"014 (B007) - The Monsters (1934-04) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

This decision was his second step toward disaster.



The Atlas Congress of Wonders was showing at Trapper Lake that day. The Atlas did not amount to much as a circus, being financially very much down at the heel. But it was the best Trapper Lake offered. So, by way of celebrating, Bruno Hen went to the circus.



That was his third step in the direction of disaster. The fourth pace, taken all unknowingly, was when he stopped in front of the freak side show.



"Ladies and gentlemen!" bawled the side show barker. "We have here a stupendous, marvelous, awesome, dumbfounding sight! We have here the three most amazing beings ever to come from darkest Africa! Look them over, good people. Try to make yourselves realize that these monstrosities are actually human. They are called the pinhead men. They are cannibal savages from darkest Africa!"



The Atlas Congress of Wonders was not above faking an occasional wild man or a cannibal, but it chanced that these pinheads were the genuine articles. They had been brought from Africa by a more affluent circus, which had then gone bankrupt.



Bruno Hen moved close to the platform to stare at the three pinheads. He had never seen such hideous humans.



The pinheads were squat, the tallest reaching barely to Bruno Hen's topmost vest button. They were nearly as broad as tall, and they were as black as human skin could practically be. They might have been oversize monkeys, shaven bare of hair, dyed black, and given a high polish.



The contour of their heads was especially haunting. Instead of being rounded in the fashion considered normal, the skulls sloped upward to a sharp point. The pin-pointed heads were also very small in proportion to the rest of their gnarled black bodies.



The pinheads had a trait of casting darting, animal-like looks about them. At times they jumped up and down, after the fashion of chimpanzees. They emitted caterwauling noises -- apparently their way of conversing with each other.



Trapper Lake citizens, looking on, probably thought this behavior was part of the circus act. They were mistaken.



The poor pinheads were beings almost devoid of mentality.





BRUNO HEN looked at the pinheads and grinned from ear to ear. The idea of human beings so handicapped by nature tickled him. He laughed out loud.