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Convincing John
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Chapter 27
"You're not going to blow up the factory." Kermit said determinitely.
"Oh yeah? And what're you gonna do about it? You won't be able to scare me off like that idiot Hopper. He ain't half the man I am."
Max pretended to be apprehensive of Kermit as he moved to the other side of his boss. What he was really doing was blocking the way so Frass couldn't retreat down the fire escape.
"The warehouse isn't yours. We found the real owner."
"There ain't no real owner, 'cept me."
"That's not what City Hall says, man." Floyd stepped out of the shadows. "City Hall says me and Animal own it. We got the dude's official word yesterday." Floyd held up the document for Frass to see.
"No...no..." Frass shook his head, becoming more enraged by the second. "I am the owner! That's probably a fake! And even if it IS real, I ain't gonna back down in front of a piece of paper like that wimp Bitterman!" Frass's clenching hand pointed the remote towards the building.
"BAD MAN!" roared Animal. Like a snake, he sprung forward to bite Frass on the arm, but his chain was just an inch too short. The lunge alone was enough to send Frass stumbling backwards into the railing. The remote flew from his hand, sailed into the darkened room and clattered across an unseen, metal floor.
Immediately, Frass followed it inside. He flipped the switch, but the lights wouldn't come on. In the dark, Clifford smiled.
Time to deal with this clown. he thought.
As Frass cautiously stepped forward, he continued to bellow in the dark.
"FROG? FROG! Gimmie that remote right NOW!"
Frass guessed the direction the remote had went. As he reached for something to steady himself, all light behind him extinguished. The door behind him slammed and immediately locked.
"MAX!" roared Frass. his voice echoed and re-echoed in the blackness.
There was no answer.
It was pitch black inside the room, save for the tiny glint against glass at eye level. Silently, Max nodded.
A fan somewhere in the room buzzed to life. A voice somewhere near it quavered a warning in a Spanish accent.
"Jou are a very, very bad man, h'okay. I will smack you like a bad, bad donkey, h'okay. If jou don't give up now, jou will be very, very sorry, hokay. Jou must surrrrrennnnnnder, h'okay!"
"And giiiive uuuus lots of fooooooood." quavered a second voice.
"Food?" whispered Pepe. "Jou are nuts wanting anyting to eat from dat guy!"
"Hey, it's been fifteen minutes since breakfast!" Rizzo whispered back. "I'm starvin'!"
"I AIN'T PLAYIN' GAMES, FROG!" boomed Frass. Carefully, he tried to step on a catwalk, but nearly fell. He stumbled and stopped. Something was in front of him. He couldn't see, but he had the feeling that--
A bright red light snapped on, illuminating someone from beaneath. It was a man in wild clothes which, under normal lighting, might have been multicolored. Here, they were just shades of red and black. A huge hand at the end of a spidery arm spun a yo-yo an inch from Frass's face. An eerie, Cheshire Cat grin with a single, sparkling tooth widened along with his eyes. The feather on his furry top hat bobbed as he spoke a single word:
"Lost?"
A sudden wave of fear and uncertainty went through Frass as the red light snapped off. For the first time, it seemed like he was indeed trapped.
Somewhere else in the blackness, something shifted. Another light snapped on, this time a yellow one. Two identical shapes appeared in complete silhouette. They looked like, for a lack of a better description, devils wearing fur vests. Together, they harmonized as Frass heard a strange, yet unmistakably clear version of "The Twilight Zone" theme.
"Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo..."
A third silhouette snaked up between them. It was something like a hairy, weaving dandelion with skinny arms.
"Mahhhhhh-NAH!" it declared in a low, gravely voice. Barely visible hollow eye sockets blinked at him.
The light snapped off and the music ceased immediately. Frass was once again in the dark.
"LET ME OUT!" he yelled. There was anger in his voice, but there was also a hint of fear. A dull ache went through Frass's colon as he tried again to find the remote. His foot found a wobbly bridge made from old wood. It creaked as he stepped forward.
"The warehouse belongs to Floyd and Animal," Kermit said from the darkness. "not you."
In the rafters, Scooter struggled in complete darkness to climb between the lights. He was on his way to create the next effect, (if he could pull it off), but he had to be silent. He had memorized earlier where all the right lights, hand and footholds were.
There had to be a rope here, Scooter thought. His hand sretched out, grabbed and missed. He frowned, stretched and reached again. He felt his fingers slowly encircle the coarse texture of the rope. When he pulled it, all would be...
He pulled.
It was stuck.
Scooter pulled again. The rope was definitely caught on something. With both hands, Scooter gave the rope a good yank and was torn from his perch.
In the dark, Frass looked up as something clattered above. There was the sound of a rope zipping along a cable. Scooter's foot hit a switch. A light, a single, average, low watt light bulb turned on. Its feeble glow made Frass squint. There on the floor was something small and rectangular...
Frass forgot all safety precautions and ran forward. Just as he was about to grab the remote, something both green and light orange blurred into view.
"WOAAAH!" yelled Scooter. He landed flat on his back on the catwalk, directly in front of Frass. The remote was a few inches away.
"Well well, look what we have here," Frass smiled horribly. "it's one of the frog's little friends." Scooter nearly retched at the horrible breath huffing down on him. His back hurt too much for him to get up quickly.
Frass grabbed the remote with one hand and planted a foot on Scooter's chest. "Looks like I win, doesn't it, frog?" he called out in the dark. Frass leered down at Scooter. "you're lucky, boy. You'll get to see the first pieces of junk I'm gonna get rid of to make room for my factory."
Frass pocketed the remote and pulled out the lump from his suit jacket pocket. It was a blowtorch from the demolition site. It ignited, illuminating Frass's ghastly face. Scooter tried to squirm out from under him.
"If any of the rest of you make a move, this kid here gets it!" he yelled to the darkness. Scooter shrank back as Frass aimed the powerful flame towards his face.
Frass pulled out the second lump from inside his jacket. He almost savored the moment, as if he had been thinking about this for years. Scooter first saw a rolled up piece of paper. At first glance, it seemed to be nothing but a piece of sheet music. But then Scooter saw bits and pieces of lyrics, he gasped. It was the original composition of "Please Won't You Be My Neighbor", notes and lyrics written in Fred Rogers's original handwriting.
The sheet music was tucked into something else familiar to Scooter and to millions of others for over 30 years: a pair of Mister Rogers's blue sneakers. Frass held them up in two bloated fingers and laughed. The blowtorch flame cast grotesque shadows against his rotten teeth. Thoroughly enjoying himself, Frass pushed the flame closer to the shoes and music in his hand. He flopped the shoes slightly while singing in a horrible mock baby voice:
"It's a byoot-i-foo day in my nay-boh-hoood!" His mouth burst open as his laughter rose like gas in a mire. Scooter could see every single one of Frass's teeth (and what remained of some of them).
In desperation, Scooter reached into his jacket sleeve. He was glad he had prepared for this emergency. It would provide a distraction, at least.
Frass jerked back in surprise as Scooter whipped out what first looked like a long, thin knife. When Scooter pointed it straight at Frass's nose, he saw that the object was nothing more than a conductor's baton.
The signal. thought Clifford. Immediately, his hand went to a switch.
"Aw, wook at dat," Frass continued in his horrible mock baby voice. "it's Harry Potter. Well, then, you gonna 'abracadabra' me out of here? Go on! Use your magic! Wave your wand!"
Scooter tried to keep from wincing as he pointed the baton sharply to his right. The lights on the far right wall snapped on. Frass's tiny eyes blinked at the row of nearly identical black and white shapes against the wall.
"Wak-waaaaaak." they squawked in chorus.
Scooter sharply pointed his baton to the left. Clifford turned on the lights for the far left wall. They revealed a second row of penguins.
"Wak-waaaaaaaak!" they chorused in a different key.
Scooter pointed to the right wall again, then the left, conducting the number he had been rehearsing at the Boarding House.
"Wak-waaaaaaak!"
"WAK-wak-waaaaaaaak!"
The signal. someone else thought nearby.
Most people who had heard "Duel of the Fates" were used to it being played by the London Symphony Orchestra (conducted by John Williams) and sung in Sandskrit by a choir. No one had ever heard the piece sung by penguins before.
The penguins confused Frass, but didn't completely distract him from what he needed to do. He looked up at a pencil thin beam of light. Sunlight. It streamed through a crack in the opposite door. Frass stepped over Scooter, determined to reach his goal.
From the opposite direction in the dark, Animal rumbled out a drumroll using only his fists and a metal beam.
Before Frass could reach it, the door swung wide open with a horrible groan. There, silhouetted against the blinding sunlight, was someone wrapped in a long, hooded cloak. If Frass had not known any better, he would have thought Death himself were standing before him.
"Wak-WAAAAAAAAAK!"
"WAK-WAK-WAAAAAAAAAAK!"
The hooded figure stepped into the semi-dark room, its head lowered. Frass backed up when the figure slowly raised its head.
It was the face of a lunatic. His demented expression was gleeful, yet insane. He resembled an excited, mad scientist just before conducting a pain-inducing experiment (as his many "guinea pigs" would heartily agree). The Muppets watched as the silhouette of a long weapon emerged from the cloak.
Frass took another step back as the figure shrugged its cloak away. Underneath was a brilliant display of ruffled colors only matched by the wearer's flaming ego. A high-pitched, derranged shriek pierced the air.
Before Frass could react, Marvin Suggs leapt with the skill of a ninja and pummeled him fiercely with his double-headed mallet.
"OW! OW! OW!" yelled Frass.
Marvin leapt to another catwalk and swung the mallet one-handed in complicated figure eights. "You are NOT in tune!" he yelled before pounding his head.
"OW! OW! OWWWWWW!" wailed Frass.
"E flat! E flat!" corrected Marvin. "You are terrible! Do it again!"
Frass was beaten again and again with moves both Jackie Chan and Gallagher would have envied. The mallet was a ravenous blur of wood. Frass tried to shield himself, but Marvin was much too quick.
"OW! OW! OWWW OWWW!"
The penguins squawked in tune, thanks to Scooter. He waved his baton as he took the edge of the catwalk to safety.
Frass barely had enough time to cover his face as the mallet smacked him all over his body. It was all he could to to keep balanced on the catwalk. Marvin twirled like a multicolored tornado as he spun the mallet in the opposite direction like a bulky propellor. Another jaguar-like leap sent Marvin sailing dangerously into the dark and in front of Frass again. Smaller light bulbs popped, flashing light blue as Marvin's mallet smashed through them. Fine glass glittered in the air as the mallet pummeled Frass's skull.
"OW! OW! OWWW-OW-OW-OW!"
Frass saw bright flashes of red, yellow and orange as the mallet repeatedly hit him full in the face. He tried to swing the blowtorch in retalliation, but only succeeded in raising his arm. Marvin's mallet knocked the blowtorch out of Frass's hand and sent it tumbling, now extinguished, into the black void below. Another well-placed hit to the opposite hand sent the shoes and sheet music flying from his grip. They sailed in an arc until they were caught by the laces in a slender, green hand.
The Muppets cheered Kermit as he caught the shoes. Scooter, shaken but otherwise all right, rejoined his friends.
In a desperate attempt, Frass reached into his pocket for the remote. As he pulled it out, Marvin's mallet swung at Frass's wrist with the force of a pile driver. The remote nearly met the same fate as the blowtorch. It too was knocked from Frass's hand and disappeared into the air. It clanged against a stagelight somewhere in the dark and broke another bulb. Sparks burst from the socket and singed a nearby rope supporting a plywood catwalk.
In his rage of losing all of his ill-gotten items, Frass roared and fought back by gripping the mallet handle with both of his greasy hands. Another old light bulb popped above them, raining tiny shards of glass into Frass's short, gray hair.
Frass's fury and brute strength barely matched Marvin's dementia and determination to get a good note out of him. Both of them pushed on the handle: Marvin, eyes popping more than normal and Frass, his body now bruised and even uglier than before.
There was the sudden crack of splintering wood and Frass and Marvin were both thrown off balance and crashed into each other. The mallet broke in two. The halves flew in different directions. One half shattered another stagelight and fell into the abyss. The other half went the same direction as the remote but did not hit anything along the way.
It took a moment to realize what had happened. Frass stepped back as Marvin stumbled into a diagonal support beam and tripped backwards. He was now on the catwalk, weak and with no mallet.
Despite his pain, despite his loss, a wide, terrible grin spread across Frass's face. The bruises around his eyes and mouth stretched in nautious shades of purple laced with yellow. A few teeth were missing, leaving only gray, stinking sockets.
"I'm gonna hold you for ransom until that frog pays me! No, wait. I got a better idea! I'm gonna have you arrested! I'll sue the frog, too! He sent you to do this! He--"
WHAM!
For a split second, the dark became blinding white with sparkling stars on the sides of Frass's peripheral vision. The blackness came back, the stars jerked, twinkled, then blurred into nothingness. Frass could actually feel the large, pulsing lump rising on the back of his head.
The other half of the mallet eased back into the shadows as Frass slowly sunk to his knees. There was a thump of something wooden being dropped against the catwalk.
In a second flash, all the lights in the catwalk space lit up. In between the sparks and weak electrical smoke leaking from the broken stagelights, Frass discovered he was surrounded by Muppets, all of whom were facing him. In the crowd, he saw someone holding the remote...
"Max!" Frass's face sagged with relief. "I knew you wouldn't let me down! Now gimmie the remote and let's blow up that dump!" He stretched a shaking, oily hand to his assistant.
Max looked at the remote in his hand. It felt slimy where his boss had held it. He then looked straight into his boss's eyes.
"N-No."
"No?" growled Frass.
"No." answered Max more confidently.
"NO?" Frass's spittle flew into the black void.
"I won't give it to you." said Max, a little louder.
"I SAID--" Frass started.
"I'm sick of this! I'm sick of YOU!" Max yelled back. It might have been the first time Max had ever yelled. "I'm not going to let you do this!" Max glanced around him and back at his boss. "These are my friends and I'm going to help them! I quit."
Frass's chest tightened in shock. Max gave the remote a little fling. Frass dove after it and only then did he remember that the floor was almost all empty space. With a heavy thud of flesh against wood, Frass's stomach hit the plywood catwalk and clumsily rolled off. At the last second, Frass tried to grab onto the edge, but his greasy, pudgy fingers were already slipping. He made a valiant effort, but it was no use. His beady eyes blurred as he saw a broken half of the mallet on the floor...directly next to Max.
With the squeak of a slightly stuck windshield wiper, Frass's fingers released the beam. Only a faint grease stain on the beam was left behind as Frass plummeted into the abyss. The singed rope weakened, snapped and the plywood board fell after him.
A half second later, everyone heard a massive thud followed by wood hitting flesh. It was the only evidence that there was a bottom to the void. Frass's back hit something crunchy, like a pile of leaves and rolled down a little slope to the floor.
Just then, the rest of the lights in the studio lit up. For the first time, the Muppets could see what lurked below.
"Oh no! Not that!" moaned Fozzie. He gripped Kermit for support.
"Even I wouldn't go down there!" cried Gonzo.
From high above, Clifford waved to Max.
"You ready, Max?" asked Clifford.
Max looked down at his boss, now crumpled, dazed, but still furious. After everything he made his workers do...everything he had put Max through...after all the long hours and little pay, the cause for loss of appetite and sleep...after what he wanted to do to his friends and destroy those artifacts that could be cherished for generations...
"Yeah. Do it."
Clifford adjusted some ropes and lowered an upside-down funnel. Thanks to Bunsen's Insta-Grow Pills, (they worked on anything), the funnel was now the size of a kiddie pool. Inside the funnel were a dozen, scuffed, off-white plastic containers. Their spouts all aimed towards the middle of the funnel. Each spout was covered with a plastic cap, held in place by a thin rope. The twelve ropes met in the middle like a braid and trailed back up to the catwalk. The chandelier-like contraption lowered until it was directly over the center of the room.
"Wait...do you want to have the honors?" Max asked Rowlf. He offered the braided rope to Rowlf.
"I...don't know..." said Rowlf. "Are you sure about this Max? It seems a bit cruel."
"Remember what he did to those other dogs...and all those puppies out there?"
"And you?" Kermit reminded Rowlf.
Rowlf's eyes watered with both anger and a hint of nausea as he remembered.
"Together, then." he took the rope in his paws.
"But not until it's time." reminded Max.
"Right," said Kermit. "we have to wait until..."
"You ain't waintin' until NOTHIN', frog!" boomed Frass from below. A stream of blood leaked from his jaw as he smiled triumphantly. His partially broken hand raised something in the air. "I got the remote! And now, say goodbye to that old stiff's junk! Bye-bye Mister Rogers' Neighborhood!" With both relish and passion, Frass forcifully pressed the button on the remote.
An explosion rang out in the distance. Some of the Muppets gripped the beams and catwalk for support, expecting the building to shake from the blast. A cruel laugh echoed from Frass's ruined mouth.
There was another laugh; a high-pitched one the Muppets knew very well. A manic face peered inside the door where Marvin Suggs had entered.
"More like bye-bye house!" cackled Crazy Harry.
Kermit carefully made his way to the doorway. The warehouse was still intact, but the demolition crew was nowhere in sight. In a flash, Crazy Harry had rewired the dynamite to blow up someplace else.
Crazy Harry whispered something into Kermit's ear. Two towns away, some smoldering rubble, half of a pink tire, and some expired baking soda were all that remained of Edd Frass's house and Maybach. The only thing left standing was the mailbox on the curb. It was stuffed full of bills, letters from collection agencies and an overdue notice from Scred's Awesome Auto Repair. The Muppets yelled in celebration when they heard that the warehouse was safe and Frass's house had blown up instead.
Frass heard a cry rang out from the catwalks, but it wasn't the cry of anguish he was expecting. Instead, it was a cry of joy.
"FRASS HOUSE GO BOOM! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" yelled Animal.
"WHAT?" roared Frass.
"Yeah, man!" cheered Floyd. "Your house is toast!"
"TOAST! TOAST!"
Frass struggled to get up when something else dropped on him. It was a newspaper. BUGABOO DOG CHOW GOES BANKRUPT screamed the headline. As Frass read the article, he became angrier by the second. Near the bottom of the page was a picture of Animal with Floyd and Kermit. Another photo was of Mister Rogers with his trolley.
He ripped up the newspaper, trying to refuse the truth. He was ruined. Frass flung the pieces like confetti, then tore at his hair. For the first time, he paid attention to where he fell. He had to concentrate on something other than the awful truth.
At first glance, it seemed like he was outside in a pristine front yard. Except for himself, the newspaper shreds and the few broken items that had fallen from above, everything was immaculate.
It was too immaculate.
Frass's good eye noticed the one oak tree, fake backdrop and porch of a small white house. It looked like someone had set up the studio to shoot a commercial for lemonade, patio furniture or another product used outside. Nothing looked threatening. Yet, something was very, very wrong.
For a moment, Frass forgot all about his demolished house and ruined dog food company. He wasn't sure why, but he had the feeling he was in danger. Cold sweat mixed with the oil on his face. His chest tightened. His colon throbbed with acid reflux. Wave after wave of fear shot through him like lightning. He had to get out. He had to find the exit.
Frass sat up and tried to stand. In his effort, he grabbed onto the top of a spotless picnic table. Kermit and Max watched him struggle.
"Now?" asked Max.
"Not yet," said Kermit. "It won't come until it's called. All right, everyone. Like we planned. Don't look down and whatever you do, don't say the name! Just imagine it and...it'll...happen."
It was a horrible thing to do, but their regret was far outweighed. Frass had to be stopped. After everything he had done and was planning to do, he had to be stopped and stopped for good. Aside from a lifetime sentence in prison, this was the only way.
All of the Muppets imagined. Mercifully, this particular imagination technique only worked in the concentrated area below.
Frass's heart stopped for a full two seconds. From the darkness, a terrible beast stepped forward. Seeing it was enough to make Frass feel as though he had swallowed an entire bottle of Ipecac.
It walked upright on two legs, like a man, but towered a good seven feet tall. The thing vaguely resembled a real creature, but was at the same time as malformed as a nightmare. It stomped clumsily forward on huge feet, its long, swollen tail swinging behind it. The eyes were tiny and wide set, yet saw its prey with unmistakable clarity. The mouth of the real creature it tried to resemble was frightening enough. This one had a maw shaped into a smile only seen in a funhouse mirror. The mouth had the worst case of underbite Frass had ever seen. The jaws couldn't even close completely. The arms of the beast were long, thick and ended in bloated, nearly useless hands.
Frass nearly had a heart attack when he saw the two-toned creature lumber towards him. Violet appendages reached out to him like the groping legs of a deadly spider.
"NO! NO! GET AWAY! NO! AAAAGHHH!"
The beast swept him up in a hug and squeezed Frass mercilessly in its arms like a gorilla. Frass was forced against the beast's green chest. Frass heard no heartbeat. There was no pulse. It was like the beast wasn't even alive.
The more he struggled, the more the beast tightened its bear hug. It began to sway back and forth with Frass being rocked like a baby. Out of the edges of the room, a tinkling version of "This Old Man" began to play.
"Now, Max!" yelled Kermit.
Together, Max and Rowlf pulled the braided rope. The lids for the twelve containers popped open and something dark poured from each one and sank through the massive funnel.
Frass heard the popping and looked up. Partially obscured by the beast's jaw was something bursting from a hole directly overhead. At first, it looked like a steady stream of brown liquid, but it wasn't. It was pieces of something. All were identical, all were about the size of a thumb.
Roaches.
Max had taken the "extra protein" containers from the factory the night before and hooked them up to the funnel. Rowlf was glad to help with that. When the lids were released, the roaches poured down the funnel and landed forcefully by the thousands onto Frass and the beast.
A sound came from the beast. It was a dopey, warbling, saccharine voice that kept in time with the music. The beast took no notice of the roaches crawling across its body, over its glazed, glassy eyes and inside its gaping, singing, misaligned mouth.
Frass howled in anguish as the beast looked him in the eyes as it finished its song. The roaches crawled all over it and immediately moved to Frass.
"We're going to have so much fun here! You're going to be my super-deeee-DUPER friend forever and ever and ever! Ho ho! Ohhhh!"
Frass wailed in agony as the roaches and beast enveloped him. His desperate cries for help were muffled by the beast's crushing arms and partially gagged by the roaches squirming and wriggling in and out of his howling mouth. A slender roach scurried hastily up one of Frass's running nostrils.
The lights went out at the bottom of the studio. Frass's yelling ceased altogether as the blackness enveloped him, the beast and the countless roaches. The beast gave a final satisfied, echoing, merry chuckle from the dark. One last roach crawled down the funnel and disappeared into the void with its comrades. Then...all was silent.
Floyd was one of the first ones to chance looking down.
"Y'know man...even after what that Frass dude did, I'm not sure who to feel sorry for down there."
"That's easy," said Kermit as he led them to the exit. "I feel sorry for the roaches."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More soon.
Convincing John
"You're not going to blow up the factory." Kermit said determinitely.
"Oh yeah? And what're you gonna do about it? You won't be able to scare me off like that idiot Hopper. He ain't half the man I am."
Max pretended to be apprehensive of Kermit as he moved to the other side of his boss. What he was really doing was blocking the way so Frass couldn't retreat down the fire escape.
"The warehouse isn't yours. We found the real owner."
"There ain't no real owner, 'cept me."
"That's not what City Hall says, man." Floyd stepped out of the shadows. "City Hall says me and Animal own it. We got the dude's official word yesterday." Floyd held up the document for Frass to see.
"No...no..." Frass shook his head, becoming more enraged by the second. "I am the owner! That's probably a fake! And even if it IS real, I ain't gonna back down in front of a piece of paper like that wimp Bitterman!" Frass's clenching hand pointed the remote towards the building.
"BAD MAN!" roared Animal. Like a snake, he sprung forward to bite Frass on the arm, but his chain was just an inch too short. The lunge alone was enough to send Frass stumbling backwards into the railing. The remote flew from his hand, sailed into the darkened room and clattered across an unseen, metal floor.
Immediately, Frass followed it inside. He flipped the switch, but the lights wouldn't come on. In the dark, Clifford smiled.
Time to deal with this clown. he thought.
As Frass cautiously stepped forward, he continued to bellow in the dark.
"FROG? FROG! Gimmie that remote right NOW!"
Frass guessed the direction the remote had went. As he reached for something to steady himself, all light behind him extinguished. The door behind him slammed and immediately locked.
"MAX!" roared Frass. his voice echoed and re-echoed in the blackness.
There was no answer.
It was pitch black inside the room, save for the tiny glint against glass at eye level. Silently, Max nodded.
A fan somewhere in the room buzzed to life. A voice somewhere near it quavered a warning in a Spanish accent.
"Jou are a very, very bad man, h'okay. I will smack you like a bad, bad donkey, h'okay. If jou don't give up now, jou will be very, very sorry, hokay. Jou must surrrrrennnnnnder, h'okay!"
"And giiiive uuuus lots of fooooooood." quavered a second voice.
"Food?" whispered Pepe. "Jou are nuts wanting anyting to eat from dat guy!"
"Hey, it's been fifteen minutes since breakfast!" Rizzo whispered back. "I'm starvin'!"
"I AIN'T PLAYIN' GAMES, FROG!" boomed Frass. Carefully, he tried to step on a catwalk, but nearly fell. He stumbled and stopped. Something was in front of him. He couldn't see, but he had the feeling that--
A bright red light snapped on, illuminating someone from beaneath. It was a man in wild clothes which, under normal lighting, might have been multicolored. Here, they were just shades of red and black. A huge hand at the end of a spidery arm spun a yo-yo an inch from Frass's face. An eerie, Cheshire Cat grin with a single, sparkling tooth widened along with his eyes. The feather on his furry top hat bobbed as he spoke a single word:
"Lost?"
A sudden wave of fear and uncertainty went through Frass as the red light snapped off. For the first time, it seemed like he was indeed trapped.
Somewhere else in the blackness, something shifted. Another light snapped on, this time a yellow one. Two identical shapes appeared in complete silhouette. They looked like, for a lack of a better description, devils wearing fur vests. Together, they harmonized as Frass heard a strange, yet unmistakably clear version of "The Twilight Zone" theme.
"Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo..."
A third silhouette snaked up between them. It was something like a hairy, weaving dandelion with skinny arms.
"Mahhhhhh-NAH!" it declared in a low, gravely voice. Barely visible hollow eye sockets blinked at him.
The light snapped off and the music ceased immediately. Frass was once again in the dark.
"LET ME OUT!" he yelled. There was anger in his voice, but there was also a hint of fear. A dull ache went through Frass's colon as he tried again to find the remote. His foot found a wobbly bridge made from old wood. It creaked as he stepped forward.
"The warehouse belongs to Floyd and Animal," Kermit said from the darkness. "not you."
In the rafters, Scooter struggled in complete darkness to climb between the lights. He was on his way to create the next effect, (if he could pull it off), but he had to be silent. He had memorized earlier where all the right lights, hand and footholds were.
There had to be a rope here, Scooter thought. His hand sretched out, grabbed and missed. He frowned, stretched and reached again. He felt his fingers slowly encircle the coarse texture of the rope. When he pulled it, all would be...
He pulled.
It was stuck.
Scooter pulled again. The rope was definitely caught on something. With both hands, Scooter gave the rope a good yank and was torn from his perch.
In the dark, Frass looked up as something clattered above. There was the sound of a rope zipping along a cable. Scooter's foot hit a switch. A light, a single, average, low watt light bulb turned on. Its feeble glow made Frass squint. There on the floor was something small and rectangular...
Frass forgot all safety precautions and ran forward. Just as he was about to grab the remote, something both green and light orange blurred into view.
"WOAAAH!" yelled Scooter. He landed flat on his back on the catwalk, directly in front of Frass. The remote was a few inches away.
"Well well, look what we have here," Frass smiled horribly. "it's one of the frog's little friends." Scooter nearly retched at the horrible breath huffing down on him. His back hurt too much for him to get up quickly.
Frass grabbed the remote with one hand and planted a foot on Scooter's chest. "Looks like I win, doesn't it, frog?" he called out in the dark. Frass leered down at Scooter. "you're lucky, boy. You'll get to see the first pieces of junk I'm gonna get rid of to make room for my factory."
Frass pocketed the remote and pulled out the lump from his suit jacket pocket. It was a blowtorch from the demolition site. It ignited, illuminating Frass's ghastly face. Scooter tried to squirm out from under him.
"If any of the rest of you make a move, this kid here gets it!" he yelled to the darkness. Scooter shrank back as Frass aimed the powerful flame towards his face.
Frass pulled out the second lump from inside his jacket. He almost savored the moment, as if he had been thinking about this for years. Scooter first saw a rolled up piece of paper. At first glance, it seemed to be nothing but a piece of sheet music. But then Scooter saw bits and pieces of lyrics, he gasped. It was the original composition of "Please Won't You Be My Neighbor", notes and lyrics written in Fred Rogers's original handwriting.
The sheet music was tucked into something else familiar to Scooter and to millions of others for over 30 years: a pair of Mister Rogers's blue sneakers. Frass held them up in two bloated fingers and laughed. The blowtorch flame cast grotesque shadows against his rotten teeth. Thoroughly enjoying himself, Frass pushed the flame closer to the shoes and music in his hand. He flopped the shoes slightly while singing in a horrible mock baby voice:
"It's a byoot-i-foo day in my nay-boh-hoood!" His mouth burst open as his laughter rose like gas in a mire. Scooter could see every single one of Frass's teeth (and what remained of some of them).
In desperation, Scooter reached into his jacket sleeve. He was glad he had prepared for this emergency. It would provide a distraction, at least.
Frass jerked back in surprise as Scooter whipped out what first looked like a long, thin knife. When Scooter pointed it straight at Frass's nose, he saw that the object was nothing more than a conductor's baton.
The signal. thought Clifford. Immediately, his hand went to a switch.
"Aw, wook at dat," Frass continued in his horrible mock baby voice. "it's Harry Potter. Well, then, you gonna 'abracadabra' me out of here? Go on! Use your magic! Wave your wand!"
Scooter tried to keep from wincing as he pointed the baton sharply to his right. The lights on the far right wall snapped on. Frass's tiny eyes blinked at the row of nearly identical black and white shapes against the wall.
"Wak-waaaaaak." they squawked in chorus.
Scooter sharply pointed his baton to the left. Clifford turned on the lights for the far left wall. They revealed a second row of penguins.
"Wak-waaaaaaaak!" they chorused in a different key.
Scooter pointed to the right wall again, then the left, conducting the number he had been rehearsing at the Boarding House.
"Wak-waaaaaaak!"
"WAK-wak-waaaaaaaak!"
The signal. someone else thought nearby.
Most people who had heard "Duel of the Fates" were used to it being played by the London Symphony Orchestra (conducted by John Williams) and sung in Sandskrit by a choir. No one had ever heard the piece sung by penguins before.
The penguins confused Frass, but didn't completely distract him from what he needed to do. He looked up at a pencil thin beam of light. Sunlight. It streamed through a crack in the opposite door. Frass stepped over Scooter, determined to reach his goal.
From the opposite direction in the dark, Animal rumbled out a drumroll using only his fists and a metal beam.
Before Frass could reach it, the door swung wide open with a horrible groan. There, silhouetted against the blinding sunlight, was someone wrapped in a long, hooded cloak. If Frass had not known any better, he would have thought Death himself were standing before him.
"Wak-WAAAAAAAAAK!"
"WAK-WAK-WAAAAAAAAAAK!"
The hooded figure stepped into the semi-dark room, its head lowered. Frass backed up when the figure slowly raised its head.
It was the face of a lunatic. His demented expression was gleeful, yet insane. He resembled an excited, mad scientist just before conducting a pain-inducing experiment (as his many "guinea pigs" would heartily agree). The Muppets watched as the silhouette of a long weapon emerged from the cloak.
Frass took another step back as the figure shrugged its cloak away. Underneath was a brilliant display of ruffled colors only matched by the wearer's flaming ego. A high-pitched, derranged shriek pierced the air.
Before Frass could react, Marvin Suggs leapt with the skill of a ninja and pummeled him fiercely with his double-headed mallet.
"OW! OW! OW!" yelled Frass.
Marvin leapt to another catwalk and swung the mallet one-handed in complicated figure eights. "You are NOT in tune!" he yelled before pounding his head.
"OW! OW! OWWWWWW!" wailed Frass.
"E flat! E flat!" corrected Marvin. "You are terrible! Do it again!"
Frass was beaten again and again with moves both Jackie Chan and Gallagher would have envied. The mallet was a ravenous blur of wood. Frass tried to shield himself, but Marvin was much too quick.
"OW! OW! OWWW OWWW!"
The penguins squawked in tune, thanks to Scooter. He waved his baton as he took the edge of the catwalk to safety.
Frass barely had enough time to cover his face as the mallet smacked him all over his body. It was all he could to to keep balanced on the catwalk. Marvin twirled like a multicolored tornado as he spun the mallet in the opposite direction like a bulky propellor. Another jaguar-like leap sent Marvin sailing dangerously into the dark and in front of Frass again. Smaller light bulbs popped, flashing light blue as Marvin's mallet smashed through them. Fine glass glittered in the air as the mallet pummeled Frass's skull.
"OW! OW! OWWW-OW-OW-OW!"
Frass saw bright flashes of red, yellow and orange as the mallet repeatedly hit him full in the face. He tried to swing the blowtorch in retalliation, but only succeeded in raising his arm. Marvin's mallet knocked the blowtorch out of Frass's hand and sent it tumbling, now extinguished, into the black void below. Another well-placed hit to the opposite hand sent the shoes and sheet music flying from his grip. They sailed in an arc until they were caught by the laces in a slender, green hand.
The Muppets cheered Kermit as he caught the shoes. Scooter, shaken but otherwise all right, rejoined his friends.
In a desperate attempt, Frass reached into his pocket for the remote. As he pulled it out, Marvin's mallet swung at Frass's wrist with the force of a pile driver. The remote nearly met the same fate as the blowtorch. It too was knocked from Frass's hand and disappeared into the air. It clanged against a stagelight somewhere in the dark and broke another bulb. Sparks burst from the socket and singed a nearby rope supporting a plywood catwalk.
In his rage of losing all of his ill-gotten items, Frass roared and fought back by gripping the mallet handle with both of his greasy hands. Another old light bulb popped above them, raining tiny shards of glass into Frass's short, gray hair.
Frass's fury and brute strength barely matched Marvin's dementia and determination to get a good note out of him. Both of them pushed on the handle: Marvin, eyes popping more than normal and Frass, his body now bruised and even uglier than before.
There was the sudden crack of splintering wood and Frass and Marvin were both thrown off balance and crashed into each other. The mallet broke in two. The halves flew in different directions. One half shattered another stagelight and fell into the abyss. The other half went the same direction as the remote but did not hit anything along the way.
It took a moment to realize what had happened. Frass stepped back as Marvin stumbled into a diagonal support beam and tripped backwards. He was now on the catwalk, weak and with no mallet.
Despite his pain, despite his loss, a wide, terrible grin spread across Frass's face. The bruises around his eyes and mouth stretched in nautious shades of purple laced with yellow. A few teeth were missing, leaving only gray, stinking sockets.
"I'm gonna hold you for ransom until that frog pays me! No, wait. I got a better idea! I'm gonna have you arrested! I'll sue the frog, too! He sent you to do this! He--"
WHAM!
For a split second, the dark became blinding white with sparkling stars on the sides of Frass's peripheral vision. The blackness came back, the stars jerked, twinkled, then blurred into nothingness. Frass could actually feel the large, pulsing lump rising on the back of his head.
The other half of the mallet eased back into the shadows as Frass slowly sunk to his knees. There was a thump of something wooden being dropped against the catwalk.
In a second flash, all the lights in the catwalk space lit up. In between the sparks and weak electrical smoke leaking from the broken stagelights, Frass discovered he was surrounded by Muppets, all of whom were facing him. In the crowd, he saw someone holding the remote...
"Max!" Frass's face sagged with relief. "I knew you wouldn't let me down! Now gimmie the remote and let's blow up that dump!" He stretched a shaking, oily hand to his assistant.
Max looked at the remote in his hand. It felt slimy where his boss had held it. He then looked straight into his boss's eyes.
"N-No."
"No?" growled Frass.
"No." answered Max more confidently.
"NO?" Frass's spittle flew into the black void.
"I won't give it to you." said Max, a little louder.
"I SAID--" Frass started.
"I'm sick of this! I'm sick of YOU!" Max yelled back. It might have been the first time Max had ever yelled. "I'm not going to let you do this!" Max glanced around him and back at his boss. "These are my friends and I'm going to help them! I quit."
Frass's chest tightened in shock. Max gave the remote a little fling. Frass dove after it and only then did he remember that the floor was almost all empty space. With a heavy thud of flesh against wood, Frass's stomach hit the plywood catwalk and clumsily rolled off. At the last second, Frass tried to grab onto the edge, but his greasy, pudgy fingers were already slipping. He made a valiant effort, but it was no use. His beady eyes blurred as he saw a broken half of the mallet on the floor...directly next to Max.
With the squeak of a slightly stuck windshield wiper, Frass's fingers released the beam. Only a faint grease stain on the beam was left behind as Frass plummeted into the abyss. The singed rope weakened, snapped and the plywood board fell after him.
A half second later, everyone heard a massive thud followed by wood hitting flesh. It was the only evidence that there was a bottom to the void. Frass's back hit something crunchy, like a pile of leaves and rolled down a little slope to the floor.
Just then, the rest of the lights in the studio lit up. For the first time, the Muppets could see what lurked below.
"Oh no! Not that!" moaned Fozzie. He gripped Kermit for support.
"Even I wouldn't go down there!" cried Gonzo.
From high above, Clifford waved to Max.
"You ready, Max?" asked Clifford.
Max looked down at his boss, now crumpled, dazed, but still furious. After everything he made his workers do...everything he had put Max through...after all the long hours and little pay, the cause for loss of appetite and sleep...after what he wanted to do to his friends and destroy those artifacts that could be cherished for generations...
"Yeah. Do it."
Clifford adjusted some ropes and lowered an upside-down funnel. Thanks to Bunsen's Insta-Grow Pills, (they worked on anything), the funnel was now the size of a kiddie pool. Inside the funnel were a dozen, scuffed, off-white plastic containers. Their spouts all aimed towards the middle of the funnel. Each spout was covered with a plastic cap, held in place by a thin rope. The twelve ropes met in the middle like a braid and trailed back up to the catwalk. The chandelier-like contraption lowered until it was directly over the center of the room.
"Wait...do you want to have the honors?" Max asked Rowlf. He offered the braided rope to Rowlf.
"I...don't know..." said Rowlf. "Are you sure about this Max? It seems a bit cruel."
"Remember what he did to those other dogs...and all those puppies out there?"
"And you?" Kermit reminded Rowlf.
Rowlf's eyes watered with both anger and a hint of nausea as he remembered.
"Together, then." he took the rope in his paws.
"But not until it's time." reminded Max.
"Right," said Kermit. "we have to wait until..."
"You ain't waintin' until NOTHIN', frog!" boomed Frass from below. A stream of blood leaked from his jaw as he smiled triumphantly. His partially broken hand raised something in the air. "I got the remote! And now, say goodbye to that old stiff's junk! Bye-bye Mister Rogers' Neighborhood!" With both relish and passion, Frass forcifully pressed the button on the remote.
An explosion rang out in the distance. Some of the Muppets gripped the beams and catwalk for support, expecting the building to shake from the blast. A cruel laugh echoed from Frass's ruined mouth.
There was another laugh; a high-pitched one the Muppets knew very well. A manic face peered inside the door where Marvin Suggs had entered.
"More like bye-bye house!" cackled Crazy Harry.
Kermit carefully made his way to the doorway. The warehouse was still intact, but the demolition crew was nowhere in sight. In a flash, Crazy Harry had rewired the dynamite to blow up someplace else.
Crazy Harry whispered something into Kermit's ear. Two towns away, some smoldering rubble, half of a pink tire, and some expired baking soda were all that remained of Edd Frass's house and Maybach. The only thing left standing was the mailbox on the curb. It was stuffed full of bills, letters from collection agencies and an overdue notice from Scred's Awesome Auto Repair. The Muppets yelled in celebration when they heard that the warehouse was safe and Frass's house had blown up instead.
Frass heard a cry rang out from the catwalks, but it wasn't the cry of anguish he was expecting. Instead, it was a cry of joy.
"FRASS HOUSE GO BOOM! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" yelled Animal.
"WHAT?" roared Frass.
"Yeah, man!" cheered Floyd. "Your house is toast!"
"TOAST! TOAST!"
Frass struggled to get up when something else dropped on him. It was a newspaper. BUGABOO DOG CHOW GOES BANKRUPT screamed the headline. As Frass read the article, he became angrier by the second. Near the bottom of the page was a picture of Animal with Floyd and Kermit. Another photo was of Mister Rogers with his trolley.
He ripped up the newspaper, trying to refuse the truth. He was ruined. Frass flung the pieces like confetti, then tore at his hair. For the first time, he paid attention to where he fell. He had to concentrate on something other than the awful truth.
At first glance, it seemed like he was outside in a pristine front yard. Except for himself, the newspaper shreds and the few broken items that had fallen from above, everything was immaculate.
It was too immaculate.
Frass's good eye noticed the one oak tree, fake backdrop and porch of a small white house. It looked like someone had set up the studio to shoot a commercial for lemonade, patio furniture or another product used outside. Nothing looked threatening. Yet, something was very, very wrong.
For a moment, Frass forgot all about his demolished house and ruined dog food company. He wasn't sure why, but he had the feeling he was in danger. Cold sweat mixed with the oil on his face. His chest tightened. His colon throbbed with acid reflux. Wave after wave of fear shot through him like lightning. He had to get out. He had to find the exit.
Frass sat up and tried to stand. In his effort, he grabbed onto the top of a spotless picnic table. Kermit and Max watched him struggle.
"Now?" asked Max.
"Not yet," said Kermit. "It won't come until it's called. All right, everyone. Like we planned. Don't look down and whatever you do, don't say the name! Just imagine it and...it'll...happen."
It was a horrible thing to do, but their regret was far outweighed. Frass had to be stopped. After everything he had done and was planning to do, he had to be stopped and stopped for good. Aside from a lifetime sentence in prison, this was the only way.
All of the Muppets imagined. Mercifully, this particular imagination technique only worked in the concentrated area below.
Frass's heart stopped for a full two seconds. From the darkness, a terrible beast stepped forward. Seeing it was enough to make Frass feel as though he had swallowed an entire bottle of Ipecac.
It walked upright on two legs, like a man, but towered a good seven feet tall. The thing vaguely resembled a real creature, but was at the same time as malformed as a nightmare. It stomped clumsily forward on huge feet, its long, swollen tail swinging behind it. The eyes were tiny and wide set, yet saw its prey with unmistakable clarity. The mouth of the real creature it tried to resemble was frightening enough. This one had a maw shaped into a smile only seen in a funhouse mirror. The mouth had the worst case of underbite Frass had ever seen. The jaws couldn't even close completely. The arms of the beast were long, thick and ended in bloated, nearly useless hands.
Frass nearly had a heart attack when he saw the two-toned creature lumber towards him. Violet appendages reached out to him like the groping legs of a deadly spider.
"NO! NO! GET AWAY! NO! AAAAGHHH!"
The beast swept him up in a hug and squeezed Frass mercilessly in its arms like a gorilla. Frass was forced against the beast's green chest. Frass heard no heartbeat. There was no pulse. It was like the beast wasn't even alive.
The more he struggled, the more the beast tightened its bear hug. It began to sway back and forth with Frass being rocked like a baby. Out of the edges of the room, a tinkling version of "This Old Man" began to play.
"Now, Max!" yelled Kermit.
Together, Max and Rowlf pulled the braided rope. The lids for the twelve containers popped open and something dark poured from each one and sank through the massive funnel.
Frass heard the popping and looked up. Partially obscured by the beast's jaw was something bursting from a hole directly overhead. At first, it looked like a steady stream of brown liquid, but it wasn't. It was pieces of something. All were identical, all were about the size of a thumb.
Roaches.
Max had taken the "extra protein" containers from the factory the night before and hooked them up to the funnel. Rowlf was glad to help with that. When the lids were released, the roaches poured down the funnel and landed forcefully by the thousands onto Frass and the beast.
A sound came from the beast. It was a dopey, warbling, saccharine voice that kept in time with the music. The beast took no notice of the roaches crawling across its body, over its glazed, glassy eyes and inside its gaping, singing, misaligned mouth.
Frass howled in anguish as the beast looked him in the eyes as it finished its song. The roaches crawled all over it and immediately moved to Frass.
"We're going to have so much fun here! You're going to be my super-deeee-DUPER friend forever and ever and ever! Ho ho! Ohhhh!"
Frass wailed in agony as the roaches and beast enveloped him. His desperate cries for help were muffled by the beast's crushing arms and partially gagged by the roaches squirming and wriggling in and out of his howling mouth. A slender roach scurried hastily up one of Frass's running nostrils.
The lights went out at the bottom of the studio. Frass's yelling ceased altogether as the blackness enveloped him, the beast and the countless roaches. The beast gave a final satisfied, echoing, merry chuckle from the dark. One last roach crawled down the funnel and disappeared into the void with its comrades. Then...all was silent.
Floyd was one of the first ones to chance looking down.
"Y'know man...even after what that Frass dude did, I'm not sure who to feel sorry for down there."
"That's easy," said Kermit as he led them to the exit. "I feel sorry for the roaches."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More soon.
Convincing John
