Within the Black Gate: Tales from the Cradle of the Supernatural

    The bathroom was difficult to enter. Filth caked every inch of the walls and floors in a crust of brown punctuated by, of course, black mold. Each of the three holes in the floor meant as toilets were shapeless from the grime. They were separated by slabs of pressed wood attached to the wall, no doors.     This wood was so rotten and unkempt that it sagged and folded like wet cardboard instead. 

As she stepped inside, her rubber slippers suctioned to the ground, having to be pulled free from the muck with each step. It would have been better by this point to have pulled into an alley, but, defeated, she had already made it this far. 

    She tugged the packet of tissues from her coat pocket before pulling down her pants and squatting over her greatest approximation of where the toilet had once been. Even within this stench-ridden prison, she felt immediate relief. 

    Her urine sat in a pool on top of the feces and garbage rot that had seeped inside from the near dumpsters. It eventually carved out a shallow river in an earth of shit in the shape of her flow. The burrowing of her piss was to no avail, the porcelain of the toilet still yet unrevealed if it had ever existed at all. 

    “Blue tissue?” a voice offered, shaking the woman. She peered up to focus her widened eyes on the effigy that now blocked her only exit. 

    Visible in the beams of light from the small windows on each side of the otherwise featureless brick cubicle was a deep red cloak hanging from a completely white mask. Its black slits for both eyes and nostrils and a patronizing smile didn’t budge as it spoke again. 

“Red tissue?” 

    A hand reached out in offer, so dark that it seemed to suck the color from around the edges of the crimson paper it presented. 

    In an effort to distance herself without smashing her bare ass into sludge, she moved back, fearfully presenting her own tissue as a shield. Her pants acted as shackles around her ankles. Daring not to stand, she repeated, “No, no,” with no small hint of panic in her voice. 

    As the figure approached, a shrill scream left her lips. She sucked in all the stench around her, choking on it to scream and scream. The figure pressed onward, extending a hand further as it approached, and when it was close enough to grab onto her, she reached out to swipe at it to save herself. With her hand falling towards the intruder, she fell backward. Her protests became more frantic as she felt the sludge of one million shits before hers molding to her shape in the most intimate areas. 

    It was useless. 

    The moment her hand collided with the hand that reached out, hitting the one that had extended an offer of blue paper, the figure swept her up. It hooked around her, proving a powerful bind that suppressed her no matter how much she fought for her life. Kicking and thrashing and wriggling, she no longer cared if she was sullied in the filth if it meant she could break free. Hands punched, swatted, and grabbed, leaving streaks in the wall and floor wherever they touched as the figure lowered her head down into the hole over which she’d hovered. Wails were muffled into gurgles of agony as her face was pressed deeply into the endless rot. As her body helplessly tried to inhale again, her mouth and nose filled with shit. As she lost consciousness, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for herself to have things end like this. The figure disappeared without a trace, but her body was left for the community to find later.