Twilight Nightmares (Twisted Tales Special Edition Book 1) (2 page)

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The glass sounds thin and loose as the
creature's
blackened claw taps upon the window. I hear a soft squeal as the sharp claw grazes the surface.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I keep my eyes closed, wishing it away as the boys from
It
had wished away Pennywise.
Over and over
in my head, I chant for it to leave my nightmares and find some other place to be, but, of course, there is no such luck when evil breathes the same air as you.

I expect the tapping to continue, but I get nothing other than silence. I don't know if I should open my eyes or leave them closed until morning. Something about monsters makes them seem innocuous when you can’t see them. I suppose it might be that I don't know how close or far it is from me or if not being able to see the malevolence painted on its face like the evil upon remorseless killers made it easier to deal with. Whatever it is, I keep my eyes shut, and try to ignore it as best I can.

Pop!

It’s the sound of splintering wood and the brass lock giving way. My body tenses.

Reeeeeee
!

The tortured scream of wood against wood erupts, but I do not open my eyes.

Am I awake? Am I still in my dream? I don’t know. How could I? The vivid nature of my dreams has often confused me into believing that what I feel in them is real, but is
it?
I’ve heard that reality is nothing but perception, and if so, does that make my dream, in essence, a reality because I believe it to be so? Can it be possible that my actual reality is just a dream, and can I escape this monster the same why? Should I not fear it, and instead allow it to kill me so I can wake?

I feel a presence next to the bed the way you might feel when you’re walking alone at night and you sense someone following you or that chill you get when a ghost caresses your soul from the other side. It’s hot, too. The warmth on my left arm lets me know that the creature is close, and I begin to smell the warm fetid breath chuffing from his likely gaping, razor-sharp maw.

I can’t handle it anymore, so I open my eyes. The monster is as I had always dreamed. Its black leathery skin is wet with some kind of thick oily substance. Its silver cataract-clouded eyes blink with two thin mucous-like eyelids, and it hunches over like an evil Quasimodo. Then, it screams. The ululation is dark and separated binaurally as if two beasts sing a song of hunger for my inevitable death. It raises its sharp trident claws, and assumes the position to slash me open and likely feed on me while I slowly die.

That’s when I see him. At the far corner of my room, Mr. Muggles, my childhood friend, appears from the shadows and jumps onto the bed. His fluffy brown nylon fur glistens in the moonlight, as does the small but sharp sword carried in his left cotton-stuffed paw. His black beady eyes gaze upon the monster without fear.

The creature lunges for him, but Mr. Muggles is fast. The bear jumps onto the beast’s head, and stabs the sword into its skull. Another scream erupts from it, but this scream isn’t of its desperation to kill but rather of pain.

The beast and Mr. Muggles drop out of sight, and I scurry over to the edge of the bed to see what has happened to my best friend. I see nothing but a cloud of fog that slowly dissipates and Mr. Muggles standing alone.

He jumps onto the bed, and we stare at each other for a moment. I smile, hoping he understands how grateful I am. The sword in his hand dissolves into smoke, and he takes a seat upon my comforter. I pick him up, and he feels as he always did: without breath, without heart, without mind. Yet, he feels like a champion with both compassion, fearlessness, and a bright soul, one that saved me from a monster that surely would’ve indulged in killing me, and so I snuggle him close.

[Excerpts taken from a leather-bound journal found wrapped in plastic and floating on the ocean’s surface. No date
was found
within its pages, and much of the ink had been destroyed by the saltwater.]

It's only been hours since I came to
be stranded
on this island. There's large emerald trees, and different types of animals cooing and calling from within that thicket. I plan to stay on the beach to try to claim food from the sea as best I can.

I don't know if there are any other survivors, but I don't want to go into the forest to find out. Something about it bothers me. Therefore, for now, I plan to stay as close to where I washed ashore as possible. I hope that there will be a rescue endeavor started when the ship doesn’t show at our next scheduled destination.

[Several destroyed pages.]

...and the moon glows gorgeously, glistening from the ocean like a million pale blue glow bugs dancing on its surface. I watched it for hours the other night. I never knew the ocean, as terrifying as it is, could be so beautiful.

There’s good news! I honestly never thought I’d be writing about any since the shipwreck, but I finally found dry wood. When I was young, my parents dragged me kicking and screaming to this terrible ranch where we learnt to survive off the land. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but because of the things I learned there, I managed to work the wood into a fire. Now that I have light, I can stop worrying about the things in the dark forest at night.

I've been eating leaves because it's too hard to catch fish. We never learned to fish without rods, and I can’t figure out how to make one. Now that I have some means of cooking them, perhaps I'll try harder tomorrow. I pray God will send me some fish!

An odd thing occurs to me as I sit here watched the sparkling ocean. When I left the port of the eastern continent, I was merely a man with a dream to explore the world. I wasn't keen on the ocean itself. It’s nothing but a large body of water, but I must admit I’m taking kindly to it. I may no longer float upon its surface, but the longer I stay on this beach, the more I come to respect and love those crystal-azure swells.

[Several more damaged pages.]

I found people on the island. They were just down the beach from me the whole time! How could I not have noticed them? One of them was the Captain's aid, but I don't know his name. He was washing himself in the ocean. There was that woman, too. Annabelle is her name. She was wearing that same cream gingham dress, except it
was now mottled with sweat and damaged by the elements
. Still a visage of beauty, dare I say!

I still haven't caught any fish. I prayed to God, and he has denied or ignored me. Why does he snub me so? Could it be that He’s just a myth? Would He allow such things to happen to His children? In Sunday school, I learnt he gave us the free will to do whatever we like. We learnt that Jesus, his son, died for our sinful ways. I appreciate this much. What I do not understand is how He can allow this to happen to me! This is not my free will. I didn’t break the boat and my sins didn’t result in the shipwreck. If I had my own way, if I was truly in control, I'd be back at
Bronwent
with a full drink and a wench on my lap!

The leaves aren't keeping me sustained. I think I will have to go into the forest soon to hunt for food. It still scares me, but I must. I have no choice or I might perish to the demons living in my breadbasket. Oh, just thinking about bread makes me think of Mrs. Rene’s fresh Sunday loaves!

[Several more damaged pages.
The writing becomes sloppier
,
some parts illegible
.]

I went to the forest and stood at the foot for some time. I watched the leaves move, but there was no wind. I watched...

...and for some time it just stared at me. It looked like a little boy, but it wasn't. There were no boys with eyes like his. They were dark and cold. I don't remember there being a boy on the ship, but he didn't appear to be indigenous, either. I wonder...

...then I went back to the beach. Hunger snacked on the lining of my stomach, and still God made me suffer. The boy was equally dark for he would not let me enter the forest.

I waited for some time, and decided to find out what the others were doing up the beach. If I could keep myself occupied, I might be able to rid myself of that sickening feeling of hunger, if only for a short while. I hope so, anyway. The hunger makes me angry, and I do not like it.

[A few pages withered and destroyed by the elements.]

...my hands were shaking when I washed his blood off them. The striations of that crimson liquid seemed to snake through the clear ocean's body as if I’d poured a red ink into it. The woman had run. I'll look for her tomorrow, but for now, I must eat.

[Several more damaged pages. The writing becomes almost entirely illegible, but some of it
has been translated
.]

The ocean...it knows me...I've been watching it. I still…

…the boy, but I think he's been here a long time. Not a boy. Not a boy but a...

...and there’s a giant creature just below the ocean’s surface...slightly pink, and it gestures to me with his tentacles. It speaks to me... but not directly.

Annabelle keeps evading, but she…

...tomorrow I will find her. I’m so hungry…

[Recovered from the page containing his final words.]

I'm no longer hungry...my mouth tastes odd. Like copper or
iron
...she mostly won't wash off my skin after she dried, either. No other survivors but me.

...and the rash around my eyes and mouth don't hurt anymore. I've been talking to...and he tells me this place can be mine, too. He likes to share. The boy seems nice...he isn't scary anymore.

Marbol
is the name of the water-thing
...which
gave birth to the boy. I can't...but not worried. The ocean...it brings food to us, says the boy. I'll not starve...and I'm welcome to stay forever, says the thing. I think I will.

Three weeks ago, the monster came through her window. Three weeks later, his toothy and sharp grin still haunted her. Three weeks passed and she still felt him, still felt the aftermath. She could smell him, the sour and ripe body odor with a sharp flavor of peppermint on his breath.

She typically had a shitty memory, but those things stuck hard like a knife to the belly. She barely remembered her mother’s face, but
him?
She recalled every inch of his grinning stubble. Trauma seemed to take sick pleasure in reminding you of the darkest moments in your life, and apparently, it had taken special interest in Laura.

That night, she smelled him again. The stink of his sweaty, sticky body mixed with cheap cologne. She could feel him, too. She ran her hand through his oddly soft hair, which she expected to be rough. She expected his warm skin to be cold and scaly. His face was still dark, but this time shadowed with fear. Soon it would show the face of pain, the kind of pain she hoped he would remember for the rest of his days. His own Goddamn trauma monster.

He only wore two things in that garage. The duct tape over his mouth, wrists, and ankles that was so tight it pressed his skin white, and the chair to which she’d bound him. Other than that, she’d stripped him of all his clothes, which she hoped made him feel the same kind of humiliation she felt in her bedroom as she screamed for help.

She wished she hadn’t started all this in his house because she felt out of place, but it seemed like a fitting location. Like him, she had even busted into his home through his bedroom window, though he was gone at the time—unlike her. She needed to get things just right, and that required time. Where he was impulsive with his desires, she fed hers, savoring every meticulous moment of planning to see it come to fruition.

She circled him, and he followed her with his eyes. When she could see only the back of his head, she placed her foot on the backrest of the chair and kicked. The seat tipped forward, teetered for a moment, and then fell the rest of the way. His face slammed against the concrete floor, and he let out a grunt. No doubt, he could smell and feel the motor oil between his face and the floor, but that would soon be the least of his concerns.

The chair she brought into his home was special. She removed the seat panel, which revealed parts of him she never wanted to see again. Hell, she never wanted to see them in the first place, but this time she pushed through it. The determination for revenge was strong in this one. She'd dreamed many nights about how she might bring the man to justice.
Tell the police?
No, because she didn't want to be a victim. Didn't want her story leaked and broadcast to the world. She wanted to feel empowered, isn't that what women are supposed to do after someone rapes them? She didn’t know. She only cared about how she felt, and she wanted to feel better no matter the cost.

An eye for an eye, she figured, was the only way. Her only resolve was to make him feel as she felt, make him pay as she paid. Make that violation of human decency, that violation of
her
, something he could understand.

She walked to a small table next to him and picked up a small but thick silver ribbed rod. It gleamed from the fluorescent light, and his eyes widened as he shook his head, pleading for her to stop whatever she might do with it. After positioning herself behind the chair again, she made him hurt. She educated him on the things that turned her heart black and her feelings numb.