The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

allowing us to see the lethal metal spikes on the inside.
    “Beautiful, isn’t she?” He reached out and lovingly stroked the lifeless face.
    The closest I had ever come to seeing one of these things was at Bruce Wayne’s house as a secret entrance to his bat cave. I’d studied some medieval history and found it disturbingly ironic that a hero like Batman hid his lair beneath a trap door originally designed to efficiently dispose of torture victims.
    “What is an Iron Maiden?” Sylvia’s gaze stayed fixed on the snarling bear head.
    I looked to our host, hoping he would field that one. My throat was completely dry, and I began sweating like an old Chris Farley skit.
    Doug snapped his fingers, and Sylvia’s gaze darted from the rug to him. “ That is an Iron Maiden. To be precise, that is a replica of the Iron Maiden from Nuremberg castle which was destroyed in WWII during the air raids.”
    Doug locked stare for stare with me. “It is said that the condemned criminals in Nuremberg would pass through seven rooms with seven doors before confronting this anthropomorphic death chamber.” He giggled. “It’s actually quite brilliant as far as psychological maneuvering. You confront the face of serenity before entering the wardrobe and having the knives skewer your eyes, shoulders, arms, chest, belly, bladder, buttocks, and legs. No wonder more than a few prisoners confessed when faced with her form.”
    My hand roamed subconsciously over all of the body parts he had described.
    “Would you like to go inside?” Vincent Price’s long lost brother asked me.
    “Um, I’ll pass on that. Thanks.” I took a step back out of self preservation, cravenly putting Sylvia between myself and the madman.
    Doug Kline’s full throated chortle wrapped around me like a python, and I winced as a shaft of moonlight caught the serene expression on the face of the Madonna.
    “It’s only a mock up, my dear.” Kline reached forward and flicked one of the spikes. To my surprise, it wobbled. “You see, the ‘spikes’ are actually made of rubber. The only affliction one would suffer in here would be a severe case of claustrophobia.” He laughed again, like it was perfectly normal to enjoy something which induced so much terror and pain.
    I looked around, hoping to see something, anything, which would take my mind off of the disturbing fascination our host showed with horrific death. No such luck, since the alcoves in the wall held an assortment of other metal, wood, and leather objects that I’d previously only seen in textbook sketches of the Inquisition.
    Doug closed the wardrobe door and bypassed Sylvia to stand next to me. “You must think me strange, surrounding myself with implements of torture.”
    Oddly enough, strange hadn’t even entered my head. Psychotic, unbalanced, on a holiday from Bedlam on the other hand….
    “The purpose of this room is to constantly remind me of the duality of human nature. Think of the pure genius it took to create all this. The hours spent designing each item until it could inflict the ultimate amount of pain. Now, think of what might have been achieved centuries earlier if these minds had been put to a more constructive use. Man may have had automobiles in the eighteenth century, and today we could possess molecular transporters like on Star Trek . Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
    Well I was boggled, sure as shootin’. Doug Kline stared at me; the deep charcoal ring around his pale blue irises held me hypnotized. He’s a vampire! My mind screamed. Run before he has you in his power!
    “There you are!”
    My hero to the rescue! I turned. Neil and a painfully slim woman swathed in a crimson wrap dress stood in the doorway. A gold turban adorned her head, so I couldn’t be sure of her hair color. She might be bald, for all I knew. Her face was wrinkle free, but her eyes held a pinched look. I estimated her age somewhere between thirty-five and ninety. She reminded me of a constipated version of Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island .
    Doug cleared his throat. “Ladies, allow me to present Alessandra Kline, my wife.”
    “We’ve met.” Sylvia stepped forward. “Mrs. Kline, this is my friend, Maggie Phillips.”
    Mrs. Kline quirked an eyebrow at Neil. “Your wife?” she asked in a disbelieving tone.
    I sighed. Her surprise was a very common reaction, and I’d ceased being offended years ago. Really, I had.
    Neil smiled and placed a protective arm around my shoulder.