Rise of the Monster Rookies

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - David Bowie

"Bet you're wondering how delusional we are," laughed the man who was cut in half. "You think we're mad to be sitting here in this audition room, like we have a ghost of a chance to be in the group." He stroked his thumb over the piece of large intestine he held in his hand, in an absent-minded reflexive sort of motion. Mark watched with sick fascination as the moist pink flesh gave way slightly under his thumb.

"No," Mark protested weakly, but it lacked any conviction. That had been the question banging on the walls of his mind as soon as he got over the shock of their appearance. "The ad said that all undead were welcome to try out."

"Of course they did!" the half-man guffawed until he wheezed, all of his trailing entrails jiggling with his mirth. "A big company like that can't discriminate, but they're hoping us freaks would be too ashamed to show up!"

"What a surprise. The pretty boy doesn't understand," said the grinning man as he used one finely manicured nail to dig out a dark red morsel of something that had been caught between his teeth. He examined his find, and then popped it back into his mouth and chewed.

The five legged man shyly tapped his foot against Mark's and when Mark turned to him, he ducked his head and said ruefully. "You're so lucky. You guys who look as good as when you were human. Or those who look even better than human." To illustrate, he tilted his head toward the other side of the room and to the seats filled by the leggy broad-shouldered square-jawed Adonises. Then he sighed and mumbled until he trailed off. "You beautiful ones guide through a gilded world while it's a different story for those of us who don't pass muster. The truly monstrous. The freaks."

Mark frowned. "You shouldn't talk about yourself like that."

The half-man snorted. "Why not? It's a hell of a lot nicer than the things that usually ger said about us monsters. Not by Angelo, though." He clapped the wholesome-looking young man, the one who looked like a camp counselor, on the shoulder and warbled out a raspy makeshift tune. "Our Angelo who is as saintly as his name implies. He treats us well. Kaya lodi kita talaga eh, Angelo!"

Angelo rolled his eyes, but the affectionate smile tugging on his lips belied his annoyance. In his sweet comforting voice, he introduced his cohorts. The bisected man was Baudilio, the grinning cannibal was Jeff, and the shy five-legged man was Tomotaka. The softly pulsing black hole was named Hamish and the boy with mouths on his fingers who waved to Mark was called Daehyun. Eymard was the man engaging in autocannibalism who couldn't stop eating pieces of himself even when the others slapped his hands away. The man and his insectoid partner were called Grant and Aubrey, but it was clear that in the duo it was the invertebrate Aubrey who was the real mastermind.

"It's really about the witches," Daehyun confided to Mark later on in the conversation once the others had started to relax around him. "Witches, mages, magicians, wizards, druids, wiccans, shamans, whatever the magic users want to call themselves." He tapped at the bottom of Mark's flier, at the words Homme Fatale Entertainment is a subsidiary of XOver Telecommunications Company. "XOver has deep pockets and can hire a lot of witches on their payroll." He pronounced the company name XOver as "crossover."

"And their witches can come up with spells or potions to make us look more human!" Tomotaka's voice rose a little in his excitement and one of his legs jittered involuntarily until he pressed his palm down on his knee and forced it to stop.

"Now that's something for the therapists to unpack," Jeff snarked. "How much we wanna look human even though most of us can't stand humanity." He laughed at Daehyun's indignant yelp of "Hey, I like humans!"

"You saw the masquerade party in the other room," Angelo said. "That was put on by The Foolish Society, one of the top volunteer organizations who are dedicated to helping us maintain our cover when we interact with the human world. There are a lot of witches and amateur magic users in that group. You've probably met one. The lady in yellow?"