Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Tummy Rub

“Why would you even think we could sort this out? You leave me for who knows where, and now, six months later, you just turn up and expect everything to be fucking normal? You think you can just walk in, and everything will be like it was. Well, shit stain, it’s not!” she yells as she throws a mug at him. He quickly ducks to the side, holding his hands up in the air, as she grabs another mug from the sink and prepares to throw it.

“I can explain! REALLY, I can! But not while you’re throwing shit at me,” he says quickly. She hesitates as she thinks over his words, then throws the mug anyway. It hits him squarely on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground with a thud. She holds her hand to her mouth in shock and slowly makes her way to his side.

“I-I-I-I’m, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” she asks as she kneels beside him, suddenly feeling nauseous at the sight of the blood rushing from the wound. “Oh God, Jerry, that looks deep. Can you…?” And she throws up over him. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she says as she slowly forces herself to her feet, while Jerry does the same, steadying himself on the table. He looks down at his shirt, then at Caroline, and begins to laugh. She stares at him, confused for a moment, before she too is laughing uncontrollably.

“Get your shirt off, and I’ll throw it in the wash. I’m so sorry. As you can see from my condition, I’m a bit hormonal,” she says as she rubs her tummy.

“You don’t need to be. It’s me who is sorry. Can I please explain?” he says as he pulls his shirt off slowly.

“Do you really think any explanation will make what you did sound alright?”

“Isn’t it worth a try?”

“If it was worth anything, you would’ve contacted me earlier than this, considering I’m carrying your fucking child!”

“Please, all you have to do is trust me. Once I tell you what happened, once I explain, you’ll understand why I couldn’t,” he says as she hands him a cloth, which he presses against the cut on his head.

“Well then,” she says, with her hands on her hips, “stop dicking around and tell me this huge bullshit story that’ll somehow vindicate why, two hours after I told you I was pregnant with your child, you vanished into thin air for six months.”

He sits down at the table, runs a hand through his hair, and looks over at her. “When you told me we were going to have a baby, I was over the moon. I felt amazing and knew I had to set things right with my old man, you know, get him on board with all this. So I drove up to the old homestead out in the middle of nowhere, and we had a chat about everything that was going to happen during the next nine months. Over the course of the conversation, he suggested he should come stay with us for a few weeks. He thought maybe it would be good for everyone. So while he sorted out the animals and packed his shit, I headed back home to set it all up. Along the way back, I got a flat tyre. The car swerved off the road, and I ended up in a ditch. My phone was busted in the crash, so I had no way of contacting anyone because I don’t know anyone’s bloody number these days. I thought I’d have to walk the whole way back, but about five minutes later, an old-timer and his two sons came driving past. They helped pull the car out of the ditch and took me back to their place, where they had a phone,” he says as he shuffles his feet on the floor and pulls the cloth away from his forehead, the bleeding now stopped.

“And?” she says, standing there with crossed arms.

He looks back at her and bites his bottom lip. “Once we got to their house, I found out they didn’t have a phone, and they weren’t really interested in helping me. It turned out they’d booby-trapped the road with spikes and had been abducting people along the road for the last fifty-odd years. As you can imagine, knowing me well enough, I was petrified and scared for my life. That’s when he introduced me to his six daughters and told me I had to make love to each of them three times a day or they’d kill me. I didn’t want to, but I knew if I was to get back to you and our unborn baby, I’d have to do whatever it took. So I did what they told me to do, no matter how degrading, no matter how explicit, I did it. For four months, I made love to his six daughters three times a day, sometimes four. All the while, I was slowly plotting my way out, planning my escape—a plan I successfully carried out four days ago. I managed to escape the cupboard they kept me chained up in when I wasn’t making love to his daughters. I stole one of the hundred-odd cars they had littering around their backyard and drove all the way to the police station, where they detained me for questioning, and only today allowed me to leave. I didn’t call because I knew you wouldn’t believe me over the phone. I knew, for you to believe me, I had to do it in person,” he says as a tear runs down his face.

She stands there silent, her hand on her chest, fighting back the tears, as she lets out a stuttered breath, “Oh my God, Jerry, you poor thing. I feel so ashamed of myself for thinking you’d run out on us. I should’ve known something had happened. I should’ve realised. Can you ever forgive me?” she says as she grabs his hand tightly and squeezes it.

“Of course I can, my love. You weren’t to know; none of us were. I’m just so glad I made it back to be with you and our child, where I belong.”

“Can I ask you the only question I have?”

“You can ask me anything, honey. I’m an open book.”

“What happened to your father?”

“Sorry?”