It looked like the kind of place you would find by accident on a trip overseas. The ratty boards, an ancient coat of blue paint steadily peeling away, was littered with bright bold white painted letters, looking just under a day old. 'Great Ananias' spread across the length as if it was the declaration that everyone wanted to see when they were trying to talk to work. Places like this never lasted, problems always arose, you could only run a business out of a building this crummy for so long, eventually everything begins to fall to pieces. As if to illustrate his point, the spouting along the roof dipped, one of the support tracks falling free dumping out a pile of rotting wet leaves at his feet, splashing over his official Marine dress pants with a trickle of mud and stench. He was told to that this was a casual order all too late, it would seem, simply wearing a heavy woolen jacket over his Marine uniform, making it one of the worst disguises possible. He almost preferred it this way, tricking some business owner to tell you about all the dodgy things they were doing and then having to bust them just brought a tear to his eyes.

The door was stuck, always a good sign. He gave it a rough shake, feeling no budge he assumed it was simply locked and began to turn. "You've got to toe-ghurt!" Came a muffed yell from inside, someone sounded a little bemused at his situation. Giving the fram a stiff whack with one hand, he pulled the door open revealing the musky interior. A single source of light was behind the man, casting a murky yellow shadow across the room. Not that there was much to cover up, there was litter on the floor, but that was to be expected. What wasn't so expected, however, was the coffin propped up onto what looked like an old refurbished clothing bin. Spotting the bemused look on Landru's face, the store owner continued in his broken English. "I have tales of a Ghost that haunts these very grounds, as well as a Jan-u-wine Egypt-ee-an Mummy that you can see, right here in this marvelous sarcophagus." Stepping closer, and peering through scrunched brows at the man before him who seemed so genuine through his toothless smile. Landru's hand moved to open the lid, only to have the mans own wrap around it with a frightening intensity. "Can't just go showing off the pro-dew-juice." He followed the mans insane gaze till he reached the also freshly painted twenty-five dollar symbol on the wall. "I'm not going to pay twenty-five fucking dollars to look inside your box!" He growled, knowing full well how these people worked. "Twenty then." Signified that their haggling war was off. Settling on thirteen twenty after a three minute long debate turned yelling match, Landru quickly handed the money over, rubbing his own hands together finding himself rather excited despite how his brain told him otherwise.

So many happy puppies all over town. Many of them now sported names their owners wouldn’t recognize, well, not that they’d ever know really. Strays who usually went by “mutt” or “mongrel” had been dubbed things like Jeff, Mike, Shawn, and even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It’d taken a few trips, but finally the girl found herself on the last batch of bones for as many dogs as she could find and free hunks of meat for those without homes. Their gift from a very kind and benevolent donor who simply wanted to give back to the community. This whole act of clean up though left her a little tuckered out, the woman unzipping her jacket a little to help cool off as she purchased a bottled drink and cheap snack from a store on the less-than-popular street.

Compared to the one across the road it stood in better repair; not quite a palace in comparison, but better. Paint remained chipped and cracked in places as the elements took their toll, the sign a little faded from a near daily barrage of sunlight in comparison to the fresh one across the way. Walls looked stalwart though, the drains sporting newer screws and scraps of metal to keep the pips in place and the varying shades a tell-tale sign of who’d gone the longest without replacement. The windows glistened, washed here and there when the owner inside found himself particularly bored where the other seemed boarded up due to lack of funds or preference. Hard to say without knowing the owner inside, who she could only guess the shop might be named after.

’Though…kinda makes you wonder what knickknacks they have inside.’ It made her recall of a place where some fellow tried to give her a nicely polished stick, mentioning either extinct or mythical animals that’d been components to it. While weird little gusts of wind and minor explosions of the fellow’s stock happened, she’d eventually left before he could find her right “fit” of…whatever he’d called them. Before that had been an old woman who couldn’t even open her eyes, quite possibly blind anyways, with so many odds and ends stuffed into jars with a rainbow’s worth of colored liquids. The fact that Chesha’s change came back wet from some jar of pink liquid had been a little off putting since it hadn’t tasted of bubble gum, but she enjoyed her little jar gecko friend’s company.

Much to her surprise someone else approached the place, the girl watching from the comfort of the porch, the building’s wooden awning providing some shade. Lips curled as the fellow’s white pants received a taste of grit and grime with some mud thrown in for flavor. The fun part about white was getting it dirty and seeing what sort of “works of art” one ended the day with. The problem with white was cleaning it later, and as Chesha had better things to do she opted for black for sheer laziness’ sake. Eventually he managed to get in with an eventual rough tug and from there things seemed almost calm again. Occasionally a voice would get a bit loud, leaking through the holes in the boarded windows and piquing Chesha’s interest as she recognized a number or few. ’Well was an awfully large coat. Guess if he wanted to hide drugs in it, it’d be pretty simple. Seems a bit conspicuous though.’ She bit into the cheap sandwich, pondering what the likelihood of the shop across the street having some fun creature in a jar. Dear little Jackuart could use a friend. ’Maybe a bat. That’d be pretty cool.’

"What's in the box?" The high tone drawn out question would have echoed in the sound of the shack if it wasn't for the many structural weaknesses. Instead, it floated outside, free for anyone in the general public to hear. "What's in the fucking box?" As if he survived on the sense of irritation and eagerness, the box owner took a great deal of time before even beginning to open the box, instead choosing to run his finger tips along the rim, or tap them onto the top, as if trying to wake up some ancient creature. It was all completely ridiculous, of course. He knew that, he wasn't a moron. But it was so easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of it all. A crazy man in a shed showing you his most expensive secret. Who knew what could happen?

Without warming the top of the coffin was pulled off, rattling against the ground and causing a jolt of shock to go through the body inside. At a first glance, sure, it might look like a mummy, but if one even bothered in the slightest to move forward and take a better look they would see the failings in its disguise. Namely, that it was just the drunk from two blocks down rolled up in toilet paper and looking as if he was about to shit himself in fear. "Oi!" He hissed through his teeth, waving over his shoulder. Without hesitation the homeless man stepped out of the coffin and hobbled out into the real world, dressed only with a line of toilet paper that was quickly falling away. "Now, why you wanna go-anna do a thing like that, huh? That's my fucking money running away there."

He shot the snake oil salesman a dirty look while his brain tried to decide if it would be a good idea or not to book the guy for it. Even if he did he wouldn't show up, he would have moved on already. Same result, just a different method. Landru gave a friendly nod before stepping outside himself, taking the moment to see how far the 'mummy' had gotten. His gaze returned in front of him in time to see the girl bite down into her sandwich. How revolting. The fact that she was doing it seemingly waiting for him to leave only made it worse too. "The fuck are you lookin' at?" He shouted across the road, nodding towards her.

Halfway through the meal something extraordinary occurred. Someone else – certainly not the jacketed fellow from before – came hobbling out of the place, just about tripping over air as strips of toilet paper broke off of him. Some of it started waving in the wind, remaining twisted around his limbs and body while others sought freedom instead, waving to their brothers a fond farewell only to strike the earth and twerk against the ground. A little unsightly perhaps, but it begged the question of how this man messed up using the bathroom so horribly in that establishment.

As he continued his journey down the road the door yet again opened and there stood our brave hero from before. The man who’d dared to enter the little den of sin and emerge basically as clean as before, maybe a minor film of dust having settled. Who knows? After all the shop may have been just as much of a mess inside as it was out.

Maybe the previous fellow clogged the toilet, leaving it an unusable and unappetizing mess while this man sorely required it. Perhaps he’d eaten something his poor tum-tum couldn’t digest? Or his intestines decided to twist themselves up in rebellion? Though he didn’t exactly bear the face of a man holding the pain back and lacked a sheen of sweat from either building pressure or the intoxicating feeling of release. So…maybe the other man owed him money? Except the fellow had fallen down only a few yards away, some wayward can from a garbage can sacrificing itself for the sake of a moment’s slapstick comedy in sending the badly costumed man to the ground.

Well there was only one real way to answer the man.

”You,” she stated bluntly, punctuating the statement with another healthy bite into her sandwich. The way her cheek bulged as she chewed revealed her intention to likely take her time responding to further inquiries and Alejandro couldn’t be buggered to escape the cloak shielding him to strike up a witty conversation. Not with such a crude fellow with some mud on his pants.

"Oh, ha-ha. Give me a minute, please. I have just got to write that one down, goodness knows I wouldn't want to forget that level of creative wit anytime soon." His eyes rolled as his fished for his notepad and pencil in his pocket. "Y-O-U." He called out slowly while scribbling the word 'fuck' into the paper as many times as he could without drawing attention to himself. "Right, thanks for that. I've got that one now, don't I. Next time someone asks me what I'm looking at I can just pull open my little notebook, flip to the 'great line' page and tell them that I'm looking at them." He gave a slow clap, his head swaying with the movement, the cocky expression on his face worth its weight in gold. "Yeah, really nice. I'm sure that'll have them in stitches. You. Fucking - hilarious." He slipped the writing gear back in his pocket, turning to see his rescued civilian falling over his own damn face like some kind of crazy circus expedition. "Hey Mummy!" She shouted down the street, with hands cupped around the side of his face. "Ask me what I'm looking at!"

His words fell on death ears, however as his toilet paper covered friend simply continued his stumbling walk back to where ever it was that he considered himself to be safe, goodness knows where that could be. Probably somewhere in Sunagakure. Wait, no. Wrong site. Probably somewhere hot. "Agh, piss off you ruddy fucker!" He screamed down the street, the sound echoing around them completely, running through the buildings around them like a bad smell.

Landru turned, dropping his focus back on the girl who was still munching along on her sandwich. His facade of humor slipped away as his face turned serious as bone, as if he had never laughed in his life or was Brendan Fraser. "You're an unfunny cunt, you know that." He snapped before turning on his heels, marching away from her. "Marinate in that for me."