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Authors: Brandon Massey

Twisted Tales (20 page)

BOOK: Twisted Tales
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Tina placed the tray on his lap, and then sat on the side of the bed. Although she wore her usual T-shirt and baggy sweatpants, she had never looked more beautiful to him.
That’s what guilt does to you, he thought. Makes you appreciate the things you have.
He ate with gusto.
“You know, about an hour ago, an ambulance was at the house next door,” Tina said.
He nearly dropped his spoon. “It was?”
“The paramedics carried out a man on a stretcher. From the looks of it, he had died. What a shame. Those folks moved in only a couple of weeks ago. I never got the chance to meet them ...”
With a shaky hand, Eric pushed away the soup. “I’m full.”
“You sure? You seemed hungry.”
“I’m fine. I’m going to go back to sleep.”
Her brow was furrowed with worry. “Let me check your temperature—”
“Later, Tina. Please, just let me get some rest.”
When she left, he lay there, heart racing.
Ted was dead. He’d looked unhealthy since Eric had first met him. As if he was just wasting away.
Dread sat in his stomach, like a ball of ice. He didn’t understand where it came from, but it was there.
Something terrible was going to happen to him, he knew.
It happened at midnight.
 
Eric lay in bed beside his wife, trying unsuccessfully to relax and slip back into sleep, when the voice rang in his mind like a clear bell.
Come to me, Eric. It’s time.
As if he was a puppet manipulated by strings, he bolted upright. He climbed out of bed and left the house.
As he walked, he ordered his body to disobey the call, turn around, and go back to bed. But it was impossible to resist the command. His body was no longer his own.
It was hers.
She was waiting for him at the front door of the house next door. Although she looked like a woman, her eyes glowed faintly with that yellowish light.
Terror made his heart pound wildly, but he was powerless to run away.
She embraced him tightly, her hand pressed against his buttocks. He felt a sharp pain in the flesh of his left hip and then blood being siphoned out of his body.
Even if he’d had the ability to control his body, he would’ve been too scared to look over his shoulder and see how she was doing this to him.
“I hope you’ll sustain me longer than Ted did,” she whispered. “Maintaining this wonderful female body demands a great deal of hot male blood.”
Everything finally came together for Eric. Diana, truly, was not a woman at all. She was some kind of creature—that fed on men. It explained why Ted had looked so sickly. It explained why Ted had warned him to stay away from her.
But he’d been too drunk with lust to listen.
“We’re leaving for a new home tonight,” she said to him. “I don’t like to stay in one place for too long. Humans are too nosy.”
He hoped he would see his wife again, but suddenly he realized it was never going to happen. Diana was never going to let him go.
“Go upstairs and pack our bed,” Diana ordered.
Dutifully, he lowered his head and shuffled to the stairs.
His life was over. She was going to use him, like she’d used Ted, and then pick her next victim.
He only hoped that he could convince the next man to stay away from her, before it was too late.
Flight 463
As soon as the Boeing 757 started roaring down the runway for takeoff, Mya, Sean’s wife of barely more than forty-eight hours, reached into his lap, grasped one of his hands, squeezed her eyes shut, and started praying.
Sean, always embarrassed at public prayer anywhere outside of church walls, looked around to see who might be watching them. They were seated on the right-hand side of the plane, and had the three seats to themselves. On the other side of the aisle, a teenage girl listened to an iPod, bobbing her head to the beat, and a businessman perused
The Wall Street Journal
. No one paid attention to Sean and his wife.
The aircraft began to ascend into the morning sky.
Mya bowed her head, her long black hair falling over her cinnamon face. “Lord, as we embark on this honeymoon to celebrate our marriage, we ask that you grant us safe passage to and from our destination in Hawaii. Send one of your guardian angels to watch over us, dear Lord, and keep us from harm. We put our abiding faith in you, Lord; our welfare is in your unchanging hands. In Christ Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”
Sean moved his lips to say, “Amen,” but didn’t voice the word. The same way that he lip-synched hymns in church.
Unaware, as always, of his deception, Mya glanced out the porthole—she’d insisted on having the window seat—and looked back at him. She smiled tightly.
“I love you,” she said. “My hubby.”
“Love you, too.” He kissed her forehead. “Wifey.”
The airplane steadily climbed. Atlanta’s skyline began to recede in the hazy distance.
“I wish we were already in Maui,” Mya said. “This is going to be a long trip.”
“No kidding. Five hours to LA, then five more to Kahalui—we’re gonna be beat when we finally get to the hotel.” He admired her figure; petite and shapely, Mya wore khaki shorts and a pink halter top. Sean sighed with regret. “I doubt we’ll be consummating our marriage tonight.”
“We’ll have plenty of time for that.” She grinned.
They were booked for six nights at the Westin in Maui. The honeymoon would cost them a small fortune—and since Sean was an elementary school teacher and Mya was a nurse, they weren’t exactly the Rockefellers—but it was, Sean hoped, the first and only time he’d ever
go
on a honeymoon. Mya was the love of his life, and he’d resolved that they would splurge on occasions that mattered to them. Their honeymoon mattered.
“I wish your grandma had been there,” Mya said, admiring the sea of clouds outside the airplane. “It wasn’t the same without her.”
“She was there in spirit,” Sean said.
He had to believe that, or else he would go insane.
They’d had a small but elegant wedding at New Life Baptist, Mya’s family church, and a reception afterward in the fellowship hall. Only forty family and friends had attended. Although it had been a beautiful, joyous affair, it had also been melancholy, as the person who had been a major part of Sean’s life was missing: his grandmother, who’d raised him by herself since he was a baby. Grandma had died six months ago, and every day Sean felt her absence, poignantly.
And bitterly,
he thought. A stroke had felled Grandma, turning the woman who had once been the epitome of a strong black woman into an adult-sized child unable to speak without saliva dripping from her mouth, unable to feed herself, unable to take care of her own bodily functions, and worst of all, barely able to remember who he was. She’d spent the last two years of her life in a nursing home, gazing vacantly at ugly wallpaper for hours at a time and silently enduring her humiliating condition, seeming to care only about the old, thick Bible that she kept in her lap—like a child clutching her favorite blanket.
Her attachment to the Good Book struck Sean as ironic. What had happened to Grandma was God’s fault. Grandma had been a devout Baptist, in church three times a week, always ready to feed the hungry and clothe the homeless. She’d spent her life serving God, but God had deserted her in her hour of need. Did a loving, compassionate God allow his children to suffer?
Sean had decided that the answer was: No. God was neither loving nor compassionate. God didn’t give a damn. You might as well worship the sun or the moon. At least you could see them.
Mya pulled Sean’s hand close to her heart.
“I hope we enjoy a long life together,” she said. “Full of kids, grandkids ... great-grandkids. I want us to share all of those things, sweetie.”
“We will.”
“You sound so sure. I wish I had your confidence. I worry too much sometimes. Like about this flight ...”
“Hush now,” he said. “It’ll be fine. You said a prayer, remember? Have faith.”
“Do you have faith?” She looked at him, full on.
“Of course I do. Why would you ask me that?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder, that’s all.”
He felt the heat of guilt warming his face. Mya knew the truth. He hadn’t fooled her.
But he said only, “I have challenges every now and then, like everyone else. Does that make me an atheist?”
“I didn’t say you were an atheist. Why are you so defensive?”
Why the hell are you asking me about my faith?
he almost snapped. But he checked himself. They were on their honeymoon. This wasn’t the time for an argument.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m tired, a little irritable.”
“I’m tired, too.” She yawned. She’d taken a Dramamine before they boarded, and the effects were probably kicking in. “I’m gonna take a nap for a little while.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
But as he watched her close her eyes, her question rebounded in his thoughts.
Do you have faith?
He had faith, of a certain kind. He had faith that God was heartless and cold and would abandon you when you cried out His name. He had loads of faith in that.
But he could never be bluntly honest with his wife. He put on an act, for her benefit, because she
wanted
to believe, and it would be cruel to tell her the truth about God. She would learn, in due time, on her own.
Yawning, Sean picked up the in-flight magazine. He started to read.
Several minutes later, the captain announced that they had reached a cruising altitude of thirty-three thousand feet, and switched off the seatbelt sign and gave them permission to move around the cabin. Sean rose from his seat and walked down the aisle, toward the lavatory.
Halfway there, the aircraft hit a stomach-tossing patch of turbulence. Sean pitched forward and braced himself against a seat, breaking what would have been an embarrassing fall.
When he looked up, he found himself staring at the occupant of a seat a couple of rows ahead. An elderly black woman.
She looked exactly like his dead grandmother.
Staring at the woman, Sean’s spine went as rigid as a steel pole.
This can’t be Grandma. Your mind is playing tricks on you, Sean. You’re thinking about Grandma because of what Mya said and you’re imagining that this old lady is her.
But the resemblance was uncanny. The woman had smooth walnut-toned skin, hair as white as cotton, a generous mouth, full lips, and large copper-colored eyes. She wore a navy blue dress. Her large hands—Grandma had strong hands because she’d spent her youth picking cotton in Mississippi—gripped a giant, tattered Bible. It was just like the Bible that Grandma had owned.
But Grandma’s been dead for six months. This isn’t her.
“
Excuse me, sir,” came a woman’s voice from behind him. “Are you going to the lavatory?”
“Uh, yeah, sorry.” Sean gave an apologetic glance to the woman, a flight attendant. He forced himself to walk forward. It felt as though his shoes were cast in concrete.
The old black woman stared straight ahead. Sean braced himself to walk past her.
If I hear her talk and she sounds like Grandma, I’m going to lose it.
But as he brushed past, taking extra care not to touch her, she didn’t say a word, and she didn’t look at him. She slipped on a pair of bifocals that lay on her bosom, opened her Bible, and began to read.
Sean got into the lavatory and used the toilet. He splashed cold, purifying water on his face.
“Get a grip,” he said to his reflection in the mirror. “It’s coincidence. Everyone has a twin, remember.”
He’d heard the theory many times before, had actually advanced it himself when someone that he was meeting for the first time said that he reminded them of someone they knew. “Well, everyone has a twin, you know?” he would say. “There’s five billion people on the planet. Chances are, a few of us look a lot alike.”
But there was a major difference between a strong resemblance and a
replica
.
He loathed walking down the aisle again and passing the woman. But obviously it was the only way back to his seat.
He left the lavatory. Ahead, he spotted the top of the woman’s snow-white cap of hair. His heart hammered.
He marched forward.
As he passed the woman’s seat, she spoke.
“Hey, mister. Hold on.”
She sounded like Grandma: a soft, raspy voice with a thick Mississippi Delta accent. No one could imitate that voice.
He clamped his teeth against a scream. Slowly, he turned.
The woman was studying him. She smiled. Her teeth were large, and very white. Dentures.
“Yes?” he asked, his voice cracking on the word.
“I was sitting here thinking,” she said. “You look like my grandbaby. Called him Sonny Boy. Raised him myself ’cause his mama died giving birth to him.”
Sean couldn’t speak.
Sonny Boy was Grandma’s nickname for him. His mother had died in childbirth.
Coincidence! his mind shrieked.
The woman’s brow creased. “I’m kinda worried about Sonny Boy. He done lost his way, blaming God for things that was just meant to happen. Saying he don’t need God and all that mess. When we do that, you know, sometimes God’ll let you see what it’s like when He ain’t around. Leave you out there all alone in the darkness.... And you know who dwells in the darkness, don’t you?”
Sean began to move away. His knees shook, and he had to grip the seats to keep from falling.
“You’s all alone, Sonny Boy,” she said. She grinned. “God ain’t around to hear them phony prayers of yours no mo’.”
Sean spun around, in his haste nearly knocking over a man, and raced back to his seat.
His frantic return awakened Mya.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
You’ve no idea,
he thought. A wave of demented laughter bubbled at the back of his throat, and he clamped his mouth shut, worried that if he allowed the laughter to escape, it would never stop.
Who did I see sitting back there? It wasn’t Grandma. Could it have been ... ?
“Sean?” Mya touched his hand.
“I’m okay,” Sean said. Greasy sweat streamed down his face. He lifted the edge of his shirt and mopped away the perspiration.
Mya watched him with a skeptical gaze.
“Want a Dramamine?” she asked.
“No.” The last thing he wanted was to become drowsy, not with that
(devil)
person sitting a few rows behind him. He couldn’t afford to be anything less than one hundred percent alert.
“You don’t look good,” she said. “Are you going to be okay?”
He was about to tell her to stop asking him questions and shut the fuck up. But he kept his mouth shut. She was only concerned about him, as a wife should be. He had to get his shit together.
The first step in doing that was proving that his grandmother—or something impersonating her—was not sitting on the plane. He wanted to prove that he was hallucinating. Although such an intense, disturbing hallucination would open an entirely different Pandora’s box.
“Can you do me a favor?” he asked Mya.
“Sure, honey.”
“Walk to the back, to the lavatory. Let me know if you see anyone familiar sitting around row fourteen or so.”
“Who?” She frowned.
My dead grandmother ...
“I’m not sure who it is,” he lied. “But it’s someone we’ve seen before, I think. The person’s name slips my tongue.... You know how I am with names.”
“Don’t I know it. You barely remembered my sister’s name at the wedding.”
He forced himself to smile, indulgently.
“And they’re sitting in row fourteen?” she asked.
“Yeah, around there.”
“I’ll be right back.”
She rose out of her seat and clambered over him. If he was in his normal, playful mood, he would have groped at her breasts as she passed by. Now, he kept his sweaty hands knotted together in his lap.
BOOK: Twisted Tales
13.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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