Cover art for this story was provided by
. I can’t tell you how much I love Dan’s interpretation of my creature. I think you’ll all agree that his monster adds another level to this story. Go check out more of his creations on Substack, and follow him on IG at dansmonsters.
Dead man walking. Well, dead man waiting in line for the single-stall men’s room at The Gut Punch. Dead man watching women come and go from the ladies’ room as if it were some Freaky Friday universe, one where the ladies’ room was all about brevity and efficiency, and the men’s room a place to contemplate the larger questions of life. Steve put two fingers to his neck and counted the beats. After all these years, why did he agree to play live again? He missed the feeling of being up on stage, but he’d forgotten the lead up—he’d forgotten this bit: dead man walking.
The hallway was cramped, and although the opening band had barely struck their first chord, the club was hot and humid. Wafts of perfume, cigarette smoke, and stale booze assaulted Steve’s senses. He was no longer used to living this life. Late nights and partying weren’t romantic anymore. Romance was a cup of coffee in bed with a Natalie Blake novel, a cat making muffins on a comfy blanket by his side.
Steve banged on the door. “Some people got a show to play soon! I’m with the band! C’mon, man—fucking speed it up!” He looked back at the two burly young punks behind him and smiled. They didn’t smile back.
“Must be rubbing one out!” Steve added. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it, but he was glad for the red lightbulb above the door, which helped mask his embarrassment.
The door opened and a cloud of black smoke filled the claustrophobic hallway.
Steve waved a hand in front of his face. “The fuck—you mind?”
A floppy-haired man wearing a bullring in his nose came out and pushed past Steve without saying a word.
Steve sneered, stepped into the restroom, and shut the door. On the back of the door, seared into the glossy black wood, was a mark resembling a man holding a bug over his head. In the 80s, when Steve was fighting skins and drinking in venue parking lots, people drew wangs and pentagrams with Sharpies on walls. These days the kids were burning hieroglyphics. Now that’s old school, he thought, then slid the door’s lock into place.
In the main room, the opening band was plowing through their set. Their songs were short and objectively unwell. Steve grimaced at the unintentional sour notes and the catastrophic atonal cacophony.
The ammonia-heavy scent of piss and beer walloped Steve while the bass guitar rang out, rattling the porcelain lid on the tank. On the red-tiled walls were hundreds of stickers from bands who’d played The Gut Punch over the years, along with some stickers that were difficult to interpret; next to a band sticker that read, Sheep Squeeze, was a sticker sporting an illustration of a butthole, with no words on it. He would have laughed, but his insides curled at the thought of what awaited him on the other side of the restroom door. There was no going back now.
Dead man walking.
CLANG.
A sound rang out from a thick black pipe extending from one end of the ceiling to the next, then down the wall, disappearing behind the toilet’s tank.
CLANG.
Another sound, like a metal bat on a chain-link fence, this time from further down the pipe, louder than the last, and with it, a mournful bawling down the back of the toilet.
Old pipes, thought Steve, then stepped up to the mirror. Red veins covered the whites of his eyes like torn fishnet stockings. He unhooked the sunglasses dangling from his lucky shirt and put them on. He was going for a Lou Reed thing, but he looked more like a pudgy Tom Hanks.
He took off his sunglasses and spiked them into the garbage. Poser.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
Even in the warped and scratched mirror, Steve was disgusted by the old face looking back at him. What was he doing here with all of these young punks? These kids? Playing young—pretending. He felt like he was going to throw up. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten sick in a club bathroom, but he’d never lost his lunch because of nerves, had he? The past wasn’t as clear as it had been. His punk self was now a collection of flyers and poorly-lit pictures in a box beneath his bed. But if the pictures were to be believed, that kid had balls. That kid knew what he was doing. And now here Steve was ruining that kid’s legacy.
“You fucking joke,” Steve said to his reflection. “Go home and eat popcorn and watch a movie in bed.” He looked down: there was a tooth in the sink, fresh beads of blood popped against the white of the porcelain. He grimaced, then bared his teeth in the mirror to be sure it wasn’t one of his own, which it thankfully wasn’t. He’d seen some disgusting sights in club restrooms as a young man, but nothing quite as unsettling as a bloody tooth in a sink.
The opening act’s repetitive beat and rhythm made Steve feel a little better. At least his songs were more interesting than this. But did that matter? They could be the best songs ever written, but delivered by someone stinking of decay, who would notice?
He stepped up to the toilet and unzipped his pants. As he waited for nature to take its course, he looked at the wall of stickers in front of him. So many bands, but how many were now defunct? How many became something more than a sticker in a grimy club bathroom? Then he saw it: Doomsday Snooze Button. It was his sticker. His band. It was just high enough over the toilet that it had survived for seven years—seven years! It felt like he’d played his final show only yesterday.
The night the group split up, he said to anyone who’d listen, “Actually, this is a good thing—I don’t even like playing live!” A lie, of sorts. The truth was he loved being in the spotlight, but hated the weeks, days—the seconds—leading up to going on stage. Still, some days, maybe even most days, he didn’t mind the simplicity of his fate. But other days…
Doomsday Snooze Button. His nerves took a momentary hiatus as he thought back to the feeling of being up on stage, kids passionately dancing and chanting along with him as he screamed into the microphone. The Doomsday Snooze Button sticker looked pristine, mostly; it had large, glossy white lettering sprawled across a black square, offset by an image of a candy-red button in the center. But where the surrounding sticker surface looked practically brand new, the center of the button was worn, as if it had been pressed hundreds times over the last seven years by filthy club goers.
GUUURRRGGLLALLL.
Steve looked into the yellowed concave opening of the toilet and saw a finger—then three. The pruny digits were desperately trying to grip the sides and push through the hole.
He recoiled, his back landing with a thud against the bathroom door. He put his dick away, and stared at the toothy-white toilet.
The opening band struck their final note, followed by a smattering of unenthusiastic claps as the band thanked the few friends that had come out to support them.
Steve shook his head. No fucking way—pull it together, man. It’s all in your messy head. It’s all just anxiety! Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
With his legs splayed so that his back foot remained in place, Steve inched his way forward with his front foot, and leaned toward the toilet to peek inside. Nothing.
He exhaled.
Then they were there, the three fingers, wiggling against the sides of the porcelain like overcooked hot dogs, pale and peeling.
The toilet gurgled, bubbles briefly obscuring the desperate hand, but then the fingers were still there—still searching.
He lunged to the door and unlatched the lock, but when he pulled on the knob, the door wouldn’t open. It was as if someone on the other side was holding it. He pounded on the door, shouting for help.
The heat made him step back, the light made him shield his eyes. The lines of the hieroglyph looked as if they were filled with magma.
“What the fucking fuck! Let me out!”
The supporting band struck their first chord, and the toilet, vents, and sink all vibrated in response. Chattering like teeth.
“This isn’t funny! There’s something in here with me! Help!”
Steve kept his back to the door. The gurgling had ceased—or was it only masked by the chugging rhythm of the guitars on stage? His heart kept pace with the snare drum, a fast, steady beat that tethered his panic in place.
He shut his eyes, squeezing them so tight that little flashes of light popped in the darkness of his mind.
It’s not possible. It was a mess-with-the-old-timer gag—it had to be.
Steve shouted, banging on the glossy black door above the symbol until his hand was throbbing and pink. The music stopped. He could hear the two men outside the door, their baritone voices, gruff, annoyed. “Hurry up, some people gotta piss out here!”
GUUURRRGGLLALLL.
Steve spun around, and gasped.
Its ropey arms flexed as it latched onto the tank of the toilet, pulling itself up until the boiled-meat torso was freed from the toilet bowl, unfolding like a broken umbrella, pointy bones stretched over raw, pale-pink skin, popping and snapping.
Steve stood motionless and slack-jawed. This was no gag; this was the end of it all. Dead man walking.
Its soft head, dented from where it popped out of the porcelain hole, expanded back into shape. A smile sliced across its face.
Steve would have screamed at the sight of its missing tooth, but he had nothing left to give, his fear had taken every word—every breath. He was having another breakdown. He just needed to breathe.
In, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Out, 1—
The slap of its wet body hitting the cement floor as it flopped out of the toilet was too much for Steve to handle. He turned and kicked at the door over and over, but it didn’t budge.
On the other side of the door, he heard casual conversation. Nobody could hear him. Nobody would be coming to save him.
When Steve turned back around, the creature was standing naked in front of the toilet, its eyes white with red fishnets, just like his own. Its sinister smile spread across its face, each tooth looking like a sharpened Tic Tac. Where the one tooth was missing, the creature poked its tongue through the gap as if playing a game of peek-a-boo.
Steve raised his fists. “Stay back!”
The tongue prodded the gap in its merciless smile. Peek-a-boo.
The four-on-the-floor drumbeat couldn’t keep up with Steve’s heart, which climbed ferociously toward a climax, a finale that would end not with drum fills, pyrotechnics, or feedback, but with slackened veins and a trip to the morgue. But if this terror didn’t devour him, what mercies would be left?
“What do you want?” Steve yelled.
The creature lunged at him.
Steve caught it on the chin with a right hook, but its goo-covered skin caused his fist to slide off, sending him crashing into the wall opposite the mirror.
The creature flung him around, curled its fingers around Steve’s neck, and looked into his eyes.
Peek-a-boo.
Steve’s mouth gaped like a fish as the creature squeezed and twisted his throat.
Christ, he thought. So this is my end? Popped like a balloon in a dive bar restroom?
He was horrified to see that its eyes were his eyes; he knew those crisscrossed lines in the corners. And its mouth was Steve’s mouth, the downward turn an effect from years of dissatisfaction.
It opened its PEZ dispenser maw, revealing rows of hidden teeth.
Steve scrambled to break free, but it was no use. He caught sight of himself in the mirror. One last look before it was all done, a private showing of his own death. Then, he saw something reflected in the mirror, just above the toilet: the Doomsday Snooze Button sticker.
Press it. A voice said from within Steve. Press it—now!
Steve kicked as hard as he could. The creature fell back against the door with a thud.
From the other side, a man yelled out, “What the hell man? What are you doing in there? Are you almost done? Jesus!”
The band kept at it. Chugging guitars. Thudding drums. Throbbing bass.
The creature recovered, then hissed; a foul scent of eggs and shit and beer permeated the room. Then it laughed—a hoarse, hacking cackle that dripped toilet water and mucus to the floor with a splat.
Steve tried stepping onto the sides of the toilet lid to reach the sticker, but his foot slipped into the bowl.
The creature screeched, rushing toward Steve, but just as it wrapped its slimy limbs around his torso, Steve grabbed onto the exposed black pipe, lifted himself to the tank of the toilet, and slammed his hand against the candy-red button.
“Make it stop!” he screamed.
In the main room, the music stopped and the audience cheered.
Steve opened his eyes and looked behind him. The creature was gone. He dropped to the floor, his hands still balled into fists, raised liked an Irish bareknuckle brawler.
No creature.
No tooth in the sink.
No blood.
He moved toward the door but paused, afraid of what it would mean should the door still be stuck. The hieroglyph no longer glowed. He dug deep for the courage to pull on the doorknob. It opened with ease.
Steve stepped out into the hallway.
“About time,” said one of the men waiting in line.
Steve blinked. “Sorry…there…there was a…it…”
“Move.” The man entered the bathroom and slammed the door.
Good luck, Steve thought.
“Steve!” his bandmate Carly shouted. “I’ve been looking for you all night. We’re up, let’s go!”
He tried to protest, but Carly pushed him up and onto the stage. The packed club cheered. Carly turned up her guitar, and rang out a chord.
Steve grabbed the microphone.
He took a breath and felt the electricity of the distorted guitar crawl down his throat. He ran his tongue over his teeth; they were all there. All but one.
At the bar, the floppy-haired man with the bullring raised a glass to Steve, and nodded.
“1-2-3-4!” Steve shouted, and the band let it rip.
Thank you for reading The Gut Punch! This story takes place on the same night episode #1 of my upcoming serial Cherry Kills begins. (Coming this summer!)
The Gut Punch was edited by
, who caught a few goofs so you wouldn’t have to feel embarrassed for me. ;)For merch, and to end the nightmare, click the button below.
Trippy! I could almost hear the music thudding in the background as the horror unfurled. Vivid writing. 👏
Loved how the band playing in the background matched the intensity of the scene and how his old band sticker saved him in the end. Was this real? Or just a monstrous case of stage fright remedied by touching/recalling what the musician once was? Always appreciate the layers you put into your stories. So good!