After a trip to both the vet and the hospital, the vets' being for a Cat Flu injection for Paul, they sat comfortably in the stuffy room above the fire-engine and giggled at the swollen and red blotches on Richard's pretty face. Paul's face was just as comical with a mix of green and blue plasters covering the scratches, but he was not fussing over it, he was simply trying to stop itching them where they'd come up in lumps. Of course Richard was not in the least bit pleased and wanted to get Christoph out of the room first of all, if only because he couldn't stop pointing and laughing. Till was also laughing, but he kept slapping Flake's back in a delighted manner, and it was causing Flake to wheeze as each gentle hit winded him. Ollie however was remaining nonchalant and simply trying to skim through an encyclopaedia to find out what the "AA" could be, none of them had a clue!
"Christoph!" Richard growled softly, the drummer looked toward him but had to try and swallow his own wrist to stop him laughing at the swollen nose. "Christoph, please go and take the food and water to the real firemen, and make sure you let them go to the toilet, we don't want another incident of smelly rooms when the inspectors come to make sure all is well." Richard growled gently. Since they'd got to this strange village, they'd had no problem in removing the real firemen and hiding them in a cellar beneath the station, which came complete with manacles and chains. The only difficulty with the cellar though was the long drop down the stairs if you didn't turn the light on, and that the lock on the door was very stiff. But for the past two months they'd all kept the men quite happy and managed to prevent moaning by playing old videos of children's' shows on continuous loops, the only drawback of that being that they were now desensitised and would not be able to fight fires for a very long time.
"Will do! Do you have the key on you from yesterday's trip down there Paul?" Christoph grinned after saluting the guitarist and turning to Paul as he tried his hardest to eat some bread without making his cuts hurt. Paul nodded slowly and removed a very rusty and dusty old key from his coat pocket and placed it into Christoph's hands. It was covered in a white powdery substance, the remnants of sugar from those little packets that Paul was obsessed with.
"Thank you." With that he turned around to the rickety wooden stairs and headed down them at a slow but cautious pace. It was a dangerous way to go, hence why the pole was used so often, though they often found that it was easier to get back up the pole if Ollie got in the room first and then helped pull them up, which was not easy with Till.
Getting down the stairs presented no problem in the end for Christoph, as one of the middle stairs collapsed when he stepped on it and the drummer plunged down to the hard ground with a bump. He sat up for a little while, shaking his head to get the dust out of his eyes and hair, as well as the figure out why he could no longer feel the bottom half of his body, save his legs. Perhaps the concrete floor had broken something, or squashed something when he had landed? But from the top of their stairs their came a query of his health from Paul, who was leaning over the side and grinning at him, his face stinging slightly from the plasters.
"I'm ok!" Christoph squeaked in an incredibly high-pitched voice, now he knew why he could not feel anything.
After a few moments shaking the dust from his body, Christoph hurried toward the door of the attic. It was a very nervous point for him, but at least the first door did not take long to unlock. He stepped in with a grin upon his face, forgetting about the lack of lighting and long flight of stairs. With a shriek that could not be heard by his fellows, Christoph went bouncing down the first flight of stairs. He paused on the large gap before the second set and gave a gentle sigh, though he was now tied up in knots. Quickly, Christoph untangled himself and stood proudly, ready to take the next flight of stairs with caution. However, when he put his foot down, something squished beneath it, and he went sliding down this flight to land with a thud against the door.
He managed to open the door after a few moments of gaining his breath and realising that the second fall and re-awoken the pain he had not been feeling for a little while. There were a few fiddles with the lock because it was old and rusted. In fact, one attempt had almost made Christoph break his wrist or break the key! But it was finally open now and what awaited him in the room was not a happy sight. Christoph froze at the sight of six skeletal figures that were chained up and looked very upset and hungry. One even had his skeletal leg within his mouth, and their scraps of underwear hung from the now visible hip bones. It was lucky that they were bones now, otherwise any earlier stage of decomposition would have stunk and made Christoph go berserk. It did not really matter anyway, as this sight alone gave him a terrible shock.
"AAAGGGHHHH!"
Christoph made a hasty scuttle up the pole, with a little help from the fear of the skeletons coming after him. He reached the top and stood nervously shaking and nibbling his nails for a few minutes. The horror of what had happened echoing around his imagination, why hadn't Paul fed them? However, his shaking nervousness had attracted the attention of Richard, who had just finished untangling Till and Ollie from a skipping rope they had attempted to play with.
"They alright down there?" Richard asked as he watched Christoph's erratic motions in curiosity. He was quite surprised too that for once the drummer had not asked to be lifted up to the top and had covered the pole with an amazing speed.
"Perfectly fine! They're just a little skinny is all!" He chuckled nervously, his body shaking somewhat from the terror of what he had just seen. Luckily the others thought of him as such a woozy being that they never bothered whenever he screamed. However, he quickly made his way toward Paul and pulled his by the shoulder to the side so that he could talk to him privately.
"Paul, when was the last time you used that key?" Christoph growled angrily at Paul.
"Umm…." Paul stammered nervously, but Christoph gave him a signal with his hands to encourage the excitable guitarist to keep the noise down. But Paul was slow to speak, and Christoph had begun to threat about like a deranged animal on the bars of its cage. "I can't really remember."
"Please say that they aren't the real firemen down there?" Christoph pleaded, his voice kept low so that the others would not know and they would not get into trouble. But Paul's face seemed to tangle in confusion, he was trying to think back to figure out what could possibly be different.
"Why? What's wrong with them?" Paul questioned, he did not understand much about the life-cycles of most humans, after all he looked out for himself and himself alone. Though there was the exception that he also looked out for Gertrude, his favourite guitar, which was hidden in a bush somewhere. Christoph smiled evilly, but in that slightly innocent manner that did not alert Paul in anyway. They both went down the pole and toward the room. Then Christoph introduced Paul to the skeletal forms of the firemen.
"AAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Something wrong Paul?" Till questioned after hearing a large series of screeches and metal hammering sounds. He did not know where the circling sounds of running had come from either, but he could tell a scream from Paul anywhere. There was a shuffling near the entrance to the room and they spotted Christoph and Paul emerging. Both Ollie and Richard turned to watch, though Flake was still busy trying to track down the "AA".
"It's his fingers." Christoph grinned as he led Paul back up the pole. He took Paul over to the others, and pointed out the strange crooked and bent shape of the guitarist's left fingers. They were bent this way and that, and Paul looked very unhappy. However, his fingers were not the only thing that were out of shape, as Paul's face was a lot rounder, flatter, and somewhat frying-pan shaped.
"His face is a little bad too. You see he spotted a wasp downstairs and it well, he tried to fend it away from me. He's my hero you know, totally prepared to smash up his face and fingers to beat a very nasty wasp away from his best buddy!" Christoph grinned evilly and smugly whilst looping an arm around the somewhat stunned and to the side face of Paul.
"WASP!" Richard and Till barked as they ran around in circles with panic across their faces. Neither of them liked wasps, especially seeing as how they always attacked the band in the summer if they were working together. However, Oliver was not over-taken by this idea, and quickly tried to comment.
"But how did he…." But Flake burst Ollie's trail of thought with a quick yell of happiness.
"Eureka!" Flake barked, completely interrupting Ollie as the bassist tried to figure out what could have happened to both the fingers of the guitarist and his face. Of course, though his fingers now look distorted and sickly, they were quickly clicked back into place by Richard and then he turned to look at Flake. However, Paul's face still remained quite large.
"What now Flake?" Richard groaned whilst Till and Ollie still puzzled over the shape of Paul's face. All of them of course failed to notice the frying pan that was sitting quietly between Christoph's hands. But as Flake removed himself from the computer, a scrap of ragged paper in his hands, their interest was aroused at the skinny little shrimp.
"I found them!" Flake blurted and he ran about in circles for a few moments, jumping about a bit before sticking a piece of paper in Richard's face. He continued to dance about a little bit longer before pausing and then explaining his excitement, which in return made his companions even more excited. "There are four possibilities for us to find them! At a meeting of some sort, a strange holiday camp, a car repair place, or the Zoo!"
"Ok then! Where shall we go first then, Rammstein?" Till questioned with excitement brimming from his eyes. He seemed to be jumping about in happiness, and it was making dust and mortar crumble down from the ceiling and float to the floor. The others watched him for a few moments, but even they could not contain their own excitement at the possibility of where they might find the AA. Ollie was doing back-flips of delight, which was kicking the ceiling a bit more, as well as making the floor creak in a threatening manner. Both Richard and Christoph were dancing around each other in circles and stomping the ground quite heavily. Whilst Paul just hunted around for his packet of sugar, at the same point as trying to keep his head a reasonable distance from the others, in case they had any ideas. But finally they all stood together and raised a fist in the air to yell…
"The Zoo!" They all chorused one another and then prepared for the trip to the zoo. Little did they know that there was a sneaky grin on Flake's face. But they did not notice it, as within a few minutes of getting ready, the floor of their room finally collapsed and they landed in a big dusty heap with a few groans….
Part Five: From Aardvark to Zebra, where are the AA
Including… A trip to the zoo, We discover Christoph's greatest Fear, Plus Ollie finds himself and admirer, as does Till, A meeting with the AA, And a curiously shaped banana that Paul call's Kenny…