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"The Water Hole - SSC3"

"Twoddle!" Cried Jimmy. "I've heard my grampa tell scarier tales than that! That was terrible, Stephen!"

Stephen King started to cry. He'd worked for years on that story.

"Why don't you tell a better story then, Jimmy?" Mary Shelley yelled, defending him. Mary, in honesty, had a little crush on Stephen. He was dark, disturbed. Mary liked that in a man.

Jimmy Page stood proud. "Alright, then, I will." He wanted to prove himself to Mary, once and for all. He could be dark too, dark like Stephen. He wasn't just a guitarist.

"I call my story..." Jimmy snatched the flashlight from J Edgar's grasp, and held it to his face... "The well!" Mr Hoover chuckled.

Joe spoke up. "The well? What's so scary about a well? I don't think a well's scary."

"Be quiet Mr Pesci!" J Edgar boomed. "Let the man speak!"

Mary smiled. "So how does the story begin, Mr Page?"

Jimmy smirked. "Well... nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not on the subconscious level where savage things grow..."

"Hey!" Stephen shouted.

"What?"

"That's my story!" Stephen whined. "You can't use that! Make your own one up!"

"Ok, ok..." Jimmy started again. "Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse had signed a lease on a five-room apartment in a geometric white house on First Avenue when they received word..."

Jimmy stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, on the other side of the campfire, he noticed Ira Levin was glaring at him.

Jimmy sighed. "You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise... no no no no... Alright, alright."

He sat down and thought. He heard Mary whispering to Stephen... 'There was a windmill... no well though...'

Jimmy felt his soul enrage, just like when Robert stamped on his sandcastle that took him AGES..

"There were four of them. They went everywhere together... then one night, one of them drank too much and then he wouldn't move..."

"I'm getting really bored with this!" Joe said. "Look, you, come up with a story! It's getting late!"

Jimmy closed his eyes, took a breath.

"The finest bridge in Pesica had closed due to a storm. The rain fell hard, washing the mud away down the four steep cliff faces that surrounded Pesica itself."

"Where's Pesica?" Asked Joe.

"It doesn't matter."

"No, really, where is it?" Joe said. "I need to know, I need to know things like this, I can't make the picture, mental picture, without it."

"It's in Scotland. Alright? It's an island off the coast of Scotland."

"And who's there, sorry?" J Edgar asked.

"Four people." Mary answered for Jimmy.

"Yes, four." Jimmy smiled. Mary was so sweet. "So... er... yeah. There's these four people. Firstly, Bunghole Bob."

"Bunghole Bob?" Ira commented, in her irritatingly high and well mannered voice. Jimmy tensed.

"Yes. Bunghole Bob, Chaste Cheryl, Subtle Simon... and... er... Party Boy Philip."

"Those are the worst names I've ever heard." Mary said.

Damn.

"They had all travelled to Pesica, for the summer." Jimmy continued. "But while there, a terrible storm had enraged the outskirts of the island... and as they drove their..." Jimmy tried to think of a car.. "Desoto..."

"What's a Desoto?" Mary asked. Ira looked to Mr Hoover, who was scratching his bra line.

"It's this invention, this beautiful machine that runs off... oil, like an oil burner! With wheels, and the wheels go round and carry it forward, and people sit in it."

"Sounds imaginative." Mary said, smiling. Yes!

"Yeah, it's great." Jimmy said, smugly. "So they're going about in their desoto, and think 'hey, it's getting really wet, let's get out of Pesica' so they come to the bridge and it's blown to bits."

"Dreadful." J Edgar commented, seriously.

Jimmy coughed and tried to make his voice go higher. "Oh Bunghole Bob, whatever are we to do?... Chaste Cheryl said." Jimmy dropped his voice to an almost superhero tone. "Don't worry Chaste Cheryl, I'll get us off this island!"

Everyone was quiet. Jimmy's mind stuttered.

"So they drive their Desoto back along the dirty path they followed to reach the bridge..."

"Are they still on the island, or are they off it now?" Ira asked.

"They're still on the island, Ira." Jimmy replied. "But as they were... er... driving along the path, they noticed a... hut. This hut, that wasn't there before, like it had just appeared, right out of nowhere!"

Jimmy lowered his voice again. "Look everybody, a hut!.. said Bunghole Bob." In honesty, Jimmy had already forgotten the names of the two other characters. They'd come back to him when he needed to kill someone.

"You're going to kill off Subtle Simon and Party Boy Philip, aren't you?" Stephen questioned, smirking.

"No I'm not." Jimmy lied.

"Yes you are. You're going to kill them off and make Bunghole Bob and Chaste Cheryl have sex and fall in love or something." Stephen said. Stephen had this horrible way of always knowing he was right, it really got under Jimmy's skin.

"No, that's completely wrong. See, you won't be able to predict, at ALL, what happens."

Mary sighed and looked skywards. Jimmy coughed.

"Subtle Simon was nominated to go inside the hut. Simon was quiet, he could move in and out of places without anyone noticing him, that was his special power."

"Oh, they're superheroes now?" Stephen remarked.

"Shut up!" Jimmy yelled.

"Give the man a chance, I'm enjoying this." Joe said.

"Right. So, Simon goes into the hut... and there's just a man sitting at a desk in there, but Simon opens the door so subtly that he doesn't notice. He sits at the desk to talk to the man and almost scares him senseless."

Jimmy tried to put an old man voice on. "Youuu... you are.. from out of town... the old man said. Simon talked to the old man, explaining their predicament."

Predicament was a long word, and gave Jimmy confidence. "You must find the man who knows all..." He continued in his old man voice. "He knows all there is to know of the past, he understands all there can be seen of the present, and he knows perfectly, the entire future."

Nobody spoke. Maybe he'd caught them, at last!

"They call this man... 'The Well'."

"You can't call a man 'The Well'." Joe said. "That's ridiculous, a well is a water hole, with a stone structure..."

"Actually Joe..." Mary said, breaking in. "A well can be used as a metaphor for something with a deep understanding or knowledge... in this case, Jimmy's 'Well' makes good sense."

Jimmy smiled at Mary, who smiled back. She had such a sweet smile.

"Ok. So, Simon goes outside and tells them they need to find this guy called 'The Well'. The island isn't big, and the rain is holding off, kiinnnnda, so they decide to split up."

"Pffft!" Stephen spurted. "Yeah, right, so this monster that kills them off, one by one, what's he look like?"

Damn.

"Bit like you." Jimmy countered, and glared.

"Oh stop this, the pair of you." Mary said, sternly. "Stephen, stop making comments like that, and Jimmy, don't make fun of the way Stephen looks."

Stephen's mouth dropped, and Jimmy smirked. Stephen stopped himself from saying anything. Stupid woman, she wasn't good enough for him anyway.

"Bunghole Bob and Party Boy Philip discovered a cave in the ground, walking down it, they discovered it opened into a mine shaft, complete with little hanging lanterns and wooden supports."

Ira warmed her hands on the fire.

"Chaste Cheryl and Subtle Simon ventured deep into a forest, looking for any signs of civilisation..."

"In a forest?" Ira asked.

Jimmy ignored her. "Bob and Philip continued down the mineshaft, Philip having to duck under the beams due to his incredible height. Eventually, they found a tiny green door in the mud wall, so small that Bob had to bend down to reach the handle."

J Edgar coughed. "Sorry."

"Looks like I'll have to be going in this door by myself, Philip." Jimmy continued, in his superhero voice, then changing to a deep, dumb but friendly tone. "Okey Bob, but when you come back, can we get some wabbits for the farm?"

"I can't believe this..." Stephen said.

"He's not much of a party boy." Mr Hoover stated.

"...Party Boy Philip decided to strut his funky stuff and dance, and as Bob climbed through the tiny door, he accidently knocked himself out on a wooden beam."

Jimmy paused, and blinked. "Meanwhile... er... Chaste Cheryl and Subtle Simon had found a giant pond, and had decided... well, Simon had decided to go skinny-dipping." Jimmy stopped and frowned. "Cheryl wasn't up to it."

"Bob however, had managed to find in the room that he'd entered through that tiny little door, if we all remember..." Jimmy looked to Ira, and she nodded her cracked old face. "..and inside, Bob found... a well."

"The well?" Joe asked.

"No, A well. Like, a structure." Jimmy said. "But... as Bob threw a ten pence piece down the well for good luck..."

Jimmy stopped talking, and swayed gently, as if he was in a trance.

"Jimmy?" Mary asked...

"They say he has no fear." Jimmy said, in a relaxed voice. "He has no fear because death is of no threat to him. That his life cannot be valued, cannot be spent, cannot be thrown. He can see you."

Jimmy's gaze returned slightly, his eyes settled gently to Stephen's, who froze solid.

"In time you will understand." Jimmy said, his voice still calm and listless. "There lives mercy not inside me. There lives only pain. Pain without time, without end, without means."

"Mr Page, what on Earth are you talking about?" J Edgar asked.

"Jimmy!" Mary screamed. Blood had started to drip from his eyes.

"He can see you. He has seen what you have done."

----

The scene was terrible. Jimmy Page lay dead upon at least three famous authors, with Joe Pesci inserted quite smoothly into poor old J Edgar Hoover.

"Another campfire tradegy..." Sam said, aloud, to nobody but his own disturbed mind.

"No survivors this time sir." The rookie policeman reported. "Not a soul."

"You get out of here, Pete." Sam said to him. "You're not needed here."

"Sam... I mean, Inspector... maybe it's not my place to say... but do you think the same thing happened..."

Sam frowned. "I don't know Pete. All I know is, all these poor people start telling these stories, and as soon as they mention a well, they go beserk and end up like this."

"Why can't we warn people, sir? Can't we make some sort of announcement?"

"And who'd believe us, Pete?" Sam said, sighing, looking at the pile of dead talent. "Who'd believe us?"

Told you it was good :-P

Excellent. Must have missed this the first time around. Great ending.

Perhaps the most bizarre entry to the contest yet something that was delightfully different to read. A nice sarcastic undertone that pulled the story through with a few humourous moments and a nice parody on the different authors - although I wasn't familiar with them all. The ending did seem a little strained, perhaps because of the word limit or perhaps because you got bored. Either way it was a nice read.

Wow, that was weird. Not in a bad way, just those characters, not the kind you'd normally throw into a room together.

But I loved the way they all commented on the story as it went along, especially SK, knowing exactly what was going to happen.

Entertaining stuff.

I have no idea how you come up with this without the use of hallucinogenics

Heyeeeeeeeee

[I] Take note of the speaking Tinka, take note

I'm still trying to figure out some sort of image for "Joe Pesci inserted quite smoothly into poor old J Edgar Hoover."

That was wonderfulness indeed.

Ahhh .... that's the stuff.
Wonderful.

I gave up reading when Jimmy mentioned Bunghole Bob.