Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

A Shot in the Spit

A sudden gunshot echoes through the dusk-ridden hills, setting the quiet land ablaze with movement and screaming chaos. Birds erupt from the trees, covering the sky in a sea of wings and cries, while mobs of feral pigs and kangaroos bolt from their hiding places, the swine screaming like demonic beasts as they scatter in all directions, attacking other animals in their terror-induced rage. Another shot shatters the air, then a third, leaving only trails of dust swirling in the wind before silence falls once more over the dirty red lands.

He looks to the hills and chews the air as if it were fat from the belly of a pig, cooked to within an inch of crisp and raw—nothing like the tough, chewy ones running wildly before him, but the domestic kind bred for their fatty flesh and supple tenders. He curls his nose and puckers his lips, dragging a firm hand across his beefy handlebar moustache. His old eyes narrow, and he draws back, shifting a scattering of snot in his left nostril, balls it up in his mouth, and spits it on Devon’s lifeless face.

“Shit,” he grimaces as he leans on the shovel and turns nonchalantly to Sophia. “He sure is dead,” he says with a laugh.

“Yeah, and now your DNA is all over him,” she slurs, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

He draws back again, spits another load onto Devon’s body, and wipes his sleeve across his face as he cackles loudly. “Shit girl, you think I give a damn?”

“You might not, sugar, but I do!” she says, raising the shotgun. “Now, lick it up!”

He smiles through twitching lips. “W-What?” he stammers.

“You heard me, Coltan,” she says, cocking the gun. “Lick up the spit, and clean it up good, otherwise you’ll need to start digging a bigger hole!”

He laughs nervously. “Y-You c-can’t be serious. I’m not gonna—” His words are cut short when she fires a shot into the air, quickly cocks the shotgun again, and trains it on him.

“Try me!” she snarls, closing one eye and aiming the barrel toward his head. A stream of urine runs down his leg, and a sea of tears wells up in his eyes as his bottom lip trembles.

He throws his hands in the air and stumbles backward. “O-O-Okay! O-Okay! I-I, I get it! O-Okay, I get it!” he cries, scrambling to his knees and over to Devon’s body. He swallows an uncomfortable mouthful of dryness, then begins to lick the thick wads of spit from Devon’s cold, pale face. He dry retches and gags as tears stream down his face. He feels the barrel of the shotgun press against the back of his head.

“Don’t add to it, sugar—otherwise it’s easier to leave you in the hole than take you with me!” she snarls.

“I-I-I, I’m t-trying,” he stammers.

“Oh, don’t I know it, sugar—don’t I know it indeed,” she says with a smug smile across her lips. She lets out a stuttered sigh as she looks out across the hills and takes in the beauty for the first time in a long while. “When you promised me a life worth living, did you think this was what I had in mind?” she asks, turning back to Coltan, who stares up at her with red, bloodshot eyes, a trail of vomit cascading from the brim of his moustache. She looks past him, and over to Devon’s silent frame, the bright green of Coltan’s vomit almost glowing in the night air.

“P-P-Please!” he stammers.

She takes a deep breath and thrusts the barrel in his face. “Lick it up,” she snarls. Fresh tears cascade down his face and his bottom lip trembles uncontrollably.

“N-N-No—” he doesn’t get to finish his words as she squeezes the trigger, removing the better part of his face. The gunshot echoes across the hills once more, and again the cries and calls of beasts known and unknown fill the air. For the first time in a long time, she allows herself to truly smile as she picks up the shovel and heaves a spadeful of red dirt over her past.