Chapter 16: Keep Me from the Gallows Pole

irst Ape clutched the doorknob and turned it slowly. He was surprized that it wasn’t locked and he quickly stepped inside, shutting the door behind him as quietly as he could. The room he found himself in was a mess. Books and loose papers covered the abundant bookshelves and every possible table was covered with various stages of scientific experiments, most distinctly the massive desk in the middle of the room on which stood beakers and burners, liquids and powders, dissected frogs and mice. At the back of the room was a spiral staircase leading to a second level, the steps crowded with so many leather-bound books that it seemed almost impassable.

And above all this, slightly swaying from the breeze produced by the wheezing of an oscillating fan, was the cage.

First Ape, his face twisted in sympathy and displaying a window into his breaking heart, cleared his throat.

“Ook? Iks athak yook?” he whispered. “Teeek me you are alright, dad. Dad?”

The heavy-set monkey in the cage stirred. His hair was long and orange-hued, yet matted in places where blood had dried. Stan looked up, his eyes blood-shot, his cheeks bruised and his lips cracked. Yet when he spoke, his voice still contained the deepness of common sense.

“Son?”

Stan grabbed the bars and for the first time in a long time, energy had returned to his battered body.

“Son! What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

First Ape looked around frantically. He hopped up on the desk to reach the cage, his fingertips just able to touch the base.

“Dad! What happened to you?”

“Apey, get out. You’re putting us both in great danger.”

“I won’t leave without you.”

First Ape swung his feet up and now every limb, save for his tail, was grasping onto the bottom of the cage. He let go with his hands and flung himself wth his feet up the other side of the hanging prison, landing on its top. From here First Ape could reach the metal door, on which a padlock was securely fashioned. From a furry pocket First Ape procured the two iron pins that most everyone in his line of work had on them. He begun to pick the lock.

“BOOOOOM!!”

The building shook violently.

The fiery fragments of a massive boulder shreded everything that was outside on the street and continued to roll down toward the market.

“It’s the Yellow Army.” said Stan. “Hurry, son!”

The tile to which the cage was attached, high up on the ceiling, shifted. Both pins that First Ape was holding bounced out of his hands. Swiping at them, First Ape lost his balance and tumbled over the side. His tail found a bar to wrap around and First Ape jerked out of his fall. His momentum swung his head into the leaning cage, on which he was now hanging upside. He watched a pin clank on the cobble-stone floor.

“Here!”

Stan extended his arm and open his hand.

“Still got some reflexes for an old man. ”

First Ape smiled. He grabbed the other pin from his father’s hand and lifted himself by his tail. He inserted the pin into the lock.

BOOM!

Another fireball, this time smashing into the buildings roof. The ceiling tile of and around the cage collapsed. The metal bars smashed onto the floor. When the dust, moments later, settled, the cage lay shattered. Stan and First Ape coughed, each shaken up, both alive.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said First Ape.

“Sprout’s in danger.”

“Sprout? How do you know Spr–”

BOOM-VRAAAAP!

But this time it wasn’t from the Yellow Army. This was from a shock wave, its origin coming from the top of the stairs.

Dad and son staggered to their feet once again. They turned around. Standing on the spiral staircase was a man of small stature, dressed in a green sport coat and a black bowler hat. He held a glowing, sparkling gadget in his hand.

Stan growled.

“That’s him,” whispered Stan. “Son, get out of here while you can. This shouldn’t concern you.”

“Oh, but it does!” said the man on the staircase.

He stepped down and stopped behind the desk, looking up at the where the cage had been when he had left the room earlier in the day.

“This is working out perfectly. First, I discover that Stan is employed by Stormcloud. Then I discover that his son, my enemy, just happened to be on his way here to help rescue, what?…a girl? Please. So how long has it been, First Ape? You know, I still have the knife that killed your pathetic pet rhinoceros…right…here.”

“Joey Shoeshine!”

Joey flung off his green coat and black bowler hat. He ran his fingers through his mop of red hair as he laughed.

“I recorded the sounds of your father being tortured. I figured that would get your attention.”

“Atck!!”

“No need to get nasty, First Ape. I’m surprised to hear something so foul come out of your mouth.

“Ook ack eek ook?!”

“Remarkably easy,” said Joey. “That is, after years and years of research and development, testing on all manners of non-living and living things, with varying degrees of success. But nothing came close to my discovery in Stormcloud’s fortress. Without your father’s stupidity, I wouldn’t have stumbled upon the only gadget capable of alerting me to your impending arrival.”

Joey Shoeshine opened the leather bag that was slung over his shoulder. In slow, dramatic fashion and with a grin on his face that would make even his mother want to slap him, Joey showed the father and son monkeys the one thing no one could have possibly guessed that he had. Its flat, shiny surface glittered as Joey’s attention was drawn into it.

“Why do you think the Yellow Army is attacking right now?” asked Joey. “Because they want…..the Codex.”

“Ooka ck eeok!”

“Wrong! They won’t have a clue it’s here and you know why? Because they are going to think that the Codex is destroyed! Split in two. But it wasn’t. That was the duplicate I made. I had access to the keep, thanks to your old man. Stan, Stan, Stan….you never did keep your access cards close to your chest, did you?”

“Atck!!”

“How..original. But wait First Ape, you haven’t heard the best part. I’ve learned from this rather innocuous piece of metal that your friends, your pals…are dead.”

Joey Shoeshine giggled in a way to make Stan grind his teeth.

“Dead…any moment now. Their heads…lopped….off.”

First Ape quickly turned toward the door. His father grabbed him by the arm.

“He’s bluffing,” said Stan.

First Ape looked at him and considered the comment.

“Maybe. But I need to fin–”

BA-BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!

Dust and debris filled the room, knocking all three to the ground. The building across the street had collapsed, its rubble blocking the door and the large hole in the wall that had just previously been made.

First Ape was trapped. He would have to deal with his long-time nemesis right now, whether he liked it or not.

Blackjack and Ribley would get no help from him.

The view from the Crow’s Nest was, for anyone witnessing it, stunning. A brilliant blue sky with puffy, white clouds, trawlers chugging out to their traps while others remained behind resting lazily in port, the snow-capped mountains far off in the distance to the west.

But what Yellow D was most interested in, and what he knew what was happening, was the black storm clouds far to the north, moving onto shore at just about the same location where the Yellow Army was amassing. And, judging by the time, that amassing was just moments away from a full-fledge attack.

And when a new day would dawn, Stormgate would be rubble and Eyeball would be in possession of the Codex. Then, as planned, Eyeball would double-cross him and bring the Codex to Goldie.

Exactly what Yellow D wanted.

Through the Codex he would be able to uncover the secrets of his closest rival and use those secrets to destroy her.

It was all so perfect.

Yellow D walked over to the wet bar and poured himself a little something. The large oak doors to the office opened. He turned to see his newest assistant walking her way to the other side of his desk. She was dressed in a black skirt suit, attractive yet conservative, her legs from the knees down giving a glimpse of her toned body; her blonde hair was tied in a tight pony-tail, and her olive eyes sparkled through her black-rimmed glasses. She smiled coyly and opened the yellow folder that she carried.

“Anythng coming from a mouth like yours must be good,” said Yellow D as he sat in his leather chair and sipped his cocktail.

“My lord,” said the assistant, “I do have news and, I regret, it might not be that good.”

“Pish-posh, minx.”

“It’s from Stormgate. The Blackheads you sent out have been terminated.”

Yellow D looked down in his glass. The ice cubes slowly swirled within the liquid until they clashed together. He threw back his drink and slammed the empty tumbler on his desk, startling the assistant. She placed the folder next to him, grabbed his glass and brought it to the bar. She uncorked the rum, poured a heavy hand, dropped in a small spoonful of sugar, plopped in two ice cubes and swirled it with her finger. She placed the drink in front of Yellow D and, without him noticing, quickly and quietly sucked on her own digit.

“How could they be so stupid?!” shouted Yellow D.

He opened the folder and read the little details it contained.

“What? They were found floating in the canal? With porkchop bones in their pockets? And they didn’t even make it to Stormgate?!”

Yellow D pressed a button on his desk. His voice did not lower.

“Get me Admiral Buoy!”

Yellow D took a gulp of his drink. He turned the glass in his hand and inspected it.

“Not bad, minx. Just the way I like it.”

The assistant knelt on the floor in front of Yellow D’s chair.

She opened his legs.

Yellow D leaned back.

“Yeah….just the way I like it.”

Everything was moving in slow-motion for Blackjack. The hangman seemed to take his time walking up to the gallows, his heavy boots pausing on each step.

Funny how we aren’t blindfolded, thought Blackjack.

He looked over to Ribley, who was eating something.

“How are you eating right now?!” screamed Blackjack.

The fireballs continued to rain down. There was no longer a crowd to watch the execution as all the citizens of Stormgate who earlier were thoroughly excited to watch a public death that they considered sport were now concerned with their own survival. As they should be.

“I had some turkey on the inside of my shirt,” said Ribley, a piece of it falling onto his shoe. “See?” Using his chin, Ribley flipped back his lapel to reveal a pocket he had sewn in.

“Is there anything else other than food in there?! You know, like something useful?!”

“Useful?”

“Something to get us out of this mess?!”

The hangman was just about to reach the lever. Only moments now until the floor beneath the Lime Juice Boys opened up and they dropped to their death.

Ribley flipped his other lapel on his shirt.

“Well, look at that!”

“What is it?’ asked Blackjack. “A knife? Explosives? Something to get us out of here?”

Ribley smothered his face in his shirt. When he pulled back, a large apple was in his teeth.

Hope escaped Blackjack. His shoulders dropped.

This was it, the end.

Before he shut his eyes, Blackjack saw the hangman grab the lever. He waited. He heard a sword. The strain on his neck slacked. When he opened his eyes he watched the hangman stepped toward Ribley and with his sword cut the noose.

The Lime Juice Boys stood in shock.

The apple fell at Ribley’s feet.

“Thank you,” said Blackjack removing the rope from his neck and rubbing his skin. “How can we repay you?”

“Help me” said the hangman in a deep voice that sounded forced.

“Help you with what?” asked Ribley.

“Help me stick it to Yellow D.” The hangman removed his hood to reveal a face purposefully caked in mud and hair in a tightly wound bun.

“I want the Codex,” said Goldie. “And I wasn’t satisfied with sending just anybody out to get it.”

Blackjack and Ribley shook the fog that confused their minds.

“But Goldie,” said Ribley, “the Codex is broken.”

“What?”

“He’s right, Goldie. Split in half right in front of us.”

“Where?”

“In the throne room,” said Blackjack. “It’s useless now.”

Goldie jumped off the gallows. She pushed a screaming woman to the ground. A surge of electricity smashed into one of the gallow’s support beams.

The Yellow Army had entered the city.

“It’s no good!” shouted Blackjack.

“I have to see it. It’s just the sort of thing Yellow D would plan, to make everyone think it’s destroyed!”

“Dammit!” said Blackjack. “Come on, Ribs! The castle might be the safest place right now.”