The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium Read online

  The Peabody-Ozymandias

  Traveling Circus

  &

  Oddity Emporium

  ________________________________________________________________

  F. Paul Wilson

  The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium

  ©2007 by F. Paul Wilson

  Foreword ©2007 by F. Paul Wilson

  First Published in a signed, 500-copy limited edition by Necessary Evil Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.

  FOREWORD

  All this started with a book called Freak Show.

  Freak Show was one of three theme anthologies contracted by HWA to put itself on firmer financial footing. Rick McCammon, Ramsey Campbell, and I were chosen as Editors. Rick’s Under The Fang came first and was a disjointed collection of vampire stories with the premise that the undead have taken over – now what?

  I was up next. I spent the early months of 1990 mulling a theme and a structure for my anthology and decided on a traveling circus / freak show. I boned up on circuses and such (in libraries, folks – no Google back then) and talked to Harlan Ellison about his experiences when he ran away from home at age 13 to join a circus but wound up in a freak show, and Dean Koontz about his sources for Twilight Eyes.

  And while I was doing this, Bob Weinberg called in April, asking for a story for the 1990 World Fantasy Convention program book. As writer GoH that year, I was expected to contribute some original fiction. Well, I was knee-deep in circus lore, so why not use that setting? And since Bob’s wife Phyllis was the world’s number-one Repairman Jack fan at the time (the only Repairman Jack fiction extant in 1990 was The Tomb and the novella, "A Day in the Life") I decided to write a Jack story and dedicate it to Phyllis.

  Thus, "The Last Rakosh" is the first appearance of Oz and his troupe.

  On May 30, the first 20 letters went out to the biggest name writers I knew personally and felt I could work with. I wanted Freak Show to be more unified than Fang, so I included three pages of guidelines outlining the background of Oz and company, and how my connecting story would run, plus the general circular route the show would take around the country.

  I asked for a description of each writer’s freak and an outline of the story. This was necessary to avoid duplication of characters, locations (I didn't want three stories in Chicago or LA) and plot lines. It also pretty much guaranteed that once I approved a proposal, I'd buy the story.

  Many of the invitees – including Stephen King – turned me down. A number said they found the guidelines too restrictive; others blasted off and came up with great stories. I opened it then to the HWA membership and was inundated.

  After the synopses were set, I began tying them together – solidifying an overall story arc and adding interstitial material to link the individual pieces. I also circulated descriptions of all the freaks to the contributors to encourage cross-fertilization (a passing mention of this freak or that in other stories).

  This took a year of my life and interfered with my own writing projects. But I was 90% satisfied with the outcome.

  The paperback, published September 1992, was truly ugly and disappeared very quickly – yet has become something of a collector’s item. I’ve done a number of online searches and can’t find a copy for less than eighteen bucks. Borderlands Press did a hardcover limited edition signed by all contributors, and I can’t find a copy of that for less than $75.

  Fine and good. That was that. Until 1998 when I incorporated "The Last Rakosh" into All the Rage. This got me thinking about Oz & Co. again and wishing my story and interstitial material were available to my readers. After all, it was linked to the Otherness and the Adversary Cycle.

  But I was too busy to cull out my sections and rewrite them into a presentable whole with no prospect of finding a home for it. (It would never be novel length, and back in those days the small presses were publishing only novels or fat anthologies and collections.) So the idea lay fallow for more than a decade until Don Koish approached me and asked if I’d write a novella for his Necessary Evil imprint. I wanted to – I’d been blown away by his deluxe edition of Tim Lebbon’s Dead Man’s Hand – but had no time for anything new.

  However…

  We made a deal. I took my original Freak Show material and fleshed it out, adding new characters and situations. In the process it wound up fifty percent longer than what I’d started with. I called it The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium. The 500-copy Necessary Evil Press edition sold out before publication and is almost impossible to find. Readers have been requesting a reasonably priced edition. So… since I like to see my work remain in print…

  …here you have it.

  I hope you enjoy the journey.

  F. Paul Wilson

  The Jersey Shore

  Fall 2008

  NB: For those interested in interconnections, the story takes place about a year or so after All the Rage, in the summer before Nightworld.

  Part One

  WINTER QUARTERS

  Okeechobee County, FL

  1

  "Freaks?" Joseph Peabody said. "In my show? That’s asking a lot. A lot."

  The crusted bowl of his briar felt warm against his palm as he struck a wooden match to it and befogged his immediate vicinity. Ashes sprinkled the latest issue of AB lying open on his lap. He eyed his visitor through the blue-white smoke.

  Jacob Prather's son—Ozymandias. Weird name, that. Almost as weird as the fellow it belonged to. Well, Jake hadn't been too tightly stitched himself. Joe had known him when they were both with Taber & Son's mud show. Joe had been assistant manager and Jake had had a gig in the sideshow—some sort of weird machine that didn't do nothing, just sat there and looked strange. Nice enough fellow, but Jake got decidedly weird after his son was born. Finally quit the circuit just about the time Joe had got together the wherewithal to buy Taber's failing show and rename it after himself.

  Peabody's Traveling Circus—he'd match it up against any other two-tent mud show in the country for giving a family its money's worth when they bought a ticket.

  Joe never saw Jacob Prather again. And now, years later, here comes his son, back in the business.

  The circus does have a way of getting into your blood.

  Ozymandias Prather looked nothing like his father. Jake had been a small, stoop-shouldered, bespectacled field mouse. His boy was tall—six-five, maybe. He didn't stand, he loomed. Lank dark hair, parted on the side and plastered down; pale skin, lips so thin his mouth looked like a skin crease, and blue eyes as warm as a mausoleum. A funny-shaped body: His shoulders were narrow, his arms long and thin, yet he was barrel-chested, with a broad but paunchless abdomen set upon wide hips. His head was normal-sized but his torso made it look too small for his body. The overall effect distorted perspective. Even looking straight at him Joe had a feeling he was standing in a hole looking up.

  "Why should you want to refuse?" Ozymandias said in a deep voice that seemed to come from everywhere in the room but his lips.

  Joe shook his head. "A freak show . . . that sort of thing's never been my style. You should know that. As a matter of fact, it's out of style."

  "Gawking at the deformed is never out of style."

  Joe sensed bitterness there—a load of bitterness.

  "I don't know, Ozymandias—"

  "Most people find it easier to call me Oz. You've seen my troupe, Mr. Peabody. If you don't think they can turn the tip, then you're not the showman I think you ar
e."

  "Yeah, I've seen your troupe," Joe said, repressing a shiver. In all his sixty-six years he'd never seen such a collection of oddballs. "Where on earth did you find them?"

  The razor-thin lips curved upward at each end. A smile. Sort of.

  "Diligence hath its rewards. But that is irrelevant. An offer is on the table: cash up front for a forty-percent interest in Peabody's Traveling Circus. Your only concessions are to add my name to the logo and put a few extra stops on the route card, but you retain control. A can't-lose proposition for you."

  "I don't know about that. My people aren't going to like it." Peabody's general manager, Tom Shuman, and manager, Dan Nolan, were up in arms about even the possibility of sharing the stops with a bunch of freaks. "We run a clean show. We've got a reputation—"

  "But you're losing money and you're almost broke. I've seen the balance sheets, Mr. Peabody. My troupe can bring in the extra crowds, the people who think high-wire acts and waltzing elephants and clowns and foot juggling are passé. They'll come to see us, but they'll stay for your show, and they'll buy our flukum and popcorn and balloons and T-shirts."

  "I want no grift," Joe said emphatically, and he meant it. "No games, no monte, no prostitution."

  He saw Oz stiffen.

  "I have never allowed that in my troupe. And I never will. We don't need grift to turn a profit."

  Joe believed him. Something in his gut warned him away from the man, urged him to throw Ozymandias Prather out on his ass, but he sensed a Puritanical streak in this oddball and believed he'd run a clean show. And the hard truth was the show was looking Chapter 11 in the eye. Ozymandias Prather was offering a way out. And at least Joe would still be in control.

  Reluctantly, he held out his hand.

  "You've got a deal, Oz." They shook. Oz's hand felt cold but dry. "I'll have my lawyer draw up the contract. By the way, any idea what we should call this new conglomerate?"

  Oz rose and towered over him. His bass voice boomed.

  "The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus and Oddity Emporium."

  "Quite a mouthful, but being such a mouthful just might make it work. By the way, how's your father?"

  "Dad? He killed himself years ago."

  Oz then stepped out the door, leaving Joseph Peabody alone in his chair, sucking on a dead pipe.

  2

  Outside the trailer, Oz stood under the stars and closed his eyes a moment. He wanted to celebrate, wanted to guzzle champagne and shout his elation. But he had work to do.

  As if on cue, a tall, lean figure separated itself from the shadows. An exquisitely handsome face, dead pale, with cold, cold eyes, leaned into the light.

  "He accepted?" said Tarantello in a voice as dark and silky as his tailored black suit.

  "Of course. He has no choice."

  "A lot of money."

  "What will money mean if we're successful?"

  Tarantello nodded. "And so it begins."

  "And so it ends," Oz said. "For all of them. Drive me back and have the Beagles bring the players to the meeting tent."

  "Everybody?"

  "No. Just our kind."

  3

  George Swenson sat in his trailer trying out a new glue for his suckers—he'd developed a rash from the old stuff—when a sudden pounding on the door made him spill the glop all over his left arm.

  "Damn! What is it?"

  He heard a growl from the other side and knew it was one of the Beagles. Daubing at the glue with a damp rag, he crossed to the door and wrapped his sticky arm around the knob. He hadn't had a chance to replace it with a lever and it was damn hard to turn a knob when you didn't have fingers. Finally he twisted it far enough to slip the latch.

  One of the Beagle Boys stood outside, pointing across the clearing toward the meeting tent. George didn’t bother trying to figure out which one this was. Impossible to tell. The Beagles were identical quints, five muscle-bound hulks, virtually neckless, with tiny ears, close-cropped hair, deep-set eyes, and toothy grins. All were mute but managed to get across what they wanted you to know, even if they had to get rough to do it.

  "A meeting? All right. I'll be there in a few minutes."

  The Beagle held up a meaty fist. The message was clear: Don’t forget, or else.

  "Yeah, sure," George said, undulating an arm at him. "I'll be there."

  Then he slammed the door.

  George didn't know what to make of Oz's entourage. Some of them had been together for years, traveling the South and occasionally venturing up the East Coast. George was a newcomer, a "first of May" in the lingo. Oz had come to him a couple of months ago at the very nadir of his twenty-two-year life—out of college due to lack of funds, out of work because no one wanted to hire a guy with boneless forearms that looked like tentacles. Oz offered him a job.

  Not a great job. In fact the worst job imaginable—a sideshow freak. He glued flesh-colored rubber suction cups to the underside of his tapered, handless forearms and presto! He glanced at the poster on his wall.

  Octoman!

  The Human Octopus!

  Product of an Unholy Union between

  Woman and Sea Monster!

  Yeah, right. His mother had never even seen an ocean and his father had been a car salesman. The closest George had ever been to a carnival before this was when his mother would take him as a child to the Taber & Sons show on its annual trip through Moberly, Missouri. She’d loved circuses and sideshows. She'd gone every year before he was born and saw no reason to stop after. He'd gawked at the bearded lady and the pinheads, giants, and dwarves, never dreaming that one day he’d be a gawkee instead of a gawker.

  Dwarves, giants, bearded ladies, pinheads . . . they were Rotary Club next to this troupe. Yet for all the sinister shapes and bitter, suspicious attitudes, George had felt an instant kinship with these . . . freaks.

  God, he hated that word, but what else could you call them? They were freaks of nature. Unassimilable accidents who didn't belong, who had nowhere else to go, who were fit company for no one but each other.

  Luckily George wasn't like them. He had a future. He was going to finish college, get his degree in computer science, and go on from there. He'd be so damn good at systems analysis no one would give a rat’s ass that he had no hands.

  He finished wiping off the glue and headed for the meeting tent. Something had been in the air about joining up with a mud show for a long summer tour. Maybe Oz had struck the deal.

  4

  "It will be a long trip, brothers and sisters," he said as he walked among the members of his troupe. "Long in distance and in days."

  Half an hour ago Oz had watched them straggle in and seat themselves in a rough circle. He’d hurried through the mundane details of the coming tour, and now he segued into the important part, the crucial part, the part they would have difficulty grasping and believing.

  "And perhaps it is good that we make a full circuit of this country—better yet if we could make a circuit of the globe—for it will allow us a chance to see it and remember it as it was—if we care to."

  He let his gaze range over them as he allowed the words to sink in.

  All the important ones were here. The special ones, the ones like him. Three-eyed Carmella sat with melon-headed Leshane Burns, flashing sidelong glances at George Swenson who sat alone; the bovine Clementine also sat alone, but not necessarily by choice; woody-skinned Bramble sat near green-skinned Haman who appeared to be staring at the closed tent flap while the eyeless Gerald Gaines stared at nothing yet saw everything; Delta Reid coiled around her chair as Janusch waved his stalked eyes about. Others sat scattered about. The troupe had no unity yet. They were not yet a team. But they would be by the end of this tour. They’d be family.

  Tarantello hovered at the rear while the Beagle Boys manned the flaps—this was a private meeting.

  The troupe. The freak show. People with green skin, white skin, furry skin, reptile hide, no eyes, extra eyes, no digits, extra digits, people with visio
ns, with no vision, with one face, with two faces. A gathering to give many a townie nightmares for life. But to Oz they were beautiful. Because they were kin. Brother and sister were not forms of address he took lightly. Truly kin. For they shared a common parent, a third parent that had left an indelible imprint on their genes.

  The Otherness. Each had been touched by the Otherness.

  George Swenson looked up at him from under a furrowed brow and posed the question Oz had known someone would ask.

  "Remember it 'as it was'?" he said. "I don't get it."

  "I shall explain," Oz said. "But first I must tell you that I did not arrange this tour merely to make more money. We will do that, but the money is unimportant." He watched the brothers and sisters nudge each other and mutter. He'd expected that. "What is important is the search. For while we are touring we will be searching for a series of objects."

  "Like a scavenger hunt?" Janusch said, his eyes standing tall.

  "In a way, yes. But in this hunt there will be no single winner. If we are successful, all of us will be winners."

  "What will we win?" George said.

  "Justice. Understanding. Acceptance. Compensation."

  The expressions facing him—the readable ones—were frankly dubious.

  "I don't get it," said Carmella, blinking her third eye.

  "And you never have," Oz said. "Justice, that is. None of you has. You've been shunned at best, and at worst you've been reviled, abandoned, beaten, and tortured. But never . . . never understood. With your cooperation, this tour will change all that."

  "Will it give me hands?" said George Swenson.

  "No," Oz said. "You won't need them."

  "Will it give me arms?" said Earl Cassell.

  "No. You won't need them."

  "Will it straighten my spine?" said Ginny Metcalf.

  "No. You won't need a straight spine."

  "Will it let my branchlets live for more than a few minutes?" said Bramble.