The Landlords sent a note by private courier some time in the night, as was their way. It was taped to the front door of Andretti and Sons Plumbing when the apprentice, Cassidy Minkelson, opened the office at 7 AM.
Fireside Café has plumbing issues
was all the note said. Cassidy called Mr. Andretti, who was still at home with one of the two Sons.
“Go check it out,” he told her. “Might just need a toilet plunged. I never can tell with them. You go and give me a call once we’ve got a sense of the situation.”
Normally the Fireside opened early for coffee, but this morning there was a sign on the door saying CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE. Probably not just a clogged toilet, then. Cassidy waved at no one in particular; she couldn’t make out if there was anyone inside the dark café. When no one responded, she tried the door and found it unlocked.
“Hello?”
It smelled awful inside, but not like shit or rancid kitchen grease. It was a weird, earthy, rotten kind of awful smell that Cassidy couldn’t place.
“We’re closed,” someone called from the kitchen with a note of suppressed panic in his voice.
“I’m from Andretti and Sons,” Cassidy called back. She couldn’t say “I’m a plumber” just yet, not in good conscience.
“Oh, good!” The general manager emerged from the kitchen. His sleeves were rolled up, he wore blue latex gloves, and his pants were soaked up to the knees. “The Landlords left us a note this morning, they said they reached out to you.”
“Yes, sir – what’s the problem?”
He sighed heavily and gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen. The smell became almost unbearable in there, and Cassidy put on an N95 mask. The dish sink had overflowed; it was full of stagnant water and there were piles of towels all over the floor trying to soak up the flooding.
“It won’t drain,” the GM explained. “I tried a plunger – a kitchen plunger,” he added quickly. “Just for the kitchen. But that didn’t work. We got a drain snake but that didn’t work either. I don’t know what happened. Our dish guys are always careful to keep the strainer in.”
Cassidy went to work investigating, acutely aware that her father lived in the adjoining building and whatever was going on here might subject Dad to an exploding toilet.
She had no reason to think the GM was lying or incompetent, but she’d have been remiss not to confirm. Indeed, the plunger did nothing, and the drain snake hit something that felt like solid concrete.
“Who has access to the building after hours?” she asked. The GM looked shocked.
“What, you think someone fucked with it? Like a prank?”
“I’m not saying that, but something happened. It was draining fine before, you said?”
He nodded. “Never had this kind of problem before.”
“Well,” said Cassidy, “I’ll be honest. It feels like someone filled the pipe with quick-set concrete.”
She called Mr. Andretti and got the go-ahead to cut into the pipe. It was her first time doing anything like that alone on a work site. She made sure the water was turned off, whipped out her handsaw, and cut the pipe just below the sink. In order to do so, she had to lie on her side on the damp and stinking floor. It sucked, but now she was so curious it barely bothered her. What could it be?
When the majority of the pipe broke away from the sink, Cassidy used a mirror and pen light to get a look inside. She wasn’t sure what to expect: an actual solid plug of concrete? Rocks? Wood? Whatever it was, she still didn’t know. The pen light seemed to be shining on solid matte blackness. Cautiously, Cassidy poked at the mass in the pipe with one finger. It was hard to tell through her nitrile gloves, but whatever it was felt softer than she’d expected. It gave a little. She poked it again.
It moved.
Not as in, she shifted it by poking it. As in, it moved itself. Whatever it was shimmied upward through the pipe. There was a dampened popping sound and water started rushing down through the drain onto the floor. The GM swore and ran for more towels. Cassidy scrambled to her feet and stared into the sink as the water level sank and sank until it had all drained out.
The sink was full of dirty dishes and utensils. Whatever else was in there seemed to be hidden (hiding?) under an overturned salad bowl. She tiptoed up to it, her hands raised towards her face. Something was breathing in there. She grabbed a long rolling pin that was sitting on the counter and, standing as far back as she could from the sink while still reaching it, used the rolling pin to overturn the bowl.
A wriggling, fleshy mass dove down into the pile of dirty dishes and emerged from the sawed-off pipe at the bottom of the sink, plopping to the floor. It moved so fast, Cassidy only caught a glimpse of eyes, snout, teeth, oddly matte skin before the thing squeezed itself through a vent at the bottom of the wall and disappeared.
The next morning, a duplicate note from the Landlords was left at both the Fireside and at Andretti and Sons:
Sorry about Sneakers.