Amanda's Last Dance, A Halloween Story
October 1, 2025
The Wagons East Country Music
Festival thrums under a starry sky, stage lights flashing in the distance.
Amanda, Casey, and Ashley lean against a battered wagon, tailgating with warm
beer in plastic cups. Cowboy hats tilt, Daisy Dukes cling, boots scuff dirt, and makeup
gleams in the firelight. A truck nearby blares a twangy song, mixing with
shouts and laughter.
Casey raises her cup. “To one wild night and men in tight
jeans.”
Amanda and Ashley grin, clink cups, beer splashing.
“Hell yeah,” Amanda says, swaying.
They sing, voices raw and tight: “Church was made for God
and country boys, where the pastor’s daughters are made to sin.” They laugh,
sip, and hum it again.
Amanda shifts, giggling. “Gotta pee,” she says, tossing
her hair. She weaves through the tailgate—guys yelling, smoke curling, boots
stomping. The porta-potty row’s all blue, reeking in the dark. She yanks one
door open—a piss-soaked mess. She slams it. “Hell no.”
Another’s taken by a burly dude who shoves past her.
“Asshole,” she mutters. Turning, she spots a guy dancing, holding two beers.
She snatches one. “Thank you.” They fall into a two-step, her “woo hoo”
spilling out as she laughs, caught in the festival’s pulse.
She sips, keeps moving—and stops and notices the only
yellow porta-potty among twenty blue. That’s odd. Out of place. She shrugs.
“When you gotta go, you gotta go.” She steps inside. The door shuts behind her;
she locks it, the latch snapping to the red occupied position with a heavy
click.
Inside, Amanda sets her beer on the shelf, squats, swaying to the music. She hums, “Church was made for God and country boys were made for the pastor’s daughters…” and chuckles to herself. The walls echo back, warped and tiny, like a busted radio.
Her beer fizzes, bubbles
turning black, swirling like tar.
The air sours, thick as
rotting fruit. Amanda notices the door is unlocked… flips the lock back.
“Occupied,” she mutters. A click—green again. Unlocked. She frowns, relocks it.
Pop... Open yet again.
With her pants down, she
jerks upright, shoving the door. “Get the fu—” No one’s there. She pokes her
head out from behind the door and scans the area. The festival’s still raging.
She ducks back, slams the door, and locks it.
Outside, the festival thrums with raucous music, cowboy hats and boots swaying under the stage’s pulsing beams. The blue porta-potties dissolve into the night’s murk, but the lone yellow one looms, its sickly hue a blemish against an empty void that seems to swallow the stars beyond.
No toilet paper. “Crud.” She pulls her pants up, buttons
them, grabs her beer, and tries the door. It won’t budge. “What’s going
on?” She rattles it harder. “Come on!” She bangs, yelling. The door shudders,
as if something’s pushing back.
She climbs onto the seat and peers through the vented
window at the top. A few figures linger by walking towards the entrance near the
stage—Casey and Ashley, walking and laughing, oblivious to her. “Hey,” she yelled.
She stands on her tippy toes, pounding on the wall, “Casey! Ashley!” Her foot
slips—plunges into the foul blue basin. “Oh god, no!” Not just for the filth.
Her boots. Good boots are now trashed. “This is great,” she groans, kicking the
wall.
“Somebody get me out!”
Whispers seep through the walls—“Thank Jesus… You need
Jesus… Sin’s gotta pay.”
Amanda freezes. “Who’s there? Stop screwing around!” She
pounds until her fists bruise.
The stove-pipe vent squeals, a low hum rising. The song,
twisted wrong: “Church was made… for God… and country boys…” Mocking
her.
She scrambles up the creaking cabin, palms slick against its thin blue walls, and reaches the roofline where vent slats leak the barren night. Rising on her toes, she peers through the stove-pipe vent like a telescope, glimpsing stars that briefly pierce the sky before a black velvet shadow shrouds the starry night. A faint, warped echo slithers through: “…for God… and country boys…”
“Hel—” her voice cracks, strangled, “Help me!”
The blackness surges.
Claw-like shapes ooze down the pipe, tasting the air. They seize her wrist and yank
her arm up into the opening of the vent.
Her hand jams into the pipe’s
throat. Too narrow. The fingers grasp tighter and force her hand inside,
crushing her hand and fingers, bone splintering one by one, sharp cracks in the
dark. She shrieks, thrashing. The vent grinds her arm higher, chewing her
wrist, bones crunching under the choke of the narrow tube.
“Stop, please!” she sobs and pleads,
clawing the wall with her free hand, nails splitting. The pipe swallows her to
the elbow. With a scream that shreds her throat, she wrenches back with all her
strength.
Her arm rips free—skin flayed,
fingers crooked and broken, blood pattering onto the plastic floor. She
collapses against the wall, clutching what’s left of her hand, sobbing in
shock.
The beer tips, black sludge pouring
into her mouth, burning her throat, drowning her screams. She gurgles, eyes
wide, staring through the vent slats—out there, the festival rages, crowd
singing her song. The entity hums along, claws stroking her cheek.
“Mine now,” it whispers.
The sludge rises, swallowing her
whole. She twitches, then stills.
Outside, the yellow porta-potty vanishes. Only blue ones remain. The festival roars on: “Church was made for God and country boys…”
A faint giggle drifts through the dark as a new yellow
porta-potty appears, just down the line.
918 Words
Comments
Post a Comment