Jared and Burt sat across from each other, counting the stacks of one hundred dollar bills in the office of the abandoned lumber mill.
“Good haul,” Burt said. “Too bad we had to plug that lady. She was cute.”
Jared nodded. He remembered the horror on the bank teller’s face before he squeezed the trigger.
“I warned her. But she just had to reach for that alarm.”
They counted in silence for a moment longer before Burt clapped his hands together.
“Hot damn! Mexico here we come.”
Jared smiled. He slowly pushed his stack of bills aside and adjusted his glasses.
“Sorry, but only one of us is going to Mexico.”
The pistol was up before Burt could blink. The bullet struck him between his eyes and exploded his brains onto the wall. Jared shoved the money into a large duffel bag as Burt’s body slumped to the floor, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling in shock.
Once he had grabbed all of the money, Jared ran outside. It was early morning and the sun was just beginning to peek over the redwood curtain. He tossed the bag into the trunk of his car and climbed into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and sped away.
The sun climbed higher and higher into the sky as Jared drove south down I-80. The mountain highway was devoid of other cars and Jared allowed himself to relax. He imagined the drinks, the surf, and the girls that waited for him.
Suddenly, he felt his bowels tighten. It had occurred to him that he had not relieved himself in a very long time. The pressure grew. Minute after agonizing minute ticked by. Jared squirmed in hiss eat as the perspiration from his palms made the steering wheel slick andsticky; he did not know how much longer he could hold his cheeks together.
A sign came to his right. He was driving so fast he almost missed it:
REST AREA 2 ½ MILES.
Jared heard a choir of angels sing.
“Oh, thank God!”
A few minutes later he saw the exit he so desperately needed and pulled into a small parking lot. The rest area consisted of some picnic tables, a booth advertising the major sights of the Pacific Northwest, and bathrooms designed like rustic log cabins. Jared parked and nearly tripped over the curb as he ran inside the men’s restroom. The window over the sink was cracked, the subtle hint of urine was in the air, and someone had written on a wall: “4 gud head call tony.” But Jared didn’t care about that. There, as if waiting for him, was a toilet with clean water and a roll of unspoiled paper. Hallelujah! He thought. Let’s have church!
Jared dropped his pants and sat. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, sighing. The expulsion lasted for a minute and when it was over Jared tried to stand and wipe himself.
He could not move.
Jared blinked. He tried to stand again, but still could not move; it was as if his flesh became one with the seat. Panic jolted his brain. He grunted as he tried in vain to pry himself from the toilet.
“What the hell is this shit?”
He twisted his head down and around in order to see what was keeping him glued to the seat. Jared then saw something that made his eyes bulge and his skin cold.
The handle lowered as if pressed by an invisible hand.
The toilet flushed. Water and Jared’s leavings were sucked away, but the roar of the plumbing grew with intensity until it was howling like a giant vacuum. Jared’s buttocks slowly slipped downward into the bowl by an inch and then by a foot; the skin around his cheeks turned raw with friction burn from the suction. The panic spiking through his brain reached a terrifying climax from the unreal realization of what was happening: he was being flushed.
Jared screamed. He grabbed the handle with both hands and shook it up and down until it broke off. When that failed to do anything he planted his hands against the seat and tried to pull himself out. The suction suddenly increased. Bones snapped. Jared gasped as the air in his lungs was pushed out all at once. The lower half of his body was in the toilet while his arms and legs were sticking straight up in a V. Nerves deadened and soon Jared could only look on in detached wonder. His body was pulled downward little by little until only his head, hands and feet weresticking out of the bowl. Still the suction continued. Still the unseen pipes howled. Jared’s head turned red, blue, and purple. The building pressure threatened to burst his eyeballs and tongue. The toilet then widened like a mouth and the rest of Jared was sucked down the drain.
The howling of the pipes slowly died down to a whisper, and then stopped. Fresh water refilled the bowl. At the sink, a single droplet of blood shivered from the nozzle of the faucet,hesitated, and then fell with a plink! that echoed in the empty restroom.
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© 2012 David R. Matteri
David is a 23 year old college student living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He enjoys reading, writing, and having lively discussions with the monsters living under his bed.
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