Nightmare in Shining Armor : A Den of Antiquity Mystery by Myers Tamar

Author:Myers, Tamar [Myers, Tamar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-03-21T10:25:59+00:00

friends.”

I smiled and stood, careful to put my weight on

my left foot. “Terri it is. Say, are you sure your husband’s out?”

She looked startled, and then frowned. “Oh yes,

he’s out. Abby, are you calling me a liar?”

It behooved me to tread carefully. “No, of course

not. It’s just that—well, heck, Terri, I may as well

come right out and say it. I was hoping to get a

peek at his armor collection.”

She glanced around the room nervously. My

eyes followed hers to one of the gnu heads. Was it

my imagination, or did I really see a faint glow in

one of the beast’s glassy eyes? Perhaps the captain

was in after all, and spying at me through the

mounted head—then again, I’ve always had an active imagination.

“Abby,” she said softly, “I could show you the

captain’s armor collection, but you’d have to

NIGHTMARE IN SHINING ARMOR

211

promise never to tell him. Or anyone else for that

matter. Things have a way of getting around and

Richard—I mean, the captain—would be very

upset with me.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle

in my eye,” I said blithely.

She smiled. “Follow me.”

I was astounded by all the space inside that

stucco ship. Terri led me along passageways lined

with tightly closed doors and down flights of

stairs so steep, they were virtually nothing more

than ladders. Finally, where one would expect to

find the engine room on a real ship, she paused

outside a low wood door and felt along the lintel

for a key.

“Get ready,” she said as she unlocked the door.

“It’s quite something.”

I thought I was ready, but nothing could have

prepared me for what greeted my eyes when Terri

finally found and turned on the light switch. Before me lay a replica of a medieval torture chamber. The walls were made out of concrete stones, of

the sort often found in zoo displays. These had

been shellacked in areas to make it appear as if

they were dripping with moisture. Chains as thick

as my wrist hung from the ceiling and extended

from the walls, and attached to these by shackles

were lifelike figures of people. So real were they

that I couldn’t help but scream.

Terri laughed. “They’re just wax, Abby. Those

three are castoffs from Madame Tussaud’s Wax

Museum in London, and that one came from the

212

T a m a r M y e r s

Ripley’s museum in Gatlinburg. The rest we acquired from private sales and auctions.”

I stared at the morbid exhibits with the fascination of a tourist. The majority of the wax figures

were merely shackled to the walls or dangled from

the ceiling, but two were hooked up to instruments of torture. One man, his mouth wide open

in a silent scream, was stretched across the infamous “rack.” A second figure, that of a woman,

was about to be embraced by the killing hug of the

Iron Maiden.

I caught my breath. “You haven’t let your neighbors see this, have you? I mean, if you have, this

could be why—”

She laughed again. “Heavens no. This is the private part of our—or should I say, the captain’s—

private collection. Personally, Abby, I find this

creepy.”

That was a relief. Not that thirteen gnu heads

weren’t creepy enough, but I try not to be judgmental.

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