Outhouse

Stammador stepped carefully and quietly as he made his way to the small rectangular structure behind the temple, trying not to wake any of the slumbering acolytes. The moon and stars covered the world in a sheen of silver, the darkness nipping at the faint glow, trying to fend it off. The pines shuddered in the chill breeze as it tickled their branches and slid among the needles. It was a quiet night in the small town of Ghoss, which was just over two days’ walk from any large cities. The peace of the quaint little community was broken ever so slightly by Stam’s gag as he approached the outhouse. Even with the closed door, the smell of years of waste wafted free of their prison through the small holes that allowed for ventilation. Stam took as deep a breath as he dared and tried to hold it, to brave the putrid fumes.

Stammador pushed the door open and nearly vomited as he entered the outhouse. He debated leaving the door open but the churning in his stomach told him he may be here a while, and he didn’t want anyone to walk in on him. With regret but resolution, Stam closed the door and slid the wooden block into place to keep it closed. Stam crouched over the hole, counting how many new shoots of stubble had poked out along his cheeks. He was only seventy, barely in his adolescent years, and he was already showing the signs of a beard. Stammador was so proud, most gnomes didn’t grow their first stubble until they were in their early hundreds. He had counted eighty-eight new hairs when a groan came from outside the outhouse. “Occupied,” Stam quickly piped, before returning to the important task.

“Ahhhhh,” the groan came again. It was more aggressive this time and joined by a heavy thud on the wooden door. The outhouse trembled from the blow, and Stammador almost fell backward into the hole. The outhouse was made for humans, after all, and could easily swallow his gnomish figure whole. His stout legs managed to keep him from making a mess of himself as he tried to find words for the rude person outside. Stam hadn’t been very lucky so far in life, or maybe he was the luckiest gnome alive. It was a matter of perspective. His family were traveling peddlers, but Stammador was not good at peddling. An excellent meddler with a curious nature, his family decided they could no longer afford the trouble and so had left him to fend for himself in the small town of Ghoss. He had become a regular at a local temple, and soon an avid student of the friar, which gained him a home and an avenue for his constant curiosity.

A scream broke Stammador from his ‘squat thoughts’ as he liked to call them. The scream was shrill, bloodcurdling, and full of unrelenting horror. As Stam could only crouch in fear, utterly paralyzed, the impatient person on the other side of the door began to pound on it, beating it with all its unrestrained might. The outhouse shook again, unable to tolerate the abuse. Another scream followed the first, and a third and fourth soon joined. It was a symphony of horror, an orchestra of pain that reverberated under the glow of the pale moon. Stam saw flashes of light through the chinks in the outhouse walls as fires began to pop up. Not many at first, but growing and multiplying in seconds; before the breaking door to the outhouse had even completely splintered, they merged and grew into a true conflagration.

Stam cried out and lifted his arms up in front of him, shielding his face and neck as he was stabbed by the fragmenting wood. Splinters punctured up and down his forearms and thighs, his breeches still sat around his ankles. Fortunately, his heavy hempen shirt caught most of the wooden spikes that would try to imbed themselves in his stomach and chest. From under his bleeding arms, he stared in horror at the ghoul before him. It was gaunt, practically skeletal, with what remained of its flesh dripping off its bones in globs. No eyes peered out from the hollow skull. The teeth chattered hungrily in their sockets, clinging to their bone for dear life as the tissues that would hold them had long rotted away. Bony fingers with claw-like nails reached out for Stammador, grasping the empty air between them. “Z-Zombie!” Stam screamed. His cry was unnecessary as he scuttled backward to avoid the foul horror before him. The creature groped outwards, trying to maul the fresh meal before it could escape.

The ghoul lunged forward as though the shriek from Stammador was calling it to him. Stam felt his body sink suddenly and his hands shot out, barely catching the edge of the massive hole. The gnome was thankful for the adrenaline pumping through him as it helped him ignore the ghastly smell which rose from depths below. Unsure what to do, he swung his legs down into the pit and out of reach of the monster. He quickly shuffled his hands back, his arms locked at the elbow to hold his body up and his feet clapping against the semi-solid excrement. His nose burned, his eyes watered from the fetid smell, that now mixed with the smoke that hung in the air as the homes of Ghoss continued to burn. The fire acted as ominous beacons, spotlighting the horror that played out around him.

The ghoul hissed in frustration, trying to grasp at the retreating meal. Stam felt his exposed rump hit the back rim of the pit and quickly realized that any attempts to run with his breeches around his ankles would be futile. His rear shuffled across the dirt edge as he kicked his legs frantically, trying to remove his pants. The shearing claws swung just under his throat and Stam watched in horror as his growing whiskers were shaved clean into the foul void below.

His left leg kicked free of his breeches and he scrambled back again before the creature managed to swing its arm around. Stam swung his legs up, rolling backward into the wall behind him. He thumped against the wooden wall. “Oh, what luck,” he groaned over the backdrop of the ghoul’s muffled hiss. Stam hit the back wall with his fists in frustration, and more than a little resolved for what was to come. He waited for death, only able to hear the booming of his heart and surging of his own blood. Another muffled hiss finally caused him to peek back over his shoulder. The ghoul was thrashing about, its head trapped within the hole, obviously having lunged forward too eagerly, oblivious to the pit.

Stam watched in horror and anticipation, hoping that the creature would drown. If it didn’t, and escaped, he was pinned in. Stammador took a deep breath, ignoring the rancid smell that assaulted his nostrils. Courage was needed now. With a shaking hand, Stam reached for a long wooden sliver that stuck out from just below his elbow. He bit his lip to stifle a scream, causing blood to run down his now bare chin. The wooden spike wiggled free as droplet after droplet splashed in a growing pool below his elbow. Feeling lightheaded but seeing no other option he raised the spike up above the thrashing ghoul and, with all his might and weight, he plunged it down, driving the shard deep into the back of the creature, just below the skull.

The thrashing immediately stopped, as though Stammador had severed all of the creature’s nerves at once. Not stopping to ponder his good fortune, he used the limp ghoul’s body as a bridge, running for the fragmented door and for the trees. Too scared, too shocked to go back. He just wanted to escape.