My untitled novel.

Thomas, how are things going? We haven’t spoken for a while,’ she said.
‘And you forget to call me Tommo. Only my mother call me Thomas when I been bad.’ Thomas was as bright and cheerful as she remembered. ‘I am getting too much sun though Serah, it is very hot this summer. What is going on there? Thought you forgotten us.’
‘I couldn’t forget you that easily Tommo,’ she replied with a smile. ‘You aren’t going to have any time for the sun soon though. It’s going to get very busy.’
‘I like busy. Too much sun makes my head hurt anyway.’
They went through all the details of the trip. Thomas was eager to please his new employers as he had had too many jobs that hadn’t lasted long. He made notes of exactly what he was told.
‘Mr Eddington is very particular on the security set up. He will want to go through every detail with you before we leave and again when he gets there.’
‘Ahh Serah. I will make sure everything taken care of for you.’
‘How are the team there? The first batch didn’t seem to last very long.’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know where they gone. People don’t seem to want to do working; they just stay at home so we get new people.’
Serah knew that Eddington would not be comfortable with a high turnover of employees. He wanted to know he could trust whoever he had to be involved with, especially in something as important to the company as this.
‘Ok Tommo,’ she said. ‘Let me know tomorrow if you have got the truck. The shipment will arrive in Mombasa the beginning of next and we need to make sure Mr Eddington and his team can check it before you go and pick it up.’
‘Yes Serah. It will all be ready.’
‘Great, speak to you soon.’

Chapter 4

After having spendt the morning in the bright African sun, the back of the van seemed pitch black. They had been travelling for what seemed like a few hours. Marshall initially tried to recount the twists and turns for what he expected to be a short journey however he soon lost track of both where they could be and how long it had been since the attack. Eddington’s car was a long way away by now. Both he and McKnight had spent most of the journey in silence, each playing out what they expected to happen next in their head. It wasn’t much longer before they found out.
The car made a sharp turn on to a very uneven road. McKnight had begun to fall asleep and had come around just before sliding off of his seat and hitting the back door of the van.
‘You ok?’ asked Marshall. Clearly McKnight was not okay but he couldn’t think of what else to say.
‘Yeah, I’m great,’ he replied in a sarcastic tone.
‘We’ve been going for a while; this thing can’t have much petrol left to go any further.’
‘I wonder if Mike and the others got brought here too.’ McKnight’s version of what happened had evidently been very different to Marshall’s thoughts.
‘Maybe, might just be us though. Those tyre marks looked like they got away in a hurry.’
‘Well, they picked the wrong two people to take hostage. Nobody will pay anything to get us back.’
Although he was trying to stay as upbeat as he could, Marshall had come to the same conclusion on that part.
‘You never know,’ he said. ‘They might be missing us already.’
‘Missing you?’ McKnight replied with a laugh.
The short conversation had given them both a brief moment away from their own thoughts. Just as they had started to relax, the van stopped. Marshall took a deep breath as they heard people getting out of the front and walking away chatting. As they did, the high pitched squeak of brakes signalled that a second vehicle pulled up behind them. Both men tried to listen to the conversation outside. They could only hear one, very familiar voice.
‘You take them out the back yeah... No, you no do anything to them today yeah; I need them to be good for tomorrow… Get them food and water and make sure they watched all night yeah.’

This voice was the same man that had spoken to them earlier in the day by the side of the road that was now giving orders. Clearly he was of importance in the group. The conversation had ended and now footsteps could be heard coming towards the van. As the door slid open, both men were temporarily blinded by the light. To their surprise, the light was actually from two torches being pointed at them. The sun had set and they were well in to the evening.
They were ushered out of the van by a group of six men, two carrying the torches and the other four escorting with various rifles. Each of them was carrying something different, from a western M-16 to a Russian Ak47. Marshall had seen this before during his time in the army. Local militia and gangs tended to use their own weapons, either bought or stolen on the street. Kenya had seen its fair share of fighting in the past and weapons were not hard to obtain at a reasonable price. As they moved, they were led along a narrow path cut in to some tress and bushes that lined the road. This carried on for about a minute or two at which point they came to a small clearing in which sat five or six small buildings. All were made of various pieces of corrugated metal, wooden boards and large pieces of material that looked like the remnants of white Red Cross tents. One larger building stood out from the rest as not only did it seem better built, but it also seemed to have electricity. They walked through to the far side of the clearing where a small, wooden shed like building stood. One of the men with a torch opened the door and pointed inside.
‘You go in here,’ he said. ‘We bring you food later.’
McKnight stepped inside without a thought. Marshall, however, was starting to get impatient.
‘Can I speak to whoever is in charge here please,’ said Marshall. ‘I’m sure he has some questions for us and I have a few for him.’
‘You go inside now,’ the man replied.
‘Can you please ask whoever is in charge to come and talk to me?’ This time his tone was a little more forceful, which did not bode well with the rest of the group. A younger man behind raised his weapon.
‘You do what he says or you die. I kill many Englishman you know,’ he said.
‘Go inside now,’ said the man with the torch. ‘There will be talking tomorrow.’
Marshall knew the men had been told earlier not to hurt either of them, however this younger man seemed not to need to much to get him going and another fight was not top of tonight’s agenda.
‘Fine,’ he said as he stepped inside. He looked at McKnight as he stepped in who plainly did not approve of rattling any cages for now.

The door was closed and tied shut with a thick piece of rope. Marshall could see through various gaps in the walls and watched four of the men walk back towards the centre of the clearing. The remaining two were left to keep and eye on the frail shed and would take shifts with various other guards during the night. Some small plates of unidentifiable food and some water were brought to them not long after. Both men had not eaten since much earlier that morning and were glad of whatever it was they were given.
‘How you doing?’ Marshall asked.
‘I’ve had better days Danny,’ he said.
‘We need to get some sleep. I don’t know what they are after, but if it is some kind of information I would bet they will be back here early.’
‘Are we going to take it in turns or something?’ said McKnight. He had been feeling helpless about the whole situation since they saw the car coming towards them back on the road and wasn’t sure of the correct procedure for being taken hostage.
‘No, there’s not too much we can prepare for even if we know they are coming. I’m guessing that there are more than the ten guys we have seen so far.’
McKnight felt a little stupid for asking the question and ever more stupid that he wanted to ask where ten guys were that Marshall had seen. To his knowledge there were the six that had led them to the shed plus the man that was directing it all. He didn’t ask.
‘Ok, Ill take this side then’ he said as he lay down. Several times he became convinced that some kind of African insect or animal was about to bear down on him. Marshall seemed to have fallen straight to sleep without a problem. Maybe he was used to this kind of thing or had been trained to deal with it. In fact it was only twenty minutes before McKnight himself was asleep.

When he woke up Marshall was already sitting at the back of the shed looking through some of the cracks. It was daylight again.
‘I thought they were gonna come and get us early today?’ he said.
‘I guess they either didn’t wanna talk to you or thought you needed your beauty sleep,’ Marshall replied.
‘So what’s going on out there?’
‘Not much. The guards changed a few time in the night and this morning a truck full of guys came in. There must be about thirty people here.’
McKnight felt disheartened again. It looks like they were in the middle of someone’s gang stronghold and there was probably no way out. Marshall, however, seemed quite optimistic.
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked McKnight, again looking for some kind of direction or encouragement. Marshall took a look around, he pointed towards where the two guards outside were standing. He then point to the back of the shed and made a gesture intending to show that the guards could not see the back side from where they were standing. McKnight shrugged his shoulders. Marshall came closer so that he would not be heard by the guards outside
‘They can’t see round the back from where they are standing,’ he whispered. McKnight was still confused as he didn’t understand what help that fact might be. As Marshall moved again to the back of the room, he picked up a rusty nail from on the floor and pointed to a small hole in the wooden plank. The nail had not been hammered in particularly well and had been pulled out relatively easily. This had then left the plank held in by another nail higher up meaning it could now be moved to the side. It would not leave much room for them to squeeze through but it was now an option. How they would then escape the camp and find out where exactly they were was still a mystery. Marshall pushed the nail back in and came closer again.
‘We need to figure a bit more out about where we are,’ he said quietly. ‘We also need something to distract those guards because squeezing out of there isn’t going to be very stealth. There is a tree line about twenty feet behind us that I think we could make it to in the dark.’
McKnight was impressed. While he had been panicking about whether they were going to be tortured or killed, Marshall had been planning exactly how they would be able to avoid that happening. The reassurance that Marshall seemed to know what he was doing and the fact he seemed very calm changed his outlook on the whole state of affairs.

‘Nice work Danny,’ he said. ‘Did you sort us any breakfast too?’
‘Maybe we should send for room service,’ he replied. ‘It’s about time we had that chat with the boss.’
With that he went over to the door and gave it a bang.
‘Hey out there,’ he shouted. ‘You got any water or some food?’
There was no reply. McKnight looked through one of the cracks and could see the guards. Neither of them was moving.
‘Hey,’ Marshall said again. ‘We were told there would be some talking today. Could you go and get the boss?’
This time they began to get shifty and were looking at each other to see who would react first. McKnight looked at Marshall and suggested he try one more time, he could see they did not know what they were supposed to do.
‘Could you at least let me go to the bathroom, it’s been nearly a whole day since I last went.’
This time there was a reply.
‘You be quiet in there,’ said one of the guards. ‘You stay in there until someone wants to talk to you.’
This seemed like an adequate reply to his partner, that was until Marshall continued.
‘I can’t go in front of my friend here. Come on, you will probably end up clearing it up if I did.’
The guard had obviously now had enough and was about to launch into a tirade of abuse, however was stopped by the approach of two other men.
‘Hey Danny, it’s the guy from the car.’
Marshall found himself a suitable place to see outside and looked towards the men. It was indeed the man that had initially spoken to them on the road the previous day. He was short with short black hair and was today dressed in dark green trousers, an untucked, khaki shirt and a pair of dirty white trainers. He was accompanied by another man, slightly taller with glasses. He was also dressed in a shirt and trousers but had a pair of leather shoes on. Marshall guessed that this second man was someone in authority, at least in comparison to everyone they had already met.
‘Boss,’ said the guard that had been speaking. ‘The Englishmen were shouting and I have told them to keep quiet until you were here.’

The guard was obviously still flustered from the small exchange and was trying to justify why he had been shouting back when the other men were approaching. The ‘boss’ he was talking to was the man from the road. The boss smiled and walked over to the shed.
‘Forgive him yeah,’ he said. ‘He has not been with us for long and is very young. The young do not half much patience.’
‘Who is ‘us’ exactly?’ asked Marshall.
‘We just a small group here to defend our land.’
‘Well I’m guessing you are not part of the government. Who do you defend from exactly?’
‘Those matters not concerning you yeah,’ said the man. Evidently the old did not have much patience either. ‘You come with us and we talk about how you can help us and help yourselves yeah.’
As he spoke, one of the guards untied and opened to door. Marshall and McKnight both stepped outside. The man with the glasses was standing in the background observing and had as yet not spoken.
‘You follow them,’ said the guard. The two men that had approached turned around and headed back up towards the main building. Marshall and McKnight followed them with the guards close behind.
In the light of day the clearing looked a very different place. When they had first walked through, the few lights around made it look small and quiet; however it was now alive with activity. In between the main building and their shed, a dirt track ran in to the clearing. A variety of vehicles, from flatbed trucks to ‘technicals’ and small van were parked up. In all, about fifteen vehicles were by the road. The smaller, shanty town type buildings they had seen the night before were a mix of storage rooms and sleeping areas. As they got closer to the main building, the hum of a generator could be heard. The building itself looked purpose built a long time before although not for the reason that it was now being used. They were led inside and through a small corridor. Rooms on both sides contained various pieces of equipment, maps and documentation with men gathered round discussing things in their own language. They were taken to a room towards the back that had a table and four chairs. On the table was a small selection of stale bread and fruit as well as a couple of glasses of water. Marshall and McKnight were ushered to seats on the far side of the room and the two men sat opposite. The guards stood at the back of the room.
‘We got off to a bad start yesterday yeah,’ said the man from the car. ‘My name is Thomas.’
With a lot of Christian missions visiting Kenya during and following British colonisation, lots of people were given Christian names. It was therefore not a surprise to hear of a lot of people called Thomas or Paul.
‘Please, have something to eat,’ said Thomas. ‘You must be hungry yeah?’
McKnight had decided during their walk across the field that he would try and be as defiant as he could that day. He had convinced himself they would soon be escaping and would cause his captors as much trouble as they had caused him.
‘Eat something,’ said Marshall as he reached for some of the food. ‘We need to keep our strength up.’

McKnight felt stupid again. It seemed to him that his brain abandoned common sense at every opportunity. After a bite of the stale bread, he realised how hungry he actually was and began to dig in. They were given some time to get their fill before Thomas continued.
‘So, you Englishmen work for big corporation,’ he said in his thick African accent. Marshall was not sure if this was a question or if he was stating a fact he already knew. After a brief pause Thomas carried on.
‘You are selling guns to people, making lots of money yeah?’
‘Guns?’ said Marshall, his attempt to act ignorant was more in search of some answers of his own.
‘Yes, in the truck, lots of guns and things.’ Marshall’s suspicions about the truck were correct, now he wanted to find out about Eddington and his car.
‘So you tried to kill us all to get them? You picked the wrong two to leave alive as hostages though.’
‘Really,’ said Thomas with a laugh. ‘Truly, you were not meant to be alive still, but since the two of you are, we would want to make use of you. Your company will pay us for you.’
‘You would have been better with one of the other cars,’ said Marshall, still trying to probe for information.
‘We have done what we were told to or we not get what we wanted. Now we have what we want, we can use you too yeah.’
Both Marshall and McKnight realised now that this was not a lucky ambush but was something that had been planned. These men knew that they would be traveling and there had been specific instructions about what they were to do. The plan had not quite gone according to instruction in that they were both still alive.
‘So you only left us alive,’ said McKnight picking up on what Marshall was trying to achieve. ‘Like he said, we were really the wrong ones.’
‘You were the only ones alive that were not supposed to be…’ Thomas was cut short by the man in the glasses next to him. Although he did not say anything, he gave Thomas a long look which was his only real contribution to the whole conversation.
‘Not supposed to be. So you were supposed to leave some of us alive?’ said Marshall.
Thomas’ persona had now completely changed as he realised he had maybe been a little too free with information. He now became very direct and his soft tone had changed.
‘You will both record a message which we will send to your company yeah. We will prove you are alive and they will pay us to do whatever it is they want with you.’
‘Thomas, they won’t pay any ransom for us,’ said Marshall. Although he hoped someone back home would do anything they could to get them back, the reality was the company could not afford to pay much, especially with the deal they had come to Africa for now in pieces.
‘They will pay. They will have no choice but to pay. We will record your messages later on today when the equipment gets here.’
Thomas and the man in glasses both stood up and went to walk out. As he got to the door, Thomas turned round.
‘Do not make this hard for yourselves. I do not yet know what they will ask us to do in return for payment, but you may yet still go home.’
With that he turned round and left the room. The guards led them out of the room and back down to their shed. As they walked, both men were trying to make sense of what Thomas had said. He had seemed very sure that the company would pay something when they learned of the situation. He had also let on that they had been given specific instructions to let at least some of the team go, or at least keep them alive. With his car an obvious target, the second car being totally destroyed and the evidence left by the truck and the lead Humvee, it seemed that it was Eddington’s car that had been let go.
During the rest of the day they were treated relatively well. Food and water was brought, they were allowed toilet breaks without incident and were allowed a brief time outside of the shed to stretch their legs. They were still worth something to their captors and were treated as such. After a day of doing nothing, Marshall was beginning to get restless. He knew that if the company refused to pay, they would probably not be let go. He kept an eye on the guard movements and the camp for the rest of the night.

great lots more, I will read it tonight.

Norc when you have time try reading Haddon Hall, I like feedback too, just dont kill it or I will cry.

Mrs Figg wrote:great lots more, I will read it tonight.

Norc when you have time try reading Haddon Hall, I like feedback too, just dont kill it or I will cry.

That reminds me of one of my favourite ever lines (I say it nearly every day): BE HONEST WITH ME (JUST DON'T HURT MY FEELINGS)

yes thats true, I think people like honesty, but they dont like all negative things, its discouraging. I think critisism is fine as long as you include some good things too. I remember when I was at school, I loved drawing and painting, and one day I painted a tree in a storm, I but all my energy into it, I thought it was the best thing I ever did, I loved it so much, but when I asked the teacher what she thought, she said it was messy, it was supposed to be messy, it was a storm. I never painted again.

shitty teatcher.

constructive critisism in a sandwitch.

Something nice
something nice, but which you can improve
something nice


and yes, when I have time, I'll dive into Haddon Hall. I have a feeling I might like it ^^

I dont think she meant to be shitty, I dont think she realized how deeply I felt the blow, and it was a blow, a part of me shrivelled up and died, and I never got it back, not fully, even now after all these years I still feel it. I once had acupuncture for an unrelated illness and the acupuncturist said I had all this creative energy blocked up like a cork in a bottle, I thought she was talking hippy nonsense, and then one day weird shit started to happen. I started painting, not my wild trees but just copying icons using egg tempera, it felt good. Never let someones casual comment destroy your confidence, it hurts, but someone else may love what you do, and if you enjoy what you have created and it gives you pleasure, I say stuff the lot of em.

wise words! it's funny how after thousands of praises and goodwishings and all, one sentence can destroy it all and that is what sticks..
but hey, you teatcher didn't know what he/she was talking about, obviously, no picture is "messy", art is a feeling and whether you can express it and get it out in some way, either way, it's good. No matter what you do. Music, comics, paintings or sculpturing. If you wanted your drawign/painting to express the caos and mess a storm makes, then your teatcher getting that feeling, it was a good painting. I bet the teatcher didn't like storms, and when she saw the tree he/she felt the storm and therefore didn't like the picture

Basically she was a maths teacher who was forced to take the art class for a while, she didnt understand that chaos can be just as worthwhile as order. But I was only 14, how the heck was I supposed to know all that?

well, math teathers like everything to go by rules and be in order and nothing .. abnormal, if you know what I mean. I hope you've put it behind you, though, cause it's hard to live with something like that, even if it seems like such a small thing. I both loved and hated art classes. I loved it because I love to draw and be creative and make things. I hated it because everyone els in my class got super depressed and refused to sit next to me. of envy, I guess, so I felt bad because I was good at it. of course, people would say nice things, but that feeling I got when someone refused to draw, refuse to show me what they draw or say that what they made sucked, I hated it. I felt bad.. although, I never jugded them or their abilities. I've been drawing all my life and never looked at it as anything different than something fun to do when I'm bored, so that someone should feel so differently about it was strange to me. well, anyway, that was at school. I've never taken any other art classes.. maybe it's different if you have a class with people that actually have a genuine interest in art

yes if you went to art college or university you would be surrounded by fellow art lovers, you can bounce ideas around and be enthusiastic and free again. school can be a difficult for artists, there is jealousy and incomprehension and rivalry and piss taking from those who feel threatened, at college it becomes fun again. Its hard to get a job after art courses as they are not engineering or something sensible but at least you enjoy your time at college/Uni.

sorry Author Unknown I didnt mean to talk over your thread, I love your story please continue.

I was thinking of doing something like that in the future, though, as you said, it's hard to get a job. I'm currently working on a broad education so that whatever I decide I can do it but if I can have some fun along the way, then hell yeah

yeah, sorry Anon for highjacking your story. Keep on

I did Art History at University, it was amazing, coming from a small town, for the first time in my life I met people who truly got excited by art like I did, it made me come alive inside my head.

art history is really interesting, because it has been with us since, well, since the stone age, and it just can tell so much about a society and it's so closely knitted into music history and different eras in the history. It's really interesting and facinating

Art is for lazy layabouts in my opinion. If I had my way Poet's, Painters, Sculpters, Dancers, Musicians and the like would be rounded up and retrained in something more useful to progress of hobanity.

You're not talking about my song, or Petty's video of my song, are you, Odo?

Poor anonymous has had his/her thread properly hyjacked!! Read through the few chapters that are there so far and liking it. I hope you don't leave us hanging later on with the bits you havent finished yet!!

Typical Forumshire- when people read it as time allows they will post on topic- in the meantime pointless banter keeps the thread active and on peoples radar until the next instalments (of which I hope there are more- I will reserve guessing who the author is for the moment, but looking forward to more).

yes me too. its intriguing and i want to know what hapens next, if the kidnapping was planned who planned it, also I cant figure out who the author is still. Maybe its the Wobbit? tell me tell me