Twisted Tales (5 page)

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Authors: Brandon Massey

BOOK: Twisted Tales
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The breakfast food was spread on a long table at the edge of the patio. He picked up a paper plate and reached for the potatoes, which simmered in a lidded silver pot.
When he removed the cover, he discovered that the potatoes were infested with crawling wasps.
He yelped.
Like missles, the wasps launched off the pungent base of smothered spuds and buzzed through the air.
Anthony stumbled backward, waving his arms wildly, violating every rule of how to respond to angry wasps.
But they didn’t attack him. They darted toward his wife.
“Karen, look out!” he shouted, but his voice, strangled by terror, came out in a hoarse whisper.
Probably drawn by the sight of him waving his arms, Karen looked up.
By then, it was too late.
She dropped her glass of orange juice. It shattered when it hit the patio, a nerve-jarring sound.
But it wasn’t as bad as her scream when the wasps attacked her.
 
At a medical center in town, Karen lay on a bed, pumped up with drugs to counteract the wasps’ venom. Her face was puffy, as if her skin were made of self-rising flour. She hardly resembled the pretty woman that he had married.
Karen was asleep, and had been for over an hour. Anthony paced across the room. Numerous relatives, including his Aunt Janice, were huddled around the bed, speaking in hushed tones.
In his rational mind, Anthony had dismissed the wasp attack as coincidence. The things just happened to be in the potatoes, and they were drawn to his wife, maybe because of her perfume. It was a terrible occurrence, but there was nothing particularly unusual about it.
You’re lying to yourself,
a pesky voice in his mind whispered.
Those wasps were the work of the root woman. She sent them to torment you. Admit it. You don’t know what the hell you’re dealing with.
He put a lid on that voice. It was nonsense. He was an educated man and ought to know better.
At least his wife’s prognosis was encouraging. According to the doctor, she should be recovered and ready to leave for Atlanta by tomorrow.
Still, he hated the thought of spending one more night in this wretched place of suffering, one more night of bad dreams about that old woman—
Anthony caught a snippet of his family’s conversation. He stopped in his tracks.
“Did you say something about Sis Maggie?” he asked.
Aunt Janice bobbed her head. “You’ve got to apologize to that woman, Tony. She did this to you and your wife.”
Hot blood surged to Anthony’s face.
He pointed to the door. “Everyone, get out. Now.”
“But—” Aunt Janice started.
“Out!” Anthony was trembling.
His family quietly shuffled out of the room. He shut the door.
“Apologize to Sis Maggie,” he mumbled. “I don’t apologize to anyone. Sis Maggie can kiss my ass.”
Karen’s eyelids fluttered. He rushed to her side.
She said something in a whisper. He leaned down closer, to hear her.
“What did you say, honey?” he asked.
“This is ... your fault, Tony,” Karen said in a weak voice that nevertheless carried an undercurrent of anger. “Do ... what your aunt says.”
He rose, his back rigid.
Karen blinked slowly, but resentment glinted in her red-rimmed eyes. Even his wife agreed with his family. Okay then.
“Fine,” he said at last. “I’ll find out where the old heifer lives and get this over with.”
 
Anthony was deep in the country, driving on a narrow, bumpy road. Aunt Janice had given him directions to the old hag’s house. No one offered to come with him. They were scared.
“Ignorant fools,” he muttered. He drew to a halt at a STOP sign, and consulted the directions that lay on his lap.
He was about to turn left, when he looked in the rearview mirror and saw a black cloud rolling toward him.
A swarm of bees.
His fingers clutched the steering wheel in a death grip.
I can’t take any more of this. Why won’t they leave me alone? I’m on my way to apologize to the old heifer!
The buzzing was thunderous. The Mercedes hummed in unison with the insects.
He jammed the accelerator. The tires shrieked, and the car swerved crazily to the left. He barely avoided plunging into a ditch.
The bees chased after him.
You bastards aren’t going to catch me. I didn’t spend seventy grand on this car for nothing.
Teeth gritted, he kept the gas pedal mashed to the floor. The engine roared.
The swarm receded, and soon became a black dot in the mirror.
But the bees were still out there, pursuing him. He had to take advantage of his lead.
Thankfully, Sis Maggie’s place was around the next bend. He veered around the curve, and found himself in a long, dusty driveway. An old black Cadillac was parked in front of the tiny house.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. He rocked to a halt beside the Cadillac, and hurried out of the car.
He glanced down the driveway.
The dark swarm rumbled around the corner. Hundreds of bees.
He was certain that they would sting him to death.
He raced to the front door. He twisted the knob.
He didn’t bother to knock. To hell with good manners. He didn’t have time.
The door opened. He plunged inside, slammed the door behind him.
He found himself in a cramped, dark living room. A shadowy shape sat in an overstuffed chair in the corner.
The air smelled strongly of exotic spices and herbs. Stuff he couldn’t even name.
The shape across the room shifted.
“Sis Maggie?” Anthony asked, hesitantly.
“What do you want, boy?” the elderly woman asked. Her voice was brittle. “Did you bring me a plate of ribs from yesterday?”
“Uh, no.” He struggled to find words—a new experience for him. Usually he knew exactly what to say to get what he wanted from someone. “I’ve been having, uh, this problem ... with bees.”
Sis Maggie leaned forward on her cane. “You think I worked some roots to make them bees and such give you hell?”
He shrugged. “My family seems to think that’s the case.”
“I wanna know what you think.”
I think it’s a bunch of backwoods superstitious bullshit,
he wanted to say, but didn’t.
And I think they believe you’re some kind of witch, but in reality you’re just an old, ugly woman who badly needs dentures.
But he didn’t say that, either.
What he said was this: “Honestly, I don’t really know what to think. But I know why I came. I’m here to apologize, Sis Maggie. I treated you badly yesterday, and I’m sorry. I hope that you can forgive me.”
Sis Maggie cackled, as if he had said the most humorous thing in the world.
Her anorexic-looking guide girl appeared in the hallway, glanced at Anthony, and looked at Sis Maggie with concern.
Wiping her eyes, still laughing, the old lady waved her away; the girl withdrew.
“I’ll take away the bees,” Sis Maggie said. She chuckled. “I know they were scaring you somethin’ terrible. Everybody’s scared of somethin’. Some of us are scared of a whole bunch of things.”
“Thank you,” he said. He blew out a deep breath.
Sis Maggie giggled, like a child. He didn’t see what was so funny. Maybe she was just plain crazy.
“Well ... good-bye,” he said. He bowed slightly, and turned to the door.
She was still giggling when he stepped outside. Old, demented woman. He doubted whether she really possessed any magical powers at all. She was just strange. Here in the Deep South, ignorant people probably equated strangeness with someone having supernatural gifts—being able to give the evil eye, work roots, or some such nonsense.
However, the swarm of bees had vanished.
He climbed in his Mercedes. He drove out of the driveway and rolled back onto the road.
No bees followed him.
“It’s over,” he said. He laughed, but it was a stress-relief laugh. “I can’t wait to get the hell out of this place.”
He reached to crank up the air conditioner. Refreshing, cool air hissed from the vents.
Then he frowned.
Something behind him was hissing, too.
He looked over his shoulder.
He immediately felt as though someone had poured ice water down his pants.
An emerald green snake was coiled on the backseat.
Cursing, he wrestled the steering wheel, forcing the car to the shoulder of the road.
Before he could reach for the door handle, a creature—long, black, and serpentine—slipped out of the dashboard air vent. Hissing.
Snakes, snakes, oh, shit, there’s nothing worse than snakes, not even bees and wasps and hornets can compare to snakes.
And he knew then, in a horrible instant, why Sis Maggie had been laughing when he’d left. She had not lifted the spell. She’d only changed it. To torment him with his number-one fear in the world.
Something warm and oily slithered up his leg.
Another one wriggled under his shirt collar, slid down his back.
Anthony lost all conscious thought, forgot all his years of fine education and legal training. He opened his mouth, and screamed ... and screamed ... and screamed ...
After the Party
When Terry was halfway along the twisting, dark country road, he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a frightening sight: the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser.
“Damn, I don’t believe this,” he said. “He better not be coming for me.”
But at two thirty in the morning, his was the only vehicle on the desolate road. It was a pretty fair bet that the cop was coming for him, and him alone.
Terry took one of his hands away from the steering wheel, blew into it. His lips curled. The sour smell of alcohol was thick on his breath.
“Shit,” he muttered. But he wasn’t surprised. At the Halloween party, he’d had a lot to drink. Three Heinekens ... two Rum and Cokes ... two Hennesseys . . . and more. His memory of exactly what he had drunk was foggy—as it always was when he was smashed.
On the stereo, an Outkast song thumped at a bone-jarring volume. Listening to loud music was one of his tricks to make it safely home after he’d had too much to drink. It kept him alert.
But the music wasn’t enough to save him tonight. He should have known better than to be out on the road in a drunken daze on Halloween night. Johnny Nabb (his uncle referred to all cops by that dubious name, and Terry had picked it up) would surely be out in force, cruising for suckers like him.
He’d fallen right into the trap. Shit.
The cop car veered up to his rear bumper, and sounded a sharp horn that made Terry jump. The beacon’s blue lights whirled around, shining into Terry’s car like some crazy disco strobe light.
Biting his lip, Terry slowed his Nissan Maxima. He pulled to the shoulder of the road.
With a trembling hand, he shut off the stereo.
The last time he’d been pulled over was two years ago, for speeding. He’d gotten away with a fine and a slap on the wrist from the judge. He’d never had a DUI, in spite of driving home drunk at least a dozen times. DUI was a serious trespass in Georgia.
But if you got away once without being caught, you always thought you could pull it off again. His apartment was only twenty minutes away, after all, and the country road was a shortcut, and it wasn’t as though he was falling-down drunk. He floated in that dreamy, slow-motion world that existed somewhere between Tipsyville and Truly Wastedland.
But he was definitely over the legal limit, and he knew it.
He should have accepted Nikki’s invitation to stay at her place for a while, to sober up. But she’d gotten on his last nerve at the party, following him around as if she were a lovesick puppy and getting all in his mix while he tried to hang with his boys. He couldn’t tolerate another minute of her company. Clingy females like her made him sick. They reminded him of his mother.
Still, her company would’ve been better than his upcoming date with Johnny Nabb.
Behind him, the police car waited like a hungry beast, headlights glaring. The cop was probably running Terry’s license plate through the system. He wouldn’t find anything, but the thought didn’t comfort Terry. Driving While Black was enough to land your ass in jail for something—anything Johnny Nabb could dream up to nail you. And his being drunk didn’t help his case at all. Although he was rapidly sobering up.
The worst part was that he was still dressed in his costume. He’d gone to the party as Blade the Vampire Slayer. He had the long black-leather jacket, the boots, the gloves—all the gear. Instead of a real sword, a plastic blade dangled from a loop on his belt.
He could only imagine being hauled to the county lockup dressed like this.
He never should’ve gone to the stupid party in the first place. He should’ve rented some horror movies and stayed home. But he’d been excited about showing off Nikki, who, for all her clinginess, was fine as hell, and looked great in her tight, black-leather vampiress outfit.
The fellas had asked him about her all night, and it had stroked his ego to respond, “Yeah, man. She’s mine, I’ve got that girl strung out on me ...”
What the hell’s taking that cop so long?
he asked himself. The asshole still hadn’t gotten out of the car. He was probably sitting back there chomping on a doughnut, knowing that he was making Terry sweat and enjoying every second of it.
God, he hated cops.
Not a single vehicle had passed since he’d been pulled over. Thick, dark woods crowded both sides of the road. There were no streetlamps out here, and a cape of purple-black clouds concealed the moon. The only light radiated from the police car’s headlights.
Anything could happen out there, between him and the cop. And no one would know.
Okay, don’t think about stuff like that,
he warned himself.
You’re freaking yourself out. There’s still a way out of this.
He remembered the Certs in his cup holder. His hands shook so badly it took three tries for him to pop the mint into his dry mouth.
He might not fool Johnny Nabb into thinking he was sober, but he had to try.
Behind him, the cruiser’s door finally swung open. A tall, beefy cop climbed out. He strutted toward Terry’s car, as if he had the world on a leash.
Remember, be respectful, and enunciate crisply,
Terry told himself.
You can talk your way out of this. You’ve got to convince this cop that you’re sober.
The police officer tapped on the glass with a fat finger.
“Mister, please roll down the window, will ya?” The cop had a thick Georgia accent.
Terry pressed the button to lower the glass. Chilly air swept into the car.
“Yes, sir?” Terry asked.
“I spotted ya weaving over the line back there.” The cop hooked his thumb behind him, then bent closer. “You been drinkin’, buddy?”
“No, sir. I’m only tired, it’s late.”
“Where ya comin from?”
“Um ... a party.”
The cop’s penetrating blue eyes raked over him. “A costume party? What you got on there?”
“Uh, I’m supposed to be Blade. You know, the vampire slayer from the movie?”
“The flick with that black boy, Wesley something?”
“Yeah, that one.”
The cop grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Gimme your license and registration, Blade.”
Here we go,
Terry thought.
I’m fucked. First, I hand him this stuff, next he’ll be asking me to get out of the car to take a Breathalyzer test, which I’ll fail, and after that, I’ll be riding in the back of his cruiser on the way to the Clayton County Jail.
Terry dug the registration out of the glove compartment and slid his driver’s license out of his wallet.
The cop snatched the items out of his grasp and stuffed them into his pocket without so much as a glance at them.
Something isn’t right here,
a voice cautioned in the quiet, sober part of Terry’s mind.
Something about this policeman isn’t quite right.
But when the cop stepped back and commanded Terry to get out of the car, Terry hesitated only a second before he obeyed. He was a law-abiding citizen, and the policeman was an authority figure. No black man in his right mind resisted arrest or caused conflict with an officer. Look at what had happened to Rodney King.
“Wait by the car, Blade,” the officer said with a smirk. He strolled back to the cruiser.
Terry stood beside the car. He didn’t feel drunk anymore. Nothing sobered you up as much as knowing that you probably were going to jail.
Beyond the circle of light cast by the cop car’s headlamps, the night seemed to shift, like a living thing. Terry found himself staring at a spot in the dark woods, maybe a hundred yards away. He had the oddest feeling that something was out there, watching him, just as he was watching it. He felt the weight of a sentient creature’s gaze, like a pressure on his forehead.
It’s an owl, he thought. Or a raccoon. Something like that. The forest is full of living shit.
But he shuddered.
He was almost relieved when the cop returned.
“Okay, tell it to me straight,” the officer said. “How much did you drink at the party?”
Terry shrugged. “A couple of beers. Not much.”
“That’s all, eh? The punishment for DUI is stiff in Georgia, buddy. But there are worse things than a DUI. Much, much worse.” His pale lips twisted into a strange smile.
“I’ve never had a DUI,” Terry said. “You pulled up my record, you know it’s true.”
“You mean, you’ve never been caught,” the cop said.
Terry didn’t respond. Why had he thought he could fool this guy? Johnny Nabb put the hook on suckers like him all the time. He wasn’t special.
The cop threw open the door to Terry’s car. He removed the key from the ignition, and then slammed the door.
“Are you taking me in to the station?” Terry asked. “Aren’t you supposed to give me a sobriety test first?”
Without answering, the cop pressed the button on the key chain to activate the door locks. The locks snapped down.
“Do I have to get someone to tow my car?” Terry asked.
The cop wound up his arm like a baseball pitcher. He hurled the keys into the woods. They tinkled somewhere in the darkness.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Terry asked.
A deep laugh bellowed from the policeman. Laughing, he turned to Terry, and in the bright light, Terry saw the purplish bite marks on the side of the cop’s pale neck: two small puncture wounds positioned on the jugular vein.
Terry didn’t believe his eyes. Surely, he wasn’t as sober as he thought he’d become. He had to be imagining things.
“The master will be pleased with you,” the policeman said, in an oddly formal voice, as though he was repeating words that he had memorized. “Quite pleased, indeed.”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on? Is this a joke?”
Chuckling, backing away, the policeman shook his head. “Good luck out here, Blade.”
“Where are you going? I thought you were arresting me!”
Still laughing, the cop hopped in his cruiser.
“You can’t leave me out here!” Terry ran toward the car.
The vehicle sped forward. He jumped aside and grabbed at the passenger door handle. But his sweaty hands slipped away.
The patrol car shot down the road. Soon, the red taillights dwindled into darkness. Deep silence fell over the night.
“Help!” Terry shouted. “Someone help me!”
His shouts echoed into the woods, uselessly. There was no one out here to help him. He was alone.
Well, not quite alone.
His gaze shifted to the dark patch of forest that had claimed his attention earlier.
Something had been out there watching him. It was still watching him. He felt it as surely as he felt the cold October air on his face.
“Who’s out there?” he asked, in a cracked voice.
The darkness did not reply. But something out there, a large, shadowy shape, edged closer.
Within a heartbeat, it was rushing toward him.
I don’t believe what I’m seeing, but it’s got to be real, because now I’m pissing my pants.
Weak-kneed, he reached down, and drew his flimsy plastic sword ...

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