Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Facilities

[froodle]

The restrooms at the Eerie Bus Terminal and Supper Club were the most unsettling public toilets Marshall had ever seen. No permeating stink of stale urine, no suspicious stains on the walls and ceiling, not even any graffiti advising the patrons who they should call for a good time. Pushing open the heavy fire door activated the motion-sensitive fluorescent lighting and unleashed the faint smell of artificial lemons and bleach from within. The towel and soap dispensers were recently restocked and the urinal cakes had been replaced in living memory.

Sure, the overhead lighting flickered on and off, and sometimes the chalk outlines of huddled bodies appeared on the well-polished tile floor, but that was par for the course in Eerie. The fact that anyone using the stall nearest the wall would mysteriously vanish within a week, leaving behind all of their teeth along with a faint smell of burning, was the sort of thing he could deal with.

So when he heard that what appeared to be blood had started bubbling up from the wash basins, leaving pale pink tide lines on the once-pristine white porcelain and driving the custodial staff into paroxysms of terror at the prospect of angering the finicky genius loci of the bus station facilities, part of him wanted to leave it alone. The sheer cleanliness of the place offended his New Jersey sensibilities more than the sudden manifestation of a violent haunting ever could.

Once the situation escalated to the point where a trolley loaded with cleaning supplies sprouted teeth and ate the arm of an unsuspecting janitor who was reaching for a spray bottle of bleach, Simon refused to let the issue lie any longer. Which was how they found themselves stood outside the men’s toilets at one in the morning, armed with wheeled buckets full of hot soapy holy water and mops of blessed super-absorbent microfiber, wearing jumpsuits banded in cold iron and a fake company logo stitched in silver thread over the breast pocket.

Marshall stood as far back as he could, and poked the door open with the end of the mop handle. It didn’t creak. Eerie’s municipal workforce even took care to oil the hinges. The lights blinked to life as the door swung wide, and there was a faint hiss as the automated air freshener released a puff of citrus-scented droplets into the room. Marshall ground his teeth. Everything about it was wrong.

The pale green floor tiles were awash in a slick of maybe-blood. The grout, which had been regularly scrubbed with bleach to retain its whiteness, had been stained a reddish-brown by the flood and the faucets continued to ooze even though the water had been shut off after the trolley came to life. The copper-pennies tang from the taps mingled with the smell of cleaning supplies, and Marshall felt sick.

Simon entered the room, ducking under the extendable mop handle even though he was still small enough to pass beneath it unhindered. His wheeled bucket jolted over the slightly raised entrance, and the mixture inside sloshed over the edges. The bloody tide receded with an organic squishing noise as drops of holy water splattered over its oily surface. Definitely a haunting, then.

There was an out-of-order sign on the stall furthest from the door. It had been there ever since Eerie’s dental practitioners had stopped purchasing the abandoned teeth of the stall’s victims from the cleaning company. Without the proceeds of sale to offset the extra work involved in cleaning up the mess, it had been easier to simply block off the offending cubicle.

Marshall and Simon looked at each other uneasily. The bathroom lights were still on, but they activated their home-made helmet-mounted torches anyway, just in case. Moving carefully, conscious of both the wet floor and the unpleasant seeping sensation around his toes, Marshall reached up and removed the Out of Order sign from the cubicle door.

The overhead lighting burned out with an explosion of sparks and popping noises. In the watery torchlight, Simon’s face was white and pinched. Marshall didn’t need a mirror to know that his was likely the same. Even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to check his reflection in a dark and haunted bathroom right after the residing spirit had made its anger known by blowing up the fluorescents.

The bolt on the door was engaged, a thin red strip showing on the indicator above the hand plate. Marshall stood guard with a plant mister filled with holy water, salt and iron filings while Simon used a magnet to turn the lock to read “vacant”. As Simon worked, Mars had the horrible realisation that they hadn’t tested the mister since adding the iron filings, and he had no idea if they were fine enough to pass through the nozzle. He began to sweat inside his protective jumpsuit, and choked back the fear that constricted his throat.

There was a click from somewhere inside the lock. The door swung slowly inwards. Simon stepped back, jostling Mars as he did so. The door stopped moving, the five inch gap showing only darkness within. All was silence, save for the slow, thick drip of the bleeding faucet.

The boys looked at each other. Simon bit his lip. His hand moved towards the door, but Marshall tugged him back by the collar of his ersatz uniform. He stepped into the darkness, and the beam of his torch picked out a standard toilet, the water-tank grimy with dust, the empty paper dispenser open and hanging sadly. Something scuttled across the pale patch of light, and he jumped back with a startled cry.

Simon moved to stand beside him and in the combined illumination of the two torches, they could see a large spider-web that stretched from the engraved cornices that decorated the ceiling to the old-fashioned pull-chain that served as a flusher. The emergency strip-lighting above the fire exit began to pulse, a toilet somewhere down the row gurgled noisily and the automatic hand-dryer activated. The whole room began to tremble, the walls of the stalls rattling. One of the art-deco mirrors above the wash-stands fractured and the silvery shards of glass crashed against the bloody floor.

A huge spider, black and fat-bodied, scuttled down the wall and across the floor. It charged the two boys, its front legs waving threateningly. Marshall brought his booted heel down on it with an audible crunch.

The shaking stopped. The lights came back on. The tap stopped dripping. The atmosphere in the bathroom had suddenly taken on a sheepish air, as though the spirit that lurked there was a little embarrassed to have carried on so.

“Seriously?!” said Marshall, addressing the empty room.

“You didn’t need to kill it,” said Simon reproachfully.

They both jumped as every toilet in the place flushed simultaneously.

Marshall looked at Simon. Simon looked at Marshall. They shrugged.

The Eerie Bus Terminal and Supper Club reopened its restroom doors a week later. The broken mirror had been replaced, the blood-smeared floors cleaned and polished, the tiles re-grouted. The washbasins gleamed luminescent white under new light fixtures, and the air-fresheners now dispensed peppermint oil and essence of white chestnut – natural spider repellents. The cleaning crew had been issued with long-handled dusters to tackle the high ceilings, and the Days Since Last Injury calendar on the back of the supply cupboard door was reset to zero.

The far stall was back in use and the number mysterious disappearances associated with it had tailed off sharply, though there was still the occasional discovery of human teeth and clumps of bloodied hair wedged between the wall and the water tank. Marshall still avoided it, less on the basis that an arachnophobic guardian spirit was too weird even for him and more because the level of hygiene continued to bother him. Simon stopped by every few days, checking for any creepy crawlies that had made it past the barriers, which he would try to catch in paper cups and release into the wild. Marshall rolled his eyes every time they had to make a detour after school, but if it meant he never had to set foot inside Eerie’s most unsettling public toilet again, he was happy to go along with it.






Trusted Associates, Inc.

Halloween by froodle, in which Mars and Simon celebrate a Von Orloff-free All Hallows Eve

Surprise by froodle, in which Mars tries to make sure Simon's birthday goes a little better this year

The Glade by froodle, in which Simon and Mars visit a place that only exists on February 29th

Egg Hunt by froodle, in which Simon and Mars partake of some traditional Easter activities

Boardwalk by froodle, in which Simon and Mars are swayed by radio advertising

Lady in Red by froodle, in which Simon experiments on the old-fashioned radio in the Secret Spot, and horror ensues

Seafoam by froodle, in which Simon and Marshall go to the seaside

A Night at the Circus by froodle, in which a carnivale comes to town, and Marshall and Simon do not enjoy themselves

Taking a Break by froodle, in which Simon and Marshall enjoy some much-needed R&R

Shoreline by froodle, in which Simon and Marshall investigate strange happenings on the shores of Lake Eerie

Parade by froodle, in which Mars takes issue with the Eerie Beekeepers Association's choice of mascot

Homestead by froodle, in which Marshall finally gets something useful out of shop class

Hound by froodle, in which Simon makes a friend

Errands by froodle, in which Simon has a to-do list

Slyboots by froodle, in which a certain corporal of the infernal regions comes to Eerie. Crossover with Johannes Cabal the Necromancer.

Waterlogged by froodle, in which Eerie experiences heavy rainfall

Visitor in which Marshall's grandma comes to stay

Comments

[eviinsanemonkey.livejournal.com]

I love how you words

this is so brilliant.

[froodle]

Thank you so much :D

[deifire]

The fact that anyone using the stall nearest the wall would mysteriously vanish within a week, leaving behind all of their teeth along with a faint smell of burning, was the sort of thing he could deal with.

...

The sheer cleanliness of the place offended his New Jersey sensibilities more than the sudden manifestation of a violent haunting ever could.

OMG, I love this one so much! Laughed out loud at so many lines, especially the fact that the cleanliness is still Marshall's biggest problem with the place. <3

Also, if I ever somewhere ever do wind up in Eerie through a remote-biting incident, I am never, ever using any public restroom.

[froodle]

Mission accomplished! There is a super serial killer public toilet in the basement of our local theatre and a nice clean one on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, and the clean one bothers me so.much.more. im gonna use the pokemon go craze as anexcuse to take pics and not look like a total weirdo.

[lipstickcat.livejournal.com]

Jebus Christie, that creeped me out massively. So awesome!

[froodle]

Curse my name the next time you hear a flurescent light blinking!