Our 1st "fan" submission!

This story was written with a Lovecraftian flair, taking something that people love and turning it into a phobia. So please keep that in mind as you read it and enjoy.



Heather was headed home from a late night of studying at her favorite coffee shop. She loved nothing better than to relax with a latte in one of their comfortable chairs and do her research there. She had friends that worked there, and they never minded when she would spend hours there. But now she would be happy to just lounge around in her comfy sweats on her couch and finish her reading for the night.

It was a cool night in mid-October. She rolled down the window in her car to enjoy the fresh air. The smell of fallen leaves after this morning’s rain washed into the car. She could see the full moon through the trees, just emerging from behind some clouds and looking like a huge pearl nestled in a down comforter. She focused back on the road just in time to slam on her braked and come to a screeching halt as several deer ran across the road in front of her. Her heart pounding, she bent down to pick up the books that had slid off the passenger seat onto the floor and lit a cigarette before continuing home.

She glanced at the books. Between their subject matter and the hours of drinking coffee, she would probably be up most of the night. She was writing a paper on the use of torture during the Inquisition for class. Not what she would have picked had she been able to chose, but she found it rather absorbing once she started reading about it.

Ahhhh, the last turn and then home. She flicked her cigarette out the window and pulled into the drive. She stopped before pulling in all the way and turned on her high beams for a moment, after noticing some movement in her backyard. More deer. Hmmm. They sure were acting strange tonight, almost like they were being chased. I guess even animals act strange during a full moon, she thought to herself.

Five minutes later found her cuddled up on the couch in her sweats with an afghan over her legs and a cup of chamomile tea. She had the books stacked up on the coffee table and picked up the last one she had been reading. The pitter patter of rain had just started on the roof, as she adjusted the lamp behind her to a warm glow. Oh how she loved to read with the sound of rain on the roof!

Settled in finally, she dove back in to the reading. She had just gotten to the gruesome part. This chapter described the individual use of each of the torture devices, a little too vividly for her taste. What kind of people did they have living back then anyway? Who could conceive such devices that were probably the slowest and most painful forms of capitol punishment she had ever heard of. And for what, because some people had different beliefs than others? Thank goodness she lived here and now and not back then.

There were all the popular ones that she had seen at the wax museum when she was younger; the iron maiden, thumb screws, the dunking chair. But this book described a few that gave her gut wrenching images. There was a metal coffin that was designed with a lid that was slowly screwed down tighter and tighter to crush its occupant. YEAH, like that was meant to extract a confession! Another one looked like a miniature roller coaster. The victim was tied to a wheeled platform and took a ride down its single hill that ended abruptly with a huge saber at the end that would slice them neatly in two. The rain pounded harder on her roof and she tried to relax. But then there was this one! A long rectangular cage was set up with a hole in the middle where the torso of the victim was placed. Rats were placed in one end of the cage and a fire brazier was put behind them. The cage was designed so that the brazier could slowly be brought closer and closer to the rats forcing them to look for an escape route. And what was in the way of their only exit? The victims exposed mid-section. UGHHH! The rats would tear at the only thing softer than the wire of the cage to get away from the fire.

Heather had to set her cup of tea down after that one and shut the book. She closed her eyes and tried in vain to get the images of her reading out of her mind, but it seemed the harder she tried, the harder it was to block out. As she laid there, she almost thought she could hear the victims screams and the squeaks of the torture devices. She reminded herself to thank her professor on Monday.

Well, time for more tea and then off to bed, not that she looked forward to the dreams that would haunt her tonight! She slowly got up from the couch and shuffled her slippered feet toward the kitchen. Passing the hallway, she noticed shadowed movements in the porch light at the front door. She hadn't heard anything, but decided to have a look after refilling her cup with steaming, fragrant tea.

Heather opened the front door exposing the screen door and dropped her cup of tea with a shattering of porcelain on the floor below. Thousands of jeweled eyes turned in unison at the noise, and Heather's heart started to race as she looked at a horde of rats of plague proportions. So that's what all the deer were running from. And the screams she thought she had imagined, were coming from the neighbors houses that had already been broken into. The squeaks were not from the devices she had been reading about, but the furry mass that were making there way toward her now. She heard a crash as something was knocked over upstairs. Taking one last look outside, she noticed that there was one last sound that she had mistaken. It wasn't raining.

Author: Robert Warren