Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Today’s story is brought to life by the following prompt…

This is my submission for Kevin’s No Theme Thursday.

A Timely Map

Gunner chews the fatty substance with a grimace painted across his face, squinting sternly from his one eye. The makeshift patch leaves little to the imagination, as a star-shaped scar is proudly displayed, and he wears it like a medal of honour. He draws back and spits a slimy wad of saliva, tobacco, and the sinewy remains of his dinner onto the jetty’s boards.

“I doubt you really want me to be taking you out there, in that thing,” he delivers with a dry slur, as he looks over to Danny.

“B-B-But you’ve taken m-my money, w-why do t-that, if you n-never intended to take me?”

“I did it to save your life, boy, and the sooner you realise that, the better! No one should be going out there, looking for Old Bailly’s treasures, especially not some rich little snot-nosed kid like you!” Gunner snorts with a curl of his lips as he stuffs his pipe with a sticky, dark brown ball of tobacco. He allows a grin to creep across his lips before sucking on his fingers and letting out a satisfied gasp. He bites down on the end of the pipe, drags a match across his knees, and sucks several breaths back until a thick plume of smoke floats up from the pipe.

“I’m not some r-r-rich boy! I-I-I, I w-w-worked for every cent I gave y-you, a-and I d-deserve to g-go out there! I-I, I deserve to find that treasure!”

Gunner smiles broadly and wobbles his head from side to side before laughing loudly. “DESERVE?” he bellows sarcastically. “Why do you, some snot-nosed little brat, deserve to find treasure that greater men than you have never found?”

“B-Because,” he says as he holds up a tattered piece of paper sealed in a plastic bag. “I-I-I’ve got a map.”

Gunner’s brow furrows, and he sucks another few puffs from his pipe. “Bullshit! Bailly never made no map, otherwise I would’ve known.”

“Y-You can’t know everything.”

Gunner nods his head. “That be true, boy, I can’t, but I can know some things for sure, and one of them things is that there ain’t no map to Old Bailly’s treasure.”

“Then what’s this if it’s not a map?”

“Bah, it’s just some piece of paper, drawn up by some fool who thought he knew the secret, but never made it back to tell everyone it was wrong. There’s been plenty of them, almost as many as made it back—bah, it’s probably more. The gold has been out there for a few centuries, and the stories have been going for just as long.”

“The stories have been going far longer than that, a hundred years or more before Bailly was ever born,” Danny says matter-of-factly.

Gunner laughs as he raises a brow. “You need your head read, boy, ain’t no way the legend of Old Bailly’s gold can be going before Old Bailly was born, it’s just not possible!”

“B-B-B-But it’s true,” he stammers nervously, as he shakes the paper about. “T-T-The place the s-ship sunk, i-i-is right in the middle of a time paradox, t-t-the paper has d-drawings, i-i-images t—”

“BAH!” Gunner says with a wave of his hand, “Then that piece of paper is a fake, boy, and you are a fool for believing it! Whoever wrote it is pulling your leg!”

“Then stop!” Danny says.

Gunner’s face scrunches up, and his brow furrows. “What now?”

“You said, whoever wrote this map, is pulling my leg, so I asked you to stop, seeing as you were the one who wrote the map.”

Gunner’s brow furrows deeper, and he arches his head back. “Say what now? I-I-I ain’t made no map to Old Bailly’s treasure, and I definitely ain’t made one squiggling all across time.”

“Not yet you haven’t,” Danny says as he hands the plastic-wrapped map to Gunner, whose eyes widen as he reads the words written in his own hand.