˙˙00˙ ˙00˙01˙03˙01The Old Man and the C˙00 ˙ ˙˙01˙What am I doing here? Where do I come from? Why am I here? I mean, what the hell now?˙ ˙00 ˙˙ ˙03˙02COUNT DRAGONSBANE / ONE ˙02˙01˙01˙00˙ ˙˙02Thank you to Puh / Agony for putting this beauty into English and giving it some verbal design. I told him to keep the language and words, and fuck me, he did! He knows his writing, that pooh fucker! ˙01I don't know much about the Amazon forest or the great Amazon river. OK, it is somewhere in the jungles of the South America, and I guess there are many slimy spiders and snaker there, but hell, why should I care how thee indians there live and what they eat. Are they not dead anyway, those indians? I did not know, however, that I soon would be forced to do my own investigation. One day, I was called up by Lt. Brewster, Dr. Spencer and Baron, all members of One, and we had one of those nice little four-men chats thanks to Spencer's special invention which he refers to as the Telia Tricker. More precise, it is a box that you attach to your phone, making you able to chose from which telephone you want to make the call (and we're talking international mode here) and how many talkers (2-99, international, of course). Anyway, LT (well, that's what we call Lt. Brewster) told me that he, DR (Dr. Spencer, that is) and Baron had decided to go fishing, and he kind of wondered whether I felt like going with them. Yep, I said, but in my mind, I wondered what was so special about it since LT lived in Umeå, DR in Borås and Baron in Sundsvall, and it sounded pretty expensive to gather just to fish, if you know what I'm saying. Then LT (pronounced ell-te like in the Vietnam movies) explained that they had planned to go fishing in the Amazon river. How could I resist an offer like that? "Don't bother too much about the prices", DR said, "you see, my S.A.S. Sucker is almost ready. It kinda breaks into the computer systems of S.A.S. and offers us the possibility go go wherever we want wheneven we want. The best part: to the cost of the luggage fee, which is 100 SEK. The S.A.S. dudes made their luggage computer totally safe, without even knowing it themselves, and I cannot break that one. Figured a trip to the Amazon river could be worth 100 SEK, dunno, what daya say?" I could, as I said, not resist, so we decided a date and a place, which happened to be Bromma Airport in fifty minutes. Not much time for a mortal, but too much time for a One member. I relaxed for half an hour and them I emptied my book shelf with stolen properties into a huge bag and caught a train to Bromma. Barons Ticket Tractor made my train trip very cheap. As a matter of fact, I earned 152.50 SEK as the ticket machine started to puke coins in my hand, having been exposed to the twenty five thousand Volts of Baron's invention. I figured I could use some money, mainly since I hadn't brought any. LT and DR arrived there by train, while Baron and me took the train. Well, I WENT by train while Baron really TOOK one from the SJ Railway Station of Sundsvall. Guess they'll miss it soon, hah? Anyway, it turned out that we had gained a total of 6025.30 due to Baron's and DR's special inventions, and now we had some money. That was a good thing, as nobody of us had brought any. It really is funny to go travelling without any money. By doing so, you must rely on your own ability to cheat and fake, and believe me, we are all masters... Then we came to think of the X-Ray machine of the security check; maybe they did not want us to bring those AK 5 and elephant rifles anyway. This time, Baron took one hand-drier (you know those machines that hang on the wall of public toilets), a can of pink soap and a Vacuum Cleaner, and fifteen minutes later, the X-Ray X-perience was ready. The box delayed the alarm signal for one minute, i.e. we got away while an old lady got arrested. The plane was nice, it really was. We were, however and of course, unable to cheat our way to free drinks, so we had to pay for the litres. X-pensive! Baron got away, as usual, with his old trick. He emptied a T-Röd (alcohol used by militant veganes when starting fires) in a Melitta filter and then threw the liquid away. When the air hostess arrived, he said "help me nurse! I have drunk T-Röd, a whole litre of it too, and I really think I'm gonna die! Do something!" Those blond bitches are really stupid, but they do know that if someone has consumed etanol, he is to drink metanol, which is preferred by the human body. Consequently, Baron got free drinks all the way to Brazil. Sometimes, when the trick does not work, he actually drinks his T-Röd. Guess that's why he wears those glasses. Brazil was nice. We got off the plane, and boy was that hot! 39 degrees centigrade is not what you are used to in Uppsala, I can tell you that. The airport building was dilapidated and all worn down, or as we say in Sweden, it looked like shit. A Brasilian fucker tried to sell us native knives and pipe tobacco (guess those knives and tobacco were made by poor prostitute children as suggested by AIDA) so we mugged him. The police down there don't care all too much about Spaniards, so we had our hands free, so to speak. As for most of us, that's OK, but LT really can't handle situations like that. Guess that is why he knocked that taxi driver. "Mia moso, mia moso", the taxi driver said with a evil smile that revealed his rotten teeth. "Oh come on guys, can't you see he's driving in circles to make us pay more!", said LT. "Iana coperniqua, nia rysota", said the taxi driver angrily. "What the fuck do you say, hah? Are you threatening us? Is that what you're mumbling about? Hah?" LT screamed out loud. He was right, though, the driver had tricked us for more than an hour, and he sure as hell were making fun out of us. The Spaniard pulled a knife, and LT made him regret that. We never use knives, you know, only cowards do, so LT showed him what people in Umeå do with their knuckles. Guess that driver won't need to go to the dentist anymore. As if he ever had. We walked the rest of the way to our hotel. None of us minds walking, as a matter of fact, we are all heavily into sports of one kind or another. Anyway, that driver fucker had cheated us real good; the hotel was some two kilometres away from the airport, and he had taken us for at least a one-hour-ride. A good think that he was put on place. Anyway again, the hotel was in a really bad mode, standing there since the beginning of time. The paint of the walls was about as cracked as Alien Breed II, and spiders' web covered all the windows. - "Hey mista, we wanna room. You got one that is nice to look at?", DR said. - "Actualy, what he meant was that we want your best shot. The wedding room, the king's residence or whatever. Just givi it to us; we''l pay.", LT added. - "Granda Roma, si si. Paya mycho, si si.", the hotel guide smiled. - "Well, mista, I do hope you take cards. American Express or Visa, I hope!", Baron said. I hadn't said anything, and that wa because of the fact that I had all the faked credit cards. Well, faked and faked, they were not stolen and they were registred on us. But you see, Baron once made a 68040 program that breaks into the security banks of AE and Visa and then multiplies our accounts with a factor hundred. Accordingly, we all started out with buying a Visa with 10 SEK on. Then we let Baron run his program, and woops, we all had 10 * 100 SEK. The show was on... - "Carta grande, si si.", the receptionist fucker said and put Baron's AE on the card reader. Guess he was surprised to see that Baron was a millionaire, and guess the guys of AE would be surprised if they knew how much money Baron kept at their electronic bank, especially considering the fact they he never send them any money; he just kept on buying things, and still his account increased by the day. A One member, as I said. In One, we don't ask for what we can do for each other or for the group, we ask how much money you can steal from the society and which crimes you have committed. Our list in common is long, and notice that no one of us has any police record whatsoever. Well, a little untrue; we have all had police records of various kinds. But that was before DR invented a few things... Our room was the biggest and the best, no doubt about it. It was three times as clean as the toilet and at least twice as sober as the hallway, but there were still spiders and insects all over the place. LT is quite fascinated with insects, so he started to do some investigation of his own. "Look", he said after a while, "this is a Reliara Thyamara, a house fly. Didn't know they lived in Argentina too. I have a few of'em back home, you know." "LT", DR retorted, "we are in Brazil." "Hmm", LT said and looked confused, "so that's why those Spaniards look so peaceful." Say whatcha want about LT, but he is strongly against child prostitution and pornography, and he really loathes Argentina because of their way of looking at children and their growth. (Not to mention what he thinks of the Arabian way of beholding the female sex.) He is a little human friend, that LT, tricking the society as good and as much as he can, but never attacks the common man in any way. Well, a little here and some there maybe, but not unless the common man really deserved it. He knows how to fight, too, our LT. He does not look much for the world, being tall, thin and rather whitish, but he sure can handle his fists (not in the way you think, though; he is, as stated, against every form of pornography). He is, further on, against every form of oppression, tyranny, mayhem, and criminality except for his own. He is something of a Robin Hood, except for that 'giving the stolen things to the poor'; like the rest of us, he keeps what he steals. He sure is a nice guy, that LT. After a few drinks, which we stole from the bar locker of the room to the right of us, we started to unpack our bags. It showed nobody had cared to do any real packing; like myself, they all had just swept their hands through their book cases or shells with 'good things', resulting in our not having one single fishing rod or reel. Is that the way things should be like? What we had, though, was the following... ˙02- Four AK5 (Heschler & Kosch 5, 5.56 mm) plus a surplus of ammunition - Four Remington Hunter (7.62 mm) and a few boxes of ammo - Two silver candles marked 'Bålsta Kyrkolän' (they were hot) - Dynamite and some plastics (mainly C3, C4 and Vz) - Mustard Gas - A net for catching birds - A Texas Ti-85 - A Blizzard 1260 (50 MHz, FPU, MMU, 16 Mb Fast, so don't come and tell us about love) - A pair of dies - Bullet proof wests (Cardiac IV, 1600 Nm) - Scuba Equipment, 2 pcs - Nustardin (used when clearing lakes from fish), 21 kilos - Survival food - Danish knives (well, that says a lot about the quality, but what the hell, we had no Swedish or Norweigian ones) - A snake strangler kit - A box of handgranades - 1.50 SEK ˙01We must have fallen asleep or something, but when I woke up, LT stood leaning over a body on the floor. LT breathed heavily, while the body on the ground did not breathe at all. Not strange, considering that he must have faced LT in combat. You don't do that and survive. "The fucker tried to snatch our weapons", he said in between his gulps for air. "so I silenced him. He's alive, though. Whadda ya suggest we do?" I woke the others up; we were in for a serious chat. "Lets waste him", DR said. "Oh gimme a break, not in a hotel room", I answered. "We'd get caught in a row, just like that." "I have an idea", Baron said. He is something of a quiet, silent dude who only speeks when he's asked or when drunk. T-Röd opens every mouth, ya know... "We put him in the bed of the old haggard next to us. It'll be fun to see when she wakes up and finds this junkie lying next to her." "No, that's no good. When he wakes up, he'll tell his guerilla friends about our armoury, and then we're history." "Nono, you did not get it. We put him there together with one of our Remingtons, we don't need four anyway. She'll start screaming and he'll get arrested. We put some stolen properties in his pockets to make sure he's locked away for good. Baron, you snatch a few wallets from our neighbours, LT, you give our friend some Nustardin so that he won't wake up for another 48 hours." "Cool!" We all agreed; by doing this, we'd save planet Earth from one junkie and the old bitch would become a hero. Guess she needed that; she had probably chosen to spend her vacation here in order to date those black youngsters on the beach. Anyway, we took the proper arrangements, and four hours later, i.e. at dawn, we were all awakened by a scream. "The bitch has discovered what she has done in her sleep", Baron said with an evil smile. "God, I love being awakened by a beautiful scream." Later on, we heard the bitch, sixty-one-year-old Benetta Smith from the States, brawling about how she knocked the thief with her bare hands and how she saved the hotel from the blood thirsty thief. Can you believe it, she had the guts to ask every hotel guest for ten dollars because of her saving them a lot of trouble. Further on, she wanted a reward from the local police department and a Countess title. There can only be Count per hotel; I wondered what the police would say when they discovered that the thief was knocked down with Nustardin, which is considered a heavy narcotic substance. LT even gave her ten bucks. "Skadeglädje är fan den enda sanna glädjen", he said to her. We spent a day or two in the city, even though there was not much to look at. LT ripped off and mugged a few of those cods (ya know those who sell children), and DR sent two or three pederasts to the hospital, too. The good doctor is a hell of a fighter, he too. He is not much to look at, and he can barely handle his hands, but if you give him a stick, a spade, a pole or something similar, well, then he will most certainly kill you. Accordingly, he used my back-pack to waste an Italian fucker who attacked us with a sword. I must tell you about one special occurrance; I believe it must have been Monday night. We had decided to go out and eat something, so we loaded our AK5 and hit the street. After a while, we came to a pub / resturant called 'Phun phun phun', and we kinda figgered it'd do for the night. What we did not know was that the title, phun phun phun, actually suggested what the whole place was about; it meant 'men men men'. But how the hell were we to know that? We came in, sat down in a corner and relaxed for say fifteen minutes. (Well, the tonacco IS cheap doen there...) and then we ordered food. The native fuckers had not cared to translate the menu to English, so it happened that I abd Baron ordered dogs, LT sent after raw chicken meat and DR asked for welsh. Anyway, we began to eat; it WAS rather good. "Hey guys", said Baron after a while, "have ya noticed that ever'bods looking at us." He was right; they were all looking at us. "They are all men.", said LT, "This is what they call bad luck. Of all the places of this frigging city, we end up in a homobar." "Wow, relax, I suggest we eat up and leave. No drastic moves, and Countie, remove your hands from the AK bag right now." So we all ate up, but what good did that do? The circle of fat, greasy men and youngsters came all closer to us, and there was nothing we could do about it. Baron tried to explain, but all ears were deaf, and he talked in vain. "I swear I will kill you all in case you try anything. Please let us out now", he said, but they just kept on coming. We were not afraid or frightened, hell, the whole situation was almost funny. When a slimy fifty year old dude put his arm around LT's shoulder, he said in a silent voice, "Remove those hands of yours, you fuck." But I guess that the old, tooth-less man heard what he wanted to hear. "Si si, focki focki.", he smiled. THAT was too much for all of us. I tore the table down and reached out for our AK bag, but DR had already got his hands on it. He held up an brand new AK and fired a few rounds in the air. Nobody moved; it was all quiet. "Well, guess we better get going, friends", he said. We started to leave the shithole, but when we did, a man came through the door. It was a police officer, and he aimed a BMP-12 at us (a fully automatic rifle, that is). DR lowered his gun, and believe it or not, the police opened fire! He had apparently not used an automatic weapon before; it screamed in his hands, tore itself loose and hit the ground. Luckily, we were not hit, but several homo freaks were injured. "Lets stay and give them the first aid!", LT laughed. "Yeah, lets!", laughed back, "it is very very evry unlikely that any of them has any sexually transmitted diseases." The police reached for his gun, and DR emptied a whole magazine in him. As we left, he sort of sprayed the area, as they say in the Nam movies. Guess he wasn't aiming for insects, either. Due to natural reasons, we had to leave the city pretty soon. As we wanted to do some fishing - that was, after all, what we had come for - we figured we'd search for the Amazon river. You can fish in the sea or some insipid lake here and there, but One member can't; when we do something, we do it for real. No shaggy-waggy loser-fish here. "If it isn't the biggest, it isn't the best", Baron said one morning. "Now where is that fucking river anyway?" We checked out our maps, and we realized that we had no maps whatsoever. We had walked one day or maybe three right out into nowhere, and woops no maps. Insect eggs in our hair, mosquito bites and snake attacks - you name it, we got it - but no damn map. We had to buy one, but where? As we did not know, we let a Swedish coin lead the way... "Hmm... Right or left here?", LT wondered. "Krona eller klave?", DR answered. "Krona för faan, död åt anarkismen!" "Ok, pliiing, det blev krona." "Men förresten, vad betyder krona och vad betyder klave. Visst, vi fick kung, vem vart faan skall vi gå? Höger eller vänster, asså?" "Tja du, kungen sitter till höger om drottningen vid alla midagar. Antar att vi går höger." "Nja, han sitter ju till vänster om henne om han utgår från sig själv. Antar vi går vänster." "Ja, man kan väl för faan inte ta hänsyn till en kvinna när man skall fatta viktiga beslut." "Nej för djävulen! Vi drar kortaste stickan i stället." "Didida... Vänta... Det blev vänster." "Left hand path, right?" "Left, not right." "If left is not right, then what is left?" "Wrong, and that's not the right way to go. I mean, we cannot go wrong; this must not go wrong. Lets go left" "Got that right." "Nothing more left to say, so let's go now. Right?" "Right." "I thought we said left?" "Right, we did." DO it the politician way, right? Anyway, later that evening we came to a little village. LT stopped the first inhabitant we came across and asked for a shop or maybe just a map. "X-Cuse me, mister. Is there a shop in this village? Or maybe you can sell us a map?" I thought Ace Ventura II was just fake, but fuck me if the villager did not spit in LT's face! For one moment, I thought he'd lose it and pull up his AK 5, but I guess he came to think of the adventures Ventura, he too. If you spit in someone's face, it means something like 'yes' or maybe 'I like you'. The villager started to walk towards a seemingly burned-up cottage, and when inside, he called out for the shop-keeper. He, and I do mean the keeper, was young, and damn it, he knew English! "Help you?", he said. LT spat in his face. He spat back. Everybody started to laugh. Well, LT did not, but DR hit the ground and cried in pain due to his laugh paroxysm. "A map. Food. Ammo.", LT said with smiling eyes. "Map. Weit. Food. Pick. Ammo. Weit.", the keeper said and ran away. He had told us to pick our food, but there was none to pick. Well, there were canned spiders and slimy creatures, but nonono, we were still all too civilized. "I am NOT putting one of those insects in my mouth.", Baron said and looked pale. "I'd rather starve to death." "Oh come on, it can't be that bad", DR said and opened a can. He pulled out a huge bird-spider, you know those who matches your biceps in size, and took a bite. "Mmmmm...", he said and smiled, "can you believe it! It just soo good!" The actual body of the spider was large enough to out-size a tennis ball, and DR grabbed it as if it was an apple. He took one bite after another, and it sounded like he was chewing coal. "It makes a lot of resistance, even in death.", he stated between his gulps. He ate the legs, too, and spat out the claws afterwards. "Oh, I really do recommend it, I really do." Baron puked at the cash register. Then the shop-keeper came back. He looked amused. "Map. Very good. Qality good. Ammo. Much." The map was good, really good. It featured all the technical qualities of the year it was made, 1921, that is. But what the hell, it'd be just fine for us; where is the challenge if everything is correct? It was worse with the ammo; guess none of us knew how to hunt with a blowpipe. The feathery arrows he showed up seemed pretty nice, though. "How about buying a few blowpipes? I always enjoyed pea-shooting, you know.", LT said with a dangerous smile. "Yeah, lets!" Baron looked better now, and he always did cheer up when someone talked weapons. "Ok, Blowpipes. Four." "Blaupips, foor. Weit." He ran away again. "Cool or what!" LT took one pipe from the wall and loaded with an arrow. He gave a shot, and broke a window. "OH FUCK ME!", he cried out loud, "WAS THAT COOL OR WHAT? I DID NOT EVEN DO IT HARD! I WANT TWO, I WANT TWO!" The shop-keeper came back in again. "Blaupips, four, very good. Qality." "Make that five and a window, will you. Plenty of arrows, too." "Weit." Off he went. "Oh let me try it... HRMMMMFFFF!" DR shot an arrow all the way through the cash-register. "OH MAN! OH MAN!", he said and looked like if seized by madness." The shopkeeper arrived. "One pip, much arrows. A window. 35 pseta.", he said. "Guess you don't take MasterCard, hah?" LT paid. "Take canned spider. Use poison on arrow. You hit, you kill. Over her." He walked towards the wall. "Weit. Spider can empty. Spider gone. You take my poison spider? It poison. Victim die." DR threw up on the cash-register, he too. The remains of the spider reflected the last sunlight in a beautiful way. That night we were all invited to a local party at the centre of the village. They had arranged very nicely, with a huge open fire, food, women, music and everything. The drinks were all for free; I don't know what brew the jungle inhabitants had come up with, but it sure as hell did not go below sixty percent. DR, who had caught up with his nausea from earlier, was challenged to race. "Hey, they don't know they're challenging Umeå's Tequila Race Master. Guess I had better learn them a few tricks about how we do in Sweden.", DR said. Guess he learned a thing or two about why one should not be challenged by villagers from the deeper jungle; we had to carry him home that morning. Guess two and a half litres knock about every living thing on earth. That includes DR, but not Gorin, who earned the MASTER title, having consumed three and a third. We kinda overslept, all of us. That did not do none; we had to times to keep. I love being free, don't you? We woke up not the following day but the very next one, dry as the Sahara desert. We took a nice palm-shover and fetched our gear; Amazon river here we come. "Where's the map?", Baron said, "I did not take it." "Weit. Map here.", LT said, "Lemme check it out. We are... here. The river is... there. We will go this way, forty miles north, sixty south, twenty west and BANG we are there. Piece of cake, ya know." "Sounds good ta me, I'll de damn.", I said. "Let us hit the road." Of course we avoided walking whenever we could. Already the first day we got a ride with mr M, who drove oil tubes to the local distillery... "Hey, theres a car acoming!" "It aint acoming. You had too much of that spider venom." "Oh gimme a break will ya! Look, there's dust everywhere!" "I see none." "Well, remove those opaque Ray-Ban of yours, and maybe you will se SOMETHING!" "Shut up willya." "How the hell could you buy Ray-Ban Polaroid anyway? It isn't like youre gonna get snow blind here, if you thought so." "Some of my inventions don't let me choose." LT was right; there WAS a car acoming. We stopped it and asked for a ride, and the driver let us in to him. If you have ever seen one of those Brasilian trucks, you know that there is a lot of room where the breaks and steering-wheel should have been, so we all got into the driver's cabin. The four of us, plus mr M and his dog miss Mash ("like TV - MASH, you see TV?"), we all enjoyed the ride, and it was a fast one too. "Hey mister, you got yourself a nice car.", LT said in an attempt to be polite. He was in a nice mood this day, our LT. "She's gonna blow. Soon.", the driver said happily. "Oh, I see. By the way, your dog seems like a good one to me." "Rabies. Don't let her bite you.", mr M answered. "Oh, I see. But the weather sure is fine today." LT tried every possible way of escaping. "Rain period. Soon. No nice weather anymore." Woops. We had no raincoats, I thought. Must remember to buy a cappla those on our way. And some fishing rods. And some real food. "Look, I hit!" DR had pulled up his blow-pipe and fired a shot at a tree, and fuck me, he hit. Soon we were all committed to sniper-activities, and we became somewhat skillful, too. Not like Clint in "The Man Who Rode Alone", but damn near, I'd say. Mr M got quite impressed when DR shot down a fly inside the cabin, and he offered us all some special oil-brew. "97 percent alcohol, 2 percent oil, 1 percent vegetable extracts. Good for your blood. Bad for the bones.", he said. "Twice the fun, double the trouble, hah? Lemme taste.", DR proclaimed. "GOD DAMN! Now that was a heavy one! Say, mister, what do you call this? Figgered we could use some." "Taent, its Taent" "Oh, joy is in the ears of those who hear!", (LT knew his Shakespeare), "The Talent drink! No wonder they are so wasted over there in Norway. We must have a few litres of this, you dunno when it might become handy. Say, mister, how much you take for a coppla bottles?" "Two pseta each. One for you. Friend price. Sniper award." Life could not be better, right? We filled DR's backpack and jumped off the car when a sign said "Amazon River 100 Miles". 100 miles are always 100 miles, and we stopped and thought for a while. "What shall we do? I mean, it's quite long a way to walk." "Yeah, but we can always make something up on they way. You worry none and you'll see that everythings gonne be just fine." "Got that right mista." So we started to walk. We were not exactly equipped for walking, DR even forgot his shoes back in the village, but then we were no women, and consequently we did not complain. Instead, we enjoyed life to the best of our knowledge. "Woops", I said later that evening, "we're out of food." "We are?" "We are." "You sure?" "Positive." "You feel positive about that? I think it's negative." "Yeah it is, but the answer is positive." "It isn't; it's negative." "Oh gimme a break, realize facts, we have no food, and we'd better go out and hunt some before we starve dead." "Ok, Baron, you acoming? Bring your AK." Baron and LT left for some wild life hunting, even if it maybe was unwise to hunt with AK bullets, full metal jacketed and everything. After half an hour, all hell broke loose. Two AKs opened automatic fire at the same time, and each poured out at least forty bullets. After a while, they came back, LT and Baron, that is. "Boys you never gonna believe this. We shot a panter. It attacked us when we were trying to shoot birds, and it damn near killed LT." "Yeah, but now its dead allright. We shot it dead totally." "But it's dead heavy, at least two hundred kilogrammes of pure meat." "And maybe some lead, too." "Yeah, maybe 100 bullets or so. It wasn't like easy so kill, but we succeeded." We all had to go and fetch the panter. It was a huge cat, not much like my Missan back home. There was just one thing; what the hell were we to do with say 150 kg of panter meat? We ate ourselves unhungry and then we conserved the whole cat in DR's salt he had brought. Dunno why he brought 56 kg salt, but he did. We cut the panter up and stored the conserved parts in our backpacks. Baron canned the panter head and put it in his bag. Guess he'd have a hard time eating that. "Hey guys", LT said the following morning, "we have no fishing equpiment whatsoever! We must buy some." He got that right, and after an hour, a sign told us that Estrella Village laid two miles ahead. "Never really did like Estrella. Fucking Angered crap. Where's OLW City?" DR thought that moderaterna (m) were, and I quote, fucking leftwinged extremists. "It is in Harlem, New York, I heard." "It can't be." "But it is." "It is?" "It is." "Well, then... I never really did like OLW either. I like mother's fried potatoes." And there was no arguing there; we all liked his mothers potatoes. We used to pay him a visit now and then just to eat; the S.A.S. Sucker mad life so much easier for us. Border-less friendship. Estrella village was not so big after all. There must have lived some sixty inhabitants there, and they all had hidden away from us. Not a fucking soul was there, so we entered the fishing shop. "Oh man what a hook! The size of my head, at least!" "Rells, tubes, lines, its all here!" We took what we needed and left money on the desk. Approximately fifteen kilos of fishing equipment filled our bags, and you can guess for yourself if we were happy and pleased. When we left the village, a sign told us that this was leprosy area. "Leprosy, what does that really mean?" "No idea." "Tänk om det betyder samma sak som lepra." "Ojoj." "Spetälska." "Hansens sjukdom." "Sankt Virgils dans." "Ojoj." "Men jag tror bara det smittar om man är liten." "Ja, det stämmer, tror jag bestämt. Inte genom sår eller kontakt eller så." "Tur för oss." "Nu kan vi säga att vi varit i ett lepraområde." "Fan va coolt det låter." Can you believe it, we took the bus. We just wakled in the middle of the street, and an old vehycle approached from behind. We waved and screamed, and the driver let us in. This way, we gained some eighty five miles, and there were just fifteen of'em left. The bus, however, was hi-jacked, and we had to trick the hi-jacker real good before we could blow him away. He had apparently commited some kind of violent robbery in a city far away, and he was now trying to make it to the border. We in One hate violent crimes, and we made him pay for what he did. It wasn't cheap, either. Like most things in life, the bus came to its end station, Goerra. It was nothing more than a sign saying Goerra, and I can't understand what the bus passengers, fifty at least, would do in Goerra, but off they went, and so did we. "According to our map", LT, our map reader, said, "the river is somewhere over there fifteen miles or so. We can make it there in say two days if we keep up the One speed." "We're lucky with the weather; seems to me the rain never came. Sun all the year around, that's what I like." "Don't say so; the fish is hungry when it is raining. The biggest landings of the world were landed when raining." "Kool, that. I want to catch big fish." "If it isn't big, it isn't good.", DR said the One slogan out loud, and we all cried out. "IF IT ISN'T BIG, IT ISN'T GOOD!" "But then, I have heard that the Amazon river is big, and big waters keep big fishes." "And big things offer big problems." "The tougher the better." "The harder the worse." "Twice the size doubles the troubles." "Half the weight and it's too late." "One two Freddys gonna get you." "Three four better lock your door." "Five six make a crucifix." "Seven eight better stay up late." "Nine ten never sleep again." "I can't believe that Wes Cravens ripped us off so totally with that song. It was ours, and he took it for his Freddy Kreuger movies and says it's his. We ought to punish him real good." "Yeah, but how? I mean, he isn't like into the digital world." "No, that's true. We will have to think about it for a while, and then he will suffer something extra." "Right." "No, it's left here. The map says so." "Ok, the only was is left." "Wasn't that up?" "And how the hell do you plan to go UP here?" "Hmm... Better make that left then. But I thought there were no such thing as left or right on maps? Was there not only north, south, easst and west?" "Yeah, but west is left on the map." "But it can't be in reality. Now I stand here, and west is that way. I turn, and west is THAT was. Now how do you figure that?" "It's like the compass, you know. It twists when you turn, it too." "Yeah... yeah, I see. Cool." "Left, right?" "Left." "Left." "Left." "Right. "No, left." "Never give up, do ya?" "All right then, left." "Off we go." "Let's show'em." "One." Then the rain started to fall, and when I say rain, I mean rain, not the kind of fog that leaves the skies of Uppsala, but READ devil's tears. Fifteen minutes after the outbreak, we were wet absolute, and there was nothing we could do about it. Baron made a raincoat out of banan plant leaves, but I gather you can judge by the sound of it how fucking effective that one was; the only thing that happened was that the insects of the baban leaves moved over to his hair, causing him to scratch it constantly. Guess it hurts when they lay their eggs under your scalp. "Man, I have never seen so much water before in my whole life", LT said as we moved further into the jungle. "Lucky for me I ain't allergic." "It tastes good, nice, fresh and everything.", Baron retorted. "The insect man has spoken." "Knock it, willya." "Look, there is light over there!" "Wow, it really IS!" "Who could that be?" "It's Satan, no doubt, who has come to take our souls." "Well, if it is him, well then I have a nice surprise for ya." DR pulled in a new mag in his AK. We approached carefully. From a shorter distance, we could see that it was some kind of fireplace (ett slags käril, alltså), and that a few people were gathered around it in their search for warmth. Moments later, we heard Danish voices. "What the fuck are they saying?", LT wondered. "Dunno, I hate Danish, you cannot fucking understand it." "Lets waste them right now." "You kiddin'? Wastem?" "Yeah, why not. Nobody will miss a coppla Danish suckers anyway." "Du skel igge sjääle våre viinebrööö me sjokkolaaa i mitn. Du, danskjävel, antagligen håller du käften eller så pratar du så man förstår dig." We fooled around a little, but suddenly Baron fell to his knees. "Inspiration has come.", he said sullenly. Now, there are things on Earth you can make fun of, but those thingies don't include Baron's inspirational moments. When he gets'em, the only thing you can do and do is to admire him and it, cause what he does is always something original and extra. We all fell silent as he suffered from what looked like an epileptic attack. Then he rose. "Inspiration has come.", he said again. "I must take some precautions. I will need a few things. Please help me." Fifteen minutes later, he blew away an arrow loaded with 4 grammes of pure dynamite into the Danish fire. They were all more or less asleep, and they woke up to the sound of their fire's blowing. Splinters and dust emerged from all over the ground. "Kva vare f0r någe?", said the first Danish fucker. "Fråge igge mej", answered the second. Then a hoarse, eeire voice arouse from the bushes. If I had not known that it was Baron, I would have died of horror; but then you do sound somewhat mongo when having consumed table crayons. "ONE TWO GONNA GET YOU THREE FOUR BETTER LOCK YOUR DOOR" "Saej, äere sp0gelser?" "Hjaelp! Hjaelp!" The fire expolded once more, and a panter's head landed in it. "FIVE SIX MAKE A CRUCIFIX SEVEN EIGHT BETTER STAY UP LATE" "Trieu, de aere Freddy Kreuger!" "Klaus, du hiar raett! Han aer haer f0r å haemnes f0r at vi tjuvelse-jagade. Hvis vi kun had vitat..." "Vi draer!" One kilo of dynamite blew off five hundred metres away. It was water-loaded, i.e. it went off in a deep water pond, which made the explosion sound hollow. Water fell down on the camping place like sad rain. "NINE TEN NEVER SLEEP AGAIN" Baron jumped on the closest muggie from Denmark. It happened to be a girl, or shall we maybe say a young woman. Except for a pair of trousers, Baron was naked; he was war-painted with mud, his hair was mostly torn away and in his hands he held two panter jaws. Moreover, his legs were on fire. Well, he wore Duplex trousers used when recording action movies, but how the fuck were they supposed to know that? The Danish lady turned hysteric, and her buddies ran away. "POOO-ACHER POOOO-ACHER YOU WILL DIE", he whispered to her. She had a black-out, and the camp-site belonged to One. "Fjällräven-stuff, man, we just mugged some Danish Communist Poachers!" "What do they have in their back-packs?" "Food, clothes, rainclothes! Cool!" "Woops, here's the body-bag. It's full of mutilated and truncated gorillas and antiloops." "God, I hate poachers." "Me too." "Lets waste the one we got." "Yeah." "No, first we take what we want from their equipment, and then we figger out what to do with the lady." "Look over here, they keep chained antiloops and captured monkeys here! THEY WILL PAY FOR THIS!", cried DR in pure rage, "I HATE THE DANISH PEOPLE!". DR sure has a warm heart for animals, you cannot deny that. He set them all free, and they ran happily around him in circles. "OK", LT said, "we have taken what we need from their equipment. What shall we do with the lady? Considering her horror-deeds to the animals, I suggest we do something fun." Now you think that what he suggested was sex and rape, but One members don't deal in that. True, we hold most women for less than nothing, but those who we value, we value a lot. Besides, men who treat women bad were not men. No, we had to figure out something more... ...fun? "I have an idea", Baron said. "Let's do some tatooing on her." Said and done, he tatooed in a message on her right arm and left leg. "The devil made me do it", her right arm said; "Botaniska Trädgården Hellriders, Göteborg" covered the whole of her right leg. We chained her in her animal chains and let LT swallow the key. When we left her, the other cowards had not come back yet, and when they did... Guess they had some lock-picking to do. "Look, water!", Baron said the next day, "water!" "Are we here or are we?" "The Amazon River." "Unchanged for millions of years." "The home of animals" "the cradle of life" "the outpost of wilderness" "until" "one day" "Too much It Came From the Desert, hah?" "Bet so." "Go that right mista." They were right, though; it was the Amazon river that laid in front of us. She showed herself to us in all her pride and beauty. Ite scenery was just so nice that tears filled our eyes. "Lets take a bath." "Yeah, less do that." "All right." "Ok." - - - "Nice water, this." "Warm." "Somewhat dim and foggy, though." "Yeah, no Valhallabadet feeling." "Thanks for that; no fags in the hothouse pool either." "Grateful, I'm grateful for that." "Woah! What was that!" "Calm down, calm down, you just touched a fish. Or maybe a fish touched you. Doesn't matter though, nature has its own way of saying things." "Aoh, there it was again. What the fuck is it?" "Vattenpest - blodigenfest." "Aoh!" "Now I felt it too." "Fan killar, det är änna så man dörjar misstänka pirajor. Men de finns ju bara i Amazonas djungler." "Men du." "Det är ju där vi är nu." "Ja, det är det ja. Fan också." "Då var det färdigbadat för idag. Låt oss simma in till stranden." "Det var fasligt långt dit." "Huh, det börjar bli jobbigt det här." "Aj!" "Fan!" "VAD GÖR MAN NÄR MAN ÄR SIST?" (DR hade ju legat i Boden, så han kunde jargongen) "ÖKAR!" "VA?" "ÖKAR!!" "JAG HÖR INTE!!" "Ö-K-A-R!!!" "EN GÅNG TILL!" "ÖÖ-KK-AA-RR!!!!" "MEN SÅ ÖKA DÅ!!!!" Han hade inte behövt skrika. "Ouch", DR looked at his body, "they sure bit me. Look, teeth marks all over the place." "Yeah, look here. A blodigel." "Heard they smakar gott." "DR, something for you?" "Let me see, yep, it is eatable. Ischyonaris Navius, it is de-li-cieux! We can use it as bait." "For what?" "Dunno, guess we'd better start looking for a indian village so that we can get some ideas and a boat." "Indians, here?" "Yep." "They live here?" "They live here." "Kool. Do they have boats?" "They have boats." "Kool. Then we can ask'em for what fishes that live here, and then we can make up our minds for what we want to fish for." "Only the biggest." "Only the best." "One." We walked next to the river, downwards that is, the following day. Guess you could say that we followed tha mainstream. No trace of indians, though. The night came, and we put up our new-stolen tent. "It looks good, this Fjällräven tent.", DR said. "Swedish quality always looks good." "Possessed by Danish poachers, though." "They deserved it, ya know." "Oh fuck, don't feel like sleeping. I'll be off fishing a little now. Someone a'comin?" "Yep, sign me up.", LT said. "We'll go down to the river for a while. If you want anything, just scream. If we want anything, we'll sure as hell scream." "Yeah. Bring your camera; we won't believe you otherwise." "Sure thing." - - - "Look, what a disgusting worm! It smells, too." "Put it on the hook. Maybe the fish like it." "Guess they do, but why don't YOU put it on the hook." "What if it bites me?" "Ever seen a worm bite someone?" "'Bite' reminds me of how Digital Illusions spelled 'light' in Pinball Fantasies. It upsets me. Don't use that word." "OK. Just angle and I'll be quiet." "Ya. Sooo little wormie come to papa." "Fan vad han slemmar." "Kletigt som satan. Jöck!" "Så där, nu kastar vi i den. Jag tog en 0.45 lina, den skall hålla för 12 kilo." "Ja, större fisk än så kan man väl inte få på mask." "Oh, vad lugnt och gott. En cigg?" "Jomenvisst, håller la myggorna borta." - - - "Oj, flötet sjönk." "Då har vi napp. Veva upp." "Jag vevar. Det kan inte vara nån vidare stor jävel, det där." "Se, där kommer den ju. En baby-piraja." "Men vilka tänder sen då. Ingen babykäft där inte." "Nej, snarare som han i James Bond, du vet han Ironmouth." "Ja, han är cool." "Synd bara att han dör." "Fast han dör ju inte i verkligheten." "Nej, det är klart." - - - "Oj, flötet sjönk igen. Din tur att veva." "Jag vevar. Fan, änna tungt." "Koolt då." "OH KOLLA! VILKEN ÅL!" "Oh dra åt helvete, lika tjock som min arm!" "Ta upp honom." "Gör det du." "Jag tog i masken." "Ja, OK då om du skall vara så kelig. Faan, va fjällig han var!" "Här, här är vågen. 10 kilo ål, det måste vara nytt svenskt rekord!" "Fast vi är ju i Brasilien. Eller om det var Argentina kanske." "Ja just det ja. Fan också, hade gärna blivit svensk mästare i ål." "Seså, agna av den nu." "Jaja, lugna dig nu." "Undrar just hur Digital Illusions stavar det." "Va?" "Ja, lugn, alltså. Tänk om de stavar det 'lungn'." "Usch." "Ålen spyr ju. Titta, den hade ätit ett... ...ett finger?" "Det kanske är en sån där döds-ål." "Som äter lik." "Ja, jag saknar då inga i alla fall." "Va?" "Fingrar alltså." "Jaha." "Vems är det?" "Det är ju brunt. Ett sånt där neger-finger, du vet." "Indianfinger, kanske du menar." "Jaja, skit samma, ingen av oss är indian." "Det har du rätt i. Vi kastar tillbaka det." "Nej, vi lägger det i Counties sovsäck." "Ja, kul ide. Det gör vi." "Seså, lilla ål, nu åker du tillbaka i vattnet igen. Hej då." - - - "Du, flötet sjönk igen." "Häftigt." "OH JÄVLAR VAD DET DRAR! ETT MONSTER!" "Du, det är ju alldeles i strandkanten, jag når det med huggkroken. Så där, jag har det." "Äh va fan, det är ju en krokodil. Koolt!" "En sån där alligator. Dödshäftigt!" "Oj, han spyr." "Vad spyr han?" "Oj då, det vill du inte se." "Jo, flytta på dig så jag får se." "Du bad om det." "Oj då. Det är ju resten av indianen." "Han ser lite sliten ut." "Du, vi lägger honom i Counties sovsäck, han med." "Ja, det gör vi." "Så, nu åker krokodilen i igen." "See you later alligator." "Det var lågt." "Ja, visst var det." "Äh, vi drar tillbaka till camp nu va?" "Ja, det gör vi." "Och installerar Counties sovsäck." "Och sover en timma." "Jag har hört att det räcker att sova tolv minuter per dygn för att hjärnan inte skall ta skada." "Bra, då gör vi det." (natten förflöt) "ÄH DRA ÅT HELVETE! DET LIGGER EN DÖD INDIAN I MIN SOVSÄCK!" "Håll käft och låt mig sova." "MEN TITTA DÅ! HALVSMÄLT ÄR HAN OCKSÅ!" "Vad säger du? Va, får jag se?" "OH FY FAAAAAN, JAG ÄR ALLDELES SLEMMIG! HAN HAR LEGAT UNDER MIG HELA NATTEN!" "Oj då." "NÄE, LT OCH DR, VA FAN SKRATTAR NI ÅT?!" (de båda låg på knäna och grät av skratt) "NÄE FY FAN DET VAR INTE ROLIGT! VIDRIGT!" "Countie, vad du luktar!" DR vred sig i plågor. "FYYYYY FAN, DU SKALL FÅ BETALA!" "Jaså Countie, du tycker sånt är skönt. Nekrofili kallas det visst?" LT skrattade så att han hostade blod. "ÄE, VA ER RETTA? DET LIGGER JU ETT FINGER I MIN!", vrålade Baron ursinnigt. "ÄH DRA ÅT HELVETE NI BÅDA!" Later that day, we spotted a small indian vessle, i.e. some sort of boat that floated on the river far away from us. "It's a kanot, a canoe. I like that. It's a young girl who steers it.", said LT. "Lets call for her. She must know where to find the closest indian village, and maybe even she can take us there." "Yeah lets. But how do you do?" "Like this. YO-HOOOO LADY! OVEER HERE! OVER HERE!" "Cool, she saw us." "Woops, she turned and makes it downwards." "In a high speed." "Maybe she was a cannibal and she went to fetch help." "Lets waste her." "Yeah lets." "Only the good die young; all the evil seem to live forever." "No, this is what we gonna do. We are going to follow the river downstream, i.e. the way that girlie went, and sooner or later we'll meet that indian village. We will, of course, have to assume that she came from such a village, and that she just wnet back to it." "Sounds fair to me." "Same." "Yeah." "Clint Eastwood always says 'yeah' in the Dirty Harry movies." "I love'em." "Same." "Yeah." Four hours passed... "Hey, look! There is something a'comin over there! It's... it's... it's a coppla boats!", Baron screamed in hesitation. "Yeah, and lotsa people on'em, too." "The Indian tribe comes to welcoms us, right?" "Woops." "The Indian tribe comes to kill us, considering that the people on the boats all have spears." "What shall we do? I mean, not hard to spray the area with our AK 5s, we'd waste'em all.", LT said with shining eyes. "No", I said, "before we attack them, lets see if they come in peace." "You are so wise." DR liked harassing people. "Look at that fucker in the feather hat, is he the chief? He looks like shit in those rags." "Hey, watch it, they might understand what we're saying here." The boats, maybe fifteen, stopped in the middle of the river, some forty metres away. The possible chief screamed some ape-ish, and LT loaded with 30 bullets in order to be ready when the fun started. When the chief stopped, however, the man next to him took up the word. "Chief says", he said, "we want peace if you want peace. Other you will die." "Tell him we have come in peace. We wish no harm.", I said. Guess I was our chief, right? "Cheif wonder why you are on our ground." "We are looking for a place where we can buy or rent a boat. We are out game-fishing. We want to catch fish." The indians started a discussion that last for five minutes. "Cheif says you can come aboard. Please make no trouble. This spear here guarantees that you cannot escape or do anything unwanted.", the interpretor said. "And this AK 5 here says we can.", whispered LT in a defient voice. We all stepped aboard. The small canoes were, as I said, small, as were the Indians, and they had no beard, either. We looked like furry monsters by then, and guess our clothes were not that nice either. "Triac! triac!" One of the Indians touched Baron's bare scalp. "Triac! triac!" "He says, you are the swimmer.", the interpretor says, "we have a tradition that the best swimmer of the village must not wear hair. We have our own master, and now you come." "But...", Baron said. "Do you want to compete with our master?", he asked. "Psst ditt mongo, det måste du göra, annars klassas det som oartigt!", viskade DR. "Öhh... I'd be most honoured to do so. I am the swimming master of this group. I beat the others in fair competition.", Baron answered. "Good, tonight then." The Indians started to whisper and stare at us again, but their chief payed us no attention at all. "Look", I said after a while, "we want to fish big fish. Do you know where we can do that? Only the biggest is good enough for us. We can help you fish, that is if you do fish, you name it and you got it." The interpretor, an Indian named Carl, whispered to the chief, and a heavy discussion started. After fifteen minutes, the chief spoke. "C" "What?", LT asked. "C?" "C" Nobody said anything else. Unless you got something un-serious to say, you shut the fuck up, as we say in One. Instead we enjoyed the journey, cause it was a nice one. LT leaned back and lit a cigarette, men då tog det hus i helvete. "Hitacho! Hitacho!", the chief said and pointed at LT, "Hitacho! Hitacho!" LT unsecured his AK, wondering what the hell he had done. "You are Smoke Eater", Carl said, "Smoke Eater you are. Legends say Smoke Eater will save us. You are our guest, Smoke Eater, and your friends are our friends." "Save you from what?", Smoke Eater asked. "C", the chief said as he had understood the question. "Right", the Swimmer said, "C" The Indian village was situated beside a huge, black lagoon. When we got there, a lot of people came to meet us. "Triac! Hitacho!", the chief cried. Chaos was a fact. Everyone rushed towards us and wanted to show gratitude and freindly feelings. "Wow, there are a lot of Indian babes here", Smoke Eater said. "Right, Smokie", the Swimmer said. "Oh, shut the fuck up, waterman." Instead of free lunch, we were brought to a cottage far away from the others. Carl went in and told us to come after, so we did. The small room was full of opaque, white smoke, and we heard Carl speaking to someone. The other voice sounded ancient. We sat down and began to wait. "Satan va rökit det va här inne.", sade LT, "jag ser änna ingenting alls." "Säger du som är Rökätaren. Det skall du la för faan tåla." "Äh, Countie, för faan, håll käften." Then Carl said something, of which we all missed the first words. "...our old man, the shaman. He will tell you, I will translate. Listen carefully." "Woooow, a shaman", DR whispered. The old man began to speak, and Carl was not long after. "A long time ago, our people lived happily here. The lagoon and the jungle offered what we wanted, and we lived in peace. Then a monster moved into our lagoon, and it caught and killed a few native every year, and the rest of the fishes moved away. Ever since, we have lived without fish. We cannot take a bath in the water. We cannot wash in the water. We cannot play in the water. If we do, the monster comes and drags us down and eat us up. This monster is known as the C." "The old man and the C", DR laughed silently, and soon we all fell in tears; this was humour as defined by One. "Legends say that Smoke Eater will kill C." "Can I ask a few questions here?", Smoke Eater said. "Shoot.", Carl said. He did not know it wasn't such a good idea to tell LT to shoot, but LT kept his hands away from his AK. "What kinda monster is this?" "It is huge, black, and it has tentacles. It has yellow eyes." "How long is it?" "Ten metres, maybe more." "And it eats meet, you say." "Yes." "And how deep is the lagoon?" "One hundred and eighty metres." "Oh fuck", DR said. That night we discussed what that monster really was. We had had a cottage of our own, and we did not exactly feel like taking a bath in the lagoon. "The creature of the black lagoon, that's just so cool", DR said. "It can't be an octopus, they cannot live in fresh water." "It can't be an eel, either, they never grow wide, and they have not got any tentacles." "Ha, min moster hade nån jävla fittfisk i sin brunn. Den var stor som en jävla katt.", sade Rökätaren. DR turned very pale. "Fuck", he said, "it's a welsh. That's what they got - a welsh." "A what?" "Ja, en mal alltså, ditt jävla mongo. De har en mal i lagunen." "Fy fan, tio meter lång." "I don't fear sharks, and I don't fear jelly-fish, but I do fear welsh", said DR and looked sad. "The largest welsh of the world was caught in Russia. It was over five metres long and scored over 400 kilos. Welsh is a very rare fish, it exists in but three lakes in Sweden. The Swedish welsh are small and tiny, never above sixty centimetres, yet they are kända att äta katter, simmande hundar och gräsänder. Further on, it is not known how old they can grow. It is only known that several hundred years is not impossible." "Fattar ni, mal-jäveln har gottat sig i kanske tre hundra år i botten av en 180 meter djup lagun! Inte konstigt han är över tio meter lång då!" "But how the fuck do we kill him?" "Det är ju liksom rätt tungt att veva in en jävel på tre fyra ton på spöt..." "Vi gör så här..." The next day we knew how to do. When we opened the door to our cottage, fifty Indians stood and waited for us. In the centre of the sphere, there was a beautiful young girl. There was no hair on her head. "Triaca! triaca!", the female audience yelled. "Trioc! trioc!", the male audience answered. "Good morning!", Carl said with a smile and turned to Baron, "time has come for you to race our master, Triaca, the Female Swimmer." "She's a lady?", Baron said with a weird smile. "Yes. If you don't race, you will insult her. And then her father might have to kill you." "No, why, I'll race her. No problem." "Good, let's go down to the lagoon." "THE LAGOON? NO WAY, MAN, NO WAY! NOT THERE! NO FUCKING MONSTERS FÖR MIN DEL ALLTSÅ! ALDRIG!" one man in the crow waved a spear. "Baron, fuck, c'mon, you must do it.", I whispered. "They kill you otherwise." "But I'll die anyway! Maljävlen kommer ju sluka mig levande för faan!" "Naah, simma bara snabbt så ordnar det sig. Malen är en slö fisk." "Jävligt lätt för dig att säga ja! Fy FAAN för detta, att dö i en jävla lagun!" "Korsa fittvattnen och sen är det över. Det är lugnt." Baron, however, was the man for the job. He swimmed a lot, he ran marathon races, he weny to Ålskrokens Gym everyday, he was Norrlands Champ in armwrestling and he ate gröt. We did not fear he'd be eaten up, but we did fear that the girl would beat him. It'd be good for the Indians if the girl won, but it would definitively not be good for Baron. He goes berserk when girls beat him. "Ready" "Set" "GO!" Baron and the babe threw themselves into the water, Baron in khaki shorts, the babe nude. They were equal, they sure were, but Baron led all the way to the centre of the pool. Then bubbles started to emerge, and both Baron and the babe doubled their energy. With less than fifty metres to go, the girl outspeeded Baron, and this made him furious. By now, even we saw that something was following them; I dare not imagening how they must have felt. It caught up on them, and damn fast too. Baron caught up with the babe again, and as far as we can see, they hit the beach at the same time. As soon as they had done, that, they jumped up on the bround, and one second later the thing after them hit the sand. It turned and swam down to bottom again. "Look", DR said, "Baron lost his shorts in the water. He's naked." "Yeah, and so is she." "Nice, send a boat to get them now." "No", Carl said, "they will walk around the lagoon when they feel like it. It is the Award of the Winner, and it usually takes some time.." "What? What is the award? I don't get it." "They are both naked", Carl suggested. At the other end of the lagoon, we saw Baron and the babe walk hand in hand into the forest. That night we did not do any fishing; Baron was all too tired for that. "What the fuck did you do with her that took four hours?", Smoke Eater asked. "Guess", the Swimmer smiled. No, what we did was that we fooled around a little with our 5056 mm AK bullets. Smoke Eater showed how to make that tougher - you can do that easily with your Victorinox - so we fixed all of our remaining 550 bullets. You see, we had a plan; we knew how we'd deal with the monster fucker the following day. "You realize, of course, ", Smoke Eater said to Carl, "that the way we had planned to wipe this monsta out means that we will wipe out the rest of the fish too for at least a month." "Of course", he smiled. "And that it will be hard to get a grip of the body of the monster afterwards." "Of course." "We will need some help of your men, I mean the chief's men, but it won't become dangerous for them. Not that dangerous, maybe somewhat though." "We're used." The following day, we cut up a cow (it was sick anyway) and tied it to a huge piece of coark. We sent some indians to drop the floaty thing in the middle of the lagoon, and fuck me, they did. "Now", DR said, "it'll take two hours for the welsh to smell the blood. We're kinda talkin 180 metres here, ya knew." The Indians knew. "In the meanwhile, we will have to get ourselves ready. Go to your positions and await my call." DR knew how to handle situations like this, and we walked to our positions. I stood at the north beach, the Swimmer at the west, Smoke Eater at the south and DR at the east. "Carl, tell your men to sharpen their spears extra much. I have some Talent here that we can use as poison that we can add to the blades. Then split them into four groups. Send one to Countie, one to the Swimmer, one to Smoke Eater and one to me. Tell them to follow every order they get. You Carl get the special assignment. Listen carefully..." Two hours later, bubbles began to break the surface. "GET READY NOW! YOU ALL KNOW WHAT TO DO! THE FUCKER WILL HAVE A HARD TIME PULLING THAT COW DOWN, AND IN THE MEANTIME, HE IS SEVERELY EXPOSED!", he screamed from where he stood in a canoe off the beach. And believe it or not, without warning, the monster appeared. Slowly, he broke the surface and swam lazily towards the cow. None of us was able to move or say anything; we had calculated with a length of ten metres, but the monster, it WAS a welsh, was at least twenty. "O..OOK. TAKE IT KOOL NOW." Even DR was surprised by the size of the fish. "LET HER TAKE HER TIME. WHEN SHE AIMES FOR THE FOOD, SHE WILL FIRST GO DOWN, THEN SHE WILL JUMP." "EASY NOW." "REMEMBER SHE WILL JUMP SEVERAL TIMES. EVERY JUMP WILL BE FOLLOWED BY BUBBLES SO THAT WE WILL KNOW WHERE SHE IS." The welsh dived. Then it jumped up and tried to drag the cow down. It was not only big, it was not only huge, it was fucking TREMENDOUS. The water exploded as she landed on the cow, but she failed to drag it down, and she dived again. "OK NOW SHE KNOWS THAT IT IS GOOD FOOD. COUNTIE, SHOT THE STRING!" I shot away the line holding half of the coark, and it floated away. Now who's the sniper, hah? The cow was now carried up by half as much as before. "OK HERE SHE COMES AGAIN. EASY EASY!" The welsh jumped and grabbed the cow. Both disappeared. "OK, MY GUESS IS THAT SHE CAN KEEP THIS FOR TEN MINUTES, THEN THE COARK WILL FORCE HER UP AGAIN..." Ten minutes passed. "SHE'S STRONG!" Twenty; the heat was unbearable. "ANY MINUTE NOW!" Thirty, and the she came. "C", the chief said softly. "SHE IS TIRED, OH SHE IS TIRED. LET'S WARM HER UP A LITTLE... F - I - R - E!" Four AK5 opened automatic fire. We fired twenty bullets each - no longer fully metal jacketed - and nothing happened. The monster was hit by several poison-spears, but it acted as if nothing had happened. "GOD DO I LOVE IT! RELOAD AND FIRE AGAIN!" We did, and then we reloaded and fired again. By now, our weapons were to hot to hold, and we threw them away. The blowing-pipes were loaded and fired again and again, and we had so much fun. "I LLLOOOOVVVVEEE THIS!", Baron cried in extas when we were out of arrows. "SHE OUGHT TO BE DEAD BY NOW, BUT SHE ISN'T. WHAT A CHALLENGE! LETS GO TO PLAN B!" He blew off the 10 kilos of dynamite and plastics he had hidden inside the cow's belly. The explosion knocked many of the Indians down to their knees, and the welsh... lets just say that it must have had better days. "PLAN C!" Baron was, as always, out of control. In accordance with plan C, we threw our three hand-granades at the monster. The tenth granade was thrown by the chief, who apparently enjoyed the show. "PLAN D!" Carl threw away a small load of C4 connected to fifteen kilos of Nustardin. No fish would swim in that lagoon for the closest months. What was left of the welsh floated around; there were more small pieces of flesh and blood in the lagoon than there was water. We had succeeded; the monster had gone to hell. "C", the chief said and pulled his finger across his throat. ˙01