Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

It’s a Grotesque Place to Hide

The dark feels different as Peter lies there. Shadows shift in the corners of his eyes, slithering where they shouldn’t. He grips the bedcovers tightly, pulling them up around his neck. He mumbles indecipherable words under his breath as his eyes narrow and dart quickly from left to right in panicked desperation, hoping to catch sight of something—or someone—he shouldn’t.

Seconds crawl into minutes—cascading into hours. His eyes sag in their sockets as Peter lies there, refusing to yield, refusing to get up, refusing to sleep.

Finally, as birds chirp from the trees that overhang the windows of his bedroom, he allows his heavy eyes to fall shut. Sleep greets him with tentacles—gripping him in its grasp.

That’s when he hears it: snippets of a whispered conversation, just a few feet from where he lies. His eyes snap open, and he sits bolt upright. The room is bathed in darkness again, the weak glow of the moon offering no solace. He blinks rapidly, stretches his stiff jaw, and stares frantically around his gloomy room.

A breath catches in his throat as he stares at two peculiar figures sitting at the foot of his bed, deep in conversation.

The dark twists into a spiralling mess as Peter stares, his mouth gaping. His breath escapes him, and he draws it in quickly again—and again—and again, as though he has forgotten how to breathe. The figures don’t move—at first. But as Peter gasps between each desperate breath, one of the peculiar figures tilts its head, the motion slow and deliberate, like a ventriloquist drawing out a moment with his grotesque puppet.

“Ah, Peter, awake finally you are!” its dry, broken voice rasps, cutting through the silence like a knife through fat and sinew. Peter grips the bedcovers, pulling them tighter around him. He gasps, stammers, and wets himself. Its lips curl, and it laughs softly.

“W-what a-are you? A-and what do you want?” he stammers, his voice frail and trembling.

Its bulbous eyes widen, and its smile broadens, jagged teeth glinting in the dim light. “We’ve come to take you home, Peter.”

“B-but I am home.”

It laughs again, a sound like splintering bone. Its grin stretches wider, cutting grotesquely across its face. “Oh, Peter, I think you already know what we both do. This here isn’t your true home. It’s just a place you ran to—a place to hide. You thought he’d forget you—we’d forget you. But that’s not what happens. He never forgets, and neither do we!”

The thing shakes violently, its laughter sending tremors through the bed. The second figure turns toward Peter, and his heart stops. Its face isn’t a face at all—but a smooth, featureless expanse of pale, fleshy nothing. Peter’s stomach heaves, and he vomits over the side of the bed.

“That’s classic Peter,” the first one hisses, its grin impossibly wide.

Peter’s mind spins, and he tumbles from the bed, scrambling for the doorway. His hands claw at the handle, but it doesn’t turn. A cold, clawed hand latches onto his back and yanks him away. Before he can scream, the figures lunge.

Their claws tear into him, shredding his skin like wet paper. Peter thrashes, blood spraying in vivid arcs across the walls. He punches the faceless one’s smooth head, his fist sliding off the rubbery surface. The other figure cackles as Peter grabs it by the throat, throwing it back over the bed—but it springs up again with unnatural speed.

Peter slips on the blood pooling beneath him, his hands grasping at the floor in vain. His legs kick violently, but he can’t get up. The clawed hands grab him again, digging into his flesh, pulling him back toward them. His screams are wild, desperate, and jagged, but they don’t stop the creatures.

“It didn’t have to be this way, Peter,” the first one sneers. “But you always make things messy.”

Its claws plunge into his stomach, tearing him open with a wet, sickening crunch. Peter screams, blood geysering upwards, splattering his face. The creature digs deeper, wrenching through bone and sinew until it pulls something free.

Peter’s body goes slack. His screams stop, leaving only the wet sounds of the creature pulling him apart.

From his stomach, it pulls something small, wet, and grotesque. It writhes weakly in its grasp as it’s dragged into the light. Its face is grotesquely bizarre, but inside the bulging, warped eyes and crooked smile, there’s a resemblance to Peter, whose empty body lies silently in a growing pool of red.

The first creature holds the writhing figure up, like a doctor presenting a newborn. “There you are, Peter,” it whispers, its grin widening. “It’s time to go home.”