Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Cold Start

The rain pours down relentlessly from the heavens, crashing into the roof of the small cabin as if it were trying to tear its way inside. In the distance, lightning bursts down into the ground like a fist—smashing the land violently—followed by the murderous clapping of thunder. Inside the cabin, David Savage places his glass down onto the table and looks up at the three men who sit with him. He takes a deep breath and looks back down at his half-empty glass.

“Avoiding dealing with this is not going to make everything work out, you know that, don’t you?” one of the men says.

“No shit, but I don’t have an answer.”

“Of course you do. We’ve given you your options—so just fucking acknowledge it and kill the bitch,” another says.

“It’s not that simple—you don’t understand—I—I—I love her.”

“Bullshit. You don’t love her, you never have. She knows too much, and that endangers everything we’ve worked so hard to build. Do you want all of it to be destroyed by her meddling?”

“Shut up! You don’t know the truth. You don’t know what I feel.”

“Get with the program, you pathetic little boy. We know exactly how you feel. You can’t hide anything from us—she’s only ever been cover—nothing more than a way for you to seem normal, to fit in. Shit, David, even the bitch knows we need to get rid of her.”

“You don’t know anything! It’s not like that! In the beginning, she may have just been cover, but it changed somewhere along the way. Somehow, I lost sight of what was real and what was in my head, and I fell—god damn it—I fell, and I didn’t fight it.”

The third man leans into the table with his elbows and runs his hands through his hair. “Look, maybe you have. Maybe everything we put in place at the beginning of all this has somehow wound up backfiring, and you’ve fallen in love with her—it happens. But David, she knows what’s going on, she knows what we’re doing, and eventually, she’s going to tell someone. Sure, right now she’s scared and confused, but once that passes, that bitch is going to turn on us quicker than a prostitute giving a ten-dollar blowjob. She needs to be disposed of—it’s the only way. I wish it weren’t, but it’s all we have.”

“I can’t do it, not like this—not here—not to her.”

“I’ll do it for you, you gutless wonder!” the first man says.

“No, it needs to be David—none of us can do this one for him. He made the mess, and he has to clean it up,” the second man says.

“I can’t—don’t you understand—she’s not like the others—she’s different. I can’t.”

The third man gets to his feet and places a large hunting knife on the table as the room is lit up by the lightning outside—seconds later, thunder roars through the skies. “We can’t do this, David—you have to.”

David looks at the knife, then at the men, and then at the glass. Seconds quickly turn into minutes as he sits there contemplating his next move. Finally, he picks up the glass and quickly swallows the remainder of the drink, slamming it back down on the table once he’s done. A crack tears from the base of the glass and rips up through to the rim. Shards splinter across the table as the remainder of the glass rips into his hand, and he pulls it back with a grimace.

“I won’t do it!” he yells as he gets to his feet and grabs the knife, holding it out towards the three men.

“So, are you going to kill us now? You know you can’t do that. You know you don’t have the guts to do what you have to do—remember, we’ve been down this road before.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Before, I was confused—stuck in a loop of hate—and you all just fed it,” David says as he looks over to the corner where she sits—petrified, tied, and gagged. He locks eyes with her and sees the fear in them—the fear she has for him—and he smiles as he walks over to her and slashes the knife through the ropes. “I’m sorry. No one’s going to hurt you again,” he says, driving the knife into his chest. He crashes to the ground in spasms as the violent onslaught of the rain continues to pound into the roof almost in retaliation. Five long minutes pass as she sits there, in the empty room, tears streaming down her face, as his dead eyes stare silently at her.