Pepé walked out of the park and into Acme Circle. He turned sharp right in the middle of the pavement and walked stiffly to a line of horse-and-carriages at the curbside. He turned sharply left and approached the horse at the head of the line. He walked up to it, stood next to it, and spoke to it.
"I am Rudolph. Monster and servant of Dr. Frankenbeans. The Evil Scientist. Boo! Are you Woe?"
The horse looked at him but didn't reply.
The coachman, in a flat peaked cap and cape, called down from his seat, "Hey, buddy! He pulls the wagon. I make the deals. You wanna ride?"
Pepé turned his head and fixed his eyes on the coachman.
"Are you Woe?"
"Nah, I'm the Governor of California," the coachman curled his lip. "Now get outta here!"
Pepé's eyes flashed a deep dull red. The black pupils went slit. Pepé raised his arm and pointed at the coachman, his voice rang with a dreadful avenging tone.
"You will perish in flames, sub-creature! Frankenbeans will destroy you and all your kind!" Pepé turned to the horse and whispered, "Wait for the sign. Then all prisoners will be released."
Pepé marched stiffly into the several lanes of traffic speeding around the Circle. Cars screeched and swerved and horns blared.
The noise and disruption alerted two mounted policemen eating outside a hotdog stand. They exchanged glances, and wheeling their horses about, set off at a slow trot to follow Pepé down the street.
A burly police sergeant knocked on the door to the Quackbusters' headquarters and Penelope answered.
"Dropping off or picking up?" she asked.
"Dropping off,"
"Just a moment," she said, walking back inside.
She returned with Sylvester.
"You a Quackbuster?" the sergeant asked.
"Yes," Sylvester replied.
"We picked up this guy and now we don't know what to do with him," said the sergeant, unlocking the rear door of the van. "Whackyland doesn't want him and I'm afraid to put him in the lock-up. I know you guys are into this stuff, so I figured we'd check with you."
"All right,"
The sergeant swung the door open for Sylvester to look inside.
A tall, thin, bedraggled skunk sat forlornly on the bench. He was fastened to the wall bars with leather restraint straps, and secured to a metal ring in the floor with ankle cuffs.
Pepé gazed at Sylvester with a faint spark of hope, and raised his eyebrows.
"Are you Woe?"
Sylvester ran the PKE meter over him. The antennae sprung to attention and all the lights flashed.
"You better bring him inside, Officer," Sylvester told them.
The sergeant nodded and released Pepé into their custody.
"You are so kind to take care of that man," Penelope said. "You know, you are a real humanitarian."
"Well, I'm not human and neither is he," Sylvester replied. "I don't think he's even a skunk either."
Ten minutes later, Pepé was sitting in the kitchen hooked up to a contraption of Sylvester's devising. On his head, Pepé wore what looked like an aluminum colander, with thick skeins of red and blue wires trailing away from dozens of electrodes.
Sylvester sat hunched before a control console, monitoring Pepé's etheric activity in response to questioning.
Penelope sat on the sofa, gnawing her lip, unable to take her eyes off Pepé. There was something about the skunk that unsettled her. Something scary. But she comforted herself with the thought that Sylvester would know what to do. He usually did, more often than not.
Pepé stared into space, his arms in his lap. He seemed perfectly content to answer Sylvester's questions, speaking in a drab monotone.
"What did you say your name was?" Sylvester asked.
"Rudolph, monster and servant of Dr. Frankenbeans,"
The mention of Frankenbeans made Sylvester sit up and swing around on his stool.
He leaned forward, eyes blinking rapidly, and said slowly and deliberately, "I am Sylvester the Cat, Creature of Earth, former teacher at Acme Looniversity, Professor of Mouse and Bird Chasing."
Penelope picked up Pepé's wallet from the coffee table and flipped through it.
"According to this, his name is Pepé Le Pew," she said, looking at his driver's license. "Lives at Acme Arms Apartments."
"Oh, no," Pepé contradicted her mildly. "Le Pew is the stinkball I'm using. I must wait inside for the sign."
"Do you want something to eat or drink while you're waiting?" Penelope enquired. "Coffee, tea... a cup of noodles?"
Pepé frowned at Sylvester, as if the question was of enormous significance.
"Do I?" he asked.
"Yes, have some," Sylvester replied.
"Yes, have some," Pepé repeated.
Penelope got up and set a kettle of water to boil on the stove.
She turned around and gave a startled gasp.
Pepé had snuck up behind her and his face was mere inches from hers.
"You know, cooking is the second-best thing I do," he said. "For me, it is better to make love first, then to eat. Or we could make love after."
Penelope punched Pepé in the nose.
Pepé shook his head and said, "Okay, you talked me into it." He moved away from Penelope and added, "I'm sorry! Forgive me, please. My passions overtook me. I forgot myself. I let the little head think for the big one. What can I say? I'm a guy."
"Rudolph," Sylvester said, watching Pepé closely, "you said before you were waiting for a sign. What sign are you waiting for?"
Pepé stared at Sylvester and blankly recited, "Frankenbeans the Evil Scientist. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During rectification of the Voldrini, the Evil Scientist came as a large Garlon. Then, during the third reconciliation of the Prophynia supplicants they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Gort! Many Gossamers and Woes knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Gort that day, I can tell you."
Sylvester stared at Pepé for a long moment, trying to extract some sense from that, and then looked at Penelope, who was wearing a worried frown. She shook her head and beckoned Sylvester to come to her. He sidled across to Penelope.
"Sylvester," she said in a low voice, "there's something very strange about that skunk."
They cast a glance at Pepé, who was sniffing around the outside of a jar of hand cream.
"I may not be psychic, but I have a terrible feeling that something awful is going to happen to you," She touched his arm and looked anxiously into his eyes. "I'm afraid you're going to die."
"I'm not going to die," Sylvester said, trying not to sound indifferent. "I've been stabbed, shot, burned, blown up, electrocuted, maimed, mauled and crushed by heavy objects so many times already that not even death scares me anymore."
"That's so romantic," Penelope sighed, sliding her arms around him and laying her head on his chest.
Sylvester wrapped his arms around her and smiled down at her, and Penelope blushed as she hugged him to her.
Then they were interrupted by the phone ringing.
"I'll get it," Sylvester said. "Hello?"
"Sylvester, it's Bugs. I have some news from Dr. Frankenbeans,"
"What is it, Bugs?"
Bugs was sitting in a chair by Lola's bed. He glanced down.
"I'm here with Lola Bunny. It seems that the Evil Scientist has been putting some moves on my would-be girlfriend,"
"How is she?"
"I feel like I've fallen into a bad, and very unnecessary, remake of The Exorcist. That's how she is. I just gave her a couple shots of ZzzQuil. She's gonna take a little nap now, but she says she's Woe, the mistress of Dr. Frankenbeans. Does that make any sense to you?"
"Some. Penelope and I just met Rudolph, the monster and servant," Sylvester said as he glanced at Pepé. "He's here with us now."
There was a very brief silence before Bugs said, "Oh, Doc, we have got to get these two together."
"I think that would be extraordinarily dangerous," which in Sylvester's vocabulary amounted to a definitive veto.
"Okay, well, hold onto him. I'll be there in a few minutes,"
"Good," Sylvester said.
Sylvester hung up just in time to see that Pepé had poured two cups of coffee and two cups of tea, and set them on a silver tray. He swished his tail around and said at Penelope, "Coffee, tea... or moi?"
Penelope moved away from him and closer to Sylvester.
"Thank you, Rudolph," Sylvester said, taking a cup of coffee. "We have to find Daffy and Porky," he told Penelope. "I need them here immediately."
If Penelope heard Sylvester, she didn't respond. She was too busy crawling backwards across the couch as Pepé started to crawl on top of her.
"Your heart is pounding, like mine," he said lustfully.
Then he stopped and shifted his gaze downward. Penelope looked to where Pepé was looking and she realized that she was wearing a skirt.
"I see Britain, I see France..." Pepé sang. "I see-"
Penelope kicked Pepé in the crotch, sending him clear to the far end of the couch.
"Wow!" Pepé exclaimed. "Wowie-wow-wow-wow! I was going to give it to you anyway. Wow! Wowie-wow-wow!"
"Daffy, do you believe-eh-be-lie-ee-eh-think there is a God?"
Daffy jerked out of his thoughts and blinked.
He sprawled back in the passenger seat of the Quackbuster Mobile, head rolling from side to side as Porky steered the big car along the coastline. His face in the light of the dashboard was deep in thought.
To the West, the Pacific Ocean was a solid black, and to the East, the city shined brightly in the dawn's first light. It had been an odd day, Daffy reflected. The storm clouds that had been threatening all yesterday afternoon seemed to be hanging directly over the city, and refused to break. As if, he thought, they were waiting for something.
"Never met him," Daffy replied. "But I think Jesus had style."
Porky nodded to himself. Whatever people chose to believe was okay with him.
"Well, I believe," Porky said. And he meant it, too.
Daffy gave a slight shrug and stared at the blueprints for the iron work in Lola Bunny's apartment.
"This roof cap is made of a magnesium-tungsten alloy," he said out loud. He didn't know anything about metallurgy or architecture. "Strange."
Several moments passed, and then Porky said, "Do you remember something in the Bib-Eh-Bi-Beh-Bible-Holy Book about the last days, when the dead would rise from the grave?"
"Revelation, Chapter Seven, Verse Twelve," Daffy remembered. "'And I looked as he opened the sixth seal. And behold, there was a great earthquake. And the Sun became black as sackcloth. And the moon became as blood.'"
"And the seas would boil... And the sky would fall," Porky went on.
"'And after three days and a half the Spirit of Life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.' Judgment Day,"
"Eh-Juh-Jeh-Eh-Judgment Day," Porky repeated.
"Every religion has its own belief about the end of the world," Daffy said thoughtfully.
Porky stared through the windscreen, gripping the wheel with both hands.
"Daffy, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so bus-eh-buh-beh-eh-busy-active lately is because the dead have been rising from their graves?"
Daffy slowly turned his head to look at Porky.
His eyes widened.