Tales of Terror

by Les Martin

  And this was Spain, where the king hated France and freedom. And where the Church hated them even more.

  The Holy Inquisition was the unholy weapon of that hate. I sat before its judges. Their robes were jet-black. Their faces were deathly white. Their thin lips seemed as white as the paper I now write upon. I saw no pity on those faces. I watched their white lips moving.

  “You are condemned to death.”

  As I said, I heard no more. Not even my name. I felt sick. Sick as death. I looked away from those white faces. Those white lips. I gazed at the candles on the judges’ table. Seven tall white candles. They seemed to turn into slender white angels. Angels who would save me. Then that picture faded. And I saw only the cruel flames.

  I did not see them long. Those flames vanished. Vanished into blackness. I had fainted. Fainted dead away.

  I was dead to the world. It was like sleep. Dreams came and went. Some pleasant. Others nightmares. Some filled with people and places I knew. Others with things I had never seen before. Some bright with hope. Others dark with despair.

  Then the dreams stopped. All was blackness and silence. Except for a single sound. My heart beating.

  I was awake. But my mind was empty. And my eyes were shut tight.

  I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid even to think.

  But thoughts came on their own. Memories.

  I remembered being captured. I was tied up hand and foot. I was taken to the city of Toledo. The fortress of the Inquisition.

  I remembered the joke of a trial. The black-robed judges. Their white lips moving.

  “You are condemned to death.”

  But what happened to me after that?

  I dreaded to see what might be around me. At last I forced my eyes open. And saw—nothing.

  I was in blackness darker than any night. Blackness that pressed down like a heavy weight.

  A horrible thought struck me. The Inquisition burned most of its victims at the stake. Quickly. Without delay.

  Yet here I was. Where, I did not know. But I did know one thing. I was still alive.

  But did they know? Or had they made a mistake? Had they buried me alive?

  Cold sweat covered me. It stood in little beads on my forehead. What if I lay in my own tomb? I was afraid to find out. Yet I had to.

  I rose to my feet. I was still afraid to take a step. Instead I waved my arms wildly around me in every direction. They touched nothing. If this was a tomb, at least it was large.

  I slowly moved forward. My eyes felt as if they would pop out of my head. But they could not see even a hint of light.

  I kept my arms in front of me. I took a few more steps and began to breathe easier. This was no tomb. I was in an underground cell. A dungeon—a dungeon of the Inquisition.

  I recalled stories I had heard. Stories about the dungeons of the Inquisition. Of prisoners left to starve in them. Or to die of thirst.

  But those stories were not the worst. There were other tales. Tales told in whispers about tortures that made death seem sweet.

  My hand touched something in front of me. A wall. Very smooth, slimy, and cold.

  I decided to find out the size of my cell. I would follow the wall around it. But first I had to mark my starting place.

  I reached for my pocketknife. I found that my own clothes had been taken from me. A rough prisoner’s robe replaced them. I tore a strip of cloth from the robe.

  I put down the cloth next to the wall. Then I started moving. Slowly. Carefully. Counting my steps. With one hand sliding along the smooth, slimy wall.

  But I did not make it all the way around. The dungeon was larger than I thought. The ground was wet and slippery, and I was very weak. I stumbled and fell. Too tired to move, I lay there.

  Sleep overcame me. When I awoke, my hand touched something. A loaf of bread. Then a pitcher of water. I wolfed down both.

  Only then did I pause to think. The Inquisition was keeping track of me. It did not want me to starve to death. It wanted another kind of death for me. I shivered at the possibilities.

  I continued following the wall. I had taken fifty-two steps before I went to sleep. I took forty-eight more. Then I reached my marker. The dungeon was a hundred steps around. There were about two steps to a yard. That made the room fifty yards around. A huge space.

  But I wanted to know still more. The walls had many strange angles. I could not be sure of the dungeon’s shape.

  To get a better idea, I had to walk across it. I hated to leave the wall. But there was no other way.

  I took a deep breath. I moved through the blackness boldly. For twelve steps.

  Then suddenly I was falling.

  I had tripped over my long robe. I hit the floor hard.

  My head spun with the shock.

  After a moment, my mind calmed. Then it froze.

  I realized something was wrong. Very wrong.

  My chin was resting against the floor.

  But the rest of my head was tilted downward. And my mouth, nose, and forehead were touching nothing.

  Nothing but clammy air. Air filled with a foul odor of decay.

  I put my arm forward and reached down. My fingers closed on empty air.

  I was lying at the edge of a circular pit. I had no idea how wide or deep it was. My hand felt along its edge. I found a loose piece of stone and pulled it free. Then I let it drop.

  I listened. I heard it bouncing along the sides of the hole. It seemed to fall forever. Then at last I heard a very distant splash.

  At that moment there was a gleam of light. It vanished as quickly as it came. A door had opened high above me. Then slammed shut.

  The Inquisition had seen I was still alive. It knew I had escaped the pit.

  But the Inquisition was not done with me. It still had me in its clutches. To play with as a cat plays with a caged bird. The Inquisition was expert at tortures of the body and tortures of the mind.

  I knew how angry the Inquisition must be. Even angrier than before.

  I had defied its power yet again. It would make me pay for that. I could only fear its next move. Fear it to the bottom of my soul.

  My whole body was shaking. I felt my way back to the wall. I vowed not to budge from it. Who knew how many deadly holes waited in the dark?

  Hours slowly passed. I tried to keep awake. To stay on guard. But my eyelids grew too heavy. I drifted into sleep.

  When I awoke, I found fresh bread and water by my hand. I was not hungry. But my throat burned with thirst. I grabbed the water pitcher and drank every drop in it.

  It must have been drugged. Before long I was sleepy again. Very, very sleepy. I did not even try to fight it. I plunged into a deep, deep sleep.

  I do not know how long I slept. But when I awoke the second time, everything had changed.

  For one thing, there was light. A strange glow. I could not see at first from where it came. But for the first time I could see my cell.

  I was shocked. It was far smaller than I had thought. Only about twenty-five yards around. I had made a mistake in measuring it.

  This bothered me. Bothered me terribly. I needed to trust the power of my mind. It was all I had to save me. I had to figure out how I went wrong.

  I forced myself to remember just what I had done. I had measured halfway around the wall. Then I had fallen asleep. I must have still been groggy when I woke up. Confused. I had started measuring again, but in the wrong direction. Back the way I had come. That accounted for the mistake. The difference between fifty yards and twenty-five.

  I breathed easier. My mind was still working well. I went back to examining the cell.

  The walls were also different than I had thought. They were not smooth, slimy plaster. They were metal. Probably iron. Put together in large plates. I recalled the angles I had felt. They were where the metal plates joined.

  One thing I could not have guessed in the dark. The walls were covered with paintings. Pictures of fiends. Devils. Goblins. Skeletons. And every oth
er form fear could take.

  And, of course, I now could see something else. The most fearful sight of all. In the center of the stone floor.

  The pit.

  But one thing I could not do. I could not look down into it.

  For I could not move anything but my head. That and my left arm.

  I lay on my back on top of a low, narrow wood platform. A leather strap tied me down. It was wound around and around me like a bandage.

  As I said, my left arm was free. With it I tested the strap. The leather was strong. Tight. I could find no way to get loose.

  I turned my head. I saw why my left arm was free. A food dish had been put just within reach.

  I had not been hungry before. But now I was starving. I reached the dish with difficulty. Then I grabbed at the food. I stuffed it into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed it.

  It was some kind of meat. Lamb or mutton. Oily and salty. Very salty.

  The salt made me unbearably thirsty. I looked for a water pitcher. To my horror there was none.

  The Inquisition had begun a new torture. But worse was to come.

  I stared up at the ceiling. It was at least forty feet high. It too was made of metal plates. There was a painting on one of them. It drew my gaze like a magnet.

  I saw a picture of Father Time. He carried a scythe. The long, curved blade that farmers swing to cut their wheat. Father Time, of course, uses his scythe in another way. To cut lives short.

  I looked more closely at the scythe in the painting. Its edge was pointed toward me. Suddenly my eyes bulged. The scythe had moved!

  I stared even harder. There was no doubt of it. The curved blade was swinging. The scythe was not part of the painting. It was real. It hung below the painting like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. The pendulum is the weight that swings from side to side to keep the clock ticking.

  For a while I watched it. Its swing was very short. Very slow. I was almost hypnotized.

  Then a sound made me turn my head. I heard scurrying feet and a hideous chirping.

  Rats were coming out of the hole. Big rats. Their hungry eyes gleaming. Their noses quivering.

  They smelled the food in my dish. I waved my hand to scare them away. At first it was easy. But then they began to lose their fear. They crept closer. I had to wave harder.

  This went on for almost an hour. My arm ached. I had to rest. I laid my head back. Again I looked upward.

  What I saw made me forget the rats.

  The curved blade still swung like a pendulum. But the swing was wider. And faster.

  More important, the blade was closer than before!

  Now I could see how large it was. How heavy. I could see its razor-sharp edge gleaming. And I could hear it. A horrible hissing as it swung through the air.

  I tried to turn my eyes away. I could not. I tried to close them. I could not. They were held by the gleaming blade.

  Its swing was wider each time. Faster. Louder. And closer.

  But only a little closer each time. A tiny, tiny bit closer. If only it would come down faster! I began to pray it would. But the Inquisition was in no hurry. Those masters of torture were in no hurry to end my agony.

  Hour after hour I lay there counting the movements of the pendulum. The hissing was ear-splitting. By now I could smell the steel blade. And I could see where it was aimed.

  It would slice straight across my chest. Right through my heart.

  Then a strange thing happened. Something the Inquisition had not planned. Something I did not expect.

  One can get tired of anything—even fear. For a while, at least, that is what happened to me.

  Fear left me. An odd peace came over me. The blade seemed no more than a toy. And my stomach growled. It was empty.

  I turned my head. The rats had left some food on the plate. I reached for it. I put it to my lips and was about to eat it.

  Then I paused. An idea had come to me. An idea that made me forget my hunger.

  My idea filled me with a new feeling. The feeling was foolish. But I could not deny it. I was starving for it.

  It was a feeling of hope. Of joy, almost. Yet what business did I have with hope?

  My idea came from the sight of the blade. It was very close now. Its sweep was now very wide—thirty feet or more. I could feel a breeze from it. I could imagine it cutting into my rough robe. Back and forth. Again and again.

  But first it had to slice through the leather strap. The strap that tied me down.

  As I said, it was a single strap. Wound around and around me. If it was cut, I could free myself. I had a chance, anyway. A hope.

  I had to time it just right. I would grab the strap the moment it was cut. I would pull at it. It would come away from my body. I would roll away from the blade.

  Again the blade swept down. It passed six inches from my chest.

  My heart beat faster. My free hand tensed. Then another thought struck me. It made my stomach sink.

  The blade swept down again. A little closer.

  I raised my head. I looked at my chest.

  It was as I feared.

  There was a gap in the leather bandage around me. A gap right over my chest. The blade would not slice through the strap. Just through my robe. Then through my skin.

  The Inquisition had thought of everything.

  Again the blade swept down. Still closer. It should have brought fresh fear with it.

  Instead it sparked anger in me. At the Inquisition. At the fiends who tormented me. Anger that was close to madness.

  I would not let them win!

  From this anger came one last mad plan.

  I saw rats still coming out of the pit. They were angry, too. Angry and starving. They had been waiting for me down below. I had cheated them out of their meal.

  They swarmed over the floor. They licked the plate clean. And more kept coming.

  I waved them away. They retreated. But only just out of reach of my arm. There they waited.

  I realized why. I still held oily meat in my hand. They could smell it.

  Again the blade swung down. It almost touched my robe. I smiled grimly.

  Soon the rats would have what they wanted.

  A feast.

  The meat in my hand.

  And me as well.

  Then I put my plan in action.

  I took the oily meat and rubbed it on the strap. On as much of the strap as I could touch.

  Then I put my hand down by my side and lay completely still. At first the rats were surprised by the change and drew back.

  Then the boldest rat jumped on me. It sniffed the leather and began chewing at it.

  Another rat came. And another.

  Then a dam seemed to break. A flood of rats poured over me.

  The sweeping blade kept them off my chest. But they covered all the rest of me. Hundreds of them. Hundreds upon hundreds. Heaps of them. Piling up. Fighting to get at me.

  Rats nipped at my hands. Licked at my mouth. Shoved their snouts into my nose and ears. I shut my eyes to protect them. I felt rats crushing me with their weight. Smothering me with their stink.

  But I felt something else, too.

  I felt the strap loosening. Loosening more and more. As the rats tore at it.

  I waited as long as I could. The pendulum came down again. To slice through my robe. And again to graze my skin. And yet again to draw blood.

  I waited until the strap dropped away. And I could roll off the platform.

  I lay on the floor. I shook off the rats. I watched the pendulum come down again. But this time it struck empty air.

  I was free!

  But my wild joy lasted only a moment.

  I was free. But I was still in the hands of the Inquisition. I was sure it was watching me. I stood up on the stone floor of the prison. The hellish machine stopped.

  The pendulum rose back to the ceiling. Pulled by some invisible force. The Inquisition knew I had escaped the blade. They knew my every move.

  The Inqui
sition had to be angry. Burning with rage. Even more than before. What would it do to me now?

  I looked around me. What was the Inquisition’s next move? I wanted to spot it early. So that I had more time to battle it.

  Something seemed different in the dungeon. But I could not tell what. I looked even harder. I still could not spot the change.

  One thing I did see, though. Where the light in the dungeon came from. There was an opening at the bottom of the metal walls. The light came through it.

  I looked more closely at the opening. It was half an inch wide. It ran around the entire room. It separated the walls from the floor.

  I got down on my hands and knees. I tried to see through the opening. I wanted to learn what made the light. But I had no luck. Finally, I gave up trying.

  I got to my feet. I saw that the dungeon was even more different. And now I could see what that difference was.

  As I said, there were paintings on the walls. Demons and other monsters. Their colors had been dull and faded before. Now they were bright. And getting even brighter. Their very eyes seemed to be blazing with a gleam of fire. Blazing as they looked at me from a thousand directions.

  I realized something else, too. It was warmer in the dungeon. Sweat was pouring from me.

  There was a new odor as well. I wondered what it was. Then I knew. The smell of heated iron.

  Now I knew what made the light in the dungeon. The light that came through the opening. It was fire. Fire burning behind the walls. And now the Inquisition had added fuel to it. It was burning higher. Hotter.

  The metal walls were glowing. I could feel their scorching heat.

  I stepped back. Back from the rising heat. Back to the edge of the deadly pit. The cool, damp air from it actually felt good.

  I turned my sweating face toward it. I looked down. The glare from the hot roof made it possible to see deep within the pit. I saw water gleaming far below. And the glowing eyes of countless rats. All waiting for me.

  I screamed and buried my face in my hands. I could not stop myself from shaking. I could not keep tears from my eyes. I drew back from the edge of that horror as far as I could. But I could not go as far as before.

  The dungeon was not only smaller. Its shape was different. It was no longer a perfect square. It was folding in on itself. Like a cardboard box being pushed flat.