Plan B

1: Dammit


Harry was tired. Not just mildly sleep deprived, but comprehensively fucked. Balls to the wall fucked. With bells on.

That wasn't the crux of his problems though. What worried him was that the Whistlers were waiting in the wings. With 7.62 calibre bullets. He had been tabbing through the jungle for three days now. Classic E&E. His pursuers always just a ridgeline away. The bastards weren't giving up and Christ knows how they managed to follow his trail. He had been pulling every single technique he knew to disappear off their radar. And now shit was starting to get serious.

Time for plan B. The words of his old Master Sargeant Henri percolated through the fuzziness of his fatigued brain: "Son, when you're about toesed up and starting to make more noise than a skeleton having a wank in a biscuit tin: Attack. Attack without hesitation. Give no quarter and go apeshit. Its better than being gifted a new asshole." Thing was, he didn't have a great deal to attack with.... two claymores that had seen better days on behalf of the relentless humidity in the jungle, well that and they were old Chinese ones he had found in a derelict bunker about six hours after he had dropped in to his AO. The Chinese weren't well known for the longevity of their weaponry. You'd have better luck with a capgun... 30 metres of parachord (at least he could rely on that), an 'entrenching device' which, to be fair, struggled to even pretend to be a spade. A machete (full points for the QM on that one). Four and a half mags of 5.56 for his M4, two mags of 9x19 Parabellum for his P226, four M67 Frag grenades and 3 incendiaries of indeterminate manufacture, given he had found them in an old box next to the claymores. At least he hoped they were incendiaries, they looked like it but they could be anything...

All he needed to do was find an appropriate killing ground and ascertain how many pursuers he actually had. He figured probably no more than five given that any force larger than that would have trouble keeping up. So, five plus the dogs. Dogs. Not ideal. Dogs were notoriously hard to fuck up given they were so low to the ground. He needed somewhere where he could enfilade from on high, like a gully. A gully would be nice. With a stream. To confuse the dogs before he unleashed the living demons of hell upon them. 'And I will strike thee down with great vengeance and fuuuurious anger' he thought to himself. Bloody Sam Jackson...

He needed time. Enough time to set it up, which meant he needed to put as much distance as he could between himself and his enemy. He had been going silent which was slowing him down. 'Okaaaay....' Harry thought, 'time to go noisy, they know I'm here, they have managed to follow me for three days. Fuck 'em'. So Harry went noisy. Well not noisy noisy, he just didn't bother trying to keep quiet. The first thing he did was fart, loud, proud and long. Then with a quick gulp from his canteen and three squares of chocolate from his rations (well he figured it was chocolate, it could have been Bovril) he set off like a hare with its ass on fire.

Six hours later things had improved. Marginally. He couldn't hear the fucking dogs for a start and he figured he had managed to put an extra click or two between himself and his pursuers. He was still screwed, but at least he had some time to prepare. Now all he needed to do was find an appropriate death zone. He had stumbled on one about three hours ago and had even considered leading his pursuers round the proverbial garden and doubling back to it, but he wouldn't have had time to set up what he had in mind. At least the terrain wasn't showing any signs of changing its spots. Still steep narrow hills, lots of vines and trees. Lots of trees. Which meant lots of wood. Sharp wood. Wood that when traveling at great speed was pretty effective at making holes in living things. Which is what he needed. Holes. Lots of bloody holes.  

Hauling his ass up yet another steep ridge and over the top (he'd ditched the cross graining, too slow …and right now he needed to put some jungle between himself and his rattan and AK toting mates). Harry just managed to stop his, relatively uncontrolled, descent down the far side of the ridge before being swallowed by the gaping hole that emerged out of the bush. 'Jesus...' Harry thought, 'it looks as though Godzilla has mistaken this hill for a twinkie'. A massive slip had eaten away half the hillside with the missing half now lying at the bottom partially (well mostly) damming a stream. He stared at the maelstrom of trees, mud, rocks and foliage in the nadir of the valley 40 metres below. A small lake had formed upstream and downstream was a ravine, with a mere trickle of water meandering its way along the streambed. The trickle edged its way around the perfect outcrop. A plan formed in Harry's mind. Granted it was different from the original idea. But boy oh boy it was so much better.

Quickly he descended the slip, sliding his way over the unstable ground to the dam. 'A fucking beaver could not have done a better job' he thought.  

Harry reckoned he had about 25 minutes before his mates arrived, which left him about 20 to set shit up, then five to make it real. He only had one shot at this end game. Fuck this up and he was a dead man. Dropping his burgen on the ground he quickly undid a few of the many pockets that graced its camo skin and hauled out the explosive contraband.  Grabbing the parachord, the clamores, the indeterminate incendiaries and two of the M4 grenades he scarpered over to the dam face and set to work. On closer inspection he figured that it wouldn’t take much to do what he intended. In fact he may well be overkilling it slightly, but what the fuck, at least it would be quite a show…

Setting the first claymore up at 45 degrees to the face on one side, on a slight downward angle, then the other on the far side 10 metres away, he ensured a full overlapping field of high-speed shrapnel would spray downstream. He then ran the parachord at tension across the dam face (camouflaged by the odd branch and piece of foliage), threading the grenades and incendiaries through double loops he made in the chord. After installing a dead man’s safety – he then ran the remaining chord up the far side of the valley and to a dead tree, whereupon he tied it to a heavy branch which he then (gently) balanced in a perfect v that had been formed by the tree’s lower branches. One shot from his M4 and all hell would break loose.

Just as he heard the dulcet sounds of hounds barking he deactivated the dead man’s safety. After quickly covering his tracks, he grabbed his burgen and high-tailed it down the ravine and up into the foliage at the base of the outcrop. He needed to be in place before his mates came over the crest of the hill. The valley had to be as still as a catholic priest in a pre-school - with nothing moving. Relaxed airs, relaxed airs…

Creeping slowly through the bush that covered the top of the outcrop, Harry slipped into a thicket just as he clocked the first of his pursuers at the top of the slip. Within 2 minutes they had all gathered and were threading their way down. Not much time left. Harry hauled up his M4, checked his mag (very quietly), then using his arms as a tripod (yay for the M4, that shit just ain’t possible with an AK) he lined up the balanced branch in his holo-sight. Now all he had to do was wait.

Ten minutes later his mates were all moving into the valley just below the dam. A couple of dog handlers leisurely dragging on the ubiquitous Asian cigarettes that everyone over eight years old seemed to inhale.  The dogs had picked up on his scent and were straining at their leashes. Although fuck knows how they could smell anything through the cloud of smoke their handlers were blowing into the air. Froth sprayed from the dog’s mouths. Very excited wee Cliffords they were. They looked like a cross between a Dobie and a Shewolf. Fuckin’ ugly. Probably smelt like a hookers undies after a night out at the proms. The world wouldn’t miss ‘em...

It was time. Taking a deep breath, Harry centred his holo on the branch and took the pressure on the trigger. His pursuers were now all in the field of fire.

Crack!  He fired. The bullet hit his branch dead on and it slipped between the ‘v’ yanking the parachord a good 2-3 metres - plenty of tension to pop all his bangers. The effect was instantaneous.

He now knew the clays were still functional. Mostly. Each side of the dam erupted in a spray of sharp metal bits and flying ball bearings. Everything living within a 20m range downstream and 2m out from the dam face wasn’t living any longer. It was either in more pieces than a Wasgij or it had disappeared. Completely. This wasn’t like those action movies when the hero running through the jungle, accidently sets off a claymore then hides behind a small log as it detonates … Jumping up to continue on his (or her) way once the smoke clears. No, this shit was real. Nothing, absolutely nothing survived within 10m of a claymore. And that was only the opening gambit. Now the grenades did their bit, detonating one by one in a storm of shrapnel and pieces of wood. As if it wasn’t enough to be shredded by a claymore. Insult had now been added to injury.   Through the smoke Harry saw the dam collapse and a wall of water surge down the valley and into the ravine. The noise was terrific. He thought he saw a dog’s head bobbing in the flow. Whether it was still connected to the rest of the dog was unknown.

Two minutes later the water had receeded and Harry took a good look around the AO with his binocs. The dam had gone (obviously) and downstream had been thoroughly scoured clean. Nothing at all was left except puddles. There appeared to be the odd rag and bloody giblet hanging from a few branches but that was about it. Looked like a win then… Slowly Harry backed his way out from the thicket he was concealed in, gathered his gear, and slipped down the hill. He still maintained his battle readiness just in case one of his pursuers had miraculously managed to survive, but all signs so far indicated that he had prevailed. Not even a dog would have made it.

A quick recce confirmed it. Nothing was there. If anything had managed to survive the initial explosion and dam collapse, it would be halfway to the ocean by now.

Excellent news. Now he needed to put a good few clicks between himself and this place. He didn’t know how often his pursuers had maintained contact with their superiors or when they last checked in. He just figured they did both and it didn’t pay to fuck with any gift horses. So after a quick bearing check he gapped it up the side of the ravine and into the jungle. He needed to be at least 10 clicks away before he could settle down for some scrag and a kip… about a two hour tab through this sort of ground. He’d arrive about an hour before sunset.

 

Crocnami Pt 3 - the end?

Shit was getting real. Very real. The first beast of the Crocopalypse had rounded the corner and clocked him. The bloody thing stared straight at Kev like it was staring at a six foot high steak, medium rare. It growled. The rumble in the behemoth's throat was so loud the earth shook. 'It wasn't like it hadn't shaken enough already in the last 24 hours' thought Kev. 'First there was Shazza, (although that was more like a dull rumble), then there was the wave that shashimied the salt water reptile world ...and now this. The first of the horde of sashimigees bearing down on him like the leader of a gaggle of New York socialites at a Gucci sale.  

Kev glanced over his shoulder to look for Dino again. Nothing. The bastard had completely disappeared. The top of the hill was empty but for himself and Bruce, still whimpering under the log. Where the fuck was Dino? There wasn't anywhere for him to go.... The top was only about 60 feet across and was mainly dust, with a few blades of grass to shade the bull ants... and the log Bruce was currently under that doubled as a bench seat for those who wanted to look at the view, of course. 

What there was of it. Cooktown wasn't exactly a bucket list destination. 

Kev returned his gaze to the marauding horde. He reckoned there was about 2 minutes before the last thing he heard was the sound of snapping jaws. The crocs weren't exactly up to a full sprint. Truth is they were probably as buggered as he was. But that didn't change the fact that he was truly and irrecoverably fucked. 

He heard a rustle behind him and glanced over his shoulder again. Dino was standing about six feet away. Well, perching. On one leg. The other was crooked at right angles with the foot nestled into the opposite knee. He looked like a bird. One of those weird fuckers with skinny legs. Only Dino wasn't skinny. He was the size of a building. 

"Dino mate, What the fuck are you doing!?" Yelled Kev. 

"Hiding" replied Dino. Calmly. Too calmly for Kev's liking... 

"Hiding!? What do you mean hiding?" Kev raised his voice, "there's nowhere to hide, there's nothing up here! Just dust, grass and a se... a log!"

"There are places if you know how to look Kev," said Dino, "an old Abo guy taught me how to do it when I went walkabout a few years back. Won't do you any good now though, takes a bit of practice. Took me years to get it." Dino sounded even calmer than before. In fact he sounded positively chilled. Like he had smoked a joint the size of a Cuban cigar. He didn't sound like a man who was about to be eviscerated by a marauding horde of pissed-off crocodiles...

"Well, that's no good then is it Dino, I'm screwed" Kev snorted. He look back at said crocs. He was about 30 seconds away from the jaws of the leading one. Kev had already named it Genghis. Fucker was staring straight at him... Taking a deep breath, he hefted his warratah. He didn't think whopping it on the head of Genghis was going to achieve much - other than pissing him off even more.... At least he assumed it was a him. It could have been a her ...A she devil from the pits of Asgard. Typical, a chick sending him toes up. Fuck. Kev lifted... Bruce... high above his head, ready to do as much damage as he could. 'No time even to roll a smoke' he thought. 

“Hey Kev" whispered Dino, "grab Bruce and come over here.”

‘Huh? which Bruce?’ Kev thought. He turned round and looked at Dino, who was still standing stork fashion. Kev’s look must have said it all. 

Dino spoke this time, weirdly. “Kev, grab your dog and come here now,” 

Kev ran to the log, grabbed Bruce and hightailed it to Dino. Didn’t even realise he was doing it until he had.

“Hold my arm” Dino commanded.

Kev could smell the breath of the morass of reptiles. Like an excretion from the ass of the world. 

He reached for Dino’s arm. As soon as he grabbed it, shit went strange. It felt like that movie with small people, ugly fuckers, dudes in tights and wizards... when one of the small fellas put a ring on. Everything went blurry and dark. 

“Hold on to me, keep quiet and stay as close as you can” whispered DIno. “If you get too far away they’ll see something and we’re meat.” Kev nodded.

Dino hopped. Kev almost fell over. 

Dino hopped again, toward the edge of the hill. 

The lead croc stopped right where they had been, two hops ago... and bellowed. 

Kev almost pissed himself. 

Nine agonising hops later they were at the farthest point from the crocs and about to descend the slope... well a slope in the broadest sense of the word. It was more like a cliff, with trees. Kev was also all too aware that there were a few hundred seriously disturbed crocodiles stomping their way up the hill a few snaps below him. Well, all around him really. 

“Keep holding on to me. Do not let go.” said Dino as he hopped over the edge. Into a tree. 

Kev quickly followed, not nearly so elegantly. They stopped. Kev turned to look at the horde of noisy hell-crocs as they burst onto the top of the hill. 

There were hundreds, like a rolling wave. Jaws started to snap as space became a premium. Snakes, in their own titanic struggle, were boiling their way around the feet of the largest crocs, like a vision from a greek epic. 

Suddenly, Kev heard a roar. Only it wasn’t from the hill. The sky darkened (what he could see of it - it was very blurry) and the noise increased. ‘Uh oh’ thought Kev, ‘another wave of  jaws...’.

The ground started shaking, the tree whipping back and forward. “Hold on!” yelled Dino.

It sounded like a swarm of large passenger jets was flying past. Kev saw water, boiling underneath him down the cliff. Then he saw a shape crashing over the edge. It looked like Genghis. He looked at the top of the hill. The crocs were panicking and in a gory bath of flesh and blood were throwing themselves off the top. Some crashing down the slope entwined in each others jaws, frothing blood.

‘This is too much’ thought Kev ‘I can’t deal with this’. He closed his eyes and hugged Bruce (his dog and warratah) in one arm. His other was tightly round Dino’s right bicep.

A cacophony of noise and a lot of shaking followed. Kev couldn’t really see what was going on. He had his eyes closed anyway. 

He didn’t know how long he was out to the world. But when he awoke, there was silence. Kev opened one eye. 

The water had receded. There were no crocs to be seen. Or at at least he couldn’t see them. “Fuck me,” said Kev. 

“You can let go now,” piped up Dino, “I can’t hold this much longer.” Kev let go. Immediately light came flooding into his eyes. The visceral colours of death surrounded him. Blood and croc parts were strewn all over the hill. Bruce wiggled. ‘Must be hungry,’ Kev thought. 

The weary crew of man, dog and warratah extracted themselves from the tree, which by now was looking very much the worse for wear, and dropped to the ground. Suffice to say it was a little slippery. 

Depositing Bruce on the ground to snuffle at the bits and blood, Kev climbed up the hill - Bruce the warratah clutched firmly in his hand. Peering over the edge he surveyed the top. Empty. 

Weird.

He pulled himself up and stood on the 60 foot plain. Kev took a long look around.

“Oi!”

Kev looked toward the sound, down at Dino - who was reaching up at him.

“Give me a hand will ya!? I keep slipping on bloody croc!”

Kev, bent down and extended Bruce within reach. “Here mate, grab this” he barked. Dino grasped the warratah and pulled himself to the top.

“Cheers, mate.”

Together they had another long look around the empty plain. Even the log was gone. 

“Well, that was close, bugger me...” muttered Kev. “Right ho Dino! shall we descend this hill of blood and head back into town? I dunno about you but I need a stiff drink after this here malarky.”

“Kev mate, I don’t think there’ll be much of town left. You saw the size of those waves. The pub’s fucked, that’s for sure.”

“Christ! piss! bollocks!” Kev cursed.

He hefted Bruce and drove the warratah into the ground. That was the last straw. Reaching for his shirt pocket he took out the tobacco packet and proceeded to roll a spliff. 

Dino walked toward the other side of the hill to see what he could see. It was quiet. Not too quiet, like a blood-melee of death and destruction was about to descend, but well... peaceful. 

Kev finished rolling and put the spliff in his mouth. He patted his shorts to find a lighter. After a minor panic, he located it and sparked up. He took a long draw.  

“Bruce!” He yelled, “come here mate, we’re going to head home to see if there is anything left!” Bruce trotted up over the edge to Kev’s side. “Dino? You coming mate?” 

Dino turned back from where he was and sauntered over. “Better bring your warratah mate, there’ll still be a few seriously pissed off crocs around. Hopefully the buggers have dined too well on their bretheren and are asleep, but you never know.”

Kev picked up his warratah in one hand, spliff in the other. “Ok, let’s go check on the pub anyway aye.”

“Yeah” replied Dino. As always, a man of few words. 

They turned toward the track that led down the hill and set off. Bruce scouting ahead for monsters. 

Crocnami Pt 2 - the maelstrom

... which wasn’t likely, ‘cause no bastard was around. The usual sounds of life had completely disappeared. Like completely. No distant sounds of chainsaws hacking their merry way through wood harder than a glass asshole. No air-conditioners rattling their last breath on the roofs. Nothing. He hadn’t noticed the absence of human activity because of bloody John and his dulcet refrains. 

“Fuck” Kev muttered. 

He turned on his heel and ran, well shambled, back inside. “Bruce!” He yelled, “where the fuck are ya! We gotta go fella...” The verandah door slammed shut behind him with a clang. 

Dashing into the hallway Kev burrowed into the hall cupboard and fished out his backpack. Thankfully still half full from his last sojourn into the outback, 3 months ago. ‘Well,’ Kev thought, ‘if there are any dirty clothes in there they’ll be ticketyboo by now.’ Running to his room, then to the pantry, or what passed for a pantry - which was really just a couple of shelves suspended in mozzie netting above a hole in the floor, Kev stuffed whatever he could think of into the backpack. Throwing on a pair of Target’s finest shorts and a pair of Blundy’s, he grabbed two bottles of water, a couple of tinnies (after debating the merits of beer over water for an extra tinny vs the second bottle of water) and one of the dead looking packets of tobacco on the table. 

Out onto the verandah, he yelled for Bruce again, grabbed for his trusty warratah, Bruce the Slayer of Things (Bruce for short, oddly) and fucked off into the bush toward the river. ‘The river, hang on’ Kev thought, something about going near water was a really really bad idea when there was a giant wave coming at you from a few hundred miles away.’ Bruce (the dog) caught up with him just as  Kev hairpinned it for the nearest hill instead, a couple of k down the road.

8 minutes later Kev had cleared the main part of the town and was about halfway toward the hill. Puffing. Only problem was, he realised, he was heading toward the ocean, not away from it. Another really, really bad idea when a wave the size of a mountain was coming. Apparently. He reached into his shirt pocket for his baccy to roll a smoke - to calm his jangled nerves ...and pulled out the pack. As it exited his pocket he got a whiff of something like mint. “Fucknuckle. Wrong pack!” he cursed. This one just wouldn’t do right now. It was what was left of his wonder weed from last night. Kev stuffed it back into his shirt. For later. 

The track he was following skirted by the estuary - which by now should have been swirling with the detritus that only the north eastern part of the Great Southern Land could provide. Living and dead. 

Only it wasn’t swirling. It wasn’t even there. There was just... mud. And flopping things. 

‘Uh oh’ thought Kev. 

Then he heard the noise. Like a jet. Not just any jet. But one that was fast. And noisy. 

Bruce yelped and took off toward the hill. “Bruce!” Kev yelled, “get back here ya yellow bastard.” Bruce wasn’t listening. 

“Fuck!” Kev yelled, and tore off after the dog. 

It was only later that Kev realised the little fucker probably saved his life. He was about 50 feet up the hill when he felt the rumbling, turning to his right he looked out over toward what passed for a beach in Cooktown - well in name only, you certainly couldn’t swim there. There were six kinds of  thing that would kill you before you got within two feet of the water and countless things that would kill you if you dipped even a toe into it. And that was just the stuff that breathed air. 

Now that water was coming right at him.  As a writhing hill of foam, wood and what appeared to be thousands of crocs. Big ones. With mainly teeth. Like Sharknado, only with legs. 

“Fuck!” Kev yelled again, he tore his gaze away from the vision of hell and ran as fast as his legs could carry him... lungs screaming and threatening to burst forth from his chest in a maelstrom of blood and aveoli. 

The noise was unreal, like the soul of the earth was being torn from its bosom. A screaming, louder than Shazza in full flow on all fours. 

Kev was now, by all accounts, fair shitting himself. He rounded a corner to see the wave, below him, thank fuck... smashing itself into the headland. Bits of croc flew high into the air off the rocks, like a torrent of sashimi.  

He crested the hill and collapsed, watching the wave flow round the headland and continue toward the town. Scouring everything in its path. 

Flopping onto his back to stare at the sky, Kev called for his dog. “Bruce! Bruce! Come here mate” He heard a wine from underneath a log and saw Bruce’s poor excuse for a tail sticking out, “come on fella,” he said “its ok, its over.”

“Its not over yet,” a voice piped up from across the hill, “its only just begun, digger, there’ll be more. This is the end of days” It was Dino, or as the locals called him ‘The Wandering Wog’. Suffice to say he was as crazy as a bag of cut snakes.

“Whaddya mean more?” Kev shot back, “that was the tsunami mate, it isn’t as if they are queuing up for a free hand job” 

“They come in waves” replied Dino. 

“No shit” said Kev. 

“No, no, they come in lots of, well lots...” said Dino. 

“What the fuck are you talking about Dino?” asked Kev, who by now thought the crazy bugger was serious.

“I mean that this is the first of a few such waves and quite possibly not the biggest one either,” Dino replied, all too confidently for Kev’s liking, usually he was quite servile and well... weird. This was the longest conversation Kev had had with Dino, in fact anyone had had with Dino. Dino preferred to talk in grunts and hand gestures. And not ones that a nun would be comfortable with either... 

“Okay, so are you telling me that we are due for more sashimi as well?” Kev asked.

“‘Fraid so mate, that was the vanguard, the main battlefront is on its way.... and they’ll be pissed methinks”

“Didn’t know Crocs drank” quipped Kev.

“Not funny mate, we’re fucked. The buggers will be looking for somewhere to dry out. Do you see any other hills around?” Dino shot back. 

‘Strewth, the bastard's right’ thought Kev. He took stock of the current lay of the land. 

Yep. They were fucked. No escape. The headland was now an island surrounded by a mass of croc bits and every other living thing that, in one way or another, will fuck you up.  

He heard a low growl coming from the log. Bruce was now standing to attention, tail out and pointing his muzzle down the track. Kev heard a lot of noise coming from that general direction. Lots of snarling and crunching. What sounded like crocs... Crocs didn’t generally discern between prey and their own family... if it was remotely edible and it was moving, or even if it wasn’t and had been lying in the sun for four days, it was fair game. 

It didn’t sound like it was a party he wanted to go to. More like the sort of party for footy players, a kilo of coke and a ton of jelly.   

“Dino mate?” Kev yelled, “Do you have anything that might stave of a horde of pissed off and hungry crocs? ‘Cause I think the buggers are heading this way...”

There was no answer. 

“Dino?” Kev looked around, Dino was no where to be seen. “Dino, where the fuck are ya?” Kev yelled again. He couldn’t have gone far. There was nowhere to go. Like nowhere... 

More growls ...and in the distance, just coming round the corner, the butt ugly leg of what was no doubt many more legs heading his way. There also seemed to be lots of writhing around the legs. Snakes! Fuck! Kev hated snakes. Minions of the underworld they were. With their legless antics. Slipping and sliding like a German supermodel in a pot of strudel. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck” Kev muttered. He looked around. The only thing he saw was his trusty warratah. Bruce the Slayer of Things. Well he called it Bruce the Slayer of Things because for some reason, whenever he carried it, chicks flocked to him - like moths to a flame.  Well, there were no chicks here. Only pissed off reptiles. He had never understood why chicks dug his rod of iron. Maybe it gave him an air of the knights of old. ...Sir Kev - Knight of Northern Queensland. Now a knight about to have his ass eaten by a rabid horde of crocs. It was not how he thought he would exit this world... 

Kev grabbed his warratah and hefted it, feeling its familiar weight. No broadsword here. Only a rusty piece of iron. Fuck.    

Looking towards the track, he waited...

Crocnami Pt 1 - the quiet.

6am.... there's nothing worse than your day starting with the Little River Band. But today it did. Must have been the Fates. Fuckin' fairies...

You can't control the radio. At least not in Cooktown. And Kev had his tuned to the local station, well the only station.... and it had a thing for Ozzie music. The only thing. It was all it played. Dawn to dusk... Now, LRB was okay when you were peeling back a few tinnies to wash down a snarler or two in the arvo, as long as Cold Chisel took on the mantle later in the evening - when you were curled to the eyeballs and using the beer goggles to distinguish between the local herd and the Sheilas ...but seriously, at 6am? Nuh, it just wasn't the done thing.

So Kevin, not in the most salubrious of moods this morning ...on account of a bottle of Bundy and Shazza's undies in his face the night before (right focus on the goggles last night, thank god), decided enough was enough. He cracked an eye that would make a stoner jealous, located the radio and kicked it soundly off the crate.

LRB, describing a parabola that even a Nasa engineer working on the Colombia would be proud of, sailed elegantly across the room and out the window.

"Fuck off John..." He muttered.

A quick roll to unstick his bum from the sheets and he found himself face to face with Bruce, his mutt-of-dubious-pedigree  ....who at that moment was yawning his chops and using his tongue as a canine octopus to establish dominance over the ants that had found their way from the floor to the remains of the bundy on the pillow. Next to Shazza's  undies.  They weren't interested in Shazzas undies. Nothing was. Not even Shazza.

LRB followed by dog breath. Not a great start.

Feet on the floor and straight into his y-fronts (thank god). Bit crusty but fuck it, they'll do. Kev levered himself up and staggered into the kitchen scratching his nuts. It was another pearler day. The sun was just coming up over the treeline. No clouds just that orange blue thing that happens in the morning when your brain is still figuring out which way is up. Like when you take too much acid and you find yourself in a caravan with a horny Swedish gymnast. He emptied a coffee cup of the ubiquitous ciggie ends and oily coffee, wiped it with a spare rag that looked a little less stained than his gruts, hit the switch on the jug then looked around for his roll-yer-owns.

After a considerable time scanning the room, he found them peeking out from under a D-cup on the table, 'Thank christ!' he thought, 'but what the....? Did Shazza shoot home starkers last night? Or ....bugger me! Was she still here!?' He ducked outside and checked the Dunny in case she had timed out whilst chasing the proverbial. Nuh. Thankfully. 'Maybe she had just forgotten... Her tits spent most of their time down round her knees anyway...' he thought to himself. 'Same with her undies.'

The jug jizzed steam all over the room as it tried to turn itself off. It failed miserably, like it did every morning. Kev threw a couple of spoons of coffee into his cup, four sugars and two lumps of milk... rolled a smoke, poured - then headed out to the verandah to welcome the day on his favourite chair.  Staring out over the trees he found himself humming Lonesome Loser.

Fucking clock.

Bruce ambled out to sit next to him, farted then gapped it across the yard. Kev could have sworn the little fucker was laughing at him as he gagged into his cup.

It wasn't until the second cigarette that Kev realised that the clock was still going strong from round the side of the house. Only John had stopped his crooning. Instead, someone was talking ...and not just the usual hawking of Dr Johns erectile dysfunction oil, or 40% off a set of Ginsu steak knives, but real news type stuff. 'Strewth, sounds serious' Kev thought to himself. Swirling the dregs of his coffee and chucking it down his neck, he levered himself out of the chair and staggered off the verandah and round the corner so he could hear what all the fuss was about...

Snatches basically, but only due to the fact that Bruce had found the clock and was knawing at it in the only way that dogs can. You know, that way that makes you never want to touch the item being knawed at again. At least not without a bio suit and a gallon of hand sanitiser.

".... Earthquake... Papua New Guinea... Tsunami.... Residents of Northern Territory and Queensland told to evacuate... Perfect storm... Crocodile mating season.... Density.... Salt water crocodiles.... Largest ever...."

And that was about it.

Kev wasn't so sure about the last bit. Crocs were just part of the scenery in Cooktown. Literally. Dead ones were used as median barriers on busy roads (well Cooktown busy, which meant more than four vehicles a week). But the first bit was bad. Real bad. 'Cause Kevs truck was fucked. Not just broken but completely rooted. Bloody thing had exploded two days ago when he was Roo hunting with some mates up Up Creek road. He thought the Roo was going to dodge left. Bloody thing hadn't. It had stopped, turned, stared him straight in the eye and bounced straight at him. Fucker had lifted its legs over the bars and gone straight through the radiator and into the engine block. Boom. Goodnight nurse. Kev could have sworn he had heard it say 'suck on that one... fat boy' as it shuddered its last breath while he was trying to pull it out of what remained of his motor.

So wherever Kev was going, he was walking. Unless someone could give him a lift.

Pt 3: The Elysian Fields

The Elysian Fields

I guess in hindsight, the journey through the tunnel was a bit like a trip through the birth canal. Really confusing, quite painful, somewhat of a mystery and ultimately... well... freaky as fuck. The exit out the other side into the 'Rarapa' was like entering into Mirkwood. Only by association though.

Strange things had started to occur within the confines of the carriage.  Adrian's harem had donned what can only be called amazonian mountain gear, accessorised with bows that would not be out of place in the Hunger Games and knives that made Bear Grills' look like a choir boy.

I wasn't sure what to make of that.

I was even less sure what to make of Adrian's codpiece, which he claimed, had been carved from the shell of a giant crustacean from the Kaikoura. It was a piece that would make whole villages run screaming. Even Giger would hide. In one of his chairs. Backward.

Actually, perhaps that wouldn't be a good idea.

A ground mist had started to gather around the carriage as the train stopped somewhere near Carterton. The only thing missing was the steam, the whistle and the creepy guy with the lamp on a cart. And Clydesdales.  The carriage alighted onto a platform of sorts while the pygmies (sorry, Children of the Forest)  distributed faux fur coats to all and sundry - even though it was summer. I guessed it was something that appealed to Adrian's sense of drama.

Which was out in spades this evening.

The pygmies (bugger the Children of the Forest nomenclature) then lit torches and set off into the fields. Singing. The guests all started following in small groups. Led by Adrian, or rather... his codpiece. Which was big enough that it required an Amazon on each side to lift it over hummocks.

All that was missing were the satyrs ...and needless to say, they came later. I still don't know what had happened to the bus..... I think it was shadowing us to pick up any stragglers. There was a deep rumble just out of sight, the whole way through the fields.

A 20 minute journey over hill and dale and we ended up at the airfield, upon which sat something out of the Cold War. Large, imposing.... and very, very Russian. How Adrian had contrived its arrival in Aotearoa is another thing beyond the ken of us mere mortals.  But who are we to mess with the acts of advertising demigods like Adrian...?

Cold war artefacts aside, the hanger within which our efforts from the last two months of frantic organisation lay was blazing with a fire that would put Elven jewels to shame. The pygmies lifted their soulful tunes and somehow managed to segue into the psychedelic rock and roll melodies that were wafting through the doors of the hanger. The 13th Floor Elevators in full stride no less, dropped with a drum and bass beat. No doubt the work of another of Adrian's underground DJ's from the eastern block.

By now I had completely given up on any hope of salvation at the hands of sobriety. As had most of the suits within the Brogency.

Adrian now had all our meagre souls.

We entered the hanger as a group - like the Pevensies entering Narnia. Blinking and cawing like small birds.

The place was staggering. Seriously staggering. Elysian Field staggering. Nothing should look that staggeringly good. Ever. Seriously.

...Which made me wonder what state I was actually in. I had only had a few glasses of bubbly on the train so things definitely should not have looked this good. But they did. Fuck did they ever. Even Colonel Hough was speechless. Poor bastard was inches away from falling to his knees raving in tongues.  Except he couldn't speak.

There were trees in the hanger, with walkways. Like an Ewok city. And meadows of flowers. Flowers that glowed... dotted by tents that would not have looked out of place in illustrations of The Arabian Nights. Replete with the oiled semi naked bodies of men and women wielding fans of peacock feathers.

In fact, there were too many tents and too many trees to fit inside the hanger - but they did... stretching away into the distance with people. And Satyrs. It was mildly alarming. I made a mental note to ask Adrian how in the fuck he had managed it.

It was about now that I noticed everything sort of breathing.... in an out like the lungs of a giant being of Fabulous.

Then it clicked. Like a thousand seat belts sealing their owners into those mechanical four wheeled monsters we idolise. I looked around to stare at the faces of clients and staff alike. All agog at the sights and sounds that assaulted them from all sides. Like children at a carnival.

Oh fuck. Adrian had somehow managed to manipulate the set (a time of celebration) and setting (a hanger safe from the prying eyes of institutions) in order to accommodate a social experiment. In short - the bastard had sent us all on a Lysergic (or similar - the providence of this night was yet unknown) Odyssey.

But how he had dosed the lot of us at the same time I couldn't figure out. Then...  <click> oh fuck... fuck! <click> The carriage. The dry ice.... The bastard had somehow laced the dry ice. All of us were now in the hands of a crazed creative and his Russian friends. Stuck in a psychedelic playground.

I turned my rapidly glazing eyes to Adrian, who happened to be staring right at me. He raised his glass, threw his trademark smirk my way and ....winked.

Bastard. We'd be lucky if we didn't wake up in a Harem somewhere in Havfuckistan....

We were comprehensively fucked. In all senses of the word. Oh well, my rationally deteriorating mind thought...  if you can't beat them join them. No point in getting upset about what you can't control. I may as well throw myself into the arms of whatever hedonistic gods decided to turn their gazes to this dimension of flesh and trees.

So I shrugged my faux fur coat off my shoulders, grabbed a glass of something green and skipped into the clearing where the dance floor seemed to be. Joining the pygmies, Amazonians, blue chip clients, Colonel Hough and my staff ... boogieing until the sun rose, the cocks crowed and the pixies gave us our minds back. With a soy latte and eggs bene, over easy.

Postscript
In the early hours of the morning, when my mind had started returning to normal, the reentry cushioned by an age old herbal remedy. I figured out how Adrian had managed to make the inside of the hanger like the Tardis.

Scale Models. Pygmies and Bonsai. The perspective carefully worked out.  Adrian's talent for the esoteric was simply prodigious.

Bastard.

Pt 2: The safari begins

The safari begins

Finally the day dawned. A subtle sense of dread permeated the Brogency. Offset only by the traditional anticipation the staff had for a night they could completely let their hair down without fear of reprisal. Even the clients knew this. In fact many welcomed this event as an opportunity to do the same. Well, except for the year we had a cage in the middle of the room with a crazed barber who shaved pictures of Che Guevara into people's skulls throughout the evening... That made things a little difficult the next day. Nothing worse than the CE of a large and influential public service agency in a photo opportunity with his minister sporting a back half moon hairstyle featuring Che that he was completely unaware of. How he was blissfully unaware of it was solely down to the Absinthe he had virtually bathed in during the evening. Needless to say, all of the images were shot face-on.  

Adrian disappeared at lunchtime, claiming he had 'things to do'. Apart from Julie, our Group account director and I meeting with one of our blue chip clients in the afternoon to discuss their social media strategy, things were relatively clear. 

At 4pm, Sean our resident copywriter, popped past my desk with a question that I now wish I had paid more attention to. It concerned a phone call he had received earlier in the afternoon from an international number. The line had been quite crackly so he had only got about 30% of the message …and what he did get was in thickly accented english. Russian english. The thrust of the conversation was best described as… well… random. And what Sean did manage to catch consisted of terms like: 'the owl', 'Basel 35', 'vapor vector'  and 'soft cock'. A trifle odd, granted, but due to my headspace being rather distracted by the meeting I had had with Julie and our blue chip earlier I didn't make the connection that was so obviously staring me in the face. Well, not so much staring as shining a bloody great spotlight into my eyes. 

I blame the blue chip. I mean it isn't everyday that you walk into a $1 billion turnover corporate client's office to discuss their social media needs only to be confronted by a series of questions more akin to someone grappling with the finer points of eastern philosophy. There are just some life issues that social media will not resolve and I take great umbrage at being asked what the Tao of Flickr is or whether Instagram can lead a horse to water, make it drink and enable it to see the light. For fucks sake, I create needs and desires for people to buy stuff. I can't help them find themselves.  And Instagram sure as shit is not a vehicle to find God. Any god. Or at least not one with a gun and a beard.  The best I can do is sell them a mirror or a phone with a screen camera… Suffice to say the meeting ended at an impasse. 

Anyway, so I noted Sean's concerns, parked them and didn't think about them again until Jesus started walking amongst us. 

The event was due to start at 6pm, quite early for a Xmas party, but due to the logistics of getting people out to the ass end of the 'Wai'… we had no choice if we wanted people to be back in town by… well… Xmas. 

Participants were to meet at the Railway station to begin embarking procedures. The first of which involved the aforementioned Veuve and some very decadent canapés. Clearly this didn't fit into the theme for tonights evening of frivolity. At least not directly. Later, I realized it was all part of Adrian's plan. It was a fundamental baseline for our trip.

The carriage looked amazing. All 60's and 70s retro chic - it looked like an Airstream caravan on rails, inside and out. To this day I have no idea where Adrian had managed to find the bloody thing. He said he had chartered it from KiwiRail, but I have my doubts. I suspect it came from the collection of some Greek magnate who gapped it and settled on the other side of the world when their home country went to hell in a souvlaki. 

Six pm came and went. Everyone was seated, standing and generally meandering in the carriage drinking the Veuve and making introductory signs of carousing. At 6.15 the conductor made noises about the train having to leave. Unfortunately we were still waiting for Adrian and the bugger wasn't answering his phone. I was a touch underwhelmed by this, as his entourage had apparently arrived. An entourage that consisted entirely of blondes and one stunning red head. This was not alarming on its own as Adrian was well known for his 'liquid charm'. No what was alarming was that they all stood well over six feet tall, were seemingly well versed in the vagaries of quantum physics (as I had found out when I overheard one discussing super string theory with her neighbour) and had figures that would make politicians cry. So to speak.

Julie strongly suggested that we just leave Adrian behind which would have been well within the bounds of reason, given there were five carriages of fare paying passengers in front of us wanting to get home after a busy week. And after a not insignificant amount of pressure (particularly from the conductor who happened to be our super human account lady Audrey's …brother) I relented and we departed for the wilds of the 'Wai'.  

Adrian joined us somewhere between Lower and Upper Hutt. Winched down from a helicopter no less. Straight onto the carriage roof, down through the skylight (closed) and into his entourage's waiting arms. An entrance previously only reserved for a Bond.  I don't want to know how many regulations were broken. But the helicopter was black and there were no markings …so I am figuring it would not have made any difference if any agents of the law had seen it anyway.  

Adrian's entrance was only the beginning of the madness. I don't know how he did it but he managed to time his entrance to some insane psychedelic trance track from the 90's which thumped its merry way through the clearly upgraded sound system within the carriage. Accompanied by strobe lights and dry ice. It was not unlike his failed entrance to a Brogency Monday morning meeting six months ago. Only without the gorilla suit and way more successful. I think this was mainly due to his entourage who took their cue and started pulling the Pussy Cat Doll moves  to the beats that were streaming throughout the carriage.... 

Along the way, as we were clearly distracted by Adrian's entrance, a Serbian looking DJ had also appeared in the corner… complete with vinyl jacket, Aviators and massive straight-from-the-engineering-rooms-of-Jesus earphones. He looked like he had fallen through a time warp. Only his music was undoubtedly the latest thing spinning on underground European dance floors …reminiscent of 80's Kraftwerk but with flavors of Oakenfold's Fluoro label - punctuated by Latino rhythms. Granted, a mishmash, but for some reason it worked. It even made Colonel Hough wiggle his hips. Much to Julie's consternation, as she was having a serious discussion with him at the time and could have sworn that he had a strange twinkle in his eye at the very moment he 'wiggled'. (Later we would term that particular move 'the Colonel'. It was written into the Brogency's constitution for future generations.)

The floor started glowing at about this time and a few pygmies, sorry - Children of the Forest, appeared in the corners - just out of sight and to stimulate the cones in our eyes, (this was for deliberate effect according to Adrian who had whispered quietly into my ear that he would "take things from here" …for some reason I wasn't too worried about it.).

As we entered the tunnel through to the 'Wai' the Veuve was withdrawn to be replaced by smoothies. According to Adrian this was to cleanse our wearied souls before entering 'Rarapaland'. The journey through the tunnel was to be exactly that …a journey. Again, for some reason, I didn't seem to care about how I was rapidly losing control of the situation. None of the senior staff seemed to care very much either. Julie was playing Twister with a couple of Children of the Forest, Kath - our head designer was talking up a storm with one of our art clients and Baz - our new media guru was showing some of our grads how to 'offline the bird' - whatever the fuck that meant. 

Pt 1: Christmas time for teddy bears

Christmas time for teddy bears. 

It was Christmas. Usually this was a time of celebration and excess in the ad industry... and for The Brogency it was no different. Except for one thing:

There was always that little niggle in the back of your mind that something mind-shattering was about to happen. Some idea that Adrian, our creative director, had cooked up in the back of a Valiant, alongside the ubiquitous lined pocket mirror and rolled up hundred dollar note. An idea that would be manifested in all its sordid glory. An idea that would scar the collective psyche of the Brogency, forever.

There was good precedent for this niggle you see. Precedent such as the year Adrian decided it would be a fabulous idea to lace the punch at our client Xmas party with Ecstasy. This resulted in carnage from the seven levels of hell that haunted us for weeks. Carnage such as our media buyer getting naked with her team and Gogo dancing on the cutting tables. It ended with her kneeling and simulating fellatio with Adrian - who was dressed as a Wookie. All while our guest charity client from the Salvation Army, Sarah looked on in horror… 

It was awesome only because of the potential to destroy our relationship with the Sallies for eternity. Poor lass, she was so traumatised she drowned the psychedelic nightmare image of Adrian lit by strobe light - in the punch. Adrian …arching his back, mouth wide open and bellowing Wookie talk, whilst surrounded by a harem of naked men and women on their knees... 

The night ended with her having a torrid liaison with Lewis - our mild mannered but very large dread-locked cleaner, who hailed from West Africa. 

Last I heard she had given her faith away and was pursuing a life of hedonistic glory in fetish porn.

The Sallies didn't answer our calls after that. We were listed on their burn list along with all of satan's minions.  

Fucking Adrian.

So, it is fair to say that this year 's festivities were greeted with more than a bit of trepidation. A great deal of trepidation in fact. All the staff were on edge, just waiting for that moment when the bottom dropped out… of everything. 

That said, Adrian fucking excelled himself with the invites and logistics for the party. It was to be held offsite (thank god) at an old aircraft hanger somewhere in the Wairarapa. He had charted an old Silver Star carriage from the Wellington to Auckland route in the 70's and had somehow managed to convince Kiwirail to attach it to the Wellington - Masterton train. It was so out of the box I suspected his Russian mates had a hand in it, like everything exotic he does - from tigers in glass cages (long story) to the ridiculous amounts of cocaine he always manages to rustle up. 

The invites themselves were pure genius. None of us can figure out how he did it. When asked, he just smiled in that maddening way of his and whispered… "'t'is magic my dear friend, magic!" 

Dick.

They were chocolate flowers you see, with the most delicate petals - not roses but fucking fuchsias. Fuchsias. I mean who does that? And not only were they fuchsias, they were fuchsias with pollen - gold pollen that when shaken out of the fuchsia somehow fell on whatever surface in the shape of letters. In short - the invite  ...an invite made from fucking fairy dust. Amazing. 

The client list for our wee soirée was not as simple as an invite made from fairy dust though. Oddly.

We had to balance our penchant for hedonism with a serious effort at thanking those which made Adrian's excesses possible. And there were a necessary few of them due the nature of those excesses. Careful selection was required due to the delicate nature of some of our relationships. Not to mention a shift roster for our 'suits' to charm these delicate clients in ...what we called the 'Not in there, it's too serious' room - which generally resulted in more than a few horses being traded. Veritable stallions in fact.

Then there was the question of catering, libations and other accoutrements. These we left to Vicky, our office manager - whose claim to fame was that she could literally pull a rabbit out of a hat. Any hat. No shit.

This year's menu had an Eco theme. Wild food, organic alcohol (except for the sparkles which had to be Veuve.... Adrian's sole request) and pygmies. Or as Adrian called them 'children of the forest'.  I had a suspicion that we were courting trouble with the pygmies, particularly since there weren't any that I knew of in the Antipodes. Which meant they were coming from somewhere else ...and that didn't bode well. Even less well if anyone with an Eastern European accent was involved.

A week out from the soirée things were quiet. This bothered me. It was going all too smoothly. Worrying. Very worrying. Adrian was completely on form, pulling the most outrageous creative from his nether regions. Creative that was as inspiring as it was effective. It was so good, the industry was in tatters... No one could keep up!

However, most concerning was Adrian's ego. It was as close to normal as I had ever seen it. It was like he was on drugs - which was impossible ...as Adrian was always on drugs, which lead me to believe that things were about to go troppo in a fashion that would make Marlon Brando's white sepulchre in Apocalypse Now look like a seven year old's tea party.

My premonition of impending disaster proved to be vastly undercooked. What was about to happen was to become myth and legend, not mere history...

In hindsight, I should have guessed. There were clues everywhere if you knew what to look for. The first clue was the location... An aerodrome. A private aerodrome with an enormous hanger. A hanger that we were using and that had, somehow, been transformed into a variation on James Cameron's Pandora. The only thing missing were the Nav'i and I knew they weren't coming because there were pygmies, and there were no pygmies on Pandora.

Unless....

The second clue was the Eco theme. Organic produce, aka food for hippies. Things like carrot cake, Humus, PikoPiko, roasted nuts with Paprika and a non dairy smoothie bar. 

The third, Adrian's choice of music, which had a distinctly 60's theme, including such gems as the 13th Floor Elevators, the Doors, the Animals, Pentangle... All complemented by ambient sounds reminiscent of  Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.

Last up was the bus. Not just any bus but a bus that would not have looked out of place in North Africa.... Or India. There were more beads on this puppy than in a gypsy village.

In short we were hopelessly fucked.

The RSVP's mounted. We had as close to a 100% response rate as you could get without offering free trips into orbit. I mean, seriously, if this had been a direct mail campaign we would have been world fucking famous. But it wasn't and we weren't... yet. The prescience behind that statement was almost unbearable.

Even the Sallies were coming, thanks to some serious brown-nosing by our posse of religiously inclined (at least on the outside) suits. Young, cleanshaven and hungry. But not Mormon-like. The Sallies wouldn't have worn that. No sirree....  How they convinced them to come was beyond the ken of any normal human.  We were to be blessed by the company of Colonel ET Hough, a very senior and puritanical member of Gods army. I figured that all and any shenanigans should be kept to a minimum when in his presence, which was to be largely confined in the "Not in there, it's too serious' room". Especially if any Wookies were in evidence... And without any shadow of a doubt he had to be kept away from the punch.

In fact, I was seriously considering buying a swathe of drug testing kits to ensure that all food and drink was clean. Instead I decided to use the principle of isolation and keep Adrian well away from anything that could be imbibed until it was on the floor, so to speak. As it happened neither option would have made a world of difference.