Bzzzzzzz.
The alarm.
Coming from the disabled toilet.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee look at each other. “You go, man…”
“Fuck that, you go!” Neither of them have moved an inch; the red light on the desk is still lit.
“One of you is going to have to go…” The manager, Mr Wilkins, stomps over from the front of the store. He stands, hands on hips, looking over his two worst employees. He sags, visibly, and huffs a heavy sigh. “Tweedledum, c’mon… get back there and see what’s up, eh?”
The boy looks back at his boss, blank. “Why am I TweedleDUM?” He tosses a scornful glance at his mate. “He’s just as thick…”
“Neither of you ever read ‘Alice in Wonderland’?” Mr Wilkins asks.
“Alice in… where?” one of them replies. Doesn’t matter which one.
Mr Wilkins shakes his head, his eyes closed.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz.
“Fuck’s sake… one of you go and see what’s up? I don’t care who!”
Tweedledee spins on his chair behind the counter. “Did you see who went in there?”
Tweedledum pushes his lips together, an ugly expression, and shakes his head. “No idea… some retard…”
Mr Wilkins pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing hard. The end of the day is settling into a headache between his eyes, and these two are doing much to make it go away.
“One of you…” he says, eyes closed, head slightly bowed, nose still pinched, “just… go and help the poor woman.”
Tweedledee perks up in his chair. “Woman?” he says, eyes wide. “Was she hot? I’ll help her then…” he adds, beginning to push himself up.
His partner-in-crime smirks back, unimpressed. “Hot or not, she’s still a retard…” He grabs a can from the display next to the counter, pops it open, and takes a swig. Then he burps, and Mr Wilkins opens his eyes.
Mr Wilkins grabs the can with one slap of his big hand. He thumps it onto the counter, and the sticky contents fizz out and over.
Bzzzzzz.
“Go and see if that poor woman is alright.”
Tweedledum drops his eyebrows, looking every bit his couldn’t-give-a-shit-don’t-owe-the-world-nothin’ sixteen years.
“Whatever…” he says, heading off towards the back of the store. Tweedledee spins on his chair, and sticks his finger up to his friend as he leaves.
The boy reaches the toilets – men, women, and disabled. A single, unisex cubicle with a wide door and big, steel handle. He shuffles up to it, reaching out a scrawny hand and knock, knock, knock. Barely audible, even to himself.
“Y’alright in there?”
No answer.
The boy rolls his eyes, and turns back towards the store. Through the aisles he can see his boss and his friend, watching over. He shrugs, big and exaggerated.
“No answer!”
He can almost hear his boss sigh from all the way away. Mr Wilkins turns away, heading out towards the front of the store. Tweedledee laughs, spinning on his chair, then jumping up and following his boss.
Tweedledum knocks again. Louder; knock knock knock.
“Hello?”
Still nothing.
“I’m here to help you…”
Fuck that sounds dumb, he thinks. He cringes with embarrassment. Turning, he goes to walk away, and hears the buzzer sound back in the store. Craining his neck he sees the red light flash, and his boss and Tweedledee look back over at it, then at him.
“Eh?”
He tries the door, using both hands on the big handle. He pushes at the door, nothing. He pulls, nothing.
Which way does this door even go? He’s never had to use it, so he doesn’t know.
It’s locked anyway, he thinks. Makes no difference.
“Seriously… are you alright?” the boy tries again. He rests his ear on the door, feeling a bit like a pervert, remebering he is there to help. But he can hear nothing.
Someone must be in there. Mr Wilkins saw her go in…
“Let me in and I’ll help…”
Nothing.
He turns, and walks away, and that’s when he hears the lock turn open.
Mr Wilkins and Tweedledee are still paying him no attention, and he tries to ignore the sickening feeling in his stomach.
She, in there, she’s disabled. Maybe wrong in the head, he thinks. Fucking with him for a laugh, he thinks. Suddenly Tweedledum is angry…
“Retard bitch…” he hisses, and throws open the door.
There is no one inside.
The red cord, for the alarm, hangs next to the toilet. It is swaying slightly. The porcelain is bright white, as are the tiles on the walls and the floor, but there is something else. Something tiny, but it stands out and grabs Tweedledum by the crinkled collar of his shitty uniform, and pulls him inside.
Moving closer, he peers down, down, down… on the toilet seat.
There, against the white, is a drop of blood.
The boy doesn’t have a second to move before the tentacle, thick and purple, splashes out from the bowl and strikes him in the face, knocking him straight over. It thumps the door shut behind him, and another joins it, covering the boy’s mouth with a sucker. He gags against it, and feels sick shoot up his throat. But it has nowhere to go, and he chokes against it and the first tentacle wraps around his chest and begins to drag him towards the toilet.
He struggles, but he is losing consciousness fast, and as his eyes roll backwards into his head for the final time, he sees a new tentacle, with not suckers but teeth, slide out from the pipes, and that is the end.
He is chewed up in a matter of moments, as more tentacles come. They drag his remains down, disappearing from sight inside the toilet.
The blood, all his blood, is sucked up with him. The cubicle is almost entirely white again, good as new. Apart from maybe the odd drop of missed blood.
There, in the empty cubicle, a tentacle slowly creeps back out of the toilet bowl, reaches over to the red cord, and pulls.
Bzzzzzz.
TOILET OCTOPUS!!!!
I also approve of the Alice references, sir!
This is amazing! Love it!
(Delivered in overly-loud voice) “Hi! I’m Barry Scott! Octopus problems in your loo? Use Cillit Bang with it’s amazing toilet-cleaning action to cut through dirt and tentacles! BANG! And the octopus is gone!” š
Good story dude! I won’t be able to sit on the crapper for a week!