“Cadavers! Every last one of them!” Stewie spits with ferocious intent, twisting his nose towards the air and allowing the sneer to growl across his tepid lips.

“It’s a bit heartless, isn’t it?”

“Heartless would be to give them false hopes, when there is no hope, not for any of them. But us,” he says with a purposeful pause. “We stand a chance at surviving this.”

“THEN WHY CAN’T WE HELP THE OTHERS! WHY CAN’T WE SAVE EVERYONE?”

His sneer grows darker as his eyes roll to the back of his skull and lets out a exasperated breath. “Because for us to get out, we’ve gotta pay a price, and those MOTHER-FUCKERS down there are our coin, understand?”

She looks down at the others as they huddle in tight family groups, holding all their hopes and dreams of survival in their hands. Her panicked face turns back to him, her eyes wide and desperate. “W-W-What? W-W-Why? T-They p-put t-their trust in US! W-W-We can’t b-betray them, I-I-I, I won’t allow IT!” she spits.

He laughs softly, and turns to face to glowing horizon line, as the sun sets. “You can’t STOP what’s already in motion, you can only change the side of the fence you’re on.” he says matter-of-factly as he turns back to her once more. “Do you want to choose THEM over ME? Or do you want to live?”

“IT’S WRONG!” she bellows. “IT’S WRONG AND I WON’T ALLOW IT!”

“Are you sure that’s the answer you want to give? Are you sure they are worth it?”

“I-I, I can’t Stewie, and t-the man I love would never, ever trade innocent lives for their own! They’re living, breathing human beings for FUCKS SAKE! NOT COIN!” she huffs and puffs, rudely mimicking him as she does.

“That’s where you are wrong, like always.” he snarls with a wicked grin. “Your heart is too big for this world, always hoping the best will be achieved, and everyone will chip in to help, when the reality is everyone is out for themselves. Each of your innocent human beings down there have sinned far greater things to get where they are today. Killing others to get ahead, to survive! Now it’s time, now they pay the piper and we go free, we survive!”

“W-W-What?” she stammers as she looks back down to the others. “Y-You lie! Y-You’re trying to play me.”

“Am I? Ask me about any one of them. Ask me and I will tell you what they did, and why they deserve to die.”

For a few silent moments her eyes search the others, while her bottom lip trembles. “Sal and Bernard,” she says nodding her head towards an elderly couple who sit with another group.

“Did you know they had grand children, seven of them to be precise.”

“N-N-No, they’ve never said a-anything about them.”

“Because they used them as bait.”

“W-W-What?” she says as she turns to him aghast.

“Ask them, ask them and see where it goes. They used the kids to draw the biters away from them so they could make their escape the last hole they found themselves trapped in, and I bet right now they’re smooching up to the O’Donnell’s just to keep them close, in case they need to borrow their kids for the same type of charade. Unfortunately for them the O’Donnell‘s are running the same scam, just in reverse, see the last group they were part of ended up becoming sacrificial lambs when they came across a dead house and needed a quick get away!”

“I-I-I, I don’t believe y-you.” she stammers as she looks back down to the group as they sit laughing with one another.

He shrugs his shoulders, “Then you’ll die here with them, the only real innocent victim in all this, or,” he says as he nods towards the horizon once more, as movement can be seen making its way towards them.

“Or we can pay them back in kind, and basically follow in their footsteps.”

“Pretty much,” he says with a nervous smile.

“I guess they deserve it.”

“Oh yeah, they definitely deserve it.”

“H-H-How are you gonna do it?”

“It’s not what I gonna do, it’s more like what I haven’t done.” he says as he nods his head down to the main gates of the compound as a sea of decaying biters make their way in.

She turns to him with wide terrified eyes. “H-H-H-How are we s-s-supposed to escape?” she stammers.

“We ummmm….” he begins to say, before squeezing his lips together, and furrowing his brow. “I think I made a mistake.”

***

Follow the below link to purchase A Twisted Kiss On New Year’s Eve 2022 and read all 31 five minute short stories.

Before you lies a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know or imagine. For scrawled in blood upon the pages hidden within the above tome is stories twisted thirty-one in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too…

 

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