Blood On The Scare Floor
Chapter 1 - Just Another Day
The morning sun shone brightly down on the streets of Monstropolis on a fine, breezy morning. Down on one street, monsters were leaving their houses to go to work, to see a friend, or whatever other plans they had for the day. Obviously, the majority of Monstropolis' residents were setting off to work, to do the thing they did best - scaring kids in order to collect their screams, so that Monstropolis could be powered up 24-7-365.
Exactly the job description of James P. Sullivan, better known to his friends as "Sulley". Looking out of his apartment window while simultaneously carrying out his daily rigorous scare workout, he felt content, what with the sun shining and knowing that he was going to have another day of his favourite activity, as well as the fact that his workplace was Monstropolis' largest scream factory, Monsters, Inc. He never let it go to his head though.
"Come on, come on! We're gonna be late!"
Sulley's train of thought and concentration on his workout was swiftly derailed by the shrill cries of his flatmate/scare assistant/best friend, Mike Wazowski.
"Mike," sighed Sulley, stretching his blue/purple fur-covered arms to relax his muscles after the workout, "it's 9:30. The factory is about 20 minutes' walk, we will be on time."
Sulley's green, single-eyed ball of a friend frowned, displaying his impatience.
"I know that, fuzzball! But that only leaves us with 10 minutes spare! And you know very well how I'd rather spend that time…"
"Uh-huh," came Sulley's acknowledgement, not stating the obvious fact that Mike was referring to Monsters, Inc.'s receptionist, Celia Mae. Sulley knew all too well that Mike couldn't go a whole day without seeing his snake-haired, pink skinned love of his life. He didn't dare contemplate how life would be if Celia ever broke it off…
"Well, what are we waitin' for?" shrilled Mike, sounding more agitated by the second, "let's go! I can't do my job without you!"
"OK, OK," replied Sulley with another sigh, shuffling his bulky, blue and green furred frame out of the room, down the stairs and outside into the street, with Mike walking quickly by his side, complaining about his car still being serviced at downtown Monster Garage. Sulley didn't really care much for cars; a walk always did him good, in his own opinion, something which Mike didn't ask for too much. Walking also meant that himself and Mike could stop and talk to other monsters in the street, at least when Mike wasn't so adamant to get to work 20 minutes early.
"Hi Sulley! Off to work, huh?"
"Yeah," came Sulley's reply to a green tailed monster walking in the opposite direction, "another day of adventures into another world."
"Oh yeah, that's true," replied the monster, "and you're the best at doing' just that! Have a good one!" With that, the monster carried on down the street.
"You too," called out Sulley to the monster. Being stopped in the street to be told how great a scarer he was had become repetitive after so long doing his job, but at the same time he didn't want to consider the alternative.
"Hey guys, it's Sulley!"
"Morning, Sulley!"
"Gonna get some more scares on that counter today?"
A myriad of voices greeting the big furry guy were the sounds all round as he and Mike entered the large lobby of the Monsters, Inc. factory. Monsters of all shapes and sizes made their way across the lobby to their respective scare floors, ready for the day's scaring.
Sulley turned to say something to Mike, but noticed that Mike had vanished. Grinning, he turned his gaze to the reception desk in the centre of the lobby, and spied his green one-eyed buddy leaning casually on the desk and making sweet conversation with his "Schmoopsie-Poo".
"…time is precious to me, Schmoopsie. But it's at its most precious when I can look to my side and see your sparkling eye looking at me…"
"Oh, Googley Bear," cooed Celia, her snake hair hissing in satisfaction, "you're such a cutie-pie..."
"Yes maybe, Schmoopsie…" replied Mike with a sickly-sweet smile, "but there is only one cuter than I…and I'm looking right at her."
Mike was instantly rewarded with a kiss right on the lips from his "Schmoopsie-Poo". Before it became more intimate, a familiar deep voice interrupted proceedings.
"Not wasting time, I see Mike," quipped Sulley.
Embarrassed, Mike withdrew his lips from Celia's and whirled round slowly, tittering nervously. Celia just gave a little giggle.
"You would go to lengths if you were in love, Sulley," retorted Mike, trying to keep his ego from bursting, "anyway, I think we should be getting to the Scare Floor now."
"Just what I was gonna say," replied Sulley, setting off towards the corridor to Scare Floor F, "see you later, Celia."
"OK, have a good day," smiled Celia, turning to Mike, "wanna go out tonight?"
"What do you think?" grinned Mike in rhetorical mode, "I'll see you at quittin' time, mon sweet."
Blowing a kiss, which was quickly returned by Celia, he slowly strode away from the desk, then broke into a small jog to catch up with his furry friend. He was about to say something when he suddenly tripped and fell to the floor, grazing his knee on the polished marble. Mumbling to himself, Mike picked himself up and looked round, and caught sight of a certain small red monster, wearing a blue hard-hat, standing by the wall looking somewhat nervous.
"Fungus!" growled Mike angrily, glaring right at the timid monster's three eyes, "is this your idea of a joke?"
Fungus bit his lip nervously, looking for an answer. "I…I…did…didn't…"
All of a sudden, next to Fungus, something shimmered into view. Mike almost jumped out of his lime green skin, but relaxed quickly, instantly recognising the shape as it transformed from invisibility to a distinctive chameleon-like monster.
"I should've guessed…Fungus would never have the bottle," said Mike to himself, rolling his eyeball in disgust, and then directing his voice to Randall, "do you have a heart, Randall?"
The purple/blue chameleon monster's drooping mouthful of teeth morphed into a wicked smile, a nasty cackle emitting from it.
"Oh I do, Wazowski. I always make sure that the best of my surprises are saved for you. See? I do care."
Mike tried to come up with as counter-attack, but his think tank was obviously devoid of ideas. He turned his back to his nemesis.
"OK Randall, you've had your fun," came the deep tones of Sulley, stepping in by Mike's side, "there's work to be done."
"I'm fully aware of that, Sullivan, there's no need to state the obvious," replied Randall, rolling his eyes, "but you're not exactly in a rush yourself, are you?"
"I like to take things at my own pace," explained Sulley, trying to walk away, "something you should really take up sometime."
Randall's eyes narrowed, showing his disgust at Sulley's comment.
"You really need to curb your attitude, Sullivan." His voice was developing a menacing undertone now. "I do things my way. You do things your way. I get my scares, you get yours. If things don't go my way, I'm unhappy. And no-one, especially you, Sullivan, wants to be in the same room as me when I'm unhappy."
He drew up close to Sulley, their eyes meeting. Sulley didn't display any fear or discomfort, though he felt it deep down.
"Have a good scare," said Randall coldly, then slithered away in the direction of the Scare Floor F corridor, yelling at Fungus to get a move on.
"Randall Boggs grade A freak," quipped Mike, mopping his brow, "doesn't he know where to get off?"
"As long as we get our work done, he doesn't matter. He just wants to make trouble," observed Sulley with a sigh, breaking into a brisk walk, "come on, Mike. We really are late now."
Mike watched Randall walking off down the corridor and gave a mean frown, then rushed off to catch up with Sulley.
The sounds of a child's screams could be heard from beyond the brown, wooden door. Then, the sound of quick footfalls on the floor of the child's room, then just as quickly, the door was flung open and slammed shut. The child's scream was pumped into the large, yellow scream canister clamped onto the right side of the door, with the canister's meter filling up with red to show that the canister was full and ready for collection.
Sulley stretched himself to relax his muscles from the scare he'd just carried out. Scaring could be very exhausting, even for the toughest of monsters. Then, he glanced at the giant video wall at the far end of Scare Floor F, which displayed each of the Scare Floor's scarers and the amount of screams they'd collected. Not surprisingly, Sulley was right at the top of the list.
"Great goin' buddy!" proclaimed Mike, giving his friend a high five, "we've almost filled our quota, and it's almost 4:30! Man, this day has passed me by like…like…"
"…an express train," finished Sulley with a grin, "I gotta agree with you there, Mikey."
"Just what I was about to say, Sulley," replied Mike, typically being his Mr. Know-it-all self. At least he was nowhere near as bad as Randall…
Suddenly, two door stations down from Sulley and Mike, another door slammed shut loudly, but no scream emitted from beyond the door. Randall was the monster who had emerged from the door, but rather than looking smug at having collected more screams, his flustered face was a mixture of embarrassment and anger. Instantly, he took it out on Fungus.
"Why don't you ever tell me these things?! Are you that much of a useless simpleton??!"
Fungus, shaking quite violently with fear, tried to bring forth a credible reply.
"I'm…I'm…s…sorry, Randall…I…I…must've picked up the…w…w..wrong r…wrecks, no…r…records…"
"This is the second time I've had a dead door this week!" raged Randall, who was almost right in Fungus' face now, "if you keep making petty little mistakes like this, then all you are doing is just proving that you are just a useless little nothing!!!"
This outburst from Randall had brought the entire Scare Floor to a standstill. Everyone there was listening, standing still and looking quite shocked.
Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Randall looked at Fungus with his shifty, evil eyes. Fungus looked ready to burst into tears, and was just stood there, trembling. Then Randall looked at everybody else in the Scare Floor.
"What are you all lookin' at?" he barked, "ain't you got work to do?"
As soon as he said that, the other scarers and scare assistants turned away and got back to their business. Randall then ordered Fungus to close down their door station, and promptly stormed off.
"Hey! Who said you could leave early?" demanded Jerry, the Scare Floor manager, noticing one of his charges was leaving before he said so.
"I said!" replied Randall loudly through clenched teeth, carrying on out of the Scare Floor. Jerry just sighed and, muttering something under his breath, went back to his business.
Mike felt something he normally didn't feel for Fungus - pity. He decided to go over to Fungus' door station and say something, but before he got the chance, Fungus came walking up to the Scare Floor exit very slowly. He looked disheartened and upset.
"Hey, Fungus!" called out Mike, "are you OK?"
"Leave me alone," replied Fungus in a low voice. He didn't want any sympathy.
"You're lying," observed Mike, "just forget about what Mr. Grade-A freak said…"
"I said leave me alone!" Fungus suddenly yelled out angrily, "all of you…just leave me alone!!!"
With that, Fungus broke into a wild run and headed out of the Scare Floor.
"This is crazy," said Mike to Sulley, "I've never known Fungus to get so upset about Randall bullying him all the time…"
Sulley nodded in agreement. "You know, a monster can only take so much. And when he or she reaches his limit, it ain't pretty."
Mike was about to continue the conversation, but he was interrupted by the loud ringing of the bell, signalling the end of work.
"So, where are we gonna go?" cooed Schmoopsie-Poo to her Googley Bear as they pondered their plans for the night.
"To be really honest, Schmoopsie…I hadn't thought about that," sighed Mike, ransacking his brain for a decent destination, "maybe we could go to the downtown Jazz Club?"
"We did that last Thursday," observed Celia, pausing for a yawn. It was tiring being a receptionist for seven hours a day. "Though I enjoyed it very much, thank you."
"The pleasure was all mine, my dear," replied Mike with another sweet smile.
"Hey Mike!"
Mike whirled round upon hearing Sulley's excited voice.
"Hey, Sulley…what you lookin' so happy for? Has the garage finished with my car?"
"Nope," replied Sulley, "I think I may have an idea for a place where you and Celia could go tonight. Wanna tell them, George?"
Mike then noticed that Sulley had brought George Sanderson, a fellow scarer, who was at times quite accident-prone, along with him. "I hope I'm gonna like this…" muttered Mike.
"There's gonna be a poker night tonight," announced the orange and yellow fuzzball, "a few of us are gonna take part, and Sulley here thought it would be a good idea if yourself and Miss Mae could come along too."
"Poker?" exclaimed Mike, "sure! I'd love to play, but I'm kinda saving up for a little something…"
"Where is it being held?" inquired Celia.
"On the scare floor," replied George.
"The Scare Floor?" moaned Mike incredulously, "did you organise this, George?"
"Well…yeah, kind of…but Gummy Bear helped out too, I'm not entirely to blame," replied George hesitantly, "besides, we wanted to hold it at the Jazz Club, but they're double-booked tonight…"
Mike sighed. He wasn't one for staying at work after hours, but decided to make this night the exception. "OK, we'll come. But I'm not playing. And I hope you've got some food."
"Of course there's food," pouted George, "poker players gotta keep their brains sharp…"
"Yeah, yeah," acknowledged Mike, "see you there. Come on, Schmoopsie, let's go get ready…"
Mike and Celia walked off out of the factory, talking as they left.
"It starts at 7:30!" George called out after them, "don't forget! See ya later, Sulley."
Sulley watched George head off to the Scare Floor F corridor, and then turned to leave. He couldn't help noticing the familiar figure of Randall skulking about over on the far right of the lobby. Shrugging it off, he made his way outside.