The Twisted Ones

by Scott Cawthon

would be here in—she glanced restlessly at her watch—an hour. I told him maybe someday we’ll see each other again. I guess it’s someday. He had called out of the blue: “I’m just going to be passing through,” he said, and Charlie hadn’t bothered to ask how he knew where she was. Of course he would know. There was no reason not to meet him, and she found herself alternately excited and filled with dread. Now, as she absently sketched rectangular forms along the bottom of her note paper, her stomach jumped, a little spasm of nerves. It felt like a lifetime since she last saw him. Sometimes, it felt like she’d seen him yesterday, as if the last year hadn’t passed. But of course it had, and everything had changed for Charlie once again. That May, the night of her eighteenth birthday, the dreams had begun. Charlie was long accustomed to nightmares, the worst moments of her past forced up like bile, into twisted versions of memories already too terrible to recall. She shoved these dreams into the back of her mind in the morning and sealed them away, knowing they would only breach it when night fell again. These dreams were different. When she woke, she was physically exhausted: not just drained but sore, her muscles weak. Her hands were stiff and aching, like they’d been clenched into fists for hours. These new dreams didn’t come every night, but when they did, they interrupted her regular nightmares and took them over. It didn’t matter if she was running and screaming for her li...