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orlisgal
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 3 added 9/19/06 1.02 AM
Please update!! This story is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
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4/Jan/2007, 22:30
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 3 added 9/19/06 1.02 AM
Your wish is my command! 
Chapter Four
Slowly but surely, the rest of the large group arrived, each time filling in around the edges so that the circle bled out until the front entrance was packed with bodies, bags, and the few loyal dogs. A few babies cried despite the hushes of their mothers, and children chattered softly amongst themselves, but the adults were deadly silent, staring with fear-widened ears at the armed gunmen stationed like stones around the circle.
A sudden booming voice crackling to life through the old plastic loudspeakers scattered around all the camp that the hostages could see made everyone seated suddenly jump as a new, more easily understood voice announced, “Welcome. You will now divide into groups of eight. Children less than ten do not count. Now do it.”
Obviously everyone seated was thrown into mass confusion. At first no one knew quite to do, since the instructions had been extremely specific and yet somewhat vague as well. So . . . everyone was supposed to just stand up and clump together in groups of eight, not including children under the age of ten? Did that mean that children under the age of ten were supposed to go somewhere else or simply that they weren’t to be counted as part of the eight in each group?
No one moved; no one wanted to be the first to move. Sudden gunfire erupted, though, as a man near a small wooden shack fired his automatic weapon into the air. A flock of birds erupted from a nearby tree, darting into the air and away from this terrible place with such loud cries that they scared many of the hostages worse than the gunfire did.
“Now do it or we shall reduce your numbers to make it easier,” came the voice over the decrepit PA system again.
This motivated people to move and instantly the pool of hostages became a hub of activity. Most people didn’t know seven others to form a cluster with, and so people simply began grabbing the arms of those around them, circumstances suddenly creating bonds and families where before there had been none.
Orlando stood and approached the elderly couple, the man with the cane and his wife that he had walked behind earlier. They smiled at him with tired eyes and nodded silently when he put his hand on the man’s shoulder. The woman Orlando had helped with her bags earlier made eye contact and at Orlando’s nod darted to his side, her screaming baby clutched possessively to her chest, her little boy once again dangling from her arm like a little monkey.
That was four. Who else didn’t have a group? Orlando craned his neck for people still looking for a place to belong. He saw a middle-aged man, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as though he had given up trying to figure things out, given up trying to fight, and was simply going to sit there until despair consumed him. Orlando patted him on the shoulder and motioned for him to join their circle. At first he just stared at them dumbly, at which point Orlando recognized in him the man who had acted as their informer earlier.
“Thanks,” the man finally nodded and joined the circle, holding his arm out for the elderly woman to take hold of.
Two children, young teenagers by the looks of it, sat huddled together, the older sister’s arms wrapped tightly around her younger brother’s shoulders. They glanced around anxiously, too terrified to move. The sister was trying to be brave as the oldest. The brother was trying to be brave as the boy. But neither of them looked very brave at all. Their wide eyes and pale faces made them look younger than they were, and their shallow breathing gave them the appearance of hunted rabbits cornered in a dark room.
“Hey, come on, you two,” Orlando encouraged, holding out both his hands. “Come join our group.” At first they just stared at him with their fearful expressions as though scared he was in ranks with these terrible men.
The sister finally nodded, “Come on, Leo.” She took one of Orlando’s hands and let him pull her up, then helped her brother up and all but dove into the circle Orlando pointed to.
It was as he was helping the sister up that he saw her, the unlucky woman from earlier. She had stood, but stared blankly around, her eyes squinted against the harsh sunlight attacking her blurry eyes. The blood had finished caking itself to her skin and clothing, and dirt had somehow managed to streak itself across her knees, elbows, and cheek. Orlando wondered if she hadn’t tripped while trying to walk and felt bad that he hadn’t stayed by her side once she got in their van. He could have helped her along when he was looking for someone to aid.
“Hey, come on, love,” he encouraged, reaching out and putting a hand gently on her arm.
The woman jumped and spun to squint at him, demanding, “I need sunscreen! It’s so hot and I’m going to burn. I need sunscreen!” She was so clearly concussed. She so clearly needed medical attention. But Orlando didn’t know that there was medical attention to be found here at all, unless a doctor just happened to have been on the plane. He sure wasn’t going to call out after one at that precise moment, though.
“Okay, we’ll find you some sunscreen and get you out of the sun. Now come on,” he pressed. Taking her arm he tried to steer her toward the circle, but she stumbled, unsteady on her feet. He wondered how she had made it here at all. And with her bags. A guitar case and a backpack were by her feet. Someone must have helped her, but what sort of person helped her and then abandoned her so quickly? Well, he had, and he suddenly felt even worse for it.
He was just trying to decide if it was worth simply carrying her and hoping she didn’t flip out on him when the informer was suddenly on her other side, pulling the guitar up and taking her other arm. He shared a nod with Orlando and the two managed to shuffle her to the circle where the eight that counted and the two babies huddled together, terrified of what was to happen next, terrified of things staying the same.
Suddenly, the armed gunmen began motioning for one group at a time to march down a path leading to their right. Though the jungle trees did their best to stretch out over their heads and continue the canopy that sheltered the rest of the forest, enough space had been cleared that the clear blue sky and overbearing sun managed to sneak down the middle. Orlando could understand why the woman thought she was burning. They probably all were.
The movement scared Orlando and he felt his heart leap into his throat when a gunman motioned with his weapon for their group to get moving. There were no point in fighting, though. He could take one, maybe two steps before his body would be wracked with bullets. So, sharing another look with the informer, they pulled their bags up, smiling with appreciation when the brother and sister grabbed the concussed woman’s bags as well. They again took the incoherent woman’s arms and began shuffling along, the elderly couple slowly leading the way, the other woman and four children following behind. The little boy didn’t much want to follow, suddenly complaining that his legs were hurting, but when the older boy swung his backpack around to his stomach and offered to give him a piggy-bag ride, he leapt at the idea. Orlando smiled despite the situation. It was a small amusement, the admiration of a small boy for a big boy, but it was all they had to run with for the time being.
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5/Jan/2007, 4:46
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 3 added 9/19/06 1.02 AM
Chapter four continued...
It wasn’t long before they reached a much larger clearing that looked to Orlando like what he had always pictured in his head when hearing about the Shantytowns that arose in America during their branch of the Great Depression. About three dozen small round huts were arranged in four rows of six and two rows of seven. Some sort of thick brown stalk had been lashed together to form the walls and thatch tossed across the top provided an appealing shade. A few had drapes over the doorway, but most stood open to the inspection of those stumbling past.
Orlando’s group continued walking until they had reached the very far corner of the huts where a gunman pointed them, motioning for them to go inside. Glancing at the surrounding huts, Orlando could see people walking around inside or collapsing against the walls, arms around people he didn’t think they had known before this whole disaster began. The sister held the curtain of their hut back until everyone had entered, then slipped in herself and let it fall closed, blocking out most of the light except for what filtered in around its edges, as well as through the cracks between the thatch and stalks of the walls. It was enough to see by but not enough to make them squint.
The informer helped Orlando lower the woman to the ground to lean against the wall as she sighed, “That’s so much better. But God Christ it’s hot, ain’t it?”
“What’s wrong with her?” the brother asked tentatively, staring at the bloody woman with wide eyes. Leo, his sister had called him.
“She’s got a concussion and–“
”God, look at this gash,” the informer gasped, gently tugging her hair away to show the gruesome wound the bathroom door had given her. Tugging her hair upset the scab just enough that it broke and began streaming blood again. “She needs stitches.”
“I don’t know that we can get those,” the mother sighed, her baby finally dozing off in her arms now that they were in the shade and away from the chaos and crying and screaming. Though activity was obviously still taking place outside, it was so much easier to remain calm when they were shut off from it all like this.
The old man commented as his wife helped lower him to the ground, “You know, when I used to cut myself in the shop, I used to just use that . . . what was it called, Dotty? That I used to close up my–“
”Super glue, dear,” the woman offered gently, collapsing beside him.
“Yes, that’s right. I used to just super glue it back.”
“Where can we get super glue, though?” Orlando sighed, shaking his head. He frowned as the woman looked up at him with complete confusion, losing more of her senses by the moment. He was proud of himself that the sight of her blood wasn’t making him dizzy. Once upon a time, anyone’s blood except his own would have made him faint. Either his big accidents in recent years had toughened his constitution, or else this was all too surreal for his brain to take seriously.
Suddenly Leo gasped, “Oh, wait!” He dove into the backpack he had been carrying and momentarily pulled out what looked like a small plastic toolbox.
“Leo!” his sister cried, her eyes narrowing. “I told you to check that! How did you get it–“
”I know. I forgot. But security isn’t as good as they think they are. It was in my bag and they didn’t even see it,” he shrugged. Popping it open, he quickly brought it over and showed them, “See? There’s needle nose pliers, two files, two tweezers, a screwdriver, two different clamps, a snap blade knife, a sanding stick, a light duty knife, three knife blades, and . . . super glue,” he grinned, pulling the bottle out.
As though not wanting anyone to get the wrong impression, his sister explained, “He makes model airplanes. Most of that stuff is allowed on airplanes, but not the knife blades . . . ”
“Yeah, my grandpa got me into it.” He held the tube out and Orlando took it.
Glancing at the informer, he admitted, “I don’t really know how to–“
”Me, either.”
“Here, why don’t . . . can you . . . hold the two sides together and I’ll put it on,” Orlando suggested, making a face. He truly had no idea what he was doing, but it was all he could think of.
The old man nodded, “That’s just how to do it. Spread it on, boys, then hold it until it dries a bit. Man-made scab is what it is.”
The informer took a deep breath, then using his two grubby index fingers, shoved both sides of the gash together.
The woman inhaled sharply, then cried out, “Hey, ow! Stop that! You’re hurting me! Stop–“
”Shhh,” the mother interrupted, quickly crawling over and taking the younger woman’s hand. She cradled her baby in one arm and shook the woman’s hand in the air with her other, encouraging, “Shhhh. Hang in there one moment, sweetheart.”
“It– OW!”
“I can’t get it; she’s jerking too much,” Orlando admitted with a frustrated huff of hair, shaking his head. Especially with the gash being so close to her eye, he was afraid of spilling the super glue. “Someone’s going to have to hold her head.”
The mother shook her head, “I don’t think I can–“
”I’ll do it,” the brother quickly offered, stepping around behind the woman as Orlando and the informer pulled the young woman away from the wall. She glanced around anxiously as Leo knelt down, then began yelling when he grabbed her head and held it still against the ground.
“HEY! LET ME GO! YOU CAN’T WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she shrieked.
“Quick!” Orlando ordered as the informer again shoved the sides of the gash together. The mother cringed but tried talking to the woman again, holding both her hands this time to keep her from fighting the men off as they tried to help her. She was wriggling for all she was worth, but Leo did a surprisingly good job of holding her head still. Working as quickly as he could, Orlando squeezed out a fair amount of the glue along the gash, watching with a rising stomach as it seeped into the open wound and mixed with the blood.
With the informer still holding the gash closed while the old man instructed again to hold it until it dried, Orlando leaned forward to blow on the glue, hoping it would dry soon and they could let the woman go. As soon as the cool air hit her face, though, the woman stopped fighting and fell silent, looking up at Orlando’s face only inches from her own with foggy eyes.
“I think it’s dry,” the informer finally announced, slowly easing his fingers away. At first his fingers caught a bit and his heart leapt into his throat that he had been glued to his woman’s face, but it was only her sticky blood latching onto his skin. He pulled away and wiped his hands off.
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5/Jan/2007, 4:47
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 3 added 9/19/06 1.02 AM
and the rest of chapter four...
Orlando gazed down at the sealed gash with a certain amount of pride. It had worked. The gash had stayed glued shut rather nicely, and though it would probably scar like a *****, at least the woman wouldn’t bleed to death, right? He saw the woman still watching him with her wide eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“You smell nice,” she whispered, as though this were some big secret she didn’t want anyone else in the hut to hear.
He shook his head, “I’m afraid I don’t, love.”
“You look very familiar,” she continued, even more softly, her eyes beginning to flutter shut. “You . . . ”
“Get some sleep,” Orlando encouraged. The informer pulled her back closer to the wall and everyone moved as far away as they could in the small hut.
“Is it okay to let her sleep?” the mother asked, glancing warily at the blood-caked face. She motioned for her son, who had picked up the needle-nose pliers, to return to her side, which he did, bringing the tool to show her with an excited laugh.
The old woman shook her head, “Oh, she’ll be fine. As long as she’s breathing, it doesn’t matter if she’s sleeping or awake. Why, my boys were constantly knocking themselves out, and each time I’d just send ‘em up to their rooms to sleep it off . . . ”
Orlando sighed and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment before deciding that was a bad idea. Too many terrible images danced before his closed eyes, all streaked with red. He brought his knees up and cringed at how badly his body ached.
“You’re good at taking care of people,” Leo commented to Orlando, returning his tools back to their box. The little boy, at his mother’s prodding, handed over the pliers. “Are you a doctor?”
Orlando shook his head, “God no.”
“No, you’re Orlando Bloom.” He turned his head to look at the sister who had collapsed against the wall a few feet to his side. “Right?” He nodded slowly. “Right.”
The mother smiled, swaying side to side as she rocked her sleeping baby and admitted, “I recognized you, too, though I wasn’t sure. My son really enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Orlando gave a dark, cynical chuckle, “Yeah, it’s me. Orlando Bloom, on-screen hero.”
“Off-screen hero, too,” the sister insisted, smiling. “You saved her life, I think. Mine and Leo’s too, probably.”
Across the hut, the old woman nodded, “Yes, yes, Alfred and I would be lost had you not grabbed us.” The mother nodded her agreement, as did Leo.
Orlando shook his head, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not a hero. I’m scared ****less and just doing anything I can think of.”
“Well I’m glad I’m in your hut,” the girl continued with a shrug. “And not just because you’re famous.”
“What’s your name?”
“Adriana,” she replied, and Orlando couldn’t help but feel his heart ache for how young she actually was. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen, maybe fifteen. Far too young to be caught up something like this. “Adriana Meade, and that’s my brother, Leo.”
Orlando glanced at the others in the hut, and as if understanding the unasked question, the mother answered, “Theresa. My sons Caden and Ian.”
“Isaiah Dumas,” the informer offered.
The elderly man answered for himself and his wife, “Alfred and Dotty Hughes.”
“And the wounded,” Orlando finished, glancing at the stretched out form of the woman. She was out like a light, but as long as her chest continued to gently rise and fall, he wasn’t going to worry anymore. Dotty seemed confident about letting concussion victims sleep, and though Orlando had usually remained away for the first six hours of his many concussions as advised, the few times he had slept, nothing had happened. And actually, it had been several hours at least since they had been on the plane, so the woman was probably out of any dangerous period anyway.
“So what do we do now?” Theresa asked after everyone had fallen into an exhausted silence for several long minutes.
Everyone watched as Leo tentatively sneaked a peak through the bottom corner of the drape and reported, “They’re still taking people to huts.”
“We were one of the first groups,” Isaiah nodded. “There’s probably still a lot of groups to move.”
“In that case, it appears we wait,” Orlando offered.
Theresa shook her head, “I don’t know what’s worse: waiting or moving.”
No one answered, but Orlando thought to himself with a weary shake of his head, Waiting. Waiting is so much worse.
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5/Jan/2007, 4:48
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Orlylovesme15
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 4 added 1/5/07 2.49 AM
I love this story! Orlando is so sweet! He's taking such good care of them!
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5/Jan/2007, 22:13
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 4 added 1/5/07 2.49 AM
Thank you so much both for you for the feedback. 
It definitely reminds me of the Holocaust, too, and I actually didn't mean for it to. However, the more I write, the more I realize that what I know of the Holocaust, and having visited one of the concentration camps left over from the Holocaust, it's coming out in my writing. And I think I'll embrace that.
It's definitely a darker fic, and I think that's partly why Orlando is such a sweetie here. I try to play with different aspects of the personality I get from watching interviews with him... and when I close my eyes and try to imagine how he would react in this situation, it's just how I see him: sort of clueless but not stupid, good at running on adrenaline, and more a caregiver than a leader or spy, maybe.
Thanks again for the feedback; if it wasn't 12:16 at night, it makes me want to get started on the next chapter, haha.
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6/Jan/2007, 2:16
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orlisgal
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 4 added 1/5/07 2.49 AM
Hey, thanx for updating, this story is really good. i love it!
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6/Jan/2007, 20:29
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ShilohPR
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Re: Gorilla on the Bridge; Chapter 4 added 1/5/07 2.49 AM
Chapter Five
The smooth, graceful notes of a Russian waltz filtered in on a band of sunlight, coming to a stop mere inches from the tip of her nose. A momentary shadow blocked the warmth and it was this that pulled her from her sleep, banishing the Russian waltz and leaving only an eery silence in its place. Not a silence in the typical sense of the word –still, shrill bird cries could be heard from outside, punctuated by occasional footsteps. There were no sirens, though, no car horns, no idling engines, no shouts, no conversation, and certainly no blaring radios.
Hearing movement, Orlando opened his eyes slowly. He had grown used to the pacing footsteps passing by the front door consistently every fifteen minutes, but the rustling from inside the hut didn’t slip beneath the radar. He glanced over just as the unknown member of their hut pushed herself up onto shaking arms and grasped at her head with a soft groan. She squinted and glanced around the hut and he watched her take in the sleeping forms of Dotty and Alfred curled up together, of Theresa with her suns nestled into her stomach, of Leo with his head on Adriana’s stomach as her foot rested close to Isaiah’s leg, who slept sitting up on the opposite side of the door from Orlando.
Her eyes landed on Orlando and, seeing at least one person awake, she demanded, “Where the f*ck are we?”
“Summer camp,” he quipped, leaning forward onto his hands and knees in order to stand up. His back popped loudly as he stretched his arms out over his head, then twisted them behind his back, squinting and groaning. It had been a long night in an uncomfortable position on the uncompromising ground, and something about the sunlight gave him a rejuvenated sense of hope. There was no reason for it, really, since they were as incapable of protecting themselves in the light as in the dark.
He crossed the small hut, which was enough to awake Adriana, the younger girl slowly sitting up and rubbing her eyes as Orlando knelt down beside the injured woman.
“How’s your head, love?” he asked, reaching forward until she batted his hand away.
“It’s fine,” she insisted. Pressing her hand to her temples, though, she admitted, “Hurts like hell, though. And what’s . . .” Her finger found the crudely sealed gash and trailed gingerly over the raw skin, her nail tapping at the rubbery glue. “What the f*ck is that?”
“Super glue. Don’t you remember anything from yesterday?” As she stared at a spot of the dusty floor, he used the distraction to lean in closer for a quick glance at the gash. The glue seemed to have held, and though it looked horribly grotesque, at least she hadn’t bled to death. He sat back as she slowly shook her head, oblivious to Adriana gently rousing Leo to the side.
“The last thing I remember, I was outside the bathroom and– well you were there, weren’t you? That was you I was talking to, I think . . . but it’s so fuzzy now, and then . . . I don’t know. I . . . what the hell is going on?”
Orlando could have almost smiled at how hopefully confused she must be. He was hopelessly confused, and he had been awake for all the chaos yesterday. However, just as he opened his mouth to begin explaining, she gasped,
“No, wait. I remember getting into trucks and then . . . Oh God.” She covered her face with her hands, pulled them away, covered her eyes, pulled away again. Orlando had forgotten she had been in the truck that had tried to escape. Of all the things for her to remember.
The baby was crying, and that fit perfectly in with her suddenly vivid recollection of the red, the gunshots, the screams that she couldn’t distinguish from the sobs. It was a blur of sights and sounds swirling through her mind with only the constant dull thump of her heartbeat throbbing in her ears to accompany the pain in her temples.
She wasn’t sobbing, though. When Orlando put a comforting hand on her back, expecting tears to leak out through her fingers at any moment, she brushed him away with a dismissing hand and insisted,
“I’m fine. Tell me what happened after . . . I mean, after the trucks.” What was there to tell, though? They had been herded via boats to this camp in the middle of some god-forsaken desert, sent to huts, and then left for the night. One of the English speakers had come by and told them to use the bathroom hut at the end of their row, but, scared to venture anywhere without each other, the whole group had gone together once before bed, just to see. It was smaller than the huts to live in and consisted of nothing more than a hole in the ground, a new hole being dug every time one filled up, judging by the freshly overturned ground. Each had been as disgusted by the next, and perhaps because of that, all were doing their best to go as sparingly as possible, and always in groups under the watchful eye of the men with their guns.
That was all.
Orlando shrugged and rose again, moving back to the curtain as some small commotion was raised outside.
“You shrug? You can’t shrug at a question like that,” she demanded, her eyes narrowing. Doing so tugged at the glue; it felt like a giant piece of plastic had been wedged into her forehead; God, it hurt. She continued, however, quite angrily, “Obviously something happened. What is this place? Where is everyone else?”
Isaiah was awake now too, nodding a whispered greeting to the woman as he joined Orlando quickly at the curtain, as alert as could be. He and Orlando shared a glance, silently debating whether to peek out or not. Curiosity got the better of them, though, and Orlando stepped back to let Isaiah pull the curtain back only an inch, only enough to glance out.
He stared for a long minute, then relayed, “They’re moving people out of the huts. Everyone. I don’t know where they’re going, though.”
“Everyone is in huts? Like, everyone on the plane? Who’s they?” the woman demanded, but Adriana gently touched her arm and insisted, “Shhhh. Wait.” Not that little Adriana was intimidating, but the command was so gentle, so encouraging that the hut fell into silence as Isaiah stepped back for Orlando to glance out. He, too, stared for a long moment, then quickly stepped back.
“We’re next,” he whispered. Instantly, the hut was a flurry of activity.
“What? What’s going on? Where are we going?” the poor confused woman demanded as Orlando gently shook awake Dotty and Alfred, as Isaiah helped Theresa stand. She was in the middle of nursing her youngest, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“We don’t know where we’re going,” Adriana finally answered, not even looking at the woman. “When we got here, they divided everyone into huts and left us here all night. But they’ve got guns–“
”Lots of guns,” Leo interjected.
“–So just go along with–“
Suddenly the curtain of the door was thrown open and a man in dark green, his bald head shining in the late morning sun, was barking orders at them in a strange, harsh tongue, his dark eyes jumping around the dark interior of the hut. Though his words were strange, it was easy to pick up on his meaning through his pointing.
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7/May/2007, 23:20
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Board's time is: 30/Nov/2009, 11:13
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oh well... hey if you liek dark stories check out mine... The Kidnapper or in this case Mannapper. 
