by William King
“Yes Hillary, I too have wondered why anyone would want to harm Elizabeth, but so far I have come up with nothing.”
Lyle seemed to have lost his talking mood, as he just sat at the table silently, as Hillary and I talked.
“Mason, I know that you will do everything within your power to keep Elizabeth and us safe on the island.”
“Yes I will Hillary, do not worry, everything will be all right.”
Hillary smiled and said, “Mason, I cannot understand why Elizabeth has never married, lord knows she would be more than a catch for the right young man.”
“Hillary was Elizabeth ever interested in anyone that you know of over the years?”
The question caught Hillary off guard, as she thought that she was being clever, unexpectedly changing the subject, thinking that I did not know what she was up to.
A smile appeared on her face as she asked, “Have you ever been married yourself?”
“No Hillary I have not been married yet, but someday I would like to be.”
Hillary reached over and tapped Lyle on the arm and said, “Lets go back to our room old man,” breaking his trance like state of silence that he was in at the table.
Lyle got up from the table, pushed his chair in, and said, “Ha, old man my ass.”
Hillary’s mission was accomplished, planting a seed within my head of Elizabeth being my prospective wife. On top of that, she wanted me to believe that it was her very own doing. I smiled at her as she got up from the table and thought, if she only knew.
I was alone once again with no one to dominate my thoughts, and my mind immediately begun to wonder, and my thoughts were quickly centered on the Devil’s Island once again. In approximately twenty-four hours, the Elizabeth Dane was to be anchored off the Coast of Devil’s Island, and I still have no clue on what the hell is going on. Elizabeth returned to the table and asked, “Mason, would you care to join me for a stroll up on deck to get some fresh air?”
“Sure I would Elizabeth.”
I jumped to my feet, pushed my chair in under the table, grabbed Elizabeth’s hand, and we started making our way to the upper deck of the ship. Once on the upper deck I saw nothing but a clear blue sky. Once outside Elizabeth and I walked to the back of the ship and laid down on a couple of wooden lounge chairs to relax and soak up the warm rays of the sun. The slight sea breeze cooled us just enough to give us the chills every now and then, keeping us from getting to hot. I was so relaxed that I managed to fall asleep, as I was now virtuous with the world and at peace with my God.
I woke up to Elizabeth’s cool hands on my chest as she was saying, “Wake up Mason, you have been asleep for an hour and a half, it is time that we do something else rather than laying here in these lounge chairs all day long.”
“Alright, alright, I’m up, I am up” I replied as I leaned up in the lounge chair.
Elizabeth quickly replied, “I am starving, and my guts will not stop growling, let’s go get something for lunch.”
“Did you say lunch Elizabeth, what time is it?”
“It is well past twelve o’clock my dear friend.”
“Oh, I had no idea that I slept so long. Now that you have mentioned it, I am extremely hungry myself.”
We walked down to the ships galley, sat down at a table and looked over the lunch menu. Elizabeth and I ordered a double cheeseburger and French fries, as there was not much to choose from on the lunch menu. However, we did order some red wine with our lunch, which oddly enough seemed to go down well with the food. The cheeseburgers were enormous, and were even topped off with avocados. In fact, they were so big that we could not get our mouths over them, but once we bit into them the juices flowed out into our plates, creating a very messy situation. The fries were enormous as well. I guess you would call them wedge fries, as they were so dam big. Somehow, I managed to finish off my entire lunch, and I have no idea where I found the room in my stomach. However, Elizabeth on the other hand could not finish her double cheeseburger and left it on the plate, as I had no more room in my stomach to help her finish it.
Elizabeth and I were about to get up from the table when Lyle and Hillary entered the galley for lunch. They came right over and sat down with us at the table, and as soon as they both sat down Lyle asked, “What have you two been up to the entire morning?”
Elizabeth replied, “Well Lyle, Mason, and I went up on deck to relax for a bit on the lounge chairs at the rear of the ship. However, a bit ended up becoming an hour and a half as he fell asleep. If I had not awakened him to go get some lunch, lord knows how long he would have slept.”
Lyle laughed and said, “Mason Williams, only old people are supposed to fall asleep during the day, and you are not old.”
“I guess all those sleepless nights had just caught up with me.”
Lyle asked, “What did you have for lunch Mason?”
“Elizabeth and I both had a double cheeseburger and fries, which funny enough is the only thing on the lunch menu, except for a ham sandwich. I have to say Lyle, the cheeseburgers we got are the biggest cheeseburgers that I have ever seen, and they are definitely not what you would get at a fast food place like McDonalds.”
Then Hillary spoke out and said, “I will take one of those enormous cheeseburgers with fries!”
We all started laughing at the same time as Lyle said, “Then that is what you shall receive, and I will have one as well.”
Elizabeth stood up, pushed her chair in, grabbed my hand, and said, “Mason and I will be out on deck if you need anything, or if you would like to join us after the both of you eat lunch.”
Lyle replied, “Alright, have a nice walk on deck.”
Right as Elizabeth and I were leaving the table, I said, “Enjoy your monstrous and juicy cheeseburgers.”
When we got up on deck we noticed that the weather had drastically changed, and not for the better since we had last been on deck, just an hour or so ago. Dark and eerie clouds had moved in, hugging the surface of the ocean, creating a thick fog bank. It seemed as if a storm was brewing. We could see the flash of lightning in the distance, radiating through the dense fog, but never heard any thunder. Elizabeth and I stood at the railing and watched in awe at Mother Nature at her finest. We stayed out up on deck for a few hours just admiring the fog, and glimmers of lightning out in the distance until it started to get to cold, so we decided to go back inside, get Lyle and Hillary, and go have some dinner.
Elizabeth and I made our way off the upper deck and down through the ship to their stateroom. Once there we knocked on their door and just seconds later, Lyle opened it and said, “Oh, hello there you two, come on in.”
We walked inside and Elizabeth asked, “Would you and Hillary like to join us for dinner?”
Hillary replied right off the bat, “Sure we would, I am starving.”
Elizabeth replied, “Alright then, get what you need and lets go get us some dinner.”
We were out the door within minutes and on our way to the galley when we heard the captain’s voice through the loud speaker saying that we might be in for some rough weather tonight. We did not care at the moment, as we only cared about filling our hungry stomachs. The four of us made it to the galley and sat down at the same table as we did for lunch. The menus had already been place at all the tables so we each picked one up and started browsing, excited to see what was on the menu for dinner, as those enormous cheeseburgers that we had for lunch were delicious. To our surprise, they had steak and chicken on the dinner menu with a baked potato covered with bacon bits, shredded cheese, and topped off with sour cream.
The four of us looked at the menu and ordered the steak for dinner, along with a bottle of red wine to share. The waiter walked up to the table ten minutes later with our plates, filled with enormous steaks and potatoes. The four of us were at awe at the size of the proportions on the plates, wondering if we could even finish our meals. Nonetheless, we cut right in and started chowing down until we could no longer eat anymore. What seemed
to be an endless defeat turned out not to be, as every one of us somehow managed to finish everything on our plates. I guess we were hungrier than we thought. We even managed to finish the entire bottle of red wine.
We sat at the table with full stomachs without saying a word to one another for a few minutes when Elizabeth broke the silence and said, “Well, I think it is time that we go back to our staterooms and try to get some sleep. We might not have much time to do so, as the weather outside looks menacing. We might be in for a rough night.”
Lyle replied, “That sounds like a very good idea, let’s go Hillary.”
The four of us got up from the table at the same time, pushed our chairs in and slowly walked back to our staterooms, as our stomachs were beyond full. We said goodnight to one another as Lyle and Hillary opened the door to their stateroom, turned on the light, and walked in. Elizabeth and I entered our stateroom, turned on the lights, took off our shoes, changed into our bed cloths, laid down on the bed, and I turned the TV on. In what seemed to be only minutes after Elizabeth lying down on the bed, she drifted off to sleep. Then for some reason I turned and glanced at Gwendolyn Blackwood’s picture, which now held a deepened state of blankness to it, and said, within my subconscious mind, Mrs. Gwendolyn, I need your help, please, I beg you. Help me help your daughter before it is too late.
The picture seemed to ignore me, as if it were nothing more than what it had appeared to be in the first place, a picture of Elizabeth’s mother hanging on the wall. I drifted off to sleep with the TV on and soon found myself, once again, dreaming about Devil’s Island, only this time I was walking through a jungle and seemed to be looking for someone or something in particular, going to great lengths, trying to decide on which path to take. I made my way up to a substantial clearing that had a considerable amount of very unusual flowers. It was quite beautiful, but strange, as the flowers looked as if they had been arranged and planted by someone or something other than Mother Nature. As I looked to my left, I noticed a dilapidated shack, almost completely hidden by the thick underbrush of the jungle, encircled by large vines that wrapped around it like gigantic arms, as if the vines were trying to squeeze the life out of it, or protect it from something. I started to walk over towards it and remembered Mrs. Gwendolyn’s warning, see everything not only as it is, but for what it might become.
Therefore, I stopped and instead cautiously walked to a small clearing at the back of the old dilapidated shack and stumbled upon an old tombstone, which made me wonder if this had been the house where Elizabeth’s aunt Cassandra and her husband Laurence had lived at the time of his death? I took another step towards the tombstone knowing that it should bear his name, if in fact this was the place they had lived, but I wanted to go no further, not even in my dreams. I quickly turned around and walked away, knowing that there would be another time, and that was the end of my dream.
I managed to sleep peacefully for the remainder of the night and awakened to the sound of Elizabeth’s voice calling out to me.
“I say there sleepy head, are you ever going to get out of bed so you can see the eerie skies outside?”
I replied, “Eerie skies outside, what do you mean?”
“The weather has gotten worse. Haven’t you felt the ship going up and down the enormous swells? It seems as if we have entered into a pretty nasty storm.”
“No I had not noticed. Well not until now that is.”
Elizabeth had already showered and was dressed, ready to start the day, and I had just awakened.
I jumped out of bed and got into the shower, just knowing that I have been missing all the action up on deck. I could be taking pictures of the enormous swells along with the lightning up on deck. As I turned off the water and opened the shower door, I noticed Elizabeth in front of the mirror brushing her hair. I walked over to her, put my arms around her, and said, “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. You sure got up awfully early this morning.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed wide open in the mirror, lusting after my rock hard body. She quickly spoke up and said, “Mason, you sure do have great muscle tone, do you work out a lot?”
I laughed and replied, “I try to keep in shape, but not on a daily basis.”
It seemed as if Elizabeth was in a flirty mood, but that would have to wait, as it seemed as if she had some new information to tell me.
“Yes I did wake up early this morning. I got up early so I could go and have a talk with the captain about our arrival time at Devil’s Island.”
“I hope you have some good news? Elizabeth, come on. Please tell me that it is good news. You have got my full attention. Tell me. Is it good or bad news?”
“I hate to say this to you, but it is bad news if you want to get to the island. The captain informed me that we should have been anchored off the coast of Devil’s Island by mid-afternoon today. Unfortunately, the storm has blown us way off course, and we will not make it there today.”
“What do you mean blew us way of course? This is a cruise ship, not a sail boat.”
“I am just telling you what the captain had told me this morning.”
“Well, that is not very good news to hear. I guess it is possible that the enormous swells being formed by the wind could have altered the ships course. I wonder how far off course we are since the weather started getting bad last night?”
I finished getting dressed, put my shoes on, and as I was brushing my teeth I said, “Elizabeth, I had another dream about Devil’s Island last night.”
“What was it about this time Mason?”
“Elizabeth, unless my hunch is wrong and I have been misinformed in my dreams, we will definitely find the place that belonged to your aunt Cassandra and her husband on the island. In my dream last night, I saw a tombstone behind an old and dilapidated shack, which I think might me your uncles, although in my dream I did not see whose name was on it. I believe that we will eventually find out that it is your uncle’s tombstone.”
“Mason, how do you know that for sure?”
“Well nothing in particular led me to believe this, just a strong hunch. I would like this to be the first thing we start investigating once we get on the island.”
“Mason, you do realize that it could take weeks before we could find anything that fits the description of an old dilapidated shack in which you saw in your dream, and how do we really know that it exists anymore?”
“I know one thing for sure, if we do somehow happen to stumble upon it, I will know the moment I see it.”
“Alright Mason, I am hungry. How about you?”
“Yes, I am starving.”
“Alright then, lets go down to the galley and get some breakfast.”
Once Elizabeth and I got to the galley, we could smell the aroma of the blueberry pancakes. It smelled so good that we had to order a stack, along with two hot teas. The conversation drifted back and forth from one thing to another until Lyle and Hillary finally arrived. We told them about the dreams that I had been having, even before the trip had materialized. They looked strangely at one another when Lyle asked, “Mason, are you quite sure the dreams are not just that, dreams?”
“I am sure of it Lyle. In fact, I am very sure of it.
Every one of my dreams so far has come true to some degree, ever since they began. I know this must come as a shock to the both of you. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter is, I see things that the average person does not see. Lyle, I can honestly tell you that there is no reason to fear anything, at least not just yet.”
Elizabeth mentioned that it might be a good time to start packing up our belongings in our staterooms. So the four of us excused ourselves from the table and headed back to our quarters. On the way back to our quarters, the dream about the dilapidated shack within the jungle was freshly implanted within my mind, but I placed it aside, as I thought that now was not the time. However, I soon discovered that I did not have as much packing to do after all, and to start rationalizing in the condition that I was in was next t
o impossible. I looked over at the wall for some unknown reason and noticed that I forgot to remove Elizabeth’s mother’s picture from the wall. I stared at her picture for a moment before taking it down and realized that I was not going to get any other helpful messages from her. Therefore, I took down the picture, placed it safely into my luggage bag, and strapped it up.
I suddenly became nervous and started pacing back and forth, as if I were a caged animal fearing for its life when Elizabeth said, “Are you alright Mason?”
“No, I am not Elizabeth. I cannot stop thinking about that evil bitch Bastelet, and her supernatural powers that we will soon face.”
“Settle down and relax. Maybe you should go out on deck and watch the storm. That might take your mind off of Bastelet.”
“Yes Elizabeth, that sounds like a great idea.”
Once I made it to the upper deck, I noticed Hillary looking out the windows that lined the side of the ship, watching the swells so I walked over to her and said, “Hi there, have you and Lyle finished your packing?”
“No Mason, I cannot seem to get into the mood. The closer we get to Devil’s Island makes me think about all the bad things that could happen to the four of us. In fact, I believe that we should have never started on this so-called adventurous voyage to the island.”
“I know what you mean Hillary. I think everyone is a little up tight and are getting the jitters a bit. I assure you that everything will turn out just fine,” trying to look, and sound convincing.
“Mason, could I ask you something, just between the two of us?”
“Ask me anything you wish Hillary, no one else needs to ever know.”
She had tears in her eyes as she asked, “Mason, what on earth would happen to Lyle and myself if anything were to happen to you and Elizabeth on that dreadful island. I mean how would we ever get back to England?”
I wrapped my arms around her, and felt her nervous jitters radiating throughout her body, and said, “Hillary that is a perfectly logical question, and I am glad that you had brought it up. I will speak to Elizabeth and have her make arrangements with the captain as soon as I see her. Elizabeth can book all of our passages in advance so we can have the captain come back to pick us up on a specific day if something should ever happen to anyone of us, and those parties who are waiting will be picked up. However, I am quite positive that nothing bad is going to happen to any of us on that island.”