Stink

     David and Lorraine spent that Thursday morning passing each other on their way into and out of the bathroom. “I really do not feel good,” David said as he went in and Lorraine came out.

     “Don’t go in there yet,” Lorraine cautioned him. But it was too late, and David couldn’t have waited much longer anyway.

     They had been dating for just over two years, and had moved in together only three weeks before their stomach troubles caused them to give up their final secrets from each other.

     “Oh god, is this stink going to kill our romance?” David called from the loo, trying to add a bit of levity to the embarrassing situation.

     The stink seemed to have a physical presence, David mused. He even teased Lorraine about it when he stepped out, and she stepped back in, but Lorraine was not in the mood to laugh. Her stomach was boiling.

     Throughout the morning the stink increased. It grew denser with each trip to the bathroom, being contained in so small a space without any windows through which it could escape. Until they could no longer kid themselves. The stink had most certainly taken on a physical form. And it was not pretty. It was confused and hungry, an unwanted newborn in a world where it was unlikely to find sympathy or compassion.

     Lorraine was the first to be touched by the Stink. It was tentative, unsure, so light Lorraine at first thought she’d imagined it. But when the Stink applied a little more pressure, Lorraine gasped and swatted the Stink away.

     “Are you okay in there?” David asked from outside the bathroom door.

     “No,” Lorraine said.

     “No,” the Stink repeated tentatively, testing out the word in its newly formed mouth. Finding it to its liking, it repeated, “No.”

     “Lorraine, you sound weird,” David said, concerned. He was also concerned for himself, as he needed to get in there again soon. Very soon.

     “David, that wasn’t me,” Lorraine told him, turning frightened.

     “What do you mean, that wasn’t you?”

     “That wasn’t me. That was…it.”

     “No,” the Stink said again, more sure of itself.

     In the three weeks they’d been sharing the small, one-bedroom apartment, David had not once walked in on Lorraine when she was in the bathroom. And, if he were to continue to catalogue his good qualities, he also never left the seat up on the toilet or failed to let Lorraine take the first shower in the morning. But now David’s hand was on the bathroom door knob. “Lorraine, I’m coming in.”

     “No,” the Stink said again, this time in a voice loud and certain.

     David hesitated at the door, his hand still on the knob. “Honey?”

     Though frightened, Lorraine was also curious. Though alarmed, she no longer felt she was in danger. The Stink had touched her, but not hurt her. And she felt some strange affection for it, perhaps because it in part took on some likeness of David. Actually, both David and Lorraine could be detected in part in the Stink’s grotesque form. Lorraine reached out to the Stink, and found it warm to the touch. She also saw it smile as her hand brushed its form. But after a moment her hand passed through it, startling both herself and the Stink.

     “Lorraine, are you okay?” David asked. “I need to use the toilet. Now.”

     Lorraine looked to the Stink. It seemed to perk up, and Lorraine understood. She washed her hands and told David to come in. David opened the door slowly, expecting Lorraine to come out. But Lorraine remained standing by the sink.

     “You want me to poop while you’re –” David cut himself off as he saw the Stink hovering over the bath mat. “What?”

     “It’s okay, David. It won’t hurt you.” She paused for just a moment, then said what seemed too fantastic to be true, but what she intuitively knew to be so: “He needs you. He needs us. Go ahead.”

     David, after only a slight hesitation, sat down and defecated. He could not have waited longer even if Lorraine had begged him to. And the moment he did so, the Stink’s form became more solid. The Stink looked healthier, stronger, though still gross and monstrous.

     “Holy hell,” David said under his breath. What had they done? he wondered.

     Both David and Lorraine called their bosses to report they were sick, and remained at home to feed the Stink. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, they went into the bathroom – one at a time – until they had no more to give. They were empty. David was relieved, and told Lorraine he was going to take a nap. But Lorraine was worried. She saw how weak the Stink became if even fifteen minutes passed between feedings.

     “What are we going to do?” she asked David, as he settled under the blankets. “Now that we’re feeling better, what will become of Stink?”

     At hearing Lorraine give a name to the thing, David realized now he should have let her get a cat like she’d wanted to when they moved in together. But pets weren’t allowed in the building, and David was disgusted by the idea of an animal sleeping in their bed, something cats seemed entitled to do. But that might still have been preferable to this strange creature that Lorraine had clearly taken to mothering. What if he relented now and told her to get a cat? Would that work? Would a cat even measure up now that she’d grown attached to this strange, preternatural creature?

     “We have to find it nourishment,” Lorraine stated. And David knew then that no cat could dissuade her. He knew also that he was as involved as she, and that he wasn’t going to get a nap right then.

     David sat up. “Okay.” He thought for a moment, then said, “The bus station.”

     It took a second for Lorraine to understand his meaning. “Of course. There are lots of toilets there.”

     “Yup, toilets that are rarely if ever cleaned, and a lot icky people. Stink will feel right at home.”

     At that moment, Everett was wiping the blood from his knife onto Winnie’s dress. He then stood over the newly deceased woman and felt slightly ill. Hadn’t he sworn to his mother and to Lord Hoover that he wouldn’t do this sort of thing anymore? Yes. Yes, he had. His mother was going to be very disappointed in him. Worse, Lord Hoover was likely going to beat him with his Prickly Stick and leave him in the Closet of Shame again. And no amount of crying was going to persuade him otherwise. Everett was suddenly frightened. The only course of action that seemed open to him was to flee to Aunt Lily’s place. She would shelter him, hide him, keep him from harm. Keep him from Lord Hoover’s Prickly Stick. Aunt Lily loved him, and promised she always would.

     Everett opened Winnie’s purse. There was enough money there for him to purchase a bus ticket. Soon he would be with Lily. Soon he would be safe.

     But when Everett reached the bus station, he felt a mighty sickness come over him. He thought he saw Lord Hoover peering at him from the windows of several parked buses. Lord Hoover had eyes in every street lamp and fence post and garbage can. Angry eyes that saw all and promised punishment and torment. Everett began to sweat and to shake. He rushed into the bus station bathroom and found an empty stall.

     “You’re going in with it, right?” Lorraine asked David. Her tone told him that yes, he would be going into the bathroom with Stink. It was the same tone she’d used when she said, twenty minutes earlier, “We’re taking your car, right?” And David knew he had hours of scrubbing ahead of him before the car would be anything close to clean again. Stink needed David’s help anyway getting into the men’s bathroom, as it was weak from hunger, parts of it disappearing before David’s eyes.

     “I’ll wait here,” Lorraine said at the bathroom door. Her voice was so full of concern that David suddenly – and for the first time – hoped that this would work, that Stink would pull through. He just didn’t want him back in his car.

     The moment David and Stink entered the bathroom, Stink began to regain its strength. David was happy to note that Stink’s shape recovered its solidity almost immediately. Lorraine would be pleased. The odor in the room was tremendous, even worse than David has expected. One man, David couldn’t help but notice, was struggling with some personal demons that made his own earlier suffering seem like a mild distraction. It sounded like the man was losing everything he’d ever consumed, all at once. Stink was drawn toward that stall, and for a moment David thought it was going to join the poor wretch in his most private torment. But Stink didn’t need to go into the stall. Being outside the door was enough for it to soak up everything that man was offering.

     David remained just inside the bathroom door, not wanting to get any closer than necessary, but it wasn’t long that – even at that distance – he began to see something was wrong. Stink was changing complexion, changing even its shape, and it was turning uglier. A deep crimson came over much of its form, and its size increased. It no longer looked toward David for comfort. It no longer looked at him at all, so focused was it on partaking of the grotesque feast the suffering man in the stall was inadvertently providing.

     Then suddenly the stall door opened and Everett stumbled out, nearly running into Stink, but stopping just short of its hulking form. Frozen Everett was to his spot, as David was to his.

     “Lord Hoover,” Everett stuttered, cowering, defeated. “I am sorry.”

     “No,” Stink told him.

     Everett, surprised, looked up at it, and for a moment the two seemed – to David – to be the same being. Then Stink turned and rushed past David out the door. David looked to Everett, who hesitated only a moment before running out of the bathroom himself.

     David stepped out of the bathroom a moment later, and found Lorraine staring off toward the benches of the waiting area. David followed her gaze to the body of a young woman on the floor, her dress torn, her legs in an unlikely position, blood beginning to collect in a pool by her head. An employee rushed over to her as David and Lorraine watched.

     David didn’t need to hear it to know, but Lorraine said it anyway: “Stink.” He put his arms around her, as they watched the employee looking for signs of life in the woman and not finding any.

     At that moment, Everett’s bus began to pull out of the station. He would soon be safe with Aunt Lily. She would make everything right. Everett began to relax. Even his stomach relaxed. And so he was not prepared when the driver halted the bus just before it turned onto the street. “Sorry, folks,” the driver said. “There’s been an incident and I’m being told to back up. No buses are allowed to leave now.” He added, in an effort to placate the understandably upset passengers, “I hope it won’t be long.”

     Everett looked out through the bus window and he saw Lord Hoover staring back at him from the face of a security guard. “It’s me,” he said in the direction of the driver. “Tell Aunt Lily it’s me.”


(Copyright 2019 Michael Doherty)

(NOTE: I wrote this story while at work on January 17, 2019, then made a few small changes on January 19th and January 22nd.)