I slapped at the switch. It winked on, a single, weak bulb.

A mountain of damp gym towels sat piled in the corner. It stunk, but it wasn’t exactly going to leap out and kill me. My face went hot and I almost starting kicking at the pile, except that, with my luck, that would cause a landslide and I’d be smelling like one hundred underarms for the rest of the day.

There came a clanging noise from the shower room.

I glanced over, expecting another false alarm, but noticed that the grate over the center drain had been moved aside. The streams of water leading into the drain were splattered about as if disturbed by feet. Pink daubs of Tub’s blood and my own were mixed in there, too. I took a step back to try to get a better look, and my peripheral vision caught a dark shape lumbering across the opposite end of the locker room.

It was Steve; it had be Steve, out to collect from Tub his overdue five dollars. This time, I wouldn’t let it happen. I lunged into the next row of lockers and just caught the back end of what might be a foot, though it looked too large for Steve. And there was a sound, a glottal, huffing snort so resounding it had to have come from a colossal chest.

I sprinted, my sneakers cracking through shallow puddles. Away from the light bulb, it was even more difficult to identify what was passing the aisles on the opposite end of the room. I saw what looked like giant, hunched shoulders dragging thick arms. But hadn’t I thought the towels were a murderous blob? I sped for the next row and arrived there with a bold, terrified “AHA!”

Tub wrapped his arms around his shirtless torso. He was still working on those damn socks.

“What? Jesus! Come on! Privacy, Jim! Privacy!”

Heavy footsteps crossed somewhere behind me with such force that the tiled floor vibrated. I turned, dashed three steps, and then heard a clanging noise from the shower. I tore around the corner. The grate was back over the drain hole. Had I been wrong before? Had it been in place all along? I grabbed the mildewy wall for support, tried to catch my breath, and thought I saw the grate still shuddering, just a bit.

Few Fridays had been longer. What I didn’t suspect was that it was only beginning.

I exited the school alongside Tub. Predictably, several of the pumpkins lining the front entrance had been kicked in, and the two of us had to step around the scattered guts. Tub made some quip, but the orange gore turned my stomach. I was still stricken by what had happened in the locker room. Naturally I had said nothing to Tub. Either I was going crazy or the athletes of our school had been taking too many steroids. Neither possibility was going to put my best friend in better spirits.