A/N: I love all my reviewers, you are so kind! I am starting to get tingly
fingers again- time to write! Forgive me for a temporary change of tone,
but its time to get serious... our heroes find themselves in grave peril-
dun dun duuuuh!
********************************
Chapter 5
*********************************
The two inebriated Englishmen, sweaty, filthy and wheezing like a couple of old boilers, leant against the rough plaster at the corner of the run down building. Stephen was slumped over, gripping his knees as he tried to clear his foggy head and stop the ground doing little cartwheels before his eyes. It seemed he was still extremely smashed, despite the sobering effect of their terror and adrenaline fuelled sprint. All of a sudden his stomach didn't feel so good, and noisy, noxious burps took him by surprise between heaving in gulps of air.
By contrast Jonathan was, for once, clear headed and sharp as a tack. He had one eye trained on each of their pursuers; to his right two angry policemen were advancing at a brisk walk, brandishing bright black batons; to his left, one very violent Khalid wielding a very wicked weapon. The two parties converged on the corner with the inevitability of a locomotive collision.
He surveyed his surroundings, looking for possibilities; above, a wall bracket with a mounted gas lamp but no further hand holds up to the flat roof; behind, the blank featureless face of another cracked plaster building. Nothing else but the two blocked alleys, two fates awaiting them like the choice of Achilles; a short and glorious life (well, a short and painful death) or a long and inglorious one (a good beating followed by a stretch languishing in Cairo prison).
Jonathan watched them close in from both sides, not far now, another few steps...
"Johnny, I know I'm bolloxed, but I think I'd rather be bludgeoned than stabbed to death," Stephen murmured between gaseous belches. "Leave a better looking corpse, you know..." he said, turning his feet in the direction of the officers.
"Shut up, you big girl's blouse, I'm plotting our escape!"
"Escape?" he huffed with gloomy humour. "Do you see a big door with 'EXIT' marked on it? Let's face it- we're buggered."
Jonathan smiled contemplatively, one bushy eyebrow pulled down while the other tried to crawl into his hairline, making little lopsided furrows on his glistening forehead. His eyes now seemed calm but his body said otherwise- it was tensed, almost dancing on the spot, every nerve in his invertebrate body straining just to keep him from racing off in a blind panic.
He looked right; Khalid was close enough for Jonathan to smell the stale tobacco and whiskey on his breath, mixed with the insufferable stench of eau de Garlic.
The odoriferous Arab flashed his brown, irregular, gap ridden teeth in a sadistic smile, in no hurry to get the fun over with now he was sure he had his quarry right within his grasp.
"Aha!" Jonathan said suddenly, mind seizing on something suitably ingenious for a man of his talent for self preservation. He winked at Stephen, flashed Khalid a cocky grin in return for his menacing one, and gave a jaunty little twitch of his eyebrows as he mocked him with military salute.
Khalid hawked back and spat at him, displaying incredible range, launching a huge yellow gobbet of something indescribably foul.
Jonathan dodged it deftly, barely missing his once white trousers, and put his thumb to his nose and waggled his fingers like a school boy taunting a tiger through the bars. Except there were no bars to protect him here.
"Come on you smelly little bugger..." he whispered to himself.
"Er, Johnny? I really think you're backing the wrong horse there..." Stephen's eyes were wild and staring, his knees beginning to quiver at the sight of Khalid almost upon them.
Jonathan motioned towards something with his eyes and a few quick jabs of the head. Stephen's brows knitted in confusion, then the light dawned. So he wasn't just a brainless twerp, he really did have a plan!
"Yeah, come on you sack of camel snot!" Stephen jeered, joining in "why don't you go get your pet gorilla to tear us limb from limb! Oh, wait a minute, wasn't that your wife?"
"Wow, you're evil, Stevie!" Jonathan chuckled appreciatively.
Khalid seemed to undergo some sort of metamorphosis at the mention of his 'pet gorilla'. His eyes, which had hitherto been merely murderous, now seemed positively possessed with a satanic brutality. His face became grotesque as it twisted, the muscles writhing beneath the skin, teeth clamped tight enough to crack what was left of their enamel. The fist closed around the machete had turned white, like the cold, bloodless flesh of a dead man's grip.
One step closer, and he would sink the blade into the soft flesh of Jonathan's belly, spilling his guts onto the dusty cobbles in a slippery, steaming mass.
And then he did lash out at him. Jonathan was momentarily taken off guard, but his instincts served him well, and at the last second he sucked in his stomach and arched his back, rounding his shoulders so that his body curved into a concave shape. The blade missed him by a hair's breadth, ripping through linen jacket, cotton shirt and string vest to leave the white skin of his belly exposed through a long gaping slash.
"My sister gave me this shirt, you blackguard!" Jonathan piped up indignantly.
"J-Johnny?" Stephen stammered, eyes darting from the homicidal Arab to the affable Englishman and back again as he bounced on his toes, itching to dodge out of the way of that dull, gleaming edge. "Have you looked behind you recently?"
Jonathan threw a quick glance over his shoulder- they're right on time, he thought to himself.
He thrust out his chin, made a face at the irate Arab, stuck his tongue out and blew a very ungentlemanly raspberry.
"Nyah nyah nuh nyah nyah!" he jeered childishly.
'What the hell is he playing at??!!' Stephen thought incredulously, laughing under his breath with nervous shock. His friend was about to be gutted right before his eyes.
Jonathan was still provoking Khalid, daring him to make a rush, beckoning him with his upturned hands.
'Well, I don't know about Mean Johnny, but this is bloody Insane Johnny! He's lost the plot this time', Stephen lamented to himself.
Then Khalid complied with Jonathan's request. Switching the knife in his grip so that it pointed downwards, his thumb over the end of the handle for increased stabbing force, he raised it above his head and charged at him. He was just starting to make the downwards slashing motion that would lodge the blade in Jonathan's chest, letting out a high pitched shriek that would have shattered crystal, when Jonathan executed his impromptu plan.
The feigned hamstring injury from his old cricketing days now had a more serious purpose than getting him out of a bad over. Crumpling at the knees he ducked under the blow and launched himself out of the insane assailants path, leaping in a dive the England goalie would have been proud of.
Khalid was so surprised he had no time to check his deadly thrust, and down his arm came, just as the two policemen rounded the corner at full tilt. The tip of the blade caught the first one just by the collar bone, the momentum forcing it a good three or four inches deep into the unfortunate officer's shoulder.
He let out a piercing scream as he fell beneath the force of the blow, and landed in a heap beneath Khalid, pulling him down with him. The second officer, his bloody nose and all thoughts of Jonathan forgotten, began raining blows upon this new villain, shouting horrendous and unrepeatable things in his mother tongue.
As Jonathan picked himself up he winced at the carnage and devastation he had just caused, feeling guilty about the wounded officer rather than his smelly ex gambling associate. He didn't have time to ponder his culpability though, as Stephen was tugging his arm.
"What now?!" he screeched, almost out of his wits with panic.
"I don't bloody know! I only had it figured out this far!" Jonathan yelled back, taking surreptitious steps away from the scene.
The first officer was still down, moaning in agony as he clutched at the handle of the knife buried in his shoulder, while the bloody nosed cop had dragged Khalid to his feet and was proceeding to drub him over the head with vehemence.
"Bloody hell Johnny, this is getting worse by the minute. I'm not going to be court marshalled- I'm going to be hanged!" Stephen hid his eyes with his grubby palm and began to sob quietly.
"Oh, come on now man, get a hold of yourself!" Jonathan encouraged sternly, thwacking him on the shoulder in a manly gesture. "What's the first thing you do at the scene of a crime?"
"Call for help?" Stephen suggested weakly, wiping his face with his sleeve and giving a fortifying sniff.
"Christ no! Run away!" Jonathan replied, before taking off again at a nimble sprint.
"Ah shit!" Stephen hissed as he once again found himself trailing after the rapidly retreating form of Jonathan. "Will this night ever end?!" he panted, catching up to his friend and overtaking him with his much longer strides.
"Haven't had this much excitement in years!" Jonathan called as he stepped up his pace, beating the pavement with his worn leather soles, the tendons in his neck straining with the effort of keeping up with his more athletically built compadre.
They approached the lines of washing again, looked up to find the light no longer on; the gorilla must have gone back to bed. They rushed past, bursting through the line of clothes, sending sleeves and trousers legs flapping in the current of air they created as they ran.
Another corner lead the alley around the far side of the building. Stephen reached it first, tilting inwards as he turned in a swift, wide arc. Then, just as Jonathan was about to disappear into the darkness on the other side too, a string of furious obscenities broke forth from his friend.
Jonathan appeared behind him, a silhouette standing in the middle of the narrow passageway, staring blankly at the unscalable face of a brick wall.
"Shit! What is wrong with these people!" Stephen screamed. "Who puts a dead end in the middle of a bloody thorough fare?! What, do they never leave this godforsaken, stinking rat hole?" he was breathing so heavily his nostrils flared like the winner of the Dubai Cup.
"I'll tell you who, dirty rotten little cheating Arabs, that's who!" Jonathan fumed with fiery indignation. Stephen looked at him as if he had just had a frontal lobotomy.
"Jonathan, it was us, remember? We cheated you plank!"
"Oh yeah...funny that I should have forgotten. What was it, a couple of hours ago?" Jonathan mused to himself, fumbling for his watch.
"Try five or six," Stephen said, pointing to the dawn light beginning to peek over the flat tops of the buildings.
"By Jove! Evy will kill me if she realises I've been out all night!"
"Then find a way to get us out of here, Mr. 'I've-got-a-cunning-plan'." Stephen replied sarcastically, folding his arms in frustration and annoyance. He yawned until he thought the muscles in his jaw would snap, and then leaned against the wall tapping his foot, waiting for a brain storm.
"Alrighty then, we can't go back because of... obvious reasons. We can't go forward because of-"
"Because of the bloody great wall, you mean?"
"Naturally. So...we have to go in another direction."
"Well bugger me! The boy needs a prize!" Stephen mocked, clapping his hands sardonically. "Come on, a round of applause puhlease!"
"Alright, alright, don't get your knickers in a bunch..." Jonathan said irritably, then immediately smirked at the memory of Stephen wearing the gorilla's enormous pink bloomers on his head. Stephen smiled as well, but he was too annoyed and exhausted to laugh anymore.
Jonathan went back to considering the situation at hand, tapping his forehead with the effort of thinking. Finally he threw his hands up with a defeated gesture.
"Sod it, lets just break in somewhere."
"You can't 'just break in somewhere' you nitwit! Round here they chop your hands off for that!"
"Well you come up with something then, you sad excuse for a miscreant!" and he stamped his foot in scorn and aggravation, not realising he was on rather dangerous ground. Literally.
At that precise moment in time Jonathan had chosen to stand upon the rotted wooden cover of an underground cellar, and as he brought his foot down in a fit of temper, the whole thing collapsed, sending planks and splinters and Jonathan hurtling down into the dust and darkness.
As he disappeared in a cloud of debris, Stephen could just hear him shout 'Oh fiddlesticks!' before a loud bang and a sudden Oooof!
Stephen rushed over and peered through the settling dust into the jagged, splintered mouth of the hole, trying to see the bottom to ascertain how far Jonathan might have fallen and how serious his injuries were.
"Jonathan, mate? You alright?" he called into the blackness.
Silence.
***********************************
A/N: Well, was that exciting enough for you? I hope nobody minds the increased swearing, I just thought it was proportionate to the amount of trouble they were getting into! Don't have any idea when I will update-
OOOH!!! While I was writing that my new computer just arrived! 15 inch TFT, Pentium 4 etc etc...yay!! Now I just have to find me a man to set it up...oh, I'm such a female!
********************************
Chapter 5
*********************************
The two inebriated Englishmen, sweaty, filthy and wheezing like a couple of old boilers, leant against the rough plaster at the corner of the run down building. Stephen was slumped over, gripping his knees as he tried to clear his foggy head and stop the ground doing little cartwheels before his eyes. It seemed he was still extremely smashed, despite the sobering effect of their terror and adrenaline fuelled sprint. All of a sudden his stomach didn't feel so good, and noisy, noxious burps took him by surprise between heaving in gulps of air.
By contrast Jonathan was, for once, clear headed and sharp as a tack. He had one eye trained on each of their pursuers; to his right two angry policemen were advancing at a brisk walk, brandishing bright black batons; to his left, one very violent Khalid wielding a very wicked weapon. The two parties converged on the corner with the inevitability of a locomotive collision.
He surveyed his surroundings, looking for possibilities; above, a wall bracket with a mounted gas lamp but no further hand holds up to the flat roof; behind, the blank featureless face of another cracked plaster building. Nothing else but the two blocked alleys, two fates awaiting them like the choice of Achilles; a short and glorious life (well, a short and painful death) or a long and inglorious one (a good beating followed by a stretch languishing in Cairo prison).
Jonathan watched them close in from both sides, not far now, another few steps...
"Johnny, I know I'm bolloxed, but I think I'd rather be bludgeoned than stabbed to death," Stephen murmured between gaseous belches. "Leave a better looking corpse, you know..." he said, turning his feet in the direction of the officers.
"Shut up, you big girl's blouse, I'm plotting our escape!"
"Escape?" he huffed with gloomy humour. "Do you see a big door with 'EXIT' marked on it? Let's face it- we're buggered."
Jonathan smiled contemplatively, one bushy eyebrow pulled down while the other tried to crawl into his hairline, making little lopsided furrows on his glistening forehead. His eyes now seemed calm but his body said otherwise- it was tensed, almost dancing on the spot, every nerve in his invertebrate body straining just to keep him from racing off in a blind panic.
He looked right; Khalid was close enough for Jonathan to smell the stale tobacco and whiskey on his breath, mixed with the insufferable stench of eau de Garlic.
The odoriferous Arab flashed his brown, irregular, gap ridden teeth in a sadistic smile, in no hurry to get the fun over with now he was sure he had his quarry right within his grasp.
"Aha!" Jonathan said suddenly, mind seizing on something suitably ingenious for a man of his talent for self preservation. He winked at Stephen, flashed Khalid a cocky grin in return for his menacing one, and gave a jaunty little twitch of his eyebrows as he mocked him with military salute.
Khalid hawked back and spat at him, displaying incredible range, launching a huge yellow gobbet of something indescribably foul.
Jonathan dodged it deftly, barely missing his once white trousers, and put his thumb to his nose and waggled his fingers like a school boy taunting a tiger through the bars. Except there were no bars to protect him here.
"Come on you smelly little bugger..." he whispered to himself.
"Er, Johnny? I really think you're backing the wrong horse there..." Stephen's eyes were wild and staring, his knees beginning to quiver at the sight of Khalid almost upon them.
Jonathan motioned towards something with his eyes and a few quick jabs of the head. Stephen's brows knitted in confusion, then the light dawned. So he wasn't just a brainless twerp, he really did have a plan!
"Yeah, come on you sack of camel snot!" Stephen jeered, joining in "why don't you go get your pet gorilla to tear us limb from limb! Oh, wait a minute, wasn't that your wife?"
"Wow, you're evil, Stevie!" Jonathan chuckled appreciatively.
Khalid seemed to undergo some sort of metamorphosis at the mention of his 'pet gorilla'. His eyes, which had hitherto been merely murderous, now seemed positively possessed with a satanic brutality. His face became grotesque as it twisted, the muscles writhing beneath the skin, teeth clamped tight enough to crack what was left of their enamel. The fist closed around the machete had turned white, like the cold, bloodless flesh of a dead man's grip.
One step closer, and he would sink the blade into the soft flesh of Jonathan's belly, spilling his guts onto the dusty cobbles in a slippery, steaming mass.
And then he did lash out at him. Jonathan was momentarily taken off guard, but his instincts served him well, and at the last second he sucked in his stomach and arched his back, rounding his shoulders so that his body curved into a concave shape. The blade missed him by a hair's breadth, ripping through linen jacket, cotton shirt and string vest to leave the white skin of his belly exposed through a long gaping slash.
"My sister gave me this shirt, you blackguard!" Jonathan piped up indignantly.
"J-Johnny?" Stephen stammered, eyes darting from the homicidal Arab to the affable Englishman and back again as he bounced on his toes, itching to dodge out of the way of that dull, gleaming edge. "Have you looked behind you recently?"
Jonathan threw a quick glance over his shoulder- they're right on time, he thought to himself.
He thrust out his chin, made a face at the irate Arab, stuck his tongue out and blew a very ungentlemanly raspberry.
"Nyah nyah nuh nyah nyah!" he jeered childishly.
'What the hell is he playing at??!!' Stephen thought incredulously, laughing under his breath with nervous shock. His friend was about to be gutted right before his eyes.
Jonathan was still provoking Khalid, daring him to make a rush, beckoning him with his upturned hands.
'Well, I don't know about Mean Johnny, but this is bloody Insane Johnny! He's lost the plot this time', Stephen lamented to himself.
Then Khalid complied with Jonathan's request. Switching the knife in his grip so that it pointed downwards, his thumb over the end of the handle for increased stabbing force, he raised it above his head and charged at him. He was just starting to make the downwards slashing motion that would lodge the blade in Jonathan's chest, letting out a high pitched shriek that would have shattered crystal, when Jonathan executed his impromptu plan.
The feigned hamstring injury from his old cricketing days now had a more serious purpose than getting him out of a bad over. Crumpling at the knees he ducked under the blow and launched himself out of the insane assailants path, leaping in a dive the England goalie would have been proud of.
Khalid was so surprised he had no time to check his deadly thrust, and down his arm came, just as the two policemen rounded the corner at full tilt. The tip of the blade caught the first one just by the collar bone, the momentum forcing it a good three or four inches deep into the unfortunate officer's shoulder.
He let out a piercing scream as he fell beneath the force of the blow, and landed in a heap beneath Khalid, pulling him down with him. The second officer, his bloody nose and all thoughts of Jonathan forgotten, began raining blows upon this new villain, shouting horrendous and unrepeatable things in his mother tongue.
As Jonathan picked himself up he winced at the carnage and devastation he had just caused, feeling guilty about the wounded officer rather than his smelly ex gambling associate. He didn't have time to ponder his culpability though, as Stephen was tugging his arm.
"What now?!" he screeched, almost out of his wits with panic.
"I don't bloody know! I only had it figured out this far!" Jonathan yelled back, taking surreptitious steps away from the scene.
The first officer was still down, moaning in agony as he clutched at the handle of the knife buried in his shoulder, while the bloody nosed cop had dragged Khalid to his feet and was proceeding to drub him over the head with vehemence.
"Bloody hell Johnny, this is getting worse by the minute. I'm not going to be court marshalled- I'm going to be hanged!" Stephen hid his eyes with his grubby palm and began to sob quietly.
"Oh, come on now man, get a hold of yourself!" Jonathan encouraged sternly, thwacking him on the shoulder in a manly gesture. "What's the first thing you do at the scene of a crime?"
"Call for help?" Stephen suggested weakly, wiping his face with his sleeve and giving a fortifying sniff.
"Christ no! Run away!" Jonathan replied, before taking off again at a nimble sprint.
"Ah shit!" Stephen hissed as he once again found himself trailing after the rapidly retreating form of Jonathan. "Will this night ever end?!" he panted, catching up to his friend and overtaking him with his much longer strides.
"Haven't had this much excitement in years!" Jonathan called as he stepped up his pace, beating the pavement with his worn leather soles, the tendons in his neck straining with the effort of keeping up with his more athletically built compadre.
They approached the lines of washing again, looked up to find the light no longer on; the gorilla must have gone back to bed. They rushed past, bursting through the line of clothes, sending sleeves and trousers legs flapping in the current of air they created as they ran.
Another corner lead the alley around the far side of the building. Stephen reached it first, tilting inwards as he turned in a swift, wide arc. Then, just as Jonathan was about to disappear into the darkness on the other side too, a string of furious obscenities broke forth from his friend.
Jonathan appeared behind him, a silhouette standing in the middle of the narrow passageway, staring blankly at the unscalable face of a brick wall.
"Shit! What is wrong with these people!" Stephen screamed. "Who puts a dead end in the middle of a bloody thorough fare?! What, do they never leave this godforsaken, stinking rat hole?" he was breathing so heavily his nostrils flared like the winner of the Dubai Cup.
"I'll tell you who, dirty rotten little cheating Arabs, that's who!" Jonathan fumed with fiery indignation. Stephen looked at him as if he had just had a frontal lobotomy.
"Jonathan, it was us, remember? We cheated you plank!"
"Oh yeah...funny that I should have forgotten. What was it, a couple of hours ago?" Jonathan mused to himself, fumbling for his watch.
"Try five or six," Stephen said, pointing to the dawn light beginning to peek over the flat tops of the buildings.
"By Jove! Evy will kill me if she realises I've been out all night!"
"Then find a way to get us out of here, Mr. 'I've-got-a-cunning-plan'." Stephen replied sarcastically, folding his arms in frustration and annoyance. He yawned until he thought the muscles in his jaw would snap, and then leaned against the wall tapping his foot, waiting for a brain storm.
"Alrighty then, we can't go back because of... obvious reasons. We can't go forward because of-"
"Because of the bloody great wall, you mean?"
"Naturally. So...we have to go in another direction."
"Well bugger me! The boy needs a prize!" Stephen mocked, clapping his hands sardonically. "Come on, a round of applause puhlease!"
"Alright, alright, don't get your knickers in a bunch..." Jonathan said irritably, then immediately smirked at the memory of Stephen wearing the gorilla's enormous pink bloomers on his head. Stephen smiled as well, but he was too annoyed and exhausted to laugh anymore.
Jonathan went back to considering the situation at hand, tapping his forehead with the effort of thinking. Finally he threw his hands up with a defeated gesture.
"Sod it, lets just break in somewhere."
"You can't 'just break in somewhere' you nitwit! Round here they chop your hands off for that!"
"Well you come up with something then, you sad excuse for a miscreant!" and he stamped his foot in scorn and aggravation, not realising he was on rather dangerous ground. Literally.
At that precise moment in time Jonathan had chosen to stand upon the rotted wooden cover of an underground cellar, and as he brought his foot down in a fit of temper, the whole thing collapsed, sending planks and splinters and Jonathan hurtling down into the dust and darkness.
As he disappeared in a cloud of debris, Stephen could just hear him shout 'Oh fiddlesticks!' before a loud bang and a sudden Oooof!
Stephen rushed over and peered through the settling dust into the jagged, splintered mouth of the hole, trying to see the bottom to ascertain how far Jonathan might have fallen and how serious his injuries were.
"Jonathan, mate? You alright?" he called into the blackness.
Silence.
***********************************
A/N: Well, was that exciting enough for you? I hope nobody minds the increased swearing, I just thought it was proportionate to the amount of trouble they were getting into! Don't have any idea when I will update-
OOOH!!! While I was writing that my new computer just arrived! 15 inch TFT, Pentium 4 etc etc...yay!! Now I just have to find me a man to set it up...oh, I'm such a female!