Still Life (Still Life Series Book 1)

by Isobel Hart

  My bladder pressed uncomfortably, reminding me of my immediate priority. That was the main reason I had awoken at all. I pulled myself to standing, leaning against the softly padded wall to stabilise myself, the motion making my head spin. Nausea rose, and I staggered into the small bathroom, only reaching the toilet in time for half the vomit to fall within the toilet bowl. The rest splattered across the floor and up the pedestal, creating a curiously attractive orange contrast to the otherwise monochrome colour scheme. Jackson Pollock would have been proud. I collapsed to my knees, being careful to avoid what was on the floor, and rested my pounding head on the seat. From this position it became clear what my eight-by-eight room actually was: a padded cell.

  Once I’d relieved myself and cleared up the mess as best I was able, given the fact I had only toilet paper at my disposal, I walked back into the small room and stood below the camera. “Hey,” I called into the lens, waving at the device. It was positioned too high on the wall for me to reach. “Hey, is anyone there? Can someone help me, please?” My head pounded with the effort, a physical echo marking every time I used my voice. “Hello?” I called again.

  Five minutes later, or what I assumed was about five minutes, given that I had nothing to measure the passage of time, I’d still heard nothing. I strained my ears for any sounds of movement outside the room but the only sound was the thrum of my pulse in my ears. The continually blinking camera was the only sign that life continued at all outside of the room as it maintained its one-eyed stare. “Hey,” I shouted again after a further five of my minutes had passed. “I’m serious, I need to talk to someone, or–” I hesitated. Or what? What was I going to do? What could I do? Where the hell even was I?

  My internal rant was cut off by the sound of the door being unlocked. An electronic lock bleeped; six short beeps, followed by the longer tone that denoted a successful code entry, then the door clicked and opened inwards. I craned my neck to see who it was. Dr Nichols walked into the room.

  “Ms Davis, Samantha, it’s good to see you awake at last. You must have been tired. You slept for several hours.”

  “You stuck a fucking sedative in my neck. That’s all. Where am I? What place is this? I want to speak to a new lawyer.” I lunged forward and grabbed his arm. He shrugged me off quickly.

  “Please lie back down on the mattress, Samantha. Let me assure you that if you display any of the aggressive behaviour you exhibited earlier, I will need to sedate and restrain you again. For your own safety, of course, as well as mine. It’s a simple enough process to insert a catheter if we need to.” He rubbed his jaw, clearly remembering the clout I’d landed on him earlier, then made a quick gesture to someone behind him, who must have been standing in the hallway out of my line of sight. A large man in a nurse’s uniform entered the room, making it feel even smaller than it already was. In one hand, he held a mop and bucket, in the other a syringe. He looked at Dr Nichols, who nodded back at him, and quickly placed the syringe into his pocket before walking into my bathroom where he proceeded to clean the mess I’d missed in my earlier attempt at wiping up the vomit.

  “Where am I?” I asked again, turning back to Dr Nichols.

  “A safe place.”

  “Safe for whom? Where?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “How long do I have to stay here?” I thought of Elliott and how frantic he’d be about me.

  “Oh, Samantha, I’m not sure you quite understand. You have been committed to my care for both your own and the general public’s safety. That means you must stay here indefinitely. It’s not so bad,” he said, looking around.

  “I’m not mad,” I stated. “I know you think I am, but I’m not. You’ll see.”

  “I know you’re not mad, Samantha. Just inconvenient. And you annoyed the wrong person. So, you had to be stopped. Voila,” he said with a flourish, sounding pleased with himself as he threw his hands up in the Gallic style.

  “You can’t keep me here. People will look for me.”

  “I think you’ll find we can. You did a spectacular job of sounding completely delusional, with very little prompting on our part, I must say. It was simply marvellous. They couldn’t get rid of you fast enough by the time you’d finished. As for whether anyone is looking for you; well, Elliott should be meeting with a little accident right about . . . now,” he said with a look down at his watch. “You’d already been released from your job, so they’re not bothered a jot, and the one friend you have in the world who cares about you is convinced you’ve run to ground with your new love interest. So, you see there really is no one worrying about you at all.”

  “What do you want from me?” I said, as I wrapped my arms tight around my middle.

  “Apart from shutting you up for a little while, you mean?”

  I nodded.

  “Right now, nothing. For you to be forgotten. In the future? Well, all will become clear. In the meantime, relax.” He laughed, and I wanted to hit him again, jerking forward in my annoyance. The male nurse was by his side in seconds, syringe in his hand. For a few moments we all stared at one another, then Dr Nichols walked to the door, unlocked it and paused to glance back at me. “I’ll see you again when you’ve had a chance to reflect on your position here, Samantha. You’re really very lucky compared to some of the others. Important people have laid claim to you. Anyway, for now all you need to do is . . .” He looked around the small room, “take it easy. Cool off a little,” he said, waiting whilst the nurse collected his mop and bucket from the bathroom, before giving me a last grin and slamming the door closed behind them.

  ***

  By what I reckoned was day three, I’d begun to sing to myself. The only break to the monotony of the endless empty hours came either when I slept or when the nurse brought in my food, which helped me to mark the time.

  After what I believed was a week, I’d started to lose the plot. I begged the man, who continued to deliver my food every day, along with an occasional change of clothes, for something to fill my vast hours of nothingness. Even prisoners were allowed some respite from their incarceration – time in a yard, food in a canteen. I thought I remembered hearing some even had libraries. He ignored me, and as the days continued to trickle past I began to worry I really was losing my mind, or at least would lose it by the time anyone remembered me to realise I was missing. I questioned everything that had happened before I’d been locked up, and when I wasn’t doing that, I worried what had happened to the people I cared about: Elliott, Heidi – it was a depressingly short list. The day I added Victoria, I knew I really had begun to lose my mind.

  Time began to blur; a week turned into two and then more, and eventually I lost track. I slept and I ate. Most of the time after I ate I felt sick. Sometimes I vomited, like I had that first day, which made me wonder if they were putting something – maybe a sedative – into my food. I tried to exercise, doing press-ups and practising my kickboxing moves in the confined space, but most of the time I was so exhausted I gave up after only a few minutes. And all the while the blinking red eye of the camera watched me.

  After one of my more spectacular vomiting episodes, as I lay exhausted, curled on the cool, tiled floor of the bathroom, the door bleeped. My mind registered the abnormality of the hour for a visitor. Too little time had passed since I’d been brought my breakfast. I knew I’d not slept since I’d last eaten and lost track of time as a result, as it had been the meal that had led to me being crouched over the toilet in the first place. I registered a presence above me and opened my eyes. “Are you ill?” Dr Nichols asked, as he peered down at me.

  “Nice of you to finally notice. It certainly looks like it,” I muttered, feeling too tired after my most recent vomiting bout to even lift my head. He harrumphed, as if I had been deliberately disobedient and made myself ill just to spite him. He reached down and took my pulse, before scooping me up and laying me back down on the mattress. He pulled out a syringe.

  “What are you doing?” I cried, fearful he was abo
ut to inject me with some further poison. It was somewhat heartening I still possessed the will to live.

  “Relax. I’m just taking some blood. We need to find out why you’re ill.” He tied a band around my arm, slapping my veins until they obliged, and then slid the needle into the purple shadow beneath my skin. I watched passively as my blood filled the small chamber. He replaced the first vial with a second chamber and filled that too, before removing the needle. He pressed some cotton wool against the still-bleeding puncture wound and folded my arm to apply enough pressure to keep it in place. “Good girl,” he said with a smile, gazing down at me. “You really are quite lovely, you know,” he said, taking hold of my jaw and turning it first one way and then the other. “Even sick as you are.” I jerked away from him. “Anyway . . .” He leant over to pick up his vials, “. . . that’s me done for now. We’ll run a few tests and get back to you if there’s a medication you need to take. Your kind is disappointingly fragile. Most irritating.”

  I said nothing as he exited the room and left me once more to my solitude. I dropped my head back down onto the pillow, enjoying the cool sensation as it pressed against my cheek, closed my eyes and slept.

  ***

  Three days later, the door bleeped, announcing the arrival of a visitor – again between meals. I was feeling better today. I contemplated using my kickboxing skills to attack whoever it was, until the hulking nurse stepped in. The man was built like a brick wall. I knew my limitations.

  “Stand up,” he said. This was new; he’d never spoken to me before. “Stand up,” he said again, when I did nothing, and only gaped at him. Clumsily, I forced myself to upright, pulling myself up from the low mattress, staggering at the unfamiliar sensation of being on my feet. He grasped my elbow and pulled me towards the door.

  “Where are you taking me?” I gasped. He said nothing. It was funny, I reflected, that after all this time locked inside my cell, desperate to find a way out, the prospect of being taken outside now filled me with terror.

  He led me down a white corridor, my legs feeling stiff and unused to walking as I forced them into action to keep pace with his long stride. Doors like the one to my own cell ran along the length. Presumably leading to rooms identical to the one I had been held within, each filled with someone like me, going quietly mad.

  We turned a corner, and then a second, before we reached a door which led to a narrow staircase. He hurried me through and up the stairs, his tight grip on my elbow a clear reminder that I was still a prisoner here, ascending until the stairs finally stopped at another doorway. He entered another digital code, which unlocked the door with a shrill electronic beep, before pushing it open and leading me through.

  Daylight hit me first, my eyes squinting closed in the unfamiliar brightness after the dimmer artificial light in my cell. As my eyes adjusted, the high ceilings and grand architecture came into focus. I appeared to be in some sort of country estate house, if the artwork on the walls and busts arranged on plinths up the grand, wide staircase that now swept upwards ahead of us were anything to go by. I figured I’d been held in the old servants’ quarters which they’d adapted into cells.

  The nurse led me along another hallway, past numerous rooms I only caught glimpses of, until we arrived into a lounge area. Seven women reclined on plush armchairs. Several more were seated at a large table having what looked like breakfast. It was breakfast time. I hadn’t known for sure. I tensed, ready to call to them for help, but my captor’s hand tightened painfully on my elbow, threatening unspoken repercussions, so I hesitated.

  We walked across the room, the women’s eyes barely lifting to follow us, curious but unafraid, then out a door on the opposite side of the room, along another corridor. The place seemed vast and built like a warren. I had little chance of finding my way out again on my own. I looked at the windows we passed, figuring they were my best hope.

  Pushing through some heavy fire doors, we entered a newer part of the building. It appeared to be a later extension, the hallway again lined with rooms protected by entry codes, reminiscent of the area I had been housed in. I assumed more doors meant more cells, but when we passed a room that had been left open, instead of a cell like mine, I caught a glimpse of a well-furnished bedroom with a vast double bed. These occupants weren’t prisoners.

  We turned another corner and then stopped by a door that had Dr Nichols’ name on the outside. The man knocked sharply. “Come in,” Dr Nichols’ voice called from within. The man turned the handle and pulled me into an examination room. It was exactly like any other clinical room I had seen during my career, complete with a medical examination table in the middle.

  “Ah, Samantha,” he said, looking up. “Good, good. Please climb on.” He pointed at the table.

  “No!” I stepped back, my back hitting the nurse’s chest.

  He frowned at me. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

  I shuddered. “And I’m telling you there’s no way I’m letting you examine me on that.”

  “You want to find out what the matter is, don’t you? Want to know what’s been making you so ill?” It was true, I did want to know. I couldn’t ignore the fact there was something wrong with me.

  I climbed up reluctantly, convincing myself I could use the time to plan an escape. There had to be some way out of here, especially since the room was on the ground floor. I was hopeful, if at any point the nurse left, that I could overpower Dr Nichols.

  That was until another knock sounded on the door. The person on the other side didn’t wait for a response from Dr Nichols, opening the door immediately after knocking. Richard walked in, and hope fled.

  “Get away,” I cried, scooting off the bed and using it as a barrier between us.

  “Now, now, Samantha. No need to be like that. How are you feeling?” Richard said.

  I glared at him. “What do you care?”

  “Oh, I care very much. You’re very precious to me.”

  “Yeah, right. Fuck off.”

  “Vulgarity doesn’t suit you, and as my mother would have said, shows a distinct lack of vocabulary. So please, Samantha, if you can’t say something nice, please don’t say anything at all.”

  “You killed your mother, so if you don’t mind I won’t take advice of any sort from you. What do you want? Isn’t it enough that you’ve got me locked up here? Why do you need to torment me too?”

  “We don’t want to torment you. I’ve brought you a visitor. Come in,” he called over his shoulder. Edward walked into the room.

  “Hey.” He smiled at me. “Come and lie down, Sam,” Edward said, his voice gentle as he patted the bed. He looked pleased to see me.

  “I’ll stay where I am, thanks.” I was trapped in a room with a murderer and an attempted murderer. I scanned the room for anything I could use as a weapon. There was nothing. “Look, I don’t know why you don’t just kill me, same as you did with the others,” I said in desperation.

  “Oh, I thought about it quite carefully,” Richard admitted. “You really have been a frightful nuisance with one thing and another. But, despite his recent temper tantrum, Edward was adamant he wanted to keep you. He seems to be fond of you, and finds you very attractive. We need to procreate, that makes you valuable. Not all your women are as willing, or as appealing, to reproduce with as you were.”

  “You’re dreaming, aren’t you?” I laughed at Edward. “You tried to kill me. Anyway, what about Serena?”

  “What about her?” Edward looked confused. “She’s nothing to me.”

  “Our men aren’t monogamous, Samantha,” Richard explained.

  Anger surged. “Well, that should suit you down to the ground,” I seethed to Edward. “Unless you plan to rape me, there’s not a chance of anything happening between us. I don’t consent. I’ll never consent to any of you.” I stared at them in turn.

  “We’d much rather you were willing,” Richard said, unconcerned. “It’s so much more pleasurable that way. But if that’s not possible, then
we will do what’s required to breed from the women here. We’ll do what we have to do.”

  “So, you rape those women out there?”

  “No, Samantha.” He sounded amused by the prospect. “Believe me, they’re very willing.” He emphasised the word “very”. My stomach churned. “We’re building a fine breeding herd. Picking out the women with . . .” Richard paused, running his eyes down my body, “all the best assets. Most of the ladies are more than happy to have been chosen by us.”

  “Do they know what you are? What you really are?”

  “No, not yet. Just that we’re a group with an open attitude to sex. A group that focuses on celebrating and worshiping women, and allowing them to reproduce as often as biology will permit. Many women are more than happy to live this way, as you’ve no doubt seen on your way up here. We take care of all their needs.”

  I bit my tongue.

  “But you see that’s why we can’t allow you to mix freely with the others yet.” Clearly, I had more work to do on masking my emotions. “The time will come for telling the full facts, but not today. Anyway, enough of all that; we have a couple of pieces of good news to share with you.” I held my tongue, waiting instead for him to continue. “First of all,” he said, looking over at Edward, “we’re hoping your other little friend will soon be among our ranks. I believe a group were expecting to intercept him today. Hopefully once he’s here you’ll be more inclined to participate in the fun.”

  Edward and I both scowled at him this time.

  “Now, now, Edward. You know the rules here, we all have to share nicely.” Richard grinned. “I might even like a turn with her myself at some point.”

  Edward took an immediate step forward, his lip curled, fists clenched at his sides.

  Richard stood his ground, looking unperturbed, but his voice held an edge when he spoke. “Back off, Edward, before you do something you regret.”

  Dr Nichols stepped up behind Edward, a syringe in his hand.

  “We really need to manage the jealousy and possessiveness traits in our people,” Richard said to Dr Nichols. “All these hormones and emotions are really most inconvenient.”