Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

A Humming Breath Calls to the Dead

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A tune drifts where no sound should belong, twisting into flesh and bone until breath itself becomes a dirge. In a room where humming never stops, dread wears a human face—until it doesn’t.

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Jackie sits with his mouth hanging open as his eyes dart between the others, and gently—ever so slowly—he begins to hum. 

The others turn to him, and he smiles nervously. He shrugs his shoulders, humming all the while. 

“A-Are you q-quite all right?” Bridgette asks. 

He shrugs again, still humming, his smile stretching into a broad grin. “I-I don’t know,” he stammers, then hums a little more. 

“Oh god,” she cries, clutching herself as she takes a frantic step back. “H-He’s, he’s infected!” 

Jackie laughs, shaking his head and rolling his eyes even as the humming continues. “N-No, I-I’m not infected.” 

“That’s what someone infected would say,” Claude says as he steps beside Bridgette. 

He shakes his head and grits his teeth as he inexplicably continues to hum. “I-I’m saying that because I’m not infected. S-Since when do the infected hum?” 

Claude nods, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. “That’s a good point. I don’t think any of the infected have hummed before,” he says as he steps to stand with Jackie. 

“But look at him!” Bridgette says as she gestures to Jackie—his eyes bloodshot, black veins protruding across his brow, up his neck, and down his chest. Thick, globulous green drool slips from his lips as he continues to hum. 

Claude’s eyes widen, and before he can step away, Jackie grabs him by the face—sticking his fingers through his eye sockets and his thumb through his nose—holding his head like a bowling ball. 

He screams, convulses, jerks—pulling, tearing, trying to free himself. 

Jackie tears his fingers free, ripping flesh and cartilage from Claude’s face. 

Claude collapses to the ground in a heap, his disfigured flesh spurting waves of red. He gargles, chokes, and then goes silent. 

Bridgette stumbles backward into the wall, her breath catching in her chest. 

Jackie’s head turns slowly, like a puppet, as if soaking in the air of the room. 

Through it all, his humming never stops—not for breath, not for anything. 

If anything, the humming grows deeper, and the song more layered, more tangled—like thoughts tightening around a scream. 

She presses herself against the wall. “S-Stay away f-from me.” 

The pulsating black veins pump their poison through his flesh. His eyes swell with blackness, swallowing his pupils like hungry children. 

The whites. The colours. Gone. Just black—as if something else, someone else had swallowed him from the inside and was now wearing him like a suit. 

“You’re not J-Jackie anymore—are you?” she whispers. 

His head falls to the side, and for the first time, his humming falters. He stares at her with his emptiness, and then reaches out slowly. 

She screams, pressing herself even further against the wall. It’s then, as he steps toward her, she notices something moving behind him—something on the floor. Her screams melt into sobs as Claude raises his hand—like a marionette on strings. 

“No, no,” she cries, shaking her head as a sea of tears cascades down her cheeks. “No, no, no—” 

Slowly, he stands—wobbling like a child who’s just learned to stand. Then he too begins to hum—gently at first, but once the two are in sync, in unison, they grow louder, and the room begins to shake. 

Bridgette screams again and charges forward, pushing her way past them. She bursts out into the hallway. An explosion rips through the ceiling as lights flicker—then burst behind her. 

But the farther she gets, the louder the humming becomes—spilling into the corridor, chasing her around the corners, snapping at her heels. No footsteps. No bodies. No voices. Just the vibration. Just the humming. 

She bursts through the doorway and out into the street. 

A hundred eyes fall upon her—black, blank, and endless. The hum grows louder. A sea of them. 

She falls to her knees as her heart pounds with panic. 

Each breath falters, every gasp catches. She grips at her throat—her hands awash in a growing sea of pulsating black veins—and then, as she catches her last breath, she feels it in the back of her eyes, and realises—all too late—that she is humming herself. 

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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