Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Hours Lost to the Dreams of Others

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A man rented out as a vessel for the dying takes hours and memories for a fee—until one client refuses to leave and the borrowed years refuse to return. This is a tight, suffocating tale about ownership, grief and the cost of letting someone else live through you.

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He drags on the cigarette, fingers trembling as he pulls it away. He bites on his dirty fingernails and lets out a stuttered breath.

“I-I-I, I don’t understand,” he stammers, looking up into her unflinching gaze. “I-I-It was only supposed to be for a few hours. B-B-But it was y-y-years, and I saw them all—l-l-like I was watching a TV show. A-A-And there was nothing I could do. Then suddenly, he was gone, and I was free again. I was me.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mister Wilson. Our records show the process was successful. The user disconnected as per the agreement. You were paid your fee, and as far as we were concerned, you went back about your business. That was the last time—via our records—you were utilised for this service. I can see that we did attempt to contact you several times after that for user requests, but you never responded to any of them, and you were eventually removed from the list.”

“I NEVER REPLIED BECAUSE YOUR LAST FUCKING RIDER WOULDN’T LET GO!” he spits, slamming his fist into the desk. “NOW! TELL ME WHO THE FUCK IT WAS—SO I CAN GIVE THEM THE SHIT THEY LEFT BEHIND!”

She swallows nervously and smiles.

“As I said before, M-Mister W-Wil—Frank, please, y-you don’t need to—”

“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU SAID! YOU’RE EITHER GOING TO TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW—OR I’LL GET THE INFORMATION MYSELF,” he growls, clumsily pulling a pistol from his jacket and placing it on the desk.

“I-I-I,” she stammers, her eyes flicking to the girl beside him, then back again.

“You’ll tell me what his name is, and then me and Fiona here’ll go and pay him a visit—and he can explain to her why he did what he did. And me? I’m going to collect the credits he owes me!”

She glances at Fiona again, then back to Frank.

“E-E-Even if what you say is true, even if the last rider did not disengage as our records show—she is genetically your daughter. Regardless of the rider, your DNA is wh—”

He quickly raises the pistol and fires a shot into her left shoulder. She tumbles back, screaming in pain, crashing to the floor. He’s on his feet a moment later, standing over her, a grimace curling across his lips.

“IF I WANTED YOUR FUCKING OPINION, I’D ASK FOR IT! NOW TELL ME! TELL ME WHO HE IS, WHERE I CAN FIND HIM, AND I’LL LET YOU LIVE!”

She smiles, coughing up a wad of blood, clutching her shoulder.

“Y-Y-You’re too late. T-The reason your rider let you go… was because their body died. They spent their final years living through you.”

Frank’s face twists. “Bullshit. You’re lying again.”

“Then why keep asking me questions if you’re going to treat everything I tell you as a lie?”

His lips curl, and his brow furrows. “Then tell me. Tell me what I want to know—and make me believe you.”

She takes a breath—almost done just for show, as if she didn’t really need to take one.

“When they came to us, they said they were dying—an immune deficiency disease, the kind that slowly shuts the body down. Their quality of life was already gone, even though they still had years left in the tank. They were alive, but only technically. Without the chance to truly live, what is life?” she says.

“So they signed in and left their body behind. Hospice by proxy, or something like that. And you became the bed they crawled into.”

He lowers the gun as his lips tremble.

“I-I-I—I want a name,” he stammers, as his eyes catch Fiona staring at him—her eyes blinking slowly, awkwardly.

Then he notices the silence. The silence being too silent.

“I gave you the name,” Fiona whispers. “But you won’t listen.”

His brow furrows. “What the fuck does that mean?”

The lights flicker. The room pulses like a hiccup. A faint buzz echoes around them from nowhere—like the static hiss of a radio without a channel.

“I-I-I—I’m not authorised to explain any more than that,” she says, as her words fall over each other, layering the last with pieces of the next—like a computerised voice confused about what comes first and last. Her mouth moves out of sync with her voice.

His eyes open wide, and the pistol drops from his hand.

Frank steps back, aghast, and Fiona finally moves—her head tilting to the side as she smiles awkwardly up at him.

“I drew him,” she says. “I could see him when you weren’t home. I called him the man in the m-m-mirror.”

The room contracts again. Its walls stretch like rubber. A second desk appears. Then a third woman.

He’s slumped in a chair—but not him.

A cigarette burns—then vanishes into nothing.

He turns to Fiona, and she stares at him with eyes that don’t blink anymore. Her smile, twisted.

“W-W-What’s happening to me? W-W-Where am I?”

“You’re where you’ve always been—where you were always meant to be,” she says, her voice not her own. “You were just the only one who didn’t notice, who didn’t realise that when he died—when he died for real—so did you.”

The room folds in on itself, and Frank screams as his world flickers out like a TV screen.

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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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