by B. L. Morgan
I heaved in some air and coughed a few more times and treaded water.
We both looked around us.
On three sides was a beach, beyond that were coconut trees and thick vegetation. The other direction appeared to lead out to open ocean.
Without a word from me, because I could barely breathe while still spitting out saltwater, we both swam toward shore.
Oh shit, was what went through my mind. I think we just dropped into Gilligan’s Island.
Chapter Thirteen
Where’s Mary-Anne and Ginger?
I dragged my ass up out of the water, staggered to dry sand and collapsed to my knees then to my face. The sand felt hot but after the cold water I didn’t mind that one bit.
Johnny fell to the beach about ten feet to my right.
I lifted myself up to my elbows and knees and turning my head started to say something. More brackish tasting water flew up my throat and out my nose and mouth onto the beach.
“Man! Are you ever going to stop vomiting or what?” Johnny asked.
After heaving a few more times I sat up straight.
“I think I’m done now,” I said.
“I hope so,” he answered. “That shit’s getting old. And another thing, Dude, do you ever brush your mother-fucking teeth? I just noticed your teeth are all fucked up. They’re all brown and shit. We get back, you need to see a dentist like yesterday!”
As he talked I noticed his teeth were all messed up too. Johnny’s teeth were brown with black spots and a lot of them were missing.
I told him this and he stuck his hand in his mouth and rooted around with his fingers. I did the same and found all kinds of rot going on in my mouth.
“Ain’t this a bitch,” I said. “I wore out all those dam tooth brushes and I bet they don’t even exist in this century.”
“Yeah, they probably don’t,” he agreed.
We both stood up.
I dusted the sand off me as I looked around. About thirty feet up from the water the beach came to a sudden halt and the tree line began. Coconut and banana trees looked to be scattered liberally among bushes and other trees that I couldn’t identify.
Beyond that, in the distance I could see what looked to be a very steep hill. The North and West side appeared to be grass covered. The South side looked like it fell off at a cliff face.
The sun beat down warmly on our backs. I glanced back out to the water and saw large fish swimming in the lagoon looking for smaller fish to eat.
The word lagoon popped into my head naturally just like it was a word I used every day as a natural part of the way I talk but I knew that wasn’t right. As far as I could remember I’d never used that word in my life.
Then again, I had heard Gilligan use it on his stupid TV show. And to tell you the truth, this lagoon, with the water being about fifty yards across, with a thin strip of beach on three sides, did look almost like a copy of the one on Gilligan’s Island.
I told Johnny this as he was checking out everything.
“I kind of noticed that too,” he said. “If that’s were we are, I got dibs on Mary Anne. She’ll know she’s got a real farmer when I start plowing her fields.”
“I get Ginger then,” I told Johnny. “That girls gonna see some real stars when I start climbing all over her Hollywood Hills.”
We slapped palms and headed inland.
Neither of us had shoes on.
I noticed this when I stepped on a sharp rock and jumped back expecting my foot to be cut open. I stopped and reached down and felt of my foot.
“We ain’t got no shoes on,” I told Johnny.
“No shit Dick Tracy,” He answered. “I guess that’s why you’re a detective. You figure shit out like that real quick.”
“We jumped through with them on, so where the hell did they go?”
“Dammed if I know,” Johnny said and stuck both of his hands down the front of his pants.
“We ain’t got no time for you to be playing with yourself,” I told him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m cheking things out,” he said. “It takes two hands to handle a whopper.”
I squatted down and felt of my left foot.
“The bottoms of my feet are really thick.” I told Johnny. “They got calluses like a mother-fucker. It feels like tennis shoes.”
Johnny was still rooting around in his pants.
“I got that extra skin back too,” he said. “I guess we jumped back far enough so that we didn’t get circumcised in this life. Man, my dick’s scary enough without there being extra. I’ll make the girls faint with this bad-boy.”
We were just inside the tree line.
“What do you figure happened to the guns we jumped through with?” I asked.
“Probably the same thing happened the last time we came through,” Johnny said. “They changed to match whatever time we’re in now.”
“And they’re probably at the bottom of the lagoon,” I said.
“Probably.”
“We’ll check that out later,” I told him.
We walked further inland.
The sun was bright and tropical birds flew from tree to tree shrieking out loud cries. Over head bounding from limb to limb I caught glimpses of small monkeys. They were too far away to tell exactly what kind they were.
“If we don’t find Mary Anne,” I told Johnny. “You can always nail one of those critters.”
“Fuck you,” he said and we walked on.
After awhile, probably about a half hour we came to the grass covered hill and started climbing.
While going up the hill I noticed something that I liked. My skin wasn’t burning in the bright sun.
I told Johnny this.
“That makes sense,” he said. “In this life, in whatever year we’re in now, you haven’t met that Spider-Bitch yet. So she couldn’t have put that vampire-werewolf germ shit into you.”
“So you think she’s a vampire or a werewolf?”
She’s one of those. She fits the profile,” Johnny answered. “She gave you some kind of a germ that makes you sick as hell in the daylight, crave raw blood and meat and makes you have an overpowering urge to kill. Yeah, I’d guess that she’s either a vampire or a werewolf.”
It took us about another hour to reach the top of the hill. While it wasn’t the highest point of the island it was high enough to definitely show us that we were surrounded on all sides by water.
We also saw something else to the East, something that I didn’t know was welcome or not.
Smoke was drifting up from a clearing beyond the jungle from more than just one spot.
Someone was living over there.
Chapter Fourteen
Jungle Breezes
From up high on the hilltop we saw palm trees swaying in the breeze, colorful tropical birds flying around and cooling waves breaking on peaceful beaches. This place looked almost like an island paradise.
Almost.
But the smoke we saw drifting skyward in the distance told us that this was not a paradise. Man was on this island. Man, he was the true snake in the Garden of Paradise.
Where mankind was in any great number, there were bound to be problems.
“We gotta go there,” I told Johnny pointing at where the smoke originated. “If there’s a way to get from here to Elizabeth’s country it’s my guess that’s where we’ll find it.”
“You think we should go back and dive for whatever weapons we dropped in the lagoon before we check it out?” Johnny asked.
“Actually, I have been thinking about that,” I said. “There’s no guarantee the weapons are there and even if they are, we’ve got no diving gear. If they got firearms in this day and age it’s probably the type that would have been useless the instant they hit the water. If there are no guns in this day and age then what we lost were probably swords of some sort. We’d have a hell of a time finding those laying flat on the bottom.
“Let’s just be real careful fin
ding out who we’re sharing this island with.”
“Sounds good to me,” he answered.
We started down the East side of the hill.
This side was steeper than where we’d come up.
It’s always easier going downhill than it is going up and we made good time. A good bit of the way we slid down the slope on our asses.
If I haven’t said so before, the type of clothes we had on every since we popped out of the portal at the bottom of the lagoon was actually kind of similar to what we jumped in with. It wasn’t exactly the same though.
I had on a loose fitting white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of loose fitting pants that had no pockets. The pants were held up by a belt that was more like a rope than anything else.
Johnny had on approximately the same thing that I did except that he also had a red bandana type rag tied around the top of his head.
We moved down the hillside and before we were half way down small trees were standing at an angle up from the ground reaching toward the sun. We used those for handholds.
At the bottom we took a few minutes to catch our breath. With birds singing and a warm ocean breeze making leaves overhead rustle this place did seem peaceful enough to just find a quiet spot, build a hut and live out the rest of this life here.
Why I didn’t decide to do just that I’m not quite sure.
We headed into the jungle toward the East.
The day was hot but it wasn’t an uncomfortable or sweaty type heat. With the baggy-ass trousers that I was wearing my nuts were swinging free. On that day, even my balls weren’t sweaty. I was feeling good.
I guess that’s what ocean breezes flowing over the land do for a place. Even under the trees and in the shade we felt the soft breeze cooling us.
We were heading in the general direction of the smoke when a question hit me without warning. Being the kind of guy that I am, I knew that if I didn’t ask the thing now I’d probably forget and never get it done later.
“Hey Johnny, I gotta ask you, why were you so anxious to head on out and jump through that portal with me this time?”
“Cause you ain’t worth shit without me,” he answered immediately. “If I ain’t with you, you won’t get shit done and the world won’t be rescued from Spider-Bitch.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We both know that’s bullshit.”
“I guess we do,” Johnny replied.
We walked in silence for awhile listening to the sounds of the jungle.
“What’s the real reason,” I asked.
After a few more steps he said, “It ain’t no dam picnic living with Jeanette. I just had to get out at least for a little while.”
“She’s living with you bro. It’s your place.”
“As if that makes a god-dam difference,” Johnny said. “I mean, I love Jeanette. She’s my Grandma and all that shit but I get tired of somebody all the time telling me to pick up my socks and do the dishes and shit like that. It gets old.”
“I could send Rosa by your place when we get back,” I told him. “She can always use a few extra bucks.”
“Shit,” Johnny said. “So I could get my ass chewed out for paying someone for what I could be doing. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You need to put your foot down bro,” I advised. “You need to tell Jeanette who the hell the man of the house is.”
“Yeah, that’d work just perfect,” Johnny answered shaking his head. “Then I could kick my Grandma’s ass up and down the street too. That’d do my reputation as being a bad mother-fucker a whole hell-of-a lot of good.”
A sound like voices came from up in front and to the right of us. I tapped Johnny on the arm to get his attention, and then put a finger to my lips while nodding in that direction.
We’d come farther and faster than either one of us realized. Just up ahead, maybe fifty yards at the most, voices drifted out.
There were people out there just past where the trees ended.
We crept forward as silently as we could.
Chapter Fifteen
Savages
Ahead through the dense vegetation we heard the rhythmic beating of a drum. The voices that came from in front of us matched the drum beat. It sounded like a war song chanted in a language neither one of us had ever heard.
We were now crouched over getting as close to the dirt as possible trying to use the bushes and ground plants as cover.
We moved forward quietly like stalking predators.
Johnny leaned close to me.
He whispered, “This kind of tribe music reminds me a lot of what I heard in Tarzan movies.”
I answered him with a nod of my head because Johnny was dead on target. That’s exactly what it sounded like.
The chanting and drums increased in volume so much that the sounds of any other animals or birds in the jungle were drowned out.
Ahead of us the tree line came to an end and a clearing was just beyond that.
Grass huts dotted a large open space. Dark skinned people, I was guessing around fifty of them, mostly men carrying spears, were milling around. They were the ones who were chanting.
In time to the same rhythmic beating of a loud drum that we couldn’t see these primitive warriors were stomping their feet and banging the butts of their spears into the ground. Then they’d all jump at the same time straight up into the air and yell, “Ayeee Ya!”
I leaned close to Johnny.
“Some of your relatives bro?” I asked.
“Fuck you,” he whispered back. “Not mine. Look closer.”
I did and saw what he meant.
These were not like African Blacks. These guys doing the tribal disco dance looked like South Sea Island Natives.
We watched and after just a few minutes the timbre of the music changed from chanting to a type of murmur.
From one of the grass huts, the largest one, a man with his hands tied behind him was dragged out.
We were maybe thirty yards from where this guy was and everybody had their backs to us. I’d seen bloodlust before from a crowd, seen it and smelled it. Its scent was musty and raw, kind of like the smell of good rough sex except this scent was somehow ugly.
When this guy was dragged out from the hut I smelled the bloodlust of this crowd erupt.
The war chant stopped. It was replaced by a collective sound that I could only describe as a growl.
“Something bad’s gonna happen here,” Johnny whispered.
“No shit Dick Tracy,” I answered.
We were still whispering but the truth was, it wasn’t necessary. The way this group of blood-thirsty savages was rumbling they would only hear us if we started yelling at the top of our lungs.
The guy was dragged kicking and screaming to a tall pole that was in the center of the clearing. It took four of the warriors to hold him while his arms were bound behind him around the pole. Then another rope was wound around him and the pole binding him to it.
As we watched this, the crowd around the prisoner started making a weird trilling noise that came out something like a high pitched. “Lalalalalalalalala ...”
It sounded to me like crickets on LSD.
As soon as the man was secured to the post a man came out of the same hut the prisoner was dragged out of. This man had on a large headdress made of a combination of feathers and animal bones.
This guy was around six-two and weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred pounds. If this tribe was underfed, well I knew this boy sure as hell ate his fill every day.
This was obviously the chief of this tribe. He was carrying a big long bone in his hand. He raised the bone up over his head and shouted something to the warriors.
They instantly answered their, “Ayee Ya!”
The Chief pointed at one of the warriors and yelled something like, “Ca Ra!”
That warrior jumped forward and slashed his spear sideways ripping open a cut in the prisoner’s chest.
The prisoner screamed.
The Chief pointed
at another warrior yelling his, “Ca Ra!”
That warrior did the same as the first.
This was repeated over and over.
After the fourth cut I leaned at Johnny and whispered, “I don’t think the natives are friendly.”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Let’s slide the fuck out of here while we still can.”
We turned and started moving sideways through the brush toward the East.
Why the hell we were going that direction I have no idea. We were just skirting the edge of the village and heading away from the direction that we’d come in.
We kept going in this direction slowly moving back away from the village and deeper into the woods when we came to a sudden drop off, so sudden we almost fell in, to a small river.
The vegetation ended abruptly and on the other side of the river there was a group of native women beating clothes on stones. The women had guards with them.
When we burst out of the line of vegetation the women looked up straight at us.
A few of them screamed.
I felt like screaming myself.
One of the guards hurled his spear at me. It hissed past my head and buried itself in a tree.
We turned and bolted full tilt into the jungle.
Running back into the thick trees we tore through the foliage as fast as we could, covering some serious ground. There was no trail to run on so Johnny and me were pretty much side by side knocking plants out of our way when without warning Johnny was gone.
He was jerked from his feet and flung up into the air where he was swinging and dangling by one leg from a rope at least twenty feet off the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” Johnny yelled. “Get me the fuck down from here!”
I stopped and a spear flew past nicking me and cutting a gash in my shoulder.
Three warriors, two of them with spears rushed forward.
The one closest jabbed his spear at me. I slapped it to the side, jumped toward him and straight-armed him to the face. I felt his nose crunch.
As he went down I wrenched the spear out of his grasp and faced off with the other guy with a spear.
He lunged at me and I knocked the point to the side and jabbed at him. He jumped backward.