Twisted Tales Read Online Free

be with me?” she asked. Her eyes blazed.
    “Be with you?”
    She grasped my shoulders. “Do you want to be with me? Forever?”
    I stammered. “Stacy, I have to do something.”
    “What?”
    I opened my jacket, revealing the gun holstered on my hip. I pulled the revolver out of its sheath.
    Stacy retreated a few steps. “Please, put away that gun, Nathan.”
    “Sorry, but I’m only following orders.” I grabbed the doorknob and flung open the door.
    “No!” she cried.
    Ignoring her, I moved to the staircase. Mr. Payne, the werewolf, bounded up the steps. The beast leaped over three and four risers at a time. It snarled, saliva flying in thick ropes, eyes aflame with inhuman rage and hunger.
    My hands trembled. He was so enormous . If I missed, I was finished.
    The werewolf sprang toward me.
    I squeezed off one, two, three shots, the revolver booming like a cannon. One misfired round plowed through the railing; one smacked into the creature’s chest; and the third drilled it between the eyes.
    The beast shrieked. Leaking blood like a busted water hose, the werewolf rolled down the stairs. It crashed to the floor with an impact that reverberated through the house.
    Then, silence. The creature lay on the floor unmoving. Dead.
    I closed my eyes.
    I hadn’t handled my assignment in the neat, thoroughly documented manner that my superiors would have preferred, but they would accept my work. They would have to accept it. I was one of the few detectives in the world qualified to handle this kind of case. The scarcity of individuals in my position provided job security.
    “You killed him,” a guttural voice said from behind me.
    It was Stacy. She was crouched in the doorway. She had begun to metamorphose, too: pretty nose lengthening into a canine snout, claws pushing through the tips of her slender fingers, coarse hair covering her creamy skin ...
    “I had to kill him,” I said. “Unchecked beasts like him make it more difficult for all of us. He was violating the code.”
    I thought I saw confusion on her rapidly transforming face.
    I wanted to explain, so I said, “Our power lies in our secrecy. Your father was killing at will, and that isn’t allowed. Kills have to be carefully planned and concealed, or else the safety of our entire species is threatened.”
    She dropped to the floor on all fours. She raised her long neck, stretched her jaws wide. Her thick tongue swept across her rows of sharp teeth.
    She howled.
    “I’m responsible for enforcing the laws for us,” I said. I looked at the revolver in my hand. “According to the law, I’m supposed to slay you, too. I’m not allowed to leave witnesses.”
    I studied Stacy’s werewolf form. She regarded me with her dark eyes, panting softly, expectantly.
    She was gorgeous.
    I tossed aside the gun.
    “But you know what? To hell with protocol. There’s a full moon tonight. And I don’t know about you, but that tiny steak I ate earlier left me hungrier than ever ...”

The Sting
    There were only two things in the world that really frightened Anthony Morris: snakes, and winged insects with stingers, like wasps.
    When Anthony reached the outside entrance to their hotel room, he spotted a wasp as long as his index finger batting against the top of the door. With each soft bump against the wood, the insect emitted a loud buzz, as if grunting from its efforts to get inside.
    Anthony’s first impulse was to spin around, race across the walkway, plunge down the stairs, and wait in the car until the wasp flew away. His wife, as slow as ever, was still in their Mercedes, fiddling around with her camera, purse, and who knows what else. They had spent all day under the merciless Mississippi sun at a family reunion picnic; he could use the excuse that he wanted to find an ice-cream shop, to get a cool respite from the heat, and she would never know the true reason why he’d returned to the car. Although they had been married for three years and had known each other