dragon
© 2001
OK, I kinda had to do this.
Apologies to Amelia and Straker for liberating Nate for a short space. (And many thanks for the loan. He's just too kewl for words <g&rt;) He just seemed quite - perfect for this.
Time: The usual
Place: Somewhere in the boonies of England
Rating: Laughter. Oh --- PG for undefined language
Synopsis: More laughter. Ford gets an earful. Nate gets to drive. Straker is neatly tucked away at HQ.
Thump Thwop Thump. Thwop Thump. Thwop.
It was a rhythmic sound that had no connection to anything. Ford frowned at the monitors facing him. Then he heard the voices.
"So, what do you wanta do?"
"I dunno. Whatd'youwantado?"
"I dunno. Nothin' on tv."
"No tv."
"Yeah. No vcr, either."
"Nope. No books."
"Yep. No books. Wanta go to a movie?"
"No bucks."
"Bummer."
"Yeah. So. -- chips?"
"Nyah. No salsa."
Sigh.
The thump-thwop noises continued through the conversation, such as it was.
"Migo or Bhiyaki?"
"Migo."
"Cold stick?"
"Of course."
Silence except for the thump-thwop sounds. Extended silence.
Chuckles.
New voice. "Ok. Check the bathroom."
"What's in the bathroom?" suspicious voice.
Chuckles. "Go check."
"OK. Bathroom door open."
"Five hundred pound gorilla."
"What!!!! Slam the damn door!"
Laughter. Fourth voice. "Room service, send me up another room!"
Fifth voice, female. "Room service, I did not order a gorilla!" delivered in an off French accent.
"Shoot the damn thing!"
"It crashes through the door and door frame into the room, advancing on you."
"Shoot it!" in chorus. Crashing sounds. Uproarious laughter obscuring additional comment. Thump-thwop sounds stop.
"Missed!"
"How the hell do you miss a 500 pound gorilla in a 20 by 20 room???" female voice.
"Shoot again!"
Laughter obscuring other noises. Sound of feet drumming on the floor?
"Missed!!"
"It's gaining on you."
"Out of the room. Aw, shit!"
Chorus: "What?"
"I locked the door."
"Where's the key?"
"On the bedside table -"
"On the other side of the gorilla!" third voice sings out gleefully. "Room service, get me a key!"
"Shoot the damn thing!" female voice, still laughing.
"Got it!"
Ford frowned, he had not heard a single firearm discharge during the entire confrontation.
"Hey, good shot! Kills the gorilla. Momentum carries it forward, falls on you and crashes through the door to the room and into the hallway."
Hallway? They were observing and monitoring a shotgun style shack in the back of nowhere. What hallway?
More laughter. A dead five hundred pound gorilla was cause for laughter? What were these people on?
"M'sieur? Why did you keel your gorilla?"
#)&*)%_&)%$#*&@#$*_*%$ "It's not my gorilla!!!"
"But M'sieur, the hotel does not 'ave the gorilla? But, of course, it is the gorilla of M'sieur. Do you have a license for the gorilla?"
&)*)(*&%*_#%$&##(@$* "I said, it's not my gorilla. It was - in - my - bathroom -" laughter getting the better of the voice.
"You were keeping the gorilla in your bathroom? Is this not dangereuse?"
"IT'S NOT MY GORILLLAAAAAAAA!!!! YOU CRETIN!"
Huffy voice. "Well. Believe me, M'sieur, I will be reporting this to the proper authorities! Immediatement!"
"Uhm, D-Day, where'd you get the gorilla?" female voice sounding puzzled.
Long suffering sigh. "Will you push the damn thing off me please?"
"Oh, sure."
Laughter.
Odd sound of something small and solid rolling across a smooth surface. "Yeah, that works. D-Day is no longer surprised by anything he finds in a bathroom."
General laughter.
Nate stuck his head in and frowned at Ford. "So, what is going on?"
Ford shook his head. "I dunno. I'm beginning to think this is all --- " The plaintive whirring noise of an incoming spinner could be heard in the distance. "Then again, maybe not."
Thump Thwop - silence. Inside the shack, the quintet of mid-20's RPGers sat suddenly alert and nervous. They looked at each other.
"Oh, Shit! Not another one!"
Ford really frowned at his equipment at that point. There were sounds of activity inside the shack as the spinner whirled into view, Sky One in hot pursuit. Nate observing the shack was surprised to see a window fly open and a trio of apparently quite surprised cats come sailing out of it. A large dog followed, landed awkwardly, suddenly oriented on the sound of the spinner and took off after the cats, howling woefully.
The spinner fired. Nate thought they were the target for a moment, ducking instinctively. Nope. The shack took a direct hit and seemed to explode. Ford yanked off his headphones and tossed them down. His ears were ringing from the sound. Somehow, they'd gotten the wrong tip off. The inhabitants of the shack weren't in league with the aliens, but were apparent targets for elimination.
"God Damn!!"
"Yeah. Hey, who'd a thought they'd take it so personal?"
Nate looked over the hood of the van to see a quintet of disheveled young people coming over the fence separating the yard of the now destroyed shack from the roadway. The largest of the five carried a rifle over his shoulder. Two carried shotguns in a way that indicated great familiarity. The white haired fourth male carried some sort of carved stick in his right hand and looked to be wearing a pair of low slung hip holsters with serviceable revolvers in them. The girl, bringing up the rear, looked oddly misshapen round the neck until the lump moved and revealed itself to be a largish cream colored cat. As they moved across the road, it became obvious she had a large crossbow slung across her back as well.
"Hey, you gotta admit, the bazooka was definitely trump."
Laughter.
"We should split up. Something was chasing that bastard, right on its tail. We don't need to draw attention to our survival." The voice was a little more mature sounding.
"Yeah. No, problem, Zach. We'll lay low for a while. You take care. Don't need our favorite ref getting into trouble."
The broadest, if not the tallest of the five laid a friendly punch into the shoulder of the one carrying the stick "See ya round."
A nod and the pale haired one disappeared into the underbrush about a hundred feet away from the van. None of the survivors seemed to have noticed it sitting under its canopy of drooping branches.
Nate looked at Ford. Ford looked at Nate.
"Let's give them a ride," Ford suggested.
"Oh, shit," was the inelegant comment from the girl as the van pulled onto the road behind them. "Scatter."
They did.
Keith Ford counted to ten, kept his temper and called in their location. "They've scattered." He gave detailed descriptions, backed up by Nate's. He waited until they were told to return to base and he'd shut off communications before he let loose with a stream of scathing self-denigrating comments, the least of which was that they should have jumped on the quintet when they crossed the damned fence.
Nate, driving, let the storm sort itself out before he bothered to comment. Then he didn't. He signed inwardly. He wondered if the boss knew how much alike he and Ford were. Never satisfied, never self forgiving, never content. At least the younger man remembered to eat from time to time. A grin split the dark face. Oh, yes. He did believe that "young Ford" was passing the tests set for him, very, very well.
OK, the cast of characters are odd side steps:
Eighteen years ago, there were a bunch of us who played Call of Cthulhu. We had a lot of fun. The ref was really good at extemporaneous adventures.
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