Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

by Cameron Pierce

  Chapter Twenty

  I fly higher and higher, out of reach, ass-tracking Otto and the Frannies. They’re crazy to think riding into this madhouse was a good idea.

  I catch sight of Otto. He bulldozes ass goblins by the dozen, but the ones ahead and behind him are catching on. They swarm into sword patterns with other cyclists to pierce Otto’s shell. The Frannies are nowhere in sight.

  The White Angel ceases his one-goblin play. He skip-skip-hops off the stage and spreads wings identical to mine, only his are white. He soars through the air without flapping.

  I worry that Otto might be unaware of the surprise attack, then realize that the White Angel zooms toward me, not him. I go higher.

  Hundreds of feet above the labyrinth, the White Angel corners me. It is very silent up here, like my outer space daydreams way back in Kidland.

  The White Angel raises his fists. “Where did you learn to fly? That’s not in your DNA structure. I installed your wings for purely aesthetic purposes. That way you never forget who your father is.”

  “Father?” I’m confused. “What is a father?”

  “Never mind the father talk. You’re an ass goblin. A lousy ass goblin.”

  “Look at my eyes. My eyes prove I’m a child.”

  I consider my odds of defeating the White Angel in an aerial battle. A thousand reasons why this is a terrible idea rush through my head, but I see no alternative. I would rather die trying than hit the butcher’s block with an apology on my tongue. I guess the others have felt this way all along.

  I rake both pairs of claws across the White Angel’s belly, catching him off guard. He snaps to, realizing that I’m challenging him to a fight.

  The White Angel laughs. He swipes at nothing, mocking me. “Join me,” he says.

  I swing my ass around and blast the tooth at him. He’s too swift for kid tricks and dishes me a playful slap upside the head.

  “Join me or be destroyed!” he says, raising his fists again.

  Three figures run onto the stage. I point and yell, “Who are they?”

  When the White Angel turns, I flap like mad, taking full advantage of this escape opportunity. The White Angel flies in a reverse beeline, hooting and farting. He dives, no longer heading toward the stage. I catch sight of the Frannies. He’s narrowing in on them. There is nothing I can do to stop him at this point. He’s stronger and already has a huge gain, so I descend and search for Otto. If we’re to save the children, we can’t all go down at once.

  There he is.

  I fly low, stirring every nightmare of falling into wakeful alarm. I swoop into the maze between Otto and the goblin pack that threatens to penetrate him from behind. I barely manage to keep pace with the cyclists, but soon realize a second asset of farting. Farting make you faster. Gas provides that extra oomph to make up for clumsy wings.

  I descend to within a few feet of Otto. “The White Angel has the Frannies,” I yell.

  “Go to the stage,” he says. “Rescue them and get out of here. Help the children.”

  “What about you? You can’t pin this on me,” I say.

  “Save them!” he rumbles, sensing the encroaching cycle spears.

  I flap out of traffic to the stage. The White Angel twirls out of the labyrinth, wings shimmering. He holds the Frannies and my bicycle in his arms. He takes footing and tosses the Frannies toward the three forms -- all of them ass dolls. An ass doll picks up my bike. The two others suction-cuff a Frannie in their lower ass, holding them prisoner.

  The White Angel is the first to see me coming. He twists his wings to form a pale umbrella. "Silence!" he cries.

  Otto halts in the very center of the labyrinth. Ass goblins hit their brakes. They don’t even need to rotate into formation. They’ve already got him surrounded. Despite his goblin crushing, Otto has ruined everything for all of us. His armor cracked and broken, there are too many ass goblins for him to handle. A thousand brain tires screech, then nothing, no hoots or disgruntled mutterings. In the distance and above, gunfire. Apple gore oozes down the walls.

  "Let us go!" the Frannies say, but the moment isn't right to bail them out. Not yet.

  The White Angel turns up his palms. "The essence of life is war," he announces. "So what is the value of a life lived and lost in battle?"

  "It is the value of toys," the ass goblins say.

  "And what do toys bring us?" the White Angel says.

  "Toys bring freedom! Toys bring freedom!"

  "If toys bring freedom, and war possesses the value of toys, then what is war?"

  "War is freedom! War is the essence of life!"

  I watch Otto, wondering why he stopped bulldozing goblins. What is he waiting for? Then I catch myself. What am I waiting for? Why am I not saving the Frannies? No right time exists, not even for the things we must do. If we fail to act -- even if we choose the wrong action -- we’ll be slaughtered like the apples. Otto is absolutely correct. We have to fight. Life isn’t about survival. It’s about choosing.

  “Before the battle proper, we must offer up a sacrifice,” the White Angel says. In swirls of rainbow voltage, his wings light up. A green and red swastika blinks off and on amidst purples, oranges, blues, and yellows.

  The ass goblins lift their heads and howl, "Adolf! Adolf! Adolf!"

  The White Angel spreads his wings. I go Shit Slaughter. Without taking notice of me, he reaches for a lever built into the stage. I run toward him, arms extended. The claw attached to my left hand tears through his wings as they clap together, as he depresses the lever. And the roof retracts.

  The underground labyrinth rises. It halts level with Auschwitz Square, destroying all of Toy Division’s factories. Swastikles collect on the dead buildings. Children are corralled beside the two ships. They wear swastika blindfolds. Ass dolls stand in a circle around the apple platter, rectal guns raised. Ass goblins ride from the labyrinth, pedaling through icy slush. It is all very theatrical.

  I start to back away from the White Angel, but he catches my hand and pulls me close to him. His face spreads into a jagged grin that shows no pain. It is rounder than the sun.

  His breath clouds around my noseless face like rotten, buttered fruit as a third ship -- a fraction the size of the other two -- zooms out of the fog and lands onstage. “Someday you will understand why I am this way,” the White Angel says.

  He tosses me aside and staggers toward the ship. A lone ass goblin steps backwards out of the ship. This ass goblin is naked and has the biggest, most wart-infested ass I have ever seen. Green cheese oozes from eight sausage-length nipples that sag from his sunken chest. All over its body, pimples explode like pus-infused stars. Flies swarm in a crown above its head. Even from a distance and with my poor eyesight, I see its mustache.

  “Adolf!” the Frannies scream.

  Adolf and the White Angel bow, then engage in a slapping war. After whacking a lot of chocolate cake out of each other, the White Angel and Adolf scoop up handfuls of cake and shove it up the other’s ass. They embrace. This must be how ass goblin leaders shake hands.

  “Adolf,” the White Angel announces. “With these mutant inheritors of Auschwitz, I welcome you back from your sex odyssey. Without further adieu, may we witness how they play in combat?”

  “Intolerable, despicable,” Adolf says.

  The White Angel ruffles his wings. He gestures toward me. “What seems to be the problem? That child is half ass goblin.”

  Having been absent during our transformative days, Adolf appears angry and bewildered. We are not the children he used to murder, not anymore. “I see the ass goblins have degenerated into weak, stupid creatures in my time away.”

  “They have always been stupid,” the White Angel says. “Given half a chance, my prototypes will provide a bridge to even stronger, purer ass goblins. And when we venture on, they will ensure that Auschwitz becomes more brutal, filled with more toys.”

  “We will see about your mutants . . . in a three-way battle!” Adolf flails his arms and st
omps his feet. “I declare, my stupid, loving slaves, it shall be the ass goblins versus the ass dolls versus the children! The strong must earn the chair they sit on if they want to drink at my table. No more fucking toy business! No more fucking freedom killings! The final conflict has begun!”

  Despite being unsure what fucking means, I understand Adolf’s message. And I decide I’ve heard enough. I scramble for the Frannies. Mesmerized by Adolf, the ass dolls restraining them fail to notice me. I uppercut one of them and follow with a left hook to the other. My arm sinks into her upper ass. The first doll springs to her feet. I rip my arm free and yell at the Frannies to move. The dead dolls’ rectums slacken enough for the Frannies to pull free. I never wanted to pick this battle, but it’s too late. I’m here, squaring off with a doll who must die.

  She scissor kicks and misses. Frannie 2 steps between the ass doll and I. She bends over, twisting her butt in front of the doll. When the ass doll reaches for her, the toilet toad pokes out of Frannie 2’s rectum and coils its tongue around the midsection between the doll’s two asses. The doll falls in half.

  Frannie 2 grabs hold of my wings, throwing me off balance as a figure waddles toward me. Before I can react, Adolf clocks me in the jaw. I stagger and swoon over the edge of the stage. He throws a few more punches but none of them connect. I hopscotch sideways along the cliff until I regain my balance. Frannie 2 slips and falls. “Wahhh!” she screams.

  The White Angel tackles Adolf and smothers him beneath his ass. He poops on Adolf’s mustache. Adolf starts to yell in protest, but then breaks into laughter. He rakes his claws through his mustache, smearing the bile. “Fucking kill! Kill for freedom!”

  Frannie looks terrified, but she manages to crawl in my direction. I scoop her in my arms and flap my pink furies. As we descend, I remain as close to the stage as possible. Below us, the dolls and goblins battle. They’re drunk on war, emitting fouler odors than ever before. Hopefully Otto can fend them off.

  We reach ground level, the ruins of Toy Division, as the Shit Slaughterers pedal forth. Barbwire ropes fly out of their bicycles. The ropes coil between the dual asses of dolls and slice them in half.

  The ass dolls spread into a half circle, each firing two rectal guns. The heads and asses of Shit Slaughterers explode. These ass dolls are cutting down the cyclists like it’s target practice. A few children remove their blindfolds and attempt to flee, but they’re cut down. The others fall to their knees and bow their heads. They’ve been submissive so long, they forgot how to rebel or act for themselves.

  In the midst of this disaster, Frannie 2 has little chance of surviving. “Come on,” I

  say, taking Frannie by the hand. She lets me this time. We’re going to find her sister.

  I turn my head for a second, long enough to see the ass dolls cutting down another cluster of Shit Slaughterers. Frannie trips over a headless goblin. Without losing a step, I scoop her onto her feet. Frannie 2 yelps nearby. We scan the crumbling structures, searching out nooks where she might have tucked away. She cries out a second time, sounding much closer. I look down and there she is, trapped beneath the ass goblin Frannie tripped over. I can’t believe we missed her. I roll the goblin to the side and take both Frannies in my arms, then FLAPPPPPPPPP. We rise over the battlefield, taking in all the action. The goblins and dolls no longer seem interested in them. Instead, they gang together to attack Otto. He bowls over them like a pinball, but they shoot and bite and claw at his shield, relying on sheer numbers. Onstage, Adolf and the White Angel pull instruments out of their asses and play to the hoots and death gargles.

  “The children! The children!” Frannie 2 says.

  “We’ve got to help Otto,” Frannie cries, and despite the pounding in my skull and the dark sun looming big and for once hopeful overhead, I know she’s right.

  But Otto is my brother, and if he were in my shoes, he would save the kids. Because he is my brother, I’ll try to do as he would. I veer toward the circle of children . . . .

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dead Kid Hill rises, spewing molten chocolate cake and toilet toads like a volcano. The Frannies, my sirens, shriek. I loop backwards and down.

  An ass doll shoots me out of the sky. The bullets tear swastika-shaped holes in my wings, driving me into a spiral toward Auschwitz Square. In their frantic attempts to hold on, the Frannies tear my wings off.

  I fall into cold swastikle mush. Frannie hits the ground near my head. Frannie 2 follows, landing on her head near my feet. She convulses worse than ever. Frannie crawls to her side and pins her shoulders to the slush. She looks up at me and says, “Go help Otto.” She swallows her sister.

  My wing stumps bleed, warming my back. Otto heads in our direction, followed by dolls and goblins. I scramble toward the cluster of children.

  The Frannies and I slip the blindfolds from their heads. Soon, hundreds of eyes watch us. I’m unsure if they’re more frightened or bewildered. “Get up!” I yell.

  Over one hundred children stand. Most kids already died. It’s the ones who are jaded to the carnage, who stood awaiting orders, that survived. Although we no longer resemble them, the children realize we’re trying to help. Some of them even pick up cockrats scuttling by and wield them as weapons. They look to me for orders. Unsure about the best course of action, I look behind me. Otto has reversed his path. He rolls away from the mixed platoon of dolls and goblins and speeds toward a cluster of goblins on bikes. He’s a speedball of furious intent. He’s offering us a chance to lead the kids to the gate.

  Frannie opens her mouth and her sister hops inside. They point at the stage. The White Angel is tracking him, weaving and bobbing. Adolf clings to his back, firing swastika bullets at falling toads.

  Frannie 2 squeezes out of Frannie’s mouth and screams, “Roll, Otto, roll!”

  Adolf aims the gun at Otto as I turn back to the kids. I take a boy and a girl by their hands and walk in the direction of the gate. The others understand, and follow. Frannie runs to my side. “What about Otto?” she says.

  “Think of the children,” I tell her. “This is what he wanted.”

  As we pass the ruins of Toy Division, Dead Kid Hill rains chocolate cake and toilet toads. The toads crawl around, seeking asses to plug.

  “Frannie 2?” I say.

  “Yes?” she says.

  “Can I have your toilet toad?”

  “Of course!” She twists around in her sister’s mouth until her ass pokes out. She releases the toad in a mist of diarrhea. I bend over. It hops and slips and slides into my rectum, immunizing me against other toilet toads.

  A gang of dolls climbs out from a pile of rubble that used to be the doll factory. I release the girl and boy and form scissor hands. The dolls flank us, six in all. “Keep moving, no matter what,” I tell the two children.

  I charge the ass dolls, moving my arms like scissors. None have guns. I slice all six in half and twelve asses quiver in the snow.

  Kids in the back of the group scream. A lone ass goblin speeds after us on a super tall bike. Barbed ropes swing from the handlebars. Frannie 2 throws a goblin ass out of her sister’s mouth and tosses it to the ground. Frannie kicks it, but the ass sails wide to the left, blowing up dead dolls instead. There’s no time for me to get there, but I rush toward the goblin anyway.

  A dark-haired skeleton of a girl steps away from the mass. She swings a cockrat by the tail. The goblin veers toward her. She winds up and releases the cockrat. The disgruntled, starving creature gnashes at swastikles and lands right in the ass goblin’s jaws. Instead of being shit slaughtered, the cockrat starts eating the teeth of the goblin. He rides the bike straight into a deepening pool of hot cake.

  The girl takes two cockrats from the nearest children in possession and locks eyes with me. She waves her vermin-holding hands at the group, indicating that if I guard the right side, she will guard the left. I give her a thumbs up since my thumb is the only appendage remaining on my left hand. “Take the rear!” I shout to the Frannies.


  I search the skies for Adolf and the White Angel. Otto battles them onstage. He’s returning to spider goblin form, no longer the impenetrable boulder. Dead Kid Hill ceases flowing cake and toads. And lying amidst the ruins, ass goblins plug ass dolls while toilet toads plug every open rectum.

  Ahead of the girl and boy, above the main gate of Auschwitz, a neon sign beats back the darkness. It tells us that toys bring freedom.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Beyond the gates, white orbs of snow overtake the swastikles. Frannie 2 crawls out of her sisters mouth. She stands between us, taking Frannie’s right hand and my bleeding left stump. Every piece of my heart beats faster, throbbing what feels like nine hundred and ninety-nine times every minute. We have done what we set out to do, but there’s no place in the pure and silent land for us.

  The dark-haired girl pushes through the children. She holds the cockrats at her side, indifferent to their teeth and claws.

  She stands in front of us, then turns to the girl and boy. “We can’t live the way we used to,” she says. She swings the cockrats. They latch onto the faces of the two children, driving them into the gate.

  The girl turns to us. “Are you going to open the gate or what?” she says.

  I look to the Frannies, finding blank expressions. Then Frannie coughs up a goblin ass. She kicks the ass at the lock. It explodes, and the letters T-O-Y come unhinged from the gate, crashing into the snow on the other side.

  The girl steps very close to me. She is even tinier up close. Her forehead comes up to my waist. She stretches her hand out. I offer her my right hand. We shake. I guess things will be different now. The end of Auschwitz doesn’t nullify the fact that it happened. Everyone left alive will have to sift through the ashes and find where to start again.

  She opens the gate and yells at the children to file through. None of us ask where they’re heading. Nobody needs to. They leave Auschwitz single-file, stepping over the dead boy and dead girl. After the last of them goes, Frannie 2 tries to follow. I move to block her. Frannie steps to my side. “We don’t belong out there,” she says, pointing to the land beyond Auschwitz.