In the end, it was Milena who settled things and decided how the story would end.
“We’re here,” s/he shouted, drowning out the timorous carping of the others. “We’ve followed him this far. Now, we can call it a day and split up. Take our chances wandering around, looking for a show that will have us. Or we can trust in the chicken boy. We can play this out to the end. We can go to the castle and find his daddy and see what the man can do for us.”
It was as simple as that. As if all that had been needed was for a hermaphrodite to state, succinctly, the facts of the matter, and the options those facts generated. Milena’s tone was enough to indicate which option s/he had embraced. And once s/he declared her allegiance, the others began to fall in line. Their outrage and terror petered out rapidly and dissipated into little more than an undercurrent of grumbling. And suddenly, almost instantly, they were whole again.
Durga and Nadja got busy pulling together the night’s supper. And though the clan ate in silence, even the pinhead understood that all of them would remain a family to the end. There would be no splintering of the freaks. Come salvation or oblivion, they would face the future together.
And so, over a dessert of fresh berries and nuts, Bruno consulted with Chick, and the decision was made to set out just before midnight. They broke camp, buried their fire, left the truck to rust in the woods and followed the chicken boy on a path that, though it did not deter the freaks, did nothing to calm or reassure them. Within minutes of setting out on their last trek, they were overcome with a stench that made the slaughterhouses of Maisel seem like cologne shops by comparison. The ground beneath their feet turned into a hard, cracked clay of some sort. They tramped with hands and claws covering mouths and noses, taking short, careful steps that left them prematurely tired and uneasy.
They moved into and out of a fetid, swampy patch, slogging through warm murky water or pulling their feet step by step from the sucking mud. They passed through an infestation of fat, buzzing insects whose bites left welts the size of kroners over any exposed areas of flesh or fur. The freaks cried and groaned and cursed and threatened to turn back. But finally they emerged just meters away from a cascade of enormous boulders that coalesced into a cliff wall, atop which sat what could only be the castle of Dr. Fliess.
It loomed, as if it had been waiting for them since the day of its unlikely construction, all black iron and terrible rivets, countless stories of dark metal and tiny bug-eye windows. At its top was a single turret of tall glass panes, like a lighthouse, revealing a single, dim light within. From the top of the turret, a black metal spire thrust up into the sky like a lightning rod. And from the spire flew an enormous red flag, visible in the moonlight, its undulations in the wind incapable of obscuring the Gothic black F imprinted on its face.
Antoinette brought a hand up to cover her eyes, as if the mere sight of the castle and its awful banner would turn them all to stone. Jeta began to edge backward into the marshland from which they’d just emerged and Milena had to hold the skeleton’s hand to keep her from fleeing.
“That’s where we have to go,” Chick said, pointing to the turret. “That’s where he’s keeping my father.”
He looked to Bruno, but the strongman only nodded his head, gesturing to the mountain of rocks before them. So Chick led the way to the bottom of the cliff, moving to a smooth purple boulder that sat flush against the granite wall. He inspected it quickly, put his palm against its cool surface, then turned to Bruno and said, “This is the one.”
The others stepped back and made room for the strongman, who wasted no time putting his good shoulder to the shale and heaving all of his mass into the stone. It took time and effort to move the rock and at one point, Fatos attempted to offer assistance. But Chick warned him away with a look. They let Bruno grunt and heave, sweat breaking over his face, veins bulging across the dome of his skull. And gradually, the stone was rolled aside and an opening was revealed behind it, carved into the face of the cliff wall.
Chick smiled at the strongman, who was hunched down over his knees, blinking at his feet and breathing heavily. “It will be dark inside,” the chicken boy said. “Let’s stay close together.” And with that he entered the black hole of the cave.
The others followed, single file, Durga just managing to squeeze through. The air inside was close and stale. The tunnel opened out almost at once, but as it did, the sound of their steps on the stone walkway beneath their feet echoed loudly. Bruno brought up the rear of their parade. The freaks had no torches, not even a kitchen match among them, so they proceeded by touch and sound. They could all feel the curve of the path they walked and its upward slant. They were spiraling, Bruno knew, up a slowly inclining ramp, toward the top of the castle.
Everyone lost his or her sense of time after a while. Random and unsettling noises came and went — growling of stomach, clearing of throat, and what might have been the skittering of vermin across the flagstones beneath their feet. At some point they heard a muted weeping or laughing, but when Milena attempted to shush Jeta, the skeleton denied the sound had come from her.
And before Milena could argue, Chick crashed, beak first, into something and the clan collided, one into the next, fronts into backs. The chicken boy brought up a hand and touched a smooth wood panel that angled down at him sharply from the ceiling of the cave. It was a hatch of some sort and it was freezing. He pulled his hand away at once and called for Bruno. The strongman had to get on his belly and crawl between Durga’s legs, then squeeze past all the others until he arrived at the front of the line, where Chick indicated the door.
Bruno ran his hand over it, searching for a latch or a knob, but the chicken boy already knew the effort was futile.
“You’ll have to break it down,” Chick whispered, just as the realization dawned on his friend.
The strongman had an even harder time with the hatch than he’d had with the boulder at the base of the mountain. He had to work against gravity, to thrust his body upward into the impasse. With all his strength, he rammed his good shoulder into the hatch, as hard as he could, a dozen times before growing frustrated and angry. He pounded on the door with his fist. Slapped at it and punched it and then, in the instant when pique turned into fury, he bashed it with his head.
The bolt snapped and the trap flew upward and suddenly the freaks were illuminated by a dim yellow light that shone from above.
Bruno was bleeding from his brow but he ignored the gash, silently got down on his knees, and hunched his torso over. Chick understood that the strongman was offering himself as a stepstool and began to direct the troupe, one at a time, to climb up the patriarch’s back and pull themselves into the turret. A single grunt issued from the Behemoth when Durga trod his spine. But Fatos and the twins pitched in to haul the fat lady to the top of the castle.
When Bruno used his remaining arm to pull himself up through the hatchway, he thought Chick was about to slide into Limbo. The boy was shivering and his eyes were locked in that unblinking daze. But, in fact, there was no seizure under way. Instead, the chicken boy was transfixed by the gaunt man, suspended from the dome ceiling of the turret by chains shackled to his wrists.
The man was dressed in simple black pants and a white peasant shirt. He was shoeless and his feet were dirty with dried blood. His skull drooped and rolled on his neck as if he were balanced on the edge of consciousness. His feet dangled just above Bruno’s head. His arms looked as if, in the next second, they might tear away from the body at the shoulders.