1 Water Down the Drain

The warm water cascaded over her, washing away the soap in a warm wave of froth and bubbles. Washing clean the salts that stuck to her skin. Washing away everything… except the heads that bumped against her feet and rolled a little with the movement.

She shuddered, but she didn't scream. Somehow the worst thing wasn't the heads, it was that she didn't remember getting into the shower. She didn't know if she had put the heads into the shower. And she couldn't decide if it was a little reassuring or even more terrifying that she didn't recognize any of the faces on the heads.

They were human. No strange ears or sharp teeth. Some had their eyes open, showing that indescribable glaze of a gaze from which all life had fled. Some had their eyes closed. None of them were frozen in a terrifying rictus. They were simply eight heads lying in the bottom of her shower.

Both sexes were represented, and a variety of ages. No children, thankfully, just the heads of eight adult strangers. She only glanced at them now and then, but she was certain that the only thing that was moving was herself. Her ears stretched for any small noise, but there was only the sound of the water.

They were real, not plastic. She was sure of that because the warm water pulled streaks of blood from them now and then, that slid down the drain in a decorative spiral. What woman could be unfamiliar with the contrast between blood and porcelain, or the way blood tinted water, as it flowed away.

Their hair was wet, even above the water line. Strands of hair moved with the flow of the water, like weeds in a stream. Grey hair, blonde hair, short black hair… But if you were going to stack heads in a shower you would probably rinse them off, if you were the sort of person who would put heads in a shower.

Her hand shook as she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Everything else about the room that held the shower looked perfectly normal. There was no trail of blood leading into it. Nothing was out of place. There was no sign that anyone else had been there at all.

She would put on clothes before she tried to call, she decided. A shower full of heads couldn't possibly be improved by a naked woman in the middle of a breakdown. She was putting off the breakdown too, but she knew that it was only a matter of time.

She pulled on clean underthings, and then selected the first clean shirt without paying any attention to its color or type. The soft grey fabric felt warm and comfortable against her skin. Familiar. The shirt was comfortingly familiar. The jeans were a pair she'd worn a thousand times by now. Faded, and thinning, and growing a little ragged at the cuffs, but clean and unstained.

Paranoia drove her to look into her dirty clothes basket, but nothing lurked there except the clothes that she'd worn the day before. The mustard stain on the chest of the shirt, the traces of cat hair on the trousers. Ordinary.

Once she was dressed, she sat on the edge of her bed and reached for the phone. Had she killed the people those heads had belonged to? She had no idea. She'd never killed, or even seriously injured anyone before, but she didn't doubt that she could.

--

She woke up in the sunshine. Her cat was asleep on her feet, and for a moment she stretched. A momentary relaxation under the warm patch of sun. And then she remembered the heads in the bottom of the shower, and she froze.

She couldn't remember the call. She couldn't remember putting on the pajama shirt she wore. She threw aside the covers, which the cat took as a personal insult, but she didn't stay to hear his complaints.

There was nothing in the shower. It was clean, but not completely clean, just that ordinary level of soap scum and dirt that slowly built up between cleanings. There were no stains, no hair, and most importantly, no heads.

She shivered uncontrollably and held a hand against her own head. Was she sick? Had it been a hallucination? A dream? But she could clearly remember the feel of the heads bumping against her feet. The unfamiliar faces.

A person might dream about taking the head of their enemies, or those who had tormented them, but why would anyone dream about the heads of complete strangers. It was too strange. Too real.

Her cat followed her in and jumped up on the raised edge that separated the shower from the open floor. "Meow?" he asked. He showed no interest in the bottom of the shower, like nothing smelled unusual, or seemed worthy of interest about this place.

He looked the same as usual. A plump and lazy housecat, the identification collar that he liked to remove fastened around his neck. He looked up at her curiously, like she was the one looking at invisible things in the air, instead of him.

She went back to her bedroom, and looked into her dirty clothes basket. The same set of clothes was at the top, mustard stain and all. She turned and rummaged her clean clothes. The shirt at the top was a black one with an old fashioned airship printed in white. But the shirt she remembered putting on so clearly after getting out of the shower was in the stack.

She pulled it out. It was clean. It was as well, or as poorly folded as she ever folded her shirts. The old pair of jeans was at the top of her pants.

After a long moment, with her cat twining around her ankles, she drew a deep breath. It must have been a dream. It had to have been a dream.

When she went out later, she verified that she hadn't lost any days. The wind was sweet with the scent of leaves and the trees were showing off their colors before the season finished its turn. Nothing had changed. Everything was normal, except for the vivid memory of standing naked in the shower with her feet against a stranger's head.

Dream, she corrected herself. It wasn't a memory, it was a dream.