Part Nine
Saturday morning, Gina was up before her Newsman, peering at her laptop with a mug of coffee in hand, going over her painted mock-ups of the lighting design for “The Homecoming.” Although she loved having the opportunity to design both set and lights, it was a lot of brainwork; she’d do her best to keep it from being a lot of gruntwork, too. She’d submitted her scenic ideas a couple of weeks ago, and the director had readily approved it since it would largely use platforms and flats the theatre already had in stock; all that would need doing would be some wallpapering and set dressing, and the set itself could be easily assembled in a day or two at most, once the current productions of puppet slams alternating with concerts ended. Rubbing a hand across her tired eyes, she sat back and drank more coffee, trying to rouse herself fully.
A bleary-eyed, sans-glasses, ruffled-hair Muppet shuffled into the kitchen and wavered on his feet, trying to orient on her. He looked so sleepily baffled that Gina laughed, and pulled him in for a kiss. “Hey there handsome! You, uh, forget something?”
Newsie squinted at her, confused, not fully awake. “Uh…did I?”
Gina stroked a finger down his nose from dark furry brows to sharp, pointed tip. “Could be. I see you remembered to put on your robe and slippers, though.”
“It was chilly,” Newsie muttered, still puzzled. He leaned closer, unable to make out her features clearly. “You’re all blurry. What time is it?”
Gina giggled, sat him in the other chair, and shortly had fresh pumpkin coffee steaming in his Halloween mug in front of him. Gratefully Newsie sipped it, relaxing. He noticed her doing something with her computer on the kitchen table. “Er…checking email so early?”
“No, cutie. Today’s my production meeting, remember? I have to present the lighting design to Dr Rob! I’m just making sure all the renderings look clear enough. He’s a decent director but…um…not very visually-oriented, so I have to make sure my ideas are obvious.”
“Ah,” Newsie said, nodding. “Tailor your work to your audience.”
“You got it. Want breakfast?”
“You’re busy,” he protested, staggering to his feet. “I’ll fix it. Uh…” He peered uncertainly at the dishwasher. “Did we move the granola?”
“Aloysius…”
“Yes?”
“Put your glasses on.”
She softened his embarrassment when he returned to the kitchen, able to see finally, by wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and kissing his nose. He fixed one of her autumn specialties she’d taught him, ginger granola mixed with apple cobbler yogurt all warmed up, and brought her a large bowlful, settling into his own place with a smaller helping. She rewarded him with another kiss, finally coaxing a smile out of him. “You going to the happy home today?” she asked in between spoonfuls.
Newsie nodded. “I should return Aunt Ethel’s scrapbook. I finished scanning all the articles.”
“Looks nice out there. Why don’t you see if you can push her around the garden?”
“That’s a good idea.” Newsie beamed at his girl. “I love you.”
Gina paused in her perusing of the art on her screen to give him a deep kiss. “And I you, my devoted journalist. Would you rather meet up for lunch or dinner? I think I’m going to wear the skull outfit, if that influences your decision.” She grinned at his discomfited expression; his own tastes were so naturally old-fashioned that she’d learned to warn him if she planned to appear at all outré.
“Er…the skulls? Is that…really appropriate for a meeting about a Thanksgiving show?”
Gina laughed. “It’s Pinter. Twisted is entirely appropriate.” She gave him a wicked smile. “You haven’t read the script yet!”
Newsie shifted around on his chair. “Er…uh…I assumed it had something to do with college athletics…”
It took Gina several minutes to catch her breath after that; meanwhile her poor Muppet blinked at her in total incomprehension. “Do you know how much I adore you?” she asked finally, wiping the tears of hilarity from her eyes.
“Uhm,” Newsie mumbled, still unsure what to make of her reaction.
“Read the play. Trust me, it is not a warm happy fuzzy, and there will be no cheerleaders or jocks in it anywhere.” She kissed him once more, then stood. “I need to go get ready. Feel like helping me wash?”
He certainly wasn’t going to object.
Later, Gina returned to the bathroom to use its better lighting for aid in hooking her dangling silver skeleton earrings in properly, and found Newsie with a foamy toothbrush, diligently scrubbing. She smiled at him, but didn’t comment; he’d verbally ducked and sidestepped every time she’d prodded him about the fact he didn’t actually have teeth to brush…or stubble to shave, for that matter. She was just happy to see the fuzz back on his face finally: a month ago, fresh from a shower and without his glasses, he’d mistaken her bikini cream for sunscreen, and for a while afterward had been forced to live with extra-shiny-smooth felt across his nose and cheeks.
Mouth rinsed and dabbed dry, he watched her fuss with her jewelry and hair, doing his best not to appear uncomfortable with her outfit today: a black crepe skirt above black hose with tiny skulls like polka-dots all over, low boots with silver buckles in various impractical places, a long black cardigan wrapped over a satin chemise, a scarf matching the hose tying up her startlingly red hair, the earrings, and a more colorful, enameled Day of the Dead skull pendant dangling grinning from her neck. “Um…given any thought as to what you’ll wear to Fozzie’s Halloween party?” Newsie asked hesitantly; if it was only the fifteenth and she was draped in this stuff, what might she do for the actual holiday?
“I was thinking I could be a medieval falconer, and you could go as my hawk,” Gina teased, saw him grimace, and laughed. “Kidding! I don’t know yet. What about you?”
“Er…me? In costume?”
“Did I mishear? I thought you said it was a costume party.”
“Oh. Uh…yes.” Outside of the very, very occasionally nontraditional garb he’d donned for the Muppet Show (the “Robin Hood” show immediately, and uncomfortably, sprang to mind), Newsie didn’t do costumes. Gina stroked his cheek fondly.
“What about when you were a kid? Didn’t you go trick-or-treating?”
He couldn’t meet her gaze. “Er…no. Mother wouldn’t allow it. She thought it was immoral to beg for candy. I, uh…I did go with her to a costume party once at the DAR…”
“Oooh, bet that was thrilling,” Gina quipped. “What did you go as?”
Now why had he even mentioned that? A mental image of himself in that scratchy, wooly lamb get-up, while his mother paraded around as Little Bo-Peep, made him turn bright crimson. “Uh. Um. I –I don’t recall. It was a long time ago. Do we have to be in full costume? Couldn’t we just put on masks?”
“You’d have a hard time seeing without your glasses…and I don’t know of too many commedia del’arte masks that include spectacles,” Gina pointed out, biting her lip to keep from smiling. “Look, why don’t we go shopping together Monday night, as soon as your news gig is over? We can see what’s available and pick something out, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed at once, relieved. He pulled her down for a kiss. “Good luck at your production meeting!”
“And you have a good time with your aunt,” she replied, hugging him tight. “Mmm. So…lunch or dinner?”
He drew back, studying her clothing. “Uh…what if we met for dinner at that tavern you like?”
“Scarth’s Chemistry Pub? Sure! I thought it was too noisy for you there.”
“Well, that may have been due to the grad students last time. I’m willing to give it another shot.” He’d liked the food at the casual tavern, but a raucous group of students doing something with acid titrations and beer bongs over in a corner had been a little too much chaos for him to put up with during dinner. He smiled at Gina, and she gave him a deeper kiss.
“Bravo, you! Seven o’clock, after your news? Will you try the ‘KOH Sammich’ this time? It’d go good with their pumpkin ale, and that’s in season now.”
“I’ll try,” he promised. When she left the apartment without her cylindrical case of drafted drawings, he hurried after to hand it to her before the elevator closed. The smile, blown kiss, and playful wave she gave him promised him an excellent reward later for his thoughtfulness, and it was with a cheerful heart that Newsie buttoned his coat and headed out himself a few minutes later.
The weather proved brisk and clear enough for him to walk a few blocks to the Times Square station. He stayed on the edge of the crowd of demonstrators, not wanting to be jostled; all too often, people failed to notice him, short as he was, and he didn’t want anything to get spilled on his new autumn overcoat. He felt in too good a mood…a state which still seemed alien enough to him to want to savor thoroughly. He purchased a paper cup of hot cider from a vendor obviously supporting the occupiers, and waved off his change, pointing instead to the donation box, but felt a little too embarrassed to return the young man’s “Dude, right on!” or fistbump. Walking slowly along the sidewalk, he read some of the cardboard signs lined up for blocks, his thoughts turning to the accusations that girl with MADL had thrown at him. Of course I’m for equal rights…for everyone, Muppet or not! I’m just not a commentator. I’m a journalist. The two should never mix. He wondered if Muppets really were being discriminated against, as the activists claimed. Well, there was something involving the ACLU when the station hired me back…maybe that’s worth a look. He wanted first, however, to get to the bottom of these alleged underground disappearances and vague claims of monsters. THAT is a pressing concern, if it’s true! The public needs to be warned, if horrible hungry Things are moving in right under our feet! Uneasily he glanced into a black storm drain as he passed it, and unconsciously edged away with each step. He still hadn’t been able to locate the two ConEd workers who’d filed a police report claiming to have seen something down there…they hadn’t shown up for work in days. Maybe…maybe he could ask to see where they were working? Would the city, or ConEd, or whomever had the right to those particular tunnels grant him permission to go look for himself? He shivered, and drank more of the cinnamon-warm cider. That might be the only way to find out…
He doubted Rhonda would come with him. Whom else could he recruit? He really, really didn’t like the idea of going down there…alone…
The train to Queens wasn’t too crowded, the morning commute already passed, and he trotted up the long drive to the asylum with legs that felt sprightly. Gina had him eating healthy and going on walks with her often, and though he hadn’t quite dared to try her Wii Fit routine alongside her yet (convinced he would appear foolish if he attempted some of those yoga poses), he could tell he was in better shape than ever. Healthy foam, healthy mind, he told himself, pleased with the entire day already. He stopped at the main desk, waiting for the receptionist to return so he could sign in and see Aunt Ethel, his gaze turning to the beautiful garden in red and yellow flowers right outside, buoyed by the notion of taking his aunt for a leisurely stroll there. Even in a wheelchair, she would surely enjoy the colors and the wonderful scent of the autumn air. He beamed at the uniformed lady who finally came to see what he wanted at the desk. “Hi! Aloysius Crimp, to see Ethel Muppman, please.”
The receptionist checked through her record log, and looked up with a sympathetic frown. “I’m sorry, sir. Mrs Muppman isn’t here.”
“She—what?”
“Are you family?”
“Yes, I’m her nephew! Why isn’t she here?” His aunt, he knew, had been deemed too dangerous to herself to be allowed on the monthly field trips some other patients enjoyed. It saddened him, but he understood the reasoning. “She left the home?”
“Er…yes. She’s at Blucher Memorial, just up the road. She fell, and sustained some injuries…”
Angrily, Newsie sputtered, “What? When? Why wasn’t I informed? How badly was she injured?”
The somber woman checked her notes again. “Two days ago. Um…it does say we called you then, and I see here a note that you asked at that time to be informed by the hospital if anything changed…”
“Nobody called me,” Newsie exclaimed, incredulous. “Nobody spoke to me! This is the first I’ve heard about it!”
“We had instructions to notify her nephew Aloysius if anything like this happened,” the woman said sharply. “We did so. Can I see some ID, sir?”
Furious, confused, the Newsman set aside the scrapbook long enough to dig every form of ID he had out of his wallet; most of them, unfortunately, simply had “The Newsman” printed for his name, since he’d changed it decades ago from what his mother had named him at birth. At last he showed her his Muppet Security card, and she seemed convinced. “Well, I’m sorry, Mr Crimp, but it does show that we did contact you when she went into the hospital! Could someone else at your residence have—“
“No,” he growled. Gina would never have failed to inform him of something so important! “How badly is she hurt?”
“Well, she may have hit her head; we’re not sure. She’s been mostly unresponsive, the hospital said. The doctors—“
Newsie didn’t wait. Upset and angry, he strode out of the building, breaking into a jog as he headed directly up the road in the direction the receptionist had indicated. His aunt was supposed to have an attendant of some kind with her around the clock! Had the asylum’s negligence led to her falling? He burst into the lobby of the sedate hospital, still clutching the scrapbook. “Ethel Muppman! What room?”
“Are you family?” the nurse behind the desk asked, scowling.
A few outraged, worried minutes later, he finally stood beside his aunt’s bed, clasping her worn gray fingers between his own, staring down at her in concern. “Aunt Ethel? Auntie, it’s me, Aloysius!”
Her eyes were slightly open, but they tracked right past him, unfocused. Newsie glared up at the doctor. “How much morphine is she on?” he demanded. “How bad are her injuries?”
The doctor shook his head gently. “A very low dose. She’s been like this since we revived her. Sometimes this happens…very frequently, a fall is the beginning of a downward slide, at this age.”
“Revived her?” Newsie was aghast.
“She was experiencing arrhythmia when they brought her in, and her heart did stop briefly while we were trying to stabilize her. She had to be shocked back into a normal rhythm. We’ve done a CAT scan, but what with her already advanced dementia, it’s a little hard to tell how much damage the fall actually did to her brain.”
Newsie sank into a chair next to the railed bed. “She might go on for months yet,” the doctor told him. “We’ve immobilized her shoulder and her left wrist, but the breakage seems minor. Unfortunately there’s no way to predict whether she’ll regain much awareness.”
The Newsman blinked back imminent tears. So, for all purposes, Ethel may simply already be…gone. Here, but gone. Trying to master his voice, he asked roughly, “How did this happen? She was supposed to have someone with her!”
The doctor shook his head again. “You’ll have to talk to the people at the care facility about that. All I know is that she was found on the floor of her room, and since then she hasn’t moved or spoken. We’ve had to force-feed her.”
Newsie choked. How could this have happened? He stroked Ethel’s hand, hoping somewhere in there she might be conscious enough, here enough to register it. “Could I…could I just have a minute?” he asked. The doctor nodded, and quietly shut the door behind him as he left. Newsie gazed at his aunt a long while in silence. She didn’t seem to know anyone was there, not reacting even when he squeezed her hand or spoke her name. He’d known she would eventually slow down, a clock too old to be wound again…but his memories of a youthful, energetic, laughing woman, the one who tousled his hair instead of slapping the top of his head, who snuck him bits of fruit and cheese when his mother had sent him to bed supperless even at Ethel and Joe’s vacation cabin, all bore no more resemblance to this frail, broken creature than to any stranger on the street. Less, probably.
A soft sound interrupted his despairing thoughts. He listened, feeling uneasily as though he wasn’t alone in the room. A glance at the tiny, high window revealed no birds or tree branches which might’ve knocked against it, but he could’ve sworn he heard a small thud. Then a scraping noise came from under the bed.
Newsie stood on the chair so quickly he felt dizzy. More unnerving sounds, scratches and thumps and a low muttering, made his heart stutter. He gulped, and did his best not to allow any fear into his voice: “Wh-who’s there? This is supposed to be a private room!”
“Mm. Pri-vate. Mm. Yip yip.”
What! Outraged, Newsie jumped to the floor, yanking up the plain dustruffle covering the storage shelf below the bed. Clumped on the shelf like used mops, a pink thing and a blue thing stared at him, eyes huge, mouths trembling. “Awwww! Yip! Yip! Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip awwww!”
“Get out of here!” Newsie yelled. The monsters shifted and squirmed, not retreating, eyeballing him. Furious, he cast about for something to poke them with. In a narrow standing wardrobe, a couple of wire hangers dangled empty; grabbing one, he twisted it into a poker of sorts and jabbed it under the bed. “Get out! Leave her alone!”
“Mn. Bad. Bad news. Yip,” the pink one muttered, slithering out of Newsie’s reach.
“Yip yip. Bad. Eth-el bad. Mm, yip yip yip yip.”
Suddenly a new scenario sprang into the Newsman’s mind: Ethel alone with these things. What if she’d reached for something, been just a little off-balance, and… He knew firsthand how strong those strange raggy bodies actually were. “Did you hurt her?” he shouted at them. “Did you make her fall?”
“News bad,” the pink one insisted, dodging his next attempt to thwack it, scooting across the floor and suddenly rising a few inches above it. “Bad! Mad! Yip yip yip yip!”
“Eth-el bad,” the blue one chimed in, shuffling closer to the oblivious occupant of the bed. With a strangled cry, Newsie leaped at it, swinging the wire, but it ducked and zipped out of the way.
“Bad, sad,” the pink one said. Both of the monsters were very agitated now, zipping all over the room with bizarre contortions. They went into a maddening chorus of yipping.
“Get out!” Newsie yelled, driving them away from the bed with wild swings. “Get away from her! Get out!”
A voice from the doorway made him jump. “What in the name of sainted Frau Blucher is going on in here? What’s all the yelling?”
He spun around, wire upraised, to see a nurse glaring at him. She put her strong-looking hands on wide hips and loomed over him as she advanced. “You’re scaring the other patients! Heck, you’d be scaring this poor lady too, if she knew what was going on around her!”
“Those monsters--!” Newsie cried, pointing a shaking hand at the offenders. “I think they’re the ones who hurt my aunt!”
The nurse gave him an odd look. “What monsters?”
“Those ones, obviously, right th—“ Newsie suddenly saw the room was empty save for his quiet, unreacting aunt. He looked under the bed, in the wardrobe, in the small powder room. Nothing. “They were here…” he insisted, but the stern expression the nurse wore said she clearly didn’t buy it.
“You need to leave now, sir. We don’t permit that kind of crazy yelling here.”
“Do you permit monsters in the patients’ rooms? I…I demand that anti-monster measures be immediately enacted around this room!” Newsie said, retreating a step when the nurse came closer.
“What we do not permit,” she threatened, “is anyone disturbing these poor people’s peace! Now are you gonna leave, or do I need to call Bellevue?”
“Bell…” He realized, with a sickening despair, what she meant. “I’m not crazy! There were monsters here, threatening my aunt!”
“You need to go. Now. Before I call ‘em anyway.”
Upset, the Newsman took Ethel’s scrapbook and reluctantly left the room, the hall, and the hospital. I should call someone…set up protection for her…maybe Detective Pendziwater? His police contact, though, had often sounded skeptical about things such as monsters or decent recipes being made from Spam. Newsie wasn’t certain the cop would help him. What about someone at the theatre? Even those stupid penguins might be able to act as watchdogs. Maybe. He had no idea whom to call, who would be willing to stand guard here…assuming anyone even could, with those strict and disbelieving nurses prowling the halls. They called her ‘bad.’ Why? What could those crazy rag-things have against her? He hadn’t cared much for them when he’d first encountered them at the asylum, hanging around his aunt…but they’d seemed harmless enough. Weird, but harmless. Never trust a monster, he thought grimly. Never! They never lose the feral nature!
At the edge of the gutter in the street in front of the hospital, the Martians paused to confer in low voices. “Eth-el bad sad. Hurt sad. Yip.”
The blue one shook itself in all-over unhappiness. “Hurt sad, yip yip.” It drew itself up taller, indignant. “News bad! Bad make us go! No go! Nope nope nopenopenope!”
“Nopenopenope!” the pink one agreed, shoving its face against its companion’s for better echo effect. It peered over to view the Newsman slowly walking away, lost in unpleasant thoughts, and shook itself jerkily. “News bad! Re-port! Yip yip yip yip!”
“Mn. Re-port. Yip yip,” the other agreed.
A flash of pink motion caught Newsie’s peripheral vision, never terribly reliable; as jumpy as he felt right now, he swung around immediately to investigate. The monsters! They saw him staring at them, looked at one another, and began emitting some sort of strange humming noise. Before he could react, the two monsters simply…melted. Their shapeless bodies seemed to waver and dissolve, and they swept right down the storm drain next to the curb…into the wastewater channels…into the sewers.
Chilled, Newsie stared at that a long moment, not daring to run over and inspect it too closely. The sewers! Monsters! Oh my frog it’s TRUE!
But…but why Ethel? Why turn on her? Had she…had she found out something dire about her little pets? Some shady aspect they hadn’t wanted to reveal? He couldn’t imagine a good reason they’d harm his harmless old aunt, unless it was to silence her! Frightened, Newsie backed well away from the drains. Good grief, he’d never noticed before just how many points of access there were to the sewers! Did these here in Queens connect with the ones in Manhattan? Did they flow into the East River, or was there some sort of central treatment plant to filter it all? Why had the monsters followed Ethel to the hospital – if not to finish the job!
Shaking, he searched his pockets, inexpressibly relieved when he found his cell phone. Gina must have put it in my coat! Oh Gina, I love you! Gratefully, he punched in his police contact’s number, but reached only the man’s voicemail. Impatiently he waited for the beep. “Detective! It’s the Newsman. I need to request police protection for…for my aunt! I have strong reason to believe she’s in danger! She’s at Blucher Memorial Hospital, room 67. Please, please send someone to keep watch for her as soon as possible! I think she was attacked by…by…hostile persons. Um. Look, I’ll explain it all to you when I see you, but please, I need this. My aunt needs this!”
He stood a long while, uncertain, torn between wanting to go back in and wait until the cops showed up, and hostile nurses be dratted; or hurrying to the library or the city archives – wherever he could find plans for the dizzying network of tunnels undermining the city. If he had to go down there, he was not going in ignorant!
The urge to research was too strong to resist. When he saw a police car pull up to the hospital shortly, he offered silent thanks to his friend on the force, and hastened off to the nearest subway station…and then reconsidered. What if those things could infiltrate the train system? On second thought… Newsie opened his phone and called a cab.
In the hospital lobby, the tired officer strolled up to the admissions desk. “Hey, we gotta call from one’a your nurses about some crazy harassing patients,” he told the nurse on duty.
“Oh…yes. Some guy was in here yelling about monsters a little while ago, but I think he left.”
“Ah…you want me to just take a look around outside, make sure he’s gone?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” The cop shook his head, pulling out his nightstick and tapping it lightly against his hand as he headed outside. “Monsters!” he chuckled.
“Ever since they built up that d—d contemporary art place, all the crazies migrate over through the tunnel,” his partner snorted.
“Tell me about it! Well, come on. Let’s walk around the building once. Don’t want the patients gettin’ all upset by some maniac runnin’ in here yellin’ crazy stuff…”
The second cop shivered, looking up at the square corners and soulless architecture of the midcentury pile. “Man, hospitals give me the creeps… People die in ‘em, ya know?”
Staring out at the river as his cab crossed the Queensboro Bridge (not the most direct route back, but above ground), the Newsman imagined dark things moving in the water, swimming between the boroughs, bent on malevolent errands. All under the surface, under everyone’s feet, popping in and out of drains – who knew how wide the threat might be? He fought down the urge to go straight on camera and cry havoc against this insidious threat. The city hadn’t been the same since the Twin Towers. No point in starting a panic, or encouraging species profiling…after all, many of the Muppets might be mistaken for monsters. Well…some of them were monsters. He felt cold. Could any of their cast or crew be cohorts of the horrible things menacing his aunt? Uncle Deadly? Sweetums? Robin played with that enormous troll, for frog’s sake! No, no…Sweetums couldn’t possibly be connected with this! But…but we do have monsters…what if they know something about it? What if some evil monsterist cell approached them, tried to recruit them? He would have to ask. Newsie nodded to himself, frightened, watching the water below for any sign of…of…well, he wasn’t sure what.
One thing he was absolutely certain of: his city had just become a great deal more scary.
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