Final Destination style water peril

Thirty one dead.

The words glared at Joey from the newspaper. He didn’t want to think about the pertinence of the story, but he could hardly ignore it.

The coach that had gone over the cliff was the one he and his friends were supposed to have taken to the airport just yesterday. If Jenna hadn’t sudden thrown a fit and started ranting about terrible danger, they’d all be dead.

Joey couldn’t help but laugh to himself as he thought of Jenna. Stupid dyke hadn’t stopped since they’d heard about the coach, saying things like it wasn’t over for them and death wouldn’t be cheated. She’d probably been shooting up since kindergarten. As far as Joey was concerned death could come for her anytime he liked, but he wasn’t going to let some crazy hoe and a freaked out coincidence with a coach accident bother him.

Joey threw the paper where he wouldn’t see it, aiming deliberately for the tabby cat that shot out the room with a howl in response. Since he’d missed the plane to Ibiza his mom had twisted his arm over some picture frames he’d promised to put up for her last year (a promise made after one too many beers), and if that weren’t bad enough she’d guilt tripped him over leaving it until he’d agreed to also tidy the flat while she was out at the mall.

“Jenna, you stupid bitch,” he muttered as he hammered the last nail in with unnecessary aggression “Next time I see you we’re gonna have a word about your junkie nightmares.”

With a final savage blow he drove the nail home, deeper than he had with the other two nails.

On the other side of the thin plaster wall the nail pushed into the bracket holding up the kitchen cupboard. The screw in the bracket broke the thread, leaving the cupboard hanging even more precariously than it had before- there really was too much in it.

Joey flicked his long blond hair back over his shoulder while he admired his work. Hopefully he could get some cash out of mom if the job looked good enough. With some lethargy he went into the kitchen, resigned to carry out his chores graciously as though there was nothing he wanted more than to clean up after someone else. Mom was a bigger slob than him; plates with half eaten meals were stacked next to the sink, and brown stains coated the corners where the kitchen units met the walls.

“Dammit, mom,” Joey groaned as the smell of old food hit him. He went to the sink and quickly began tipping leftovers down the waste disposal.

Behind him the cupboard trembled slightly as the bracket flexed with the weight put on it, one screw pulled completely free of the wall.

Like everything in the flat, the waste disposal was as old and decrepit. It retched as juddered as more old food than it could cope with was forced down its throat.

“Aw, come on!” Joey whined, stabbing carelessly at the backlog of food with a knife. The sound of juddering blades began to grate on his nerves and he stabbed harder. It also covered the sound of the wobbling shelf bracket as it sagged under its own weight.

Growing more frustrated, Joey turned on the tap and continued forcing cat food and the remains of packet meals down the plug as a jet of cold water joined his efforts, to little avail.

“Work, dammit!”

Behind the cupboard, the final screw in the wall began to creak as it struggled to take the full weight of the cupboard levered against it.

In the sink, the backlog of old food shifted and the waste disposal mulched once again. In an amazingly infantile display, Joey leaned closer to the sink and sneered triumphantly.

“Huh, take that.”

There was a crack as the last screw broke free of the wall.

Joey roared in pain as the cupboard crashed onto his hips and lower back. His knees gave out under the weight. He fell forward, face slamming into the bottom of the sink. The contents of the shelves cascaded around his feet in a din of smashes and thunks.

Joey bared his teeth as he waited for the worst of the pain to pass. The smell of rot was intense so close to his nose, and water saturated his head, clearing his head enough to realise he was lying under the jet coming from the tap.

Gathering his wits he began to lift his head as he let go of the edge of the sink and went to slump to the floor. He stopped with a yelp as something pulled at his scalp. Feet scrabbling for purchase, he grabbed at a taut length of hair and tried to twist around to see where it was stuck. His long hair was splayed on the bottom of the sink like spider web cracks, but he could see that one thick lock had gotten caught in the plughole.

Joey took the offending length of hair in both hands and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. Clearly it was stuck round something, but he couldn’t see due to the refuge bunging up the plug and getting smeared amidst the perfect blonde strands. With a snarl, he slapped at the draining board blindly, scattering objects and creating more mess until he finally grasped something- a plastic butter knife. Joey let out a hiss of frustration, but there was nothing to grab, or if there was he couldn’t see it. He stuck the knife into the plughole and wiggled it around. The waste made sucking sounds as it moved about but did not release Joey’s hair. The boy dug through the food with harsh movements, flicking lumps aside and splashing the water that still blasted into the sink, getting in his eyes and heating his blood further. He stabbed the knife as deep as he could into the plug.

“Come on!”

Just as the knife snapped in his hand, there was a sound from the plug.

Suddenly, the waste disposal until started working again, and its blades began chewing at everything in its grasp, including Joey’s hair.

Joey yelled at the sting of ripping hair and was dragged down into the sink as more of his hair followed the flow of the running water and became entangled in the waste disposal. Joey tried to pull his hair back to his burning scalp, tipping into the sink to create a temporary slack. He pulled as hard as he could at the trapped hair, but it slipped through his fingers and deeper into the drain, pulling him along with it. There was a squelch as Joey’s face was pulled flush to the bottom of the sink and was pressed against a mulch of spoiled food.

“Crap, no!”

Still the waste disposal pulled at his hair, stretching the roots while Joey flailed about. He was now bent double, stomach pressed into the corner of the kitchen counter with cold water blasting directly onto his head. Joey tried to swear but his words were distorted as water streamed down his face and gathered on his lips. He spat it away, but it was instantly replaced by more, mingling with every breath he took.

The plug pulled. There was no other position to get into to alleviate the strain. Joey clawed at his scalp as his hair reached the point where it was about to rip.

“NO!”

The sound like fabric stretched to breaking point only lasted a second.

Suddenly, the whirl of the waste disposal stopped. The monotonous ‘brrrr’ of trapped mechanics replaced it as the unit jammed again.

“Son of a…” Joey keened in the closest he could get to relieved when he was so furious.

He lay there, squirming like a wounded animal. The kitchen was filled with a deep silence apart from the splash of water on Joey’s head. The water was cold, and after all the struggling it felt quite refreshing now that he just had a chance to rest.

Then he felt something brushing against his face- chunks of shrivelled cat food were floating in the gathering water and drifting against him.

“Crap!” Joey splashed the food away and tugged fiercely at his hair.

It wouldn’t budge.

A sound of exasperation rose up from his chest, and he wrung his trapped hair in both hands and jerked his head back, which resulted only in a burst of pain.

The water was beginning to pool in the sink. Food had been sucked down as Joey’s hair had been drawn in the waste disposal, and it was now bunged together with the sandy locks just inside the plughole, blocking the waters path to the drain.

The waterline reached Joey’s eye, and he squinted and growled. Even as he continued to struggle the water rose fast. The tap was on full, and the water quickly reached the corner of Joey’s lips and began spilling over into his mouth. Spluttering, the young man groped blindly for the tap.

But the tap head was gone.

When the shelf had fallen against him, Joey had reached out for the tap. He hadn’t noticed the pain in his hand under the circumstances, but his palm had been slammed into the tap with great force, and the nob had broken off.

The tap continued to spray water all over Joey’s head, and for the moment he didn’t realise the predicament he was in as floating bits of food were continually driven by the flow into his mouth.

“sun’offa’ich,” Joey bubbled through the water. He tried to twist his head to get away from the floating refuse but too much of his hair was caught and he couldn’t move without pain. He tried again to wrench his hair free. The waste shifted and a little water flowed down, but instantly more food was caught in the suction and filled the gap.

Joey continued to pull his hair and spit out water between his breaths, but finally the moment came when the water was just shy of covering the last corner of his lips and he realise he couldn’t get a breath.

He at last realised just how dire his situation was.

He went to call out instinctively, but paused, stalled by the humiliation of having the elderly neighbours come to his rescue.

That delay was the most costly decision of Joey’s life.

In the split second it took for Joey to decide humiliation didn’t matter for now, the water moved up a few centimetres more. Joey only had the chance to sound a ‘He’, before the water covered his mouth and his yell became a gurgle.

Joey struggled desperately as the water rose up over his other eye. Everything was blurred. He breathed in without thinking as he tried to escape, and choked on dirty water. It tasted foul, and he almost retched, stomach convulsing as he tried to hold it in. Joey swept his hand out to the draining board in search of a knife, but all he did was knocked plates to the floor. He reached to the tap and tried to rip it out and stop the flow. The tap was as old as the sink itself, but in his current position Joey couldn’t get a grip on it with his right hand.

Joey’s lungs had now been completely empty for a full thirty seconds, and already his chest was contracting. He gasped involuntarily and coughed out water in sequence. His struggles became frantic as he abandoned the tap and wrestled with his hair, pulling with all his strength, trying to straighten up heedless of the pain. Oxygen deprivation became agony as his lungs burned and tightened so rigidly he felt as though something was going to snap. His body forced a gasp in search of air, and Joey vomited out the water that seared his throat, only to suck in again, this time dragging the water deep into his chest.

The water closed over Joey’s head, filling his upturned ear and cutting off the world in a hollow echo. Joey shuddered in violent spasm as his lungs took in water, no longer allowing him to expel it. His chest became tighter and tighter, lungs squeezing, heart pounding violently, spreading the coursing pain to his oxygen staved muscles. His eyes rolled back into his head as the shaking reached fever pitch, his arms rigid and unresponsive.

Then the shaking began to calm, the action winding down. The tension began to drain out of the young man’s body, his torso deflating to sag over the sink. His arms remained brittle stiff for a moment longer, but they gradually began to droop till they were dangling limply.

An eerie silence fell upon the apartment, broken only by the sound of water overflowing onto the floor. In a matter of minutes a neighbour would be hammering on the door and yelling for whoever was inside to door something about their taps.

On the other side of the wall, the picture Joey had hung up last fell as the nail hanging it came loose and smashed on the floor. Broken glass scratched the framed photo of Joey, ruining it permanently.

Joey really had made a poor job of those pictures.