Tiffany Stars gripped the old Polaroid of her mother, crushing the photo in her sweaty palm as tears poured down her cheeks. The stall was small, and Tiffany was claustrophobic. The heat and heavy stench of urine and feces nearly suffocated her.
But anything was better than being out there.
The strip club had emptied of patrons by now. The gunfire had scared almost everyone away, except for the man chasing her. He wouldn’t give up. Not now. Not ever. Not until Tiffany was dead by his own hands.
She wiped her eyes, smoothed the photo, and crammed it back into her bikini top. Taking several deep breaths, she tried to calm her racing heart and focus amid the chaos.
The fire alarm wailed. It would only be a matter of time before the fire department showed up. The police as well.
But it would be too late.
Various strings of text were carved or written in the walls of the stall, most describing seedy sexual acts or giving phone numbers for one-night-stands. One message described, in detail, the things that could be done with—
“Tiff!”
His voice startled her from the hallway outside the restroom. She took a few more deep breaths and tucked her long bangs behind her ears. Her fingers brushed the cross earrings her mother had given her before she died, and shame washed over her. Her mother had told her the strip club was nothing but trouble. Tiffany knew that, but she needed money. And money had led her to do things she never wanted to do.
Sure, the attention from the men was addictive, but more so was their money. Lots of money.
Tiffany had planned to pay off the mortgage to save her mother’s house, but her mother died before she could make it happen.
Now Tiffany would die here, in the place she had rotted in for so many months.
“Where are you, Tiff?!”
His voice was moving closer now, just outside the door to the restroom, and Tiffany realized her body had tensed up so much that her muscles were starting to spasm. She relaxed her shoulders, closed her eyes, and buried her face between her knees. She’d been crouched on the toilet seat for what felt like hours, terrified Vince would enter the restroom and drag her out. She’d hidden here so he wouldn’t see her legs beneath the stall door, but she knew that trick only worked in the movies. If he entered the restroom, he was going to check every stall, and then he would find her and she would die. Die at his hands in a strip club bathroom, wearing her dead mother’s earrings.
“Sorry, mom,” she whispered as she looked up at the stained ceiling. “Sorry you have to see me die like this.”
She heard the bathroom door swing open, and footsteps echo into the room.
“Tiff. I know you’re here, Tiff! You better step out here and face me. You cost me thousands of dollars by pulling that little stunt with the fire alarm. Too bad for you that I already called off the cavalry.”
She heard him approach the stalls. She could see him through the crack in the stall door, and watched as he observed himself in the mirror, playing with his tall black hair, picking at it with his plastic comb. “Nobody’s coming to save you. You’re in my hell now, Tiff. I think you should accept that. I’m going to do things to you that nobody’s ever written about. Then I’m going to slit your throat and toss you out into the trash. Nobody will miss you.
“You don’t have anyone to miss you.”
Tears streamed down her face.
She saw his figure turn from the mirror and face the line of stalls. “You think anyone cares about a washed-up stripper?”
The alarms stopped.
“See? Nobody is coming.”
She wiped her tears on the backs of her hands, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer that God save her from this demon.
When she opened her eyes, she was startled to find a black door in place of the bathroom stall door.
“Did you hear me, Tiff? Did you hear me?”
She stared at the door. It looked like an ordinary door you would find on a suburban house in a neighborhood far from this place. The kind of neighborhood where kids ran around, playing with each other into the evening. Where dads barbecued for friends and neighbors. Where women had wine nights and book clubs.
The door shimmered, as if made of metal. Black metal.
The knob was silver.
“I’m going to count, Tiff. This is the last dose of patience I have to offer you. Once I get to three, I’m going to come in there and tear you to shreds.
“One.”
Tiffany stood off the toilet, bare feet touching the cold tile floor. The bottoms of her feet pressed into something sticky, but she didn’t care. She reached out and touched the handle of the door. It was cold.
“Two.”
She turned the knob and slowly pushed outward, opening the door a crack so she could see Vince. Though the Black Door stood where the stall door had been, it opened onto a dining room that couldn't possibly fit beyond the cramped restroom walls. Through the opening, the dining room was all she could see. Vince was nowhere in sight.
“Three. Time’s up, Tiff.”
Warmth poured through the opening, embracing her half-naked form.
She heard Vince rattle the stall door, though the sound seemed to come from somewhere beyond the dining room.
A dining room table filled up most of the room on the other side of the Black Door. Roasted turkey, steamed vegetables, and various bottles of wine and cider covered the table. It was the same way her mother used to prep their table for Thanksgiving.
The scent of the food, the spiced apple candle her mother used to light, and the burning smell of the heater being turned on for the first time in the fall swept over her.
Tiffany smeared the tears across her face as she cupped her hands over her mouth and gasped.
“What the hell? Tiffany, unlock this door. Now!” He banged on the door. Then she heard him kick it. The lock broke, and the door flew inward, but nothing happened on Tiffany’s side. She had the Black Door open, and a scene familiar and comforting lured her to the other side.
She drew in a deep breath, looked around at the bathroom stall, and stepped across the threshold.
When she entered the dining room, she turned to find the Black Door gone.
“Honey, do you want me to put the pie out now or after dinner?”
The voice was familiar. But not comforting.
Tiffany’s gaze fell on a crystal dish full of potpourri beneath the dining room mirror.
Beside it lay a black plastic comb.
