The Torture House

By Randy Scarborough

The Torture House begins with a seemingly ordinary couple and their longing to have children.

As readers follow the Carver family, everything seems to go wrong. This thriller shows the dange

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randy Scarborough
• Release date: May 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088032824

Randy Scarborough

Randy N. Scarborough once suffered from terrifying nightmares that woke him in panic. He'd see horrific crimes in detail. His wife suggested he begin to write down his dreams. The writing became therapeutic for him and eventually led to him writing The Torture House.Scarborough lives in the Toledo, Ohio, area with his family. He intends to write more thrillers.

Book preview

The Torture House

The Torture House

Randy N. Scarborough

The Torture House

Copyright © 2022 Randy N. Scarborough

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America

Randy N. Scarborough

1603 Capitol Ave, Suite 310 A552,

Cheyenne WY 82001

ISBN: 978-1-0880-3281-7 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-0880-3282-4 (eBook)

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

Henry

There was a quiet lake house. A young woman slowly walked towards the house and could smell the fresh lake air. Suddenly a noise came from the house. A man huffed out of the house and yelled at her in a way she almost didn’t understand at first. What are you doing here? This is private property! Get out of here before I shoot you where you stand!

The young woman looked closely, hoping she had found who she was looking for, then asked, Are you Henry Carver?

The man suddenly looked closely at the woman with confusion and delight at the same time, asking quietly, Annabelle? Is it really you? My little Annabelle! I thought I had lost you forever!

The woman ran to her father and embraced him. She cried as they hugged. I thought I would never find you. Mother made it difficult to track you down. I’ve missed you so much. It’s been too long since I‘ve seen you. The two of them walked into the house. Henry looked over his shoulder with concern, into the nearby woods, as he entered the house to put on some tea. Anna looked around the room. There was a collection of pictures of different women, with a title above it that said, The Love of My Life. Anna looked at the different faces and realized that all these people were famous in their own special way. She also saw a picture of Gregory Interia signed, Can‘t wait to see you soon, Dad. Love Andrew.

Anna stared at the picture in shock. Just last week she had seen Gregory Interia at a charity event and he had mentioned visiting his father in a few weeks; she didn’t realize that he had mentioned this exact town until just that moment. The investigator she hired to find her father had just given her the information about where her father lived that morning and she didn’t even think to connect the two. After all, she had changed her name and it was possible that he would also change his to keep his privacy.

Henry came back with a tray and Anna walked over to the table and started to serve the tea. Henry watched as his daughter prepared his tea exactly as he liked without asking a single question. He spoke quietly, It’s amazing that even with being gone for so long you remember how I like my tea.

Anna responded, I’ve remembered everything that we did together. Tears fell from her eyes. What happened, Dad? Why did mom take me from you like that? She always hated Andrew and me. After all these years she told me nothing. Why did she take me? Henry hugged her as they sat on the sofa and he said, Well it’s a long story, but I’ll tell you what I know. As you know, your mother was a famous model. Everyone knew her and her fans wanted to be just like her. After years of being in the scene she started to use plastic surgery to keep up. I was her plastic surgeon. Then, she married me. Now that I think about it she probably married me for the free surgeries. After a few years we wanted children—actually I wanted children and your mother just wanted one girl to continue her legacy. Unfortunately your mom couldn’t have children due to her condition. I knew some other doctors that dealt with that field and had your mom examined over and over and over again, each time being told the same thing: ‘There is no way your wife will ever have children.’ I wouldn’t take that as an answer. I unfortunately convinced her to have a transplant done. I had one of my friends take the uterus from one of my other patients and implant it into your mother’s body. The patient knew nothing of this procedure at the time and was told the pain she felt afterwards was an after affect of her plastic surgery. That alone didn’t help; I also got hold of some fertility drugs and told her they were vitamins.

He took a drink of his tea and continued, Your mom knew several of her model friends that had gotten pregnant and lost their jobs because they had gotten too fat and never got their bodies back. Therefore she didn’t want any more than one child and even that could ruin her career. We found out that she was pregnant; then my happiness turned into her horror when we found out she was pregnant with more than one, not just twins. We were having quadruplets. There were four of you. Her prenatal doctor said there was an issue with the babies. One of them had died in the womb, but removing it could kill the rest of you. We both decided to continue and birth the stillborn child with the rest of you. After several arguments and almost divorcing it came time for the birth. It was done in a private room in our home. The midwife was a close friend of the prenatal doctor and agreed to be there to help the doctor with the birth. I knew there might be some repercussions with all the fertility drugs I gave to your mom, but I wasn’t expecting what happened. Due to the type of pregnancy she had, it was a better idea to have a c-section birth. Henry took another sip of his tea and put the cup on the table. He spoke slowly as if reliving the scene. The first baby came out crying; the doctor grinned, ‘A beautiful baby boy.’ I was smiling proudly as I said, ‘We will name him after my father, Gregory Howard Carver.’ The doctor delivered the second child and frowned. ‘I’m very sorry. I’m delivering the stillborn child now. It was a girl.’ Your mother was crushed; I said sadly, ‘We will name her after my grandmother, Greta Hazel Carver.’ The doctor started to deliver the third baby and seemed very confused. He summoned for the midwife to come over. The midwife and doctor were whispering for a few moments and then she took the third baby to the other side of the room for further examination. The doctor started on the last baby. He had the same confused look on his face again and summoned her over once again. She took this baby to the other baby. The doctor finished the delivery, sewed your mother up, and suggested for us to spend some time with your brother. He had to work on the other two for a few moments.

Henry took a breather and drank some more tea. "After about five minutes the doctor and midwife came back with the other two babies. The midwife had to nudge the doctor to start speaking; he was pale white and still had a confused look on his face. ‘I… have never experienced this in my entire career in the medical field, Henry. You have three healthy babies…’ With pride and a little confusion I said back to the doctor, ‘That’s nothing new, Charlie. I’ve delivered babies before and I have seen healthy babies. Why is this so unusual? I can see why it can look odd, having four babies instead of one.’ The doctor looked at your mother then back at me. ‘Two of your babies have both sexes.’ Your mother tried to comprehend what the doctor said and said to him, ‘You mean these two babies are one girl and one boy. That means we have two boys and a girl.’ The doctor shook his head no and sadly looked down at the child he had in his arms. ‘You have one boy and two…’ Your mother interrupted with excitement ‘Girls?? Isn’t that lovely honey? We have two girls!’ The doctor interrupted your mother. ‘No. What I’m trying to say is that you have…well what I’m trying to say is…’ He looked at the midwife not knowing how to say it. The midwife looked at me. ‘You have two hermaphrodites. It’s just that simple.’ Your mother looked at the midwife like she had spoken some foreign language.

‘These two babies have both sexes. These two babies are both male and female. Do you understand?’ The doctor looked at the midwife in shock and horror that the midwife had just unemotionally blurted the news out like that... Your mother tried to speak but was too shocked to speak. She looked at the doctor and demanded the baby he was holding. She tore open the blanket the newborn was wrapped in and saw both sexes. ‘How could this happen? What do we do? Do we get to choose? I don’t understand?’ Your mother looked again and in a stronger voice said, as she practically threw the child way from her to the doctor, ‘No. There must be some mistake. That thing didn’t come out of me! Give me my real babies not these… things!’ The midwife placed the baby she was holding in a nearby bassinet. ‘These Things you are talking about are your babies. They are parts of you. If you want to give them to the adoption program then I will deliver them now, but I need to know before you sign the birth certificates.’ Your mother right away said, ‘Take these monsters away from me. I only birthed one child tonight and his name is Gregory Howard Carver.’ She held her newborn son like he needed protection from those monsters, as she called them. The midwife retrieved the baby that I was holding and placed it in the basinet with the other one and pushed it out of the room. Something told me to follow her. I asked, ‘What will happen to my children?’ The midwife looked at me. ‘If you want these children I suggest you make that woman understand that these babies are parts of her. These are not pets or scum or something that you can treat like garbage. I won’t take these children if you make me a promise. Protect them from her.’ With confusion and feeling offended, I said, ‘I don’t think I understand. Protect them from their mother? She wouldn’t harm her own kids. I know her too well.’ Shaking her head, like she’s seen it before, she said, ‘Mark my words; she’ll harm these two children more than you can imagine.’ I took the basinet back into your mother’s room."

After taking another drink of his tea he continued, feeling a little sad. "Your mother refused to acknowledge you and Andrew to such an extent that I had to hire a nanny just for you two since she wouldn’t let Gregory’s nanny even look at you two. In years to come, I somehow made a strong connection with both of you. You seemed to consider me your only parent. Gregory was your mother’s pride and joy. Your mother would enter Gregory into every beauty pageant possible and at times he would be entered into pageants he wasn’t even qualified for. At the age of five you two had learned so much medical knowledge that my patients would ask you questions if I were busy.

I remember once coming into the room after talking to a young patient’s father and you were being asked if the surgery would be painful. I listened as you explained to the girl what would happen and even gave her support by saying that if she wanted, you would be there during the surgery.

Henry wiped his face with his handkerchief and continued, "By the age of six, I would let you participate in some outpatient surgeries—only with the patient’s permission. When you turned seven Gregory had so many pageant awards he had to go outside of our area in order to win a pageant he hadn’t already won twice. Your mother was devastated when Gregory disappeared out of thin air after his first pageant loss. The only person that had any idea of where he was at was your mom. She saw him one moment, then the next, he was gone. Everyone suspected her of criminal action, but nobody ever had proof. I always suspected that she couldn’t stand being seen as number two and her own son was in the number one spot; the person that she had brought to the limelight was the one person that had over shadowed her existence. This was the final straw for your mother. We argued that night so badly that your mother had packed up her things and threatened to leave if I wouldn’t do more to find ‘her’ son, but I had already