Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

The Hair Roped In

Jethro pulls on the rope with all his might, but no matter how hard he tries, the rope will not budge, and the bell will not ring. He drops to his knees and lets out a hiss.

“You have got to be kidding me!” he spits, as he looks over to Ulric.

“I told you, the bell does not ring because the rope does not pull.”

“BUT THE BELL DOES RING! WE ALL FUCKING HEARD IT, AND YOU CAN’T SAY YOU DIDN’T!”

Ulric holds up his hands in his defence and laughs uncomfortably loud. “No! No! I’m not saying I didn’t hear the bell, for I’ve heard it for over eighty years. What I am saying is that that rope will not ring that bell.”

Jethro squeezes his brow with his fingers, kneading it like pizza dough. “Are you listening to what you’re saying? Either the bell rings, or it doesn’t, and we both know it does, so it must.”

“Yes, yes, the bell does ring, and yes, it also does not. This rope, it is neither rope nor attached to the bell.”

“What? We both walked up there, and we both saw the rope connected to the bell.” He thrusts his hands around in wild gestures, as his eyes widen and sweat runs down his brow, while Ulric stands silently smiling before him. “How can it not be attached when we both clearly saw it attached!”

“Yes, okay, that is true, the rope—”

“The rope that is not a rope!”

“Yes, the rope that is not a rope, is attached to the bell, but the bell does not ring by pulling the rope. It rings when it chooses to ring.”

“When it chooses to ring? What the fuck does that mean?” he says, as his eyes suddenly grow tighter, and his trembling mouth curls, as he looks at the rope. “I-I-Is this made out of hair?” he stammers as he holds the rope in his hand and studies it curiously.

Ulric squeezes his lips together and hums for a few moments before he chuckles to himself and leans towards Jethro with an awkwardness he hadn’t felt until that moment. “When I was a child, my father used to tell me stories of the town as it was when the money was flowing and there were many people. He told me of the bell, and when it rang, it brought with it a drought, a sickness that could not be stopped. He told me stories of people torn in two, and how the rope grew with each violent death, how it was made out of the hair of those whom the bell claimed. I always thought it was Dad just trying to scare me, but the older I became, the more I realised he knew more than he let on. When h—”

“Wait, did you say it’s made of the hair of the victims?” he says as he takes a step back, dropping the rope with a wide-eyed gaze.

Ulric chuckles once again. “That is what my father told me, and his father told him, and his father told him. It’s a story as old as time, one my family has sworn to keep secret.”

Jethro’s brow furrows, and he looks over to Ulric with a confused gaze. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a story that will stay that way,” Ulric replies as he reaches into a spider-web-ridden cavity in the wall, pulls a lever, and the bell starts to ring.