I Am Death

Seventy-one

Alison coughed and spluttered awake with a jolt as freezing water was splashed on to her face. Her natural reaction was to shake her head, but she immediately regretted it. The pain that the movement awakened inside her skull was so acute she believed her brain was being squeezed by a giant pair of pincers. But the pain she felt inside her head was nothing compared to how her body agonized as the water dripped down from her face and made contact with the tens of open wounds on her torso, arms and legs. One would be forgiven for believing that the animalistic scream she let out belonged to some dying beast.

She coughed again, this time trying to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy and sticky and it required an effort of will to force them open. Water trickled into her gasping mouth and she finally understood why it made everything hurt so much. The water was heavy with a salty, vinegary taste.

A single drop made it past her right eyelid and as it coated her cornea it stung at her eyeball. Immediately, her eyes shot closed once again before she started blinking ferociously, which she did for almost a full minute.

Pain now came at her from all angles and she grunted as her body began shaking, unable to handle the brutality of it all. She braced herself for another bucket full of vinegary water over her head but it never came.

Alison finally blinked her eyes open again. The sting was still there but not as incapacitating as before. The blurriness was now very subtle.

The man was standing directly in front of her. Immobile. Staring.

They finally locked eyes. The feeling of familiarity was still there, but no matter how hard she tried, her brain just couldn’t place him.

The man had lowered the chain that held her arms by a few inches. Alison’s feet could now properly touch the ground, but her legs carried no strength. The bulk of her weight was still being held by her arms and the chain shackled to her wrists — which had now lost their skin. Metal was resting against unprotected raw flesh. Her hands felt like blood-filled balloons and a tiny prick was all that was needed for them to burst spectacularly.

Because Alison kept slipping in and out of consciousness, she had no way of telling the time. No way of knowing how long she had been held captive.

In silence, the man continued to study Alison. Her naked body had been made even more beautiful by all the small cuts and lacerations he had made. At least that was how he saw it. The blood that had flowed from them had recolored her skin in beautiful crimson and that vision filled him with an almost uncontrollable excitement, and his body responded accordingly.

They stared at each other for a long while until, surprisingly, the man was the first to break eye contact. He turned and walked over to the workshop table in the corner.

The action caused panic to erupt inside Alison. She had already been whipped and flogged like an eighteenth-century slave, until she had passed out. She had never experienced pain that deep, that debilitating.

‘Oh, please, no.’ The words stumbled out of her cracked lips, as her eyes were once again filled with tears. ‘No... not again.’

Alison had no idea why she was there, why the man had taken her or why he was punishing her in the way he was. Was he connected to her father? He had barely said a word to her. All he did was either watch her or beat her up.

‘Please, talk to me... ’ she pleaded. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Ignoring her, the man picked up something from the workshop table.

Every muscle in Alison’s body tensed up. She wanted to plead again but she couldn’t speak anymore. Her sobs were too intense for that.

The man turned to face her again.

Alison squinted, trying to focus on what he held in his hand, but whatever it was it was too small for her to see.

The man got closer.

Three steps.

Two.

One.

Alison caught a glimpse of something metallic between his fingers.

A knife?

A scalpel?

What?

There was nothing she could do but cry uncontrollably.

She closed her eyes and held her breath, bracing herself. A moment later, she heard the sound of metal scraping against the concrete floor.

Her eyes squeezed tighter.

A few seconds after that, she felt her body swing forward just a little but, surprisingly, it was accompanied by no further pain.

Her first thought was that maybe her body was already so battered that it just hadn’t registered the pain yet.

She waited.

The pain finally came.

And from where else but her arms? So powerful, she felt consciousness slipping away from her again. Her eyes fluttered as she exhaled and, in her mind, her body began a slow descent into a dark and cold abyss.

But before she hit its bottom, something, or someone, caught her. Right at that moment, her legs turned to jelly and she slumped down on to something hard and uncomfortable. She breathed in a full mouth of hot, humid air, and that was when she realized that she wasn’t imagining it. She wasn’t falling down into an abyss, she was simply falling down.

The man had grabbed a set of padlock keys and freed her from her shackles. The metal scraping sound she’d heard earlier was a fold-up chair he had dragged and placed under her legs.

As she collapsed into the chair, her arms dropped down to her sides and the sensation that followed was a mixture of total relief together with immeasurable pain. Blood began to freely flow through them for the first time in who knew how long. The feeling was so intense that her body couldn’t take it. She curved forward and vomited on to the floor.

Surprisingly, that did not upset her captor. When she was done, he grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back up into a sitting position.

Slobs of vomit dripped down from her lips on to her naked torso and legs. She started breathing deeply, her chest rising and falling in a broken rhythm. Her arms now began to feel like they were on fire. One million pins and needles found their way into her hands and fingers.

Alison’s head slumped forward again, her chin coming into contact with her chest. The man, realizing that she was about to pass out, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back.

‘No, no, no. Stay with me, Alison. I need you awake. I need you to feel everything.’

Her jaw fell open and he spat inside her mouth.

‘Are you listening to me?’

She half coughed, half gagged on his spit. It tasted like sour milk and rotten eggs, but it had the desired effect. It brought Alison back to consciousness.

‘That’s my girl,’ the man said, letting go of her hair and taking a step back.

This time Alison was able to hold her head in place by herself, but something made her doubt that she was one hundred percent conscious. As the man moved toward the workshop table once again, she caught a glimpse of something that froze her soul. In one of the corners of the basement, hidden in the shadows, she could swear that she saw a little boy. He was staring straight at her. The terror in his eyes easily matched the fear in hers.