The Speed of Darkness
Chapter 18 – Moonlight
"Help!" came a female voice over the sound of the music.
Marlene thought at first that the voice was her own imagination, and she shook her head to dismiss it. It didn't seem like any of the other animals at the party noticed the sound. After all, Julien's boom box was propped up on his throne and was cranked to the max. Heck, with the crazy music Julien was playing, it could have been from the music.
Julien's party turned out to be a huge flop, but Marlene wasn't surprised. She knew the lemur king was just trying to draw out his "heroic deed" as long as he could, but none of the other animals in the zoo cared anymore or had cared for weeks. From what she could see, she noticed that only Private, Rico, and Kowalski came to the party besides herself. Of course, Mort and Maurice were being forced to dance over in one corner, but they unfortunately didn't have a choice. On the other hand, Julien was happily snapping his fingers to the music while resting on his lookout rock.
Marlene didn't quite know exactly why she was there, either. She had been angry with Julien after he blew off Private being in trouble, but she wasn't one to hold a grudge. Maybe she thought that there would be more animals or she would get a chance to converse with Skipper about leaving the zoo. She didn't quite know. But she did know that the party was becoming very boring, very quickly. She didn't know why she hadn't left already.
She decided to get up from where she was sitting in a corner of the lemur exhibit and walked over to the penguins. "What's up, guys?" she asked.
"Oh, Marlene," responded Kowalski, "I didn't know you were in attendance."
"Yeah, neither did I." She let out a chuckle. "Anyway, you guys don't look like you're having too much fun."
"No," said Private, "Well, not yet at least."
"What do you mean?" asked Marlene.
"Skipper!" grunted Rico, flailing his flippers like he was trying to fly.
"Indeed," said Kowalski, "we are waiting for Skipper to arrive. We expect him here shortly."
"Where is he?"
The penguins looked at each other like they didn't know how to answer. Private spoke first. "Well, the Skippah said that he was going to do some quick recon. He told us to come here and he would meet us shortly."
"Oh, okay." said Marlene.
"But that was over an hour ago at this point." finished Kowalski.
Marlene looked around the habitat, as if Skipper was standing right behind her. "Well that stinks," she said, "but you don't need Skipper here to have fun, do you?"
"Well... no," mumbled Kowalski.
"Then lets go!" She began to walk towards a clearing underneath Julien's perched. She beckoned the penguins to follow and they did, although they were reluctant.
"Ah, so you did come to my party, Marlene!" Julien called when Marlene walked into the clearing.
"Yeah, but it doesn't look like anyone else did," Marlene called back, chuckling.
Julien crossed his arms defensively. "De guests have yet to show up." He turned his head behind him. "Don't they, Maurice?"
"Right, your majesty!" came the wide lemur's voice from where Marlene could not see.
"See, de king's parties are always popular, as is de king." Julien affirmed, turning his snout up. Marlene smiled and shook her head before turning back to the penguins.
"Alright, so do you guys know how to dance?" she asked them.
Kowalski answered, "Yes, Skipper has given us much training in the art of 'dancing.' At least, if your referring to what I think you are."
"Alright, let's see what you got." she told them, smiling.
Kowalski nodded, then the penguins lined up side by side. They crouched down into position, and then chopped, kicked and punched the air simultaneously. Then all three of them front flipped gracefully and landed perfectly in the same stance they began with.
Marlene shook her head. "No, I'm not talking about combat moves here. I'm talking about dance moves."
"I'm sorry Marlene," responded Private, "but when Skippah says 'let's dance', that's what it means."
Marlene couldn't help but laugh at that. It started as a low giggle but escalated into a full laugh.
"What?" Private said, "What's so funny?" Marlene only laughed harder.
She heard Rico's hoarse chortle pierce her own, and then Kowalski started chuckling too. Private only became more confused.
When the laughter subsided, Marlene said, "If that's dancing to you, then it's dancing to me too." She grinned happily.
Private smiled back, "Thanks! We've been practicing."
"Dance!" barked Rico, then lunged forward and began sliding on his belly excitedly.
"Rico's got the idea!" cheered Marlene.
"What's going on here?" came a different voice suddenly from behind the otter. In all of their hilarity, Marlene hadn't noticed another penguin join them. She turned around, and although he was standing in a shadow, she could make out Skipper's form.
"Skipper! Done with that 'recon'?" she said, playfully.
"What? Oh, yes." he said.
"Where'd you go, Skippah?" asked Private.
"Just went to go see what Alice was up to," he explained, "She was staying late tonight and it made me suspicious. I didn't want to ruin the night for you boys, though."
"Did you find anything?" Kowalski asked.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. She was just sleeping in her office."
"Enough of talk about military stuff," Marlene urged, "come out here and join the party."
"Unfortunately, Marlene," he said. When he said her name, she couldn't help but notice a shallow wave of fear roll over her. She shook it off. "I won't be joining the party tonight."
"What?" she responded, "Why not?"
"I've actually come to take the men back to HQ. The fact that Alice is still in the zoo this late makes this whole operation too risky. If Julien wants to get Alice suspicious of himself, that's fine, but she's already suspicious enough of us penguins already."
"Aw," sighed Marlene, "you're no fun."
"Sorry, Marlene, it's just too risky." She took the comment as consolidating, but then realized that it wasn't commonplace for an apology to come from Skipper, so this was either a blessing or a curse.
"Well I guess I'll see you later, then," she responded, waving to him. He had never left the cover of the shadow he was standing in.
The three penguins in the clearing offered their goodbyes to Marlene, and she back to them, and then the four penguins left. She looked up at Julien, who was looking down at her. When he realized she was looking back at him he pretended to be looking elsewhere. She wondered what had gotten into him recently.
Without the penguins there, it was just her and the lemurs. She thought about it for a moment, then concluded that it would be better to just go to her home than stay there. She turned to leave. Julien noticed and called after her.
"Where are you going, Marlene?" he asked, starting to hop down the rocks to get to her level.
"Nobody is here anymore, Julien. It's boring."
"But, but," he stuttered, "you haven't given de king a chance to get the party started." He looked around the habitat. "We need to do limbo, and dance, and do party games. De king is just waiting for more guests to get here."
"Julien," responded the otter, "you do realize that nobody else is coming, right?"
He stopped climbing down the rocks and look solumn-faced at the otter. "Yeah. De king was just trying to have a good time."
Skipper apologized, and now Julien admitted he was wrong. Marlene shook her head. What was next, were Phil and Rico going to start talking now?
"Anyway, see you later, Julien." The otter turned and began walking toward the lemur's tunnel entrance, waving her hand over her head as she walked.
As Marlene left, Julien sat down on a rock and rested his head in his hands. He wondered why he couldn't build up the courage to tell her how he really felt. Every time he came close, it seemed like he was only pushing her further away.
"Julien, can we stop dancing now please?" came Maurice's voice.
"No!" he barked, "Not until I say."
Yelling at Maurice only made him feel a little better. He wondered what Marlene was going to do that might be more fun then his dead party.
Marlene's habitat wasn't far away from the Lemur's and after rounding a few corners in the tunnel system she quickly came to the entrance of her home. She pushed open the trap door and emerged back into the chilly night air. She stood up, closed the door, and looked up at the night sky.
There was a full moon out. It outshined most of the stars. Well, she thought, the ones you could see over the New York city lights, anyway. The light it emitted illuminated her whole habitat, and it was even enough for the brick wall to cast long shadows on her pond. She looked down at the Penguin habitat, still thinking about her and Skipper's quick conversation, and then at the lemur habitat. She saw Maurice taking down the lights he had worked so hard to put up. Julien turned off his boom box, thus bathing her habitat in silence. The only noise she could hear was the traffic on a busy street on the other side of the park.
The silence and the mysterious moonlight combined to give her habitat a beauty she had never seen from it before. To her it had always been just a place to live. A blotch of green in a sea of gray. The moonlight and the silence transformed it, making it almost seem like a new place to her. She smiled, wondering why she hadn't noticed it this way before.
She began walking to the entrance of her cave, splashing her feet in the shallow part of her pool as she walked. She dragged her paw across the leaves of a bush as she passed. She froze when she thought she felt the bush move. She turned around. The air was completely still, so it could not have been the wind. It couldn't have been an air vent blowing on it either.
She walked up to the bush and put her hands on her hips. She could have sworn she felt it move, but maybe it had just been her imagination. She spread open the leaves, trying to figure out what could have made a stationary plant move like she had felt it. She almost had a heart attack when her eyes came to rest on the face of a penguin staring up at her from inside the small bush.
It had a rounded face, with a small pointed beak, sharp eyes and long, yellow feathers emerging from its eyebrows. She gasped and fell back from surprise and fright. The bush ruffled again, but she remain on the ground where she was.
"H-Hello?" she stuttered "Who are you?"
The bush, or rather the penguin inside, shifted uncomfortably. Marlene heard a quiet grunt. She stood up slowly and approached the bush again.
"Come out of there," she said, wondering if the penguin was as just as scared as she was. "I won't hurt you."
"Yeah, but I'll hurt you." said a deep voice from behind her. She whipped around. There was another penguin now perched on a rock outside the entrance to her cave. She was sure it hadn't been there a moment before. This one was quite large with several gray feathers on its chest.
She suddenly became very scared. She let a loud scream escape her as her heart began to beat fast and she took a few steps back. She turned around, ready to bolt out of there, when the large penguin tackled her to the ground without warning.
She slid to the ground, feeling sharp pains in her legs and torso from the penguin's weight. She threw her arms in all directions, hoping to land a hit somewhere on the penguin's body. She did, but she knew she didn't do any damage. She wriggled and squirmed, but the penguin was much too strong for her and held her firmly to the ground of her habitat. She tried to scream again, but before she could, the penguin clamped his flipper over her mouth. The other, smaller penguin that had been hiding in the bush now was standing next to her with a length of rope coiled around his flipper. An intimidating, penguin-sized rifle hung at his side.
Marlene stopped struggling when she caught sight of the weapon. She had never seen anything like it before in her life, yet she knew the power that it held. She knew the struggle was over. The only thing she could hope for was that Julien or the penguins had heard her scream.
~(Author's Note)~ Thanks so much to all your readers for following my story and reviewing. Specifically I'd like to thank ggreen7295, halfhuman123, and minimewtwo for thier loyal feedback. Just to put it into perspective, I write for only two reasons. One, because I enjoy it, and two, because I enjoy your feedback! So please review, it only takes a moment of your time and I'd really love to hear what you think.
Forewarning, I promised I'd be updating every Monday; that has been changed to Sunday night. I may not be able to post a new chapter next Sunday as I'm quite busy this week, so you may be able to expect a double update the week after. Again, thanks for reading and check back soon!