2020 Book Ten: Twisted Stories/Unhinged Poems

By Matthew Tonks

You hold in your hands a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know. For scrawled in blood upon the pages are stories twisted twenty in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Tonks
• Release date: Dec 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005021405

Matthew Tonks

Together we ride the steed of madness, along a road long foretold. Do not let the dire consequences scare you from this journey, for it is written, so it must be. We traveller. We explorers of otherworldly things. Let us share our providence, so we may all prosper.Hidden in the depths of it all, you will find your utopia, and it will be a beautiful sight to witness.For I may walk beside you, and I may carry your umbrella in the sun, just don’t expect me to dig you up, when the zombie apocalypse comes...

Book preview

The Stories

Devouring Of A Moment

A day in the light, a year in the dark, that is the curse you also now face. he says as he wipes the blood from his lips and sneers at them with a sarcastic smugness.

You have CONDEMNED us all the hell foul demon! We…. he doesn’t get to finish his words, as he is quickly upon him, and grips him tightly by the throat.

I have saved you all! I have allowed you to live through the impossible. I am your saviour, and you should worship me as such, he says as he snaps the man’s neck and tosses his lifeless corpse to the ground. From out of the darkest corners of the cavern they descend, devouring at first the light, and then the corpse.

He growls, then leers at the others as he bares his teeth and levitates off the ground. Does anyone else share his desires? Does anyone else wish to question what I have done to ensure our survival?

For many minutes silence is his only answer, until finally a young woman steps forward. I don’t want to question what you have done, but I-I, I do want to know how long it will be before we can go back above, to see the sun again.

He smiles and gently comes back to the earth, landing in front of her. You are a brave little girl to be asking someone as big and scary like me, such an important question. he says as he kneels before her and places a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it softly. Who put you up to this? Tell me and I promise it will be quick.

N-N-No one put me up to anything. I-I, I asked the question, because I want to know how long it will be until I can go outside again, and you’re not big, or scary. she says, he smiles softly as he tightens his grip.

I think you’ll find that I can be very scary, he hisses.

S-S-She’s just a girl, a voice calls out from the crowd that has slowly surrounded them.

Leave her alone, and pick on someone your own size, another voice yells out.

Coward!

Bully!

Monster!

He lets out a scream, and spins around, baring his teeth once again. DO YOU DARE DEFY WHAT I HAVE GIVEN YOU? DO YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME, YOUR SAVIOUR!

You are no saviour, not to me, the girl says.

Who are you? You’re not just a little girl, are you. You’re something entirely different, aren’t you?

She smiles, Because I don’t bend to your will, you suspect me to be more than I am. How brazen an ego you have.

My ego has nothing to do with this. I saved this town from a far greater evil than I, all I ask is the respect I deserve.

You have condemned them to a lengthier death is all, the girl says as her eyes become like pools of oil, and her smile tears across her face.

W-W-W-What are you? he stammers, as he stumbles backwards.

I am the spider, and you have brought me all the flies, she says as the darkness moves in once more, this time for him.

It Is All Irrelative

I’m Michael Winter, and this is news at seven. Michael says sternly towards the camera. "In a day wrought with political correctness gone wrong, a silver lining has been discovered by a twelve-year old French boy named Pier Rosencamp, in the form of a time machine. Pier, a high school junior, happened upon the discovery while trying to assemble a fully working microwave oven, that incorporated a single group coffee machine. The latter device was from all accounts tragically unconventional, but in the tragedy a portal to the same location three days in the past, was created. News reports that had not existed before that moment spiralled out of control in an almost instantaneous moment. This freak moment in time is what specialists are describing as a time wave, where the change to the past sends a wave of time, to catch