Tortured Dreams

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter 18

"You aren't really going to examine each of them? Individually?" Lucas asked as several people carried in the Iron Maidens.

"Yep." I changed my gloves and put the goggles back on. "Just stand them up, carefully."

"Yes, ma'am," one of the men said. They stood all five up and left. Gabriel Henders remained.

"Going to watch?"

"Not sure what you're going to find that we didn't, so yeah, I think I'll watch."

"Would you mind taking some notes then?" I asked.

"I could do that." Gabriel Henders pulled out a notebook and a pen.

"Great."

Xavier and Lucas moved the Scavenger's Daughter and took seats on the steel table. Michael shook his head, took his camera and left. I was guessing he was going to follow orders.

The first maiden stood around five foot seven inches tall. Larger than most models I had seen. It was made of iron as well. The outside was bland, no special features or marks. Real ones tended to be painted, usually with the image of the Virgin Mary.

This one was coated to keep it protected from the elements. That was all though. I opened one side. There was still dried blood on the inside.

"Can we clean this?" I asked.

"Yes, it's been processed." Xavier got up and grabbed a steel shower head.

He turned it on. I carefully opened both doors. He sprayed the inside gently; the blood slowly began to run off of everything. It ran down the molded interior and into a drain on the floor.

"Thanks," I said when he finished.

The spikes were definitely wrong. The back spikes were at least eight inches in length. The front spikes were twelve. I closed one of the doors and shined a flashlight in around it. The spikes here didn't just touch, they overlapped. Definitely not intended to kill slowly.

The back of it even had spikes where the head would go. I stared at them.

"You seem very lost in thought."

"I'm thinking of how awful this is, but how much worse a real one would be." I opened the door back up.

"Ok, very carefully, hold these doors open." I stepped into the maiden. Lucas and Xavier both grabbed a door. I let my body rest against the spikes in the back.

"That's why the doors are so heavy," I muttered.

"What?" Gabriel asked.

"The doors. They seem unnaturally heavy. Like there is more weight than just the metal. Come look from the side."

"Ok," Gabriel moved to stand by Xavier.

"See how much of my body is visible outside the maiden? Imagine shoving someone in against these spikes and closing the door. They are going to struggle and fight you every inch, unless they can't."

"I still don't see your point." Lucas said.

"If you closed the doors right now, the weight of them would pin me in, push me back against the spikes. It would be impossible for me to struggle against the weight of the doors, the force of a person and the spikes."

"Gotcha." Xavier smiled. "Now get the hell out of there, I have this vision of telling Nyleena that we dropped the doors of this Maiden and you bled to death before we could get you out."

"Fair enough." I climbed out. "The other problem. None of those spikes would have hit my eyes. There should be places to move the spikes. Too long, too many, not in the right places. Whoever made it had something to go off of, but it was a show piece, not a real maiden."