"What... what was that?" asked Fred, jumping at an unfamiliar noise.
"It was just the wind, ya big baby," Isaac replied.
"If you're so scared, why don't you go on home - oh that's right," Zac said, giving Fred a dark look, "you can't."
Fred made a note to keep his mouth shut.
Isaac and Zac would never admit it, especially not in the presence of their misfit brother, but they were pretty creeped out too.
Then all three jumped at the sound of a hideous cackle. Out from the misshapen shadows came a horde of misshapen creatures. Before they realised exactly what was happening, the three were knocked unconscious.
**********
When Zac woke up, he would have been inclined to believe that it had all been a bad dream, if not for the fact that he was dangling over a vat of spaghetti. From where he was hanging he could see Isaac and Fred.
Isaac was in a cage with the door wide open. On either side of the open door however, were two high and virtually unclimbable walls. In between these walls were hot coals. Five metres worth of them. Hence why he was still in the cage. He was still trying to get enough nerve to cross them - either that or find another way out.
Fred was lounging in a hammock, much to Zac's annoyance. In his hands was a banjo and he seemed intent on working out how to play it.
"Fred!" Zac yelled. "Hey Fred! Can you help me down?"
Fred didn't even look at his brother.
"Fred!"
"There's a knife in your belt."
Zac stared, then put his hand up to his belt. Sure enough, there was. As he was upside down, Zac pulled himself up so that his hands could reach the rope around his feet. He pulled out the knife and cut the rope. When the last strand broke, he felt, splat into the spaghetti. Not without some effort, he wriggled his way to the surface and gasped for breath, before sloshing through the slimey spaghetti to the side of the vat. He grabbed hold of the edge and clambered over it, spaghetti still sticking to him.
"Hey, hey Zac!" Isaac called. "Can you give me a hand?"
"Sure," he replied, walking over.
The two brothers ummed and ahhed over a way out. Fred kept playing the banjo.
"Fred? Would you stop that?" Isaac said, exasperated. "Can't you see we're trying to concentrate?"
"Can you see we're trying to concentrate?" Fred mimicked to himself. "As if I'm not!"
For, unseen by his brothers, Fred was actually chained to his hammock. Having been fiddling with the banjo, he worked out that if he could hit the right tune, the lock would come undone. He was just trying to work out the tune.