“Oh, let them enjoy themselves,” said Peter, rising from the couch. He wore a festive Christmas sweater vest, and he was smoking a pipe.
“So glad you could make it.”
“Glad,” repeated Stacey-thing.
“Did I get the time wrong?” Diana asked. “I’m not early, am I?”
“No, as a matter of fact, you’re fashionably late.”
“Fashionably,” said Stacey-thing.
“And I see you brought a treat. You really shouldn’t have.”
Diana shrugged. “It’s not very good.”
“It smells absolutely delicious. Perhaps I’ll try a piece next time.”
Stacey-thing stuck out her long, blue tongue and let some of the slimy banana bread fall into her hand. She offered the soggy lump to Peter.
“Good,” she cooed.
“Thank you, dear, but I’m saving room for dinner.”
She licked her hand and fingers.
“Are people usually late to these things?” asked Diana.
“No, not usually,” said Peter. “Usually no one shows up. Except for Keith in Apartment Seven. Have you not met him yet? He’s a terrific fellow. Why, if he existed, I’d be tempted to set you two up. A single young lady could do a lot worse.”
Diana just nodded. Honestly, being set up on an imaginary blind date didn’t sound too bad. If it worked out, she could see herself with two imaginary kids and a fictional dog named Dusty. They’d summer in a floating condo and winter in Shangri-la, take vacations in a hybrid realm where Paris, Disneyland, and Atlantis all merged into one wondrous place. Sometimes she and Dusty the Wonder Dog would solve murders and uncover sinister Martian conspiracies.
The fantasy was running away with itself, but she indulged for a few more seconds.
“Is Keith not in the bathroom, dear?” asked Peter. “Him not sitting on couch last time I not see him,” said Stacey-thing, squinting as she turned her head in an awkward direction.
“Oh yes. There he isn’t.” Peter pointed to a spot, then pointed to another spot. “Or maybe how. not right there. Well, I know he’s not here somewhere. Why don’t you have a seat while I make you a drink? I should warn you. My martinis are legendary.”
Diana, locked in a rigid posture, sat on the sofa. She placed her hands on her knees. She tried to relax, but this idea hadn’t panned out. She hadn’t expected much, but this was promising to be the third or fourth most boring party she’d ever been to.
“Nice weather we’re having,” said someone nearby.
She glanced around but saw nobody. She looked to the nearest mask, and the bloodshot eyes looked back at her. “Did you say something?”
The eyes blinked, then rolled around in what she interpreted as a negative response. She was just guessing, but she assumed that if the eyes could talk, they would have just answered.
“How is the outside world?” asked the voice again. “Did they ever get around to impeaching Nixon?”
Peter was mixing a drink at the minibar while Stacey-thing was entertaining the other monsters in the kitchen. Diana couldn’t find the source of the voice, but she decided that she didn’t care either. It was just one more inexplicable event. She’d experienced plenty of those recently. Too many to even bother cataloguing at this point.
Stacey passed off hosting of the thing to Peter, who lumbered over with a martini glass delicately clutched in his giant claws. “You drink.”
“Thank you.” She took the glass and sipped it. It wasn’t bad, though she wasn’t much of a drinker and had never had a martini in her life, so she couldn’t tell if this one qualified as the stuff of legend.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Guests!” growled Peter-thing as he lurched to answer the knock.
“Never really a fan of martinis,” said Diana’s unseen conversationalist.
Zap floated over and had a seat in a recliner. The eyeball monster laid his tentacles on the armrests and leaned back. “Feels good to take a load off.”
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re staring at me.”
“I see the multiverse in ways your pathetic senses cannot fathom. If I’m looking in your direction, rest assured that I am not staring
“If you’re staring at the universe, why does it tend to be the universe behind me?”
He blinked. She’d never seen him blink before. Given that his body was more or less one basketball-sized eye, it took longer than a standard blink. At least three times as long. This was still very fast, but noticeably long for a blink.
“The hubris,” he said. “The unapologetic egotism. Do you really think that with everything I can see, the worlds upon worlds that fall within my merest glance, that you, a speck of dust floating in a roiling sea of infinite possibilities, would be able to hold my interest for even the briefest, most fleeting of moments?”
Diana folded her arms across her chest and stared down Zap.
“I’m just suggesting that you behold the wonder of that roiling sea of infinity in some other direction. If you don’t mind.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Zap with a sarcastic squint. “Yes, sir! Right away, sir!” He offered a crisp salute with one tentacle. “As you command, so shall it be done.”
“Knock it off,” she said.
He sputtered, rotated thirty degrees to the right, and focused on one of the masks staring back at him.
Peter-thing approached. When the misshapen host moved to one side, Chuck was revealed.
“New guest. Chuck, this Diana. Apartment Five. Diana, this Chuck—”
“Apartment Two,” she interrupted. “We’ve met.”
Peter-thing clicked his fangs together. “Chuck brings pie.”
“Just a little something I whipped up,” said Chuck.
“Pie good.”
Peter-thing was scant moments away from devouring the gift when Stacey snatched it from his hands. “Now, dear. Leave something for our guests.”
The creature glared, baring his terrible teeth, flexing his long, claw-tipped fingers.
She rapped him on the knuckles with a wooden spoon. “We still have leftover carrot cake in the refrigerator. Have some of that.”
“Did someone mention carrot cake?” asked Vom from the kitchen, already opening the refrigerator. Peter- thing dashed off to scrap with the other monsters for his piece.
“I’m sorry about those guys,” said Diana.
“Oh, they’re no bother,” said Stacey with her unflappable June Cleaver smile. “It’s just nice to have company.”
She went over to try to keep order among the monsters. If anyone could, Diana figured, it would be Stacey. Chuck sat on one end of the couch.
“Hello,” said Zap, waving a tentacle.
Chuck nodded. “Hi.”
“So, some mixer,” said Diana, without any thought behind the statement. Just something to say.
“Yeah,” he replied in his own vague manner.
She opened her mouth, but then shut it. She was about to comment about his evil puppy dog and how it had let him out again, but she assumed he was probably tired of talking about that.
Small talk proved difficult. Every subject seemed either inane or absurd. The problem with being trapped in an abnormal situation, even with company, was that there was no normality to seize hold of to balance things out.
