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Part Thirty
When the intercom switched on in the dead of night, Van Neuter jumped almost a half-meter off the floor. “Doctor. How does the serum progress?”
“I hate disembodied evil voices,” the vet muttered, then answered loudly, “Oh, coming along, coming along just swell!”
“I was informed you now have a pool of test subjects to draw from. Why is the serum not yet ready?” The boss’s voice sounded displeased. Even Van Neuter shivered a little at that silky, ominous tone.
“Oh, well, I’m working on it!” Van Neuter cast an irritated glance at the cage in the corner of the lab. “It would be easier if I didn’t have to work around their filming schedule, though!”
“We had to do something with them,” the underlord said reasonably. “After all, it would be a shame to waste the rejects. Work faster, Doctor. The serum must be ready by Dark Ascension night! I will have your guts for…” The voice paused, then continued more calmly, “It is imperative that I complete the transformation that night. All the signs indicate it is the best possible atmosphere for complete and flawless genetic assimilation. If this chance is missed, it may be a long time before another presents itself…and that will be a long, long time for anyone who has failed me. An interminable time in which I will explore the limits of the felt to withstand pain…do I make myself understood?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Van Neuter agreed, “except for that part about the Ascending. Does that mean you want wings now? Can we go over this one more –“
The intercom shut off with an audible clunk. Van Neuter scowled at it. “I mean I understand he’s too darned big to get out of that control center and come see me personally, but honestly, this voice-contact-only-thing is worse than a text message breakup!”
“Gah?” Thatch McGurk wondered, floppy ears perked.
“No I don’t know anything about that! It was just an example!” Van Neuter fumed, quickly shoving his iDrone into a pocket so Thatch wouldn’t see the last message Composta had sent from her cliff-diving resort. So she was flirting with a local lichen-seller! So what? She was just trying to make him feel jealous; she’d done it before, this was nothing new, oh, Composta and her fickle affections…
“Fahzagga bugga erg?” Thatch asked, indicating the cage in the back corner, where the newest subject was beginning to stir, the sedative wearing off.
“Oh! Oh! She’s waking up! Hello darling!” Van Neuter hurried to the cage, crooning at its occupant. “Here’s some water for you. Welcome to your new home!”
“What…what’s going on? Who are you?” the young woman asked, blinking in confusion at the wires of the cage. “Oh my god, what is this? Oh my god let me out! Let me out!”
“There, there, nothing’s going to happen to you,” Van Neuter assured her, trying to offer the water bottle again, poking its long drinking-tube through the bars. “Don’t worry! We’re not perverts! We’re only going to do some protogenetic stem cell phantasmagoric modifications!”
“You’re what?” the woman shrieked, and began banging on the wires. Thatch reflected it was a good thing they’d left her mittens and coat on, otherwise not only would she be cold down here with no fur to protect her, but her hands would really be bruised by the metal cage.
Van Neuter straightened up, shaking his head. “Honestly, don’t they teach basic mad science biology anymore? It means we’re not going to do anything weird to you; we’re just going to try to turn you into a monster! Now you just settle down, and --”
The woman didn’t seem ready to settle at all. After another minute of the screaming, a tired vet turned to Thatch. “Well this isn’t helpful! You couldn’t have found me a mute?”
“Varazagga buzza razza muh!” the monster snapped back.
“Don’t you get snippy with me about your hours! I haven’t had any sleep in ten days! What do you think this caffeine-infused ultrastimulant Jell-O is all about?” Van Neuter cried, waving a plastic tray of slippery green sludge at his assistant. “Now go get one of those loafers downstairs and get this screaming thing out of my lab! I can’t even think with all that noise!” As the grumbling, green-haired monster with three weary eyes trudged out to find his own assistant, Van Neuter threw an old Army blanket over the cage. “My goodness, if I wanted to hear all that I’d go catch a Peep show in Times Square!”
Thatch’s head popped back in the door, looking more alert. “Peefa shazza?”
“Oh you know, those little marshmallow things,” Van Neuter explained crossly. “There’s a group of the Halloween ones doing a scary show right now, some kind of street theatre thing. They scream when customers eat them. Kind of a hard way to make a living, I think, but who am I to judge show business?” He chuckled, then whirled on the monster. “What are you still doing here? Go find some muscles to move this cage down to the studio!”
He fussed with his chemistry setup, replacing some of the pipettes with thicker-stemmed ones to withstand higher temperatures and adjusting the asbestos insulation around the burners. “Honestly! Some monsters just have their minds in the gutter all the time…although I guess that’s what happens when you live in the sewers…” At the woman’s quiet whimpering in the cage, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Oh come on! You’re about to be involved in a highly unlikely physiological transmogrification which will change you into a slavering, furry monster on the cellular level! Doesn’t that make you feel any better? Some people have no regard for science,” he muttered when the whimpering, if anything, grew louder under the covered wires. “Now, if I can just finish this primordial glop reheating without any more interruptions, I can trot on down to that new show taping and administer it to all the contestants…”
“Awright, buddy, where’s da fire?”
Van Neuter stared, took off his goggles and stared some more at the group of shiny-shelled clams crowding through his lab door, a satisfied-looking McGurk right behind them. “What the heck is this?” Van Neuter demanded.
“Whaddayou talkin’ about? Get this guy! Hey buddy, a little more respect for a workin’ bivalve, huh?” another clam shouted. It sounded like a Teamster on helium.
“Ezza muzza fah cabba,” Thatch said, perplexed; hadn’t he brought exactly what the vet had asked for?
“No, you idiot! I meant someone big enough to move this big cage, not…oh, the heck with it,” Van Neuter sighed. He gestured from the clams to the large square in the corner. “Take that down to studio number twenty-two…”
“Where’s da crane?”
“Yeah, ya don’t expect us to lug that thing down three stories, do ya mac?”
“Forget it! Get these stupid oysters out of my lab!” Van Neuter shouted at a cringing Thatch. “And go find me some really strong monsters! Ones with more muscles than you apparently have brains!”
“Hey, who you callin’ a’ oyster?”
“Some noive!”
“Eh, forget this wacko. Why don’t we go occupy the docks?”
“Sounds good – as long as we stay away from the restaurants,” another agreed, and the pack of North Atlantic Rainbow Mussels tromped out the door again. Van Neuter sank to a bench, head in his hands. Much as it pained him to admit, he really, really missed Mulch right about now.
-----------------------
Humming to himself, Bobo the bear chewed on the end of a pencil which seemed to be more teethmarks than wood and lead anymore. “Five-letter word for protection, ends in a ‘D’…well, least I think it does…man, these Sudoku things are tricky!” He looked up as a woman in scrubs approached, and set the newspaper aside. “Hey, where ya think you’re goin’, sister?”
“Time to check her vitals,” the nurse said, trying a key in the lock of the door behind Bobo. “Is locking her room really necessary? She’s perfectly safe here!”
“Ah, well, that’s not the information I was given,” Bobo retorted, nose twitching. “Hey…you said vittles, but I don’t smell any food on ya! What gives?” He stepped between the nurse and the door, scowling.
Irritated, the nurse snapped, “I said vitals! As in vital signs! If there’s no change at all before tomorrow morning, she’s scheduled to have the breathing apparatus removed. Now let me past so I can do my job, you big furry clown!”
“Who you callin’ a clown? Hey, those rumors about me in the circus are completely false! Who told you that?”
As they continued to argue, a wormlike thing with four eyes and vestigial claws slithered around their feet and wriggled under the door, unnoticed by either. The fat back end of it stuck in the crack under the kickplate, and it grunted and pulled, finally yanking itself all the way into the room with a small popping noise. It froze, each eye swiveling a different direction, but the coast looked clear: the only occupant of the room, the old Muppet woman in the hospital bed, seemed asleep. Confidently, the worm-assassin crawled across the cold linoleum and began wrapping itself around one of the lowered bedrails, pulling itself up like an inchworm. “Hehhh…hehhh…” it panted, enjoying the anticipation of murder. This job looked ridiculously easy: why, there wasn’t even a guard with a brain on duty! The worm would crawl into the old lady’s throat, and stop her breath, and that beeping little heart monitor would stutter and stop and Deathcrawler would revel in the sound of the flatli—
The pink one was waiting atop the bed.
“Yurgh?” the worm said, startled, coming eyeballs to eyeballs with a fuzzy pink thing with a very big mouth.
“Bad! Bad cow! Yiiiip yip yip yip yip!”
And tentacles, the worm realized too late. The thing also had quite a lot of tentacles…
“Bad cow! No hurt! Bad! Bad bad bad yip yip!” a blue thing identical to the pink one chimed in, grabbing the tail end of the worm; the pink one grabbed its head. Tiny claws flailed helplessly as the two creatures yanked the would-be assassin back and forth. The worm screamed and wriggled but couldn’t pull free. However, in all the tug-of-warring, Blue’s tentacles became entangled with Pink’s, and after a handful of yelps and cries of “Ow! ow ow ow!” they ceased pulling, staring bewildered at the mess of ropy appendages. The worm, gasping, crawled at top speed toward Ethel’s mouth where a breathing tube currently lay.
“Bad! Bad cow! Nope nope nope!” Blue shouted, trying to free himself from his companion.
Inspired, Pink simply lunged forward and gulped the worm entire. He chewed a minute. They sat atop the bed, staring curiously at one another. “Cow…good?” Blue asked.
“Cow…” Pink abruptly turned puce. “Nooope! Nopenopenopenope! Uh-uh! Uh-uh!” He jumped from the bed and raced to the tiny bathroom, dragging his partner along roughly.
“Awwk! Not ten-legged race! Nope! Nope nope!” Blue protested, then righted himself finally by the commode as Pink disgorged the nasty thing from his stomach. Hastily Pink flushed, and a wailing, gurgling worm vanished. They watched the water swirl and refill quietly. They looked at one another with wide, round eyes.
“Wash legs,” Blue reminded Pink.
“Yip, wash. Yip yip yip,” Pink agreed. They dragged themselves up to the sink with difficulty, Blue hanging half-off the edge of the porcelain while Pink tried to reach the faucet. “Wash! Yip yip! Awww, wash!”
“Awww!” Blue grunted, struggling to untangle himself. He succeeded right at the tipping point. He crashed to the floor; Pink tumbled into the sink. Groaning, both glared at one another.
“Bad yip,” Pink said. The water poured over him from a broken-off faucet lever.
“Wash legs, not eyeballs,” Blue scoffed up at him. “Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Noooope.”
“You wash!” Pink splashed his partner, soaking half the floor. “Wash! Yip yip yip!”
“Noooope nope nope nope nope!” Blue shot back, skidding around on the slippery tiles, unable to get a grip with tentacles sliding every direction. The room door opened; both creatures froze, then with a loud gulp yanked their lower jaws over their heads.
“You could’ve remembered to turn off the water!” the nurse scolded Bobo; he lumbered after her, watching her carefully as she grabbed a pink rag in the sink and used it to forcibly turn the water shutoff. “And laundry goes in the hamper here!” She tossed the pink rag into the plastic bag dangling from a lidded hoop, used the blue one on the floor to mop up more of the spilled water, and plunked the sodding thing into the hamper as well.
“Wasn’t me,” Bobo muttered. “Somethin’ funny’s goin’ on in here…”
“The only funny thing I see is you, and that’s not much of a joke,” the nurse said gruffly, and checked Ethel’s heart monitor and breathing rate. Bobo studied the readouts as well over her shoulder, backing up only when the nurse glared at him.
“Uh, she’s gonna be okay, right?” he asked.
The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry, but probably not. It’ll be peaceful, though…I doubt she’ll even wake up.” She shook her head at the bear shuffling from foot to foot. “Look, if you’re that determined to guard her, why don’t you park yourself in here?”
“Oh, I, uh, that wouldn’t be right, y’see, I’m not exactly family,” Bobo muttered, embarrassed. “I’m just doing this for a friend, a guy I work with at the theatre. He’s not a clown either…though I gotta admit his act is pretty funny…” He chuckled, then remembered where he was when he caught sight of the motionless old woman in the bed, and sobered quickly. “Uh. Think I’ll just go sit outside some more.”
“Whatever works for you,” the nurse sighed. Bobo followed her out of the room, gently shutting the door behind them. The nurse looked up when an enormous paw caught her sleeve.
“Say, uh…about them vittles…do ya think you could send up a sammich or somethin’? Guarding people’s hard work,” he wheedled.
The nurse looked at the small wastebasket next to his camp stool filled with discarded Slurpee cups and Hobos and Fwinkies wrappers. “Yeah, looks like it.”
Inside the bathroom, two fuzzy-limbed creatures flapped against the thick plastic of the laundry bag. “AwwAWW…bag,” Blue complained. “Wet in bag! Yip yip yip.”
“Your fault wet,” Pink growled, straining all eleventy-two tentacles and his face against the wall of the bag, making an image not unlike a sea anemone with googly-eyes as it stretched but did not break the plastic. “Mm. Bag hard. Yip yip yip.”
Blue poked Pink excitedly. “Bag! Yip yip yip yip! Bag!”
“Aaawww?” It took Pink a second to grasp the idea; then he began hopping happily along with Blue. “Bag! Bag! Yip yip yip!”
Munching sounds and the strange noise of wetly ripping plastic sounded faintly from within the room. Seated outside the door, Bobo looked wistfully toward the nurses’ station a few yards away, where one of the girls was apparently chowing down on a sandwich. “Man, she sure knows how to eat well…all that noise is makin’ me hungry!” He sighed, hoping one of them would indeed take pity and bring him something to snack on, and picked up his paper again. “Lessee, where was I…oh yeah. Hmmm… ‘Card’? No, not enough letters…’yard’? Huh, no, although I guess a yard could be protected…man. Those Japanese really know how to make a tough puzzle!”
---------------------------
The show taping wasn’t going very well. Carl shook his head, annoyed, as the All-Fur Glee Club Singers cavorted onstage, tripping over one another and flubbing the lyrics: “I am blue—“
“I am green –“
“I am red –“
“I am…uh…purple?”
“That’s gray, dummy!”
“Who you callin’ a dummy?”
“What’s the difference anyway?” the ones not immediately involved in the argument chorused, “We’re all monsters!”
Carl waved his long arms like a conductor when the camera cut to him at his desk, then leaned back to snarl quietly at Snookie: “Go on, get out there!”
“And let them rip me to shreds? Buddy, not a snowball’s chance in –“ Snookie snapped back, drowned out as the singers danced closer to the desk on the set of ‘Monsters Tonight!’
“I am fat,” sang a skinny thing with horns sprouting like a chia garden all over his head.
“I am thin,” added a monster whose obesity would have made Thog envious.
“I am…uh…green!” bellowed the same monster who’d forgot his first line. The “fat” monster whacked him in the rear with a swing of his horns, and another scuffle broke out behind the main line of dancers.
“I am tall,” shrieked a tiny creature as it frantically scuttled out of the way of the brawl.
“Doesn’t matter much at all – we’re all monsters!” everyone yelled, with the audience rumbling along at the refrain.
“The script says, you jump onstage at the end of the song, and Georgina there eats you alive,” Carl growled, nodding at the enormous orange-furred thing with round eyeballs and a demure spangled tutu.
Snookie shook his head vehemently. “No! I won’t! I have had it, Carl! You have screwed up my chances to finally get off that d—d game show, you have barbequed me, you have humiliated me, and I have simply…had…enough!” Snookie crossed his arms over his chest, teeth gritted in a fake smile since the camera kept cutting to them for a reaction shot while the musical number continued.
Bewildered, Carl turned to stare directly at his sidekick for the talk show. “You can’t refuse!”
Though he knew it probably meant something worse was in store, Snookie clenched his whole body into what he felt was an immovable rock position. “Yeah? Watch me!”
Carl scratched his furry knoll between the gilded horns. He beckoned his producer over. “Uh, hey, Bart? Snookums here says he won’t do the comedy bit. Can he actually refuse?”
“Not really,” the goat-bearded troll growled, glaring at Snookie. The plaid-coated host swallowed a mouthful of fear, but stood – or sat, rather – his ground. The producer adjusted his headset uncomfortably; the left side kept slipping over his down-turning floppy ear. “Do whatever you want to him. Not like it matters anyway.”
Carl waved at Georgina, who ambled over much the way a cement truck in a tutu might. “Bon appétit,” Carl said loud enough for the boom mike to pick up, and as the audience roared with laughter, the orange monstrosity with too much eyeshadow plucked a trembling Snookie from his chair and began stuffing him down her gullet feet-first. Snookie stared back at Carl, appearing deeply betrayed, then resigned. He closed his eyes and held his breath as the creature gulped, and applause thundered through the studio when the last lock of his black hair slid between her jaws right as the song finished:
“Yes we’re happy girls and guyses – we’re all monsters!”
The producer shrugged. “He’s only got a few days left anyway. Who cares what you do to him?”
Puzzled, Carl had to return his attention to the camera. “The Gleeful Furry Club, folks! Direct from the sewers of Kalamazoo! Stick around, ‘cause we’ve got lots of great guests tonight, right here with me, Carl, the Big Mean Host of Monsters Tonight!” He tossed a cue card through the fake hellgate behind him to the sound effect of tinkling glass, and as they broke for what would be a commercial when the show aired later tonight, he ran after the troll. “Hey, whaddaya mean he’s only got a few days left? That’s my comical Muppet sidekick! Who else is trying to get him? I thought I had exclusive rights!”
The producer shrugged again, checking his clipboard. “Get the stage swept; someone left their toes out there again!” He angled his headset mic away to speak with Carl. “Thought you’d heard: come Halloween night, anything non-monstrous around here is gonna be sacrificed. That includes short, yellow and obnoxious.”
“Sacrificed? To who?” Carl demanded, shaggy fur bristling. “I get dibs! I always get dibs! I been working with Snookie for over twenty years, Bart! Who do I gotta talk to about this nonsense?”
“Talk to the boss,” Bart said, glaring at Carl. “That’s his decision. Official memo came down days ago. Don’t you ever check your Screammail?”
“Wait…you mean sacrificed like…dead?”
“What other definition is there?” Bart wondered, shaking his raggedy head. “Get back on set; we’re ready to film the first guest segment.”
Automatically but uneasily, Carl resumed his place at the big (and recently rebuilt) desk, and thumbed through his oversized cue cards, trying to bring his mind to bear on the first real segment of the show: he’d never interviewed Big Mama before, and he wanted to make a good impression for his audience, but he kept glancing over in the wing where Georgina lounged on a stack of rotten pallets. Snookie…killed? No more? No more chances to slather him in sweet molasses and roast him for three hours? No more beer-battered Muppet with chips? The idea was almost intolerable. Before the camera turned back on, Carl gestured to a stagefrackle. “Go find some castor oil, and give that lump of orange fur over there a bottle of it. Wait – slap a Perrier label on it so she’ll drink the whole thing, okay?”
He leaned back in his custom-goblin-leather chair, smiling. “Welcome back! I’m Carl! You’ve known me for my wide throat and my gourmet taste for adorable animals, but my first guest tonight puts those traits to shame with her own delectable gluttony! Give it up for that scarily scrumptious scavenger – Big Mama!”
The crowd hooted and clapped and thumped their various appendages as the shark-mouthed, somewhat groundhog-faced monster waddled onstage. She waved at the crowd, grimacing (or maybe that was a wide smile, hard to tell with her), and settled into the chaise opposite Carl. After the opening pleasantries in which Carl called her a chow-hound of charnel, and she returned the compliment by praising the stench arising from Carl’s unwashed fur, they got down to business. “So, Big – may I call you Big? – I understand you have a new documentary film you’ve been doing! Tell us about that.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s a hum-dinger! We’re hoping to show it at Scumdance in the spring,” Big Mama said proudly. “It’s called ‘Requiem and a Scream,’ and it follows me around as I hunt, dismember, and devour everything from frozen yogurt to wooly mammoths…”
As she rumbled on, Carl snuck a look into the wing stage right. Georgina had guzzled half the oil, and was making terribly crude faces as she wrestled with Snookie struggling in her gut. Oh, good, that shouldn’t take long, Carl thought. He beamed at Big Mama. She chuckled.
“Ya know, Carl, you’re not a bad-looking monster yourself,” she growled.
Taken aback, Carl looked her up and down once. “Uh…you’d never get the horns past your back teeth,” he advised warily.
She chortled. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean for me! See, my mama, Even Bigger Mama, has been kinda lonely lately, since Bigger Daddy passed…”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Carl said. “My condolences to your family.”
“Aw, it wasn’t that bad,” Big Mama assured him, “once Mama took that furball pill, he went right on through just fine.”
“Ah…ha,” Carl gulped. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being swallowed by something even larger than himself. “So, uh. What other projects do you have in the pipeline…uh, in the works?”
Big Mama cheerfully chatted on. Carl glanced twice more over at Georgina, seeing her being ill all over one of the unluckiest stagefrackles alive (having just returned from a trip through the sewers the hard way), then seeing her bawling out the Frackle who’d brought her the castor oil, smacking him over the head repeatedly with the empty bottle. A dazed, dripping Snookie crawled away from the fracas and plucked his makeup towel from a chair offstage. At the next break, Carl strolled by him to refill his coffee cup. The Muppet sat, head down, with his towel wrapped around his sodden shoulders. Carl grinned at him. “You’re welcome.”
“I have you to thank for the slime in my hair? Great. Wonderful,” Snookie muttered. He tried to clean out his ears. “This is completely disgusting. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate working with you?”
“Not lately,” Carl replied, and walked back to his desk. After a minute, a downcast, still-dripping Snookie joined him in his own chair over by the band. Carl introduced an edition of Stupid Muppet Tricks, and watched with a smile as Snookie rolled over and played dead for a giant feathery opossum; the audience howled when a glowering, silent Snookie received his reward of Snookie Snacks.
“That’s right, friends: Snookie Snacks! Perfect treats for the pathetic co-host in your life!” Carl grinned. “Up next: gossip grrr Perez Stilted chats about himself, himself, and maybe even himself!” He cast a cheery smile over at the wing, where the snobby three-headed tabloid-site monster waited, all three noses in the air. Applause rose, and the band played “Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Carl turned to Snookie. “Come on, you were in there, what, two minutes? You’ve had worse.”
The slimy-haired Muppet raised tired eyes, and simply stared at Carl. Wow…when did he get so…so…old-looking? Carl wondered, startled. “Hey, uh, ya might wanna get makeup. You got some serious shadows around your eyes, Snookums.”
“Can makeup help me sleep?” Snookie retorted. “Do you know how many shows they have me doing every day now? Do you?” When Carl shook his head, puzzled, Snookie leaned closer and hissed angrily, “Twenty-three! Twenty-three, as of this morning’s count! I have had no sleep unless you count passing out on the set of ‘Take My Wife’s Fleas!’ earlier today! They won’t let me even see the sun! Look at my felt! I’m practically beige!” Carl fumbled for a reply, but Snookie kept ranting, too exhausted to care. “They feed me frog only knows what sludge, I’m lucky if I get a shower a day even when stuff like this happens, I’m tired, I’m sick, and I am ready to just call it quits!”
Perturbed, Carl answered slowly, “Well…I guess…I mean…maybe you could…just ask them to go ahead and kill you?”
Snookie choked, and spat out something from Big Mama’s stomach into his handkerchief. Disgusted, he tossed it into a wastebasket. “What, and leave show business?” he quipped, and then began to laugh. Softly at first, then louder, his voice rising in tone, until a bewildered Carl could only stare at the bedraggled Muppet bent over double in his chair, laughing so hard he was crying…and then he was just crying. Carl looked around quickly, saw none of the cameras were on, and carefully patted his longtime victim on the back.
“Hey, uh, Snookie…look…take the rest of the show off,” Carl whispered. He didn’t know what else to offer, but he certainly couldn’t have a hysterical sidekick messing up his show.
Snookie gulped loudly, trying to get his emotion under control. “Carl, I…I can’t…I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t.” He looked up at the monster with shining, deeply lined eyes. “Look, why don’t you just…just put me through your sausage machine like you keep saying you want to, and get it over with, okay?”
Speechless, Carl stared at him. Snookie looked away, sniffling, then yanked himself upright and wiped his face with his sleeve, only spreading the slime around more. “Excuse me. I have to get cleaned up before the next show. This stuff might be flammable, and that would hurt.”
Carl wasn’t the only one watching the spectacle of a slump-shouldered, goo-covered man of felt slouching offstage; from the doorway of the studio, Uncle Deadly’s eyes narrowed to pinpricks of glowing green. A Muppet so depressed he WANTS to be eaten once and for all? Looking around, Deadly noticed that Snookie was the only Muppet present. Now that he saw that, it seemed…odd. Monsters had always worked with the Muppets, however awkwardly or uneasily…and the Muppet troupe, irritating as they could be when one was trying to catch a few winks in the flyloft and they simply had to do a run-through of that silly dance-hall pun-cracking sketch, had always welcomed the odd, the unusual, the just plain drooling-all-over-themselves. For all the faults of the felted and furred, Deadly had noticed through the years that everyone who wanted to be accepted usually was, which was indeed more than he could say for the population of the world at large. Watching this pale-yellow Muppet with the bad plaid jacket trip over a lighting cable and then just sit there, despondent, until a stagefrackle bundled him into a wheelbarrow and carted him away, caused Deadly to frown.
What could make a Muppet that depressed? Why isn’t he as happy working down here with all these fine fellows as our kind are up above? Deadly’s gaze switched back to Carl, who was exchanging insults of an increasingly personal nature with some gossip hack. Well, that’s very crass, but I suppose it makes for good ratings…but why are these performers concerned with such petty things? Why aren’t they out chasing people or laying in wait in closets instead? Why aren’t ALL of them? he wondered, his eyes sweeping the large and tightly-packed crowd of monsters in this soundstage. Scowling, he crept unnoticed back into the main corridor. This whole complex seemed to be nothing but soundstages. Who would organize such a ridiculous thing?
Disturbed, he slunk along the halls, determined to find out what this was all for. I’ll find Pew. He was always a smart chap, if a little…misguided. Surely he has some answers. Deadly faded into the shadows as the stagefrackle pushing the wheelbarrow trundled past; the depressed Muppet was no longer in it. Deadly wondered where the poor fellow had gone. Hopefully to take a bath: while moldy clothing is always in style, hair grease went out decades ago. No, this was no convention, and no party, but what all this over-organization could augur still eluded the ghostly dragon…and he did not like that. He was accustomed to being the elusive one!
With a snort of annoyance, Deadly glided along the wide tunnel until he found a passage leading down. As they say, dig deeper, Watson, he thought, starting down, then chuckled to himself. “No, no. I ought to have played Sherlock! I would have been very droll.” Another thought popped into his head, and he paused. “I wonder if they have anything like a proper Monsterpiece Theatre show here? I shouldn’t at all mind doing another Othello…” Cheered a bit, he hastened to the next level below.
-----------------------
When the intercom switched on in the dead of night, Van Neuter jumped almost a half-meter off the floor. “Doctor. How does the serum progress?”
“I hate disembodied evil voices,” the vet muttered, then answered loudly, “Oh, coming along, coming along just swell!”
“I was informed you now have a pool of test subjects to draw from. Why is the serum not yet ready?” The boss’s voice sounded displeased. Even Van Neuter shivered a little at that silky, ominous tone.
“Oh, well, I’m working on it!” Van Neuter cast an irritated glance at the cage in the corner of the lab. “It would be easier if I didn’t have to work around their filming schedule, though!”
“We had to do something with them,” the underlord said reasonably. “After all, it would be a shame to waste the rejects. Work faster, Doctor. The serum must be ready by Dark Ascension night! I will have your guts for…” The voice paused, then continued more calmly, “It is imperative that I complete the transformation that night. All the signs indicate it is the best possible atmosphere for complete and flawless genetic assimilation. If this chance is missed, it may be a long time before another presents itself…and that will be a long, long time for anyone who has failed me. An interminable time in which I will explore the limits of the felt to withstand pain…do I make myself understood?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Van Neuter agreed, “except for that part about the Ascending. Does that mean you want wings now? Can we go over this one more –“
The intercom shut off with an audible clunk. Van Neuter scowled at it. “I mean I understand he’s too darned big to get out of that control center and come see me personally, but honestly, this voice-contact-only-thing is worse than a text message breakup!”
“Gah?” Thatch McGurk wondered, floppy ears perked.
“No I don’t know anything about that! It was just an example!” Van Neuter fumed, quickly shoving his iDrone into a pocket so Thatch wouldn’t see the last message Composta had sent from her cliff-diving resort. So she was flirting with a local lichen-seller! So what? She was just trying to make him feel jealous; she’d done it before, this was nothing new, oh, Composta and her fickle affections…
“Fahzagga bugga erg?” Thatch asked, indicating the cage in the back corner, where the newest subject was beginning to stir, the sedative wearing off.
“Oh! Oh! She’s waking up! Hello darling!” Van Neuter hurried to the cage, crooning at its occupant. “Here’s some water for you. Welcome to your new home!”
“What…what’s going on? Who are you?” the young woman asked, blinking in confusion at the wires of the cage. “Oh my god, what is this? Oh my god let me out! Let me out!”
“There, there, nothing’s going to happen to you,” Van Neuter assured her, trying to offer the water bottle again, poking its long drinking-tube through the bars. “Don’t worry! We’re not perverts! We’re only going to do some protogenetic stem cell phantasmagoric modifications!”
“You’re what?” the woman shrieked, and began banging on the wires. Thatch reflected it was a good thing they’d left her mittens and coat on, otherwise not only would she be cold down here with no fur to protect her, but her hands would really be bruised by the metal cage.
Van Neuter straightened up, shaking his head. “Honestly, don’t they teach basic mad science biology anymore? It means we’re not going to do anything weird to you; we’re just going to try to turn you into a monster! Now you just settle down, and --”
The woman didn’t seem ready to settle at all. After another minute of the screaming, a tired vet turned to Thatch. “Well this isn’t helpful! You couldn’t have found me a mute?”
“Varazagga buzza razza muh!” the monster snapped back.
“Don’t you get snippy with me about your hours! I haven’t had any sleep in ten days! What do you think this caffeine-infused ultrastimulant Jell-O is all about?” Van Neuter cried, waving a plastic tray of slippery green sludge at his assistant. “Now go get one of those loafers downstairs and get this screaming thing out of my lab! I can’t even think with all that noise!” As the grumbling, green-haired monster with three weary eyes trudged out to find his own assistant, Van Neuter threw an old Army blanket over the cage. “My goodness, if I wanted to hear all that I’d go catch a Peep show in Times Square!”
Thatch’s head popped back in the door, looking more alert. “Peefa shazza?”
“Oh you know, those little marshmallow things,” Van Neuter explained crossly. “There’s a group of the Halloween ones doing a scary show right now, some kind of street theatre thing. They scream when customers eat them. Kind of a hard way to make a living, I think, but who am I to judge show business?” He chuckled, then whirled on the monster. “What are you still doing here? Go find some muscles to move this cage down to the studio!”
He fussed with his chemistry setup, replacing some of the pipettes with thicker-stemmed ones to withstand higher temperatures and adjusting the asbestos insulation around the burners. “Honestly! Some monsters just have their minds in the gutter all the time…although I guess that’s what happens when you live in the sewers…” At the woman’s quiet whimpering in the cage, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Oh come on! You’re about to be involved in a highly unlikely physiological transmogrification which will change you into a slavering, furry monster on the cellular level! Doesn’t that make you feel any better? Some people have no regard for science,” he muttered when the whimpering, if anything, grew louder under the covered wires. “Now, if I can just finish this primordial glop reheating without any more interruptions, I can trot on down to that new show taping and administer it to all the contestants…”
“Awright, buddy, where’s da fire?”
Van Neuter stared, took off his goggles and stared some more at the group of shiny-shelled clams crowding through his lab door, a satisfied-looking McGurk right behind them. “What the heck is this?” Van Neuter demanded.
“Whaddayou talkin’ about? Get this guy! Hey buddy, a little more respect for a workin’ bivalve, huh?” another clam shouted. It sounded like a Teamster on helium.
“Ezza muzza fah cabba,” Thatch said, perplexed; hadn’t he brought exactly what the vet had asked for?
“No, you idiot! I meant someone big enough to move this big cage, not…oh, the heck with it,” Van Neuter sighed. He gestured from the clams to the large square in the corner. “Take that down to studio number twenty-two…”
“Where’s da crane?”
“Yeah, ya don’t expect us to lug that thing down three stories, do ya mac?”
“Forget it! Get these stupid oysters out of my lab!” Van Neuter shouted at a cringing Thatch. “And go find me some really strong monsters! Ones with more muscles than you apparently have brains!”
“Hey, who you callin’ a’ oyster?”
“Some noive!”
“Eh, forget this wacko. Why don’t we go occupy the docks?”
“Sounds good – as long as we stay away from the restaurants,” another agreed, and the pack of North Atlantic Rainbow Mussels tromped out the door again. Van Neuter sank to a bench, head in his hands. Much as it pained him to admit, he really, really missed Mulch right about now.
-----------------------
Humming to himself, Bobo the bear chewed on the end of a pencil which seemed to be more teethmarks than wood and lead anymore. “Five-letter word for protection, ends in a ‘D’…well, least I think it does…man, these Sudoku things are tricky!” He looked up as a woman in scrubs approached, and set the newspaper aside. “Hey, where ya think you’re goin’, sister?”
“Time to check her vitals,” the nurse said, trying a key in the lock of the door behind Bobo. “Is locking her room really necessary? She’s perfectly safe here!”
“Ah, well, that’s not the information I was given,” Bobo retorted, nose twitching. “Hey…you said vittles, but I don’t smell any food on ya! What gives?” He stepped between the nurse and the door, scowling.
Irritated, the nurse snapped, “I said vitals! As in vital signs! If there’s no change at all before tomorrow morning, she’s scheduled to have the breathing apparatus removed. Now let me past so I can do my job, you big furry clown!”
“Who you callin’ a clown? Hey, those rumors about me in the circus are completely false! Who told you that?”
As they continued to argue, a wormlike thing with four eyes and vestigial claws slithered around their feet and wriggled under the door, unnoticed by either. The fat back end of it stuck in the crack under the kickplate, and it grunted and pulled, finally yanking itself all the way into the room with a small popping noise. It froze, each eye swiveling a different direction, but the coast looked clear: the only occupant of the room, the old Muppet woman in the hospital bed, seemed asleep. Confidently, the worm-assassin crawled across the cold linoleum and began wrapping itself around one of the lowered bedrails, pulling itself up like an inchworm. “Hehhh…hehhh…” it panted, enjoying the anticipation of murder. This job looked ridiculously easy: why, there wasn’t even a guard with a brain on duty! The worm would crawl into the old lady’s throat, and stop her breath, and that beeping little heart monitor would stutter and stop and Deathcrawler would revel in the sound of the flatli—
The pink one was waiting atop the bed.
“Yurgh?” the worm said, startled, coming eyeballs to eyeballs with a fuzzy pink thing with a very big mouth.
“Bad! Bad cow! Yiiiip yip yip yip yip!”
And tentacles, the worm realized too late. The thing also had quite a lot of tentacles…
“Bad cow! No hurt! Bad! Bad bad bad yip yip!” a blue thing identical to the pink one chimed in, grabbing the tail end of the worm; the pink one grabbed its head. Tiny claws flailed helplessly as the two creatures yanked the would-be assassin back and forth. The worm screamed and wriggled but couldn’t pull free. However, in all the tug-of-warring, Blue’s tentacles became entangled with Pink’s, and after a handful of yelps and cries of “Ow! ow ow ow!” they ceased pulling, staring bewildered at the mess of ropy appendages. The worm, gasping, crawled at top speed toward Ethel’s mouth where a breathing tube currently lay.
“Bad! Bad cow! Nope nope nope!” Blue shouted, trying to free himself from his companion.
Inspired, Pink simply lunged forward and gulped the worm entire. He chewed a minute. They sat atop the bed, staring curiously at one another. “Cow…good?” Blue asked.
“Cow…” Pink abruptly turned puce. “Nooope! Nopenopenopenope! Uh-uh! Uh-uh!” He jumped from the bed and raced to the tiny bathroom, dragging his partner along roughly.
“Awwk! Not ten-legged race! Nope! Nope nope!” Blue protested, then righted himself finally by the commode as Pink disgorged the nasty thing from his stomach. Hastily Pink flushed, and a wailing, gurgling worm vanished. They watched the water swirl and refill quietly. They looked at one another with wide, round eyes.
“Wash legs,” Blue reminded Pink.
“Yip, wash. Yip yip yip,” Pink agreed. They dragged themselves up to the sink with difficulty, Blue hanging half-off the edge of the porcelain while Pink tried to reach the faucet. “Wash! Yip yip! Awww, wash!”
“Awww!” Blue grunted, struggling to untangle himself. He succeeded right at the tipping point. He crashed to the floor; Pink tumbled into the sink. Groaning, both glared at one another.
“Bad yip,” Pink said. The water poured over him from a broken-off faucet lever.
“Wash legs, not eyeballs,” Blue scoffed up at him. “Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Noooope.”
“You wash!” Pink splashed his partner, soaking half the floor. “Wash! Yip yip yip!”
“Noooope nope nope nope nope!” Blue shot back, skidding around on the slippery tiles, unable to get a grip with tentacles sliding every direction. The room door opened; both creatures froze, then with a loud gulp yanked their lower jaws over their heads.
“You could’ve remembered to turn off the water!” the nurse scolded Bobo; he lumbered after her, watching her carefully as she grabbed a pink rag in the sink and used it to forcibly turn the water shutoff. “And laundry goes in the hamper here!” She tossed the pink rag into the plastic bag dangling from a lidded hoop, used the blue one on the floor to mop up more of the spilled water, and plunked the sodding thing into the hamper as well.
“Wasn’t me,” Bobo muttered. “Somethin’ funny’s goin’ on in here…”
“The only funny thing I see is you, and that’s not much of a joke,” the nurse said gruffly, and checked Ethel’s heart monitor and breathing rate. Bobo studied the readouts as well over her shoulder, backing up only when the nurse glared at him.
“Uh, she’s gonna be okay, right?” he asked.
The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry, but probably not. It’ll be peaceful, though…I doubt she’ll even wake up.” She shook her head at the bear shuffling from foot to foot. “Look, if you’re that determined to guard her, why don’t you park yourself in here?”
“Oh, I, uh, that wouldn’t be right, y’see, I’m not exactly family,” Bobo muttered, embarrassed. “I’m just doing this for a friend, a guy I work with at the theatre. He’s not a clown either…though I gotta admit his act is pretty funny…” He chuckled, then remembered where he was when he caught sight of the motionless old woman in the bed, and sobered quickly. “Uh. Think I’ll just go sit outside some more.”
“Whatever works for you,” the nurse sighed. Bobo followed her out of the room, gently shutting the door behind them. The nurse looked up when an enormous paw caught her sleeve.
“Say, uh…about them vittles…do ya think you could send up a sammich or somethin’? Guarding people’s hard work,” he wheedled.
The nurse looked at the small wastebasket next to his camp stool filled with discarded Slurpee cups and Hobos and Fwinkies wrappers. “Yeah, looks like it.”
Inside the bathroom, two fuzzy-limbed creatures flapped against the thick plastic of the laundry bag. “AwwAWW…bag,” Blue complained. “Wet in bag! Yip yip yip.”
“Your fault wet,” Pink growled, straining all eleventy-two tentacles and his face against the wall of the bag, making an image not unlike a sea anemone with googly-eyes as it stretched but did not break the plastic. “Mm. Bag hard. Yip yip yip.”
Blue poked Pink excitedly. “Bag! Yip yip yip yip! Bag!”
“Aaawww?” It took Pink a second to grasp the idea; then he began hopping happily along with Blue. “Bag! Bag! Yip yip yip!”
Munching sounds and the strange noise of wetly ripping plastic sounded faintly from within the room. Seated outside the door, Bobo looked wistfully toward the nurses’ station a few yards away, where one of the girls was apparently chowing down on a sandwich. “Man, she sure knows how to eat well…all that noise is makin’ me hungry!” He sighed, hoping one of them would indeed take pity and bring him something to snack on, and picked up his paper again. “Lessee, where was I…oh yeah. Hmmm… ‘Card’? No, not enough letters…’yard’? Huh, no, although I guess a yard could be protected…man. Those Japanese really know how to make a tough puzzle!”
---------------------------
The show taping wasn’t going very well. Carl shook his head, annoyed, as the All-Fur Glee Club Singers cavorted onstage, tripping over one another and flubbing the lyrics: “I am blue—“
“I am green –“
“I am red –“
“I am…uh…purple?”
“That’s gray, dummy!”
“Who you callin’ a dummy?”
“What’s the difference anyway?” the ones not immediately involved in the argument chorused, “We’re all monsters!”
Carl waved his long arms like a conductor when the camera cut to him at his desk, then leaned back to snarl quietly at Snookie: “Go on, get out there!”
“And let them rip me to shreds? Buddy, not a snowball’s chance in –“ Snookie snapped back, drowned out as the singers danced closer to the desk on the set of ‘Monsters Tonight!’
“I am fat,” sang a skinny thing with horns sprouting like a chia garden all over his head.
“I am thin,” added a monster whose obesity would have made Thog envious.
“I am…uh…green!” bellowed the same monster who’d forgot his first line. The “fat” monster whacked him in the rear with a swing of his horns, and another scuffle broke out behind the main line of dancers.
“I am tall,” shrieked a tiny creature as it frantically scuttled out of the way of the brawl.
“Doesn’t matter much at all – we’re all monsters!” everyone yelled, with the audience rumbling along at the refrain.
“The script says, you jump onstage at the end of the song, and Georgina there eats you alive,” Carl growled, nodding at the enormous orange-furred thing with round eyeballs and a demure spangled tutu.
Snookie shook his head vehemently. “No! I won’t! I have had it, Carl! You have screwed up my chances to finally get off that d—d game show, you have barbequed me, you have humiliated me, and I have simply…had…enough!” Snookie crossed his arms over his chest, teeth gritted in a fake smile since the camera kept cutting to them for a reaction shot while the musical number continued.
Bewildered, Carl turned to stare directly at his sidekick for the talk show. “You can’t refuse!”
Though he knew it probably meant something worse was in store, Snookie clenched his whole body into what he felt was an immovable rock position. “Yeah? Watch me!”
Carl scratched his furry knoll between the gilded horns. He beckoned his producer over. “Uh, hey, Bart? Snookums here says he won’t do the comedy bit. Can he actually refuse?”
“Not really,” the goat-bearded troll growled, glaring at Snookie. The plaid-coated host swallowed a mouthful of fear, but stood – or sat, rather – his ground. The producer adjusted his headset uncomfortably; the left side kept slipping over his down-turning floppy ear. “Do whatever you want to him. Not like it matters anyway.”
Carl waved at Georgina, who ambled over much the way a cement truck in a tutu might. “Bon appétit,” Carl said loud enough for the boom mike to pick up, and as the audience roared with laughter, the orange monstrosity with too much eyeshadow plucked a trembling Snookie from his chair and began stuffing him down her gullet feet-first. Snookie stared back at Carl, appearing deeply betrayed, then resigned. He closed his eyes and held his breath as the creature gulped, and applause thundered through the studio when the last lock of his black hair slid between her jaws right as the song finished:
“Yes we’re happy girls and guyses – we’re all monsters!”
The producer shrugged. “He’s only got a few days left anyway. Who cares what you do to him?”
Puzzled, Carl had to return his attention to the camera. “The Gleeful Furry Club, folks! Direct from the sewers of Kalamazoo! Stick around, ‘cause we’ve got lots of great guests tonight, right here with me, Carl, the Big Mean Host of Monsters Tonight!” He tossed a cue card through the fake hellgate behind him to the sound effect of tinkling glass, and as they broke for what would be a commercial when the show aired later tonight, he ran after the troll. “Hey, whaddaya mean he’s only got a few days left? That’s my comical Muppet sidekick! Who else is trying to get him? I thought I had exclusive rights!”
The producer shrugged again, checking his clipboard. “Get the stage swept; someone left their toes out there again!” He angled his headset mic away to speak with Carl. “Thought you’d heard: come Halloween night, anything non-monstrous around here is gonna be sacrificed. That includes short, yellow and obnoxious.”
“Sacrificed? To who?” Carl demanded, shaggy fur bristling. “I get dibs! I always get dibs! I been working with Snookie for over twenty years, Bart! Who do I gotta talk to about this nonsense?”
“Talk to the boss,” Bart said, glaring at Carl. “That’s his decision. Official memo came down days ago. Don’t you ever check your Screammail?”
“Wait…you mean sacrificed like…dead?”
“What other definition is there?” Bart wondered, shaking his raggedy head. “Get back on set; we’re ready to film the first guest segment.”
Automatically but uneasily, Carl resumed his place at the big (and recently rebuilt) desk, and thumbed through his oversized cue cards, trying to bring his mind to bear on the first real segment of the show: he’d never interviewed Big Mama before, and he wanted to make a good impression for his audience, but he kept glancing over in the wing where Georgina lounged on a stack of rotten pallets. Snookie…killed? No more? No more chances to slather him in sweet molasses and roast him for three hours? No more beer-battered Muppet with chips? The idea was almost intolerable. Before the camera turned back on, Carl gestured to a stagefrackle. “Go find some castor oil, and give that lump of orange fur over there a bottle of it. Wait – slap a Perrier label on it so she’ll drink the whole thing, okay?”
He leaned back in his custom-goblin-leather chair, smiling. “Welcome back! I’m Carl! You’ve known me for my wide throat and my gourmet taste for adorable animals, but my first guest tonight puts those traits to shame with her own delectable gluttony! Give it up for that scarily scrumptious scavenger – Big Mama!”
The crowd hooted and clapped and thumped their various appendages as the shark-mouthed, somewhat groundhog-faced monster waddled onstage. She waved at the crowd, grimacing (or maybe that was a wide smile, hard to tell with her), and settled into the chaise opposite Carl. After the opening pleasantries in which Carl called her a chow-hound of charnel, and she returned the compliment by praising the stench arising from Carl’s unwashed fur, they got down to business. “So, Big – may I call you Big? – I understand you have a new documentary film you’ve been doing! Tell us about that.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s a hum-dinger! We’re hoping to show it at Scumdance in the spring,” Big Mama said proudly. “It’s called ‘Requiem and a Scream,’ and it follows me around as I hunt, dismember, and devour everything from frozen yogurt to wooly mammoths…”
As she rumbled on, Carl snuck a look into the wing stage right. Georgina had guzzled half the oil, and was making terribly crude faces as she wrestled with Snookie struggling in her gut. Oh, good, that shouldn’t take long, Carl thought. He beamed at Big Mama. She chuckled.
“Ya know, Carl, you’re not a bad-looking monster yourself,” she growled.
Taken aback, Carl looked her up and down once. “Uh…you’d never get the horns past your back teeth,” he advised warily.
She chortled. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean for me! See, my mama, Even Bigger Mama, has been kinda lonely lately, since Bigger Daddy passed…”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Carl said. “My condolences to your family.”
“Aw, it wasn’t that bad,” Big Mama assured him, “once Mama took that furball pill, he went right on through just fine.”
“Ah…ha,” Carl gulped. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being swallowed by something even larger than himself. “So, uh. What other projects do you have in the pipeline…uh, in the works?”
Big Mama cheerfully chatted on. Carl glanced twice more over at Georgina, seeing her being ill all over one of the unluckiest stagefrackles alive (having just returned from a trip through the sewers the hard way), then seeing her bawling out the Frackle who’d brought her the castor oil, smacking him over the head repeatedly with the empty bottle. A dazed, dripping Snookie crawled away from the fracas and plucked his makeup towel from a chair offstage. At the next break, Carl strolled by him to refill his coffee cup. The Muppet sat, head down, with his towel wrapped around his sodden shoulders. Carl grinned at him. “You’re welcome.”
“I have you to thank for the slime in my hair? Great. Wonderful,” Snookie muttered. He tried to clean out his ears. “This is completely disgusting. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate working with you?”
“Not lately,” Carl replied, and walked back to his desk. After a minute, a downcast, still-dripping Snookie joined him in his own chair over by the band. Carl introduced an edition of Stupid Muppet Tricks, and watched with a smile as Snookie rolled over and played dead for a giant feathery opossum; the audience howled when a glowering, silent Snookie received his reward of Snookie Snacks.
“That’s right, friends: Snookie Snacks! Perfect treats for the pathetic co-host in your life!” Carl grinned. “Up next: gossip grrr Perez Stilted chats about himself, himself, and maybe even himself!” He cast a cheery smile over at the wing, where the snobby three-headed tabloid-site monster waited, all three noses in the air. Applause rose, and the band played “Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Carl turned to Snookie. “Come on, you were in there, what, two minutes? You’ve had worse.”
The slimy-haired Muppet raised tired eyes, and simply stared at Carl. Wow…when did he get so…so…old-looking? Carl wondered, startled. “Hey, uh, ya might wanna get makeup. You got some serious shadows around your eyes, Snookums.”
“Can makeup help me sleep?” Snookie retorted. “Do you know how many shows they have me doing every day now? Do you?” When Carl shook his head, puzzled, Snookie leaned closer and hissed angrily, “Twenty-three! Twenty-three, as of this morning’s count! I have had no sleep unless you count passing out on the set of ‘Take My Wife’s Fleas!’ earlier today! They won’t let me even see the sun! Look at my felt! I’m practically beige!” Carl fumbled for a reply, but Snookie kept ranting, too exhausted to care. “They feed me frog only knows what sludge, I’m lucky if I get a shower a day even when stuff like this happens, I’m tired, I’m sick, and I am ready to just call it quits!”
Perturbed, Carl answered slowly, “Well…I guess…I mean…maybe you could…just ask them to go ahead and kill you?”
Snookie choked, and spat out something from Big Mama’s stomach into his handkerchief. Disgusted, he tossed it into a wastebasket. “What, and leave show business?” he quipped, and then began to laugh. Softly at first, then louder, his voice rising in tone, until a bewildered Carl could only stare at the bedraggled Muppet bent over double in his chair, laughing so hard he was crying…and then he was just crying. Carl looked around quickly, saw none of the cameras were on, and carefully patted his longtime victim on the back.
“Hey, uh, Snookie…look…take the rest of the show off,” Carl whispered. He didn’t know what else to offer, but he certainly couldn’t have a hysterical sidekick messing up his show.
Snookie gulped loudly, trying to get his emotion under control. “Carl, I…I can’t…I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t.” He looked up at the monster with shining, deeply lined eyes. “Look, why don’t you just…just put me through your sausage machine like you keep saying you want to, and get it over with, okay?”
Speechless, Carl stared at him. Snookie looked away, sniffling, then yanked himself upright and wiped his face with his sleeve, only spreading the slime around more. “Excuse me. I have to get cleaned up before the next show. This stuff might be flammable, and that would hurt.”
Carl wasn’t the only one watching the spectacle of a slump-shouldered, goo-covered man of felt slouching offstage; from the doorway of the studio, Uncle Deadly’s eyes narrowed to pinpricks of glowing green. A Muppet so depressed he WANTS to be eaten once and for all? Looking around, Deadly noticed that Snookie was the only Muppet present. Now that he saw that, it seemed…odd. Monsters had always worked with the Muppets, however awkwardly or uneasily…and the Muppet troupe, irritating as they could be when one was trying to catch a few winks in the flyloft and they simply had to do a run-through of that silly dance-hall pun-cracking sketch, had always welcomed the odd, the unusual, the just plain drooling-all-over-themselves. For all the faults of the felted and furred, Deadly had noticed through the years that everyone who wanted to be accepted usually was, which was indeed more than he could say for the population of the world at large. Watching this pale-yellow Muppet with the bad plaid jacket trip over a lighting cable and then just sit there, despondent, until a stagefrackle bundled him into a wheelbarrow and carted him away, caused Deadly to frown.
What could make a Muppet that depressed? Why isn’t he as happy working down here with all these fine fellows as our kind are up above? Deadly’s gaze switched back to Carl, who was exchanging insults of an increasingly personal nature with some gossip hack. Well, that’s very crass, but I suppose it makes for good ratings…but why are these performers concerned with such petty things? Why aren’t they out chasing people or laying in wait in closets instead? Why aren’t ALL of them? he wondered, his eyes sweeping the large and tightly-packed crowd of monsters in this soundstage. Scowling, he crept unnoticed back into the main corridor. This whole complex seemed to be nothing but soundstages. Who would organize such a ridiculous thing?
Disturbed, he slunk along the halls, determined to find out what this was all for. I’ll find Pew. He was always a smart chap, if a little…misguided. Surely he has some answers. Deadly faded into the shadows as the stagefrackle pushing the wheelbarrow trundled past; the depressed Muppet was no longer in it. Deadly wondered where the poor fellow had gone. Hopefully to take a bath: while moldy clothing is always in style, hair grease went out decades ago. No, this was no convention, and no party, but what all this over-organization could augur still eluded the ghostly dragon…and he did not like that. He was accustomed to being the elusive one!
With a snort of annoyance, Deadly glided along the wide tunnel until he found a passage leading down. As they say, dig deeper, Watson, he thought, starting down, then chuckled to himself. “No, no. I ought to have played Sherlock! I would have been very droll.” Another thought popped into his head, and he paused. “I wonder if they have anything like a proper Monsterpiece Theatre show here? I shouldn’t at all mind doing another Othello…” Cheered a bit, he hastened to the next level below.
-----------------------
Hmm, that sounds like a song there.
