(Auth. Note: this finale is so froggin' big I have decided to post it serial-style! here's the first chunk...)
Part Fifty-Three (I)
Even from across the cobweb-filled ballroom, Gonzo spotted her gorgeous feathers, her ruby wattles, her sapphire eyes, and with a howl of “Camillaaaaa!” charged toward her. Startled monsters jumped out of the Whatever’s way as he barreled straight to his chickie-love. Camilla perked up, and when he threw his arms around her neck, she clucked in relief and wonder and nuzzled his fuzzy nose with her beak. “Ohhh, Camilla, Camilla, can you ever forgive me?” Gonzo cried, filled with shame at how blind he’d been for so long. “I never meant to push you aside! Don’t you know, all these life-risking things I do, I do for you?”
The chicken scolded him gently; didn’t he realize he didn’t need to impress her? “Bawwwwk, bawk buh bawk,” she murmured, telling him she’d adored him even when he was a humble plumber and covered in septic back-up half the time. They kissed, and sighed, and their eyes closed in mutual affection and momentary bliss.
Gonzo’s smile faded as he realized something odd. “Uh...sweetie...when did you get so tall?”
On opening his eyes, he saw Camilla had not, in fact, grown a foot taller; she was suspended in some kind of thick, sticky webbing that far off the dusty floor. To her left, Scooter and Sara hung glumly, hopelessly entangled and not in a gushy-love-song kind of way; to Camilla’s right, Zoot dozed with his hat over his eyes, but the rest of the Mayhem alongside him were awake and unhappy about their cobwebbed status, which Dr Teeth had observed a short while ago was “even worse than being mothballed!” Gonzo’s eyes widened as his gaze swept over an entire wall and corner filled with muffled, tired Muppets swathed in gooey silk. “This isn’t good,” he muttered, slowly turning around to take in the rest of the ballroom.
A few of the monsters recognizable from the Muppet Theatre, such as Big Mama and Behemoth, stood in a spread-out group across the room as if waiting for the music to begin and the dancers to choose their partners, but Gonzo suspected this would be no lindy-hop. Many, many more monsters filled the space, none of them looking particularly sympathetic to the Muppets’ plight. On a raised dais where a century ago a full-tux band would have played, a stout figure wrapped in tattered strips of cloth like a mummy began to chuckle, low and menacingly. He spread his hands and pulled an old-fashioned bandleader’s microphone toward him; his deep, chill voice echoed through the room over the PA system. “How lovely of you to finally join us, Gonzo...just in time for the biggest stunt of your life. A pity it will also be the last.”
Rosie and Thatch McGurk halted just inside the doorway, realizing too late just how outnumbered this Charge of the Three-eyed Brigade was. The Underlord’s chuckle turned to a laugh, then a booming, maniacal roar of dark triumph. As one, every monster gathered in front of him took up the expression, and squeaky titters, snarling chortles, and huge bouncing belly laughs overwhelmed even the Underlord’s magnified mirth.
Gonzo gave Camilla an apologetic, halfhearted grin. “...Oops...”
Walter struggled Muppetfully but was only able to twist himself around far enough to see the Muppet next to him, which happened to be Kermit. “Uh, hey, Kermit,” the newest member of the troupe said, “I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, really...but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to be included in everything you guys did from now on.”
“It isn’t my idea of a great show either,” the frog snapped. He tried to rock his whole body back and forth; the section of web he was snared in did have a little give to it, and with supreme effort he was able to swing himself close enough to Piggy to grab her hand. She clutched tightly, her big blue eyes moist at seeing her husband rendered so utterly helpless by a bug he normally would have simply put on buttered toast and grilled. Then again, those sorts of spiders generally weren’t as big. “Piggy, honey? You okay?”
“I’m fine, Kermie...though this dress never will be again,” she growled back. “Are vous all right?”
“I’ve had better nights,” he grumbled, irritation masking his deeper anxiety. Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to be a dress rehearsal. “Robin?”
A tiny voice came from somewhere above and behind him in the web. “I’m okay, Uncle Kermit...but...why are all the monsters looking at us like we’re...we’re...”
“Just hang on,” Kermit told him, cutting off the awful thought. “We’ll figure something out. Some of these guys work for us! Scooter! Can you think of any reason why Shakey, Boppity, or Beautiful Day would be involved in this?” he asked, seeing those individuals as well as several other Muppet Show irregulars standing in the crowd around the dance-hall dais.
His right-hand Muppet replied, “Well, uh...you did naysay that free-donut fund last month, boss...”
Kermit scrunched his face unhappily. “Because they would have eaten us out of theatre and home!”
Scooter gulped. “I think that may be the case here, Chief...”
Link Hogthrob snuffled quietly, tears soaking the webbing around his snout. “I d-don’t want to be a baconator!”
Julius Strangepork sighed, hanging upside-down a foot away. “Don’t vurry, Link. You’re too fat to be bacon!”
“Aw, thanks, Dr Strangepork, that really makes me feel...hey!” Link tried to check the fit of his girdle, but his arms were tied to his sides.
“You’ll probably be sausage inshtead,” the smaller pig moped.
The Swedish Chef protested loudly as a trio of Frackles played with his cleaver on the floor below him. “Heeyy...giffen dut book! Id un surrious tool en der keechun!” A pink-maned, vulturelike Frackle giggled as he mocked the Chef, scrunching his furry eyebrows low and waving the heavy knife over his head. The others laughed, hopping from foot to foot in their excitement; one of them came too close to the flailing cleaver, and suddenly a long beak went flying. The Frackles stared at that, then at one another, then cackled madly while the noseless one chased down his bouncing beak.
Miss Piggy thought of all the action-heroine roles she’d played, from her Evel Knievel motorcycle jump in “The Great Muppet Caper” all the way to her last butt-kicking, no-prisoner-taking character in “Fozzie’s Angels.” “Those girls get out of this kind of thing all the time,” she muttered under her breath. “How hard can it be?” With a grunt, she renewed her struggles in earnest, though the webbing seemed more like airline cable than any silk she’d ever had a slinky gown made from.
Kermit shook his head, holding tight to his wife’s gloved hand, sickened by the sight of her fighting so valiantly and remaining firmly ensnared anyway. “I guess the Newsman was right,” he said sadly. “I didn’t want to believe it...these guys have worked with us for years! Why would they do this?”
Scooter stared across the room at the shrouded figure stroking an enormous white-furred caterpillar. “I guess they’re all too afraid of him.” Every monster present was clearly deferring to the mysterious individual, slinking low when they moved near the edge of the dais and casting anxious, if curious, looks his way.
A snaggle-toothed, portly, green Frackle with dark hair stopped right below Scooter, making notes on a clipboard. “Twenty-four, twenty-five...uh...say...you are a Muppet, right?” he asked Sara.
She glared back, fists clenched with no way to even swing them. “You bet I am, buster!”
Realizing this might be a chance to spare at least one of their number from an unknown and probably awful fate, Scooter objected, “Sara, no!” He addressed the puzzled Frackle, “J G, this is my wife! She’s not one of the performers!”
J G blinked at them. “Uh...okay...so...is she a Muppet or not? I mean, technically, the term ‘Muppet’ sort of applies to anyone connected to the theatre, doesn’t it, whether they’re onstage or not, right? I mean, you don’t usually perform!”
“Well, I, er, sometimes –“
“’Cause I know there’s the more generic term ‘Whatnot,’ of course,” the chatty Frackle continued, ignoring Scooter’s interruption. “And I’ve heard of ‘Anything Muppets,’ ha ha, hey, that’s like the song, sort of, isn’t it? ‘But now anything Muppets!’” he sang. Scooter and Sara stared at him. “So, uh, I guess the question here ultimately is, is your wife a Muppet or not? I mean, pretty much the only other category around here is ‘monster,’ and even though she has kind of a cute nose, I don’t think that really warrants inclusion in the...snooorrrkkk...”
The Frackle’s head rocked back on his thick shoulders, and loud snoring came from his open mouth. Suddenly the slap of a sharp, thin tail across his bottom made him jump. “What is the count, you worthlessss cretin?” demanded a doglike reptilian creature.
J G wiped a bit of drool from his lip, embarrassed. “Oh! Uh, heh heh, hi there, your flunkiness! Uh, just wrapping it up here; so with the two Carl’s serving up as pie, and that crazy veterinarian guy, we have twenty-f—“
“No, you imbesssile!” Eustace snarled. “Van Neuter is only to be usssed assss backup in cassse ssssomeone isss misssing!” He cocked a wary eye up at a defiant Sara. “Who issss thiss? Ssshe doesssn’t look very Muppety to me.”
“She’s not,” Scooter yelled.
“Yes I am!” Sara yelled, unwilling to be separated from her beloved, no matter what the consequences here. She exchanged a frustrated look with Scooter.
J G tapped the doglizard hesitantly on the arm. “Uh, I think she’s a, um, a Whatnot. That still counts, right?”
“Yesssss...” Eustace muttered, still uncertain about the girl with the too-smooth felt. “Sssshe ssseemss a bit...tall...”
“Oh! Well, uh, some of them are; I mean heck, that Van Neutral guy is like head and shoulders over most of us, heh heh, well not figuratively of course, I mean, you know, you’re the boss’s right-hand monster and all so obviously he wouldn’t be above you, that’s sort of just a figure of...skkkkaaarrrrkkk...”
Disgusted with the narcoleptic Frackle, Eustace raised a taloned paw to knock some sense into the creature if such a thing was at all possible, but a sharp word from across the room stopped him cold. “Eustace. Report.”
The doglizard scrambled back to the master’s feet, wondering as he gazed upon the thick, well-wrapped limbs what the Underlord really looked like; if he had to appear before them so concealed even now, how truly terrible must his twisted countenance be? With a shiver, Eustace said, “We are almossst at quota, your hideoussssnesss! The daredevil fool makessss thirty, and if the reporter hasss been apprehended, he ssshall make...”
A commotion from the entrance drew everyone’s attention. There in the doorway stood a yellow-felted Muppet with a large straight nose, a deep scowl behind his impressive glasses, and a knapsack upraised in his arms; beside him, with her hand protectively on his shoulder, stood a tall young woman with dirt-spattered dark red hair and a fierce gleam in her eyes. Several monsters took a minute to even notice the knapsack, preoccupied with the amount of leg the frilly dress on the girl revealed. Eustace grinned. “Thirty-one, my liege!”
The Newsman saw he had their attention, and shouted, “All of you stop right there! In this bag, I have several sticks of nitroglycerin, and they’re not very stable!”
The monsters looked at one another. “Don’t be absurd,” rumbled the Underlord, flicking a hand at the reporter. “He’s bluffing. Take him.”
A few of the crowd moved toward Newsie, but he raised the bag higher. “I found the explosives in Gonzo’s cell! Ask him if I’m bluffing!”
All eyes turned to the unfettered but surrounded Great Gonzo. He blinked slowly. “Oh, um, yeah...I did, um, sort of appropriate some old blasting stuff I found in one of the tunnels...” Hundreds of worried eyes stared at him. Defensively, Gonzo added, “Well, it wasn’t like anyone else was gonna use it to completely demolish this hotel to the music of Edvard Grieg!”
“I will!” Newsie barked out, his voice rough, his legs trembling. “So all of you, cut those Muppets loose right now, or you’re all going to wind up as little pieces of fur!”
“He should know,” Rowlf reflected. “Happened to him more than once...”
Anxiously, the monsters shuffled from foot to foot, looking at one another, at the captured souls in the web, and at the Underlord. A sneer spread across that broad, bandaged face. “You fools! He wouldn’t blow up his precious friends! It’s a trick; grab him!”
Two of the Mutations and Timmy from the Green Lagoon lurched at the Newsman and Gina. Quickly Newsie thrust his hand into the knapsack and tossed something at the monsters; several of the others yelped and covered their faces. Beaker meeped in alarm and even Kermit cringed. Newsie watched in momentary satisfaction as the marbles he’d thrown rolled under broad furry feet, and the suddenly-slipping monsters flew to the side. One of the Mutations bowled over Boppity Frackle as he went down.
“We’re not kidding,” Gina called over the rumbling of a hundred or so startled monsters. “Now set them free!”
Two of the giant millipedes clicked their mandibles at the Underlord, ready to launch themselves at the threatening little Muppet, but their master held up a hand to stay them, frowning. “Oh good,” Walter sighed. “So, it’ll all work out fine, just like in your movies, right?” he asked Kermit.
Piggy shook her head. “Keep in mind this is Newsgeek we’re talking about...it might not have occurred to him that the rest of us are not fond of disaster falling on us!”
“He wouldn’t want his girlfriend hurt,” Kermit said, feeling a surge of hope. Two of the monsters approached the web, uncertainly looking up at the eager Muppets. They hesitated, checking the Underlord’s expression, though it was hard to make out much beneath the loosely-wound shroud.
“It would seem we are at an impasse,” the Underlord said, still showing his meaty palm at the monsters; the message clear: hold. “I do not have time to bargain with you, little Muppet. I’ll tell you what. Leave...and you should have a few seconds’ head start.”
“Not without my friends!” Newsie declared. He felt Gina squeeze his shoulder, and stood up taller, his pointed nose held high. “I’ll say this one more time, and only one more time: let them go, or we’re all going out of here in a lot of little pieces! As much as that’ll hurt, it’s better than allowing you to open a doorway to the forces of darkness!”
“I think our journalistically-inclined brother may be lacking some diplomatic trainage,” Dr Teeth murmured low.
“Yeah, where’s the hostage negotiator already?” Floyd complained.
“Hos-tage?” Animal asked, puzzled.
Struck with an idea, Rowlf urged the drummer, “Hey Animal! Remember the Mallory Gallery?”
“Mal-or-y?” Animal’s brows shot up. “Ah ha ha ha! Wo-man!”
“Uh...right. Maybe later,” Rowlf said. “Animal, remember how you ate through the gate bars?”
“Dude, that was just a movie set,” Floyd objected, but Rowlf shook his head impatiently.
“Animal, pretend the web is cotton candy, okay?”
The drummer looked at Rowlf a moment blankly, then looked at the white, fluffy-looking strands surrounding him. He brightened, grinning. “Ahhh! Cot-ton can-dy! Ahm nom nom nom!” With a gusto that would have done Cookie Monster proud, the drummer attacked the strands with his mouth.
“Like, he’s rully gonna have to brush his teeth tonight,” Janice sighed.
Dr Teeth shook his head in amazement at the vigor Animal displayed, ripping and gulping mouthfuls of the sticky stuff in earnest as though it really was the fairground treat. “If this is indeed a gastronomical rescue, I’ll brush them incisors shiny my own self!”
Kermit wished he had teeth. With the standoff between the Newsman and the monster boss uncertain in its outcome, chewing their way out seemed as likely a plan as anything.
-------
“I think we can go now,” Constanza hissed.
“I’m kind of liking this whole hiding-out-and-not-being-found-and-eaten thing,” Snookie argued quietly. The two of them were scrunched under a low bunk bed in a barracks room. Heavy paws and skittering feet outside in the corridor seemed to have gone their way none the wiser to the fugitives, and the only sound now was a television set tuned to Carl’s show, but Snookie wasn’t willing to risk this newfound freedom.
“I get that, but could you stop whimpering? It’s really unattractive,” the feisty activist girl complained. Snookie turned his gaze back to her, confused and a little offended.
“I’m not whimpering,” he said.
As their eyes met, both of them heard a soft, low moan. Looking around in surprise, they saw a large monster crumpled under another bunk, shivering, paws over his eyes. Bits of orange hair littered the floor around him. “What’s with him?” Constanza wondered.
“I didn’t think that last musical guest was that bad,” Snookie said. “Granted, I really doubt the world actually needed yet another parody of ‘Thriller,’ especially as warbled by a giant slug, but—“
“Whatever,” Constanza sighed. She frowned at the TV. “Hey – what’s with the Muppets in spiderweb city?”
“Yet another recast of ‘Spidermonster, the Musical’?”
“Are you ever serious?”
A witty retort was right on his tongue, but then Snookie saw the genuine annoyance in that pretty blue face, and stopped. “I can be,” he said softly. They gazed at one another a long moment. When Snookie leaned toward her for a kiss, she met him halfway. He smiled at her when they gently parted, and was pleased to see the brash girl actually turn purple in a blush. Suddenly he heard a voice he thought he recognized. He looked back up at the TV and froze. “Hey! That...that’s my cousin! What the flying fungus is he doing?”
Constanza, curious, peered from under the bed. “Uh...getting himself killed?”
They both stared at the yellow Muppet threatening the shrouded figure whom Snookie assumed must be this Underlord everyone kept talking about. “Well, that guy doesn’t look all that impressive, unless he’s really Val Kilmer and invisible under the toilet-papering.”
“But those guys will gobble him up like a Cornish game Muppet,” Constanza pointed out. “He’s your cousin? For reals?”
“I think so,” Snookie mused. “He said he was Florabeth’s son. I don’t really know much about her; she was sort of the black sheep of the family, married some sailor boy in a wartime romance, left the folds of the family cheese business...”
Constanza looked askance at him. “Family cheese business?”
Snookie sighed, rolling his eyes. “Wisconsin, okay? One of the many reasons why I went into show biz instead.”
On the TV, the short yellow guy tossed marbles at the monsters trying to rush him, sending them sprawling. Snookie gulped and then snickered, but Constanza grabbed his arm. “Snookie...they’re gonna kill him! Him and his girlfriend, and all the rest of those poor Muppets! How can you just lay here and watch this!”
“Look, I don’t know him at all, really,” Snookie argued, every ounce of self-preservation instinct already on overdrive. “He just came down here to...to find me...” He fell silent, thinking about that. This guy didn’t know you from Sam and his friends, and he said he’s been looking for you for months. And now he’s up there with all those creeps where he doesn’t stand a chance of walking out alive... His throat felt dry, his stomach twisted in a knot worse than the time Carl made him into a salted soft pretzel. He looked at Constanza. And here’s this brave little chick, who risked her own felt trying to get you out of the pie-tin of doom. She glared challengingly at him.
“Well?” she demanded. “Do you intend to just hide here all night? How deep does that yellow go, anyway?”
Snookie scowled at her. “Look, I’m no coward, but don’t you see how many monsters are up there? Except for Carl’s audience, and this guy,” he indicated the cringing, traumatized ogre, “that would be, let’s see, one, two, oh all of them! We set foot anywhere near there, and we won’t even get the courtesy of being baked before being sliced and diced, kid!”
Constanza’s face turned dark. “I’m not a kid!” She withdrew from him a little under the bunk. “I thought you were so stoic...so heroic for withstanding all they did to you...guess I was wrong about you.”
Chagrined, Snookie looked from her to the Muppetian standoff on the screen. “No, I...I mean it wasn’t ever like...oh...” He blew out a frustrated, guilty breath. “Oh...cripes.”
She stared at him. “Cripes?”
He gave her a wry frown. “It’s a Wisconsin thing. What it means right now is...we’re gonna have to go barge in there and give him a distraction, aren’t we?”
A slow grin spread on her sharp face. “We’ll be Butch and Sundance.”
Snookie shuddered. “I didn’t know you were old enough to have seen that movie.”
“Come on,” she ordered, crawling out from under the bed. “This’ll be epic!”
Remembering a term he’d heard some of the goblins use while taking pictures of the unlucky contestants on several of the shows he hosted, Snookie muttered, “Yeah...an epic fail...” With a sigh, and not a little admiration of the energy and courage his new girlfriend was displaying, he went after her. A thought hit him on the way out the door. “I have a girlfriend,” he muttered aloud, wonderstruck. Before he could fall fully into a mental count of how many years it had been since his playboy, frat-house days, Constanza stopped, turned on a dime, and grabbed his cheeks in her soft hands. Startled, Snookie froze, then melted into her kiss.
She pushed him away with a low laugh. “And if you wanna keep her, move your foam,” she said. “Just think! We’re gonna stand up to these bullies on live TV! What a coup for Muppet rights!”
“Sounds more like right-to-die to me,” Snookie grumbled, but with a strangely light heart for a man heading for his doom, he fell in step with her. Together, hand in hand, they raced along the empty corridor.
-----------
Captain Slurg hissed at the Underlord, “Want me to get that dynamite bag away from the interloper, your magnificence?”
The grim figure on the dais paced in a tight circle. “It seems we must. This is exceedingly distressing, Slurg. Had you neutralized this fool when I ordered you to...”
Stung, the piranha-faced thing growled. “It was not my fault! We did retrieve his floozy!”
“Which is now a moot point,” the Underlord growled back. His pet caterpillar bared her little fangs at Slurg to echo the master’s disapproval. “If you wish a higher place than dung-shoveler in our new regime, do something about this nuisance!”
“Burt!” Slurg ordered, startling the wolflike creature which had been watching events unfold from the back of the crowd. “Stop him!”
Newsie clung tight to the knapsack, feeling his knees trying to buckle, desperately staying upright though the sight of so many monsters glaring at him made him want to flee. If he hadn’t taken so many of those anti-monsterphobia pills, he had no doubt that right now he’d be grabbing Gina’s hand and running for dear life. Or possibly fainting. Gina leaned over to whisper in his ear, “What now?”
“I’m just a reporter!” he muttered back. “I have no idea! On the cop shows, this is usually the point at which the bad guys give up...or...”
“Graaaaahhh!” yelled Big Mama, impatient with all of it. She lunged forward. Newsie dodged, Gina threw her arms under his and lifted him backwards, and the angry monster nearly smacked into a wall.
“Or when things go badly wrong!” Newsie finished, trying his best to keep the knapsack over his head as though he was going to hurl it down any second. He didn’t think such a bluff would buy him enough time to free everyone; they looked badly stuck in that webbing, and all he had left in the bag was a coil of rope, which wouldn’t scare anybody! Suddenly two huge brown paws grabbed the bag away from him. Newsie yelped and jumped, but couldn’t retrieve it. Gina whirled, instinctively shoving Newsie out of the way, but stopped in shock when she saw a big-mouthed, kangaroo-eared monster three times the size of the grumpy-jawed Big Mama.
Even Bigger Mama growled at Newsie and Gina, then flipped the knapsack over and shook it out.
With a collective gasp, every single monster flinched, expecting an explosion.
The rope fell onto the Newsman’s upturned nose, almost knocking off his glasses. When another second passed and everyone realized the bag was empty, a heavy sigh went around the ballroom. The Underlord began to chuckle, building up to another hard, mean laugh. Slurg darted forward, grabbed the rope, and snarled at Even Bigger, “Hold them!”
With a weighty scowl, the monster put a paw apiece on Newsie’s and Gina’s shoulders, pressing down. Newsie cried out in pain, and Gina made a sound of protest, but neither could free themselves from the massive grip of the beast. The scattered chortles and growls of triumph were overwhelmed by a bellow over the speakers hung around the room. “Enough of this foolishness! It is time, my hideous brethren!”
Every eye turned to the dais. The Underlord reached down to an ornate box his trembling doglizard held up for him, and plucked out a large syringe. “The hour is upon us, my children! Tonight, we shall be hidden and skulking in the shadows no longer...we shall surge into the streets, and teach those simpering surface-dwellers what it really means to be scared of the dark! Night evermore shall make this city our playground, our hunting-ground!”
Murmurs of approval swept the room. Gina tried to reach her Newsie, but the enormous monster kept her pinned in place while the ugly, toothy thing used Newsie’s rope to bind him hand and foot. Newsie yelled, “You’re traitors, all of you! The Muppets have only ever been kind to you, and this is how you repay them? They let you act onstage! They let you eat them for a few cheap laughs! And now you’re going to kill them just because this nutjob wants you to?”
“Slurg,” the Underlord said, almost mildly, not looking up as he jabbed himself in the arm with the needle. Newsie couldn’t tell if it hurt at all; the bandages covered too much of the figure’s face to see any expression.
Slurg grimaced at Newsie, and wrapped one loop of the rope so that it went over Newsie’s nose and lodged in his mouth. The fiend yanked it tight, and Newsie gave a grunt of pain, and then couldn’t say anything at all. Gina struggled more, but the monster behind her put her other paw down, and she was held firmly where she stood. Newsie blinked up at her, his eyes watering, and Gina suddenly wanted her claws back.
Newsie looked over at his friends, similarly bound in layers of horrible spider-silk. He actually felt sympathy for Rizzo and Pepe for once, as he saw the two of them trying unsuccessfully to wriggle away from a huge orange-furred spider hovering over them with a knife and fork in two of its prickly feet and a checkered bib around its thick neck. Scooter, Sara, Kermit, Piggy...oh no, even little Robin! And...and isn’t that Mr Bland? Or Blander? One of them, anyway...looks like every Muppet they could catch is trapped in here...wait. Not Chester?And where’s Rhonda? He squinted at the trussed Muppets. No, they’re not here...are they saving them for something else? Was Rhonda...eaten? He noticed that walrus was flopped in a corner, tethered by a skein of silk around his tail, looking dazed and ill and covered in what might be castor oil. Maybe...maybe Chester got away! This made him think of Murrow. He looked back at Gina, a glimmer of hope sparking in his chest. If only the inspector can bring the National Guard down here...maybe he’s on his way right now...maybe any second...
“It is time for all of you – for the entire world – to see what happens when those simpering fools vilify someone, when they call him a monster so often he vows to prove them right!” the Underlord bellowed. He shuddered, staggering, and the assembly fell back a step, every eye wide, every jaw slack, as ripples and disturbing undulations rocked the Underlord. “Eustace!” he gasped, flinging his arms wide, “Unveil me!”
Shaking, the doglizard crept forward, and began snipping and tugging loose the ragged shroud concealing the master’s form. “All eyes! All eyes on me!” the Underlord snarled, and the camerafrackles who’d been hanging back unobtrusively now pushed their instruments forward, terrified, intent on the transformation making their master even more frightening than usual.
Even Bigger Mama stood transfixed. Gina managed to edge closer to her love, and put her hand on Newsie’s shoulder; he leaned against her, thinking, Oh frog...at least we’ll go down together...
The shroud dropped to the floor.
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