Benny shivered. “Dunno, and I don’t wanna know. But reading that stuff made my mind feel greasy and unclean. Kinda like plunging your hands into a bucket of raw liver, blindfolded.” He looked at his friends with frightened, pleading eyes. “C’mon guys, let’s go back to town and forget this. Something just feels wrong out here.”
Steve laughed and fluttered his hands. “Wooo-ooooo. You really had me going, there. I thought the old fart might be into something serious. Like cheating at bingo. Or whacking off while watching his neighbors through binoculars while they showered. Anyway, Harmon’s been feedin’ the worms for a year, so what does it matter?” Then he reached under the seat and fished out a roll of toilet paper. “All this talk’s plumb scared me shitless, or soon will. Think I’ll put that outhouse to good use before we trash it. Opening the door and getting out, he added, “You pussies with me, or are you gonna sit here crappin’ your drawers over some old dead fart’s fucked-up hocus-pocus?”
Moments later, the trio walked briskly through chest-high grass and weeds. After making their way around the side of the house, they spotted the slanted roof of a small building next to a barbed wire fence at the back of the yard. “That’s it,” Steve said, leading the way.
As they drew closer, Benny lagged behind and fanned the air. “Whew! You guys smell that? Seems the outhouse has had some visitors, recently.”
” Smells like a turd that gargled rotten fish for dinner,” Steve replied. “Probably potential buyers who stopped by to check out the house. I mean: would you buy a home out in the sticks if the shitter didn’t work?”
Larry laughed. “You’re a trip, Steve. Seems to me that outhouses oughtta be ‘mechanically foolproof.’”
“Yeah,” Steve said, grinning in the moonlight. “Unless your family happens to be elephants. Anyway, you guys hang while I go take a honkin’ dump.” Pacing rapidly to the weathered, wood structure, Steve threw back the door on rusted, protesting hinges. “Fuckin’
one-seater,” he said over his shoulder. “No wonder the old codger never had any dates.”
Benny and Larry milled in the yard a few feet away while Steve closed the door, and attended to business. From inside, they heard a muffled string of farts, followed by sighs of relief.
But in the space of a few heartbeats, Steve’s mood changed from one of relative contentment to one of startled surprise, followed by unease edging toward fright. “What the hell?” he yelped, jumping up from the wood seat. “Hey, you guys! Something’s down in the crapper. It just brushed my ass.”
Larry laughed and said, “Sure, Steve. Take your prank and stuff it you-know-where.”
“I’m serious, man! There’s something in here,” Steve said in a frightened, falsetto voice.
Through the closed door of the outhouse, Benny and Larry heard Steve frantically moving around, attempting to yank up his pants.
He was too late.
Suddenly, Steve’s frightened yells cut the crisp night air like a razor. “Get away! Oh, oh God. I-it’s got me. N-no! Nooooo! Please. Not that. Anything but that. I-it’s….crawling up my ass. Oh, God, it hurts, it hurrrrttttsssss…”
Benny and Larry stood rooted in fear while a series of hard thumping noises mixed with Steve’s screams, issued from inside the outhouse. Then several times in succession the dry-rotted sides of the outhouse bulged, creaked, and rattled like the brittle bones of a geriatric old man gasping for breath. Inside the groaning structure Steve’s screams worsened, acquiring a quality edging toward insanity.
The scene was nothing compared to the horrors that followed.
Without warning, the top of the roof exploded off of the outhouse. Rotten planks rained down around the pair, and one splintered plank pierced Larry’s arm.
But they never glanced at the planks; their eyes were riveted by a scene of horror far worse.
Suspended twenty feet in the air above the ruined outhouse, Steve screamed in extremis. Between his forcefully parted legs, a glistening, pulsing, gelatinous mass that thickened rapidly toward the ground weaved and danced, forcing Steve to bob and dip with it like a grotesque human puppet. Occasional wet sucking sounds accompanied the irregular upward pulsings of the wet, glistening monstrosity, etched forever in their terrified minds beneath the light of a pregnant yellow moon.
As more of the horror forced its way inside Steve’s body, his screams gave way to moans. Dark blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, and his lolling head sank to his chest. Unable to turn away, Benny and Larry watched while Steve’s body, stuffed with more of the horror, bloated until the skin was stretched drum-tight. And then without warning his body exploded with a wet ripping sound, raining grisly chunks of bloody flesh down upon the horrified pair.
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