BENEATH THE WATERY MOON a psychological thriller with a stunning twist

by REAVLEY, BETSY

  Once the joy of the experience had faded, I noticed that my teeth were chattering. I didn’t know whether it was a result of the icy water or the fever.

  ‘Disgustin’ whore.’ I heard him say to himself as he placed the empty bucket down in the corner of the room. In the mirror I noticed the sun was very low. The fever had left me disorientated, and I couldn’t tell whether it was dawn or dusk. The sun gleamed like a large, soft peach suspended in a marshmallow sky. It was stunning and I was lost in the beauty of it.

  I looked at him watching me with confusion. My face was almost happy, something he hadn’t seen before. It brought me crashing back into the reality of my situation. The sun may have been lovely, but I was still in the cellar, I was still his.

  He examined the new cleaner version of me with curious eyes before deciding what he was going to do next. The monster walked over to his workbench and began to rummage through his toolbox. I could feel my pulse quicken. I held my breath and tried to prepare myself for the next phase. I strained my sore head to see if I could get a glimpse of the implement he intended to use. I heard him suck in a nose full of snot. Every noise that came from him was vile.

  When he turned around he was holding a Stanley knife. The handle was a faded blue and grubby, but the blade shone with sharpness. I wished he would just cut my throat and be done with it. His revolting tongue came out of his mouth and wrapped itself around his fat pink bottom lip. The monster walked over to me and leaned down low so he could whisper in my ear.

  ‘Ready?’ I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t tear them away from the silver blade. With a firm hand he pinned my elbow down to the table so that I couldn’t move. Then he sliced through the skin and muscle of my upper arm. The blood ran out clean and new, like a red waterfall gushing. It stung to begin with and then the pain was gone. He made three long cuts in my right arm that stretched from my armpit to my elbow. The red blood that flowed from me looked vivid next to my pale skin. I gritted my teeth but couldn’t look away. I was transfixed. It was like watching an autopsy take place on someone else. I felt utterly detached. When he had finished with my right arm he moved around and made a start on my left, repeating the same cuts.

  I could feel the warm wet blood seeping onto the table, soaking my back. When he’d finished, he stood back and admired his handiwork. Of all the things he’d done to me, this was the least painful. I suspected that I might bleed to death. I felt dizzy. I had lost so much blood. He wiped the knife on his jeans and then put it away.

  ‘Back in a minute,’ he announced, leaving the room.

  Despite my light-headedness I recalled the incident with the vinegar and wondered if he had gone to get a bottle. When he reappeared he was carrying a bulging pillowcase. I thought he meant to smother me. Instead he tipped the contents out onto the workbench. The room filled with soft white feathers. They blew around in the air, carried by the slight draft that came in through a crack near the windowpane. The smaller ones floated about with the dusty air, before gradually finding their way back down to earth. It was almost beautiful.

  He began to arrange the feathers into three neat piles according to their size. It took him some time to finish the task but once he had, he turned triumphantly to face me. I was still feeling giddy, but I sensed that he hadn’t finished with me. He scooped up a pile of the largest feathers and brought them over to the bench. Carefully, he removed one and ran it across his chin. The look of pleasure on his face was grotesque. With his free hand he used his fingers to open up the knife wound on my arm. That hurt. He took the quill end and pushed it into the cut. A rush of blood poured out, soaking the white feather and turning it scarlet red. He repeated this process over and over again, until he had put a certain amount of large feathers into my right arm. Then he moved over to my left and did the same on that side. Once all the large feathers had been used up he stood back and tilted his head. He checked his work. It seemed that he was pleased with it.

  The monster went back over to his toolbox and removed a long thin needle and some dark brown embroidery thread. It didn’t take a genius to work out what was coming next. He pinched the raw cut skin together and started to stitch the feathers into my flesh. I squealed and wriggled. He slapped me hard across the face and then put a rag in my mouth. The rag was dirty and oily. It smelled and tasted like petrol. It made me gag. I tried to spit it out but it was wedged in. With each new stitch I bit down harder into the fabric. A guttural noise came from my throat and my breathing quickened. My chest heaved up and down. I noticed how sallow and flat my breasts had become, not unlike small empty balloons. I was starving to death.

  When he had finished, he tied a clumsy knot in the thread before cutting it. He repeated the process on my other arm. It felt right that he had turned me into an animal. I had been like a caged bird ever since he had abducted me. Now my body reflected my mind. The symbolism seemed fitting.

  He stuffed the medium and small sized feathers into my remaining gaping cuts and sewed them up too. He had given me wings. The feeling of faintness stayed with me all the while. By the time he’d finished I was too drained to protest anymore. He took a mobile phone out of his pocket and took a picture of me. The flash hurt my eyes. He squinted at the screen and with his small crazy eyes examined the photograph he had just taken. ‘My red angel,’ he said to himself with sickening glee.

  I was repulsed. So, that was what he thought he was creating. I wanted to scream and curse at him, but the gag was still in my mouth. My jaw was aching. I was breathing heavily through my nose and the smell of my blood mixed with the petrol rag was putrid. I gave a helpless moan, and he approached and removed the rag from my mouth.

  ‘God isn’t here,’ I managed to get out at last.

  He chuckled. ‘I know dat!’ he boomed. Then he left the room. The sound of the lock being turned, echoed around the damp walls, as I lay there, helpless, battered, and done for. I was as broken, then, as I would ever be. Whatever happened next didn’t really matter. He had already won.

  * * *

  After that, he left me alone for about twenty-four hours. I lay spread out, a pile of bones and bloody feathers, like a dead bird on the road. I was mangled inside and out. My body was numb. I no longer felt the pain like before. It had become my home and I accepted it, in the way that you learn to tolerate the cold in winter. I would never feel the satisfaction of comfort again, but I didn’t mourn it. It was such a distant memory that I could barely remember what it felt like. It remained no more than a lost dream.

  My death felt closer now than ever before. I was already dead in a sense. Just my useless body held on to life, refusing to give up. I cursed the survival instinct that is ingrained in all of us. Again, the human condition turned out to be flawed. I was tired of seeing the negatives in being alive and I was tired of living, of thinking about living. I wanted my mind to be as numb as my body. I wanted something inane to concentrate on, so I focused on the pattern in the cellar beams.

  My eyes examined every crack in the wood, the rings and the knots. I began to see the subtle different shades in the brown. I wondered what the trees had looked like before they had been hacked down to build the house the monster, and those who had gone before him, lived in. I tried to work out how old the house might be, maybe sixteenth or seventeenth century. I had no idea what size it was. The cellar wasn’t huge, but I had the feeling the house above me was much larger.

  I wondered if the monster had money. It wasn’t impossible. I doubted the house was rented. He couldn’t risk the interference of estate agents or a nosey landlord. I was reminded of my room at Christie Hall, which would now be sitting empty. My things would still be there, scattered about on the chair and other surfaces. A half-empty glass of water probably remained on my bedside table, gathering dust. Had people been through my belongings, searching for a clue to my whereabouts? Had the police been there? It seemed likely. The thought that I would never see my room, or gaze upon the photographs of my family and friends that adorned my
cupboard door, left me feeling hollow. I would never play my CDs or flick through any of the books I owned. My skin would not feel the fabric of my clothes against it. They would be put away in boxes and most likely stored in my mum’s attic. That was where she kept Lucy’s belongings, to this day. She couldn’t bear to part with them.

  My life would be packed neatly away and stored in the darkness until eventually someone decided it was time to let go of me, or I was forgotten. It was a solemn realization. I missed my life. This wasn’t living, it was surviving.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash in the mirror. I turned my head with lightning speed to see what had caused it. What greeted me was my own reflection. I had forgotten about myself. I looked like a charred child’s doll that had been left outside and beaten up by the elements for a long time. I never failed to be appalled at the vision of myself.

  My skin was pallid, where it wasn’t burnt or raw. Sprigs of hair grew out of my head like dry grasses in the desert. My eyes were so sunken into my skull that I looked sixty years older than I was. My mouth was dry and the skin of my lips was cracked and pale. I did my best not to linger on my shredded arms stuffed with bloody feathers. All I could think about was how I had become ‘His red angel.’ I felt a surge of emotion swell inside. I wanted to scream and felt as if I might have found the energy to do so. I let out a blood curdling long yell.

  It felt as if it went on for a very long time. Once I had finished and the noise and pain from inside had been expelled, I slumped back. My ribcage was heavy on my organs and my lungs felt stretched by the outburst. The release had done me good though. It exorcised some of the hatred that had been building up inside of me. I had begun to fear that my monster’s spirit was infecting me, that his rage and deep-seated loathing was contagious. I was learning what it was to hate. I had begun to find satisfaction within anger.

  He had done his best to ruin me physically and I was horrific to gaze upon, but he wasn’t going to have my soul.

  Then I heard the thud of feet walking around directly above me again. The ceiling vibrated with each footstep, and I could tell from the noise exactly where the monster was standing. I began to prepare myself for his return. I listened intently to the noises coming from above. I thought I heard the scream of a kettle. I heard banging, what sounded like pots and pans, and cupboards being opened and closed. It was easy to imagine him going about his daily business, tidying his kitchen, pretending to be human.

  I wondered what had made this man a monster. Had he been born like that or had life twisted its knife into him? There could be no excuse for him becoming what he had become, but I lingered on the question of nature versus nurture. I had always been a firm believer in nature. I accepted that events resulted in us adjusting our behaviour, but I had always felt people are born to be who they become.

  Lying in that prison left me feeling doubtful. It was too depressing a thought to think that the monster was always going to end up killing and torturing. I found no comfort in that answer. It would have been easier to believe that he had once been good and that life had dealt him a shit hand that had ruined him. I needed there to be an excuse for the monster, any excuse. I couldn’t fathom the idea he was just born that way.

  I looked around the cellar. It seemed smaller than it had before. Everything looked to be under a shadow, and not a glimpse of natural light could be found. It felt like late afternoon and the small world I inhabited was a chilly shade of grey. I examined the reflected view of the window and was transfixed by the sight. Small, perfect, white flakes floated down from the sky. It was snowing and I wallowed in the vision of purity. I had forgotten that it was almost Christmas when I was abducted. The season was irrelevant in my dungeon. I wondered if Christmas day had been and gone. I’d lost all concept of time.

  My urge to be out in the snow was almost unbearable. I would have killed to feel the icy cold crystals land and melt on my skin. I knew I would never again feel the touch of snow against my palms or flakes landing softly on my nose and face. I would never put on gloves or a hat and wander in the fields. Or hear the crunch of fresh snow beneath my boots. I remembered what it felt like and my head filled with childhood memories again. For a moment I was happy. I relived an afternoon spent with Will, hurling snowballs at the barn roof. Throwing them up in the air for our dog to jump and catch.

  * * *

  The next time I saw the monster he was wearing a Father Christmas hat. He burst into the cellar with a physical enthusiasm I hadn’t seen in him before. I realized it must be Christmas day and immediately thought of my family. The idea of my mother and brother sat together, possibly opening presents, with the dog lying by the roaring fire, warmed and saddened me. I had such fond memories of the festive period. It had usually been full of fun and laughter. This year the joy would be missing for us all. I prayed to Father Christmas to bring us some peace.

  The monster hummed the familiar tune of ‘We Three Kings.’ The white, fluffy bobble at the end of his hat swung gently to and fro. If he had worn a white beard he might have passed for Santa. His bulky frame would have done justice to the jolly red outfit. It was a bizarre thought. This was a man who should never be let near people. He should have been locked up in a zoo and studied by scientists, or fed to hungry bears.

  He seemed to be enjoying the festivities. The dread returned in spades, and nervous anticipation made it all much worse. I couldn’t bear the wait. It was a cruel game that he had invented to extend my turmoil further. I tried to relax and made an effort to slow my thumping heartbeat, which felt like it might burst out of my chest.

  I looked back at the snow-covered ground I could see in the reflection in the mirror. It was glistening under a gentle sunlight. It looked pure and clean. I began to feel my pulse slow down and gradually got a hold of myself. I marvelled at the tiny, glittering ice crystals that caught the light and seemed to shine with all the colours of the rainbow. I was so enraptured by the sight that I temporarily forgot he was in the room with me. He caught my attention again by thrusting his face close to mine and coughed the words, ‘Ho, ho ,ho.’

  It made me jump and a sharp surge of pain rippled through my body. My spine felt like it was broken in a thousand places, and the bones in my pelvis throbbed with the discomfort of movement. I turned my face away from his. My dry throat began to fill with the familiar taste of bile. I wretched but nothing would come out. My stomach was completely empty. I could feel his warm, sickly breath on my cheek and I closed my eyes. I needed to escape the horror of having him so close. It was then that I felt his dry tongue lick my blackened, bruised cheek. He whispered in my ear, ‘I got a special present for ya. Somefing real nice, bitch. It’ll clean ya right up.’

  The words echoed in my ear, and I smelled booze on his breath. The sweet scent of cheap whisky turned my stomach and made me want to throw up again. I was tired of his clichés. Did the psycho think he was starring in a film? I didn’t respond to his vicious mockery.

  He walked over to his workbench and searched around in his toolbox. I listened intently to the noise of the tools bashing and scraping against each other, trying to decipher what it was he was handling. When he turned around to face me, a twisted grin adorned his ugly face. He kept his right hand behind his back, hiding the instrument from me.

  ‘Dis is gonna hurt.’ He was relishing the power he held over me. Slowly bringing his hand forward, he revealed a set of secateurs. I was horrified. I suspected that my fingers were at risk and tried to prepare myself for their removal. He put the cutters down gently on the surface I was tied to and slowly ran a chubby finger down my torso, starting at my protruding collarbone and ending up at my pelvis. His fingertip felt rough against my thin, tight, burnt skin and it sent terror through every nerve in my body.

  His fingers lingered in my singed pubic hair, and he played with the wiry coils. My body began to tremble all over. Fear took hold of me. Without any warning he roughly grabbed my chin between his fingers and moved his face close to mine.r />
  ‘Stay still for dis bit if I were ya,’ he hissed, and his mad eyes bulged.

  I did as I was told. I focused on a spot on the ceiling. I didn’t want to witness what he was going to do. I felt his hand move back over my private parts and his fingers began to search me. A moment later he had found my clitoris and began to pull it up and away from my body. I held my breath and closed my eyes, knowing what was coming. Then I heard the snip from the garden cutters and agony surged through me, swiftly followed by a warm wet flood. I knew I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear myself. He had circumcised me.

  My scream went on for so long that I had to gasp to catch my breath. I opened my eyes again but refused to look at the area he had just decimated. I could see that the monster had returned to his workbench and his broad back was turned to me. I felt as if I had wet myself again, but knew that this time it was blood.

  When the monster turned, he held a jar with a yellow tinged transparent liquid in it. In the other hand he held the metal lid. I didn’t want to face him, but I couldn’t look away. I was gripped with a fascinated disgust. He was looking at me with a crazed closed lipped smile. Slowly and deliberately he opened his mouth and allowed his fat moist tongue to come out. On the tip of it sat a small bloody lump of flesh that had once been part of me. My mouth hung open as he held the fleshy morsel loosely between his teeth.

  His shoulders moved heavily up and down as he silently chuckled to himself. He moved the piece of me to in between his lips and half dropped, half spat, the grisly lump into the jar of fluid. There was a small splash as it broke the liquid surface before if floated down to the bottom, leaving behind it a red cloudy trail. He held the jar up to his face and proudly examined the contents.