Free Twisted Tales by Brandon Massey Page A

rejection letters on first novels from faceless literary agents who didn’t care; this hateful world, where nothing was fair and nothing seemed worth living for anymore, and every day was gray and every night like a black void, because the one he most loved in all the world was gone, gone forever, and he couldn’t even tend the home she had left him, couldn’t even preserve her legacy, because he was too damned scared to stand up for himself...
    Weeping, Mark thrust his arm inside the passage. Coolness covered his skin. The heavenly music struck up, pleasure surging through his nerves like a drug-induced high.
    An involuntary gasp of joy escaped his lips.
    He edged closer, put his foot inside.
    The music increased in volume.
    He dipped his head, to squeeze inside ...
    . . . and the silver locket dropped off the chain and clattered against the floor. Striking the floor made it pop open to the photograph of Mark and his mother.
    He paused. Stared at the picture.
    His mother’s wise eyes penetrated him.
    He no longer heard the music, though it continued to play in the back rooms of his mind. But he heard, quite clearly, his mother’s voice. Her words broke into his thoughts as if she was standing beside him.
    Where do you think you’re going, Mark?
    “Mom?” he asked.
    It looks like you’re running away from your responsibilities.
    “I ...” he started, and couldn’t find the words to finish his sentence. Shame sat like a lump in his throat.
    Did I raise you to be a quitter, Mark?
    He swallowed.
    “No,” he whispered. “No, you didn’t.”
    He reached to pick up the locket.
    That was when he heard something in the darkness beyond the doorway, coming toward him with a sound like sharp claws cutting across ice.
    His heart clutched.
    The thing scuttled toward him, viper-fast.
    Frantic, he backpedaled away from the door.
    On the other side, something monstrous howled. It was a roar of anger, of hunger. An utterly alien cry.
    Mark’s blood ran cold.
    He scrambled away to the opposite wall.
    Staring into the blackness, Mark glimpsed a vision out of a nightmare: a rippling mass of green-black scales, a flash of luminous yellow eyes, and a maw of large, jagged bones that only could have been a mouthful of deadly teeth.
    Then the panel slid back into place in the wall, keeping the creature at bay on the other side. A final, furious shriek echoed in Mark’s ears.
    Then, silence claimed the room.
    He was safe.
    “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he chanted. His knees shook so badly that he had to sit on the floor.
    He had been grasping the locket tightly. When he opened his fist, the edges had etched a red circle in his palm.
    Hands trembling, he slipped the locket back onto the chain. How it had fallen off just in time to save him from wandering through the gateway, he had no idea.
    No, that wasn’t true. His heart knew the truth, even as his rational brain labeled it impossible.
    His heart knew a lot of things, including what he had to do next.
    Steady again, he got to his feet. He moved the boxes to conceal the door.
    It was only a temporary measure. He was going to return here on the weekend and seal the doorway with a layer of bricks.
    Afterward, he walked out of the supply closet. Mr. Green marched down the corridor. His eyes gleamed with suspicion.
    “What were you doing in there, Mark? It’s a half hour into your shift and you haven’t started on the first pair of restrooms!”
    “I’m going home,” Mark said. “Dock my paycheck, whatever. I promise to come back to work. But first, I’ve got to kick someone out of my house.”

Hitcher
    “Get your nose outta that damned book and check out that piece,” Raheim said.
    Sitting in the passenger seat of Raheim’s Chevy Tahoe, I looked up from the sci-fi novel that I was reading and pushed up my glasses on my nose.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Look what’s coming up on the side of the road. Damn, Scottie, sometimes I gotta wonder whether you even like women.”
    I