“I am not your friend!” Charlie yelled.
The mad Waabba threw his hands over his ears and screamed. “What’s with all the shouting? Greebol why is your partner shouting?” His voice was high pitched and erratic.
Charlie was about to respond when the bank's alarm system blurted out in a loud wail. Greebol turned instantly to the security guard who had reached up and pressed the button whilst no one was looking. He stepped forwards, the gun raised, ready to slam it down into the security guard’s face.
Charlie flashed out a hand, grabbing Greebol’s arm. He shook his head. “Let’s just get out of here!”
“No one leaves!” screeched Wextoal, the mad Waabba. “Not until we have what we came here for!”
Charlie looked down at the bulging bag in his hand. “By the look of it,” he began, “you’ve already cleared the vault of cash! What more could you need?”
Greebol glanced a look at Charlie with wide, worried eyes that instantly said, ‘Shut the hell up or he will gut you like a fish!’
Wextoal stared at the Human with great distaste. “Greebol… you should keep your pet here quiet or he’ll find he no longer has the ability to voice his unwanted opinions,” he snarled quietly and quite sincerely.
“I totally understand,” Greebol replied.
There was a sudden flash of light through the bank's windows and the sounds of many, many sirens. Charlie shuddered. The Sentry had arrived. This was it. They would be captured for sure. He would go to some sort of alien jail under the charges of burning down a church, including the priests inside, and robbing a bank. Robbing a bank! How ridiculous! The only thing Charlie had ever stolen was a paperclip in a stationary store and he had felt so bad for doing it that he had returned it with at least twenty of his own the very next day.
“The hogs are here!” Wextoal screeched. “Time for plan B!”
Wextoal rummaged around inside the large, dirty jacket he wore and pulled out a spherical object, about the size of the palm of his hand. He flicked a button on the side of it and it began to flash. He threw it towards Greebol but it was in Charlie’s hand that it landed.
“Greebol it’s been a pleasure as always!” he said before rushing towards the window.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Charlie shouted after him.
As the Waabba launched himself through the window, shattering the glass, he called back in a frantic voice, “Throw it!” But the words were drowned by the cracking of glass and the following sound of a multitude of charged batons thumping down on Wextoal’s head.
“What did he say?” asked Charlie, still holding the object, which was now beginning to tick.
“I think he said to blow it,” Greebol responded.
A little confused, but willing to try anything right now, Charlie began to blow the hand sized sphere. Nothing happened. It continued to tick. A dreadful sense of realisation began to dawn on Charlie.
“Baggus law breakers,” shouted the voice of a Sentry from outside, “throw down your weapons and exit the bank like good little boys.”
Greebol scowled. He knew that voice!
The Gumthar gripped the gun in his hand, ready to shoot his way out of the bank if he had to.
“This is… this is…” Charlie stammered, “this is… a… a…”
A canister bounced its way through the broken window, red smoke spurting from the end of it.
“Not trying to rush you Charlie,” said Greebol, “but if you do not get your sentence out in the next few seconds then there is a great possibility that we are going to choke to death.”
“This is a bomb!” he managed to say.
They both stared at the bomb in Charlie’s hand for the briefest of moments before both realising what it was that Wextoal had shouted to them.
“Throw it!” they screamed.
Charlie threw the bomb and they ran. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, crashing through the main doors and out into the street.
The Baggus Sentry stood waiting for them, weapons raised.
“Greebol,” Superintendent Stort said with a grin as he stepped forwards, handcuffs at the ready, “fancy seeing you here you bloody swine. You are under a -”
The bank exploded.
The street, Sentry and all, were covered in rubble, Charlie and Greebol lost underneath.
Chapter 32
A great, grey cloud covered the north west of the city of Baggus. For several minutes it rained large chunks of brick and mortar. If one of these raindrops hit you on the head then you’d know about it. Actually you probably wouldn’t.
Soggy Biscuit Road was silent. Nothing moved. Where the proud bank had been, there now stood a humble building with a great big, gaping hole in the front of it. The air was thick with dust making it virtually impossible to see.
In front of the large hole in the side of the building, something moved under the rubble. A figure stood, grey from head to foot. It shook its head and a haze of dust billowed out from it.
It coughed. It spluttered. It cursed.
Another figure emerged, just as dirty. This one had an antennae on the top of its filthy head.
“That was a close one,” it said, looking towards the other. Greebol wiped the dirt from his face and smiled.
Charlie wiped his own face but did not return the smile. Instead he frowned.
“No more Greebol,” he spluttered, a chunk of brick spitting from his mouth. “No more. I can’t do this any longer!”
“But Charlie…”
“No! Keep away from me!
“But…”
“I never want to see you again!”
With that Charlie stormed off through the dust cloud that was slowly beginning to settle.
“But Charlie,” Greebol tried in vain one last time, “my leg is trapped! I cannot move!”
As the cloud finally dispersed and the street became clear once again (or at least as clear as a street in Baggus ever was), the Sentry stepped forward towards the trapped Gumthar. Superintendent Stort in the lead.
“You should never have come back here bounty hunter,” he spat. “It seems we’ve found ourselves in this position one too many times, only this time you won’t be getting away. It’s time you paid for your crimes!”
He roughly slapped a pair of handcuffs onto Greebol’s wrists and ordered his men to pull him from the rubble.
“And it won’t be long till we catch your little friend too,” Stort continued as he lit a liquorish cigar, staring off into the distance at the small figure running frantically away down the street.
Chapter 33
The mood in Baggus City was grim. Folk walked with their heads down and hurried through the streets, wishing not to remain outdoors for long periods of time in case suddenly finding themselves deceased.
The people were wary of everything and everyone. Fear had gripped them. They refused to turn corners in case around that bend there should suddenly be another explosion. As a result of this nothing got done at all. When people are too scared to turn corners, generally it means they are standing still. Or keep walking into walls.
The media were not helping matters. The cities one and only newspaper, The Daily Drivel, had horrifying headlines plastered throughout, highlighting words such as Disturbed Fanatics, Highly Dangerous and, which seemed to worry the most, Intergalactic Terrorists.
It seemed that The Daily Drivel had cleverly pinned everything on the two terrorists, Greebol and the unnamed pink skin, including the destruction of the bank, the church and the castle of commerce, the deaths of those in the market place and even a small fire in the kitchen of Roolpa’s Umfian Take-Away (the best Umfian kebabs this side of Baggus, almost no eyeballs).
The front page of The Drivel had a large, very unflattering picture of Charlie and Greebol inside the bank. Greebol holding the large gun menacingly, Charlie throwing the bomb.
Charlie shrank away from the newspaper stall and back into the shadows. He rested his back against the wall, closed
his eyes and sighed. He was tired, grumpy, filthy and now, apparently, a terrorist. Still, he had had worse days. Actually he hadn’t.
Slowly sleep began to take over. Sleeping whilst standing is quite a tricky task. An event such as this usually ends in the sleeping person falling over and seriously injuring their face. However, when you have been dragged from your planet, thrust into a collection of dimensions and formally declared as a terrorist, standing whilst sleeping is easy in comparison.
That is as long as the wall you are leaning against is solid and not actually a door.
The door opened inwards and Charlie fell flat on his face.
Kidnap can occur for a number of reasons. Money is obviously the most common. Someone would kidnap someone else and then hold them at ransom until someone else pays them a hefty fortune and then all would be hunky dory. Unless they refused to pay then the kidnappers would either be entirely stumped (for they had no real intention of harming anyone) or end it all in something that would resemble a blood bath.
Then there is the jealous/obsessive type of kidnapper. One person could be so obsessed with another that they would go as far as to abduct them, just so they could be near to them or so that no one else could have them. The only real problem with this is that the person that has been kidnapped would usually be petrified of the obsessed and therefore a serious long-term relationship is probably not on the cards.
Of course the other reason to kidnap someone is because you are completely and utterly mad.
However, the reason that Charlie Pinwright was now tied up to a solid, cold metal chair in the middle of a dingy room, was different altogether.
An’ishia Xaxer’pax was not the most typical of kidnappers. For one thing she was young, only just turned into adulthood. Also she was incredibly beautiful, something very uncommon amongst kidnappers. Lastly, Charlie Pinwright was fascinated with her.
Yes, his kidnapper was the lovely green skinned alien from the electrical. And right now, although Charlie probably should have feared for his life, he could not help but stare into her large, silver eyes.
She was perfect.
It should be noted at this point that An’ishia Xaxer’pax really was a very attractive woman. Never mind the fact that she had green skin – that was not an issue. True, to Humans it would be quite a shock to see a green skinned woman and actually have butterflies in your stomach for her, yet that is what Charlie was feeling right now. In fact it was the way most men and a number of women found themselves feeling in her presence, An’ishia Xaxer’pax the May’orn, could possibly have been the most beautiful creation in all the dimensions.
“What the pissing hell are you looking at?” she snapped, scowling at Charlie with his dopey, doe-eyed expression.
“Nothing,” he said quietly.
“Good,” she continued. “Because if you keep on staring I’ll cut your eyes out.”
“You have lovely eyes.”
“What?”
“I said… erm… please don’t take my eyes!”
An’ishia walked in a circle around Charlie who couldn’t help but watch her, his eyes rolling down her slender, hourglass figure. She was wearing a long purple dress that ran down to her ankles, yet a slit up the left side revealed a cheeky glimpse of her soft, green leg that Charlie wanted to kiss and…
“I’m up here,” she shouted, pulling his face back up to hers with her hand. “Now… don’t you want to know why I captured you?”
“Not really,” Charlie babbled. “I’m just quite happy to be near you.”
“You what?”
“I mean… erm… is it because I hit you? It was an accident you know! I didn’t mean to do it! I was new to the whole concept of aliens!”
An’ishia huffed. So this pink thing classed her as an alien did he? “You’re the alien around here,” she said, “not me. You do know that you don’t belong here don’t you?”
“Of course I know,” he said, “I’ve known since the moment I got here.”
“You’re not the only thing that’s not meant to be here,” said the May’orn as she hoisted herself onto the side of a table opposite, reaching her arms up over her head. Charlie drooled as the curves of her breasts beckoned towards him as she stretched.
“Many things seem to have changed,” she continued.
“You’ve noticed it too?” said Charlie, his voice shaky like a pubescent school boy. “Most people here don’t seem to. It must be because you were on Greebol’s electrical! Like myself, Greebol and professor Amirous you understand what is happening! It must be because the electrical escaped from that strange golden glow…. at first at least.”
An’ishia did not seem to care about the changes to the galaxy. However her little pointed ears did prick up at the sound of Greebol’s name.
“The bounty hunter,” she scowled. “Where is he?”
Charlie sighed. He wished that, for just this once, he had been kidnapped because of him. He wanted An’ishia to want him. But no, everyone seemed to want Greebol. The tosser.
“Why do you want to know?” he said sulkily. He wouldn’t play these games any more.
“He is my kidnapper!” she snapped. “I woke up inside a flaming canister in his ship on this sodding planet!”
Charlie could understand her anger. She had probably been sleeping in her bed… her lovely bed… in her lovely, silky nightdress… or perhaps nothing at all… and when she awoke she was a prisoner to that bastard!
Charlie hated Greebol.
To Charlie the beautiful May’orn was just like him. He too had been kidnapped by the bounty hunter.
An’ishia did not share his views. To her, Charlie was a sweaty, dirty, scruffy, dumb man who seemed unable to keep his tongue in his mouth. She knew why of course. She knew the effect she had on men and she used it to her advantage.
“Please,” she said in a sweet, innocent voice, moving closer to Charlie and wrapping her arms around his neck, her breasts pushing close to his chest, “I need to know where Greebol is.”
Charlie stuttered. An’ishia’s plan had not worked, for Charlie was not used to any form of attention off women, let alone this kind. So amazed by this exquisiteness before him that he was unable to say anything other than, “Aaaaaahhhhh.”
An’ishia frowned. Obviously this pink skinned man came from a primitive race.
“Look,” she said, “I know that you know where he is. Tell me or I’ll reach into your brain and rip out the information I need.”
Charlie was sure that all she would find in his brain were images of her. He sighed. He was delirious.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“What?” An’ishia shouted as she pulled off one of the table’s legs and began to pat it in her hand.
“I said… I… erm… I won’t tell you,” Charlie babbled. “Greebol has nothing to do with me anymore and I have nothing to do with him!”
“I don’t care about your personal relations with the son of a bitch,” she growled as she began to swing the table leg dangerously. “I just want to know where he is. I guess you leave me with no other choice… I’m going to have to get what I want from inside your brain.”
She swung the table leg, connecting it with the side of the chair that Charlie was tied to. There was a sickening crunch.
“Only,” she continued, “I am going to have to get to your brain first.”
She raised the table leg once more and aimed it at Charlie’s head. He cracked, suddenly realising that this girl meant business.
“He’s in jail!” he cried. “Greebol’s in jail! Please… just don’t crack open my head like an egg! Don’t destroy my brain… it’s the only thing I have left!”
And even that wasn’t very good.
“Your partner’s in jail and you’re not even trying to help him?”
“I am not his partner,” Charlie validated clearly. “I assure you I do not have anything to do with that man if I can help it! If you want to know why he took you then I can’t help! He n
ever told me. I’m guessing someone hired him to do it… but I don’t know who”
“It was me,” said An’ishia coyly.
“I’m sorry?” Charlie questioned, “what was you?”
“It was me that hired Greebol,” she said, somewhat embarrassed. “I hired him to kidnap me.”
Charlie frowned. This he was not expecting. There was only one word he could say in response. “Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” An’ishia snapped abruptly. “You don’t know the things that go on in my life!”
“I’d like to.”
“Would you? Would you?” An’ishia squealed sarcastically, clearly becoming annoyed by this dirty pink skinned thing. “Well in that case let me tell you a little about myself. My name is An’ishia Xaxer’pax, I am twenty one years old and I live with my parents on the May’orn home world of Prist’een. I live a solitude life, most of the time locked in my bedroom, which just happens to be the top room of the tallest tower in the palace.”
“Palace?”
An’ishia smiled a very condescending smile. “Oh didn’t I say?” she said, “my parents are a king and queen on my world. Technically that makes me a princess.”
Charlie’s heart missed a beat. Not only was An’ishia the most stunning lady he had ever seen but she was also a princess! A real life princess!
“Trust me,” she continued, “it’s not as good as it sounds. My parents are very strict. They never let me leave the palace in case my ‘innocent’ mind should be corrupted by the outside world. I think what they really mean is not my mind but in fact my body. And not by the outside world but in fact by men. They have already picked out the ‘one-and-only’ man for me you see. An arranged marriage to one of the lords from the Western Islands!”
An’ishia walked around the room going off into a mad rant, arms waving flamboyantly in the air, almost as if she had completely forgotten that Charlie was there.
“They’re only trying to get rid of me,” she resumed. “They never really loved me. Father wanted a boy. Mother never wanted anything. ‘This land needs a king,’ father would say, ‘not a queen to rule it’. ‘Because of you I have stretch marks’, mother would say, ‘and look at these varicose veins!’ Well… they clearly wanted rid of me so I left. I ran away. I wasn’t ever going to return but unforeseen circumstances changed all that.”
Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) Page 21
