‘See, I told you it’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘He came back.’
But now I had a feeling something bad was coming. I could sense Gary wasn’t happy with us being able to hear him.
Later, we learned the reason for the 24-hour absence – he’d driven all the way to New York from Philly to post Sandra’s letter and that’s why he was away for a whole day.
And it worked too – when Sandra’s relatives got the letter, they presented it to Armstrong, who immediately dismissed their concerns for her safety, assuming it was just another case of a runaway girl.
But back then, we were in complete ignorance. I wondered if he had another girl stashed upstairs.
No, when he came back down, it wasn’t with a woman, but a handful of screwdrivers.
And then, like a man with a DIY task to complete, he set to work.
First he got Sandra and he pushed her down on the ground so he could turn her head to the side.
‘Now don’t you go screaming when I do this,’ he warned her. My heart was in my mouth. What was he going to do?
Straddling her, he took one of the screwdrivers and deliberately pointed it into her ear and started pushing it in, hard.
‘Agghhh!!’ she screamed in agony.
My mouth fell open in horror, a silent cry hanging in the air.
‘STOP IT!’ Gary shouted at her. ‘Stop screaming – just let me do this. Don’t worry – you know that I’m a licensed nurse, I know just how far I can push it in without making you deaf. I just want to deaden your eardrums a little so you can’t hear me coming and going.’
But Sandra couldn’t help herself – she was letting out pitiful strangled little shrieks as the pain seared into her ear. Now there was blood pouring out and Gary sat back, seemingly happy with his handiwork.
Slowly, he turned her over so now her bleeding ear was resting on the ground and he repeated the same torture on her other eardrum.
I was so shocked I couldn’t do anything except shake with fear, knowing it was my turn next. And soon enough Gary pushed me down onto the ground and he had the full weight of his body on top of me while my ear was pointed at the ceiling, exposed and ready for him to drill into.
I smelled the rich earthiness of the ground next to me, my cheek now squashed against the hard soil. I started to sob with fear.
The pain when it came was so severe, it made me dry heave. I thought I was going to pass out as he pushed down harder and harder, twisting the implement now with concentration and precision. It felt like he was digging a hole straight into my brain. I started to scream and scream and scream. It felt like he was killing me.
When the hot oozing gush of blood started pouring down my earlobe, Gary seemed satisfied and his weight lifted off me. My hand flew up automatically to my ear and I felt the thick blood pooling in my ear and slipping down my neck. Gary quickly pinned my arm back down again and turned me over to do the other side.
‘Stop, stop, please stop,’ I begged but he showed no mercy, just a cool determination to see the job through to the end.
By the time he was done Sandra and I were both curled up on the floor crying like babies, each of us covered in blood.
His voice now seemed to come from far away, muffled as if he was in another room, though I knew he was standing right by my head.
‘You better keep those clean,’ he warned. ‘Because if they get infected, I can’t help you. Ain’t nobody going to hospital. That’s a fact. You gonna have to heal yourselves Indian-style. Natural, that’s the only way things are gonna happen round here.’
Then he left.
Sandra and I crawled towards each other, both weeping uncontrollably, and fell into each other’s arms. There we stayed, crying and holding one another. There was nothing to say.
Once again our lives seemed to slip into a nightmarish routine that consisted of being in the basement or in the hole, being fed bread and water, watching the occasional sitcom on our television and being forced to submit to regular sex.
Except now Sandra and I had painful ears. It turned out he didn’t break our eardrums but the dull ache inside my head remained for a long time afterwards.
We tried to stick to Gary’s rules, make him feel good, look up to him in the way he expected. When he wasn’t pleased with either of us we got punished – a beating or some time in the hole. But gradually the time between the punishments got longer and longer.
The days slid past, though we never had any real sense of time since the glare of the blub was our only light. It never went off so days and nights became the same. Our body clocks adjusted and we took small catnaps, a few hours at a time. Every new day marked a step away from my old life, a loosening of the grip of normality as Gary’s bizarre underground world seemed to swallow me whole.
My way of keeping myself sane was to think of my kids, of the apartment that I had found for us, of being all together, one happy family. I’d get clean for good, I’d get a new job. We’d be together and that was all that mattered.
About a month after I arrived, I got my first bath.
Since being locked up in that basement I’d not been able to wash myself, brush my teeth or hair or clean myself in any way. We had no way to do it.
I didn’t know why but suddenly one day Gary announced he was going to let us bathe.
It was my turn first – I guess because I’d been there longest – and he unlocked the padlock and led me upstairs with the chains still on.
I moved slowly, dragging the heavy chains behind me. The sound as they scraped along the floorboards was painful, like nails being dragged down a chalkboard. The house was light and strange to me now. I was so used to seeing the basement lit with just the bulb my eyes couldn’t adjust properly to the sunlight coming through the windows and I had to squint to stop the light hurting them.
He led me to the second floor of the house, where he had a small bathroom, and there I could see he’d already run a bath for me.
He reattached the chain to another pipe up there and then he told me to get in the water. I was on edge – I was always on edge around Gary. You never knew what new sick method of torture he’d dreamt up, whether you could trust him or whether this was a trick.
Gently, I dipped a toe into the water. The bath was beautifully warm.
I let my foot fall to the bottom, then, steadying myself with my arm, I brought in the other foot and crouched down in the water before stretching my legs out before me.
Oh my God, the feeling was indescribable. Just heavenly. I never knew water could feel so good. I let out an involuntary moan as Gary rearranged the chains so they bunched up next to the bath, then he put down the toilet seat and sat down next to me. I tried not to look at him. I tried to focus on the wonderful sensations of the water holding me, enveloping me, soothing every bit of my skin and washing away the dirt and filth of the last month.
I sank lower down into the water and my muscles seemed to relax in the warmth – it was the first time I had experienced real warmth in months.
I let my chin fall to my chest and my face break the surface, then I ducked my head down completely and let the waters wash over me like a baptism, renewing me, making me whole again. It was so overwhelming, so cleansing, I feared I might cry. But I knew this wouldn’t help me so I simply closed my eyes and let the dampness ease itself out of my eyes and mingle with the water around my face.
‘Here!’ Gary handed me a bar of soap. ‘You can use this.’
His voice was enough to bring me to my senses. I accepted the lime-green bar and sank it into the water, working up a lather as I spun it round in my hands. Then I started to wash myself all over, getting every bit of earth and dirt I could off my body. The smell was harsh, carbolic but it may as well have been the sweetest jasmine in the world – anything was better than that moldy, damp stench of soil that had filled my nostrils every waking hour this past month.
I didn’t know how long I was in there for. It felt as if I’d almost gone into some trance
as I methodically worked my hands up and down my legs, around the heels of my feet, between every single toe, under my armpits and around the outside of my arms, over my belly, down my hips, up to my face and around my cheeks to my ears then back round my head and down my neck.
I used the soap to get my hair washed too, though I’d no comb or brush so my poor hair was stuck up in all strange ways, badly tangled and broken off from the number of times he’d picked me up by my ponytail.
After I was done, I stood up and Gary handed me a small grey towel, no bigger really than a hand towel. But it was enough and though hard and grainy against my skin, I felt invigorated for having washed myself completely.
There was nothing else to put on except the same shirt I’d been wearing the whole time, so I put this over my head and Gary now undid the chains from the pipe and led me out of the bathroom. But instead of going straight downstairs again, he took me into his bedroom and had sex with me there on his strange tilted bed. His heavy, large limbs on top of me, the smell of his stale breath on my face, the mechanical pumping and coarse grunts, it nearly destroyed the wonderful tingly sensation I still had from my bath. Nearly.
Afterwards he led me back down the stairs again to the basement. He had got me going ahead of him the whole time so he could see me perfectly but I couldn’t see him at all. It crossed my mind maybe I could get him now but I realized that if I made any sudden movement at all, he was going to come down on me so hard, he might just kill me. Plus, I couldn’t see anything I could grab that I might be able to use as a weapon. The problem was that Gary wasn’t a small guy – he was well over six feet and strong with it. So if I was going to take him on I knew I’d better make damn sure I killed him and quickly or he was going to kill me.
The cellar felt cold when we returned but I didn’t let that bother me. I’d got used to being cold here – it wasn’t like I could do anything about it and besides, it was hardly my primary concern.
The next day Gary took Sandra up for her bath and returned about an hour later, just like he did with me. But for that time, I was on my own in the cellar again and it felt terrible. The blank walls crowded in on me. My mind started to race and I felt my pulse quicken and panic overtake my thoughts. What if he got rid of Sandra while they were up there? What if she struggled and he killed her? Would he have to kill me next? I paced the floor distractedly, trying to work out in my mind what I would do in each scenario. Nothing was implausible anymore. Nothing was too extreme for this man.
I realized then that Sandra’s presence the past few weeks had probably kept me from going completely insane. It had only been a matter of minutes and yet here I was, nearly hysterical from fear. If it wasn’t for Sandra, I wouldn’t have made it this far. When she returned I couldn’t help but smile at her and she, like the kind soul she was, smiled right back.
After Gary left that day, I confided: ‘I’m so pleased you’re here. You know, when you were upstairs I was sick with worry.’
‘Ha ha ha, Nicole!’ she laughed.
‘What?’ I didn’t understand. I thought I was being nice, telling her that I appreciated her being here with me.
‘Yeah, well, you may be pleased but I ain’t all that over-the-moon about being down here.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I smiled back. ‘I don’t mean that. I’m not pleased Gary’s got you down here too. Of course! I just mean I’d go insane if you weren’t here.’
‘Thanks, Nicole,’ she said. ‘Yeah, you’re all right too.’
Suddenly, I was struck by sadness. Sadness and pity – for her, for me, for this whole damn situation. The bath had made me feel almost normal again, reminded me of the life I’d left behind.
‘I’ll get us out of here, Sandra. I promise you. I’ll find a way.’
‘I believe you, Nicole. I think you’ll do it.’
* * *
It was a few days before Christmas when Gary asked me when my period was due.
‘What day is it?’ I asked.
‘The 20th,’ he replied.
The 20th of December? I couldn’t believe it. I did some quick calculations and with a sinking heart I realized that I had missed it. This was horrific to me. If I got out, how could I raise a child from this monster alongside my precious babies? But then, possibly being pregnant could mean that Gary might treat me better.
‘It should have come on the 17th,’ I said, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible.
‘Really?’ Gary grinned for the first time since I’d known him. It was a sinister, self-satisfied grin. He started to hum to himself then as, for the next few hours, he worked away at the hole, building up a sweat, digging away as the mounds of earth piled up around him. Just as he was leaving he said: ‘I guess my plan is working out just fine then.’
Chapter Seven
Lisa
‘Coming down!’ Gary called from the top of the steps that led into the basement.
It was two days later and Sandra and I were in the basement, lying down on the air mattress. We looked up to see Gary bringing down a girl – a naked black girl with her hands cuffed behind her, just like Sandra and me.
The girl was crying but Gary seemed oblivious, as if there was nothing unusual in the whole situation.
‘This here is Lisa,’ he said curtly, indicating the crying girl, then he set to work with the muffler clamps on her ankles and the Krazy Glue, just as he did before.
All the while he was chattering away. ‘I got to start wearing my glasses. I nearly picked up a man! There’s this girl who jumps in my car – and she’s wearing a dress so I just assume of course that she’s female. Well, we start talking and then the girl pulls up her dress – and the dude has a dick!’
Gary started laughing and shaking his head at the thought.
‘Oh man! I swear I had no idea. I take one look at that thing and I say: “Oh no – you got to go! I’m not into that. Get out of my car!”
‘That was not a pleasant experience. Luckily, it wasn’t long before I see Lisa here and she’s just crazy about my car. Isn’t that right, Lisa?’
By now Gary had the clamps screwed on tight, the chain attached and padlocked to the water pipe and he was opening up the hole to put Lisa inside.
Meanwhile, she was weeping and sobbing, as you would expect. She looked young too, much younger than me and Sandra.
Once Gary went back upstairs, Sandra and I called out to her.
‘I’m Nicole and this is Sandra,’ I said, dipping my head close to the board so she could hear me. ‘You’re gonna be okay. Don’t worry. He just puts you in the hole to begin with and soon you’ll be out. As long as you do what he says there ain’t gonna be any problems. Don’t cry. I promise. It won’t be too bad.’
She was still sniffling a little but after a few hours she quietened down and it wasn’t long before Gary was back down in the basement, letting her up to be with us.
He gave us all some bread and water and then he lay us all down to have sex with us. This time, he laid me down first, then Sandra and finally Lisa.
Now that he thought I was pregnant I realized that he didn’t want to come inside me – he was concentrating on Lisa. So he had sex with me a little first, then Sandra and he finished up with Lisa. She submitted, just like we did.
Before he went back up, he gave Lisa a shirt to put on. She accepted it without question and then watched him warily as he ascended the stairs.
‘What’s going on?’ she demanded as soon as he was out of sight.
I placed my finger on my lips – we knew better than to start blabbing before we could be sure he wasn’t standing on the other side of the door upstairs.
Now that our ears had been deadened we found our voices were quite loud and we realized he could hear us talking if he was near the basement door.
The floorboards creaked as he moved away and then I spoke. ‘He’s nuts. He’s got this plan that he’s going to keep ten women down here and get us all pregnant and then we’re all going to have his babies down here
in this basement.
‘He thinks I might already be pregnant – I’ve been here the longest, about a month already. Sandra’s been here about three weeks. She knew him before – they used to be friends. It’s not too bad, like we say, as long as you’re quiet and compliant. He don’t like screaming and shouting.
‘The thing is, you got to do what he says otherwise you get punished. He just wants you to go with the program and not complain or argue or nothing. It makes it easier for all of us that way. How did he get you? Were you tricking?’
‘I’m not a hooker!’ Lisa shot back.
‘No? Well, I am. That’s how he got me.’
‘I just liked his car and he seemed really nice.’
Lisa was on her way to a friend’s house when she noticed his Cadillac pulling slowly down Lehigh Avenue on the north side of Philly. He waved at her and she waved back. It was enough encouragement to Gary – he pulled up alongside her and asked if she was dating.
When she told him she wasn’t a hooker, he offered her a lift instead.
‘I liked his car,’ she wailed, now obviously regretting being seduced by a flashy set of wheels.
‘How old are you?’ I asked.
‘Nineteen,’ she sniffed.
‘You got kids?’
‘Two – they’re at home with my mom. How can I stay down here? What about my kids? It’s gonna be Christmas in three days! It’s so cold down here. Why haven’t we got nothing more to wear than a shirt each? What about pants?’
Lisa’s mind was jumping from one thing to another but I managed to get her to focus enough to carry on with her story.
‘So I don’t think there’s any harm in letting him give me a lift to my friend’s house and I’m thinking she’ll be real impressed when I roll up in this sweet thing! He didn’t look mean – he looked really nice.
‘Anyway, we get there and I have to get a pair of gloves I’ve left there and he says he’ll wait for me, which suits me fine because as he’s down there waiting, I can show my friend this beautiful car waiting outside for me.
Cellar Girl Page 7