Island Jumper 2

by M H Ryan

  “Seven,” she said.

  “What?”

  She shook her head, dismissing the comment. “Remember the tree on Yin Island, the smoldering tree?” Benji asked.

  “Yeah, the same tree was on Eliza’s island as well,” I said.

  Both islands shared a tree that had been split down the middle and burning as if by a lightning strike. They burned from the inside out. Red embers filled the insides of both trees and sent a trail of smoke rising into the sky. They also both changed the way I felt about things. As if they were the greatest downers around. Around those trees, I wanted to give up and just lay in a hole. I felt worthless and powerless. When I opened the box, I didn’t feel any of that. It just looked like a smooth black stone. The kind you might find at some rock store in northern Arizona.

  “On Yin’s tree, I felt it, and you did too, but I was too scared of it to really feel it, if you know what I mean. But on this stone, I hadn’t felt anything until I reached out to it and went into it.”

  “What was inside?” I asked.

  “Hell,” Benji said. “It’s rotten, and is pure evil, but dormant like a seed or a…” She tapped my hand holding hers as if coming to a great realization. “Like the rock at the end of the Time Bandits, the one the parents touched and disintegrated.”

  “ ‘Don’t touch it, it’s evil,’ ” I said, quoting the movie.

  “Can you be any more perfect?” Benji said, staring at me with those big blues. “I think if we went to the smoldering trees and cut through them, we’d eventually find one of those stones in it.” She pointed to the box in disgust.

  “You think shadow man is planting these stones on these islands?” I asked.

  “Look at what it has here,” Benji said, still pointing to the steel box. “It’s using them to spread its evil onto the islands. I bet Kara’s island, Yin, had been taken out by one of these, and then Eliza’s island was next. Jack, I believe there is one on Yang as well. Remember the plants and the earthquakes? Our island is changing.”

  “How can a little stone do any of that?” I asked.

  She pulled her hand back from mine and covered her forehead. Some of the color had returned to her face as she glanced at the other boxes.

  “It’s concentrated wrongness, Jack. It doesn’t take much. Like a drop of poison that kills an elephant,” Benji said. “We need to destroy them.”

  “Let’s check the other compartments as well,” I said.

  A protest built on her face, but she didn’t say anything as I went to the compartment less traveled and opened it. To my surprise, it held a folded up, inflatable life raft and some life jackets. The red ditch bag wasn’t there, as it had been on the Veronica, but these supplies were definitely something we could use. Hell, I wanted this whole damn ship.

  “Okay, we’ll destroy them,” I said. “But first, we need to find Cass.”

  We left the box of evil and headed for the kitchen area. Visions of Frank working in the kitchen came back to me, but what I really wanted was some pots and pans. Good God, it would be amazing to have some cooking supplies. Of course, it held nothing. Drawers and cupboards were empty, and even the stove was gone. The kitchen seemed better off than the rest of the boat. It had a dry floor. The white paint still covered most of the walls and cabinets. Even the stainless steel counters were gleaming clean.

  “We should check the engine room,” I said.

  Leaving the middle floor, we descended to the engine room. At the bottom of the stairs was a steel door with a window in it. I looked into the adjacent room through the window and didn’t see Cass or much of anything besides the motors and pipes running everywhere.

  I opened the door, and the noise of the engines flooded us. I quickly went inside the room with Benji and pulled the door closed. If the shadow had been listening, it might have noticed the spike of the engine drone. I waited, feeling for it, but I didn’t sense any urgent change in it.

  The engine room smelled of burning oil and hot metal. The constant drone of the motors made it near impossible to speak to each other, and it was hot, really hot, probably pushing a hundred degrees. I’d been down in the engine room a few times with Mario to make some simple repairs. Once a fuel line had cracked, spilling diesel over the floor. I spotted the same black hose running along the wall toward the motors leading directly from the fuel tanks. The only difference seemed to be these small black boxes over the fuel line.

  I walked through the engine room, crouching down under the beams and low ceilings until I was sure there wasn’t anyone down there. The last thing in the world I’d want was to leave the ship with Cass, only to learn later that Kara, Sherri, or Eliza had been hidden on the ship somewhere.

  We moved back to the engine room door. In one quick motion, I flung the door open and jumped into the stairwell with Benji, shutting it just as quickly behind us.

  “I hated that room,” Benji said, wiping some the sweat from her brow.

  Her whole body glistened with sweat.

  “There’s one place left,” I said. “The bridge.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. There were many rooms around the ship for more storage and other utility rooms for waste and water, but they were too small for two people to be in, and I doubted the shadow monster would stuff Cass in a wastewater room.

  We walked up the stairs with more speed than coming down, and Benji practically pushed me past the middle floor. She kept looking back, as if one of the stones were going to jump from their boxes and launch at her.

  Back where we started, I stared at the stairs leading up to the bridge. Blood smeared across part of the handrail. It had to be up there; I felt it. It was hungry but satisfied, as if it was watching its meal being cooked. This was a disturbing thought and made the urgency of ending this all the more significant.

  One thing I thought we still had was the element of surprise. What we were going to do with that, I wasn’t sure yet. Eliza could probably tell us what she felt we should do at this point, but we didn’t have her. I had to trust my own hooker’s intuition.

  I stepped onto the first tread of the staircase leading up to the bridge’s door. Benji had her bow in hands, an arrow at the ready. She took slow breaths and stared at the door. I saw her in this zone mode before. She was a state champion archer, and there wasn’t a single person I’d rather have on my side at that moment.

  We climbed the stairs, reaching the metal door leading into the bridge. It didn’t have a window on it, so we’d be going in blind. Taking a deep breath, I gazed at Benji. She had an unblinking stare at the door.

  “I’ll open,” I whispered near her ear. “You shoot.”

  She gave me the slightest nod as she kept her focus on the door.

  There would be no countdown and no second chances. I turned the handle and flung the door open.

  Before the door stopped moving, Benji let go of the string. I watched the arrow launched from a bow she made from bamboo and string. She was already reaching from the second arrow as I moved crouched down, into the bridge.

  The shadow figure stood behind the helm controls and didn’t look back as the arrow struck it in the center of its back. I heard the second arrow fly over my head, and as the figure dressed in black spun around to confront us, the second arrow hit it in the chest. It fell to the floor with a knife in hand. A bare human hand. This wasn’t some monster, it was a person wrapped in black fabric.

  “Cass!” Benji cried.

  The volleyball player lay on the floor in front of the shadow man. The shadow crawled to her, putting the knife against her neck.

  “Hurt her and the next one goes through your eye,” I said.

  “Jack?” the shadow said, and then pulled down some of the black fabric, exposing his face.

  “Mario?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “You know him?” Benji asked.

  “He was on the ship with us, Benji. He stays below deck, so you wouldn’t have seen him.”

  It really was him—Mario from th
e Veronica, the engineer and back-up captain of the ship. He was the shadow man?

  “You shot me,” Mario said, pulling the arrow from his chest while keeping the knife on Cass’s neck.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “Let her go.”

  “I can’t do that. I need her,” Mario said, and I realized I could feel him.

  He was the shadowy figure and all the hunger I felt was in him. He wanted to kill us and eat us, but not our flesh. He wanted something else from us. He desperately needed Cass and even us.

  “Let her go, or we will be forced to stop you,” I said.

  He showed his teeth and looked demonic. “I want to die,” Mario said. “Kill me. I don’t care.”

  “We don’t want to kill you,” I said. “Get back from her, and we can help you. We have first aid, and with this ship, we can all get out of here.”

  Well, we had some bark in a bag back on the island. A sea monster took our first aid kit.

  “Good luck with that,” Mario said and tried to pull the arrow from his back but couldn’t reach it. “She’s almost ripe,” Mario said, rubbing his knife blade across Cass’s face. “You’ve got a ways to go, Jack—you were always a good, sweet boy—but it won’t take long to ripen you as well. Her though”—he spit on the floor while keeping his brown eyes on Benji—“she’s so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. But she will ripen as well. They all do in the end. The king is coming for them all.”

  “What are you talking about, Mario?” I asked.

  “You’ll learn soon enough,” Mario said with a laugh. “I’ll show you what was given to me down below. A present wrapped up just for you.”

  “We’ve seen your sick rock collection,” Benji said with an arrow pulled back.

  Mario didn’t like this revelation, and his face contorted with anger. I felt it like a hot wave radiating out from him. Why could I feel his emotions and not the ladies?

  “You have gifts as well, don’t you?” Mario asked. “I woke on this boat and knew I had a job to do. The king commanded it.”

  “The king?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, the great king. He’s the one that gave me my gift,” Mario said, looking up.

  “What’s your gift?” I asked.

  “Being an asshole,” Benji answered for him.

  Mario laughed and hearing that laugh I knew, disturbed me. “I’m the reaper. The collector. I work for him, getting him what we need and preparing for him. These islands will soon be ripe, as well, and then he can come here.”

  “Mario, please, just get back from Cass, and we can figure this out,” I said, sliding my knife into its sheath.

  Mario coughed into his hand. Blood stained his palm and ran down his chin. He showed us his palm and gave us a bloody smile.

  “I was promised immortality,” Mario said, looking at his hand and then to me.

  For the first time, I felt the sourness of fear from him. He was confused and conflicted.

  “Jack,” Mario said and coughed again, producing more blood from his mouth. “There will be another. If you want to live—if you want them all to live—then you need to find the king before he finds you. Only his fingers tips reach this far out but soon he will close his fist on this part of the sea.” He took his knife off Cass’s throat and leaned back to the helm, where he stumbled forward, slammed his hand on a button, and fell to the floor. “Now get the fuck off my ship.”

  “Is this the Veronica?” I asked. “Where’s Rebecca?”

  “This is not the Veronica. Rebecca has that.” He laughed and coughed, then spit blood on the floor.

  “Where is she?” I asked, taking a step toward the dying man.

  “She’s be in his grasp, same as you,” Mario said, spitting out blood as he did.

  Benji slowly stepped toward Cass while keeping an arrow pointed at Mario.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “How do we get out of here?”

  He laughed again, and it sounded wet. He coughed again and whispered. “You can’t leave. I’ve tried so many times, only to end where I started. He promised me…” Mario fell to the floor, and the emotions emanating from him ceased.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  “Should I pop him one more time to be sure?” Benji said, her hands shaking and welled-up tears in her eyes.

  “No, let’s get Cass out of here—”

  A rumble came from below the ship and the hum of the motor slowed to a stop.

  Benji lowered her bow and looked at the floor. “What was that?”

  “Nothing good,” I said, running to Cass.

  Mario lay near her, and I got an up-close look at the man. A man. His eyes were still open and looking at something over my shoulder. He resembled Mario, but he also looked as if he had taken on a transformation. The skin around his eyes was dark and seemed to hang from his bones. Mario had to be in his mid-twenties, but he looked as if he could have been in his late thirties now. There were creases at the corners of his eyes and stubble that looked as if it had a hint of gray in it. His blood pooled up below him, slowly moving toward Cass.

  I slid my hands under Cass and lifted her up. I put her over my shoulder, feeling her limp body flopping around on me. I gave her one adjustment and went to the bridge door. Benji was there, pushing it open for me.

  She stared at Mario.

  “He would have killed us,” I said. “He would have killed Cass, and the rest of us, in time.”

  “I know,” she said breathlessly.

  Benji had killed the man, and I wished I would have been the one to do it. I should have been the one to hold that burden.

  I carried Cass down the stairs, and that’s when I smelled smoke, like burned plastic and rubber. There was smoke in the air around the lower staircase. I went to the deck door and opened it. I set Cass down on the deck and went back in.

  “The engine room’s burning up, I bet,” I said. “He pressed a button right before he died.”

  “You think he set off something?” Benji said.

  “I think he sabotaged this boat,” I said, and now wished that we had killed him quicker. This boat would change everything in our situation. We could have stocked it to the brim and then set sail for back home. We could have lived in this boat. We could have done a million things with it, and Mario was trying to take this away from us.

  “Stay with Cass,” I said and ran downstairs.

  The thicker smoke below made it harder to breathe, and I pulled my shirt over my mouth. The smoke wasn’t coming from the middle floor, it was coming up from the engine room. Back on the Veronica, there was a fire extinguisher right next to each staircase, but here there was only a hook on the wall that once held it.

  This ship was too important. I had to risk it. I ran down the next flight of stairs to the engine room door. The window was filled with yellow flames, and the fire had burned the rubber seal around the door. Noxious fumes escaped the engine room from around the door. I held up my hands, trying to block the intense heat from my face as I stepped back up the stairs. The ship couldn’t recover from this fire, and I had no way to stop it.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said, pissed off.

  I started coughing as the smoke went deeper into my lungs. My shirt filter wasn’t working for shit, so I decided on speed and ran to the box in storage. I opened the box and grabbed one wooden box from the lot and then closed the door, securing the latch. Then I went to the next box and pulled out the inflatable life raft and three life vests.

  The smoke had thickened in the room, and my lungs burned with the acrid smoke. With goods in hand, I ran to the stairs and up them, carrying the heavy inflatable.

  Benji was at the door and rushed to me, helping me with the raft. Getting out of the door, I took a deep breath of the fresher air and then bent over in a coughing fit, dropping the items onto the deck.

  “What the hell, Jack. You got one of the boxes?”

  “We should have it to study it. It might help us find the one on the island,” I said, coughing several tim
es.

  “Or it could become the one on our island, Jack. These things are evil and transformative. It could be manipulating you right now into thinking it has value.”

  I glanced back at the door we came from. Smoke poured out from the opening now and rose from the various vents above, creating a plume of smoke over the boat.

  “It’s important, Benji, that we understand something about what is going on here. Each time we learn something, we learn we know nothing. This stone could start our understanding of what’s going on here and maybe help us get out of here.”

  “All we need is each other, Jack. I already understand that stone. It’s meant for nothing but pain and destruction.”

  “Mario said it was preparing this place for the arrival of something,” I said.

  “Mario had gone insane. I didn’t need an extra sense to see that in him. He was delusional. The king was something he manifested in his own mind.”

  “These stones aren’t delusional,” I said. “How could he have made these?”

  “It could have been his gift. Do you really think all these gifts we’re getting don’t have a dark side? Maybe a very dark side.”

  Benji picked up the box and threw it into the boat. It disappeared in the thick smoke but I heard it clatter across the floor and down the stairs.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said.

  “Jack, that was the box we opened. It was already getting to you.”

  Cass groaned and rolled to her side.

  “Cass,” Benji yelled, getting close to her and touching her face. “Her fever is worse and she’s shaking.”

  “We got to get off this boat.”

  I looked out into the ocean around us. I quickly saw where we were, near Tar Island. This was great.

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t have grabbed that box, but I need to go back in. Get the raft inflated and be ready to jump ship.”

  I didn’t wait for her response or protests—just ran back into the ship.

  Chapter 28

  In a couple minutes, I returned out of the ship, coughing madly as I breathed in the clean air. The raft was quickly inflating and spreading out over the deck next to Cass and Benji.