Scream

Disclaimer: Black Lagoon and its characters © Rei Hiroe

A pink neon light twisting in curved letters flashed on and off. The owners hadn't cared to change the sign in years. That was to be expected when the cinder shack had been abandoned for some time. With a buzz and a crackle, the light went out. All that was left to illuminate a shadowy figure dragging a body bag out of the small building was the moon and the beams glistening off the soft waves along the shore.

Sawyer took a moment to adjust her black rubber work gloves before she threw the bag, and the parts within, into the back of a van.

Minutes later, the Cleaner's vehicle zoomed through the Roanapur streets, almost running over a quarreling street prostitute and pimp in the process. They fell down from a burst of wind caused by the passing van, both swearing incoherently. Sawyer was not in the mood to stop for pedestrians. She had to get this job done quickly. Dawn was coming near and she didn't want to the van to come into full view in the sunlight. An appalling event that took place last month, she didn't want to think about it. Her vehicle would draw too much attention. The UG Pork van had paid homage to the Reaper, a reminder that none were above the fate Hades intended. The mere image of the slaughterhouse's vehicle caused a chilling effect, a shiver up the spine. It was a thing she had been proud of until…

The van balanced on two wheels as she made a sharp turn around a corner. Her normally lackluster blue eyes were contorted into a glare behind the work goggles. Rotton and his stupid antics landed her in this fine mess. Had he been careful, she wouldn't have to be afraid of something as petty as driving during the day. But, in essence, it had been her own fault she allowed him to go through with the job. She knew of Rotton's flare for dramatics, the risks involved. She shouldn't have let him do it.

She should have never lent the UG Pork van to him. Had she not done so, Rotton would have never had a chance to total her beloved meat wagon and force her to drive the piece of crap she was in right now!

The UG Pork van was still in the shop. It was an absolute catastrophe; the darn thing was burnt to high heaven. How Rotton managed to drive into a pit of gasoline drums was never explained, but the damage was clear. It was going to be at least another week or two before the meat van was back to normal.

Rotton did try to make it up to her, but the man had awful taste in covert vehicles.

"Well, I thought you would like it," he had said when he saw her displeased reaction when he drove it up to the plant. "It has a freezer in the back to preserve the bodies."

"Rotton… it's an ice cream truck."

When she had chased him for a good hour around the plant with her chainsaw, Rotton had had a sneaking suspicion that she was angry with him. As far as Sawyer knew, for now, he was hiding out in Hong Kong with a ninja friend until she got her favored van back.

The freezer was a nice detail, but everything else was not to her standards. She was almost laughed out of a bar when she pulled up with the stupid thing. The faded, peeling stickers of frozen treats on chipping white paint was less than intimidating, and the size was far too small compared to her previous van. Shenhua had made note of this through the tears in her eyes—the Taiwanese woman was laughing too hard when she saw the truck for the first time.

The embarrassment was enough to force her to confine her work to the night, where the design couldn't be seen to the point of mocking her. The image hurt her business and she saw her profit fall down by a quarter of what they used to be.

Then there was the horrid music. It had been a magnet for Roanapur's street brats. By the third day, she had managed to figure out which wires to cut to make it stop. But, by then, the damned kids knew the vehicle all too well. She thought in the beginning it was going to be a simple matter, just ignore them and drive off, but it seemed the brats had better tracking skills than she anticipated.

Hunger was a primal human urge. She learned this the hard way when she would return each day to find rotten fruit and dog shit smeared all the over the truck. Not only did the kids hold a grudge for not stopping to feed them, but Sawyer half-heartedly recalled that the children all still remembered a little fiasco that happened with her and the Lagoon company's gunwoman some time ago. A little affair with smuggling some of their own out of Roanapur that turned sour rather quickly. Some did die, she remembered, but none of it was her fault. Not at all.

She could have killed those damn kids for tormenting her, Sawyer knew, but she did have standards. Roanapur was tolerant of many crimes, but going on a pig hunt with a chainsaw was not precisely one of them.

And, in all honesty, it just wasn't worth the trouble. Even with children being the size they are, the back of the van was still far too small for the whole gang.

In the end, to avoid unnecessary conflict, she paid the brats off with ten packs of ice cream and called it a day.

Now, as she loomed on a dark street by the alleys, she leaned forward in her seat and held her breath. Just a little bit more, just one more street and she would be home. The meatpacking plant was within her sight, sitting on the top of a hill, waiting for her. Just a few more feet and she could hide the cubic van away.

There was then a loud "pop!" and she instinctively stepped on the break. She gripped her chainsaw in one hand and cautiously stepped out of the vehicle. Her posture slumped when she saw a flat tire on the driver's side. Just great.

She whipped around when she heard footsteps approach and held up her chainsaw. Her mood deteriorated further when she saw the cause behind the flat tire. The cause placed her gun back into its holster.

"Hey, Spooky Chick," Revy greeted. She smirked, holding up a dollar. "You got any Drumstix in there?"

As Revy laughed, Sawyer threw her chainsaw down on the pavement and her mouth opened in a silent, harrowing bawl.

A/N: Amigodude said to me one day: "You know what would be funny? Sawyer driving an ice cream truck."

I agreed.

Cheers.