He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, straightening his tie, styling his hair, flossing. He tilted his head one way then the other, examining his profile. He felt for his chin. Stubble scratched at his fingertips. He needed to shave.

   Stanley Masterson had cut this evening pretty fine. Having spent the afternoon doing a freshman initiation.

   It was a good initiation to - he had come up with the idea himself. The freshman had to drink the blood from a goat; a goat he had slaughtered earlier in the day, grabbing it by the head, pulling back and slitting its throat. The freshman had to drink directly from the gash. He had successfully passed the initiation and been welcomed to the fraternity.

   But tonight was the Summer Ball and Stanley was already a little late. It was a ten minute drive to Caroline’s and he was supposed to collect her five minutes ago.

   "To shave or not to shave, that is the question?" Stanley said to himself in the mirror. He flicked on the bright light above the shaving mirror and checked his jaw line. With the additional illumination the bristles were clearly exposed. He had no choice. He would have to shave.

   He pulled the razor from the sheaf and rinsed it under the tap. He put a towel over his shoulders to cover his tuxedo. Then he wet his face and applied the shaving foam.

   He began to shave, the razor running up his throat, tickling his skin a little, but slicing away those bristles. The blobs of foam on the razor were rinsed under the gently running tap. Then again, the same fluent practiced action, the action that would take, in one motion, all the hair in its path.

   With half his face clean-shaven he checked his watch.

   "Shit," he muttered. "Eight minutes late … she’ll understand - now she wouldn’t want me turning up looking like a tramp, would she?"

   He got to work on the other side of his face, the blade working up his throat to his jaw line, then over that tricky bone area.

   A single line of foam remained on his face, from sideburn to chin, one final line of ascent for the razor. He rinsed the blade under the tap, banged it on the sink to get rid of some trapped hair and then moved it close to his face. He checked his watch again, and then gazing into the mirror, leaning forward, he brought the blade in contact with his soft skinned cheek.

   "Almost done," he said smiling. He brought the razor up, carving through the foam, eliminating the remaining bristles … and he was ready to go. A good job, not a single nick. He grinned.

   "My, my, you are handsome Mr Masterson. Well, yes, thank you for noticing."

   He used a hand to wash the foam from around the sink, removed the towel from his shoulders and wiped his face dry. He tossed the towel in the washer and took a final look in the mirror. A bubble of foam was sitting on the side of his nose.

   "You can’t be staying there my friend," he said as he dabbed at the foam, sucking it up on his finger….

    …And then his nose began to bleed. First a single bead of blood, which rolled down before he could react - so unexpected was the blood bead that when it reached his top lip, he had already opened his mouth in surprise and it had spilled onto his tongue. He grimaced on tasting the blood and leaned over the sink to wash his mouth - but a second and third bead escaped his nose.

   "Jesus, not now!" he called, pinching the top of his nose, resting his weight on his elbow on the sink’s edge. He stared into the pale blue china sink. Then the pale blue was invaded by drips of crimson. He spun the tap so water gushed out and cleaned the sink. But more bloody drips leaked and exploded, forming red eyes, which as they diluted spread further and wider across the sink. He turned the tap off and sighed, shaking his head. Why now, why now did I have to go and get a nosebleed?

   And the blood was seeping from the nostrils, escaping his attempts to block its passage. A constant flow of drips now, as has a tap with a broken washer. No matter how hard Stanley held, the blood continued to spill. He released the pressure for a moment, gazing up into the mirror. He had two dark patches where he had been pinching.

   He grabbed some toilet tissue and held it under his nose, hoping to saturate the blood. For a while it seemed to work. The blood was no longer dripping - so where was it going? The answer dully came as the ball of tissue became heavy, and then the virgin white turned whore red as the blood soaked through.

   Stanley groaned and leaned once again over the sink, removing the ball of tissue and with it, like a cork taken from an upturned wine bottle, the liquid gushed freely, pouring into the sink. Stanley twisted the tap so again it gave water to wash away the pool of sink blood.

   He pinched at his nose, harder than before, wincing in the pain his fingers caused. He closed his eyes and prayed that when he released his pinch the blood flow would have relented. He waited, counting down from one hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, he thought of Caroline sitting and waiting impatiently in her room. Convincing herself that Stanley was on his way - maybe she was now reapplying her make-up. Seventy-seven, seventy-six, seventy-five, and she would be pacing the room, maybe looking at the phone, trying to decide whether to phone him. Fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty, and she would be calling her girlfriends to see if their dates had stood them up also.

   Stanley opened his eyes and the face of the goat he had killed flashed before them.

   He shook his head to dissolve the image and then continued his count: thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty-five. Impatient, he released the pressure to discover the result. For a second nothing, then a huge clot of blood hung from the nostril, hurting as it pulled at nostril hair, stretching them from the roots; the clot hung and swayed - Stanley considered blowing it out. It felt like a balloon of water and it wasn’t dropping. He groped for it then pulled - it plunged and exploded and waiting behind had been a torrent that now escaped, spraying the sink’s china, causing a starburst pattern that might have been considered modern art.

   Stanley stood up, holding his nose - wondering if the blood would ever stop. Then he saw the goat in the mirror, the same black head, and the same beady eyes that he had looked into earlier that day before slitting its throat for the sake of the initiation. His pinching fingers released, and blood spilled down his front, staining his white shirt.

   He held his nose, as if trying to hold his breath under water, holding it all in, but pain fired through his brain - he could imagine the blood pooling inside his skull, rising around his brain, drowning it. He had to slacken his grasp and as he did the most furious jet of blood so far sprayed the tiled floor.

   He darted around the room, trying to find a way of stopping the flow. He shoved his head under the tap but the water only diluted and made more blood. The tissues were useless. Then as he turned he slipped, arms flailing and he fell to the floor, one of his fingers snapped as it cracked down on the tiles - he shrieked in pain, sobbing, trying to reach for the door handle.

   He was drenched in the crimson liquid.

   He managed to clamber up to his feet, trying to suck air in through his mouth as his nose was blocked with the constant stream of blood, but as he did, blood rushed in and he had to spit … but too much entered and he coughed and choked. Leaning forward, gasping for air, weak limbed, he glanced to the bathroom window and he saw it again. Standing out on the gravel roof was the black goat. Watching, its lips raised in what might have been a smile. More likely an evil smirk. Stanley could clearly see the gash he had inflicted to the goat’s throat. Only it no longer bled.

   As he turned, blood pumping from his nose and splashing his feet, he lost his footing again and this time his head came down, cracked on the side of the bathtub and knocked him senseless even before he hit the floor.

# # #

   Caroline, fed up of waiting, had called her friends Jane and Kristy to collect her with their dates. They had arrived and agreed to take her round to Stanley’s, as he wasn’t answering the phone. They arrived outside the house.

   "I’ll just be a minute," she said, running over to the front door. It was locked and no one answered the bell so she went round back, collected the back door key from under the stone frog. She entered the house.

   "Stanley?"

   She wandered around the house, looking for any sign of her boyfriend. Up the stairs she went, reaching the top and noticing the red liquid coming from under the bathroom door.

   "What the hell is that? Stanley are you in the bathroom? Are you okay?"

   She put her hand over the handle, pushed down and pulled - the door flung open much faster than she anticipated and with it came a canal of blood, gushing passed her legs - her jaw gaping, her hands rising towards her face and she was ready to scream. The scream came as the river of blood knocked her off balance and she plunged, swept down the stairs by her boyfriend’s blood - her boyfriends and that of many others judging by the sheer quantity. She lifted her head, panting, crying, and wiping the redness from her face, from her stinging eyes. Then she saw the pale body of her boyfriend sliding, bouncing down the stairs - she shrieked, watching all the time as the body speared towards her; his blood saturated head striking her stomach like a battering ram as she shrieked.

   The flow stopped, and now there was only the sound of a thousand drips. Blood trickled, dribbled, dripped over each stair. Caroline stood, shivering, daring not to look at Stanley’s corpse, ankle deep in blood. She forced open the door and the trapped crimson leaked, spurted onto the driveway and towards where her friends were standing on the pavement, smoking. They pointed, they screamed and they ran, trying to avoid the blood’s searching streams - but it pooled around the car’s tires, splashed under feet.

   Caroline walked out onto the bloody driveway, staring vacantly, trying to wipe all thought from her mind. As she reached the car, Jane hugged her, not knowing what one should do in such a situation.

   It was then that Caroline noticed the goat’s bloody footprints trailing off into the bushes.