International Rescue: The Next Phase


Home » The Archives » Chapter 16 » Another Really Rather Marvellous Chapter... (...in the Exciting Lives of the New International Rescue Recruits, the Original Crew, Along With the Menagerie of Cats and Various Other Creatures that Make Things Interesting)
Re: Another Really Rather Marvellous Chapter... [message #2447 is a reply to message #2423] Sat, 11 April 2015 16:59 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
artisticrainey is currently offline  artisticrainey
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Registered: July 2012
Location: Northern Ireland
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The camp fire was dying down, and the last of the stragglers were heading for their sleeping bags. Dominic yawned, stretched, and cast his eyes skyward. A canopy of stars was draped above them and he could not help but smile.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" said a voice.

Dom turned to see John standing with his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, a lopsided grin on his face.

"I love looking at the stars," Dom said. "Me ma always used to say that each star was an angel or an ancestor. I sometimes like to think that she's lookin' down on me now." He paused for a moment and pulled his gaze away. "I hope she'd be proud of what I've done with my life."

John fell in beside Dom and glanced upwards.

"Sometimes I think the same thing."

The two men lingered for a few moments in quiet reflection, before the tranquillity was disturbed by another yawn.

"Oh man," John said, trying to stifle his own exhalation, "now you've got me going."

"It's time to hit the hay or the sleeping bag, as the case may be," Dom said.

They wandered over to the pile of packs that had been abandoned earlier. As John unfurled his bedding and started to settle down, careful not to wake any of the sleeping figures around him, Dominic fished for his pack. It wasn't where he had left it, but then that wasn't unusual. With so many bags, it would have been disturbed by others.

He crept across to an empty space as the last embers of the fire glowed in the darkness. He tiptoed past the sleeping form of Gordon, snuggled securely in his sleeping bag. Dom frowned as he pulled his bag out of its cover. He had never been particularly good at repacking the darn things, but this time it slipped out as if it were brand new. I must've mastered this the last time I used it... he thought.

As quietly as he could, Dom draped the bag on the ground, stripped off to a pair of shorts and a light t-shirt, and undid the zip. When his bare feet hit the bottom of the bag they touched something unusual.

They touched something.

Dom pulled his legs out and jammed his arm in, but paused for a split second. What if it was... Nah, couldn't be, he thought. Could it? With more caution, he continued to reach into the bag until his fingers brushed something with legs... Multiple legs... Eight legs.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

***

John had just closed his eyes when the cacophonous scream erupted.

"What the hell?"

He was not the only one to leap from his sleeping bag. The entire assembly was now on its feet, the air filled with a chorus of confusion.

"What goes on here?" Jeff demanded groggily, looking around for the culprit.

John joined him, but whoever had screamed was nowhere to be found.

"Who was that?" Scott asked, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. "I swear, if it was Gordon I'll-"

"Not me, Scott," Gordon said. "I was in my bag the whole time."

John narrowed his eyes and regarded his brother closely. There was something there, an almost imperceptible twitch of Gordon's lower lip, that betrayed him.

"Gordon... What did you do?"

"Nothing!"

All eyes were now on the redhead.

John looked around the group and shook his head.

"Hey, where's Dom?"

Heads turned, and no one came back with a positive response. Will knelt down at a sleeping bag he hadn't seen before - it must have been Dominic's - and picked something up.

When John saw it, his eyes immediately returned to Gordon.

"Gords," he said, advancing on his younger sibling, "Will appears to be holding what seems to be an enormous fake spider. Would you have any idea why it was in that sleeping bag? Indeed, that particular sleeping bag?"

Gordon instinctively stepped backwards and glanced around for an escape route, but all paths were blocked by a series of increasingly annoyed men.

"Hey, it was a joke!" he spluttered. "You know, funny ha-ha?"

"Gordon," Jeff said, his tone of voice dangerously low, "that was not funny. The man has a phobia of spiders. Where did you even get it?"

Gordon's eyes flicked to the side and Jeff followed his son's gaze. Alex held up his hands and shook his head.

"I loaned it to him but I didn't know what he was going to do with it, I swear!" he said. He glared at Gordon. "Not cool."

"Not cool, indeed," said Jeff.

"Now we're going to have to search for him," said Scott. "For Pete's sake Gordon, it's the middle of the night! On my birthday!"

"Relax, guys, will ya? He can't be far. Geez, why can no one take a joke?"

***

In truth, it didn't take long to locate their missing man. John, frustrated after searching part of a stretch of strand, shook his head before glancing upwards and huffing out a breath.

There, above him at the top of a palm tree and hanging on for dear life, was Dominic.

"Uh, Dom?" he asked, blinking in case his eyes deceived him. "You okay up there buddy?"

"S-spider."

"Yeah, we found it. It was a fake. We're all going to kill Gordon for you. Will you come down?"

"I-I'm not sure I can. I think my arms and legs are locked. I keep telling them to let go but I can't!"

If he hadn't been so bone tired John might have laughed. As it was, he didn't.

"You want me to come up and prise you off?" he asked.

"I-I'll try again."

The palm tree shook a little as Dominic tried to free himself. Then, in a split second, he was detached.

And falling.

Without thought, John held out his arms and caught the skinny Irishman before he hit the sand.

"Twit-twoo."

Both John and Dom turned their heads at the same time towards the voice. It was Gordon.

"There are easier ways of getting some alone time, you know," he said with a wink.

John and Dom looked at each other, and without a word John gently let the other man down. They paused for a moment before, in tandem, they bolted towards the red-headed Tracy.

"I will kill you!" Dominic screamed.

Gordon took off at a sprint, dodging through the other campers.

"I regret nothing!"

Dom plainclothes heartbeat Luke plainclothes

[Updated on: Sat, 11 April 2015 17:02]

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