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ShilohPR
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Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 6 added 5/4/08
Hey guys. I'm new and have a fanfict to post. I have my own writing site that I'm trying to plug lately... but I'm also just trying to get my stuff read and this seems like a nice place to post at least one of my stories. This is a work in progress. Hope y'all like it! If you do, feel free to read more of my work on my website angelfire.com/bug/celticshiloh/index.html
Gorilla on the Bridge
by; Shiloh
In hindsight, traveling without a bodyguard was probably one of the worst decisions Orlando had ever made. And he had made a lot of stupid decisions in his twenty-nine years upon God’s green earth. Granted, stupid decisions were usually not made with the kind of foresight that would have been required to predict such a circumstance, but taking Orlando’s celebrity status and the length of the flight from New York to London and the almost four hundred passengers that such a large plane was capable of carrying all into consideration, it probably would have been a good safety precaution at the very least. But Orlando could never have guessed what lay before him, so when the suggestion was made that, instead of one bodyguard flying twice the distance simply to deliver him, his old bodyguard would take him to the gate and his new bodyguard would pick him up at the gate, Orlando had agreed. Surely he could handle sitting on a plane by himself, without a bodyguard there to protect him. Surely he was adult enough for that.
So Orlando walked by himself to his aisle seat in business class, tucked his carry-on into the compartment above his head, and settled into his seat to wait for the rest of the plane to finish loading. He hated flying internationally simply because of all the waiting. They were already late boarding since apparently a coffee pot had turned rabid and sprayed hot water all over the kitchen area or something loony like that and the flight attendants had insisted it be cleaned up before anyone could board. Then, once all three hundred and something passengers had ambled onto the plane, found their seats, stowed their luggage, and moved slowly out of the way so that other passengers could do so, there was still more waiting as the pilots needed some papers from the mechanics. Then they had to wait for a few other planes to clear the runway, and finally, just as they were ready to take off two hours behind schedule, it began to rain, large drops hammering against the window as Orlando glared at it across the man seated beside him.
“We’ll still take off,” the man assured Orlando after seeing what he was frowning at. “It might be a little rough, but the pilots want to get out of here as much as we do. The company is losing money the longer we sit here.” He pushed his silver-rimmed glasses back onto his face, having removed them to wipe the lenses down, and held his hand out to Orlando, “Prescott Lending.” It sounded more like a mortgage firm than a man’s name, but Orlando guessed he didn’t really have any room to be making judgements.
“Orlando Bloom,” he returned, shaking Prescott’s hand with a courteous smile. He guessed this Prescott was some sort of accountant, though he could have been completely off, since his assumption was based solely on Prescott’s pale skin, thinning light brown hair and the glasses that all, for some reason, screamed ‘accountant’ to Orlando.
“You’re an actor, right? Yeah, I’ve seen commercials for that Pirate movie you’ve got going. Pretty good business, the movie industry right now,” the man prattled, glancing out the window every couple of minutes as the plane slowly wheeled around and lumbered down the runway.
Orlando didn’t know whether the man was actually expecting an reply, but he returned out of politeness, “Yes, I’m an actor. What business are you in?”
“I’m an... I’m an accountant,” the man answered off-handedly after a momentary hesitation. With the way he kept glancing between Orlando and the window, he was obviously pretty nervous about the flight. “Excuse me, I need to make a call.” He pulled out his cell phone and began dialing a number just as the plane lurched off of the runway. Orlando felt his heart rise into his throat. Everyone knew you weren’t supposed to use cellphones on planes, but he had no clue what the consequence was. Was the plane about to take a nosedive into the runway? He really didn’t have any business telling the man to turn his cell phone off, though...
Someone on the other end phone must have answered, but Prescott seemed pretty dazed and just managed to spit out, “Orlando Bloom” before a flight attendant, happened to walk by and gasp, “Sir, turn your cell phone off right away!”
“What should I do?” Prescott asked, and though the woman seemed to think he was talking to her, Orlando realized he was talking to someone on the phone. The flight attendant reached over Orlando, grabbed the cell phone out of Prescott’s hand and hung up. When the phone had been turned off, she handed it back with a cold, scolding frown.
“If this phone is turned on again at any time during this flight, I will have to confiscate it,” she warned with the same coolness. Prescott nodded dumbly and took the phone from her, slipping it inside his pants pocket and watching as the flight attendant wandered off.
Orlando looked at Prescott, not quite sure what to say or do, but finally managed to spit out, “Are you all right, man?”
“Yes... yes, I’m fine,” Prescott assured her with an unconvincing smile. “Just a little... well I told you they would take off even in the rain because we fly too high for the weather to bother us.”
“Afraid of flying?” Orlando suggested. Prescott nodded, then reclined his seat.
“If you don’t mind, I believe I’m going to sleep through as much of this ordeal as I can,” Prescott explained. Far be it from Orlando to argue with such a strange man. Especially when that man wanted to sleep, giving Orlando the freedom of sleeping or reading or watching whatever in-flight movies were playing without any forced conversation with a man that kind of gave him the willies, to be honest. He had just recently begun reading Crime and Punishment, arguably the longest book he had ever picked up in his life, much less attempted to read. He was enjoying it, though. It made him think, something rarely required in his profession, he often joked. It was heavy reading for Orlando, the man who frequently explained to interviewers that he still struggled from dyslexia, but it was worth it, if only so he would be able to tell people he had read and understood Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
So Orlando settled in to read and tried not to count the minutes that soon rolled into hours. The personal television screens that every seat on the plane came equipped with to allow passengers to watch the movies also offered on channel one a flight overview that showed a little digital plane flying across the map, told altitude and speed over the ground, and showered both temperatures and the time where they had left, where they were, and where they were headed, It was a nice idea, giving passengers a way to follow their own travels, and yet Orlando couldn’t help but feel like watching the ‘Time to Arrival’ countdown tick down ever so slowly made the flight that much longer.
Fortunately, the stewardesses brought a meal along after they had been in the air for a while, and that provided a pleasant break from reading, and after reading for as long as his eyes could before getting shifty, Orlando turned his attention to a movie. He could always judge how much time he had recently spent flying by how many movies he had seen, since otherwise he had neither the patience nor the time to sit around watching films –ironic considering his occupation.
Orlando always waited as long as he could to do things on airplanes because it made the time go by a little faster. He read as long as he could. When the stewardess brought him his food, he put off eating it until his stomach complained too much for him to ignore. When the movie ended, he was slow to change the channel to another movie. He had fixated himself on the idea that if he was slow in his actions, time would of course have to travel faster.
Beside him, Prescott slept for the first half of the flight. When he awoke, it was to slip his laptop computer out from beneath the seat in front of him and attempt to access the internet.
Last edited by ShilohPR, 4/May/2008, 16:30
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20/Aug/2006, 23:08
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
(continued; wouldn't fit in one post)
Fortunately, there was no wireless network thirty-six-thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean, so Orlando didn’t have to worry about signaling to the flight attendant that Prescott was breaking rules again. The idea of Orlando the Tattletale made him give a small chuckle. He had always been the one being tattled on, but he had no desire to see this plane crash into the ocean because Prescott wanted to make a phone call or send an e-mail.
“Excuse me, do you have a laptop with wireless?” Prescott suddenly asked, leaning over way too close for Orlando’s comfort level. He could see the beads of sweat on Prescott’s forehead and upper lip.
Orlando shook his head, “Sorry, man. I don’t have a laptop.”
“I see. Um...”
“Are you all right? Do you need a drink or something?” Orlando offered, raising his hand to call a flight attendant over.
Prescott quickly grabbed his arm and hissed, “No, no. Don’t call attention to yourself! I just... I’m not feeling too well. I need to go to the restroom.” He didn’t even wait for Orlando to move out of the way, just climbed over his legs and hurried down the aisle to the restrooms at the back of the business class cabin.
Orlando watched his back, then made a face and muttered, “That’s some scary ****.” Apparently, Prescott saying he was scared of flying was about the understatement of the year. Even terrified didn’t seem an appropriate word to describe the hysterical state of the weasly little guy. If he was going to be this nuts for the rest of the flight, Orlando wondered if the flight attendants might let him move to one of the couple vacant seats in business class. He didn’t want to be rude but he didn’t fancy spending the remaining three hours of the flight next to Prescott if he had any choice.
In his campaign to put everything off as long as possible, Orlando had decided to wait to use the restroom until he absolutely needed to. Though he would have liked to wait until Prescott got back so as to spend as little time near him as possible, his bladder suddenly announced that it had just about reached its limit, and his back and legs were begging for movement. So Orlando pushed himself out of his seat and stretched his arms high over his head to pop his back. He winced at the noise, then readjusted his cap to keep his hair hidden. It didn’t matter that he had showered just before leaving the hotel. Flying made him feel greasy and rank no matter how hard he scrubbed and how much cologne he layered on beforehand.
He nodded at a middle-aged woman that had stared at him through his stretching, then brushed past her with the restrooms in sight, pulling his cap a little lower to lessen the possibility of being recognized and annoyed by a sweet but overzealous fan for the rest of the flight. It had happened before, back prior to when airlines suddenly became so strict about keeping passengers in the cabin they paid for.
There were already a couple people standing outside the bathrooms, waiting for the little signs to click back to ‘Vacant.’ One door did so quickly and an older woman with frizzy grey hair pulled back in a tight, high bun stepped inside after thanking a young woman behind her for letting her go first. This second woman was definitely Orlando’s junior, though his frequent guessing games when he met people failed to give him an idea as to how much younger she was.
She slid a ponytail holder off of her wrist and pulled her auburn curls back, glancing over her shoulder before turning back to Orlando’s accidental stare and assuring him with a decidedly American accent, “I’m not really that nice. I’m just not in any rush to get back there with Lucipher the Second.” Her accent sounded quite similar to what he had heard locally when filming Elizabethtown. Orlando guessed she was referring the baby he could faintly hear shrieking somewhere in the economy cabin.
“You shouldn’t explain away your good deeds, love,” Orlando assured her with a travel-weary laugh.
The woman shrugged, “Just making conversation,” and fell silent.
What happened next was unfortunate, and would almost have been comical had it not ended up the way it did. A sudden jar in the plane, as though it had suddenly slammed into an iceberg or a mountain, sent anyone with the misfortune to be standing at the time crashing to the floor or some other equally uncomfortable landing. Orlando slammed into the wall but his hands reacted quickly enough to cushion his contact and he was able to steady himself on his feet with nothing more than a slightly sore shoulder. The woman, though, was not quite so fortunate. The sudden jar sent her crashing forward just as the person within the bathroom suddenly opened the door, pulling it inward so that the only thing to catch the girl’s fall was the metal edge of the door colliding sharply with her face.
Orlando quickly pulled her up as the person within the bathroom leapt past them and went running towards the front of the plane. Already blood was pouring down the side of the girl’s face from the gash just above her right eyebrow.
“Oh my God,” the girl gasped, reaching her hand up to her face, but Orlando pulled her hand down and insisted, “Don’t touch it. Here.” He dove into the bathroom and grabbed a few papertowels to press into her hand just as another sharp jolt sent them careening together into the cramped bathroom.
Orlando landed sitting on the toilet with the girl sprawled across his lap, and she actually had the frame of mind –or perhaps had merely lost her frame of mind– enough to laugh, “What the hell? Some time to join the mile high club– oh my God.” She froze, staring at her reflection in the mirror. With the blood literally flowing down the side of her face and pooling around her eye, she looked like something from a Tarantino film.
She suddenly wavered and her eyes rolled around in her headand Orlando leapt up, ordering, “Don’t faint! Easy now, love. Look at me. Okay? Look at me.” He turned the water on and splashed some cool water on her face, and her eyes jerked forward to stare at him unhappily. At least she was somewhat coherent, though she was still leaning almost entirely on him. He shifted to keep her from crashing to the floor as he helped her out of the bathroom in order to grab a flight attendant’s attention –surely they had a first aid kit somewhere and could put something on her face until they landed. Really she needed stitches... Was there a doctor in the house?
However, the cabins were in pure chaos. A good number of the overhead bins had come swinging down at the turbulence, sending bags crashing down on top of passengers, and it wasn’t clear yet whether anyone had been really hurt. The ground beneath their feet shook as though to warn everyone that it wasn’t over with yet, and Orlando and the girl barely managed to avoid crashing to the floor or into a wall again as he pulled her into his side and braced himself against the wall.
A flight attendant suddenly came rushing towards them, and Orlando grabbed her arm, “Miss, this woman is–“
”Oh God!” the flight attendant yelped, seeing the blood still dripping along the woman’s light skin and leaving stains on her shirt and the carpeted floor. She stared, terrified for a moment, then insisted, “You both need to return to your seats.”
Orlando argued, “Yes, I know with the turbulence, but she needs medical attention.”
“God, my head hurts,” the woman suddenly moaned, closing her eyes and putting her hands up to her head. Orlando remembered the papertowels that were still clinched in her first and quickly pulled them out and pushed them against the gash with one hand, holding her head steady with the other.
“At the moment there isn’t time. Please return to your seats.”
“But she–“
”Now!”
Orlando’s eyes narrowed then suddenly widened as he realized just how terrified the flight attendant was. And it wasn’t terror at the sight of blood. There was something else going on.
“What about her? We’re not together,” he explained, looking helplessly at the woman who was obviously in no mental state to be taking care of herself.
The flight attendant glanced quickly over her shoulder, saw something she didn’t like, then quickly assured him, “Return to your seat. I’ve got her.”
“But–“
”Go! Now!” With those orders, the flight attendant pressed her hand over the drenched paper towel, put her other hand where Orlando’s had been behind the girl’s head, and began hurrying her along the aisle.
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20/Aug/2006, 23:11
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
(sorry, one more post to finish up this chapter...)
As soon as the woman was beyond his help, he turned to walk quickly back to his seat, grabbing onto a seat back as another wave of turbulence hit the plane. What was going on? If they were crashing, surely the oxygen masks would have fallen or the emergency exit lights would have turned on or something. And what was it that the flight attendant had turned to look at that made her move on so quickly? He watched the front of the plane as he approached his seat, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but all he saw were Prescott and another man, probably both waiting for the bathroom. They were talking, and Orlando thought it was good to see Prescott seeming a little more normal. He was obviously still nervous, but at least he was carrying on a conversation with someone.
But just as Orlando was sitting down, he saw the gun. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. There was no way a gun could be on the plane, not with all the security measures airports had put into effect since September 11th. He had to be mistaken. Except for the quick glance, the item quickly disappeared, so surely he had just imagined the whole thing.
But then a voice came on over the PA and Orlando felt his heart stop beating –or rather, everything else stopped, time stopped, and all he could hear was the deep drum of his heart speeding up and the heavily-accented voice coming through the speakers overhead,
“Greetings, passengers, and thank you for choosing to fly with us today. Unfortunately, there has been a change in plans, and this flight will no longer be arriving in London, England. We apologize for the turbulence during that transition, but we are now on the right course, and as long as everyone sits quietly and does exactly as they’re told, it should be smooth flying from here on out. If everyone will please stay calm, this will be easier on all of us. Thank you.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let me know what you think, please! 
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20/Aug/2006, 23:12
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
CHAPTER TWO
Orlando’s leg bounced as he pressed himself into the window seat, alternately looking out the window and across his row. Three other people sat within eyesight: two gentlemen older than himself, both in suits and polished blacks shoes, and a woman whose glasses had been pushed up into her heavily-sprayed and bleached hair style. Both the men and woman sat rigidly, eyes shifting wildly about the cabin. Everyone was on edge, but everyone was silent. At least in the business cabin. Orlando wasn’t sure about the rest of the plane, but here, where they could see everything that was going on around the ****pit, where everyone was adult enough to understand what was going on, things were silent. Dead silent. And almost completely motionless as well. No one wanted to draw attention to themself.
Orlando craned his neck to see what was going on, then quickly slouched back down into his seat. Two men with small pistols stood impatiently at the front, their narrowed eyes scanning the seats for any problems. The business class passengers were behaving like a class of kindergartners with the promise of a dollar. Behind them, the ****pit doors stood wide open, and though one of the original pilots was still behind the wheel, the two copilots had been moved to the front row of passengers seats. Instead, two men in business suits sat, chatting animatedly in a foreign tongue while occasionally checking gauges and radar and such on the control board. Orlando had seen them during boarding, but the black man and the scrawny little blonde man had not sat together or interacted at all. Nor had they done anything to raise anyone’s suspicions.
The two flight attendants that had been held hostage to get the ****pit opened in the first place sat in seats toward the front as well, silent tears streaming down their cheeks as they tried to remember their training, tried to put on brave faces. The flight attendant that had scolded Prescott was nowhere to be found, and Orlando thought that was probably for the better.
As for Prescott, the wicked little man had taken to pacing up and down the aisles of the plane like a madman, wringing his hands and constantly taking his glasses off to wipe the rivers of sweat from his face. He had already soaked through his shirt and discarded his jacket. He seemed nervous, as damn well he should, but Orlando couldn’t help but feel like his anxiety was out of place. If a man was hijacking a plane, he should be confident, right? No one was putting up a fight; the pilots were cooperating. Everything seemed to be going perfectly from a hijacker’s point of view.
Because that’s what this was, right? A hijacking.
Orlando chewed his thumbnail, a habit he thought had been broken years before, and again stretched to see over the seats, this time looking back. The curtain between the classes had been closed and so he could see nothing going on back there except for the frequent shadow of someone’s feet beneath the curtain. Things weren’t nearly as quiet in the economy cabin, probably because of the children, and he could hear more than one baby crying. He hoped it wasn’t going to cause problems with the two men that had earlier stationed themselves in the economy cabin, their pistols on display as a warning.
It had been three hours since the chilling announcement, and perhaps its simplicity was what had terrified everyone so. The voice had been calm, steady, cold, the words carefully chosen as though it had been written out in advance and rehearsed.
“Greetings, passengers, and thank you for choosing to fly with us today. Unfortunately, there has been a change in plans, and this flight will no longer be arriving in London, England. We apologize for the turbulence during that transition, but we are now on the right course, and as long as everyone sits quietly and does exactly as they’re told, it should be smooth flying from here on out. If everyone will please stay calm, this will be easier on all of us. Thank you.”
The threat had been vague. The little bit of information wasn’t much better. Their course had changed, but the voice had not offered up for deliberation where their new destination was. And though every soul in the entire plane had been waiting on the edge of their seat, almost hoping to hear that cold voice again once the reality had set in that this was not last night’s oyster acting up, no further announcements came. Instead, everyone was left alone with their thoughts in a cruel silence. Left to wonder what the hell was going on, who the hell these people were, how the hell they got guns onto the plane, where the hell they were going, what the hell was going to happen to them once they got there, and even simply <i>what the hell?</i>
Orlando was trying not to let himself think too much. He was terrified to find the answers to any of those questions. Perhaps this state of limbo was preferable to the nightmare that could possibly await them once they landed. But to keep his mind from humming to life as it kept trying to do, Orlando instead let himself go on believing this was all a dream. This couldn’t possibly be happening. The likelihood of this happening despite all these safety precautions at the airport, and the chance of Orlando being on that one particular plane –it was all impossible. So instead Orlando turned his anxiety and worries into restless, adrenaline-saturated energy. He sat in his seat and bounced his leg and bit his thumb.
Perhaps part of the bouncing knee, too, could be blamed on nature. Orlando was beginning to worry that his bladder was going to rupture. Was that possible? He was about to find out. Though fear had temporarily frozen his bodily functions, three hours had given his body time to remember that there was no longer the tiniest space of room left to deposit digested liquids. He was beginning to wonder if it was worth drawing attention to himself to dive into the restroom. Surely they weren’t going to shoot him for using the toilet, right? Or, better yet, maybe he could get permission from Prescott. The “accountant” (that had been a lie, hadn’t it?) seemed to be in charge of things, or at least the front man. Orlando watched as one of the hijacker copilots came out of the ****pit to ask Prescott a question, to which the little man wound his fingers through his fragile hair and insisted loudly, “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Maybe Orlando was wrong. Maybe something wasn’t going right, and that’s what was making Prescott panic. Something obviously had him upset. Orlando couldn’t think, though, what could possibly be making a hijacker panic –except rescuers! That had to be it. Some country -be it the States or the UK- must have gotten wind of what was happening, and at this very moment there were probably jets on their way with armed soldiers to rescue them all. That had to be it.
Well if that was the case, they probably wouldn’t mind letting Orlando use the restroom. After all, they would want the passengers to report that they had been accommodating and considerate to the hostages. It would make things go better at their trails.
Orlando leaned forward in his seat and prepared to intercept Prescott when he hustled by again. But just as he opened his mouth and reached his hand out, the PA system crackled and the captain said simply,
“Flight attendants, prepare for landing.”
Prescott hurried by and Orlando forgot what it was he had wanted to ask anyway. He crouched back in his seat and waited to see what the flight attendants would do. At first, they did nothing. The two sitting in the front remained motionless, and Orlando didn’t see nor hear any movement in the back. One of the gunned men situated in economy suddenly leaned through the dividing curtain and hollered something to the men in the front. There was shouting in the ****pit in the same language, and then Prescott went sprinting to the front of the plane. He said something rapidly, but in hushed tones so that Orlando couldn’t begin to guess what it was from his seat near the back of the cabin.
After a pause, the captain came onto the PA once again, but this time he sounded much more desperate, “Flight attendants, prepare for landing. Please.”
Instantly the flight attendants sprang into action as though a switch had been flipped and they suddenly remembered what they had been trained to do. The fasten seatbelt sign came on, and the flight attendants began walking up and down the aisles as though the last few hours had been a dream and things were right back on schedule. Except that not all passengers on the flight were taking things as calmly as Orlando was, and when the flight attendants would come across passengers crying or prayer or shivering in their seats, they would take a moment to hug the person, to lay a hand on their arm, and whisper, “Just keep calm. We’re all going to be just fine. It’s going to be okay.”
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24/Aug/2006, 17:02
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
((Chapter two continued; the message board censoring is making me laugh))
When the young flight attendant stood again after reassuring the weeping lady in the row in front of Orlando, though, he saw the fear in the flight attendant’s eyes. She was scared. Her blue eyes were as bloodshot as everyone else’s, and it took her a second to compose herself again. She saw Orlando watching and gave him a reassuring smile, suddenly in control of her fear again, and Orlando could only admire the strength of the women who, even with everything going on, were still doing their job.
“Are you okay, sir?” the attendant asked him, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
He forced a smile and nodded, but suddenly realized just how terrified he was. His mind was beginning to work again. He quickly shoved the fear to the back of his thoughts, recalling all the times before in his life when he had overcome obstacles, conquered the impossible. This was just another broken back, right?
And yet surely no one could be so lucky as to survive two broken backs in a lifetime.
Orlando closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Don’t panic. It was not the time to panic. Not yet, anyway. If he had learned anything in his life, it was that panicking never helped. Panicking meant reverting to following your instincts without thinking, and doing anything without thinking in a serious situation was asking for trouble.
When Orlando had felt his heart rate return to normal, he wiped his sweaty palms on his black jeans and turned his attention away from the interior of the plane, away from the faint sobbing of the woman in front of him, away from the gentle reassurances of the flight attendants moving down the rows under the guise of checking seat belts and tray tables. Instead, he rested his forehead against the window and looked out.
Desert. Sand. Even the sky had a brownish-orange color so that it blended with the sea of dust. Orlando’s immediate assumption was that they were about to land in the middle of the Sahara desert, but he had no way of knowing for sure. He didn’t know how far off course they had veered, nor how fast they could travel. For all he knew, it could be Egypt, or even Iraq. Was this hijacking all a new step in the United States’ war? It seemed the obvious conclusion.
He watched the horizon for any tale-tell signs as the plane ducked lower and lower, but there was nothing to see except sand dunes and dusty plains and a few twisted grey trees, their gnarled arms cringing from the searing gaze of the sun.
The landing was a rough one to say the least. Though a makeshift runway seemed to appear out of nowhere –a long strip of concrete dusted with sand– the pilot seemed uncertain about the landing. The seatbelts were all that kept the passengers from being tossed freely about the cabin as the plane lurched and bucked and shook. Orlando gripped the arm rests and braced himself against his seat, closing his eyes and reminding himself to breathe. He felt the wheels humming beneath the plane and, having yet to see the random strip of concrete, wondered that they were managing to roll on the sand at all.
And then the concrete ran out. The plane skidded across the sand for a moment before the wheels bent themselves into the sand. This caused the plane to turn just the slightest bit. It finally came to a complete stop, slamming into a series of sand dunes that probably wouldn’t have done anything if the plane hadn’t already lost most of its momentum anyways. The passengers on the plane were shoved painfully forward in their seats, and Orlando was grateful he had thought to brace himself. Still, he rubbed his abdomen and winced at the bruising he had probably just received.
Before anyone had recovered enough from the rough landing to even think about moving, the same cold voice from earlier announced, “Please remain in your seats. In a few moments, we will begin exiting the plane in an orderly and calm fashion. You are welcome to bring with you any bags you may have brought onboard with you. Checked luggage will be retrieved by our crew and brought, as well. Please follow directions promptly and precisely and everything will go smoothly.” Again, it sounded as though the man had read the speech off a slip of paper, and Orlando wondered if he even knew what he was saying.
“Oh my God, where are they taking us?” the woman down the row from Orlando suddenly gasped, pushing her window shade up to see outside. It didn’t appear as though anyone except the passengers near her had heard, but suddenly all the window shades in business class were pushed up so that the passengers could see outside. The sounds of the shades going up alarmed the armed men, and they began walking threateningly up and down the aisles, but no one was doing anything problematic.
Orlando couldn’t see what everyone was staring at, since the only thing outside his window was an ocean of sand. However, once the armed men had stationed themselves back at the front of the plane, the man nearest Orlando in the row leaned over and whispered in response to Orlando’s anxious frown, “There are about a dozen big military trucks outside.”
“Military? Ours?” Orlando whispered back, not specifying or really caring whom he meant by ‘ours’ as long as it was an ally.
The man shook his head, then shrank back into his seat when he saw a gunned man watching them closely. Orlando sighed and settled back as well, turning his eyes to the monotonous scenery outside. There was no telling. He was less worried, though, about where they were going than what was going to happen to them once they reached their destination. Was this a hostage situation or an act of war? There was a big difference. If hostages, their lives would be used to barter for something, and then there was the chance they would all be perfectly fine. If this was an act of war . . .
“God, I can’t think about this,” Orlando sighed, rubbing his hands over his face.
It was about half an hour before any further actions were taken, and then everything began so quietly that it was several minutes still until Orlando noticed anything, having let his mind drift into an almost catatonic state to avoid the panic rising in his throat. He gradually became aware of movement, though, and craned his neck to see towards the front of the plane where the first row of passengers had risen and were taking turns in the restroom before exiting the plane, their carry-ons clutched possessively against their shaking, sweating bodies. The gunmen didn’t nod for the second row to rise until the first had finished with the restrooms and had followed a man outside.
Orlando felt his heart swell and freeze in his chest as he waited for any screams or gunshots or whatever other sounds people actually made when they were being killed in cold blood. He heard nothing, but that did little to calm his nerves. Letting people use the restroom and gather their things could simply be to keep everyone on the plane calm and cooperative as they walked outside to meet their deaths.
“They’re getting into the trucks,” the man from down the row suddenly said loudly enough for almost the entire business class to hear him. It was a risky thing to do, and one of the gunmen came to stand by their row for several minutes. It helped all the passengers without a left-side window view relax, though, and after a few minutes of warning glares, the gunman wandered back to the front of the plane.
Orlando felt his chest deflate slightly, and he sent the man an appreciative if pitiful smile and mouthed, “Thanks, mate.” The business man nodded, then shuffled back to the far side of the middle row of seats to continue and watch the events outside.
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24/Aug/2006, 17:05
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Going row by row was slow, and Orlando found that the longer he was kept waiting inside the body of the plane, the more anxious he grew about the events outside. The informer, though, apparently didn’t see anything alarming, or else didn’t feel like alerting the rest of the plane to their impending fate. Since Orlando’s row was towards the back of first class, it was some time until one of the gunmen finally reached them.
With a short nod to the four people on the row, he explained rigidly, “You may collect your carry-ons and proceed to the front of the cabin. Use the restrooms as it will be a while before you have the opportunity again.” The command was so ordinary that it almost made Orlando smile, but the rehearsed speech from the increasingly familiar cold voice kept any amusement in cheque. At least now he could put a face with the voice, and Orlando took a mental snapshot of the dark mahogany skin surrounding bloodshot cream eyes and a mouth of teeth an impossible pearly white.
Suddenly remembering that it was time to move, Orlando slowly rose, his back and legs screaming protest at being kept still for so long. He didn’t think it the appropriate time to perform a sweeping stretch, though, and so content himself with stretching as much as he could as he pulled his carry-on out of the overhead compartment. It was all he had brought on the plane, but beside it rested a smaller blue travel bag. It had to be Prescott’s. What did a hijacker bring onto a plane, though?
Orlando glanced at the front of the plane. Prescott was deep in conversation inside the ****pit with the two businessmen. On impulse, Orlando quickly yanked the travel bag out of the overhead and swung it over his shoulder. The gunman of course didn’t think anything strange, nor the other passengers, and Orlando focused on walking casually to the front of the plane.
He practically dove into the restroom, letting out a deep sigh of relief as his burning bladder finally emptied. With just that simple need out of the way, he suddenly felt much more functional and competent to deal with whatever was at hand.
Though he would have liked to remain hidden in the bathroom until someone came to the rescue, a knock on the door served as a warning to hurry. He looped the two bags back over his shoulders, then stepped outside only to find himself sidled up beside Prescott.
The weasel gave him a wild look and for a moment Orlando feared he had recognized the stolen bag, but then Prescott suddenly grabbed his arm to pull him in close. Orlando’s nose crinkled at the stale smell of sweat and grease, but listened intently as Prescott hissed,
“Whatever you do, never draw attention to yourself. Do you get it?” Orlando nodded and relaxed a little when Prescott let him go and gave him a small shove towards the door. The last glimpse he caught of the bastard for the time being, Prescott actually had the audacity to mouth pathetically, “I’m sorry,” before suddenly returning to the wired, frantic, mad Prescott pacing the aisles.
Despite the other man’s assurances, Orlando still expected to walk into a bullet as he stepped off the plane. Instead, he inhaled sharply at the sheer heat that slapped him in the face like a bar of iron. The ground seemed to quiver beneath his feet from the heat rising up, and as he squinted at the dozen or so military trucks lined up, the images danced behind the heat waves. Instantly he felt the sun bearing cruelly down on his back and the top of his head. He itched to shed his shirt and perhaps every other scrap of clothing that could be keeping even the slightest amount of heat against his skin, but there was no time to strip. Two more armed men were motioning and yelling nonsensical words for Orlando and the three others from his row to hurry to the third of the trucks.
Orlando helped the blonde woman make the big step from the shifting sand to the single metal rung serving as a step-up into the back of the covered truck. The camouflage paint on the heated metal of the vehicle made it stand out against the sand like a fly in someone’s Chardonnay, which made Orlando wonder if they would be headed somewhere the camouflage would come in more useful. Or maybe this was just terrible planning.
He ducked between the heavy canvas flaps that had been tied back and glanced around the dark interior. There was nothing to see except a group of terrified, sweaty, exhausted people. The sort of ordeal they had just been through was enough to exhaust anyone, and Orlando had the sinking feeling that things were just beginning. He collapsed onto one of the three wooden benches nailed down lengthwise in the bed of the truck, finding himself on the far right beside the informer from the plane. In a few minutes, the next row of passengers appeared at the opening in the canvas, and the middle-aged woman that had watched Orlando stretch earlier sat on his other side.
Everyone was quiet and restless and sweaty. Orlando shoved his two bags beneath the benches the way everyone else was, feeling the depressed atmosphere weighing down on his lungs. Or perhaps it was just the heat.
The canvas gapped right behind Orlando, and he managed to turn in his seat and peek through, only daring that small peek at the moment, what with five gunmen running around outside. The concrete slab they had used as a runway truly did appear to be in the middle of nowhere, and disappeared before Orlando’s very eyes as a sticky, warm wind scattered sand again over the trail the plane had dug in the landscape. He wasn’t sure where the boarding stairs that were being used to get passengers off the plane had come from either, but then that was really the least of his concerns at the moment.
Taking a deep breath, Orlando turned away from the gap, closed his eyes and leaned back. Perhaps if he squeezed his eyes shut tightly enough, this would all be gone when he opened them again, and he would be walking into the terminal at Heathrow, dreading any camera-happy passengers that might be waiting to snap a picture of him in the terminal. That sounded like paradise at the moment. Orlando squeezed his eyes tighter and tighter and even clenched his fists to strengthen the action.
When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed except that another wave of passengers were boarding the truck.
“Sh*t, man,” Orlando sighed, to which the informer on his right nodded, “Amen.”
And that was all that was said because there really was nothing else to say.
***********
Thanks Orlylovesme15! More feedback would be very much appreciated!!
Last edited by ShilohPR, 24/Aug/2006, 17:06
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24/Aug/2006, 17:05
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Orlylovesme15
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Keep going! It's great! Oh btw if u have time, read Luck vs destiny and tell me what u think!!!
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27/Aug/2006, 19:26
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missmusic
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 Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Wow, this certainly isn't your average Ob fanfic-and that's a good thing.Well-written romance is nice, well-written drama keeps ya guessin'! I really like it, keep posting!  missmusic
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28/Aug/2006, 20:49
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Thank you guys so much! I move into my dorm room tomorrow, so I probably won't have time to write for a bit with orientation next week and then classes starting, but I'll try!
And Orlylovesme15, I'll read your story as soon as I get a moment. 
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2/Sep/2006, 23:58
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it! Please let Orly and the girl be okay!!!!!!!