Survivors

If Luke and Holly had been open mouthed at Joe’s fall, their chins hit the floor when the Joegrilla appeared. After the Joegrilla had crashed out of the room they had stood staring at the empty room.

“He didn’t just do that .... Did he?” whispered Holly disbelievingly her eyes still on the room.

“I can’t believe it, I cannot believe it, I really can’t bloody believe it!” said Luke in a rising crescendo of volume and venom.

After a few moments of silence Holly said “Do you think we should go and find him?”

Luke looked at her “Yes, I suppose we should... And when we do find him...I think I’m going to kill him”

They turned into rats this time and quickly scampered back through the air vents. It was quicker than being a cockroach and to be honest the amount of noise they made now didn’t really matter. What was a bit of scampering in the walls compared to the sudden arrival of a ten foot gorilla in the room!

Back on the roof they changed into a couple of chimps and slipped their costumes on, there was no sign of Joe.

“I think we should go back to the outer checkpoint” said Holly. “If he’s thinking properly that’s where he will go”.

“I don’t think he’s thinking at all” snapped Luke “I don’t think he ever bloody thinks”.

“I...” Began Holly, but then she gave up. Partly because of the hostile look Luke gave her, but mainly because she didn’t have the energy to defend Joe this time.

“What?”

“Nothing, let’s go” she said, she picked up Joe’s costume and then turned into an eagle and took off.

Twenty minutes later they reached the checkpoint. They hadn’t gone straight to the checkpoint of course but had cautiously circled round looking for and signs of movement or pursuit. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, nobody and nothing was following them. When they finally landed and checked around there was still no sign of Joe.

“You don’t think he’s gone straight back do you?” asked Holly.

“No not even he wouldn’t be that stupid...I don’t know why I just said that” replied Luke. “This is Joe we’re talking about, of course he would be that stupid! Come on!”

They went to all the other checkpoints and followed all the normal rules about going to and from the base. At each and every checkpoint there was still no sign of Joe.

“You don’t think he’s been caught or killed do you?” asked Holly as they got to one more empty checkpoint. “I’m getting really worried now”.

“Hmmm” grunted Luke “It would serve him bloody right if he had. And no I don’t think he’s been killed or captured, he’s too bloody lucky for that”.

They took off again and made their way on to yet another checkpoint.

It was about an hour later that that they finally made their way back to the base. To their complete surprise they found Joe waiting for them in the tunnel.

“Where the hell have you been!” he stormed at them.

Anger was not what they had been expecting on meeting Joe again. They’d been expecting sorrow, contriteness, apologies, regret, excuses, but not anger. It was so surprising that it knocked them out of their stride, so much so that Luke didn’t get a chance to get a rant in before Joe said “We are in a whole river full of shit!”.