“Not really.”
“Are you scared of eating spiders?”
Nathan had honestly never thought about that. “I wouldn’t want to do it, if I could help it.”
“Oh, you should, and you will. When I heard about the miracle fang-toothed boy, I said to myself, ‘That’s a boy who should be eating spiders in front of my audience.’ Finish them off in ten bites. One for each leg, one for the abdomen, and then flash the customers a fang-toothed grin before you pop the head into your mouth and chew away. Entertainment!”
“That’s cruel!”
“What, to the spider? Don’t be silly. Spiders don’t have nerve endings. Besides, I thought little boys enjoyed tormenting arachnids.”
“I don’t like hurting anything.”
“Is that why you were in jail for nearly biting somebody’s arm off?”
Nathan was horrified. Had his exploits really been exaggerated that much? Had news travelled across the land that he was some sort of barbarian? “I didn’t bite it off!”
“Nearly.”
“No. Almost all of his arm was left. I didn’t swallow a thing. It wasn’t at all what you were told.”
Mongrel shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Whether you reduced his arm to a skeletal stalk or merely clipped his fingernails in an unorthodox manner, we will sell you to an audience looking to get their half-coin’s worth. ‘If He Weren’t Eating These Spiders, He’d Be Eating You.’”
They were still walking down the hallway, which seemed to be narrowing. Nathan was finding it difficult to breathe.
Oh, such terrible misfortune! What was he going to do? Eating spiders wasn’t going to solve the plight of Penny and Mary. He had to escape!
He didn’t want to bite anybody else, but did he have a choice?
He had to act now, before it was too late.
Or was it already too late?
Should he have acted before they walked into the building?
No, because Kleft was outside of the building. If Nathan had acted earlier, he would have had to contend with both Kleft and Mongrel at once. If he acted now, he could contend with Mongrel first, and then Kleft later. That was a much better plan.
The longer he waited, the higher the chances that he’d have other people to contend with.
What if the others were prisoners? What if he could convince them to rise up against their captor? By waiting to act, he could find himself in a much better position for the action he was eventually planning to perform.
Or his position could be much worse.
I really should do something, he thought.
Now?
Soon?
Now.
He opened his mouth wide, showing off every tooth available to him, let out a fearsome roar, and lunged at Mongrel.
The expectation was that Mongrel would recoil in horror, putting just enough distance between the two that Nathan could turn and run back the way they came. Nathan’s legs were shorter, but he also had the advantage of youth and the ability to move without waddling, and he was certain he could make it back to the entrance before Mongrel caught up to him. Kleft would not be expecting Nathan to burst out of the building unannounced and would be unprepared to stop him, leaving Nathan simply to run into town for rescue.
Unfortunately, Mongrel did not recoil. He merely regarded Nathan as he would an adorable puppy who’d gotten carried away while playing with a chew toy but was otherwise harmless.
“It disappoints me that you did that,” said Mongrel. “I had hoped not to have to cause you to be zapped, but apparently that shall not be the case.”
He reached into his inside suit pocket and took out a long metal pole, although it wasn’t so long that it couldn’t have credibly been resting inside the suit all this time. He touched the end to Nathan’s chest. Nathan yelped at the shock, then felt dizzy, and then realized he was lying on the floor, twitching a bit. Then he realized that it was much darker than it had been before the shock, and getting darker all the time, and then he couldn’t see anything at all, and then he didn’t care.
SEVENTEEN
When he woke up he was on a theatre stage, surrounded by monsters.
They were seated around him in a circle, nine or ten of them. None of them were currently devouring (or attempting to devour) his flesh, so they didn’t seem immediately hostile, but they were certainly intimidating.
Professor Mongrel sat in the circle as well, as did Assistant Kleft.
“Welcome back,” said Mongrel.
Nathan wiped some dried drool from the side of his mouth. “Thank you.”
“You may have noticed that you’re still alive. I can’t always guarantee that this will be the case after I poke you with my zapper, so I’d advise you not to give me further reasons to use it.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. Now let me introduce you to your new friends.” Mongrel pointed to a boy who looked about seventeen, with long red hair. “This is Donald. He can swallow a coin and make the necessary change when it emerges. Show him, Donald.”
Donald popped a coin into his mouth and swallowed.
“It’s not a quick process,” Mongrel admitted, “which is why he tends to serve in more of a janitorial capacity than as one of the performers. But still, it’s an impressive trick if you can stomach it. Moving on…” Mongrel pointed to a very large woman with a long, thick beard. “This is Mildred, the bearded lady.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, in a voice that wasn’t nearly as gruff as Nathan might have expected.
“Does she frighten you?” Mongrel asked.
“Well, no,” said Nathan. “I mean, it’s just a lady with a beard.”
“But it’s unnatural!” said Mongrel. “Deeply unnatural! Doesn’t such a departure from the norm strike you with fear?”
Nathan wasn’t sure if he was supposed to just play along. He didn’t want to get shocked again. “I guess it could be scary.”
“No, you were right the first time. It’s not. We’ve tried dyeing it a multitude of colors and trimming it into the most frightening shapes imaginable—even a bat—but nothing works. It causes nary a tremble.”
“I even tried throwing things once,” said Mildred.
“Next we have Gondola and Horatio, the former Siamese twins. They used to be joined at the waist, until they were separated in a not-so-gruesome accident. Now, they look very similar, and yet they are two individuals. Does that frighten you?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? Look how similar they are! If it weren’t for the mole and the scar, you might almost mistake them for two copies of the same person!”
“I see that, but it’s really more confusing than frightening. They’re just twins.”
“Twins who used to be joined together into a four-legged, four-armed, two-headed, one-shirted monstrosity! How can you not fear them?”
“Well, I suppose if they were attacking me or something, I might be uncomfortable.”
“We don’t want uncomfortable! We want a level of fear that makes you lose control of every bodily function you’ve got, including the ones hidden within your skin! We want our audience to be reduced to blobs of boneless jelly wobbling in the breeze!”
“Twins aren’t going to do that.”
“Blast!” Mongrel sighed. “I’m going to skip most of the other introductions to save time, but feast your eyes upon Gabriel the Alligator Boy!”
Nathan looked at Gabriel, who sat calmly on the floor.
“He doesn’t look like an alligator.”
“Perhaps not, but he acts like one!”
Nathan watched Gabriel for a moment.
“In what way?”
“Alligators spend most of their time lying in the sun. If there was sunlight in this room, Gabriel would be lying in it.”