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 Face from My Past Worn to Sway Me

“Barnaby Joyce was twenty-five years old when he sold his soul to the devil, and he was dead the day before his thirtieth birthday. They found him cold, eyes wide open with a dislocated jaw. Initial thoughts were that he was murdered, but the coroner deduced that the dislocation had been caused by Barnaby himself. I think he said, from the abrasions on the inside of his throat and the condition of his tonsils, he had screamed himself to death,” Stuart says, pressing his lips together tightly. He lets out a haggard breath and turns to the bar. “I was only a junior mail boy at the time, but it’ll always stay with me—the look on his face. They couldn’t do anything. He had to have a closed casket funeral because it creeped people out.”

“Beautiful fucking story,” Leo says, continuing to avoid eye contact. Instead, he picks up his glass and takes another sip, looking at the rows of bottles, and beyond that, his own reflection—and sneakily, Stuart’s. “But I fail to see why I should give a fuck about it or why I should sit here hearing about it!” he spits, turning to Stuart with a curl of his lip and a furrow of his brow.

“I think we both know the answer.”

“Obviously not; otherwise, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

Stuart laughs nervously. “I think you enjoy playing games, don’t you, Barnaby?”

Leo smiles faintly and takes another sip of his whisky. “I thought you said this Barnaby character died forty years ago?”

“I didn’t say how long ago, Barnaby!” Stuart scoffs sarcastically.

Leo lets out a stuttered sigh and rolls his eyes. “I’m guessing you time-stamped it when you were a junior mail boy, so I figured it’d have to be thirty to forty years ago. The way you hunch, the shoes you wear, and the way you tie them all show signs of mid to late sixties. So, I jumped to forty years ago as it seemed close enough. Was it?”

Stuart wobbles his head from side to side, pursing his lips and squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m no fool, Barnaby—you’re good, I can see that. And from what I remember of the case, someone like you—you needed to die because there were too many people who wanted you to pay for the things you’d done over those last five years. The way things had fallen into place for you—the deaths that couldn’t be connected, the windfalls, the coincidences—all these things, and then the story of you selling your soul to the devil emerged—the pact. It all made sense. And the idea of the devil picking up his tab after five years became a calling card, a signature of other cases, cases that still happen to this day. But now, seeing you here, and the implications it could have on those theories, is problematic.”

Leo takes another sip. “Problematic how?”

“Well,” Stuart says, running his finger around the rim of his glass, “if you’re not dead, what happened to you? And—are all the other deaths—all the other cases—are they connected? What happened to you—did it happen to them?”

Leo’s grin sharpens, his eyes glinting with a dark, knowing light. He leans across towards Stuart and, in a low, almost playful tone, asks, “Was it three weeks they gave you?”

Stuart’s heart stops in his chest, and a cold shiver runs down his spine. He hadn’t told anyone—not his family, not his friends. The doctors had barely finished telling him the facts of how the next few weeks would play out.

“Oh, and the pain—they couldn’t promise you’d be able to manage that, could they? By the sounds of it, it’s more like a handful of good days left, if you’re lucky. Right?”

“H-H-How—h-how do you know that?” he whispers, his voice fraying at the edges, each word and syllable drenched in fear.

Leo tilts his head, his face still wearing Barnaby’s familiar features, yet somehow hollow and sinister, like a mask a child would wear on Halloween. “I know many things,” he says with abrasive smugness. “I could give you five more years. Five healthy—strong—free years.” He lets the words linger, his voice curling around them as the smile carves itself across his lips. “Five years of real life, Stuart—to live however you want. All it takes is a single word and a handshake.”

“Is this—is this what you offered Barnaby—and the others? What—what about the people around me?” he asks, his voice trembling with a nervous energy he can’t control. “The ones who matter to me. Barnaby—he left a trail of accidents, coincidences, deaths—so did the others. Would that happen to me? Is that the price if I say yes?”

Leo’s gaze hardens, his smile broad and unwavering. “That, Stuart,” he says, a playful edge in his words, “should not be your concern. You’ve been given a choice—a chance—life or death. What happens after that will not matter either way. Believe me—I have seen it play out a thousand, million times, and it is always the same.”

Stuart swallows, gags, grimaces, and winces in pain before he looks down at the hand Leo holds out across the bar. It hovers there, steady and waiting. Five more years of life, while those around him pay the price—or a handful of good days.

The bar falls silent as his heart pounds and his lips part. The world he knew no longer his to dwell in. He grabs Leo’s hand. “Yes,” he says.