Chapter 9 of Indiana Jones and the Insidious Fountain of Death

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Posted by Goodsport from adsl-216-102-199-185.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net on July 08, 2000 at 02:11:45:



Chapter 9


---by Shaggy


    His right eye twitched as he scaled the pile of rubble that was once a lively town. "Carol of the Bells" rang through his head as he reached out his hand to brush his tunic and discovered a piece of shrapnel in his forearm, right next to his gauntlet.

    All he could do is march. March like the soldier that he was. He had killed enough, he had hurt enough. He was going home. He was giving up. Again, he had failed, and again, a darker force had risen. He took assessment of what was wrong with him.

    His black tunic, ripped.

    His brown hair, bloodied.

    His hands, dirtied... Dirtied? No, they were spotless, his hands were as fair as they were when he had first come to the country he had destroyed. Destroyed with his hands. Physically, his hands were clean, but psychologically, they were caked in black mud and thick blood.

    He took his knife out of his scuffed brown boots and held it up to his arm. He shut his eyes and pursed his lips, anticipating the pain. He jammed his knife into his arm and dug the shrapnel out as best he could. His teeth grinded together as to make them sink into his unbrushed gums, and he let out a groan, but that was all.

    I don't feel pain, he thought, In fact, it tickles.

    He laughed maniacally as he twisted the last bit of what was someone's house, or a grenade, or who knows, out of his arm, with a face that could shame a sunset.

    "I feel no pain!" he yelled at the broken town holding the bodies of his dead comrades and a hundred dead Vietcong... No. Vietnamese civilians. They killed civilians. He killed civilians. "I feel no pain! You can't hurt me! By God, you can't hurt me anymore!" he screamed at the sky, and pulled the knife out, raising it in some sort of psychologically twisted expression of triumph, the blood shimmering what could have damn well be a black sun as much as an orange dawn or red dusk. He collapsed, laughing, and dropped his knife.

    He shook it out of him, he knew he couldn't go mad now. Not now, he was so close. He pushed the tunic off his body and stood naked except his boots, utility gauntlets, a green tanktop and dogtags. A cool breeze blew past him as he picked up the lower half of a nameless soldier, his other half maybe a football field away and took the man's pants, ammo and pistol.

    "Rest in peace... pieces," he said and chuckled at his cliche.

    The slightly mad soldier walked to a UV who's occupants had been killed by a sniper, pushed the 2 bodies out of the camper, and drove down a pathless road, but then stopped.

    He turned into the thick of the Vietnamese jungle.

    Abner was not going to give up again.


* * * * *


Three Days Later

    Indigo and Alex arrived in the small Vietnamese town early in the morning to find only one soul standing in front of a huge fire. The man was dark skinned and old, near death, and staring at the soil below him.

    "Haitei mi," Indigo greeted him, "Do you speak English?"

    "Yes," he responded, nodding, "I speak english very good. I learn young. What can I do?"

    "Have you seen this man?" Alex asked, holding up a picture of Shaggy, "We believe he has something that's very dear to us."

    "He one of men that kill these people," the old man replied solemnly.

    "What people? I don't see any bodies," Indigo inquired with an eyebrow raised and her arms crossed.

    The man pointed to the large fire and stood silently for a moment, holding back tears.

    "They kill whole village... Whole village... They kill family... They kill friends... Look on outskirts, we who survive put all American bodies outside what is left of our walls."

    Alex shot a sharp, worried glance at Indigo, tossed the man a coin and ran for the outskirts. They had seen rubble outside the city, but somehow, they had missed the bodies. Indigo followed sharply after him, huffing and puffing at the gate.

    When they finally got there, she abruptly stopped puffing and haunched over, asking Alex about why he's going so fast.

    He ignored the question.

    "What's this building doing outside the city?" he asked.

    "It's a Vietnamese temple, they're built outside the city because particularly old towns like these make their walls first. Protection first, God later. They probably had a sudden population increase, ran out of room, and moved the temple outside the walls," Indi fluently recited from one of her countless textbooks.

    "And the mercs took shelter when they were pushed back by something... but what? Hey..." Alex's eyes searched the remains of the temple, and pushed away some debris, revealing a crushed soldiers. He kneeled and took a look at his dog tag, muttering "Mario something-or-other..." Indigo looked, turned away, and looked again.

    "Is he...?" she asked.

    The body coughed.

    Alex was startled and fell back on his butt, Indigo jumped, her eyes widening.

    "Sonsofbitches..." the man chuckled, "Am I dead yet?"

    Alex shook his head at Mario, standing up.

    "Hey, Sarge, tell me... How bad is it? I can't feel my legs."

    Mario didn't have any legs, he had a hole in his gut staining his fatigues with sticky blood, and the right side of his face was charred.

    Alex stared at the man and shook his head. Indigo collapsed on her knees and silently cried at the sight of the man so close to death. Mario gestured for her to come to him with the arm that wasn't broken. She slowly crept over to him.

    "Come closer, little girl," Mario chuckled. She did.

    "Et tu, Brute?" he said, and smiled, clutching at her crimson dyed shirt and pulled her so her face was a life's breath from his. She missed the joke.

    "I've seen death, little girl. I've seen so much today... Take my advice, never mess with God's work. Never kill."

    Indigo nodded and pulled back, falling on her butt in the same fashion as Alex had.

    "We were wondering if you knew a friend of ours. His name is Shaggy Jones."

    Mario chuckled.

    "Shaggy? You must mean Abner. He's dead, I saw him get blown up. He was talking crazy talk about some other dimension and some dragontooth relic he had to find. But, son, there's something I want you to do. On my right side, there's a semi-automatic. I want you to send me to Hell."

    "What?!" Alex asked at the completely unforeseen question.

    "You heard me."

    Alex looked at the good half of his face again and nodded.

    He shot the man through the skull.

    Indigo vomitted.

    "I don't think I want to do this anymore, Alex," she said in a more than sick voice, "I don't think I want any part of this."

    Alex glared at Indigo silently, nostrils flared. He dropped the pistol to the floor and dust flew up as it hit. He turned on his heel and marched to their waiting jeep.

    He marched like a soldier.

    Indigo looked around and grabbed a nearby black piece of cloth. She covered Mario's body, and then stopped. It was a tunic. She reached into the tunic and extracted a collapsed bo.

    "Alex!" she yelled at his back, "Alex! Get back here! I think I found him!"


* * * * *


2 months earlier

    Indy stared at the crystal domed city like he was forbidden to enter it. The purple fog rolled across the green valley he and Logan were standing above on the sheer clift. The silvery surface had been designed for emergency entrances and exits to the city of Waston, where the air was clean and the people friendly, it was one of the last remaining cities that could be counted for keeping up with civilization. Logan strapped a harness from his stomach to Indy's back, going around his shoulders.

    "Every other city is at war with itself or its surrounding neighbors. It's a civil war all around the world," Logan said solemnly, "We have to find the dragontooth key to open the Aetherium. If we don't, more wars will break out, and more will die. The same thing might be happening on your planet, or who knows, maybe the opposite."

    Logan chuckled as he hooked the harness to the safety cable and pushed Indy off the clift. Their combined weight carried them across the valley and straight through the crystal bubble and with Indy's unsupportive "wuh whooooooooooooooooa!" they found themselves being stared at by a large part of the population of Waston, all in bright white cloaks, all angelic and innocent, as they landed on an elevated platform like it was fate. Logan made quick work of ridding himself of the harness, and Indy struggled to get it off his almost 70 year old body.

    "People of Waston, I bring you news," Logan cried to the crowd, "An Unworthy has drunk from the Fountain. It has disrupted our world and his, starting wars and bringing death. The Unworthy must be stopped, but he," Simons brought an unbemused finger in Indy's direction, "must be the one to stop it."

    The crowd chattered about an otherworldly saving them and their immediate rejection of the idea. Indiana took the moment to stand up for himself.

    He whispered to Logan, "There's only 2 things that I've learned in life. One, never question other cultures. Two, never underestimate anyone," and then yelled to the crowd with an old spark in his eye, "People of Weston, I'm Indiana Jones. I'm gonna save all your asses, and if you have a problem with it, you can tell it to my back, 'cos that's all you're gonna see when I start walkin' to find the Dragontooth. Now, then, who's gonna tell me where it is?"

    He was met with a large amound of "I will."

    Indy marched into the crowd and clapsed the shoulder of an old, dark skinned man, when something very strange happened.

    The crowd were ghosts.

    Not just any ghosts, but ghosts from Indy's past.

    Every Nazi, Communist, mercenary, cult member he had ever killed was gathered before him. He could make out Marcus Brody's face reaching out to him. All of them reached out to Indy for help, but none of them touched him.

    "Marcus?" he asked and reached out for Brody's soul. It whispered like smoke from incense through his fingers. "Marcus!"

    Indy collapsed on his knees.

    "We are your unburied, Jones," Deidre Campbell said to him. The crowd whispered it in unison after her. "We are the souls you left behind. You can't run from us forever." A thousand groans of pain and screams of death baraged Indy's mind.

    Indy shook his head at the spirits and fell to his knees, "You're not real. This is some kind of trick."

    The spirits faded back into the angelic folk, white togas and cloaked in good. They all stared at him. He was still standing next to the old, dark skinned man and took the hand of a young woman. Indy decided he'd think about what had just happened later. He escorted her back to the elevated platform to Logan. They would start the hunt for the Dragonstooth now.


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


Shaggy or Indy's Girl, we are anxiously awaiting your Chapter 10! :)





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