Sands woke up with a massive headache and no clue where he was. He was
vaguely aware that he was strapped down to a metal table, and that wherever
he was, it smelled very strongly of soap and cat piss. He wrinkled his
nose and managed to open his eyes.
"I told you I was an evil psychobitch," Ajedrez commented. "Besides, there were a lot of food service people out for your ass."
"If you kill me, I swear I'll come back and haunt you," threatened Sands desperately.
"Oh, we won't kill you," grinned a strange man, stepping out of the shadows. "The cooks wanted to, of course, but we...persuaded them otherwise."
One of the thugs present in the background grinned and raised his gun. On the side, where he had obviously been drawing symbols to record his kills, the painted images of several ploofy pastry hats stood at rigid attention.
Sands stared worriedly at the stranger.
"Are you...Barillo?" he asked, hoping they would not confirm his dark suspicions.
"Oh my God!" screeched Barillo, "He recognized me! No one's supposed to be able to recognize me with these teeth!"
"I say we poke him in the eye!" yelled Ajedrez.
"I say we just rip his eyes out!" shrieked Dr. Guavera excitedly.
"I say we let him go!" squeaked Sands under his breath, trying not to move his lips.
"No!" chorused the other occupants of the room.
Nothing happened.
Dr. Guavera glanced around, saw that no one seemed opposed to his plan, and proceeded to rip Sands's eyes out with an ice cream scoop.
Sands screamed and struggled, but to no avail. The last thing he ever saw before he lost his sight was a poster explaining the life cycle of a heartworm.
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Jacob had spent the entire day trying to sell chocolate bars, and had only succeeded in making $2 for his school. Perhaps the embezzlement was not helping things, but it wasn't like he was going to give that source of income up. He sighed, slumped glumly down onto the sidewalk next to Chambers Boulevard, and halfheartedly threw a few rocks at the cars as they roared by. Glass from a window tinkled merrily, and a driver cursed, swerved and narrowly missed crashing. Jacob was cheered up, but only a little.
SJ Sands Stumbled out through the door of the veterinary clinic. He wore his sunglasses once more, obscuring whatever horrors were underneath, but blood dripped down his face and onto his neck.
"Ehhhhhhh..." said Sands.
"Hey, you want to buy some chocolate?" asked Jacob. "Only...eh...$20."
"I'll pay you to guide me around for a while," said Sands, pulling a random bill out of his pocket.
"That's just a dollar," said Jacob, eying the fifty-dollar bill the agent was holding.
"Okay..." Sands dug around in his pocket for a moment, and tried again.
"That's just some yen...and that's a peso..." lied Jacob, beginning to thoroughly enjoy himself. "You should just give me the whole handful."
"Whatever," sighed Sands, complying with the request.
Jacob considered running off with the money. For one thing, he had been raised as a good kid by honest parents. For another, there might be more money coming. He grinned, and took the obviously blind man by the arm.
Despite (or perhaps because of) Jacob's careful direction, Sands managed to run into two pillars and a trash can within the first five minutes. After one of these encounters, Jacob happened to glance back at the sidewalk behind them as he helped Sands around the obstacle. A man wearing a shirt that read "No I am not a cartel thug and I am not following you so stop looking at me like that" quickly hid his firearm behind his back and tried to look as if he hadn't been following them. Jacob looked up at Sands concernedly.
"Are you being followed?" he asked.
"I can't think why, but maybe," said Sands. "What do you think?"
"I think you're being followed."
"Huh. Well, have you ever seen one of these?" Sands unzipped his fly, and reached into his pants. Overprotective mothers across the nation gasped and covered their children's eyes. Sands, oblivious to their reaction, pulled out a rifle. That it should have been impossible for him to walk normally with that down his pants leg did not matter, since the laws of reality had long since thrown up their hands in frustration and given up on matters concerning Sands.
"Yeah,"
"Ever used one?"
"No."
And you never should, because they're very, very bad," said Sands. He paused. "Except, of course, when you're hunting, or shooting a bad person, or committing suicide because everyone picks on you, or working for the military, or-"
"I get the picture," interrupted Jacob. "The guy is getting closer."
"Okay," said Sands. "Now...I want you to point this at that guy who's following me, and shoot him."
Jacob took the gun, and peered through the scope at the cartel thug, who was busy cramming vast quantities of bubble gum into his mouth in an ill- advised attempt to look inconspicuous.
"I can't," whimpered the child after a few long moments.
"What, is the safety stuck on or something?
"No..."
"The scope is broken?"
"No..."
"You're a sweet, innocent little child that can't comprehend, much less come to terms with the thought of randomly killing someone?"
"Yeah, that's the one!" exclaimed a very relieved Jacob.
"Damn," said Sands, taking the rifle and starting to walk again. He collided comically with a small dog, and threw himself dramatically to the ground, dragging Jacob along with him so they both ended up lying on their stomachs facing back the way they had come, Sands with his gun at the ready.
"Right or left?!" demanded Sands, waving the barrel back and forth.
"Left!" cried Jacob.
Sands made a quick, decisive movement and fired. In the wake of the sound, he turned his head toward Jacob.
"Was that my left or your left?"
Jacob rolled his eyes.
"We have the same left, mister," he growled. "You just fired to the right."
"Oh," said Sands, pausing to contemplate the implications of this. "Damn."
"Heheh," commented the current antagonist.
Sands leapt up, shoving Jacob aside in the process, and grabbed for the man. He was rewarded for his efforts by getting a hold on the neck, and managed to point his rifle at the guy's head, even while holding onto him. He poked the man in the chin with the barrel of his gun. Funny, though...he hadn't expected a cartel thug to be so hairy and smelly....
"Wrong man," commented Jacob from the clutches of the thug. Sands groaned and dropped his weapon, letting the hobo he had grabbed go with a whispered apology. He started to put his hands behind his head, but jumped unexpectedly at his attacker, reaching for a handhold. He grabbed an arm, and grinned.
"That's my arm!" lamented Jacob soulfully.
The thug raised his gun and stepped forward a bit to shoot Sands in the face. The toe of his shoe got caught on a crack in the sidewalk, and he stumbled, shooting himself in the foot as he did. He hopped around on one foot and yelled for a bit, stumbled out into the street, and was hit by a car.
"Did I get him?" asked Sands.
"Sure," sighed Jacob.
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Ramirez awoke in a dank little room, tied to a dank little chair. Two guards were present.
"I'm bored," said one.
"Let's go out for fish tacos," suggested the other.
"Okay," replied the first, and then he pistol-whipped Ramirez over the head quite hard. The two stepped outside, and stopped Billy as he passed.
"Hey, I'm going to belittle you and make you do stuff now," said guard number one. "Watch the hostage, Snow White."
"Hurhur," concurred the other. "You made a comment on his race, and it made me laugh."
Billy looked appropriately hurt, and went inside the back room of the pharmacy. He looked down at Ramirez. Great quantities of blood issued forth from a small cut in the prisoner's head,
Billy untied the retired FBI agent, and helped him to his feet. They looked at each other, and silently left.
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The Mexican President meandered along between chairs and tables, trailed by his advisor. He smiled happily, and sank into an oversized, lime green armchair. He bounced up and down experimentally, and came to a decision.
"I'll take it," he beamed. Employees of the furniture store hastened to cover it in crepe paper and carry it out the door to the waiting truck.
The sound of gunfire drifted in from outside, and El Presidente flinched.
"Ummm..." said his advisor, "We can just stay here. It's fortified."
"But it's just a furniture store!" protested the foreign ruler.
The advisor bit his lip, then shoved some chairs together and threw his coat over them.
"There," he announced. "A fort!"
El Presidente giggled with childish delight, and dove in. A moment later, his hand emerged and put up a sign reading "No Girls Allowed!"
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Lorenzo and Fideo lurked uneasily behind a pillar. Around them, members of the Barillo cartel battled against the few bodyguards El Presidente had, and against a much larger number of random people who had just started fighting for the hell of it. One man wielding a broken bottle hopped out in front of a pair of cartel thugs with machine guns, waving his weapon at them and screaming profanities. He seemed mildly surprised when he died, seconds later
"If we stay here, we can wait until it's quiet, and go in without getting shot," Lorenzo told Fideo.
"Screw that," responded Fideo. He grabbed what appeared to be a Japanese graphic novel off of the ground in front of them, leapt out from behind their cover, and chucked it at the enemies. It exploded on impact, killing several cartel members instantly.
Lorenzo peeked around the pillar. To his dismay, all of the cartel members were now approaching with an evil gleam in their eyes.
"What the hell did you do that for?!" he inquired of his ally.
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"I told you I was an evil psychobitch," Ajedrez commented. "Besides, there were a lot of food service people out for your ass."
"If you kill me, I swear I'll come back and haunt you," threatened Sands desperately.
"Oh, we won't kill you," grinned a strange man, stepping out of the shadows. "The cooks wanted to, of course, but we...persuaded them otherwise."
One of the thugs present in the background grinned and raised his gun. On the side, where he had obviously been drawing symbols to record his kills, the painted images of several ploofy pastry hats stood at rigid attention.
Sands stared worriedly at the stranger.
"Are you...Barillo?" he asked, hoping they would not confirm his dark suspicions.
"Oh my God!" screeched Barillo, "He recognized me! No one's supposed to be able to recognize me with these teeth!"
"I say we poke him in the eye!" yelled Ajedrez.
"I say we just rip his eyes out!" shrieked Dr. Guavera excitedly.
"I say we let him go!" squeaked Sands under his breath, trying not to move his lips.
"No!" chorused the other occupants of the room.
Nothing happened.
Dr. Guavera glanced around, saw that no one seemed opposed to his plan, and proceeded to rip Sands's eyes out with an ice cream scoop.
Sands screamed and struggled, but to no avail. The last thing he ever saw before he lost his sight was a poster explaining the life cycle of a heartworm.
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Jacob had spent the entire day trying to sell chocolate bars, and had only succeeded in making $2 for his school. Perhaps the embezzlement was not helping things, but it wasn't like he was going to give that source of income up. He sighed, slumped glumly down onto the sidewalk next to Chambers Boulevard, and halfheartedly threw a few rocks at the cars as they roared by. Glass from a window tinkled merrily, and a driver cursed, swerved and narrowly missed crashing. Jacob was cheered up, but only a little.
SJ Sands Stumbled out through the door of the veterinary clinic. He wore his sunglasses once more, obscuring whatever horrors were underneath, but blood dripped down his face and onto his neck.
"Ehhhhhhh..." said Sands.
"Hey, you want to buy some chocolate?" asked Jacob. "Only...eh...$20."
"I'll pay you to guide me around for a while," said Sands, pulling a random bill out of his pocket.
"That's just a dollar," said Jacob, eying the fifty-dollar bill the agent was holding.
"Okay..." Sands dug around in his pocket for a moment, and tried again.
"That's just some yen...and that's a peso..." lied Jacob, beginning to thoroughly enjoy himself. "You should just give me the whole handful."
"Whatever," sighed Sands, complying with the request.
Jacob considered running off with the money. For one thing, he had been raised as a good kid by honest parents. For another, there might be more money coming. He grinned, and took the obviously blind man by the arm.
Despite (or perhaps because of) Jacob's careful direction, Sands managed to run into two pillars and a trash can within the first five minutes. After one of these encounters, Jacob happened to glance back at the sidewalk behind them as he helped Sands around the obstacle. A man wearing a shirt that read "No I am not a cartel thug and I am not following you so stop looking at me like that" quickly hid his firearm behind his back and tried to look as if he hadn't been following them. Jacob looked up at Sands concernedly.
"Are you being followed?" he asked.
"I can't think why, but maybe," said Sands. "What do you think?"
"I think you're being followed."
"Huh. Well, have you ever seen one of these?" Sands unzipped his fly, and reached into his pants. Overprotective mothers across the nation gasped and covered their children's eyes. Sands, oblivious to their reaction, pulled out a rifle. That it should have been impossible for him to walk normally with that down his pants leg did not matter, since the laws of reality had long since thrown up their hands in frustration and given up on matters concerning Sands.
"Yeah,"
"Ever used one?"
"No."
And you never should, because they're very, very bad," said Sands. He paused. "Except, of course, when you're hunting, or shooting a bad person, or committing suicide because everyone picks on you, or working for the military, or-"
"I get the picture," interrupted Jacob. "The guy is getting closer."
"Okay," said Sands. "Now...I want you to point this at that guy who's following me, and shoot him."
Jacob took the gun, and peered through the scope at the cartel thug, who was busy cramming vast quantities of bubble gum into his mouth in an ill- advised attempt to look inconspicuous.
"I can't," whimpered the child after a few long moments.
"What, is the safety stuck on or something?
"No..."
"The scope is broken?"
"No..."
"You're a sweet, innocent little child that can't comprehend, much less come to terms with the thought of randomly killing someone?"
"Yeah, that's the one!" exclaimed a very relieved Jacob.
"Damn," said Sands, taking the rifle and starting to walk again. He collided comically with a small dog, and threw himself dramatically to the ground, dragging Jacob along with him so they both ended up lying on their stomachs facing back the way they had come, Sands with his gun at the ready.
"Right or left?!" demanded Sands, waving the barrel back and forth.
"Left!" cried Jacob.
Sands made a quick, decisive movement and fired. In the wake of the sound, he turned his head toward Jacob.
"Was that my left or your left?"
Jacob rolled his eyes.
"We have the same left, mister," he growled. "You just fired to the right."
"Oh," said Sands, pausing to contemplate the implications of this. "Damn."
"Heheh," commented the current antagonist.
Sands leapt up, shoving Jacob aside in the process, and grabbed for the man. He was rewarded for his efforts by getting a hold on the neck, and managed to point his rifle at the guy's head, even while holding onto him. He poked the man in the chin with the barrel of his gun. Funny, though...he hadn't expected a cartel thug to be so hairy and smelly....
"Wrong man," commented Jacob from the clutches of the thug. Sands groaned and dropped his weapon, letting the hobo he had grabbed go with a whispered apology. He started to put his hands behind his head, but jumped unexpectedly at his attacker, reaching for a handhold. He grabbed an arm, and grinned.
"That's my arm!" lamented Jacob soulfully.
The thug raised his gun and stepped forward a bit to shoot Sands in the face. The toe of his shoe got caught on a crack in the sidewalk, and he stumbled, shooting himself in the foot as he did. He hopped around on one foot and yelled for a bit, stumbled out into the street, and was hit by a car.
"Did I get him?" asked Sands.
"Sure," sighed Jacob.
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Ramirez awoke in a dank little room, tied to a dank little chair. Two guards were present.
"I'm bored," said one.
"Let's go out for fish tacos," suggested the other.
"Okay," replied the first, and then he pistol-whipped Ramirez over the head quite hard. The two stepped outside, and stopped Billy as he passed.
"Hey, I'm going to belittle you and make you do stuff now," said guard number one. "Watch the hostage, Snow White."
"Hurhur," concurred the other. "You made a comment on his race, and it made me laugh."
Billy looked appropriately hurt, and went inside the back room of the pharmacy. He looked down at Ramirez. Great quantities of blood issued forth from a small cut in the prisoner's head,
Billy untied the retired FBI agent, and helped him to his feet. They looked at each other, and silently left.
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The Mexican President meandered along between chairs and tables, trailed by his advisor. He smiled happily, and sank into an oversized, lime green armchair. He bounced up and down experimentally, and came to a decision.
"I'll take it," he beamed. Employees of the furniture store hastened to cover it in crepe paper and carry it out the door to the waiting truck.
The sound of gunfire drifted in from outside, and El Presidente flinched.
"Ummm..." said his advisor, "We can just stay here. It's fortified."
"But it's just a furniture store!" protested the foreign ruler.
The advisor bit his lip, then shoved some chairs together and threw his coat over them.
"There," he announced. "A fort!"
El Presidente giggled with childish delight, and dove in. A moment later, his hand emerged and put up a sign reading "No Girls Allowed!"
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Lorenzo and Fideo lurked uneasily behind a pillar. Around them, members of the Barillo cartel battled against the few bodyguards El Presidente had, and against a much larger number of random people who had just started fighting for the hell of it. One man wielding a broken bottle hopped out in front of a pair of cartel thugs with machine guns, waving his weapon at them and screaming profanities. He seemed mildly surprised when he died, seconds later
"If we stay here, we can wait until it's quiet, and go in without getting shot," Lorenzo told Fideo.
"Screw that," responded Fideo. He grabbed what appeared to be a Japanese graphic novel off of the ground in front of them, leapt out from behind their cover, and chucked it at the enemies. It exploded on impact, killing several cartel members instantly.
Lorenzo peeked around the pillar. To his dismay, all of the cartel members were now approaching with an evil gleam in their eyes.
"What the hell did you do that for?!" he inquired of his ally.
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