Twilight Nightmares (Twisted Tales Special Edition Book 1) (14 page)

Serendipity

 

 

 

 

On Sundays, the
Silvertown
Mall was a beautiful thing. Just after people repented to whatever God ran their lives, they dispersed for massive brunches. Afterward, men would hail their friends for a lazy day on the green while their women-folk perused through the giant superstores to spend money on whatever glamorous thing caught their eye.

Welcome to the suburbs
, Colby thought to himself.

He licked the melted side of a mountain of pink ice cream. Some of it dripped down his knuckles, and he wiped it with the thin useless napkin as he sat down at a bench. The seat was uncomfortably hard, but it gave him a good view of the mall's main foot traffic.

Colby looked at all the hearts and red tidings hanging everywhere. Each storefront window sported pink, red, and white decorations for the third most expensive holiday of the year. Men and women who were already together, walked side-by-side, fingers laced together. Others, the single ones with shitty rebellious attitudes, wore anti Valentine colors. Then there were the ones he was there for, the single hopeful women who desperately needed to find themselves someone special so they didn't feel so alone on such a holiday.

A slender and attractive woman walked by, a little too fast, and their eyes met. She slowed for a moment to gaze into his gorgeous green irises, and then continued past him. He watched her, admiring her firm curves below the thin, black sweater and tight white skirt. She stopped, looked back at him, and then returned.

Perfect
, he thought.

"Excuse me," she said, and he could almost hear the desperation in her voice. He wondered what kind of broken woman she was and why. Had she been married and beat by her husband? Did someone cheat on her because of something she lacks? Had daddy given her riding lessons when she was a girl? He didn't know, but he knew it was something for which he was thankful.

"Yes?" He said, casual and smooth.

"I know this seems strange, and it's really not normal for me." She said.

It's actually probably quite normal for
you
,
he thought and let out a hearty internal chuckle.

"Would you possibly like to have a drink with me tonight?"

Bingo
, he thought as he stood. He cocked his head to the side to make it seem like he needed to think about it. He didn't want to seem too eager because she might take that as a sign to back away. He read cosmopolitan. He knew the kind of advice they offered, and so he sat on his answer for a moment
to really snare
her.

As he opened his mouth, ready to speak the words she hungrily needed to hear, his gaze shifted to a woman walking by. Her brown eyes drifted to his, and then slowly danced back to what she'd previously been looking at.

That face
, he thought,
so gorgeous and familiar
.

He looked back at the beautiful blond standing before him, put his hand on her shoulder, and said, "No, thanks."

Before he had to deal with a sad little rejected woman, he turned and began following the brown-eyed
lady
.

She navigated through the crowd with skill, and walked with purpose. Her brunette hair shimmered and softly danced back and forth in the cold florescent lights, and her high and tight ass softly jiggled under the dark-grey slacks. Her heels clacked with each step, and she only gently swung her arms. She was magnificent.

They passed several stores, and she soon stopped at an ATM. He moved left against the wall, and watched her through the leaves of a tall cylindrically cut tree. She withdrew some money, and she sat there and counted. Her soft lips slowly moved as she numbered the bills, and finally his heart skipped a beat.

"No." He softly said aloud, and he felt his body go weak.

Melissa Rose. It
had
to be her. It was those high cheekbones and those perfectly pouty lips; the very gentle but noticeable dimples below each corner of her mouth. Then there was the missing finger, the one he removed. There was no doubt it was little Mel, the one that got away.

Colby gathered himself, and when she started walking, he continued to trail her. His palms became sweaty just thinking about her. He remembered the way she looked naked on his table. The way she cried as he tortured her. He thought about the scars she must be hiding under her clothes and the deeper scars she hid within her soul. He thought about how soft she
felt,
and about her beautiful scream as he removed her middle digit.

He followed her for a good long time. From store to store, she purchased different things with the cash she withdrew. She had good taste, and even better taste in lingerie. He imagined how the black lace would look on her. He wanted to approach her, talk her into a date and finish where they left off, but he could
not
risk it. It happened seven years ago in a city a thousand miles away, but he knew she might still recognize him. Who wouldn’t?

After a short trip back through the mall and a little window-shopping, he followed her to the elevators. He watched her press the down button, which led to underground parking, and she stepped inside. When the doors closed, he ran to the emergency stairs and skipped three steps at a time. When he reached the bottom floor out of breath, he eased the door open and looked out into the garage.

Colby made his breathing shallow so he could hear the clacking of her heels, but there was no sound. He opened the door a little more, and when he glanced out to get a better view, something struck him from behind. A crack of white lightning blurred his vision and then blackness.

 

~

 

He woke tied to a pole somewhere with tape pressed over his mouth. He looked around and none of it was familiar. Well, nothing but the woman standing in front of him.

"Serendipity." She said, and looked at a knife in her hand. The gleam from the blade cast a bar of light onto her face, making her look more menacing than she ever had previously. "I bet that's what you think this was. Really, though, it's a bitter cup of vicissitude for you, Colby Masters."

He shook his head, disbelieving his situation.

"It took me a long time to find you. Five and a half years to be exact. I probably never would’ve found you, but you know what your problem is? You know what helped me find
you?
You always come back to the same places on the same days each year. Follow the trail, and you’ll find your pot of gold." She said, poking the knife into the tip of her index finger. “Bet you’re wondering how I found you before the police? I had to kill a few women, mostly whores, to throw them off your trail. You’re pretty shitty at hiding your obsession, but I covered your ass.”

She smiled and walked across the large room. Her heels knocked against the cement floor, and echoed through the room. She leaned near him and whispered into his ear, “I have you all to myself, now, you piece of shit."

Then, he felt his hand burn with pain as she sawed through his finger with her knife. Each cut hurt more than the previous. The pain felt white, somehow. When she moved away from him with a bloody knife and his finger in her hand, he continued to feel the phantom pain of her cutting through it.

Her now cold voice said, "This is only the beginning."

Monsters Beget Monsters

 

 

 

 

The summer melted the day into a warm malleable evening, which bled into Harvey's den making it sticky and humid. The stench of the amalgam he created from the recipe he found on the darkest edge of the internet was sour, not quite rotten eggs and not quite rotten onions but a not-so-lovely mix of the two.

A cup, three-quarters full of a nasty brew, stood upon the wood table in front of him. The black liquid had a slight purple tint and a thick head of yellow foam. It could've been the bastard of a failed Kool-Aid experiment, only it smelled too horrible and probably tasted just as awful.

He took a deep breath and thought about all the reasons
he
had gone sour. Two weeks prior, a drunk driver ran down his wife and son as they walked home from the nearby fair. Heather died on impact when the vehicle crushed the upper part of her body against a tree. Charlie, however,
had been thrown
twenty-seven feet from the accident. He fought long and hard in the hospital, barely waking long enough to ask for his mother's comforting embrace, which the driver denied until the boy’s final breath.

It was obvious the killer drank far too much, but in an odd act of disservice to the community—one judges swore to protect without bias—the courts freed the man with only a warning and an exorbitant fine. Apparently, the judge felt that because the driver had grown up in a rich family and therefore didn't have the same street education as someone who
might otherwise be somehow more exposed
to wrongdoings, he wasn't technically at fault for the things he'd done. Three days after his son died, the murderer walked.

That's what they all are when they drink, drive, and kill someone
, he thought.
The rich, the poor, the weak, the strong, and anyone else. The monster comes in all shapes, sizes, and religious beliefs. What do they get for their crimes? To walk? Prison for a couple years? No!

“No!”
He screamed through clenched teeth
,
spit shooting between them
.

Harvey's hands gripped the side of the table, his arms flexed and thick veins slithered just below his tight skin. Anger seethed from his eyes, raining his madness upon the surface below. He couldn't let them get away with murder. He just couldn't.

He snatched up the glass, and some of the contents spilled over onto his hand and the table. The fluid stung his skin as he placed the cup against his lips. From there, he chugged. Three large gulps and the brew disappeared with a searing burn down his throat. Deep inside it went to ferment and create the thing he could use to make them pay. Whatever the result might be, he was ready.

A deep piercing pain grew in his stomach, and trailed back up his esophagus. He retched once, twice, and then vomited the brew onto the table. Some of it managed to catch in the cup. He retched and heaved until nothing but traces of yellow acid stringed from his lips.

Suddenly, the skin at his side near his abdomen and just below his ribs began to hurt. He quickly reached back, and felt something wet. When he looked down at his shirtless body, a claw pushed its way through his skin. He threw his hand over it, and could feel himself clawing out as if whatever grew inside him was now a part of his consciousness.

As the razor-sharp claw escaped his body, another began at the other side. He fell to the ground, writhing and screaming in pain.

From his back, black slick flaps of skin shot out and a spray of fluid speckled the hardwood floor. Bones snaked through them until the flaps formed bloody wings, and when the bone reached the end, they pierced through the skin resulting in sharp, wicked points. He turned over and coughed, and several of his teeth blasted out of his mouth and spun across the floor. Blood pooled next to the teeth, and his hands trembled as he reached up to touch his gums, which now had sharp jagged fangs protruding from them. He flipped over once more, and clawed at his chest. His skin burned, as if someone had doused him with fuel and lit him ablaze. He scratched and clawed, and finally dug his fingers under his skin and ripped away his flesh, which revealed a scale-like armor.

All he could do was utter a soft cry as he continued to transform, and when the pain stopped, he used the table to climb back to his feet. He lumbered to a mirror and looked upon a monster. From the inky-black wings and the sharp teeth to the extra arms and the new exoskeleton, he was not himself. Yet, he
was
himself. Nothing had changed between his mind and soul. He felt stronger and moved faster, sure, but he hungered for the same thing long before he ever transformed. The blood of those that wronged the world.