Brawny

Gary wasn't afraid of anything.

Dark rooms, creaking closet doors, vaccination shots, timed multiplication tests - none of it bothered him. He checked for monsters under the bed and was disappointed to find only partnerless socks and dust. He took his time getting the winter jackets out from the crawlspace under the basement stairs, hoping he'd see something move out of the corner of his eye. He convinced his friends to play Ghost in the Graveyard in an actual graveyard.

Nothing scared Gary.

Except for one thing.

There was one thing that made him feel like a plug had been pulled out from the bottom of his stomach, filling him with a sick, swirling, slithery chill. It was something he never admitted to anyone. It was too embarrassing.

Gary was terrified - cold-sweat, buzzing-ears, teeth-tingling terrified - of the Brawny paper towel man.

For as long as he could remember, just a glimpse of that tanned, grinning torso turned Gary from a swaggering ball of energy into a huddled, shaking mess. There was something horrifying about the unnaturally broad shoulders, the eyes that didn't seem to really be focusing on anything, the white, white teeth that were just a little too big. It all added up into something that looked like a man, but which Gary was sure was only a thing. And he thought he could feel the baleful malevolence of the thing gazing at him through its dead, waxy man-mask.

As soon as he was old enough to stay home, Gary started refusing to go to the grocery store with his mom. He couldn't handle the paralyzing dread that dripped unrelentingly into his skin as they approached the paper-goods aisle. He hid in his room when she got home from the store, refusing to help her unload the groceries. She always grounded him for it, but anything was better than having to stow the paper towels in the darkness under the sink.

Once the wrapper was off, the paper towels didn't bother him. But Gary never took the last sheet off the roll.

He let someone else put a fresh one out.