Chapter Two-Attack of the kung-fu clowns
"Why can't I just GO HOME like normal people?" grumbled Ash out loud. "I'm the only person who has to deal with this sort of thing every time I try and go home."
"Then maybe ya shouldn't go home!"
Ash stopped his train of thought for a moment and slowly turned to see ICP who where now out of their suits and where wearing street clothes. Shaggy was wearing black sweat pants and a white shirt. Violent J was wearing shorts and a JCW T-shirt. Ash aimed his shotgun at the two clowns and scowled. "You two are the last two people I wanna see so I'll give you to the count of ten to-"
"Hey, we saved yer life!" snapped Violent J.
Ash stopped glaring for a moment and appeared to enter deep thought. "Welllll…that is true you two did save my life," He shrugged and focused his aim on them. "But I hate you anyway."
"Wait a sec!" pleaded Violent J. "We know this carnival like the back of our hands!"
"That's right!" agreed Shaggy nodding quickly. "We can help ya get to that sack of shit The Butterfly!"
Ash continued to aim the shotgun at ICP while his played out his options in his mind. On one hand he hated rap and more importantly hated clowns. One the other hand, he knew they where right in that they knew this carnival like the back of their hands. Plus, he figured he could use someone to shove in front of some kind of oncoming attack or trap.
"Keep up, you get in trouble it aint my fault," Ash spun his shotgun in his hand and put in he holster behind him.
"Radical!" cackled Shaggy.
J rolled his eyes, "Shut the hell up Shaggy! No one says Radical anymore!"
"Says you Biyatch!"
"No one says that anymore either you dumb bastard!"
"Shut up fat-ass! At least I don't start every damn morning by listening to Real American!"
"Why me?" questioned Ash trying to walk as far ahead the two arguing clowns as much as possible. He stopped at the sight of several jugglers in front of a circus tent. "What the-?" Ash watched the jugglers who where now staring at him as they juggled. With all the empty tents and booths, the jugglers where an eerie sight.
"Oh shit! It's-" Before J could finish, the jugglers began throwing their balls at Ash which exploded as they hit him sending him crashing into a booth. Ash growled, "Juggle THIS ladies," he grinned and pulled out his shotgun in the blink of an eye blasting the next batch of fireballs and shooting two of the jugglers. The third turned to run but was taken out when Ash picked up a couple of the balls and hurled them at the juggler igniting him in flames.
Ash turned and saw ICP standing and staring at him and already was regretting letting them live. "Thanks for your quick warning guys. 'Like the back of my hand' he sighed and walked over the dead body of the juggler and came to the tent they had been standing in front of. It looked like the rest of the tents; it was large, ominous looking and bright red. Ash turned to the two clowns; "Do you know where this goes?"
J folded his arms and glared, "Oh so NOW we're useful?"
In the blink of an eye, Ash pulled out his shotgun and pointed it towards the direction of ICP. "Last chance…"
Violent J shrugged, "Beats me. There's a million tents like this in the dark carnival."
"You two go first."
"What?! But we-"
"Shotgun… stupid clowns go boom."
Shaggy and Violent J glared and stormed past Ash and stepped into the tent. Silence followed for several moments before Ash heard two screams and smiled slightly before pulling out his shotgun and walking into the tent. Damn he thought staring down several men dressed as clowns holding hatchets, knives, and axes. He noticed the terrified looks on the faces of J and Shaggy. "What's wrong with you two?"
"It's kung-fu clowns!" cried Shaggy.
Ash tried really hard not to burst out laughing but did so anyway, "What's the problem?"
"These are some of the most blood-thirsty and mindless zombies of the dark carnival!" replied J who was starting to sound less frantic. "They just keep coming at you no matter what you do to them!"
"Plus they know kung-fu!" piped in Shaggy.
Ash turned on his chain saw, "Groovy." He began firing on several of the clown zombies which where slowly coming towards him and ICP. Ash soon saw that Violent J was right. His shotgun was doing little to slow them down. Moving on to his next option, Ash tossed the shotgun aside and swerved his chain saw arm at two of the clown zombies sawing their heads clean off. Ash drove his chain saw through the chest of another oncoming clown zombie, pulled it out just as quickly then, grabbed the back of its head and drove his knee into it's throat. Ash threw the clown zombie as far out of the tent as possible and turned around to just barely avoid a headless clown zombie try to drive an ax into his skull. Ash fell backwards, knocking his chain saw from on to off. Ash saw the two zombies he had just previously beheaded where now up despite having nothing above the shoulders. Ash reached over, grabbed his shotgun and unloaded several bullets into the two zombies until they lay unmoving. Ash saw two more coming his way and gritted his teeth, turning his chain saw arm back on and charging at them head on. His attack stopped abruptly as he heard a whirring sound. He looked up and saw several playing cards shoot just an inch from his head and hit the zombies slicing them into several pieces. Ash watched the body parts flop around for several moments then looked back to see ICP seemingly posing in victory. Ash's urge to kill them was continuing to grow at a steady rate.
"We kick ass!" grinned Shaggy.
"Damn right!" agreed Violent J high fiving his partner.
Ash began gritting his teeth again. "Are you going to tell me that you had those things the whole damn time?"
"Yep."
"I don't see any kinda thanks for us saving yer ass."
"Yeah!" agreed Shaggy. "What the hell's up with that?!"
Ash's fist was shaking, "Let's-move-ON." He moved towards the door and walked out of the tent. Before following Shaggy turned to Violent J. "We are SO radical!"
Violent J groaned, I told you to stop saying that!"
Meanwhile…
The Butterfly watched ICP leave the tent and smiled, "I expected the three of them to make it past a few of those clown zombies." He spun himself around in his chair from the huge wall of monitors and faced two men who where dressed in street clothes and had face paint similar to what ICP wore but with a far darker look to it.
"Really?" asked the taller of the two clowns. "I've never seen anybody take out kung-fu clown zombies like that!" the taller clown was actually quite tall at 6'10 and a 300-pound frame to match the size perfectly. He wore unremarkable A & N type clothing and had a pair of dark sunglasses with small lenses hiding his eyes.
"Don't worry Jake…there's still much, much more within this carnival that Ash and those pathetic lap dogs have yet to face. They won't make it to us and even if they where too I'm more than a match for them." He averted his stare to a smaller man dressed similar to Jake and even with the same makeup but did not have any glasses to hide his pure-white eyes. "Isn't that right Jack?"
"No doubt master. I've been wanting to wring the necks of those two for quite some time. And the freak with a chain-saw won't get very far past THESE!" he raised his hands and his fingers suddenly grew into long sharp knives. He sneered and a second later, the fingers resumed their normal look.
"Still…I wonder if some extra precautions should be taken at this point to ensure they won't make it through." The Butterfly stroked his chin thoughtfully for several moments before leaning his head back. "Not at the moment. For now let's just watch the show and see how they do. I think I'll have a better advantage if I postpone my attack. What do you both think?"
"Sounds good to me," agreed Jack
"We can take all the time we want," concurred Jake.
"Fine…for the moment we will simply watch. However, you should be ready to pay them a 'visit' on my command."
"Yes Master," they replied in unison.
"Good." he turned back to the wall of monitors and leaned back to watch the show.