by Ronald Kelly
“It’s showtime, little lady,” snapped a voice from behind. “Now get up off your lazy ass and get on that rope!”
Maggie turned to see Max standing behind her, holding the bullwhip in his hand. “I… I can’t,” she said, eyes pleading.
Max grinned, then lashed out with the whip. The tip cracked like a gunshot next to Maggie’s head, loud enough to make her ears ring. “I said to get out there! Now!”
With her heart full of dread, Maggie stood up and walked to the very edge of the platform. When she looked over, a sensation of dizziness threatened to overcome her. But her fear of heights wasn’t the strongest horror that she felt. For, positioned directly underneath the high wire, was a huge, circular cage with an open top. Even from where she stood, Maggie could see what eagerly waited for her to slip and fall. A dozen emaciated, half-starved lions and tigers paced restlessly around the floor of the cage. Every now and then they would look up at her, roaring and hungrily licking their chops.
A cheer rose to the roof of the Big Top when the audience spotted her standing at the edge of the platform, on the verge of stepping onto the tightrope. Maggie turned back toward the pole, but found the circus dwarf walking toward her, brandishing the whip.
“Get out there, you little tramp!” he said. “Walk that damn rope before I slice you to bloody ribbons!” He cocked his stubby arm, ready to unfurl the whip and drive her onto the rope… and toward her death.
But before he could act, the expression on his face changed from menace to confusion. “What the hell – ?” he muttered, staring at her. Or, rather, into the open space just above her left shoulder.
Puzzled, Maggie turned and peered into the gloom. Suddenly, from out of the darkness, she spotted someone swinging her way on one of the suspended bars of the trapeze. At first, she thought it was someone else coming to terrorize her, perhaps the fiendish clown named Bobo. But instead, it turned out to be someone who was rushing to her rescue. Someone she knew very well, but would have never associated with such a display of compassion and bravado.
“Tom?” she cried out, her eyes growing wide in disbelief.
A second later, her teenage brother released the trapeze bar and landed unsteadily on the platform, looking a little shaken. “Maggie!” he said, nearly out of breath. “Thank God! Are you alright?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” she said, stunned. “But what are you doing here?”
“What does it look like, knucklehead?” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve come to save you.”
“We’ll see about that,” laughed Max. He cracked his whip threateningly. “Now the Colonel has two tightrope walkers. The crowd’s gonna love this! They’re gonna get two for the price of one!”
“I think not!” challenged a voice from behind him.
Before Max could react, General Tom Thumb had grabbed him from behind in a headlock. The circus dwarf attempted to break free, but Thumb was much too strong and tenacious for him.
“Let go of me, you freak!” huffed Max, growing red in the face.
“Those felines look practically famished,” Thumb said. “Why don’t you go down and feed them?” And, with that, he ran toward the edge of the platform at full speed, taking the struggling Max with him. Thumb stopped and released his hold on the little roustabout, flinging him bodily from the stand and into the open air. Max shrieked and attempted to grab hold of the rope, but his fingers missed by only a fraction of an inch. Screaming all the way, Raven’s crony plunged downward, toward the heart of the cage.
He hit solid earth with a dull thud a few seconds later, then was immediately pounced upon by the pack of ravenous beasts.
“Quickly!” the famous dwarf called to sister and brother. “Down the pole!”
Maggie and Tom did as they were told. A minute later, they were back on solid ground once again.
“What now?” asked the girl.
Tom looked around frantically, as if looking for someone. “I’m not sure,” he said.
“You’ve ruined my show for the very last time, girl!” snarled a voice full of venom and contempt.
Suddenly, from out of the darkness, emerged the lean form of Circus Horrific’s sinister ringmaster, Colonel Raven. With him was Bobo the Clown, clutching the butcher knife threateningly in his gloved hand.
“I will not be disobeyed!” Raven told her. He reached out and grabbed the twelve-year-old roughly by the hair of the head. “Now I shall accompany you back up to the wire and you shall complete your performance. And, in turn, you shall give the crowd that which they crave!”
“Let go of me!” shrilled Maggie. She attempted to break free, but the more she struggled, the tighter his fingers seemed to entwine her long blond hair.
Tom stepped forward, his face full of anger. “Turn her loose, you bastard!”
Before he could come to his sister’s aid, however, the homicidal clown interceded. He blocked Tom’s path, tossing the big knife teasingly from one hand to the other. “Back off, buster,” he said, laughing. “Or I’ll take your head clean off at the shoulders!”
Raven was about to drag Maggie toward the ladder that led upward, when a great trumpeting sound filled the air. They turned just as one of the black tent’s canvas walls ripped open and a gigantic elephant burst through, bringing the light of day with it. High upon its back rode P.T. Barnum and Emmett Kelly.
An army of sideshow freaks converged on the rampaging pachyderm, as if intending to intercept it. But their attempt was futile. Jumbo raged onward, flinging some of its attackers aside, while trampling others mercilessly underfoot.
Bobo laughed crazily and started toward the elephant himself, ready to plunge his knife into the gray beast. But before he even drew near, Weary Willie jumped down and confronted him. He raised a huge seltzer bottle and skillfully sent a well-aimed sprits straight for the maniacal clown’s face. The contents of the bottle were not water, however. Sulfuric acid drenched the killer clown’s broad face, causing him to shriek in agony. Bobo dropped his knife, then fell to his knees and clamped his hands over his dissolving face.
Suddenly, Colonel Raven found himself surrounded on all sides. The cruel arrogance that he had exhibited earlier was gone. In its place were fear and panic. He tried to make a break for it, but Jumbo was too quick for him. The elephant’s trunk whipped out and wrapped around Raven’s slender waist, snatching the evil circus owner completely off his feet.
“What shall we do with him, Miss Sutton?” asked Barnum, riding high atop the pachyderm’s back. “It’s your call.” The Fiji Mermaid perched like some hideous pet on his left shoulder, chattering excitedly and flapping its fish-like tail.
Maggie thought about it for a second. Considering all the terror Raven had subjected her to, she knew there was only one fitting fate for the sinister ringmaster. She ran over to the iron cage in the center of the circus ring and opened the door. “Throw him in!” she said.
“No!” screamed Raven, his face blanched with horror. “Have mercy!”
“Did you show me any when you forced me to walk that high wire?” she asked coldly. Maggie turned her eyes back to Barnum. “Do it.”
Colonel Raven shrieked as Jumbo flung him bodily through the open doorway. As Maggie slammed the door shut, Raven landed in the center of the cage with a thud. Stunned, he sat up and looked around. The leering faces of a dozen lions and tigers glared at him, their muzzles dripping red with the blood of Max the Dwarf.
As the big cats leapt at the screaming man, Maggie turned away. “I’m ready to get out of here, Tom,” she said wearily.
Tom placed a hand on her shoulder. “Can you do it?” he asked. He was as eager to be away from the dreamscape as his sister was.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”
“A word of warning before you go, young lady,” P.T. Barnum told her. “The scoundrel who sent you here has evil plans for your hometown tonight. And he will succeed in bringing them about… if you and your friends don’t confront him.”
“Do
you mean Augustus Leech?” she asked.
Kelly mugged his famous frown and nodded sadly.
Tom Thumb swaggered over and kissed Maggie’s hand gallantly. “Take care, my dear.”
“I will,” she said. She looked up at her brother and extended her hand toward him. “Are you ready?”
Tom smiled, took her hand, and squeezed it gently. “Ready when you are, sis.”
Maggie looked around at the gathering of friendly circus folk. “Thanks for everything.”
“It was our devout pleasure, Miss Sutton,” said Barnum, tipping his hat.
The girl tightened her grip on her brother’s hand and concentrated. The vast audience vanished, followed by Barnum and his cohorts. For a second, Maggie and Tom stood alone in the middle of the deserted Big Top. Then it too vanished, plunging them into pitch darkness.
~ * ~
The sound of jackboots crossing the concrete floor drew Chuck’s attention.
The other prisoners had been escorted from the drafty barracks over an hour ago, assigned the grisly task of digging mass graves for those who had died, but had not been incinerated in the Fuhrer’s hellish crematorium. Chuck had been left behind, unable to join them in their degrading assignment.
He suddenly found himself looking up from his lower bunk into the grinning face of the Fuhrer. The dictator was accompanied by two German soldiers holding Schmeisser submachine guns.
“We have come for you, Herr Adkins,” said the Fuhrer. The lean man stood ramrod straight, his hat cocked jauntily upon his head and his woolen coat draped foppishly across his narrow shoulders. “You are worse than those vile Jews,” he said. “You have lost the power of your legs and are of no use to me as a laborer. You are a cripple. Utterly useless. Therefore, you shall be terminated immediately.”
“What do you mean ‘terminated’?” asked Chuck. But deep down inside, he knew exactly what the evil leader was talking about.
“Take him to the crematorium!” the Fuhrer ordered. “And do not bother gassing him first. I want him to die in agony. I want him to feel the heat of the flames as they char the very flesh from his bones.”
Chuck struggled as the soldiers lunged forward and took him by the arms. Soon, they had carried him from the barracks and were dragging him across the muddy yard of the compound, toward the solemn gray structure of the crematorium. As they grew closer, an ash from the billowing smokestacks drifted earthward and lodged in one of Chuck’s eyes, causing it to sting. In horror, he realized that it was probably all that was left of some unfortunate soul.
The soldiers ignored the long line of prisoners who awaited their turn in the toxic showers and carried Chuck straight through the heavy steel doors of the crematorium. The moment they entered the long room with its row of ovens built into sturdy cinderblock walls, Chuck was stunned by two things. One was the oppressive heat of the crematorium, which was in constant use, twenty-four hours a day. The other was the smell; the horrible stench of burnt flesh. Chuck knew at once that this was what Hell must be like.
The Fuhrer marched over to an oven whose door stood wide open. The sliding steel table that was used to deposit the bodies into the fire that awaited him, barren, except for a coating of fine gray ash. “Secure him to the table!” he commanded. The dictator with the vertical mustache and the insane eyes grinned at Chuck. “You invaded the Fatherland to stop me, Adkins. You came to liberate the Jews and Gypsies from their rightful destiny. Well, you have failed! Instead, you shall suffer the same fate as they have. But alive, rather than dead!”
Chuck was forced to the warm surface of the gurney. Iron clamps were fastened around his wrists and ankles, making escape impossibility. “You can’t do this!” he protested.
The Fuhrer laughed. “Oh, but I can,” he said smugly. “In fact, I have done it many times before. Millions upon millions of times.”
The evil dictator was on the verge of cranking the rotary handle that would send Chuck headfirst through the oven door and into the blazing flames of the crematorium, when a tremendous explosion rocked the building. All heads turned toward the entranceway. A huge tank crashed through the concrete wall; an olive drab tank with a United States flag flying from its radio antenna.
After the tank had made its grand entrance, a man on horseback followed, leaping through the jagged hole in the wall. The rider – a bearded man in a Confederate uniform – sent his mount galloping forward. He drew a .44 revolver and fired, taking down one of the stormtroopers. Chuck recognized him from a book on the Civil War he had read recently. It was none other than Robert E. Lee.
Two forms emerged from the tank. One was a World War II infantry soldier holding an M-1 carbine. The other one was a complete surprise. It was Chuck’s father, of all people!
“Surrender, you godless kraut!” growled Sergeant Saunders.
“Never!” retorted the Fuhrer. The dictator nodded at the remaining soldier. “Gun them down.”
The stormtrooper turned and fired a long burst from his Schmeisser. Nine-millimeter slugs rattled off the armor plating of the Army tank, neglecting to reach the general. Saunders brought his .30 carbine into line and fired. A single bullet hit the German soldier squarely in the center of his gray tunic, knocking him off his feet and sending his machine gun spinning through the air.
Joe Adkins caught the Schmeisser and turned its smoking muzzle toward the Fuhrer. But the dictator had beaten him to the draw. He held a Walther P38 in his gloved hand, its sights aimed squarely at Joe’s chest. “You came in vain, Yankee bastard!” he said with a sinister grin.
But before he could fire, the Fuhrer felt the muzzle of an Enfield rifle pressing firmly against the back of his skull. “Drop that there pistol, mister,” said Alvin York in his Tennessee drawl. “Or I’ll put a bullet square in yer brainpan and drop you like a turkey buzzard.”
The Fuhrer’s face turned as pale as lard. His fingers opened, dropping the Walther. The pistol hit the cement floor with a clatter, tumbling out of his reach.
Joe discarded the machine gun. He ran to his son and began to unfasten the brackets that held him down. “Are you okay, Chuck?” he asked as he freed the boy and lifted him into his arms.
Chuck stared into his father’s face and saw heartfelt concern there, rather than detachment. “Yeah, thanks to you,” he said.
The boy looked over to see General Lee approaching. “It’s up to you, son,” he said. “Do you want to take him prisoner… or give him what he really deserves?”
Chuck didn’t have to think twice about it. “Clamp him to the table,” he replied, his eyes full of contempt. “And give him a taste of his own medicine.”
The Fuhrer shrieked as Saunders and York wrestled him onto the gurney and fastened his wrists and ankles firmly in place. Chuck watched him buck and struggle, his eyes wild with panic. Then the boy leaned down and worked the crank, sending the murderer of humanity into the fiery bowels of the crematorium. Soon, the Fuhrer was completely inside. He screamed long and loud as the flames engulfed him, first burning away his clothing, then his flesh. The door of the oven slammed shut, sealing away the crackling of fire and the shrill howls of intense agony.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Chuck asked. He felt physically and emotionally drained.
“It is,” agreed his father. “Are you ready to get the hell out of here?”
“You better believe it,” said Chuck. He turned and awarded the three fighting men with a respectful salute. “Thanks for your help, guys.”
“It was the least we could do, Sergeant,” said Lee. “By the way, I have received word that trouble is brewing on the home front. Leech is up to no good. It’s up to you and your comrades to put an end to his treachery, once and for all.”
“We’ll see what we can do,” said Chuck. He reached up and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck, then focused his mind, driving all thoughts of war away. Soon, the military men and the tank vanished, followed by the stark gray walls of Auschwitz’s damnable crematorium. Darkness engulfed t
hem and they soon felt themselves drifting weightlessly, as if in a gentle freefall.
The last thing to depart was that overpowering stench of burnt human flesh. Then, an instant later, it too was a thing of the past.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Maggie opened her eyes.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she found herself not in the black canvas tent of Circus Horrific, but lying on the bed of her own room. The events of the past few hours began to fade from her mind, like the remnants of a bad dream dissipating with the dawning of a new day. She glanced over at her bedroom window and fond that it was dark outside. Had she only slept a few hours? Or had an entire day passed?
Maggie would have almost thought that the whole thing had been no more than a nightmare, except that she awoke holding someone’s hand. The girl sat up and stared at the person next to her. Lying on the floor beside the bed was her brother Tom.
“Hey,” she said, giving his hand a yank. “Wake up, will you?”
Tom opened his eyes and stared up at her. “Hi, squirt,” he said with a yawn. Then he was jolted completely awake when he realized what had just taken place. “What happened? Did we make it back okay?”
Maggie smiled. “Yeah, thanks to you.” She stared at him, puzzled. “So why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Why did you come after me?” she wanted to know.
“That’s a stupid question,” said the teenager, sitting up. “Why wouldn’t I?”
