by West, Sam
When they reached the top of the landing, he opened the first door and shoved her inside the darkened room. The first thing she noticed was that the window was boarded up on the inside. Lines of sunlight shone through the gaps between the planks of wood and as her eyes slowly grew accustomed to the gloom, it was plenty enough to see by.
Hazel forgot that she wasn’t supposed to scream when her vision fully adjusted to the sudden darkness.
“I had a feeling you might do that,” he said, grabbing her from behind and pressing a hand over her mouth. “Shush,” he whispered in her ear.
Hazel thrashed and writhed in his grip. The feel of him pressed against the length of her back made her skin crawl almost as much as the sight which met her terrified gaze. There was a woman laid out on the double-bed and unfortunately for Hazel, she recognised the female form instantly. She was even wearing the same tattered sundress she had worn in Edward’s ‘film’.
His mother… And she looks pretty fucking dead to me.
In a moment of clarity she realised what must have happened in the rest of the film that she didn’t see the end of. Despite the dimness of the bedroom, she could see that the poor woman wasn’t lying in a pool of her own blood. So that meant Edward must have killed her in the basement, and then dragged her body up here.
“Are you going to behave yourself now?”
Forcing herself to relax in his grip, she nodded her head. His palm slid over her lips, making her feel sick and briefly she fantasised about sinking her teeth into him. “I’m going to have to gag you. I’ve got a feeling you’re going to be doing a lot of screaming by the time I’m through with you.”
Hazel was dangerously close to losing it. Every part of her ached to lash out; to scream herself hoarse and claw at him like a wildcat. Instead she closed her eyes, willing the madness away.
You have to keep it together. You just have to.
Now there was just air where seconds before his weight had been pressed against her, and she almost buckled with the sudden freedom.
“I’m sorry, baby, really.”
Hazel didn’t think he sounded sorry at all. In his hand he held a ball-gag, the likes of which she had only seen in horror films that depicted hardcore bdsm. She hadn’t seen where he had got it from, and neither did she care. Even in the dim light she could easily make out the bright red of the rubber ball and the leather straps attached to it.
“Open wide, sweetheart.”
No. I can’t let him do this to me.
She took a step backwards, edging closer to the still open bedroom door. Edward rolled his eyes before swiftly closing the gap between them, spinning her around and shoving her face first onto the bed. She landed with a soft bounce, her hands crushing awkwardly beneath her weight. Now her face was twisted towards Jazmine Sullivan’s. And if her wide, staring eyes and her odour of mouldering wheelie bins languishing in the sun was anything to go by, was most definitely dead.
“Mum’s holding out remarkably well, smell wise. But then, it was only yesterday I killed her…”
Then she screamed. In that moment she didn’t care what he might do to her. To hell with his threats, to hell with everything. Because hell was exactly where she was.
When she felt strong hands around her neck choking the life out of her she still didn’t stop, even if the intensity of her screams lessened. His fiercely squeezing fingers made her head feel like it was screwed on too tight and her eyeballs pop. The ringing in her ears was almost deafening. When he spoke, it sounded like he was whispering:
“Shut the fuck up! This isn’t fucking London, people actually get worried here if they hear screaming, and only the basement is soundproofed. The neighbours will come knocking and my documentary isn’t finished yet.”
Hazel began to genuinely panic. No air was entering her lungs and she knew that death could only be mere moments away. Just when she thought that that this was it, the monstrous pressure ceased. She remained where she was, face down on the bed, choking on air. When he rolled her floppy body over she could do nothing to stop it. Pathetically, she stared up at him. His horrid face swam in and out of focus and she had never felt so weak and defeated.
Easily he shoved the evil looking, red rubber ball into her mouth and she felt her tongue flatten instantly. It tasted as evil as it looked, reminding her of bike tyres and party balloons. Her first instinct was to fight him, but she bit down the urge. Panic set in next; her nose was clogged with snot from crying and she was still suffering from being choked a second ago. A heartbroken moan was wrenched upwards from her twisting guts to be silently absorbed by the gag. She could feel her nostrils flare with the effort of sucking down enough oxygen and she closed her eyes in blind panic for a second as he fiddled with the straps behind her head.
Once the straps were fastened, he let her head drop back down onto the pillow.
“As much as I love you Hazel, you need to be taught some manners. And you need to be taught some respect. You are mine, do you understand that?”
She stared blankly up at him, his words making little sense in her fevered brain. Then she nodded, her desire to survive all-persuasive.
Gently, he picked up her wrists by the tape and eased her arms over her head.
Oh God, not again. If he rapes me next to his dead mother I don’t think I could stand it…
With one hand he held her wrists in place as he bent over and reached for something underneath the bed. In his free hand was another roll of electrical tape.
Jesus, he must bulk buy the fucking stuff from B and Q.
Quickly, he secured her bound wrists to the metal headboard and there she was once more, laid out like an offering to the devil.
“Dear, sweet Hazel,” he said, trailing a fingertip down her cheek. “You really are quite beautiful. Although I’m afraid that’s about to change.” He turned his attention to the still-fresh corpse lying next to her. “She’s a beauty, don’t you think, Mother? A real doll.”
Inside, Hazel shrivelled up to nothing. She was doing her best to keep her sanity anchored, but the storm that was Edward threatened to wash it away for good. Again, he leaned down and reached under the bed, his hand reappearing with a pair of kitchen scissors and a small potato knife. He sat down on the bed by her shoulders - probably so she didn’t kick him – and began to cut through her flimsy little dress, starting at the hem. He spread the dress wide, revealing her nude body. Tenderly he explored her exposed body with his eyes and his fingertips, and she fully expected him to rape her again. Instead, he withdrew his wandering hands, and smiled lovingly down at her.
“I’m sorry, baby, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” He let out a snort of laughter. “Fuck it, who am I kidding, it’s going to hurt you a shit load more than it will me. Smile for the camera.”
As he said that last part, he gestured with the faintest flick of his head to a corner of the ceiling over by the boarded-up window. Despite the darkness and her terrified state, she spotted a small wall mounted camera, exactly the same as the one in the basement.
And then she didn’t give a shit about the camera, or anything else for that matter. There was only the pain. It consumed her, a white heat that licked at her tender body, making her back arch and her limbs spasm.
“Please,” she gasped, but the ball-gag muffled the word as surely as a padded cell would muffle the cries of a lunatic.
“Hush, it’s okay, we’re making art together, you’re going to be the most famous woman in the world.”
She let out another ungodly scream when he sliced the potato-knife into a different part of her stomach. She felt the fluid movements of the blade, cutting unknown shapes into her flesh.
“Relax, I’m not going to kill you, the cuts are shallow enough. I’m just doing what has to be done.”
Hazel was hyperventilating now, her little breasts rapidly rising and falling in time with her strained heart. Wet heat spilled out over her sides, soaking the duvet cover.
“I am writin
g on you, Hazel. Isn’t that clever? For as long as you shall live, you shall never forget that I own you. You look so confused. Don’t worry, all will become clear soon.” She howled into the rubber ball, biting down on it so hard she almost broke her teeth. “Will you keep still? It’s very hard to write straight when you’re wriggling like that.”
Hazel continued to jerk and scream and Edward sighed in frustration. He straddled her waist, effectively stopping her from bucking.
“Just have to do your tits now.” When Hazel glanced down at herself, she saw the knife sink into the white flesh of her breasts, and suddenly they weren’t white anymore. “I doubt you’ll be wearing low-cut tops ever again.”
He worked quickly, finishing what he felt he needed to do in less than a couple of minutes.
“There, all done. I have to go downstairs now and get something. Just lay there and relax a bit with my mum.”
The weight lifted from her waist and his footsteps retreated out the room. She didn’t look, she just lay there staring up at the ceiling, hurting all over yet at the same time numbed by shock. She refused to turn her head and see the sightless corpse staring back at her. To do so would be to confront her own insanity head on, and Hazel wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. A small spark of survival instinct still flickered within her.
Her body felt slick with blood.
Oh God, what has he done to me?
As much as the skin on her stomach and breasts throbbed in pain, she could tell, even in her irrational state that Edward was correct; that the wounds weren’t life threatening in themselves. Yes, she was bleeding, but she felt pretty sure that no internal organs had been cut. How many pints of blood was it that a human-being could lose before they died? Three? Four? That was a lot of blood, and even though she felt drenched in it, it probably wasn’t that much.
If he keeps me here like this, I’m more likely to die from an infection.
Just the thought of a dead body touching her open wounds made her shudder and she edged away from the cadaver as much as her restraints would allow.
But she still had to know the extent of the damage he had inflicted upon her. Stealing herself, she lifted up her head and peered down her torso. In the dim light of the room, her body looked sheathed in dark crimson paint.
The sight was too much and she promptly fainted.
“Wake up, sleepy-head.”
Her faint had not been deep. Her eyes snapped open and there was not even a second of blissful forgetfulness. She groaned into the gag shaking her head at him and her eyes wide.
Please, no more, please, please, please…
“Look what I’ve got.”
Hazel’s eyes swivelled in the direction of the saucepan he was proudly brandishing.
And is that a paintbrush he’s holding?
“Just one more job to do and then I’ve got to go out and meet someone. When I’ve done this, I’ll stop the bleeding and tidy you up a bit. It’s just that my artwork will set better the more it bleeds.”
Hazel continued to shake her head at him, pleading with him with her big brown eyes. Edward resumed his place on the side of the bed and swirled the paintbrush around in the saucepan. Hazel’s nostrils flared in terror when she caught a waft of something akin to the odour of an aftermath of a fry-up.
Cooking oil, she realised in mounting terror. Boiling cooking oil.
He removed the paintbrush and it emerged glistening. He set the saucepan down by his feet and prised open her legs before dabbing the coated bristles of the brush against the lips of her vagina. The pain was like a lightning bolt shooting through her entire body and she screamed into the gag until her throat was raw. When he started to daintily dab the brush over the flesh of her stomach, it was too much. She faded in and out of consciousness, more out of psychological trauma than physical pain. It hurt, but it was the idea of what he was doing to her rather than the actuality of it that was the most traumatic. She felt her mind unhinging, floating to another plane before it was repeatedly dragged back for more abuse.
“There, I’m done,” he said, snapping her mind back to herself yet again. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He began to dab at her convulsing, abused body with some kind of cloth. She didn’t know what it was exactly because she didn’t look. She just continued to stare up at the ceiling wishing herself dead. He didn’t speak for a long time. It felt like hours, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. He stopped dabbing at her wounds and she felt more of a consistent pressure on various parts of her torso.
Her untethered mind drifted off again, to be brought back by a change in pressure on her wounds and the smell of antiseptic.
Germoline? Savalon? She wasn’t sure.
She heard the sound of something sticky unravelling. Not electrical tape this time, something softer. A distant, still comprehending part of her mind was aware of him gently bandaging her up.
“I think you should try and get some rest, we’ve got a big night ahead of us,” he said, breaking the silence. “Like I say, I have to go and meet someone now. My girlfriend, actually. She’s on the beach, the lazy bitch is always there. Don’t be jealous, I don’t love her, it’s you I love. I guess you could say I’m just using her.” Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of him dismissively waving a hand. “Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll explain it all later tonight. I won’t be long, an hour, tops. In the meantime, maybe you and Mum can get better acquainted while I’m gone.”
He laughed at that, but Hazel steadfastly refused to look at anything besides the ceiling. He left her alone with only the corpse and her own agony for company.
CHAPTER SIX
Anabelle Curnow, or just plain Belle, as she was known, stretched luxuriously on the white sand. Her feet hung off the edge of the towel and the tiny grains massaged the crevices between her toes. She let out a soft sigh of satisfaction.
God, it felt so good with the sun heating her bare back and the backs of her thighs.
It would be even better if Ed was here.
The sun beat relentlessly down on her bare skin and she closed her eyes, imagining how Ed’s hands, slick with suntan lotion, would feel on her flesh…
“Hello, sweetheart.”
The familiar voice made her heart lurch and her eyes snap open. She rolled over onto her back and sat up.
“Ed, I can’t believe you’re here.” She bounced to her feet and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him squarely on the mouth and pressing her bikini-clad body against his. “Oh God, I’ve missed you so much.”
“I only saw you a fortnight ago.”
“I know, but it feels like forever.”
He gave her rump a playful pat through the seat of her bikini pants and gently prised her off him.
“I’ve missed you too, baby.”
God, why do I find this guy so attractive, she wondered. He so wasn’t her type, being about as far removed from herself as it was possible to get. She usually went for own kind; blonde, tanned and care-free. In other words a total beach-bum. Edward was just so intense. With his pale skin, tight, black clothes and dark shades hiding his eyes, he looked like a vampire. A smoking hot vampire, but a vampire nonetheless.
But find him attractive she did.
Attractive? Who are you kidding? You’re like, totally in love with him...
“When did you get here? How long are you down for? God, why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were busy in London with uni and stuff.”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did that alright. How did you even know where I was?”
“It’s a hot day, you don’t have a job, and you like to be tanned. It doesn’t take a genius to work out you’d be on the beach.”
“Jeez, you sound like my mother. All I hear lately is you need to get a job, and this town will make you a waster, and you don’t want to end up like my sister.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Not my sister, silly. My
mum’s sister. She like, died before I was born.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. How did she die?”
Belle’s dead aunt could not have been further from her mind, and she looked at him blankly for a moment.
“Aunt Linda? Mum’s always been pretty vague about it, you know? She died in a freak road accident, or something, Mum’s never gone into details and I’ve never pushed. But never mind stuff that happened like a zillion years ago, you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Which one?”
She punched him playfully on the arm and he fell onto the sand, rubbing his arm. She didn’t hesitate when he shuffled over to her towel and patted the empty space next to him. He draped his arm over her shoulders and she snuggled next to him, the heat coming off his black clothes as intense as a radiator against her skin.
“You know, you should lose the t-shirt, get a bit of sun on you, you’re like, such an emo.”
“I am not an emo. I’m just a very intense kind of guy that happens to have fallen for a very sunny blonde.”
Fallen? Did he say he’s fallen for me?
Her mouth was suddenly dry and her heart hammered hard against her ribs as she struggled to keep her cool and remember what she was saying.
Oh, yeah. “So when did you get here and why didn’t you tell me?”
“I arrived last night, and like I said, I wanted to surprise you.”
“Are you staying at the youth hostel over in St Ives again?”
“No, I’m staying at the house.”
“The house? As in the house? But the season has kicked in, why are you staying there?”
“Mum decided she didn’t want to let it out anymore, says she wants to put it on the market. We’re in the process of sorting it out.”
“You know, I don’t even know where this house is.”
“I told you, it’s on Leopold Street in the old fisherman’s quarter.”
“But you’ve never told me the house number.”