So there was Woga holding up a foul hand full of dreadful filth - the dreaded mud stew.
It was time for the lads to eat...
Yes.
Greg and his buddy Pete were going to have to get stuck in to that foul thing...
There was really little else they could actually do.
You have heard of the saying - caught between a rock and a hard place? Well the lads were caught between a rope and a muddy place - and the only way out of the fix was to literally eat mud...
EAT THE STEW!
Okay it was time to get going.
Greg started first.
The mud tasted beyond foul, and far worse than the lad could ever have dreamed of or realised in his worst thoughts. There are very few words available in the English language to describe the full foulness of Woga's stew but these few that I have prepared sum up the taste pretty much:
These words describe the stew...
Vile. Horrendous. Disastrous. Oily. Like vomit. Evil. Inhuman. Possibly alien? Stomach turning. Embarrassing. Disgraceful.
Woga's stew was indeed something any other human would be fully ashamed to present for consumption to another living being - but there we are and there Greg was, sliding the stew down his throat.
Greg started to retch but Woga showed neither mercy nor dignity. Every time Greg heaved Woga shoved it right back down.
By the time the muddy stew was inside Greg's stomach the world started to change...
The trees started wobbling.
Trees are living things of course but they typically don't bounce about in the weird rubbery way Greg was starting to see - it was NOT good.
And then the net turned into thrashing snakes and disappeared. That was when Greg hit the ground head first! He was conscious, but delirious. By that stage of the affair Woga had transformed into a giant stag and Greg had turned into a badger. Greg could see that it was a good time for him to get up and get running!
Greg finally hit a road outside of the forest, somewhere near town, but a tenacious lamppost standing nearby told him to back up and back off. He didn't like people being near him, he said.
The phone booth was not much more helpful either, and neither was the post box. Everything literally seemed to be against Greg. Even the dustbins started singing - BACK UP AND BACK OFF BOY!
Over and over again they lifted their lids up and rang:
BACK UP AND BACK OFF BOY!
BACK UP AND BACK OFF BOY!
It was nauseating.
Just then a giant hippo got of a car made out of square bricks.
'Don't worry about them lot over there,' said the hippo. He was referring to the singing bins. 'They are an odd bunch. They are still unhappy beasts even though we good people of the town make the effort to feed them filth every day. How about you, son? Are you okay?'
'I don't think so,' Greg replied weakly.
'Fancy eating some filth with me?' said the hippo cheerily.
'No! Please! I have already eaten a load of mud...'
'Yes I must say you don't look well!' The hippo gave Greg a concerned look.
'I do not feel well...' said Greg and then he started to moan. Greg wanted to be sick, get some of the stew out of his stomach but for some reason his body just wouldn't relieve him of the rot in his guts! 'I need to free my stomach!' said Greg faintly. 'Seriously... I think I am going to die!'
Greg moaned and then he moaned.
The hippo eyed Greg curiously and then gave the lad a sly little chuckle.
'Now you listen to this!' said the hippo. 'No human being who says out loud, "I think I am going to die," is actually going to die. Trust me I know these things. I work in a cemetery, my son, and the dead there are all quiet. And you, NO! You are not quite quiet enough to be dead not just yet.'
'Is there nothing you can do to help me?' said Greg pleadingly.
Greg was getting very sick now, and was desperate enough to accept the help of a hippo.
'I know a shop where they sell tea for free! Follow me. Maybe someone there can help you and me. Well we'll soon see, won't we?' and the hippo waved Greg on.
The hippo led Greg to a building that was painted green, and inside there was a bar that was just as green, fitted appropriately up and down with green tables and green stools.
The bar was perfectly fine, really, but the people inside it were indeed a very bizarre little lot. Greg was in so much stomach pain he was finding it really difficult to concentrate, but this is what he saw:
A crowded bar with about maybe thirty people in it. And they all looked, shall we say, abnormal? The men standing there looked like gross sweaty pigs with yellow grimy tusks, and the women were all vultures! Actually there was one women who looked like a stork with a beak like a sword. She looked like she wanted to stick your throat with it and drink you clean of your blood! Here tiny yellow eyes were very evil looking as she squinted at you over her sword-beak from her shadowy corner of the room.
The bartender, another great big boar, stepped up to the bar and with a roar got the attention of all. This is what he said:
'Ladies and gentlemen! You need to get out before the pink elephant arrives. He is the most difficult customer I know! He has a habit of demanding all of the seats! O damn he is here already and there is a polar bear riding on his back! You have been warned!'
The pink elephant was outside thundering against the door frantic to get in. 'Quickly! Open the door!' it said. 'Let me in I say! It is about to rain!' But nobody let him in. Everyone was hiding under their tables or behind their seats! The roaring anger of the elephant scared them all nearly quite senseless!
The hippo was still there at Greg's side. He was indeed a loyal friend and he was never going to leave Greg trapped in that bar with all those hideous souls! 'Here drink this,' he said to Greg in a kindly voice. 'It is tea! It is very good. It will fix you up - sort you out as it were. Drink!'
So the tea vanished down Greg's gullet and that was the moment his guts finally spilled.
The green bar with its storks and savages changed into a dark void.
A minute later, or a thousand years later, it didn't matter it could have been any length of time, Greg finally woke up on the side of the road covered in mud and in his own vomit. And he stank worse than a badger too. In fact it was in that precise moment that a family of badgers heading home actually decided to avoid the usual path and turn in the opposite direction to avoid Greg's despicable toxic odour.
Pete wondered up out of the forest towards him looking shaken and desperate. Visually Pete didn't look quite as bad as Greg but he still looked horrible drenched likewise in the essence of his own stomach.
Greg was the first to speak: 'Pete, mate, I think that there was something weird at work in in that mud we ate...'
'We could both bet a good sized fortune on that one mate,' Pete replied wearily. 'Something of the fungus variety I think...'
'Where is Woga and his wife? I don't see them anywhere.'
'They ran away when you told them that you were planning to rise up as the new leader of the people... You said you were going to cut the forest down and build a fortress on top of it. You said you were the Lord of Dragons and that you had an army of pigs? But ah well it is over now. Let's move on.'
O yes! No words had ever been better said than that.
LET'S MOVE ON!
To Read GOX part 5 click here.
For more adventures set in the town of Fenwick check out:
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