Who you are now is who you were destined to be and who you are to be my herald…
The cold, clear voice of the beast echoed in Arlene’s mind as she lay lost in a world of darkness and time. Pain seared along her every nerve, power too great for her body to contain.
She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. The air, heated by the earth’s core, seared her throat and lungs, but she focused her thoughts.
She tried to stand and managed to on wobbly legs. Arlene stepped forward, but her legs faltered under her weight and she toppled onto the floor. She was vaguely aware of sounds and what could only be described as a kind of language—not one she was familiar with nor any human could be—chattering in confusion and alarm, but she couldn’t lift her head to look. Her face pressed against the cold stone, she could see only the darkness of the cave.
Blackness swallowed her vision, but she thought she saw two smoldering red flames looking into her eyes before the darkness claimed her.
* * * *
Arlene heard the sound of a great kettle drum, a single, pulsating beat that echoed once, like distant thunder. She was walking on a stone floor. Shadows flitted and hazy memories, along with indistinct visions that refused to resolve into defined shapes, sliding away from her gaze. She had a vague sense that Steve was nearby, but her voice and her footsteps echoed in the great earthen cave and drew no answer.
Another pulse, another beat of the drum, louder, startled her. There wasn’t supposed to be another beat, she felt, though she couldn’t quite understand why she believed that. She stopped walking and looked around; behind her, and up past the opening to a tunnel, another beat and pulse came.
The next beat was softer, as though Arlene was soaring up and away from the great pulse and drum, but now it was a steady pulse, and she could feel it in her chest even after she could no longer hear it. She opened her eyes.
She lay on her back on a cold, hard stone floor. Something was kneeling beside her, leaning over to peer at her face with blank white eyes. The creature had no discernible face, just an expanse of grayish-black skin with the merest hint of a nose and a lipless gash for a mouth, all surrounded by wild shocks of whitish-gray clumps of hair. Her first thought was that this was some sort of demon from hell whose task was to receive her into the realm of the dead, for the cave she was in seemed fitted for hell, the shadowy realm where souls were said to pass when their mortal life had ended.
She began to pray to her lord and savior.
But she felt quite alive, her heart beating strong and steady in her chest. And the faceless thing had broken into what could only be described as a smile with limited warmth, which made its white eyes sparkle.
Arlene, it is time to start your new role in life…
The voice was familiar, but…
Time flashed, memories came and went…
Arlene’s mind was beginning to clear, and memories washed over her.
“What happened? Where am I?”
“It is okay, Arlene, you’re fine, relax,” a friendly voice said.
Arlene lifted her head and saw her, kneeling on the bed beside her, Deena.
“Deena?”
“What is going on?” Arlene asked.
“We were hoping that you could tell us,” Deena replied with a grand smile. “It is good to have you back. We were all worried about you.”
“I had been anticipating for some weeks past, that things would become exciting—and they had—but hardly in the way which I could foresee. It was the old story of the unexpected happening. Suddenly events of the most extraordinary nature had come crowding on me from the most unlooked-for quarters,” Arlene stated.
“Wait; slow down—what are you talking about?” Deena asked.
“Let me try to tell them in something like their proper order,” Arlene explained.
“To begin with, Steve has behaved very badly. So badly that it seems unlikely that I shall have to recast my whole conception of his character and our marriage. He is a jerk.”
Deena frowned. “When did you realize this?”
“When I returned to consciousness, of course. I found myself sitting up in bed, trembling like some frightened child. What had actually happened to me I do not know—I could not guess. I was conscious of an overwhelming sense of nausea, and, generally, I was feeling very far from well. I endeavored to arrange my thoughts, and to decide upon some plan of action. Finally, I decided to go for it—you know? Divorce!
“One result the experience had on me was it wound me up. It had on me the revivifying effect of a cold douche. I realized that a woman like me, or any for that matter, could not stand to be abused anymore.”
Deena had never heard Arlene speak like this before. A cold douche? She didn’t like to swear or use any sort of foul language.
“When will you tell Steve?” Deena asked.
“When I return home,” Arlene shot back. “I’ll let him have the news.”
“Are you sure?”
“I have learned that the man whom I had married was not the man I wanted to be married to anymore.”
* * * *
Frank Marsden found reason to punish Maria Pinella when he caught her trying to move the plywood that covered the hole. The punishment was severe. She was forced to hang from the roof beam by a single handcuff attached to her wrist for several days. During this time, her condition deteriorated and she refused to eat. Marsden was losing control. The last women he’d thrown into the hole had disappeared down one of the tunnels.
He was panicked. Had she escaped? What of the monster?
Frank Marsden tried to force feed her pieces of bread. Towards the end of the week, even though she was vomiting and running a high fever, Frank continued to force feed her, often jamming food into her mouth and holding her mouth shut until she swallowed. The next day she lost consciousness. When Marsden couldn’t rouse her, he became angry and unlocked the handcuffs, dropping her to the ground.
In the days following Maria’s condition worsening, the other girls, Angela and Tabitha, began to notice an even more sickening stench that filled the entire basement.
Marsden’s activities became increasingly more out of the ordinary. He insisted the girls tell on each other with the assurance of improved surroundings for those who acted in accordance with his new rules.
Left with little choice, he threw Maria’s lithe body into the hole, putting the cover over it as quickly as he could.
Angela could tell that Marsden was deeply saddened by the loss of Maria Pinella.
Following Maria’s “death,” Angela became Marsden’s constant companion, often accompanying him out of the basement and even on outings to restaurants and on shopping expeditions. On one such outing, Marsden told Angela that if he was ever caught, he would act as though he was insane as he knew how to manipulate the testing procedures. He told her that he had been fooling the authorities for years so that he could qualify for disability payments. Marsden also seemed to soften after Maria died and began to provide additional comforts for his captives, including mattresses, blankets, pillows and even a television set.
On one particular trip, they were driving in the countryside outside of Virginia when Marsden stopped the car near a heavily wooded area and remarked that it would be a good place to make love. Angela knew one thing for certain; the sexual encounters between her and Frank Marsden were the farthest thing from love making.
The next day, Marsden told her that he would need to find a “replacement” for Maria and suggested that they go out “cruising” together to find one. Later that night, the pair drove through the streets, looking for a likely subject.
Marsden found a new victim, Annie Stillman, who he convinced to go home with them.
Shortly after getting to the house, Annie found herself stripped, chained and imprisoned in the basement with the others. She immediately recoiled—it smelled awful in here. Not like something had died, but like something had failed to empty a dumpsite worth of garbage that had built up over years.
Despite the disgusting odor and the sudden violence Annie seemed like a willing participant, but she had other plans and was happy to wait for the right time to implement them. She knew her strengths and would apply them to her captor.