Infection

Chapter 3

Moans of pain echo from the toilet stall.

I hesitate. Could just be a big shit, I think, desperately trying to ignore the tortured sounds. After pushing open the door to a vacant toilet, I notice a thick, sluggish liquid creeping underneath the wall that separates the stalls.

Is that blood?!

I gulp and step backwards. "A... Are you okay?" My voice comes out quivery and faint, but the mystery Blood Girl heard it all right. I get a vicious growl in response. What the hell?

I guess she's on shark week.

All of a sudden I've lost the urge to empty my bladder, so I turn on my heel quickly and decide to get the fuck out of here while I can. Girls are bullshit crazy on their periods, I should know, I am one.

Just as my hand touches the cool metal of the door handle, heavy thumps rock the toilet door.

Should I help the probably poor girl locked up in a toilet covered in period blood or leave her to her own devices? I decide to go in the middle of the two choices.

Sighing, I open my mouth to confront this mad person again.

"Listen I can... Get you more pads if you want?" The thumping grows louder. My voice grows louder and more desperate. "Chocolate always helps me, I could get you some!"

Everything goes quiet, all you can hear is the slow dripping of the water tap behind me.

Ha, never underestimate the power of Brooke Ada-

Suddenly, a hand shoots out from the gap underneath the door and claws itself around my foot. I let out a blood-curdling scream and desperately try to get out of its vice-like grip. No such luck, the rotten nails just dig deeper into my shoe. With an ear-splitting crack, the wooden door splinters down the middle. The person on the other side of the door leans more against the weak wood, hauling on more and more pressure until...

The door cracks completely and lies on the ground in two pieces.

One half covers the girl, leaving only the rotting hand and her legs in sight. I pray hard that she's stunned enough so I can wriggle away and escape.

The hand remains in a strong hold, so I bend down in an attempt to try and remove the digging nails from my shoe. The pungent smell of festering flesh hits my nose and I almost recoil. Holding my breath, I'm about to place my fingers around the girls when the hand twitches like a trapped bee. I leap back, gasping for fresh air just as a crazed growl erupts from the wreckage. I feel like I'm tangled in a spiders web; the harder I struggle the more I'm wrapped up.

The wood shifts and I see the strangers face for the first time.

Blue and purple veins lace her grey face. Her eyes are bloodshot and dulled by a yellow hue, her pupils darting around like she's had too much Red Bull. Stringy hair frames her distorted face, but it all quickly blurs as she lets out a screech and tries feverishly to bite her blackened teeth into my foot.

I yell out and sob, trying in vain to stamp my foot out of her grasp and onto her face. She crawls like a crazed creature towards me and I know there's no escape. Even if I did, somehow, get out of the bathroom she would follow me with her jerky movements and...

I don't want to think about it.

Her hands scrape up my sock towards the uncovered skin of my leg. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, the dull world becoming a swirl of blacks and blues and greens and purples...

A loud bang makes me open my eyes again. The door behind me has opened and a waft of fresh air blows in. Fern stands there, her face white as a sheet.

I nearly cry tears of relief.

The bloodthirsty creature attached to my foot wails in delight at the new meal, but it's cut off short as my friend grabs one of the pieces of the door and brings it down onto the girls head with a crack.

The grip loosens enough for me to wriggle out and I lie between the wall and floor, panting.

The strangers head collides with the ground in an epic smash, liquids of all sorts of colours spraying everywhere. The skull splinters and I see a flash of white bone as her rotted face sinks into the ground. Her limbs jerk once more and she is still.