From the garage, she retrieved the plastic drain snake—a long, flexible strip of yellow plastic covered in vicious little barbs, like a medieval torture device for plumbing. She fed it into the drain, twisting slowly. At first, it slid easily. Then it hit resistance.

Second pass: more hair, plus the bobby pin. Third pass: a slimy, grayish glob she refused to identify.

What she saw made her stomach turn.

She ran the shower for a full minute. The water swirled and disappeared instantly, no backup, no pool, no swamp at her feet.

A wet, matted rope of hair—her hair—coiled just below the surface, tangled with what looked like a lost bobby pin, a strand of dental floss, and something that might have once been a piece of soap label. It was the drain equivalent of a mythological hydra: for every strand she saw, ten more lurked beneath.

And the beast is always, always made of hair.

She pushed harder. The snake bent but didn’t break. Slowly, she pulled it back up.

Now, armed with rubber gloves and a grim sense of purpose, she knelt on the bathmat and peered into the drain. The metal cover was crusted with grayish sludge. She pried it off with a butter knife, revealing the dark throat of the pipe.