Page 385 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

Audrey ran down into the cave, dropping to her knees within a foot of the bracelet and she found it in seconds. Again, the darkness exploded into movement as spiders swarmed up out of the back of the cave and headed right for her, their legs clicking on stone, their fangs salivating for another taste of her.

Leaping to her feet, she ran like hell for the daylight with a wave of hungry spiders washing up out of the dark right behind her. As fast as she was moving, they were closing the gap between them with frightening speed.

She ran without looking back and for the first time in the entire scene she heard Morgan shouting out, “Run, baby, run!”

No sooner had she cleared the shadows into the sunlight, then did she hear the first of many explosions. Rock shattering vibrations trembled up from deep in the earth. The quaking knocked her off her feet and right into Morgan’s arms. He all but picked her up and ran with her back down the opposite side of the hill, great clouds of dust billowing at their back until they both fell.

Morgan landed on top of her, shielding her from a sudden rainstorm of falling rock and debris and they both lay panting, coughing and gasping together until the vibrations and explosions finally ceased. Small pebbles and rocks trickled down the hillside and fell across the backs of her legs for a long time before everything suddenly fell unnatural still. Silence overwhelmed them, broken only by their own coughing as they struggled to breathe through the cloud of dust.

“Why—” gulped Audrey, tentatively. “Why the hell are those things the only realistic effect in this whole damn movie?”

“They were animated in the studio afterwards,” Morgan coughed. “The film doesn’t know how to compensate, so it just made them real.”

“They’re real because they were animated later?!” Her voice shook at the unfairness of it.

“The studio got an award for it. The Golden Squid or something, I don’t know.”

“Oh joy!” Audrey cried, her voice shaking another minor avalanche free from the hill above them… or words to that effect.

“Look on the bright side,” Morgan panted against the back of her neck. “It’s done now. We did it.”

Wiping dirt away from her mouth, Audrey said, “What exploded?” She waved her hands, trying to clear enough air to breathe.

A gruff male voice bit out through the dissipating dust cloud, “What the hell are you kids doing?”

Audrey jumped, but Morgan only smiled. “Beth, may I introduce Sargent Pelosi from the U.S. army.”

With an incredulous look, Audrey stared from him to the forms of three men dressed in split pea soup green as they materialized out of the settling debris. “Army? Army?!” She flung her hands up in the air. “Now they send in the army!”

“Are you kids okay?” Sargent Pelosi asked again.

“Oh, we’re just hunky-dory,” Audrey snapped back at him. “We’ve been fighting spiders for weeks now; where have you been? Nice to know our national security tax dollars are being well spent.”

Offering both her and Morgan a helping hand up, Pelosi gave Audrey a cross look. “You are one very lucky young lady. You had no business being in there. You could have been killed!”

“I was! Twice!”

Morgan took her by the shoulders and gave her a small shake, but he was grinning as he said, “Beth, how could you have been so foolish?”

“Oh, I would just like to slap you,” Audrey told him.

He grinned and gave her another gentle shake. “No amount of jewelry is worth your life.”

“I know that!” Audrey flung her hands into the air. “Who are you, and what have you done with ‘it’s in the script’ boy?”

Morgan pulled her close, forehead to forehead, nose to nose and smiled. “I’m so glad you are okay.”

“No thanks to you, buster,” she told him grumpily, but his good humor was infectious and eventually she smiled back. “So, now we’re done, right?”

“Almost.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“Alm—” Her eyes widened as she recalled the crowning event of Scene Seventeen.

Morgan caught her by the arm before she could pull away and he dropped down to one knee, pulling her down and spilling her across his thigh before she could run. He wasted little time in bringing his hand down hard across her skirt-clad bottom.

“You are never to endanger yourself like that again!” he told her, grinning as she stiffened across his knee with a yelp.

“Ouch!” Audrey snapped a hand back to protect her smarting right bottom cheek, but he only dodged her splayed fingers and walloped the left side just as vigorously as the right. “Morgan!” she wailed. “I-I mean Peter! I-I mean—I—ow!”

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