Cameron Pierce: Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

Inside my stump, a toilet toad croaks. Otto’s toad croaks too. Here they come. I dig my fingers into soggy wood and hold on for dear life.

Slap! A tongue slips inside my rectum. Far longer than a goblin finger, the tongue wriggles all the way inside me and swims around my belly. Fed only the skin of children, there’s nothing inside me for the toilet toad to grab, so it wedges another vital organ from its place. The pain differs from night to night, depending on what the tongue decides to pull from my body. Tonight is the worst kind, my insides flaring up like I’m full of a thousand long knives.

I scream. Tears clean some ash from my cheeks. The ass goblins do not care how much we cry during dinner, so long as we plant ourselves to the tree stumps and let the toilet toads do their work.

My ass cheeks swell out as the tongue stretches my rectum wide enough for a large organ to plop out. Blood and feces gushing out, I focus on bracing myself to the stump. This is the point where some kids fall into the toilet, never to be seen again.

Then it’s over, at least the first part. The toilet toad squeezes around my rear and hops into my lap. Toilet toads always melt a bit, as if they’re made of chocolate. They’re shit, though. Pure shit.

The toad wags its tongue, presenting me the pulsing red blob that it stole from my body. You never know what you’ll be eating for dinner until this point. Tonight it’s my heart. “Eat! Eat! Eat!” the ass goblins chant, relishing the festival of child misery.

I glance over at Otto. Apparently he’ll be eating a kidney. “It’s alright,” I tell him, “I ate one last night. They taste better than the rest.”

He glares at me, his eyes gray and his face in shadow. He’s dead inside, broken. He unwraps the toad tongue and raises his kidney to his thin lips, takes a bite.

I take my heart in my hands but get caught up watching Otto. He smiles for the first time since the ass goblins took us from Kidland.

“Eat! Eat! Eat!”

Otto spits a kidney stone. The toad on his lap snatches it up and disappears between his legs, down into the tree stump. I didn’t even know Otto had kidney stones. Maybe that’s what has upset him so much. I hope he feels better now.

The toad sitting on me slaps my face three times in a row, smearing bile. I wipe the back of my left hand across my lips, but the toad slaps me again. The toilet toad is forcing me to eat with my lips covered in coppery-sour fluids. Best to finish fast. Fortunately my heart is small. I swallow half in one bite. Chew, chew, chew, vomit rising in my throat, chew some more, swallow. Satisfied, the toilet toad returns to its home. Subdued by agony, I choke down the second half.

The ass goblins stagger through the bathroom to ensure that every toilet toad is gone and that all children have eaten their dinner.

A few stumps down from Otto, a little girl holds something bloody in her hands. My vision is bad, but I know the mystery meat is supposed to be her dinner. She might be newer to Auschwitz. New kids usually have the most trouble stomaching their own organs.

I grip my stump, hoping this girl will just eat it. She still has time. The ass goblin inspecting our row moves slow and looks incredibly drunk. She needs to stop crying and stay strong. She doesn’t understand. I would yell at her, but I am not the type who sacrifices his own hide for strangers. No heroics here.

The ass goblin reaches the girl and hoots loud enough for everyone -- ass goblins and children alike -- to fall silent and watch. The hoot of an ass goblin sounds very similar to a trumpet, an instrument I used to play. When an ass goblin hoots, you know Shit Slaughter is coming. Apparently, this girl never caught on. She shoves the meat into her mouth. Her cheeks balloon out. The goblin scratches its ass and punches her in the throat. The meat flies across the bathroom, splattering across a boy’s face. The girl wheezes and gags.

The ass goblin hoots a third time, jaws widening so far apart they unlock and fold over its head… row after row of rotten teeth.

“Shit! Slaughter! Shit! Slaughter! Shit! Slaughter!” the ass goblins chant.

The goblin picks the girl up by the throat. Her face turns blue. Vomit dribbles down her chin as the goblin takes her in both hands, turns her upside down, and shoves her up his own ass.

He jiggles from side to side and waves both sets of claws in the air. Egg-smelling steam burbles from his mouth. The ass goblins stop chanting. The big moment is almost here.

A swastika made from the little girl blasts out of the goblin, flinging shit as it spins around the bathroom and bounces off the walls. The goblin in Shit Slaughter mode bumbles after the swastika. After a pursuit that makes my head spin, its head of teeth snaps shut around the former girl, grinding her up. The ass goblin’s head returns to normal. Dinnertime is over.

The ass goblins hardly pay attention to us during the ascent from the bathroom to our barracks. I must not be the only child who dreams of taking advantage of their drunkenness, but fear outweighs everything else. They go S.S. far more often at night.

Only one ass goblin watches over each barrack. After counting off two children in every bunk and turning out the lights, they lock the doors and drink cider with the others on night duty, usually checking in once every hour.

Otto and I climb onto our bunk and lie on our backs. Every muscle in my body aches. Tonight, I will force myself to rest. Besides Otto, Frannie is the only kid who has talked to me in Auschwitz. Now, in different ways, both of them are gone. One vanished into silence, the other into nowhere.

The lights go out. I am already fading when someone pinches my leg. “Otto?” I whisper.

“It is me, 999.” he says.

“What’s wrong?”

“I am afraid.”

“I’m afraid too.” I wonder if that’s all he wanted to tell me, or if I should push him for more.

“They’re going to separate us soon,” he says.

“You don’t know that,” I say.

“I dreamt it.” Otto tilts his head away from me. We sleep as far away from each other as our shared ribs allow.

I shit my pants until I cry.

I stopped dreaming when we came to Auschwitz.

The bones of a cockrat lie in 1000’s roll call nook. The vermin’s meat has disintegrated into a sticky, umber muck that stains our flesh. I pry my fingernails beneath the radiated bones, but they do not budge. Cockrats are the real sentries of night. If you sleep soundly, even for an hour, they leap onto your bunk, snuggle close, and die.

Otto stirs with the morning siren. He punches the cockrat, bruising our joined part. “Why’d you do that?” I say.

“Say goodbye to 1000,” he says.

We scamper out of bed and up the stairs, into a curtain of windblown swastikles. The sacrificial lamb is picked from the litter, breaking the bloody seal of another bloody day.

We drop our trousers and bend over on the apple platter. I try watching Otto, wondering if he truly believes that 1000 will be today’s apple. Otto catches me keeping an eye on him and bares his teeth. 1000 fidgets between us. I squeeze my eyes shut, shut down my mind, and wait for my turn with the finger.

A claw carving another swastika into my flesh, the familiar prodding finger. I am seeing this from above, feeling none of the pain my body feels. I am floating above the crown of the ass goblin’s skull. I must be very small. In my body, my legs would be going through the goblin’s bulbous ass right now. I realize that by will alone, I have shut down my mind. It’s so easy to fly.

The finger no longer plugs my rear, but I am in my body again, and in pain. The ass goblin inspects 1000, taking a lot longer than usual. The ass goblin hoots. 1000 is bawling. I’m about to raise the floodgates myself, knowing I’ll be at the zero point of a Shit Slaughter.