Here Lies Love Read online

  Here Lies Love

  By

  Dan Thompson

  Here Lies Love

  First published for Kindle 2014 by Autumn Orchard

  Text copyright © Dan Thompson

  Author photograph © Alan Ball

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  The author asserts the moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, sorted in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This book is written using the English (United Kingdom) language

  Front cover © Ravven

  http://ravven.com

  All rights reserved.

  For all my writing buddies:

  Who inspire me every day with their witty, intelligent, emotional and mind blowing stories. I wish you all the success in the world; you all truly deserve it.

  Also by Dan Thompson

  Adult Novels:

  The Caseworker’s Memoirs

  Teenage/YA Novels:

  The Black Petal – coming soon and published by Ghostly Publishing

  Poetry:

  Life is all but a vast array of Colours

  Praise for Dan Thompson

  “The author has a huge talent for suspense; he knows just how long to linger on the intrigue and keep his reader fascinated.”

  - Alison Jack, Author of Dory’s Avengers

  “Dan Thompson has an eloquent style of character description.”

  - Elizabeth Guizzetti, Author of Other Systems

  “[Here Lies Love is] a truly harrowing tale made worthwhile by a beautifully compelling protagonist.”

  - Jack Croxall, Bestselling Amazon Author of the Tethers trilogy

  This book contains scenes not suitable for younger readers. Themes of violence, sexual abuse and suicide are explored and not appropriate for some older readers too

  “Where there is love, there is life.”

  -Mahatma Ghandi

  “Forget what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you.”

  -Anon

  “Blood isn’t always thicker than water.”

  -Sharon Sant, Runners

  Chapter One. A Sad World

  The artificial blue haze did little to illuminate the cityscape; a cold glow that instilled little faith to the people that scavenged and plundered beneath. As he watched from up above, out of his dirty window, Stefan knew as soon as one of them found something edible - be it a mouldy potato, bruised apple or soiled meat - a fight would ensue.

  The stifled sobs behind him brought him out of his thoughts. He ignored them and continued to gaze out of the window.

  The moon seemed so far away. Further even than it was a day earlier. It was as if the world was losing its grasp on the lunar god in the sky. She was getting ready to turn her back on them just as the sun had done decades earlier; the world a loveless and lonely orphan left in their wake. He remembered so vividly of how his grandfather spoke of luscious fields so green they felt like velvet. And trees too, trees that bore delicious fruit, unlike the dilapidated skeletal things that surrounded the city like a ring of death, a constant reminder of what was fast approaching. The world had become a miniscule existence with an effete, delusive society.

  A whimper rattled his ears. He closed his eyes, swallowing the anger back into the bowels of his body. Breathe. Just breathe.

  But where was his grandfather now? Stefan knew that he was just as likely to be as dry as the ring of trees. He was just another example of a lost generation. He had no family left now. Alone. Isolated. He knew how the moon felt; he’d probably turn his back on them all too. He unlatched the window and its wood casing creaked against the rusty metal. A stagnant chill caressed his face and he inhaled deeply, allowing the poisoned air to course through his veins.

  The shuffle and groan irritated him once again. He slammed the window shut and placed his bald head against the cold smooth glass. All he wanted was quiet, a halcyon existence. Why was that so difficult? He approached an uneven side table in the darkness and, striking a match, lit up the leaning candle placed there. Holding it inches away from his face, the flickering warm against his cheek, he turned his attention to a waxy cage in the corner of the room. As he got nearer, the cries became more attuned and more frequent. He couldn’t suppress the smile.

  As the candlelight reached further into the cage, the shaded silhouette gave birth to a girl bound by prickly rope. Her dirty blonde hair looked matted by grunge and dirt. The mucky rags she wore were ripped and slashed, covered in patches of dark red. Blood, from where the thick rope had tugged and bitten into her skin, blunt teeth that gnawed at her over and over.

  Stefan giggled, enjoying the victim’s fear as if it was his drug of choice, addicted by its delectable taste. As the girl cried more, she choked upon the cloth stuffed in her mouth. Stefan reached inside and snatched the cloth away and she coughed violently, her saliva dribbling from her dry lips and dangling off her chin.

  “Please,” she begged, her words coarse and quiet. “Please, some water.”

  Stefan eyed the chipped mug of water he’d left on the floor just inches from the cage. He considered leaving it there, but the chance to torment the girl was too good to ignore. Placing the flickering candle down, he hovered the mug in front of her, circling it in front of her eyes. A giddy flutter of excitement tickled his insides.

  “Please.”

  He held his hand up to apologise, nearing the mug to her cracked lips. Just as the girl went to take a sip, Stefan tipped the water onto the floor in front of her. In mad desperation, the girl lunged forwards and started to lick up the liquid. Stefan broke the silence with fits of laughter.

  “Oh what a sad, sad world this really is,” he cursed, spitting at her, antagonising her even more as he poked and jabbed at her bare arms with his sharp fingernails. The girl screamed in short bursts and sobbed once more.

  “No. No. No. No. No. No,” the girl gasped as Stefan slipped a knife from his jacket pocket, the candlelight glinting in its jagged edges. His deep chuckles resonated around the room and hearing the echoes of his own perverse enjoyment edged him further into a state of euphoria.

  “If you behave, I may keep you alive,” Stefan whispered. The girl nodded, visibly gulping her sorrow away. Her eyes refused to blink, their bloodshot appearance emphasising the terror locked inside them. Her nose was running and her teeth chattered incessantly.

  Stefan nodded back in silence. Using the knife, he sliced the thin rope that held the cage together and it collapsed releasing the girl from her prison. Motioning with his head, he ushered the girl forward, half crawling half sliding towards the only door in the room. Perhaps he should let her go? He was running out of toys, acquiring new ones had become more difficult. He was running out of tokens.

  He wasn’t getting any younger either. As much as he hated to admit it, this business he dabbled in was exhausting his already weathered body. As the moon rose each night, Stefan felt the aches more. His insides were riddled with maladies no witch doctor could diagnose.

  And by the time the moon had sunken to its sleepy bed, Stefan would cough fits of black, syrupy blood and grit. A countdown was ticking above his head. Only the cruel fates knew exactly how much longer he had.

  He might as well enjoy what time he had left upon this land.

  The girl slowly slugged towards the door. Her shaking reminded him of why he did this. The power, the fear – a perfect balance, a perfect unison. He refused to be played; no one would get the better of him. He was immune to emotion. He
eyed the knife, it calling out to him. Compassion, sympathy, forgiveness. Signs of weakness, all of them.

  The girl had reached the door. Striding across the wooden floor, he grabbed the girl’s ankles and dragged her back into his domain. Her high-pitched screams reverberated throughout the room and possibly even outside into the blue haze, but Stefan didn’t mind. No one would hear and even if they did, they would simply turn away and slip into the eternal darkness. Humanity was but a shadow of its humane past. Charitable aid and kindness got you killed in this sad world. No, no one would hear her screams, all except for him, and that was precisely how he liked it.

  Chapter Two. Escape is Futile

  The horrific cries wailed through Abbey’s ears like a swarm of hissing wasps. She clamped her rough hands against them, desperate to drown out the nightmare that played out in the room above. Yet she still could sense the atrocity, and it gripped her guts like twisted barbed wire. Abbey retched, the bile burning her throat. She wanted to cry; cry for herself, cry for the girl upstairs, for she knew that whatever he was doing, it was a portent for what was waiting for her.

  The tears wouldn’t come. Abbey wasn’t surprised, she had run out days ago. How long had she been here? Time seemed to abandon her at the door; hours fused together, days no longer began and ended, instead continuously replayed with new horrors. She should be hungry, but she wasn’t interested. The bile had left an acidic aftertaste, and the noise and sounds from above had certainly put her off. Thirsty, yes. Hungry, not a chance.

  An uncomfortable ache forced her to shuffle to the cage’s wooden poles. With no room to stand, nor any space to lay completely flat, Abbey had gotten used to shifting her position. She pressed her face against the wood and looked up searching for the cracks in the floorboards. The delicate powdering of dust, which floated down gave her the sign she was hoping for. He was going to be preoccupied for a while, giving Abbey precious time to work on her escape.

  She had finally decided to risk it. Abbey was the last, which meant only one thing. She was next, and she would rather die trying than die fulfilling whatever grotesque and unimaginable fantasy he had planned for her.

  Twisting her arms behind her back, she used the tips of her fingers to pull a nail file from her stained jean pocket, before scrambling to a corner of her jail that pressed against the cold concrete wall. Near the bottom of one of the poles, she felt around for the indentation she had been working on since the day she was thrown into this nightmarish existence. Her breathing became erratic as she scraped and pulled the file back and forth. She was close to snapping the wood from its frame; then she would run.

  Occasionally, Abbey slipped and caught the file against her knuckles, making them bleed. She bit her tongue to suppress the burning pain; it didn’t matter, the sharp agony was of no consequence. She had been lucky to not get caught, even more fortunate not to having been chosen. She thought of the poor girl he had dragged upstairs. Abbey had wished she didn’t know her name, ashamed at the sudden thought. To be just the girl in the cage opposite to her. He had threatened them with heart-wrenching horrors if they spoke to one another, and afraid for their lives, they both refrained from starting a conversation, until Abbey braved it. If – when she escaped, she vowed to light a candle in Rheanne’s memory.

  She worked the nail file harder, determined to be free.

  Where would she go when she got away? She couldn’t go home that was for sure. The realisation of her situation made her falter slightly, nicking her knuckles once more.

  “Damn it,” she yelped.

  Her father had sold her, that’s all Stefan would tell her. Why? How could he have sold his only child? Times were hard, she understood that, but to sell her – her mother would be turning in her grave, or so she hoped.

  The wooden pole cracked with a tearing peal, the momentum pulling her forward, and she hit her face against the wall. Abbey held her head with a slight groan until the fuzziness trickled away. Then, however, the chops and bangs from upstairs faded into an abrupt silence. She held her breath, flicking her ginger hair out of her face and stared intently at the floorboards. For a few minutes, silence, but then a single set of footsteps cascaded from one side of the room to the other, a thin trail of dust heading straight for Abbey. He’d finished. Oh no.

  Abbey knew her time was running out. She couldn’t just hide the nail file, he’d see the broken pole. She had no choice but to run. She placed her feet through the gaps and firmly pushed against the wall. The cage shifted slightly, tipping off the ground, but it collapsed again as her feet slid down the wall. The concrete was numbingly raw against her bare feet, but she refused to give in. Her father had always criticised her stubbornness; thankfully Stefan hadn’t scared that out of her just yet.

  Abbey pushed hard once more, gritting her teeth, her head shaking excessively. Her mouth was dry and crude, but she felt the cage tilt once more. She exclaimed in a muffled sort of exertion. The cage crashed backwards. It had worked. Abbey scrambled to her feet and broke the loose pole free. Hoisting herself through the tiny gap - cursing as the poles either side scraped against her face - Abbey clambered free from the cage and tore to the door. Tiny pieces of glass from an earlier taunt pierced her feet, but now with liberty in her grasp, her resolve was too great to allow them to bother her. Abbey slowly turned the knob and placed her palm against the wooden frame to carefully open the door bit by bit. As soon as she clarified Stefan wasn’t waiting for her on the outside, she ran, ran harder than she had ever done before.

  Abbey had no idea where she was going, multiple doors were on either side of the dimly lit corridor, but no windows; the synthetic light harsh on her eyes. Each of the doors were locked, refusing her entry as she fumbled with their handles. The corridor’s black walls closed in on both sides and she felt so claustrophobic it made her dizzy and she tripped over. Her knees scraped badly against the tiles that lined the floor like a narrow chessboard, Abbey the pawn in his grotesque game.

  Adrenaline pumped through her with each heartbeat. She felt the throb in her temples. As she swung her head in all directions, alert for any danger, and it made her lightheaded.

  Abbey pulled herself up and limped onwards, moving further through the dark corridor. At the end, she found a single mahogany door with a small empty bookcase beside it. She hoped this one wasn’t locked too, yearning to egress as quickly as possible. Delicately turning the knob, Abbey strained, and a small, but definite click echoed from within, a flutter of hope burned from her stomach.

  The warm fire however turned to dread as she opened the door and saw him on the other side, staring right at her. He had the look of pure evil and it deafened her. She slammed the door shut, but he rammed it from the other side. Her exasperated groans only seemed to entertain her captor, his narcissistic giggle making her shiver with panic.

  Abbey fought back hard against the door, using her entire weight to stop his access. What was she to do? She wasn’t going back in that cage like an animal, she’d rather die. Pressing her back against the door, she angled herself, cursing and swearing as she pushed the door against his furious rattling.

  Suddenly the pressure, the fight from the other side of the door, ceased. Abbey’s breathing was erratic and she wasn’t sure he was gone. Why would he leave, give up? It suddenly hit her that he was probably sprinting off to one of the other doors, the locked ones. He was bound to have the keys, this was his house; a hellish den of repugnant damnation.

  She tilted her head back against the door, trying gravely to catch her breath, wondering which door he would burst through. It was then that the door, the one she was leant against, the one she had assumed he’d vanished from, crashed open, sending her flying through the air, skidding to a halt upon the chessboard tiles. The knock winded her severely and she was left agape, constricted, struggling to inhale. Abbey watched in horror as the bald-headed monster approached her, drenched in blood. She tried in vain to scramble and claw herself backwards, but he tutted at her, shaking h
is head, waggling his finger.

  “You have been extremely naughty.”

  A survival instinct kicked in. Abbey scrambled to her feet and with no time to think, she lashed out. Punches, slaps, knees - anything to get free. She rammed the monster backwards into the bookcase. Its shelves snapped and cracked, a racket that mixed with his heart-wrenching howl of laughter.

  He was loving it.

  With one more desperate push, Abbey sprinted through the unlocked door. She felt a tug of her hair though, and she swung into the doorframe with a sickening crash. The pain fused with the adrenaline in her bloodstream and she felt sick.

  She managed to get a sideward glance at him before Abbey felt the world envelope her and everything went black.

  Chapter Three. Violated

  It was the sound of breathing that brought Abbey around; a wheezing, vulnerable respiratory sort of sound that confused Abbey’s already dazed concentration. Where was she? She wanted to open her starved eyes, which craved something more than the blackness, but although she tried, they refused to budge. What was happening? The line between dreaming and reality blurred, fraying along the edges so as they became entangled.

  Perhaps if she sat up, then maybe the bearings would finally come, yet just like her eyes, her body wouldn’t respond. It was as if the brain and body were separate; two different entities. She couldn’t feel anything. Although, the sense of sound drummed the increasing panting into her head. What was that? Abbey was certain she recognised it, and although the piece of the jigsaw was on the tip of her tongue, it faded and her trail of thought vanished.