Torture Tomb by C. Dean Andersson

Author:C. Dean Andersson [Andersson, C. Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, occult
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2019-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

16

The Scavenger’s Daughter

After Jim had lunch with Gina, he went back to work. She decided against more sleep. She was afraid she might dream something worse.

She thought about getting in her car and going back to Bernice’s apartment. Decided to stay put. She wandered through his house and stopped at his writing room.

Bookshelves covered the walls. A word processor sat upon a computer desk next to a printer. A stereo console sat within reach of his chair. A vinyl LP record was on the turntable. She leaned closer, looked through the clear plastic dust cover, and discovered True Stories by the Talking Heads.

She turned it on. She sat in his chair and peeked beneath the word processor’s blue dust cover. It was a Kay-Pro with two floppy disc drives. She let the dust cover fall back into place.

Large stereo speakers were wall-mounted on either side of the computer desk. From where she now sat, the Talking Heads seemed to be in the room with her. She listened to the music and tapped her fingers in time to “Wild Wild Life” as she examined the framed print on the wall above the desk. She was impressed by the art. It was a poster for a comic book. The title at the top read, “The New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz.”

Other pictures hung on the wall. A shock ran through her. One was a movie lobby card for Tomb of Torture. Another, from Nightmare Castle, showed a woman who was chained to a wall in a nightgown being whipped. A third showed a naked woman bound to an X-frame as a man burned her with a hot iron.

My God! she thought, Jim’s like that man who’s torturing Bernice! That’s how he knew that plank was called a horse!

She hurried to the bedroom to get her things and leave. She should never have contacted him. She should never have wasted time getting involved with cranks who thought they were Witches. She’d even started to like them! But she knew now no one could help her or Bernice. They were alone, and Bernice was doomed!

Gina felt crushed. She started crying and collapsed onto the bed, buried her face in a pillow, beat the bed with clenched fists.

She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. A small spider picked its way over the ceiling toward a wall.

Crying won’t help Bernice, she told herself. And I don’t have the luxury of throwing a fit like a child, damnit. Bernice is not doomed! I’ll find her! And maybe those psychic nuts can help. One died trying, it seems. Oh God. What the hell is going on? But I do like Carla and the others. And Jim can’t have changed that much. I’ll ask him about those pictures. They are probably for a novel. Yeah, I overreacted. But I’m entitled!

She watched the spider on the ceiling, thought about killing it, then felt she shouldn’t. The Witches wouldn’t kill it. She smiled. They’d probably talk to it.

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