Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Chest Freezers and Dead Flowers

The breath stutters from his lips as he drops to his knees. The room’s temperature plummets at an alarming rate—first a cold mist, then ice crystals spiderweb across the windows. His lips tremble as she emerges from nothingness, stepping toward him with the grace she was known for when she was alive. Her hands rest firmly on her hips, a smile curling across her dead lips. She winks at him playfully.

“Hello, Johnny. Bet you didn’t expect to see me so soon.”

“I-I—I’ve still got one of your legs in the freezer,” he stammers, his teeth chattering as the cold grips him in its bosom.

She laughs, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s not what I meant, sugar, but it’s cute.”

“I-I—I,” he stammers through half-frozen lips. “Am I dead?”

“You should be so lucky,” she purrs. “But if that were the case, I wouldn’t be nearly as happy to see you as I am.”

She sashays toward him, gently places her hand on his head, and circles him. Then, with a spin, she collapses into a seat of ice that rises up before him, catching her as if it had been crafted for her alone.

The ice throne’s crystalline surface reflects the light in fragmented rainbows, casting ghostly colours across the frozen room. She leans forward, her dead eyes narrowing with delight. Her spindly fingers tap rhythmically against the frozen armrest, sharp clicks echoing through the silence.

“You’ve been such a naughty boy, Johnny,” she says, her playful tone steeped in detest and hate. “Taking trophies—savouring meals—having your fill—only to gorge yourself again. I watched the whole thing—the vomiting into buckets, running it all through a sieve, cooking it again. That was sick. But pretending it didn’t mean anything—pretending it didn’t happen? That’s the sickest part.”

“I—I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, but you did,” she interrupts, rising with an unnatural smoothness, like water flowing in reverse. Behind her, the throne splinters into shards, scattering across the floor like jagged ice daggers. “You kept me close because you didn’t know how to let go. You dined on me as if I were gold, while the others were just fast food—one and done. That’s the kind of love that never dies. Every time that hunger fluttered in your stomach, you’d come look at what was left of me. Then you’d devour me all over again, regret it, force yourself to puke it back up, and do it all over again.

“If that doesn’t paint the perfect picture of idiocy, then I am ashamed of us as a race. Civilisation isn’t civilisation without values, Johnny.”

“I-I-I,” he stammers, but she silences him with a cold, dead finger pressed against his trembling lips.

Her smile fades, her head tilting at an unnatural angle as a sickly green light pulses in her lifeless eyes. “Do you think they forgive you, Johnny—do you think I forgive you?” She pauses, the silence unbearable. Then she leans closer, her putrid, rotting breath slicing into his face like frozen razor blades.

He gasps, each breath strained and sharp, his chest heaving as if the air itself fights him.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers, her voice twisting in his ear like a spiteful wind, scooping out the last shreds of warmth in his frozen flesh. Tears freeze in his eyes before they can fall, and a quivering smile splits her face. “Don’t worry, lover. Forgiveness doesn’t matter anymore, and why should it to you? The circle of life is complete now.”

Her lips curl wider, revealing blackened teeth. “After all, you’re the main course.”