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TWENTY-FIVE
The smell of blood clung to every pore of Poppy’s body. It seeped into her soul and stuck there like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. The long night of bone-jarring terror with a psychopath during a killing frenzy would haunt her forever. She stood at the small aluminum sink and scrubbed her nails. Hands red, raw, and swollen, she persisted rubbing the soap over her skin and using the small nail brush her jailer had given her as a small consideration for her help. Disgust shivered through her. She sobbed in desperation and scoured the brush over tender flesh, but nothing would remove the blood from under her nails. She met the eyes of her reflection in the mirror above the sink, hardly recognizing the image staring back at her. Dark circles rimmed haunted eyes and blood still spattered her face. Horrified by her appearance, she lathered her face with soap. The promised shower her jailer had offered her had never eventuated and she’d sat all night stinking of blood, terrified of what would happen next. This morning he’d arrived and ushered her down a long dark passageway and ordered her into a different cell away from the others. Inside and set high on one wall, a cobweb encrusted light bulb secured within a metal net offered a small amount of illumination. The cell was similar to the others: Walls hewn from solid rock. No windows. No escape.
Claustrophobia had gripped her in a wave of panic, but she’d smothered it and tried to act casual, as if she enjoyed living in a dark damp dungeon. Although this cell wasn’t as bad as the one she’d left; in fact, it had a few luxuries. Against one wall stood a military-style cot with a pillow and a few rough blankets to cover the canvas bottom. Soap and towels sat on the bed beside an old pink cotton seersucker summer dress that appeared to be out of the 1950s. Too afraid to move, Poppy had waited for instructions, sagging against the wall and shivering from a long night naked and in shock. He’d said nothing, pulled the door shut, and turned the key. After his footsteps had died away, he’d not returned. She knew his routine by now. When he left after a kill he was usually gone for a couple of days or as long as a week, but traumatized, she’d waited, too scared to move. Her hands stiff with dried blood, she’d picked at the crusty crimson streaks cracking with each bend of her knuckles. After an hour or so had passed she’d gained enough courage to go and wash away the stink. It had been impossible to remove all the blood from her skin using only her hands, cold water, and a small piece of fragrant soap usually found at some of the better motels. She’d washed many times and, moving toward the light, examined every inch of her body that she could see, searching for any smears she’d missed.
As she dried her cold body with freezing fingers, her stomach clenched with hunger, and although sick to the stomach, the first rule of survival was to eat when possible. It was usual for her jailer to leave survival packages in a box in the corner of the room. These were the same as soldiers used during their tour of duty in isolated areas. He usually left enough for a week or so, and when she showered out in the hallway, he would collect the garbage and replenish the food.
After pulling the dress over her head, and wrapping one of the rough blankets around her, Poppy peered into the box of supplies and blinked in surprise. On top of the usual packages sat a Thermos and a bag of takeout with the name aunt betty’s café printedon the paper sack. At least, it seemed she hadn’t left Black Rock Falls. Uncertainty gripped her as she opened the Thermos and sniffed the hot fresh coffee. The bag contained jelly donuts with a liberal coating of powdered sugar. Her jailer had no empathy, no compassion. Why would he be giving her treats? What else did he expect her to do? Or was he luring her into a false sense of security?
