Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

At the Bottom of a Long Drop

The console flashes an array of colours and screams one final, desperate warning before falling silent and dark. Stephen’s lips curl as he squints one eye shut, stroking his beard in thought. A stuttering breath escapes him before he slaps the console—once, twice, and then several more times, each strike harder than the last.

With a sudden screech, the console jerks back to life. Stephen is bathed in a kaleidoscope of colours as every button lights up. The main viewscreen beeps sharply, and a sea of images cascades across the display before him. Each image is separate, but they slowly merge into a single distorted vision of the world beyond.

Another trembling breath slips from his lips as he flicks a switch on the side of his headgear.

“Mother, do you copy? This is Little Boy Blue. I repeat, this is Little Boy Blue,” he announces, his voice proud but trembling.

Seconds pass. Static fills his headset, its crackling hum gnawing at his resolve. He purses his lips and gives a small shake of his head.

“Mother, this is Little Boy Blue. Do you copy? I repeat, this is Little Boy Blue,” he says again, pausing for a moment. His eyes close, and his lips tremble. “D-Dana, p-please answer me,” he stammers.

The static ebbs and flows, weaving its nonsensical nothingness through his ears—until, suddenly, it breaks. A voice emerges from the wailing void, unclear at first, distorted but undeniably human.

His heart jumps, and his eyes widen. “I—I—I hear you! Over! I can’t make out what you’re saying, but I hear you—I fucking hear you!” he shouts, his voice breaking with excitement.

“S-S-Stephen?” a voice calls faintly through the static.

“DANA!” he roars, his chest heaving. “Thank fucking god! I thought I’d lost you.”

The static fizzes and hisses, weaving in and out of his ears. Pockets of silence pop before, suddenly, her voice pushes through again, garbled and fractured.

“We lost you—w-where—krrrssshhh—you, w-we can’t see you—krrrraaaak—the sonar.”

He looks over the console. Numbers cascade across it, running in a nonsensical sequence. He takes a haggard breath, then looks out into the viewscreen. The world around him lies dormant, a graveyard of stillness. Nothing moves as far as the eye can see.

“My GPS is fried,” he says, voice steady but strained. “It’s not giving me any readings that make sense, but wherever I am—” he pauses, scanning the barren landscape—“I’m at the bottom of it, and it goes for miles.”

“Wait, I-I-I, I think—crrrrkk—see you, t-the ship’s taken a lot of da—shhhkrrrk—ge, we’re gonna get you out!”

He allows a smile to soften across his lips and falls back into his seat. “You don’t know how good those words sound—” The sentence dies in his throat as his gaze catches something large moving in the distance. He leaps forward, staring at the screen with wide, desperate eyes.

“I—I—I, I don’t think we’re alone down here,” he whispers through his headset.

“Come again—shhhkksss—say that you don’t think we’re alone?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I said. There’s something big, and I mean big, out there. Swimming around. Checking us out. You’d have to see it on your sonar—something that big doesn’t get missed.”

“I don’t see a—shhhkksss—ing, just what’s left of the pod. Oh god, Stephen, oh—krrrssshhh—STEPHEN!” Dana’s voice cracks into silence as the radio cuts out.

“DANA!” he screams, his voice raw, as he scans the pod’s viewscreen for any sign of the ship. “DANA!” he yells again, smashing his fist into the console.

The screen falls dark, and he sits in a void of nothingness for what feels like an eternity. Then, one by one, the console lights up again. The viewscreen begins to piece itself back together, showing a horrifying sight—rows of razor-sharp teeth, mountains high, rushing straight towards him.