Twilight Nightmares (Twisted Tales Special Edition Book 1) (19 page)

The Men in Apartment 10C

 

 

 

 

I sat next to Frank on an uncomfortable steel chair while he took a long drag of a thick cigarette. He liked them wide and unfiltered. His excuse for destroying his lungs with such wicked sticks was that he could die at any moment so it was no use wasting time worrying about the little things. I sometimes agreed with him, but I enjoyed fresh air, so we often disagreed with his need to suck on burnt tobacco exhaust.

"You know why I don't shoot people in the head?" He said, looking at the smoldering end of his smoke, and then he exhaled onto it.

I turned to him as a thread of cancerous pollution burned my eye. The sting caused it to tear and me to squint like a pirate. I swiped at the air and said, "No, not really.”

He removed the nickel-plated pistol from his holster and pointed it at a poster of
Coffy
laying on a white bed. He closed one eye, and peered down the sight.

He said, "Because it makes a mess."

"I suppose that's a good reason." I said, rubbing the pain out of my eye.

"No, I mean it makes a huge mess. Look at this thing. It's a huge fuckin’ gun."

It
was
a huge gun. I once thought it was just compensation for some kind of male inadequacy. You know the type. Big trucks, cowboy hats, second amendment right protesting, and big
big
guns. However, I walked in on him after he paid for a private "lap dance" and it turns out he just likes big guns.

He took a drag of his smoke and blew it toward the ceiling. He pouted the last two with puckered lips hoping to make a couple smoke rings, but failed.

"It doesn't really matter where you shoot someone, there's going to be a mess." I said,
pretty damn
sure I had a good argument. I'd shot so many people in my lifetime that I was confident I had a solid grasp of what a bullet hole does to people.

"No. No, it's not
even
the same kind of mess, though." He said, and pointed the gun at the man we had bound and gagged on the cream leather couch. The man's eyes went wide, and then Frank stood and walked over to him. He placed the tip of the gun on the meaty part of the man's leg near his crotch. "Like, right here. That would be clean as fuck. Might still kill him, too."

"Look, it's still a big old mess.
Say you get the artery?
That things
gonna
bleed him out like a stuck pig. Blood's
gonna
get everywhere."

"See, I don't think so." He said, and then looked at Alex, our host. "What do you think? Do you think if I shoot you here it's
gonna
be a big mess?"

I didn't think the man's eyes could get any wider, but they quickly became large dinner plates containing little black olives. He shook his head disagreeing that it would be a bigger mess than shooting someone in the head.

"He isn't
gonna
tell you the truth, Frank. He just doesn't want you to shoot him."

"Yeah, maybe." He said, and tore the black tape off Alex's mouth.

Alex pleaded, "Please, please don't kill me!"

"Shut up. Shut up." Frank said, lazily pointing the gun at Alex's head. The
guy
zipped it quick. Frank continued, "Now, tell me, why
do you
think it won't make a mess?"

The
guy
pursed his lips, obviously still under the impression he needed to stay quiet. I said, "Just answer him."

Alex looked up at Frank who waved the gun in a circle and nodded his head as if to approve his verbal communication.

Alex said, "I... uh... the head’s got a lot of space in it. Like no cushion, man. It's like all thick in my legs an' shit."

The dead man had a good point, but that wasn't
my
point.

I said, "Frank, I agree that there'll be less projectile mess, but there's going to be a lot of bloody mess."

Frank tightened his lips and sucked his tongue. "You see, I don't think so."

"Oh for God's sake." I said, and pulled my much smaller caliber pistol from its holster and fired a round into Alex's leg. The bullet tore through the meat, and I was a good shot of course, so the bullet shaved right through the artery.

Alex screamed as blood squirted from his leg. Frank scooped an old sock off the floor, grabbed Alex's mouth, and stuffed the gag deep into it. He put the tape back in place to keep him quiet.

I said, "See that? He's making a mess all over the place."

"Listen, you're a damn good shot, and I think you purposely made a mess. What's that like, one in a million that
us
normal people will get that artery?" He said, and fired three of his loud macho rounds into Alex's leg. "Look, three shots. No mess. No artery."

Alex passed out, and I said, "I'm not saying the leg will always make a mess, I'm saying that it
can
make just as big of a mess as
shootin
’ someone in the head."

"Okay, okay. Fine, but the head's still a huge mess." He said, and lazily fired a round into Alex's skull. The bone and brain fragments painted the wall, which if left to dry would require some serious scrubbing to remove.

I said, "Can we just agree it's going to be messy no matter what?"

Frank snuffed the cigarette out in a dish on a dark oak coffee table. He put his gun away, and his slacks sagged a bit from the weight.

"Yeah, fine." He agreed as I put my gun away.

We walked out of the apartment, and Frank pointed his finger at nothing in particular as he said, "Did I hear you say 'God' back there? ‘
Cause
I distinctly remember hearing you say it. You know why I don’t have a religion?"

The Ghost of a Murder Past

 

 

 

 

Chris was asleep in his bed when he felt someone straddle him. At first, he thought he was just having a good dream, but then someone forced something cold into his mouth, and he woke immediately.

"Hey big boy." The woman
said,
her voice salacious, reminiscent of overacting in an expensive pornography.

He squinted his eyes, but it was too dark to see her. The moonlight barely outlined her blonde hair, which appeared soft and slightly frayed by split ends. The whites of her eyes seemed to glow abnormally, and she wore a fragrance with which he wasn't familiar.

"
Wha
' you
wah
'?" His voice trembled and the gun kept him from making hard consonants.

She pulled the hammer back, and the hard click caused the small of his back to tighten. He felt the vibration against his tongue, and the taste of oil and metal made his stomach turn sour.

"I just thought you should know," she said, looking deeper into his irises than any woman had ever done, "that I think you have the most gorgeous eyes."

His heart slammed in his chest, beating hard against its cage of bone. Black tentacles pulsed at the sides of his vision. He knew those words. He’d said them before, and he knew what happened the night he spoke them.

"So, you're familiar with that pick-up line, aren't you?" She said, and pushed the gun further into his mouth. The tip of the iron sight scraped the skin of his roof, and the taste of blood complemented the other terrifying flavors.

The woman ground her crotch into his as she repositioned herself, and because he was wearing nothing but thin boxer shorts, her jeans rubbed his cock raw. He winced and accidentally bit down on the metal. He felt the muscles of his jaw burn, and tears laced his eyes.

"Oh." She said, and clicked her tongue. "Poor, boy. Did that hurt?"

"Woo ah’ ‘
ou
?"

She reached up with a finger, placed it over her lips, and shushed him. Then she moved the same hand down along his muscular body, and he felt her graze
him
. A short moment later, her hand returned with a bloody knife, and he felt his face turn cold.

"That's two out of three." She said. "So, you remember the pick-up line
and
the knife."

He shook his head, but he knew all too well the things she talked about, but he wanted to deny it. He
had
to deny it, because if he could do that, then he could make himself believe that it didn't happen, and he figured that if he believed his own deception, then it
never
actually happened.

The gun scraped against his teeth as she moved the knife to the right. He slammed his eyes shut, just waiting for her to bury the knife into the side of his skull. He waited for that moment, which seemed like forever, but it never came. Instead, his eyelids filled with a bright red glow when she turned on the bedside lamp.

When he opened his eyes, he saw her. He knew her, but he knew it couldn't be her. That blonde hair with blackened roots. The soft black and blue
eye-shadow
accenting those gorgeous grey irises. The deep red lipstick and the subtle lines at the edges of her mouth when she grinned. It was Beth, but it couldn't be—it just couldn't.

"How..." He said, but she choked him off by pushing the gun even deeper. The iron sight scraped more skin, and he gagged as the tip poked the soft part of his roof.

"How, indeed." She said, still able to sound sexier than ever, a curse of his overactive sex-drive. "Tell me, how does it feel to be controlled?"

He couldn't respond with more than a soft choke, and she knew it. He gagged some more as he involuntarily pressed his tongue to the underside of the barrel. Tears dripped toward his ears, and she moved her mouth close to his ear.

"Beth Barnes." She said, the soft sticky sound of her sexy voice tickled him, and his skin tightened with gooseflesh. She took a deep breath, and blew softly on his neck.

He never believed in ghosts, but he was sure Beth had died. He was
positive
she died because he killed her. No way was she straddling him in his apartment. So
was
it a ghost? Was he still dreaming?

When she moved her head away, she was no longer smiling. Malice twisted her face, turning her brows inward and encircling her eyes with rage. Her upper lip seemed to twitch as if at any moment she might unravel into pure madness.

"You killed my sister."

Instinctively, he shook his head in denial, but the truth was unavoidable. She had the knife. She had
her
face, but was it her face? Only
she
knew what he did, so it had to be her! He shook his head again, but this time with disbelief.

She let out a soft laugh, and said, "It's funny. Some people don't get it. In fact, the only people that get it are twins. There's a connection between us, but me and my sister? We had a strong one. The kind where trauma comes as nightmares. When one of us experienced something that hurt us in some way, we felt it and saw it in our dreams. I saw what you did. I
felt
what you did, you sick son of a bitch!"

She wasn't just becoming mad, she
was
mad. She was damn psychotic. She proved it a moment later when she squeezed the trigger, and blew the back of his skull into his pillow. She smiled, pulled the gun away from his broken teeth, and kissed his burnt lips.

"A kiss from Beth to you." Lacey said, and wondered if, even in death, Beth might dream about the moment that her sister killed the man that ended her life.

Just One Fix

 

 

 

 

Five years ago, I would've figured myself dead in half a decade. It was a sure thing, I once thought. Five years later, I had a fantastic job in the IT industry making thirty times more than I made while on my knees—the things you do for just
one
fix. I had a wife and a young boy, both of whom I adored with all my heart. I would do
anything
for them, and that morning, the morning my family died, I could do nothing.

The gun softly clicked, but it didn't really register. After all, I was in my two-million dollar home in a community protected by a gate. No, what woke me that morning was the soft whimper of my wife. I heard her crying, and I had to know what was wrong, so I sprang up into a room coldly lit by a sun that revealed the darkest moment of my history.

"
Mornin
' sunshine." Alfie said.

My heart dropped at the sight of him. I remembered those dreads with old weathered beads barely hanging onto the ends, the patchy beard, and the deep red circles under a terrifyingly blank stare. I remembered the abandoned smile revealing three missing teeth from two rows of blackened and jagged shards. Most of all, I remembered the nickel-plated gun he held to my wife's head, the tip disappearing into her frazzled red hair.

"Alfie?" I stammered, barely able to speak his name without fear tearing my voice into a million pieces.

"Hey, Cam. How's it
goin
'?"

I shook my head, still trying to wrap the situation into a nifty box made of razorblades. As my mental fingers bled all over my assaulted emotions, I said, "What are you doing?"

"I
ain't
got no money, see?" He said, hissing the last word like a snake and baring his wicked teeth. "Give me a line? Just one line... I need it."

He jabbed the gun into my wife's head and she whimpered. Her soft and cushiony pink lips quivered, and she shut her eyes tight. A few tears rolled down her pale cheeks, and fell from her chin onto the thin blue nighty she wore the night before.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Jus' told
ya
, foo'. I need a line, an' you
gonna
give it
ta
me."

"I don't do that anymore."

Look, man. I know
ya
got this pretty
lil
' house an' this pretty
lil
' wife
an'
ya
got a son
sleepin
' in the other room. I know
ya
got a pretty
lil
' mouth, too,
speakin
' all
good
now an' shit, but I know who you is."

He was right. When Alma saved me from myself, from that street, and helped me come into a better life, I was a mess. I was on my way to becoming the man that stood in our room. However, I wondered if I
had
become the other man in our room. My life had caught up with me, because there I sat, Alfie with a gun to my wife's head, just itching to pull the trigger, and it was
all my
fault. Someone once said that the past had a way of haunting you, and while I had my fair share of skeletons in the closet, this was more than I expected.

"Alfie, listen to me, I don't do that shit anymore. I have no way of getting it to you and I don't even have it in my house."

"
Ya
really want this bitch to die, don't
ya
?"

"No! No, please. I don't, please, just leave her alone."

"Then give me just one line, I need it.
Ya
gots
all
this,
and I got
nothin
'. This should've been me, after the things
ya
made me do. This
ain't
right man. It
ain't
right."

"Look, we can help you. It doesn't have to be this way."

"It was always
goin
' ta be this way!" He screamed as spit flew into the air, someone of it clung to his lip and dribbled into Alma's hair.

She said, "Just give him what he wants."

"Yeah,
ya
better listen to
yer
bitch."

I said, "Baby, I don't have any."

He pushed the gun against her skull even harder, and forcibly cocked her head to the side. She whimpered, "Just give it to him. I know I saw it, in the drawer of your nightstand!"

Of course, I thought. I bought a gun for self-defense when Alma got pregnant. Her life meant more to me than anything did, and with a little boy on the way, I didn't want to take any chances. She was such a smart woman, she knew the gun was there and was leading me right to it.

I reached to the nightstand, and pulled the drawer open. The black pistol seemed to drink in the light around it, nothing gleaming from its surface other than hope that it might save our lives.
But
what if it didn’t, I began to wonder. What if pulling the weapon out of there would make him squeeze the
trigger?
What then?
he'd
kill her and possibly me, and then he might go for my boy.

As I reached in for the gun, something moved at the corner of my eye. I looked up at the door, my heart pounding because I half-expected to see my son standing there. Instead, it was a police officer. The one that arrested me and took me to the hospital to
be detoxed
. The man that led me to marrying the nurse who saved my life.

He shook his head, telling me not to go for the gun. I retracted my hand, and looked back at Alfie.

Alfie said, "The hell
ya
doin
'? Give me the drugs!"

I shook my head and said boldly, "You're the one with the gun and the balls. Why don't you come get it yourself?"

He said, "And let
ya
try
somthin
'?
Nuh
-uh... no way, man."

I moved to the other side of the bed and said, "Go ahead, it's yours."

"Fuckin' a'!" he exclaimed and stomped across the room while keeping the gun aimed at Alma.

I looked out the window, and there were three patrol units. An officer I didn't recognize had my boy in his arms. When I looked back at Alfie, Officer Ramirez said, "Don't move!"

Alfie ducked his head, and accidentally fired a shot. Ramirez fired three rounds. Two of them struck Alfie in the chest, the other in his head. Blood painted my once clean room and spackled me with the remnants of my past.

Alfie's shot didn't register until after he was lying across my bed bleeding out. I looked at my wife, and she was on the floor.

"Alma!" I cried, and ran to her.

At her side, she looked up at me and tears still wetted her face. She was crying, and began to ask me about our son, Kurt. I checked her for wounds, but couldn't find any. Apparently, she'd dropped to the floor before the gun went off. She was lucky, because the bullet would've gone right through her.

"Baby, he's fine. He's outside with the cops." I said, and then looked up at Ramirez.

After he finished calling in the paramedics he said, "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. He missed her." I said, out of breath from the panic attack I had. "How did you know?"

"Your boy called me."

At that moment, I was glad for the things I taught him. Glad that he grew a better boy than I did, but saddened that our original lives died that day. We were no longer the family we once were, but true enough we emerged a stronger one. We'd survived a moment brought forth by my cold, dark past that could've ended the perfect lives we led. In a sense, it did, but it only served to solidify it with an impenetrable bond that I couldn’t have been more thankful for, though I wished it didn’t have to happen that way.