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Isis1
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Hey,
just finished reading it! First, please tell me this is just part one and more is on the way... 
So the fact that I couldn't put it down should give you a hint that I LOVED IT! Somebody already said this isn't the typical Orlando lovin' fanfic, they are right!
Love the sense of humor in there (about the coffeepot, and the scene where the girl lands on his lap). And the fact that you dived the text up into paragraphs helps to read it.
I did think some of your sentences where really long, so I had to go back over them a few times. That slowed down the pace a bit. Like in the first paragraph where you say "Granted, stupid decisions......very least".
In the paragraph where you say "She suddenly wavered...." You say that she looks at him unhappily when he tosses water on her. I thought unhappily was an odd choice of words, because of the situation?
The way you describe his feelings when the voice comes on the PA...that is what it feels like when your hart stops after a big shock! Well done on that! A very cold PA message.
What also made me laugh was the Runboard profanity filter going nuts over the word ****pit. 
There were a few points where I felt the words you choose were a bit odd. Like when the passenger says that people are getting in trucks. As a reaction, the gunmen walk up to their row. You say "It helped all the passengers relax". Wouldn't it scare them into silence more?
Overall, I loved this story. Read it fast, because I wanted to know what would happen. But then you didn't tell us that yet....Please tell me there is more?
Pretty please? 
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4/Sep/2006, 14:50
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Thank you everyone for all the feedback AND definitely the criticism!
I have a tendancy to write REALLY long sentences, and it's usually the first thing I edit in revisions. When the chapters get written (usually once the story is completed, sometimes sooner) they'll definitely be cut. I'm sorry you thought some of my word choices were odd. I've re-read and nothing stands out to me as an accident --sometimes I purposely use odd word choices, sometimes I think it's a difference in writing style or even English dialect.
And the reason the announcement that everyone getting in trucks was a relief was because they knew what was coming next. One thing I've learned in my psycology classes --and even experienced first hand, though never in this extreme of a context-- is that when people are in a tense circumstance and revert to survival instincts, they either lose it completely or else focus only one one step after another. Neither of these is totally beneficial, since not thinking of consequences can lead to disastrous ones. However, in this case, the fact that people were being loaded into trucks and not simply lined up and shot is enough to calm people down, give them a little twinge of hope that maybe they can be all right after all. Your confusion, though, is definitely something I'll take into consideration during rewrites.
I'm definitely planning on continuing this story! I just moved across the country for college last week, and then this week my college classes have started, so I've had NO free time. I have about thirty minutes at the moment, though, so I'm going to take a break from homework and go get a start on chapter three!
Thank you again everyone for the feedback!!
Last edited by ShilohPR, 13/Sep/2006, 21:35
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13/Sep/2006, 21:33
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
I apologize right off the bat that this chapter is pretty...grim. They won't all be this intense; I promise. And now that this chapter is out of the way, the story can really start, and the writing style is going to change a little, too, which I'm looking forward to. I'm not a big fan of my writing style in this chapter
CHAPTER THREE
It was over an hour still before the entire plane had been emptied of every living passenger. These were mostly humans, of course, but two passengers had dogs with them, and these furry friends were allowed to jump up beside their masters into the trucks and stretch out across the feet of exhausted people, their pink tongues lolling out. Orlando thanked God he hadn’t brought Sidi unknowingly into this mess.
When at last the passengers and their luggage had all been loaded into the trucks, the ringleaders of this fiasco seated themselves comfortably in the cabs of the trucks, two to a vehicle. The passenger of each pair cradled a gun in his lap much larger than the pistols on the plane and kept constant watch of the passengers through the glassless back window. No verbal threat was needed; the hostages understood that their cooperation was greatly desired.
The trucks grumbled to life, dusty tires spinning out in the sand before taking the initial leap into a slow and tedious trek across the sea of unchanging waves. Single file, the trucks seemed to stretch on forever, yet the only sights for the weary, bloodshot eyes of the human cattle packed into the backs of the trucks were the worn faces of their neighbors and the nose of the truck behind them in line set to a backdrop of blinding sun and sand. From Orlando’s position at the gap in the canvas flaps, he could feel the heat oozing in and running its tendrils along his neck, coaxing sweat out beneath his jacket and heavy shirt. It had been cold in the States. It would be colder in the UK. Yet here in this different world, the body heat and warm breaths and stifling, suffocating air seeping in through the canvas were overwhelming. Orlando rolled his sleeves up, not daring any more movement, as a line of sweat broke out along his hairline.
The ride went on, scenery unchanging, for minutes... for hours... possibly for days. Who knew how long? In this world apart from everything any of them had ever known, time was suddenly meaningless. Who cared what a watch face quoted or how many minutes had elapsed since the last time that cold, inhuman voice had spoken? What did it matter that every few seconds, the front right tire whined as though one tiny misaligned spot were complaining about the unevenness and instability of the ground? No, all that mattered was that there two dozen bodies giving off heat in this confined space, inside this canvas oven, and between them four dozen eyes, yet no one made eye contact. In this strange place, under these strange circumstances, perhaps everyone was the enemy. Not that anyone expected another to target them or point them out or any such foolishness. Strength in numbers gave them courage. It wasn’t disloyalty they feared but rather sympathy. For the same reason Orlando refused to look at the two small children huddled together on the row in front of him, the rest of the passengers stared at their feet against the wooden slabs of the floor: because feet didn’t emit sympathy or empathy or realization of their fears. Their own chests were being stabbed with every breath –they didn’t need to see the fear in each other’s eyes as well.
And then, finally, a break in the monotony! The time was unimportant. Suddenly, after miles and miles of rolling along, the line cranked itself to a stop. One of the trucks towards the back suddenly came tearing around to the side and took off towards the distant horizon, and Orlando felt his heart leap into his throat. The hostages had fought back! Surely that was what was happening! They had overpowered the two men driving the vehicle and were making a break for it, and if their truck could do it, why couldn’t his? Why couldn’t all the trucks? There were more hostages than captors, after all!
But just as quickly as it had broken free, guards from another truck shot the tires out. With a grand dive, the truck careened gracelessly into a dune. Instantly, a couple of guards sprinted over to the truck, their feet sinking into the unstable sand. Orlando watched anxiously through the gap, and though he could feel all eyes in the truck suddenly turned to him and the Informer beside him, neither spoke a word except for the Informer’s quiet, disbelieving mutter,
“They’ve broken free.”
The guards reached the truck right as the two men in the cab leapt out on the far side and took off running. Two gunshots fired, and the men collapsed to the ground, but the bullet wounds had not been fatal. Instead, the guards pulled the men roughly up by their hair and dragged them to the far side of the truck where Orlando and the Informer could no longer see anything to relate to the rest of the truck had they wanted to. However, they did watch with anxious curiosity as a few more of the guards barked for the back of the truck to empty. The passengers walked timidly, their legs threatening to buckle beneath them, around behind the truck’s censure, back where no one could witness and tell the story of their final moments to loved ones back at home.
A rapid succession of shots broke the stifling silence of the desert, followed -or perhaps accompanied; chronology was unclear– by screams, by moans, by wails. The shots were too terrifying to be counted, so the number of bullets expended remained a mystery, and who exactly was screaming and wailing was unidentifiable. The blood-freezing howls seemed to shoot up from everywhere, wrapping around Orlando and cruelly invading his ears so that no matter how tightly he shut his eyes, the cries wouldn’t stop.
“They’re all dead,” the Informer gasped, too horrified to even shake his head. He just stared wide-eyed, disbelieving, shocked at the crippled truck and the bodies blocking the sunlight beneath the bed of the truck. Orlando felt his stomach churn and thought for sure he was going to vomit up everything he had consumed in the past week. He quickly shoved his fist to his mouth and coughed and closed his eyes, taking deep, steady, calming breaths. His head throbbed, though, and his throat burned, and his breath had hooked itself on some barb in his chest and formed a painful lump.
However, the Informer was wrong. Not entirely wrong, for the gunshots had been intended for more than a show of strength and terror. But after the shrieks had died down, or at least lessened in their intensity, back around to this side of the truck the passengers came. Not all of them. Perhaps half of them, maybe a few more. They moved slowly, heavily, and more than once a body collapsed to the ground in terror, in exhaustion, in shock. Each time, the body was quickly dragged back to its feet by a neighbor, though, and it was these small groups that stumbled together when the few guards concerned with them motioned them to load themselves into trucks.
Though Orlando’s truck was a bit of a walk, he noticed that the guards forced the huddled group to split up so that at least a couple pushed and pulled their way into the back of each truck.
When the Informer mentioned this out loud, an older gentlemen sitting towards the back spoke up gravely, “In ancient warring civilizations, when a town or city had been decimated, the invading army would leave one citizen alive to spread the word of their strength.” It seemed such a strange moment for a history lesson, and yet the gentleman was probably spot on, and was one of the few who rose to assist the four outsiders into their oven. Though room was initially made towards the back of the truck, the newcomers seemed to want to be anywhere but near the back, and pushed and crawled their way closer towards the middle where the four collapsed, not together but close enough to still feel each other’s breath.
Orlando recognized two, and looked with a horrified pity upon the girl who had suffered the unfortunate incident with the bathroom door on the plane. Her skin looked ghastly pale beneath the blood that coated the side of her face and had been sprayed across her clothing like someone had walked her through a mist of deep red spray paint. Or perhaps it wasn’t the contrast that made her so white at all –perhaps it was the fact that she had just seen living, breathing, feeling people shot to death, and wore their blood as a vivid reminder. Though Orlando wondered how her head was, wondered how bad a concussion she had, wondered what it was she had just seen, wondered how many people had been so brutally killed, she did not look up. None of the newcomers did. Their eyes bore holes into the wooden boards beneath their feet, never closing for fear of seeing those faces again, for fear of hearing those moans again, for fear of hearing their own screams again.
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19/Sep/2006, 0:56
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
Chapter three continued...
The ride went on. The minutes, the hours, the heat, the fear, the anxiety went on. And it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because the sun wiped everything out: time, emotions, thought, comfort, even anxiety. Who could think about what was going to happen next when every breath required the cooperation of every muscle in your body?
Fortunately, only a short time after the <i>incident</i>, as it was later referred to, the desert disappeared. It was such a gradual change at first that the eyes accustomed to only the blinding blankets of reflected sunlight didn’t catch the twisted, gnarled tree branches worming their way defiantly through the sea. Gradually, the sand lost the war with the life battling to maintain its hold in the land.
One of the children down a ways was the first to note it, his faced pressed against the wooden backing as he peered with blissfully ignorant idleness out of the small space beneath the canvas flap. With an excited yell, he announced,
“Hey, it’s green!”
Instantly eyes looked up with a startle, though more at the sudden noise than the actual meaning of the words. However, once their ears had readjusted themselves to the change of the tires’ hum, backs bent as faces tried to find that same gap beneath the canvas. Sharp snaps rocked the trucks for several minutes until a dirt path materialized, and from then on it was smooth sailing. Though occasionally the path would offer up a rough patch, either through shallow water or over fallen debris, and though the heat never abated, the whole atmosphere of the truck changed. Suddenly, without the glare of the sun breathing down their backs, the passengers discovered a new, small dose of energy seeping back into their bones. The heat lessened as the sun struggled to penetrate the thick layers of branches and pillow-sized leaves and intrusive vines overhead, and this seemed to make up for the added weight of the now-enhanced humidity. The green foliage, as thick as it was, gave their hearts some small amount of comfort. That desert was where the plane had landed, where they had been loaded into trucks, where those people had been... where the <i>incident</i> had occurred. But now they were somewhere else, and the greenery, the shade, the <i>life</i> seemed to breath new courage into their terror-wracked frames.
Orlando glanced around at the passengers sitting around him and saw equally curious, hopeful, confused expressions replacing the drooping eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. Even the four “newcomers” –who were by this point old hands– sat up straighter, craning their necks to glance out the opening at the back, to check and see if that little boy knew what he was talking about. Except for the girl, the girl whose face was quickly becoming one of the icons of this whole ordeal with its untended gash and caked blood. She stared grimly straight ahead, her eyes not really focusing on any one thing, or perhaps they looked through Orlando to the gap behind him, out at the deep greens that were quickly growing darker and darker the longer they drove.
When the truck suddenly stopped, though, pulling forward so that the long line of trucks became three much shorter lines, even the young woman came to attention. The eyes that had lit up at the change in temperature, in scenery, in possibilities, suddenly grew terrified at whatever was coming next. The last time the trucks had stopped, Orlando couldn’t help pointing out to himself, passengers had been forced to watch others gunned down. What horrors faced them this time?
“Get out!” a strong, voice suddenly yelled furiously. “Bring all the bags you can carry with you!” For all his fury, though, Orlando couldn’t assume that the man was necessarily angry, and somewhere beneath his short, grizzly beard, Orlando thought he saw the hint of a smile as the passengers poured out of the backs of the trucks like water onto burning concrete. As though the ground were fire, the timid hostages shifted from foot to foot, huddled against nameless neighbors, their arms crossed in front of their chests or their hands shoved deep into their pockets. What little conversation took place was whispered as quietly and inconspicuously as physically possible.
Whatever horrors their frazzled minds had worried were forthcoming, though, failed to do so. Instead, even before the older and younger of the passengers had clambered slowly, cautiously out of the trucks, the guardsmen began motioning the passengers forward. The same one that had yelled a few minutes before now bellowed for them to walk forward in a single line, and Orlando fell into step behind a frail, elderly couple. The woman’s gnarled hands tightly grasped the arm of her husband as he stumbled along the uneven ground, his cane doing him little to no service on the soft ground. Orlando couldn’t think of a way to help them, though, short of picking the gentleman up in his arms. He craned his neck to look backwards and see if someone else could benefit from his help, since the two bags he carried slung over his shoulders, still left his arms free.
A woman behind him struggled to keep up with a baby in her arms, another young child hanging from her hand, and three small bags balanced precariously on her thin shoulders. Orlando slowed his step just enough to take two of the bags from her, and though she was too terrified to say thank you, the small, grateful smile she granted him sufficed.
After perhaps twenty minutes of this slow, unsteady, cruel hiking through the saunas of the jungle, the front of the line stopped, and though Orlando was still back a bit, he could hear the water. A river. Where they then all to be shoved beneath the surface until the water poured into their lungs, ballooning inside their chests?
No, of course not. Instead, one group at a time was loaded into wide, shallow river barges that held no more than twenty and their carry-ons. Ten barges were going to have to transport the entire caravan, and there were far more than two hundred people present, but Orlando thought he would leave the problem solving up to the madmen behind the whole scheme. Instead he stared warily at his feet as they carried him across the poorly built pier to the barge currently waiting. Once in, he turned to make sure the woman and her children made the step down safely, then obeyed the flow of bodies and took a seat towards the back of the five rows of benches.
Once their boat was filled, the two guards that had been driving their truck pushed off and leapt in, one planting himself in the stern with the tinny, antique propeller engine, the other stroking his gun in the bow. The small engine pushed them out to the middle of the wide river, but even here heavily burdened branches created a canopy above their heads except for a narrow strip of clear sky straight overhead, and drooping vines swung noose-like into their path, threatening to catch idle throats.
At first the sheer beauty and mystical aspect of the river erased the fear temporarily, or perhaps the tranquility of the still water eased nerves. If there was any current at all, Orlando couldn’t see it beneath the green algae coating the surface of the black water. Instead, he let the humidity coat the inside of his lungs, the sun run its intrusive fingers along his forehead, and closed his eyes, pretending this were all a simple boat ride no different from the many he had taken during filming for <i>Pirates of the Caribbean,</i> when locations had required boat rides for accessibility.
“You should not put your hands in the water, mtoto.” Orlando’s eyes opened and he turned out of instinct to look at the dark guardsman behind him, then glanced at the woman’s small son that had been trailing his fingers in the water.
Before anyone could question the man’s advice, Orlando saw the black monster stretched out on the narrow bank like the murderous glutton he was. His eyes appeared closed, though perhaps they merely matched his dark scales too closely to be seen across the small distance between him and the boat. His tail wound into the water, and his slender snout was likewise only inches away; he had to be twice Orlando’s height at the very least.
The mother gave a small yelp and yanked her son’s hand back into the boat, crushing him into her side as though he had just stared death in the face. The guardsman behind them laughed and yelled something to his comrade at the front of the boat in a language foreign to all the hostages. Orlando stared hard at the back of the man in the bow, then turned his eyes to the water, watching with a terrified curiosity for any signs of a crocodile lurking beneath the surface, just waiting for little fingers to dangle temptingly before his teeth.
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19/Sep/2006, 0:58
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge
last bit of chapter three...
The boat ride lasted a better part of the afternoon, and though the sun had by no means set when they finally pulled up onto shore beside the barges ahead of them, the intensity of the sun was at least lessened a little. Orlando’s barge waited its turn at the makeshift pier, then all passengers again climbed out onto the narrow strip of damp sand before the fallen platter-sized leaves once again claimed the floor beneath their feet. From here it was only a short walk further to the great relief of the travel-worn hostages. Their feet blistered, their knees groaned, their shoulders were stiff, and their cheeks were hot to the touch from the sun’s persistent teasing.
However, <i>the destination</i> that had been so long awaited, the answer to the question of <i>Where the hell are we going?</i> proved a further surprise still. Not that anyone had ever harbored any real guesses. The two armed men standing on either side of a dirt path, their guns propped against their shoulders in stone-like hands, looked like the nightmare version of the British guards. Their eyes didn’t waver from staring at some distant point over the heads of the passengers as the armed escorts shepherded their flock between the two wooden poles on either side of the pathway that held up a tattered strip of canvas stretched over their heads. Painted onto this banner were the words “Kifo Chengo.”
Orlando wanted to laugh. He wanted to clap his hands and laugh and punch his mates in the arms when whatever they had slipped into his drink finally wore off. He wanted to punch Ashton Kutcher in the face when he finally jumped out of a bush and screamed, “You just got <i>punk’d</i>!” He wanted to moan at his concussion when he finally woke up from hitting his head a bit too hard after a bad fall. He wanted someone to shake him awake and laugh, “You were talking in your sleep again, Orli man.” Whatever. He was ready for the joke to be over. It had been funny at first... or not. It had been a ****ty nightmare, a bad hangover, but surely it had run its course by this point.
“What the hell is this place?” a man in front of Orlando muttered. He craned his neck to see around the thong of people shoved together as they were, like an army of amnesiac elders without the strength to bother comprehending what was taking place.
One unsteady voice, though, coming from the fragile body of the older man leaning on his cane, pointed out shakily, “It reminds me of the war...” And though he didn’t say specifically what aspect of the war, or which war, everyone knew. Everyone knew exactly what he meant, and their throats tightened painfully and lumps formed in their lungs and they felt the panic rise as another of the men in the familiar uniform of forest and pale green instructed everyone to sit on the ground where they were.
“We will wait for the rest of your comrades to arrive,” he announced. Orlando carefully lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the ground, not even bothered by the fact that someone’s knees were pushing painfully into his back. The pressure actually felt good, since sitting for so long, so uncomfortably had fanned the fires of an old injury.
Propping his chin up in his hands, Orlando closed his eyes and sighed. Their “comrades” would arrive... but then what?
*******************
Please let me know what you think! Constructive criticism is of course appreciated.
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19/Sep/2006, 1:01
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 3 added 9/19/06 1.02 AM
Thank you guys so, so much for the feedback! The reviews I'm getting for this story via here and my writing site are upping my excitement as well to where this is really the only story of mine I have any inclination to work on right now. Unfortunately, I'm am SUPER busy with school and beginning a new job right now, but I will find a way to update soon, no matter how many caffeine pills it requires. 
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22/Sep/2006, 9:06
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it! Keep going please!