[WP] The prison gave you a bus pass upon your release. Shortly after the bus is in motion the man sitting next to you strikes a conversation. Only half-engaged, all you give him is silent nods until you hear "Oh don't worry, you'll see soon enough, Jack." and you realize you never gave him your name.
******
Aggravated Assault and Battery.
I couldn’t even believe I hit off my prison record with that. As I rode the virtually empty bus - save the driver and a passenger who was seated next to me, suspiciously – I thought about what had really gotten me there.
My girlfriend – sorry, ex-girlfriend, Leslie.
Leslie.
For three years, she was my world. My sunshine. The joy of living for me was waking up next to her; looking into her green eyes, seeing her working her morning shifts at the convenience store, giving her piggyback rides when we went camping. These were the romantic scenes I remember with her, the scenes that people would love to caption “If these guys break up, then love DOES NOT exist.”
It turned out love didn’t exist after all. And if it did, it threw me a beauty of a curve with Leslie.
Maybe I was stupid on purpose. Maybe I just loved her so much, I chose to ignore the warning signs. The goodnight messages even when she remained online long after. The monosyllabic replies. The late cancellations of our plans.
I thought it was normal. I thought every relationship had its ups and downs. Until I caught them kissing in my own living room, courtesy of my snoopy neighbor. She brought him to my house. Our house. Our sacred place.
I flew into a rampage, getting into a fistfight with the new guy, whose name I don’t know and I don’t care to know. We were both slugging each other quite well, and it was an equal fight until Leslie grabbed a pan and knocked me over the head with it.
She was in support of him. The heart I was fighting for, the girl of my dreams.
It wasn’t him. It was her.
I flew into a rage, grabbing the pan from her hand. Without even looking, I descended on both of them, beating them both to a point where their parents did not recognize them. The scene was a mess, and only until the cops came and dragged me off them did I realize what I’d done. The demon rush frenzy had died down, and I could see the blood and a few teeth on the ground.
I pleaded guilty to one count of good old Aggravated Assault and Battery. Maybe it was due to the circumstances behind the incident, maybe the jury and judge understood my situation, but I was given five years and a fine of fifty thousand dollars.
I only spent three years behind bars before being released for good behavior. The fact was that I was not a heartless criminal, but I did not regret my actions one bit. I just put up the act.
I had made up my mind to spend the rest of my life with my money and a few x-rated movies every now and then. People weren’t worth shit.
“From prison, huh?” the man next to me asked. I was not in the mood for that, so I closed my eyes and nodded before angling my head backward.
“You did something really bad?”
I shrugged and nodded. I’m about to do something worse if you do not shut the eff up, fool, I thought.
“We’ve all done something bad once or twice. Only hurts if you get caught.”
I flashed him a smile and opened my eyes a bit.
He smelled of sweat and the hustle of the suburbs. He was probably a mechanic or something, I couldn’t tell. My bus stop was just ten minutes away. I couldn’t wait to get off.
“You wanna see something shocking?”
For the first time, I took a good look at the man, and his face was quite an unpleasant sight.
He looked like he’d had a tumor in his face and plastic surgery had been done to try and remedy the look. One eye was half closed and hanging lower than the other. His mouth was wrangled, fixed in a permanent scowl, and his nose looked as though it was broken.
“No,” I said calmly.
"Oh don't worry, you'll see soon enough, Jack."
I froze and turned towards him. “How the hell did you know my name?”
“You see, the reason we fell for each other was our faces. We were attracted to each other’s faces – the picture of perfect beauty and we knew we were meant for each other. Leslie only went along with you because she didn’t want to hurt your feelings. But when you came that day and battered our faces, it was all over.”
“W-who the f*ck are you?”
“Plastic surgery just couldn’t restore our faces back into that condition. And everyone laughed at us because they knew why we were like that. They saw you as a hero who took a fall, and they saw us paying the price for our crimes. We knew that we had to get you, but we couldn’t wait for you to come out, so Leslie said we should try something different.”
“W-where’s Leslie? Y-you’re that bastard she was cheating on me with?”
“The only way to get our faces back as they were was using a spell, Jack. A spell that involved the weapon used to turn us into this state. The more faces we destroyed, the more our faces became healed. Whole. And guess who we decided to use as lucky number 7? ”
“The f*ck?” I said, the full picture dawning on me.
“Tell me,” the driver said in a familiar, distinctive feminine voice, “can you recognize us?”
As I looked towards the driver slowly, the last thing I remembered was the fierce green color of her eyes.
******
“And that’s the legend of the cursed frying pan,” Frank said, watching as his three friends yawned and booed.
“Yo, Lois, I thought you said these guys were cool,” Isabel said, pointing at her friend who’d asked Frank, Nicole, and Michael to join them for the camping trip. “That was a whack story.”
“Come one, it isn’t that bad! And besides, I just met them here and it looked like it would be safer for us to team up.” Lois said, laughing.
“Tragic attempt at a horror story,” Minnie laughed as they all stood.
Ricky echoed, “it was bad and we all need to sleep now come on.”
All six laughed as they all retired to their respective tents.
******
Frank studied the pan stained with caked blood. “Leslie, Bryan, or should I say, Nicole and Michael, don’t you think we should stop now? Our faces are already back to normal.”
“Why end the fun, Jack? Only hurts if you get caught.” Leslie said, smiling as they crept towards the other tent.
******
@Leo_kitti, @Hanzell, @Gwenie, @gertu13 it’s been a long time since I wrote some real horror. I have a feeling I didn’t do well on this prompt 😑😑
What the? 🤔 Your twists are really unpredictable Ozzy.