Robert Harwood felt lucky to be alive. He served two years in the Marine Corps during the First World War and emerged without a wound. This twenty-five year old Marine killed scores of German soldiers and returned home with numerous medals and war souvenirs. He displayed one souvenir, a nineteen inch saw tooth bayonet, to his fiancée, Beatrice, at an Easter party in 1919.

“I appreciate the ordeal you have been through, Robert, but I must tell you that I am in love with another man.”

Robert’s body trembled with anger and heartbreak. “Who is it?” he gasped.

“Emory Houghton.”

“That big shot timber owner? He didn’t have a hard time catching you. All he had to do was ask and you said yes. All you women are the same. Money. That’s what you’re after. A poor guy like me doesn’t stand a chance against a rich man.”

“Robert, you must learn to face life as you faced death. A woman must take care of her future. You have honor, but Emory…well…he can see to my future. I…..”

She did not finish. Her bright blue eyes gaped at Robert and then down at the bayonet stuck into her heart. She tried to speak, but the words disappeared with her breathing. Robert held her lifeless body in his arms. He kissed her and held her for a hour under the moon, with the sound of the Easter dance music floating softly across the Oregon farm land.

“I loved you, Beatrice. I’ll always love you,” he said as he kissed her dead face and lowered her to the ground. Robert left town and boarded a train for the Pacific coast. He slept for most of the twelve hour journey and awakened when the train stopped. He saw uniform police officers boarding the train, and made his escape. As the train pulled away with the police aboard, Robert walked toward the center of the small Oregon coastal community. His forest green Marine uniform would make it easy to police to identify him; so, he bought a tweed suit and boater hat. The Marine uniform found its way into a church charity box.

“I’ll sell the tweed suit to you for half price,” the haberdasher told him. “I appreciate what you Marines did over there.

“Where’s the music coming from?”

“That’s the circus,” said the tailor, “it’s coming into town today.”

The circus parade made its way down the main street, with the band playing “Entrance of the Gladiators”. A menagerie of animals, clowns, acrobats and performers passed by Harwood. It circled the town square and headed toward a park on the outskirts of the town.

Harwood felt a hand on his shoulder. A woman of his age wearing gold earrings, a purple dress and sapphire earrings stood next to him smoking a cigarette.

“Looking for work?’ she asked. “You look strong enough to be a roustabout. That’s a laborer. Come out to the circus and talk to the crew boss.”

“I’m on a vacation, lady. I don’t want to work.”

“The pay is good. You get your meals free and we don’t any questions.”

“What makes you think I got something to hide?”

“We all got something to hide. We’re going to Canada after we done with this town. You can go, too.”

Harwood lit on the idea of leaving the country. The police might never find him in Canada, and from Canada, he might escape to Europe.

“What your name?” she asked.

“John Smith.”

“That’s a common alias. Many of the guys who work for us use that. But, forget it. We don’t care . See the crew boss. His name is Wilson. You’ll easy recognize him. He’s ugly as sin and hasn’t got teeth. See you later.”

“Hey, sister. What’s your name?”

“They call me Jasmine.”

Harwood lit a Sweet Caporal cigarette as he walked to the circus. Jasmine’s voluptuous figure and exotic looks excited him in a way different from Beatrice. His dead fiancé possessed quiet, refined features that engendered male respect; while the circus entrepreneur incited a wild sexual frenzy he never before experienced, even in the brothels in France. He loved Beatrice and regretted killing her, but he did not want to die at the end of a rope, especially after surviving the war.

Jasmine’ s description of crew boss, Buzzy Wilson, made sense. The small, wiry man resembled a monkey. His foul, tobacco breath nauseated Harwood. Wilson set him to work spotting animal cages and erecting seats. Harwood sat down to lunch tired and hungry, but Wilson joined him as he finished his ginger beer and fried chicken.

“You did good work, sport,” Wilson told him. “You were in the service?”

“I thought you didn’t ask questions?”

“Ah, a smart guy, too, for a Marine.”

“Who told you I was a Marine?”

“You got that cocky, I can take care of myself attitude. I like that, up to a point.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I ain’t keen on my men taking up with the women in the circus. It creates problems. We got plenty to do without tinkering with dames.”

“The way I figure it, I do my job. You keep your pesky nose out of my business.”

Wilson poked Harwood in the ribs with his small, bony finger. The jab hurt and shocked Harwood, and he felt a momentary sense of fear for the impish Wilson.

“Listen, wise guy. I don’t care what you do when you take your trousers off, but don’t give me trouble. I seen a lot of guys pass in and out, and I see you as one who’s in a jam, but I don’t give a shit. No skin off my back. Just do what I say. Who knows, I might even be doing you a favor, jarhead.”

Wilson got up and kicked his chair back against Harwood and left. The little man made an impression, instilling fear in Harwood. He called Harwood a “jarhead”, a nickname given Marines, and which reinforced the ruthlessness of the warning. Harwood wanted to sleep with Jasmine and would not allow anyone to stop him, but he recognized that he ought to watch out for Wilson.

Harwood lit another cigarette and set about exploring the circus. The crowds poured into the area, and stomped down the green pasture grass. The ripe smell of horse sweat mixed with that of elephant dung and sweet hay. The aroma of hot roasted peanuts and hot dogs made Harwood hungry for the tasty food of the circus. He indulged himself with three hot dogs and mustard and a sarsaparilla and then belched as he wandered though the crowd. He chain smoked, and had fun popping children’s’ balloons with the cigarettes. He went into the big tent which housed the three-ring circus and saw aerialists rehearsing their quadruple somersaults without nets.

“We’ve had three aerialists killed in the past three years,” a roustabout told Harwood. “The crowds love to see aerialists risk their lives.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough money to fly around up there,” said Harwood.

“All in a day’s work , Marine. It’s like being in combat. You never get used to it, but after a while, it has a certain thrill to it.”

Harwood turned to the man, ready to ask “how the hell did you know I was in the Marines?”, but the man disappeared. A bull elephant towered over a lady with its huge foot inches above her face. One misstep by the pachyderm would leave her without a head, but the beast backed away. The woman arose. Her left eye and nose had been smashed by a previous encounter with an elephant, but she smiled and bowed to Harwood.

Harwood washed down the sawdust with another bottle of sarsaparilla and plunked down coins for hot roasted peanuts. Jasmine caught up with him.

“Let me treat you to something really delicious,” she said, and took him to a vendor of cotton candy. The yellow threads of the candy melted on his tongue at once.

“I’ve never tasted stuff like this before. This is so sweet that…that…it makes my head swoon. I feel like having sex right here in the midway.”

She laughed. “It’s the food of the gods. I want to show you something very special.”

She took him to the bally platform at the entrance to the big tent

“I’m hot for you, Jasmine. Can’t you see that?”

“I’m no choir girl and I make love damn well, but let’s wait a bit until I show you this. Trust me; you’ve never seen anything like it.”

A spieler standing on the platform shouted at the audience: “Ladeez and gent-l-men. Children of all ages. Come and see our Ten-In-One show. Ten freaks, the oddities of the homo sapiens race under one roof. The girl with twelve fingers on each hand. Next, the man who swims with the deadly piranha fish and emerges unscathed. Next, and in sequential order, a knife throwing dwarf with one arm and who is blind; a man who swallows electric eels; the woman with the foot-long tongue; the spider lady who is covered with deadly black widow spiders from head to toe and is not bitten; the man with no mouth ,nose, eyes or ears; a young girl who sleeps on razor-sharp tacks; the swami who kisses the head of a deadly King Cobra. Come one; come all.”

She escorted him through the sideshow.

“This show is a con job. Those are not real. They’re made up to look like freaks.”

“It’s no con. They are for real.”

“Where in the world did you get them?”

“Some I collected from my travels. Others drifted into the circus as you did.”

“The man on the platform said there were ten acts. I counted nine.”

“The tenth one was Herman Cordero.”

“Cordero? He escaped from the insane asylum and killed nine people and ate them. What was he doing here?”

“He came here to hide from the law. He played in this freak show until he had to move on. I suppose the police were closing in on him.”

“I’m getting tired of all this bull, Jasmine . How about us crawling into the rack with a nice cool beer and making love?”

She took him to her wagon that was located in a dried river bed a short distance from the circus. She poured him a goblet of wine and slipped behind a curtain to change her dress. Harwood drained the goblet and poured another. Jars filled the shelves of her wagon.

“Jasmine, what’s in all these glass jars?”

“We call them ‘pickled punks.’ They are babies that died at birth and I had their bodies preserved in formaldyhe. It’s my hobby. Cute, aren’t they?”

“This wine is making me drowsy, baby. You didn’t slip a Mickey Finn into it?”

She emerged from behind the curtain clothed in a slinky black dress with metallic fabric. A veil covered her face and she wore a headdress fashioned into snakes.

“Tom, have you ever heard of Medusa?”

“Name rings a bell.”

“She was a woman who live long ago and who was so ugly that her face turned men into stone. Her hair was laden with poisonous snakes.”

“I don’t believe in that hocus pocus crap ,baby. Let’s get down to the real stuff.”

He lunged for her body, but she brushed away his arm.

“If you think it is absurd, then let me test you. If I told you I was Medusa, what would you say?”

“I’d say you were a crazy bitch who needs a good talking to, and I’m just the guy who can do it cause I’m drunker than I ever been.”

“Look at me, you swine! Learn how stupid you are!”

“Baby, I’m commencing to get mad as hell at you. I’m going to beat the crap you before I rape you.”

She removed her veil and he gazed straight into her eyes. Her face was a foot across and her hair had become a mass of hissing vipers. Her tongue lashed out and curled around his neck. Harwood felt his body stiffen and his blood freeze in his veins. The goblet dropped from his hands.

The crowds poured into the sideshow in record numbers during the Canadian tour of the circus. The biggest attraction proved to be the tenth exhibit.

“Ladeez and gent-l-men. Children of all ages. Meet the ‘stone man’. The only victim of the gorgon monster Medusa in existence today. Preserved in stone thousands of years.” What none of the visitors realized was that the exhibit had one item of his humanness remaining: his brain. Although he could not speak or move, he heard, saw and tasted the world around him. He agonized to make his confession that he murdered his fiancé

“Please! Please! I want to die. Let them hang me!”

William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, looked out a White House window on an evening early in the year 1900 and remarked to his wife, Ida, about the guests arriving for a reception.

“They are the cream of the crop, my dear Ida. It should make for a splendid reception. Are you sure you won’t meet the guests.”

The demure Ida wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and smiled a sweet smile. “No, Will, I don’t feel well this evening. Tender my apology.”

McKinley kissed his wife and fed a cracker to his pet Mexican yellow parrot then proceeded downstairs to meet his guests.

The one hundred- ten guests arriving that night in stylish carriages did indeed represent the top layer of American aristocracy. They owned railroads, factories, sat on boards of directors and did not much else but clip their dividends, but the president could count on them to contribute generously to his re-election campaign in the fall. The men symbolized the epitome of success in their top hats, striped trousers and black cutaway tailcoats; and the ladies strode in, dressed in jewels and silk gowns. Few of these wealthy people deigned to discuss the plight of the workers toiling sixteen hours a day to produce their riches or the working children made deaf by machinery in plants owned by them.

The center of attention this night focused on Richard Preston Chastain, a forty-year old heir to a timber fortune in the Pacific Northwest and his fiancé, the young debutante, Evangeline Harper. The couple announced their engagement the week before, and Washington society speculated on who would make the guest list to their wedding. The dark-haired handsome Chastain fit the requirements for leadership in this plutocracy. Chastain doubled his family’s fortune in ten years; traveled the world in search of priceless artifacts; and owned the world’s largest private collection of Greek antiquities. His wardrobe, tailor- made for him in Paris, earned him the sobriquet “best dressed man of his day.” Chastain walked beside his fiancé, whose red hair and green eyes sparkled under the lights of the White House.

Crystal chandeliers bedecked with flowers cast light down on the guests as they partook a light supper supplemented with ice water and wine. The Marine Corps band played selections from “La Traviata” until President McKinley arrived . The band played “Hail To The Chief,” and the somber- faced chief executive, who wore a black tuxedo with tails, shook hands with his benefactors.

“The president should be careful in public,” said Chastain.” He has many enemies, and he is not well protected in receiving lines.” Chastain and Evangeline met the president.”When are you and this brilliant young man going to be married?” McKinley asked Evangeline.

“We haven’t set a date yet, Mr. President. Richard must go out to Oregon first.”

“Don’t stay in the wilds of Oregon too long, Chastain. I’m going to need you to work on my campaign. William Jennings Bryan still has a dragon’s tongue and will give me a run for the money.”

“The people have confidence in your leadership, sir,” said Chastain.

“I’m depending on you to steer this man in the right direction, my dear Evangeline. If he plays his cards right, he may some day live in this house.”

Richard and Evangeline danced and socialized with other guests. None of the assembled guests doubted the Chastains would produce beautiful children and have their portraits painted by John Singer Sargeant.

The reception ended at midnight, and Richard and Evangeline returned to their carriage.

“I wish you weren’t making the trip out west, Richard. I want to be with you.”

“I loathe it when we are apart, but I must attend to some business. I won’t be long.”

“I’ve never been to Oregon. Is it full of bandits?”

“No, that would be too romantic. It’s picturesque, and someday I want you to see it.”

“I want to so much. Now, go on your way and return to me soon.”

Chastain arrived in Oregon five days later. His home stood atop a ridge overlooking the Columbia River. The Victorian style mansion boasted turrets that soared into the morning sky. Chastain’s butler, Gifford, greeted him.

“Did we have a pleasant trip, sir?’

“Yes. Is everything ready?”

The frail, white-haired Gifford followed Chastain down dark corridors and rooms decorated with oriental rugs, paintings and gold plates that Chastain collected from all over the world. They came to the gold door of the room called the Parthenon.

“The lady is waiting for you,sir.”

Chastain designed the two-story room to replicate the Parthenon that stood in ancient Greece. Crystal columns rose from the malachite floor up past red gold walls into a domed sapphire ceiling. A gold-plated statue of the goddess Athena, clad in spear and a shield adorned with a figure of a serpent, stood in the center. A meal of caviar, oysters, turtles and squid lay on a table. Chastain poured a glass of Ismarian wine and toasted the goddess.

“I salute you my, queen. My love for you will endure forever.”

A woman in her early twenties emerged from behind a curtain. She undressed Chastain and laid him on a cushion.

“Who are you, girl?”

“My name is Annie, sir. “

“Where did you come from?”

“I come form Portland, sir. I was a maid, sir.”

“You were a strumpet, and you served wealthy men. You are the best of the litter, Annie, and I shall take supreme pleasure in your body”

Chastain forgot his love for Evangeline as he made love to the woman. He closed his eyes to savor the sex and reached for a glass of wine. He suddenly felt an excruciating pain. Chastain opened his eyes and found himself caught in the coils of a python. He struggled to free himself, but the snake tightened its paralyzing grip every time he inhaled, and he heard his bones begin to crumble. Blood gushed from his mouth as Chastain felt the life’s breath being forced out of his body. He managed to free his right arm and take hold of a Greek artifact sword lying nearby. Chastain swung at the serpent’s head and severed it. He fainted, but when he revived, he found the woman’s severed head beside him. The snake had disappeared. The head opened its eyes and looked at Chastain

“Did you get your money’s worth out of me, sir?”

Chastain screamed. “Has the world turned inside out? This is complete madness!” He rolled on the floor and beat his head against the table.

“Chastain!” The voice rang in his ears.

“Who is it?”

“It is I. Athena.”

Chastain looked up and saw the ruby eyes of the stone goddess on fire.

“Thou hast disgraced my holy temple with thy foul bestiality, and for this I have punished thee. Beware, for I seek thy doom.”

“It was complete madness! One moment I held a girl in my hands, the next I saw her head on the floor,” said Chastain as he sat in the office of his attorney several days later.

C.L. Morely, a short man with a walrus moustache, lit a Cuban cigar and sat back in the buffalo leather chair and listened to Chastain tell his story.

“Where did you get this woman?”

“One of my agents found her working as a prostitute along the waterfront in Portland.”

“She also happened to be a minister’s daughter and the father filed a missing persons report. These soiled doves have strange relations.”

“Passion can make a man do foolish things.”

“This whole thing mystifies me, Richard. How does a thoroughly straightforward man such as yourself, who has everything he could possible want, lose his wits and do such a thing? Were you intoxicated?”

“I have not always been the man I appear to be. I indulged my whims, and it finally caught up with me. I have had many women and I have used them as I pleased.” Chastain did not tell Morely that the girl turned into a python. The lawyer would plead insanity in a court of law-and be correct. That secret remained hidden within Chastain.

“If the newspapers get hold of this, it could reflect on President McKinley’s re-election campaign,” said Morely.

“That would be tragic.”

“The smartest move is to get you out of the public eye for awhile. We may be able to pay the girl’s father to let this die out. I’ll use my contacts at the police department to keep this under wraps.”

“I could go to Europe.”

“You should be close by where I can contact you if I need. There is a deserted island off the southern Oregon coast. I’m going to send you down there for a few months until this blows over.”

“I must tell Evangeline about this.”

“Horse manure! You know how women are. You tell them a secret and they blat their brains out. Tell your fiancé that you decided to take a cruise to the south pacific to inspect some business properties. Tell her to contact me if she wants to get in touch with you.”

Chastain, dressed in great coat and woolen cap, stood on a windswept beach as he waited for a fisherman to take him out to his place of hiding. He thought of the glittering social life of Washington, and Evangeline, and how he had betrayed her trust and fallen to the depths of despair. Chastain got into a dingy and set out for a large piece of rock about one-half mile off shore. An aged, one-eyed fisherman dressed in a blue raincoat manned the helm.

“My name is Yost” said the oarsman.” I been fishing these waters for many year.”

“What is this place called, Yost?”

“The Ice Island.”

“It looks as ominous as the surface of the moon.”

“There was a big ice storm back in 1880.A ship ran against the rocks on the island and everybody got killed but one man. He stayed alive by eating the dead men. I found him in spring. He had crucified himself by pounding spikes into his hand and feet.”

“Not the ideal spot.”

“That isn’t all. There have been others. Criminals who hid out there. Insane persons kept there by relatives, but none of them left the island alive.”

Chastain saw plovers and sandpipers flying over the island . The island was a barren piece of basalt rock surrounded by tide pools filled with green anemones and starfish.

“It’s one hundred foot to the top of the rock” said the fisherman. “There’s a cave up there that’ll give you some cover. I stocked some grub in there for you. I got my orders. You are to get a resupply of food and water rand a bottle of whiskey once a week. You aren’t to have any contact with nobody but me. “

“How long will I be here?”

“I got no idea or do I care. I get paid for this.”

“I hope I can leave in spring.”

“I bet you don’t live past a month, if you want the truth, but that’s not my concern. You can’t escape and no man ever ventures out here. This place got a bad reputation.”

The fisherman left Chastain alone on the rock.

“Be on the lookout for all those ghosts who live on the island,” the fisherman yelled back in mockery. Chastain spent that evening and all the evenings for the next six months in the cave in front of the fire thinking of Evangeline and the circumstances which lead to him being on the Ice Island. He wondered if Evangeline had found love with another man. Always, he turned the incident with the girl, Annie, over in his mind. ”What happened,” he continued to ask himself.”How could a young girl who made her living by selling her body become a snake?” “How could a piece of stone come alive?”The statue of the goddess Athena served as a monument to his wealth, his ability to collect priceless artifacts; however, that statue of Athena turned the girl into a serpent and vowed revenge against Chastain. He could not deny that for he heard it with his own ears. The entire incident defied logical explanation. Yet, there must be an explanation for it. In July, the fisherman brought a letter from Morely informing him the investigation into the girl’s disappearance ended without naming him as a suspect, but that the police were conducting a search of Chastain’s house. Morely told the police that Chastain left for the south Pacific. Morely told Chastain he must remain incommunicado for several more months. The letter also stated Evangeline had come to Oregon in search of Chastain.

“There was a dandy looking gal come to our village a few weeks back asking about you,” said the fisherman. “Real pretty. Enough to make a man stand up and take notice. If you get me.” Chastain cursed the fisherman as he sailed back to shore.

“If you ever come back here, I’ll kill you.!”

Chastain got drunk that night in the cave. “I’ve got to get off the island. I can make a raft out of wood from the ship’s wreckage. If I can get to Evangeline, we can work things out. There’s got to be a sane explanation for all this. I’ve got to try even if it kills me.”

He drank himself to sleep, but awakened in the middle of the night to sound of a violent storm. The overpowering odor of vomit filled the warm night air. Chastain head a woman’s singing voice. He visited the world’s greatest opera houses, but never had he heard such a glorious soprano voice.

“Is someone else on the island or am I finally losing my mind?”

Chastain felt something warm touch his arm and recognized it as human feces. He looked up into the dark sky and saw a bird swooping down upon him. The bird landed in front of Chastain. The avian had a wingspan of double the height of a man. The talons and abdomen were that of a bird, but the creature had the face of a beautiful, blonde-haired woman. Chastain determined it to be a harpy, a mythical monster, half-bird, half-human that carried out the orders of the gods. The creature addressed Chastain. “My name is Aello and I have come at the command of the goddess Athena. You have defiled her sacred temple with your vile orgies, and for this you must pay with your life. I have come to take you to hell.”

“I was carried away by my passions because I am only human. I did not intend to harm that woman. I beg for mercy.”

“I was once a great singer but I was ridiculed by vile humans who were jealous of me, so I forsook the opera stage. Now, I have my revenge.” The bird opened its mouth, and Chastain saw the head of the fisherman inside. The fisherman winked at Chastain. “Mighty nice inside here. Care to join us?”

The harpy pointed its talon at Chastain. “I will take you to hell, and return to eat your beloved Evangeline. She will make a delicious meal.” The harpy grabbed Chastain by the shirt and flew away with him. The bird carried him up into the dark sky toward the moon. Chastain knew he would die, but Evangeline must live. He began stabbing the bird in the stomach with his knife. The remains of half-digested victims poured out. Chastain kept stabbing the harpy, and the bird let out a scream, and fell toward the ocean. It dropped Chastain into the water a few feet from shore and disappeared into the waves. Chastain swam to the shore. “This is total madness,” he gasped.

“There I was, my darling, swimming for my life, and all I could think about was you.”

Chastain sat on a sofa and smoked a cigar while Evangeline tended her flowers.

“I could hardly believe my ears when your lawyer, Mr. Morely ,told me you decided to live the life of an aesthetic on that silly old island.”

“It was just one of those whimsies one has, I guess. I will not do it again.”

“When we found you, you said something about…what was it? Harpies? Whatever did you mean?”

“Did I say that? I didn’t say that? If I did, I was only joking. One has to make humorous once in a while to keep one’s sanity.”

“Now, I shall take up all your time, Richard, and I won’t give you a minute to indulge your idol fantasies. The opera season has just begun, and the opera has engaged a brilliant young soprano from Europe. She will eclipse the greatest singers now performing.”

“’Dee-lighted’, as our new vice-president, Teddy Roosevelt, would say.”

“That’s not all. I told her about your experiences and she is most anxious to hear about them, so she invited us over to her apartment for lunch today. We’re late for it now.”

“Even more splendid.”

“She says she has planned something very special for us.”

“Fine. What’s her name?”

“Aello, and she is positively starving, so let’s be on our way.”