Twisted Tales

by Brandon Massey

  “I’m looking for my obits, but they ain’t in there.” She tossed the paper onto the floor. “They ain’t in none of the papers. It don’t make any damn sense!”

  “Ah, those obituaries.” Denise nodded, comprehension coming into her eyes. She smiled. “Well, if they aren’t in there, maybe no one’s died lately. Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Someone’s always died. I need to know who.” Mary wrung her hands.

  “I’ve never understood it, Mama. Why are these obituaries such a big deal to you?”

  “People need to know who’s passed on,” Mary said. “Not everyone gets the paper like I do. I got to tell folks.”

  Although Mary tried to explain herself as clearly as possible to her daughter, she could see from Denise’s puzzled expression that her daughter didn’t understand. Her daughter thought she was some loony old woman. That was one of the things Mary hated about growing older; younger folk thought you were losing your mind whenever you did something they didn’t understand.

  But Denise would learn better once she reached Mary’s age, when Death loomed like a rising sun on the horizon of your life. She’d learn the importance of informing the living who had passed on. Because we all had to go someday. It seemed like common sense to Mary that the deceased would want everyone who’d ever known them to be told that they were no longer dwelling in this world and had moved on to a better place.

  Terrell watched her, too, with the same look of puzzlement. But of course, he was only a child. Mary didn’t expect him to know any better. He’d never even been to a funeral, poor baby.

  “If you say so,” Denise said. “But it seems kinda morbid to me.”

  “It’s part of life. I hope that when I pass on someone makes sure my obit runs.”

  “Please don’t talk like that, Mama.” Denise frowned.

  Mary laughed harshly. “You learn to get comfortable with dying when you reach my age, girl. Anyway, can you look up the obits on the computer?”

  “I’ve got to get ready for work,” Denise said. “Terrell can go on the Web and look for you.”

  “Mom!” Terrell said, and groaned. “I gotta go to school.”

  Mary hooked her long fingers around Terrell’s wrist, like talons. “Come on, boy. It ain’t gonna take that long. Let’s go to that computer.”

  Terrell had a computer in his bedroom. It amazed Mary how younger people were so comfortable with these machines. Using her microwave and a remote control for her TV was about as technologically inclined as she got.

  While her grandson sat at the desk and tapped confidently on the keyboard, Mary waited behind him and watched the screen.

  “Found ’em, Grandma,” Terrell said. He pulled up a screen filled with black text.

  Mary pushed up her bifocals on her nose and leaned forward. She studied the obituaries.

  “Those ain’t it,” she said. “Those is yesterday’s obits. I done seen them already.”

  “But that’s all they have on here.”

  “Look again.”

  “Grandma, I gotta get ready for school!”

  “Then go get ready. Lemme look myself.”

  “But you don’t know how to use a computer.”

  “Don’t tell me what I don’t know how to do, boy! Get up out that chair and go get dressed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Terrell shrugged, slid out of the chair. “It’s all yours.”

  “Hmmph.” Mary settled in front of the computer. Squinting, she studied the keyboard and the screen. She’d used a typewriter before, when she’d worked as an admin at the VA; this was just like that, sort of. Except for that little gadget on the side they called a rat, or whatever. Terrell had been using that rat-thing to move the arrow across the screen, and he’d click it when he wanted to do something.

  She placed her hand on the rat and moved it around the foam pad. She clicked the little button on there.

  The screen flickered—and then went black.

  “Uh-oh,” she said, looking around. “I done broke this thing.”

  She clicked the button again. Nothing happened. She plucked some keys on the keyboard. Still, the blackness remained on the screen.

  What could she have done wrong?

  As she was about to call her grandson back in to check it out, she heard static sputter from the computer’s small speakers, both of which were mounted like ears on either side of the monitor.

  Lord, she had really broken this thing.

  Then, she heard something mingled with the static. Strangled voices, difficult to understand. It was as if the computer was broadcasting a weak radio signal.

  She leaned closer.

  The static-obscured voices grew louder. It was like a crowd of people talking all at once. What were they saying? Had someone just said her name?

  “Mary ... want to talk to you ... tell you ...”

  They had said her name. Clearly.

  What in the name of Jesus was this?

  “Mary ... Mary ... need you ...”

  The blackness on the screen appeared to be shifting, congealing into ... something. Murky images flashed on the display, and ghostly lights flickered, too.

  “Mary ... listen ...”

  Terror poured through her veins.

  Shaking, she bent, snagged the power cord, and ripped it out of the socket.

  The voices fell silent, and the screen became a featureless black.

  She exhaled.

  “Grandma, why’d you unplug the computer?” Terrell asked. He came inside, holding a dripping toothbrush. “Did you find any of those obittiaries?”

  “No,” she said, not bothering to correct his mispronunciation of her prized obits. She wanted to run out of the room, but that would only scare her grandson, so she calmly pushed away from the desk and walked away. “I’ve gotta go now, baby. You finish getting ready for school, you hear?”

  She didn’t look back at the computer on her way out. She didn’t want to think about what she’d seen and heard.

  Because she didn’t know what it had been.

  Mary left her daughter’s house and began driving home, a frown carved deep in the furrows of her face.

  Her only recourse, she realized, was to wait until eight o’clock, when she could call the newspaper, complain about the missing obits, and demand redelivery of a correct paper. She would not consider Denise’s comment—maybe no one had died—because someone had always died.

  As she drove, she noticed a familiar figure walking on the opposite side of the road, coming her way. It was a slender black woman with silver, shoulder-length hair, dressed in a powder blue jogging suit. It was Lillie Mae, a longtime friend. They used to work at the VA together.

  Mary hadn’t talked to or seen Lillie Mae in at least two weeks. The last she’d heard, Lillie Mae had been sick with pneumonia. What was she doing out this morning, strutting like a spring chicken?

  Mary tapped the horn. Lillie Mae saw her, waved, and smiled.

  There was something odd about her smile, Mary thought. Something secretive about it. As if she’d caught Lillie Mae daydreaming about something naughty.

  Mary frowned. Lowering her window, she slowed the car.

  “Hey, girl,” Mary said. “What you doing out here walking? I heard you was sick.”

  “I was sick, Mary.” Lillie Mae approached the car.

  “But I feel much, much better now, praise God.”

  “Praise Him,” Mary said, automatically. She eyed Lillie Mae closer. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, but there was something different about Lillie Mae, and it wasn’t only the mysterious smile that her friend wore.

  “You seen the obits today?” Mary asked.

  Lillie Mae shook her head, slowly, as if she was in a daze. Her eyes, Mary noticed, appeared to be unfocused, too.

  Lillie Mae gave another enigmatic smile. “Let the living tend to the dead. It’s their duty.”

  “Amen,” Mary said, and nodded sagely, but she didn’t know what in the wor
ld Lillie Mae was talking about. She wondered if Lillie Mae had a fever and had gotten out of bed and started walking without her family knowing her whereabouts. She was tempted to place her palm against Lillie Mae’s forehead and check her for a temperature—but the idea of touching her friend was ... well, creepy. And Mary couldn’t figure out why.

  A draft seemed to have slipped inside the car and wrapped its cold arms around her.

  Lillie Mae was still smiling.

  “You sure you’re okay, Lillie Mae?” Mary asked. “Maybe I should give you a ride back home.”

  “I gotta finish my walk,” Lillie Mae said.

  Secretly, Mary was relieved. Although she’d made the offer to take Lillie Mae home, the idea of the woman riding next to her in the car made her skin tighten.

  “When I die, Mary, I want you to make sure folks know,” Lillie Mae said. “Will you do that for me?”

  “Don’t talk like that now, girl,” Mary said. “The way you up and walking ’round you got plenty of time left.”

  “Remember what I said.” Lillie Mae wagged her finger, and began to walk away.

  The old girl was sick, Mary thought. Sick, and she didn’t even know it. She wasn’t making any kind of sense.

  She began to drive again. She glanced in her rearview mirror, to see if Lillie Mae was walking okay. But the woman was gone.

  Still thinking about her weird encounter with Lillie Mae, Mary arrived home.

  She’d hoped, a bit naively, that a new, revised paper would have been delivered and would be waiting in her driveway. But there was nothing.

  The clock read seven thirty. A half hour until the newspaper office opened. She decided to pass the time by reviewing yesterday’s obituaries, for which some follow-up was still needed. The background of Mr. Taylor, one of the deceased, eluded her. She was pretty sure he was the gentleman who used to drive through the neighborhood in a battered Chevy pickup, collecting soda cans to redeem for money, but she’d been unable to confirm her suspicions, and it frustrated her. She would eventually figure it out. She always did.

  At eight o’clock sharp, she reached for the telephone. But it rang first.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Heavy static answered her.

  Static had never frightened her, but this time, it brought to mind what had happened while she was using her grandson’s computer. A chill rushed along her spine.

  Underneath the static, she thought she heard voices. A chorus of them.

  They were calling her name.

  “Mary ... Mary ... have to tell you about ...”

  Mary’s knuckles, wrapped around the handset, turned pale.

  “ . . . need you to let people ...”

  Shrieking, she tore the phone away from her ear, slammed it onto the cradle, but missed it. The phone landed on its side on the table, the tinny voices crackling from the earpiece.

  “Help me ... Mary ...”

  Trembling, she replaced the phone on the cradle.

  “Lord Jesus,” she whispered. She touched her chest, felt the frenzied pounding of her heart. She was convinced that she was going to suffer a heart attack.

  A glass of water stood on the table. She grabbed it, drank all of it.

  The clock read three minutes past eight. The newspaper office was open. But she wasn’t interested in calling. The phone, previously a reliable tool for trading in gossip and information, had become an instrument of terror. She would not touch it.

  The only thing she was interested in touching right now was her Bible. She would read a word from the Lord, for comfort, and then figure out what to do regarding the obits.

  Her thick, tattered Bible—the book had outlived two husbands and seen her birth three children—lay on a small oak table in the living room, beside her recliner. She liked to study Scripture in the afternoons, in between watching the court programs on TV.

  She picked up the Bible. The familiar feel of the worn leather binding slowed her racing heart. She settled into the recliner and pushed up her bifocals on her nose, preparing to read.

  The television switched on. A blizzard of electric snow filled the screen.

  Mary hadn’t moved her hand within a foot of the remote control. The TV had powered up of its own accord.

  She stared at the screen, disbelieving, as if denying what had happened would somehow make it go away.

  The TV set’s volume rose several decibels; it was so high that the static storm hurt her ears.

  She grabbed the remote control on the table and mashed the POWER button.

  The television remained on.

  She pressed the VOLUME button, trying to lower it. But it didn’t work.

  And then, mingled with the static, she heard voices. The same voices she’d heard on her grandson’s computer; the same ones she’d heard on her telephone minutes ago.

  They were speaking her name again.

  “Mary ... we need you ... to tell them ...”

  Mary crossed herself, pressed her Bible close to her bosom.

  Take them away, Lord, she prayed. Whoever they are, take them away. Deliver me, Jesus.

  But the voices did not go away. The electric snow began to metamorphose into images. Visions of faces, the color washed out of them, as if they were behind a veil.

  She could make out the face of Lillie Mae.

  “Help me, Mary ... let them know ... you promised ...”

  A scream struggled at the base of Mary’s throat, threatening to explode from her lips.

  Lillie Mae’s ghostly eyes fixated on Mary.

  “Tell them, Mary ... I was born September 15, 1929 ... to Clarence Lee and Thelma Johnson ... I lived a full and passionate life ...”

  The scream dissolved in Mary’s throat.

  Understanding, at last, drew her to her feet.

  “... I loved cooking, gardening ... spending time with my family ...”

  Mary went to the kitchen table. She picked up a legal pad and a pencil.

  “... I was a member of Trinity Baptist Church and sang in the choir ... I worked at the VA ...”

  Mary pulled a chair up close to the television and balanced the pad and pencil on her lap with sure hands.

  “... On May 19, 2006, I was called home to rest with my Heavenly Father ...”

  And Mary began to write what her departed friend was telling her, composing an obituary.

  People needed to know. It was her duty to tell them.

  The Woman Next Door

  Late on a Saturday morning in June, Eric Richards was in the front yard, pulling weeds, when she arrived.

  The Ford Expedition cruised down the street and turned into the driveway of the house next door. Eric snapped out of his daydream of being a lottery winner—one of his favorite fantasies—and watched the visitors.

  “Wonder if those are the new neighbors,” he muttered. He straightened, grasping a tuft of weeds in one hand. His back throbbed—a sign that, even though he was only thirty, his body was no longer a finely honed machine—and he massaged the ache with his free hand.

  The Expedition’s passenger door faced Eric. The door opened, and a lovely, bronze female leg, capped with a sandal, poked out.

  Eric drew in a breath.

  The woman who climbed out of the Ford very well might have stepped out of his daydreams and into the world of flesh and blood, because she was his dream woman, in every visible sense. Although at least thirty feet separated them, her beauty was as vivid and arresting as if he stood only inches away from her.

  She was about five-six, with a shapely body that was alluringly showcased in a bright red sundress. Her lustrous dark hair fell to her shoulders in silky waves. She half-turned in his direction, and the profile of her face—large, doe-eyes, full lips, pert nose, sculpted cheekbones—snatched the remaining breath out of his lungs.

  I don’t believe this, he thought feverishly, like a starving man who suddenly found himself at a dinner banquet. She’s too beautiful to even be real.

  She smiled, an
d he swore that he saw her white teeth sparkle. She waved at him.

  Startled, Eric lifted his hand and returned the gesture—involuntarily releasing the fistful of weeds. They scattered in his face, and he hastily brushed them out of his eyes.

  But not before he saw the gold wedding band winking on her finger.

  She’s married, he thought, and felt a strange sense of disappointment. Strange because he was married, too. What was wrong with him, getting so caught up in this woman? A twinge of guilt screwed through his stomach.

  The woman laughed, lightly, as if accustomed to causing men to lose their bearings. She turned to face a tall, skinny black man who walked around the front of the SUV. The couple spoke in hushed tones. He wore a wedding ring, too. He was her husband. Of course.

  The man saw Eric, but he did not wave. Lowering his head, almost like a servant obeying a queen, he shuffled to the back of the Expedition, popped open the cargo door, and began to unload boxes.

  The woman didn’t assist her spouse. She whirled and strutted to the house’s front door, hips swaying gently. Even her walk was graceful, feline, and irresistibly sensual.

  She disappeared inside the house, and Eric released a pent-up sigh. He bent down and began searching for more weeds to yank.

  But instead of crabgrass, he kept seeing the woman’s swaying hips, statuesque legs, and diamond-bright smile.

  What would your wife think? he asked himself, if she knew you were thinking like this about another woman—a woman who is now your neighbor?

  Shame flushed his face. He had been with Tina for four years, married for three, and had never been unfaithful. Had never really been tempted to stray. His marriage was far from perfect, yet he took pride in his devotion to his wife.

  But he’d never seen a woman like the one next door, either. Someone so beautiful—and so close by.

  Although he knew it was wrong, he was already looking forward to meeting her.

  A half hour later, feeling uncharacteristically antsy, Eric went inside his house to get a drink of water and relax for a short while.

  Inside, Tina was busy doing the two things she seemed to love most: cooking and talking on the phone.