Use the Restroom

I lock the restroom door behind me out of habit more than fear. The latch barely catches..The entire bathroom looks like it was assembled from things other places threw away. The yellowed sink is cracked straight through the basin and held together with some kind of epoxy.

The mirror above it is cloudy with age and cigarette smoke residue, turning my reflection into something ghostly and distorted beneath the buzzing fluorescent light overhead. The smell hits me next, urine baked into concrete by desert heat. I have smelled worse, but not by much.

I lean both hands against the sink and stare at myself in the mirror for a long moment. Sweat glistens along my throat and collarbone. My curls are frizzing from the heat. Dust clings to my boots and bare thighs. The overalls look cute, but mostly feel practical. The desert punishes heavy clothing.

My icy blue eyes look tired. I splash cold water across my face and immediately regret it. The water comes out lukewarm and metallic tasting, carrying the faint rust-red color of old pipes. I dry my face with paper towels thin enough to be translucent. Then I notice the writing on the wall.

Most of it is ordinary truck stop filth, phone numbers, crude drawings and obscene graffiti half-scrubbed away and written over again. But one phrase appears repeatedly beneath the others. One version has been carved directly into the paint with something sharp enough to gouge the drywall beneath it.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

I stare at it for several seconds. The words appear in different pens, different colors of paint, and different handwriting styles. Some are faded almost beyond recognition while others look fresh, but a few of them seem genuinely old, as though they have been sitting on these walls for years beneath layers of grime and cigarette smoke.

My fingers drift unconsciously toward the Colt beneath my jacket out in the truck before I remember I left it on the passenger seat. How stupid of me. I do not usually leave weapons behind in unfamiliar places. The fluorescent light flickers overhead. For just a second the restroom dims.

The silence changes with it. That is the only way I know how to describe the feeling. The room itself does not become louder, but the silence somehow becomes heavier. Denser. Intentional. I slowly lift my eyes toward the far wall beside the last sink.

There is a hole in the wall beside the last stall. It is small and jagged, surrounded by crumbling drywall and scratches worn smooth by repeated use. The opening sits at exactly the right height for somebody crouching on the other side to look directly through it.

A cold knot forms low in my stomach as I stare at it. I stay perfectly still, listening to the hum of the fluorescent light and the faint groan of old pipes somewhere behind the walls. The desert suddenly feels very far away. The buzzing fluorescent light crackles overhead while I stare at the hole and the hole stares back at me.

Then, slowly, carefully, I crouch down. My boots scrape softly against the stained tile floor. The closer I get, the more obvious it becomes that this is not accidental damage. The drywall around the opening is worn smooth from repeated use. Tiny scratches surround it from belt buckles, zippers, watches, rings.

People use this hole often. A pulse of disgust crawls slowly through me as I crouch there staring at it. Somebody made this deliberately. Worse, somebody has kept using it long enough to polish the edges with repetition. I lean closer. Darkness fills the opening completely.

There is no movement beyond it. No visible breathing. No sound except the faint electric buzz overhead and the slow pounding of my own heartbeat. Still, every instinct I possess screams at me not to put my face anywhere near that hole. I ignore the instinct anyway. That is probably my biggest character flaw.

I lean forward slowly and peer into the darkness beyond the wall. At first I see nothing at all. Then my eyes adjust just enough for the shape to resolve, and I realize there is another eye staring directly back at me from the other side, unblinking, watching me from only inches away.