ZAK II:THE SEQUEL TO THE MOVIE OF THE BOOK OF THE T-SHIRT OF THE RECORD
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    Zak woke to the distant calling of tiny birds. The sun streamed through
the window and the lace curtains formed delicate patterns on his rugged face.
The scene was peace and tranquility. Serenity and calm. Beauty and the beast.
    Zak had the feeling that something was not quite right. Perhaps it was 
the annoying rattle of milk bottles on a far off milk float. Perhaps the 
constant dripping of a tap he was going to fix but never quite got around to.
 Or perhaps it was the discomfort of the gun barrel which was being held
to his forehead by a man you wouldn't wish even your tax inspector to have to
share a train compartment with.
   "O.K. you scrawny punk," the apeman said in a tone which implied that
 Zak would not be on this guy's Christmas card list."Git yo' butt outta dat 
bed an' take me to yo' office, you pile of chicken shit"
  Charming, thought Zak.
   Zak slowly reached under his pillow, and in a manouevre (or however you
spell it) that would have given Dirty Harry reason to rethink his career
situation, whipped out his Magnum .45, pointed it at the centre of the ape's
forehead and squuezed the trigger. Gently.
   Blood spurted everywhere and the carcass (quick, a dictionary someone!)
of the thug fell violently to the floor. Zak lifted the gun, put the end of
the barrel to his lips and blew the smoke away in one expulsion of breath.
   "Mindless violence," he thought, wiping some blood from his eyes.
   "Don'tcha just love it?"
  He smiled smugly and looked at the body on the floor, lying there like
a whale beached for three weeks. Lifeless. A steady stream of blood 
marking where his head used to be.
  The full terror of what he'd just done slowly became apparent to Zak, and
panic replaced arrogance. He broke into an ice-cold sweat.
    This couldn't be happening. Things like this DIDN'T happen to him in the
real world. Fighting to the death with old ladies over the last packet of
Oatmeal Crunchies in Sainsbury's, maybe. But not murdering in cold blood.
  He pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He was, of course, and
woke with a sharp self-inflicted pain in his left bicep.
  When his head had stopped swirling, and his heart reached a near-steady 
rate, he reflected on the nightmare.
  It was a warning, he thought. Someone, somewhere in very high circles
is trying to tell me something....

*****djb

This was quite an insight into the physical position in which Zak
found himself: a combination of the Viennese Vindaloo (a curry with
culture) and extreme fear had had far reaching repercussions.
Fortunately not all of these were unfortunate (yes, I wrote that);
Unknown to Zak and very probably his employers, the goon had a 
pathalogical cleaning streak and took up his task with verve, zest
and other household cleaning agents with equally vigorous names.
      When he was showered and dressed Zak wandered back into his 
bedroom and almost had another accident upon seeing what lay within-
up until this point Zak had been blissfully unaware that he HAD a 
carpet, now that the room had been tidied it was all too visible.
The spectrum of purple, orange, yellow and puce that swirlled around
his floor was made only slightly more surreal by the sight of a 7ft
apeman swathed in a pastel flowered apron flitting around with a
newly aquired bottle of 'shake-n-vac' singing along to the latest
Sonia 'hit' "I shine when the sun shines".
       Not being a chap to squander good fortune, although he squandered
a good many other things in particular his friend's wages and his expense
account, Zak slipped quietly through the front door and into the busy
street outside his home, which was highly peculiar as a year previous year
he had moved to a tower block flat and lived on the twelfth floor, just
below a Scandinavian mud wrestler who ran a training session from her
home. Zak was dreading the day when she noticed the "Chaz 'n' Di " periscope
that he'd won in the  'Royal Wedding day comemorative spot the ferrit in 
the clergyman's trousers' competion sevral years previosly, that he had
rigged up outside her window for light entertainment on dreary evenings. In the flat below there lived a very mysterious old gentleman called Neville who
had written to him just the day before to warn him that a large group of
large women with sensible haircuts and comfortable shoes had been to visit
him concerning the whereabouts of 'that gobshite detective'. He had felt
obliged to tell them that the gobshite wasn't home right now but he had
a spare set of keys to his office on the plaza if they'd like to wait there
for him. 
        It was not without some trepadation, and a large sledgehammer tucked
under his turquoise tank top, that Zak sloaped of to work that morning.....

*****ajs

		Zak took the first turning on the left, then the first 
  left again, and again, and then again. He was quite surprised to find himself
 back at his apartment; but geography had never been his good point [re:
 Decker & third ], so he decided to hail the purple taxi that was cruising
 down Jefferson & Colombia . Once inside, Zak was confronted by the xenophobic
 ramblings of a man  in the front seat bearing a passing resemblence to a        sentient being; what the man knew about East Berlin could have been written     on the back of Zak's last "thank you" note ....
                 Eventually, Zak reached his small, delapidated little office... The door swung in agony on pained hinges as he kicked it in - he really would
 have to stop doing that, he thought to himself. Suddenly, out of the corner of
 one blood-shot eye, he spotted a dark figure reclining in his chair....Zak 
 froze, the figure rose and reached out for the rather cool looking green table- lamps that Zak had nicked from the law library of some obscure and remote south -eastern university. Then Zak saw who it was.......he froze a bit more than     last time; it 


was Neville, the man who had warned him about the lesbian       
 assasination attempt !! DA DUM DA DUM (dramatic Dick Tracy-ish music) . Oh no ! thought Zak again, and was impressed ,(it wasn't everyday that he had TWO       thoughts !), he's come to collect the interest on my student loan ! But 
 before he could grovel for mercy, Neville spoke, or rather hissed, in a strange gravely voice tinged with Sarf London and Transylvanian, "Good morning Zzzzakk, please let me intoduce myself, I am Count Haffffner of Haffner, the third, I'm"               


     But Zak didn't listen to what else he was hissing, he was    more preoccupied with wondering why his former neighbour was a Count ? Why he
 had a name like something out of a Steve Martin movie ? Why was he called
 Neville ?! And how did all this tie in with the Scandinavian mud wrestler ?
 He started to break out in hot and cold flushes....

 
*****csm
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	Please feel free to add to this story, but mail me if you do so I can
pass on your additions to the original authors.

		Guinny.