Chapter one: Liar liar

Shellville, which was really more of a large town for that matter. A little piece of butt-fuck nowhere in the midst of glamorous Californiacations just out of San Diego's reach, but which luckily had a beach front.

And like many cities or towns or even all, Shellville held a common atmosphere on the best of nights.

It was cold, bitter and yet beautiful all the same.

Minus the people...

Night seemed to be the only time a man could quench his thirsts and never look back in regret until later the very next day. Men and women alike, throwing a couple of pennies or paper rolls as well as hours at each other for sex or for drugs all in good neighbourhoods.

Being the world we live in now or rather, the world that has always been a current and fashionable norm as cycles turn in order to try and stop it.

And one could be, although shouldn't be fooled by the Emerald city atmosphere in day time's delouse. For, it was the night time that which most people are skeptic of, that many come to show their true colours. As the real things that go bump in the the darkness of night; and in a town like Shellville, or as the youth claim it to be named "Hellville" after the vacuumus hole in the earth they saw it to be, around midnight...things would always start to get...rowdy in it's vast and eerie ambiance of buzzing streetlights and melancholy night owls. They each had their story...

And as Oliver knocks off of his day job, later than usual as the middle manager of a corner café near the town square called "Locale" - which on most days was filled with college students.

For some reason, Oliver believed that he had it (in some way) made; he didn't have to buy for more than one person in his house hold so the disposition of minimum wage didn't bother him, especially as his parents - who were tired of secretly locking their bedroom door at night; threw him into a fully furnished apartment at age eighteen, rather than a room with padded walls. That which was bought for a handsome amount of money in order to pay off the rent and to overcompensate for their silent hoorahs of ridding themselves of him, but with not so much a view to die for of the dark blue empty ocean far off into the distance since his apartment was built inland. Not to mention that they also gave him a car just so that one: Oliver couldn't complain about being kicked out and two; he wouldn't notice the joy in their faces when they did so.

Oliver's parents were never fond of his almost compulsive behaviorisms although, they did their best to except him as he was and tried to in some ways give him some kind of guidance, but Oliver never seemed to be interested; this made them usually suffer in silence and become rather conscious of his appearance in social gatherings and family events.

They went so far at times as to be very cautious not to stand in his way when he threw one of his many tantrums, it sometimes seemed better not to intervene.

It got so bad to a point of which they didn't even have the guts to tell him he was actually in fact adopted...

They were sweet, they didn't think that he needed to know, they were hopping that it would be much easier to love him all the same.

But that did not bother Oliver all that much, because he always in some way knew...It was either that or his mother had an affair, seeing as he was the only one in the house hold to have speckled green eyes and a scalp caked with wild curly strawberry blond hair.

He shaved his head to spite his appearance and identity once he ran away from home in the midst of one of his silent crises and it gave him a morose and anaemic light; this made his mother furious, that is after they had finally found him with the police. But she knew that there was very little she could do without finding a rat's head in her coffee or some other vicious consequence to that degree.

And dare she ever mention a therapist...

They had bought him a few of his favorite things in advance in fear that he would do something much worse if they simply kicked him to the curb and pretended as if it were the best gift any parent could ever give their already spoilt rotten ankle biter, for nothing ever seemed like enough.

And on his birthday, they had basically celebrated their new life without him and he was out by the next morning; with his parents believing that the days of mangled puppies, mutilated birds and squished bees along with the haphazard yelps from crying siblings now estranged were finally behind them.

Which led to his simple life here, as he continued to "peacefully" sweep after he told a fellow green eyed peer that he would helpfully take over the duty (even though he was practically done), pretending that he didn't notice that their shifts had ended about two hours ago in order to get his boss to pay him overtime.

"Hey, what are you still doing here? Your shift ended two hours ago, and where's Row? ", Oliver's boss - Mr. Moloi said as his jolly Fatman figure stopped and turned in front of him, blocking his seemingly bleak view of the inky space beyond the glass door and windows and even furthermore past the street lamp lights.

"Oh, I told him I would help out and that he could leave. I hardly noticed time fly by, sir.", Oliver lied.

"Come come, I've got to wake up early tomorrow.", Mr. Moloi spoke up.

"Taking the misers out to brunch again, sir?", he asked as he leaned on the broom stick.

"Why yes I am."

"I tell you, you spoil her, sir.", Oliver joked with a blank yet joyous smile.

"Well...like all women, she'll complain if I don't.", Mr. Moloi said with such a smile that made him look like the jolly Fatman's spitting image as his round belly shook with laughter, complete with a short greying beard before he turned for the front door which opened with a jingle bell.

"You'll lock up won't you? The spare key is on the hook.", the old rustic-fadora-wearing and slightly tan Santa cooed while he span on his heel as he waved goodbye to Oliver, who smiled and waved his farewell.

Pretending came very easy to Oliver, a talent or rather a game he had mastered years ago, when he could still play innocent when a window would break or when a sibling would suddenly lose their hair after using the shampoo or conditioner, and it seemed as though he was only getting better with time.

For you see, Mr. Moloi has had this quaint diner so to speak for years and practically treats Oliver, if not all his employees like a daughter or son; seeing as he has none that anyone knew of.

That made Oliver personally believe that he put himself in good terms with the elderly gentleman. Oliver seemed to believe that he practicality had him wrapped around his finger, and he would never admit the fact that he actually liked the old man, but if he were to die, then Oliver could quite probably own the café with a bit of elbow grease and shoe licking.

He truly believed he had a reputation to uphold.

And as soon as Mr. Moloi was out of sight, he locked the front door behind himself and immediately turned around to face what he would prefer to be known as trash world, or earth as we know it.

People are strange, but townsend life, am I right?

Shitty cops parading their badges for credit yet only able to think as far as their noses, litters of shitty people who all thought themselves better than one another, with their noses in the air whilst parading around under Oliver's very own as he climbed a nearby gas station kiosk's roof top to his secret hide out. Grabbing a pill and a cigarette.

As he sparks up, he then spots three loud idiots who are either teenagers or were acting like ones; who were - as many have heard people who fit the same description to be known as 'fuckboys' walking towards the rarely used train station as one of them puff on an e-cigarette or something to that effect.

Oliver rolled his eyes and trailed off to the sound of foot steps that came out of the darkness from a rather good example of 'No honer among thieves', as he spots a man not too far from under him flipping through a wallet which the stranger swiped from a busy and slightly deflated-looking mother of two monsters a block down from the station; both tearing her in different directions as she was dragged through the streets from an apartment building, at this hour.

She obviously hadn't known it dropped out by the time she had gotten into her car, tisk tisk.

The night was getting dark as the hours crept towards Midnight, but the people's needs were darker, so dark they appeared unseen, and Oliver was a testament. The man who swiped the wallet called for his undivided attention; walking amongst the few other nocto-freaks who roamed the streets at night with a smug look on his cheap face just before he crossed the road, no one in his shoes would shame this slimy stranger for his current choice, seeing as he got away with a thick and fancy wallet, who wouldn't feel lucky?

Oliver smiled having a knowing feeling that he was going to have fun tonight, starting with him.

But the night was still young,

he figured he might take his time.

He tailed the thief with his eyes to a dinky and rusty yellow lemon of a car, which Oliver figured either belonged to said lowlife or rather a car that he saw fit to steal at some point. He spotted the car ten feet away from the shadows cast by the lamp post as the stranger made his way across from the dodgy alley way as he scattered throughout the dark perpendicular alley way next to the gas station and crossed the road like a mangy cat. He must of come from a bar downtown not far from here as well, Oliver knew for sure, that if he were close enough to the scruffy looking stranger he would probably smell the stench of booze on his pathetic, possibly perverse, putrid persons; he bet on it for kicks.

Letting the now, excitement get the better of him as he makes his way to the car and follows within the shadows of the street he knew too well.

Assuming position in the backseat of the car in which case had questionable security or lack there of, as the layman took a quick detour to relieve himself amongst garbage.

Lying dormant and waiting, what feels like minutes pass in this quiet and dim alley when finally, Oliver's victim comes.

The dark and quiet alleyway in this shaded place alert him with faint foot steps that echo as they inch closer.

And on this dark and starry night, the thief's first mistake in this dodgy alley would be that he didn't check his back seat, to think he was the only danger at night was his biggest mistake, that is if he was a danger at all.

Oliver felt the chilled wind and the weight of the car shift as soon as the thief opened the driver door and got in. The engine sounded ready to give up to the sound of the key turn but soon made way for the comforting sound of functionality.

Oliver then sat up silently behind his oblivious victim as shadows cloak his thin and tall figure, and with a burning gaze of hunger, Oliver slipped on his favorite clown mask and readied himself slowly with his right hand, stashed in his secret gas station hide out and slowly leaned forward. A massive plastic grin was on not only his mask but also his very own face as he smelt the oily stench of beer upon the sticky-fingered crook.

Leaning in a bit more closely into the dim streetlight's dirty glow, slowly revealing his façade, just enough to get the attention he so believed he deserved in that moment.

But before the crook could scream as he inhaled air for his outburst, his mouth was muffled by a smokey smelling gloveless hand briskly followed by an arm around his neck that which constricted and tightened it's grip around his throat against the car seat as the strange smiling clown whispered numbers counting backwards from thirty, while the panicked and now breathless crook fidgeted and kicked in his seat, making him a drooling mess in twenty seconds flat. It was enough to keep the thief unconscious for the long ride ahead of them. That is unless of coarse he has to knock him out a few more times...

Then slowly, the tall and slender figure named Oliver let go and uncoiled, wiping the hand that had the crook's drool on the back of the seat before he got out and opened the back seat car door. Preparing to carry out the dead weight in the front seat to the back. And once he was done he took the driver's seat, put on the radio and started the engine.