Read Online ClownFellas by Iii Carlton Mellick - Free Book Online Page B

already mimed a bulletproof vest.” Coco fired his invisible gun until Vinnie returned to his hiding spot. “That’s one of many reasons why Le Mystère is superior to you Bozos. You can’t mime, you have no acrobatic talent, you lack imagination and wonder. All you do is throw your pies and honk your noses.”
    Vinnie double-checked his pockets, but he didn’t have any more laughing bullets.
    “I’m out of ammo,” he said, as Coco fired more rounds at them. “What have you two got?”
    Earl held up his balloon knife. “I only have this.” The second he held it out, a gust of wind blew it out of his hands. They all watched it as it rose up into the air. “Never mind…I’ve got nothing.”
    “I got my squirt gun.” Hats handed the weapon to Vinnie.
    Vinnie tilted it up, inspecting the fluid tank. “What’s it filled with?”
    Hats smiled. “Toxic waste.”
    “That’s not going to kill him very quickly.”
    “Yeah, I prefer dealing a long, painful death to my enemies. Get hit with a splash of this, and it can take weeks or months to die.”
    Hats smiled proudly at his sadistic yet completely ineffective weapon.
    “It’s useless,” Vinnie said.
    As they spoke, Coco de Merde continued firing at them, stepping casually across the deck. The invisible gun seemed to have limitless ammo. All Coco had to do to was mime a longer ammunition belt to feed into the weapon and he’d be able to fire it all day long.
    Coco said, “Little Bigtop doesn’t need you Bozos anymore. You’re old, outdated. The future of clowning belongs to Le Mystère.”
    “What about pies?” Earl pointed at the miniature cowboy hat on Hats’s head. “Do you have another pie under that?”
    Rizzo removed his final hat to reveal a mini white-frosted cupcake beneath.
    “What’s that?” Earl asked.
    Hats took a bite out of it. “It’s coconut.”
    “Coconut?”
    “It’s delicious.” Coconut frosting coated Hats’s nose after he took a second bite.
    “Mr. Blue Nose, they say you’re the luckiest clown in Little Bigtop,” said the French clown as he reached their hiding spot. “And that nobody’s ever been able to beat you in a game of poker.”
    Vinnie had no other choice but to use the squirt gun. He nodded at Hats and Earl, telling them to get ready to run.
    “But it looks like your luck has finally run out,” Coco said. “Your full house is a good hand, but it does not beat my royal flush.”
    Vinnie stood up. “That’s where you’re wrong.” Then he sprayed the toxic waste into the Frenchman’s eyes.
    The clown shrieked, dropping his invisible machine gun. The toxic chemicals burned through his retinas.
    “Poker is a game of skill,” Vinnie said. “Luck has nothing to do with it.”
    As his eyes melted down his face, Coco mimed a .50-caliber Gatling gun large enough to be mounted on a helicopter. “Goddamn filthy clown!”
    But before Coco could open fire, the wind changed direction.
    He never saw it coming. It floated delicately on the breeze, like a leaf drifting through a stream, but when the yellow knife-shaped balloon hit Coco in the back it pierced through his chest and poked out the front of his rib cage as if it were a steel sword. The Frenchmen fell to his knees and coughed blood onto the deck.
    “I guess he was right,” Hats said to Blue Nose. “You really are one lucky son of a bitch.”
    “It wasn’t me.” Vinnie put his hand on Earl’s shoulder. “It was the vet’s knife that killed him.”
    Hats licked frosting from his round nose. “Thanks, Doc. You saved our asses.”
    But as blood pooled beneath him, Coco de Merde moved his hands around an invisible box in front of him.
    “What’s he miming now, Daddy?” Mandy asked.
    The smile fell from Hats’s face when he saw the invisible box. “It’s a bomb!”
    They picked up the girls and ran as fast as they could. When the bomb went off, the blast was just as invisible as the device. They could hear the ship breaking apart and feel