Chapter 3: This is Halloween, This is Halloween, Children Scream in the Dead of Night!
I woke up the next morning, groggy and legs aching from running around so much all of yesterday. My eyes fluttered open and immediately locked on the window at the foot of my bed. It looked like it was going to be a nice day out today, and I was quite content with that. I rubbed my sticky eyes and rolled to my side to face the door which I had expected to be opened by someone by now. To my dismay, I broke out of my sleepy nature to find a very stressed looking transvestite looming right over me. I nearly screamed as I realized that he had been standing there for quite a while, waiting for me to wake up.
"Aw, shit! Who told Greil about Sebastian?" I mentally figured as the bags under my eyes from the night before reappeared.
"You killed my Sebby!" Greil screamed at me. Cuz, you know, that's what everyone want's their alarm clock to scream at them in the morning.
I shot straight up out of my bed as I heard that arrangement of words. "What? I KILLED him?"
"Well, no, you didn't kill him… but he can't walk anymore… besides, you completely ruined my chances of getting it on with my Sebby last night!" he cried.
"Okay, TMI Greil! TMI!"
"I had this whole plan to romantically seduce him, which you crushed completely! How am I supposed to have any children with him if he has no wang?"
"Oh my god! Stop! I don't need to hear ANY of this!"
"You kicked off his balls!"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up! Urusait! Se taire! De Mund halten! Callar! I don't care, just shut up!" I screamed in exactly 5 languages. With this, I had finally gotten his attention, though his dramatic sniffling was still a little distracting. Feeling remorse for yelling at the dramatic little man, I scooted up to him and patted him on the back, saying comfortingly, "Aw, Greil. I'm sorry… I had no idea you would get this upset." Wrong; I was, in fact, praying that he wouldn't get this upset.
"Well I am upset," he sniffled. "My Sebby-chan is hurt, and that makes me upset!"
"Greil, I'm really sorry. I had to do what I did. He was gonna eat me," I said in a perfectly normal tone.
"No! Sebby would never do such a thing!"
"I hate to break it to you, but he would. He totally would have because the "young master" told him to."
Greil suddenly acquired a quite sad expression and thumped down onto the edge of my bed, his lip starting to quiver like a sad puppy dog. "Why doesn't he treat me all nice and respectful like that? Why does he always ignore me?"
To prevent him from breaking out into a sob fest, I pulled myself right up next to him on the edge of the bed and said encouragingly, "Aw, don't worry! He'll come around! Just don't be as pushy as you always are. That drives people like him away. Just be nice to him and he'll change soon enough."
"You really think so?" he sniffled.
"I know so! Just give him a little space and he'll warm up to the idea real soon. I promise."
"You swear?"
"Pinky swear! I would never lie to you, girl!"
"O-okay."
"Alright, now go on and tell everybody to start opening up shop, okay?"
"Alright! I'll do it! Thank you, Dagas-sama!"
"No problem." I kept silent until I heard the door downstairs slam shut. "Heh… I probably lied…"
"Ha ha! I never knew walking around your house blind-folded could be so much fun! This rocks!" I giggled with my hands jutted out in front of me to prevent from smacking into a wall. I started to get excited as I reached the stairs and started to walk down to the kitchen. I was just about an inch away from stepping on the last stair before freezing in my tracks as something cottony started to attack my face. Thinking it was a giant, man eating spider, I began to scuttle around the lower half of my house while screaming and flailing my arms in the air like a mad man, the blindfold still on my face.
"Oowah! Get it off! Get it off!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I continued to run frantically around my home until my head made contact with a hard surface and I fell to the ground.
"Meh…" I mumbled as I pulled the blindfold away from my eyes. I looked up and saw the small indent my head had made on my wall before saying in a drunken voice, "Heh, heh… wall…" I reached down and ran my hand over the carpet. "Heh, heh… floor!" I placed my hand on my head to finally figure out what had groped my face and came back with a blob of fake spider webs clasped in my hand.
"Huh… it's that time of year again… Halloween… Looks like you guys are planning on overdoing it again, aren't you? Morty? B?"
"Oh, most certainly!" B chimed in from behind my office door, a satisfied smirk spread across his face.
"So which one of you set up the cob webs? You or Morty?"
"Neither! It was my Gengar this time!" Morty cheerfully said, pointing at the dark purple, red eyed, chubby midget Pokémon who, with its creepy smile, started up a maniacal laugh.
"I never liked you!" I snarled, pointing at the purple blob. The Gengar took offence to that and decided to sadly waddle away.
"Alright, I'll see you back at the shop!" Morty called to him with a beaming smile.
"So, has anybody else started decorating yet?" I asked, looking up at B.
"Do you really need to ask? It's exactly 14 days till Halloween! Of course everybody is setting up! Also, you might want to get outside soon. Just about everyone is waiting for your permission to get some new Halloween stuff shipped in… By the way, could you-"
"Sign a shipment form for autumn candles?" I cut him off, finishing B's sentence.
"Yeah, could you do that?"
"Sure, where's the form?" I sighed.
"Back at the shop. Oh, just out of curiosity, have you even considered getting off the floor yet?"
"Naw. My carpet's nice, so I haven't considered that until now."
"You know, you do have a pretty nice looking carpet," Morty inquired.
"Yeah, it is nice…"
"Well, come on, now. We'd better get going before people start to open at 8."
"Aw, okay," I groaned before pulling myself up. I followed the two and soon walked to my office towards my doom- I mean door!
"Holy crap, B! You weren't kidding!" I exclaimed, eyes bugging out of my head.
"What, did you really think I was lying?" he scoffed.
And damn, he sure wasn't! No joke; everyone was either decorating or silently waiting with shipment forms in hand. All around us, stores were being decorated on the inside and out. At the end of the parking lot, I spotted Bard talking with the guy who lent us his special pickup truck that we borrow for the hay rides that we do every year, and around the rest of the area, I spotted Harry and Cedric conjuring never-rot pumpkins and piles of fake spider webs for the other store owners.
It got to a point where I was so sucked into my favorite holiday that I almost sprung 3 feet into the air when I felt a small tap on my shoulder. I quickly turned around to see before me none other than the girly-looking gardener, Finny.
"Nyah! Jeeze, Finny! You scared the crap out of me! What do you want?"
"Ciel-kun wants to know where to put the cob webs at his store. He needs to find a place to put them where Pluto can't eat them. Same with the rest of his decorations."
I sighed. "First challenge of the day: finding a way to not have that mangy mutt eat the décor. That'll be a challenge."
"Well, here's the thing, he found a place to put them all, but," he took a quick pause to stifle a giggle. "Ciel-kun can't reach the places he wants to put them even on a step stool!"
"Oh-ho, I see! Why don't we go help the little midget, shall we?"
"Yeah! Let's go!" he said before speeding off.
"Hey, wait up!"
The moment we got to the pet shop, we walked in to see something that, in my opinion, was more hilarious than a squirrel chugging a mocha-frappe. With Sebastian "out sick" for the day, Ceil was left on his own with the store looking pretty pathetic. Ciel, helpless as he was, was jumping up and down on the three-step step stool, struggling to stick the first set of cob webs onto the gerbil cage shelf.
At the other end of the room, Pluto was stumbling about the store on his hands and knees while wearing the strangest get-up of the day. As opposed to his random tux that Sebastian would normally force him into, Pluto wore a Skeleton Jack suit while struggling vigorously to pull a pumpkin-shaped bucket off of his head.
"Ack! Why can't I reach?" Ciel grumbled in a fit of rage. "Damn my height! Damn holidays! Damn SHELF! Obey me, slave!" he screamed at the shelf that towered so much higher than him.
"Well, well, well. Isn't this just a sight to behold? You need some help there, Ciel?" I asked in a cocky tone with my hand raised above my eyes like a sailor looking off into the distance.
"No! I don't need help any help from you!" he snarled, his eye angrily twitching. He turned back to the shelf and continued with his cursing, bunny-hop fit.
"Uh, Ciel-kun…" Finny began.
"WHAT?" Ciel barked back.
"Ah! Uh… Ciel-kun. Don't you remember what Sebastian-san has told you before?"
"What? Don't read Poe before bed? Yeah, I know that!"
"No, not thaaaaat! I mean what he told you about respecting others and how it's not a bad thing to have to ask for help. Do you remember now?"
Ciel whirled around to face Finny, a vicious look in his on eye. You could almost feel the tension grow as Ciel's death glare began to counteract with Finny's shining emerald eyes and beaming smile.
Sadly, Ciel eventually admitted defeat. He let out a heavy sigh and said in an irritated tone, "Ugh! Fine… Finny, Dagas, I-" he paused to choke back his pride. "I need help with the decorations…"
"Ah, ah, ah! What's the word I'm looking for?" Finny cheerily asked.
"Damn, I'll kill y-!" He sighed again. "Fine… p-p-please?"
"There! Now we'll help you out! Was that so hard?" Finny asked, hands playfully on his hips.
"Yes, it was, Finnian! Now please help me with these!"
I sarcastically gasped. "My word! The world must be coming to an end! The young master said a polite word! Dear god, is this the apocalypse?"
"Shut up!" he snarled, gritting his teeth down to the gums.
"Alright, alright, we'll help. But if you are going to be so bitchy, could you at least try to act decent?"
"Yes, fine. Now one of you help me up. And the other, get that damn bucket off that mongrel's head before he hurts himself!"
"Right," we both simultaneously said before running off to our different directions. Finny scuttled off to go lift Ciel up… with one hand. I ran to the other end of the store to make sure he wasn't killing himself with the candy bucket.
"Here, Pluto! Pup, pup, pup!" I beckoned the dog over. At the sound of my voice, the creature started to quickly stumble to where I was kneeling on the floor.
"Good boy!" I praised when he bumped into my shin.
"Auuuuu!" he cried out. I looked at where the bucket was and saw that it was cutting off some of the circulation to his head.
"Oh, quit your bitchin', you stupid dog. You're the one who got yourself into this mess, so stop your complaining!"
"Auf…" he quietly agreed.
"Alright, now hold still- gyah!" I yelped, flying onto my ass with only the broken handle to the bucket in my hand. The bucket, unfortunately, still remained on the dumb dog's head. "Damn it! You stupid mutt!" I yelled out in frustration.
"Did you get the bucket off?" Finny asked with Ciel still balancing on his hand.
"No!" I grumbled back.
"Hey, Ciel-kun," Finny called up to the boy.
"What now?"
"Dagas seems to be having a lot of trouble with Pluto. Do you mind if I just leave you on top of this shelf and go help her?"
"Good lord, no! Are you daft? You can help her, but don't just leave me on this shelf!" he demanded.
"Alright then. Thanks Ciel-kun!" he said as he did the exact opposite of what he said, leaving Ciel on the shelf to go help me.
"You moron!" Ciel angrily called back.
Trotting over to Pluto and I, Finny grabbed onto the bucket and said, "Pull with me, Dagas."
"I seriously don't think YOU would need my help," I assured him.
"Nonsense! Come and help so Pluto can thank us both!"
"If you insist…"
"That's the spirit!" Finny said with a goofy grin.
We yanked and pulled, but even with Finny's super strength, the bucket didn't budge.
"Oh, Pluto! You got that bucket stuck on your head real good," Finny groaned before pushing a stray strand of his blond hair away from his face. "So, what are we gonna do now? We've done all we really can do," he sighed out.
Pluto, sad that he was in such a state, mimicked Finny and let out a sigh of his own. Suddenly, Pluto sprang up from where he sat and began to sprint around the store while loudly howling from inside the bucket.
"Gack! What is that damn dog doing now?" Ciel furiously asked.
"Yeah, like we know!" I yelled back.
"Pluto! Come back!" Finny screamed as he chased after the mental mutt. At the sound of Finny's voice, the demon dog immediately charged towards us, ramming into both of us at full speed as if we were the clowns in a blind-bull rodeo. We screamed and flailed as we flew through the store until slamming right into the shelf that Ciel had been perched on top of. With the force of our explosive impact, the shelf swayed back and forth before finally toppling Ciel off the top along with an avalanche of gerbil cages.
"Gyah!"
"Gack!"
"Hurk! I think I just punctured a lung!"
Crashing, booms and bangs echoed throughout the entire store as more and more things fell on top of us, burying us in a pile of hard objects.
"Son of a biznich! What the hell's gotten into that dog?" I screamed as the weight of both Ciel and the cages began to really take its toll.
"Hell, if I know!" Ciel screamed back.
"P-pu…" Finny struggled to call out to the dog.
"No! Finnian, don't you DARE call that wretched beast over here!" Ceil snapped while glaring down at Finny with horrific disgust.
"S-sorry..."
As the two started a mental showdown, I managed to wriggle myself out of the mountain of cages and people. When I had emerged, I found the two still silently having their little fight. I decided then to silently crawl away from the scene of the crime. I looked forward and found Pluto trotting towards me, head bowed and his face excreting endless strings of whimpers.
"You dumb dog, why did you-" I paused in the middle of my sentence as soon as I got a good look at the dog-beast. As I looked into his eyes- stop right there! Note; I looked into his EYES! Therefore, you'd think that he got the bucket off, right? Ha, ha! You were WRONG, foolish weakling! He had simply burnt a hole through the bucket with his fire breath when he had sighed.
"Yo, guys! I figured out what was up with the dog!" I hollered back.
"Well? Spit it out already!" Ciel demanded.
"He burnt his face and made a hole in the bucket."
"Oh, well doesn't THAT figure?" he grumbled.
"Well what are you waiting for? Ask Pluto to burn off the rest of the bucket!" Finny suggested as his eyes began to light up once again.
"If you say so. Hey, dog! Try burning off the rest of the bucket! Go ahead!"
"No! Don't let him-" Ciel screamed as he tried to stop us. But it was too late. Without warning, a large beam of inferno burst out from the previously small hole that had been made in the candy collecting device. The surrounding shelves began to melt away along with the east wall as the visible waves of heat began to coil their way around the entire store. I fearfully lay flat on the checkered floor while the sizzling of the surrounding area continued to increase until…
"Yeah, well if you want me to tell you what I got, it's gonna cost you," Izaya said to his client on the other line while looking out the big window at the front of the store. "Nope, I'm not talking unless I know you're gonna pay."
"Hey, could you shut up? You're breaking my concentration," Shizuo growled while mindlessly polishing yet another street sign.
Instantly in response, Izaya spun his chair around, looked Shizuo square in the eye and pulled down one lower eyelid while sticking out his tongue.
"Y'know, one of these days, Izaya. One of these days, the gods are going to rain fire down on your FACE for being such an ass all the time!" Shizuo growled with a nasty glare.
"Yeah, right! Like that's ever gonna ha-"
At that exact ironic moment, Pluto's beam if intense flame burst through the wall and sped right past Izaya's desk, nearly sending him into cardiac arrest. Without even looking up for a second, Shizuo said with a satisfied smirk, "Told you so."
"Boo, you whore."
"Ugh… I didn't mean like that, Pluto…" I moaned. As shocked as all of us were, the dog seemed to be happy enough that the bucket was gone.
I looked up and cringed as I saw the massive hole he had created. I estimated and figured it was about 3, maybe 4 feet in diameter. Within seconds, I saw Shizuo poke his head out from behind the hole. His eyes curiously looked around at every burn and currently lit flame that illuminated the store. He stopped in his tracks and looked right at me and, with a startled look about him, said, "Damn! What happened here?"
I weakly held up a finger to point at the now happily smiling dog.
He gave me a confused look and simply shrugged it off. He turned around and said, "You might wanna patch up that hole before the customers notice."
"W-will do…"
"Wow, that took a while," I said with a smile as I looked at the fixed walls and shelves.
"It did NOT! It took five minutes and you didn't even do anything!" Ciel interjected.
"Yeah, well neither did you, short stack, so you're not one to talk."
"May I please retire back to my quarters for the rest of the day?" Sebastian pleaded.
"Sure! Sorry we had to wake you, Sebastian. And thanks for helping fix the wall!" I commended as Sebastian began to weakly walk back up the stairs.
"Not a problem. It is but my duty as the butler of Earl Phantomhive to accomplish whatever is ordered of me. After all, if I do say so myself, I am one hell of a butler," he said with a weak smile he had to force out.
"Okay, now seriously, go back to bed before you pass out," I ordered.
"Thank you."
Once he had left, I looked up at the clock that hung over the cash register that read 9:05.
"Oh, good! It's only a little while after opening time! Awesome!" I said while giving a thumbs up to the clock. "Hey, Finny!"
"Yeeeees~" he chimed.
"Go tell Shizuo and Izaya that they can open up now, okay?"
"Okee-dokee!" he said before happily prancing out of the store.
"Well, Ciel, I gotta hand it to you: even with his injury slowing him down a bit, your butler did a fantastic job on fixing everything back up again in less than 10 minutes," I said with a pleased smile.
"Well he should be able to do at least that kind of a simple task. After all, he is MY butler," he proudly said with his arms crossed against his chest.
"Oh, come on, Ciel-kun! You could at least give him the credit he's due for all of his hard work," Finny scolded as he popped back into the store.
"I do give him credit! I'm saying that as my butler, he is expected to do what he does to the best of his abilities.'
"Oh, whatever! Does it really matter?" I rhetorically asked. "Well, I'm going to go make sure everything is in order. Ciel, go back to regular duties, and Finny, go clean up whatever needs to be cleaned."
"Alright!" Finny cheered.
"Oh, if I must," Ciel groaned. With that, I walked out the door and left that whole mess behind me.
"Okay, that'll be $6.99." Mello announced as he pressed down on a few buttons on the register.
"Sweet! Thanks for hooking me up, man," said the emo teen who was placing a wad of cash down on the counter in exchange for an older Marilyn Manson CD.
"Any time. Come back soon."
"You know it! You know what, I have a feeling I'm gonna come back here to look for a birthday present for my girlfriend."
"Perfect. I bet she'll like whatever you get her."
"I hope so. Thanks!"
As the emo teen walked out the glass door, I walked right in, brightening up the gothic store with my merry skipping and my happy humming of the song Love and Joy.
"Dag' if you're gonna act this happy then go out of my store. You'll ruin business," Mello warned me while shooting off a discouraged glare.
"Well, I would be more depressing if I had read my "joke" before I came in here," I replied as I held up a piece of banana gum for Mello to see.
"Oh god, you went to Masaomi's stand before you came here? No wonder you're so overly happy."
"Yeah, it makes me kinda angry that one kiosk can change my mood so drastically. It's scary, you know?"
"I guess so."
"Well let's see what he came up with this time." I paused to unwrap the gum and pop it into my mouth. While chewing, I read out loud what the slip of paper said. "What kind of hats do you wear in the north pole?"
"I don't know. What?"
"Awwwwwwww!"
"What?"
"Ice caps."
"Awwwwww! That's horrible!" Mello groaned. "Man, his jokes seem to be getting worse by the day."
"Yeah, no doubt about that… well, I guess I'm gonna have to go congratulate him later," I said after sticking the wrapper back into my pocket.
"What? Why? For coming up with the shittiest jokes of all time?"
"Nope, for stealing his first joke from a popsicle stick."
"Oh!" he paused for a quick face-palm. "He didn't!"
"Oh, he did. Anyways, I did come here for a reason. How's business going?"
"It's going great!" he said with a bit of a smile. "Since Halloween is just around the corner, people have been coming in and out of here like crazy."
"And your profit for today so far is…"
"82 dollars and 19 cents."
"Holy crap! That much? And in the first hour and a half? Nice work!"
"Yeah. I'm awesome, I know," he sarcastically boasted.
"No you're not! Dude, don't lie!" yelled one of the customers in the back of the store, hiding his face behind the Green Day T-shirt he was holding up.
"Oh, ha ha ha! Real funny, Karter!"
"It's only funny because it's true! HA!"
"Well, that's fantastic, Mello. Good job. And, by the way," I paused and leaned up over the counter, close enough to hear me in a whisper. "what's the word on the undertaker?"
"I don't know any huge, first hand details, but a little birdy told me that he plans to go "all out" this year."
"Damn. How so?"
"I heard that he's planning on paying the wizard kids to make magical decorations."
"And?"
"I also heard that he's planning on opening up the undertaker office to the public and calling it a haunted house to cover it up."
"Oh my god! He'll scare the children to death!" I anxiously hissed.
"More business for him, I suppose. But, hey, if anyone asks about it, you didn't hear that info from me."
"Gotcha. I gotta go check out your lead. I'm going to go ask the others."
"Might wanna go ask Izaya first. I mean, it is his job to know those kinds of things."
"Right. Thanks."
Walking out of the store, I began to wonder if what Mello had told me was true or if it was just a rumor based off of what the Undertaker did last year. In a sudden rush, I began to remember the tragedy that was last years' Halloween that I have been struggling to repress. I remembered the curious children who noticed what had started it all; the pumpkins.
Last year, the undertaker had created some sort of chemical and had poured it on the pumpkins. It had an effect on them that made them talk when children passed by. It was all going just fine at first, until one of the pumpkins went rouge. One minute, the pumpkin was making crude Halloween jokes, the next, it was inches away from biting off Falkner's foot. After stitching up his big toe, we evacuated all of the customers, made it look like we were fumigating the stores, and pulled out our weapons, ready for a full scale war. The entire whole of the mall, once clean and spotless, soon looked like a scene from the movie Zombie Land.
I uncontrollably shuttered at the thought of the same event reoccurring… or worse! What if it would take more than some ammo, a few guns and some hard hit punches to take out whatever the undertaker had created this year?
"My god! What is he going to cause now?" I strenuously thought. That was it. I had to find out what he was really going to do before something like the pumpkin massacre of '09 happened again!
"So, let me get this straight; you let a demonic dog burn a hole through my wall, interrupted one of my most important business calls of the month, and now you're asking for my information for FREE? What shit were you smoking?" Izaya rudely questioned, an expectant look on his face.
"Cocaine? Heroine? I don't know! Just give me the info before last year happens again!"
"What, you mean with the pumpkins? That's a one year thing. The undertaker would never use the same idea twice in a row," he objected before leaning back in his wheeled chair and pulling a nail filer out from his desk. "Although, I did hear a little bit of info from a few of the other employees here…"
I slammed my fists down onto the desk, causing everything on it to spring up. Izaya didn't look up from his invisible nails for even a millisecond. "Hey, no need to pull a Shizu-chan fit."
"I want answers, Orihara! I'm your boss! Tell me now or you're fired!"
"Hah! You think that will change anything? I LIVE here! And, besides, my customers are the ones who pay the most cash to this outlet mall. Even if you got rid of me, I'd still be here and you'd be out of business." He looked up from his nail filing for a second or two only to give me his usual "I can blackmail you with anything" smile, (which I'm still convinced is a semi-rape face) and look back down.
I gave him an angered sigh and groaned regrettably, "Fine, fine. What do I need to give you to talk."
"Show me 50 bucks and I'll give you the information."
"50? Really?"
"Or would you rather like to decline this friendly discount and pay the regular 200 per piece?"
"Wha-… What crack have YOU been smoking?"
"Imported Chinese coke. Now show me the money or it's no deal."
"Oh, fine!" I groaned before pulling my second wallet out of my back pocket and showing him the 50 bucks. "I'll give you the money once you give me the information."
"Hmm, you drive a hard bargain. You must be doing great in the business world. Alright, I'll spill. The undertaker has been planning on opening up his office and calling it a haunted house. He says it's going to be "safe for the kids", but I don't believe a word of it."
"Yeah, that's what Mello told me."
"Indeed, he had his facts right. Adding on, I also heard that he's paying Harry and Cedric a pretty hefty wad of cash and giving them lessons on the dark arts in exchange for having them help him out with the "effects" for the event."
"That, I didn't hear…" I said, an anxious look spreading onto my face.
"Alright, now hand over the 100 bucks."
"What? You said you'd only charge me 50!"
"Per PIECE. I gave you two bits of info so you gotta pay 100."
"Oh, whatever, ass hole! Here's your damn cash!" I furiously yelled at him as I threw 100 "dollars" directly at his face. He didn't scream or blow a vein; all he did was quietly pick up his payment that I had scattered about his desk. He slowly lifted the cash to eye level and began to count, but before he even counted a single dollar, he suddenly found something odd about his pay… like the fact that it was 100 pastel colored dollars.
"This is… Monopoly money?" The moment he looked up, he instantly realized that, not only was I gone, but that I had also left him a note with the cash.
'Dear Izaya,
realize that this right here is your pay for the rest of the month. This is also your punishment for trying to scam me out of my money.
PS, don't spend it all in one place!
3 Dagas'
He crumpled up the money and the note in his fist, dropped it on the floor and maliciously stomped on it while Shizuo, walking in from the back room, began to stifle a laugh at the fact that I was watching him from the other side of the store window. Izaya rarely gets too pissed, but when he does, it sure is a fun thing to watch.
"Just don't tell on me to the underworld or the magical realm; they'll have my head. Hee, hee," the undertaker croaked to the two young wizards. I peeked around the corner and found them making the deal behind the loiterer's back alley, probably hoping they wouldn't be spotted. Though, this hope went completely in vain, for I had been quietly listening behind the plant next to the front door of the toy store, catching every single word they spoke.
"So those two were right!" I thought as I silently listened in.
"But, Mr. Undertaker, this is A LOT of muggle money. Are you sure?" Cedric asked.
"Oh, don't worry about it. You deserve this for what kind of work you're going to be doing. Now get to it and be happy with what I paid you," he assured them as they walked back into the store through the front door.
"That sneaky bastard! He knows he's supposed to check with me before he puts up anything drastic!" thought as I glared at the grinning creep. "Yo, Bard," I whispered into my walkie-talkie after wriggling back behind the plant.
"Yeah?"
"Meet me down at the toy store."
"Why? What did he do?"
"Nothing yet, but I need you to keep an eye on him for the day."
"Roger. I'll be over in a second."
"Awesome. See you then… oh, and bring your bazooka gun with you."
"Smaller or larger one?"
"Smaller so that you can hide it easier."
"Got it."
"Well that went over better than I expected," I said as I put away the walkie-talkie.
"How so?" croaked the one voice I didn't want to hear.
"Uh… taking care of that Rolo kid today. Bard just found him before he started to rip up today's newspaper. Ha ha…" I stammered. I began to feel the small beads of sweat forming on my face and the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise as the undertaker held my wary gaze. I faked a smile to mask my fear of this powerful man that loomed over me with a suspicious grin spread wide on his face.
"Eh," he shrugged. "Good for you, child," he said as he patted me on the head with his cold, clammy hand. Without asking any questions like I had anticipated, he instead made his way to the front door without a care. He stopped suddenly as a wood-paneled station wagon pulled up to the closest spot to his store.
"Oh, that must be Dave. I best be getting things set up. I can't wait to show him how pretty I made his wife look. Hee, hee, hee." Changing his direction, the undertaker began to waltz towards the back door to wait for his customer.
I glared at the waltzing freak as I allowed myself to fall back, cracking my ass on the sidewalk. I refused to have a reaction and instead continued to glare at where he once stood. I crossed my arms and grumbled defensively, "I am 15, damn it! I'm NOT a child! Stupid undertaker…"
"Bard, have you found anything yet? Over," I asked into my walkie-talkie.
"Nope, no suspicious movement at all," he replied.
"Didn't copy that, over."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You haven't finished your sentence. You have to finish it with the word over. Over."
"Not this again!" he sighed.
"Not this again WHAT, Bard? Over."
"Oh, dear lord… over."
"Okay, good, I can hear you now. Over."
"Y'know, I'm gonna kick your ass one of these days JUST for this. Over."
"Does not compute. Over."
"You little… Wait! I'm seeing something!"
At this, I ceased my immature child's-play. "What do you see?"
"Oh… my… god…"
"What? What happened?"
"There's a little kid. Caucasian. Male. Estimated age of five. He just opened the door to the undertaker's office… and there's a customer in there!"
"Holy shit! This can't be good!"
"Mommy! Mommy! I wanna see what's in that toy room!" a small boy cheered as he began to usher his mother towards the door that read "Keep Out!" on a big red sign.
"No sweetie. That door says to keep out. That means we don't go in there. Okay?" the mother cooed at her curious son.
"But mooooooooommieeeee!" the child cried.
"No sweetie! No means no! Besides, we're here to get a birthday gift for your little sister. We're not here to fool around. Listen sweet-heart, I'm going to go pay for your sister's present. While I'm doing that you can go look at all the toys you want. Just stay out of that room, okay hun?"
"Okay mommy," the boy chimed, batting his eye lashes at his mother. As she walked off, the little boy whispered to himself, "Suuuuuure I'll stay away from the door. Of course, mommy. Heh, I wanna see the secret toys behind the door."
With a pair of tiny hands, the little boy jiggled the door a bit until the knob released. He cracked it open a bit, simply to take a quick peek. As it opened, he began to hear a pair of voices. The first was the familiar twisted croak of the store owner. The second was the voice of a grieving stranger. The second man sobbed and wept as he looked down at a figure that lay in a big black box.
"It might take some more time to clean up the rest of her face, being the way she was killed, but don't you worry about that. She'll be as beautiful as the day you met her. I can make sure of that," the undertaker croaked.
The child's eyes grew wider than they ever have before as he witnessed what happened before his very eyes. Reaching into the box, the undertaker pulled up the head of a young, fair-haired woman. Her body was slender and fine, a silky white dress clinging onto her skinny waist. The stranger reached out and slowly began to stroke his thick hand through her fair, straight, chocolate brown hair. The woman was flawlessly gorgeous. Well, accept for one thing; her skin color was drained. The unfamiliar woman in the box was as pale as a ghost.
Soon, the young boy became filled with dreadful horror as the strange woman's head lolled to the side. Once her entire face was in full view, the 5 year old loudly gasped, discovering the gaping hole and the dried blood that went all the way through the woman's forehead.
The undertaker immediately took notice to the boy and turned to face the small figure behind the crack in the door way. He cracked a sinister smile as he realized what the child had seen. "Well well, what do we have here? Looks like this unfortunate child is illiterate. Poor, poor little boy," he croaked as he stepped forward towards the traumatized child. "Perhaps I should teach you how to read signs, first. Hee, hee, hee!"
Without another moment's hesitation, the child fell to the floor, shrieking his heart out. He screamed and screamed, causing the bones on the hanging skeleton on the far end of the room to rattle. Soon enough, the child went silent from both loss of breath and the fact that the new shadow behind him had overpowered his fear of the corpse. Slowly, the child turned to see an even more horrific sight than the woman. It was, in fact, two demonic looking people both looming right over his tiny body and both bearing a knife. One held a large pocketknife, the other held a plastic McDonald's knife. One was a pissed information broker, the other was a hobo. They both stood beside each other, completely still, while wearing the creepiest smiles, their knives brought up to eye level.
The child, with blood shot eyes and his entire body quivering with fear, looked the two of them in the eye and they were here to save him. But, unfortunately for the child, he thought wrong. These two, you see, were both here with a vengeance. Though very different people, both had a deep hatred for small humans. Because of this hatred, they were both drawn here by the hideous screeching of this pathetic little child.
The child tried to say something, but before even a single phrase had escaped his lips, both the hobo and the broker cocked their heads to the side like a possessed maniac and simultaneously said in a creepy chime, "I hate children."
The child was near to screaming out once again, but soon enough, Bard, like I had ordered, swooped in and played his role as crowd control. He came in and held back the rest of the customers and tried to convince them that everything was under control, but as the parents could see, it wasn't really. This had never happened before and we were very unprepared. This meant that we needed to bring in the heavy artillery. We needed another child to distract Sunni and someone that Izaya hated more than children to distract him. Yes, that's right, we needed to bring in-
"Finnian, reporting for action!"
"Shizuo, ready to maul and annoying little flea!"
Yeah, that's right! The two strongest employees in the place: Shizuo and Finny. If this wasn't going to solve the problem, then there was nothing that could.
Instantly, Izaya drew his attention away from the child and towards his arch rival with whom he worked with. "Well, well, if it isn't Izaya-kun. I see you're enjoying this fine afternoon to the fullest," Shizuo angrily said as he prepped himself to throw the biggest punch he could muster.
"Oh, but of course, Shizu-chan," he chimed with a snarky grin. "I mean, what better way to spend an afternoon than experimenting with the behaviors of a young parasitic human, hmm?"
"Oh, why don't you can it, Izaya? You'll ruin the act," he said, gritting his teeth to hold back his immense rage.
"Act? What act?" he snorted.
"Our act for Halloween, of course," Finny cheerfully said, striking a ringmaster's voice. Yeah, that was the plan. Pathetic and last minute, but crazy enough for the public to believe it. "Sorry for the scare, little boy!" he said as he patted the shell-shocked boy on the head. "This was all part of promoting our "Scare of a Lifetime" event at the Chicago Outlet Mall, which will be completely set up by tomorrow! Stop by tomorrow when the mall opens and experience the scare of a lifetime! Sorry for the disturbance, folks!" As Finny turned back to the front door, Shizuo gave him the "all clear" signal as he dragged Sunni to the side by her hood.
"Wait, wait, how come-" Izaya tried to complain before Finny picked him up off his feet and carried him off, kicking and swinging his knife in the air.
"Please stop by tomorrow," Shizuo pathetically waved to the crowd as they began to discuss with each other about coming to see what it was.
"Yeah! We did it!" Finny cheered with his hands waving in the air once they were out of the store.
"Don't pull a dumble dora the explorer on me, Finnian," Shizuo scowled. "Wait a second… Where's Izaya?" he angrily asked while, unknowingly, dropping the hobo too.
"Oh, he's right… oh no…"
"You let that flea go? Finnian! You dumbass!"
"I'm sorry, Shizuo! I didn't-" his speech was instantly cut off by a blast of smoke that came out of nowhere, sending the reek of hobo-stench and a frappuccino into the air. It spread around the parking lot like a wild fire and suddenly dispersed.
"You let the hobo go, too," Finny pointed out.
"Damn it!"
"Hmm… what's another good joke…" Masaomi asked himself. Before him lay a piece of banana gum and a blank wrapper. He tapped a pen on his lips in thought as he stared at the blank strip of paper.
"Hmm… maybe-" Suddenly, a puff of smoke cut off his thoughts. He gasped to find his breath while turning his head frantically to see if he could find the source of the smoke. From beyond his own coughing fit, he started to hear another set of coughing and mumbling from in front of his small bubble gum stand. He could just barely make out who it was, but couldn't be sure until the smoke cleared.
"Izaya?" Masaomi called out. "Izaya, is that you?"
"Of course it is. How'd you know?" Izaya slurred as he skipped up to the stand.
"I recognize your sleazy tone of voice."
"I suppose that figures," he agreed with a flop of his arms.
"Well… who's she?" Masaomi asked, pointing at the dark hobo that stood behind Izaya with an impatient look about her face.
"She's just a business partner, that's all."
"But, wait, isn't she that hobo that's been causing trouble around the stores?"
"Well, yeah, she is that too. Oh, I almost forgot," Izaya said, spinning around on one heel to face the hobo. "You're waiting for your payment, aren't you?"
She didn't say a word. She merely crossed her arms against her chest and began to tap her foot on the ground, an expectant look on her face.
"Okay, okay, no need to burn a hole through my head," he joked. He dug into one of the pockets on his eskimo jacket and came back with a wad of paper in his fist. The way he held it, you could barely see what it was, which played out to his advantage. "Here you go. I do believe that a most amusing human such as yourself will find a wise way to use this," he said as he slapped the wad of paper onto her gloved hand.
When she looked down at the paper, Masaomi began to gape upon seeing what Izaya had actually given her. Steeling his own boss' idea, Izaya had chosen to give her 3 one-hundred dollar Monopoly bills.
"Oh my god, Izaya! I can't believe you! Why would you do that to a hobo who has nothing? That is so cruel! You are unbelievable!"
As Masaomi continued to bitch at Izaya, who didn't really give a shit, Sunni looked down at the play money once again, shrugged and walked towards the vending machine that had been placed close by the stand. When Izaya decided to draw his attention away from Masaomi's guilt rant, he watched as Sunni drew out one of the 100 dollar bills, shoved it into the slot and pressed the button for a Mello Yello.
"There's no way that's gonna work!" Izaya called over to her.
As if on cue, the two suddenly heard the slam of the can tumble down to the machine flap. Casually, without any signs of surprise, she reached down, grabbed the can, and took a sip, sending a mocking glare at Izaya.
As the two employees gaped at this impossible scene, Sunni poofed up a big burlap sack with a big green money sign on the front. Exactly on cue, once again, the machine began to rattle and shake until it burst out an avalanche of dollar coins, quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies galore right into the burlap sack.
10, 20, 30, 40 dollars worth of coins! It just kept going and going until the sack was filled to the brim with 98 dollars worth of the coins. Casually, Sunni slung the sack over her shoulder, poofed a leash loop around her wrist, which held captive the Hitlar squirrel at the end, and skipped off into her own poof of teleportation smoke.
Gaping like dumb-founded rednecks, Izaya turned to Masaomi and said, "We just got dooped by a hobo and a squirrel…"
Masaomi was silent only for a moment longer before replying, "I wonder if I can get a soda like that…"
