Twisted 50 Volume 1

by Wessell, Stephanie

  Leaving the house, he crossed the gentle suburbs and entered the woods past the train station, the entrance winding round the back of a small industrial estate.

  Tom made his way deep into Ambarrow woods. He knew them well, having entered innumerable times throughout his life. First on night hikes with the Cubs, then, as he got older, climbing the hill with his friends. They used to play on the rope swing, and, as interests changed, it became a great location to build a fire and get high.

  The woods were empty tonight, and he fought off a sense of paranoia, flinching at every sound.

  There was one point where the path crossed the railway tracks, the route gently leading down to the railway with a surprising lack of fuss. There was no bridge, markings or precautions; just an understanding that one would cross without incident or dawdling. Tom respected that. It gave him a sense of nostalgia for a time he had never lived in, that he had only seen in films and read about in books.

  Alone, he waited by the tracks for the mystery train.

  *

  Time passed, and Tom settled into an uneasy routine of boredom and, well, feeling a bit weird. It wasn’t the sort of thing one told their friends about. In his mind, he figured it was somewhere between stargazing and dogging. It was definitely closer to the former, but that aspect of lurking, even if not sexual, made him feel like he was doing something strange.

  Eventually, Tom realised he had wasted his time. All he had achieved was a walk, and cramp in his knees from squatting.

  Fuck this.

  He got up, dusting himself off and slowly making his way back up the hill, away from the tracks.

  That was when he heard it.

  The whistle was shrill and pure, cutting through the still night air. It was just like he had always heard, but so much louder and clearer.

  Tom ran back to the tracks, and waited.

  He saw the smoke first. The moonlight caught it, making it resemble a thick mass of low hanging cloud; pumped skywards with the machine precision that was expected of it.

  I knew it, Tom thought, as he waited for the mysterious train to get closer. Steam trains were for exhibitions, for events. For showing off. Why would any make their way along the track at this time of night?

  He watched, wondering, as the train chugged closer, its sound and movement embracing every cliché of its type.

  Illuminated by the moonlight, the train was easier to see now. As it came into view, Tom thought he saw something strange. Everything else was as he expected, but this one detail…

  It looked like –

  No –

  Wait, I think it is –

  Oh bloody hell –

  The train had a face.

  Seemingly grey – although in this light, who could say for sure – it wasn’t painted on, but appeared to be affixed to the front of the train somehow. It was grossly distorted, its proportions stretched, as if it had once been the size of a man’s face, but had been pulled to become something else entirely.

  It grew closer, and the more Tom stared, the more he noticed. It wasn’t flat; the face had all the contours of one wrapped around a skull, manipulated by muscle. It seemed to smile, he saw, and the toy-like eyes were large and stupid, happily content in its own strange world.

  Tom had already stepped back from the tracks as the train went past. For some reason, he didn’t want it to see him, as absurd as that sounded. The train whistled just before it went by, and Tom could have sworn he glimpsed the face contort, as if in pain.

  Whistles that sound like screams.

  Tom looked for a driver, but couldn’t see one. He saw the open cabin, and the orange light of the stove burning coal, but no man could be seen within.

  The train towed wooden bodied carriages with steamed up windows. Tom could see people inside, silhouettes moving strangely in the gloom. Each carriage contained a different type of passenger, and as the lights flickered on and off, he caught glimpses of them.

  Within the first carriage people were eating. Eating was putting it kindly; these people were stuffing their faces, taking entire fistfuls of food and shoving it into their mouths without discretion or dignity.

  Inside the second carriage was fighting; passengers attacking one another without remorse, savagely. Bodies bounced off cracked glass, chairs were thrown, and – Tom was sure – he saw passengers wielding cutlery as weapons. The inside of one of the windows was splattered with something dark.

  The people in the third carriage seemed to be engaged in an orgy. He first noticed this when he saw hands pressed against the glass, flat palms wiping the condensation as they were forced against them. Tom craned his neck to look within this one and quickly regretted it: the orgy was violent, the figures within moving with an obsessive lust that showed aggression and hatred, devoid of passion. It made him feel sick.

  The remaining carriages passed, and Tom watched them all with interest and an increasing sense of disgust. One was filled with people stripping the carriage bare, scrabbling and fighting over everything they could lay their hands on. In another, passengers barely moved at all, stretched out apathetically, as if heavily sedated. The carriages went on, each one distinctive from the last.

  Tom watched them all go, deep unease shivering across his skin.

  The train moved down the line, slowing, and after hesitating, Tom followed, running down the track in its wake. After a short while, the track split, and the train went down a diverted line, into darkness.

  Tom had taken this line scores of times, and never once had he known of a diverted route: as far as he knew, the train went from Reading to Shalford, and that was it. He didn’t even know of any other routes that intersected with it. The tracks shouldn’t be there.

  Which was why he kept repeating, You’re a fucking idiot, over and over, in his head. Why that pit of anxiety that grew in his belly went deeper and deeper, mirroring the darkness he was descending into as he followed the train, the only light coming from the ghastly carriages that cast shoddy, shadow strewn images onto the ground around it.

  He kept going like that for some time, trying to stay on the sleepers to avoid tripping, when lights came from ahead, and the route opened out. Tom had no choice but to follow close behind; with the edges of the line opening he was exposed, the carriage his only cover.

  He was in a railway yard.

  The tracks were a spider’s web of lines, lit by sickly white light from ancient lampposts.

  The yard was alive. All over, black shapes with yellow eyes – things that were meant to be men but couldn’t be – were at work, but when the train came to a halt, pulling up at a desolate platform, they stopped what they were doing and descended on the carriages in a black mass.

  They hauled the passengers out. Those who had been consumed by their desires came out of their trances; some filthy, others bloodied, some naked.

  Some were all three, and as they realised where they were, what state they were in and what was happening, terror struck them.

  A deep, booming voice yelled, ordering the shapes: “All change please!”

  Tom had seen more than enough. He wanted to run, but fear froze him into place. If he stayed hidden – even with the shapes only feet away from him – he could remain unseen. But he knew he couldn’t remain there much longer.

  Fuck it, just go –

  He ran, feet moving so fast he almost tripped. Tightness seized his chest and adrenaline failed to carry him anywhere near as far as he hoped –

  Keep going, don’t stop –

  The darkness of the way he came loomed, for once inviting, better the devil he knew.

  He was close, almost out, when more black shapes emerged from the darkness, cutting him off. “No trespassing!” he heard behind him, the same voice that boomed orders to the shapes.

  The man was well dressed in a top hat and tails, massively obese, but strength radiated from his enormous frame. His face was beyond hideous. The black shapes surrounded Tom, clutching at him, with a cold and firm grip.
He wrestled, but more hands came to grasp him.

  “Get off me!” Tom snapped, struggling. He might as well have tried fighting the tide.

  “Please – ”

  “You haven’t paid your fare!” the controller of the shapes screamed.

  “I didn’t ride the train! I followed it!”

  “You have caused confusion and delay,” the Controller said, “but you will be useful!”

  *

  Tom woke to wind blowing in his face, which felt strange, tingling, and slightly numb.

  It was still night. Everything was a blur around him, and as his eyes focused, he realised it wasn’t his eyes, it was everything else.

  It was moving. He was moving.

  The wind hurt his eyes, yet no tears came. He tried to move his face out of the wind, but he couldn’t. It was fixed in place, somehow.

  So was the rest of him. He tried to move his hands, but they didn’t seem to work.

  All he could see was the tracks, passing beneath him.

  Tom screamed, but nothing came from his throat. Instead, a shrill whistle cried behind him. He couldn’t see what it was, but he suspected.

  Panic started to overtake Tom. He wanted to get off whatever he was on, but of course he could not.

  But underneath the chill of terror was a warmth. Something calm and nurturing stoked in his belly, bringing peace despite the horror he felt.

  Tom knew what he could feel burning, what calmed him. It was his soul. The engine was consuming his soul, burning it like coal.

  It didn’t make sense, but then, nothing did. How else could Tom explain what was happening, what he was becoming?

  Except…

  He wanted to be called Thomas now. It had a better ring to it.

  And the engine behind him, that was him, continued to eat into his soul, chewing it around.

  But he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind anything.

  All he could think was how he wanted to be a really useful engine.

  Chew chew.

  The Spider Taketh Hold

  by John Ashbrook

  You never forget your first spider.

  For Pete, his first spider was also his first memory. It had come to him in his cot. White, it was, but casting a dark, angular shadow as it crawled impossibly across the ceiling. It paused over his cot and paid out a thread and lowered itself towards him. Baby Pete had watched with fascination as it had rotated in the air, growing larger and larger. Then, with apparent deliberation, the curious white spider had dropped into Pete’s toothless mouth.

  His shocked scream brought his mum, still young and vigilant, who pushed a comforting dummy into his mouth and inadvertently blocked the spider in. But it wasn’t trying to get out, it had chosen him. It scrambled at the back of his throat, forcing him to swallow. . . And then it was inside him. Forever.

  As was the memory.

  Pete didn’t have the language to articulate his revulsion or his sense of violation, but it froze him to the core. By the age of ten, he would pray every night to the spider gods not to send any more visitations yet, every night, there would be another arachnid, squatting in the corner by the cornice or feeling its way down the window frame.

  Over the years, Pete had done away with countless creatures; the number was certainly in the hundreds. His terror was unreasoning, it drove him, and he couldn’t even think of sleep until he’d found that night’s spider and killed it, even though looking for it filled him with a dread that made him shake.

  The dim bulb in his light encouraged the shadows to spread out from under the chair, wardrobe and bed, transforming his bedroom into a land of foreboding. He would tentatively move books, lift up the curtains or push his pile of comics to one side, while holding a slipper at the ready to deal the death blow. He would leave no hiding place unexplored until he’d found it.

  And there was always one to find.

  He hadn't dared broach the subject at school for fear of the inevitable taunting but, so far as he could tell, this sort of thing didn't happen to other children. It wasn't the normal way of things, to be visited by spiders every night.

  He had confessed his spider crimes in church but had been told to stop being ridiculous, since spiders had no souls, killing a few wasn't a sin.

  A few? Hadn't the priest been listening?

  As Pete had waited for the Eucharist, he’d prayed for the spiders to leave him alone. As he’d stood there in line, shivering, he’d noticed a spider-web under the arm of the crucifix. It seemed that, since spiders had no souls, God had no influence over them. Or He wasn't listening either.

  That evening, with another interloper vanquished and flushed, Pete turned to his bed and threw back the blankets to see a second long-legged beast - as big as any he had ever seen - scuttling quickly (but not so quickly as to suggest panic) towards the shade beneath the pillow. Pete felt the floor shift beneath his bare feet. His teeth bit down hard and the skin on his face seemed to shrink, pulling tight so he couldn't blink. A second spider? His hand, still holding the blanket, suddenly felt vulnerable. What if it ran up his arm? Got into his hair? A second spider in his mouth?

  When the world stopped swaying, Pete became aware of the distance between him and his slippers. He'd kicked them off by the door, thinking their job done for the night. But he had to kill this second creature if he were to sleep. . . Ever again.

  What might it be doing under the pillow? Waiting for him, legs bent, ready to pounce? What if it was pregnant? Didn't they have thousands of babies? Didn't the babies eat them? There could be thousands of cannibal spiders in his bed and his slippers were all the way over on the other side of the room.

  Decision made, Pete dove across the rug and grabbed both slippers, jumping to his feet ready with both hands raised. Nothing moved.

  He felt a trickle of cold sweat run down between his shoulder blades and fought the sensation that something was behind him. Rehearsing the move once or twice, grab and pull, grab and pull, he grabbed the corner of the pillow, turned it over and. . . The beast wasn’t there.

  What if it had gone down the gap between the bed and the wall? It could even be under the bed now! Pete looked down at his feet, vulnerable and bare on the rug, and he clenched his toes as though that were some defence against spider fangs.

  He couldn't shift his bed and there was no way he was going to look under it. He couldn't fetch Mum, she'd always told him he was being ridiculous. Tears of frustration began to sting the corners of his eyes. He could always spend the night in his chair with his feet up. That would be okay, wouldn't it?

  The spider made his decision for him. It broke cover – actually from behind the headboard. It ran across the wallpaper towards the window, scuttling across a vertical surface in that gravity-defying way that made spiders even more dangerous. Pete was shocked at the size of the thing, of the deathly blackness of it, of the staccato drumming its feet made on the anaglypta. He could actually hear its footsteps.

  Fear crossed over into fury. No, he was not going to tolerate a second spider. Pete lunged forward, slamming the slipper against the wall, missing the beast but catching and tearing loose two of its legs. It fell - back towards the bed. A flutter of panic in Pete’s mind, then it caught itself on a lifeline and hung, peddling in the air, before scrambled back up the wall. With a determined cry, Pete brought the slipper around, back-hand, and smeared the spider in an arc of black, brown and red across the lemon wallpaper, right above the bed.

  Victory!

  Short-lived victory.

  If there were two, there could be more. What if this meant more spiders every night? What if this was God’s answer to his prayer? He had built his nighttime rituals around the hunt for a single spider. But, if there were two, could he ever stop looking? Could he ever close his eyes in the certain knowledge that there wasn’t a third beast waiting somewhere to drop into his mouth?

  With the remains of the second spider screwed-up in a ball of toilet paper in his bin, Pete reassembled his bed and
laid in it, rigid, eyes scanning the landscape of shadows. He couldn't relax but, when his mum came to bed and turned off his light, he pretended to be asleep to avoid a scolding.

  The darkness fizzed around him like the static between TV channels and the blood drummed in his ears like tiny marching feet. . . Marching across his walls. The door to the other bedroom closed and his mum and dad's muffled voices soon fell to silence. He was alone now. Or was he? How could he know for sure?

  A floorboard creaked out on the landing. This wasn't unusual, his mum called it “the house settling”. Then it creaked again. . . and again. That was the sound it made when his dad was walking from the bathroom after shaving. But Dad was asleep.

  Another tread, another creak, as though something were rocking backwards and forwards on the loose board, as Pete himself sometimes did. Or – and this thought pressed down on him like a weight – maybe it was something with lots of feet treading on the board.

  Something solid thumped against his door and, uninvited, a bulky shape pushed its way into the room. Pete recognised the bristling form all too well, but his mind rejected it. The size and the shape were not matched: it was far, far too big. . .

  Pete snapped shut his eyes and became aware of the sound of the shape: every movement was accompanied by the wet popping of its joints, the sound of soft bodies bursting under pressure.

  He could feel the creature in his room, approaching, pushing the air before it, air that was chilling and damp and sickly with the stench of decay

  The bed tilted and the cold, dead thing heaved itself on top of him. Its considerable weight pressed the bedding down and the boy beneath it. Its ceaselessly chewing mouth chattered and gurgled, its rakes of fangs were sticky with venom which drooled onto Pete’s face and his paralysis left him: he began thrashing and screaming, a shockingly loud, keening note of primordial terror.

  The huge monstrosity’s entire body was a congregation of smaller spiders, a writhing mass of arachnids of all colours and kinds, squeezed and crushed together into eight thick, many-jointed legs supporting a fat, bloated body of spiders all lashed angrily together by a film of tightly-woven web. A spider of spiders. All the spiders Pete had ever killed, all clustered together as one.