Jennifer immediately told Baldwin what happened to Rock and he called Ken who was waiting at the airport for word to go back and pick up everyone. There were 2 helicopters and soon both were in the air heading back to the castle. But it was a long flight, a 90 minute round trip to get back to the airport or the hospital for Rock. That might be too long for Rock to survive since he has obviously been poisoned. Harris tried hard to revive Rock, but to no avail.

“He is still alive,” said Harris, “so that is a good sign.” “He is big and strong, so that will help him,” said Angel, “he likely did not get enough poison in his system to kill him.” Then Muffin heard something. Meow,meow!=Chop, chop coming! “Hey, that is too fast for Ken to get here,” said Candace. But a helicopter was now in full view. “Run!”, said Harris. “We can’t leave Rock,” said Jennifer. The helicopter circled a bit and a side door opened.

A man with a machine gun appeared and started shooting! Muffin went rolling far from the others and soon everyone was lying on the ground, motionless and bleeding. Then the helicopter landed and the man with the machine gun came out and over to the bodies. He kicked each of them and called back to Gregory, “they are all dead!” Gregory smiled and got out too. “They must have the treasure,” he said to the other man, “search them and their backpacks.”

While they were busy Muffin aimed and “Thwock!”, the man with the machine gun went down. But Gregory did not see what had happened, he was bent over Rock, but heard his man fall. He looked over and Muffin aimed, “Thwock!” But she only got him slightly on the side of his head. He turned towards her and raised his gun to shoot. Muffin pulled back as much as she could and “Thwock!” This time it was a direct hit and Gregory fell to the ground.

Muffin ran over to Rock, meow,meow!=wake up please, need to fly chop, chop! She licked his cheek, but nothing, no response at all. Then she went to Jennifer and each of the others, but all were silent. So Muffin sent a distress signal back to Baldwin. “What?!”, he exclaimed as Muffin gave him the news that everyone had been shot and were asleep, her way of saying they were dead. He called Ken and told him to take all to the hospital as fast as he could. At least they would have all 3 helicopters to use, which would be necessary now.

Soon Ken and his men had everyone on the helicopters and they were once again in the air. They did leave Gregory and his man behind since there was no room for them anyway. As they were flying Muffin looked up at Ken. “Do you want to sit with me?”, he asked. She then jumped up so she could look out the window as they flew. “Hey boss,” said Ken to Baldwin, “Muffin here has a sore leg.” Baldwin said to watch her close and leave her at the hospital too, and she would stay with one of the girls.

Then Baldwin notified the hospital to have a veterinarian on hand to look at Muffin. They were going to complain about that, but after finding out who Baldwin was they quickly consented to having it done. “Are they dead, or alive?”, Baldwin asked Ken. “We didn’t take time to check,” he replied, “but, I would say we have all corpses on the way to the hospital.” Baldwin nearly fainted on hearing those words. But then he told himself it just can’t be that way, this team is too good to lose half of it all at once.

Muffin watched out the window, but tears filled her eyes, she knew what was happening, she so wanted to see her MC again. She looked up at Ken, meow,meow=thank you for trying, you another very nice man. Ken just stared, did he really hear Muffin say that? He rubbed her head. Then she jumped down and limped over to where Rock was lying and went up on his chest, curled up, purred and went to sleep…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.