Evil Toy Tanks

Tom Townsend

Royal Fireworks Press Unionville, NY

Other Royal Fireworks Publications by Tom Townsend

The Fairie Ring Series Never Trust a One-Eyed Wizard

Dragon Trader Shadow Kiss

Gypsy Prince: War Horse Nadia of the Night WitcheThe Trouble With An Elf

Copyright © 2012, Royal Fireworks Publishing Co., Inc.All Rights reserved.

Royal Fireworks PressFirst Avenue, PO Box 399Unionville, NY 10988-0399(845) 726-4444FAX: (845) 726-3824email: mail@rfwp.comwebsite: rfwp.com

ISBN: 978-0-89824-373-4

Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free, recycled paper using vegetable-based inks and environmentally-friendly cover coatings by the Royal Fireworks Printing Co. of Unionville, New York.

1

Chapter 1Munich, West Germany, 1955

Black against the cold winter sky, the broken smokestacks of the old, bombed-out factory stood as a gaunt reminder that the war had been here. Although World War Two, the big war, ended ten years ago and left most of Europe as broken as this old German factory, the ruins and its secrets remained.

Sergeant Burton Wheeler of the U.S. Army’s 23rd Bomb Disposal Company huddled behind the thin canvas doors of his jeep as snowflakes blew in around the edges and collected on his heavy wool coat. His jeep had no heater. Only officers got heaters, and Wheeler was just a sergeant. That wasn’t fair. Sergeants ran the army; everyone knew that—everyone except officers. Sergeant Wheeler was a busy man. Almost every day someone found a bomb, or grenade, or mine left over from the war. Each one had to be disarmed, taken away, and destroyed. Another day, another bomb, he thought.

Blue lights flashed on German Police cars as Wheeler’s jeep stopped in front of the ruins. Two trucks carrying the rest of his team pulled in behind him. He stepped out of his jeep and bit down on the stub of his cigar. Bulldozers, dump trucks, and cranes sat idle in the snow. A tall man in a black leather overcoat approached Wheeler, walking with a limp. He stopped inches in front of him and clicked his heels in the style of German officers. “I am Inspector Von Flintz, Munich Police,” he said, his voice short and crisp, with a hint of distain as he extended his hand.

Wheeler knew an old Nazi when he saw one. Von Flintz’s leather trench coat had been German Army issued and, as they shook hands, Wheeler saw the silver skull ring on his finger.

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Evil Toy Tanks

The Death Head Ring. Yeah, he’s an old Nazi, probably SS, Wheeler thought, but he only said, “What did you find?” A crooked smile spread across Von Flintz’s face and made the long pale scar on his cheek move a little. Wheeler thought of snakes.

“Come, Sergeant,” Von Flintz said with a heavy German accent. “I will show you.” He turned sharply on his heel, and his boots made crunching noises in the snow as he marched into the center of the ruins. Wheeler followed him past piles of snow-spattered brick rubble. Parts of a few walls still stood, but, besides the smoke stacks, little else remained recognizable. Von Flintz stopped beside a hole in the rubble where a rusty metal stairway descended into darkness. “This has been buried under the rubble since your bombers destroyed the factory in 1944. They found it only this morning while clearing the site for a new factory.”

Wheeler stared down into the darkness. “What’s down there?” he asked.

Again Von Flintz smiled, but said only one word, “Goliaths.”“And what the heck is a Goliath?”Von Flintz started down the stairs. “Come, you will see.”“Yeah, I bet I will,” Wheeler mumbled and then yelled at

Corporal Smith, who stood beside the jeep. “Hey, Smith! Get your tail over here, and bring the men.” Then he tossed away his cigar butt and followed Von Flintz down the stairs.

Bare light bulbs strung on wires along the ceiling cast a dim and eerie light over a concrete tunnel which had remained sealed since the war. The ceiling sagged in places and ugly cracks ran down the walls. The tunnel ended in a larger room where several other tunnels branched off, and at last Wheeler saw the Goliaths. They vaguely resembled big toy tanks, except they had no turrets and the bodies were plain in design. Wheeler counted a dozen of them, each one about four feet long with tank-like tracks.

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Chapter 1: Munich, West Germany, 1955

“Goliaths,” Von Flintz said. “Remote-controlled bombs. Powered by electric motors and controlled by long wires which rolled out as they moved. The operator could control one from up to one hundred meters away, and detonate it on command.”

“Yeah, I know what they are,” Wheeler smirked. “Except we call ’em Doodlebugs.”

Von Flintz removed a cover from one of the Goliaths. “This one had not yet been armed, but it would have carried quite enough high explosives to destroy one of those inferior Sherman tanks you Americans put so much faith in.”

Wheeler ignored the thinly disguised insult. “War’s been over for ten years. How come it took you people so long to find these?”

The old German stared at him for a moment and his pale blue eyes took on a distant, almost frightened look. “Below this place there are tunnels everywhere and many secrets.” His eyes darted around the walls, and he continued in a whisper. “Things you would not believe, and secrets you should hope will never be found.”

Nazi nut case, Wheeler thought, but a chill went up his spine as he asked, “What kind of factory was this?”

“Before the war, it made toys for good little German boys,” he paused and then added, “and I suppose, for good little German girls also.”

“Some toys.”“In times of war,” Von Flintz defended, “we all make

sacrifices. To survive, we learn to adapt. We must do what we must do.”

Wheeler had had enough of the old Nazi. “Corporal Smith!” he yelled.

“Yeah, Sarge?” Smith said from right beside him.

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Evil Toy Tanks

“Disarm all this Nazi junk, then we’ll haul everything out to the firing range and blow ’em up.” The corporal looked slightly confused, but he always looked confused, so Wheeler motivated him. “Come on, you heard me. Move it, move it. I got things to do and this place stinks. I don’t wanna spend all day down here.”

Smith at last scurried off, giving the order to the other men. Von Flintz again clicked his heels and started to salute, then stopped himself and said, “I must leave you now. Duty calls.” He turned to go, but then hesitated. “And Sergeant, be certain none of your men wander off into the tunnels. We would not want them to get lost.” He marched away toward the stairs and called over his shoulder, “And Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, yeah, Merry Christmas to you too,” Wheeler answered. For a minute or so he watched his men as they began to check the Goliaths, and then he wandered further down into the tunnel. This joint should be loaded with souvenirs, Wheeler thought as he turned on his flashlight. Dumb G.I.s, the ones just in from the States, paid good money for old Nazi helmets, dress daggers, medals, anything. His beam fell on a broken doll, the wing of a model airplane, and pieces of a toy train.

Then he saw them. Large model tanks, some of them almost as big as sports cars, and others half their size, sat lurking in the shadows. He identified Tigers and Panthers and even a Jagdpanther. His foot kicked something and he picked up a metal box with switches and two joysticks. Radio-controlled toy tanks? he said to himself. Never seen anything like this. Like a light coming on, a bright idea formed instantly in his mind.

Corporal Smith broke his concentration. “Hey, Sarge,” he said as he approached. “Those are cute. What are they doin’ down here?”

“How would I know?” Wheeler asked.“So, we load these up or what?”

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Chapter 1: Munich, West Germany, 1955

Wheeler thought for a moment and made his decision. He handed the control box to Smith and said, “Just those three little ones. And put ’em all the way back in the truck.”

Once again, Corporal Smith did not seem to understand. “Why do you want me to do that?”

“So we can unload ’em at my house, you nitwit,” Wheeler explained, but Smith just stared at the tanks. “It’s almost Christmas and I got three boys.”

“Oh, yeah, them. There’s Able, Baker, and Charlie, right?”“Yeah, I can keep up with ’em that way. So don’t just stand

there. Load the tanks.”“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sarge. There’s something

about them that don’t—”Wheeler cut him off. “Smith, you’re a corporal in the United

States Army. Ya don’t get paid to think. If the Army wanted you to think, they’d make you a sergeant, like me.”

“Oh, yeah, right Sarge. I forgot.”♦ ♦ ♦

Charlie Wheeler was seven years old and Christmas scared him. It wasn’t Santa Claus or reindeer, or even ugly Elves and snowmen that ruined what everyone else considered the greatest holiday of the year. It was his brothers. Ten-year-old Able and nine-year-old Baker were both a lot bigger and meaner than Charlie could ever be.

At 4 am on Christmas morning, Charlie lay awake in his bed, dreading what his brothers would do to him next. When he was a baby, they tried to sell him at a garage sale. Last Christmas, they glued him to the toilet seat. For his birthday last summer, they took the brakes off his new bicycle and pushed him down the highest hill they could find. Charlie spent the rest of the summer with his leg in a cast, while Able and Baker rode his bicycle into trees and walls until it became an unrepairable tangle of bent metal. On the Fourth of July, they

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Evil Toy Tanks

tied sparklers to the tail of the family dog, but saved all their firecrackers. Then, when school started in the fall, they duct-taped them all together and blew up a big pot of pea soup in the cafeteria. They got caught of course, but they insisted Charlie made them do it.

The door to Charlie’s room creaked open a few inches. They were coming, he knew. They would never let him get downstairs on Christmas morning before they claimed the best presents for themselves and broke the ones left for him. They were evil, Charlie knew. For a moment he saw their silhouettes in the doorway and then they were on him, rolling him up in the blankets and then shoving him into the narrow space between his bed and the wall. “That ought to hold him,” he heard Able say. Then they were gone, making loud rapid thumps as they bounded down the stairs. Charlie struggled to free himself from the blankets and had to crawl under his bed to get out.

By the time he reached the living room where the Christmas tree stood, Able and Baker were already fighting. “They’re all mine!” Able yelled.

“No they’re not. They’re mine!” Baker yelled back as he hit Able in the stomach with his fist and together they tumbled and rolled about on the floor.

Charlie at last saw what they were fighting over. Three large toy tanks sat beneath the tree. Charlie kind of liked tanks. They were big and heavy, and he figured if he could live inside of one, his brothers couldn’t get to him. Yet, a bad feeling crept over him as soon as he saw these tanks. He touched one and the strangest sensation he had ever felt tingled through him; it was a cold, dark, feeling that made him shiver. Their little headlights are eyes, he thought, evil, hate-filled little eyes that glared at him, and dared him to touch them again. Charlie backed away and sat down in the corner as his mother came in carrying a tray of hot chocolate. Unfortunately, she entered just as Baker kicked Able in the stomach and he went rolling across the room,

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Chapter 1: Munich, West Germany, 1955

tripping her and getting hot chocolate everywhere. His father arrived just then and grabbed Able and Baker by their pajama tops. “Knock it off you apes,” he said. “There’s one of those tanks for each of you.” He glanced at Charlie where he sat in the corner. “Now, since Charlie’s the youngest, and because he’s sitting there like a gentleman, he gets to pick first.”

“That ain’t fair!” Able insisted. “I’m the oldest.” Baker punched him in the stomach. “So what? You ain’t

the toughest!” He lunged for Able but Sergeant Wheeler held them apart.

“Okay, Charlie,” Wheeler said. “Your choice.”“I don’t want one,” Charlie said.“Then I get his!” Baker exclaimed.“No, you don’t. I’m the oldest! It’s mine! Daddy, tell him

it’s mine!”Wheeler continued to hold them apart. “You each get one.

If Charlie doesn’t want to play with his, that’s his business.”Baker sulked as his father finally released him. “Oh, all

right I guess. But I want that one.”“No, I already picked it!”“Did not! You lie like a rug!”“Yeah, so what? I can beat you up and take ’em both!” With

that, Able kicked Baker in the shins and the fight started once again. Charlie went back upstairs where the tanks couldn’t see him.

♦ ♦ ♦

By the time spring came to the Wheeler household, their backyard looked like a war zone. Grass did not grow. A swing set bent in the middle, the twisted frame of a bicycle, three wheels and one axle from a little red wagon, and a burned-out baby carriage lay strewn about in the dirt.

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Evil Toy Tanks

Charlie stood by the patio table while he disassembled one of the controllers for the toy tanks. He had to stand because Able and Baker had broken all of the chairs. The large, heavy controller had two joysticks on top and a lot of lights and switches which Charlie did not understand. On the back, a plate could be removed with four screws. Charlie figured there had to be batteries inside and if there were batteries, they could be removed. Then the tanks couldn’t run and his brothers couldn’t use them to hurt anyone. When the screws came loose at last, Charlie looked inside. There were no batteries. There were no wires. None of the switches and controls were even hooked up to anything.

Charlie dropped his screwdriver and yelled at his brothers, who were ramming their tanks into the doghouse. “You shouldn’t play with those. There’s something wrong with them!”

They ignored him as one wall of the doghouse collapsed, then the roof fell and dust rose around it. The dog whined against Charlie’s leg as it cowered under the table and Able and Baker turned their attention to Charlie. They swaggered up to the table and looked at the disassembled controller. “Whadda you think you’re doin?” Able demanded.

“There aren’t any batteries in there,” Charlie tried to explain.“So what, they run fine.”“But they’ve gotta have batteries. That’s what’s supposed

to make them go.”Baker shrugged. “Who cares what makes ’em go?” He

turned his tank on the dog, who tucked his tail under and ran.“Yeah,” Baker agreed, “who cares as long as they smash

stuff.”A sudden flash of inspiration lit up Able’s eyes. “Hey, let’s

smash Charlie.”Charlie ran, dodging junk, as two of the tanks chased him

around the yard. Minutes later, Able and Baker were laughing

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Chapter 1: Munich, West Germany, 1955

when they noticed the third tank was also chasing Charlie. They looked first at the disassembled controller, then at each other. They both shrugged and continued to enjoy the show.

That night, Charlie waited until after midnight before he crept downstairs. He quietly took a shovel from the garage and dug a big hole in the backyard. Next, he dragged each of the tanks to the hole and pushed them in. He sweated and strained as he finished covering them and then jumped up and down on the area to pack the dirt. Dragging his shovel, he walked to the patio and then turned back for one last look. A cold blue glow hovered over the hole. Charlie started to shake. He dropped his shovel and ran upstairs.

All night long, he stayed under the covers, too scared to look outside, but when the sun rose, he felt braver. Everyone knew evil things went away when the sun came up. He crept downstairs and into the backyard. Pure terror seized him when he saw the empty hole and all three tanks waiting for him. Together they began to roll toward him and instinct told him to run. He reached the patio door and saw the tanks reflected in the glass. Then a blue light, brighter than anything he had ever seen, hit the glass and it shattered. Charlie kept running, all the way back upstairs. He waited a long time before he dared to look out the window, but when he did, he saw one of the tanks fire its strange light beam at the backyard fence. A whole section of fence fell and the three tanks drove out. Able and Baker followed them, trying to use their controllers at first and then just chasing after them into the woods.

And that was the last time Charlie Wheeler ever saw his brothers or the toy tanks.

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Chapter 2 Munich, Germany, sixty years later

Nothing could have been further from Paris Wheeler’s mind that afternoon than toy tanks. She was not quite twelve years old, which made her too old for dollhouses and Saturday morning cartoons, but still too young to deal with teenage stuff like cars, tattoos, and boys (especially boys). The fact that she now lived on the same military base in Germany where her grandfather had lived over half a century ago did not seem nearly as important to her as it did to her best friend Mimsy McDonnell.

“Like, this is totally weird,” Mimsy said, not for the first time, as they rode home on the school bus. “Your grandfather lived here in the olden days.”

Paris yawned. “Yeah, right after World War II, about the time they built this place. Grandpa Charlie was real young, second or third grade, I think.”

“And now this place is really old and you’re young, and—” Mimsy paused for a moment to reflect on the true meaning of it all. “And you’re here. Is that like profound or what?”

“Not really,” Paris answered, sounding more than a little bored. “Charlie’s dad—my great-grandfather—was in the army then, just like my dad and your dad, and thousands of other dads and moms, are in the army now. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“So, did they go to the same school we do and ride this same dumb school bus? Did they even have school buses way back then?”

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Chapter 2: Munich, Germany, sixty years later

“Grandpa never talked much about it. I guess because he lost his two brothers and all.”

Mimsy’s huge blue eyes became even bigger. “Lost them? You mean like, they died or something?”

“I’m not exactly sure what happened,” Paris answered. “Nobody in my family will talk about it much, but I think they just sort of wandered off one day and never came back.”

“And now your Grandpa is dead, too. How are you handling that?”

Paris shrugged. “It happened six months ago. I’m over it. It’s not like we were really all that close. I mean, when you’re an army brat, you don’t stay in one place long enough to spend a lot of time with grandparents.”

The school bus turned a corner, and Mimsy looked out the window. Mimsy, Paris knew, would be very beautiful someday. She had blond hair, huge blue eyes and a perfect nose, all of which Paris envied. Her own dull brown hair did nothing more than keep her head warm, and somehow she had been given the wrong nose to go with her long, angular face. In her mind, she could see them both in high school. Mimsy would be a cheerleader. She would be a…a what? Paris realized she had no idea what the future held for her; but at that very moment, if someone had told her, she would not have believed a word of it anyway.

“What are they doing?” Mimsy asked, as she stared out the window.

In a vacant lot on the corner, several boys were playing with radio-controlled toy tanks. A couple of them were in her class, but Paris did not know them. In fact she had never spoken to any of them. The boys yelled and ran, and jumped around while their little tanks crawled slowly over the dirt, which had been shaped to form hills and valleys. “Playing war with their little toy tanks,” she said. “Boys are so totally immature.”

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“And really clueless,” Mimsy agreed, “but that one’s kind of cute.”

“Cute and clueless, not to mention rude, unwashed, and always obnoxious.”

Two blocks later, Paris picked up her backpack and got off the bus in front of the duplex house at 417 Penn Strasse. An odd feeling crept over her as she crossed the street, and by the time she stopped on the sidewalk, an unpleasant tingling tickled the back of her neck. She turned in a full circle, expecting to see someone watching her, but she saw nothing different along the block of identical houses. Paris shrugged and went inside.

“This is for you,” her older sister Chelsea said as she stuck a torn and battered envelope into Paris’ hand the moment she closed the front door. “It’s from Grandpa Charlie. I think the post office lost it for a while.”

Paris looked at the postmark. “Yeah, like, it was mailed six months ago?” She took the envelope and started up the stairs.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Chelsea called after her.“No,” Paris answered as she reached the top of the stairs and

smiled at the thought that there were some things she did not have to share with her sister. She tossed the envelope onto her desk, flopped down on her bed and opened her math book, then closed it again. “I go to school, I come home, I do homework,” she said aloud. “I have no life!” Feeling suddenly rebellious, she grabbed the envelope. The postmark indicated it had been mailed just one day before Grandpa Charlie had died. It could be money. A huge check which will make me rich forever, she thought, or maybe the deed to a ranch in Texas or a castle in Southern France. Then she remembered that Grandpa Charlie died in a retirement home. He didn’t have anything like that. She tore the envelope open, and out fell a single photo. “That’s all?” she said.

Clearly disappointed, she looked at the faded old black and white photo. Two impish, grinning boys with evil beady eyes

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Chapter 2: Munich, Germany, sixty years later

stood beside three big toy tanks in a backyard which looked very much like the backyard of any house on Penn Strasse, except the trees were all little and looked like they had just been planted. The boys were Grandpa Charlie’s two brothers, Able and Baker. She had seen pictures of them before. In the background were the flattened remains of a child’s wagon, an overturned barbeque grill, and broken lawn furniture. They had to be total brats, she thought. The toy tanks were much larger than the ones she had seen today. She turned the photo over and found that Charlie had scribbled a few lines on the back.

“Something evil called them and they went away, but if they come back, someone has to stop them, and you’re the only one left,” she read. For a long moment Paris just stared at the words. Her hand trembled as she turned the photo over and looked again at the grinning boys. I wonder if he meant the tanks—or his brothers.

♦ ♦ ♦

Like the housing area where Paris lived, Munich American School had been around since the nineteen fifties. Thousands of kids whose families worked in some way for the U.S. Army had passed through its aging hallways. At lunchtime on Friday, Paris sat with Mimsy on a bench outside the cafeteria.

“So, what am I supposed to do?” Paris asked as Mimsy looked at the photo. “None of this makes any sense to me. I guess Grandpa just got old and confused, right?” Mimsy continued to stare at the photo. “Mimsy? Tell me he got old and confused and I should ignore all this. Mimsy?”

“They do look evil to me. Stupid, but evil.”Paris tossed the rest of her sandwich back into her lunch

bag. “How can they look evil? They’re just toys.”“Not the tanks,” Mimsy answered and at last looked up

from the photo. “I mean these two boys. What did you say their names were?” A truck from food service drove into the parking

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lot and stopped at the cafeteria loading dock. For a moment, the noise of its engine drowned out their conversation.

“The big one is Able and the other is Baker,” Paris said as the driver shut off the engine and left the truck. “I guess Charlie took the picture. He was the youngest.”

Mimsy’s mouth dropped open. “Your great-grandfather named his sons Able, Baker, and Charlie? Now I see why your family doesn’t talk about him much.”

Paris nodded. “Yeah, pretty sick. But then, my parents named me and my sisters after the places we were born. Chelsea, Dallas, and Paris.”

Mimsy thought about that for a moment and then answered, “That’s not so bad.”

“I don’t know. If we hadn’t been transferred to Paris just before I was born, I might have gone through life named Schwinefort.” About twenty yards away, something moved behind a line of bushes which formed a border along one side of the school grounds. A bird or a rabbit, Paris thought, or maybe someone’s dog.

“Why would he think they were coming back?” Mimsy asked, reading off the photo’s back.

Paris looked away from the bushes and grabbed back the photo. “Because he was old, and probably had Alzheimer’s or something. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

She felt the explosion before she actually heard it. It lifted her from the bench, and for a tiny splinter of time, she saw the bushes and a small tank, like the one in her photo—exactly like the one in her photo. Then the ground came up and hit her. Everything began to spin.