Twisted 50 Volume 1

by Wessell, Stephanie

  He sat upright, eyes wild. The bitch, the fucking bitch.

  His Dad was wealthy in anyone’s book; oil executives tended to be. He guessed he was probably worth a few million at least. The woman knew that, he was sure it was why she had married him. She’d get it all if… he realised what he’d done. The phone call.

  Sally will be on her way now.

  “Dad, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  No response.

  “Dad?”

  “Okay, Son.”

  “Dad, is that all you can say? We need to find a way out, we’re in danger.”

  Why isn’t he more concerned?

  “I love you, Son, always remember that.”

  He froze. His Dad was an old school type, brought up not to show his emotions. He’d spent his entire childhood craving affection and attention from the man, but had never got it. Until now.

  Yesterday, was it yesterday?

  Between cups of tea, his Dad had told him he loved him, the first time he had ever done that as far as he could remember. He’d cried when he heard it, all those emotions held in check for so long flooding out, bursting the dam he had so painstakingly constructed.

  It must be the illness.

  He had read about it, how it could change personalities, turn sufferers into different people. He almost smiled then, the irony of what it had taken to hear those words after so long.

  Come to think of it, his Dad had just said the exact same thing, word for word.

  Strange.

  “I love you Son, always remember that.”

  Again?

  He knew his Dad was worried he might soon forget he even had a son to love. Perhaps that was why he had repeated himself.

  “I love you too Dad, I don’t need to remember it, I’ll always know it. Don’t worry, we’re going to get out of here. I promise.”

  He struggled against the straps, desperately trying to find a way out. Then he froze. The darkness had changed, was somehow less substantial. He could see shapes, outlines appearing in the gloom. He looked up at the ceiling, a single light bulb glowed thinly, little more than an orange filament.

  He saw his Dad’s silhouette, standing, hands by his side.

  “Dad, Dad. Did you switch on the light? Are you free? Can you untie me?”

  The figure didn’t move.

  “Dad?”

  No response.

  “Dad, what are you doing? Help me.”

  “I love you, Son, always remember that.”

  “I know, Dad, why do you keep saying that?”

  He was panicking now; something was wrong.

  The light grew brighter. The figure still hadn’t moved.

  Who is doing this?

  He strained his eyes as the room slowly materialised around him. He could see the pinstripe suit worn specifically for the doctor’s appointment, rumpled now.

  What has happened to his tie?

  The face was still in shadow, except the mouth.

  He looked harder. What is that in his mouth? Has he been gagged?

  “I love you, Son, always remember that.”

  How is he speaking through that gag?

  Slowly the light intensified, until the bulb in the ceiling blazed, illuminating his Dad’s face fully… a corpse’s face.

  How? What?

  He dangled from the ceiling by his tie, eyes bulging out of a purple, swollen face. It took a moment to sink in, his senses overwhelmed, refusing to believe. He looked again, studied that face, realising with horror that his Dad must have been dead for hours.

  How? Who slid the phone across?

  Rita stepped out from behind a pillar, held up a voice recorder and pressed play.

  The corpse spoke. “I love you, Son, always remember that.” It wasn’t a gag. The voice came from a speaker strapped into its mouth, forced in tight between the teeth.

  His Dad had told him he loved him for the last time.

  The woman stared hard at him, plastic face set in a permanently startled expression. She smiled as she smashed a hammer into his face.

  “Hello, David. Make yourself comfortable, Sally will be along shortly.”

  Second Chance

  by Maggie Innes

  There is no easy way to tell a woman you’ve just met that her dead husband’s heart is thumping in your ribcage.

  Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

  So George took it slow.

  He sipped the strong, dark coffee that Alison had given him – her hands trembling, however hard she tried to hide it. He summoned up the remnants of his counselling training from way back when, and created a Safe Space. Kept his distance, feeling his cashmere trousers slip-sliding off the brown leather armchair. While Alison perched stiffly opposite, looking confused and in pain – like she’d been impaled on the pristine brocade sofa. George took a moment. Harnessed all his self-help public-speaking books and ‘owned the room’.

  Broke his story down into manageable steps.

  First, the long, slow decline. The breathlessness that inexorably enfolded his chest in a suffocating death embrace, the grotesque swollen limbs, the crushing, constant fatigue. Silent, un-tuned guitars propped up against the wall in his bachelor bedsit; well-thumbed cookbooks unopened on the shelf; the social work resignation letter; muggy days gawping at moon-like faces on daytime TV while gasping for air like a beached fish. Just one toothbrush left in the bathroom mug. A circular heat mark on the bedside table where Zoe had always placed her herb tea when she stayed over. Zoe, who liked hillwalking, spontaneous picnics, festivals and hot, long, gymnastic sex. He didn’t blame Zoe for leaving him – or his walking sticks, his blue lips, his puffy ankles. His hopelessness. All his life people had left him; why should she be any different?

  George gave a self-effacing shrug. He could see Alison was gripped by his story. She gazed at him, her eyes an unusual and vivid shade of blue-green. Turquoise. Like warm sunlit Mediterranean pools. They really were quite something. Impossible to look away from. So compelling and new, yet somehow so… familiar. It was all George could do to carry on.

  But still, he gave the phone call from the transplant co-ordinator the dramatic delivery it deserved.

  A heart was available! On paper it had the potential to be a perfect match. Could he come in? On the taxi ride to the hospital, George stared at his fingers, pale and waxy and numb, and felt so keenly that his body, his future, was being rubbed out in front of his eyes. He hardly dared hope that this time, this heart, could give him a second chance…

  George’s voice faded. Raising his hand in wonder, he wiggled pink, plump fingers pulsing with life. Some kind of miracle! Alison slowly reached out, appearing equally awestruck, and took his hand in hers. A jolt convulsed George’s body. He felt a powerful urge to get up and enfold Alison in his arms.

  Steady. Don’t scare her.

  Instead, George smiled shyly. Alison smiled back.

  Gladys, the transplant nurse, was the first face he saw afterwards, milky eyes behind statement red glasses. George could smell lunch on her breath – cheese and pickle on spongy white bread. He knew Gladys well; it was difficult not to, amount she had to say. Now she smiled with genuine delight. Everything had gone even better than expected. His new heart was strong and healthy.

  Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

  George paused for effect. Alison still held his hand in hers. She leaned slightly towards him and he felt a powerful sense…of what? Recognition. Relief? This too was going even better than expected.

  He rattled through his post-transplant recovery, so quick and complete it surprised even the most experienced doctors on the unit. His return to work, only to realize he was wasted on social work, and his complete reinvention of himself as…

  “…a currency trader?” Alison asked.

  This time, George’s smile was generous.

  Got it in one.

  This time, Alison didn’t smile back.

  George’s story had a momentum of its own, racing away from him. He
described drinking Japanese whisky where once he was a Guinness guy, driving fast, playing tennis, pumping iron, becoming socially confident. Charming even.

  Alison was staring now, those turquoise eyes wide and questioning, as though meeting someone in the street and desperately trying to place them. She let his hand fall. George, too late, realised maybe he had said too much. Gone too fast.

  Stupid.

  He quickly cut the rest. The dreams he’d had pretty much from day one, disjointed snapshots of a former self, a former life – and there, still and serene at the centre, with the physical impact of thirst and hunger and pain and ecstasy all rolled into one – this woman’s face. Those eyes. An obsession that bit into his every waking moment, and when he was asleep, just grew even more urgent. Until timid good guy George was obliterated, and left inside his shell was a raging beast, driven on by an inexorable inner drumbeat. The heart that was pounding even now, faster and faster, insistent and triumphant.

  Ba-boomBa-boomBa-boomBa-boomBa-boom

  Alison was fast – up off the sofa and heading for the door. But George was faster. Her arm felt impossibly flimsy in his pulsating grip. Touching her again fired another thunderbolt through his body and he almost gasped with the rightness, the inevitability of it.

  Don’t go. Please.

  Alison was whimpering a little now. George stroked his thumb down the pale inside of her forearm, lacy with veins. He felt her tremble, try to pull away.

  Don’t. It’s a lot to take in. Ssh.

  George guided Alison back to the sofa. The bond he could feel between himself and this woman was like nothing he’d ever experienced. He wanted her. Not just with his heart, but with every cell of his body. He had to have her. He would have her.

  They both knew it.

  “How… how did you find me?” Alison’s voice was small, but remarkably calm, considering.

  George hesitated. Should he tell her how the hospital’s confidentiality policy had thwarted him, and endless newspaper advertisements and social media posts had also drawn a blank? Meanwhile the dreams and desires were eating him alive, torturing him day and night.

  One day it came to him. Gladys! Who turned out not to be nearly as talkative when it really mattered. Trust her. He could still hear the crunch of those ridiculous red glasses as he drove his fist into her face.

  When she finally dribbled out Alison’s name, his heart leapt in his chest. Elated to be so much nearer his goal, his destiny.

  Ba-BOOM. Ba-BOOM. Ba-BOOM.

  No. Better not tell Alison that bit – especially not what happened after. Poor Gladys. George remembered he had liked her. Once. But it felt such a long time ago now. A different life.

  “George?” He realized Alison was saying his name. “George! Don’t let him do this! A good and kind person is in there somewhere. Don’t let him – ”

  “Shut up!”

  George looked at his hand, shocked. Alison lay crumpled on the floor, clutching her cheek. The mark was already showing – red, and hot. George rushed to help her up, but even as he apologized the contempt was rising like vomit in his throat.

  She deserved that. She doesn’t have any respect. Never has, never will. George shook his head, as though to scatter the thoughts.

  Bitch. Bitch. BITCH.

  Alison was babbling on. How they assured her the heart recipient was a good man, a kind man, someone who deserved a second chance at life. Someone who would give back, make the most of this sacred gift.

  They were wrong, George replied. He was an empty shell, a husk. Now he’s tasted lust and pain and violence he doesn’t ever want to go back. He can’t.

  He crushed his lips into Alison’s. Felt her gasp and go limp, as though surrendering completely to him. The sense of absolute power was exquisite. Every colour was more vivid, every emotion more intense.

  Then the strength in his arms was waning, and Alison’s body felt slippery as silk, impossible to hold. George grabbed for empty air. Dropped to his knees, dazed. Breath was hard to find, even harder to keep. He really had to concentrate.

  Luckily, Alison broke her story down into manageable steps.

  First, the beatings, the humiliation, the imprisonment. The constant fear. Then, her final fight back. She gave it the dramatic delivery it deserved. As she spoke, George could feel the heartbeat in his ribcage starting to slow…

  Ba-boom.

  Alison laughed – it was such a cliché really. Sleeping pills and whisky. No seatbelt. Black BMW driven at speed off the road. She played the wounded, grieving widow to perfection, sobbing as she agreed to donate her husband’s organs to help others.

  Ba… Boom…

  As soon as George called, she had sensed it. That the heart, the evil, was stronger than him. Would have to be stopped. Still, she wanted to hear him out. Just in case.

  Alison stroked George’s cheek. Her eyes, those clear turquoise pools, were now implacable chalky puddles. He struggled to speak, to beg, to say he was sorry. Ssh, she murmured. It’s a lot to take in.

  Sleeping pills in the coffee. Again.

  But this time, no second chances.

  Ba……

  George felt himself being dragged, his head bumping off furniture, over carpet then smooth flooring. Alison was still talking – her voice sticky like treacle in his ears. Occasional words filtered through.

  Rented house. False name. Leaving tonight.

  A sharp push and he was tumbling down concrete steps, his wrist giving a sickening crack as it snapped. Far, far away, a door slammed. A bolt shot.

  Silence.

  Sour smoke and the first tentative pinch of flames licking his skin.

  Boom. . . . . .

  Sum of My Memories

  by Elizabeth J Hughes

  I remember.

  We were standing on the roof of the old mill down by the canal. Taking turns for a drag on the joint Jono had brought along. Swigging down the cider we had swiped from the offy round the corner. We were just hanging out, ‘cos that’s what you do when you’re 17, feel immortal and have a burning rage deep inside, driving you to rebel against something only you can understand.

  I don’t know who first came up with the idea of walking the beam. It was probably Billy ‘cos that was the kind of idiot thing he was always coming up with. The beam lay across one of the gaping holes in the roof. Below it was nothingness which stretched out right until the point that the concrete floor filled it. But I am getting ahead of myself.

  Once someone had suggested walking the beam, well, then it seemed the only thing to do. Billy went first; he wobbled quite a lot and somewhere about the middle suddenly found God – of course we all laughed at him but eventually he had edged his way to the other side.

  Once one had made it across, it meant the rest of us had to; no matter how lame we thought it might be. Jono went next, skipping across like a mountain goat, even pausing mid-walk to jump up and down a bit. The jumping caused a creaking sound, which had him skittering across the remaining gap.

  Then there was just me. Of course, somewhere deep inside was a voice telling me not to. But when do we ever listen to those inside voices? Besides, I was high, drunk and, well, the others had done it.

  I stepped onto the beam and shuffled forward. The hole seemed a whole lot wider from this angle; for a brief moment I thought about stepping back. Oh, how I wish I had.

  I must have been about the middle of the hole when the cracking sound began. Suddenly my mates weren’t shouting and whooping anymore.

  I took another step but there was no beam to step onto.

  I was falling. Looking up, I could see the pale, terrified faces of my friends, Billy’s mouth a perfect dark O.

  I seemed to fall for ages. I suppose I was also screaming. I don’t remember, I just remember the rushing sound in my ears.

  I heard my dad’s voice saying, “It isn’t the fall as will kill you, it’s the landing” and you know what, it was. I smashed into that concrete floor. Pain shot through me like a re
d hot poker that just kept giving. My broken lungs fought to suck in air as I lay there. Before the blessed darkness came, I looked up, I saw my friend’s faces looking down in horror. I heard their trainers squeaking as they ran.

  Now I don’t know what you were told about death, but I distinctly remember being told that when you die you go on to something else. In my case I was expecting to wake up in heaven. I admit, I was a bit hazy on the actual details, but I was fairly sure that there would be some angels sat around on clouds strumming their harps. What actually happened was I woke up back into the existence I had passed out in.

  I opened my eyes – well, actually, no I didn’t, they were already open – and saw the hole I had crashed through.

  The first thing I noticed was the pain. If I weren’t already dead, I would have been fairly sure I was dying. I lay there and I screamed. Only I didn’t, I lay there; screaming is a thing living people do.

  I tried to float above myself. That’s a thing right? The out of body thing? Yeah, right! Take it from me, mate, it isn’t.

  It was sometime after I had given up screaming and was wondering where my so-called mates had gone that I noticed the fly. It buzzed around my head for a while before coming in to land on my goddamn eyeball. It walked all over it, even gave it an experimental lick. Its tiny feet trampling all over my sodding eye. Man, I wanted to blink, to knock it off. But I had nothing, I was just existing.

  It left my eye and began to investigate my nostril. I felt it push itself inside, travelling up towards my brain. I didn’t realise what it was doing in there. I was too busy screaming in my head at the fact I could feel its nasty little hairy feet stomping around inside.

  After the first fly, the others soon followed, each one searching for a way in. Pushing inside, clambering around on my eyes, in my ears, up my nose, feasting on the blood which had pooled around me.

  A couple of days later, I felt the first stirring of life within me. Tiny maggot mouths rasping off my flesh from the inside. Slurping from the soup of decay I was becoming.