Erl is a young man from Voidview down on his luck, after a months long job search he finds himself working in small corner store called Crapola Convenience, trying not to let the odd customers drive him crazy.
Okay this story is about 3 years old, for some context at this point after a story I've yet to tell I acquired a rather hefty price on my life from the VoidView organized crime scene. Jumping right in it was an empty store kind of afternoon, not even Mrs. Boneshrew was kicking around, Sparkplug and I were just chilling and talking about some video game he's obsessed with, when suddenly CRASH the protective glass (this is what made me realize it was never bulletproof) was shattered and a small tomahawk stuck out from the wall next to the telephone,
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in through the door punctuated with the little jingle of the bell walked a robust tall man wearing a dime store Halloween clown mask and a ratty unkempt brown long wig, more skin than I would like was showing, a green and black striped button up hung unbuttoned allowing his whole stomach and chest to hang out and pink short shorts. He took his sweet time making his way to the counter,
"Would you happen to be a one: Erlchester Croft?"
His voice was rough and deep, he leaned forward a little too close to me as he spoke, "That's what my Mom calls me," I responded, in the gap between the goofy rubber teeth of his mask in shadow I could see a real toothy grin form, Sparkplug finished my sentence "And you? Mr. clown?" He turned his head a little to look at him as he answered "You can call me Giggles." He said, "Haiii!" Sparkplug waved "Uh.. hi?" He turned back to me "Are you aware that you have a rather tantalizing bounty on your head son?" He asked. "Huh? I did not-" Sparkplug pulled on my vest, "You think you can cash that in on yourself?" He asked "Well I'd assume not, I'd be dead-" "SHUT UP!" The clown leaned back as he cut me off "oh.." Sparkplug frowned as he looked at the ground, Giggles looked at me, even with my limited view of his eyes I could tell he was bewildered, I put a hand up to to the side of my mouth "He's special." I whispered, he looked back at sparkplug, "Eh." He grunted "Well anyway," he turned his attention back to me and drew a 6-shot revolver as he spoke, "I'm here to collect."
Before I could react a shot was fired into the ceiling as Giggles screamed, Sparkplug has pounced on him and was scratching frantically at his mask, (don't envy him, little dude keeps those things sharp as hell) in my panic immediately upon hearing the gunshot I did the only thing I could think of, ragdolled onto the floor to avoid being shot. As I heard the struggle I got to my knees, but sprung up when I heard Sparkplug yell followed by a crash, just in time to see him tumble to the ground after slamming against the soda machine, "HEY!" I yelled without thinking and immediately started making some shit up to back it up "According to policy you can harass staff all you wish!" (This was unfortunately true) "But that boy is not employed!" My voice began to wobble as Giggles got up to his feet, "Therefore you just assaulted an employee, which a- allows me to take action!" The clown cracked his neck "OoOo fun." I picked the phone up off the hook and began to dial 911 "Oh you gotta be shitting me." He groaned as he aimed his pistol again, I immediately ragdolled yet again as the bullet blew the phone off the wall. I began attempting to crawl away but stopped and got up when I heard "OW! FUCK." Sparkplug had pushed a shelf over onto the clown's head, I made a break for the back door and Sparkplug followed after me.
When we made it outside we could already hear him getting up and thrashing towards the door, we didn't have time to run, I hopped into one dumpster and Sparkplug ran behind the other. The back door slammed open and I could hear him start to stomp away, I let out a sigh of relief before to my horror my cellphone started ringing (A shitty little Nokia Merl got me the previous Christmas) I felt myself get ripped out of the dumpster by the collar of my shirt, now his eyes met mine, his mask was full of scratches and tears that I could see were accompanied by similar scratches on his face that bled underneath "Hello." With no idea what to do I just did the first thing that popped into my head, I spat in his face and head butted him (His own fault really, he held me really close to his face) "AUGH! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THAT??" I shrugged as best I could while dangling from his hand "I uh.. kinda assumed you'd get surprised and drop me to wipe your face.."
"Wha- are you stupid?? I have a free hand??" He waved his pistol around but his display of confusion was cut off when he was struck in the side of the head with a sizable rock that knocked his wig off "GODAMNIT!" (This time he did drop me) He fired a round that hit the pavement behind Sparkplug as he rounded the corner "IF ONE MORE THING HITS ME IN THE HEAD I SWEAR TO GOD!" He ran after Sparkplug and I heard 3 more quick shots as I hopped the back fence and ran into the nearby alley, I started dialing 911 on my phone but I was cut off by a shadow enveloping me, there stood Giggles, he aimed his gun at me "Goodbye Mr. Croft." Click. "Oh shit all 6 already? Oh well, I want to take my sweet time with you anyway." He tossed it aside and reached behind himself, under his shirt and pulled out what looked like a crowbar that had been sharpened on one end into a blade, he took his sweet time walking towards me, gruffly humming the tune of 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain' when he finally got close fueled by adrenaline, I kicked his leg, to my surprise out from under him he yelled "FUCK! STOP DOING THAT!" As he fell face first, liquid courage still pumping hard through my veins I grabbed the back of his mask and started repeating bashing his head down on the ground, as he yelled obscenities.
When he started to fight back he got up half on top of me and tried to grab my arm, I grabbed onto one of the scratched open parts of his mask and yanked, ripping most of the bottom half off, revealing a brownish blond mustache tied in either end with twine. after a moment of struggle I got him off of me (heavy bastard.) and booked it out of the alley and into the street, he came running out not long after panting and screaming "YOU CAN'T GET AWAY CROFT! NO ONE GETS AWAY FROM GIGGLES" his chin wrinkled with rage, unable to think of any way out of this, I put up my dukes ready to lose a fistfight, but before he could reach me he went flying off to the right as John Dealer's van back into him at high speed. The breaks squealed as John leaned out the window "PLEASE TELL ME THAT WASN'T AN INNOCENT CIVILIAN" I took a breath and responded dumbfounded "No, no he was trying to kill me actually." "Oh thank god." He sighed before peeling out and U-turning to face the recovering clown as he stood up and held his arm, "THIS ISN'T OVER CROFT! YOUR ASS IS MINE!" and he turned tail and ran, never saw him again. We found Sparkplug unharmed cowering and unfortunately familiar bridge so he's fine if not a little traumatized. Doug was furious about the glass, but I paid to get it replaced with real bulletproof glass so that's nice, anywho I'm late for work, the register calls.
THIS CHAPTER IS DEVOTED TO SPARKS!!! Happy birthday to my best friend!!! Hope u enjoyed :D
