Aloha, Lugosi! The Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #4

by Steven M. Thomas

“Yes!” he answered. “It worked! They aren’t moving at all!”

  We didn’t even wait for Alex and Sharkey to get back to the ship, but passed them midway.

  “It was easy!” Sharkey shouted. “They went straight for the buckets!”

  Crumby peered through his binoculars as we approached the island. Sure enough, Roenkamp was on the beach, waiting for us.

  “Come on!” Crumby yelled to the farmer as we hit the beach. “We don’t know how much time we have until they come to!”

  He ignored us as he paced around the hogs, rope in hand.

  “Forget about them!” I yelled. “We can’t take them with us! We don’t have enough room! Just get in the boat!”

  The captain got out of the dinghy and walked up the beach towards Roenkamp. I decided to wait, not knowing how long it would be before the hogs would regain consciousness.

  A few minutes later, Crumby returned and pushed our little boat off the shore.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked.

  “He is staying,” the captain replied.

  “What do you mean he’s staying?” I yelled. “We just went through hell and high water to rescue him! He looked like twelve miles of bad road when we got here! And he’s staying?”

  “What do you want me to do?” Crumby asked. “Club him in the head and drag him into the boat?”

  “You would have done that to one of the pigs,” I replied. “I am not so sure that this man is much different!”

  I peered through the binoculars as we sailed away from the island. The farmer was cutting the throats of the animals right there on the beach. He was going to slaughter the lot of them, whether he had buyers or not.

  Suddenly, the other hogs came to and stood up. It was hard to focus through the binoculars, but the upshot of what I witnessed was very clear.

  The pack of wild hogs, led by Khana, ripped Roenkamp apart, limb from limb. They drug his carcass away in different directions, feasting on the farmer as if it were their last meal. In a matter of seconds, they had eaten him alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hiwanda was my saving grace on the ship. Were it not for her, I probably would have gone nuts. It seemed every island we’d been to was crazier than the one before. And we had a hell of a lot of islands to go. I could only hope that on the next one, we would find Lugosi alive and well.

  We passed by six rocks that day, and not a single one showed any signs of life outside of birds. And a rock full of birds means there’s nothing but shit there. It’s difficult to walk on a rock covered in shit. I know because I tried.

  We decided to drop anchor for the night and get a fresh start when the sun came up. As the sails came down, we barbequed fresh squid on the main deck. I never cared much for squid. It is chewy like rubber and hard to swallow. But I couldn’t complain. It was a hell of a lot better than going to sleep on an empty stomach.

  Hiwanda sang for us after dinner and told us a story that was apparently passed down from generation to generation. It was about a shark-man. It was a damned strange story, and disturbing, to say the least. A horror story about a man who becomes a shark on occasion and eats his friends. In the end, he is found out and beaten to death. Just the sort of thing you don’t want to hear just before going to sleep.

  “You don’t believe that story, do you?” I asked Hiwanda.

  “Of course not,” she laughed. “It is just a story. But it is good, no?”

  “It is,” I replied, “in a tragic way.”

  “Look at William Shakespeare,” Barber chimed in. “Many of his stories were tragic as well.”

  “What the hell do you know about Shakespeare?” Sharkey asked.

  “I’ve seen a few of his plays,” Barber countered.

  It was time to retire to the crow’s nest. I wasn’t about to get involved in a literary conversation with two men whose mission in life was to harpoon a whale from a boat that was smaller than the damned fish.

  Just as I was about to fall asleep, Speck started shouting uncontrollably three feet from my head.

  “Boat!” he yelled. “Coming straight for us! Boat!”

  I jumped up and looked down towards where he was pointing. It was difficult to make out at first, but sure enough, a large vessel was within a hundred feet from us and was closing in fast.

  “It’s the Lenora!” Speck shouted as he blew his deafening whistle.

  The ghost ship was back. This time, I saw her from a bird’s eye perspective. It was as if she were made up of waves of light. As she hit the Eclipse, her image disappeared completely. It then became visible again on the other side of our ship.

  Speck slid down a rope to the deck to join the others. I could hear them screaming about this second encounter with the ghost ship. Hiwanda seemed fascinated by what we’d just witnessed and asked if we were going to go down to join them.

  “You can if you’d like,” I said. “But I am going to sleep.”

  “How can you go to sleep now?” she asked. “That ship just passed right through ours! Aren’t you afraid?”

  “We’ve seen it before,” I answered. “It is just a ghost ship.”

  “And that doesn’t frighten you?” Hiwanda asked.

  “No,” I replied. “Your story about the shark-man did though. But as long as I am way up here, I figure he can’t get to me.”

  “But that is just a story!” she said. “What we just saw happen is real!”

  “Ghosts can’t harm you,” I said. “Sharks on the other hand ….”

  Hiwanda climbed out of the crow’s nest and scurried down the ladder. I was left alone to contemplate the reality of ghosts in the middle of the Pacific. I could hear them all below me, chatting away excitedly. I hunkered down with my pillow and blanket and tried to go sleep. When I finally did, I didn’t dream about ghosts. No, that would have been too easy. Instead, I had a damned dream about Shark Man.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Every time we ran into a ghost, the whole mood of the mission changed. The crew could think of nothing but finding the treasure buried under the big H. They even had Hiwanda excited about it now.

  “Many gold bars are buried there,” she told me. “We may find it!”

  “And what would you do with gold bars?” I asked.

  “Trade them!” she replied. “They are very valuable! We could get anything we wanted!”

  “And if you could get anything you wanted,” I asked, “what would it be?”

  She looked out across the blue ocean for a moment before answering.

  “I would like passage to America,” she replied.

  “You don’t need gold bars for that,” I said.

  “Then we will use them for whatever you like,” she answered. “Our own boat, to sail around America!”

  “We drive motor cars in America,” I said. “But I already own a house and a Packard there. I have everything I need.”

  “What is a Packard?” she asked.

  “It’s something that carries you from place to place,” I replied.

  “And sometimes,” a voice from behind us said, “you just have to drive the damned thing into the river.”

  Alex had been eavesdropping on our conversation and decided that was the opportune time to butt in.

  “Your husband is a great writer,” Alex said. “And a hero in America.”

  “I don’t want you filling her head with ideas of finding a treasure,” I told him. “That may be why you are out here, but not me.”

  “I wasn’t the one who told her about it,” Alex answered. “It was the others. And my good cousin, the captain, was the ring leader.”

  Crumby walked onto the deck from the pilot room to inform me we had something coming up worth looking into. “There appears to be a small house on this one,” he said.

  Crumby and I decided to bring Barber along this time. We also brought our Winchesters and several handguns, just in case.

  There was a sign on the front of the building that read “United States Coas
t Guard Post 555.” Crumby knocked cautiously, but no one answered. The door was unlocked so we went inside. The front room had a couple of old desks and a stack of blankets and cots. It didn’t look like anyone had been there for a while. I rummaged through some papers and the most recent one was dated two months ago.

  “There’s no one here,” Barber said.

  I walked into the back room, which housed a primitive kitchen and dining table. There were no windows, but the sun shown through half a dozen holes on the back wall.

  “What do you think this is?” I asked.

  “Looks like bullet holes,” Crumby answered.

  We walked outside to the back of the house and discovered blood marks on the outside where the holes were made.

  “Someone was shot here,” Barber said.

  “Okay,” I stated. “We’ve seen enough, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Look!” Crumby said pointing just behind us. About a dozen feet from the house was what appeared to be three graves. The dirt was mounded up six inches or so on top of each one. And there were half a dozen shovels lying next to them.

  Barber and Crumby picked up a shovel and started digging.

  “What are you men doing?” I asked. “This is none of our concern! I say we leave, now!”

  “This is your coast guard station,” Crumby said. “We need to find out who was murdered here.”

  “It’s not MY station!” I replied. “And quite frankly, I don’t want to know!”

  “It’s the United States,” Barber replied. “And you are a United States citizen. So this is your station, your post! It is your duty to investigate!”

  “We have people who do that sort of thing,” I said. But they kept digging anyway. I refused to participate and started walking back towards the dinghy. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere without Crumby and Barber, so I sat on the beach, watching our ship off in the distance.

  A half an hour later, the men came walking towards me. Their hands were soiled and their expressions were grim. “Let’s go,” Crumby said, as we pushed the dinghy off the island. I didn’t want to ask what they’d found, but I was curious as nine kinds of hell.

  “There were three bodies,” Crumby explained. “They couldn’t have been there more than a few days, I would guess. The smell was almost overwhelming.”

  Barber was rowing as the captain gave me the gory details. He wrenched and threw up over the side of the dinghy, then continued rowing without missing a beat.

  “They were dressed in black suits,” Crumby continued. “Each one had been shot several times square in the forehead.”

  Crumby stared off for a moment before shaking his head and continuing. “They were executed, Bay,” he said. “And whoever did it didn’t bother to hide the fact.”

  “I wonder why they went through the trouble of burying them,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe to keep the birds from feeding on them. Or maybe to hide them long enough for them to get far away. At any rate, they were clearly murdered.”

  “There’s not even anyone out here to report this to,” I said.

  “Eventually, we will have to,” the captain replied. “But there’s something else we discovered.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “They all had Nazi Party pins on their lapels,” he answered.

  “Did they have any identification on them?” I asked.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to know,” Barber quipped.

  “I didn’t want to dig them up,” I replied. “Now answer my question!”

  “We didn’t get that far,” Crumby replied. “The smell was just too much. We didn’t even fully uncover the bodies, let alone search their suit pockets!”

  “The damned Nazis,” I said. “Whatever happened, I am sure they deserved it.”

  “There’s one other thing,” the captain said. “One of them had a book laying on his chest. Whoever buried them must have put it there.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “It was your book,” Crumby answered. “Your book about the Graf.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I’d almost rather see a ghost than what we encountered on Coast Guard Island. It was bad enough that three men had been recently executed there, but why the hell would my book be buried with one of them?

  “I thought you hated the Nazis,” Barber said as we boarded our ship.

  “I do,” I replied. “What bothers me is one of them was laid to rest with my book. That is disturbing.”

  “It scares the hell out of me, and I didn’t even write it,” he replied.

  We pushed forward down Hawaii Alley towards the next group of rocks. If Crumby’s estimation was correct, whoever killed those men weren’t that far ahead of us. We hadn’t seen any ships the entire journey except those merchant vessels far out in the Pacific. If there was a ship out there going down Hawaii Alley like we were, they had at least a two-day jump start on us. Just enough to not be visible, even through Speck’s telescopes and binoculars.

  “We have one coming!” Speck shouted. “A lot of vegetation and a large hill!”

  The idea of leaving the Eclipse again sent shivers down my spine. But I knew I had to do it. This could be the one, I thought. Maybe we will find Lugosi on this one.

  I studied the island through the binoculars as we approached. There was no one on the beach. No small boats or signs of any life. I scanned up the small green island all the way to the top of the hill. That’s when I saw her.

  “Speck!” I yelled, handing him the binoculars. “Look up there! At the mouth of that cave on the hilltop!”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s a little girl in a blue dress!”

  “Then I am not crazy!” I yelled. “Captain! Come take a look at this!”

  The little girl disappeared inside the cave before Crumby could get a look at her.

  “She was there a minute ago!” I yelled. “Speck saw her, too! Didn’t you, Speck?”

  “A very nice blue dress,” Speck replied. “Maybe eight or nine years old. Yes, I saw her!”

  “Curly blonde hair!” I added. “Crumby, she’s probably not alone. Lugosi could be there!”

  “I think I saw a yellow ribbon in her hair,” Speck added.

  “Okay,” Crumby said. “I believe you. We can’t get much closer than this without risking hitting something. We will have to row the dinghy in from here.”

  Hiwanda wanted to go this time, and in my excitement to get to the tiny island, I didn’t argue with her. Besides, the little girl might be more likely to interact with a woman than us. Crumby ordered Sharkey to keep an eye on Alex as we lowered the dinghy into the blue water.

  “We have a dark sky to the East,” Barber said. “Could be a storm coming in.”

  “We’ll be back in two hours time,” the captain said.

  Once on the island, we practically ran up the hill towards the entrance of the cave where I’d seen the little girl in the blue dress. The island looked smaller from our ship, and I ran out of breath halfway up.

  “I have to sit down a minute!” I said.

  The wind began picking up sharply as a black cloud reared its ugly head just over the hill. “Come on!” Crumby yelled. “We don’t have time to take a tea break now!”

  Somehow I managed to keep up with them as the sky turned dark and raindrops the size of quarters began beating down on us. We reached the mouth of the cave just as the sky opened up and turned those quarter-sized drops into gallon buckets.

  We ducked into the cave, not so much to find the little girl, but to keep from drowning. It was dark in the cave, but there was enough light to see it was fairly large and went off steeply in two directions. Hiwanda sat down immediately but Crumby and I were wandering around cautiously calling out for the little girl.

  “Hello?” I asked. “We have come to help you. Are you here?”

  “Sit, Bay!” Hawanda demanded. “I have been in caves like this and it can be very dangerous.
We will wait until the troubled sky is gone, then we can look for the girl!”

  “She’s right,” Crumby said as we joined her.

  “Of course, she’s right,” I said. “I knew that.”

  We could hear water trickling above us inside the cave. Otherwise, it was quiet inside. The only sounds we could hear outside were the wind and rain. And just as soon as it started, it was over.

  The sun was shining brightly again as I stepped outside of the cave. An amazing rainbow ran from one side of the island to the other. It was the most beautiful rainbow I’d ever seen. As I stood there admiring it, I heard Hiwanda scream inside the cave. I dashed back in as she was standing up, holding her hand over her mouth.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What is wrong?”

  She was crying and couldn’t get any words out. I was on one side of her and Crumby was on the other as we helped her walk out of the cave. Once outside, she sat down, still in tears.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked the captain.

  “We found something,” Crumby replied.

  I followed him back inside the cave, and there, just feet from where we had been sitting were the remains of three very dead people. Only the skeletons and parts of their hair and clothes remained. It appeared to be two adults and one little girl. The girl had a blue dress on. A yellow ribbon was visible in her golden hair.

  “Son of a bitch!” I said. “How could this be?”

  “I don’t know,” Crumby said, “but these people have been deceased for a very long time.”

  “But I just saw her!” I yelled. “Speck saw her too!”

  “We should go now,” the captain countered. “No one else is here and we can’t help these poor folks now.”

  We walked back to the beach with a very distraught Hiwanda only to discover our dinghy had been blown far out into the ocean. It had to have been a hundred yards or more southwest of the beach. We could see our ship but the dinghy was perhaps even further away from us than she was.

  “They will figure it out and come for us,” Crumby said.

  Suddenly, the sky turned dark again as another cloud rolled in from the East. “I am not going back into that cave again,” I said. “I would rather brave the elements than take shelter there!”