Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Room to Wait as Time Slides

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

Time bends and breaks in a quiet room, where a jingle repeats endlessly and shadows stare with hollow eyes. When the doorway opens, what waits beyond is worse than silence.

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The tune crackles through the outdated, worn speakers—a simple jingle, a cover of a song he’s sure he liked growing up.

He tries to hum along. The words sit just on the tip of his tongue—but the closer they come, the further they vanish into the awful jingle.

He caresses his forehead and grunts as the clock hands spin, the music groans, and time—time unending—as he sits within the room’s view.

He sighs and shakes his head. He glances at the watch on his wrist, then up at the clock on the wall.

He squints, grimaces, then holds it to his ear. It ticks and tocks—too loud, and out of step, its rhythm wrong, like time itself had forgotten how it worked—his brow furrows as his mind begins to separate, and he wonders if he is part of the room.

Has he always been here?

Is this who he’s always been?

He stutters a breath—strained, trembling, almost unnatural.

He closes his eyes—just for a moment—and when he opens them again, he’s sitting in darkness. The jingle is gone. The room is strangled by a silence that grips everything.

He gasps—the breath stings—as his fingers grip the chair’s cushioned armrests.

Then he notices the shadow—standing there, watching him. His stomach turns, and his teeth ache. He clutches at his face. A throbbing erupts in his mouth as if something were pulling the teeth from his head, then comes the taste—vile, salty, as if he had a mouthful of blood he doesn’t remember swallowing.

And just as quickly, it’s gone. So is the pain.

But the thing, the thing still stands there, watching.

“H-Hello?” he asks through trembling lips.

The thing doesn’t acknowledge his question.

It just stares—silent, still.

His heart skips a beat, and he feels cold hands grip him from behind.

He jumps, spins around, but finds nothing there. He turns again, coming face to face with whatever it is—its cold eyes staring deep into his.

Its mouth opens, and a sound—like a thousand voices, singing a thousand songs, echoing a thousand cries—floods the room.

The room flickers—then in a blink, it comes alive in a wash of vibrant colour. The lights glow, and the tune hums back into his ears—now even more familiar than before—playing in the background, gently swaying the room into its hold.

He gasps. His heart races. His fingers tightly wrap around the armrests.

“It’s a long wait, I know,” says a woman now sitting beside him.

He scrambles from his seat, screaming—while she remains unmoving, a warm, full smile etched into her wrinkled lips.

“What the fuck is going on?” he bellows.

“Oh hush now, child. Your crying’s gonna wake the dead—and we don’t need them bothering us. Not yet anyway,” she says, thumbing playfully toward a doorway he hadn’t noticed before.

His bottom lip quivers—as a sea of cold sweat runs down his brow.

“W-W-Who are you?”

“Who do you want me to be?”

“T-That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer you’re going to get to that question—so accept it—and worry more about the questions you’re not paying attention to!” she snaps back, matter-of-factly.

He swallows, gripping the chair as if it were a lifeboat and he was lost at sea. He claws his way around the chair, then crawls into it—huddling in a ball.

“A-Am I dead?”

Her smile widens—and her wrinkles deepen. “Do you remember dying, Jerry?”

He stares, then blinks, before he jerks back, with wide distressed eyes. “N-N-No,” he stammers.

“Well then, you ain’t dead, are you!” she says with a jovial laugh. “Not yet, anyway,” she adds smugly.

“What’s that supposed to—”

His words trail off as he finds himself alone again.

The tune—so familiar—plays through warped layers, as if underwater.

He feels the coldness grip him once more, and slowly he peers over his shoulder—and like before, nothing.

He closes his eyes, swallows, and lets out a laboured breath.

“Get a grip, Jerry. It’s all in your head,” he whispers, then opens his eyes—and stares into the piercing, hollow eyes of the thing.

It stares at him, silently, tilting its head from side to side.

He stutters a breath and tries to crawl further into his seat.

“W-What are you?” he sobs.

Like a marionette yanked by unseen strings, it rises abruptly, looks away, and points to the doorway.

It turns back toward him, almost smiling, as a thousand cries scream out for him to run, for him to flee.

Then the doorway flies open, and the thing drags him inside.

He barely has time to scream before the door slams shut behind him.

Slowly, the distortion in the music unravels, its upbeat tempo returning as the fluorescent lights warm every corner of the room—while on the other side of the wall, Jerry’s corpse lies curled in a broken ball of flesh and bone, his mouth wide, his eyes panicked, his final scream forever trapped in his throat.

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💬 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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