Twisted Tales

by Edward Grey

  “Finish the job.” The serpent hissed, “You’re neck.”

  Kevin put the edge to the vein on his throat and said, “Is this all it will take make the pain go away?”

  “Yes.” Kim said.

  As he ran the blade across his neck, it broke the skin and ruptured the vein. His vision quickly started to weaken, as did clarity of the rose bush.

  “Sleep, evil one.” The snake hissed, and then slithered into the shadows.

  Kevin fell to his knees and then crashed backwards. He closed his eyes and a wave of darkness washed him into the ocean of eternity. [Back to Contents]

  Father Dearest

  “One more thing before you go.” Victor said.

  Mark had his hand on the brass doorknob, ready to make his exit. He thought he might get out of there without having to talk about the special detail of the job, but nothing ever seemed to go that smoothly. He turned to meet Victor’s eyes and flashed a fake, condescending smile.

  “What is it?” Mark said.

  “When you see him, make him suffer.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  Victor smiled and opened the top drawer of his fake mahogany desk. He reached in with his plump hand and retrieved a large-caliber pistol. He pointed it at Mark. “Do not give me attitude.”

  “Me?” Mark said, and then turned towards to door. “Now why on Earth would I ever want to do that?”

  Mark opened it, and as he crossed the threshold, he heard Victor put the gun back in the drawer. The man was a fan of black licorice, and he could smell the stench as the man opened the plastic container on his desk. He popped it into his mouth and chewed it loudly.

  “Next time, don’t point a gun at me unless you plan to use it.” Mark said.

  “What the hell did you just say?”

  “You heard me, Dad. Next time I won’t be so forgiving.” He said, and closed the door.

  The top floor of the club was quiet considering the loud music blasting from below. As he walked slowly down the hallway towards the elevator, he listened to each small creak of the wooden floor.

  When he reached it, he pressed the button. A small red light indicated that he had initiated his destiny, and that soon the car would arrive and he would begin his descent into the darkest, blackest rivers of a man’s heart.

  He kept his eyes trained on the glow of the button because he hated looking at the elevator doors. They were mirrors. He loathed mirrors. The last time he looked in one was over ten years ago when he was fresh out of high school. At that time, he didn’t see a man, but a wrecked soul, which there was no hope of repairing.

  That was one of the many reasons he despised his father. If it weren’t for him, he would’ve had a normal childhood. He would’ve been able to go to the movies, drink beer, and do the normal childish bullshit that came with growing up. Instead, his father thrust him into a life he never wanted. Now, it was so much a part of him that he couldn’t even imagine a world any other way.

  He had grown to do all of the things Victor was too chicken-shit to do himself. When he was twelve, he killed a man who stole money from Victor’s “company”. The same year, he murdered a school teacher who gave the man a bad case of gonorrhea. After that and for years, Mark stabbed, maimed, and murdered anyone from drug dealers to rogue employees to underhanded cheats.

  The elevator arrived with a quiet stop and the doors slipped open with grace. He stepped into the small car and pressed the button for the main floor. As he dropped deeper and deeper into the shaft, into known chaos, he could hear the dance music become louder and louder. Finally, the elevator stopped and the doors opened to hundreds of people dancing to an irregular beat under different shades of blue and red rotating lights.

  Though Mark wasn’t a particularly tall man, he was solid and well built. As he made his way through the energetic crowd, some people moved out of his way while his broad shoulders cast other patrons aside. He walked fully across the dance floor, and soon arrived at the door to the VIP lounge. Standing watch was Tiny, a rather large man that wore his cliché name with pride.

  “Open it.” Mark said.

  “Even you aren’t allowed in here.” Tiny said in a deep voice.

  “There’s a seventy-year-old man up there that would beg to differ.”

  Tiny pressed a small switch behind him and the door popped open with a soft click. He raised his giant arm and sarcastically welcomed Mark into the VIP area. Once he was inside, Tiny closed the door and reengaged the lock.

  Mark looked at the long hallway of blacked out windows and locked doors. A single cream lamp guided him towards the end. It felt like a tunnel whereupon reaching the end, he would not find a light, but a freight train heading full speed his direction.

  Halfway down, he stopped at one of the doors. Though none of them were marked, he knew it was the right one because it was the only room with a man whimpering with fear rather than pleasure.

  He unzipped his leather jacket, and retrieved a large blade from his belt sheath. He looked at it for a moment as the light gleamed off its brilliantly polished surface. He didn’t want to go into the room. He wanted to turn, walk back the way he came, and disappear into the night, become lost and forgotten. However, he was damned to finish his job; he didn’t have a choice.

  He disengaged the deadbolt and the man inside became quiet. A moment passed and then he said, “Wh—who’s out there?”

  Ignoring the question, Mark turned the knob and opened the door to a pitch-black room. Some of the light bled into the darkness beyond the wooden portal, and he was able to see the man. He was huddled in the corner, keeping his arms up to protect himself from whatever he expected to come for him.

  “Daniel?” Mark said.

  The man hesitated, “Yes.”

  “You know why I’m here?”

  Soft sobs erupted from the man as he huddled deeper into the corner. No doubt, he saw the large knife in Mark’s hand, and knew what was to come next.

  Mark entered further into the small room and knelt. He wondered what Daniel had done to deserve death. Surely, it must have been something terrible, something so wrong that it warranted eternal sleep. In the past, it was the theft of thousands of dollars, money owed that was never paid, and many other criminal dealings. However, for some reason this man didn’t seem like the rest. In fact, he was nothing like the people his father dealt with on a daily basis.

  As he stood there, the weight of the door pulled it open further and more light filled the small room. Mark noticed small injuries resembling cigarette and cigar burns up and down Daniel’s arms and God knows where else. Three of the fingernails on his right hand were missing, and on his other hand were two bloody stumps instead of fingers. His shirt was soaked with blood, which probably meant there was more carnage hidden underneath that mottled fabric. Mark recognized the gore as the handy work of Victor’s other more coldblooded “assistant”.

  “What did you do?” Mark asked.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Everyone tells me that.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

  “All I did was flip off his driver in traffic. The next thing I know is he’s following me and my family home. Then—” Daniel began to cry more sincere than Mark had ever seen of anyone. “—he killed my wife and four-year-old son.”

  Mark’s body went cold as an icy sweat basted his skin. Feverish shakes tormented him as though he were fighting off a dangerous virus. His stomach twisted with nausea.

  Daniel said, “He made me watch.”

  He couldn’t believe it. There was no way Victor would do that, certainly not because someone flipped the bird to his driver. He had integrity, compassion—no, that was bullshit. That man upstairs was evil, and Mark knew it. For so long he’d been under the service of the brute that he nearly gave his father credit for being a good, moral man.

  He stood and put the knife back in its holster. Daniel continued to weep even though it
was evident that Mark did not intend to hurt him. “Stay here.”

  After leaving the room, he closed the door. All the way down the hall, he could hear the pain and anguish Daniel exuded with wails and tears. When Mark reached the exit, he knocked and Tiny opened it for him. He fought his way through the crowd and back to the elevator. He rode it to the top floor, and entered the hallway.

  Once he arrived back at Victor’s door, he paused. He knew his father would be angry with him for not killing Daniel. Even though Mark knew he was right to ignore the order, guilt seemed to wriggle its way through his body, taunting him to turn and finish the job.

  As he stood there, a boisterous laugh boomed from inside the room. Though Victor had given an order to kill a man who had done nothing wrong, and even though he knew it was in connection with the murder of an innocent woman and child, he was still hearty. The asshole was still perfectly content with his decision.

  Mark turned the knob and stepped into the room. After closing it, he remained at the door, unable to cope with getting any nearer to Victor.

  “How goes it, my boy!” He said as he put his phone down. He sipped some champagne. “All done?”

  “Why did he need to die?”

  “Every time you ask me that, what do I tell you? It’s none of your business.”

  “He told me what you did.”

  Victor chuffed and downed the remainder of the glass. When he set it on the table, he opened his drawer. “It’s none of your concern.”

  “It is when you ask me to kill someone who did nothing wrong.”

  “Bullshit. He disrespected me. No one, not even you Mark, is allowed to do that. People need to learn to fear me.”

  “People already fear you.”

  Mark took a step closer to the man, and as he did so, Victor armed himself once more with the gun. “Your job is to do what I tell you. You don’t ask questions, you just do it.”

  The nickel and gold plating of the gun beckoned Mark to move closer. He walked to the desk and around to the right. He pulled his knife out and kept it slack at his side.

  Victor said, “What the hell are you doing you little shit.”

  “What I should have done a long time ago.”

  The man raised the gun at Mark and squeezed the trigger. Though Victor probably expected a grand display of his power, the empty gun only clicked. Fear twisted across the man’s face as he ejected the magazine. Every brass cartridge was missing.

  Mark used the back of his fist and knocked the gun from Victor’s hand. He then leaned close to him and whispered, “I emptied it a week ago.”

  Victor tried to strike him in the face, but Mark deflected with his arm. With swift movement, he slammed Victor’s hand to the desk and pinned it there with the knife. The man screamed in pain.

  “You remember when you gave this to me?” Mark said as Victor tried to pull the blade out. “It was my thirteenth birthday when you had me kill mom for cheating on you.”

  Mark’s strength was phenomenal, and as a result, Victor could not free his damaged hand from the desk. Victor said, “You’re going to pay for this.”

  From a holster hidden under his jacket, Mark equipped himself with a twin of the gun his father used. It was another gift, this time from doing so well at his job. He pulled the rear of the weapon and loaded the chamber with a round. He pointed the gun at the Victor’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the man’s skull, ending a life that would surely have ended many others if left alive.

  After wiping the gun and knife to remove his prints, he dropped the weapon and then he turned and left the room. He didn’t dare look back at the man he’d killed, for he had no feelings with which to ponder if he’d done the right thing. He knew it was right, and even though the man in there was biologically his father, he was no father to Mark.

  He returned to Tiny who granted him access to the VIP room. He stopped at Daniel’s door and was shocked to hear the crying had ended. He opened it and glanced in. He could not see where Daniel went, so he reached to the outside wall and flipped the light switch.

  As soon as the milky fluorescents brightened the room, he saw the troubled man. He was on the bed, heavily soaked in his own blood. He had broken the mirror and used one of the sharp pieces to slit his throat. It was fresh, and had probably happened no more than a few minutes before he arrived.

  Mark turned off the light and closed the door. As he walked down the hall to leave the club forever, he couldn’t stop thinking about Victor. Even though the man was dead, he still managed to kill someone. He speculated as to how many more lives would be lost because of the empire of crime the bastard had created over the years, and wondered who would be the one to take Victor’s place in the throne of malevolence. It would probably never end, but at least Mark wouldn’t be a part of it any longer. [Back to Contents]

  Rage

  Rage was all I had.

  Sitting at the window, I peered through the thick glass at the beautiful open sky. At this altitude, the milky clouds formed a soft still river while the sun-scorched land below was its bed. Even though I wanted the wonderful view to lull me into submission, to bring me to the wonderful feeling of serenity, it was never going to happen.

  I looked down at my watch, and there was only about ten minutes left before the plane landed. Though I planned for this moment and couldn’t have been more prepared, I was still apprehensive. Nervous chills ran their course through my body, something the anger couldn’t quash.

  The seat next to me was empty so I slid to the end and gestured to the flight attendant. She returned a lovely smile, left her seat, and made her way towards me. When she was halfway, a man reached out and grabbed her wrist. She stopped, and though I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I knew he was being rude. Vince had always been that way.

  When she finally made it to my seat, she said “What can I do for you sir?”

  “Have any whiskey?”

  “Sir, we’ll be landing soon.”

  “I know. That’s partly the problem. I don’t do well with landings.”

  “I see.” She said, “Give me a moment.”

  In reality, I didn’t have a problem with flying, landing, or taking off. It was just easier to lie than to explain the truth that I’d been drinking to mask the emotions I get when I’m sober. I hated thinking about my past, and I was lucky enough to find an escape that was safer—though marginally so—than drugs.

  As she walked back to the front of the cabin, Vince reached out and smacked her ass. He chuckled, and the woman ignored the blatant abuse. I didn’t know if people did that to her often or if she too recognized his evil, but it made my blood burn hotter than the surface of mars.

  A moment later, she returned with my drink, and this time she wasn’t harassed. I thanked her with a generous tip because she didn’t have to get me a drink this late into the flight, but I also felt bad that it was partly my fault Vince was given the chance to abuse her.

  As she walked back to her seat, I downed the golden liquid in one gulp. Though my throat burned as if I had just swallowed acid, I felt eased by the pain. It was torturous, maybe even masochistic, but deep down, I knew that I deserved the pain for what I planned to do.

  I crushed the cup, and leaned back into the aisle. I glanced down the rows of passenger seats and watched the back of Vince’s greasy head. I knew I shouldn’t have kept such a keen eye on him. Doing so fueled my rage so bitterly that I nearly shot from my seat, walked to him, and strangled the life from his wicked bones. Thankfully, I had patience. Plus, it helped that I didn’t want to cause a scene, for that might get me detained upon arrival at the airport, and that would certainly do me no good.

  I closed my eyes and scooted back to the window seat. I couldn’t look at him anymore. Though I was inebriated, being in his presence made the alcohol less of an escape and more of an amplifier. I never was a belligerent man, but I realized that my restraint was growing thin.

  When I looked at the man in the neigh
boring row, he looked fearful of me. By all appearances, I was your average John Doe. However, I’m positive he saw something in me that I couldn’t hide. The rage was intense and so very different compared to the simple frustrations of everyday life. So very different.

  Two years ago, my daughter was murdered. She was raped over and over, and then finally stabbed to death. Vince was arrested shortly after because of DNA they found that perfectly matched to him. Though no weapon was recovered, they took him to trial anyway with hope that it would be enough to incarcerate him. Towards the end, his defense attorney argued that the DNA was mishandled, and the court agreed. As a result, they set him free.

  The dissolution of the case was hard for me to deal with, so I drank every night trying to maintain false ignorance for as long as possible. My wife, however, was not so lucky. There were so many things at her disposal to aid her in moving on with her life, but in the end nothing I or anyone else did could bring her out of the deep dark sea of depression in which she sailed.

  A year after he was set free and allowed to walk the world as if nothing ever happened, my wife committed suicide.

  Vince took everything from me: my daughter, my wife, and the wonderful life we lived together. The lives of everyone we knew were shattered, and would forever plague them while he continued with his life unaffected. For so long my fury grew out of control, and I wasn’t prepared to let him do it again.

  When the plane finally landed, I quickly grabbed my bag from the small compartment above my head. I waited there until he was ready to leave, and then I followed him into the terminal. I stayed at a safe distance, mostly to keep my own urges at bay, but also because I didn’t want him to get spooked. I didn’t know if he still remembered my face, but that was also a chance I didn’t want to take.

  I trailed him long enough to make sure he went to the counter to retrieve his car from long-term parking. Once he was there, I broke away, and walked directly to my vehicle. I considered following him the rest of the way home, but I needed to get to his place before him. Besides, seven months back, I hired a private detective to follow him. I learned that he had very specific routines when he returned from his business trips. He was incredibly prompt, and if everything went smooth, I would have roughly forty minutes before he arrived.