Oops again... here is the REAL Chapter 12 of Indiana Jones and the Golden Spider! :)

Posted by Goodsport from adsl-216-102-199-185.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net on June 06, 2000 at 08:17:30:

In Reply to: Chapter 12 of Indiana Jones and the Golden Spider posted by Goodsport on June 06, 2000 at 08:13:15:

Chapter 12 - Now and Forevermore

BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL

    The archeologist, the Spaniard and both students peered at Sophia Hapgood as she suddenly shut her eyes in a trance-like state. Half a minute later, her eyes shot open, her face filled with enthusiasm. "She was just told that the 'Golden Spider' is headed for Spain. She doesn't feel the 'Golden Spider' moving quite yet, and quite frankly neither do I… but she seems to trust the man who told her this."

    "Who is this 'she' you're talking about?" asked Micah.

    "And who the friggin' hell is this guy who told her what he did???" James added.

    Before Sophia could answer, the screams from outside were followed by the sound of an engine starting. Indiana Jones was the first to dash outside, just in time to jump on the back of the old army jeep just as Webley pressed the gas pedal sharply, lurching the jeep onto the narrow makeshift road into the jungle.

    Shaggy was the next to exit and immediately made his way to the nearby hut. Both natives who had guarded Webley were strangled, and the jars filled with the blood of the giant Pardosa Hortensis were missing. I seriously doubt that Professor Campbell would allow us to drain any more blood from her spiders… we must get those jars back!!!

    Micah Johnson, Indiana James Lambert and Sophia Hapgood were the last to exit. All three immediately assisted the natives in putting out the three burning huts. Huts that were no doubt set on fire by Webley to cover his escape.

    With the flames quickly put out, Shaggy dashed toward the rest of the group. "I'm afraid that our jars filled with the first marker are gone."

    Micah and James stared out at the makeshift road leading into the jungle. Webley.

    Sophia turned around as not to be distracted by her surroundings.

    Megara, hear me…

* * * * *

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

    The sirens blazed as the column of NYPD squad cars surrounded the Campbell Compound. Among the many patrolmen to encircle the compound was Chief Inspector Kent Allard, the Fiddler and Deirdre Campbell.

    With weapons ready, the policemen stormed the grounds as the trio waited outside near the caravan of police cars. After what seemed like forever, the policemen exited the house as the lead policeman headed toward Allard.

    "Sir, you have to see this!"

    Kent nodded and motioned for the Fiddler to follow him. As Deirdre began to step forward, Allard put up his hand. "Sorry, Professor Campbell. This is police business."

    The Fiddler turned to Deirdre. "I'm sorry, but you must stay here. We'll be back soon." With that, the policemen escorted Allard and the Fiddler into the house.

    What if something's happened to Ina? Deirdre worried. She dashed toward the house before the policemen standing near their cars could stop her.

    Professor Campbell immediately noticed the entire wall where her bookshelf normally stood was wide open. Oh no, they found the switch! Her heart beat faster and faster as she dashed down the stairs to her lab. She found Allard and the Fiddler standing in shock along with the other policemen. As more of the lab came into few, she also saw jars and beakers broken and scattered across the room… and a gaping hole through the thick glass 'cage' where a giant spider lay dead, apparently drained of its blood.

    Deirdre's worst fears came true, and she could no longer hold in her anguish. "IIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAA!!!" she screamed as she slumped to the floor in tears. The Fiddler kneeled to the ground beside her and embraced her tightly.

    "Don't worry, Deirdre," the Fiddler whispered softly into her ear, "it'll be all right."

    That's when the phone rang upstairs. Deirdre wiped her tears, looked straight into the Fiddler's eyes and said, "I should get that." With that, she dashed upstairs and lifted the receiver of the phone to her ear.

    "Ciao, Signora Campbell. This is Megara. I'm calling from the docks in San Francisco. Signora Hapgood just contacted me from Brazil…"

* * * * *

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

    The back part of Ulla's Doughnut Shop was unlike any shop Short Round had ever seen. He watched in awe from the catwalk at the huge vats of boiling, bubbling doughnut dough right below him. This ain't a doughnut bakery… it's a doughnut FACTORY!

    The museum curator set his large briefcase down on the metal grill catwalk and glanced at his watch. Didn't she say midnight?

    From the corner of his eye, Short Round barely caught the feminine silhouette from the moonlight illuminating through the high windows of the doughnut factory down onto the catwalk. Well, that answers my question.

    "Hey baby!" Short Round exclaimed with anticipation. "Be my huckleberry!"

    Ulla limped slightly out of the shadows at the other end of the catwalk. She was holding a portable cage close to her chest. "That has got to be one of the stupidest pickup line I've ever heard!"

    Flustered, Short Round barked, "Let's just get this business over with then!!!"

    Ulla's voice remained unfazed as she held the cage with Short Round's deadly prized spider, the same breed as his other deadly spider, the late Monchichi. "Where's the money?"

    Short Round lifted the briefcase, opened it just enough to reveal the stacks of hundred dollar bills inside it, closed it and placed it at his feet. "Now give me my spider. I just figured out that it was you who sneaked into my museum just as the Germans did, released Monchichi from his cage while stealing Monchacha and her cage. But why did you scratch a letter 'E' inside Monchichi's cage afterwards?"

    Ulla suddenly laughed. "Never you mind the 'E'! What kind of names are 'Monchichi' and 'Monchacha'?"

    Before Short Round could answer, Ulla continued. "Never mind, I don't want to know. 'Monchacha' and the money are mine anyways. Since your spider's blood is the first marker to the 'Golden Spider', I'll finally be able to find it - and then Mr. Pettit and I can retire comfortably on the beaches of the Balearic Sea!" From behind the spider cage in her left hand she raised a silenced pistol with her right.

    "Say goodbye to Mr. Round, 'Monchacha'!"

    "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"

    Ulla swiveled around to see a two men running along the catwalks along the far wall of the factory. One of them wore a tie with a dark gray wool overcoat and a gray fedora while the other was dressed in a leather bomber jacket and pilot garb. Both were trying to aim their .45 automatic pistols at her through the beams supporting the catwalks.

    Ulla shot her pistol at them, missing the man with the gray overcoat and fedora by inches. At that moment, Short Round pounced on her, knocking her pistol to the factory floor down below, between two huge doughnut dough vats.

    Off-balance, the museum curator ripped the heavy spider cage out of the doughnut maker's hands. She took the opportunity to push Short Round over the railing of the catwalk, scoop up the briefcase with her right hand, and run down the catwalk clutching her injured ribs with her left.

    Short Round barely grabbed the edge of the catwalk below the railing with his right hand while grasping the heavy cage holding 'Monchacha' with his left. He was dangling within the upper half of a huge vat, boiling doughnut dough bubbling right below his feet.

    By the time Goodsport and Indiana Riggs reached Short Round, Ulla was out of sight from the long center factory catwalk.

    "Goodsport," Riggs asked, "was that Ulla? Wasn't she still in the hospital after being stabbed?"

    "She escaped the hospital!" Short Round yelped beneath their feet. "Now can someone please LIFT ME UP?!?"

    The dim lights above them suddenly went out. The only light left inside the factory was the moonlight streaming in through the high factory window right onto Short Round and the boiling doughnut dough below him.

    A metallic 'clunk' was heard as a humming began permeating the entire factory. The light bulbs at the vats' controls lit up, and within a minute the bubbling doughnut dough in all the huge vats started rising.

    "HEEEELLLLP!!!" Short Round screamed as he felt the steaming doughnut dough start to singe the soles of his shoes.

    Goodsport pulled his flashlight out of his coat and ran down the long catwalk, swinging the light beam all around to find a switch or a lever. As he surmised, any levers and buttons were on the bottom floor - and even if he could figure out which levers and buttons turned off the vats of doughnut dough, he would never be able to get downstairs in time before the vats started overflowing.

    Indiana Riggs climbed over the railing of the catwalk and waited for Goodsport to return, who then grabbed a hold of Rigg's waist as the pilot was able to use both hands to pull both Short Round and 'Monchacha' out of the huge vat before it started to overflow with hot boiling doughnut dough.

    Goodsport pointed toward the back entrance down below. "Let's hurry before the doughnut dough reaches the back door."

    Goodsport, Indiana Riggs and Short Round all dashed toward the stairs. By the time they reached it, almost the whole floor of the factory was covered by hot boiling doughnut dough from the overflowing vats. Goodsport and Riggs each pulled out their .45's as the three men sprinted down the stairs and out the door just ahead of the doughnut dough, shutting the door behind them.

* * * * *

    The jeep swerved back and forth at top speed through the jungle as Indiana Jones and Webley battled for control of the steering wheel. The glass jars full of Pardosa Hortensis blood clanked each other constantly. Barely ending their lives against one tree after another, it was all they could do to keep the jeep from swerving off the narrow makeshift road.

    The jeep finally hit a ditch, throwing both men several yards ahead of them. It took Indiana Jones a few moments to recover his senses. Despite the pain, he was relieved to find nothing broken in his body.

    The 'click' he heard a little ahead of him relieved him of his sense of relief. Although the foliage was thick, the headlights from the stuck jeep allowed Jones to barely make out a silhouette walking toward him. Reaching for his revolver, Indy felt misery as his hand discovered his holster empty.

    "It must have flown out when I was thrown from the jeep," Jones thought aloud to himself.

    "Indeed it had, Jones," answered the familiar Belgian voice, "too bad I have to kill you with it."

    Webley lifted the revolver, then crumpled to the ground as a loud metallic sound met the Belgian's head.

    For the first time in a while, Indiana Jones allowed himself a lopsided grin as he looked up. "Am I glad to see you!"

* * * * *

ALBERTA, CANADA

    "JEEF! WAKE UP!!!"

    The bleary-eyed secretary lifted his head off the desk. "Oh, hi Brett."

    "Jeef, who opened the jail cell door???"

    Mountie Brett Lambert and his secretary Jeef scanned the empty jail cell in front of them. "I'm sorry Brett, I was tired and…"

    "Oh shit!" Brett exclaimed as he instinctively dashed to the only place he felt his captive would run to. Once in the holding garage, he ran up to the stagecoach the Reggie Gang had stolen earlier. Brett opened the door to the stagecoach and entered.

    He stepped forward toward where the 'E' was scratched in the side wall. Below it, a few floorboards were removed. There was a hidden space under the floor of the stagecoach that none of the Mounties had noticed before. Whatever was hidden there before was now gone.

    Mountie Brett exited the stage coach. "Jeef, send out an APB. Reggie has escaped… and has taken whatever he was hiding in the stagecoach with him!"

* * * * *

    As Aragorn was starting the engines of his seaplane, Megara crumpled in her seat.

    Sitting in the seat next to hers, Indiana Jerico propped Meg back up. "Are you all right, mademoiselle?"

    Her eyes stared back into his. "Jerico… I felt the Golden Spider. It is moving east. I don't know exactly where it is, but it is moving east!"

    "Then we have made the correct decision to fly to Spain," Indiana Jerico assured her as he lightly kissed her forehead and let her tired head rest on his shoulder.

* * * * *

    "They took off, sir," the chauffeur informed his boss from the front seat as he watched Aragorn's seaplane take off some distance away.

    Muppet nodded from the back seat. "Very good. Once we reach the hotel, inform the men to prepare my plane."

    "Yes sir," the chauffeur complied as the limousine drove off.

    My dear Megara, Muppet thought with a sly grin, rubbing the lower part of his neck where his tiny letter 'E' tattoo was covered by the collar of his shirt. I will catch up with you yet.

* * * * *

    In the fog outside, Ulla was nowhere to be found.

    Indiana Riggs turned to Short Round. "You almost became all sweet and tasty!"

    Short Round was not amused. "Shut up, Riggs!"

    Despite his best efforts not to, the pilot burst out laughing. "Huckleberry???"

    The museum curator's face contorted with anger. "Riggs, I told you to SHUT UP!!!"

    Barely stifling a snicker himself, Goodsport finally interrupted. "Okay… enough! Short Round, what was going on with you and Ulla?"

    Short Round remained silent.

    "Short Round," Goodsport tried again, "we need to know what was going on!"

    After considering for a moment, he finally relented. "She stole my second Pardosa Hortensis, whom I named 'Monchacha'. She wanted to sell her back to me for money."

    "Yeah, she mentioned about your spider's blood being a marker for the 'Golden Spider'," Indiana Riggs pointed out, "and something about being with a 'Mr. Pettit'."

    "Yeah, I've actually met him once," remembered Goodsport, "this was many years ago when I was still a cop with SFPD. He was a small-time crime lord who was vying for control against Nobody for control of the San Francisco underworld. I heard lately that Mr. Pettit is now in Spain financially helping out the anti-Franco forces in their civil war."

    "Goodsport," Riggs added, "didn't that Megara dame tell you that her family was donating the 'Golden Spider' to the DeYoung Museum for next week's exhibition?"

    Short Round looked puzzled. "Who's Megara?"

    The private eye and the pilot shot a look at Short Round. "You don't know?"

    "I've never heard of her," the curator answered, "all I know is that some guy named Reggie from Edmonton called me a few times asking if I wanted to buy it. After a while, though, he stopped calling. I know all the reputable dealers, and since I never heard of him, I just dismissed him as a prank caller."

    Goodsport pondered the situation. "It looks like our only real clue to finding the 'Golden Spider' is by finding Mr. Pettit in Spain."

    Riggs almost did a double-take. "Are you crazy??? There's a civil war going on in Spain, the rest of Europe is ready to explode… and you want to fly into the middle of it?"

    Goodsport shrugged. "C'mon Riggs, Europe can't be that bad. Weren't the Summer Olympic Games held in Berlin a few years ago? Everything seemed fine."

    The pilot shook his head. "Don't believe everything you see on the newsreels! I've flown on runs all over Europe, guys. Things are lookin' bleak!"

    "With the Germans looking for the 'Golden Spider', it seems that it's involved in whatever plans they have," Goodsport pointed out, "all the more reason that we need to find it first."

    Both Indiana Riggs and Short Round thought for a moment, then agreed. They all headed toward Goodsport's Ford and entered it.

    "Pack up for the trip, guys. Riggs'll fly us out in two hours."

    Two hours later, they were at the docks near Indiana Rigg's Clipper seaplane.

    "Goodsport," the pilot asked, "you got everything?"

    The private investigator nodded. "Yeah, I informed Gladys that I'll be out of the country for a bit, so she'll have the office closed until I get back. Plus, I took some of the five thousand dollars that Megara gave… it may come in handy."

    "Good thinking," the seaplane pilot conceded, "Short Round's waiting for us in the plane. He got his assistant curator to run the museum while he's gone, so it looks like we're set to go."

    Indiana Riggs helped Goodsport pack his bags in the Clipper. Then all three men were strapped in their seats as the Clipper's four engines revved up. After the pre-flight procedures, Indiana Riggs, Goodsport and Short Round were on their way to Spain.

* * * * *

    Indiana Jones' savior drove the jeep all the way to the inlet under the early morning sky. Throughout the whole trip, Indiana Jones informed Micah, James, Shaggy and Sophia how the driver came back to look for Jones and the students and knocked Webley behind the head with a wrench.

    "Aww, I was worried sick," she interjected, "you three didn't return at the allotted time, so what was I supposed to do? Sit with the plane until I wasted away?"

    The jeep finally reached the small encampment, with their seaplane just offshore.

    Shaggy nodded, holding the only unbroken jar of Pardosa Hortensis blood remaining. "Si. Since it's obvious that Aragorn isn't coming back, this is as good a plane as any to get us to Spain and the second marker to open the 'Golden Spider'."

    "And perhaps retrieve the 'Golden Spider' itself," informed Sophia Hapgood, "a few hours ago I felt it heading east."

    The group got out of the jeep. Soon everything was packed up and every one was strapped into their seat in the seaplane. Webley was tied and gagged in the back of the plane, with the two students keeping an eye on him.

    Indiana Jones turned backwards toward Shaggy. "You still haven't told me what the 'E' stood for in the 'E' mail. Is it the first letter of a Spanish word?"

    Shaggy grinned. "I'll tell you on the way to Spain."

    Jones then turned toward the female pilot who saved him earlier. "Are you sure this plane can make it all the way to Barcelona?"

    The pilot smiled. "Of course. I'll have to refuel in Rio, and then probably make another stop in the Azores. But we should be able to make it to Barcelona just fine, as long as we're not shot down by either pro-Franco or anti-Franco forces."

    Indy once again grinned his lopsided grin. His fist lightly tapped the pilot's chin. "That's my girl!"

    As the plane took off, Shaggy whispered to Micah Johnson. "This pilot of yours - she is very pretty. What is her name?"

    Micah glanced at the female pilot, then back at Shaggy. "Her name? Indy's Girl."

*************************

Indiana Jayne, we are anxiously awaiting your Chapter 13! :)

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• Correction... Goodsport 21:54:33 6/09/2000 (0)

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