BENEATH THE WATERY MOON a psychological thriller with a stunning twist

by REAVLEY, BETSY

  Embarrassment twinned with horror gripped me and tugged at my sanity. I wriggled in the yellow wetness trying to get away from the stench of ammonia; He would see it and he would know. His large frame appeared like a silhouette against a bright light, as the door burst open. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt his twisted grin and his eyes burning into me. The open wounds on my legs began to ache again with the memory. He came over to me and stood admiring his work. Then he snorted in a deep breath and hocked up a large amount of gluey phlegm onto my face. For a moment it felt warm on my cheek. I roared and screamed, writhing on the spot like an animal, unable to wipe the filth from my face.

  He gave a sickening chuckle before lifting a grubby finger and prodding one of the holes he had made with the hammer and nail. I moaned and closed my eyes, trying to ride out the agony. Then he picked up the water bottle and offered me a drink. I slurped hard, enjoying the cleanness in my mouth, washing away the stale spittle and taste of blood. Gratitude and violent hatred mingled together in my head, making me feel dizzy once more. My monster was also my lifeline. Placing the bottle back on the floor, he then pulled a crumbling biscuit out of his overalls’ pocket and held it to my mouth. As I bit down, a current of pain ran through my gum. The dry, hard texture dug into the place my tooth had been and sent a stabbing pain into my head. I knew I had to eat. With each small bite the throb in my skull increased. Once I’d finished the last mouthful I felt exhausted again.

  Without a second’s warning, he slapped my face hard, filling my mouth with the taste of blood again.

  ‘Say fank you, you fuckin bitch,’ he spluttered in anger.

  My eyes pricked with tears from the shock and hurt that rumbled through my cheekbone.

  ‘Sorwee, sorwee, dank yaw.’ I managed through my swollen gums, tongue, and lips.

  He now had his back turned to me, and I couldn’t tell if I had pleased him. I hoped I had. I wondered what he had planned for me as I looked down at my broken toes. When he turned to me again I saw that he had the hammer back in his hand. I thought I would be sick. A familiar tidal wave of nausea returned. I searched his other hand but it was empty. He came over to the bench I was tied to and put the hammer down near my feet. He raised his hand to his mouth, slowly licked two of his fingers, and then brought them down to my crotch. I froze like a deer in headlights. Then I felt his fingers in me, pushing hard, forcing their way in, just like the nails had done to my flesh earlier, only this time the pain was different. My vagina was dry, and his searching fingers were coarse and rough against my insides. I was unable to move. I don’t know how long it was before he pulled his hand away and put his fingers in his mouth, making a loud sucking sound.

  Next he picked up the hammer and held it by its head; without any warning, he thrust the handle into my burning groin. I squealed like a lamb being slaughtered. He pulled it back and then thrust harder again. Every time my muscles would tense, and every time it hurt more.

  I opened my eyes and watched this new type of rape take place in the mirror. It played out in slow motion. Everything was covered in long shadows, and out of the darkness I found the moon again. I forgot to think about the pain and just lay there as it happened, my eyes fixated on the lunar brilliance. I was so transfixed by the iridescent glow that I didn’t notice him remove the wooden-handled tool from my bruised parts. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his reflection in the mirror as he raised the hammer above his head. I turned just in time to see him bring it crashing down on my kneecap.

  The noise it made was unlike any other I had ever heard. It was a crack and pop rolled into one. The reflex sent uncontrollable vibrations up and down my leg. My eyes bulged and my vision was pricked with bright white spots. It felt as if a million shards of glass were digging into my knee, scraping against my skin and bone. It took a few minutes for my sight to return to normal and for the awfulness to sink in. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the damage but I knew I had too. A morbid curiosity crept through me. I felt like the driver on a motorway who stops to look at a fatal accident, only this time I was the victim as well as the voyeur.

  Looking down at the mess, my mind began to somersault. Where the bump of my knee had once been, was now a dented crater of bloody tissue. White splinters of fractured bone stuck out at various angles. An icy, liquid coldness punctured me. I watched as my leg jerked and twitched, the nerves in my knee were mangled beyond repair. I continued staring at it with such revolted concentration that I didn’t notice my torturer leave the room.

  Then a strange thing happened to me. I had an unfathomable urge to smoke. I hadn’t thought about cigarettes during my incarceration until that point. The desire was so intense that I almost forgot about the aching destruction of my knee. I just needed to smoke. I lay there for a moment, trying to remember the feel of a cigarette in between my fingers. I imagined the silver smoke snaking up into the air and became hypnotized by the fantasy. I started to see small amber lights glowing around me, like a thousand smoking cigarette tips. I would have suffered any pain in order to get my hands on a cigarette. I screamed into the night, my frustrations ringing through the silence. That was when I thought I might lose my mind altogether. The violence alone hadn’t been enough to tip me over the edge, although it should have been. I had smoked since I was a teenager, and it felt like such an intrinsic part of my character that having my craving denied seemed like the final straw.

  It wasn’t the last time during my ordeal that I would feel that way, nonetheless it was the first time I reacted to that specific frustration. They say you always remember your first time. I felt as if my predator was crunching everything I had, down to nothing, slowing picking away at the pieces of me that no one should ever be able to reach.

  I allowed myself to believe that I might be able to have a cigarette. It was easy to picture my captor smoking. I invented a scenario in which he put a lit cigarette between my lips and allowed me a long, luscious drag. The fantasy was gone too quickly, and I soon found I had tears pouring down my cheeks. I sobbed until I could not cry any more. Every last drop of energy had been spent, and I was left static in my own disenchantment.

  I wallowed in my nicotine mourning until I was too tired to think any more. I had done a good job of ignoring my knee up until then. I wasn’t sure I could even feel it any more. I began to suspect that I would not be able to walk properly again, providing I ever got out of there. Eventually, exhaustion got its claws into me, and my eyelids became too heavy to hold up.

  * * *

  When I next woke up, I felt bitterly cold. My body shook uncontrollably and my teeth chattered. My eyes found it hard not to stare at the mess, which had once been my knee. The blood was clotting and the smashed crater looked like a mass of sticky jam. A fly had landed on it and was feeding. Had I been able to move, I would have swatted it away, instead I was forced to watch as its disgusting tongue fed on my suffering. In a twisted way, I was glad to see that fly. For a moment or two I watched as it walked around on my cold pale leg. I was able to forget my restraints, the blood and the horror. The fly pottered about freely, unaware of my presence. I stayed totally still, terrified that I might frighten it away. At that moment I could have been anywhere. I could have been on a beach.

  My dreams came flooding back to me, and that uneasy feeling returned with a vengeance. I looked at my hand and searched for the engagement ring. I knew it wouldn’t be there, and never had been, but half of my mind returned to the fantasy and refused to let it go. The panic surged through me like an electric current. Thoughts of my family and friends returned. Up until then I had been so wrapped up in my own situation that I was unable to think of anything but my own basic survival. It wouldn’t have been possible to cope with thoughts of the people I held dear. Until then I couldn’t afford that luxury, but all of a sudden I was unable to contain myself.

  I thought about my mother and Will. I wondered how they were coping. Did they think I was dead? Maybe they believed I’d run away. Maybe they were at home, non
e the wiser, watching telly. Was anyone looking for me? Did my friends think I had just upped and gone home back to my Mum? After my confession to Jude, it would have been perfectly likely that I might have skulked off with my tail between my legs. Sickness returned to my empty belly as I relived the conversation with Jude and felt my heart breaking all over again.

  Pictures of friendly faces whirled around my head on a carousel. People I hadn’t thought about in years reappeared to me. It was as though my life was flashing before my eyes. The tornado of images passed through my mind with such speed that I was left with a feeling of motion sickness. My body shook and taunted me with the urge to urinate. What did it matter anymore? I wondered as I wet myself for a second time. Only it was a very different experience. This time I noticed the flood of red that seeped out of me. I whimpered like a dog, the sting was too much to bear. I remember the sound I made and the noise of the dribble falling from my bed onto the hard floor below. I listened as it slowed to a drip, but in the rhythmic patter I found little solace. I began to realize what Chinese water torture must be like for the prisoner. That thought led me to think about food. I would have drowned in a vat of noodles had I been given the opportunity, I was so hungry by this stage that I could see my rib cage expand and contract with every exhausted breath. My skeleton still had plenty of bones left for him to break.

  * * *

  I must have been in the cellar for more than a week now. He had come and fed me twice, shoving biscuit crumbs into my mouth and even gave me bite-sized pieces of fruit. Sometimes he brought me a glass of cold milk. It was so surreal. That was the only faint glimmer of gentleness I saw from my captor.

  It had become clear by then that I had little chance of escape. My shackles remained as steadfast as ever, and my body and mind continued to deteriorate. Desperation expanded and changed like the colours of my bruises. My injuries offered me a morbid fascination. It was similar to watching changing skies. The shapes and hues faded and moved. I saw varying shades of green, yellow, pink, purple, red, and blue over the course of some days. It was almost wonderful.

  I began to think my only hope for survival was to befriend my kidnapper. I’d read stories in newspapers about young girls who had been taken and kept in captivity for twenty years or more before they were rediscovered or escaped. I couldn’t see how I might survive twenty days, let alone years, but still I clung to the instinct to live. I fought an internal battle. I debated whether it would be better to die or remain in that state. As long as I wasn’t undergoing the torture, I could see hope but the moment he appeared and the pain started again, I found myself longing for a quick death.

  In the moments I was alone in the silence of my prison, I could dream. I could just about remember the rough details of the romance I hadn’t lived. I pictured the faces of my family. They remained crystal clear. I imagined conversations with those I missed most. It was easy to conjure up dialogue between my mother and myself. I knew she would tell me to hang on, to fight, that I was strong, that life was precious, that he wasn’t going to win. A list of clichés, but they were what I would have needed.

  In between thinking about the people I loved, I dreamt of food. My hunger made it easy to imagine delicious feasts. There were a few things in particular that I thought about: freshly made, thin and crispy, pizza margherita; chocolate fudge cake; Chinese food; and curry with all the trimmings, from my favourite curry house.

  The desire to eat was so intense that I could smell food cooking upstairs. The fantastical odours became so real that I remember crying out once, begging for a taste. Unfortunately, the mirage didn’t last long, but I still thought there was a small chance that this reality was the dream, or rather the nightmare, and that I would soon wake up, happy and sun-kissed on a perfect white sand beach.

  As had been the case so many times, that didn’t happen. I lay confined to the bed and inspected my body. Had it not been for the gross injuries I had suffered, I would have liked my figure. I was stick thin. How ironic life is sometimes. I hadn’t dared glance at my face in the mirror for a few days and had found a way to look at the reflection without really seeing myself. I had become invisible to my own eyes, and this was for the best. Vanity provided me with blindness to the suffering, and for that I was grateful. It’s amazing the form self-preservation can take. Even then I didn’t understand that the lessons I was learning were to be of no consequence, for in the next few days things were going to get much worse.

  * * *

  With the combination of my broken knee and toes, and the bloody punctures in my legs, it seemed I was ruined to his satisfaction. He stopped brutalizing me in that sense, but his attention became focused on a relentless routine of rape. He had done it so many times that I no longer fought. I would simply lie there and close my eyes. The pain was more excruciating each time. With each new invasion he irritated my raw parts, it was as if my insides were on fire, or suffering from intolerable carpet burns that were being pressed and rubbed up against. It seemed I would never heal. I bled every time, and I knew he had taken away any chance I might have of bearing children.

  I spent a long time mourning the loss of my future. Never mind the physical similarities to a miscarriage, it felt as though I was emotionally suffering the same thing. I grieved for my lost children. Their ghosts were all around me, in every shadow of the room. I saw them in the reflection of myself in the mirror, and they were beautiful. They hid during the daylight hours and came out to greet the moon. Only when the light shone at night was I able to identify my comfort and my sadness.

  I conjured up pictures of their faces in my head. With every rape I lost another child. I was surrounded by so many of them. Their spirits played all around me. I felt the echo of laughter envelop me, and in it I found solace. I was reminded of my own childhood. I remembered how invisible I felt when I was little. My individuality was still in its foetal state, trying to find a space where it could grow. But now I was fully formed I wished to go back to that time of innocence. I was glad that the younger me hadn’t known what was in store.

  I hoped my mum didn’t know that I was suffering, and would never know. If I suffered at the loss of my imaginary children, I wondered what it must be like for her. Enough time had now passed that people would be aware of my disappearance. I envisaged the news coverage, ‘Young woman missing’ and ‘Appeals for information’.

  That was when the penny dropped. The young women and the murders that had been happening around Southwold, I was one of them. I was now part of that story. Why hadn’t I realized before? It was so obvious. How could I have been so stupid? Why hadn’t I made the connection? A whirlwind of information swept around my head as I put together the pieces of the news I had heard and read. Three dead, no suspects, serial killer, victim, brutalized, naked, murdered, dumped.

  Then I vomited. The small amount of food that was in my stomach came spilling out of my mouth. Since I was unable to move I began to choke on my own sick. I gasped for fresh air with a wet mouthful of lumpy mucus and bile. I bucked like a horse being broken in, and eventually managed to clear my throat, enough to suck in a large gulp of clean air. Once I calmed down properly, and my breathing had returned to normal, I spat the remaining lumps of vomit out as far away from my trapped body as I could manage. My body was sweat ridden and I felt the dampness clinging to the creases in my skin. I felt so naked.

  I knew my brain wasn’t working properly. I was as ill as I had ever been. I had fallen down again, only this time it wasn’t clear if I would be able to walk away. Instability had stolen my youth, and now this monster was about to finish the job. I thought that my sadness would get bored and go away. Then I realized that I despised myself. The worst thing was that it felt like this time I was out of luck, and I deserved to be. Outside it was as if the world had closed its shutters, and the void I suddenly felt inside made me sick again. My throat was in indescribable pain. My soul ached. It was too late to fix myself. My body remained tied to the prison bed, but my mind was gone. W
hen that happened, I became free of all the septic infection that had crept over me.

  Before I had a minute to adjust to my new state, the door creaked open again. He lumbered in and stood over me. He had a bottle in his hand. The liquid inside was like wine, sloshing against the glass in a repetitive tidal movement. I was transfixed by the rhythm of the fluid. It glinted in the light and reminded me of Ribena and my childhood. The purple contents were rich and fruity looking. I thought he had brought me a drink.

  My monster loomed over me, inspecting my healing wounds. His icy glare lingered over the pale parts of me that remained uninjured. I could see he was making plans. He grunted and walked over to the wooden workbench. It seemed he enjoyed the mental torture as much as the physical pain he inflicted. He put the unidentified bottle down and removed a small clear plastic container from his pocket. He had his back to me and I noticed the width of his shoulders. I felt smaller than I had ever felt before.

  I was still caught up in my own ambivalence, struggling to cope with the newness of my emotional state, when he turned to face me. His right eye was looking in a different direction to his left. He was cross-eyed and I hadn’t noticed this before. He looked crazier than ever, and my stomach began to ache again. The familiar throb of pain returned.

  He picked up the bottle and approached me as he unscrewed the cap. I didn’t bother to wriggle or plead, the fight had left me. His dry, flaky top lip curled in a twisted smile to reveal a set of yellow teeth. He was enjoying himself, but I didn’t get the joke. Then he slowly lifted the glass bottle up over my thighs and gently dribbled the purple juice onto my legs. It only took a second of agony before I realized what was happening. The liquid was vinegar. The smell was unmistakable and the burning sensation excruciating. Fire ripped through my limbs and they flailed uncontrollably. Blood erupted out of each and every hole he had made. It was fresh and fluid, almost volcanic. If I was screaming, it was silently. I noticed disappointment in his face. He had enjoyed the anticipation more than the reality. He put the bottle down, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Then he began to undress.