Flat Robin II: The Island

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Mr Razorz	Flat Robin II: The Island	Lead	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1112 (Jan 7, 2009 2:21 AM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None Those who frequented the old "FLea Forums" may recall the Flat Robin thread - a sort of collaborative pot-luck Flat Earth story, co-authored by anyone who wanted to have a go. About seven or eight people jumped in on that one, penning an epic tale in nearly twenty short episodes. Helena, Eddie and Lance frequented an Amish strip club, dealt with a cursed beer chiller, were assaulted (and insulted) by a wretched midget demon named Sassy-Frassy, were dragged into the depths of Hell to stand trial for something or other, and finally escaped with the help of a Pink Floyd musical number, and directions to the surface from Dante and Virgil. Unfortunately, the thing was later moved to Ezboard, which meant it was obliterated in the Great Hack which came just a few short weeks later. A backup copy may have been prudent. Never mind. Anyway, I reckon it's about time we did another one, just because and so forth. So here we go. Same drill as last time - I'll provide the first episode, then it's open to the rest of y'all. *Rules and Tips:* 1) Your contribution should be somewhere between 400-600 words long. 2) One person can't post consecutive episodes - wait for someone else to have a go. 3) You should end your episode by providing the title for the following one - for example, Next: Attack of the Disorganised Marauders! or Next: Romance Blooms, For Some Reason. The next guy should then start their episode with that title, and do what they can with it. 4) Try to keep the characters in character. We shouldn't see Helena falling in love with Lance, or Eddie mowing down schoolchildren with a machinegun. If you're unfamilar with the characters, go here or here. Read and learn. 5) The title for this story is Flat Robin II: The Island. It begins with the characters being stranded on a mysterious island (which may or may not have something to do with me recently buying a second-hand copy of Lord of the Flies). Whatever twists and turns the story may take, I'd like the island to be the long-term setting. Where the island actually is, who and what lives there, and what strange adventures might occur, all remain to be seen. But like poor Gilligan, the characters should be stuck there for the duration. 6) I've started a second thread for feedback and comments. Let's keep this one just for the writing. In the immortal words of Buck the Orderly - "Other'n that, it's all good, buddy." FLAT ROBIN II: THE ISLAND #1: Life's a beach Helena woke up with a face full of sand and a nose of seawater, and she immediately knew it was Lance's fault. She didn't exactly remember how she'd come to be here, or where here was, or why it tasted of salt and dead fish. She was so disoriented after fighting her way through the surf onto dry land that she wasn't sure which way was up. But there was one thing that was clear, one fact that was solid and unshakeable in her dizzy head, and that was it was all Lance's fault. She lay in the sand, occasionally sneezing up salt water, letting her thoughts drift around her pounding head like lost tourists in an airport. Airport. There'd been an airport. Hedgerow Airport, Sundry City. They'd been boarding a plane. Not a large plane. Or a very new one, for that matter. Helena didn't know much about aviation, but it looked like a DC-3, and not a well-maintained one. Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall the legend painted on the side… AIR AND BACK AGAIN. She groaned as memories flooded back. The radio contest. Zeke and Gomez's Breakfast Burnout on K-WHY radio. Lance winning a holiday. Something about being able to name every Playmate of the Year dating back to 1960. Four tickets on a budget airline to some third world dictatorship, redeemed only by its tropical climate and lax tariff regulations. Helena shouldn't have gotten on the plane. She wouldn't have, if she'd been sober. But it was Friday night and it had been a trying week, and she'd had one too many glasses of wine after dinner, which had then led to three two many rum & cokes. And that was before Lance had said "Let's go clubbing!" and Helena was just drunk enough to say, "Yeah!" and dragged Eddie into the cab with them. And then there were bright lights and loud music and sarcastic barmen and a short hairy man named Chaz who kept asking her if her father was a thief, and there was drinking and more drinking and still more drinking, and that was when Lance had pulled out the tickets and said the magic words "free holiday". The last thing she remembered was staggering up the steps onto the antiquated DC-3 and asking the pilot if he had any sick bags on board because she was "drrrrrrrrrrunk, mishter" and then she'd fallen into the nearest seat and passed out. When she woke up, the plane was nose-diving into the ocean. She wasn't at all surprised. The cold water had sobered her up, or perhaps it was the terror of impending death. Either way, she'd managed to swim out through the big hole where the tail used to be, and fought to the surface. Spotting land in the distance, she'd struck out swimming for it. She hadn't seen anyone else. And here she was. Wet, dirty, exhausted, hung over, and with no idea where she was. Why did all her holidays turn out this way? Dragging herself up, she looked at her surroundings. She saw sand, and trees, and rocks, and mountains. And not much of anything else. That figures, she thought. Where was Eddie? And Lance? And…? Wait- there were four tickets. And there'd only been the three of them at the club. Yet she definitely remembered a fourth person on the plane. So who…? She looked around to see a short, hairy, silk-shirted figure staggering up the beach, seaweed wrapped around his balding head. "Hey, baby," said Chaz, spitting out seawater. "Are we there yet?" NEXT: What's become of Eddie? You're a real gone kid And maybe now baby I'll do what I should have did ~ Deacon Blue, Real Gone Kid (1988) Last Edited By: Mr Razorz Jan 7, 2009 5:39 AM. Edited 1 time.
Grendelvs		#1	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1128 (Jan 7, 2009 5:19 AM) Ball Point Pen Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#2: What's Become of Eddie? Eddie Paradigm was not often confused by things. Today, however . . . He remembered--very vividly, but not at all fondly--being knocked near-unconscious by Lance's airborne ass while the dilapidated drink tray went soaring by overhead. Was it overhead? Well, it went sailing past. Zoom, it seemed to say with gusto, having never gone that fast before. Smash, it decried with the same zest, going all to pieces when it impacted with the forward bulkhead. I have no regrets, it gurgled out its last. I must have taken a solid wallop, Eddie thought. Then water. Lots of it, everywhere. Like when people say, "It came pouring in like the sea," this is exactly what they mean. At some point after the crash, he'd taken his cell phone and in-flight meal and fashioned a rebreather out of it. Every inhale tasted vaguely of cardboardesque turkey (or pork . . . best not to dwell on it too much) but he had a much easier time of being in the ocean than everyone else, he imagined. Hmm. Everyone else. He struck out, searching around for Lance, or Helena, or the short hairy man that'd been hitting unsuccessfully on Helena all night. He didn't find any of them. What he did find,though . . . Or, rather, what found him. One minute, Eddie was paddling along. The next, he'd passed through a translucent sphere of many colors. And smells, actually, the most predominant being undefined, but would later be called "Yuck" when an enterprising entrepreneur bottled it. But that's another story. The sphere led into an undersea vessel of a sort. The walls and hallways leading away from the dock he was in were lined with suction cups and seashells and smelled quite wharfish. He stood there for a bit, dripping, while he tried to decide if his rebreather was malfunctioning and this was all a hallucination brought about by oxygen deprivation, or was it all really real? Really real, he decided. Several factors led to this decision, but the biggest one (or two, perhaps) was the bare chest of the mermaid that came into the dock with a tray of steaming beverages. If I was Lance, he thought, but thank Christ I'm not. "Welcome aboard the A.S.S. Seahorse. We've been expecting you." Eddie was taken aback. Not so much by being expected by a mermaid, but . . . well . . . "Excuse me, did you say the A.S.S. . . . ?" "Yes, the Atlanean Submersible Ship. Whatever else could it mean?" When Eddie finally glanced down and saw that the chesty mermaid's bottom half was a mass of wriggling tentacles, he understood. "Ah, well," he said. "Nevermind, then. D'you have any soup?" NEXT: Lance is hip-deep in something . . . fishy. Last Edited By: Grendelvs Jan 7, 2009 5:26 AM. Edited 1 times.
Nenya		#2	[-]
Fountain Pen Posts: 468 (Jan 7, 2009 3:08 PM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	3: Lance is hip-deep in something... fishy Lance, being Lance, had had only one thought as their plane had hurtled its way into the deep blue below and that was to save as many of the tins of beer as he could possibly hold before they sunk with the wreckage. Of course the fact that the weight of them might mean he would sink with them did not enter his head for a moment, or if it did it was immediately ignored as being irrelevant since there was nothing more important than beer (except all women wrestling, perhaps) and nothing as damaging to the soul or as heinous as beer once known then lost forever at the bottom of the sea. That and, in situations such as this (and he'd been in enough of them to know), it became not so much stealing as salvage. Lance might not have many morals or scruples, but saving beer was one of the few he stuck to almost religiously. He actually felt quite proud of himself as kicked free of the door someone had managed to prise open - or perhaps the impact had smashed it open - and briefly bob to the surface with the comforting weight of the entire plane's supply of beer hanging heavy in his jacket. It was all too brief a bob, however. 'Pride before a fall', they say, and in this case it was 'pride before sinking like a stone.' Lance was dimly aware of some inner demon within himself insisting he should offload the beer and thus stop himself from floating down, down, ever down, and before he passed out, though he little knew it, one hand was already inside his jacket, fingers clutched round the nearest tin, but he simply could not bring himself to do it, and besides which by that time he had not inhaled for some considerable time and his brain had decided to do the only decent thing and shut itself down completely. When he woke, it was less surprise that he was alive, warm and dry that hit him like a breezeblock, than the rage that overwhelmed him on patting his chest to discover that the beer was gone. "Thieving bastards!" he mumbled incoherently into the pillow. Wait, what? Pillow? Lance rolled over and blinked. Light. Blue-green light, dappled, rippling over the opposite wall and straight up there was… glass? Yes, definitely glass. With a shock Lance realised he was staring straight up into hundreds of feet of water, fish swimming overhead, fronds of long green strands of seaweed somewhere over to the right. He gasped and jumped out of bed and away instinctively, the shock of what he had been through with the crash and the memory of falling down through water slowly asphyxiating suddenly vividly with him for a moment. "Shh, lie back down," a gentle voice said. "Nothing can harm you here." And then there were hands, soft as down, helping him back to bed, and all round him several pairs of naked bosoms. And, yeah, tentacles and fish tails too, but what was a tentacle or fish tail or two between friends, right? "Breasts," he managed to blurt out, earning an exchanged look between the mermaids tending to him to the effect that they clearly considered him to still be delirious. The slow leer that had slid onto his face quickly told them otherwise, however, as did his demand for the return of his tins of beer along with various suggestions as to how they could all pass the time if they so chose. Mermen weren't nearly so much fun, Lance decided twenty minutes later, feeling somewhat hard done by. NEXT: Chaz and the coconuts my LJ ~ my fanfic ~ TWC ~ BIA ~ MV Last Edited By: Nenya Jan 7, 2009 3:33 PM. Edited 1 times.
scrolleater.thelotrmoviesite		#3	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 13 (Jan 8, 2009 10:46 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	4: Chaz and the Coconuts. The Beach stretched away in both directions, with little to distinguish the two views except the line of meandering footprints on the part behind her. And Chaz of course. "No," Helena stated, emphatically. "Not now, not ever." "Aww... c'mon, baby," Chaz leered, waddling eagerly into her line of sight. "There's just you and me, here..." he gave what he clearly believed to be his most impressive smile. And Helena was impressed. Chaz was the first person she had met that made Lance look wholesome. She scowled at him. The sunlight was bad enough for her condition right now, but that shirt was torture. She was hungover, waterlogged, battered and hungry. And right now, she was craving pancakes. "No one else..." she agreed grimly. "That means no one... to help you." She gave him her best glare. It was a little wilted, all things considered, but it was his first. Chaz paled. "Hey now, bab- ehh... Hey now," he protested, raising his hands. "There's no need for all of that. I can help you, you know." "Help me, how?" Helena asked warily, bracing herself for the double-entendre. Chaz preened, sensing possible victory. "I'm something of a survival expert," he explained proudly. Helena raised an eyebrow. Chaz-now sensing skepticism -pressed his case. "Oh yes," he assured her. "I've loads of experience in this sort of thing." "This experience..." Helena ventured. "It wouldn't happen to involve watching episodes of Survivor, would it?" Chaz flinched and shuffled his feet. "Not just that no..." "What else?" "mumblemumble" "Excuse me?" "temptation island, as well" "Oh. Oh god." "Look! Trust me, I'll show you!" Before Helena could be bothered to think about stopping him, Chaz scampered eagerly towards the treeline - somehow managing to swagger at the same time - and flung his arms around the nearest palm. His legs followed a moment later, and he began grunting softly. Helena opened her mouth to demand what the hell he was doing then remembered similar conversations with Lance, and shut it again. She turned her back on him to stare at the ocean, and frowned. Was that...? She stepped down the beach a ways, scanning the horizon. Yes, she decided. Just as she suspected, the sea was, in fact, utterly devoid of any convenient rescue vessels. A short cry of triumph brought her attention involuntarily back to Chaz. It seemed his antics were, in fact an attempt to climb the tree - a feat hampered somewhat by the shortness of his limbs - and he had actually made some progress. He was, by now at least a half a foot off the ground. Helena now judged it was safe to demand what the hell he though he was doing. "Getting... breakfast..." was the breathless reply. "By the time you reach the top, it'll be lunchtime," she pointed out, a little nastily. "Nono, I'm getting the hang of it, now." And he was. By now, his breathless scrambling had gotten him almost two feet upwards. Lacking alternative amusement, Helena sat herself down under a neighboring tree and after a cautious examination of its fruit, plucked one and began to eat. Rather to her surprise, Chaz actually made it almost a quarter of the way up before he fell. With a despairing wail he plummeted the short distance to the sand and landed on his copious rear. He had only a moment to give her a forlorn look before - like the punctuation of the slapstick gods - two coconuts dropped from above and landed either side of him. "Well done," Helena congratulated, and saluted him with the half-eaten fruit. Next: An Octopus's garden. ---------------------------- One Affliction I have never been diagnosed with, is Sanity. The Black Storeroom \| My Live Journal
Mr Razorz		#4	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1112 (Jan 9, 2009 10:29 AM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Just to keep things movin'... #5: An Octopus' Garden "Soooo…" Eddie murmured, feeling a bit lost. "Where did you say we're going?" The mermaid looked sideways at him, wearing a faint frown. "I did not say where we are going." Eddie sighed. The mermaid - whose name was Ianeira - was pleasant company, tentacles notwithstanding, but she tended to be rather literal. "Alright. Where are we going?" Ianeira's serene expression returned. "We are returning to the Garden." Eddie nodded. "Right. Good. Okay." He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around. Inevitably, if accidentally, his eyes lighted on Ianeira's bare breasts. He quickly looked away. Weren't mermaids supposed to wear seashells or something? And not have tentacles? Eddie decided to focus on the bridge around them, which wasn't difficult. The A.S.S. Seahorse was a technological marvel, and Eddie was right into those. Approximately the size of a modern aircraft carrier, the submersible was shaped like a massive squid. It moved like one too, apparently constructed from some flexible material. Housed within the outer skin, each in its own airtight compartment, were any number of decks, cabins and other habitable chambers. Like the bridge. A huge bubble mounted in the nose of the "squid", it was fitted with devices and technology beyond anything that Eddie recognised. It was also manned by at least twenty mer-people, all rushing - er, wriggling - about as they busied themselves with the running of the vessel. About half of them were female. None of them wore seashells. Eddie had briefly met the Captain - a tall and imposing figure named Pontos, with eyes like storm clouds and a great blue-green beard that seemed to be an entity unto itself - but the merman seemed to have little time for him and was presently off shouting at people across the bridge. Ianeira, for her part, seemed to be some sort of Midshipman - er, Midshipmaid - whose duties consisted of serving beverages and babysitting people whom Captain Pontos didn't have time for. "So… this garden-" Eddie began. "The Garden," Ianeira corrected him, emphasising the capital G. "Er, the Garden," Eddie went on. "What sort of Garden is it? Are we talking vegetables, or…?" Ianeira frowned, deeper this time. "The Garden is our home. The ancestral seat of our culture. Since the drowning of Mother Atlantis, we have resided there." Eddie scratched his ear. "Uh-huh. So it's underwater?" "It is underground," Ianeira replied. "Within a great system of caves, deep in the bowels of the Island. There we live in harmony, safe from those on the land above who would do us harm." Eddie looked at her. "What island?" "The Island." "Oh. Of course." Eddie looked up through the bubble, watching schools of fish sweep past the vessel as it ploughed through the briny deep. A small shiny object came into view, bounced gently along the top of the great canopy, and was swept back into the ship's wake. Eddie frowned. It had looked, for all the world, like a beer can. "Ianeira… You haven't found any other people, have you? I mean, people like me? From the crash?" She looked blank. "Such as?" "Well, there was a girl. About this tall, dark hair, kinda pretty? Possibly a bit drunk?" "I do not think so." "Well, what about a tall guy with red hair? Glasses, little goatee, probably holding a beer can?" Ianeira's eyes narrowed. "Oh, him. Yes, he has been found." Eddie's heart lifted. "Really? Where is he?" "On another ship." Eddie beamed. "Are they meeting us at the Garden?" "No," Ianeira replied curtly. "He does not go to the Garden. He goes to face his Destiny." Eddie's face fell as he picked up on the capital D. "His what…?" NEXT: Trouble Above, Trouble Below You're a real gone kid And maybe now baby I'll do what I should have did ~ Deacon Blue, Real Gone Kid (1988)
scrolleater.thelotrmoviesite	(Because no one else has)	#5	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 13 (Jan 13, 2009 10:26 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#6 Trouble above, Trouble below "But why is the Beer gone?" Lance interrupted. The Merman paused in his lecture, to give him a disapproving look. It was not the first he had received since his awakening (or in his lifetime for that matter), and he ignored it. It appeared that his hosts were a little on the prudish side - which was a little rich coming from naked people, Lance thought - and he seemed to have offended them somehow. Well, there was nothing really new there, either. The man - who seemed to be called Loggysomething or other - was trying to say something about why they were so upset, but Lance was keen to get the conversation back to the important part. "You have more things to worry about now, than your lost... beverage, I believe," the other informed him. "You can believe what you like," Lance retorted, "But I want to know why the beer is gone." Disapproval turned to disgust as the man turned his back on Lance. "The Tree Dwellers will barely break a sweat, with you," he muttered, grimly. The tone of Doom on that name was enough to penetrate even Lance's brain. "The what now?" he asked. "I thought you wished to know the whereabouts of your 'beer' " the merman replied, a little snippily. A light dawned in Lance's eyes. "Do they have my beer?" The man winced and knuckled his forehead in a manner Lance had seen Helena do on several occasions. "They do not," he replied, through his teeth. "Then why bring them up?" The door to his small room (cell?) opened and one of the females entered. On seeing the direction of Lance's gaze, she instantly wrapped her arms across her torso, possibly the first of her species to do so, and thus proving that some actions are purely primal. "Lugean," she addressed him. "Is... this one prepared? We have arrived." "Even if I was able to complete the explanation," he replied. "I doubt that he would be prepared." "You have not yet explained it to him?" she exclaimed. "We have been sidetracked," Lugean answered, stiffly. "Do you have my beer?" Lance demanded of her. The woman gaped at him. Lugean simply made a 'you see?' gesture with his hands. "Do you not realise exactly what kind of trouble you are in?" she inquired, with forced civility. "Of course I do," he replied. "I'm trapped on a strange ship of some kind with a bunch of half-naked beer-stealing wierdos. Again." "Come with me," she told him, and walked from the room. Lance followed, though he reflected that the rear view of these girls was not as interesting as that of a normal type. She led him upwards through the ship, eventually reaching a room that seemed to open to the sky. There was some signs that normally a barrier of some sort would be in place, but not now. Their craft was on the surface now, and bobbing off shore of some island or other. Lance's gaze darted around keenly, but failed to spot any beer. "Upon the surface of this island," the woman informed him. "Are a dangerous people. A people utterly given to their darker natures, a people sunken in debauchery and evil, a people- " Lance paled as he felt the first stabs of fear. Was it possible that these fish-folk were not just prudes, but also... teetotallers? The woman trailed off as she realised the human was not even listening. She sighed deeply, and mentally gave up, pointing to a small vessel that bobbed alongside their larger craft, crewed by a couple of heavily armed merfolk. "Go ashore," she said, simply. "You may find your beer there." After he had departed, Lugean frowned at her. "You lied," he murmured accusingly. The woman shrugged. "The sea may yet wash up his unholy drink." "He is unprepared, he does not even know his task, or the dangers. He does not know about Them." She shrugged again. "They will either slay him, or welcome one of their own. Either way, it is now in the hands of Fate." Next: Tree Hugging. ---------------------------- One Affliction I have never been diagnosed with, is Sanity. The Black Storeroom \| My Live Journal
Grendelvs		#6	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1128 (Jan 15, 2009 9:45 PM) Ball Point Pen Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tree Hugging? In the jungles, something awaited its prey. It hungered, ravenous . . . and soon, this massive hunger would be sated by the only meal that could do so . . . Meat. Lithe and sinuous, the pale creature moved among the leaves as one born to them. It did not pause, except to make sure its quarry was yet unaware of its impending doom. Closer, closer, it crept . . . until finally, it pounces! "Oy! Gowern, then! Getcher own bloody bangers!" The lithe and sinuous creature hung onto the back of the large and sweaty bearded man. Its straw-colored hair swung about wildly as they struggled for survival . . . and sausages. Quickly, the struggle was over as the fat man sat on the girl, pinning her under his ponderous bulk. "Now, den. To me brekky, what?" "Clive! You always get the bangers, mate. Bleedin' unfair, that is," the stringy girl cawed from beneath the bearded man's backside. "Survival of the fittest, wench." Chaz and Helena watched this from behind another tree. "Can't say as I blame 'im," Chaz muttered, garnering a smack to the back of the head from Helena. "Survival of the fittest, Chaz? And where would you be if I hadn't opened your coconut for you?" "You opened it on my head." Helena raised her eyebrows and smiled. "I chose the place least likely to cause damage." "We were surrounded by rocks!" "Shh," Helena said, holding up a silencing finger. It appeared that something was happening. Yep. It was. "Hey! You lot! Where's my sodding beer?" Lance was struggling up the beach toward the tree line, eyes hot with retribution for beer-thieves. "What's he on about, Gretchen?" the fat man asked the girl . . . who was still under him. "Get yer far arse offa me, so's I can see who's comin'." "Awright," Clive said, "but mind you, stay off my breakfast." The girl, Gretchen, clambered upright to watch Lance's approach. If the totality of his appearance was the deadly and fierce look in his eyes, Gretchen would have ran. Sadly, the look on the eyes was being carried by a small frame that supported a rather surprising beer pooch. He was also walking some bit bow-leggedly, still sore from one of the mermaid's offense at his lecherous stare. "Where's. The. Beer." Lance stopped in front of Clive, who was busily munching away on a plate of sausages. "Beer?" Clive asked. "Beer?" Chaz whispered. "Beer," Helena sighed. "Look," Lance said, pointing at the ocean. "Those squigglies down there said that you Tree Dwellers had my beer. I'm not going anywhere until--" Clive and Gretchen jumped up, looking around. "The Tree-Dwellers? They're here? I thought . . . but," Clive continued louder, much louder. "I thought we were clear of your territory. Sorry 'bout that! We'll just be moving on now, yeah?" Gretchen and Clive left everything they had behind (pile of coconuts, bigger pile of leaves) except the sausages and started down the beach. Lance was confused. "So, you don't have my beer?" And after a moment's thought. "You're not the Tree-Dwellers, either?" "Tree Dwellers, eh?" said Chaz. "I wonder what they look like?" Helena, who had been paying slightly more attention, was standing straight up and looking behind her. "Um," was all she got to say before a large burlap sack was thrown over her and Chaz. Next: Eddie Makes Good
stringertheory	Eddie Makes Good	#7	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 18 (Jan 16, 2009 2:03 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	At that moment, an announcement rang through the ship. Eddie looked to Ianeira for a translation of the mermish, but she was staring ahead, where a dark shape began to appear. Eddie squinted through the watery gloom as the shape coalesced into the roots of an island. Ianeira smiled. "The Garden." "That's 'The Garden'?" Eddie asked. Ianeira's head whipped around, her eyes narrowed. "Yes. Is there a problem?" "No, no," Eddie replied hurriedly, hands raised defensively, "I just expected it to be more, you know, green. And possibly above ground. Like a... garden." With a huff, Ianeira turned, gesturing for Eddie to follow. "About half of the Garden is below sea level," she explained, "out of necessity more than anything. The areas above the water are in the base of the mountain for the most part. There are caves and such that open to above, however, though we rarely make use of them." Eddie perked up at that. Lance was on an island somewhere, too. And Ianeira had mentioned that the island above The Garden was a bit less than friendly. Maybe they'd dumped Lance there to meet his Destiny (what was it with these octu-people and their proper nouns?). If he could just sneak away, there was a chance Eddie could find Lance, and then find Helena, and maybe even put a bit of effort into finding that short, hairy guy that had tagged along, and they could all find a way out of here. Eddie decided to play the sly card. "So," he started, "you said that you don't get along with whoever lives on the island up there, right? What exactly is up there?" Ianeira stopped and tentacled herself around to face Eddie. "We don't talk about Them." "'Them'?" "Them." "Right." Eddie nodded slowly. "Them." The two stared at each other for a moment, Eddie waiting for more and Ianeira apparently waiting to make sure that Eddie understood. Seemingly satisfied, Ianeira turned and continued to lead Eddie down the corridor. By this time the ship was under the island, having glided into one of the hundreds of tunnels that cut through the island's base. To Eddie, it looked a bit like floating through gray swiss cheese. The ship docked and Ianeira led Eddie out onto a busy thoroughfare. Mer-people bustled past Eddie for as far as he could see to his left, his right, and straight ahead, disappearing from sight into the darkness of the tunnels. Ianeira joined the traffic heading left and Eddie scurried to keep up. The path here sloped gently upwards and Eddie kept an eye out for any side tunnels that looked promising. They had been walking for what seemed like ages, the crowd thinning more and more the further they went, when he saw it. As they passed yet another tunnel, this time to his right, Eddie saw a faint glimmer of sunlight. Even as he registered what he'd just seen, Ianeira motioned him through another tunnel to the left of the path. From the steely glint in her eye, he had no choice but to follow. Making a mental note of what the other tunnel looked like (and hoping it would help when he came back alone, and most likely followed by heavy pursuit), Eddie ducked under the archway, turned a corner, and stepped into direct sunlight. He blinked a few times. "Oh. The Garden." Next: Monkey See, Monkey Do
Mr Razorz	#9: Monkey See, Monkey Do	#8	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1112 (Jan 16, 2009 11:28 PM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Half an hour ago, Helena's day had almost been getting better. Fresh fruit and coconuts for breakfast had improved matters, as had the satisaction of opening said coconuts on Chaz's thinning cranium. The confirmation that Lance was alive probably went in the "plus" column, although she'd had to debate that one. Finding other people on the island was another positive sign, even if they were (judging by their accents) unemployed Disney voice actors with a sausage obsession. Her hangover was wearing off, too. But then… monkeys. Lots of them. With a sack. Helena didn't know much about primates (Lance notwithstanding) but she suspected that throwing sacks over people and dragging them into the jungle wasn't natural monkey behaviour. This would have been distressing enough, but Chaz was in the sack with her, and bits of him had been pressed against bits of her that they had no business being pressed against. And washing up out of the sea this morning hadn't done much to water down his aftershave. Now she was hanging upside down from a tree. She considered this a mild improvement, although she was glad she'd worn sensible underwear. Especially since Chaz (inversely suspended from another branch nearby) could see her sensible underwear, and seemed to be somewhat transfixed by them. Helena's attention was on the skinny, bearded man with the stone axe fussing about the clearing beneath them. He wasn't much taller than her, and wore a loincloth apparently made from an onion bag. His leathery skin was covered with dirt and scars, several of his teeth were missing, and he smelled like someone who'd heard of soap only in legend. "Excuse me," Helena called. The man ignored her, and went on with his task. As far as she could tell, the task involved placing sticks around the clearing in seemingly random arrangements, although the man was clearly putting a lot of thought into the placement of each one. "Excuse me?" she repeated. "You don't talk," the man called back, without looking up. Helena frowned. "Yes I do." "Haven't talked for years. Not anyone." The man muttered. "Not starting with you." In spite of herself, Helena bristled. "What's wrong with me?" "You're dead." "No I'm not." "Soon will be." Helena felt they'd gotten off on the wrong foot. "Look… I'm Helena. This is Chaz." "Yo," Chaz called, his eyes still on Helena's underthings. "What's your name?" Helena asked. "Haven't got a name." She frowned. "You haven't?" "You haven't. You're dead." Helena sighed. "Well, why are we hanging from a tree?" The man paused. "Tree Dwellers," he whispered aloud, and went back to his sticks. "Ohhhhh," Helena said, a light dawning. "You're one of the Tree Dwel-?" The man was on his feet in a flash, eyes bulging, crude stone axe clutched in both wiry hands. "YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!" Helena raised - if that was the appropriate term in her present position - both hands. "Okay. Sorry. No offense." The man snarled and grabbed a fresh handful of sticks. "But, um…" Helena hazarded. "You still haven't told us why we're in the tree." The man sighed, and turned to look at her. "Tree Dwellers," he insisted. "They go…" He faltered, as if uncertain of words unspoken for years. "They… come. Come here. You… in the tree. For them." He nodded. "When they come. See?" Helena, to her discomfort, was beginning to. "You're sacrificing us?" "Sacrificing!" the man yelped, hopping about. "Thank you! Sac-ri-fi-cing. That's it!" "But why?" He shrugged. "Well, it's you or the monkeys." And with that he looked over the sticks one last time, and loped off into the trees with a giggle. Helena watched him go, then looked down at the sticks. To her surprise she now saw that what she'd thought were random patterns were, in fact, letters. An ancient slogan, spelled out on the ground beneath her: She looked over at Chaz. "You don't half meet them 'round here." Chaz nodded solemnly, and went back to staring at her underpants. NEXT: You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! You're a real gone kid And maybe now baby I'll do what I should have did ~ Deacon Blue, Real Gone Kid (1988)
Nenya	Okay, this has nothing to do with the title, but...	#9	[-]
Fountain Pen Posts: 468 (Jan 18, 2009 9:38 PM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#10: You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off! Eddie blinked. Then he turned full circle, mouth agape, and eventually came back to where he started. "Um..." he began. "Yes," Ianeira said in soft, reverant tones. "This is The Garden." The pregnant silence stretched interminably and it slowly dawned on Eddie that something was expected from him. "Uhh...," was all he could manage. Ianeira tried to hide her brief disappointment. "You are speechless," she said at last. Eddie nodded and made some sort of incoherent, breathy sound of agreement, his eyes still like saucers and staring about him in astonishment. Ianeira seemed somewhat mollified, if not positively smug. "Come," she said. "This way." Green. That was Eddie's over-riding impression. Green, interspersed with flowers of such colours and beauty that it took the breath away. Not being botanical by any stretch of the imagination, Eddie had no clue what he was looking at but some instinct deep inside him told him that any true botanist faced with this lot would be in ecstacy. 'Garden' scarcely did it justice, in truth. It was, as far as he could tell, several miles across, surrounded on all sides by a ring of rocky peaks from which waterfalls tumbled down. It was a lost Paradise. Literally. "But I thought..." he said, trying to keep up with Ianeira as she slithered her way up a low gentle slope of sweet-smelling grass and what looked like giant cheese-plants, with huge dark green leaves perpetually at face level, "I thought that the Tree Dwellers would be, well, above you?" "For the most part we live below. The City lies at the bottom of the reef, extending from there to the interior tunnels leading to The Garden that you have just passed through. The Tree Dwellers," (she said the term with obvious disgust), "live beyond the mountains. But This... it is a Special Place," she explained with soft, enigmatic smile. "Come. He is waiting for you." "He?" If Ianeira heard him she did not acknowledge it. Eddie scrambled after her, by now finding the sweet-smelling grass under his feet somewhat overpowering, the honeyed scent somewhat cloying and sickly if focused on too much. "He?" he repeated. "Who is waiting? What?" --- Lance was on his third sausage when he saw it - a faint glimmering something floating in on the surf. At first he watched it idly, as the sounds of squabbling grew fainter to his right somewhere. Gretchen was insisting that they had not gone as far as the Giant X (whatever that meant) and Clive was calling her a daft bag who would not know brains if they bit her in the bum to which she declared shrilly that it took one to know one. Clive then started bitching about having had to abandon his sausages but Gretchen, it seemed, had gone off in a huff by this point since Lance was vaguely aware of a 'Hey, wait! Wait!' before total silence. All this was nothing to Lance, however, for his whole being was concentrated on staring fixedly at the object on the water. Then, even as the rollers began to break, picking it up and dumping it on the wet sand he was off at a run (well, okay, a fast lollop) with a whoop of triumph that echoed off the rocks round him. He grabbed the ring pull, unaware of the attention his cry had brought, oblivious to the large pair of orange eyes that were now fixed upon him from the largest palm tree to the west, just beyond a pair of palm trees that leaned towards each other and, from this angle, formed a clear 'X', a pair of eyes that were quickly joined by another and then another; instead he gulped freely and expertly so that not one drop dribbled from the corner of his mouth and was wasted, his eyes staying closed until the can was drained. Only as he threw the empty can over his shoulder into the sea did he open them at last. And only then did he see what was now waiting for him on the beach. Even Lance could tell this did not look good. NEXT: Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em my LJ ~ my fanfic ~ TWC ~ BIA ~ MV
scrolleater.thelotrmoviesite		#10	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 13 (Jan 24, 2009 5:50 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#11 Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em Helena had not survived up till this point by just - hah - hanging about and waiting for someone to come and rescue her. Well, okay, more often than not someone had had to do so anyway, but she had certainly never depended on that happening, no sir. You wouldn't find Helena Downwright sitting all forlorn and pitiful in a tower somewhere. Cursing, maybe, hurling obscenities at her jailors - most probably, but looking all languorous and pining for a handsome prince? No thanks. It was odd- she reflected - what you think of when the blood rushes to your head. In any case, Helena had just enough experience (and watched enough movies) to know that very soon the trees would begin to shake mysteriously, odd noises (and possibly drums) would be heard and Bad Things would begin to happen. This was why, as soon as Tarzan, Lord of the Lemurs had disappeared she had set about trying to free herself. After a few moments of feebly grunting and trying to reach her ankles, she had given up and started to swing. It had taken a moment or two to get momentum, but now she had an arc going that might just get her within reach of the nearest tree trunk. Chaz's eyes tracked her carefully. Well, a part of her, anyway. "What'cha doing?" he inquired, curiously. Helena ignored him. Two more swings and she let out a grunt of triumph as she managed to snag a branch. This was followed by a curse as it slipped from her grasp and she swung back again. Precious moments passed while she repeated the process, but so far, there didn't seem to be any sign of the Tree Dwellers, whatever or whoever they might be. She reflected that they might be distracted somewhere. Eventually, she got close enough once more and locked her hands around the branch in a death-grip. Now, suspended at a roughly forty-five degree angle in midair, she felt her arms and abs begin to scream in protest. Great. Now what do I do? "Oh, good one," Chaz observed. "Now what?" "You're taking this pretty calmly" she managed, through gritted teeth. Maybe if she could grab a higher branch? Get some slack in the rope? "No point in getting worked up about it," Chaz responded easily. "My mother always told me: Kay Sarah Sarah," what will be, will be, he paused. "Never really understood why she called me Sarah." "Que sera sera," Helena spat. "And it's from a bloody song, you moron." With strength born of irritation, she managed to snag hold of another branch. Switching her grip changed the strain on the rest of her body, but not by much. This was proving to be more difficult than it had appeared in her mind. Still, it was a start. After some more exertion (during which she was uncomfortably aware of the view she must be giving Chaz) she managed to get herself across a larger branch at a reasonably comfortable angle, and reach for the ropes at her ankles. It was at that point she realised Chaz had disappeared. Seconds after that, her own rope shuddered violently, and she was yanked unceremoniously off her perch and upwards, into the trees. Next: Be careful what you wish for. ---------------------------- One Affliction I have never been diagnosed with, is Sanity. The Black Storeroom \| My Live Journal
Grendelvs		#11	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1128 (Jan 26, 2009 10:51 AM) Ball Point Pen Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Be Careful What You Wish For Helena stopped suddenly and found herself face-to-face with a savage. "Scott Hamilton, Duracell Komodo!" he screamed at her. "Um . . ." she said. "Komodo!!!" the savage screamed again, even louder this time. "Kim . . . kimono?" she ventured, wincing. "Novus!" the savage yelled. "Aleve Diamond Shamrock Ushio compact fluorescent!" Helena scrunched her mouth shut. "Mini pool desk game?" the savage asked. "Hey," Chaz said, coming to. "Babe, if you've got anything shiny in your pockets, now's the time to hand it over." The savage produced a wicked-looking stone axe from behind his back and pointed it at Chaz. "Homina homina Teddy Ruxpin," he hissed. Then the savage turned back to Helena." Othello?" A beer can shot out of the leaves and glanced off the savage's protruding brow with a hollow thunk. Lance followed soon after, bellowing at the top of his lungs and running at the savage, another beer can at the ready. "Lance!" Helena shouted! The battle cry turned into a hacking cough and the run slowed to a plod as he leaned over to facilitate this cough. "Lance," Helena muttered. "Hey, yo," Lance said. "Be with you in a minute, soon's I get my wind back. Who's your new friend, then?" he asked, pointing at Chaz. "I like your shirt." "Protools! Sharpie Adaptec!" the savage yelled, pointing his axe at Lance and whistling. Two other savages swung out of the trees and descended on Lance, wresting the beer can out of his hand. The lead savage turned back to Helena. "Nerf. Scott Hamilton, Duracell Komo-" He paused, something catching his eye. A look of almost religious awe settled on his otherwise savage-y face. "Nantucket?" Helena turned around to see what it was the savage was looking at so reverently. She noticed one of the others holding Lance's beer can aloft and hooting. "Amoxicillin," he was singing, over and over. "Amoxicillin," the head savage whispered in that same awe. "Um . . . Gatorade?" Helena said before she could talk herself out of trying again. "Gatorade," the savage repeated with disdain. "Gatorade Beastie Boys." He held up his arm and hooted once. The dancing savage stopped. "Honey Smacks, Skilcraft," the lead savage said, pointing to Chaz and Lance. Then he leaned close to Helena and snarled in her face. He smiled, showing off horrible dentition and hissed in Helena's face: "Gatorade." He laughed once. "Gatorade kimono." Next: You said you wanted to be around when I was wrong... Last Edited By: Grendelvs Jan 26, 2009 10:54 AM. Edited 1 times.
stringertheory	You said you wanted to be around when I was wrong...	#12	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 18 (Feb 1, 2009 4:21 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Well, Helena thought, at least I'm upright. After the lead savage had given her the insensible dressing-down, Helena found herself grabbed by two others, her rope cut and then her hands tied behind her back. From the colorful language coming from behind and slightly above her, she knew that Chaz was being given the same treatment. As soon as they had her secured, the savages began to pass Helena up through the trees. Above her, Chaz - whose struggles had caused the savages to hog-tie and gag him - was being bundled along from person to person. Helena glanced down to see that Lance was also being shuffled along the human chain, though he was without bonds and looked more upset about the loss of his beer than he was about being manhandled. After a while of flying through the jungle, Helena began to catch glimpses of other savages. A trio of children sat on one branch, feet dangling over the edge, watching wide-eyed as the group darted by. A bit farther on was a mother with a baby on her hip chatting with a particularly wizened old crone. Two young girls with baskets strapped to their backs climbed a nearly invisible rope ladder attached to the trunk of a rather large tree that the party crossed. As she looked closer, Helena could see small huts nestled in the crooks between branches and trunks. The deeper they went into the jungle, the larger the trees - and the huts housed within them - became, and the more people she saw. Finally they reached a large deck built in the center of a particularly massive tree. Helena was set gently on her feet, but the savage who had been carrying her immediately stepped behind her, keeping a hold on her bound wrists. Chaz - still bound hand, foot, and mouth - was dropped rather unceremoniously to her right. "Uuuugh." Turning, Helena saw Lance, who was looking worse for the wear, standing to her left. Or, more correctly, he was bent over, hands on his knees and a green tinge to his face. "I think I'm going to hurl," he moaned. "Suck it up," Helena replied, eying his free limbs before glancing warily at the group forming around them. "I think they like you." "Mmpph mmmfffmm ffpphmm mmfffhh!" Chaz said. Helena glanced at him. "I don't know. The 'say-random-words-and-hope-for-the-best' approach didn't exactly pan out." Chaz rolled his eyes. "Mmff ffmmph?" Lance, mostly recovered, pulled yet another beer from somewhere on his person and popped the top. "What now?" "I'm working on it." The savages, who had been muttering darkly to one another, suddenly burst into furious ranting. A particularly fierce looking one stepped forward and snatched the beer out of Lance's hand, managing to avoid spilling a single drop from the open can. "Hey!" Lance shouted. "Give that back you backwards tree monkey!" He made a lunge for the beer, but was immediately restrained by three others from the capture party. The savage was livid, staring furiously at Lance, Helena, and Chaz, all while holding the beer can out of Lance's reach. "Amoxicillin!" the savage screeched, pointing his finger sharply at each of them in turn. "Krispy Kreme Arachnid! Arachnid! Gatorade Kimono Beastie Boys!" The group closed in on them as the savage backed away, cradling the can to his chest. So it was that Helena found herself tied to a stake in the middle of the platform, Lance and Chaz tied to stakes on either side of her and a very angry group of savages closing ranks all around. She turned to Lance and smiled grimly. "I was wrong. They don't like you." Next: Once Upon a Time
Mr Razorz		#13	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1112 (Feb 3, 2009 12:37 AM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#14: Once upon a time... "Tell us the story, Clive," said Gretchen, warming her hands over the campfire. Around the fire pit, the rag-tag little tribe brightened up at the proposition. Clive looked up, mouth half-full of sausage. "Again? I tell it every night." "'Course you do. It's like one of them things. You know. Wot you do all the time 'cos you've always done it." Clive chewed his sausage thoughtfully. "Obessive compulsive disorder?" "Tradition," said Gretchen, snapping her fingers. "It's a tradition. Go on." Clive sighed and swallowed heavily. "Alright then." The others settled down to listen. "Once upon a time," Clive began. "October 1940, I think it was. Might have been November. No, hang, on, it must have been October because me birthday was-" "Get on with it," the tribe chorused. "Anyway, I were just a 'littlun' then. Jerry was bombing the buggery out of London, and they was rounding up all the kids and evacuating us. Put us on a plane and sent us off to wait out the Blitz. I'm not quite sure why they 'ad to fly us all the way to the South Pacific, but I'm sure Churchill knew wot he was doing." As usual, this got a big laugh. "We was 'alfway to wherever we was going when the plane went down. Shot down by Jerry, we thought. The grownups all died in the crash, but a lot of us boys and girls washed up 'ere on the Island." "'Ere on the Island," the others chanted. "Well, we thought we was in 'eaven. A tropical paradise to play about in, and no grownups to tell us orf. We romped and frolicked and gamboled and grab-arsed all the live long day." "All the live long day." "But before long, things started to sour. Some of the boys and girls were going a bit peculiar. Some of us thought there was a monster lurking on the island. Boys went orf into the jungle to look for the bloody thing, and never came back. Some said they saw it lurking in the trees, a great ape or something not dissimilar. And that's when the tribe split." "Right down the middle." "There was one lad, I think his name was Jock, who said we should take to the trees, live high above where no bloody foreign monsters could get us. But our leader Rolph, he reckoned that if there was a monster it probably lived in the trees, cos he'd seen a great lurking shape in the branches. In the end, Jock took his followers and went up into the trees. "But Rolph now, he reckoned it was time we went and sorted out this monster business once and for all. So he gathered some of us together, and off we went looking for the thing." "Find anything, then?" "We found the big lurking thing that Rolph had seen from afar. It was a parachute! And hanging from the harness, long dead and well ripe I can tell you, was the pilot from our plane. And clutched in his skeletal 'and…" The tribe held their breath. "A beer can," Clive hissed. "That's why the plane crashed. We weren't shot down by Jerry, our pilot bailed out cos he was drunk!" "Drunk as a lord!" "Well, Rolph climbed up the tree and pulled that can right out of the pilot's dead 'and. And we marched off into the jungle to find Jock and the others, and tell them everything was alright. But when we found 'em… they'd changed." "And not for the better." "They were living in tree huts! Wearing grass skirts and painting themselves! Dancing about like colonials! They'd even forgotten how to talk proper, like wot civilized folk does! Ralph showed 'em the beer can, tried to explain things, but they weren't 'aving any. One of 'em chucked a rock from the trees and killed one of us, I think his name was Hoggy or Fatarse or something. And they chased us out of their territory, chucking spears and chanting 'Amoxicillin, amoxicillin', like that was supposed to mean something. "That was nearly seventy years ago," Clive concluded, with a sigh. "We've lived 'ere in our little village ever since. Most of the boys and girls from the plane are gone now, but with some experimentation and a very helpful manual one of the lads had brought along, we figured out 'ow to make more boys and girls to take our place. But we keep away from the Tree Dwellers, lest they do us in. Sometimes we see 'em, swinging though the trees. Sometimes we hear 'em, drumming in the night. And sometimes we find offerings - bits of wood or coconut shell, painted up like cans of beer, 'anging in the trees, as if they worship the monster and seek to slate it's 'orrible thirst. And that's the end of that, then." "That's the end of that, then." The story concluded, Clive sat back and reached for another sausage. His hand halted over the pile as a lone voice cut through the silence. "What happened to Rolph?" The rest of the tribe looked up in surprise. None of them had ever thought to bring that up before. Clive sighed a heavy sigh. "Rolph left," he said. "When he was fifteen or so. Said he didn't feel right, staying 'ere in the village when he'd made such a balls-up of things. Wanted to go orf and live in the jungle alone, atone for his sins or whatever. I asked him as he left, 'ow are you going to survive out there all by yourself? And he looked up into the trees, where a couple of monkeys were sitting munching on some fruit, and he said to me…" The tribe leaned closer, eyes wide. "Monkey see, monkey do." Gretchen sat back, staring at him in awe. Clive picked up a sausage, stuck it on a stick, and quietly held it over the fire. For a long time, there was no sound in the village but the sizzling of cooking meat. "Old Rolph was right about one thing, though," Clive added, turning the sausage over. "There really is a monster out there." NEXT: We who are about to die don't want to You're a real gone kid And maybe now baby I'll do what I should have did ~ Deacon Blue, Real Gone Kid (1988)
Grendelvs		#14	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1128 (Feb 15, 2009 3:35 AM) Ball Point Pen Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#15: We Who Are About to Die Don't Want To Helena watched the savages closing in, wishing for better company to die with. She eyed Lance, then Chaz, and thought about telling them so. She even got as far as opening her mouth, but decided against it, seeing as how it may have been her big mouth that got them tied to stakes in the first place. I don't want to die, she thought. Not with these two, no . . . but not at all, really. Hmm. # Eddie Paradigm and the mermaid wandered around The Garden. Although he'd given up on trying to catalog the wildly varying types of flora, he did still look around quite a bit. It was on one of these oscillations of his head that he caught Ianeira doing the same thing. I wonder. "Erm, excuse me, but . . . we're not lost or anything, are we?" Ianeira gave Eddie a withering look. "Of course we're not lost. I'm just trying to reorient myself. Over the past year, The Garden has experienced an as-of-yet unexplained growth spurt, and sometimes it's hard to keep track of . . ." Eddie's eyes widened. "Of what? Of where you are?" The mermaid winced a bit. "Perhaps." Eddie sat and took his left shoe off. "You ever use a compass?" he asked, removing the aglets from the ends of his shoelaces. # The dark figure left the outskirts of the campfire as he'd approached: silently. After hearing the story of the castaways and the monkeys and the monster, he knew that he was in the right place. More or less. Hopefully more. He eyed the night sky and pulled from his belt an astrolabe, one cobbled together from bits of bark and vine. No, he was in the right place. The dark figure set out into the jungle, trying to get his specific position in his mind. The directions given to him a year ago were still fresh in his head, but it appeared that the topography of the Island had changed a bit. Exactly how much, he couldn't tell, but enough. Movement, off to his right. A monkey came swinging out of the trees on a vine, screeching and howling, arms outstretched to snatch the astrolabe from the figure's strong hands. In a flash, the figure had rolled and come up with a wicked-looking Bowie knife. He cocked his arm back and straightened it, sending the deadly blade end-over-end after the monkey. The knife buried itself to the hilt in the monkey's skull, and a furry bundle dropped to the jungle floor. The figure grunted and set off to retrieve his knife. # Helena watched as the savages stopped advancing. Stopped hooting, stopped chanting brand names they had no right to know. Ooh, she thought. That's promising. A new savage, one she hadn't seen before, came running into the clearing, arms above its head and yipping like a Chihuahua whose tail had been stepped on. "Verizon White Sox," he shouted, pointing back at the jungle. "Four port hub Kerouac Optimus Prime." The gathered savages gasped as one and dropped to their knees. "Hmph," said Lance. NEXT: Rolph Don't Surf Dark Tomorrow - online writings of Rob Pegler and Thom Brannan
stringertheory	Rolph Don't Surf	#15	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 18 (Mar 14, 2009 10:39 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	They'd left. Just like that. Without a word, the entire mob had trickled into the trees, melting into the foliage and buggered off to who knows where. Only problem was, the captors left their captives behind, tied to stakes on a tree platform several stories above the ground. Helena wasn't too happy about it. In fact, she was pretty much livid about the entire situation. She'd nearly drowned, been leered at, suspended upside down from a tree, left as a sacrifice, been yelled at in a language she didn't understand (which was a rare occurrence), had tree people pass her through the jungle like a sack of potatoes, and was now stuck up a tree. It was, frankly, not on, and she'd had about enough of it. So thinking, she began to wriggle against her bindings, ignoring the fact that her movements were drawing the undivided attentions of Chaz (who had been bound to the stake still gagged and was, therefore, mercifully silent aside from the occasional muffled sounds). "Wha-- where the hell are they going?" Lance, too, was pushing against his ropes, left hand twisting and stretching to reach a pocket on his cargo pants where a beer-can-shaped lump could be seen. Turning, he saw Helena's struggles. "What are you doing?" Helena shot him a quick glance and continued to wiggle, managing to get her right arm partially behind her back. She rocked against her ropes until she was able to get her hand into and out of her pocket. All three heard the welcome 'click' of a knife being opened. "I'm getting us out of here." **** He usually avoided the beach. For years he'd stayed within the confines of the jungle, avoiding contact with any of the other humans on the island. But then the girl had talked. And not just talked, she talked to him. It brought back a lot of memories that he'd pushed away for a long time. His name was Rolph Whitby (though it had once been Rolph Wittenburg). He remembered the orange tree that was in the backyard of his childhood home. He remembered his father's planes. He remembered darkness, darkness and sirens. He remembered the smell of a particular perfume and the ribbons in a girl's hair and the pack of fags he'd stolen from the corner market. He remembered a lot of things he'd forgotten, but none of them were complete. So here he was, waist deep in the surf, trying to remember. The smell of the sea seemed to help a bit. He could remember getting on a plane, his father's voice gruff with restrained concern as they bid farewell, his mother teary but smiling. He could remember leaving the tarmac, the night heavy and dark around them, and watching sea and land pass by miles below him. He remembered how the dark the sea was with they hit it. And there was something else. Among the images of dark water and white sand and grasping hands, there was something else. Something important and vital that was dancing around the edge of his mind. Something he had to recall. So Rolph stands in the surf, and he remembers. ** At the edge of the beach, right under the dark overhang of the jungle, a dark figure crouches, watching the lonely figure just yards away. Next: Lance gets it right**
Grendelvs		#16	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1128 (Mar 21, 2009 6:54 AM) Ball Point Pen Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#17: Lance Gets it Right Hey, there. No, don't look around. I'm talking to you. This is Lance speaking, and I just wanted you to know, I'm not at all as bad as I'm made out to be in these . . . well, scribblings. I mean, sure, sometimes I might, ah, miss out on how important something might be, or ignore clues that my girlfriend may or may not be a Creature of the Pit, or stare at naughty bits when my life is at stake. But who doesn't, I ask you? Who doesn't? Oh, put your hands down. Thing is, I'm a little sick of how you all seem to think that you "know" how I'm supposed to be. Bad enough that one of you has churned out page after page of "humorous" anecdotes that involve me and my flatmates, but now that a bunch of you are in on it . . . honestly, I've had it up to here. Fucking full of it, I am. I'm. Not. That. Guy. (Hold on, the top on this beer is being pretty flippin' obstinate. And this isn't easy to do while hanging upside-down, either, so stop your sneering. Thank you.) So think on this, you bastards: how would you like it if your character was constantly tarted up and paraded through the streets of Fiction-Land in a manner that is wholly and irrevocably different than how you really are? I mean, just look at this piece of tripe here. Ooh, Lance is drunk. Ooh, Lance is a lech. Ooh, Lance can't run. Or throw. Ooh, Lance can't control himself around liquor or porn. Ooh, Lance is . . . is . . . hold on, Helena is doing something. Oh. Oh, yeah. Work it girl! Where was I? Um . . . whatever. My beer is done and Helena has a knife and is about to cut me down. Now back to your regularly-scheduled Flat Robin. Next: But wait . . . something has changed!
Mr Razorz		#17	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1112 (Mar 21, 2009 9:53 AM) Goose Feather Quill Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#18: But wait... something has changed! "Ooooohhh-kaaaayyy..." Eddie frowned, staring at his makeshift compass. "That's wierd." Ianeira peered over his shoulder. "Well, you built it." "No," said Eddie. "I mean..." He extended a finger, following the line of the gently wavering arrow. "It's pointing that way." "So?" "Well, it should be pointing north," Eddie mused. "Except that can't be north, because those mountains over there are about where the sun came up, so that means the compass is pointing..." His frowned deepened. "Southwest?" Ianeira sighed. "Ah, yes. I can explain." "Go on, then." "Compasses on the Island do not point north." Eddie blinked. And then did it again. "What do you mean? Compasses everywhere point north." "No," Ianeira smiled. "On the Island, they point towards Him." Eddie blinked again, and was about to reply when an ear-splitting roar echoed across the hills... "The thing about sausages," Clive said, "is that they're so efficient." Gretchen rolled her eyes. Here we go again with the "efficiency of sausages" speech. "I mean, you can put anything in a sausage," Clive went on. "Any bit of the animal you fancy. Just mash it up and Bob's your uncle." "Me uncle's name was Cadwallader," Gretchen replied, eager to change the subject. "He were a stockbroker. Turned out he was embezzling money from..." "And the other thing about sausages," Clive growled pointedly. "Is that when you cook 'em-" He looked up sharply as an ear-splitting roar shook the jungle... The dark figure sized up Rolph from afar. Easy target from here. He needed to take him alive - for the moment - but a knife to the leg would do it. Slowing his breathing, he gently slid the blade from its sheath... And dropped it, startled, as an ear-splitting roar washed over the beach... Helena gritted her teeth, the dull blade of her pocket knife sawing awkwardly through the vines binding Lance's ankles. Nearby, Chaz was massaging the life back into his wrists and peering nervously at the treeline. "Almost... there," Helena grunted, a bead of sweat trickling down her face. Lance looked down, obviously fighting some inner battle. Normally he'd have quipped "While you're down there, love," but then, Helena was holding a knife... "Got it!" she finally gasped, as Lance's legs came free. He hopped about for a bit, stamping out the pins and needles. "Right," said Helena, gripping the little knife like a weapon. "The tribe have all taken off, so we should be able to sneak out. We'll have to pick our way down through the trees, but when we reach the ground we can-" Turning around, she came face to face with a pair of large, blazing orange eyes. "Uh," she said. Beneath the eyes, a great jagged maw opened, and let out an ear-splitting roar... Next: Angels with dirty trousers Oh the First World War, boys, it came and it went The reason for fighting I never did get But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride For you don't count the dead When God's on your side. ~ Bob Dylan, With God On Our Side Dark Tomorrow: The Online Writings of Thom Brannan and Rob Pegler
Grendelvs		#18	[-]
Ball Point Pen Posts: 1128 (Mar 24, 2009 10:30 AM) Ball Point Pen Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	#19: Angels with Dirty Trousers "That," said Lance, "is the biggest goddamn monkey I have ever seen." "Shut up, Lance," Helena fairly squeaked. She stood there, eye to burning, orange eye, with the biggest, furriest non-person she could imagine. "I mean, seriously. I've seen some big monkeys, and that one right there . . ." He shook an empty beer can at it. "Phew. That one takes the banana cake." "Shut up, Lance," Helena said again. As she was staring right at the creature's eyes, she was in a perfect position to see it's left eye twitch every time Lance said the word "monkey." "Urm," said Chaz, having finally gotten his gag off, "I don't think that's a monkey, mate. Look at it's tail, fer chrissakes." Lance took a step closer and found that, yes, Chaz definitely had a point there. The tail on the thing (he'd already named it "Maurice" in his head, for some reason) was at least time-and-a-half as long as its body. Black and white rings ran all the way down it, ending in a black tip. For its size, it had a very slender frame and a narrow, almost fox-like snout. "That settles it," Lance said, slapping the giant creature on its flank. "Maurice here is definitely not a monkey. Good show, mate!" Lance offered Chaz a high-five. The creature stood on its hind feet and stretched its forepaws to the skies, roaring again. Its body, a full five meters long, was grey and white and headed for Lance. "What, again?" he managed to say before he was snatched up and the thing leapt off into the trees. Chaz snapped his fingers. "Ah, I knew it," he said. "A lemur!" Helena just shook. # Hmm, thought the man with the knife. He was briefly conflicted. There was no doubt in his mind as to what made that sound, but he was already right here, ready to get information from this . . . derelict. The roar came again. No, he thought. One thing at a time. He turned back. The derelict was watching him, now. # Eddie slowly chewed on a leaf as the roar subsided. "Who," he asked, "is Him?" Ianeira laughed, shaking her haid. "Silly pale thing. Do you truly not know of He? You, whose destiny has brought you here, to The Island?" "A plane brought me here," Eddie muttered. "Let me tell you about Him," Ianeira said. And the roar came again. # "There it is, mates," Clive said, sausage juice running down his chin. "Years its been since the Beast came out of 'is cave, yeah? Gretchen, get the gear." "You get the bleedin' gear, Clive!" Gretchen sneered. "All fired up to do battle wif a giant fur-face. Count me out, geezer" Clive thought about it for a moment, then backhanded Gretchen with everything he had. It felt good. He wiped his greasy hands on his already-stained trousers. "Right, then. I'll get the gear." Next: No, no . . . it's a delicacy here. Dark Tomorrow - online writings of Rob Pegler and Thom Brannan
stringertheory	No, no... it's a delicacy here	#19	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 18 (Apr 5, 2009 3:09 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	They were still walking. Eddie was fairly certain that they weren't still going in circles as they were following his impromptu compass, but now that he knew the thing didn't point north, he wasn't all that inclined to trust the device very much. Ianeira, however, no longer looked worried and, instead, had a small, smug, rather self-satisfied quirk to her lips. Eddie figured that boded well in terms of them reaching their destination before his feet fell off in protest. He almost resisted asking how much further they had to go, but gave in anyway. "Not much further," Ianeira replied. "I'm absolutely sure I recognized that little copse we just passed." Eddie rolled his eyes. "You'll like Him," Ianeira continued, before cutting her gaze toward Eddie and appraising him from the corner of her eyes. "I dare say He'll like you as well. All things considered." She gave a small sniff. "In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if He invited you to a private dinner. You would be the most interesting... thing that He has encountered in quite some time." She paused then, and turned to look at Eddie straight on, her expression suddenly very serious. "If that does occur and he offers you 'sausage'" - here she gave a nose-wrinkle - "you had best take it and enjoy it." Eddie stood, a bit bewildered by this proclamation, as Ianeira turned and began to glide on across a shallow stream. "I-- wha-- ... sausages?" Ianeira threw a glance over her shoulder as Eddie scrambled to catch up. "No, no... it's a delicacy here." Eddie opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment Ianeira stopped. "We've arrived," she stated, before pointing ahead. "He is just around that bend in the path. It would be best if you continue alone." "Uh, well... thanks, I guess." "You are welcome. Good luck." With that, Ianeira turned and made her way back across the stream and disappeared over the rise. Eddie shoved the makeshift compass in his pocket, wiped his palms on his pants, and rounded the corner. He had a moment to take in a small clearing with what appeared to be a columned patio at the far end, behind which stretched a building of some sort. Then the air in front of him burst into flames. A large, green, firey head appeared out of thin air - and it was staring at him. The face reminded Eddie of an old professor he'd once had: thin lips; sharp cheekbones; bright eyes with dark circles underneath set over an aristocratic nose; large, bushy, white eyebrows; all topped with a wild mane of white hair. The mouth opened, and a deep, clear voice echoed around the clearing. "What is your name, boy?" "E-Eddie Paradigm, I'm-" The voice cut him off. "What are you doing here? Where have you come from? How did you get to the Island?" Eddie blinked, glancing down at the smoke curling around his ankles, smoke that seemed to be issuing from the undergrowth at all sides of the clearing. A periodic deep booming was emitted somewhere from amid the surrounding trees. The voice continued to pepper him with questions, throwing them out in a dizzing array of languages. The disembodied head continued to glare at Eddie. Something about the entire thing seemed familiar. Ignoring the voice entirely, Eddie began to scan the area, squinting to see through the rising smoke. Around the point that the voice starting asking in Russian for Eddie's favorite color, he saw it. Striding swiftly across the clearing, Eddie reached the edge of the patio, grasped the curtain hanging there, and yanked it back. With a startled squeak, the small, bespectacled man there turned from the elaborate control panel he was manning. "Ah, yes, well... there you are. Yes. Oh, dear." Next: What's Plan C?
stringertheory		#20	[-]
Finger in the Sand Posts: 18 (Apr 5, 2009 3:09 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Last Edited By: stringertheory Apr 5, 2009 3:12 AM. Edited 1 times.

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Flat Robin II: The Island

Flat Robin II: The Island

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