Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

A Sack Full of Nightmares

The lights flicker, shifting from stark white to a sickly, mottled cream, punctuated by dark patches. Moths and bugs swarm around each bulb, darting and diving in a rhythmic, unsettling dance. Jeffery looks up from the asphalt—a thick stream of drool spilling from his open mouth, his unblinking eyes vacant and unfocused. His neck tilts slightly—his hands folding together, fingers twitching as if playing an unseen, spectral piano.

Something stirs in the depths of his decaying mind—a pull, a hum he can’t deny. He gags, doubling over as a sack of mucus and bile births itself from his throat and splats onto the ground. His gaze remains steady, unwavering. The sack splits open, releasing a dark plume of bugs that writhes upward, toward the light. A crack and a hiss stab the air—then the bulbs burst, showering Jeffery in a sea of glass and darkness.

A hand clamps down on his shoulder, gripping him as though to haul him from the earth itself. He turns, his empty gaze fixed, jaw slack and dislocated, blood oozing from the torn edges of his lips. His hollow eyes meet another’s—another face, dead-eyed and slack. For a breath, they stand in silent communion—then both heads tilt, answering some unseen, inaudible call. Together, they shuffle forward, like phantoms from an old zombie film, melting into the shadows beyond the broken lights.

The path stretches ahead in a flickering line—each bulb straining against the creeping darkness. Beneath each dying light stands another figure—faces lifted, mouths slack and agape, forming a twisted tunnel down to the void of their bellies. Their glazed eyes are locked on the flickering glow above, as though waiting for something unseen to awaken. Like a slow, dark wave, they begin to heave—sickly egg sacs rising up the empty tunnels of their mouths. Each sack falls to the ground, splitting open with a wet slap, birthing a fresh swarm of bugs that coils upward, drifting to join the gathering cloud above. As each bulb reaches its breaking point, it explodes with a sharp pop, showering them in fragments of glass and darkness.

Farther down the line, a woman jerks her head to the side, her neck twisting with sickening snaps as if caught between compulsions she barely understands. Her hand rises, fingers trembling in a frantic, unnatural dance, seized by a force she cannot resist. Her eyes strain, flickering with life—only to dull, leaving them dry and wide. She convulses, a look of horror creeping across her face as she sinks to her knees, a dark river of blood pooling beneath her dress. She pitches forward, her face meeting the earth as bugs crawl from her mouth, ears, nose, and every open pore, spilling from her hollowed shell.

Somewhere in the shadows between the lights, the bugs thicken, spilling over each other, feeding on the slow-moving procession that drags forward. Their buzzing grows into a dark, chant-like rhythm, a pulse that binds them to the shadows. The figures sway in jagged unison—bodies jerking to the twisted music only they can hear. Between each hum, the darkness breathes—pressing closer as bodies are torn apart with brutal precision. Something unseen chooses its victims, separating those meant to follow from those meant to feed.

Beyond the reach of the final bulb, deep within the shadow—a presence waits, ancient and unwavering, its gaze fixed. Silent and patient, it watches as they shuffle forward, drawn to it like lambs to an endless hunger.