Christmas is Red

The Nightmare

"How..." Kechi started, stopped and seemed contemplative for a second. "How did you know that I am really pressed?" he asked with an ominous tone and they all turned to Jide.

Jide laughed suspiciously. "Why are y'all so suspicious this night? We've all been drinking for hours. Surely, everyone is pressed."

"It's true sef." Chioma said. "I'm pressed. Been holding it."

"I can practically feel my urine seeping out of my...thing, in the near future if I don't do something about it now." Jide said and they all laughed.

"Where is the bathroom, biko?" Kechi asked and began to move out of the room with a lighter atmosphere.

"Take the stairs go up and amble left." Jide replied, his tone was nicer. "You will see the label on a door."

"There is no toilet down here?"

Jide laughed - his laughter, mocking and friendly simultaneously. "There is, but the pipe is bad. Anything you put in there will just rise and you don't dare try to flush."

"ugh!"

"Yea. So go upstairs, no fear. And be quick." He laughed.

Kechi shook his head, took his phone and left the room, his heart thumping softly in his chest. He put on his phone's flashlight and as he took in the hollow loneliness of the hallway, goosebumps washed over his skin, and with another look at the cobwebs that lined the edges of the walls, he felt millions of tiny spiders under his skin, laying eggs in his bone marrows. He wanted to return and ask someone to come with him, after all some others needed to piss, but it was stupid, for first that was a blatant admission to childish fears and secondly, it was stupid for them to queue up at the bathroom, peeing one after the other.

He breathed in, then moved, climbing the stone stairs.

Everything was fine, everything was better than fine, for there was a sort of joy that came with this such release as peeing. Everything was normal as he did this, on until he heard footsteps outside the bathroom, just from the other side of the wall that separated the bathroom from an empty hallway. These footsteps could only come from heels, and so it must be Andrea.

"Baby, you could not wait for me to-"

His words clogged in his throats as soon as the light flickered quickly.

"Oh shit!" He exclaimed softly as his heart jumped into his throat. It was only a natural response, he told himself, he was not afraid. But his jump had made him move, and some of the urine splattered on his trousers. Quickly he reached for his phone which was sitting at the edge of the sink by his left, but his hand was shaky, so it fell from his hand and hit the tile. "Jesus!" He exclaimed and quickly picked it up, on getting up, his eyes caught someone, or something -he couldn't be sure with his phone's dim light- just standing at the door holding the handle and peering in at him. He yelped, and in a natural reaction, lost grip of his phone. It slipped through his sweaty palms, hit the ground and tumbled towards the door. As it tumbled, the light flashed like a siren light, casting lights and shadows in quick spins, and in these spins, Kechi had caught glimpses of the door, but there was no one there anymore, except the slightly open door, and then the door was no longer open, then the phone's light went off and there was...nothing; just darkness.

Kechi was hyperventilating and all sweaty by the time the light flickered on and there was no one, nothing, just him and his phone and in the direction he was now too afraid to go. But there was no way else out of this bathroom, except the window. He tried to think, to remember, if he had shut the door himself when he came in or if...if the wind had shut it.

"Wh-who is there?" He managed to ask, feeling stupid. He cleared his throat and asked again with more authority, gathering courage. Someone was joking with him and it was most likely Jide. That little bastard could not just be a normal weirdo, timid and jealous of people like him. Instead he was his bane, a threat to the natural balance of the food chain. He needed to be taught a lesson.