Mother of Darkwaters: Book one of the Vessel series (99 page)

   Julianna points the spray at the claw.

   “Ahhh!”, Snow cries out.

   She moves to his front side, “Hold your breath.”

   Snow squints his eyes closed. He attempts to move his oily face from the sting of the spray to no avail.

   “There,” Julianna announces while releasing the hose. It recoils back into place. She walks over and runs her right index finger down Snow’s nose.

   Julianna looks at her finger, “Much better. All clean.”

   “I,” Snow answers breathlessly, “I…want-to-die…please…”

   Julianna taps her lower lip within contemplation. Her eyes widen while she smiles at Snow. She holds up her right pointer finger, “Be right back.”

   Snow whimpers as the girl disappears behind him.

   “I know what you need,” Julianna calls from her tool room, “I am so sorry, Snow. I’ve been neglecting you. It’s just not fair to you. You deserve better than this from me.”

  
Crack!

   “Ahhhh!”, Snow yells out when Julianna’s lead-tipped whip strikes his back.

   “Ahhh!”, she forces out another scream.

   “Ahhhhh!”, Snow feels the searing pain again.

   “Oh gawd!”, he begs, “Ahhh!”

   “Mandieeee – pleeeease…!”

   “Ahhhh!”, the whip strikes again.

   “I-don’t-wanna-die!”, Snow forces out the words as fast as he can.

   “Ahhhh!”, the whip tears at his flesh anyway.

   “Hmm,” Julianna ponders, “You sure you want me to stop at just six?”

   Snow begins crying as his pain threshold lifts back above his current situation. He is afraid to answer her question. The wrong answer is
always
bad.

   “Story,” Snow breathlessly says. He winces as the torn flesh on his back fires its protest.

   “Excuse me?”

   “Last month,” Snow speaks between each valued breath, “You-promised-a-story.”

   “Ahhh!”

   “Seven,” Julianna counts.

   “Ahhh!”, the pain rips through again.

   “Eight,” Julianna confirms. She walks over to her hose and rinses off her freshly broken in whip. She pulls the hose behind her while heading back to Snow.

   “Please don’t,” Snow begs, “Please….no-no-no…”

   “Sorry love,” Julianna sounds sad, “But doctor’s orders.”

   “Ahhhh!”, Snow screams throughout the water’s cleaning rites. The hose, finally, retracts across the stone floor. Snow slumps on the backless electric chair. Julianna takes the time to carefully roll up her whip with two zip-ties on each end. She hangs it in its proper place within her tool room.

   “Story,” Julianna says on her way out of the room. She walks around to the front of Snow and stops.

  
Slap!

  Snow groans.

  “Look at me,” Julianna instructs with calm words.

   Snow forces his head upward. He does his best to focus in on her green eyes while struggling with his heavy breathing. The pain within his back causes the occasional hissing to escape his parched lips.

   “Better,” Julianna smiles approvingly.

   Julianna looks down at Snow’s blackened right leg. She speaks as though she is his doctor, “You might lose that thing if you don’t do something about it. You boys really should take better care of yourselves.”

   Snow’s lips quiver while tears fill his eyes.

   “Shhh…”, Julianna gently places her left index finger across Snow’s lips. Snow refuses to bite. She has taken the desire out of him.

   Julianna steps back and sits on the cushion chair she placed there about three weeks ago. She crosses her legs while pretending to brush lint off from the left shoulder of her scrubs. She looks back at Snow. The boy watches with every bit of energy he can muster.

   “There was this girl named Julianna,” she begins, “This girl was very special. She came from an old bloodline that dated back to creation itself.”

   Julianna grins, “This special girl washed her body in the blood of a boy she killed. I believe she slit his throat or something.”

   Julianna shakes her head as though her words have given her the skin crawlies. “Anyway,” she continues, “She washed his blood from her body. And do you know what else she did?”

   “What…what-did-she-do?”, Snow does his best to keep her in conversation.

   “That girl washed away the God of Heaven from her life at the exact same time. See, she baptized herself in the name of Lucifer, in the name of an unborn child, and in the name of the unborn child’s prophet. For those of you in this room who might have trouble with this, it just means that she blasphemed God’s Holy Spirit within her heart. Do you know what that makes her?”

   “No…what-does-it-make-her,” Snow answers with a hoarse throat.

   “She is the Mother of Darkwaters silly. But most people would call her the mother of the Antichrist.”

   “After this, Julianna fell in love with someone,” the woman continues, “And do you know what happened?”

   “No.”

   “Julianna’s love was taken away from her – stripped away like some horrible movie with its sad ending. Her grief nearly destroyed her. She couldn’t eat, sleep, or move from one place to the other without the help of people around her. She would wake up with tears from the nightmare of living a dream that was all too real. And the times she would dream of the good memories, her waking tears were even worse.”

   “But one day,” she smiles, “Things began to turn around for her. And do you know why?”

   “She-found-love-again…”, Snow breathlessly answers.

   “No silly. That is the day she was able to tell a boy named Snow a story.”

   Snow’s eyes fill with a new terror.

   “There it is,” Julianna says with a wink. She smiles and stands up, “The name is Julianna,
not
Mandie. Please try and remember that the next time you scream out my name.”

   Julianna walks towards the entrance. She exits the room. When the door seals itself shut, David Snow looks at the clock on the far wall. He has fifteen minutes left before the dungeon plummets back into total darkness. Fifteen minutes before the unexplainable whispers begin their teasing and taunting again. Fifteen minutes, is all he gets, before a fresh set of tears, whimpers, and screams fill the room of hopelessness once more.

   “Rise and shine,” a cheery voice swims within the fogginess of Snow’s existence. The days and weeks run together into a seamless stream of madness. If Julianna wasn’t so persistent about reminding him of each and every day on the calendar, David Snow would be clueless to the concepts of time. But she
does
remind him. Because of this, he cannot drift away across the stream of insanity which beckons to him. The simple reminder of the day keeps his feet grounded to the moment.

   Every time he doesn’t care anymore, Julianna becomes brutal – so he must care. When he begs for mercy, she plays and toys with his mind as though she were a child playing with her dollhouse. And those times when he secretly invites death to come, it flees from him as though she has forbidden it.

   Snow watches dazedly as his captor stands by her medical cart. He observes the needle within her hand. Although he wishes for a lethal dose of a Brompton Cocktail blend, he knows she is filling the needle with medicine. It’s what she does. The woman with hair as black as the heart within her always nurses him back to health…
always
.

   She rips, scratches, bites, whips, and tears at his flesh like some terrible demon in a child’s worst nightmare. The rest of her week is spent caring for his new wounds. But today, Snow notices something different. An oven towards the right corner is burning red inside. He has never seen it lit before. Inside, he sees four fire pokers. Their handles lay on a stone table in front of the furnace.

   “Morphine,” Julianna announces while flipping bubbles to the top of the needle. Brown liquid spits from the needle’s end while she carefully pushes the bubbles out by the plunger.

   “Bad news,” Julianna fakes sadness while looking at Snow, “The leg has gotta go.”

   Snow cries within his whimpers of despair. He does not have the energy to waste it on needless screams. He must reserve those for the times in which they must be used – the times when she takes him across his pain’s threshold.

   “Vroom-vroom,” Julianna pats a chainsaw sitting on her medical cart.

   “Please Julianna,” Snow pleas, “Don’t.”

   “We don’t have a choice I’m afraid,” Julianna says with a pout. A moment later, she perks up, “But you know what is really good news?”

   “Waa…what?”, Snow answers to avoid any alternative. He knows the price of silence.

   “You still get to keep the claw,” Julianna says cheerfully, “Stupid me, I did the wrong leg.”

   Snow’s head drops with the sounds of his hopeless whimpering.

   Julianna walks over and whispers in his right ear, “You should have told me whenever I asked. I always knew.”

   Snow doesn’t notice the needle Julianna sticks within him. The rush that follows causes him to smile from the relief of his physical torment. His vision blurs as he watches Julianna walk back to her cart and toss the needle into a box marked as hazardous waste. She picks up the chainsaw. She primes it and pulls the cord. It roars to life.

   “Vroom! Vroom!”, she yells while revving the engine.

   Snow watches the girl pucker her lips and kiss the air between them. She steps forward and begins her surgery. Snow screams and passes out.

   “Today’s your lucky day!”, Julianna announces.

   Snow looks up to watch the woman hit the red button on the wall. The heavy door closes. He quietly whimpers as his captor quickly walks towards the water hose.

   “We have been together for so long, I’ve completely lost track of time.”

   Julianna grabs the hose and walks towards Snow, “Can you believe it is June already?”

She happily pulls the trigger.

   Snow screams out as the cold water forces its way into his fresh wounds. When the woman nears his face, he holds his breath.

   “My two doctor friends are coming over,” Julianna explains while releasing the trigger, “You remember me telling you about them, don’t you?”

   Snow exhales as he nods. He chokes when the woman points the hose and sprays during his inhale.

   “I can’t believe they have been in college for a year already. My how those kids grow up so fast.”

   Julianna releases the hose. It recoils against the wall like a snake ready for its next strike.

   “Those two are a little squeamish about the whole torture thing,” Julianna pouts, “They are healers. So you won’t be meeting them anytime soon.”

   Julianna holds up her left index finger, “But that’s not why I am telling you this.”

   She walks over to her cushiony chair and sits down. She pretends to be examining her fingernails while the boy regains his composure. Whenever he looks at her, Julianna drops her hands into a folded position in her lap.

   “Do you understand what this all means?”

   “No,” Snow releases the word with his next exhale.

   “You get a break silly.”

   Snow looks at her with a glimmer of hope that he is unable to hide. Julianna desires to steal it away, but she refrains. This isn’t about her. It never was. It has always been about Tamara. The love of her life never received a fair chance against him. And Julianna has made sure to remind him of this very thing on a regular basis.

   She glances over to a bowl of rotten meat with maggots. She crinkles her nose at the sight and stench of it all. Julianna moves her gaze back to Snow.

   “You will be treated better than you deserve.”

   Without looking at the bowl, she points at it, “I won’t be shoving that into your mouth while they are here.”

   Snow pretends to slump his head out of exhaustion. But truth is that he is desperately trying to hide the smile which wants to betray him.

   “You will be fed by someone else,” Julianna says, “He will feed you well. Real food. Good food.”

   Julianna crosses her legs, “He will remove your cuffs at night.”

   Snow looks up. Julianna points towards the right wall.

   “You will be shackled by your one ankle. I don’t think that cuffing a prosthetic will do much good.”

   She glances to the blackening of Snow’s left thigh with knowing eyes.

   “A mattress will be placed on the bleeder table over there. You will find comfort while they are here. When it is only you here, the lights will only dim. They will not go out.”

   Julianna pauses as Snow shows signs of gratitude within his expression.

   “Yes, it is all true.”

   “Th-thank you.”

   Julianna taps on her lower lip for a moment before pointing towards the left corner – a spot in which Snow has never seen.

   “You will take a daily shower like a normal person – hot water and everything. You get one hour a day.”

   She lowers her hand, “It’s real nice in there, actually. But if you try and off yourself during your time of peace, I will come down here and filet your little guy down there. Do we understand each other?”

   “Yes,” Snow exhales, “I-won’t…promise.”

   Julianna stands up, “I figured as much.” She begins walking towards the entrance, “You will receive clean clothes, sheets, a pillow, and a blanket.”

   David Snow stares blankly as the woman pushes in a security code in which he has never seen. The door opens.

   “When my friends leave,” Julianna speaks with her back to the boy behind her, “Your peace leaves with them. Enjoy your time, Snow. It is more than you gave Tamara.”

   She walks out and the door shuts. Snow continues his blank stare.

Chapter 23

   Welcome Home

   “There’s my girl,” Alexandria excitedly holds out her arms while heading towards Julianna.

   Julianna steps down the stairs from her patio. She eagerly embraces the sandy blond hair woman.