I live in an old three-room flat on the skirts of Chicago. About forty years it stays without repair, wallpapers are peeled off, plaster crumbles, and the stupidity of planning makes me ticked off time and again. The whole story happened partially because of that.
I skipped classes quite often and wore out the seat of my trousers at home, surfing the Internet and playing videogames. I used to sit late. That day mom went to work early in the morning as usual. As for me, I woke up at 2 p.m., turned on the computer, drank a cup of coffee and found out the absence of connection with the Internet because of non-payment. Even this vital necessity couldn’t kick me out of home, and I opened the folder with movies and continued to watch a serial.
In a couple of hours I came to a decision that I had to leave home as I didn’t find anything even slightly similar to food in the fridge. A good reason to pay for the Internet as well. However, I decided to take a bath before going. It is worthwhile noting I take bath not very frequently because it’s small, old, and because of the non-hygiene of the process as a consequence. I take a shower, as a rule, but that day the devil made me change my habits.
By the way, there are two windows in the bathroom. One of them overlooks the kitchen in such a way that you can see the head of the person standing in the bath. And the second is made at the same level in a thin wall that divides bathroom and toilet room. Glass of the window to the toilet is broken due to not very successful hunt for mosquito. I remember, there were shards of glass everywhere, I poured floor with blood from the cut hand. I hardly scrubbed dry blood of the frame. I do not understand for what reason these windows were made for and sincerely hate those, who made them.
I filled the bath, waited for a while (as I overdid with water temperature) and then got into. It gave me the willies at once. No, I didn’t feel proverbial “presence” and heard nothing. But by some reason it became cold in the hot bath. Having sitting there a short while, I literally froze over and my skin became goose-bumpy.
And then I unwittingly raised my eyes and looked into the broken window that led to the toilet. That I saw at that moment I will never forget.
I saw a face. Pale, deformed, wide and ugly face with huge black eyes and huge smiling red mouth. It seemed false and incredibly realistic at the same time. As if someone set a goal to create the copy of the most monstrous face on earth and reached the effect of uncanny valley. You’ll never see such mug in the most ghastly dreams. It’s just impossible to describe it credibly. You can only see it, that I won’t wish even to a bitter enemy.
I didn’t discern other features, except for scanty black hair, rather resembling a wig. I didn’t even understand what I was afraid of - the face or that was hiding over 2 meters of the wall and that my imagination visualized. My own wet hair on the back of my neck bristled and I tried to flatten myself against the small bath as hard as I could. I wanted not so much screaming as squealing to ease my fear. But I clenched my teeth that my jaw cramped. I had never felt such supernatural terror. The face looked at somewhere, pass me, as if enchanted with the view that it saw in the opposite “kitchen” window.
I don’t know how much time had gone. Maybe, minutes, and maybe seconds. But at some moment it looked at me.
After three or four most horrible seconds in my life I screamed. The long-suppressed cry broke free from my throat with husky and together squeaky croaking. I suppose, if I hadn’t come out this cry, I might have died of terror when looking into these huge empty eyes.
And then it left. It just drooped down from the vision zone over the wall. As if someone took away the scenery.
I couldn’t believe my luck. The massive nervous chill made me shiver as I had been sitting a great while in the bath, the half of which I spilled around. Then I rose slowly. And I looked in the window that overlooked the kitchen. Everything had happened as in some lousy horror film – I saw IT there. The same cadaverous pale, all in bluish streaks and dreadfully grinning. Side by side, beyond the window – it just moved from the toilet to the kitchen.
The ground sank under my feet - I lost my balance, fell out of the bath and violently hit my head against the opposite wall, losing the sight of the face.
Probably, I was passed out for a while and when I recovered my senses on the floor all I saw in the window was a kitchen ceiling. Transported with horror, I ran out of the bathroom and turned out to be in my room in a second. Fidgeting, I grabbed the first clothes I saw and took it on the wet body. Taking shoes in hand, I ran out of the flat. At the first floor I put on shoes and slipped out in the spring melting evening. It turned out I had been in the bathroom for three hours.
But running away from home, I noticed that house door had been bidding welcome all day long.
