Creative Daily Scribe: Beverly.With her eyes closed, Beverly felt he...

Creative Daily Scribe: Beverly.




With her eyes closed, Beverly felt he...: Beverly. With her eyes closed, Beverly felt her left hand twitching. Flicking impatiently, moving from side to side. Her mouth was bo...

Beverly.




With her eyes closed, Beverly felt her left hand twitching. Flicking impatiently, moving from side to side.

Her mouth was bone dry and her lips were locked together. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth, swallowing hard. It tasted salty. She took in a deep breath while her other senses stalled. An overpowering acrid smell of rotting flesh and burning filled her nostrils.

She tried opening her eyelids, but it was terribly difficult to do. Suddenly, the odd sensation in her hands abated and she felt sensitivity in the tips of her fingers. They were cold and wet. She rubbed her forefingers and thumb of her left hand together, which were sticky.

Behind her, she could hear the dull clicking of a nearby clock. Drips within the vacuous room filled the voids left in between the ticks and tock of the clock.

Beverly tried speaking, but all she could manage was a bare grunt. It took a lot out of her to make the effort. Every movement and thought was draining her. She felt her head droop to her right hand side and felt a heavy dullness overcome her body. She was drifting back to sleep — but her eye opened for the briefest of seconds — revealing the colour red on the floor.

And then, for the barest of moments, she was sure she heard and felt something scuttling around  beneath her feet. She knew someone else was in the room.




Beverly wasn’t sure how long had passed since she last was awake. She remembered, through the fog, that her eyes were tightly shut. She strained once more, and yellow cake from her right eye loosened. She blinked rapidly to dislodge it. The lack of aqueous fluid in her eye stung badly, as she bore it to the dull light of what she assumed was nighttime.

Breathing was laborious. Having the ability to see once more was causing her heart to race unexpectedly. She closed her eye, breathing deeply to slow her heart rate. Having composed herself, she remembered that the floor was red. Opening the eyelid slowly, she saw that the floor area, although unorganised and scattered with debris, was relatively clean.

Out of the silence, she heard a muted thud. Not too close, but within the building. Beverly tried moving her head back to centre, to look back at the ceiling. The movement hurt all the way down her spine, tingling her every nerve. She screamed, realising that her mouth was covered by some form of gauze and something on top of it.

The door burst open, she heard scuffling of shoes behind her and the feeling of helplessness quickly returned.




Her fingers tingled before she knew she was awake. This time, she heard voices. Speaking in a language she vaguely recognised. She had taken a flight to Budapest for cosmetic enhancement of her breasts and lips.

The words were terse, stunted and it sounded like they were arguing. Two men talking in two different rooms. The space in one echoed while the other was metallic. She could hear water flowing.

Beverly tried opening her eyes again - this time her left eyelid started to open for the first time. The effort left her breathless and tired.

The thirst was becoming unbearable. Her right eye opened further than before. Breathing deeply, Beverly saw something new.

She saw a row of grey cupboards, with two doors hanging off their hinges. Small vials of labelled medical fluid filled one open cabinet, yet the other was full of dirty, bloodied towels. Beverly shivered.

She tried moving her head once more. Despite her yoga core strength, she barely moved more than an inch. Frustrated, Beverly started to cry. Except the tears didn’t come. They couldn’t.

An alarm above her started to bleep and she heard footsteps behind her.

The greyness of sleep returned.




The awakening this time was far more brutal. Beverly saw someone she thought she recognised. She was kicking and screaming. She was bleeding. Two grown men in white jumpsuits were trying to restrain her.

Her blood dashed upon their whites. She could see everything. Her senses, previously dulled were wide awake with adrenaline.

She was handcuffed to a gurney. Every sinew of hers was moving as it should. She was fighting against the restraint. The skin around her wrists chafed against the cold metal.

Despite the language barrier between English and Hungarian, she heard curses that resonate in every language. Beverly recognised the gravelly voice and striking ice-cold blue eyes that had greeted her in the hotel lobby. Instead of being kind, open and disarming - they were grey and functional like the theatre around him.  

Before the calmness of sedatives and induced sleep took hold, she heard the muted sound of a thump.




Beverly woke, sitting upright. Her chin and head were flopped down, looking directly at her breasts. The oddest first thought struck her - my boobs haven’t been enhanced, she noticed.

The reactive part of her brain reminded her of the impending situation. She tried to lift her head but it was restrained in place by a studded black leather strap. The studs were pointed and silver in colour.

The strap went around her head and looped around both of her thighs, which were partially blood stained. She was naked apart from the strap. Her shoulder length brown hair had been brushed and tickled the sides of her face.

Her mouth was still covered by the gauze and what she now saw was another thin black leather strap. Her hands were tied behind her back. She sat in what reminded her of what her dentists chair felt like — plastic and uncomfortable.

The flickering light of the fluorescent bulbs above cast a shadow in front of Beverly that she hadn’t seen before. The tall lean figure of a medical drip on a stand. She had noticed that she wasn’t thirsty anymore.

The temperature had been turned up in the room. Beads of sweat formed on her brow. She could hear faint chatter in the background. Definitely one woman and two men.

In front of her, she saw the glow of a red light flick on. She heard a whirr and footsteps behind it.

Beverly tried using her ujjayi breath that she had been taught in yoga classes to calm herself down.  

She had an inkling of what was coming next.




Beverly woke this time facing a pool of pink fluid on the floor in front of her. It took her a while to realise that it was her saliva, mixed with blood. Her skin was on fire, yet cool air kissed her naked body.

She lay face forward with her head lower than the rest of her body. Breathing was extremely laboured with her face taped downward. She lay on what seemed to be a masseuse table. Except she could feel cool air lick her stomach.

But it wasn’t air.

A grey haired man with red ringed eyes stared back at her. Beverly tried to fight. She was restrained tightly from head to toe. Her energy reserves were depleted.

She could see small droplets of blood dripping into his open mouth. He enjoyed every drop, laughing loudly as Beverly endured physical and mental torture. The nearby dull thud returned — from what seemed like next door.

This time, exhaustion took over and lulled Beverly beyond the depravity underneath her.




Beverly felt forward movement of the gurney. The sudden jerky movement caused further friction on her ankles and hands. She knew she was bleeding, but screaming out loud would be pointless.

She was moved into a far smaller room with better lighting. She didn’t want to open her eyes for fear of seeing something she didn’t need, or want to see. The room smelled clean - like an industrial solvent.

Opening her eyes gradually, she was looking out through a viewing window into the hallway of what looked like a hospital. Except this hospital was more akin to a prison.

Ceiling tiles hung loosely above her. Damp stains lined the walls and floors. Flies lay dead on the sill of the closed window. The air hung thickly, like an invisible shroud would swallow any of her faint and tired screams.

Beverly listened intently for any sounds that she might recognise. All she could hear was the constant hum of a nearby motorway. If she could get there. She was strong, despite her situation.

Lifting her head, she gazed down at her fifty year old body and the situation she faced.

Her hands and feet were tied down by handcuffs. Her bare legs were taped down at the midway point of the thigh. A thick black leather strap was fastened underneath the gurney, holding her stomach down. Finally she had the gauze and leather strap over her mouth.

As Beverly lifted herself for a second time, the strap on her stomach shifted downward.

It revealed a large open wound beneath her ribcage, cauterised at the edges.

She passed out.




Beverly woke with the blue and grey eyes staring directly at her. She was still in the small room that smelled clean.

She couldn’t hear what he was saying. His lips moved the dirty pale blue surgical face mask. His eyes spilled out hatred and vitriol. She had no idea why he was angry at her. Until the haze of medication wore off and the volume of his rant near popped her ears.

He was raving at the western woman’s need for body perfection. He was gesticulating wildly about how women should act their age in broken English. Beverly was sure she heard the word “whore” at least five times.

She was calm. This man had multiple personas. She had a chance.

When Beverly had met him on both occasions - prior to waking up on a gurney in this hell - he was polite and atypically Hungarian. He said that he knew reputable doctors that could do her type of surgical procedures for half the price that she was initially quoted.

Beverly thought that his crazy pitch in a hotel lobby was odd. But she didn’t want to waste all of her father’s inheritance on herself. She wanted to put away a portion of it on college funds for her two grandchildren. The more she saved, the better chance they had. So she cut a corner and here she lay.

Beverly plead with her eyes. She grunted “please”. He slapped her hard across the face, snapping her head violently to the side. Then he unhooked the thin leather strap that covered her mouth. Beverly gasped, tasting the cold air for the first time in some while. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, French kissing her deeply.

Revolted by his action and purely by accident, Beverly’s stomach wrenched. She got sick into his mouth.

He overreacted. Slapping her hard across the back of her head, she fell unconscious.




Beverly woke with a major headache. She smiled, knowing this meant she could feel pain. She was staring at the ceiling of the theatre again and couldn’t move her head. It was held in position by straps and restraints both under and above her head. But there was no gauze or impediment on her mouth. She could lick her lips.

Glancing around she could see the shadow of the tall drip again. She felt lucid. The room around what she could see looked empty, previous to before.

A heart monitor beeped above her. A finger encasement on her right index bleeped back the information to the monitor. A needle leading to the drip led into the crook of her left elbow.

The handcuffs were gone. Black cable ties replaced them at her wrists. She could even feel bandages where the skin had been removed.

Moving her head ever so slightly, she saw that she was wearing a gown. It was a dull white colour with a button flap over her chest. She even saw a butterfly motif on the gown. It was a yellow butterfly with black edging.

Beverly started breathing heavily, getting a little excited.

The excitement didn’t last.

Another woman dressed just like Beverly, was wheeled in beside her.




Beverly woke to chanting, cheering and humming of male voices. Pretending to be asleep, she slowly
flicked an eyelid open. They were waiting for her. She could hear the audible whirr of a camera.

Six men, dressed in surgical blue gowns, stood on Beverly’s left with excitement in their eyes. In their hands in front of them, were long sharp blades. On Beverly’s right was the other lady, who Beverly had got a brief glimpse of. She lay motionless.
On a loud command from a loudspeaker, they moved in unison around their unsuspecting victim.

They gathered around her like the hours of a clock.

Beverly noticed the large glass jars on the counter. They were filled with formaldehyde and body parts. The woman’s face looked grey and lifeless.

They raised their blades high into the air.

Upon second command, they plunged their knives deep into various parts of the lady’s body.

Beverly turned away, bringing her hand up to her face. She knew the camera was on her.

She wasn’t restrained.