Not long after they arrived in London, an idea struck Rick. He wanted to show Maria a good time, go on a real date. Now Rick still thinks big, I mean thats what he does. Knowing that everyone needed to get jump certified ( that is they had to make six parachute jumps ) before two weeks, he scheduled a special drop for the last free fall jump they needed. He also planned a date with Maria, a big weekend on the town at the same time. Barett was in on the gig, he had meet a hot nurse over at the hospital, who was a real adrenaline junkie and liked jumping from planes. The game plan was a multi-level scam on the girls, First they would all schedule dates for thursday night, as friday was a holiday and they could be off for three days. Not due back till roll call and pt monday morning they figured this was their best chance. Rick had hacked the computer and put them in for a last minute drop on thursday afternoon.( emergency schedule, had to go) Then he planned out some hotels and the like ahead of time in the drop zone. Let the girls go shopping for some clothes, eat some good food and make their way back to base by monday morning, easy, simple, what could go wrong ?
Thursday afternoon they meet on the tarmack, Rick and Barett have packed extra bags, just in case. The girls are totally ticked off, knowing that this jump messes up the dates. Barett's left a UNODIR message for CO captain Joe and let Dave and Utah know their plans. As they load on to the plane Spanky comes rolling up and jumps in the plane, " hey guys glad I could catch this last plane, I totally needed this jump" as the plane starts to taxi down the runway.
Dang thinks Barett, like we need a third leg on this double date. He looks at Rick then back to Spanky. What does Rick do ? What did Rick pack in his SMALL bag ?
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Twins are Double Trouble
The morning's storm had subsided. The once threatening clouds had lost their previous grey and now floated majestic and giant in the pale blue sky. Barett Coontail breathed in the smells of recent Washington rain. As he drove along the gentle curve, the antennae of his 4x4 rattled and swayed. Barett let a rare chuckle slip. Here he was in a Sheriff's truck. The thing was, who knew the job of Sheriff would be so quiet?
His call of the day? A loose dog. Child's play. As he rounded the curve he let the trees behind. He came upon a row of houses; wide, one story buildings. He slowed down and kept his eyes peeled for anything furry and on four legs. In his search he noticed something out of the ordinary, an open door. Barett stopped. As he set to exit the vehicle, he saw and oddly familiar sight. Within the open door was a glimmer like water vapor. In previous experience, such a vision preceded the rolling of heads. However, this was different. The glimmer was smaller, less smooth, and appeared to be carrying a 20" television. Unsnapping his hip holster, Barett eased himself out the driver's side door, keeping the vehicle between him and this unexpected perp.
So, what's next?
Friday, June 6, 2008
Coontail Myster
Gray heavy rain clouds tumbled in the late afternoon sky out over the ocean. The clouds caused the sunlight to stream in at odd angles, turning the air above the tree tops to a shade of yellow. The atmosphere and lack of previous of humidity had been unusual for this winter. But now with the giant storm just off the coast and the air sizzling with the coming change there was general feeling of gloomy excitement. This was going to be a big one. The moister was coming to the forest town like an angry wife comes barreling full-bore angry at a second-rate, useless husband. This was going to be a storm most had planned to avoid by being indoors.
But the storm was the last thing on everyone’s mind. People stood around stunned at what they were seeing. Traffic, if one could call a bus and twelve cars traffic, was stopped in the middle of the road in every which direction. Truth was anyone could easily go around if they wanted but morbid fascination kept them there. The entire population kids from the local school who were coming home from school in the bus were moving about everywhere. Some sat on the side of the street crying while other ran willy-nilly around in confusion, excitement and shock. The fire Chief, a large fat man who should have retired 10 years ago, who had just arrived, stared with his mouth half open. Some by-standing idiot asked him if he thought the girl was still alive.
Henry, the bus driver and someone else who should have retired a long time ago, was in a state of denial. He blabbered on continually to anyone who would listen that the girl hadn’t been there. He hadn’t even seen anyone standing anywhere by the street, let alone in the street. You just don’t miss seeing people in a small town like you do in a large city.
The familiar blare of the siren echoed in the distance down highway 101, followed shortly by the red strobe lights of the sheriff’s truck joining the kaleidoscope of flashing colors of the fire truck. Towering pines of dark green swayed in the wind as people turned to watch.
The green vintage `63 Dodge truck rumbled to a stop and two figures jumped out. Scary and unexpected as this event was, the town people were in an excited, almost gleeful state. Shop owners had walked out with their shoppers to view the carnage like it was a parade on Fourth of July. Nothing ever happened here in the quiet little town of Neilton, population 634, Washington, just south of Lake Quinault.
The sheriff followed by his companion, walked passed the hundreds of questions thrown at them and walked over to the fat fire Chief who had removed his helmet and was scratching his thin mousy brown hair.
“Fred, what do we got?”
“Sheriff. Miss.” The chief said to the two while he continued to stare bewildered at the two vehicles in the wreck. “I ain’t never seen nothing like this before.”
“Where is the body?” the sheriff asked. His companion moved past him up to the bus and car.
“It’s still sandwiched in there. We was waiting for you and Doc Ronald to show up.”
“You are doing a fine job Fred.”
“Thank ya sheriff. No one knows who da girl is or where she come frum. Henry swears this side of his mutd`rs left fist he never saw the girl. She was just there. Kind`a like she just popped into existence, all in the wrong spot. Not a prettie way to go out that is for sure.”
“Thanks Fred. Try to see if you can get some of these people out of here could you? I better go take a look.”
The sheriff moved around the back of the yellow school bus and walked up to the point of impact. Wrecks weren’t anything new to him. He had seen hundreds. He had been in at least half of them too.
“F…” The swear word started to come out but he never finished it.
Coming around the front of the bus he saw what all the commotion was about. There, pinned between the front of the bus and a rusty old blue `82 DeVilles Cadillac was the body of a young woman. Her head and top torso was on top of the trunk on the Cadillac while her hips and lower legs were lost in twisted mess of chrome metal and flesh.
Problem was there wasn’t enough blood. He expected more. The sheriff looked up across to the other side to his companion and gave her a questioning raise of his right eyebrow. The crowd looked on.
He jumped up on the back on the car and slid over to get a better look. Taking out some surgical gloves he reached over and began to examine the body. The girl’s left hand, the side the sheriff was on, was trapped down in the metal while her right hand laid half severed on the trunk. Her body and head was face down covered by a mess of long curly red hair. The girl was oddly wearing what looked to be pajamas. Carefully, he lifted her hair out of the way and lifted the head to take a look.
“Sh#t!”
He momentarily forgot himself and dropped the head. It banged back down.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” He lied. This dead girl was a part of the reason why he was here and why Mellisa was mad at him but he was sure she didn’t know this girl. No one in this po-dunk town should know her. What the hell was she doing here?
“Come up here and help me out will you.”
Mellisa jumped up and slid carefully over. The fire chief came around the bus with a camera round his neck to stand where she had been.
Together the sheriff and Mellisa eased the body up to take a better look.
She was dead, there was no doubt about that with the state of her bruised face. But there were some weird things going on. On the girl’s forehead was a picture of a five point star drawn on by what looked like a metallic blue magic marker. There was also some writing on her chest that could be seen just about her nightgown written with the same color. Mellisa reached over and pulled down the cloth. It spelled out the word ‘WENDY’.
“Chief, can you get up here and take some pictures?” The sheriff called.
“You think her name is Wendy?” Mellisa asked.
“Nope.” He replied as the chief started snapping some shots.
“How do you know?”
“I will tell you later.” He was looking at the dirt smear on the front of her nightgown. “Here, hold the body for the chief, will you? I want to check something out.”
The sheriff grabbed a mirror on the front of the flat nose school bus and jumped up onto on top. His boots landed with an echoing thud on the roof of the yellow bus. It was a flat top metal riveted bus you would see anywhere in the county. The difference here was there was a dirty indent in the roof, barely noticeably except for the pool of dried blood and the words written over and over.
“Fly PETER PAN Fly.
Barett Coontail, the new sheriff in the little town of Neilton Washington, had a murder on his hands.
But the storm was the last thing on everyone’s mind. People stood around stunned at what they were seeing. Traffic, if one could call a bus and twelve cars traffic, was stopped in the middle of the road in every which direction. Truth was anyone could easily go around if they wanted but morbid fascination kept them there. The entire population kids from the local school who were coming home from school in the bus were moving about everywhere. Some sat on the side of the street crying while other ran willy-nilly around in confusion, excitement and shock. The fire Chief, a large fat man who should have retired 10 years ago, who had just arrived, stared with his mouth half open. Some by-standing idiot asked him if he thought the girl was still alive.
Henry, the bus driver and someone else who should have retired a long time ago, was in a state of denial. He blabbered on continually to anyone who would listen that the girl hadn’t been there. He hadn’t even seen anyone standing anywhere by the street, let alone in the street. You just don’t miss seeing people in a small town like you do in a large city.
The familiar blare of the siren echoed in the distance down highway 101, followed shortly by the red strobe lights of the sheriff’s truck joining the kaleidoscope of flashing colors of the fire truck. Towering pines of dark green swayed in the wind as people turned to watch.
The green vintage `63 Dodge truck rumbled to a stop and two figures jumped out. Scary and unexpected as this event was, the town people were in an excited, almost gleeful state. Shop owners had walked out with their shoppers to view the carnage like it was a parade on Fourth of July. Nothing ever happened here in the quiet little town of Neilton, population 634, Washington, just south of Lake Quinault.
The sheriff followed by his companion, walked passed the hundreds of questions thrown at them and walked over to the fat fire Chief who had removed his helmet and was scratching his thin mousy brown hair.
“Fred, what do we got?”
“Sheriff. Miss.” The chief said to the two while he continued to stare bewildered at the two vehicles in the wreck. “I ain’t never seen nothing like this before.”
“Where is the body?” the sheriff asked. His companion moved past him up to the bus and car.
“It’s still sandwiched in there. We was waiting for you and Doc Ronald to show up.”
“You are doing a fine job Fred.”
“Thank ya sheriff. No one knows who da girl is or where she come frum. Henry swears this side of his mutd`rs left fist he never saw the girl. She was just there. Kind`a like she just popped into existence, all in the wrong spot. Not a prettie way to go out that is for sure.”
“Thanks Fred. Try to see if you can get some of these people out of here could you? I better go take a look.”
The sheriff moved around the back of the yellow school bus and walked up to the point of impact. Wrecks weren’t anything new to him. He had seen hundreds. He had been in at least half of them too.
“F…” The swear word started to come out but he never finished it.
Coming around the front of the bus he saw what all the commotion was about. There, pinned between the front of the bus and a rusty old blue `82 DeVilles Cadillac was the body of a young woman. Her head and top torso was on top of the trunk on the Cadillac while her hips and lower legs were lost in twisted mess of chrome metal and flesh.
Problem was there wasn’t enough blood. He expected more. The sheriff looked up across to the other side to his companion and gave her a questioning raise of his right eyebrow. The crowd looked on.
He jumped up on the back on the car and slid over to get a better look. Taking out some surgical gloves he reached over and began to examine the body. The girl’s left hand, the side the sheriff was on, was trapped down in the metal while her right hand laid half severed on the trunk. Her body and head was face down covered by a mess of long curly red hair. The girl was oddly wearing what looked to be pajamas. Carefully, he lifted her hair out of the way and lifted the head to take a look.
“Sh#t!”
He momentarily forgot himself and dropped the head. It banged back down.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” He lied. This dead girl was a part of the reason why he was here and why Mellisa was mad at him but he was sure she didn’t know this girl. No one in this po-dunk town should know her. What the hell was she doing here?
“Come up here and help me out will you.”
Mellisa jumped up and slid carefully over. The fire chief came around the bus with a camera round his neck to stand where she had been.
Together the sheriff and Mellisa eased the body up to take a better look.
She was dead, there was no doubt about that with the state of her bruised face. But there were some weird things going on. On the girl’s forehead was a picture of a five point star drawn on by what looked like a metallic blue magic marker. There was also some writing on her chest that could be seen just about her nightgown written with the same color. Mellisa reached over and pulled down the cloth. It spelled out the word ‘WENDY’.
“Chief, can you get up here and take some pictures?” The sheriff called.
“You think her name is Wendy?” Mellisa asked.
“Nope.” He replied as the chief started snapping some shots.
“How do you know?”
“I will tell you later.” He was looking at the dirt smear on the front of her nightgown. “Here, hold the body for the chief, will you? I want to check something out.”
The sheriff grabbed a mirror on the front of the flat nose school bus and jumped up onto on top. His boots landed with an echoing thud on the roof of the yellow bus. It was a flat top metal riveted bus you would see anywhere in the county. The difference here was there was a dirty indent in the roof, barely noticeably except for the pool of dried blood and the words written over and over.
“Fly PETER PAN Fly.
Barett Coontail, the new sheriff in the little town of Neilton Washington, had a murder on his hands.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Death run and Death run II
One of the Under gound sports that the Brothers participated in was the Death run. It was a no holds barred race from Seattle to San Diego, the Brothers went as a team. Dave drove his car, Utah and Rick drove the "Grunting Doberman" our big black Peterbuilt semi, with a trailer attached, and Barett drove his motorcycle. The first few miles were a combat zone, automatic gunfire, caltrops on the road, lots of bumping and rubbing. The Brothers manage to make a break from the crowd and with Barett running in the front and the Rig taking the back, Protecting Dave and the car they pulled into a nice lead and hauled on down the road, minus some minor gun play and sang jumping off the rig onto another truck and destroying the steering and radiator, then jumping off, things went quiet until the last 5 miles. There was a mad dash for the finish line, someone launched a RPG and riped up the road. Utah managed to get the Rig ahead, and did a jackknife on the road. Tires squelling and rubber burning the "Grunting Doberman" jerked to a stop, blocking the whole road, building to bulding. Dave leaned out the window of his car and shot the tires out of the car in front of him and speed past the finish line. Having won the contest and large cash prize, the Brothers spent most of the money, fixing and upgrading the rig and Daves car. One of the down sides to the whole race was that they made lots of enemies, some would come back later for revenge.
Death run II was under the same idea, but it was run through Death Valley up to Tahoe, they ended up blowing the engine on the " Grunting Doberman" but Dave managed to win again. They have not been invited back to run again, mostly they are smaller races in the desert away from towns and people, run by the mafia.
Death run II was under the same idea, but it was run through Death Valley up to Tahoe, they ended up blowing the engine on the " Grunting Doberman" but Dave managed to win again. They have not been invited back to run again, mostly they are smaller races in the desert away from towns and people, run by the mafia.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Barett as a Sheriff
During some down time, Barett went for some rest at a safehouse/farm he keeps up in the north country about 50 miles inland from the coast. ( truth is he was laying low to let some of the heat blow over, due to some unfortunate circumstances.) It's a small 40 acre plot outside of the town some 5 miles on a dirt road. There is a small 2-bedroom farmhouse, a carriage house converted to a garage and a large red barn plus various other small out buildings on the property, an overrun apple orchard and garden on the back side of the house and a horse corral next to the barn. There is a small stream that runs across the back with a pond, lots of pine trees and overgrown fields. Barett has run video cameras and motion detectors around the property, just in case. He's converted the root cellar into a weapons locker/ exercise room and had dug a small 24" tunnel from there out to the carriage house/ garage for quick exits. He keeps at the property a modified toyota land cruiser ( 1972 ) and some motorcycles, trailers and tractors, and a old 1950's farm truck he fixed up. Having found himself with lots of spare time, and low on money, he joined the volunteer fire department under a alias he kept around. When they saw his Toyota landcruiser, and his general knowledge of first aid and skills, he was asked to join the county seach and rescue. ( there is a small mountain lake and forest that people get lost or hurt in every summer) That meant being a reserve deputy, he did because it looked like fun. Besides, he thought, what is the best way to be unseen, is by being with the lookers. Things went well for about 3 months, then Mellisa moved up for the summer to stay with him. Right after Mellisa moved in the local sheriff and his deputy ( the sheriffs nephew ) quit the force over some argument with the county council. The county council begged Barett to be the temp sheriff until they could find a new one, so now here he was the local sheriff. Finding the whole situation to be rather ironic, he ran with it.
The county council waived his background check, because he was already a deputy, and gave him the keys to the small sheriffs office and jail cell at the back of the county building in town. He was in need of the money, due to some oversight on his part. You see Barett was being clever with his money, he put it in a trust fund, bought the farm and other things under the trust, to shake the trail of anyone looking for him. then the trust would deal out any payments and taxes. He put most of his money in that way but didn't leave any to live on, food and gas, and so forth. So the sheriff job was good for that part and it kept him doing things. Come to find out ammo was free with the job and he spent at least a hour a day at the range, and two hours working out and doing training. He also got the sheriff's truck to use, a stock 3/4 ton Dodge crew cab diesel, Barett did some modifications on to make more powerful and useful.
He didn't spend to much time arresting people, but he did a lot of prowling and growling, checking things out, watching the wanted posts on the fax. Spying on people that he thought were suspicious and getting to know the area well.
The county council waived his background check, because he was already a deputy, and gave him the keys to the small sheriffs office and jail cell at the back of the county building in town. He was in need of the money, due to some oversight on his part. You see Barett was being clever with his money, he put it in a trust fund, bought the farm and other things under the trust, to shake the trail of anyone looking for him. then the trust would deal out any payments and taxes. He put most of his money in that way but didn't leave any to live on, food and gas, and so forth. So the sheriff job was good for that part and it kept him doing things. Come to find out ammo was free with the job and he spent at least a hour a day at the range, and two hours working out and doing training. He also got the sheriff's truck to use, a stock 3/4 ton Dodge crew cab diesel, Barett did some modifications on to make more powerful and useful.
He didn't spend to much time arresting people, but he did a lot of prowling and growling, checking things out, watching the wanted posts on the fax. Spying on people that he thought were suspicious and getting to know the area well.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
New Images
Well,
I am back from Japan now. Not much has changed over there. It is still the Japan I remember other than the TV celebrities are a little different and younger.
While I was there I worked on two images. One was an update of Rick and the other was a possible rendition of Maria. I took two photographs of models I felt had the feel and looks that I was going for and them modified and recolored them in Photoshop.
Let me know what you think.
Here are the two the images of Rick and Maria
I am back from Japan now. Not much has changed over there. It is still the Japan I remember other than the TV celebrities are a little different and younger.
While I was there I worked on two images. One was an update of Rick and the other was a possible rendition of Maria. I took two photographs of models I felt had the feel and looks that I was going for and them modified and recolored them in Photoshop.
Let me know what you think.
Here are the two the images of Rick and Maria
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