The interior of the brightly-lit modern public restroom was stark and uninviting. The floor was covered with small, white square tiles, while the walls were a drab, monotone gray, devoid of any decoration. Three rectangular mirrors hung over polished ceramic sinks, evenly spaced along the wall. Small, crusted hand soap dispensers were mounted beside each mirror. To the right of the sinks, a single, empty paper towel holder hung forlornly. Two steel-colored stalls were installed against the wall opposite the mirrors, and three urinals were set into the wall to the left of the stalls. Water budded beneath one of the faucets, slowly elongating under gravity’s relentless pull before dripping into the sink.
The muffled sounds of wood shattering—a sudden explosive crash!
Shouts of confusion and surprise; hurried footfalls; authoritative shouting... A single gunshot!
Silence…
Drip…
Rapid gunfire!
Incoherent shouting; more gunfire; grotesque noises; wretched screams!
Drip…
A single gunshot! Something heavy hit the floor; the clatter of a gun.
Distant, heavy footfalls—running; drawing closer; metallic jingling; labored breathing!
The wooden restroom door burst open as a heavily panting policeman stumbled in shoulder-first, barely managing to catch himself from face-planting. Catching his balance, he spun around and caught the slowly closing bathroom door, frantically putting his entire weight into it, fighting against the small mechanism at the top that prevented it from slamming shut. The policeman nearly hyperventilated as the door closed agonizingly slowly. A hand of ice gripped his heart when he swore he saw a pair of eyes watching him from the dark. Finally, the door slammed shut with a jarring bang as the mechanism gave up its struggle with the final few inches.
The policeman nearly jumped out of his skin before tripping over his own feet and landing on his backside. His system was so flush with adrenaline that he didn't even register the pain flaring in his tailbone. Instead, he scrambled back on his palms, wide-eyed and frantic. His back slammed into the bottom of a bathroom stall, shaking and wobbling the structure. He even spent a few moments unwittingly trying to push himself through the stall in his primal fear.
He quickly remembered something. He slapped the holster on his right hip and fumbled with the thumb break as though he had lost all coordination. Swearing under his breath, he leaned on his side and redoubled his efforts while his eyes frantically flicked between the closed door and his gun. Finally, he practically ripped the holster off his belt as he drew his sidearm and racked back—
“Fuck!” he winced, hissing in pain as he held up his left hand to see a shallow, bleeding gash in the center of his palm where the iron sights had torn away some skin. Gritting his teeth, he held his breath and grabbed the slide with the same hand, this time slowly racking it back successfully with a click. He huffed out a breath, ignoring the stinging in his palm, and shakily pointed his sidearm at the bathroom door. His left hand cupped the right, and his legs splayed out flat on the floor with his back propped up against the slightly dented stall. His breathing was heavy and irregular, anxiety like a massive lump in his throat and the sensation of acid reflux. Every breath burned. He felt like he was about to vomit. The sidearm wobbled in his hands. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't remember his training.
Why had he come here?! Why hadn’t he run to the exit?!
Drip…
Why hadn't he kept running!? What was wrong with him? He was trapped! And that thing probably heard him. The sidearm shook even harder. Sweat rolled down the sides of his face. His trembling eyes were riveted on the door.
Drip…
He thought he heard something.
He couldn’t restrain a gasp and then hated himself for making noise, clenching his teeth to keep silent. His grip on the firearm turned white-knuckled. The thought that he’d messed up and alerted the thing to his position was almost enough to break him.
‘Get up...’ His arms burned from holding them up for so long. The door remained shut. All was silent.
Drip…
‘Get up, Joel!’ he shouted to himself. He didn’t move.
Drip…
‘Please move…’ he pleaded with himself. That seemed to work better. Joel's lips parted ever so slightly as he released a breath nearly as shaky as the rest of him. Keeping the sidearm pointed at the center of the door, he slowly lowered his left hand to the floor at his side. It felt cool and hard against his sweaty, burning skin. The gash on his palm didn’t appreciate the pressure and made its displeasure known. But the pain was the last thing on his mind right now. Carefully shifting his weight onto the hand, he leaned forward and brought his legs beneath him. His sidearm and eyes didn't waver from the door. He gingerly picked himself up off the floor, once more holding the sidearm with both hands as he rose into a barely passable firing stance and edged around the corner of the stall. He wanted to distance himself from the door as much as possible. Making sure he distributed his weight evenly, he carefully placed one foot behind the other as he crept further away—deeper into the restroom. He passed two of the mirrors, the movement of his side-profile reflection almost scaring him out of his wits when he caught movement in his peripherals. He gently inhaled and exhaled through his nose, desperately trying to center himself—to focus. It was more difficult than anything he'd ever experienced to remove tunnel vision once it had set in.
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‘Keep moving. Get a better angle. Aim for center mass. Wait for backup. Someone must be coming. Someone is coming,’ the soothing thought almost helped him hold his sidearm properly.
That was when he noticed a shadow appear beneath the door.
A lump immediately stuck in his throat while his heart jackhammered inside his chest. The roar of his pulse in his ears reached a fever pitch. He suddenly no longer had control of himself as images of what that thing had done in the corridor replayed in his mind. His mind went blank from terror.
Creak…
The door started slowly opening.
Joel snapped.
Incoherently yelling, he repeatedly squeezed the trigger. The roar of gunfire in the enclosed space was deafening, reducing Joel’s hearing to a persistent ringing after only the third trigger pull. The stench of gunpowder burned his nose, and a thin white haze of smoke began gathering on the ceiling. Then, the gun stopped bucking in his hands, and he knew he needed to reload. Fumbling the magazine release, he nearly dropped the sidearm until finally managing it on the third try. He saw the magazine clatter across the floor. Patting his vest, he ripped off a Velcro-sealed pouch and removed a fresh magazine. He noticed movement in his blurring peripherals.
The ruined, bullet-riddled bathroom door started slowly opening again.
Joel froze. Ice-cold fear gripped his heart, twice as strong this time, paralyzing him with indecision. He felt like he couldn't even breathe anymore. His body wasn't his own. He was thankful he couldn't hear anything—otherwise, he might have heard himself sobbing. He dropped the gun and magazine like they were scalding hot and backed away until his vest hit the back wall. The door completely opened, like the maw of some immense beast waiting to swallow him whole. Joel's blood ran cold. Every instinct screamed at him to run as far and as fast as possible. Even then, he knew he wouldn’t be safe. He would never be safe again. Something stepped out of the dimly lit hallway and into the bathroom. A tall, pale man held the door open with a bloody right arm. His street clothes were in disarray—torn, shredded, and covered with random bullet holes. Dark, blackened blood seeped from countless wounds, while bright red blood stained his arms and mouth.
'Oh god, no, please, God, no...' Joel slid down the wall as his legs gave out. His heart was beating so intensely it hurt. His thoughts became foggy, the world distorting and twisting in on itself like a swirling kaleidoscope. Everything lost sense and meaning. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to make himself small and hide. He didn't want to be here. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he would wake up in his apartment. So he tried doing that and…
His heart suddenly stopped. With an odd, strangled noise, Joel spasmed and bucked against the wall until his face turned blue. But he didn’t try to get up. It was pointless. Struggling was pointless. He was nothing. He deserved to die.
He was nothing…
He deserved to die…
He felt so cold. So very cold.
The darkness consumed him.
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The vampire slid its fangs free from the corpse's neck, swallowing the final mouthful of blood and releasing its grip on the lifeless body. The unrecognizable, dried husk of a human collapsed unceremoniously to the floor in a heap of stiff, limp limbs and body armor. The back of the corpse's head bent at an unnatural angle against the wall, its eyes a deathly milky white, and the skin of its face pulled tightly over the bones in an almost mummified state. Its mouth was parted in a silent scream.
The vampire stood to its full height. The pallor of its skin was now a much healthier shade, and its movements were no longer as rigid. It silently considered the corpse at its feet, almost as though it were thinking. Then it turned to leave the restroom but paused when it noticed its reflection staring back from one of the mirrors. The vampire cocked its head, and the reflection mirrored the movement. The vampire locked eyes with its reflection, and it felt like a lightning bolt struck its mind as a glimmer of... something passed through its gaze. The vampire couldn’t understand. It was driven almost entirely by instinct and... that something. That something it couldn’t understand compelled it to approach the mirror, the reflection growing closer both in reality and in its mind. The glimmer in its eyes intensified. It drew near enough that its lower waist bumped into the lip of the sink, but it didn't notice. What it did notice was its clothing... Its face... It... was...
The vampire's eyes widened with recognition. "What..." Emerson rasped in horror as his psyche began to split apart at the seams.
But darkness enveloped his waking consciousness before any coherent thought could form.
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A universe of darkness.
An infinite excess of nothingness.
Somewhere, and yet nowhere.
Emerson's naked consciousness stood before a sink and a floating mirror, his vampiric reflection staring back at him. His grey eyes gazed deeply into the reflection, the intensity of the crimson flecks abating. Recognition flashed through both pairs of eyes as Emerson’s psyche slowly re-associated with itself. A whirlwind of pure darkness surged beside Emerson's conscious form, then vanished into nothingness—a dazzlingly beautiful woman in a red dress taking its place.
"Tsk, tsk," she clicked her tongue, the sound both infinitely reverberating through the dark and simultaneously not existing. The woman leisurely walked behind him, placing a snow-white index finger on his left shoulder and slowly tracing it across his back until she stopped on his right.
"Sorry, my love..." she said, her sonorous, enchanting voice capable of enslaving thousands of minds. She grabbed Emerson's face by the chin, breaking his eye contact with the reflection, and brought their mouths together. His eyes closed.
They separated after an eternity—or no time at all. Their noses nearly touched as the woman's lips parted, her tongue darting out to lick his lips. A gorgeously devious smile spread across her face as she cupped the back of his head and pulled him close.
"Not yet..." she softly whispered, fading into a cloud of swirling crimson shadows.
Emerson's consciousness opened its eyes.
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The dark crimson flecks in the vampire's irises suddenly flared, then settled back to their original intensity. The vampire cocked its head at its reflection. There was nothing in either gaze. After pausing to stare for a moment longer, it turned and left the restroom.
The ruined bathroom door opened, and then the mechanism at the top slowed its closing, causing an eerie creaking to fill the empty space. Chunks of wooden chips dislodged from the bullet holes, dusting the floor with a faint, sawdust-like consistency.
The mechanism stuck... stuck… and then failed—
BANG!