Horror - Novelette

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. Carnival of Soles Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

CARNIVAL OF SOLES

Terry Weiss flipped ahead to April on the calendar for the umpteenth time to look at the big red X over the 22^nd. In small type at the bottom of that day’s square were the words EARTH DAY. Not that he had it in him to give a damn about the planet.

A bell dinged from the counter behind him and he spun on his rolling chair. A girl with red pigtails stood there; only her head was visible above the counter. She reached up with a five-dollar bill in her right hand, ready to slide it across.

“Another round?” Terry said, rising and smiling down at the child.

She nodded and smiled back. Her mouth was as much dark gaps as it was pearly baby teeth. Across the nearly vacant space between the office and the ten bowling lanes—and their accompanying seating arrangement around the score terminal—was another little girl, about the same age.

“Why don’t you keep the five and get yourself some candy? This round’s on me,” Terry said.

The girl thought a moment, got it, and then ran to the other window around the far side of the office. Terry took two steps right, opened a door, and was suddenly in the food booth. Not long ago, he’d had four employees. Then again, not long ago nobody was talking about the housing bubble. Nobody was talking about breadlines because the factories were chaining their doors closed. Same went for terms like trickledown economics, or lasting effects, or forfeiting homes. Not long ago, even mid-day during the week, more than half his lanes were filled, the beer was flowing, and tabulating a day’s flow sheet ended with a nice black number.

Now, he’d be better off to close up, have a yard sale.

The girl picked out 100 nickel candies and ran back to her friend who stood looking curious, even a bit worried. Terry stepped through the door from the snack booth to the lane office and rebooted their scoring console. That candy was getting hard, and in the end, five bucks wasn’t going to appease the banker on the far side of that marked X.

But that was okay, he was forming a tough but necessary plan and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to get karma points in beforehand.

—

Seeing all those smiling faces in the alley was good, better than good. He’d announced a two-day event a week ago and was now seeing it all come to fruition. Of course, he hadn’t thought of everything.

“Thanks,” Terry said, accepting the returned bowling shoes—both pair were size nine. “You’re waiting for nines?”

The teens who’d been standing at the counter for five minutes nodded in unison. They were red-faced, a bit pimply, tall, and gangly. Both had on McDonald’s uniforms and smelled like deep fryer.

“I’ll just give these a quick spray.” Terry turned with the shoes and reached for the aerosol cannister. It was the last of a case and had gone empty more than a week ago. Almost under his breath, he made a hiss sound while his arm went through the motions of spraying. “Disinfected. Go to lane six. I’ll reboot the system once you get there, few of the guys have been sharks every time a lane clears.”

“They’re dicks,” the one boy said, accepting the shoes and frowning after taking a brief sniff.

Terry only nodded. They were indeed dicks. Free bowling day was meant to push the food and candy off the shelves and have the arcade packed to capacity, not give some tight asses a chance to hoard all the fun while eating snacks and drinking Cokes they’d snuck in with them.

The door to the snack bar opened and Terry’s wife, Fiona, leaned through. “Bud’s dry now, too,” she said. She was looking exhausted, but happy.

Terry pushed the buttons to start the game on lane six for the teens. He gave Fiona a smile. “Good, was just about flat.”

“We’re down to less than three cases of beer, total, without the kegs going. Should one of us make a run to the store?”

Terry shook his head gently.

“So, what happens then, after this money?”

Fiona wasn’t big on knowing the ins and outs of the alley finances but was no stranger to their troubles. If he’d kept the truth a secret, she might’ve been more upset about having to bring the toddler crib into the bowling alley instead of getting a sitter—Arlene had just turned three and Billy was one.

“We hope for a buyer,” Terry said, but this was a lie. The only people buying in that economic climate were vultures, and they weren’t paying for shit but the bones to pick their teeth with.

“Really…you’ve decided?” Fiona said.

Terry’s grandfather had started Weiss Bowl-O-Rama in 1946, some sixty-two years prior, after coming home from Europe with enough grenade shrapnel in his ass to set off metal detectors. In 2004, Terry’s parents took full custody of grandad’s successful baby, but wanted more from life, selling it to Terry for a pittance. They moved to the coast and Terry and Fiona took over as their family began to grow in numbers.

“No choice really.”

Fiona reached out and took his hand. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Terry had grown up in that place. He’d poured his heart and soul into the business, and now, the system had failed him. They owned a virtually worthless bowling alley in a dying town and owed more than $400,000 on the family home. Forget the future, they were in trouble today, huge trouble if he didn’t act before April 22^nd.

—

The crowd was gone. The doors were locked. The beer fridge was empty but for three cans of O’Doul’s non-alcoholic—which he was going to drain before his night was finished.  He threw the final ball and stumbled in reverse, marveling. He’d just thrown a perfect game and there was nobody there to see it. Ninth time in his life after about five million games.

“Best way to finish, huh?” he asked the empty alley.

He slipped out of his personal bowling shoes and walked them into the office. He opened the closet and tossed the shoes in with the others. He’d begun sorting the rentals after the day was done but decided against the effort—a couple pairs were so funky they’d made his eyes water. From beneath the counter, he retrieved his bike helmet and the small binoculars he’d dug out of his grandfather’s things a week ago when he’d first settled on the plan.

He wheeled the old Supercycle outside—he’d been riding around Varney for the last handful of days to normalize the sight—and locked the door behind him. He checked his Timex and gave a single nod. He was within the window.

He hadn’t been just thinking of his home, and losing it, and becoming another family on the road, living in dive motels. He’d also been thinking about futures. Educations. Vacations. Car repairs. Endless tomorrows in a world foreign to him—all he knew was Weiss Bowl-O-Rama; he’d never worked anywhere else, he couldn’t start over and expect to excel, not with all that competition out there.

Terry pedaled until he reached his mark, less than a mile from the bridge at the bottom of the hill. From his pocket he withdrew the collapsible binoculars. They were compact and stainless-steel. He watched the top of the hill. Since he’d lived on the road not a ten-minute drive from downtown Varney, Dr. Marcus Dusseldorf had come along every Friday and Saturday evening, drunk as an Ontarian, leaving the roadhouse further back in the sticks and heading to his farm just five doors down from where Terry himself lived.

The wait was longer than expected, but in the gloomy twilight of 9:02 PM, the familiar truck came up over the hill. Terry pocketed the binoculars and began pedaling. He reached the steel girder at his end of the bridge, his heartbeats rattling like a drumroll, and leaned back in wait. The truck wasn’t going fast, but it didn’t matter, appearances were all that would matter.

Originally, he’d considered a simple injury and a lawsuit, but there were no promises there. Probably the old doctor had drank himself destitute, or would, sooner than later.

“Here’s to your futures,” Terry said, tears playing down his cheeks.

He kicked out from hiding, riding sideways across the old bridge. Likely, if the county had had any money at all, or had someone complained, they would’ve made the bridge a little tougher to fall from.

“Ooh!”

This was the last sound he’d ever make with his mouth. The bike crumpled and he launched over the hood of the truck and then over the rusty guardrail of the bridge. August, the river was all but dry. Terry’s unclipped helmet flew from his head as he dropped the 11 metres to the nine centimetres of water below. The bones of his sinus took the brunt of the impact, shattering and blasting outward like razor-gilded stardust. The rest of Terry’s body followed with a series of snaps, crunches, and splashes.

His life policy paid out double on accidental death—and he’d get that fucking drunk off his road before his kids were old enough to play in the wrong place at the wrong time, at least regarding this man.

—

Arlene was in the living room, eyes glued to TikTok, awaiting her ride. She’d told her mother she was going over to Essexville to see a movie with her friend Anya, but that was because her mother would freak if she knew the truth.

“You eating before you go?” Fiona said, popping into the living room. Her hair was matted down from a sweaty afternoon and her clothes were dusty.

“Maybe,” Arlene said.

“Maybe you should make something for me and your brother,” Fiona said.

After a long eyeroll, Arlene said, “Like what? Anya’s coming soon.”

Fiona was looking down, unbuttoning her shirt, when she answered. “Can of soup and grilled cheese. That too much to ask?”

Fiona hadn’t remarried after Terry’s horrible accident, though she’d dated now and then with no real stickiness to the relationships. Part of that was staying in the house she and Terry had bought, next to a town that had run dry, leaving behind less than 8% of the population—meaning the options were pretty damned limited. Since she didn’t need the money, the bowling alley simply remained closed all these years. But now, with people fleeing the cities and working remotely, Varney had begun to refill, and housing prices were on the rise. She’d had two offers from realtors for the space—both were easy to reject. Her idea, if town was going to get up and running again, was why not be the person who manages the bowling alley? Just as Terry’s father and grandfather had. Arlene was obviously going to college someday, but Billy…unless it was trade school, he’d stop at the twelfth grade. He might as well wax floors, spray shoes, and grease machines on his own terms? It beat the hell out of leaving town for a Walmart job somewhere, or prison security, or who knew what. She’d run the idea by him the week before—enough time to let the hydro people come by and get the juices flowing to the place—and just that morning they opened the padlocked doors, dry-mopped a couple lanes, and tested the dated electronics. The gears of the machinery clunked a little and one ball came back greasy, but all was well otherwise. He was fourteen and over the next few years, she would quit her accounting job at the Shaw’s Brewing Company—she’d taken a course after Terry died and she learned just how bad things had gotten before the life policy paid out—and manage the bowling alley with the help of her dumb but willing son, and maybe Arlene could earn a few bucks too.

“Can of soup and grilled cheese,” Arlene said in a nasally singsong after her mother moved from beyond earshot.

She pocketed her phone and made for the kitchen. Billy burst in through the squeaky screen door. He had the kind of acne that would likely leave scars. Forehead, cheeks, and neck, everything angry and painful looking. Arlene’s contribution to his state had been to suggest it looked badly upon her, not just him, if he walked around with whiteheads or trickling blood, so he had to be diligent with his popping procedures—she’d even showed him the good TikToks to follow on the subject. Now, however, he was obviously sidetracked by his future suddenly opening into something more interesting than stocking shelves for capitalist parasites.

“You gotta see it!” Billy said. “Mom says one day I’m gonna run the whole bowling alley!”

Arlene glanced over her shoulder in between slicing strips of marble cheese off the block. “You have whiteheads.”

He frowned and stomped through the kitchen—he was twice as dirty as Fiona had been—toward the main bathroom.

“Why do you have to be so awful? It’s not like he can help the pimples,” Fiona said, coming from down the hall in a bulky pink robe. “You know, your father had bad acne when I met him. It cleared up by the time he was seventeen and he became very handsome.”

“I wouldn’t know. I never met him,” Arlene said.

Fiona huffed. “You met him. Stop being every teenaged girl from TV and consider that your words might hurt Billy in the long run—you obviously want to hurt him in the short run.”

Arlene spun from the counter next to the stove. “Hurt him? I’m helping him! Whiteheads are disgusting!”

Arlene closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly through her nose. “What are you seeing tonight?”

“It’s called Bodies, or something. Anya picked it.” Arlene returned her attention to the meal.

“What boys are going?” Fiona said as she reached into the refrigerator for a can of coconut-flavored Bubly and the milk carton for Billy.

“Who knows…Anya’s friends from her high school.” Arlene and Anya had gone through elementary and junior high together, but then Anya went north to Essexville and Arlene went south to Andover for high school. Of course, the boys weren’t from Anya’s high school, not anymore. They’d graduated and were back from their first year of college. They didn’t seem to mind at all that Anya and Arlene were only sixteen yet—both had birthdays less than a month away. Not that they brought it up.

“Right. Why would I expect a different answer from that?” Fiona said.

The slim pocket at the side of Arlene’s Lululemons buzzed against her thigh. She unzipped and pulled out her iPhone. They’d be there in ten minutes. “They’re on their way.” She spun from food duty and raced across the kitchen and down a set of stairs to her bedroom. She grabbed the micky of Alberta Pure Vodka from behind a string of supernatural YA novels she’d been into for the last four or five years. She then grabbed the little baggy with the two gummies from inside an old pencil case, sitting in her desk drawer. Both items purchased through Anya’s older sisters. They went into a slim purse that had a surprisingly roomy interior.

She returned to the kitchen. Billy was at the table awaiting his supper—whiteheads popped—Fiona was at the stove. Arlene stepped to the door to look out the window.

“Home by midnight?” Fiona said.

“One.”

Fiona sighed. “Movie won’t take that long. What else are you doing?”

Arlene shrugged without looking at her mother.

“You know, two lanes are cleaned up, so if a handful of you want to bowl a few rounds, it won’t hurt,” Fiona said as she poured the tomato soup from the pot into two bowls.

“I wanna go bowling,” Billy said.

Fiona laughed. “You’ll bowl so much from here on that you’ll dream about it.”

“Okay,” Arlene said, turning. “Where’s the key?” It was rare that her mother had a good idea, but this was a pretty good idea.

“Right there on the table.” Fiona nodded to in front of Billy; her hands were full with soup bowls. “If you take an auxiliary cord, there’s a pretty decent sound system, too. It’s old, so no syncing.”

Arlene scooped up the keys and looked at her mother, head tilted slightly. “Thanks.” She couldn’t tell why her mother was suddenly being cool.

Billy didn’t wait for Fiona to sit. He dunked a grilled cheese half into his soup, bit, and then spoke around the mouthful, “How come we didn’t bowl before?”

Fiona only sighed.

Beyond the door, in the twilight of an August evening in 2022, an older model Lincoln Navigator pulled into the laneway of the Weiss family home.

“See ya later,” Arlene said and hurried away with the keys in her hand, purse slung over a shoulder.

—

 They didn’t go to the movies. Instead, they went to a McDonald’s in Essexville, only a block from the theater, and then began to roll around aimlessly. Anya sat up front with Greg, who was quiet and grew a patchy beard that he kept trimmed. Now and then, Greg’s right hand traversed the open space between the front seats and to Anya’s thigh. Anya acted like this was normal, everyday stuff, minding the stereo by way of her cellphone and talking endlessly about nothing important.

Arlene sat alone in the middle row. She was nervous and bored. A few times she’d thought to offer the bowling alley as a place to go but bit it down in fear that they’d laugh at her. Behind her were two more boys. They were drinking beer from McDonald’s cups and talking about girls they knew from school—mostly the boy named Connor was talking, going on and on about the blowjobs and handjobs and the penicillin prescription he’d had to fill after hooking up with a girl dressed like Ursula from The Little Mermaid after the Halloween dance at the school’s bar.

“She was about that big, too,” Connor said.

The other boy was Tanner and he said, “Man, I gained like twenty pounds at school.”

“That’s okay, young chicks don’t mind chunkers, if they’re older, right?” Connor said and gave Arlene’s shoulder a squeeze.

Anya turned in her seat and grinned back at her friend. Arlene rolled her eyes, but the flush coming into her cheeks told the truth of how much she cared at this moment.

Connor hadn’t removed his hand from Arlene’s shoulder, in fact, it crept lower, closing in on the top of her chest. Arlene squirmed, blurting out, “I have the key to the closed bowling alley in Varney.”

The hand disappeared.

“Bowling alley in Varney?” Connor said. “There’s nothing in Varney.”

“Varney used to be a busy place; before you moved here,” Tanner said. “Used to have three factories and like five thousand people.”

“In like the nineteen-fifties,” Connor said.

Looking into his rearview, Greg said, “Nope. In the ‘oh-eight financial collapse, all the businesses closed, and people walked away from worthless homes. My economics professor used it as a case study.” Greg had just finished the first year of a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurial studies.

“Oh, well, Varney sucks,” Connor said. He’d moved to Essexville in the eleventh grade and ended up at the same college as Greg and Tanner, after graduating from the same high school—almost a quarter of the students who graduated from Essexville High pursuing further education went to Calestoga College, which was two hours south.

“Beats the hell out of driving around listening to your virgin ass lie about pussy,” Greg said and switched on his blinker, taking a rapid turn onto a side street in order to get heading in the right direction.

“Virgin. Only virgin in here is Tanner maybe, and this chick in front of us,” Connor said; the smile in his words did not cover the venom.

“I’m not a virgin,” Tanner said.

Anya had faced forward again but turned and said, “Arlene is.”

Arlene clenched her entire body, curling her toes, making fists, snapping her jaws together. The embarrassment she’d felt heating her collar and cheeks before, scorched her now.

“Always one slutty one and one square,” Connor said. He reached his hand back over the seat, this time firmly on Arlene’s breast. “But we can fix that.”

“Git!” Arlene said, as if shouting at a dumb animal rooting through the garbage.

“Ow!” Connor said, his hand retracting faster than a measuring tape.

Tanner had fed him and uppercut in the ribs. “Being sus.”

“She’s just a little slut,” Connor whined, holding his side. “Fucking simp.”

Greg again looked to the rearview mirror. “Don’t make me come back there.”

—

Greg and Anya discovered the brain of the alley about a minute after they’d entered. With only two clean lanes, there was no need to discuss where they’d post up. The monitors flickered above lanes one and two—the ones closest to the entrance—and Connor carted over the eighteen remaining Coors Light cans and the bottle of Jägermeister. Arlene brought out her own little bottle and twisted the cap. She took a small mouthful and grimaced.

“Yikes,” Tanner said, grinning at her. “Straight vodka is trouble…it’s what a lot of college chicks drink, because of calories…I think?”

Arlene breathed slowly. She had a wet mouth and felt like she might vomit. Straight vodka was never great, but the first shot was always the worst shot. Already, the warmth was spreading to her inhibitions, which was the point of her drinking at all in situations like this. Drinking with these kinds of boys.

“You want a beer?” Connor said.

Arlene nodded.

The music bloomed, but instead of coming from Anya’s Apple Music account, it was an ancient song. “That girl is so dangerous, that girl…”

“I know this one,” Tanner said.

Connor held out a beer, and when Arlene reached for it, he snatched his arm back and said, “Kiss first.”

Buoyed by the modicum of booze in her system, Arlene said, “I’d rather drink piss.”

“Fuck you, you little—”

Tanner interrupted Connor, holding out a beer. “Here.”

Arlene didn’t reach for it.

“Take it,” Tanner said.

“Do I have to kiss you?” Arlene said, having now made up her mind as to how she’d likely spend the evening.

Tanner huffed. “No.”

“Shame,” Arlene said and took the beer, giving the boy the look.

The volume on the music increased and Connor shouted, “We need shot glasses!”

Anya and Greg returned, walking hand-in-hand, some of Anya’s powdery makeup had streaked Greg’s well-tanned cheek.

“Bet there’s cups in the snack booth,” Arlene said and looked across the dusty, cob-webby alley to the shadowy order window.

“Want some company?” Tanner said.

“Maybe,” she said and started away. Tanner trailed behind her a few steps until catching up and bumping her with his shoulder.

—

Light played beneath the door and the mass shifted, slashing out aimlessly at the new stimuli. Sounds came next. It had heard things earlier—though time was not a conscious thought—but none so close. It wiggled its numerous tongues, considering what was happening, sensing an opportunity. With shaky appendages, it reached for the door, ready to depart the only home it had ever known.

—

Arlene’s mind worked much more slowly than her body as Tanner took her into his arms and pulled her tight against him. Their lips were moist and their tongues were cool from the beer. Arlene grinded gently against Tanner’s stiffness as his hands explored her ass. She parted their mouths and opened her eyes.

“Want to take an edible?” she said.

In that moment, she came to the decision that if everything aligned tonight, Anya wouldn’t be making fun of her for being a virgin ever again. And nothing beat the idea of doing it with a college boy, but that mattered the most later, when she’d have to pass social judgement for her actions in the court of the Grand Cafeteria.

“Yeah,” Tanner said. “I’ve only done edibles a couple times…usually too mellow for partying.”

Arlene pushed away, though somehow a third of each of their bodies remained in contact as she dug into her purse. She located the resealable plastic bag and dropped the two 20mg THC gummies into her palm. They were watermelon flavored and pale pink with a dusting of granulated sugar on the outside. Tanner snatched one. Arlene rotated the candy so that she held it between two fingers. They looked into each other’s eyes—as if they were doing something much more serious than a little pot—and popped the chewy, and a bit stale, gummies into their mouths.

“Yeah, okay, can I get an order of titties and ass, please?” Connor said as he leaned in through the order window.

Arlene scrunched up her face and gave a quick scan of the room. On one low shelf were sleeves of paper Coca-Cola cups as well as small paper receptacles, the kind that ketchup went into or penny candies or, in a pinch, shots of liquor. She grabbed the sleeve and held it up.

“These’ll work for shots?” she said, making it a question.

Connor spun from the window and dance-walked back to the lane they had set up. Tanner held out his hand, as if telling Arlene to lead the way. Anya told her that a boy once told Anya that guys did that after making out so they could adjust their boners, so they weren’t so noticeable. It took a bit of effort for Arlene to keep from looking back to see if this was true.

Greg, Anya, and Connor already had their names inputted into the console—GRG, ANY, DIK. Connor snatched the sleeve of would be shot glasses once they reached the group. He set out to pouring dark liquor into five while Tanner put TAN into the system.

“What do you want?” he said, glancing over his shoulder; Arlene was leaned against his back.

“Put SLT,” Connor said.

“Taking thirst Ls doth make Connor salty,” Greg said, holding a bowling ball before his face like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull.

Tanner typed ARL.

Connor straightened, beer in one hand and shot in the other. “Turn up, pussies.”

—

Fiona stretched out on the couch with her tablet in hand, watching an episode of Bridgerton. On the floor, controller in his grip, was Billy. He had on his headset and was playing ice hockey against people from who knew where. Every now and then Fiona glanced to him and then the screen, by the looks of things, he was losing, by the sounds of things, his opponent was trash-talking him.

 “Yeah, well, screw you,” Billy said. “At least I don’t screw my dog. You…you screw bag.”

Fiona paused the show and watched Billy more closely. It was amazing she hadn’t thought of the alley before. It was the perfect place for a wayward boy like him.

“I know other stuff than screw, you…you screw head.”

The Maple Leafs added another against Billy’s Capitals to make 10-2. He ripped the headset off but kept hold of the controller.

“How about we watch a movie after this game?” Fiona said.

Billy nodded without taking his eyes from the screen. At least this beating only had a couple minutes remaining. The Leafs scored again. Billy took a deep, deep breath through his nose.

Fiona backed out of her show and began scanning for befitting comedies. The absurd classic Kingpin was there and she shrugged. Maybe a bit racy for a mother son movie at his age. Though, if he didn’t watch the raunchy stuff with her, he’d have to watch it alone; he hadn’t had a friend over since the third grade, hadn’t gone to a friend’s house since the fourth. Living in Varney and having to make things work in a larger town in high school was never easy, especially not for a pimply dunce.

The game ended 11-5, so at least he’d turned it around a bit after losing the headset, and silencing whatever taunts the opponent had for him.

—

Greg was the only one of them to reach 100 points in the first game. In the second and third games, Connor jumped way ahead both times, the Jägermeister had a way of lubricating his skill. The classic hits of the five or ten years directly preceding their births rang loudly over the stereo, though not as loudly as the crashing of pins.

“Flaming turkey is your god!” Connor said in a raspy baritone, waving his bent arms slowly at his side, on the monitor behind him was a corny cartoon turkey, aflame, running around the score screen.

“This is my last game,” Greg said. “I want to check out the arcade.”

Tanner and Arlene weren’t paying much attention to the screen. They’d been dancing between shots, and now the 1994 slow jam hit from All-4-One, I Swear had them pressed tightly together, her arms around his neck, his hands on her ass.

“Tanner! You’re up,” Anya said.

The dancers parted, getting in a quick kiss before they did so. Tanner was now high enough and drunk enough to forget what his penis might be doing. Greg hooted in laughter.

“Got his tent-pitching badge!” he said.

Tanner only grinned, red-eyed. He picked up a bright orange ball, stepped to the line, and promptly tossed the ball into the gutter. Laughter of his own boiled up as he stumbled backward to get another ball. This time when he lined up, he paused, the grin still wide on his face, and tried to really focus on the arrows down the lane. He aimed one from center on the right.

“Man, hurry up,” Connor said, pouring five more shots.

Tanner looked at the ball then, as if he couldn’t believe he was bowling, and somehow it was still his turn. He reared back, holding his arm behind him for five full seconds, and launched the ball down the lane as hard as he could, nailing only the 10-pin.

Arlene, almost as high, though hardly drunk—one beer and about three ounces of liquor consumed—picked up one of the smaller pink balls and ran to the line, making like she was going to wing the thing, and stopped, bent forward, wiggled her butt at the others, and granny-shot a strike.

“Ha!” she said and ran for another ball. This time, she faced the other way, bent down, and granny-shot blindly. The ball hit two pins that seemed almost willing to stand up to the abuse.

“Shots then ‘nother game?” Connor said.

“Told you, going to the arcade,” Greg said. 

“Yeah,” Anya said, draped against Greg’s shoulder.

Connor turned to Arlene and Tanner.

Tanner shook his head. “Let’s take a break from it for a bit.”

Connor huffed and then took the five shots, chasing each with a mouthful of warm beer.

—

 Anya and Greg lay on the dusty carpet in the gap between the huge Cruisin’ USA machine and a Mortal Kombat cabinet. On the floor next to Greg was the spent condom, looking a bit like an eel that had swallowed a washer. Music from these games, and the others of the arcade, mingled jaggedly with the Bare Naked Ladies coming through the surround sound speakers. Everything smelled stale, but now there was another scent, a bit funky and spoiled. It smelled like gym sneakers and turned yogurt. They hadn’t noticed it before, though before they were moving around, standing upright, taking unlaboured breaths.

Anya still had her bra on, her panties ringed her right ankle like a horseshoe on a stake. She stared up at the ceiling and its myriad glow in the dark stars. “That was fun.”

“Yeah, baby,” Greg said, eyes drifting closed.

“We should do it again,” Anya said, hand gently exploring her quickly chilling flesh.

Greg opened his left eye and looked at Anya. “Only had one condom.”

“Oh.”

Anya’s voice harboured sheer disappointment and Greg caught it. “There’s a machine in the bathroom. I bet they’re still fine…I mean, like, it’s just rubber and stuff.”

Anya bent forward to fix her panties. “I have to pee anyway. We could meet in the men’s room.” She batted her lashes at him. “Try some different positions?” she finished, pouting and big-eyed.

Greg popped up and yanked his boxers high. “Yeah, okay. He started away, shirtless, trying to shimmy and pop into his jeans as he walked. He had change in the center console of the Lincoln and the machine took four quarters.

Pants on and done up, he began to run, passing Arlene and Tanner where they slow-danced on the bowling lane, despite that the music had shifted to Tag Team’s timeless classic, Whoomp (There It Is). He didn’t see Connor. Outside, the air was hot and sticky, much thicker than it was in the alley.

—

“Wow,” Connor said, reaching for a small, pink box coated by a film of dust. It was in a row of other boxes, though they weren’t at all interesting.

Sick of watching Tanner and Arlene, he’d gone wandering and found himself in the snack booth, that, apparently, had also sold novelties. On the shelf were a couple nearly empty boxes of baseball cards and basketball cards, and a full box of hockey cards—price-reduced, according to a bright orange sticker: $2.50—and a half-box of Series 6 Garbage Pail Kids mega packs.

An experienced ripper, Connor opened the pack with no issue, despite that the only thing keeping him on his feet at that moment was the wall. “Rinsin’ Vincent,” he mumbled looking at the first sticker card, which featured a cartoon character taking a vibrant green barf shower. He flipped to the next. “Levitating levy…Levi.” The image was of a snake charmer floating high above his basket and viper on a fart cloud.

The door behind him rattled and he turned fast enough to dropped all but Rinsin’ Vincent. He stumbled, trying to gather the rest of the unsearched pack, and took four unintentional steps deeper into the space, stopping when his cheek and shoulder came into contact with a panel wall. Through the thin wood came a swishing noise accompanied by a juicy, sluicing noise. The door rattled again.

Still leaned against the wall, Connor took three stutter steps toward the door. He turned the knob and pushed. The door stopped about halfway. The light from a computer screen lit only enough to silhouette the dark form—in Connor’s drunken state, it looked a bit like a huge pile of laundry.

“What the fuck?” he said.

From the dark mass, a dozen slimy tendrils shot outward, very skinny and very white, wrapping around his wrists, waist, and thighs. They began reeling with incredible tension. Connor pitched forward wordlessly. He gagged as the gelatinous muck of the form slipped down his throat. Rubbery pads squeaked roughly against his flesh. He attempted a scream as the first bones began to shatter, sending an air bubble to the surface of the strange mass.

The last piece of input travelling to Connor’s brain was a familiar, but out of place image: a 9 in a patch of smooth whiteness.

—

A minor awkwardness had invaded the situation. The hours had begun to mount and the weed in their systems was starting to lose hold. They quit dancing, quit making out, and were on the cusp of the next step.

“I actually am a virgin,” Tanner said.

“Oh, okay,” Arlene said.

They’d moved to two of the molded plastic seats of the lane they’d been using. Tanner steadily looked over his shoulder for movement and Arlene finally got it. He needed privacy to make his move.

“Want to go check out behind the lanes?”

Tanner stood and said, “Yeah, cool.”

There was a door next to lane 10. Arlene led them through. Though she’d hardly been in the alley before, she felt in charge. She’d never been in the back at all. The pin-setting machines were a massive tangle of steel frames and conveyors. There was a walkway behind them; tight enough that when she stopped and Tanner continued forward, their bodies were again pressed together.

“I locked the door behind us,” Tanner said.

Arlene glanced to the lock and then to the boy before her. “You have a rubber, right?”

He nodded as he planted a sloppy mouth against her throat and his hands groped her backside.

“Good. Good,” Arlene said, the words hissing on steamy breaths as her fingers hungrily unbuttoned Tanner’s pants and reached into the hot, hot space.

Beyond, the music was dull. Around them the room was bright. They might as well have been in a whole different building aside from the bowling alley.

—

Greg popped the quarters into the machine’s slider. The offerings included a handful of different sex novelties, aside from the condoms, things that seemed silly and excessive. He turned the dial to the regular condoms—a two-pack for a buck—and slammed the slider in. The condoms slipped down into the tray like a gumball, and he snatched them out. He squeezed gently at the packaging to test the seal. Still good. They had no branding. On the back was an expiration date from 11 years prior.

He chose to ignore this. The condoms went into his pocket. Before Anya got there, he moseyed up to a urinal. The bass of a dance hall song thumped beyond the walls and then stopped abruptly, mid-track.

He was the driver, if they thought they were leaving before he got a second round with Anya, they were doing so on foot—unless, of course, she’d changed her mind.

Zipped up, Greg stepped out the door and said, “Hey, who cut the tunes?”

No answer returned to him and he scanned the alley. He saw none of his friends. His nose wrinkled. That stink was back, stronger now. He took a deep inhalation of it, and another, and another. He leaned around the office doorframe. The lights were out, but the computer was lit to the audio mixer screen. The play button was large, black on grey. Greg grabbed the mouse and immediately retracted his hand as if burnt. A slime trail connected flesh to plastic like the cheese of a Pizza Hut ad.

“What the fuck?”

His pocket vibrated and with his clean hand, he withdrew his cellphone. It was a text from Anya. I’m here. Where r u?

He moved the cursor over the play button to resume the music. The thumping beat recommenced and he turned to head through the door. A slimy appendage jerked out, a Garbage Pail Kids sticker smoothed against its wrist beneath a gelatinous grey membrane. It took gooey hold of Greg’s shoulder and yanked him into the huge, lumpy mass.

“Hey!” Greg shouted as he tried to fight off the thing—beneath the outer layer, the texture was rough and yet soft, like the unfinished side of a strip of leather. And then it was hard, stiff, and yet pliable. “Help!”

His bare feet squeaked across the tile floor and the mass consumed Greg whole, writhing and squishing a semblance of chewing through bone and muscle. It then began to vibrate.

—

They’d laughed through Kingpin—Fiona doing so a bit awkwardly at times—and had begun watching the extremely clean-cut and well-behaved teens of Stranger Things. Fiona remembered a lot more smoking and offensive treatment in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

Billy stilled his body on the floor. “You think I’ll ever get a girlfriend?”

“Of course. Why you worrying about it now?” Fiona knew why. When she was his age, being someone’s girlfriend was of dire importance.

Billy said nothing, only shrugged, his eyes still on the screen.

Uncertain of what to say, Fiona spoke without really thinking. “Some people bloom in high school. Some people bloom later. The people who bloom later are happier for a hell of a lot longer than those who bloom as teenagers.” After she said this, she had to acknowledge that at least some of the time, this was true. She herself had bloomed in high school and it had gone downhill, mostly, since.

“You mean like Brock Trottier and Cameron Gibbs are going to be fat losers with no hair and have bad kids?” Billy said.

Fiona laughed politely. “I guess they might.”

“Good. Brock Trottier told all the girls I have more pimples on my butt than on my face. I hope he dies all alone.”

Now Fiona laughed nervously. “Once your hormones…” she trailed; the hormone subject was well-trodden ground.

“I know.”

Fiona lowered her legs and patted the seat next to her. “Why don’t you come up and give your mom some snugs?”

With exaggerated sluggishness, Billy pushed up from the floor and shuffled to the couch. He put his head on her lap and his feet on the armrest. Fiona absently stroked his hair next to his ear.

—

Anya used the toilet and then fixed her makeup beneath the garish lights of the ladies’ room vanities. In the men’s room, she shot off the text. The music resumed, followed by a crash and a shout, both she assumed were bowling-related sounds. It wasn’t until she heard Greg’s plea, not what he said, but the pitch of it, that she understood something was happening out there.

Anya stepped to the door and pressed her ear against the cool wood. All she could hear was the thumping music. No more screams. She put more pressure on the door and swung it about an inch wide. She saw only the bowling alley. She let the door fall closed.

Uncertain of what else to do, she pushed it open a crack and said, “Greg—?”

Something grey and slimy with strange splotches of red, blue, and brown appeared in front of the door. Through the gap, white tendrils like shoelaces fired out; one taking purchase between her teeth, and the back of her throat. The tendril spun around her uvula. Anya bit down. The tendril yanked her through the door, jarring her jaws unclenched. The tendril, now unobstructed, tore away the soft, soft flesh and a shower of blood geysered out of her mouth, onto the great gelatinous shape.

Anya fell backward, trying to scream but gagging on the pumping blood. The thing was huge, and within its undulating form, she saw Greg’s face, his eye sockets empty, his expression void. Slipping from little metallic rings, its tendrils wiggled frantically, some reaching out several feet. The thing started to slip toward her, squeaking rubbery sounds—those sounds pinged a hit and she saw it then.

This thing had once been a mass of bowling shoes.

On her hands and knees, choking up blood, Anya tried to move. The tendrils—the laces from their brass eyelets—snapped out and grabbed her ankles. She fell flat, moaning and wailing. Her hands screeched wetly on the waxy floor as the thing pulled her in reverse. The smell was horrendous, like public basketballs and gym bags and—her thoughts ceased there as the form consumed her and then began shivering all over.

—

“Do you want a beer. I need a beer,” Tanner said. He’d only just stood up to dress.

Arlene was on the floor on a quilted pad they’d found back amidst the pins. She was naked but for her socks. “Yeah, okay,” she said, thinking things hadn’t been as special as she’d thought they might be, though she was excited to enter the new club.

Tanner opened the door, the music a hair clearer and louder for the three seconds it took for the door to fall closed on its own. Alone, her nakedness seemed a lot less appealing. She dressed quickly and then checked her phone. It was already 1:30 AM.

“Fuck,” she said. Her mother was going to have her ass.

In fact, there were three text messages from her mother. The final being: Are you at the bowling alley?

Arlene sighed as she typed, Ya lost track of time.

The door opened and Tanner waved two beers inside a moment before he popped back out and the door closed on its own. There were two thumps followed by a shouted, “Wait!”

“Tanner?” Arlene said as she hurried to the door.

She pushed the door wide and grimaced at the scent. The sight left her paralyzed with terror. A giant gelatinous mound—nearly as tall as the ceiling was high—had Tanner strung up as if knotted into a hammock. The tendrils holding him seemed to tense. Tanner’s flesh began to bulge. His eyes and tongue began creeping from their respective orifices. The flesh of his arms began ballooning as blood pooled and swelled.

Impossible, this grand mass of gunk and leather and human pieces. Arlene put her hands to her face. What she saw couldn’t be. She was on the worst pot trip in the history of bad pot trips. Her hands lowered. The thing had eyes, but they weren’t its own. She recognized Anya’s eyes, her best friend’s eyes!

The tendrils tensed further. In an instant, uniform in action, the tendrils tore through Tanner, sending out an incredible gush of blood that painted Arlene hot, hot red. She screamed.

The thing didn’t seem to care, instead, it moved its body like a mop, soaking up Tanner. It began to shake, tendrils and leathery tongues flapping excitedly, before growing a foot larger in every direction.

Arlene stumbled to her left, her cellphone slipping from her slick grip and tumbling into the righthand gutter of lane ten. She didn’t notice and took three more plodding, clumsy sideways steps. The thing shifted and seemed to face her as bits of Tanner writhed into the mass like fruit chunks in a Jell-O salad.

A tendril lashed out and Arlene had to dive from its path. She rolled and slid. The thing was moving, and faster than seemed possible for a huge gelatinous mass. Arlene pushed upright and began running. She cleared the lanes and reached the terminal and seats of lane six, jerking into a left turn.

The thing writhed over the obstacles, consuming what was loose and shivering as it grew thicker, taller, more horrible.

“Arlene?” Fiona said.

“Holy shit!” Billy said, pointing.

They were just inside the door, and for a moment, seeing her mother jarred something loose in Arlene’s brain, forcing the thought forward: she knows I’m not a virgin! Her feet slowed and the whipping tendrils caught her by the ankle. She slammed down face first.

Billy immediately ran toward the mass. “Let her go!” he screeched, snatching up a junior bowling ball and firing like a shotput at the thing. It bounced once before it struck, and fortuitously so. It nailed the tendril that had taken hold of Arlene’s leg, releasing her. She scrambled forward as Billy bent to grab another ball from a rack not ten feet away from the mass. He reared back to throw.

“Run!” Arlene got to her feet and was racing toward the door.

“Billy!” Fiona passed her daughter.

The thing had Billy and the bowling ball he’d planned to throw. A long and pained squeal left him as the thing forced Billy into its mass, tongues and soles working like the cogs of a grinder. It began shaking as it consumed.

Fiona picked up a chair along the way. “Billy!” She slammed the chair into the form.

Eyes as wide as the universe, her terror spanning twice that distance, Arlene watched from the door. Tendrils wrapped around her mother’s ankles and then around her abdomen, beneath her armpits. She began to scream vowel sounds, then she split, coming apart like a Christmas dinner cracker. Instead of confetti and a prize, organs and bone debris and chunks of muscle and gallons of blood splashed outward.

“Mommy?” Arlene whined.

The thing undulated, writhing forward, consuming all on offer. It again began to shake. Growing.

Arlene pushed out into the muggy night and stumbled across the dark parking lot to her mother’s car. She tried the handle—locked. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” She slammed her dirty, sweaty palms against the windows. The doors of the bowling alley burst open and the great grey thing began oozing out like chunky Play-Doh through a pasta press. Billy’s head momentarily bobbed to the surface of the form, his mouth wide, wide, wide open beneath the gooey membrane.

Arlene spun from the thing. “No!”

—

 There were no neighbours on either side, nor directly behind or directly across the street from James Webber’s new home. He’d left the city three weeks earlier with enough money to be semi-retired at 39 thanks to soaring urban real estate values. The only tough part had been getting used to a dead town where nothing really happened. To quell some of this negativity, he’d invited six of his buddies out for a weekend of bonfires, booze, and all the D&D they could fit in.

They’d quit playing about half an hour earlier when things got a bit goofy, thanks to a couple rounds of Seagram’s VO shots with White Claw chasers. Now, the fire was lively and the guys were comparing failed Tinder and Grindr dates.

“That’s nothing. One time—”

“Help!” Arlene stumbled into the yard from the street. “There’s a monster! It’s eating everything!”

The men looked at the disheveled girl suddenly standing in their midst but said nothing and did not move.

“I mean it! There’s a monster!”

One man began chuckling nervously above the crackling fire sound. Distantly, noises echoed from beyond the backyard and Arlene began spinning slowly, hands in her hair, muttering “It’s coming. It’s coming.”

James Webber stood—it was his backyard after all—because somebody had to do something. He put his hands out to stop Arlene. “Is there someone we can call for you?”

Another point of unease concerning Varney was that all emergency services now came from out of town—local fire hall, empty; local police station, empty; local health clinic, empty.

“Who? They’re all dead! Dead!” she screamed, wrenching away from the man’s touch.

The other men stood, all had their hands before them in useless supplication, as if begging her to calm down. A car alarm sounded from the direction Arlene had come from, and one man reached into his pocket. “That’s mine,” he said and started jogging through the gloomy side yard and past a row of tall, unkempt shrubs.

“It’ll eat you alive!” Arlene backed away from the fire, eyes scanning where the man had departed.

The car alarm ceased.

“Tony?” James called out.

In answer, rain fell upon them in fat drops. Hot drops. It lasted only a moment. The men looked at their arms and then each other in the bonfire light. The rain had been dark.

Trees snapped and electricity fired from up high on posts. The meager offering of streetlights was suddenly out. Everything beyond ten feet from the fire faded into the void of night. The men tightened together, all but James, he stumbled closer to Arlene.

Lashing like lightning, long white tendrils reached for throats, yanking two men into the abyss. Their screams were short, surprised, and pained. Two of the three remaining at the fire spun and took up burning logs. They began waving them. The third man turned to grab a log of his own, but his feet were yanked out from beneath him and he whiplashed down into the cherry coals of the bonfire before sliding away into the night.

“We have to run!” Arlene grabbed James by the shirt sleeve.

He ignored her and picked up the gas can he’d used to ignite the bonfire—the great equalizer for inept city folk looking to roast some marshmallows. He untwisted the nozzle cap, then swung it underarm. The can whipped out into the blackness and hit something glistening and writhing. On the way by, the gasoline vapors reached for the burning logs the men held and danced along the path. The flames lit and the monstrous gelatinous mass ignited. It shook and shimmied.

“Got you, you fuck,” James said through clenched teeth.

It had to stand 15 metres tall and eight metres wide. The crackling sizzle sounded promising until the thing barreled forward, rolling over the men holding torches and then the bonfire itself. Arlene broke through the yard, heading back for the street. James attempted to follow but great grey arms reached from the mass, beneath the goo was the rough leather of rental bowling shoes.

“Help!” he screamed, stalled abruptly after a single step like a false-starting sprinter. Everywhere the thing touched became one with the thing, James’ flesh adhering to the grey membrane until he quickly succumb to the ravenous form.

Arlene ignored the screams and the car alarms and the glittering electricity spraying from downed lines. She ignored the crunching of tree limbs and the barking of dogs. Her mind remained set to run, thinking there was nobody to stop the thing in Varney, and it was growing. With every bite it took, it grew! How big would it be after eating the dead town? Then what?

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what the monster would look like after a few hours of feeding…a day, a week, a month. How long until it ate the whole world? Not long. Not long at all.

Could it be stopped? Would there be enough firepower in Essexville if it went there next? Not likely. How big would it be after it ate through the county?

A steady moan played up Arlene’s throat as she passed the faded and peeling WELCOME TO VARNEY sign. The cacophony of chaos sound-tracking her wake kept her legs pumping and the tears flowing. Just how big could it get?

“As…big…as…it…wants,” she said through gasped breaths.

XX