Friday, 3:07 PM
Watkins Corner Store
Rain poured hard on the windshield of the broad, white vehicle. The van belonging to the SCP Foundation parked right outside the convenience store. Its driver, Beau, sighed as he took the keys out of the ignition. Of all the days to get stuck in the field.
I’ve got plans tonight. So being that you’re free, I’m… delegating this to you. Dee's words echoed in his head. They were the bottom of the SCP Foundation’s totem pole, but then, Beau was the dirt underneath it. If he didn’t want to accept orders from them, his only available option was walking out the door and hanging up his cleaning supplies for good.
“You don’t think I have plans for tonight too?” He pocketed his keys. “… I mean, I don’t, but you could have at least considered it.” Beau lamented to himself before getting out of the car. His first step down out of the van splashed his beige uniform with muck and dirt from the wet ground, and he grimaced.
Grabbing a few basic supplies, he rounded the van and saw a man standing just outside the store. He was, simply described, a messy looking person. Beau less politely thought of him as white trash, seeing his tangled, grungy hair poking out from his flip flop sandals. The white wife beater tank top and sullied blue pants looked just as old and musty as they smelled. His hair clung to the back of his balding scalp for dear life, while his tired expression made him look done with life. He seemed unbothered by the hefty rain. Beau hoped this wasn’t the man who owned the store-
“Hey, you, janitor man - you my hookup to get this fuckin’ thing outta my store? I didn’t buy this damn thing to have freaks shittin’ on my floor all night!”
Goddammit. The janitor shook his head, trying to at least pretend to be willing to do the job of his own volition. “Hello, sir. I’m Beau. Beau Larkin of the Safe Cleanup Professionals. We sanitize, cleanse, and polish. I hope to be of service.”
He seemed somewhat appeased by the professionalism. The man shook his hand, glancing down at Beau’s mud-spattered uniform with a furrowed brow. “Yeah, uh - Tony Watkins, nice to meetcha.”
“So what can I do for you, Mr. Watkins? I was told you had a mess in your store that was scaring away your paying customers?”
The man, Tony, became quite incensed. “Mess? Yeah I got a friggin’ mess - There’s this smelly, green fuck sittin’ on my fridge, eating my whoppers, and wrecking my shit. And listen, my weird as fuck customers don't even care that he's there. The real problem is he’s stinkin’ up my freakin’ store! And when I try to get him to leave he pulls a Glock on me - and, uh, the police think I’m high! So you get in there, janitor man, and you either ice the fucker or get him outta my friggin’ store! This is almost as bad as those freaks with the big meat ball!”
“Well, animal control is one of our specialties.” Beau lied through his teeth. “Why don’t I have a look? Just let me grab my supplies from the truck.” He tried to maintain the professional demeanor, both to appease Tony, and also to try to keep his own sanity.
Beau went to retrieve his full duffel of the remaining cleaning supplies, cursing himself once again for not buying a taser, and followed the man inside. He was greeted with a half destroyed store, shelves and products spilled out everywhere. Any tubs of icecream, or snack bags, were open and drained of their contents. The cabinet behind the register that contained the cigarettes had been ransacked, and there was a pungent aroma of weed in the air.
“Oh God, it looks like a tornado went through here. What exactly did you say did this?” Beau looked back at the owner, fighting to hold his nose while in such close proximity to the other man.
The fat store owner chuckled, and Beau was uncomfortably attentive to the way he… undulated. “Heh, yeah I don’t have a damn clue. Why don’t you, uhhh, take a look yourself?”
When they turned into the aisle, Beau didn’t see anything besides the general devastation until he turned his head and nearly jumped back in surprise. Sitting there was a large brown tree frog the approximate size of a grown ass man. He was smoking a lit menthol cigarette while his hands were splayed out, the four fingers fiddling with random debris strewn about. He was sat atop a Hershey’s brand freezer.
Now, Beau was not a total stranger to strange animals… but this was fucking ridiculous.
“Hey, you, frog thing.” The creature slightly lifted its head, blearily looking at the fat man. “Yeah I’m talkin’ to you, you little shit-stain. I got the janitor on your ass now. Your days are numbered -”
There was a loud clicking noise, as the frog cocked the Glock and pointed it at Tony. Beau and Tony exclaimed loud noises of surprise, and ducked out of the way as a bullet whizzed by and blew up a vat of Nutella, spilling its contents onto the floor - and Beau’s already dirty shirt.
Breathing deeply and averting his hyperventilation, Beau asked Tony why he hadn’t called hazardous animal control of some kind if the frog had a gun.
Tony, in response, looked at Beau like he’d grown a second head. “I got rats, and you can’t sell no food in a place with rats. Your uh, Sucking, Cleaning, Proselytizing or whatever doesn't report to the state. And I ain’t payin’ no damn animal control fees.”
Beau didn’t know how to respond, and wrangled the topic back to the matter at hand. “Listen, okay? Cleaning I can do. Removing this guy? I mean, he’s got a gun, I don’t really-”
“I ain’t paying you to mull it over. This frog better be gone by the morning or I’m uh… I’m calling your manager.”
“Whoa, whoa. No need for that.” Beau swallowed at the thought of anyone except Dee chewing him out. “I’ll… figure it out.”
“Attaboy! Just make sure you lock up afterwards.” He tossed a spare key to Beau and started to head out.
“What? Wait, are you not gonna stay to make sure that I finish the job?”
“Nah, I’ve got plans with the, uh, ladies, ya know? I mean come on, it’s Friday, I got a couple of bills burnin’ a hole in my pocket. I got better things to do than fuck around with a frog after the 9-5. So uh, get to it, janitor man.” The store owner walked out, and Beau looked away from his filthy attire. He felt a lot better being mercifully separated from the malodorous store owner. He peered around the corner at the frog, who seemed to be fiddling with the Glock before tossing it to the floor. Beau then looked down at the key in his palm as he heard the door shut behind Watkins.
“Yeah, it’s Friday. And everyone has plans.” He turned his head over to the frog, who was ominously much closer than before, having approached silently. It was looking at the janitor expectantly.
“Yo.” The frog greeted, taking the cigarette out of its mouth and flicking some ash onto the tile floor. It had a deep gravelly voice, not what Beau had expected.
“Uhhhh, yo?” Beau responded, forcing himself to have nerves of steel he didn’t really possess.
“I’m Gary. You said your name was Beau?” The frog took another drag from the cigarette as he finished speaking.
Beau blinked twice, figuring he must have heard him outside. “Yeah, it is.” The frog took several more drags from the stick, and Beau watched it as a sweat bead dribbled down his wet face. “So what brings you to, uh, the corner store? Didn’t know frogs liked… convenience?”
The frog dropped into a splayed out sitting position, his body making a profoundly loud ‘splop’ noise as it collided with the smoothly tiled floor. “I love frozen dinners and menthols, brother. Can’t get enough of ‘em. This place has ‘em in spades.” ‘Gary’ seemed to believe that was reason enough, and went back to taking drags from his cig.
“Strange combination.” Beau hoped that this would be a lot smoother than he was fearing it would have been. “Soooooo, is there like a home I can help you get back to?”
The frog shook his head in the negative, which really meant he shook his entire torso more or less. “Ain’t goin’ home. Too much heat on me.”
“Heat? What… what did you do?” Beau leaned in, morbidly curious.
“I’m famous. You never heard of the Chugwater Frogman?”
“What the hell is a Chugwater?”
“Town in Wyoming. I’m their local frogman. Got tired of their bullshit.”
Beau hoped there would be more of an explanation, or at least justification, but he was left wanting. “Well you can’t stay in this corner store, the uhm… the owner is gonna kill you. With a gun. A really big gun.” Beau lied once again.
Another wisp of menthol wafted through the air. “Nah, I could take it.”
“A… a bullet? You’re saying you can take a bullet?”
“Yeah. I've had worse.”
“L-like what?”
“Got hit by a car once.” The frog looked Beau dead in the eyes, and said, “Do you know how many bullets you can fit in a car?”
Beau blinked and swallowed. “No, I don't think… I don’t think it works like that.”
“Have you ever been shot?”
“…Have you?”
The frog stood up, his feet making little plap noises on the floor as he paced. “Listen, this place has everything a frogman could need, except for a nice Olive Garden platter, flat screen, and a DVR so I can watch Big Brother… sittin’ on a sofa, rubbing my belly, scratchin’ my-”
The janitor loudly cleared his throat. “Well, look, that sounds awesome but my job right now is to clean this place up. If you want, I can get you somewhere wet at least? Do frogs like wet things?”
“I mean, I’m more of a branch guy, but wet is a good start.” Beau thought that over…
Five minutes later, Beau had situated Gary on a mop handle he had haphazardly placed inside of a trucker shower stall. Gary was gripping onto it, using it like a branch. It was liable to fall apart any second, but the lukewarm water cascading down Gary’s back giving him a serene expression oddly made it all worth it. Sort of.
It was much less fun when he had to start wheeling his mop bucket setup back and forth from the main store back to the janitor closet, the same room with the shower stall, and began the arduous task of the clean up. It was going to be quite a long one, between all the spilled food and drinks, cigarette ashes, poop–
“Hey wait a minute.” Beau said, looking at Gary as he was dumping out the bucket into the mop sink. Gary opened his eyes, and looked annoyed that he was being talked to. “Why did you shit all over the store - aren’t you like, basically a human frog?”
“Frogman.”
“Right, so… Why? Do they not house train frogmen in Wyoming?”
“I am burrow trained, thank you very much. That Tony guy just reminds me of the damn truckers who’d come through. Always littering, fouling up the water. One of the reasons I left. I don’t take shit from nobody, but I will shit on people who I think deserve it.”
Man, Beau wished he could do that. Well, not shit on people’s floors - that would be weird. But he definitely liked the rest of that attitude. “Yeah, that Tony guy is… not great. I’d go so far as to say I think he’s an ass.”
“Dude he smells like shit, at least you only smell like bleach and sadness.”
The man winced, looking down at his sullied beige uniform. “Oh, you can tell?” He felt the soreness in his legs more profoundly, and decided to take a break by sitting down and leaning against the wall. “I guess I am kinda sad.”
The frogman looked over, peering out of the stall. “What’s gotcha down? You seemed pretty confident back there, like a… real cleaning professional.”
Beau sighed heavily and leaned on the handle of his mop. “A cleaning professional that barely makes above minimum wage. But it’s not the money that’s the issue, I just… can’t shake how lonely I feel in this town, y’know? I’m committed to cleaning up Pierre’s messes but I’ve got no one to be in a mess with.” He looked up at the creature.
The frogman gazed at him with his large, unreadable golden eyes. There was something… utterly human in those eyes. “No one? Don’t most people have someone else at home?”
Beau shrugged. “Well, I have a roommate, but we don’t really talk to each other, just kinda exist in the same space. He wouldn’t give me the time of day even if I was made of money. We just pay rent together.”
A few moments passed, as the shower continued to run its water, splattering over the floor. Then, Beau looked up from the blue and grey tiles as a brown froggy foot stepped into view. “I didn’t really have anybody either. It’s always just been me, not even really sure where I came from but this place seems better than Chugwater. It’s got better janitors at least. And it has more than one restaurant.”
Beau smirked. “What’s your favorite place to eat?”
“Wendy’s.”
Beau sat up straighter. “No way dude, me too! You fuck with a vanilla frosty?”
Gary sat down with a wet noise next to Beau. “That and the breakfast baconator with the swiss cheese sauce.”
The janitor nodded. “I feel you, I feel you. Guy I live with only ever wants to order out Little Caesars - no taste whatsoever.”
“Fuck Little Caesars, they’re cheap for sure but they taste like cardboard - and I’ve eaten cardboard so I should know.”
“Absolutely! I don’t wanna eat a fuckin hot and ready every weekend because he can’t pick up some actual groceries.” A few moments passed, the soothing sound of water on tiles the only noise in the store.
Then, Gary turned to Beau. “Yo, I got a twenty, let’s slam some Dominoes when you’re done.”
“Wha… Really?” Beau asked, stunned.
“Yeah bro, least I can do after making you pick up my crap -”
A raucous shattering of glass followed by a series of thuds resonated through the store. The two budding fast food aficionados turned to see two people fall through the window on the side of the room. One man crashed directly onto the floor with a big thunk, while the woman landed more gracefully than her partner, though still not very professionally.
“Cracker down….” The man on the ground groaned.
“For the record, the Pizza Hut in this town is better than the Dominoes.” The woman remarked, cleaning herself off before grabbing her partner and hoisting him up to his feet. Beau noted she used a mechanical arm that seemed to make lifting a grown man effortless. “Chudley, you're making us look bad.”
“Why you gotta say fuck me then? They didn’t see that.” He gestured to Gary and Beau, before desperately looking at them. “You guys didn’t see that, right?”
“Wha…. can I help you?” Beau was too dumbfounded to even react to Chudley’s question.
“You can help us by staying out of the way, you damn spook.” Maria scoffed.
Beau blinked, and Gary chuckled. “Spook?”
“We’ve been keeping an eye on things around here and we know you SCPeople are government contractors. Things that go bump in the night disappear around y'all, and you're always driving around in those fuckass Chevy vans."
“I’m just a janitor, lady, and I don’t have to explain myself to someone who clearly doesn’t know how to use a damn door!”
“It’s because they’re from Wyoming.” Gary replied dryly.
“How can you tell?”
“None of us know how to use doors. I broke that window over there when I came in.” Gary pointed at another, larger window that was busted in.
“I’m just gonna state for the record that I suggested we use a door but my partner wanted to make an entrance in style.” Chudley stepped forward. “This is Maria Johnston, aspiring parabiologist. And I am Greg Chudley, aspiring has-been.”
Gary looked at them with contempt. “Parabiology isn’t real, dipshit.”
“It will be a real science, once I have a chance to study you.” Maria explained. “Then those chuds at UW will finally see my brilliance.”
The realization hit Beau like a bag of bricks to who he was dealing with, “You two are college students?”
Maria glared as though Beau had just said the dumbest thing she’d heard in her entire life. “Yeah man. We’re on summer break. Do you not spend your summer break chasing your local cryptid 500 miles to the capital of South Dakota?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you two?” Beau asked, only to be easily thrown aside by Maria’s metal limb.
Maria pointed an accusing thumb at Greg, who was pretending not to sift through the bags on the ground of the convenience store. “Blame this one’s trust fund for enabling our insane tendencies. Now, Gary. We’ve come a long way for this. I promise I’m not going to hurt you but I need to take you back to my lab.”
The frogman made a loud, furious squeaking noise. “No! I’m not going anywhere! Why does everyone want something from me?!” Gary leapt with an incredible force across the room to distance himself from the pair. A lightbulb went off in his big froggy brain as he saw a discarded firearm on the ground. “Wait, fuck this.” Gary picked up his Glock 17 and took aim at the collegiate duo. Chudley immediately threw his hands up but Maria held her ground. “You two skeddaddle! I want to go to Dominoes with Beau and maybe roll around in the soil, just for a bit, and then binge Big Brother.”
If the right side of Beau’s body was aching from being thrown to the floor he would have felt all warm and tingly on the inside. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had wanted to hang out with him.
“I don’t understand why you're being so loyal to Dominoes. Pizza Hut has the superior pepperoni.” Maria continued to overcompliment Pizza Hut ignoring the fact she was being held at gunpoint.
“If you like wet dog food! Those ‘ronis are too damn soggy. Stop trying to change the subject! I will shoot.”
“I can take it.” Maria smirked confidently.
“Stop being cocky, have you ever been shot before?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Can’t be worse than getting hit by a car, do you know how many bullets you can fit in a car?”
“Depends on what kind of car. A smart car’s worth of bullets is a lot of bullets but not as many bullets as a Sedan. ”
“Well I could get my boy to go get the van, could you take a van’s worth of bullets?”
“I survived getting hit by a train. There isn’t a single amount of goddamn bullets that I wouldn’t be able to take!” Maria screamed, and Gary clicked the safety to the off position.
Beau crawled over to Chudley, who had just found a fifty in the corner and pocketed it. He whispered, “What…is happening right now?”
“Oh, uh, if you haven’t noticed Maria is very…. Particular about the semantics of things. She’s never one to lose an argument, no matter how ridiculous. Or if a frog is pointing a gun at her.”
“Riiight. Should we intervene before she gets herself shot?”
“I dunno man, she’s got me convinced. Maybe she could take a cruise ship’s worth of bullets.”
Beau tuned back into the conversation and decided he needed to act. He immediately jumped in between the pair again when Gary chambered a round, and they’d gotten somewhere near space shuttles worth of munition endurance.
“Look, none of you can take any FUCKING amount of bullets. Listen, Gary is the only person in this god forsaken town who seems to want to give me the time of day and I’m not gonna let you take him.” Beau said, impassioned. “This town is full of oddities, weirdos, and whatever the hell else. I would know. Just fucking pick one to write your paper on but not him, please.”
Maria stared daggers through Beau at the annoying frogman behind him but the janitor noticed a slight change in her demeanor before she turned around.
“Fine. You can take him.” She said over her shoulder.
Beau slumped with relief, and a little confusion. “Huh? You’re not gonna clock me again?”
A belabored sigh came from her as she walked away. “We've got other leads to follow up on. I'm sure we'll find something for the thesis.” She turned around and signaled for Chudley to follow. “We'll be seeing you around Skipper, dunno how lenient I'll be next time.”
Chudley gave a wordless salute as the pair disappeared into the night, leaving Beau and Gary dumbfounded.
“Hey, uh… You really mean all that?” Gary asked as he put away his Glock into the place in which he was storing it.
Beau looked down at the slightly shorter creature. “Of course man. You think that old coot has got more loose bills lying around? I saw that Chudley guy pocket a fifty.”
“I like the way you think, funny man. Let's get ourselves some Dominoes money!”
And so Beau and Gary finished cleaning up the store to the best of their ability all except one mess that Gary had left behind in Tony's office, as well they managed to loot at least sixty more dollars from the backroom.
Their weekend would be filled with delicious pizza and getting Gary set up back at Beau's place. While they didn't have an extra television just for Gary , they did have a window with a convenient angle to their next door neighbor whose favorite show just happened to be Big Brother.