[DeepInnerFreak]

The Lake House

Chapter Six

Bethany stands in the dark, cold basement of the lake house. No answers coming from the door above. Her naked body, covered in goosebumps, trying to break through the mud that sheathed her skin. Both the temperature and fear of the unknown, force the girl to wrap her arms around her body in an attempt to comfort herself. She lifts her feet alternately off the hard, bitter floor. She has so many questions; "who was the man chasing them? What does he want? Where is Chloë? What is he doing to her? Will I be next"?

Bethany breaks from her thoughts. “I need to get out of here”, she thinks to herself looking around. All she can see is black void. She can’t even see the hands in front of her as she walks circumspectly over to the wall below the door. She runs her fingers over the rough textured confines, making her way around the perimeter of the room. “I shouldn’t even be here. I should be in London. I knew this was a bad idea”. She follows the walls around, desperately trying to feel for something; an air vent, a covered window, another door, anything that will give her some hope of obtaining her freedom.

She feels something. Something wooden. She runs her fingers over the object that is fixed to the wall. It’s made of wood and metal. She has to move away from the wall slightly. Part of the object juts out by her shins and catches her leg. She carries on along the wall unsure of what it was. Now she feels something plastic, like some kind of container. It’s surrounded by metal pipes. “That’s no use”, she tells herself as she continues frantically feeling around the cold hard walls of the room. There is nothing. Nothing that will help her escape from this hard, cold inhabitable prison. The walls only offer her silence in answer to her questions. Her heart sinks as she feels something wooden. It’s the same item as before. She has gone full circle.

Bethany hears the sound of the door being unbolted. She turns around as the door opens, covering her naked body as best she can. Looking up to where she thinks the door is, she sees nothing. Just darkness.

“Who’s there?” she asks. There is a tremble to her voice. Despite the temperature her hands are clammy and she tries to control her rapid breathing.

A flashlight shines straight on her, illuminating the room. Bethany looks away from the bright light, too intense to look at directly. Her eyes have been accustomed to the dark now. Legs together she turns sidewards, leaning against the far wall, lowering her body. Cowering with one arm covering her breasts, she holds up the other towards the light, blocking out its harshness.

She can not make out who is shining the bright torch but whoever he is, he stays quiet. The light gives Bethany a glimpse of her surroundings. The rough, uneven texture of the concrete floor underneath her. The dull, grey breeze blocks that make the walls–totally at odds with the rest of the house's quaint characteristics. There is a wooden balance bench in the middle of the room and some other items draped with a dark blanket, but before she can make any of it out in detail, the torch goes out. Back to darkness.

Bethany looks back towards the door, hoping for some sign of what is going on. The man is still standing there. She can hear them breathing. Some text appears, like it is written on an iPad in night mode.

“Do as I say”

Bethany looks at the words. It’s her worst fear. He will likely hurt her. She doesn’t want to die. She stares at the words, letting them sink in before they disappear, replaced by some instructions.

“Put these on. One around your ankles and one around your wrists”.

Bethany hears the light sound of plastic hitting the floor nearby. The spotlight is turned on again, highlighting two black plastic cable ties at the foot of where the ladder was. Bethany shudders. She’ll have no way to fight back, no way to run. She hesitates. She doesn’t move an inch.

The instructions disappear once again before a new message is shown.

“Fine”.

“Fine?”, thinks Bethany, “Fine? What does fine mean”? The message goes away, the door closes, it's bolted and locked.

“No, wait”, screams Bethany, “come back”, wanting the man who holds her freedom to return. Wanting to be able to speak to them. Wanting to understand what is going on and what they want with her. “Please”, Bethany shouts into the darkness. “Please, come back, please”. Her shouts turn into cries as the fear of the unknown begins to set in.

There is no answer. They don’t come back. Bethany is stuck, all alone in the basement. Her thoughts are her only company. This was torture.

Bethany can no longer stand the agony of the cold floor on her feet. Simply swapping her feet is no longer working. They feel frozen, almost numb. She remembers the bench from when the room was lit. She slowly makes her way over to it, hunched over putting her hands first reaching out into the black, not wanting to stub her toes. She feels the wood of the bench and places her naked butt on its smooth surface. Not warm but not freezing she lifts her feet up, relieving them from the savage concrete floor.

As Bethany sits on the bench, she reflects what brought her to this point. “You didn’t listen to yourself, you knew leaving London was a bad idea. Your gut is always right about these things. It was a bad move letting that dumb blonde bitch talk you into coming. Someone like me should never be in this situation”. She lays down on the bench, giving her back a rest. Her tummy grumbles, it’s been half a day since she had eaten. Being alone reminds her of certain times in foster care. She feels like crying, she feels so lost, but she won’t cry. “I was a kid back then, I’m an adult now. Crying is a sign of weakness and I am not weak”, she tells herself. “Crying is what all the delicate, fragile flowers who have been my flatmates end up doing. That is not me. Stupid blonde bitch is probably crying right now. I won’t give him that satisfaction. I’ll yell and scream at him. Fucking pervert thinking he can hold me here”. Bethany stops herself. “No, I can’t. I have to play along. Play his sick twisted game”.

Bethany’s thoughts are broken by the sound of the bolt being dragged across and the door opening. She sits up looking into the dark, scanning for the door, pulling her knees up to her chest. “What do you want with me?”

The flashlight turns on. Bethany looks away again, the brightness too extreme for her eyes before she senses the light aiming at the floor. She looks down to see the black restraints being highlighted to her. Bethany decides if she is going to play along, she wants some assurances.

“How do I know you’re just not going to come down here and rape me, or kill me?”

The flashlight turns off, before some more words appear on the tablet.

“You don’t”.

Unimpressed with the answer, she tries a different approach. “What do I get out of it? If I do what you want, what will you give me?”.

The words disappear and Bethany can hear the door start to close again. “No please, please don’t go. I’m hungry and thirsty. I’m cold. Please stay, please help me”.

The torch is switched on again, focused on the cable ties on the floor.

Bethany realises she can’t battle with them. They simply have all the leverage. She knows she has to go along with what they want. She has no choice. She can’t bear to be alone, locked away, ignored, abandoned for much longer. She inches towards the ties. She knows this is not a good idea but right now it’s better than being left for dead. cold. “Maybe by complying, he’ll show willing, at least give me a drink, maybe feed me”, she hopes as she picks up the first length of plastic looking up at the dark door.

The flashlight flicks across her ankles as if to tell her to get on with it. Bethany looks down at her mud caked feet and slowly wraps the plastic around her ankles, threading the length through the strap. The sound of the plastic teeth grind like a zip as she pulls it tight.

The flashlight beams on the remaining tie which she tentatively picks up. “This is it. No going back now”, she tells herself as she places the tie on her bent knees, using them as a surface before pushing her wrists on top and using her mouth to feed and pull the strap in place.

“There”, Bethany sighs despondently.

The light goes out. She hears a quiet shuffle from the door above before the sound of the ladder being lowered. She closes her eyes, placing her tied arms around her knees and tucks her head inside herself, curling up, trying not to think of what’s about to happen.

She hears the sound of the ladder creaking as they lower themselves down the rungs into the basement. Bethany’s body tenses, certain this person will hurt her as she hears their shoes thud the hard concrete.

Bethany clenches her eyes, her body held rigid as she waits. She waits in perfect silence. Only her heavy breathing fills the expanse. But nothing happens. She holds her breath. Silence fills the room.

She opens one eye, her other still pulled firmly shut–nothing. She opens the other. "Was I mistaken"? She thinks. "Did they not come down the ladder"? She brings her head up slightly, looking to the direction of the door. She twists her head a little more.

Bethany was not mistaken. She realised this the moment her neck was grabbed with some force by a hand. Something being wrapped around her neck. “Aaaghh”, Bethany screams bringing her tied hands to her neck, believing she is being strangled before the tension slacks and she is pushed against the unrelenting cold floor. As she tries to regain her senses, she hears the person climbing back up the ladder.

Bethany sits back up. She senses something around her neck. It feels like some kind of leather collar, but there’s a coolness in places. Then she understands without question what it is as she screams out again, this time in desperate agony. Electrical shocks rush down her neck, tensing her body. It felt like her bones were vibrating and her muscles contracted tightly around them. “Fuccccccckkkkk”, she screams out, her face pressed against the hard floor. The pain dissipates and she begins to breathe again.

The darkness that has surrounded her for the past couple of hours is evaporated by a blistering light from the ceiling. Bethany immediately closes her eyes, wrenching her neck to focus her face away from the ceiling to the floor. She blinks frantically, her forehead pressed against the hard concrete, getting herself adjusted to the brightness. On all fours she looks up squinting, trying to focus on the door. Her eyes adjust and the blurring dissolves. There they are. She sees the figure of her tormentor standing in the doorway.