If I don’t flee now, I’ll reface the scalpel like Otto. My brother, eternally at my side until of late, and Frannie… our conversations meant the world when not even Otto spoke to me. Together, in their special ways, the two of them sustained my will to survive the daily trials. Leaving them behind, I would lose a piece of myself. I could never, but I have to… Ribbit!
Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!
Toilet toads hop up Dead Kid Hill on every side. I spin around, seeking out the best passage down the hill. They block all possible escape routes. Their tongues flail as they leap and crawl closer, inviting me to a personal death party in the lingo of amphibians.
The toads swarm as one fluid mass. The top of the hill no longer seems high up. I squeeze my bike sack and wonder if dying -- the act itself -- actually hurts.
Hot pressure builds in my scrotum as the toilet toads approach the top.
Their front line passes the halfway mark. They belch a unanimous rat-tat croak as the bicycle grows inside me, reversing its earlier shrinking process.
I hold the flesh-encased bike until my sack pops. Teeth grinding the pain away, I mount the bicycle and pedal like mad. I head in the direction of the loop-de-loop-de-loop because it serves as my sole chance of survival. The toads and I are set to collide three-quarters to the top.
I rear back on the handlebars. The front tire elevates. Afraid of falling, I lean forward and duck my head. Toilet toads gnash at the air as I soar beyond the reach of their tongues.
The rest of the journey down Dead Kid Hill through chocolate cake and up the yellow road blurs as adrenaline pumps the chewed pieces of my heart past overdrive.
Chapter Thirteen
The door to the bicycle shop is still open when I emerge from the underground. I twist the swastika handle and push on the door, ensuring that it is locked. Before I turn around, an ass goblin hoots behind me. “What are you doing here?”
“N-nothing.”
“Nothing?” The goblin waddles toward me, brushing swastikles off its swastika armbands.
“My work assignment ordered me to the bicycle factory.”
It points toward the door at my back and hoots a second time. “Did your work assignment order you through that door?”
I shake my head left and right. A gun sits on the counter of the guard station, out of the ass goblin’s sight. I was too occupied to notice it before. Guns are so rare, it’s easy to forget they exist.
“Are you Experiment 999?” the ass goblin says.
I nod and step up to the counter, resting my hands there as naturally as my nerves can muster.
The ass goblin charges. “No sudden movements!”
I grab the pistol, fire, miss. Fire and miss. Fire and miss. I close my eyes and fire. The gun clicks. I open my eyes. The ass goblin transforms into S.S. mode five feet away. Backed against the door, I raise my clawed hands, as if showing the Shit Slaughterer that I’m part goblin will save my scalp.
He swipes at my brow. I duck.
“Hoot! Hoot!” He makes another swipe.
I dodge to the left, but his claws rake across my chest. I crumple into a ball and tuck my head to my knees.
He kicks me in the stomach. I curl up even tighter.
The door leading to the rest of Toy Division opens wide. In steps the White Angel. “What’s this nonsense?” he says.
“The prisoner entered forbidden quarters,” the Shit Slaughterer says. He kicks me again.
The White Angel storms across the room and seizes the goblin by his jaws. After yanking out a handful of teeth, he shoves the goblin to his knees. “You do not reprimand my experiments,” the White Angel says. “Consider this your final warning.”
The Shit Slaughterer bows his head.
“Come, child,” the White Angel says. He grabs my elbows and pulls me to my feet.
“Science awaits you.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Tell me why I keep you alive,” the White Angel says.
Chained to a chair, I stare at the paleface goblin, seeing double. Funhouse mirrors cover the walls, distorting the ass goblin and I. The mirrored ceiling reflects the swastika painted on the ground, twists it around into a star.
“Do you remember when Adolf governed Auschwitz?”
“He vanished not long after we-- I arrived.”
“What do you remember about his reign?”
The rule of Auschwitz is that children should listen and never be heard, so I am unused to answering questions.
“Answer the question!”
“Children die now the same as before.”
“I want to make Auschwitz the happiest place on earth.”
“Then stop killing us, stop making us work.”
“You will work no longer, 999. That is why I ordered the bicycle factory to be unoccupied when you arrived. I needed to understand what you would do, where you would go. Most ass goblins want you dead. They’re afraid to watch you, a child, become one of them without losing the grace of childhood.”
“One of them? But I’m not an ass goblin.”
The White Angel ignores me. “Considering twins are more inclined to display psychic abilities, I might know just the trick to solidify my argument supporting your value as a test subject.”
“I am not a monster.”
“Not yet, at least. Your brother, on the other hand, finds himself in a radically different situation, thanks in part to your confrontation with the sentry, who insisted that some punishment be dealt. Retribution in the name of science is the greatest retribution. That is where Adolf and I disagreed. I am sure he would be pleased to learn that I punished your brother instead of you, the guilty one. If Adolf were still with us… but his ideas were ass backwards” The White Angel laughs maniacally. “Bring in the spider goblin!”
The wall straight ahead opens up. Two ass goblins drag a hideous creature into the room by heavy chains padlocked to its neck. I scream until the White Angel punches my nose. I pipe down, choking on blood and snot.
Otto, my brother, is no longer Otto. He cannot be Otto. Eight hairy arachnid legs hold his torso ten feet off the ground. His arms and legs are gone. Except for the spider limbs and goblin ass, bandages mask his entire body.
“Enough frontal,” the White Angel says. “Show us that ass!”
The sentries march around the spider goblin like they’re in a cakewalk. They spin Otto’s rear toward me. An apple-sized eye blinks out at me from his rectum.
“I’ve always thought spiders were nature’s freaks. They have too many eyes. With eight legs, a single peeper should suit your brother fine. He’s an ideal prototype for arachnids of the future. He’s spidery and gobliny, but childlike. The two of you are my greatest creations, and I’m only getting started. Take the experiments to Cell Eight and ask Stumblebum to prepare for the next procedure.”
I scream that I do not want any part in this. The White Angel pats my head. I bite his hand. He thrusts a syringe down my peehole and injects a searing fluid, I guess to scold me. “You will be my perfect toy soldier,” he says.
Chapter Fifteen
One year before…
Otto and I sat on one of the hills overlooking Umbrella Park, a mushroom-dotted area where kids often sit in a huge circle and pound on drums. Neither of us ever got the hang of drumming. My trumpet laid beside me, but I was too nervous to play. Frannie had been ignoring me for weeks. I planned to ask her about it tonight, after the drum circle ended and we met up for story time.