The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium Read online

  Oz blinked at the Device, at the dried residue of the liquid, and squeezed his fists so tightly his arms trembled to the shoulders.

  "Yes!" he hissed. "Yes!"

  St. Joseph County, IN

  1

  Gaines—Gerald Gaines on his birth certificate, Esau the Eyeless Seer on the banner over his stall—entered Oz’s office. Without being asked he effortlessly found a chair and dropped into it. Gaines had been born without eyes and didn’t bother covering his empty sockets. But he’d been compensated for his deformity by the heightened acuity of his other senses.

  "You wished to see me?"

  "Yes. It’s your turn."

  "To find one of your Pieces."

  "Yes . . . one of our Pieces. This one is hidden in a nearby cavern. Retrieving it is a task tailor-made for your talents. The cavern is a tourist attraction so you’ll have to enter at night, after it’s closed to the public. They have a security guard, and though he’s only one man, his presence rules out turning on the overhead lights. Even a flashlight would be risky. But you won’t need a flashlight, will you, Gaines."

  Gaines smiled. "What’s a flashlight?"

  Oz laughed.

  2

  Ginger yawned as she pushed in on the door to her trailer. The crowd that had come out from South Bend tonight had been a little rowdy but wildly enthusiastic. Their response had pumped her up for a while, but now she was just plain tired. Tomorrow would be a lazy day. A motel day. She and George already had the place picked. A long hot soak would do her—

  As she stepped in and reached for the light switch, something grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. A scream began in her throat but a hand clamped roughly over her mouth and cut it off. Her trailer door slammed closed as she was pulled to the floor. Then the lights came on.

  Two of them—one behind her, gagging her, pinning her arms, the other in front, staring, grinning. Both big, burly, and very drunk. The one in front knelt and popped the snaps on Ginger's cloak. As he spread it he jammed two fingers behind the front strap of her bikini top and ripped it with a sharp downward yank. His grin broadened as her breasts fell free.

  "Oh, baby. If you like that freak, you're gonna love us!"

  Terror blasted through her. Terror so deep, so powerful it blurred her vision and wrung her intestines. She began to kick and writhe, trying to pull free just long enough to scream.

  "I think you'd better quiet her down some, Hank," said the one behind.

  "Yeah." Hank cocked his fist.

  Suddenly her trailer door opened. Ginger couldn't see who it was but when she saw fleshy tentacles wrap around Hank's throat and right wrist, she knew it could only be George. Then she saw his face, white with fury as he looked down at her over Hank's shoulder. She saw the tentacle around the man's throat tighten, saw his face begin to purple as George dragged his struggling form from the trailer.

  Suddenly she was free. The second attacker released his grip and leaped over her in a scrambling dash for the door.

  "Hank! Hang on, man! I'm coming!"

  Ginger rolled to her feet, rushed to the door and began screaming into the night at the top of her lungs.

  "Hey, rube! Hey, rube!"

  As she continued to scream she saw the second man attack George from the rear, pummeling his ribs and kidneys, knocking George to his knees and forcing him to release his deathgrip on Hank. Hank staggered around then and kicked George in the face. As George went down they both stood over him and began kicking him. But not for long.

  Bulky, growling shapes hurtled out of the darkness, leaping through the air, knocking the two attackers to the ground with flying tackles.

  The freak roustabouts, the ones they called the Beagle Boys, had arrived. They pounded Hank and the other one into the dirt, then stood over them, growling. Others quickly arrived, nearly everyone from the circus and the freak show who had been within earshot.

  Oz pushed his way to the front. He looked at the two attackers, looked at George's bloodied face, then glanced at Ginger. His gaze made her pull her cloak more tightly around her.

  Then he turned to the crowd.

  "All right," he said in that strange rumbling voice. "Circus people, go on about your business. They attacked one of ours. We'll handle this."

  "They were after me," Ginger said.

  "Yes." Oz’s eyes were not kind as he stared at her. "But it is one of our brothers who is bloodied. Go. All of you."

  As the circus people straggled away, Dan Nolan brushed by her.

  "That's what you get for hanging out with freaks."

  She swung on him, her voice a low hiss. "George is not a freak!"

  Dan's eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed as he jutted his chin toward George. "Well, excuuuuse me. What is he then?"

  As Ginger watched him swagger away, she wondered at her own words. Of course George was a freak. But she hated to hear anyone call him that. He was a person. A good guy. No one was going to call him a freak within earshot without hearing from her.

  She turned back to her attackers who were cowering in the dirt, utterly terrified. It looked like the one called Hank had wet himself. But even a seasoned war veteran might be yammering with fright if surrounded by this group. All the freaks seemed to be there—big, little, one like a snake, one like a tree.

  "I hope you have learned a lesson from this," Oz told the two townies. "Never think you can attack one of us. Attack one, you attack us all. And then we all strike back. Get up and go. Tarantello will escort you to the edge of the lot."

  Ginger noticed a number of the freaks smiling and nudging each other as Tarantello led the two men off. Ginger wanted to protest. From the rage she'd sensed in the freaks, she'd been sure they were going to beat the two men to a pulp. But this was it? A warning and then a walk? It wasn't fair.

  3

  "The least he could have done was report them to the cops."

  They were in the kitchenette of her trailer. Ginger held one ice pack to the squishy lump on the back of George's head while he held a second to his swollen, purpling nose. The easy treatment those two creeps had received still rankled her.

  George shook his head. "A walk with Tarantello," he said softly. "I've heard about that. I'm seen as a deserter of sorts, and a first of May to boot, but I've heard whispers about Tarantello. When Oz sends someone on a walk with Tarantello, they don't come back."

  "You mean . . .?"

  "I'm not sure exactly what they mean, but no one who gets sent on a walk with the T-man is ever seen or heard from again."

  A chill rippled across her skin. She wondered what he did . . . then brushed the thought away. Nothing could be too hideous for those two.

  Her thoughts turned to George. He sat in one of her kitchenette chairs. From where she stood behind him she could see his bruised scalp. His bloodied shirt was soaking in the sink. She rubbed his bare shoulder with her free hand.

  "How's your nose?"

  "Broken, I think. Got to be."

  "Thank you," she said. "If you hadn't come along . . ."

  "T'warn't nothin'. I just happened to be passing by and got a feeling something might be wrong by the way you seemed to dive into your trailer."

  "But what were you doing out there? Your trailer's on the other side of the lot."

  A long pause. Finally George cleared his throat and looked up at her. She might have laughed at his swollen nose if she hadn't known how he'd acquired it.

  "I was following you."

  "Following me?"

  "Yeah. I follow you back to your trailer every night. Just to be sure you get home all right."

  Her guardian angel. She was touched. She smoothed his curly hair and looked down at him. He really was handsome, even with a broken nose.

  "You're a sweetheart."

  She leaned over and kissed him. He returned the kiss. Contact with his lips was electric, awakening something within her. She pulled back for an instant but George stretched up and caught her lips again. She didn't resist. A gol
den warmth suffused her as she settled onto his lap and slipped her arms around his neck. It all seemed so good and right as her tongue found his.

  The touch of his chest hairs against her right nipple shocked her. Then she realized that her cloak had fallen open and they were skin to skin. Suddenly she knew she wanted this good, decent, brave man, wanted him very much. Without breaking the kiss she slipped off the cloak and the torn bikini top, then pressed herself against him.

  George groaned with the contact and the ends of his arms encircled her breasts in a soft, teasing caress. Ginger shuddered, not with revulsion but pleasure. It felt so good. And the vague kinkiness of it served only to heighten her excitement.

  She found George's belt and began to unbuckle it.

  4

  Afterward, as they snuggled together on her narrow bed, George was strangely silent. Ginger lifted her head and looked at his troubled face.

  "What's wrong?"

  He shrugged. "Nothing. Everything. I don't know. This was wonderful, but what comes next? I'm afraid."

  "Of what?"

  "Of you. Of how you might wake up tomorrow and be disgusted with yourself. And then you'll start to blame me and hate me."

  "You got beat up trying to save my life. How could I hate you?"

  "Because I'm not exactly a normal person."

  "No kidding. And I'm not the brightest or the best educated. I didn't even finish high school. But I'm not a kid and I've been traveling with this circus for a couple of years now. I'm long past the point where I let people take advantage of me. What just happened was my idea. You didn't trick me or seduce me or anything like that. I know who you are and what you are. And I like where I am right now."

  She saw tears fill his eyes but they didn't spill over. He swallowed a couple of times before he spoke.

  "I want to keep this a secret," he said. "I mean, I'd like to shout it to the world, but you've been hassled enough for being with me in the ring. If they knew about this . . ."

  "Yeah," Ginger said, disliking herself for being so relieved. "Maybe that'd be best for now."

  The way he was holding his arms struck her as strange. His left was tucked between his flank and the mattress, the right was slipped under the left.

  "Are you hiding your arms?"

  He shrugged, like a guilty little boy. Ginger knew they were about the same age, but she felt so much older than George, so much worldlier.

  "I know you don't like them," he said.

  She was stung by memories of how she'd treated him, how she must have made him feel.

  You poor guy.

  "Didn't," she said, pulling his left arm free and raising it to her lips. "Didn't." She kissed the tip, then dragged it down between her breasts, across her belly, and slipped it between her legs. "Now there's nothing about you I don't like."

  She kissed him and they began again.

  Frederick County, MD

  George was passing Oz's trailer when he noticed the light, a pale, violet glow leaking around the edges of the door, diffusing through the curtains pulled across the windows.

  It was late. After the show, when the crowds from Emmitsburg and Gettysburg had gone home and most of the show folk were either asleep or dead drunk, George had sneaked off to Ginger's trailer. Now he was quietly making his way to the freak section of the backyard.

  He was beat. He'd have loved to spend the night wrapped in Ginger's arms but that would risk being spotted leaving her door in the morning. And then the tongues would start to wag. A lot of folks guessed there might be something going on between them, but so far he and Ginger had been discreet enough so that nobody could really be sure.

  George was allowing himself to get used to the idea that he was happy, happier than at any other time in his life. A scary thing, happiness. Suddenly it just . . . appeared. He hadn't done anything to summon it, and he didn't feel he deserved it, and he didn't know how to keep it. So what was to prevent it from slipping away as quickly and easily and mysteriously as it had come?

  It seemed to be slipping away now as he watched those violet flashes from Oz's trailer. Something about them stripped away the warm afterglow of his hours with Ginger, made him forget his fatigue, drew him closer.

  He didn't dare knock. Instead he crept around the trailer looking for a window that wasn't blocked, that had an opening big enough to peek through. He found it in the rear corner where a shaft of violet light beamed heavenward through a gap between the sash and the shade. But the gap was a good eight feet off the ground. No way George could get a look through that.

  So he watched the light. Something about that particular shade of violet simultaneously attracted and repelled him. And strange the way the color shifted and grayed, as if odd-shaped forms were passing through it.

  The light in the church back in Councilville had been redder, but the odd movement within it had been very similar.

  George had a feeling of teetering on the edge of some horrific epiphany, that a revelation was near but just beyond his reach.

  Abruptly it faded, leaving him blinking and shivering in the darkness. And then he noticed that his tentacles were raised in the air. With no effort on his part, without his consent or knowledge, they had reached toward the light.

  Thoroughly shaken he hurried on to his own trailer. The Device and the Pieces his fellow freaks had been collecting along the tour route had something to do with that light. He was certain of it.

  He decided he'd better learn a little more about this Device. And soon.

  Part Three

  THE HOME RUN

  Suffolk County, NY

  1

  Oz had been surprised to find George standing in the doorway of his trailer. He'd invited him in and they'd talked about how the tour was going, how well his aerial act with Ginger was being received. He looked for signs of distress at mention of the girl but saw none. Perhaps things were going too well there. And then George got to what Oz sensed was the real reason for his visit.

  "You know the Device you told us about before starting the tour, the instrument you said would change the way the world looks at us? How's that coming along?"

  "Very well," Oz said cautiously. "Your brothers and sisters have been remarkably successful in claiming its components. We're progressing steadily toward our day."

  "May I . . . may I see it?"

  Oz studied him. The troupe had circled three-quarters of the country and, despite the side trips Oz had sent him on, George hadn't shown much interest in anything but the normal he was playing footsy with on the trapeze. Now he wanted to see the Device. What was up?

  Well, why not show it to him? Maybe he'd reveal what was on his mind.

  "Of course. This way."

  Oz unlocked the rear section and ushered George in ahead of him. Not much room leftover with the two of them in here, and no way George could miss the Device. Oz watched the younger man's face as he studied the instrument.

  "That's one strange looking contraption," he said softly. "It looks almost . . . familiar. Kind of hard to believe it'll change the world."

  "It will, brother. It will."

  "But how?"

  "Just as I explained: The Device will change the way the world sees us. When our day comes we will no longer be considered freaks. We will be accepted. We will get our due."

  Our revenge.

  "But how's this weird little thing going to do all that?"

  "You must trust me that it will. Of course, if we don't retrieve all the components, the Device will be useless. In fact, it will not be a device at all, but little more than a curious construct of peculiar components. And then we won't have our day, and we'll remain freaks and rejects."

  George glanced up at him and Oz saw defiance in his eyes, read Speak for yourself there.

  Oz envied him the confidence that somehow, some way, he was going to make it in this world as it was, make it accept him as he was. Oz had never known that feeling of belonging, not for an instant. How could he?

  Bu
t he craved it.

  And he would belong. The Device would see to it.

  "Is there—?"

  He suddenly noticed that George had turned away and was peering at the bookshelf. A special bookshelf. Most of the tomes that lined it were old, some ancient, many of them stolen from the restricted sections of various libraries across the country. George reached up and touched a short leather-bound volume.

  Dad's journal!

  "Please don't touch those, George. Some of them are very fragile. Have you seen enough?"

  "I suppose so. But I still don't understand."

  "You will." He clapped George's shoulder in what he hoped was a friendly gesture. "Trust me, you will."

  He was going to have to keep an eye on George.

  2

  Tarantello arrived shortly after George left.

  "How's Lover Boy doing?"

  Oz shook his head. "Acting strange. I hope this little matchmaking plot of ours doesn't backfire. How did Haman do at the museum?"

  They’d set up on the fringe of a small North Shore town called Monroe. Oz had sent the freak with the oddly tinted skin—"The Green Man from Mars!" to the public—on a mission to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

  "Fine. Snatched the Piece easily—and helped himself to a few other things as well."

  Oz sighed. Another Piece—this one obtained without fuss.

  "Good for Haman. Where is it?"

  "He wants to play with it a while. I gave him a day if he swore not to lose it. That all right with you?"

  Oz didn't like it but he nodded. The Green Man had earned a reward.

  "What about Wilkinson? Any decision yet?"

  "No. We’ll be in Connecticut next week. I’ve made an appointment for him with a neurosurgeon. We’ll see what he has to say."

  "And if the news isn’t good?"

  Oz didn’t reply. He had a feeling the news would not be good—no way to remove that Piece from his brain without leaving him a vegetable. And then it would be up to him to decide Wilkinson’s fate.