The following story is a piece of fiction based upon no real incidents or upon the lives of any persons living or dead. This story was written in 1977 for a high school English paper and has never been published.
THE GHOUL
I recall with trembling fear the night my friend Louis lost his connection to life and humanity. In all my nightmares past and present his fate is the one I fear the most. The reason for such fear is that I faced the same terror that Louis faced however, I was lucky, I escaped.
It was late one summer’s eve, a dreadful eve, when my best friend left this world. He had finished off an entire gallon of beer between the two of us. With an awkward walk and a wayward smile we departed from the Silver Beard Tavern near the bay. We proceeded toward the complex where we each had a one room efficiency apartment. Louis and I grew up on the same street and both got married to really obnoxious ladies at about the same time. Now we are both divorced, making child payments but have enough to either buy food or drinks. Since we both had similar marital and financial situations we both chose buying drinks.
One night we were both really tired after working all day and then drinking until the bartender asked us to leave so he could close up. We decided to take a shortcut down a narrow dirt road which was crowded with blackberry briars on both sides. It was hard to walk straight down the road without veering off into the briars. I felt several scratches across my face and the briars seemed to reach out and grab onto my clothing as though they were trying to hold me back so I could not go forward down the road.
Louis was a happy sort of fellow who tried his best to laugh at even the poorest of jokes. Somehow he saw my continued struggle with the blackberry briars as something so funny that he bent over and almost feel to his knees with laughter as his own feet staggered uncontrollably beneath him. Louis had a big oval face and always smiled when he was not outright laughing. “You know Paul, I think you’re drunk” Louis remarked as he teetered from side to side.
“You know what Louis, I think you’re right,” I responded with a big belly laugh. I laughed really hard but then I felt a little sick and felt the taste of vomit rising up in my throat. I forced myself to calm down so I wouldn’t get sick and loose the equivalent of my life’s savings there in the middle of the road.
After walking a couple of miles we realized that we were not on the right dirt road and we were going quite a ways out of town. The road was impassable by car because of the huge ruts in the road. We pretty much new no one would be coming along so we could not hitch a ride. It was really late and we seemed to be lost. We turned around and walked back toward what we thought was town but after walking for nearly an hour the road seemed to be disappearing and there was no lights from a town to be seen in any direction. The only sign of civilization we could see was an old stone cottage that was just down the road another hundred yards.
We had almost reached the cottage when Louis collapsed on the side of the road laughing like a mad man. His clumsiness sent me into an intoxicated hysteria of laughter as I staggered over to Louis to try to help him up to his feet. As Louis rose up we heard a horrible scream that seemed to come from everywhere in the surrounding forest. Once Louis got to his feet he suddenly decided to run toward the cottage as if reaching the old pile of stones would somehow save him from being lost deep in the Michigan woods with some hideous creature closing in upon us. I followed Louis on the run toward the stone cottage but we did not run far because we each tripped over our own feet and went down hard face first on the ground.
After falling to the ground Louis and I elevated ourselves to our feet. We looked toward the stone cottage but a large dark shadow had appeared before us. It stood on two long legs like a phantom taking human form. His arms were raised as if to grab us up like a bear embracing its dying prey. Its arms and hands were very human except like the rest of the body they were gigantic even when compared to the largest of men. The creature moved very near us and I could see it was covered with hair. But, although the creature was so close we could feel its warm breath on our faces we were just like a couple of rabbits. Louis and I were just too frightened to run. An instinct had kicked into our semi-lucid minds that it might be better to stand still and hope not to die than to run and antagonize the creature to commit a quick kill while stopping us from getting away. I finally realized why rabbits freeze instead of run. The rabbit just wants those few extra seconds of life that would be lost in a quick pursuit and slaughter by a predator.
I looked up at the creature as it stood right before us and noticed that the monster was more than four feet taller than either Louis or me. Louis was still mesmerized by the great monster when the monster grabbed Louis by the head and quickly snapped my friend’s neck and let the body fall limp to the ground. The creature scowled at me as he grabbed Louis’s body and dragged it into the briars and out of my view. I then heard the carnivorous sounds the creature made as it devoured the flesh off from poor Louis’s bones. I turned around and I ran as fast as I could down the old dirt road.
The sun was coming up when I reached town and reported what had happened to the police. The police did not believe my story and placed me in the jail for being drunk and disorderly. They also questioned me about the deep scratches that I had across my face and a heavily circled black eye. I replied that my face was scratched up by briars and that my black eye came about when I feel face down in the road.
There was never any trace found of my good friend Louis. I have come to the conclusion that the creature consumed Louis’s body completely; flesh and bones and even the clothing he was wearing. After devouring Louis the creature must have taken off to some remote area to hide.
I eventually found the old stone cottage and it looked like a fix-it-upper in the daylight. I moved in and since the cottage was located deep within a National Park I did not have to find someone to approve of my taking over the cottage. I just assumed it to be mine. I also liked my reclusive home since I no longer had any authorities coming around to ask me more questions about recent disappearances and cannibalism. The cottage was well out of the way of any people but, occasionally a lost tourist would wander along at night. Although other incidents of people completely disappearing have occurred in the area I don’t really worry about being a victim of the great ghoul. I hope that one day I can meet up with the monster that devoured Louis and take revenge by devouring the monster.
In fact I have found that I have a need for human flesh and have taken to eating it exclusively. Often times I find the graveyard an excellent place to find nourishment but not unlike the mysterious creature, I like fresh meat once in a while, don’t you?
