Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

A Hammer Wrapped in a Mountain

With a curl of his lip, Carter brings the hammer down on Juliana’s skull, shattering it in a decidedly bloody fashion. He draws back and strikes again—and again—until his chest heaves beneath the weight of exhaustion. He drops to his knees, the hammer slipping to his side as he kneels in the growing sea of red beneath her shattered frame. He grimaces, then smiles. 

“That’s what surprises I have in store for you, bitch,” he hisses through clenched teeth, a river of salty sweat cascading down his brow, washing the sin from his trembling body. 

“Surprises are my game, not yours,” a voice purrs in his ear. 

He spins, his eyes bulging from their sockets, his lips trembling as his hand fumbles blindly for the hammer—but it isn’t where he dropped it. In panicked desperation, he scrambles to his feet, fists wound tight and drawn at the ready. 

“Show yourself, witch!” he bellows. 

A soft, rhythmic laugh echoes around him. 

“Listen to you, all full of fight and vinegar! Who would’ve thought the simple farmer’s son could twist himself into such a creature of power.” 

“Y-You made me what I am,” Carter stammers, his voice cracking. “Take solace in that if you dare—but I don’t hide behind lies and shadows like you do. I show myself for what I am—for who I am!” 

He spits. 

“LIAR!” she roars, her voice splitting the air as shadows twist together, forming a monstrous presence. She steps from the darkness, her figure swelling to ten times her size. Her lips curl, her brow furrows, and above her, crows and bats swirl like storm clouds. Below, vermin crawl from the corners of the room, their slick bodies writhing in the gloom. 

“I am who I show myself to be,” she bellows. “I am no mere woman for you to strike down as your father struck your mother! I am omnipotent. I am unstoppable. I am the thing you can never be!” 

The room quakes as her voice crescendos. Carter drops to his knees, clutching his head as blood trickles through his fingers. He screams, but when the sound fades, he is alone once more. Juliana’s cold, empty body still lies at his feet, her blood pooling around him. His hammer is back in his grip, its weight a cruel comfort. 

He scrambles to his feet, spinning in an awkward circle. 

“Stop playing games and face me!” he spits. 

He feels her behind him and spins, but nothing is there. Then she’s behind him again. He turns—still nothing. He screams, thrusting his hammer into the empty air, droplets of red flicking across the room with the motion. 

“I caved your head in once, woman, and I’ll do it again!” he snarls. 

The floor shifts beneath him, and he stumbles left, then right, crashing down as the world tilts like a ship caught in a storm. The ceiling and walls collapse, revealing only darkness, a black void stretching endlessly. He looks up to see her—her immense figure looming over him, holding the fragment of ground he kneels on in her clawed hand. 

“You are but an ant,” she sneers, her words echoing across the cosmos. “I am all of existence! You cannot strike what cannot be struck. I am unstoppable. I am inevitable. Bring your hammer, turn back the annals of time, but you will never take me.” 

Her voice softens into a hiss. 

“Instead, it will be another.” 

The world shifts again, and Carter finds himself on his knees, hammer raised high. He brings it down in a fury—striking her head in a bloody explosion of crimson. But as the hammer falls, he realises too late it is not her beneath him. 

It is Lewiette. 

Her small voice cries out, muffled and weak. “Daddy, stop!” she pleads, but the hammer falls again, and again, until her lifeless form lies limp in his arms. 

Carter screams, the hammer slipping from his hands as he cradles his daughter’s broken body. His tears fall, streaking her blood-stained face. 

From the shadows, her laughter rises—cracked, mocking, and dripping with vengeance fulfilled.