BAD HAIR DAY

Genre: Horror 

 

 

 

BAD HAIR DAY

By Randy Romero 

 

Mason Jones was waiting at the front door when Allen Gregg pulled up in his dusty white pickup truck. Allen came lumbering up the driveway, orange toolbox swinging at his side, and greeted Mason at the door.

“Thanks for stopping by on such short notice,” Mason said, grateful.

“Hey, anything for an old pal. Besides, it’s technically my job. Got to make that bread. The bills don’t pay themselves, you know what I mean?”

Mason knew exactly what he meant. Everyone was rebounding from the pandemic. Businesses were closing left and right or struggling to get by. Mason had a little money tucked away for rainy days, but for the most part, he and his wife were living paycheck-to-paycheck.

“Don’t worry, I won’t charge you too much,” Allen said. “I’ll give you a friendly discount. But I can’t do it for free. I wish I could.”

“Totally understandable. I’m just glad you could help.”

“Like I said, anything for a friend. And it gives us an excuse to hang out, catch up. We hardly see each other nowadays.”

“Can I get you a beer?” Mason offered.

“Officially, I’m not supposed to be drinking on the job. Company would fire me if they found out. Unofficially, I’d kill for a beer.”

“Domestic or imported?”

“Domestic. I don’t need anything fancy. And no IPA’s. That stuff is poison to me.”

They went to the kitchen. Mason led the way and grabbed two Coors Lights from the fridge.

“Cheers,” Allen said, setting down his toolbox on the green Formica kitchen table and accepting his ice cold beer.

“What should we drink to?” Mason asked.

Allen Gregg thought about it for a moment. “To a long, healthy life.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

But Allen was anything but healthy. Over the years, he’d really packed on the pounds. His love handles were practically spilling from the sides of his soiled blue jeans. It was a miracle the button didn’t pop off and take Mason’s eye out.

Not like Mason had any room to judge. His cholesterol was so high his doctor had warned him he was venturing into “heart attack country”, as he called it. No sugarcoating there. Just a cold hard fact that Mason needed to hear.

To his credit, Mason had quit smoking, which was the hardest thing he ever had to do. It took several attempts. He tried it all. He tried weening himself off. Tried the nicotine patches, then the gum when the patches didn’t work. Then he tried vapes as a substitute, but realized it wasn’t the smartest substitute for cigarettes. Finally, after another lecture from his doctor about his heart, he quit cold turkey. And this time, it stuck.

He’d also made changes to his diet, but it was still a work in progress. And he obviously hadn’t given up drinking.

They drained their beers and Allen wiped his hand on his stained white tank top and picked up his orange toolbox. “Which shower, upstairs or downstairs?” Allen asked.

“Downstairs,” Mason said. “I snaked the shit out of it, but no luck.”

“Well, that’s why you called in an expert.”

“So you think you can fix it? It’s clogged up something awful. I even tried drain cleaner. Went through two bottles of that stuff. Didn’t do a thing.”

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“It’s probably Laura’s hair clogging up the drain. Women…they shed like huskies. Well, I’ll let you get to work and stay out of your way. If you need me, I’ll be in the man cave, and by man cave, I mean my basement.”

He let Allen be and let him do his job. Allen unscrewed the drain cover, took it off, and started fishing around for the obstruction. There wasn’t anything visibly blocking the drain, so he had to investigate further.

He lowered the toilet snake–a retractable metal cable–down the drain and poked around, snagging something thick. He pulled it out slowly, and up came a thick wad of jet-black hair. He pulled it off the end of the metal cable, and it came to life in his gloved hand, writhing like a thousand tangled snakes, squirming and struggling. Aware, sentient.

He gasped, dropping the ball of hair and watched it skitter like a spider across the bathroom floor and disappear under the sink.

A tentacle of black hair shot up from the shower drain and coiled around his wrist, so tight Allen Gregg could feel his bones cracking. Allen screamed as the hair tugged, pulling him in like a fisherman reeling in their catch. He screamed, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

“Al, you alright?” Mason called out from the hall. “I heard all the noise. What’s the commotion? You fall into the crapper or something?”

The bathroom door was ajar. Mason pushed it open and peeked inside, but Allen was nowhere to be found.

In the tub, blood started to bubble up from the uncovered drain,

“What the…” But Mason didn’t even have a chance to finish his thought. Something dark and thick shot out from the bloodstained drain and enveloped his entire face. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breath, couldn’t think, couldn’t untangle whatever had wrapped itself around his head.

He was panicked, frightened, desperate to escape. He tugged and scratched and clawed at the sentient hair that was suffocating him. But there was no reprieve, no escape.

Laura found his body on the bathroom floor when she returned home that evening. But it wasn’t asphyxiation that killed him. Official cause of death was a heart attack. He had been so terrified and gotten himself so worked up in his struggle to escape, that his heart couldn’t withstand it and had simply given out on him.

With Allen Gregg missing, and his truck parked out front of Mason Jones’ house, the police had to investigate. They found pieces of Allen throughout the domestic pipes of Mason’s home and put their theory together. They surmised that there had been an altercation between the two men, and that things escalated, which led to Mason killing Allen, cutting up his body, and having a heart attack while disposing of Allen’s remains in the bathroom.

Nobody knew the truth, and nobody ever would. Not like they would have believed it, anyway…