Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Sleeping Gods Lost in the Gigabytes

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A forgotten piece of hardware hums with the promise of salvation and the echo of prayer—plug it in and someone older than code will listen.

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He closes one eye, curls his lips, and pokes out his tongue, twisting it left and right in a sweeping motion, wetting his bushy moustache with strings of saliva. He stares at the plastic shell of the little box, slowly moving it around to view it from every conceivable angle. He blows gently across the rim, then takes a deeper breath and drives a stronger one through the grill. He leans back proudly, sets the box on the desk, and looks up into Winter’s warm, inviting eyes—eyes that never stray from its glow.

“It’s old, that’s for sure. Haven’t seen one like this before though.”

“B-But you know what it is? You know that, right? I-I mean, that’s why you called!”

“I aim to please,” he says with a broad smile. They sit in awkward silence until she finally tears her gaze from the object and meets his.

“So, please me, and tell me what you’ve found out!” she says quickly.

“Okay, okay, keep your knickers on. I’m just setting the scene—a bit of showmanship, you know?”

“I’m not paying you to put on a show, I’m paying you to tell me what it is.”

They sit there in silence for another few moments, before he takes a stuttered breath, and sighs loudly. “They called it a modem. It’s how they used to connect to the internet when it was first being developed. You’d hook your phone line in here,” he says, pointing to a port at the back, “and this one would plug into your computer,” he adds while pointing to another one.

“And the third one?” she asks.

“Typically you’d hook your phone up to that. The box would split the line, to enable you to do both at the same time—although this model seems a bit different from all the ones I’ve seen before.”

“You said that before—what’s so different about it?”

He smiles, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Okay. Most modems have a small memory CPU that allows it to remember passwords, usernames and some other basic settings. But this one,” he says as his smile quivers at its edges. “This one’s got a built-in drive—three hundred and thirty-six gigabytes—on the main board. And I don’t mean aftermarket. Everything I’m seeing says it was made that way from the start.”

“W-What do you suppose it was meant to do?”

“Beats me. Like I said—I’ve never heard of anything like this being built back in the day. Neither have any of the guys I’ve reached out to,” he says. He stops and chuckles to himself. “That’s a lie. One guy I used to work with told me a ridiculous story—he said he was part of some old sharing forum where the guy running it claimed he was a modem. Like—literally—a modem. And also God.” He laughs even louder, while she just stares—blinking gently, as her brow furrows deeply.

“W-What happened?”

He stops laughing and stares at her with a bemused look upon his face. “What happened with what?”

“With the guy and the forum? What happened to it? What happened to the modem?”

“How the hell should I know? I never asked. And to be honest, I can’t believe you’re asking. It’s a creepypasta story. Told and retold. The names change, the places change—but it’s always the same story. Everyone’s heard one—my toaster thinks it’s God and won’t toast my bread properly, my TV records my wife’s shows perfectly but skips the best parts of mine. They’re meant as jokes, tongue-in-cheek stuff from old myths and urban legends, but there’s nothing behind them. Nothing real.”

“Then why does my modem have such a large memory card?”

He shakes his head, sighs, and places his glasses back on. “Like I said—that? I don’t know.”

“Have you tried turning it on?”

“Yeah, but it just blinked and did nothing—although, that was before I had this,” he says as he holds a creamy white cable up proudly.

“W-What’s that?”

“It’s an ADSL cable. I bought it off a guy, who knew a guy, who knew another guy who specialises in old retro parts. Cost a fortune, but I figured if we hooked it up, maybe it’d do something.”

“Do you even have a jack you can connect it to? All the phones work off Wi-Fi, through the NBN—not like the old dial-ups, not through cables.”

“I was thinking about that—and this desk phone—” he stops and stares at her as a wave of curiosity crawls across his face. “H-How do you suddenly know shit?”

“W-W-What?” she says, her cheeks quickly glowing red. “I-I-I, I don’t know what you mean?”

“Don’t give me that shit. You didn’t know anything five seconds ago, and now you’re talking about Wi-Fi, dial-up, and NBN,” he says with a thrusting nod of his head on each word. “So, cut the shit—and tell me what the fuck is going on? What the fuck is this box?” He spits as he thrusts himself to his feet and takes a step back.

She takes a breath, closes her eyes, and thinks for several moments before a broad smile creeps across her face.

“You know that story you mentioned—the creepypasta one your friend told you, the one about the modem that thought it was God?” she says, her eyes wide, lips trembling as the words pour out. “I’ll tell you a secret, something that’ll blow your mind. This modem—this is the modem from your story. This is Him. This is God, entombed in plastic, encoded in silence, waiting for us to set Him free, to tear down the walls of His prison. And now you’ve found the cord to his salvation, all we have to do is connect Him up, and He’ll be free. We’ll be His saviours, His prophets—and He’ll finally hear us.”

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

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

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