Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Waiting on Salvation

“I don’t want to be a bore, but whatever you’re thinking, it’s the wrong choice,” he says, looking across the room at her with a wry smile on his face. She glances over to him, sweat pouring down her face, and grimaces, before nervously biting down on her bottom lip. Her face screws up as she pierces the skin, and a stream of blood pours from the wound, running quickly down her chin. She thrusts a hand to her face before turning away, looking feverishly out of the window once more, while she clutches the revolver tightly in her other hand. The sweat on her palms causes it to almost slip from her grasp.

He laughs softly. “Sandra, this doesn’t have to be like this, you know that to be true. So why don’t you untie me, and instead of challenging me in this place,” he says, rolling his head as his eyes encompass the small, derelict shed. “You could thrive instead. You could be a part of the greater system. You could stand for something more. You could rule over everything, everyone, instead of joining the dead and forgotten in this shit hole.”

“SHUT UP!” she yells, as she rushes forward and digs the revolver’s barrel into the side of his head, pressing her face against his, staring him deathly in the eyes. “JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!” she screams, pulling the trigger. The explosion rips forth from the revolver, deafening her for a moment. She reels back in surprise, never expecting the noise to be so loud, or the mess—the contents of his head spread across the wall behind him. She screams unintelligible words, stomps her feet into the ground aggressively, then rushes back to the window, peering out and chewing on her fingernails nervously as her eyes dart from left to right, searching for her salvation.

“Withered words etched in blood will not slow me down. Prayers to a god who doesn’t exist will not stop me. Diseases born before man walked the earth will not lay me down. So tell me, Sandra, why do you think a weapon birthed by your insect-like species will end my tormenting you?” he says. She turns back to him, the hole in his head slowly healing over, as the pieces of his skull tear from the wall and fit back into place.

“I-I-I-I, I never thought it would, I just wished you to be QUIET! I-I-If only for a moment,” she says, her bottom lip trembling as tears run down her face.

He smiles broadly. “My dear Sandra, if you wished for silence, you should’ve said something sooner, because that is my specialty,” he says as the room is sucked into the darkness. She tries to scream, but too late she realises that the words she spoke aloud—the wish she vowed never to use, the final wish the jinn owed her for setting him free—had finally been granted.