The back door opened and a French clown stepped out, lighting up a curvy purple pipe that looked more like a bassoon than something you’d want to smoke. As they peeked out from behind the toolshed, Earl realized what Spotty was saying about the French clowns having a different style from the Bozos. This clown had puffy clothing that made him look more like a thirteenth-century court jester than a circus clown. His green sideburns curled like tentacles off the sides of his face. He wore a monocle over one eye and a pink patch over the other. A miniature umbrella poked out the top of his leopard-print hat.
As the clown blew smoke rings into the air, Vinnie Blue Nose screwed a silencer onto the top of his handgun, and loaded it with a clip of laughing bullets. Then he aimed it at the clown and fired.
The bullet hit the jester in the chest. He looked down at the blood leaking from his wound and immediately started to laugh. It was just a light giggling at first, then a deep chuckle. When he noticed Vinnie coming out from behind the toolshed, he was cackling at the top of his lungs. He dropped his bassoon-shaped pipe and tried to go for his gun, but was laughing so hard he couldn’t get ahold of it before Vinnie Blue Nose put another bullet right between his eyes.
As Vinnie dragged the French clown’s body into the bushes, Earl asked, “What the heck was that?”
“Laughing bullets,” Hats said. “Just as deadly as regular bullets but they also paralyze you with laughter. That is, until they kill ya.”
They waited a minute to see if any of the clowns inside heard the laughter, and when nobody came running they gathered by the back door.
“I want you to wait here,” Vinnie told Earl. “Grab anyone that gets past us.”
Earl agreed, though he had no clue how he would stop a clown thug if one came at him.
“Hats,” Vinnie said. “Smoke them out.”
“My pleasure,” Hats said.
The clown removed the massive yellow-checkered hat from his head to reveal a slightly smaller hat beneath, this one patterned with orange polka dots. Standing on top of the hat was what looked to be a coconut cream pie.
“Stand aside, gentlemen,” Hats said.
He opened the back door and tossed the pie into the living room. When it hit the floor cream-first, the pie exploded into a cloud of smoke.
“Let’s go,” Vinnie said.
The Frenchies didn’t know what hit them.
They charged through the door and fired into the smoke. French clowns laughed at the tops of their lungs as they were filled with bullets. Captain Spotty kicked down the front door and blasted the clowns with his gumball shotgun.
As Earl watched the chaos from the back door, he noticed the man escaping from his daughter’s bedroom window. The clown’s skin was striped blue and white, with sunflowers sticking out the top of his head like horns.
“Hey, one of them’s escaping,” Earl yelled into his house, but the clowns couldn’t hear him over the gunfire.
Earl didn’t know what to do. He looked at the clown and said, “Hey, stop!”
The clown’s eyes met Earl’s. He recognized the vet. This was the man they’d been sent to kill. A sinister grin widened across the clown’s face as he pulled out a machete.
“Wait, get back…,” Earl said, holding out his hands.
The clown was no longer trying to escape. He was coming for the veterinarian’s head.
“I’m armed,” Earl said, pretending he had a handgun in his pocket, even though all he had in there was a balloon.
The clown charged the vet, raising the machete.
Earl pulled out his gun-shaped balloon and pointed it at the man. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, hoping his attacker wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a real gun and a balloon gun in the dim lighting.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” Earl cried.
Then he pulled the balloon trigger. The vet shrieked when it actually fired. A bullet came out of the top of the balloon and hit the clown in the lower abdomen. He dropped his machete and fell to the ground.
“How the hell…”
It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make any sense. Earl shook the balloon in his hand. There was nothing inside it. The thing was as light as a feather, filled with nothing but air. There was no way it was capable of firing a bullet.
“You got him,” said Captain Spotty as he stepped through the back door. “Good job, Doc. We accidentally killed all the ones inside.”
Earl didn’t respond. He was still staring at the balloon gun.