The Dark Knight

[Nikki]

She had just finished putting the last tap of coffee in her coffee cup and had walked up to the sales clerk, bitching about how long it was taking the young woman to ring her up. I was more concerned with scouting out dry clothes. I pulled a black and white hoodie off of an end cap and tossed one to J, and undressed right there, pulling the white one over my head.
Robberies are much more cozy with dry attire.
"Eeeeeevrybody down!" I shouted in my manliest voice, and then burst out in high-pitched laughter. "We're gonna do this one old-school."

[boo radley]

I began laughing with Harley, then in a high falsetto, "Keys, guns, bullets, knives - oh, and some money. All on the table. Now." And then I burst out in high peals of laughter.

My laughter was never really manly. Just monstrous. The clerk shook her head, raising her hands. Fear. The way it freezes people. Interesting, but annoying. I picked up a baseball bat and began walking in her direction. "Gimme what you've got, sugar." And I pointed, with the bat, at the place under the cash register where you'd find a gun.

Or whatever else was under there, really.

[Nikki]

The lady who looked like a John Lennon wannabe started backing up hectically, curled up like a tortoise in its shell. It was weird. I mean, like. . .really weird. And that's coming from me.
"Check out this nut," I say to J.

[boo radley]

I stop advancing on the clerk and look at the lady. She's backing up. Like a turtle. "Daddy told me good! Daddy told me good, daddy told me good..." I raise my eyebrows and turn to Harley, and look back at the lady, who continues backing up, but stops talking, looking Harley and I dead in the eyes.

Well, that's courage. Or sick mentality. I flip a knife open to see how she reacts.

She continues backing up.

[Nikki]

I cannot stop laughing. "You could almost make a song out of that!" I say, grabbing a box of Heath bars from the bottom shelf. They always keep the Heath bars on the bottom shelf. They're like the forgotten Hersheys product. "Backin' up backin' up backin' up. . .cuz my daddy taught me good!" I sing.

[boo radley]

I snicker. "You could put that on YouTube. Speakin' of YouTube..." I clear my throat. "Heh, nevermind. Gimme one of those. I'm in the mood for a Heath bar." Don't know why, but the name "Heath" seems pretty fitting for me. Or, another version of me. In another life.

"Keep singing," I say to Harley, as I walk forward towards the woman. I wonder when she's gonna stop backing up. This is just an...experiment.

[Nikki]

"Uhm. . .And they said, 'Everybody down!' And I'm like, Oh my God, why'd I have to get coffee now?" And I start clapping while I'm singing, cuz it's so goddamn catchy.

[boo radley]

I raise my brows at Harley, quizzically, then return to the old lady. She stops backing up and begins mumbling what Harley's singing. I smirk.

"My daddy taught me good, too, see..." and I brandish my knife and walk forward. "When I was a kid, I had a father... like any other kid. And he was a racecar driver..."

After I scared her shitless with a story that may or may not have been true, I turned to Harley. "Well, that's good and done." We hear police cars in the distance. I turn to the clerk, whose hand is on the silent panic button. "You didn't... Oh, but you did." And I walk over and whack her in the head with the baseball bat. Four times.

"Let's go." Adrenaline rush is one thing. But these are like aftershocks.

[Nikki]

I have tears streaming down my face as I lug all the random shit I've stolen out into the night. "Oh, baby," I say, and give him a kiss on the cheek. "I kinda miss nights like this."

[boo radley]

I smirk. "'Course you do. We all need a little bit of easy every once in a while." Next thing I know, she'll be asking to raid an orange juice factory. I begin skipping out into the night. Not entirely sure why, though. I'm in an elated state of being. And then I begin humming the catchy tune from inside. I see a couple of news vans drive by. It's a good thing we're in the shadows.