“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Is not!!”
“Is too!!”
“IS NOT!!!!!”
“IS TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“IS NOT..... is not what? What are we arguing about?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“Oh well, does it matter anyway?”
“Not really.... IS TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“IS NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
But at that particular moment a figure stepped through the door of Bob’s Barber Shop.
“Is that who I think is?”
“I don’t know, but he’s got that same eternal buzz-cut as LaCroix. You know, that one vampire dude.”
“You know, I think you’re right. What do you say we talk to him?”
Allexxis smiled thoughtfully, then proceeded over to where LaCroix was standing. “Good day, Sir. Are you here for your usual?”
Kell-Lee grinned stupidly, “I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot on sugar.”
LaCroix looked at the two Lunatics, smirked and said, “How quaint.”
Allexxis elbowed Kell-Lee and quietly hissed, “Shut-up, you stooge!!!”
“What?!” Kell-Lee shouted, not understanding Allexxis was trying to be as quiet as possible.
LaCroix turned around and mumbled, “Simpletons,” as he walked away toward the
barber’s chair.
Allexxis said, “Now look what you’ve done!”
Kell-Lee said, “I didn’t do anything!”
“Did too!!”
“Did not!!”
“DID TOO!!!!!”
“SHUT UP!!!!!!!!” LaCroix thundered from the corner.
Kell-Lee and Allexxis instantly fell silent. A moment later the two Raving Lunatics began to mumble between themselves.
“WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!! SPEAK UP!!” LaCroix shouted at them.
“Did not!!”
“Did too!!”
“I’m an idiot,” LaCroix interjected.
Kell-Lee fell silent a minute before hollering, “You Are Not!!! I AM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Allexxis, seeing a rather large fight brewing, grabbed Kell-Lee by her hair and dragged her into the back room. Once there, she smiled at Kell-Lee and handed her a Dolly Parton wig. “Put it on.”
“What!!! No way!!! I’m not going to be caught dead in this thing!!!”
“Well, I can rectify that situation,” LaCroix said from the doorway.
“That’s quite all right. I think I can handle this problem myself. Thank you for your consideration,” Kell-Lee replied while cowering behind Allexxis.
“I see.” LaCroix scowled at them and then headed back to his chair. If it weren’t for his
dire need of a new buzz-cut he certainly wouldn’t be hanging around with these two loonies. He hoped Bob would hurry up doing whatever it is that Bobs do and tend to his buzz-cut.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Allexxis hissed. “You screwed things up!”
“You’re right, I did. I guess I can’t wear this now,” Kell-Lee said grinning as she threw down the Dolly Parton wig. “He’d definitely recognize it.”
“That leaves us one option,” Allexxis said, advancing on Kell-Lee with a pair of scissors in her hand.
“Oh-no!”
“Oh-yes!”
“No!!” Kell-Lee shouted clutching lovingly at her blond ponytail.
“I’m sorry,” Allexxis said, not looking sorry in the least. “But it’s the only way.”
“I refuse!!” Kell-Lee shouted again. “It’s not worth it!”
“Yes, it is! And you know it. Come here.”
“No! I will not!!!”
“Kell-Lee!!!” Allexxis screamed chasing her around the small room wielding the scissors
dangerously.
Seeing this Kell-Lee halted. “Don’t run with scissors!”
“What?”
“You heard me. Don’t run with scissors. It isn’t safe.”
Allexxis stared at Kell-Lee open-mouthed in shock. “Why Kell-Lee!” she exclaimed. “I never knew you were so smart!”
Carefully Allexxis set down the scissors and began to chase Kell-Lee around the room again.
“No! I will not!” Kell-Lee screamed as she tripped over a mop (that she could have sworn had not been there previously.)
“Yes, you will!” Allexxis shrieked falling on top of her.
“Help! Help! Get off!” Kell-Lee screamed, kicking Allexxis off her.
Allexxis relented. “I promise I’ll cut your hair just like Scully’s.”
Kell-Lee paused in mid-run. “Really?”
“Yep.”
*********
Meanwhile LaCroix, upon hearing the screams and shouts coming from the other room, decided that he could be waiting for a long while. So he took the liberty of looking around the barber shop. Upon his search he discovered Bob’s appointment book, and suddenly realized that he had better take a look at Bob’s previous work before allowing his favorite buzz-cut to be cut. Flipping through the pages he started to read the types of haircuts Bob often gave.
(Joe Bob - Mohawk * blue and pink)
(Sally Mae - Pigtails with a twist)
(Billy Joe - Razz-ma-tazz with flair * as many colors as humanly possible)
After reading a few more of these, LaCroix began to wonder whether getting his precious
buzz-cut here was such a good idea or not. He didn’t even *want* to *consider* what a Razz-ma-something was, or what it would look like. He glanced in the mirror just to reassure himself that his hair was thus-far still intact. But things had gotten awfully quiet in the backroom. This, in his mind, was *not* a good thing...
*********
“I’ll really look like Scully?” Kell-Lee asked hopefully.
(snip, snip) “Of course you will!” Allexxis replied. (snip, hack, chop)
“Oops.” (brush, brush, brush)
“Oops? Waddya mean ‘Oops’? What did you do?”
“Uh, nothing. Everything’s fine.” (snip, snip, hack)
“Uh-oh.”
“Oh-oh!? Now what??”
“Don’t worry, I can fix it. It’ll still look okay.” (cut, cut, snip, hack)
“Uh, how much do you like Mulder?” Allexxis inquired of Kell-Lee.
“What!? What type of question is that!?”
“Well, I don’t think you’re going to get to look much like Scully anymore. Although, I think I could still probably manage a Mulder,” Allexxis informed her unfortunate test-subject.
“BUT I DON’T WANNA LOOK LIKE MULDER!! YOU SAID I’D LOOK LIKE SCULLY!!!” protested a very upset Kell-Lee.
“Listen, we can’t always have everything we want, now can we?”
“Except our hair...” mumbled Kell-Lee. (bzzzzzzzzz) “Clippers?? What do you need clippers for!!!???”
“Uh, you’ll see. Now sit down and be still. You’ll like it, I promise...”
*********
“Um, okay, there,” Allexxis said a few moments later. “You’re all done.”
“Finally,” Kell-Lee grumped. This had gone on far too long, and her patience had worn down quite a while ago. In the final moments Allexxis had had to resort to beating her with a broom handle to get her to hold still. “Where’s the mirror?”
“Mirror? Um, uh, I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Allexxis said hurriedly.
“And why not?!” Kell-Lee asked, desperate to see herself now.
“Your hair is very delicate at this stage,” Allexxis informed her. “It wouldn’t do to disturb it by looking in the mirror quite yet. It needs to sit for awhile first.”
“How long is awhile?”
“Oh, about the next four or five years.”
“What!!” Kell-Lee screeched.
“Just enough time for it to grow back.”
“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!” Kell-Lee screamed upon hearing this.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Kell-Lee screamed again, finally catching a glimpse of her new haircut in a mirror. “My hair!! It’s, it’s, it’s...”
“Gone,” Allexxis said helpfully. “But don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry!!” Kell-Lee shouted. “My hair!!!!!”
“It’s okay,” Allexxis said reassuringly.
“It is not!! This is totally unacceptable!!”
“I can glue it back on!” Allexxis lied. “I just didn’t think that LaCroix would recognize you this way.”
“Oh.” Kell-Lee wasn’t sure if she believed Allexxis or not, but the alternative was even too horrible to think about. “Okay. What about your hair?”
“Oh, my hair is fine, LaCroix won’t recognize me. I have a much more forgettable face than you do.”
Kell-Lee definitely didn’t believe this. At least she didn’t think she did. But after all, Allexxis was so much smarter than she was. A long time ago, Allexxis had lost the coin toss between herself and Kell-Lee. Losing that toss meant that Allexxis had to be Sammy’s cronie and Kell-Lee didn’t. Since Sammy was so much smarter than both of them, perhaps Sammy’s smartness had rubbed off on Al. Kell-Lee highly doubted this, but you never know...
“Okay,” Kell-Lee said. “Now, what should we do about LaCroix?”
“Nothing special,” Allexxis said. “We’ll just cut his hair.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“How boring,” Kell-Lee said. “I have an idea.”
“An idea??!!” Allexxis did not like the sound of this. She didn’t know that Kell-Lee could think, much less think of an idea.
“Yep.” Kell-Lee leaned over and whispered her secret plan to Allexxis. When she had finished Allexxis looked horrified.
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“We could never get away with that.”
“Sure we could.”
“How?”
“I brought my vanilla extract. It’ll knock him our real good.”
“Kewl,” Allexxis grinned. “Let’s get him.”
*********
When Allexxis and Kell-Lee finally appeared from the back room, LaCroix was meandering around the barber shop, admiring the different razors, scissors, and other such objects, considering just what a person could use them for other than cutting hair. The two
Raving Lunatics watched him suspiciously until he had moved away from the sharp, pointy things and was looking at a Rockwell painting instead. This, they figured, was a much less dangerous item for him to be standing by than a pair of thinning shears. They then split up, following the plan they had devised earlier: Kell-Lee going to the left with the Vanilla Extract,
and Allexxis going to the right as the distraction. The decision of who should go where had been reached by a game of rock, paper, scissors. But just as Allexxis took Kell-Lee’s Vanilla Extract away from her, because Allexxis had won, Kell-Lee started to throw a fit. No matter what Allexxis did, Kell-Lee wouldn’t shut-up until she got her Vanilla Extract back. That was how it came to be that Allexxis was now standing beside LaCroix, looking at the Rockwell painting of a fox terrier sharing a kid’s ice cream cone.
“Um, Sir? I couldn’t help but notice your interest in this Norman Rockwell painting. A dandy, isn’t it? I always thought that fox terrier was so cute stealing the little kid’s ice cream,” Allexxis said, in her best attempt to get LaCroix to ignore Kell-Lee.
“I never cared for dogs. I was just considering what an entertaining expenditure it would
be to have another dog of the living dead created,” LaCroix told her bluntly.
“What!?” Allexxis exclaimed, horrified. “You know how cruel that is?? I can’t believe you would do something like that! Well, maybe I can... But taking a nice, sweet, loving little dog, and turning it into a vampire hound! That’s just plain evil!! But, of course, you are evil... But Still!!” Allexxis, who had very strong feelings about the ethical treatment of dogs, especially fox terriers, had very much accomplished her goal of gaining LaCroix’s full attention. He was not expecting such an outburst from this insane person. And while Allexxis continued to
thoroughly chew him out, Kell-Lee made her surprise attack from behind.
“BONZAI!!!!!!” Kell-Lee hollered as she jumped on LaCroix’s back. She clung to him like moss on a rock, stuck, yet easily scraped off. “Uh-oh,” she said as LaCroix reached a hand back to pull her off of him. Allexxis, seeing that Kell-Lee was in a frightfully desperate situation, grabbed the nearest thing to her, a lamp, in this case, and threw it at LaCroix. He had just managed to remove Kell-Lee from his person when he looked up only in time to see the lamp Allexxis had thrown, hit him directly in the face and knock him flat. Kell-Lee ran over to him and futilely waved the Vanilla Extract under his nose. “I don’t think it’s working Al!” Kell-Lee informed her accomplice.
“That’s because he’s already knocked cold by the lamp, you dimwit,” Allexxis told her.
“Oh. Right. Good shot then,” Kell-Lee said.
*********
“Ungh!!
“You think I *chose* to hit him over there? What would you rather I’d have done, let him drain you dry first??”
“Well, no, but you could have at least only knocked him a little dingy so that he could walk himself over to the chair!”
“I don’t think LaCroix *has* a dingy state. I think it’s either sullen, mad, or unconscious.”
“In that case, I’m glad he’s unconscious,” Kell-Lee said with a sigh as they flopped LaCroix into the barber’s chair.
“Now,” said Allexxis, “is when the party begins!”
*********
Several hours and a whole heck-of-a-lot of Vanilla Extract later the two Raving Lunatics stood back to admire their work.
“You know,” Kell-Lee said after a moment’s hesitation, “I don’t think he’s going to like it. Not at first, anyway. But over time I’m sure he’ll appreciate our hard work.”
“Wow,” Allexxis said, reading the label on the bottle in her hand. “Did you know that this hair growth formula contains the extract of a Zigawillow tree. Do you know how rare those things are? I do, because once I was mowing these people’s lawn for some extra cash, right? And they told me to be very careful as they had a row of tiny Zigawillows planted along-side the fence, and they were irreplaceable, right? And I don’t know what happened, but the lawn
mower...”
Kell-Lee tuned Allexxis out. Whenever Allexxis launched into a long story it ended up in one of three places: Steven Spielberg, Kevin Spacey, or ice hockey. Kell-Lee had no clue as to what ice hockey had to do with Zigawillow trees and she didn’t care to find out, either.
“I am a bird in a treeeeeeeeeeeeee,” Kell-Lee began to sing merrily instead of listening to Allexxis rambling on about lawn mowers and Zigawillows. “Why don’t you all look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”
Allexxis frowned. She wasn’t done with her story yet. Not to mention she didn’t like singing. “Kell-Lee,” Allexxis grumped, “Stop singing.”
“WeeeWeeeeWeeeWeeeeWeeeeeeeee,” Kell-Lee sang loudly. She hadn’t sung in a while, and it made her feel better.
“Stop singing!” Allexxis shouted. “Or I’ll make you go play with Sammy!!!”
Kell-Lee stopped singing. Sammy was scary. She also pigged all the good food, and would only buy chocolate ice cream (Kell-Lee didn’t like chocolate ice cream), and she drove all scary-like, and tried to make Kell-Lee throw-up on Spin-the-Apple, and sang Christmas carols all of the time and wouldn’t stop, and she... “I don’t want to play with Sammy,” Kell-Lee said, and then she paused. “My head’s cold. Can we glue my hair back on?”
“Uh, sure,” Allexxis said, just glad that Kell-Lee had stopped her horrible singing. “You go get your hair, and I’ll finish up here.”
Busily Allexxis set to work cleaning up the mess that had somehow generated itself in the room through the chaos of earlier that evening. Happily she wondered how much Bob would pay them for taking on some of his work load.
“I’m ready,” Kell-Lee announced, climbing up into a chair and handing Allexxis her scraps of hair.
“Do you want to use regular Elmer’s glue? Or the Elmer’s blue gel glue?” Allexxis asked, holding up both bottles. “The blue gel dries clear, so no one will know.”
“Okay,” Kell-Lee agreed. She liked blue things. They reminded her of that blue dinosaur crunch ice cream the store had sold for a while. She missed that stuff even though she had had to pick out all the chocolate bits and feed them to Terd-Bird, Sammy’s killer lovebird, but the blue stuff had turned her whole mouth blue and she liked that.
She spun around to face Allexxis who was bending over the sink. “What are ya doin’?” she asked.
Allexxis looked up and began to foam at the mouth. “Does it look like I have rabies?”
Kell-Lee hopped down out of her chair to come and investigate. “Not really,” she said. “You could probably trick people who aren’t as clever as I am though. What is that stuff?”
“Some type of almond shampoo.”
“Does it taste like almonds?”
Allexxis thought for a while, while swishing the bubbly mess around in her mouth. “Not really, it’s kind of soapy. Do you think we should wake up LaCroix so that I can bite him? Maybe he’ll think that I have rabies.”
“Maybe,” Kell-Lee said. “But then again, he might bite you back.”
Allexxis frowned and spit out the shampoo. “Let’s fix your hair first,” she said, rinsing out her mouth.
*********
After about half and hour, Allexxis knew that this just wasn’t going to work. She had more hair stuck to her fingers than to Kell-Lee’s head, and what hair was on her head was all clumpy and looked as if it had been glued on with Elmer’s blue gel glue. Then again, Allexxis reasoned, it had been, so maybe that wasn’t so bad after all. Kell-Lee could start a new fashion trend, and Allexxis would become rich giving this exact same hairstyle to celebrities.
“I think it looks pretty kewl,” she told Kell-Lee.
“Kewl?”
“Well, maybe more, uh, interesting,” she said, deciding that Kell-Lee would be angrier if she found out later after having walked all through the downtown area with her hair a wreck, then if she found out now. “I don’t think I can do it, we’ll have to wait for Sammy.”
Kell-Lee felt her eyes begin to well up with tears. Sammy was so going to yell at her for ever going along with Al’s plan in the first place, since everyone knew NOT to trust Al. But sometimes Kell-Lee just got so caught up in the moment that she forgot that it was Al she was listening to. Allexxis felt slightly guilty, only slightly, however. She’d be so mad if someone had done this to her hair, but it was only Kell-Lee after all, and her hairy sacrifice had definitely been worth the fun they had with LaCroix.
“Well,” Allexxis announced cheerfully, motioning towards the gently snoring LaCroix, “what should we do with him?”
*********
Kell-Lee glanced in LaCroix’s direction, then proceeded to pluck delicately at her very gelly hair. “My hair. My poor, poor hair...” Kell-Lee angsted.
“Oh, stop it. You’re starting to sound like Nick,” Allexxis told her accomplice.
“But, my hair, it’s all... GLUEY!!!” Kell-Lee cried. But the fit she was about to throw was abruptly interrupted by Allexxis’ hitting her over the head with the empty glue bottle. Kell-Lee was about to hit back, until she saw what Al was pointing to. He was moving. This was not good.
“Quick! What should we do!” Allexxis exclaimed.
“Here! I have the card!” Kell-Lee replied while frantically searching her pockets. After about 30 seconds of unsuccessful rummaging, Kell-Lee continued, “Well, I *thought* I had the card.”
Allexxis hit her over the head again with the glue container. “You numskull! How could you lose the card!”
“But Al, I had it. Honestly, I did!” Kell-Lee said defensively.
Allexxis then spied the small, rectangular paper they were looking for. “Nevermind. I found it!” Al gingerly grasped the card with thumb and forefinger and tried to remove it from Kell-Lee’s hair. It wouldn’t come out. Allexxis pulled harder. It still wouldn’t budge. Al then resorted to the whole-handed grab-and-rip technique. It worked, and got the added bonus of a handful of Kell-Lee’s sticky hair.
“OW!!! Hey, be careful, you oaf! That’s my hair you’re pullin’ off my head!” Kell-Lee protested.
“It’s all for a good cause.”
“Good cause my foot.”
“Do *you* want LaCroix to wake-up and find out what we did to him while we’re still here?”
“Well, no...”
“Alright, then. Let’s go!”
Allexxis proceeded to carefully placed the business card in LaCroix’s front jacket pocket, and patted it down to make sure it was secure. The two Raving Lunatics then thought it was probably in the best interest of all concerned to vacate the premises and make themselves as scarce as possible for a long, long time.
*********
As LaCroix came to, he had a pounding headache. He also had an odd recollection of two very strange women, a lamp, and some hair-dye, but attributed that to a very frightening dream. He sat up and looked around him. The place was totally vacant. There was a small pile of glass shards over in one corner, and a big pile of hair in another. Pile of glass shards, pile of hair.... No... It couldn’t have been. He quickly looked in the mirror. No! Blast it all!! No reflection!! He immediately reached up to see if he could feel his hair. To his horror he discovered, not his beloved buzz-cut on top of his head, but something hideous, something vile,
something altogether and utterly repulsive.... Dreadlocks. “RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH” LaCroix roared, with his eyes blazing red. He quickly surveyed the scene once again, this time looking for someone to kill. Finding no one, he began to gather his wits. He thought back about what had happened: He
had entered the barber shop, was greeted by two women, attacked, knocked unconscious, had his hair obviously mutilated, then.... He vaguely recalled someone patting his coat pocket. He reached up and removed a sticky, hairy mess. His face contorted into a disgusted expression as he gently pulled off a clump of blonde hair. He was able to make out only one word. But it was enough. He dropped the card and flew out the door and off to the Raven. The card floated down to the floor on the breeze of LaCroix’s departure. The one word that was visible on it was
Lurkers.
*********
“You really think I’ll start a new hair-style trend?” asked Kell-Lee of Allexxis.
“I sure do! I bet everyone will love it!” Allexxis had finally managed to get Kell-Lee calmed down enough about her hair to talk sensibly.
“Okay, then, if you really think so.”
The two of them were sitting back at their Fortress in the Freaky Forest, sipping at a couple of milkshakes.
“You really think LaCroix will go after the Lurkers?” Kell-Lee inquired.
“Of course! We left him their card, didn’t we? They’ve harassed him before haven’t they? He won’t suspect any different! Trust me, it’ll work like a charm.”
“That’s what you said about my hair...” Kell-Lee griped, taking a long gulp of milkshake.
“Hey, it was your idea to mess with LaCroix,” Allexxis defended herself.
“Yeah. (brief pause) I like milkshakes, y’know that?” Kell-Lee blurted out, abruptly changing the subject.
Allexxis gave Kell-Lee a strange look, then shrugged, and picked up the new topic. “The chocolate ones are the best, though.”
“Ewwwwgghhhh!! Are not!”
“Are too!”
“Are Not!!”
“Are Too!!”
“ARE NOT!!!”
“ARE TOO!!!”
*********
LaCroix reached the Raven only to find that it was brimming with the regular patrons. He groaned, as he pushed the front door open and stepped inside. So much for his ominous figure of impending doom. He pointedly ignored the stares of shocked club-goers as he made his way to the bar.
“LaCroix!” came a French-accented voice from behind him. “What in the world happened to you?!”
“Not now, Janette,” LaCroix replied.
“Don’t you not now me, Sir! Who did this to you?”
LaCroix sighed, then conceded, “One word: Lurkers.”
Janette gasped in horror. “Oh no! You aren’t going to let them get away with this, are you?”
“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous!”
“That’s good,” Janette said. Then she just stared at LaCroix’s hair. A smile began to creep across her face. She tried ineffectively to hide her amusement. LaCroix scowled at her.
“What, may I ask, is so funny?”
“You know, mon cher, if you went out and bought a mask, you’d look exactly like that creature off of Predator!” With that Janette burst up laughing. If she hadn’t have been so absorbed in her own little joke, the look LaCroix gave her would have been enough to kill. LaCroix tossed back the rest of his drink, then stalked into his office in the back of the Raven to devise a plan to rid the earth of the beings that had done this hideous thing to his precious
buzz-cut.
finis
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