Twilight Nightmares (Twisted Tales Special Edition Book 1) (12 page)

The Girl and the Cab

 

 

 

 

The city lights sparkled in the sky, and eleven-year-old Regina watched them glisten off the fresh rainwater puddled in the street. A soft post-storm breeze made her yellow dress dance and her skin tighten with goose bumps. Her mother’s purse, which Regina appointed as her own after she died, hung from her shoulder. It was large, heavy, and made her arm ache. However, it was a reminder of the woman she loved, and she refused leave it at home no matter how uncomfortable.

The few cars that drove the street this time of night splashed through the puddles as she waved her arm in the air. A passing cab stopped, and she ran to the door. She peered through the passenger window at the driver. He was an old man, probably in his late fifties, and wore thin silver hair and a thick coat. He reminded her of her grandfather, which made her feel good, and she pursed her lips with disappointment.

“You need a ride?” He said with a strong comforting voice.

She exhaled, “No, thanks, sir.”

“Are you sure, little lady?”

“Yeah.” She said, and stepped back onto the curb.

“Okay, then.” He said, and pulled away.

As he disappeared around the corner, she stuck her hand into the air again. Cars continued to drive down the street to their unknown destination, ignoring her. One nearly splashed a large puddle onto her, and she moved just in time but still wasn’t fast enough to avoid getting her shoes soaked. She looked down at her feet and took a couple steps in place. The water squished in her socks and between her toes, but despite that, she moved back to the curb to hail another cab.

Finally, another cab approached and stopped. She looked inside and there was a young man with jet-black hair, a thin goatee, and a dingy wife beater. A pack of cigarettes adorned the dashboard next to a half-eaten burger. It smelled bad inside, like onions and gross vanilla.

“You
gettin
’ in or what? I
ain’t
got all night.”

Her heart started pounding. It thumped and thumped, and she swore she heard it drumming off the metal door as she leaned against it.

“Hey, I’m
talkin
’ to you.”

“Sorry, mister.”

“I
ain’t
no mister. You need
ta
go
somewheres
?”

“Across the bridge and to that Italian place, Lenny’s Lasagna.” She said, and pointed into the distance at no particular building.

“
Across’t
the bridge, huh? You
hun’ry
or
somth’n
?”

She nodded.

“Alright, get in, but only if you got money.”

“I do.” She said as she used both hands to yank on the rear passenger door handle.

Regina climbed into the back seat, and then closed the door. She reached for a belt, but there wasn’t one. She looked up, and the driver watched her through the rear-view mirror.

“Can we go
please.
I’m
gonna
be late.”

The driver poked the machine that counted the mileage, and then pulled away from the curb. As they travelled down the road and over the bridge, he continued to watch her through the mirror. It made her uneasy, but she had to power through it. She just had to.

When they reached the restaurant, which took only a few minutes, he stopped the car.

The driver turned toward her and said, “That’s six-fifty.”

“Okay, but can we wait for a minute?”

“Why?” He said impatiently, “I
gots
otha
people
ta
pick up.”

“Just a little bit longer. I’ll pay you extra.”

“
Ya
better.”

She watched the clock on her Little Mermaid watch. Ariel’s abnormally lengthened and unhinged arms pointed to 8:58 PM. A few seconds later, 8:59. Then finally, 9:00, and her heart slammed even harder in her chest. Her lips went numb, and she felt as if she might pass out.

“How much longer, baby?” He said, and it infuriated her.

As he threw his arm up on the divider between the front and back seats, she retrieved a gun from her mother’s purse and pointed it at his head.

“
Woah
!” He screamed, and reared back. “What the hell
ya
doin
’?”

“You hurt my mommy!” She screamed back as tears poured from her eyes.

He looked terrified and shamelessly guilty. He knew exactly who her mother had been.

“You did bad things to her, and then you killed her!”

“Listen, baby.” He tried to reason with her, but she pulled the trigger.

The first bullet grazed the side of his head, but the second pierced through is forehead and painted the windshield with bone, blood, and what little brains he had. She continued to fire, fighting to keep the gun in her hands even as they went painfully numb.

Only two other bullets hit him before the gun ran dry. She dropped it on the floor, and trembled as she crawled from the cab. She went around the car as a woman from the curb looked in and screamed.

She approached the front door of Lenny’s, and stopped. Her reflection revealed a young girl who wasn’t so young anymore and covered in specks of another person’s blood. She pushed through the door, and walked across the dining room as people watched her. She sat down at the booth her mother sat at before she was raped and murdered. The last place her family was whole. She laid her head upon the checkered cloth wishing she could feel her mother’s embrace just once more, and she wept.

What, Now, Beyond Departure?

 

 

 

 

My name was Kayla. I have known for weeks now that I lay buried in the back yard of a dark house built in a typical urban neighborhood. I have known for days that I may never see, feel, or speak to my loved ones again. I have known for hours that this unrest is the result of my life being lost to the hands of a man who cannot keep his hands to himself. I have come to know in the last few minutes the things I must to do or I may end up suffering the same dissonant eternity that so many souls without retribution have faced long after their death.

Dark shadows melt from the walls, droop from the ceiling, and web in the corners of the black corridor. A small bar of warm light at the end just below a bedroom door immediately preternaturally dies as it hits the darkness. The wood floor is a sea of tar waiting to gulp the monster that roams the house lazily throughout the day, but on this night, it will not be the imaginary tar the kills him.

I don't understand how but I somehow use energy to make the wall speak to him the only way a bodiless monster can:
Bang, Bang,
Bang
!

The light at the bottom of the door soon mottles with the shadow of my killer. The door opens, and when he steps toward the hallway, I fill it with my darkness. The human perception of my ethereal form makes it look as if the hallway fills with a thick viscous liquid. I watch him reach out and try to touch the blackness, but he hesitates. Apparently, his fear is far more powerful than his curiosity or courage.

The man takes a step back, and I explode the light behind him. A bright flash fills the room, and the remaining gas burns out as the filament cooks white-hot. A shrill call of terror escapes his lips, and I begin to make a shuffling sound. I move closer and closer to him until he runs back into the room.

Before he can hide in the bathroom, as if that would even make a difference, I snare his neck. He chokes and tries to tear free of my grasp, but with nothing actually holding him, he remains powerless to stop me. I squeeze harder and he lets out a sad little moan.

I drag him across the room, and he attempts to resist me with kicks but lands no blows. When we reach the window, I force his face upon the glass.

Heavenly glittering stars hang in the expansive cloudless sky. Earlier, the bright moon turned the forest below into a gloomy night, and now a soft fog slithers between the trees and leaks into the backyard. The thick mist encircles the spot where my body rests. I push his face harder against the glass until I hear the soft crackling of his fracturing bones, and then let go of his neck. He screams, but no one can hear him except me.

The dirt above my old body begins to move,
and my
former hand breaks through the surface, then the other hand, and a mountain of moving earth finally reveals a head. Not long after, the entire body surfaces, stands, and watches us with cold cloudy eyes.

My once shiny and lively hair now hangs in thick dreads over pale, bruised shoulders. My fair skin had long ago mottled with near black and purple spots where the blood settled. My old face, now slack, was at one time full of life with a brilliant smile. There's a noticeable lean of weakness as it stands there gazing up through the window.

It's weird looking at myself. It's as if I’m witnessing the true shadow of my former self. The woman who died is no longer the woman who lives, so to speak. I wonder for a moment if my actions might reflect negatively upon my prior good-natured lifestyle. Then I realize it doesn't much matter now that I'm dead.
So
, I crush his skull into the window until the glass shatters.

I may not be alive because of his death, but it sure as hell feels good to take away the one thing of his that he so readily and easily took from me.

Only Human

 

 

 

 

Can I hold myself to a higher place than anything else in this universe?
I thought as I sliced through the thin layer of skin of the paralyzed woman supine on the cold metal table.

Susan lived in a house with her six-foot-five, dark, and handsome husband and her gorgeous daughter. They had a peach picket fence, and she did Bikram yoga every morning. She liked to walk the family
Pekinese,
and she went out on the weeknights while her husband worked late. She would meet men, and let them flirt with her. Sometimes, she would stop by their place for a nice warm cup of Joe—or Mark or Peter, whatever his name happened to be. Some might call her a cheating whore or a monster, but she's only human—an animal among animals no different from other creatures that cheat on their partners: elephant seals, hedge sparrows, even some insects.

I often wondered what really made us different. Is it that we can talk? Is it that we can walk on only two legs? Is it that we supposedly have a higher mental capacity or that we can build giant machines while simultaneously destroying the earth? Is it some ability to know right from wrong? Do animals not have these qualities, too?

She blinked hard every time I cut into her. The skin parted as if I'd cut through a warm round of Christmas ham, only she bled. A lot. With the new hole in place, I quickly attached another arm—one of two I harvested earlier from a homeless woman—just below her right one. Not long before this, I attached the other just below her left. Now she had four total. With each prick of the needle to close the wound, she blinked.

I thought about what I might do when I arrived home later that evening. I might play some Call of Duty or perhaps read a book or two. I might make some dinner or take my dog for a long walk. Perhaps I'll go out and meet a woman instead of staying inside, I thought.

When I finished attaching the arm, I took a step back and gazed with amazement at my art. She didn't look happy, and I didn't blame her. She was, after all, in a very serious position in her life. One she might remember if the police found her before she died of infection. However, my art would put a smile upon
someone's
face. Probably many faces. Sure, some might call me a monster, but no different am I from the many murderers of the animal kingdom like lions that kill to rule the jungle, murdering a whole family—cubs included—and taking the lion’s wife hostage to enjoy and rape at his pleasure. After all, we're all just animals; it only happens that I'm human.