Chapter 8 (part 3)

The bathroom was terribly hot and the smell of piss was almost sickening. But Evan looked past those things right away, sure that within a matter of seconds, the five men on the outside would start hammering away on the door and eventually break it down. He could imagine the tire iron beating dents into the door but the scarier thought was the blade of the skinny man’s axe splitting through the door as if swung by Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

The small square that served as the restroom was no more than six feet wide and Evan suddenly felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He looked around the small space as he heard the footfalls of the passengers getting closer. A small mirror hanging over an even smaller sink and the silver-colored toilet were the only features in the room. The toilet lid was up and the hole in the center of its base looked impossibly black.

As disgusting as he knew it was, he could not take his eyes away from the toilet. The hole where countless passengers had sat to take care of business seemed like a desolate black hole that had floated down from the depths of space, landing here next to him, in this charter bus bathroom with its sticky floors and reeking of piss, with death marching towards him on the other side of the door.

The hammering on the door began and at first the attacks seemed much louder than they actually were. Each strike absorbed into the small confines of the restroom and seemed to resonate in Evan’s head. He flinched back against the wall and jostled the entire bathroom a bit. He once again looked to the toilet, not sure why his eyes kept returning to it.

This time when he looked at it, something was different. There was something inside of it, moving around.

As Evan watched in disgust, something splashed from within the murky water. Following the splash there was a smell that was mostly pure sewage. There was another putrid smell as well but Evan could not place it, nor did he want to.

His nostrils seemed to singe and he felt his stomach lurch. He gagged and did everything he could not to vomit. Inside the toilet, the unseen thing splashed again.

From outside, something hit the door hard and for a terrifying moment, Evan was sure that the force of it would cause the bus to fall over onto its side. The door was dented and it buckled in its frame with the force of the strike. There was a heavy creaking sound as one of the hinges gave way. Evan let out a weak scream, one that he was ashamed of, one that he didn’t want the maniacs outside to hear, but one that he could not contain.

To his left, the water in the toilet continued to splash. Evan glanced over and for a moment the lunatic part of his mind crept into play and instantly thought of Mr. Hanky, the talking turd from South Park.

But Evan clearly saw something come out of the water and slap the side of toilet’s rim. It was slick and light green in color, covered in sludge and muddy grime. Evan blinked against what he saw but there was no denying that it was an appendage of some sort, an appendage with horrid speed and fluid movements.

As he continued to watch, two more of these things came out of the toilet, one of them clinging tightly to the rim. There were no fingers, nothing to grip with, but it wrapped itself around the edge of the toilet with an eerie speed and strength. Evan was sure that all of these tentacle-like appendages were from the same source rather than individual creatures. He tried to imagine the torso and head of such a creature but could not wrap his mind around it.

Suddenly, he found himself wanting to tear the door off and let the passengers have him. He began to whimper and somewhere in his head, he could feel something like a cold drop of water sliding around. He wondered if this was the feeling of having his sanity slip away.

Another tremendous thud sounded out in the bus as something or someone else banged at the door. This time it was a rather metallic sound and Evan once again remembered the man with the tire iron loading up onto the bus as he had retreated into the bathroom.

The door gave a few inches and Evan could now see through the widening crack between the door and its frame. The five people that had originally come into the bus for him had been joined by others. Their eyes looked cold, and insane; the totally blank slates of their faces only added to this appearance.

A louder splashing sound from the toilet drew his attention away from this crowd. This time when he looked over, he saw the slight spherical top of a shiny dome breaking the water. It was dented and had small pucker marks on it, covered in the same slimy residue that clung to the tentacles. As the form broke the water, it made a hideous gurgling sound.

Another thud came from outside. This one freed the door from the frame and there was a moment where Evan felt relieved. He closed his eyes and sank against the bathroom wall, waiting for the coming violence. He waited to see what would take him first: the rough onslaught of human hands or the gruesome caress of that thing in the toilet. As he sank to the floor, he could still hear it splashing around and gurgling.

A pair of human hands fell on his shoulder and jerked him out of the bathroom. Ignoring his better judgment, Evan opened his eyes as he was thrown over a large man’s shoulder as if he weighed no more than a pillow. He didn’t bother fighting. At that moment, it didn’t even seem worth it.

He looked back into the restroom as he was carried away. The domed shape now peered over the toilet’s rim, having pulled itself up by several of the tentacle things. The dome shape was, of course, a head.

It stared out at the commotion as if eager to participate. It looked at the skirmish with five insect-like black eyes on a head that looked almost human and infantile. It cried out in a weak protest and then sank back down into the drain from which it had come.

Sorry, Evan thought mildly and from some far away place within his head. But you lose, my shit-smeared friend.

Evan wasn’t aware of too much after that. He was vaguely aware that he was being carried forward by a series of hands and arms, being carried in the air, over the heads of the passengers. He felt a slight jostling sensation as they carried him down the bus steps and then the next thing he knew, he had the wind knocked out of him as he was thrown to the hard desert ground.

Evan rolled onto his back, looking straight up into the night sky and gasping for breath. The crisp desert air was a blessing to his nose and head but the sight of the approaching group of people surrounding him sent him back into the void of unreality that he had been swimming in since witnessing that first appendage surface through the water in the toilet.

He was vaguely aware that the man with the crowbar was standing closest to him. Behind this man stood the white haired man in the army pants, still holding his axes. Far off behind them, Evan thought he could see twin sets of headlights floating out in the distance.

The man with the tire iron approached him and raised his arm. Evan watched as his arm came down, the tire iron quickly catching the glare of the bus’s headlights. The iron struck Evan squarely on the side of the head.

Evan heard the thunk of the iron against his skull and then felt the momentary rush of blood pouring from his head.Then he closed his eyes and felt nothing.