The Shower Curtain
This story was initially commissioned by a reader and friend, but I figured I would share it here for premium subscribers, as I feel it’s one of my best. She asked that I exploit the “thing behind the shower curtain” trope, and that got the wheels turning. I asked myself, “what if the curtain itself were the horror?” I also added some very timely fears and some ruminations on life as a horror creator in the doomed 2020s. I hope you enjoy it.
1
The monstrosity is hanging in the bathroom when I come home from the office. The folds in the fabric only serve to warp the hideous images emblazoned upon it. Faces screaming, crying, wincing, and grimacing, all of them tangled in thorny vines that seem more like sinew than something botanical. Worst of all, I’m pretty sure that the “art” has been generated by AI.
With a grim sigh, I sit on the toilet. I do my best not to look at the shower curtain when I do my business, but I can’t seem to stop side-eyeing it from my perch on the porcelain. It’s as if it’s drawing my gaze involuntarily the way a magnet draws a paperclip.
I hate everything about it.
After I finish urinating, I wash my hands and face and pop out of the bathroom to find Ulysses in his study posted up in front of his expansive computer monitor.
“So, I see we got a new shower curtain.”
He finishes clicking around on some city-building game, then spins in his chair to look up at me. A boyish smirk crosses his face, and he steeples his fingers.
“You like?” he asks.
“Do you want my honest answer, or should I put on my best don’t-want-to-upset-my-boyfriend face and tell you how much I love it?”
“You hate it.” Not a question.
“It’s ugly and more than a little upsetting. Is it AI?”
He looks aghast at my question. “Of course not! It’s a piece by Farrands.” Something must have shown on my face because he elaborated. “The guy who designed all those paintings from those Infernal Gallery movies.”
It clicked then: I had seen the image before. Ulysses and I met at Cult Classics Convention in Bastrop, Texas and bonded over a mutual love of all things horror. Books, comics, films, memorabilia, and music . . . if it was tied to the horror genre in any way, we wanted it. I was vending that weekend, selling wooden figures I’d carved by hand and painted to carry the likenesses of everyone’s favorite horror icons. I had Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Art the Clown, little Linda Blair possessed by Pazuzu, Annabelle, Otis Firefly, Captain Spaulding, Pennywise, and more. Eat your heart out, Funko. He was walking around looking for obscure DVDs and hoping to get a photo taken with Joe Bob Briggs. We bumped into each other outside while admiring the Oldsmobile Delta 88 that had been featured in the original Evil Dead (among other Sam Raimi movies) and was on-display, fully restored.
After our bodily collision and his subsequent puppy-dog-eyed apology, I complimented him on his Night of the Demons shirt, and before long we were talking up a storm, bonding over a mutual love for horror, particularly the sort made in the late seventies and on through the 1980s. It turned out that we both lived in Austin, and after the weekend was over, we exchanged numbers and set a date to meet for drinks.
Two years later, we’re living together in an apartment in the Domain. More than once, we’ve discussed buying a home in one of the surrounding cities like Round Rock or Manor. You could say we’re serious about each other.
All that said, we don’t have everything in common, and one major point where we divert is the Infernal Gallery franchise, a series of anthology films that’s like the show Night Gallery but heavily steeped in taboo subject matter. Several of the segments feature graphic violence against children, which is something that’s always made me squeamish. I don’t even want kids—I’ve gone as far as to have my fallopian tubes removed in my mid-twenties—but seeing them harmed, even in the context of a horror film, has always been a trigger. I’ve never had an issue with Ulysses watching films where such cruelty takes place, but I do wish he had consulted me before getting that shower curtain.
“Right,” I say. “Those movies.”
Ulysses only chuckles and turns back to his game.
We reheat some Thai food for dinner and eat it while catching up on the newest episode of Yellowjackets. Before bed, as I’m brushing my teeth and letting down my hair, I glare at the tortured faces in the fabric. Some mouths are contorted, while others are pulled wide—almost wider than humanly possible. Terror glazes every bloodshot eye.
I make a sound of disgust and spit out the toothpaste. I’ll need to take a shower eventually, but that curtain will take some getting used to, so tonight, I settle for birdbathing it in the sink before retiring to bed.
2
The sound of running water wakes me. It’s the shower, but the bedroom is still dark. Instinctively, I reach for Ulysses and feel his sleeping form beneath the comforter. My breath catches.
If he’s in bed, why’s the shower on?
