Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Stories Forgotten

“They say he can’t be killed,” she says as she opens the box. Light reflects off the blade and shines onto her face. Her eyes glisten in the glow, and she smiles wickedly as she grips the handle and lifts it out.

“But you’re going to tell me that’s untrue, right?”

“I’m going to tell you a lot of things, many of them you’ll not understand. But the important parts you will, because if you don’t, you will easily die at his hands.”

“Way to put pressure on me like that. It’s not like he hasn’t killed half the city in the last twenty-four hours or anything.”

“Don’t be childish. That is the first important piece of information you must understand. The second is this blade. It’s the only thing that can kill the beast, and it must be plunged into its heart.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard to do. It’s not like he’s sixty feet tall and as wide as a house. How the fuck am I supposed to get that stupid little blade into its heart? It must be ten times the size of this room.”

“No, his heart is as big as mine and yours, and it is not within his chest. He keeps it hidden away, to protect himself. And I know where he keeps it, for I have seen it in a vision.”

“Wait, are you trying to tell me he keeps his heart hidden somewhere else other than in his chest?”

“Yes. Did I not just say exactly that?”

“Yeah, you did. It’s just… I mean, how is that possible?”

“You ask the question as if it is unbelievable, but yet you see what he is, a giant, an impossibility in this world. Yet you question something so simple as he keeps his heart hidden away in a box to protect himself against attack. Do you not think that is strange?”

He smiles, letting out a little chuckle. “I know, it sounds crazy, right? But hey, up until three weeks ago, giants were just a thing of stories, myths. So yeah, I’m still getting my head around the fact that he exists. So the whole ‘he doesn’t have his heart in his chest’ thing is a sort of fuck me moment.”

“You are not the one,” she says, placing the blade back in the box.

“Whoa there, honey chops, I’m the man. I’m the one. Trust me when I say I’ll slay that fucker’s heart like it’s a forty-dollar hooker. I’m just saying, shit’s gotta sink in is all.”

She stares at him through weary eyes and lets out a long, exhausted breath. “You must accept the truth. If not, you will be useless to this world. Accept everything I tell you and do what must be done.”

“Okay, not to be picky, but you said no more than five minutes ago that some things I won’t believe, and now you’re telling me to believe everything you tell me. So which is it? Believe or don’t?”

“Do not mix my words. I said you would not understand some things. I did not say for you not to believe.”

“Okay, my mistake,” he says, rolling his eyes. “So where is this heart that I’m supposed to spit fry?”

“It’s in a box, that sits within a room, that’s buried inside a mountain.”

“Okay… and the mountain is where exactly?”

“That, I do not know.”

“So how am I supposed to find it?”

“I-I-I, I do not have that answer.”

“Right, so do you want me to wait while you find it?”

“I do not have that answer either,” she says. They stare at each other for a few awkward moments.

“So this right here is kinda useless, isn’t it?”

“It would seem that way.”