So We'll Go No More A-Roving, for Fear of Furry Monsters

The Count

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Shh, all he knows is he gets da greens if ju know what we means okay.
:shifty: We'll take cash.
:rolleyes: Credit cards.
:shifty: Personal checks.
:rolleyes: Belgian waffles.

Also interested in what Constanza disclosed of herself. Is the two-tonedness because of her violet hair and blue felt? No, I'm not taking into account the pink splattering from the hogwash the monsters forced her to go through.

Please, post more? :halo:
 

newsmanfan

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Shh, all he knows is he gets da greens if ju know what we means okay.
:shifty: We'll take cash.
:rolleyes: Credit cards.
:shifty: Personal checks.
:rolleyes: Belgian waffles.

Also interested in what Constanza disclosed of herself. Is the two-tonedness because of her violet hair and blue felt? No, I'm not taking into account the pink splattering from the hogwash the monsters forced her to go through.

Please, post more? :halo:
Yep...that would be the spraypaint which isn't washing out. Felt stains easily, ya know.

Post more? I gotta WRITE more...and Gonzo's acts are getting increasingly complex and ridiculous...give me a few days!

Where's YOUR entry for May, huh? Huh?
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The Count

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You cut me to the quick. Dunno, maybe next week since it's more of a motherly scene in the Grosse family garden I've planned. I've gotten distracted with some good fics at Fanfiction.net. If only you could stay logged in as permanently and post/upload stories as easily as we can here. Le sigh.

If you need help, you know where to reach me. Unless you get a prerecorded holographic version of me that knows how to answer your questions as if I myself were there at that time, like what Gonzo did on JHH.
 

Ruahnna

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I managed to read this today but didn't have a mo to post until now. There were some things to love. The yips getting all indignant and wanting to take down the BEO (Big Evil One) was super. The way that ush-gush--the need for human attraction and affectionate contact--can surface in any situation. Newsie finding his reporting center in the midst of great sadness and concern. Gonzo's sanguinity (is that even a real word?) in the weirdest of situations. Kermit and Piggy and Scooter and everybody showing solidarity with the cause.
Can't wait to see what happens next!
 

newsmanfan

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Thanks Ru...and don't be afraid to post your private critiques here; your notes are ALWAYS helpful!!

That goes for anyone: I do really welcome feedback. Helps me fine-tune. More soon as I'm able...:news:
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newsmanfan

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(Author's Note: okay, so I was amiss in announcing 'Break a Leg' yet...there was more, I realized, which needed attention first! Stay tuned NEXT time for the most devastatingly dumb stunts on the planet, so amazingly suicidal they make the idiots over at 'Jackdonkey' jealous! Now for this week's feature. Please use your headphones so the creatures around you will not be disturbed any more than they already are. There is a paper sack located in the pocket of the seat in front of you in the event of monster-food stomach turbulence. Enjoy your movie.)

Part Thirty-Five

Wednesday dawned crisp and cool; by late morning the sky was that special shade of cerulean reserved for brisk autumn days, cloudless, with the fire of trees throughout the city creating the kind of bright, wondrous contrast which made people gaze up in startled contentment, no matter how harried their life. It was the kind of day made for going out and flying a dragon kite, or raking leaves and jumping into them in a schoolyard, or suddenly needing another pumpkin for the front stoop.

Gina stole a quick glance at the still figure in the windowseat of the living room, then spoke softly over the phone in the kitchen. “Thanks, Mike. I’ll make it up this weekend...yeah, please do. Tell him all my plots are on top of the gel storage cabinet in the booth. He knows what I’m going for. Yeah, well...just tell him what’s going on, but sure, I can owe him a coffee. Okay. I hope so too... Thanks.” She hung up, took another look at her beloved, and sighed to herself. He hadn’t moved in three hours, after losing the argument to march right over to City Hall and demand to see the Mayor. She poured a cup of fresh pumpkin-spice coffee, hesitated, then added a couple of ounces of similarly flavored liqueur before bringing it out to her Newsman. “Sweetie? Here...”

He accepted the mug without a word, sniffed it, and took a long gulp. As an afterthought, he handed her the cold mug which had been sitting on the ledge of the windowseat for quite some time, largely untouched. “Thanks,” he mumbled, setting the fresh mug in the old one’s place and proceeding to ignore it, returning his attention to the pile of papers in his lap. He didn’t think anything truly useful would come of these alleged leads, but it was his duty as an investigative reporter to leave no grimy, distasteful city stone unturned...

Gina stroked a hand down his arm; he barely glanced at her. “Drink your coffee,” she urged. “It’ll help.”

“Coffee won’t stop anything,” he said, bloodshot eyes locked on the page before him. Gina, worried, sat down on the sofa, watching him. Twice last night he’d bolted awake with a shout, wracked by nightmares; he’d barely slept. They’d had a terrible start to the day, with much shouting, when she’d refused to let him go running after city officials to demand they press into the subway tunnels in search of monsters. She’d had to beg before he gave in and unhappily agreed to stay home today. Now he was curled into a compact bundle of washed-out-looking felt, a heavy robe, and a throw blanket at one edge of the windowseat, unaffected by the wondrous day outside. If anything, the blue sea of sky above the gray buildings seemed to anger him whenever he glanced out at it, but mostly he’d focused on these papers, a stack of tips from the news station he’d yet to wade through completely.

Gina noticed he’d stared at one for several minutes. “Does that one look like a good lead?” she asked.

He glanced at her with a mild frown. “No...it’s just as inane as the rest of them.”

“Well, does staring at it for an hour make it any better?”

Disgusted, he tossed it away; it drifted to the carpet. “No.” He glared out the window. A pair of small birds flitted by; he watched them resentfully. Two million people and change out there, all having a normal day. None of them suspect the horror beneath their feet. None of them! “Can I please check the video now?” he asked, his voice a barely controlled growl.

Gina regarded him a long moment. “Deal – if you finish that cup of coffee.”

He sighed. “Fine.” He took another gulp of it, fingers brushing back and forth along the edges of the paper pile. “These people are fools. Isn’t there even one person in this city besides me who knows what the hey is really going on?”

“Sorry, didn’t realize I didn’t count.”

He looked up at that, chagrined enough to amend his tone. “I...of course you do. I know you do.” He paused, swallowing back mingled guilt and frustration. “I know you do.”

She sighed again, and fetched his Powerbook for him. As she settled it in his lap, helping him move the papers, she leaned over to kiss his forehead. “Got your back, you know.”

He nodded, and after a minute added, quietly, “Thank you.”

While he navigated through the Times website, Gina thumbed through the stack of printed emails. “Man. This guy thinks Bigfoot is living in the park...well, guess that’s not so far off,” she mumbled, thinking of Sweetums’ cousin with a shiver. “Here’s one that says they saw Elvis partying on the subway at one in the morning. Right...the King is back, and kidnapping nubile young women for his secret love nest.”

Newsie snorted. He continued to search the news site for the video Rhonda was supposed to have posted last night. “She said it would be linked to the ‘Around Town’ page...and there’s nothing here! What the heck!”

“You know she wouldn’t have blown it off,” Gina chided him. “Maybe the editor decided not to link to it.”

“We have to get that information out! Who knows how many people they’re snatching every night!” Angrily, Newsie clicked on link after link, searching the entire site section by section. He swore loudly. “Where the frog is it?”

“Calm down,” Gina said. “Look, go check your email. Maybe Rhonda wasn’t able to post your warning at the Times; if they killed it you know it’s not her fault! Maybe she’s left you a note about it.”

Trying to calm himself, Newsie nodded, took another sip of the coffee, and set about logging in to his email; he’d begun changing the password frequently since this investigation had begun, and it took his sleep-deprived brain a moment to recall what he’d used this time. Gina held up a sheet of paper with a half-smile. “Giant spiders nesting in the head of Lady Liberty.”

“Not likely,” Newsie shot back. “I think they’re all under Chinatown.”

“What’s up with the location, anyway?” Gina wondered. “This is like ‘Big Trouble in Little Muppettown’ or something. Do you think they started with Nofrisko and moved underground, or took over the company because it was close to their lair already?”

“Who knows?” He knocked back a deep drink of the coffee, then sniffed at it again, curiosity roused just enough to comment. “Uh...whatever you did to this, it’s good. Thank you.”

“Extra-strength brew,” Gina said, hoping he’d eventually forgive her the small deception. “I thought you really needed it after last night.”

Newsie nodded again, then set aside the mug as his email loaded. “You’re right. She emailed me. She says...” He scowled. “She...she was rejected by the Lifestyle editor at the Times, so she posted it...she posted it on MuppTube?” Bewildered, he clicked on the link the resourceful rat had sent.

“I thought that was all bad singers trying to lip-synch in their underwear, and kitties playing with gerbils in plastic rolly balls,” Gina said, rising to peer over his shoulder at the screen. The video, when it finally buffered and played, looked exactly as Newsie had narrated it last night. Gina pointed to a corner of the screen. “Look, sweetie! It already has over a thousand hits!”

“Great,” Newsie muttered. “So less than one per cent of the population has seen it...assuming they’re even all from this city!” Disgusted, he closed the site, reading the rest of Rhonda’s note. He sputtered. “Blanke – that – that – no!”

“What is it?”

His glower deepened the shadows around his eyes. “She says Blanke called her asking her to turn in her press ID until the hearing. The hearing. As if it’s even going to be close to a fair trial! He’ll...he’ll fill the bench with so-called ‘adjudicators’ on his station payroll – or Nofrisko’s! With those creeps actually in charge of things, how can we get anything like a fair shake?”

“Is he expecting you to send in yours as well?”

Newsie unconsciously pulled his robe tighter around himself, although the badge in question was in his wallet in the bedroom. “He can have my badge when he pries it from my cold, still foam!”

“Well...I won’t let it come to that,” Gina promised, wrapping her arms around him. Though tense, he gave in just enough to touch her skin briefly before pulling away. It was more affection than he’d demonstrated since their fight earlier, however, so Gina accepted it silently as progress. She sat back down, and with a sigh resumed reading through the ‘leads.’

“Uhm. Is there...could I...could I have a little more coffee?” Newsie asked gruffly. When Gina met his gaze, he appeared contrite. He held out the empty mug. “You’re...you’re right. It is helping a little.”

“Told you,” Gina said, relieved. “Nice warm drink on a cool, depressing day.” He didn’t pull back when she kissed him, and he slumped with a sigh as she took the mug.

“Look at it out there,” he said, his voice so quiet for once that Gina had to stop and listen carefully to hear him. “The sky’s so...blue.”

He continued to stare out at it as if seeing it for the first time. Gina refilled his mug, again adding a little of something guaranteed to calm him whether he wanted to relax or not. She brought it back to him, and relaxed more herself as she watched him absently sip it, still gazing up at the brilliant, arching expanse of pure blue. “It’s...” he hesitated, seeking words, then finished, “It’s...nice out.”

She nodded, and folded herself onto the seat beside him. “You’d never know bad things were happening under something that pretty.”

“Why...why is it like this?” Newsie asked, suddenly turning weary eyes up to her. “Why are they doing this? Not that I ever thought they were choirboys, of course, but...why this? Why now?”

“My sweet journalist, I don’t know,” Gina murmured, taking his free hand in hers. His soft fingers brushed against hers, seeking reassurance in a touch; Gina held his hand firmly, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “The monsters at the Muppet Theatre never kidnapped anyone before now, right?”

“Right. They...well, I remember a skit where Gorgon Heap ate Wayne...and those weird, violent Hugga Wugga things always made me uneasy...things like that were pretty commonplace, but nobody was hurt,” Newsie said slowly, thinking about it. “I don’t know how long any of this other stuff has actually been going on! It...it seems very...planned, doesn’t it?”

“Organized,” Gina agreed, considering. “It does.”

They gave the matter some thought in silence. Newsie finished most of his second spiked cup. “Somebody is guiding them,” he decided aloud. “Someone’s ordering them around. They’re way too chaotic to have done all this on their own. A TV studio? Alliances with major corporations? It’s too conspiratorial...frankly, they’re not that bright.”

“Um...I think Sweetums is more childlike gentle giant than village idiot, and that’s a good thing in my book.”

“I wish he had more to say about what he saw down there,” Newsie muttered. “It was all just a big fun fair to him!”

“And it’s that very innocence which keeps him safe,” Gina pointed out.

Newsie nodded, reflecting that the troll was definitely an asset on their side against so many fiends. Gina broached a sore subject carefully. “Hopefully...the Mayor and the cops and everyone else will see your report today. Maybe by tonight all this will be over.”

“I hope so,” he muttered. He stared out at a breeze shaking the leaf garlands on the flowerboxes; the golden mums Gina had planted last month looked a little worse for wear, and would no doubt be dying back soon. He tried to view that as a metaphor for the underground threat.

She waited, still holding his hand. “It looks really nice out...we could go for a walk, if you want. I have the day off. Scott’s going to help with the build today, and hang lights tomorrow for me.”

He felt guilty again. “You didn’t have to stay home for me.”

She held back the many tart comments about rushing into disaster which sprang to mind; he’d calmed, and she felt reasonably secure he wouldn’t do anything embarrassing like call the FBI crying monster. Instead, she lifted his fingers to her lips, and kissed his felt. He met her eyes, appearing so sorrowful she melted at once. “I love you,” she said. “Look, Newsie...maybe we should go for a walk. It’ll be too cold to really go outside and play soon enough; let’s take advantage of it while we can. We can go by that newsstand you like on Forty-ninth,” she suggested.

He shook his head slowly. “No...I think...I think I just want to stay here a while.”

“Okay,” Gina replied. He closed his laptop, setting it aside, and gazed out the window with nearly-closed eyes. “Want me to keep looking through those leads with you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe you’ll have more luck...my eyes hurt.”

She nodded, stroking his fingers; this time, he held on. Giving him a gentle smile, Gina picked up the paper stack again. She read through another few unhelpful ‘tips.’ At her sudden snort of amusement, he turned those tired eyes back to her, curious. She held up the information of note. “This person believes the old hotel on Doyers Street is haunted. Says she’s heard moans and cries there late at night.”

“Right,” Newsie grunted. “More likely addicts crashing in a condemned building than spirits back from the dead.”

“No doubt,” she agreed. Newsie released a deep sigh that seemed to take all the remaining strength from his body. “We’ll check the video again in a couple hours, okay? See if it’s circulated enough, or if we should try and push it at other sites?”

“Rhonda’s probably already doing that,” Newsie said. He moved everything away from him except her, and lay down along the windowseat, resting his head in her lap. She tucked the Muppet-sized blanket around him, and he sighed once more. “Ghosts,” he said simply.

“Do you...do you want me to try to...”

“No,” he mumbled, eyes closing; wearily he pulled off his glasses, and Gina set them on the bookshelf. “No. Let her go. She’s probably happier now.” He shifted, getting more comfortable. “Besides...even if there were ghosts at some decrepit old wreck in this town...they wouldn’t be able to tell me why a bunch of monsters have suddenly gone postal.”

“I don’t think they let monsters work at the post office,” Gina said, ruffling his hair.

“Hmf,” he grunted, just conscious enough to be dryly amused...and then his breathing slowed, and she knew he was fast asleep, finally. Gina leaned back, getting as comfortable as she could, resolved to let him sleep that way as long as possible. Maybe in a while he would be settled enough to remain asleep if she took him to bed. Maybe later her efforts to soothe him would actually work. Exhausted herself, Gina allowed her eyes to close.

Soon there were two redheads, one felted and one not, fast asleep in the glorious dappled light of a wide window on a fall afternoon.


----------------
Beaker approached Bunsen armed with real facts this time. This time, he would make his comrade-in-science listen when he voiced his concerns about things in this creepy old building! Honeydew turned from calibrating the transmitter which would send all the equipment signals out in a web-TV simulcast Halloween night. “Isn’t it wonderful they already had a digital transmitter up and running for us, Beaker? Our little scare project will broadcast to the five boroughs and beyond! Isn’t that exciting?”

“Mee mo moo moo mee meemee,” Beaker said, brushing aside Bunsen’s dreams of fame.

Bunsen frowned. “Really, Beakie? You’re going to bring up that nonsense about haunted hotels again?” Beaker shoved a thick paperback book under Bunsen’s nose. “What’s this? – ‘Rick Steves’ Top Ten Places He Had His Bad Hair Scared Right Off His Head’? Oh, honestly, now! Did you get even one twitch of the needle on the PKE meter last time? No! There are no ghosts in this place, unless you count old memories...which I’m sure any hotel this old and storied must carry in its crumbling walls.” With a sigh, he looked at the page Beaker opened the book to and thrust at him. Bunsen adjusted his glasses. “Hmm. ‘The Chinatown district of lower Manhattan is home to many gruesome tales, stories of revenge and bloody opium wars and clashes between street gangs with names like the Dead Rabbits, but perhaps the most haunted locale in this part of the city is the old Happy Lotus Hotel on Doyers Street. Although the tiny, crooked street outside was the grim setting for so many gang ambushes and assassinations in broad daylight that it was known decades ago as the “Bloody Angle,” inside the once-beautiful lobby of the hotel, you get a chill simply walking on the dusty marble floors and looking up the formerly grand stairway to the guest rooms. I wouldn’t recommend trying the stairs, however, as all of the floors above the ground level have been condemned by the city as dangerous since an inspector fell through a wall in Nineteen-seventy-eight.’” Bunsen handed the book back to a wide-eyed, expectant Beaker. “Well, it is always nice to know a little local history! Thank you, Beaker. Now, shall we go get the third floor hooked up?”

Astounded, Beaker gaped at him. Recovering his voice finally, he protested, “Mee meep mo meepie!”

Honeydew shook his head, annoyed. “I don’t believe ‘creepy’ is a scientifically valid quantification! Now come along, grab a few of these infrared camera packs and motion trippers and let’s get them in position and online, shall we?”

Grumbling, Beaker tossed away the guide book and began shoving equipment in a battered canvas satchel for lugging upstairs. “Oh, careful, Beaker. Remember we don’t have the budget to replace any of this! Wasn’t it generous of Nofrisko to fund our tech needs? Ah, so nice to finally encounter a company which actually respects and advances progress!”

“Meep,” Beaker muttered; he wasn’t certain what they were doing here actually counted as progress. He reached the grand landing with its ungracefully-shored-up balustrade, and realized he was alone. Looking back quickly, he saw Bunsen rummaging through boxes of brand-new computer monitors and external hard drives in the center of the lobby. “Mee! Mee meep meep me mo mee?”

“No, you go on ahead. I’ll get all the monitors set up and interfaced,” Honeydew said with an airy wave in Beaker’s direction.

Beaker stared at him, then looked with a shiver up the turn of the stairs. The second floor had been bad enough, with its meandering corridors and tiny, cobweb-filled rooms, but the third floor seemed even darker...and then there was the attic... Gulping so hard his head bobbed down into his collar, Beaker reluctantly trudged up the creaky stairs. He remembered to avoid the loose board on the eighth step up (two nasty tumbles after having it skitter out from under his foot had implanted the location of the hazard firmly in his brain), but nearly fell when he placed a hand on the railing from the second landing to the third flight of steps and it collapsed. “Meeeeep!”

“Careful, Beaker! Try not to damage the fixtures! Remember, we can’t replace history!”

Thinking they might well make history here, for the most injuries suffered in a condemned building during a Muppet production, Beaker regained his footing and cautiously advanced upward, shining a thin beam of greenish light around. He wished he’d thought to bring more glow-sticks to leave as a trail to light the way back. That might not work anyway, however: the ones he’d laid down at each turn of the hallway on the second floor earlier this week had seemed to vanish minutes later when he returned seeking his way out... He peeked over the steps at the third-level landing. The doors seemed farther spaced apart, and the hall quickly branched to left and right, so it was impossible to discern much. Shaking, he advanced slowly, glowstick brandished like a lightsaber, clutching his satchel tightly. Tiny swirls of dust puffed up at his every step, which upon reflection reassured him somewhat: it certainly indicated no one had tread up here in years.

Then again, ghosts wouldn’t leave footprints.

He wondered if the PKE meter could possibly have malfunctioned. Didn’t it seem colder up here? Shivering again, he scrunched his flat chin against the warm striped muffler around his shoulders. Was that a skittery sound off to the left? Stifling a yelp, he whirled, eyes wide, searching the dark hallway. A door gaped blackly farther down, torn or fallen off its hinges long ago. A window-shutter slapped the wall outside; Beaker jumped, and tried to peer in every direction at once. He moved back toward the stairs. Something smacked his leg. “Meeee!”

It was only his satchel. Realizing he’d never hear the end of it if he bolted downstairs with a full bag, Beaker shook his head and looked around with an eye more to judging the best places to set up the motion detectors and cameras. Perhaps if he moved quickly, and didn’t venture too far from the stairs, he could hurry back down and truthfully claim to have put them all in place? That sounded like a plan. He pulled a motion-trigger from his bag, yanked a screwdriver from the toolbelt just under his lab coat, and fastened the sensor to a crumbling newel post. As he installed the camera and made sure fresh batteries went into everything, he had to turn his back on the hall with the open doorway.

The small, batlike thing with a tooth-overfilled mouth flinched as a huge droplet smacked its head. It glared up at the gigantic orange-furred spider clinging upside-down to the doorframe. “Quit droolin’ on me!” the bat-thing hissed. Annoyed at the reprimand, the spider drew back a little into the shadow of the once-luxurious Princess Crane Suite, its preferred lair on the upper floor for its spaciousness and disintegrating bedlinens. “You can’t eat ‘im yet! We needsh ‘em for the big night, bosh says,” the bat-thing reminded the much bigger spider.

“But me so huuuungry,” the spider whined. Another twelve-ounce drop of drool plashed into the dust of the doorway.

“Shtop that! You wanna make the plaish look too clean?” the bat-thing scolded. It crawled back into the suite, dragging itself along by the wicked claws tipping its wings.

“You gets eats,” the spider complained, eyeing the bat-thing grumpily. “You fat!”

“I am not!” Drawing itself up haughtily, the bat-thing waggled wings far too tiny for its round body. “I’m...big-furred. Now...shtay out of shight!” He waddled over to the circular bed and crawled into his nest in the half-collapsed box springs. “We hash to have firty-one, and bosh shays the more Muppesh, the better, sho no shnacking, Shteve! Clawsh off til the big night!” The bat fussed with the bedcover. “Eew! You been nibbling thish again!”

“Uhn-uhh,” the spider denied.

“Hash too. Look, I can shee the fringe ish all chewed!” Disgusted, the bat shoved it away from his nest.

Giving up, Steve the giant spider sighed, casting a longing look at the doorway. In the corridor outside they could hear the skinny, flame-haired Muppet tinkering with his electronics. “What all that for anyway?”

“The shurveillansh? Ish sho the bosh can make the whole world shee ush eat Muppesh!” The bat cackled, then remembered to silence himself. In the hallway, Beaker froze, looked around anxiously, and decided maybe the third floor only needed a couple of cameras, after all. Whispering, the bat continued, “Halloween night, they’ll all be trompin’ froo here, and when ish time, we grab ‘em all and rip ‘em apart and ish all gonna be on TV!”

“Oooo,” Steve murmured, impressed. Then all eight eyes narrowed. “Wait...can’ts me wrap ‘em up for later?”

“No! Bosh shays they all gotta be killed wifin, like, sheconds for his big ashenshion thingy to work – and then we take over the shi—“ Catching himself with a scowl, the bat reworded, “We takesh over the whole town!”

“Neat,” said Steve.

“Yep.”

“But...uh...” The bat-thing sighed, eyes rolling, as his larger but not smarter friend puzzled it out. “Wait. If we rips ‘em up...all the good stuff fall out.” Plaintively he whined, “Me likes the insides!”

“Well, then, shuck on the legsh if you want! But all firty-one needsh to be dead at the right minute or bosh won’t ashend, and he’ll be mad at ush! You don’t want to make bosh mad, right?”

“No no no,” Steve murmured, drawing his legs in, cowed. “Uh...maybe they be extra tasties can save for later?”

“I dunno. I shaw the lisht today. Sho far they only got eighteen Muppesh shay they gonna be here. Dunno how many other peoplesh that weird doc got down below. May need to kill all of ‘em jusht to make quota.” The bat sighed. “Ish a hard world, Shteve.”

“Yuh...” Silence fell in the hall; apparently the scientist had gone back downstairs. Just as well. Neither monster particularly wanted to rouse themselves since morning nappies was commencing. “Hey, Clarence?”

“What?”

“We can has cookie after nappies?”

The bat-thing sighed again. “Shure, cookiesh. Where the heck am I gonna find you cookiesh?”

“Uhhh...” The spider shuffled six of his feet, abashed. “I got some from doc. Wait! I show you!” He rambled over to a large web filling what had been the bathroom of the suite, and brought back a struggling shelled thing. “Crunchy kind, with jelly in middle!”

Clarence stared at the snapping thing trying to free itself of its webbed cocoon. “You idiot! Thash a clam!”

“Who you callin’ a clam, you fat-bellied orthodontist’s worst nightmare?” yelled the mussel. “Lemme outta here! My union rep is gonna sue you guys’ butts inta the middle’a next month!”

Clarence stared at it, then looked up at the hopeful expression on the spider’s face. “Never mind. Enjoy your cookie.”

“Goodie!” Clapping, Steve tucked the still-protesting clam away for later. He snuggled atop the decrepit bed. After another long silence during which Clarence nearly fell asleep, Steve mumbled, “Uhhh...me can has binkie?”

“Oh for cryin’ out...fine! Take it! You’ve eaten half of it already anyway,” Clarence groaned, tossing the remnants of the silk coverlet up at the spider. A few seconds later, the sound of slurping came from the bed, as the spider curled up with a corner of the blanket in its mandibles, acidic drool slowly wearing a hole in the fabric as he sucked it contentedly. “Sheesh...all the monshtersh in the joint and I gets shtuck wif the biggesht baby of ‘em all,” Clarence grumbled, but quietly. After all, he had no wish for his perpetually-hungry companion to start looking at him as a potential cookie.


-------------------
“No I do not want a cookie!”

The purple furry thing with heavy black eyebrows cringed back, nearly spilling the tray of gerbil meltaways he’d brought as timid tribute to the underlord. Eustace motioned him away from the door to the control hub, and the monster scurried off. The underlord fumed, glaring at one of the multitude of screens filling the curved wall before his throne. “Who? Who took this footage?” the dark boss roared. One of the flickering monitors shorted out.

“It...it appearsss no one the culprit sspoke to had any inkling they were being filmed, your awfulnesss,” Eustace ventured, but flinched when a heavy hand nearly collided with the doglizard’s crested head.

“I can see that, you microcephalic! How! How did a camera get past the guards?” The angry boss pointed at a large, scaly blue thing with pink tusks greeting the cameraman briefly, just inside the subway tunnel entrance. “That one. Bring him to me. He shall be made an example of, for allowing this to happen!”

Eustace agreed: “Er...sssshe alwaysss ssseemed a bit too friendly to me, my lord.”

A pause. “In any case...bring her to me then, Eustace. This sort of laxity cannot go unremarked when we are so close to the Dark Ascension!”

“At onsssse, my liege,” the doglizard promised, turning to go, but an enormous thumb and finger hooked one of his whiskers. Eustace yelped, and immediately silenced himself, waiting, trembling, for further instructions.

“That reporter. He posted this. All this is his work,” the boss snarled, his red eyes pinpricks of light as he glared at the screen, where a short yellow Muppet was speaking urgently and earnestly about the monsters underfoot.

“Sssshall we...ssshall we find him and kill him, my lord?”

The dark underlord rewound the clip, and listened carefully to the little nuisance Muppet’s voiceover while shots of those cute little bug-things skittered past. “Hundreds of these horrible creatures are operating a television studio underneath lower Manhattan, which broadcasts under the station name MMN. I have already linked them to fraud, and to attempted murder of a woman named Ethel Muppman; she died a short while ago today, apparently of injuries which may have been caused by two of these monsters...” said the Muppet reporter. The boss paused the playback, one clawed finger thoughtfully tapping a massive lip, seen only in silhouette by Eustace against the dim lights of the many screens and equipment pilot lights.

“There’s one piece of good news, at least,” the boss growled. “It sounds as though our stringy friends finally remembered their jobs! I see I won’t have to punish them for insubordination after all.”

Eustace reflected that the Martians probably couldn’t even grasp the concept of obedience, much less disobedience; they simply did whatever they felt like from moment to moment. He was relieved they hadn’t been around for days, and hoped they wouldn’t return anytime soon. Those things gave him the creeps: too many tentacles... He swallowed back an uneasy twinge in his belly, and asked: “He namesss the ssstation, my huge monsstrossity! What do we do about that?”

The boss noticed a large white centipede with purple fangs waiting uncertainly at his feet, and thumped his broad lap for the thing to crawl up and be petted. “Look at that, Eustace. My pet wishes to comfort me. She knows I’m upset. Isn’t that sweet?” Eustace nodded, hoping this didn’t mean the boss wished to pet him too. “Loyalty, Eustace! This is what we demand; our enterprise will not succeed without structure, without obedience! Someone out there who looks like one of us and yet is not with us has betrayed us.” Eustace squirmed, consciously banishing all thoughts of disgruntlement just in case the boss could read his mind. One never knew... Finally the dark lord said, “Send out the strike team. Tell them to get it right this time.”

“Er...um...”

“What is the problem, Eustace?”

“Well...my...my liege...you know we’ve had him under obsservation sssome time... and...and...well...er...he ssseems to alwaysss have sssome defenssse near him, my lord. Either that dimwit Thog or the little fool troll at that Muppet Theatre are alwaysss around, and the abductorsss have not been able to gain easssy accessss to him there...”

The boss snarled. “Why do you tell me of this continual failure, you useless twit? So find where he lives, and capture him there!”

“M-my liege,” the doglizard gulped, “the ssspiesss report that at his home, he isss alwaysss with the sssame woman who aided in the defeat of the Muppasssaursss and the great undead ssshaman thisss sssummer...and who once threw another Muppet into a gaping maelssstrom...”

“Are you telling me,” the underlord asked, his voice dangerously quiet, “that my subjects...my monsters...are afraid of a single human woman?”

“N-no! Sssertainly not...they never...” Seeing those fierce glowing eyes fixed upon him, the doglizard cowered. “Yesss.”

That great hand hovered over him; Eustace shut his eyes, bracing himself for the pounding...but instead, he felt the boss patting his crest and horns. “I see. Well then, my faithful underling, tell them to bring her here. We can always use another life for the grand sacrifice, and perhaps she could be used as leverage to silence the little nuisance with a microphone. Leverage...or bait.” The underlord chuckled; cautiously, Eustace joined in. Suddenly he was jerked aloft by the neck, choking, gurgling. “See to it the strike team succeeds this time, or I shall have to replace you with someone able to command the cowards, you sniveling worm!” the boss roared. He flung the squirming reptilian creature out. The door slammed shut behind him.

Eustace drew ragged breaths, slowly climbing to his feet in the antechamber, humiliated and frightened. Bring her here? The one who was rumored to have some sort of Gypsy secrets? Who banished a ghost, if the stories could be believed? A movement in his peripheral vision made him flinch.

The purple-furred monster offered a tray of mostly crumbs, with a few shattered bits of treats left. Apparently the rejected monster had been consoling itself out here. “Uh...cookie?” it suggested.

With a snarl, Eustace knocked the tray aside, and stalked off with a cold heart and an aching windpipe to find the strike team.
-----------------
 

The Count

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There's much in this chapter to like and reply to, be assured I will do so when I'm able to find some time.

*Cue creepy organ music as it segways into a medly of At the Movies with Oscar and Telly.
 

newsmanfan

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--------------
*ducks popcorn and...stuff...thrown from trashcan to screen*

What? I'm WORKIN' on it!!

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newsmanfan

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Part Thirty-Six (I)

“Plaicezz, people! Whair ees mah caffeh!”

“So I says to him, ‘You sure got nice teeth –‘”

“T-try swallowing m-me tonight, you wretch! Hah! S-spiked armor!”

“Well, that’s cool, meeting a celebrity...but did you ever hear about the time a songwriter tried to mail me to Pittsburgh?”

Snookie wove through the crowd of monsters milling around onstage, all chatting loudly but apparently barely listening to one another. Ignoring them all, and giving the director’s flailing cane a wide berth, he arrived at the tech table and stood reasonably still to be miked and to have some makeup dabbed on his nose and under his eyes. He drew the line at the hairstylist, shoving the goblin with a greasy comb away and smoothing down his mop himself with one hand. The audience already half-filled the bleachers, and it was still fifteen minutes to air-time. He hated these live shows. Anything could go wrong... He glanced down into the performer’s corral, where behind the chain-link fence, Gonzo and his pink assistant, the muscular and angry-looking John Lamb, and the slithering horror with a thousand psuedopods all eagerly awaited their turn in the limelight. Snookie shook his head. With THESE guys, anything WILL go wrong.

He used the back-fin of a large, shimmery scaled thing working one of the boom mics to check his appearance and straighten his tie. The last one had finally become so grimy that even Pew noticed, and Snookie had been grudgingly presented with a very bland gray-and-brown tie even duller than his last one. He wondered briefly who they’d taken it from, then banished all speculation from his mind. Better not to know. Don’t get involved. Suddenly he thought of the tough-acting Whatnot girl, and wondered what atrocity she was being forced to suffer tonight. I...could ask around, he thought, then grimaced. There’s nothing you can do, no matter what it is! Don’t even ask! But immediately his brain cycled through the list of shows which he knew either taped or went live tonight in the underground studios. I really hope it’s not that ‘I Married a Monster’ drek. Forced dating for reality TV has to be the lowest point since that Grouch show ‘Treasures to Trash’... Pew yelled again, close by, and Snookie forced himself to focus on his surroundings.

“Host! Whair ees mah host!” Pew cried, grabbing one of the stagefrackles by his beaky nose. “Ah hah! Thair you arrr! Wait – why are you not dressed yet?”

“That’s your assistant stage manager,” Snookie told him. “I’m over here.” He didn’t pull away in time before Pew shoved the Frackle aside, causing the unfortunate creature to reel into a chair and go down in a heap; Pew’s clutching hands found Snookie’s nose instead.

“Ah hah! Thair you arrr!”

“I’m dressed, I’m miked, I’m ready,” Snookie protested, trying to pry the strong fingers from his soft, large nose. “C’mon, lay off! Save the grabby routine for your concubine!”

“Mah what?” Pew released him, startled, and Snookie quickly backed out of reach. The director chuckled. “Aw haw haw! Ah theenk mah mic-zhockay ees having a bit of zee zhealousy, no?”

“In a pig’s eye,” Snookie scoffed. Pew’s expression briefly turned dreamy.

“Ah yes! Zee lovelay duet-colaired peeg, she is vairy sexy, no?” Pew sighed. “Ah theenk ah will give her a bottle of branday after ze show tonight!”

“Duet-colored...” Horrified at the realization of whom Pew meant, Snookie argued, “She’s not a pig! She’s just a girl!”

Pew waggled a finger at a nearby stage lamp, leering. “Ha hah! She tried to tell me ze same zing, but ah know what I saw! You cannot pull ze fur ovair mah eyes!” He peered through the thick curtain of matted fur covering the top half of his face. “But first, we haff a show to put on! Caffeh! Whair in ze name of ze grate Beel Zhatner is mah caffeh!” Muttering, he wandered off, bumping into a support pole and cursing it out roundly for a full minute. Shaken, Snookie stared after him.

He wants to date Constanza? –NO! No, I can’t let that... In despair, he realized there was nothing he could do about it, short of either trying to shove Pew down a stairwell or somehow sneaking the young Whatnot girl into a different cell block...now there was a possibility. What if he bribed one of the monsters to switch the girl with one of the actual pigs? Then again, he wasn’t sure there were any pigs left... Brooding, Snookie paced the small backstage area behind the garishly-lit arches forming the set for tonight.

In the pit, Gonzo counted under his breath as he lined up several dozen fiendishly sharp rakes, shovels, hoes, and assorted other pointy garden tools. “Thirty-eight...forty! Excellent!” He turned to Rosie, who was performing a similar tally on egg cartons. “You didn’t break any of ‘em already, did you? Okay, good, good.” Gonzo fretted as McGurk completed his count of the eggs. Although he’d been sure to tell the monsters to bring him only common, unfertilized eggs, he still wanted to catch them all tonight; the whole point of the act, after all, was to demonstrate to Camilla how responsible he could be. “Assuming she’s even watching,” Gonzo sighed.

Rosie patted his shoulder. “Ahshabba shoo wabba,” he promised.

Gonzo shook his head lightly. “Yeah...I hope so, pal; I hope so.” Winning the competition would still be great, of course, but it had ceased to be his priority. Hoping that his chickie-love was paying attention tonight was foremost on the daredevil’s mind. He forced his thoughts to focus. “Um, okay. Did you sharpen the rakes?”

“Shappa!” Rosie said, showing off the host of bandages on his fingers.

“Good, good...did you polish the shovels so they’ll sparkle?”

“Passha!” McGurk showed the black stains the polish had left on his furry palms.

“Great, excellent...um...is there anything I’m forgetting?”

McGurk grinned, and held out a long purple cape to him. Shaking his head, Gonzo fastened it around his neck. “Sheesh. Thanks. I gotta get more focused if I wanna do this without a hitch.”

“Hissha?” Rosie asked, scratching his head. He’d brought plenty of tools, but Gonzo hadn’t previously said he also wanted gate hardware...

“Oh, it’s a figure of speech. Uh...if I want to do this without making a scrambled mess all over the stage, with Whatever sausages on the side,” Gonzo explained, and McGurk nodded.

“Cagabba feena wugga boo,” Rosie said, pointing out the phone bank: since the first call-in-vote show, the public response had grown so immense that now two two-headed monsters and one triple-header were seating themselves at a long table, tally sheets before them, ready for the night. “Essa weeba!”

Gonzo shrugged. “Eh...yeah, that’d be cool to win, but y’know, Rosie, right now I can’t get my chickie out of my head! I just hope she calls in after she sees what I’m gonna do.”

Rosie nodded, three eyes blinking in sympathy. “Deddibabba, boo.”

Gonzo stood up taller. “Darn right I’m dedicated...and tonight she’s gonna see it! I just...” he sighed. “I just hope I haven’t woken up too late.”

Rosie nodded again, thinking it was a shame Gonzo wasn’t going to wake up to the fact that it really didn’t matter if he won or not...his chickie was likely never going to see him again. Swallowing back a sour taste at that idea, the monster threw himself into the preparations once more. Under the rumble and clamor of the growing crowd as showtime neared, a whispering growl caught his attention: the stage manager goblin (the third such one since the show first aired, reflecting the mysteriously high replacement-crew numbers) informed Rosie that Gonzo would be up first tonight. As the goblin hurried off, muttering gibberish into its headset, Rosie gave the oblivious Gonzo a sad look. The daredevil’s fate might well be decided in just a few minutes, and Rosie would just have to let it happen...if he didn’t want to wind up impaled on a rake himself. Wasn’t there anything he could do for the short, blue ragged creature? Some little nudge toward fame, some subtle maneuver which would better both of their fortunes?

Nothing came to mind. Then again, the bustle of the small below-platform area at five minutes to air wasn’t the best location for deep planning. With a shake of his feathery mane, Rosie tromped over to inform Gonzo he would be starting off the show. “Wonderful!” Gonzo crowed, eyes alight. “Hey, you layabouts! Help me set all these pointy things up! Rosie, those other losers will be eating their leotards when they realize they’ll have to follow my act! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

McGurk started to point out that only Gonzo had shown up in a felt-tight sparkly red leotard, then shut his mouth and began lugging bladed shovels onstage.


------------------
The nearly-dark corridors in the lowest level of the warren, dug by mighty claws from the very bedrock of Manhattan, were almost empty; every monster who wasn’t working on something had crowded into the studio where Break a Leg! was filming. In the stillness, a faint breeze stirred, and two floppy-bodied creatures with trailing tentacles like furry jellyfish slowly materialized, humming.

“Wobba-wobba-wobba-wobba. Urk. Eep.”

“Mmmmm numma numma numma numma. Awwawww. Mn.” The pink thing swung its googly eyes from side to side, antennae alertly twitching down one tunnel direction; his blue partner did the same in the opposite. When both swung around, they startled and gulped their lower jaws over their heads a second before realizing they were seeing the other one. Pink thwapped Blue with a couple of tentacles. “Aww! No scare!”

“You no scare!” Blue snapped in response. Quieting, they peered around once more, seeing no movement at all; even the glow-worms seemed to have taken the night off. “Mn. Dark. Dark. Yip yip yip.”

“Dark, aaawww,” agreed Pink. He mulled the issue over a moment, then suddenly grabbed Blue’s bobbing antennae-tips and rubbed them together fiercely, ignoring his companion’s protests.

“What? what do?” Blue demanded. In reply, Pink shoved the charged little tips into Blue’s own tentacles. A spark arced through them, briefly making the ropy limbs all stick straight out, and the flash of light showed them their immediate surroundings: a rocky corridor close to the control hub. Some thoughtful denizen of the deep had made a crude sign on a tattered piece of sheet metal: an octopoid-like skull and crossbones spraypainted in bright orange, with an arrow pointing toward the room where the underlord spent all his time.

“Ow ow ow,” grumbled Blue. Pink began shuffle-jumping along the corridor. Unwilling to be left behind in the darkness, Blue hurried after him. When they reached a cross-tunnel, Pink stopped, but before he could reach for Blue, Blue poked his still-charged antennae into Pink’s tentacles, lighting them up and making the startled monster squeak. “Mm. Aww. There. Yip yip yip. There.”

Disgruntled, Pink jerked ahead of his comrade. More or less together they cruised through a widening cavern, full of piles of crumbled stalactites, shuffling and hopping down the sloping floor to a large movie screen at the back wall. Just as they were proceeding toward the tunnel behind the screen, scraping, shuffling noises sounded up ahead. Pink drew back behind a stalagmite, grabbing his friend when the oblivious Blue tried to continue. “Shh!” he hissed.

The sound, like something enormous dragging itself along a rough rock floor, drew closer and closer. The raggedy monsters exchanged a worried look. Coming down here with righteous intentions was one thing...actually confronting the boss another. “What do, awww?” Blue muttered. “What what what?”

Pink worked his jaw nervously. It was too dark in here to see anything more than a few inches ahead, in the residual glow from his shocked tentacles... He jerked up straight. “Rub!” he urged, grabbing Blue’s antennae-tips and rubbing them together, then releasing them to charge his own frantically. Grasping the idea, Blue fiercely rubbed his own antennae until they faintly glowed with potential energy. The dragging sound was now accompanied by a slow wheeze. “Ulp!” Pink swallowed dryly, rubbing the little nubs so hard smoke began to drift up from them. With a grunt, a massive figure came through the entrance to the secret tunnel, a whiskery thing swinging before it.

“Zap! Aww! Zap!” Pink yelled, and together the Martians swung their antennae right at the dark figure. An astounding amount of voltage coursed through them, making both jitter and yelp, but that was nothing to the shock which the monster emerging into the amphitheatre received.

“Waaaaagghhh!” it screamed. Stunned, Pink and Blue reeled aside. Blue looked up groggily and saw the dark, misshapen thing staggering and flailing large clawed paws. It was still alive! Blue grabbed his partner, shaking him out of the daze, and yanked him back through the cavern as fast as wildly skittering tentacles could travel.

“Go! Yip! Go! Yip yip yip yip uh-huh!”

Eustace dropped the sack of scrap metal he’d been dragging laboriously backwards; much of it was now glowing and fused together. It had been a heavy sack of wreckage to begin with, the remains of several monitors and one of the server racks which had fallen victim to one of the boss’ angry fits, but now it was so hot he couldn’t budge it. He flopped to the ground, shaking, wondering dazedly what the heck had just hit him. Stunned, he sat there, slowly prying his teeth apart; his molar fillings seemed to be humming after the shock. With a hiss and crackle, the burlap sack abruptly caught fire. He watched it, unable to move, as within seconds the flammable sack crisped to nothing. The pile of metal rubble smoked for a while, creaking and cracking as it settled to an immovable heap, blocking the tunnel leading to the control hub.

Eustace stared at that in mounting despair. Now not only was he in trouble for the strike team’s reluctance to go after monster enemy number one, but access to the control tunnel was nearly impossible, and there must be some kind of short in the cable from the projection screen which his sack of junk had scraped, and the pile was too heavy too lift himself...and too hot to even consider trying.

On top of all that, it took his tail and his muzzle whiskers ten minutes to relax from the straight-out-stiff position...which really, really hurt.


------------------
Camilla clucked fiercely at the efforts of Black Bart the rooster to budge her from her perch atop the comfiest sofa in the green room, close to the small, fuzzy-screened TV. She told him in no uncertain terms that he could offer her the lead female role in the spooky “March to the Scaffold” dance routine tonight, he could offer her candy corn, he could offer the frogging moon as far as she was concerned and she wasn’t about to leave her post! With a dissatisfied shrug, the rooster left, flouncing his scraggly tailfeathers. Camilla resettled her wings, clutching the remote in one claw and a cup of herbal tea in the other. She was really trying to stay calm...but the show host had just welcomed the audience, and reminded everyone that the judges had required garden tools be used somehow in tonight’s acts, and now, oh, now, he was announcing the contestants! She edged forward anxiously.

“First up tonight, for your puréed enjoyment, is that wild Whatever, that insouciantly insane, that ultimately uninsurable – the Great Gonzo!” the yellow-felted host shouted, flourishing a large umbrella at center stage, where dim green lights picked up the outlines of numerous sharp rakes, shovels, hoes, and edgers...all with their business ends turned toward the ceiling. As a whiff of fog spilled over the edge of the stage from somewhere in the midst of the tools, the host opened his umbrella and hurried out of the way.

“Tonight, poetry lovers, I give you – ‘Gonzo, Nestlings!’” Gonzo shrieked, his voice echoing in the dark studio as two harsh spotlights pinned him atop a thin high-wire. “A cuddlesome compendium of defenseless eggs, extra-sharp garden implements, and no net!...in verse.”

Camilla stared, frozen in horror, as soft piano music tinkled in the background, eggs flew into the air in five different spots over the wicked tools, and her darling daredevil ran along the bouncing wire to catch them.


--------------------
As he easily caught the first couple of eggs in his hands, the high-wire swaying only moderately beneath his bare feet, Gonzo took a deep breath, reminded himself to project since the sound crew had adamantly refused to sacrifice a wireless mic for him, and began his paraphrase of the poet laureate’s work. “It is possible,” he recited loudly...

“...to be struck by a meteor
or a single-shot cannonball
while sitting on a roost at home.
Safes drop from ceilings
and flatten the odd performance artist
mostly within the confines of the theatre,
so typically, we call it art;
likewise the flash of gunpowder,
the chickens toppling gracefully,
feathers on the stage.”

He waved a hand down at Rosie, who grimly packed eggs into a modified t-shirt cannon and shot them high. Gonzo danced wildly on the wire, jumping from foot to foot, frantically snatching the plummeting ovoid projectiles and tucking them all into rapidly bulging side pockets. Silence filled the studio; the judges watched in fascination, occasionally glancing at the spikes sparkling in the green lights below. Snookie kept his umbrella up in case of egg or performer hazard, peering worriedly up around its edge. Gonzo’s voice sounded somewhat strained as he continued:

“And we know the warning
can be delivered from within.
The spleen, no happy camper,
decides to spew out bile after a snack,
the smell driving all away like a banshee,
or a tiny fuzzy follicle ingrows
into the creases of the skull’s canyons,
the brain a prospector,
oblivious in the mines.

This is what I think about
when I gather twigs
into an attractive pile,
and when I pluck a feather from my own head,
then press into muck
the sweet down of a sexy chickie—“

Gonzo scrambled to and fro, falling once and grabbing the wire by his nose, catching eggs in between splayed toes, then finally hauling himself back aloft just in time to prevent another sort of scrambling with the next launch of eggs. He was panting now, and struggled to recall the rest of his masterpiece poem.

“The...the exciting hand of Death
always ready to grab me by the neck
and shake me like a dirty dustmop full of stage grime!”

Big finish! he thought, and hoped Rosie wouldn’t miss his cue. Now this should really get Camilla’s attention! He felt only an instant of relief when the fireworks went off as planned, Roman candles exploding right beside him in the air to illuminate dramatically his egg-saving swoops, as the wild gyrations of the wire threatened to dump him onto a waiting coal-shovel below. Gonzo yelled over the screaming explosions:

“Then the nest is full of marvels!
bits of twigs are like Chinese writing,
soft white underfeathers, a mattress waiting
for the consummation of our love!
Then her wattles are a redder red,
my nose a bluer blue,

and all I see is the beauty of her round bosom
over an ellipsoidal egg,
the angels clucking
with lifted beaks, and the roar
of the cannon
as art and life explode into love!”

Triumphantly, Gonzo balanced on one toe, arms uplifted, yelling the final line, and one last egg sailed up and over him. With a flourish, he leaped to catch it – and his cape snagged on the wire momentarily, throwing him even more off-balance with his leotard stuffed so full of rescued eggs he could barely breathe. The egg fell. Gonzo followed it, shrieking. The audience gasped. Snookie cringed under his umbrella, wishing he could just leave the stage without being spattered with Whatever goo. Rosie choked back a groan, staring up in horror. Beautiful Day leaned forward, eager to see some disaster around here; Behemoth’s belly rumbled in anticipation of the omelette surely only seconds away; Shakey Sanchez trembled so hard his armor rattled in Hem’s throat, irritating the bloated monster.

Gonzo tucked his arms and legs into a straight line, shooting down headfirst, desperate to catch the lone egg. He snapped at it, mouth open, an instant before he crashed into the rows of sharp pointy things. The impact shuddered the stage, the rakes and shovels wobbling; a few toppled. Rosie yelped, slapping a paw over two eyes, but the third remained fixed on the center of the pointy pile...where, incredibly, a blue furry hand now shakily raised. A spotlight swung down to fix in a harsh glare the crooked nose which lifted above the spikes. Gonzo removed the egg from his mouth with shaking fingers and held it up for all to see: unbroken! The crowd cheered, hooted, stomped on the floor wildly. Hem slapped the table in disgust. B.D. blinked, astonished. Snookie recovered his senses enough to offer commentary: “Wow! Uh...it looks like...it looks like he recovered every single egg, folks! What an amazingly sacrificial and utterly pointless act to accompany one of the strangest poems I’ve ever heard...well! It appears the Great Gonzo has survived yet another round!”

Gonzo grinned weakly at the cameras, then collapsed, sinking slowly among the spikes. “...Or not,” Snookie continued. “While the judges deliberate and the clean-up crew tries to get the stain out of the floor, we’ll take a break. Stick around for more of Break a Leg! I’m sure Gonzo will...one way or another.”


------------------
Mitzi Clucker found Camilla beak-down on the floor, wings akimbo. She squawked at the top of her lungs for someone to fetch the smelling salts.


------------------
Snookie paced anxiously just offstage. Whatever his newfound acquaintance was going through right now, she shouldn’t have to deal with the smarmy director’s attentions on top of it. How could he possibly prevent the date from Smuggler’s Cove? His gaze wandered into the audience; in the front row, he spotted Carl, who sported face paint in black and red. When he saw Snookie, Carl grinned widely and waved a large foam hand with a finger pointing up; “SHEEP YO’ MOUTH!” was printed in white across the palm, and the finger wasn’t the usual digit Snookie associated with the gesture for “number one.” Snookie cast a look back at the director. Pew was deeply engrossed in instructing the nearest camerafrackle: “You must put in ze duex shots of ze ‘azelnut flavour, not un!”

That guy is the most coffee-obsessed lunatic I’ve seen outside of a Moldyers Crystals ad, Snookie thought, scowling. Making up his mind immediately, he strode across the stage and knelt at its edge in front of Carl the Big Mean Fan. “Hi!” Carl growled cheerfully. “When do we get to the bloodshed, Snookums? I’m hungry!”

“Uh...Lamb’s up next,” Snookie said, stifling a shudder. “Carl, I – I need a favor.”

“Huh?” The gray-green monster jerked his massive head back, then wriggled a claw in one earhole. “You said flavor, right? Almost misheard ya there...”

“No, no, you heard right,” Snookie said, steeling himself for a deal he really didn’t relish...oh, bad word choice; an arrangement he couldn’t savor... Shaking his head sharply to clear the food language away, the host grimaced and blurted out: “I need you to swap out that girl with the two-color felt for something that won’t mind a date with Pew!”

“You who huh?” Carl stammered. He glanced around; the other fans were arguing over who was paying for the barking hot dogs making their way down the aisle. Carl leaned closer to Snookie, who gulped but didn’t flinch away. “You’re asking me?”

“Yes. I...I don’t know anyone else, really...I’ll make you a deal. You can...you can use the barbeque rub. Once. And no separating limbs!” He stared unhappily at Carl; the monster considered it. From the stage, Pew began yelling for places; the commercial break was ending. “Please!” Snookie added.

Carl’s eyes narrowed, but he gave a nod. “You’re talking about the not-a-pig girl? You want her moved?”

“Moved – not eaten!” Snookie snapped. “Deal?”

“Move the girl away from old batty grabby-hands, roast you in cayenne pepper and paprika?”

“Yes. Deal or not?” At Pew’s snarl, closer behind him, Snookie called, “One sec!” He stared earnestly at Carl, wondering if this was a stupid mistake; after all, what if Carl reported him to someone higher up the food chain? Finally, Carl stuck out a huge furry paw. Relieved, Snookie took it gingerly, and nearly bit his tongue when the monster shook him violently up and down. When Snookie pried his fingers out of the paw, Carl roared with laughter.

Angrily, Snookie staggered backwards, bumping into Pew. “You! Get back to your camera, you ingrateh, you wresh of an operator! You call yourself a technisshhian, hmf! Host! Whair is mah host!” Pew yelled, slinging Snookie by the arm towards one of the support posts just offstage; Snookie managed to stop himself from crashing. “Ag! We arrre live! Go! Go!” Pew howled, and in trying to leave the stage, tripped and fell into the audience. “You idiots! Get back in your cages!” he berated them.

Snookie righted himself, smoothing back his hair, smiling as the spotlight hit him. “Welcome back, debutantes of demolition and cravers of carnage! Gonzo the Great just wowed the crowd with an egg-ceptional—“ He stopped, frowning, and tossed away his cue cards. “I’m not reading that imbecilic drabble. Folks, despite being impaled on what looked like at least a dozen garden tools that could’ve been used as ninja swords by scarecrows, Gonzo seems to have lived to die again another day. Let’s find out what the judges thought of his attempt at verse.” He walked quickly to the judges’ table. “B.D? Your thoughts?”

B.D. scowled, flipping one tassel of his Peruvian hat up and down. “Well, I’m always in favor of tall sharp objects, naturally...but I really didn’t get the poem. He should’ve played a flute or somethin’ if he was going for artistic.”

“Hem?”

The shaggy brown thing cocked his head to one side, thinking. “Well...how should I put this...I love free verse, but I was really disappointed that he caught all the eggs! I could really use more protein.” His stomach rumbled, and he smacked his belly hard; Shakey popped out of his mouth. Tiny purple hands in chain mail grabbed the edge of Hem’s jaw and clung for dear life. “Hey!” Hem mumbled.

“Er...Shakey?”

Trembling fingers lifted the visor of the crested helmet. “W-well, Snookie, I r-really liked the poem! What a t-touching ode to t-true love!” Nervous eyes rolled around, hands clamped over Hem’s lower lip as the monster tried unsuccessfully to chew Shakey; the armor cladding the small creature clanked and creaked. “And I’m g-glad he didn’t t-turn into w-weirdo-on-a-stick.”

Behemoth growled and with one hand shoved Shakey back down his throat, draining the water pitcher on the table after him. “Don’t the spikes on that hurt?” Snookie wondered.

“Only when he c-crunches them inside-out,” a faint voice echoed from the black maw.

Shaking his head, Snookie addressed the table as a whole. “So, judges! Should Gonzo move on to the final round? Your votes?”

“Claws up!” Hem proclaimed. He smiled toothily. “Maybe he’ll finally become pat for his final act! I’ll give him a shot at it.”

“C-claws up,” the foggy voice from Hem’s open mouth drifted up.

Hem smacked his belly again. “Hey, move more to the right. My aorta’s got a itch...ooh. Oh, yeah, right there...”

B.D. snorted, crossing his arms. “Poems? Really? Borrrrrring. I vote claws down.”

Hem sniffed. “Like you would know art if it crawled up under your stupid girly hat and swatted your fat nose!”

“Hey!” B.D. growled. “This hat was claw-knitted by underprivileged mountain-tribe goat-demons! It’s for a good cause!” He grabbed Snookie by the tie, yanking him closer. “You – don’t you think this is a great hat?”

“Er,” Snookie choked out, “It’s...it’s a hat for a brave monster. A monster skulks down the sewers in a hat like that, everyone sees he’s not afraid of anything.”

“Darn tootin’,” B.D. muttered, releasing him.

“And speaking of fearless...here’s the master of wooly whomping, the sensei of skullcracking, the one and only...John Lamb!” Snookie shouted, hastening as far from the judges’ table as he could get without running into a disgruntled director, who was just now clambering back onto the stage platform from the side.

If Lamb was still hurting from his sprain last time, he showed no sign of it as he walked onstage. The show band played a soft, lilting tune with Japanese flutes and sitar, and Lamb, with a long-handled hoe, began pretending to garden the stage floor. A floppy hat covered his face, and a monk’s red shift hung to his knobby hooves. Suddenly the music shifted, a trill of danger sounding; two goblins crept onstage. They picked up a shovel and a rake and tiptoed toward the apparently unsuspecting gardener. Right as one of the goblins swung his weapon at the gardener’s head, Lamb ducked, rolled, and with a swipe of his hoe knocked the goblin’s feet from under him. The second one attacked, and Lamb gave the creature a savage kick and jammed his hat over the smaller thing’s head, blinding it temporarily. As it fumbled, the first goblin was back on its feet; Lamb thwacked it smartly across its midsection with the handle of his hoe, twirled it, and whirled himself to face the trio of toothy monsters who now leapt into the fight. A drum pounded out a frantic beat and the flutes and sitar shrieked in terror, but Lamb remained cool, stick-fighting the challengers one after another, dodging, spinning, blocking and striking.

B.D. was reaching for a squirming shi tzu on a bun when Lamb suddenly took the fight to a new level: as more monsters crowded the front of the stage, each armed with some kind of bladed garden tool, and there seemed nowhere left to go, a scrim behind the action suddenly rose, revealing a score of shovels jammed into a wide bed of dirt inset in the platform. Lamb’s muscular legs bunched and flexed, and he sprang straight up, landing with his feet atop two of the shovel poles. With cackles and screeches, the goblins and other assorted fiends followed, jumping, climbing, or slithering up the poles, and the battle continued as an aerial stunt. B.D. sat slack-jawed, staring up at the nimble ram leaping lightly from pole-tip to pole-tip and continuing to twirl and swing his hoe with deadly accuracy. Forgotten, the hot dog tried to escape by running along the table; five audience members lurched to their feet in anticipation, but Hem caught the dog and stuffed it down his throat. When B.D. looked over sharply at the muffled barking sounds, Hem appeared entranced with the stage act.

Lamb knocked his attackers away into the shadows of the studio in twos and threes until only one remained, a nasty-beaked birdlike thing with green fluffy fur and a pair of whiplike tails which it used to snap at Lamb, trying to throw him off-balance while it jabbed a pair of pruning shears at him. The drums pounded in time with Lamb’s jumps, the percussion of his hooves striking the pole-tops precisely matched by the beat, erratic and driving. Carl and many other monsters cheered loudly, enjoying the martial-arts homage. When the tail-whip bird tried to use both of its appendages to strike Lamb at once, he suddenly dropped his hoe, grabbed the tail-ends, and yanked the startled monster off its uncertain perch. He swung it over his head three times, gaining momentum, then released it; it sailed out into an appreciative audience, burying three fans under the bleachers when it crashed down. “LAMB!” roared the spectators: “Lamb! Lamb! Lamb!”

The band played a final, haunting note, and Lamb, panting, bowed to the audience and the cameras...and one of the shovels under his hooves wobbled and fell. The ram tried to leap to another pole, but wasn’t quite fast enough; he landed badly on his back, bearing a ragged, hunched figure to the floor. Every single pole toppled in a chain reaction, thumping on top of the unfortunate sheep. A gasp swept through the crowd.

“Arrrgh! Get ahff meh, you woolleh bush of a bushido!” a familiar voice yelled. “Why arr all these trees by ze caffeh table? You made me spill mah latte!” A crumpled tin cup rose above the wreck, borne by a spindly hand with dirty claws. “Go to ze commersiall...and somebodeh bring me un towelll!”

Snookie faced the camera as the stage crew hesitantly waded into the mess, avoiding the cane Pew swung above his head, to try and pry Lamb from the tangle of wood. “A brilliant martial-arts performance marred only by absolute failure to avoid a coffee-crazed mindless maurader! Will the sheep rise after his fall? Or should the judges send for mint sauce? We’ll be right back!”
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newsmanfan

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Part Thirty-Six (II)

The hens backed off once Camilla sat upright, though still woozy. “Brawww,” she mumbled, blinking through what seemed a haze at the TV screen, where a commercial for Mr Bog’s Nose Wax espoused the benefits of keeping one’s beak shiny. She kept blinking, trying to clear her vision, then heard the smoke alarm shriek.

Scooter hurried downstairs. “Aw, come on, Chef! That’s the fourth time this month!”

“Hurb der hoofenklutzen en der flippencaken!” The Chef complained, waving his hat to clear the smoke from the grill.

Link backed off, protesting, “It wasn’t me! I hadn’t even reached that hotcake I was absolutely not stretching over the counter for when –“ He noticed his tie was on fire, producing most of the smelly smoke wafting throughout the green room. “Aaaaa! I’m on fire! Help! Help!”

Scooter shook his head tiredly; Gladys dumped a bucket of used dishwater over the hog, drenching his naval outfit. Soggy bits of food slid over his snout, and soap suds gave him unearned epaulettes for a moment before dissolving into his jacket. “Oh, ohhh!” Link groaned, examining his dripping costume. “How am I supposed to accurately portray a dashing navy captain like this? I’m...I’m all washed up!”

“Took him long enough to realize,” Miss Piggy muttered, setting down her teacup to sashay upstairs for the next number. A couple of other pigs snorked in amusement.

Scooter yelled at Link before running back upstairs: “Just get up here, Link! ‘Sloop John B’ is next onstage!”

Link’s shoulders drooped as his clothes dripped. “Do you think I still look...captainy enough?” he asked Dr Strangepork, who was trotting ahead in a cook’s apron with a bucket of corn on the cob in his arms.

Strangepork paused, looking the hopeful hog up and down. “Isn’t dere a line about somevun getting trown overboard? You can be dat guy!” Chortling, the shorter pig hurried upstairs, with a disheartened Link sloshing after.

Camilla fluffed out her feathers, irritated with all the chaos. Someone opened a small window to clear the smoke, Beauregard began mopping up the mess, and the chickens huddled around Camilla to ensure she was herself again. She waved them off, clucking; and most of them returned to the dressing-roost to prepare for their number. Although Camilla was disappointed she wouldn’t get to sing lead for ‘The Bawking Hen of the Republic,’ one of her favorite classic American folksongs, she needed to make sure her foolish daredevil was all right. The show returned from commercial, and while the host asked the monster judges about their opinion of the last act, Camilla replayed Gonzo’s piece in her mind.

Eggs! All those eggs... She shuddered afresh at the thought of any of them smashing into the wicked tools below the high-wire; how could he have been so callous as to use eggs in such a dangerous manner? Why, if he hadn’t caught them --!

She scratched her underwing absently, thinking hard. But...he had caught them. He’d made a point of even saving the very last one, at what looked like a painful expense...and that poem... She sighed, trying to recall the words. The poem had been so...so... She blushed. “Bawwwwk,” she murmured, and giggled coyly. If only she could hear him recite the daring verse again, without the distracting terror of falling eggs! She glanced back at the screen in time to see the camera pan over the contestants understage, and Gonzo, standing by a weird three-eyed pinkish thing, noticed and waved wildly for the home audience. He prodded his monster assistant, and the creature reluctantly waved too. Before the view cut to some sort of slimy fungus thing, Camilla saw Gonzo mouth the words, I love you Ca—

She sat straight upright, startled. Oh. OH! That stunt...the eggs...the poem...the eggs! Suddenly, she understood.

At the thump, Mitzi peered around the canteen counter, where she’d been trying to finish her interrupted couscous salad. She saw the unconscious hen, sighed, and with a grumble went to fetch the smelling salts again.


-----------------
John Lamb was borne out of the studio by a host of straining Frackles, each of them calling dibs on the chops; Hem had to be restrained by B.D. not to follow, and now he sat frumping at the table, using a piece of Shakey’s chainmail to wipe the drool from his chin. “We may have just seen the loss of another contestant,” Snookie announced, “But as long as he’s still alive, remember, your vote can keep him on the air one more week for the championship round! Vote as often as you want; these guys need all the pizza money they can get.”

“Mutton pizza...” Hem muttered longingly.

“Vote for your favorite! Vote for your wife’s favorite! Vote for the contestant least likely to survive! Your vote counts an infinitesimal amount next to the favoritism of our management but hey, keep trying!” Snookie urged the audience; some of the house crowd already had their cell phones out and were tapping keys rapidly. “Will the Great Gonzo advance? What will Mungus Mumfrey do to follow those two amazingly suicidal acts? Will your choice resurrect the mighty Lamb, or –“ Snookie paused, seeing a creeping figure in a black hooded robe making its way behind the platform, a scythe in one hand and a fresh garnish of spearmint in the other. “Uh...never mind. So, before we see what the Finnish fungus has up its thousand sleeves, let’s enjoy some retro rambling about seriously saccharine self-expression, sung by Frazzle with his Frazztones!”

Snookie stepped off the stage as an orange-furred monster with curving horns, black fuzzy eyebrows, and so many teeth and a broad tongue filling his mouth that he couldn’t shut it if he tried took the center spot, dancing happily. A small four-piece rock band of fat blueish creatures with shaggy heads played the ‘fifties-era classic, and the lead singer nearly swallowed the mic:

“There’s a monster name of Frazzle who’s a good friend of mine;
he looks ferocious but he’s really fine!
Go up and ask him for his autograph;
he’ll be so happy that he’ll start to laugh!
He goes...”


“Haaaabbbbblllll!” yelled the orange monster, shaking his head rapidly. Snookie ducked the flying spit from that slobbery tongue; an elderly groupie in the front row shrieked and swooned.

“That’s how he laughs,” sang the band. “He goes –“
“Aaaaaluhluhluhluh!” screeched Frazzle.
“That means he’s glad; he goes –“
“Aaaaaablblblblblbl!”
“That means he’s having the greatest time that he ever had!”


“How is the closed-caption guy going to spell that?” Snookie wondered, keeping well below the level of the platform to avoid any more rock-star effervescence. He grabbed a bottle of water from the staff cooler, noting resignedly that although the bottle had a designer label, he could see little bits of gunk floating in it. “Great. They’re refilling ‘em with showerhead water again.” With a sigh, he uncapped it and took a swig. At least it isn’t from the city park sprinkler system this time. He figured by now he was probably either full of or immune to most of the waterborne parasites common to the tri-state area. Hope Constanza isn’t drinking this stuff... He edged around the corner of the platform to peer out at the audience, washed now in flickering lights spilling over the stage from the rock band as the performance dragged on. He couldn’t see Carl anywhere. Did he leave to sneak her out of her cell? Cripes, I should’ve specified where he should move her to! He cursed himself soundly, silently, a long moment for neglecting that aspect. He’d better not harm her...or put her where someone else can...

He shivered at that. After all, there were far worse things down here than an amorous ex-pirate show director. A glob of wet something smacked his cheek; disgusted, he wiped it off, and sank below the level of the stage once more. “Aaaaaablblblblblbluh!” Frazzle screamed over the cheers of the audience. Snookie drew his shoulders almost up to his ears, trying to block the sound out as he continued to scrub at his cheek with a semi-clean hankie.

Oh yes. Much worse things.


-------------------
Two levels beneath the soundstage, a ragged blue thing and a raggier pink thing conferred in hushed voices in a dark crevice. “Mmn. Aww. What now? What what what?”

Pink jerked his whole body from side to side with anxiety and doubt. “Need big boom! Mm. Big. Big boom. Yiiiiip. Yip yip yip yip uh-huh.”

“Big boom, yip yip yip, awwww,” Blue agreed, then poked his companion. “How? How boom?”

Frustrated, Pink zipped in erratic jerks and stops around the tiny hole they’d found to hide in, near the back of the cavern with the huge screen. “Aww! Boom. Boom. Uh-huh. Uh-huh!”

“Stop! Aww! Stop!” Blue said suddenly, and Pink skidded to a halt, tumbling tentacles-over-eyeballs. Righting himself, he stared every which way in terror.

“What? What what what?”

“Dizzy,” Blue said, holding several tentacles to either side of his eyeballs. He used his lower jaw to wipe them slowly. “Mm. Nom. Mn. Bet-ter. Yip yip.”

Disgusted, his comrade resumed his zigzag pacing, albeit at a slower speed. Blue, struck with an idea, tapped Pink’s head. “Awwwaaaww! Boom boom sticks in glass room! Aww. Glass room.”

“Awwwwaww,” Pink said, recalling what his friend meant. “Yiiiip yip yip yip! Uh-huh! Yip yip!”

As one, they hummed loudly, wavering from side to side, and gradually dematerialized.


-----------------
“So, our last performer tonight, the fungus with a thousand hands, and he doesn’t bother to ever wash any of ‘em – your fiend and mine – the slithering slime, Mungus Mumfrey!” Snookie shouted, gesturing grandly at the other side of the stage. The fungus reared up, waving psudeopods in all directions. A mix of cheers, boos, and cries of “Shroom! Shroom!” came from the audience. “For this act,” Snookie continued, “the fungus has requested some help from the audience. A member of our staff will be coming around with a supply of sharpened shovels and shears; please take one and pass them down. Come on, guys, there’s plenty for everybody,” he scolded as two large beasts five rows back broke into a clawfight over who would get the tree shears. “The object tonight for our foolhardy fungus is simple: get to the other side of the stage within one minute...in one glob.”

As realization of their role dawned on the crowd, a roar went up. Several stage lights shook on their beams. Glancing nervously up, and absurdly wishing he still had the umbrella though it would be no protection at all, Snookie waited for the noise to die back somewhat before continuing. “That’s right, when Mungus starts across the stage, heave those implements of dismemberment with all your might – but please aim at the stage, folks, not the judges.” B.D. scowled, standing up briefly to impart his disapproval to anyone suicidal enough to consider it. “Remember, Mungus has set itself the challenge of passing your gauntlet of garden tools mostly whole, so get ready to hurl and separate! On your mark, get set –“ Snookie dove off the stage, knowing someone inevitably would throw early.

From the judges’ table, Hem shouted, “Hey! Who threw that?”

“Go!” Snookie yelled, and winced, ducking completely below the platform as the sound of a dozen or more sharp implements thunked into the surface and the band struck up a wild chase theme.

The fungus swirled, splitting itself briefly to flow around still-quivering gravel rakes, pausing when some of the tools speared its globulous body to split and re-form, advancing across the stage at a much faster pace than anyone would have guessed possible. Seeing this, the audience renewed their efforts; at least twenty tools all landed right in front of the fungus, blocking its way, and then two or three impaled it. With a shudder that was grotesque to behold, Mungus peeled its component cells off the tools and out of the holes in the platform, and in two separate masses flowed around the impediments. Shovels, rakes, and open shears hammered the stage, most sticking fast, a few toppling over, and still the fungus flowed. A large digital clock above the stage counted down the remaining seconds: twenty...eighteen...fifteen...

The fungus surged forward like a slippery tidal wave, globbing over itself continually, sliding around each pointy thing thwacking into the platform, headed right at the finish line painted a few feet from the in-house band, who were playing their fur off and almost out of breath. Just as the slithering entity shoved a psuedopod across the line, a brick sailed out of the crowd and pinned part of the fungus. Desperately it yanked free, but as the buzzer sounded, a few loose cells had to crawl around the object to rejoin the main body of the amorphous thing.

Boos sounded from the bleachers. B.D. shook his head and immediately displayed a downturned thumb. Hem frowned. Shakey raised his visor, peeking from Hem’s shoulder unnoticed, appearing glum as well. Cautiously Snookie stepped back onstage. “Oh, no! Looks like the frothing fungus didn’t quite make the deadline, and left his part under fandom’s brick throw! Heh heh.” He chuckled at his own pun; not like any of these morons would catch it – “Whoa!” He ducked as a wheelbarrow bounced onto the platform and went over him, crashing into the seven-foot-tall purple guy with the trumpet. Or maybe one of them did. “With only three contestants left, what will happen next? Judges, sound off!”

“Left, right,” Hem growled. B.D. shot him a look. Flustered, the brown monster scratched his flat chin. “Er...sorry. Weekend warrior with the Sixty-fourth Bigmouths. You know, two Saturdays a month and they paid for my Fright School...”

“Whatever,” B.D. grumped. He shook his head. “Snookie, that was the lamest act we’ve seen in several shows!”

John Lamb, supported on either side by Frackles trembling under the weight of the large ram, yelled out, “I’m still in it to win it, you mutha—“

“Second lamest,” B.D. amended. “I vote claws down! He didn’t get all of himself across the finish line!”

“I h-hate mushrooms,” Shakey stammered, sticking his tiny arm out of Hem’s collar. “Claws down, because it m-made me s-sick.”

“Aw, geez,” Hem complained, rolling his eyes. “Didja have to?” He frowned at the fungus, wobbling slowly into a more or less upright pose, its weary cells churning restlessly. “Well, I thought it was creative, even if it didn’t quite meet the deadline; I think this guy...uh...is it a guy? Does anyone know?”

Snookie shook his head, shrugging. Hem shrugged back, and finished, “I wanna see what it can do in the final round. I vote claws up!”

“O-kay!” Snookie said, turning to face the nearest camera directly. “It seems all our remaining contestants are still in the running, with mixed reviews from our monster panel! It’s up to you to swing the votes! Call the number on your screen to vote for the performer you’d most like to see crash under the weight of their own hubris on Saturday, and tune in tomorrow night for the results! I promise more danger, more daring, and more dustmop-related injuries next time – here on Break a Leg!”

In the pit behind the stage, Gonzo waved at the camera, then scoffed to Rosie, “Sheesh. I don’t know why they’re even bothering to take a vote!”

Rosie looked from him to the badly limping sheep being helped offstage. “Uh...bagabba brokka lamma?”

Gonzo blinked, puzzled. “Huh? No, I wasn’t even talking about him, the poor sap; nah, if he tries to compete one more time with me, it’ll be a Lamb to the slaughter for sure!” Gonzo laughed; Rosie noted the gaggle of drooling monsters trailing after the staunchly-stoic fighter, some waving notepads, some kitchen knives.

“Hey Mr Lamb! Can I have an autograph?”

“Can I have a leg?”

Rosie winced. Gonzo, his attention fixed on changing out of his costume so it could be washed, tossed his cape over the pole of a rake balanced between two boxes, and used it as a screen. As he threw clothes over the cape at Rosie, he continued, “I mean, why are they bothering to vote at all, when it’s obvious who the ultimate winner is gonna be?” An embroidered hankie followed the leotard. “Look how they cheered for me tonight! That was fantastic!” Eggs began flying over the screen; a startled monster grabbed an empty paper carton and caught them as fast and as well as he could. One, then another, splatted on the ground; with a grimace, Rosie tried to nudge them out of the way with a foot, then realized the smear was still fairly plain to see, and used Gonzo’s hankie to wipe up the mess. Gonzo nattered on: “Do you think Camilla saw me? Man, I hope she’s watching! Did the camera catch me telling her I love her? Could you tell?” An assortment of mini Frisbees, an unlit Roman candle, and two pairs of fuzzy handcuffs sailed over the screen. Rosie wondered how the heck Gonzo had fit any of that in his pockets. “Hold this a sec while I re-tuck, would you?” Rosie started as Gonzo handed him what looked like blue-furred tights. Eyes wide, arms full of assorted stuff, he waited baffled while grunting noises came from the other side of the screen. “Ungh...I think I need to lose a couple pounds...Speedos getting a little tight here...okay. Give ‘em back.” Rosie quickly handed the leggings over. “Thanks. Man, oh, man, we killed tonight, Rosie! You did great with the egg-cannon and the fireworks!” Gonzo abruptly whipped his cape off the pole and around his shoulders once more, grinning hugely at his assistant. “Hah hah! We have this thing locked up! Now if only Camilla would ca-ca-ah-ah-ah--choo!” Frowning, he sniffled, one hand at his beaky nose. “Ugh. I swear I must be allergic to fungus...hey, gimme back that hankie, would ya?”

Rosie McGurk looked in dismay at the filthy cloth tucked snugly into the pile of weird items filling his arms.


--------------------
The biology lab was silent, only a few LED pumpkin-lights strung from one low-ceiling corner to another illuminating the space. Two tentacled things shimmered into existence atop a counter strewn with unwashed Petri dishes and various evil-looking surgical implements. Pink jerked back when a tentacle came in contact with a cold metal jaw-opener. “Awk! Mm. Uh-uh, uh-uh!”

Blue’s round eyes swung up and down and back and forth, seeking the items he knew were around here somewhere. “Awww...boom stick, awww. Oaaw!” Perking, he poked his partner. “Loooook! Look look look!”

“Uhhhmm?” Pink peered in the direction Blue pointed. “Aaawwww! Boom stick! Yip! Yip yip yip yip uh-huh!”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh!” Blue chanted, doing a small happy dance. They both bounced around a moment, excited. Pink hopped jerkily over to the stand full of test tubes. Some were filled with greenish goop; some had a slowly fizzing pink liquid; still others roiled with some sort of bacterial sludge with motion of its own. The Martians stared with unblinking eyes at the wide range of choices. “Hmmm.” Blue tentatively touched one of the sludgy tubes; the substance within reacted, recoiling from the sides. “Awww...which? Aww?”

“Mn. Awww. Hmm.” Pink studied one, then another, his antennae twitching. He grabbed one each of the pink fizzie and the green goop.

Blue stared at him, curious. “Awww. Boom?”

Slowly Pink poured the green stuff into the pink stuff; it fizzed more, and both creatures instinctively gulped their jaws over their heads...but nothing exploded. “Aww. Eh-eh-eh-eh,” Pink judged, shaking his head. “No boom. Nope nope nope.”

“Hmmmm,” Blue mused. He put a stopper into one of the yellowish sludgy tubes and shook it rapidly, then, holding it well away from himself, uncapped it. A tiny shriek sounded, and the sludge slopped around inside the tube, but nothing else happened. “Mm. Nope. No boom. Noooope nopenopenope.”

Both of them hummed, sinking into what passed for deep thought. “Hmmmmmm.”

A noise at the small door opposite the stairwell exit startled both creatures. “Drat it all, never a deformed assistant around when you need one... Thatch! Thatch! You were supposed to bring me that golem extract an hour ago! Where is that –“

“Augh!” Blue cried, flinging the tubes he held at the tall, skinny thing with goggle-eyes and a lit lantern emerging from the dark inner room.

“Waaugh!” Pink howled, throwing the rest of the rack of tubes in the same direction. Both of them instantly wobbled and hummed and vanished.

Glass shattered all over Van Neuter, protoplasmic goop combining with rudimentary flammable colonic bacteria; Van Neuter froze, frightened, slowly turning his gaze downward. Trickles of thick liquid, shifting color and texture as they went, traveled up his lab coat. He swiped at them with a glove. “Ack! Shoo! Shoo! Get off me! Bad bacteria! Bad bacteria! Ugh!” When he’d managed to get most of it off his coat, it coalesced into a glob and began slithering toward a rathole under a counter. “Hey! I didn’t say you could leave! Get back here!” The newly-created thing paid no heed, disappearing into the wall. He heard a startled squeak, then skittering sounds as a chase began somewhere beyond the sheet rock.

Van Neuter groaned in frustration. “Arrgh! A brand new life form, and here you stand, you big ninny, still holding this stupid lant—“ He swung the candle-in-a-glass-box around, intending to set it on a table; hot wax spilled out, hitting the smear of slime still on his coat. The vet froze again, eyes widening behind goggles not tinted enough to shut out the flash.

BOOOOOM!
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