Cameron Pierce - Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

I turn the door of the bicycle factory and find it locked.

Frannie coughs up her twin and with her, a goblin ass. “Get back!” she says. She kicks the goblin ass. On impact, the door explodes into rusted shrapnel.

We step inside, scanning for ass goblins, but the factory is abandoned. I rub my right testicle as we hurry to the guard station door. “What are you doing?” Frannie says.

“Just get the door open!” The bicycle grows inside me.

Frannie 2 pokes her butt out of Frannie’s mouth and shoots her toilet toad at the door. The swastika handle goes flying. I get on my bike and turn to Frannie. “Climb on the handlebars and don’t let your sister out of your mouth!”

She nods. I pedal into the tunnel.

The added weight of the Frannies makes pedaling difficult, but my legs have grown stronger with my mutations.

The hoots of ass goblins resounding from wherever the green path leads fill the space around me with gelatinous noise-matter. I speed down the yellow path.

I pull out of the second loop…

… the third.

The wall of foam bricks has been rebuilt. Frannie wobbles the handlebars, tottering the bike left and right. She screams. Inside her body, her sister screams.

I hit the wall.

She flips over the handlebars and spits Frannie 2 onto the corn road. I sail ass over head after them.

Frannie 2 stares at her hands, disbelieving and coated in her sister’s saliva.

“Foam,” I say, picking myself up. I toss a brick into her lap. “The bricks are made of foam.”

I help Frannie to her feet. She crouches over her sister and swallows her. “I want to find Otto,” she says.

I shake my head impossible , impossible . “With dolls and goblins at war? Even if we found him alive, how could we help? He’s my brother, not yours. I say we leave him behind.”

“You’re a Judas,” Frannie says.

“I had a chance to leave before, but I resisted because of you and him.” In reality, the toads prevented me from leaving. “There is no going back this time. Come on, we’ve got to move. The toilet toads are around here someplace.”

“I won’t leave without Otto.” She walks in the direction of the green and yellow divide. Frannie 2 waves at me from between Frannie’s parted lips.

I plop down cross-legged. “What if Otto is waiting for us on Dead Kid Hill?”

Frannie turns. She says nothing.

“We should at least climb the hill,” I say, “then we can decide what’s best.”

Frannie and Frannie 2 fold their arms.

Maybe I am a Judas.

Frannie caves. I suppose she realizes that I’m not above leaving her. I stand as she walks toward me. “We’ll be safe soon,” I assure her, maybe the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

I grab her hand. She growls to let me know that she does not want me touching her.

“I’m scared,” I say.

Frannie 2 pokes her head out and says, “You can hold my hand. I don’t mind.”

I brush her off like a placid nightmare and hike to the skeletal base of the hill.

Side by side, we walk in darkness. Frannie 2 swipes at my shoulder every so often. I fart to keep her away, regretting the double effect of repelling Frannie.

They gasp when the glowing peak of Dead Kid Hill comes into sight. Depending on the state of decay, the children glow a different color. Most are just skeletons. The ass goblins must have gotten lazy and stopped dragging corpses down here.

Frannie steps in front of me halfway up the hill and turns. Frannie 2 presses her hands against my chest. “We can’t go up there,” she says.

“We’ve got to go beyond the hill. This cave might lead us out of Auschwitz,” I say. “Besides, we’re not little kids anymore. We can handle the toilet toads.”

“But this mountain stinks.”

“Of course it stinks. It’s rotting.”

“We’ll go back if we don’t find Otto,” Frannie says.

I shove her hard. She launches Frannie 2 out of her torso and falls on a dead boy whose eyes are still open. Baby cockrats squeal in the sockets. Frannie 2 starts crying. A cockrat, disturbed by her mewing, leaps out of a girl’s sunken ribcage and claws at the air, landing on Frannie 2’s bald head.

I huff over to her and yank the cockrat from her skull. I fling it off the hill. The creature licks pieces of her scalp from its claws as it sails to the bottom.

“Are you ready to go on?” I say, limping past the Frannies.

Frannie 2 whimpers but nods.

“This was our plan,” I say, “and we’re sticking to it.”

We continue our struggle toward the peak. I really hope we find Otto up there. Otherwise, they’ll want to search the green path. I cannot go there with them.

We pass a body who reminds me of 1000. I run my claws along its teeth. A molar pops loose. I wedge the tooth up my asshole.

“Why would you do that?” Frannie says.

“I thought it was someone I knew,” I say.

We reach the top of Dead Kid Hill. I look out at the chocolate cake stretching half a mile in every direction. My brother, the spider, is nowhere.

“We’ve got to go back,” Frannie says.

I open my mouth to protest, but someone grabs my shoulder. I try to jerk away, assuming Frannie 2 is making another advance, but the gripper holds me in place.

Spider limbs… Otto is here after all. I guess he’s always been a little sneaky.

“Otto!” Frannie says.

I wrench away from his furry legs. “Where have you been?”

“I came straight here,” he says. “To scout out the cavern.”

Frannie dances around him.

“Can we get through?” I say.

Frannie pets his limbs. Otto jerks away, repulsed by her. “I inspected the entire cavern,” he says. His gangrenous lips droop into a frown. “The toilet toads are gone, but there’s no exit from Auschwitz. This cave is a dead end. I believe we must return and fight.”

I’m appalled. “No way,” I tell him. I will sooner abandon my friends than fight for my enemies.

“We fight for the children,” Otto says.

“I’m with Otto,” Frannie says.

“Can’t we just escape? We’d be able to climb the main gate now. I bet the ass goblins aren’t even guarding it.” I say this hoping Frannie 2 will side with me. She remains quiet.

“First we fight, then we round up as many children as possible. We can led them out of Auschwitz.” He flexes his spider arms. Every tiny hair of his insect-grimy flesh bulges with muscle. His legs slide beneath his torso and shape into a perfect sphere. He’s like a bowling pin standing on top of a bowling ball. He yells, levitating in the air as an arachnid sphere.

His upper form -- what used to be his torso -- melts into a waxen bubble that coats the lower sphere. The wax hardens, forming a protective layer. “Stay here if you want,” he says, his voice emanating from the core of his being. “I’m going on. There are goblins to crush.”

“Where did you learn that?” I demand.

“Pushups get you far,” he says.

“Can we go now?” Frannie says, smooching Otto the Goblin Crusher.

Otto’s magical body drops from its levitating position and spins past us. “Come if you want,” he says. He rolls down the hill.

Frannie 2 restrains her sister from leaping off the peak. She looks at me and pleads, “Come with us. Look at Otto. He can protect us.”

“If he fails?” I say.

“Isn’t it better if we die together?”

“Only if death makes all the difference to you.” I grab my right testicle and the bicycle sparks into growth.

From the bottom of the hill, Otto hollers for us hurry.

“So what do you think?” Frannie 2 says, struggling to restrain her sister.

Full-sized, the bicycle falls out of me. “You and Frannie take the bike.”