The Girl in the Elevator (ONC 2022)

2. Paper of Toilet

Sam called his grandmother.

She picked up on the second ring, and the first thing he heard was a heavy, exasperated sigh.

"Sam," she said in her rough smoker's rasp, "What have you done now?"

"Gran," he cried into his phone, "I don't know what to do!" 

"Uh huh." A pause. She was probably pulling the half-empty bottle of vodka from the cupboard and pouring herself a shot. She did that a lot when he came to her for help. "All right, Sam. What's going on?"

"I don't know."

"Right. Let's start with the obvious, then. Where are you?"

He sniffed. "At work."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Is someone else hurt?"

Sam made a weird sound. "Maybe?"

"Sam, tell me what you did, or so help me, I'm shipping you off to the military. They can deal with your problems for a change."

Sam wrinkled his nose. She always threatened that, ever since he'd been small, but she never carried it through. It was just one of those ways that she told him she loved him. To hear that familiar threat again actually made him feel a lot better. It meant that in a world where people randomly blew up in elevators, at least one thing still remained normal.

"I didn't do anything," he said pitifully. His voice wavered dangerously on the last word. "There was a pretty lady in the elevator, and I just wanted to talk to her, but-"

"But what?" His grandmother demanded.

"She exploded."

The groan that came through his phone's speaker was so loud he had to pull it away from his ear. This was followed by a brief, but energetic rant about expired milk and something about idiots. When he brought it back, his grandmother had calmed down enough to speak very slowly and very calmly.

"Sam," she said, "where at work are you?"

"In the bathroom." As he spoke, he eyed his reflection in the mirror above the sink. It looked as bewildered as he felt.

He'd managed to run out of the elevator and into the bathroom before anyone saw him, at least. He'd also locked the door. But that was the limits his poor brain could reach before it shriveled into its shell and hid away, trembling in terror.

People, it insisted, were not supposed to explode.
But she did, Sam insisted right back.

His brain clammed up then, and Sam was left with a whole lot white noise blanking out his thoughts. It was a good thing he had his grandmother on speed dial. He listened carefully, and as usual, it didn't take her long to come up with a plan.

"All right. Here's what you're going to do. Take the elevator down-"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"It's... dirty."

His grandmother exhaled, like she'd just tossed back an entire shot of particularly strong alcohol. "Then take the stairs, you dimwit."

Sam shook his head. "Can't do that either."

"Why, Sam?" There was another, emphatic why left unsaid.

"I had to take my clothes off." Indeed, the only thing left untouched by the rain of gore in the elevator had been his underwear. But he'd accidentally gotten blood and other questionable goop all over them, so he had to take those off, too. (There were some things that he just couldn't do, and wearing other people's insides on his privates was one of them.)