Smashwords License Statement This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. …………………….. Some famous peoples quote's about my short story. (RON) …….. It’s got a plot as thick as a babies arm. W.SHAKESPEARE …….. The story should be dedicated to Jews, Christians, Roman Catholics, and Buddhists, people who believe in aliens, ghosts, monsters…etc. and every other Bible basher or super-natural believing moron out there!!! JOSEPH (father and rather good woodworker) …….. It has an intense story, an amazing plot and grips you from start to finish. Tell me, is it copyrighted? J.Archer …….. Er, it ad "woah" big words man. J.Christ (though it might have just been some “stoned-out-of-his-head, and half cut” bloke wondering the streets at night with half a holly bush on his head) …….. If they made Ron’s story into a film it would be the second funniest take done on religion. G.champman (the biased git!) …….. Actually it would be the third funniest. Possibly! P.Cook (O.K, rub it in why don’t yah) …….. Free, free, there's no way I'm paying to read it. In the old days you could buy a nice house and a good car "ba gum", and still have change left over for a bottle of milk and a packet of chocolate hob knobs. Nurse. GOD (though which God is debatable) …….. I’m glad I did not write this! S.Rushdie …….. That Ron. Up here, he’s even more famous than me! J.Lennon …….. As far as I am concerned you should not judge a fellow person on there looks, sex, race or beliefs. Their are only two types of people: 1_Everyday ordinary people who just want to get on with there lives and not bother anybody else...2_The preachers, the arsholes and the gobshites who want to tell you what you should do and how you should be doing it. Judas …….. HMMMMMM........I think I'll eat my socks! (Eh!…Who said that?) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. STORY TOLD BY THE ARK ANGEL RONALD, WHO WHEN I INTERVIEWED HIM ASKED ME TO WRITE HIS "SHORT" STORY! J.A.STRICKLAND THE ARK ANGEL RONALD'S QUEST FOR CHAOS or: ANGEL IN THE UNDERWORLD CHAPTER 1 A TRIBUTE TO THE DIRTY DOZEN Once-upon-a-time in medieval England, in the 16th century and on a Tuesday afternoon, a child christened Ronald was born. He had been born into a very poor family, but despite all of this had worked his way out of poverty and proved himself to be a much more intelligent peasant than the other locals. At the age of seventeen he was called upon like many other young men of his age to defend the country from raiders, bandits and barbarians (e.g. the Scots and the French), and all this killing would be done in the name of God and Christianity. Within the first year of Ronald joining the army of the King his bravery and dedication in duty had earned him the rank of lieutenant and within the next couple of years he had progressed higher up the ranks. This acceleration from normal foot soldier to now captain of a large body of men, plus all the brave deeds and holy quests he had undergone had made him a hero amongst the people of England, and had gotten him noticed by the King himself. At about this time when his popularity was high between beggar and King alike a certain Malack De Wolfe (a French knight) had learnt about the Kings daughter spending some time at a small village called Tremwell on the coast of England. Within the same day of learning this Malock had assembled a small army of men to kidnap the Princess. Malock set sail that very evening, his soldiers armed to the teeth with swords and crossbows. Nobody from the village of Tremwell noticed the three ships land during the early hours of dawn the next day or heard the one hundred and twenty armoured men moving towards the village until it was too late. Within the hour the village had been taken by Malock without much resistance from the locals, most of whom were fishermen, wives and children. Malock who had no love for the English set his men about executing the lot of them and finding the Princess. It was not long before the Princess was found hiding in a farmers barn, her bodyguard of eight of the Kings own very best knights had been killed, even though they had fought bravely killing over twenty of Malock's men. As the Princess was led to Malock she witnessed the horrible executions of the people of Tremwell, their screams and the smell of blood filled the air. Malock then sent a messenger to the King asking for ten thousand gold crowns within three days or his daughter would be killed. When the King heard of this news he sent for his best knights and asked them what he should do as he refused to be blackmailed by some stuck-up French fop. The knights were as puzzled as him as they searched for a solution, and the King spent a restless night fearing for his daughter’s life. Then the next day a young chambermaid came to the King (who he was secretly knocking off) and told him of a young captain by the name of Ronald (who was also knocking her off) who had a plan to rescue his daughter and had requested an audience with the King. The King who had heard of Ronald and all of his brave deeds sent for him straight away. Ronald stood that very morning before the King and his court and proposed a plan where he would take eleven of the Kings best fighting men and sneak into the village at night dressed in black dirty rags so they looked like beggars and rescue his daughter. Once the rescue had been completed an army could be sent to march on the village of Tremwell and wipe out Malock and his evil hordes of scum. The King and his court thought Ronald’s plan was sheer madness, however the King had no other choice apart from giving Malock the ten thousand gold crowns and so gave Ronald the chance to pull off his mad plan. So that night Ronald and eleven of the Kings best fighting men set out towards the village of Tremwell on horseback, dressed in black rags and armed with sword and dagger. As the first few rays of sunlight entered the Kings chamber a messenger approached the King who had spent the night on his throne praying and unable to sleep. He told the King that Ronald approached the castle with the Princess. The King was as amazed as he was relieved to hear the news and instantly the order was given for the army to march on Tremwell. The Princess and Ronald entered the Kings chamber together. The King went first to his daughter, hugging her and telling her how glad he was to see her. The Princess then went on to tell the tale of how she had been rescued by Ronald and his men. Apparently Ronald had used the eleven men as distractions around the village while he entered the house were Malock and three of his best henchmen guarded her. She described how Malock stayed back and sent the three men to attack Ronald who fought like a man possessed with sword in one hand and dagger in the other defying all the odds and slaying them all. Then as the last man died Malock raised a crossbow and fired it into Ronald’s chest. (The King noticed the blood on the front of Ronald’s black smelling rags). Then Malock drew a sword and attacked Ronald. Ronald (she claimed) fought on with the wound in his chest not bothering him in the least. Ronald pierced Malock’s leg with his sword, and Malock dropped to his knees in pain. Ronald seizing the advantage took a mighty sweep with his sword at Malock’s neck, severing his head from his body and ending Malock’s life in an instant. The King (with tears in his eyes)turned to Ronald and said: "My son I am completely in your debt, whatever prize you claim for this bravest of all quests I grant thee". Ronald dropped to his knees in front of the King and said "I have served God, my King, and my country all my life. All I ask is to continue my servitude to these". The King looked at Ronald still on his knees with his head bowed. Then the King said "give me your sword Ronald". Ronald did this and the next thing he knew the King tapped him twice on each shoulder with the blade. "Arise Sir Ronald", said the King. "You have proven yourself to be the wisest and bravest of men. From this day fourth you will not only be a knight and Lord in my Kingdom but my champion swordsman and personnel bodyguard as well". Ronald looked up at the King, his face white and dripping with sweat. At first the King had thought Ronald was so amazed at what had just happened, but he was wrong. Ronald kneeling in the Kings chamber, in front of the Kings throne and the King himself, suddenly fell flat on his face, dead from lack of blood. CHAPTER 2 MORE POSITIONS PLEASE When Ronald next opened his eyes all he could see was a bright light, and then a voice said "Welcome Ronald your spirit has travelled millions of miles through space and passed through the edge of the universe to its resting point here in Heaven". "What's a universe?", replied Ronald. "Never mind", said the voice. "All that matters is your good deeds on earth have been recognised. The people of earth have made you a Saint, and because of this God has decided that your reward should be more than just becoming another good spirit to enter through the gates of heaven. Instead you Ronald shall become one of Heavens Angels". At this two huge feathery wings sprang from his back and a halo appeared above his head. For the next three hundred years Ronald’s job as an angel was preventing the people of earth from wiping each other out by battling Satan and his evil minions. Ronald enjoyed his job and put all his effort into it, and in the three hundred years he served as an angel he managed to prevent sixteen wars, forty two major catastrophes, the Devil from blowing up New Zealand? etc. Not to mention the little things like murder, rape and persuading serial killers to change their minds and have a cup of tea or a drink down the pub with their mates (that's if serial killers have mates, I suppose they could always join a singles club although to do that you have to be a pretty sad git) and perchance meet a nice lass and get married instead. Ronald was so good at his job that on the anniversary of his three hundredth year in service, he was promoted to Ark angel, a feat never achieved in such short time by any other human-born angel. Ronald’s job as an Ark angel involved him guarding one of the gates of Heaven. This he did for a good hundred years or so, but now he was bored and needed a break, some adventure in his afterlife or something to cheer him up a bit. Remembering a conversation he had one day to a guy who had died a couple of years ago about all the great films on earth, Ronald decided to go down to earth in the guise of a human being and watch some. The guy had recommended a director called Quentin Tarantino who made gory action movies full of blood and death. Ronald secretly missed the old days when he was a human-being going on adventures and quests, killing people so this was exactly what he needed. He decide to buy a house in a small town called Willington in the north of England. In this house he made sure a television and video were provided. He then set off to the local video store to buy some movies. On the way up to the store one thing struck him as peculiar and that was that everyone was being so pleasant to each other. People kept wishing him good day and saying what nice weather we are having even though it was cloudy and rather cold. For a moment he found it hard to believe he was in a small town up north. Putting these small worries aside he went to the video shop and hired out four videos, two by Tarantino. He was actually disappointed a film called “From Dusk Till Dawn" which had been recommended to him had been band because of its content. Arriving back home he decided to watch each of the four vids one after the other. The first was a Tarantino film called "Oh lovely blue sky". As he watched each of the four films in turn Ronald couldn't believe his eyes, or ears come to that. Each film turned out to be a soppy love story, and he realised something was up. Ronald walked outside and using his angelic powers he read the mind of one of the passing humans. What he saw shocked him. He saw that there was no hate in anybody. Something was wrong. He then saw that there was no violence in the world. Something was very wrong. And then he saw that everyone made love in the missionary position only. Something was seriously very wrong, and if that in itself was not enough, to top it all Tarantino was writing love stories and not ripping off other peoples scripts and making millions in the process. All this had happened in the last couple of months and Ronald knew that there was only one dude who could remove all the nastiness from the world like this, and that dude would be the Devil. CHAPTER 3 BRING BACK HELL, ALL IS FORGIVEN Ronald knew that someone would have to pay a visit on the Devil and get him to change things back to the way they were, and that someone was him. As Ronald teleported down into hell he could not work out for the life of him (that is if he had been alive) why the Devil would do such a thing. Still very soon he should find out. When he materialised in Hell he was shocked at what he saw. Green fields and blue skies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Also the temperature was a nice comfortable warmth, not the flesh blistering heat he had expected. There was not one whiff of sulphur or burning brimstone in the air. Not too far away from him was a group of Satan’s demons sitting on the grass looking bored out of their horny skulls. Ronald decided to go over and talk and perhaps find out more before confronting the Devil. "What's going on?", asked Ronald. "Don't ask us, ask that puffter Satan who runs the fucking place." said a demon. The wankers laid us all off because we won't do his poncey jobs or wear his frigging naff T shirts. The demon held up a bright glowing T shirt with the words "Have a nice day," written on it. Ronald was more confused than ever. There was only one way to solve this puzzle. "Satan, Beelzebub, Old Nick, you who are the Lord of flies and sometimes referred to as mans very own nemesis, show yourself, come fourth and face me oh darkest angel!", cried Ronald. "Please! Satan will do.", said a voice behind him. Ronald turned round and looked at Satan. It was very much like looking into a mirror. He looked like any other angel in heaven. "Jesus H Christ!", said Ronald. "Where are your bat wings, your red skin, your hooves and your horns?" "I got rid of them. In’ fact I don't think they suited me. Plus he doesn't exist." said the Devil. "Who doesn't?", replied Ronald. "Jesus." said the Lord of flies. "Of course he exists.", replied Ronald. "You're not a proper angel are you. You were born of woman, unlike me who was made by God specially. You're only a few centuries old, where as I am very old and know the joke of Jesus well." said Beelzebub in his smuggest voice. "What joke, and anyhow what about the Bible?", said Ronald. "Listen, when Jesus was born and grew up to be a gibbering idiot, Joseph who was a brilliant carpenter and an outstanding member of the community, got sick of people mocking his son and being called the father of that tit, decided to hide Jesus away and claimed he had gone off into the unknown to fight Romans and help the sick, working for charity. The rumours grew and got more exaggerated and the rest as they say is history." said Satan. "Never mind all that", said Ronald angrily, "what I want to know is what you have done to the world and why?" "Well," said the Devil "as you know I am a perfectly ordinary angel, who one day asked God if I could help out with the human race. When he said "Well, gan on then," I was overjoyed. Then I find out he's given me the job of dumping misery on everybody, a real shitty job if ever there was one. This job I have done since man was created, but now, well I'm fed up and want to go back to being known as a helper of men instead of that bastard that screws things up for everyone." "But you've got to go back to what you know best, and if that means fucking one or two peoples lives up, or even fucking up millions of lives, so what! People need you. They need bad things to happen to them to give them inspiration. Without you there is no randomness in the world. The people are living like sheep”. For a while the two argued, and Ronald realised he was getting no where. He needed to try a new tactic. “Listen”, he said with a sigh. “All I ask is that you accompany me back to the planet Earth, so that I can try to persuade you to go back to your evil ways." The devil smirked, but being a bit of an inquisitive git himself and thinking that Ron’s plan might provide him a few laughs said: "O.K you're on, but the mood I'm in you're going to have to be pretty convincing to persuade me", and he smiled a sweet sickly smile that brought piece and distilled happiness within the soul. It was at this point that Ron realized he really did have a big job on. CHAPTER 4 STILL FEELING HUNGRY "Where are we?" asked Satan. Back on earth, "said Ronald" I've brought us to a town called Tremwell in England, the place where I was born. Listen, you stay here and make yourself invisible. I won't be long, I've just got to pop down to the shops to get some stuff." After about an hour Ronald came back carrying a large bag. "What's in the bag?" asked Satan. "Here I'll show you." said Ronald as he pulled out a double barrelled shotgun, "this". Then he pulled out a large twelve inch razor sharp knife, "this, and last but not least these." pulling out four tins of baked beans. "What do you need all of that stuff for?" Satan asked. "I intend to make geniuses with them, by changing people." replied Ronald. "How?" asked Satan. "You will see in good time." "So when do we start?" asked Satan. "We may as well start right now." said Ronald. "You see that married couple over there, well the wife in her spare time writes books. These books are all love stories that are very badly written with not a drop of imagination in them but I'll soon put a stop to that." Ronald then made himself visible and carrying the shotgun, knife and beans, went over to the woman’s husband. He then brought up both barrels of the shotgun and pressed them against the man's head, who just stood smiling at him. He then pulled the trigger and blew the mans brains out. He's wife who stood and watched the whole event, now began to scream in terror, as her view of the world was turned upside down. Kneeling down over the dead mans body, Ronald took out the knife and opened up a tin of baked beans and began to cut into the dead mans stomach. "Why are you doing that?", asked the Devil. "I'm going to eat his liver with these baked beans. Unfortunately the supermarket didn't sell the right type, but these will do." said Ronald. "Where did you get a mad idea like that from?", asked Satan. "I got told about it by a guy who saw a film in which it happened. Apparently it's the sort of things serial killers do." said Ronald. "That’s disgusting.", replied Satan. "Oh come on, you're the Devil. You must have seen a lot worse?" "True," said the Devil, "I once remember one serial killer who enjoyed inserting large melons..." "I don't want to know", interrupted Ronald. In the month that followed the Devil witnessed Ronald commit three more murders like he had before. With each murdered victim, Ronald pointed out each of the victim's partners all of whom had an occupation. These included a musician who wrote and sang lots of crappy love songs. A painter whose pictures were mainly of flowers, doves, babies etc, all of which were painted in horrible bright sickly colours. And a poet who wrote stuff like: Oh lovely tree Please don't fall on me Instead attract a bee And make some sweet honey Tee hee. CHAPTER 5 DON'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ (AND DON'T TELL GABRIEL) "Right", said Ronald as he finished the last of the killings "now we wait the year out and then go back to the victims’ partners to see what they are up to". "Have you seen this?", said the Devil. He held up the local Tremwell newspaper to Ronald. "What about it?" said Ronald. "It's full of stories about you committing the murders. Here, I'll read some to you. It says here `a psychopath wielding a shotgun and knife and dressed as an angel'", the Devil said. "What!", interrupted Ronald. "I totally forgot about the wings and halo. Shit you could have reminded me." "Don't worry," said the Devil "it says below that the wings must have been strapped on and the halo sellotaped to your head and supported by a wire." "Oh hells bells and nig nogs, if this gets out in Heaven I'll become a laughing stock to the rest of the angels, especially Gabriel with all his witty put downs," said Ronald. "Anyway never mind, lets suspend ourselves in time until the months are up." CHAPTER 6 IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS "YOMUTHAFUCKER" After coming out of suspended animation Ronald proceeded to take Satan around the partners of the victims he had killed, and made the Devil compare the work they had done previously in their occupations to the work they were doing now in it. The Devil was surprised at the results. The writer was now writing imaginative stories about killers and other stuff with a slightly dark edge to it. Even her love stories had quite good plots involving tragic romances and wild sexual adventures. The musician had started writing songs that delved into peoples lives and were quite deep. He also completely scrapped his idea of starting up a boy band. The painters pictures were now original, that delved into the human psyche stretching the imagination in ways that would make a normal bloke go “Eh”. As for the poet his stuff was still crap, but that’s poets for you, and besides three out of four isn't bad. "Now do you see", said Ronald, "the changes in these people are for the better, and its all down to a little bit of evil. You know I'm right, I bet you if you were to ask God..." "God," interrupted the Devil "you've never spoken to God about the meaning of it all, have you. I hadn't spoken to him for a million years or so and eventually got to wondering myself about what the great plan was. So I recently went to speak to him about why he had created everything. Well with him being as old as he is now, he's gone quite senile and to be honest I don't think the dozy old git knows himself anymore. Still though Ron, you don't mind if I call you Ron, calling you Ronald all the time makes us sound like a pair of upper class twits. You've given me something to think about. I'm not promising anything yet, so don't count your chickens, but like I say I'll think about it. Anyway I'd better be going back to Hell, I don't know but I might have left the fire on "Ha Ha", see you later young mucka." And with that the Devil vanished. Ronald instead of going back to Heaven straight away, decided to have a walk around the village for old times sake. He spotted a dark alley which led in the direction of where he was born and used to live as a human all those years ago. Walking down the alley he wondered if he had succeeded in convincing the Devil, or if not, would the world remain the boring shithole that it was at present. Then all of a sudden something was pressed into his back and a voice said "Yomuthafucker, hands up and give me yo money, ya useless feathery backed fuck!". A smile of triumph slowly spread across the Ark angels face. THE END