Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Hiding in Sight so Plain

He lets out a low, guttural groan, dragging his left leg behind his right. Each step rolls the curve of his spine upwards. His head arches back, and his vacant eyes stare into the sky. A sickly, thick, congealed string of green goo hangs from the corner of his lips, swaying with every movement.

A few feet away, she drops to her knees, letting out a stifled cry. Her hands claw at the dirt, her shoulders shaking as she silently sobs on the ground where she has fallen.

His eyes dart from the sky to her, his lips trembling. He takes another awkward step, then another, before stumbling forward and collapsing onto all fours beside her.

“What are you doing?” he whispers, his voice tight and low. “We have to move. If those things even for a second realise we’re not one of them—if they think we’re food—we’re as good as dead!”

“I—I—I—I can’t,” she sobs, her body trembling. “I don’t want to anymore. Not like this. Not for however long this is!”

He casts an awkward glance around the area. Small groups of decomposing, grotesquely mutilated corpses stumble aimlessly, heading in no real direction yet somehow still moving directly for them.

His voice shakes as he looks back at her. “Baby, sugar, if you don’t get up, I’m gonna have to leave you here. And if I do that, those things are gonna figure out you’re not one of them. And then—” He catches his breath and swallows a dry mouthful of air. “Then I can’t stay for that.”

“Then go!” she spits, her voice sharp with anger. She lifts her head and glares at him, her face streaked with dirt and tears. “Get out of here and do what you’ve always done—leave. Leave the people who need you to die alone!”

“Mar, that’s not—”

“Fuck you!” she hisses, spitting in his face as she leaps to her feet. She rips the rotting flesh she has been wearing as a mask for the last five days off her head and throws it to the ground. “Fuck you! And fuck all of you!” she screams. “Come get me, you pieces of shit!”

The dead stop and turn, their heads arching toward her. They howl, they scream, they cry, and they charge.

They hit her like a wave. The first knocks her off her feet, and the rest swarm, dragging her to the ground. Claws tear into her flesh, teeth rip chunks of meat from her arms and legs. She screams, thrashing against them, but it is useless.

He watches, frozen, as blood sprays everywhere, painting the grass in an explosion of red. One of them grabs her skull and smashes it against the ground until it splits open, her brain spilling out in a sea of crimson gold. Another tears her intestines free, pulling them from her like a magician with handkerchiefs. They keep surging, one after the next, feasting and feeding, as more pile on top.

Her screams are gone long before he realises, and she is just a pile of torn flesh. They continue to pull and tear at her—her eyes gouged out, her limbs torn and scattered, her body a mutilated disaster—and the beasts keep biting, keep tearing, keep feeding. Not because they are still hungry, but because they do not know how to stop.

When they finally shuffle away, there is nothing left but a dark smear of red across the grass and torn clothing. The clearing is silent except for the low grunts and hisses of the dead as they wander off, snapping at each other.

He sits there, staring at the mess, his breath catching in his throat. His chest heaves with each shallow gasp. Tears stream down his cheeks as he gently, silently sobs.

A hand grips his shoulder and squeezes.

He lets his eyes close as he feels the teeth tear at his flesh.