Chapter 5
Scooter’s eyes picked up bits of light as the blinked open after his sleep in a chair tied up with his uncle. When his eyes finally opened all the way, he saw Benny Vandergast staring directly at him. Scooter sighed, it hadn’t just been a nightmare.
"Good morning boys," Benny said, standing up from the chair he was in. "Care for a bagel? Cup of coffee, glass of juice?"
Scooter glared at the man tormenting him and his uncle. "Oh why sure," Scooter heard his uncle say. "I take my coffee with three creamers and four lumps of sugar. You see Scooter?" J.P. whispered to his nephew. "I told you Benny wasn’t all bad, isn’t that right Benny?"
Benny walked around to look at J.P., he stared into J.P.’s eyes almost fully covered by his big, bushy eyebrow. Benny’s eyes drilled into J.P. like a jackhammer. "J.P. Grosse, my old friend," Benny finally said. "My friend who stole my theater from me, who lost me my fortune, who ruined my life!"
"Benny, I thought you were dead!"
"Well maybe you should’ve checked a little harder!" Benny screamed in J.P.’s face.
J.P. and Scooter were silenced, they held their breath until Benny moved again. He rubbed his temples and took a deep breath. "I can’t do this right now," he said simply, leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
Scooter waited a few seconds to speak. "Uncle J.P., what...What happened between the two of you?"
J.P. sighed. "I knew this would come up, I just knew it would happen someday. Why didn’t I do anything?"
Scooter wished he could put a comforting arm on his uncle’s shoulder, as he silently cursed his binding ropes. "You can tell me uncle, I won’t feel cross towards you either way."
J.P. sighed, "But you should my dear nephew you really, really should."
<X>X<X>
"I’m sorry you had to find out like this Mr. Grosse."
"Hm? Oh yes, yes, send the family a bundle of flowers, and get me the current status of this movie house I’ve inherited."
"It’s a theater Mr. Grosse sir, like a play house."
"Yes, yes, we’ll put padding on the floors so the kids don’t hit their heads, we can’t deal with another lawsuit. Now thank you miss Tracy, I’ll take a coffee, three creamers and four lumps of sugar."
The secretary left the office of her boss J.P. Grosse, who sat at his desk looking over documents from a high school named for him that he was preparing to make a quick appearance at, unless he had to make down payments on this new theater.
I’m sure Scooter and the school media will understand. He thought to himself.
This was how J.P. mourned the news of his best friend’s death.
A shadow behind him moved around his desk and appeared in the chair in front of the desk. "It’s good to see the news of my untimely passing hasn’t phased you too much my dear friend."
J.P. sat straight up in a jolt. He looked all around the empty office for the source of the voice. "Who’s there? Come out I say!"
In the chair in front of him the slender figure of a man appeared. The man’s eyes were pale gray, as was the tone of his skin and hair, he had the look of death upon him. "I wasn’t hiding J.P."
"Who are you? How do you know my name? ...You don’t have my bank account number too do you?"
"You twit, don’t you recognize your best friend?" the pale gray man asked.
J.P. dropped the cigar he was holding in between his two fingers. "...Benny?" J.P. whispered.
"Oh good you recognize me."
"B-But you’re supposed to be on vacation!"
Benny’s eyes flared, they changed from pale gray to fiery red. "You no-nothing moron! I’m supposed to be
dead!"
"Well flattering will get you nowhere my friend, you should know that." J.P. lit up a new cigar. "Did you get a haircut or something?"
Benny flew out of the chair in rage, knocking it over in the process. "What kind of a man are you?! You don’t even care that your best friend is sitting in front of you after he’s been reported dead! You don’t even care that he is dead!"
"I care!" J.P. ensured him. "That theater will make for great land development!"
"I’m not giving you my theater!" Benny shouted.
"Oh? Your theater, fine, fine, I’ll give it a nice name for you, how does ‘The Benny Vandergast Memorial Theater’ sound to you?"
"It sounds like it’s
my theater!"
"Right, good, that’s what we want it to sound like."
"We?" Benny asked. "We are finished Grosse. I’m taking the deed to my theater and never having anything to do with you again."
"But aren’t you dead?"
"Yes you fool! I cheated Death!"
"Well then wouldn’t that mean you aren’t dead?"
Benny’s entire eyeballs grew red. "Will you shut up and listen?!" J.P. puffed his cigar quietly, motioning for Benny to continue. "It was my time to go Grosse, but when I was approached by the cloaked master himself, I escaped from his skeletal grasp. He won’t be finding me anytime soon."
"Well that’s great and all, but I’m keeping the deed."
Benny slammed his hands down on the top of J.P.’s desk. "You listen here you pompous twit, that deed is mine, as is that theater. Keep. Out."
"And if I don’t?" J.P. asked, satisfied with the way this was going. "You realize my friend that if you step one foot in my theater I have full power to call the proper authorities who will find out your little secret of death."
The gray man dug his nails into the surface of the desk. "I hate you Grosse, and mark my words, I will get my theater back, and you will pay."
"I can pay any price, but that theater is mine."
Benny glared at his ex-best friend, and disappeared from the room. "For now." His voice rang through the walls, and right through J.P.’s ears.
<X>X<X>
"Hey everybody! C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! It’s time to get up! Time for the vacation!" Bean Bunny shouted down the halls of the Muppet Boarding House.
A group moan rang out from each of the Muppet’s bed rooms, they didn’t
really want to leave at dawn. Apparently Kermit had forgot to tell Bean.
"C’mon everybody! If you need to we can exercise with my bunny calisthenics! It’s so cute and you’ll all feel so energetic! Oh I think you’ll all just love it so much and-"
"HI-YA!" Piggy karate chopped the rabbit from behind. She growled down at him in her green face mask and returned to her room.
Fozzie walked out of his room and stared down at Bean. "Hey Bean, I think your aerobics class got turned into kung-fu 101! Ahh!" Fozzie ran over to Kermit’s bedroom door. "Hey Kermit, you’re up right?"
Kermit sat up crookedly, rubbing his eyes. "Well actually Fozzie-"
"Great! Well I just wanted to tell you that my Ma is here!"
Kermit frowned. "Oh, great, is she watching the house for us?"
"No! I invited her on the trip silly!"
Emily Bear barged into Kermit’s room. "Fozzie, I can’t believe I was just woke up by some hyperactive bunny!"
"Oh Ma! You remember Kermit!" Fozzie put his hand on his mother’s shoulder.
Emily looked at the half-awake Kermit in his bed. "Oh yeah, the lizard."
"Fro-Oh never mind..." Kermit rolled out of bed. "Let’s get the gang on the bus..."
"Great!" Emily said. "I’ll take first driving shift! I’ve had my coffee and I’m ready to go!"
>X<X>X<
The orange embers still burning in Uncle Deadly’s fireplace grew dimmer as Uncle Deadly arose and strolled by the fireplace. He fidgeted with his claws as he awaited Death.
His mind was jammed with recollections of the attack on him the previous day. The gash down his arm still burned through his clothes. It was nothing ordinary that attacked him. Of course, he already knew that.
<X>X<X>
Uncle Deadly climbed on the ceiling of the Muppet Theater and gently frayed a wire on a light. Deadly chuckled. "Playing this trick on Clifford never does get old."
"Tricks are rude." A voice rang through the theater.
Deadly retained his grip on the ceiling and hissed. "Show yourself!"
A gray skinned, gray haired man appeared directly in front of him and clawed at both of his hands, dropping him from the ceiling.
Deadly landed with a thud on the floor of the theater, he couldn’t feel his legs, although that wasn’t a new sensation for the phantom, he hadn’t felt any part of his body since his death. Deadly climbed back to his feet and aimed his hands in the direction of his gray attacker, firing bolts of lightning from his palms.
The man dodged as the lightning broke through the ceiling, sending clouds of dust, rock, and wood falling to the floor.
Uncle Deadly growled to the agile man, picking up a shard of stone from the ceiling. He hurled it up at the man, who caught it with one palm and jumped down, landing in front of the specter. Deadly had no time to dodge before the man had landed a successful blow to Deadly’s chest with the rock.
Deadly collapsed onto the floor, grasping his chest. The man jumped over him and grabbed a wood spear that fell from the ceiling. Uncle Deadly darted up, swinging his entire form, trying to trip the man with his long tail, the man jumped over the tail and swung down with the splintered piece of wood, slicing the phantom’s tattered shirt and piercing his dark blue skin.
"Ach!" the phantom cried in pain, collapsing back on the floor.
The man placed the sole of his shoe on Deadly’s snout. "Where is J.P. Grosse?" the man hissed in Uncle Deadly’s face.
"I-I don’t know," Deadly tried moving his mouth with the shoe on his snout.
The man pressed his shoe down harder. "Tell me beast!"
"Augh!" Deadly screamed. "He’s staying at the Muppet Boarding House! ACH!"
The man moved his foot off the phantom. "Thank you, now was that so hard?"
"Who...Who are you?"
The gray man snickered and disappeared. "Benny Vandergast, and don’t you forget it."
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It's fun to see him get the drop on her and I like the scoreboard!