The Carrow Chapter 5

            I head toward the storage room. The Carrow wants me to clean it out so he can build a place for his growing collection of poisons. “Move all the boxes out,” he told me. “I want you to empty out the entire room.” I turn the knob and try to pull the door open but it’s stuck in the door frame. Grabbing the door knob in both my hands, I place my foot on the wall and pull as hard as I can. The door opens with a loud scratchy noise as it finally frees itself from the door frame. A huge cloud of dust flies into my face and I immediately begin to hack and cough. Then, holding my breath, I take a tentative step inside and switch the light on. There are boxes everywhere, in all sizes. They’re stacked in tall towers in every place in the room. I begin to lift a stray box up and I almost drop it because it’s so heavy. My legs are wobbling and I can feel my arms shaking. Suddenly I feel a cramp building up on my hand, and I can’t move it. Panicking, I start to look for a place to put the box down. Before I can do anything though, my arm crumples and I lose my hold on the box. I clumsily attempt to reach out with my arms again, but I trip on something and fall, crashing into a pile of boxes. More dust flies up and I’m once again buried underneath a pile of rubble.

            I sit up, spitting out chunks of dust and notice that a few of the boxes have fallen open. I am about to pick up a dirty shirt when something else catches my eye. It looks like an old journal, and it has curly neat handwriting that definitely doesn’t belong to the Carrow. I flip through a few of the pages and see that each entry is signed by someone named Ashley. But why would the professor have anything to do with someone named Ashley…? My curiosity sparked, I flip to a random page and begin to read, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

 

            “Brian, we need to talk,” I say sternly.

            “What is it sweetheart? Is it about the baby? Because I have the perfect name for him all figured out!” He says excitedly. I just stare at him unsmilingly. His face turns grim. “Is something wrong?”

            I step aside and show him what I’ve been hiding behind me. It’s a shelf with the names Penny and Brian engraved on it inside a raggedly drawn heart.

            “Would you care to explain who Penny is?” I say.

            Brian throws up his hands as if to put a shield in front of him, “I’ve never seen that before in my life!”

            “Don’t lie to me. Did you cheat on me?” I said it. I finally said it. This question has been bugging me for the past three weeks. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Brian is still silent. I can see the sweat gleaming on his forehead. “Tell me the truth, Brian.”

            “I-it was just once. She was obsessed with me, and the only way to stop her from talking to me was to give her one shot.”

            “When did this happen?” I demand. He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he avoids my eyes and I can’t see his face. I step up and raise my hand, preparing to slap him across the face, but it’s too late. I see that he’s actually grinning, and I don’t know how to react. My hand is moving on its own now, and it’s about to collide with his face but all of sudden, Brian’s hand whips out and grabs my wrist. His powerful hands grip mine until all the blood rushes out of it. I stare frightfully at him, wondering if he’s going to crush it.

            Then he speaks in a low voice, “It never happened,” he whispers. I can see his eyes growing larger and redder as he stops blinking and stares me down with his intense eyes. “It never,” he repeats, “happened.”

            “Liar,” I whisper. “I know you did it. I found a-" but he rams his fist across my face before I can finish. I can taste blood in the back of my mouth. My cheek is burning, and I can feel it throbbing with pain.

            “I’m not lying, why would I lie to you?” He releases my hand, “Let’s not make the baby sad, so we’ll forget this ever happened ok?” Brian smiles down at me innocently, but all I feel is anger. And I refuse to back down. I’m about to say something when I feel his hand whip me across my face again. My husband was a lunatic, I know that now. That look in his eyes…I’ve seen it before, and I’ve always been afraid about what would happen, but nothing ever did…until now. I dash out of the room and run down the hallway. I hear Brian call after me but I ignore him and keep running until I get to the front door. I reach for the handle and begin to turn it, but it’s locked. Panicking, I continue to jiggle it violently until it’s almost loose. Suddenly I feel a hand grab my shoulders and I am being dragged into one of the guest rooms. Brian shoves me onto the bed. I can hear him fumbling with something in the dark. Then I hear the sharp click of a pocket knife opening and I freeze. Was he going to kill me? Cut me? Torture me? I kick my legs off the bed but I’m too slow. Brian’s hand grabs onto my long hair and I’m pulled back. Suddenly I can feel the cold metal of the knife against the nape of my neck. I gulp.

            “What are you going to do to me Brian? Kill me?” I whisper. I feel the vibration of his deep chuckle against my back.

            “No, that’d be too easy for you. Instead, I’ll keep you alive as long as possible so that you can live through hell for the rest of your worthless life.”

            “What about the baby?”

            “Like hell, I care about your kid!” he blathers out. His spit lands on my bare shoulders and I cringe a little. His knife moves a little deeper into my skin.

            “Then why don’t you tell me who this Penny is.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop myself. Brian’s hold on my hair suddenly tightens and my head is forcefully yanked backwards until I’m looking up into Brian’s face. His eyes are wide open, and flickering with intensity. I can easily see the fresh sweat gleaming off his cheeks.

            “Penny’s already dead.”

            My skin grows cold. Already dead? What has he done to her? I was dealing with a murderer.

            “What have you done?” I whisper. He pulls my head backwards even farther. My neck begins to cramp and tears are escaping out of my eyes. I’ve never felt so scared before.

            “I didn’t do anything. That woman killed herself before I could stop her. Of course, I’m not going to let you do that.” His laugh echoes all around the dark room. The knife has somehow dug deeper into my skin. I notice that I’m losing a lot of blood. My vision grows faint. I feel light headed. And finally, I black out.

 

            I stop reading. So many emotions are running through my head. The Carrow cheated on my mother…who was really Ashley. And all of this, all of these boxes, belongs to her. Reading her diary was like reading a book, everything seemed so vivid, and I feel like-

            “What’s going on in there?” The Carrow’s voice blasts from the speakers around me. I quickly close the diary and toss it under a pile of open boxes. “I asked you to clear the area, not make a mess of it!” I apologize quietly and hurriedly begin to pack everything up. But I want to keep reading it…so I quickly flip through it again and leave it lying on the floor where I can read it while putting everything away. This way the professor won’t notice…

 

            After fainting from Brian’s knife, he had moved me to the basement and propped me up against a roughly carved wooden cross. Now, as I’m waking up, I can feel his dirty hands maneuvering my body to fit into the cross.

            “What are you…” I start to say. But my voice comes out hoarse and my words don’t sound like they’re making any sense. Suddenly, I feel something sharp penetrate my forearm and I splutter out a scream. I look at my injured arm and gasp. There’s a curved nail pinning it against the wooden frame. Before I can even taken in the rest of the damage, I feel another one on my other arm, and then on my legs. As I’m gasping and coughing from the pain, Brian stuffs my mouth with a dirty cloth. I try to spit it out but he holds it in place.

            “You’ll thank me for this.” He grins. I glare at him. The weight of my pregnant stomach suddenly feels so much heavier. And then I realize that the cross is moving. I’m being spun in place, faster and faster. Gravity holds me down, but it also pushes my stomach into my body, practically crushing my small body. I feel like barfing. Now I know what the gag cloth is for. It’s so I don’t dirty his floors.

            I can literally feel everything spinning out of my control. My stomach begins to hurt and strain itself from all the momentum and pressure. Something bitter is slowly rising out of my throat. Without warning, everything splurts out. My body is covered in wet vomit. But that’s not the only thing that’s wet. My legs feel damp too. Then I realize it. My water broke. 

Author's Note

Please read the next chapter!

Reviews

[A. L. Allen]

Oh. My. Gosh.

I completely, totally, utterly hate the Carrow!!!!!!!!!! I just can't fathom what could make him so completely deranged!!!!! Although, to be quiet honest, he scares the living daylights out of me. D:

Great job on making a very masterful villain. Keep me posted for upcoming chapters!

[Coyote Poetry]

The story mysteries are coming out now. The letter's are opening door to secrets that were hidden. I like this chapter. The letter's gave balance and reason for the story. A excellent chapter.
Coyote

[Hachamecha]

hate.
hate.
hate.
The intense need to rip apart Brian is terrifying me.

[_]

what the hell is he????? poor ashely and penny oh hellz no she not going to give birth there. poor syren he's teated so horribly i would have been long gone D:

[~Dragon X]

O.O
Man, the Carrow is awful. Like, really awful. *shudders* I wanna know what made him so crazy. XD Awesome job.

[bethany cullen]

argg! it's so vivid it makes you hate the carrow so much but seriously i cannot wait to read the next bit ( send me a request for the next chapter please )!

[RainQueen]

Dark, dark write...The Carrow is the foulest villain imaginable, but the character calls him by name, readies herself to slap him...What makes him scariest is that, even though he's almost pure evil, creatively so, he's not completely flat. You can see there might have once been this glimmer of humanity in this monster. Terrifying, and so very well done!

[Emily O]

I agree. Great character build. I too hate the Carrow, and this is my first time meeting him! I was on the edge of my seat for the entire chapter. Great cliff hanger at the end!

[kathrina]

That was amazingly crazy... :)
Nice details.
Good job!
Please continue. :)