Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. The Hemorrhoid Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

THE HEMORRHOID

Steve Beaupre sipped from a can of Gabbo 15, needing a dose of THC with a hit of CBG to take him to dreamland, a third dose now, in fact. He sat back in his recliner, looking at a lunatic rant and rave about everything from pod people to werewolves to cannibal Frenchmen; YouTube the perfect ying and yang between surprisingly helpful and astonishingly ignorant.

Steve sighed.

The playoffs started tomorrow, and Steve was the guy, was supposed to be the guy.

Last week, he laid a car wax bet with Raymond at the office over the Habs versus Oilers game. Steve had the Oilers, with all their superstars; Raymond had the Canadiens and the win. Monday evening, Steve went over to Raymond’s, a sixer of Labatt’s Blue affixed by black tabs that wouldn’t hurt sea life hanging from a middle finger. He waxed the little less than cherry, nineteen-eighty-something Mazda Miata with Raymond cracking jokes behind him.

The following morning, he could hardly brush his teeth. Tennis elbow, the worst he’d ever had, and by a long shot.

The team needed him to carry about a third of their collective score; he was good enough to go pro, but the thought of telling people he was a pro bowler sounded too embarrassing. Now, tennis elbow right before the playoffs, even these three days later.

It wasn’t the physical pain that kept him up in front of the TV, it was the thought that he wouldn’t be showered with praise after the victory. During the season, he missed shots on purpose, now and then. The team even lost some close ones. There was no drama in a sure thing, and people loved drama.

Steve’s current league wasn’t his first league. He worked for Coca-Cola, in IT. There were offices all over the country. When the bowling, or the relationships, grew stale, he jumped ship and started anew. The only stipulation being that the relocation city have a competitive bowling league.

Within the confines of the alley, he was respected, sometimes admired.

In the past he’d revealed his talent from day one. It wasn’t long before people accepted it as they accepted the withering of a four-hundred-year-old maple tree at town square—maybe great, but nothing to hold focus. The thrills were lacking and the interest in him waned. Sometimes other teams threw gag games because they knew Steve would destroy them if they tried, so why not get drunk and throw granny balls?

Also, he wanted to avoid the starfucker kind of women attracted to flashy new flesh when it came to town. Might as well book an appointment at the clinic in advance—the yang to that ying being that most times those women were fun and pretty and wanted to please, limited time offer.

All season he hovered around 200, occasionally hitting 220; in the playoffs, he reliably hit 250 and might now and then flirt with perfection. People loved him because it seemed glory propelled him to great physical achievement, and now he’d gone and bet it all on a night when McDavid and Draisaitl could only muster one goal between them.

“Dammit…” he said through a sigh, the second can of cannabis beer finally dancing with the first. His eyes fluttered closed. His breathing slowed. His mind cleared of worry.

—

The game was essentially over but for the crying. Steve tongued the inside of his cheek. It was his final frame—he bowled third of four, something that increased pressure on the opposition and decreased pressure for whoever was riding caboose. The score was 724 – 680 for the Upper Valley Drunks over The Pinseekers, and Steve, with his loose, limber, ready arm had, so far, bowled 260 with two strikes hanging on this frame—some of the guys were already packing up. If it wasn’t for a spare in the first frame, he’d be eyeing perfection.

He inhaled deeply, brought the ball to his chin, took a couple twinkle-toed steps, one long stride, then threw, swinging his right arm left before him and his left leg right behind him. The ball rolled an inch from the right gutter before jerking in and tumbling the pins with a glorious, crashing cacophony.

“Flaming turkey!” one of the guys shouted—even the opponents had to clap.

Steve spun on his heels, strutting back to where he’d been sitting. He slapped palms, gave a little wave to the small crowd who were offering applause, then dropped onto the molded plastic seat. Only centimetres from the surface of his sphincter, Steve felt a telltale spike of pain.

“Damn,” he whispered, knowing come morning, he’d have a hemorrhoid.

—

Three nights later, laid flat in about eight inches of hot water, bowl of ice cubes on the molded lip of the bathtub, his mind wandered as he pressed a cube against the throbbing ball bearing of angered flesh rising from the pucker of his asshole. He’d done a dumb thing, much dumber than betting on the Oilers.

Two months ago, Steve had opened the door to a young man in an expensive suit, BMW parked on the street. He managed investments and insurance for a company called Comberica. Steve had been bored enough to listen, had been ignorant enough to take this young man at his word, had sent through the request to move his pension from the work group over to Comberica.

The first time he called for an update, the young man was out of his office. The next time, he simply asked for a statement. That was last week. His account was open, but only with the fifty bucks he’d sent along with the kid, not the sum of his retirement. Yesterday, it came out that Comberica was fleecing everyday people the country over.

When he called, nobody answered. And he’d called, and called, and called.

If nothing else, losing most of his life savings was a great distraction from the horrid little bulb screaming from his backside. He worked the disintegrating ice cube back and forth until the final sliver slipped from his fingers, becoming one with the tub water. He reached for another cube, his mind now picturing himself working until death, rather than 60 or 65. He’d fall behind eventually, the tech would be unlearnable, and he’d be a greeter for the retail slave mill, smiling as customers bought worthless crap by the cartload and frowning knowingly at his coworkers who couldn’t afford to shop anywhere else—there’d be a discount of course, 5%, maybe 10%; the only bright spot in a workplace like that.

He shuddered, and once the next cube was against the hemorrhoid, he reached for the can of Gabbo 15 he had on the go. A little weed went a long way when trying to sleep through discomfort, whether it be physical or mental or both.

—

The Samsung in his pocket began ringing only minutes after he settled at his desk. He looked at the number on the screen, assuming it was a survey or the Conservative Party offering some maple-washed Americana—the scary wokes, the damned taxes, that evil man called Mark Carney who was just like Justin, despite his actions. Still, he answered, sighing through a hello.

“Mr. Steve Beaupre?” The tone was meek, clearly nervous.

“Yeah?”

“Umm, so, uh, you called about a transfer you made?”

“Yeah?”

“It got, uh, it went into limbo and—”

“Cancel it!” Steve said, his heart hammering like a piston powering a run down a drag strip. “Cancel it and forget it, can you do that?” The question ejected his mouth with embarrassing desperation.

“Okay, yes.” The voice now sounded chipper.

“So, it’ll go back in with the rest?” Steve said after a twenty-second pause where he listened to the clatter of fingers on a keyboard.

“Yes, and I’m so sorry about this. I won’t say it never happens, but…”

Steve didn’t hear what followed, riding a zephyr of relief, only vaguely feeling the singing pain in his anus.

—

He stepped, lightly, into the lunchroom. Mike was acting crazy, standing on a chair, screaming at the sink. He had a bandage on his left hand from a hunting trip in Northern Ontario. He’d shot nothing, but he’d seen two moose, a few caribou, and a wolf; maybe it was a big coyote. It had popped out of the bush by their camp. Growling and snarling, the thing leapt at Mike, scratching a wound open on his hand as the other hunters—IT guys, eyes wet with whisky—opened fire, scaring the beast away without hitting it.

Steve had his coffee mug in hand.

“You!” Mike said, scrambling off the chair and charging at Steve. “You!”

Steve had no time to think. He underhanded the mug as he would a bowling ball, minus the follow through and back kick. The Mug nailed Mike in the throat, and he dropped, holding his neck, gasping and wild-eyed.

The paramedics asked a few questions as they strapped Mike to a stretcher. One of the men grimaced through the question: “Did he get a rabies shot after the scratch?”

“Wolves and coyotes don’t really attack groups of people,” the other paramedic said. “He should’ve rushed to get a shot.”

Steve squirmed in his chair as he looked up what happened to those with untreated rabies bites. He then went to his closet to see if his funeral suit still fit, his butt singing the blues in chorus now, a second, bigger pain bubble had pulsed into existence.

—

Steve winced with every throw. He was off his game thanks to the hemorrhoids, but not off enough to cost them the win, though it was closer than he was comfortable with. And he’d only thrown as well as a regular season game, hadn’t been able to put the pain in his ass aside enough to bring out the playoff guns.

It didn’t matter now, anyway.

Surely, the ‘roids would be gone by next week and the semi-finals.

—

He’d come to accept the pain in his ass, ignore it…mostly.

Steve’s cellphone rang within his ball bag as he stood totem at the top of the lane, sparkly red ball fitted over two fingers and a thumb of his right hand. Nearly on tiptoes, he stuttered two short steps, took a long step, swung back and followed through, spinning in his shoes to face the moderate crowd who’d come to watch the semi-final games.

He heard the crashing of pins a heartbeat before the applause of the excited crowd. He’d done it, for the first time, in a league game. 300. 300 in a semi-final playoff game. 300. Perfection.

He lifted an arm Stature of Liberty high, fist instead of flame. Teammates, then fans, rushed to him. A man named George Williams who worked four offices down from Steve and typically bowled about 150, grabbed Steve by the hips and hoisted him up. Steve pinwheeled his arms until hands pressed under his ass. He winced at the jolt of pain.

“Steve! Steve! Steve!” the crowd chanted as they bounced Steve on stiff arms, his hemorrhoids screaming the song of suffering.

As this went on, a nurse from the hospital was leaving a message for Steve concerning his seventy-four-year-old mother.

—

An hour after the celebration ended, Steve staggered drunkenly into the living room. He kicked out of his shoes, then peeled away his blood-streaked pants and undies. It was lucky that the team’s uniform featured black slacks. His shirt came away next as he stepped toward the washroom off the kitchen.

Before going inside, he spun on his heels, much as he would when he saw an inevitable strike coming. He made for the fridge, looking for a Labatt’s but finding only Gabbo. He used a cheese knife to jimmy the child-proof cap away.

First sip down and lifting for a second, Steve thought of his cellphone—as he’d been trained to do. He tapped the message icon and listened, coming to sit naked on the floor, swaying as if orbiting his stacked ankles.

Tears patted the linoleum. Blood painted swipes. He drank two Gabbo 15s, wishing they’d been Labatt’s, or Molson, or Lucky, wishing his mother hadn’t died alone in a painfully white room, surrounded by machines and cost cutting measures.

—

Steve awoke on the couch, wrapped in a throw blanket. His face was puffy, and his brains ached. He stumbled nakedly to the can. A slash of pain into the only hemorrhoid-free part of his anus nearly toppled him. He stopped the flow and sat to piss like his mother was sick of cleaning up dribbles.

He scooped up his phone to listen to the message again, discovering that there were two messages, from the same number, coming twenty-two minutes apart. He listened to the first again, his guts clenched and his ass throbbing.

The second: “Um, I’m so, so sorry. We have a new system and it’s—I’d meant to call Darlene Beaupre, not Darla Beaupre. Your mother is almost certainly fine; she wasn’t in last night or today. Again, I’m so sorry. Um, bye.”

Steve unraveled anew. Tears again pattered the linoleum. He’d make sure to call her soon.

—

“What’s wrong with Alejandro?” Steve said to Leon MacInnis where they stood shoulder to shoulder in the cramped breakroom—small breakrooms being a great deterrent against socializing at work; when the employees ate at their desks, they were likely working through the breaks.

“I think he’s on new meds. Sometimes those heavy depression meds can make people seem like zombies. They just mope around, no personality at all.”

“Dang. He didn’t seem…I mean…” Steve winced, “…I never would’ve guessed.”

Leon nodded. “That’s how it goes.” After a beat, he said, “I hear you threw a perfect game.”

Steve grinned, even as fresh jolts of pain coursed through the stiff knots beneath the swollen flesh.

—

“Travis Oullette has a broken thumb, and Maxime LeBeau can’t make it. He was on that plane that went down three weeks ago, remember?”

Steve huffed. How could he forget that? The spare player on the second-best team in the league was lost in the vast Canadian Arctic? No chance forgetting that.

“Oh, but they found him?”

James Thompson—workmate, teammate, average score: 166—wagged his eyebrows. “Yeah. They ate the pilot.”

“Holy shit,” Steve said, the words a hiss.

“So, they need to use a sub” He smirked. “They want to sub in Gary Wilson.”

Gary Wilson was a damned good player.

Steve Clint Eastwooded his eyes and said, “Let ‘em. They can’t touch us, baby.”

James cackled laughing. “That’s what the others said, too. See you on Friday.”

As they were apt to lately, three bolts of pain slashed into what had become an onion ring of agony. The hemorrhoids had become one, the swelling now minimal but the knob tuned to max on discomfort.

—

He called in sick three days in a row. On the fourth morning, the day of the finals, he repeated something his mother—still hadn’t called her—used to say when he wanted to play hooky on a day he had practice or a game: “No school, no alley.”

He pushed to stand, his hand immediately playing between the crest of his skinny cheeks. The thing had become massive, like a catcher’s mitt of great vengeance and furious anger.

From the freezer he filled a bowl with ice. He’d numb it long enough to get to the car. From there, he’d have to figure things out.

—

Gabbo 15 in a water bottle, he sipped through the pain, taking frequent breaks to visit the washroom to look in the mirror. His clothes were fitting big at the shoulders and waist; it felt as if by nearly an entire size. He’d been stepping on the backs of his trousers all day.

In a cubicle, he hovered over the toilet, prodding at his ass, trying to coax out a little gas; each fart was a moment of lesser pain.

The main door swung open, and sneakers squeaked across the stone floor. “Dude, you going to be able to play tonight?”

—

He got to the alley but couldn’t warm up. He hid in a toilet stall littered with the usual graffiti: this politician sucks that, for a good time call, a line from a Rush classic, a dozen different dongs in Sharpie. He had his pants and undies around his ankles and his shirt hanging on the hook on the back of the door. He used both hands to spread his cheeks above the watermelon-size mass that had become his hemorrhoid.

He grabbed the Gabbo 15 can he’d packed, knowing somehow, someway, the drink and his system conjured a horrid, wish-granting magic. Childproofing removed, he cracked the can and slugged down a third.

“I wish all my past wishes—”

A racking seizure silenced the plea, his head jerking back on his neck. An ovular dent appeared in the middle of his forehead, as if someone had Pillsbury poked him. The dent fell inward, growing wider the deeper it sank. Steve dropped to the toilet seat, the hemorrhoid blooming larger and larger, lifting his ever-sinking self higher and higher. Arms bloomed from the bottom of the fleshy growth, stretching out hands, wiggling fingers. They lifted him from the seat as the hemorrhoid slimmed and stretched like hot, hot glass, as the last of the real him was sucked inside. The stretched hemorrhoid formed and reformed until it had Steve Beaupre’s shape, down to every last nook and cranny—butt free of painful growths.

—

“Thank god,” George said, body puddling out of his seat in exaggerated relief once he saw their star emerge from the can.

Steve Beaupre’s Hemorrhoid, now Steve Beaupre, hadn’t quite finished tinting his colour, but nobody seemed to notice. He nodded curtly once at each teammate.

“Hey, Trout’s having a bit of a hard time, you know, what if we put him last; more likely it’ll be one of his shots that’ll clinch it,” James said, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder and whispering in his ear.

The old Steve shot last in the finals, drinking in the attention he deserved. New Steve had other motivations, other agendas, so he agreed with a shrug—his mouth would catch up, by and by, but for now, he’d mastered only the physical motions of the old Steve Beaupre. Soon, he’d master full control; soon, he’d infect dozens of others; soon, he’d be one of the majority.

In the meantime, there was a ball to roll and a championship to win.

XX