Winning entry for 3/12, by Lazarus

The Assignment: By day, your character leads a seemingly normal life. But by night...


"Black and Gold Soup"

By day, head of the largest soup company in the world.
By night, working a night shift as a bank guard? Yes. Sad, shocking, stunning - but true.

“Lafe, hand me that shovel.” Chicken Soup grunted, throwing the pick aside.
“Here you go.” Lafe Crick said lazily from his position atop a pile of moneybags, tossing a shovel to C$.

C$ leaned on his shovel for a minute, pulling a can of soup out of his pocket. His pocketknife blade ripped through the lid.
“Slurrrrrp.”

The Campbell Soup company had lost money steadily for the past three years due to its CEO eating up half the output of the company. Creative accounting practices kept it afloat, but unless some hard cash was injected into the company soon - it was going nowhere but down.

Jed Clampett’s money would certainly take care of that problem, though…

“Get digging, you lazy bum.” C$ growled at Lafe, pushing his shovel into the dirt.
Lafe moaned something about his sore back and slowly picked up a spade.

The two night watchmen continued digging their tunnel - which led from the vault to the outside.

As C$ raised his shovel , he heard footsteps.
“Hide, Lafe!” he whispered.
“…Lafe?”
C$ turned around. Lafe was asleep on a pile of coins, snoring loudly. C$ sighed disgustedly and dragged him behind a pile of moneybags, crouching down. He opened another can of soup and ate quietly -waiting.

The third guard walked into the vault, looking round suspiciously.
C$ peeked over the top of his hiding place.
“Darn - the other guard.” he muttered.

Gary Coleman spotted the hole, shovels… and the empty soup cans. He pulled out his radio. “Time to call the cops.”
Summoning all of his strength into his arms, C$ heaved Lafe Crick into the air. He torpedoed down on Coleman. The radio flew out of the guard's hand and smashed against the floor.

C$ grabbed a can of soup and lunged at the guard. Coleman went for his pistol.
"Hold it!" he squeaked, aiming.
C$ hurled the soup can into Coleman's face, diving behind an empty box.
A gunshot rang out.

Mr. Drydesdale heard the commotion and rushed into the vault.
He tripped over Lafe and sailed through the air, landing with a thump in the tunnel. Unfortunately, his legs became stuck in the narrow hole.
"HELP!"
“Well, get ‘im out.” C$ ordered, handing Gary Coleman a trowel(biggest shovel he could handle) and pushing him into the hole.
"Just because I'm short, people think they can shove me around..." Gary muttered under his breath.

They waited while below Coleman dug around the trapped Drydesdale. C$ leaned over the opening.
“How’s it coming?” he yelled.
A stream of black liquid shot out and splashed into his face.
“OIL! We’re rich!” Lafe Crick exclaimed. “Nobody else is gonna git it either.” he growled, swinging the vault door shut.
The vault door - which automatically locked...
“You DUMMY! We’re trapped!”
C$ sat down disgustedly with a bowl of soup, shaking his head.