After some deft maneuvering they lost the annoyed worker in the crowd, then doubled back to the sideshow. Aww, yeah, now this is what he needed, Otis thought. Ain't nothing like seeing real live freaks doing their thing, sure was more exciting than the pasted-together monstrosities in Cutter's 'museum'. Travis even had a blast, except for the midgets making him uncomfortable. "You need to get over yer dwarf hangups, squirt," Otis mock-admonished. After the showing the long, lean man with the metal arm sauntered over to the Alligator Girl's tent, leaving Travis with his older sister and specific instructions not to go too far away and stay in the crowd. He also left a wad of cash with them so they could play games and buy candy.

Such a wonderful babysitter, Otis B. Driftwood.

The girl was brushing her hair before a cracked and stained dresser mirror and turned to him in surprise when she heard him enter. She was afflicted with a somewhat rare skin disease which left the epidermis tough and scaly like a reptile's and she was relatively impervious to most pain. She'd filed her fingernails and teeth for an even more shocking effect. She bared her crocodilian chompers at him and demanded, "Who the hell are you and what're you doing?"

"You could say I'm a big fan," he says in his gravelly voice. "I came for a private show."

Hooding her bright blue eyes under heavy lids she hisses, "The pleasure tent is on up that-a-way," she nodded in the direction. "Those girls can take care of you."

"I don't think ya understand," he says, stepping toward her and shedding the flannel shirt he wore and waving his bionic hand in front of her.

"What the--is that your hand," she took a step back. She was just annoyed at first, but now she was growing alarmed. She was alone in her tent clad only in her camisole and panties with some psycho with a metal hand advancing on her.

"I'm a freak too, sweetie. So come over here an' let's play nice," he motions her to her own small old bed which she hadn't made this morning. Dumbly she complies, noticing the gangly man hardly made a dent in her hard bed. He probably didn't weigh much more than her and she wasn't all that large, herself. She also found upon closer inspection he was much older than she had originally guaged, the fine lines around his eyes and mouth and on his forehead attested to that. Due to the wifebeater t-shirt he wore she espied scars and burn marks aplenty up and down his chiseled shoulder and arms. She couldn't tell if the stringy flaxen hair falling to the middle of his back was blond or grey, but she figured it was probably more grey. Her eyes dropped to the artificial hand again; it began just below the elbow and included lifelike, moving fingers which behaved just like his real one.

"Is that real," she wondered as he scooted closer to her.

"Oh, it's real, mama," he assured her, playing with a strand of her brown hair. "I've shown you mine, now you can show me yours."

Pulling back, incredulous, she snaps "This is it, buddy-ro. I'm scaly and I have claws and bad teeth."

"There's some things I haven't seen," he murmurs, nuzzling her neck and shoulder, bringing his desire into focus on her. She could feel his psychic net as it tried to soothe and instill lust in her. It was working, at least a little. The young woman slowly lowered herself to a supine position with Otis nibbling and kissing her face and throat. He then squeezed her breasts gently but persistantly, eliciting surprised gasps from the female. "What's your name, Gator Girl?"

"L-Linda," she stammers as he slips his fingers up her well-made but scaly thighs and into her warm slit.

Nope, it was smooth, moist and warm and intoxicating. After all, it had been quite some time since he'd had a willing partner. Good fucktoys were hard to come by anymore, and it didn't help that his sexual urges were sporadic as he aged. But man, he was aroused at the moment and wasted no time unzipping his ripped straight-legged jeans and yanking Linda's drawers down.

Freaks freaks freaks...he always wanted to fuck somebody freakier than he himself was, and he plunged deeply into her warm tunnel. He held her close to him as they rocked together, Linda biting her crusty lower lip as he hit the right spot. Her leathery hide rubbed against his own pasty skin which added to the friction and tittilation.

Otis was enjoying the living hell out of wetting his dick with a live albeit freak female when his niece's voice cut through the blanket of pleasure around him.

"Uncle Otis! OTIS," she was screaming, and there was a scuffle outside.

In an instant he pulled out of dear Alligator Girl and was scrambling for the exit, zipping his pants back up.

When he emerged from the tent he was confronted with the sight of several big circus goons with their hands on his adopted sister's children. "Hey there, fagtards! What're ye doin to my kids?"

"You guys fuckin' murdered one o' our workers, or at least know summin about it! You're all comin with us," the biggest, meanest one barks.

"Izzat so," challenges Otis, baring his crooked teeth in a wild-eyed grimace. "Where's the police?" At the silence that greeted him he guffaws. "You guys ain't runnin' a legit place, are ya? What is it, the prostitution, or drugs maybe? Maybe I should call the cops, what say?"

"Bring em," the leader orders.

The thin albino breaks the arm of the first man to lay hands on him with ease and was crushing the skull of another with his metallic hand when several pairs of strong hands force him down to the ground. "Lith, run! Get outta here and bring help," he tells the teenager. "Travis, don't fight! I don't want ya hurt," he tells the boy. Still struggling, he only stopped when something hard hit his head with bonecrunching force.

He opened his eyes slowly, his head throbbing with dull pain and tried to raise to a sitting position and found his hands tied behind his back. He managed to work his way upright since he was against the wall of a dingy, cluttered trailer.

"Otis, you all right," came Travis' shaky child's voice.

"Yeah," he finally replied.

"You hate me, don't ya," the effeminate boy sniffed. "It was my fault we were out here to get into this mess."

Otis glanced over at the darkhaired boy affectionately and confirmed that he was unharmed. "Naw," he answered. "I shoulda been watchin' you guys."

"I don't understand it," came a voice from outside the trailer. "That skinny asshole shoulda been dead, I heard 'is skull crack."

"Aw, you're gettin soft I bet," came the retort. "So what does Tony want done with em?"

"Beats me. Probably wants to see if they were sent by a rival gang to sabotage us."

Otis sits very still until he hears and senses them depart, then breaks out of his bonds easily.

Otis jumped the 'guards' and had their insides pulled out in a few seconds flat. For effect he looped the stinking intestines around one of their necks and wiped his bionic hand off on the unfortunate man's shirt. Sifting through their pockets his stuffs cash in his own pants and keeps the gun and knives he found. Now if they could just make it to the truck...

Travis was handed a small wicked-looking knife and he stuck to Otis like a burr. "You think Lily got away," he whispered to Otis anxiously.

"Yeah, if she's anything like her mom she's on her way back to Ruggsville to send the reinforcements," replied the man, pale eyes darting all around. They were still some ways from the parking area.

Luckily they made it to Baby's truck with no incident, both jumping inside and Otis gunning the motor and peeling out. Little did they know the circus people had an ambush waiting for them just down the road.

RJ and his wife Rita showed up at the Firefly house that evening and found Vera-Ellen on the front porch mending holes in her rambunctious childrens' clothing. The massive man could discern something was wrong, he'd been around his sister enough to read her. She told him about sending Travis and Otis off to the circus and Lily stowing away to go to, and she was growing worried and anxious. Rufus told her that everything was probably fine and that all three would be home in a couple hours, safe and sound.

"I hope yore right," she murmured softly.

"Holy shit on a stick," swore Otis, swerving the truck and almost tipping it over when he spotted gun-toting, vicious-looking men waiting for them. Travis tumbled about in the cab squealing and his guardian's hand shot out to steady him then motioned him down. Glass from the window exploded from shotgun shells bursting through; the sideshow mercs had opened fire on them. Whipping the vehicle back onto the road he slammed his foot on the gas pedal and aimed the rolling three ton hunk of metal toward the fuckers. "Stay down," he told Travis who was cringing in the floorboards with his hands over his head.

The faded blue truck plowed through two of the goons, killing them and tossing their broken bodies to the side while the others jumped out of the way. "Yeah, come on," hissed Otis, hoping they were home free.

Not quite.