As I drew closer I could see that there were two grimy males on a bench to the left, on the path was a female and a small Jugglet, and on the other side, next to a canal boat was another female and her male tie-dyed partner.
As I drew closer I rang my jolly bell as a warning of my approach and I hoped they would clear the path for me to carefully pedal on past. This did not happen. As a unit they turned to face me. I slowed my incredible super bike even further as I noticed the scraggly haired male on the bench, clearly the tribal leader, open his vegan pie hole and speak.
"Hey watch out, here comes that crazy cyclist."
I ignored this slight insult (cyclist, indeed!), said nothing, and continued at a cautious crawl towards them.
"Oh look, he's a cheat, he's got batteries on his bike!"
This stopped me dead.
The other Crusty Jugglers laughed like the acid-cripples they were. The Jugglet just stared, dead-eyed, at me.
"What did you say?" I knew exactly what he had said, I was just saying it to be threatening because you say stuff like that if you want to be threatening, and getting people to repeat themselves is really scary for them, just ask deaf people.
There was a tense few seconds when no one did anything, and I glanced from Juggler to Jugglet to Juggler again, gauging them, looking for weaknesses. Their choice of knitwear was awful, a definite flaw. Suddenly there was an almost imperceptible movement from the other, shaven-headed Crusty on the bench, as he reached a hand for something just out of my sight.
It was an ambush.
In one swift flowing movement, I leapt from my bike reaching for the twin Barettas in the holsters on the small of my back, and unleashed a hail of covering fire as I fell into the cover of the hedgerow. I heard a loud boom as a shotgun blast shredded the leaves nearby.
Glancing out I saw that I had felled the male of the crusty couple by the boat and the female was trying to drag his body to the safety of the boat. Two out of the action already, a great start, but I was lacking cover and the Alternatve-lifestylers had good firing positions. The female who had been in the middle of the path with the Jugglet had disappeared, which caused me some concern, but right now I had to deal with the two male Crusties who were firing on me from their position behind the bench. Shavehead continued to blast at me with his Spas 12, and Big Chief Scraggly had twin MAC10 Ingrams that he was firing wildly all over the place.
He was as high as Christ, and twice as dangerous.
"Die, you low down cheating sonofabeeeeeeech!" he screamed.
"Yeah!" agreed Shavehead shaking his hands silently above his head in agreement, then letting off another shot in my direction.
Suddenly, behind me the bushes erupted as the female and the Jugglet came crashing out. The mother(tree)hugger had outflanked me! Worse than that, she was wielding a glittering samurai sword which she swung with deft precision at my neck. I thrust my right Baretta up and blocked the blow in a shower of sparks. I was suddenly aware of a searing pain in my left leg and looking down I saw the Jugglet had pushed a ceramic combat blade into my thigh. It was looking up at me with a curious expression of curiosity on its dirty urchin face. Curious, I thought. I could see the other side of my top-of-the-range Gortex Water/Windproof breathable riding trousers start to bulge as the blade pushed it's way out. Blood splashed down on my very expensive cycling shoes, which are awesome.
"Drum circle this, bitch!" I quipped as I swung my Barretta around, twisting the sword arm of the ninja hippy, and then put my other gun under her chin and pulled the trigger. A fountain of stuff that was seconds ago safely inside her head showered down on me and the Jugglet, who was still putting the knife in. I knew I had to distract it somehow.
"Look, a pretty birdie!" I voiced, pointing to the sky to where I was pretending a bird was flapping about.
But there was something coming.
As the Jugglet looked around we could both see something huge flying towards us at great speed, silhouetted by the sun. Only at the last second, just before it's arrow sharp beak speared through the Jugglet's knife arm, did I realise this was The Heron come to help me again. He swooped low over the scene, carrying the silent, yet struggling, Jugglet away.
"No! Skylark, Nooooooooo!" screamed Shavehead as he leapt from his cover to catch the Jugglet as it passed. He missed. I didn't though, one shot from my still working Baretta took him down, like Bambi's mother.
It was just me and Hippius Maximus left. I took the initiative and whilst he was distracted with his buddies demise I pounded across the space between us. He stood and up, rage on his unkept face, and raised his MAC10 as I slid towards him. We both ended up facing each other, guns against each others heads. We both pulled our triggers at the same time, but only the clicks of empty chambers were heard.
"The next bell you'll ring will be in hell, bike man." he menaced, raising his other MAC10 to my head. It clicked empty as well.
Horror, fear and despair shot across his eyes as I reached down, pulled the ceramic blade from my leg and pushed it through his chest.
"Get a job, asshole." I whispered.
As his twitching body slipped to the ground I realised I should ask my doctors to try me on a different anti-pychotic drug as these ones really aren't working that well.
I blinked a few times, looked about myself at the path, and the confused and frightened faces of the Crusty Jugglers standing around me, got back on my bike, rode home, and had dinner.
I think it was Three Bean Bake. Mmmmm, yummy.
