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.