by Ronald Kelly
Maggie suddenly realized that her job was not to succeed at traveling the high wire, but to fail at the treacherous feat. Colonel Raven expected her to fall to her death, simply to please the sadistic, ticket-buying public.
Raven shook her roughly, then flung her to the ground. “Well, this is the last time you will defy me! Your next performance will go as planned. And, unfortunately, you will not survive!” He motioned to two brawny roustabouts who stood nearby. “Take her back to her trailer!”
The two scooped her up and escorted her from the Big Top. A moment later, she was tossed back into the cramped trailer. She ran for the door, hoping to escape, but it slammed shut in her face. To Maggie, it sounded like the clang of a jailhouse door.
She stood there, trembling, as the padlock was returned to its hasp and snapped firmly back into place. As the receding steps of the roustabouts faded, Maggie went to the cot in the far corner. She sat on it, hugging her knees close to her body, tears shimmering in her frightened eyes.
She considered attempting to wake up again, but knew that it would be futile to even try. She was there to stay… and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Chuck stared into the first rays of dawn as he and his men trudged across the muddy battlefield, heading toward Berlin. He took a deep breath and nearly gagged. The stench of war surrounded them; an oppressive combination of cordite, burnt flesh, and decay. The forms of soldiers, both American and German, laid strewn across the barren fields, their bodies torn and dismembered, their faces staring sightlessly into open space. The sights and smells had invigorated Chuck in his previous dream. But, this time, it sickened and disgusted him.
He shifted the Warchair into a higher gear and felt it lurch and grind. It moved with none of the fluidity of power that it had exhibited before. The same went for his platoon. His men plodded through the heavy mud, holding their M1 carbines as if they were heavy weights, their eyes peering dully ahead, leeched of emotion. “Thousand-yard stares” like the grunts in Vietnam had developed after several months in-country.
“What’s wrong with the men, Corporal?” he asked. They showed none of the confidence or warrior spirit that they had expressed at the beginning of their mission behind enemy lines.
“Morale is low, Sarge,” said Corporal Steel with a sigh. “That hit they took a few kilometers back really threw ‘em for a loop. A lot of them were badly injured, too.”
Chuck turned his attention back to his troop. Steel was right. Nearly all of them had suffered some injury or another. Some had mangled arms in dirty slings, some bleeding head wounds, and others limped on shattered legs with the help of makeshift crutches fashioned from old Mauser rifles and the gnarled limbs of trees. Corporal Steel had even taken a load of shrapnel in his right side. His olive drab shirt was saturated with fresh blood and, through his splayed fingers, Chuck could see the ugly holes that had been blown through his flesh, as well as the glistening pulp of his organs just beyond.
“Are you going to make it, Corporal?” he asked, concerned.
“Don’t worry about me, Sarge,” he replied, grimacing with pain. “I’m tough as a –“
Before he could finish his sentence, however, Steel’s eyes rolled back into his head and he pitched face-forward into the mud.
A buck private with his left arm blown off at the elbow walked over . He flipped Chuck’s second-in-command onto his back with the toe of his boot. “He’s dead, Sarge.”
Chuck stared at the face of violent death, finding no glory in Steel’s lifeless eyes. War was hell and Chuck hated it.
“Come on, men,” he said after they had buried the corporal beneath a mound of boulders. “We still have a mission to accomplish. Are you with me?”
He expected a cheer of enthusiasm, but instead heard only a half-hearted grumble from the ragtag platoon of infantry soldiers. As he sent his Warchair lurching forward, he looked down at the top of his flak vest. Churchill laid listlessly within the shelter of the bullet-proof garment. The iguana was sick. His color was alarmingly pale and his tiny eyes were coated with sticky yellow matter. Chuck rubbed a finger down its back, but the only response he received was a shuddering twitch.
This can’t be happening, thought Chuck, feeling depressed and bewildered. It was perfect last time. So why is everything falling apart?
Suddenly, from over a rise on the horizon, came a jolting staccato of machine gun fire. Several of Chuck’s men unleashed death shrieks and fell limply into the mire, riddled with bullet holes. Chuck looked ahead and saw a dozen Nazi stormtroopers running toward them, firing German Schmeissers.
“It’s an ambush!” yelled Chuck, feeling none of the courage he had felt during his last tour of duty. “Return fire!”
The infantrymen attempted to obey their sergeant’s order, but they were too slow in acting. Two more waves of German soldiers, sporting Mausers with fixed bayonets, closed in from the east and west, taking them by surprise. The skirmish lasted for only a few minutes. When it was over, every last soldier of Chuck’s platoon lay dead on the muddy earth.
Fear gripped Chuck as the enemy surrounded him. The bravado he had experienced back at the Nazi machine gun nest was absent. In its place was uncertainty, despair, and sheer terror.
A soldier ran forward, his rifle held like a lance before him. Chuck pulled the trigger of his Sten, but the bolt had jammed. The sergeant twisted his head to the side just as the edge of the Mauser’s bayonet skimmed across his right cheek. With a shriek of pain and fright, Chuck discarded the Sten and, drawing his .45 automatic, fired through the gun slot of the Warchair’s steel-plated door. The bullets slammed into the Nazi’s stomach, driving him back. Shakily, Chuck reached up and felt his face. A deep, bleeding furrow was carved into the flesh of his right cheek and lower half of his ear had been completely sliced off.
This is just a dream! he thought, stunned. I’m not supposed to get hurt!
He was about to turn his .45 on the other soldiers, when a potato masher was hurled from the rear of the crowd. Chuck attempted to deflect it back toward its pitcher like he had back at the machine gun nest. But this time his bullets failed to hit it. The grenade struck the wet earth, bounced a couple yards, and disappeared beneath the iron treads of the Warchair.
Chuck was shifting the vehicle into high gear, when the explosion came. He screamed as a fiery flash engulfed him. A devastating concussion rose from beneath the Warchair like a mushroom cloud, blasting the rivets from their moorings and rending heavy steel plating. Chuck suddenly felt himself spinning through the air, his hair and uniform singed, his body stinging from a dozen shrapnel wounds. He landed fifty feet away, striking the earth with a thud. He laid there on his back, dazed, unable to move.
He must have blacked out, for when he regained consciousness, he found himself not on the battlefield, but lying on a canvas stretcher on the concrete floor of a German railway station. He groaned and opened his eyes as the toe of someone’s boot kicked him in the ribs again and again.
“Wake up!” a stern voice demanded. “Wake up, you yankee dog!”
Chuck’s vision focused. Around him stood several soldiers sporting Schmeisser machine guns, as well as three leather coated members of the German Gestapo. But it was the one who brutalized Chuck’s ribcage with the toe of his jackboot that startled the sergeant’s mind back into full consciousness.
For the one who stood over him was a tall, lean version of Adolf Hitler, complete with a long woolen coat, decorated officer’s hat, and swastika armband. But there was one distinct and horrifying difference. The face that sported the arrogant eyes and vertical mustache of the Fuhrer belonged to none other than Doctor Augustus Leech.
“So, you thought you could defeat us, is that correct?” the Fuhrer growled, leering with contempt. “Well, we showed you, did we not, Herr Adkins?”
Chuck attempted to answer the commander-in-general of the Axis forces, but he was tongue-tied.
“I did not e
xpect you to talk,” said the Fuhrer, giving him one last kick to the abdomen. “Don’t think you have won, though. We have ways of making you comply.” The chancellor looked over at the Gestapo agents. “Take him to the train. I have important matters to attend to now. I will deal with him later.”
The two thugs grabbed him by the arms, allowing his lifeless legs to drag on the ground. They carried him to the wooden cattle car of a long train. As they flung him through the open doorway, Chuck caught a stench he had never smelled before. The horrendous odor of feces, disease, and human despair.
Chuck landed on a filthy, hay-strewn floor. He stared up to find dozens of men, women, and children standing around him. They stared at him sorrowfully, as if wanting to help, but possessing no power to do so.
The door of the cattle car was slammed shut and secured with a heavy padlock. Almost immediately, the locomotive unleashed a shrill whistle and belched sooty black smoke from its stack. With a lurch, the train moved forward, slowly gaining speed.
“What’s happening?” Chuck asked those around him. “Where are we going?”
A small man of Jewish decent leaned forward, his face full of sadness. “This train is traveling to Poland,” he said. “To a place called Auschwitz.”
“No!” screamed Chuck. He crawled to the door of the car and, grabbing the wooden slats, stared at the countryside that sped by. He closed his eyes several times, attempting to break ties with the nightmare he found himself in. But release refused to come. He remained confined to the reeking cattle car packed to the rafters with the damned.
Chuck knew then that Keith Bishop had been right all along. Leech’s gift to them had been more than the gateway to their fondest dreams. Instead, it had been a portal to their deepest, darkest nightmares.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jasper McLeod pushed open the back door so forcefully that it slammed against the kitchen wall. “Keith?” he yelled, his voice edged with fear. “Where are you?”
He half expected the hall light to come on and his grandson to appear, groggy and irritated in the doorway of his bedroom. But as Jasper stepped into the corridor, the house remained dark and unsettlingly quiet. He strained his ears for sound, but heard nothing. Not the low moan of someone waking up or the faint squeak of creaking bedsprings. Only silence.
When he reached the spare bedroom, he hesitated at the open doorway for a moment, afraid to look inside. When he finally gathered the nerve, he stepped through and felt for the switch on the wall. The ceiling lamp blinked on, flooding the room with light.
His heart jumped in his chest. The covers of the bed were askew, the goose down pillow and feather mattress indented in the shape of a twelve-year-old boy. But Keith was nowhere to be found. The bed was completely empty.
An emotion stronger than panic filled the elderly man. Quickly, he checked beneath the bed and in the closet. He found nothing. Jasper went from room to room, calling Keith’s name, hoping for an answer, but secretly knowing that he would receive none. He even checked the root cellar and the barn outside, but both were deserted.
His grandson was gone.
Nearly out of breath, he returned to the farmhouse and made his way to the telephone on the hall table. Jasper caught his wind, then dialed a number he knew by memory.
“Hello?” answered the sleepy voice of a woman.
“Susan, this is Jasper.”
“Papa?” she said, startled. “It’s after midnight. Is something wrong?”
He took a deep breath, praying to God that his suspicions were false. “Susan, Keith ain’t staying the night over there, is he?”
“No,” said Susan McLeod. “Rusty asked him if he wanted to sleep over, but he said he’d rather stay at your place instead.”
“Well, he ain’t here,” said Jasper. “He’s gone.”
“Land sakes alive! Where do you think he – ?”
Jasper interrupted her. “I don’t want to scare you none, dear… but could you go in Rusty’s bedroom and see if he’s there?”
“Of course he’s there,” said Susan. “I just tucked him in a couple of hours ago and you know how he sleeps. I doubt a tornado could wake him up.”
“Just go check,” repeated the elderly farmer. “Please.”
He heard a rattle as Susan laid down the phone. A moment later, she was back on the line, her voice agitated. “He’s not there, Jasper. His bed looks like it’s been slept in, but I can’t find him anywhere.”
“He’s not in the bathroom, is he?”
“No, I checked there. Do you think they could’ve snuck out to meet up somewhere? Kids have been known to do that, you know.”
“Usually, I wouldn’t put it past them. But tonight, I’m not so sure.” Jasper stood in the hallway feeling that sensation of cold dread pass through him again. He closed his eyes and thought to himself for a moment. “Can I call you back in a minute, Susan? I’ve got to check on something.”
He hung up the phone and then called the Sutton residence. The groggy voice of a young man answered irritably. “Yeah, what is it?”
“Is Mister or Mrs. Sutton there?” he asked, at first unable to identify the person on the other end of the line.
“No, they’re out of town,” the boy answered. “Who the hell is this, anyway?”
Jasper placed him now. It was the Suttons’ arrogant cuss of a son. “Tom, this is Jasper McLeod. You know, Rusty’s grandfather.”
The teenager was silent for a moment. “Oh, yeah. So what the crap do you want?”
“Could you do me a favor?” said Jasper, attempting to hold firm to his temper. “Would you go to your sister’s room and check on her?”
“Check on Maggie? Why would you want me to do that?”
“Could you please just do it?” snapped Jasper. “Now?”
“Okay, okay! Don’t get your long johns in a wad, Gramps.”
A short stretch of silence rang through the receiver. Then Tom Sutton came back on the line, sounding genuinely pissed off. “The little turd is gone! She must’ve ducked out of the house after I went to bed. Wait until I get a hold of her!”
“No, I don’t think she did sneak out,” Jasper told him. “She’s vanished… just like Rusty and Keith.”
“Vanished?” asked Tom, his anger seeming to turn into confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes,” said Jasper.
“But, wait – “
Jasper broke the connection, waited for a dial tone, then tried another number. It rang a couple of times before someone picked it up. “Hello?” answered the deep voice of a man. In the background echoed the soft sound of a television show, and old rerun of Gunsmoke from the sound of the voices.
“Joe, this here’s Jasper McLeod,” he said.
“Hey, Jasper,” greeted Joe Adkins. “What can I do for you?”
“I know it might seem strange for me to ask, but could you go to Chuck’s room and make sure he’s in bed?”
“Huh? Why wouldn’t he be there?”
“Please, just check.”
Again that almost endless period of waiting. Then Joe Adkins was back on the line again. “Jasper, he’s gone. His wheelchair is still beside his bed, so he couldn’t have left the house.” An edge of anger came into the mechanic’s voice. “Your grandsons and that Sutton girl hasn’t talked him into sneaking out after dark, have they? If so, they need the tar whaled plumb outta them!”
“No, Joe, that’s not it,” said Jasper. “God help us, I don’t believe that’s what happened at all.”
Concern suddenly replaced the anger. “Then where is he?”
“I don’t know, but I think he’s in danger. The others are gone too, Joe. Wherever they are, I think they’re all in a helluva fix.”
“What are you talking about, Jasper?” demanded Joe, sounding frightened now.
“I’ll call back and explain,” he said, then hung up the phone once again.
Jasper stood in the hallway, debating on whether he should
call Susan back first, or check Keith’s bedroom one more time. He elected to do the latter. A moment later, he was sitting on the edge of the feather bed, staring at the imprint of his grandson in the soft folds of the mattress. He reached out and laid a hand on the impression. It was still vaguely warm from the heat of Keith’s body.
But when he tried the pillow, he found it to be ice cold to the touch. The chill did not seem to come from the bundle of goose feathers, however. Rather, it seemed to originate from something underneath.
“No,” Jasper uttered softly. “No, it couldn’t be.”
Following Edwin Hill’s confession at the hospital, bits and pieces of their lone visit to Hell Hollow as small children began to come back to him, bit by bit. The magic trick involving the toad, the mouse, and the black dove. Jasper’s sick puppy turned slavering mad dog.
And there had been the cards. The oversized playing cards that Leech had given them. Jasper’s had depicted a Confederate soldier, while Edwin’s had shown a futuristic space man. Both boys had tried them out only once, then destroyed them, frightened at the wondrous, but unnatural dreams they had encountered.
Jasper lifted the pillow and was not surprised to find a similar card lying there, in the exact spot where Keith’s head must have rested. His hand trembled as he picked up the card and studied it. On its face was a black and white drawing of a police detective in a moonlit city. As he stared at the illustration, the old man could swear that he felt a cool breeze drift from the face of the card, as well as the offensive odor of automobile exhaust and raw garbage.
Then Jasper turned the card over. From a black background of twinkling stars, a half-moon grinned at him, almost mockingly so. Staring at that lunar profile, he couldn’t help but be reminded of a face he had seen in a recent dream. A leering, defiant face as darkly sinister as that of Old Scratch himself.
It was the face of the man driving the medicine show wagon.
The face of Augustus Leech.
PART THREE