clean and tidy. My heart beat faster in anticipation. I didn’t want him down here, but I almost wanted him to walk through the door so I wouldn’t be so on edge waiting for it.

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  I debated whether I could pretend to be ill, but I didn’t want him to check up on me. Just eat dinner and keep to yourself until he leaves. This was something I would have to do twice a day on weekdays and three times a day on weekends until I was found.

  Finally, that sound I had so quickly come to dread echoed through the room—the cellar door unlocking. My hands trembled and my heart leaped into my mouth. Violet gave me a quick smile, t
elling me it’d be fine. It wouldn’t.

  “Good evening, Flowers,” he said and gave us a charming, this is all totally normal smile. That was how he got away with it. He looked so friendly you just instantly trusted him—unless you were down here, of course.

  “Good evening,” they replied in unison. I busied myself with draining the vegetables while making sure I kept an eye on exactly where he was.

  “Is it almost ready?”

  “Yes, just serving now,” Poppy replied.

  I carried two plates over, leaving them to sort out the rest. Rose carried his with a big smile on her face; she probably liked bringing her psycho his dinner.

  “Let’s eat then,” he said cheerfully and tucked into the huge roast dinner.

  I forced a bite down, desperate not to draw attention to myself by not eating, but every mouthful made my stomach churn. I kept my eyes on my plate, pretending to eat. All I wanted to do was to fade into the background and not catch his attention. I couldn’t relax while he was in the room; my tense body ached.

  “How was your day, Clover?” Rose asked.

  “Very good so far, thank you. I got a lot done. What about you?”

  “Good. We’ve watched a few great movies. ” What else are we going to do?

  He nodded once. “Well, let me know when you’re ready for more. ”

  “We will. Thank you. ” I wondered if Rose realized she spoke just like him whenever he was down here. They were so formal and polite to each other. It was eerie. “We were wondering if we could have more dress patterns. We’d quite like to make a few summer dresses. ” My head snapped up immediately. They made clothes? You needed scissors to cut fabric. A plan formed in my head straight away. How poetic would it be if he died the same way as he’d killed—a stab wound?

  “Would you teach me?” I piped in.

  Clover smiled triumphantly, as if he thought I had finally come around to his sick way of “living. ” “That’s a wonderful idea, Lily. I’m sure Rose, Violet, and Poppy would love to teach you, wouldn’t you, girls?”

  “Of course,” Rose agreed. My heart leaped with hope. A plan was already forming in my head, almost by itself. I managed to eat a little more food and smile at him almost politely. I could do this. I could play nice, and it was easier now because there was light at the end of the tunnel. We had a way.