ISLAND MACABRE: Episode 1 - "Orion's Belt"

I edited some of this because The Battle Boy blog moved and is now, The Daily Shadow.

So, a friend, Scott Amundson, asks me to write up a serial for his blog, The Daily Shadow, my contribuation is a 7-part serial called Island Macabre as you'll read below. It's basically a treasure hunt story with pirates, undead samurai warriors and lots of that there carnage. This was originally a script idea I was working on several years back, but couldn't figure out how to make it into something mainstream that could be produced for a modest budget. So, now it exists as this on-line serial.

Scott's lookin' for submissions. For inquiries and such contact him at: scottEA@Gmail.com

Episode 1: Orion's Belt

Rooke enters the Dum Dum Club with her hair rolled up into a tight bun. She balances a heavy rucksack on her shoulder. If she has a drop-dead knock-out body, no one would guess it. She squeezes past a couple of drunken sailors bee-lining for the bar—a perfect place to start.

The Dum Dum Club is a train-wreck of a joint that jostles on a decaying boardwalk. Under her feet the rickety floorboards start to give way. The must is so thick you can stab it with a fork. The characters that decorate the place are drunken and burnt out old sailors now living on the fraying fringes of society. The Dum Dum Club is the last and final check-point before venturing out into no-man's-land.

Rooke drops her rucksack at the foot of the bar while getting the bartender's attention. She looks over both of her shoulders suspecting she's getting unwanted attention.

The bartender arrives wiping down his grimy hands, "Can I get ya?"

She answers, "A beer. Any kind." She gulps as she leans over the bar. "Say, do you know where I can charter a boat?"

"This's about as far out as you can go. There's nothin' else out there." He looks at her frustrated expression while placing a glass of beer in front of her, he thumbs to a corridor, "There's a bulletin board by the pay phone as you're walking to the restroom. Check that out. Plenty of old salt dogs on the wall."

Rooke makes her way to the corridor and recognizes someone studying the bulletin board. She notices that he's ripping the flyers and business cards and hiding them in his backpack.

"I didn't think you'd actually get out from behind your desk, Teach."

Teach is flustered, "I pretty much gave everyone A's."

"So, you can enjoy your Spring Break?"

"Yes. I wanted to be there when some of these girls go wild." Teach feigns a snorting giggle. "A's all around." He notices her beer. "Is that a beer? Are you drinking beer?"

She brushes him off, "You're not going to that island?" She stares at him inquisitively making him feel uncomfortable.

"I'm going to give it a go, as soon as I find someone that will venture out there." Teach looks over his shoulder making sure no one's listening. "I've flirted with paying double and triple the amounts, but no one will go out there."

"Well, isn't it a haunted island? No one has ever returned."

"Oh no, no, no. That's not true at all." He leans in close. "These old salt dogs talk of a man that returned from the island. He barely made it out by the—"Teach steps back then looks around. "What are you doing here?" She's clearly agitated, but Teach begins to walk away. She grabs him by the arm.

"We can help each other," she says while pulling out a slip of laminated paper. "This is a rubbing of the jigsaw map I was telling you about."

"The rubbing is no good unless you have the other side."

"I have the other side." Teach shifts his eyes around while thinking. Rooke continues, "I've scanned the map and quartered it into sections on my laptop. I've been rearranging the pieces to see how they fit and I think I've found the pattern. The map changes correlate to the check points which dictates a different view."

"But you have to find the check points. How do you know what to change it to? You don't speak the language."

Rooke holds up a book on the basics of the Japanese language.

Teach looks perplexed. "That book won't help you. It's written in an ancient dialect. You won't know what changes to make on the map."

"I figured it would be a risk, but with you and me looking, we would have a better chance."

"I was running the risk of having to split the treasure with the captain. Now, I will have to split it three ways."

Rooke shrugs, but grins, "What treasure? You're not on an archeological dig?"

Teach looks around like he let a secret loose, "Finding that temple is just as if you'd found a treasure. We'd be rich beyond our comprehension."

Teach quickly changes the subject to get her off guard. "Why do you want to go out there?"

Rooke is startled for a minute. How dare he attempt to turn it around! "I'm investigating and documenting the suspected paranormal activities of the island."

Teach grabs her beer and takes a few swallows. "You may want to talk to Captain Orion. He's the only one to have survived this long after his return. In 1945 a Japanese submarine was torpedoed and 9 sailors found refuge on that island. They managed to salvage a radio and call for help. When help finally arrived, the only one that survived had been driven mad. Homicidal mad. He kept screaming out the phrase, roughly translated, 'Bushido's Breath!' 'Bushido's Breath!' He swam out to meet the rescue vessel, slaughtered all the men on board and eventually himself."

"If everyone died," Rooke says skeptically, "then how do they know all this?"

"It was all documented in the captain's log. The rescue vessel was sent back on its way as a warning to all others not to trek these seas." Teach takes another couple of swallows and hands the beer back to her. "There was another incident in 1956 when the United States was testing atomic weapons—"

Rooke stares at Teach's bugged out eyes. "Okay, I get your point. You can stop with the bedtime stories because I think you're spooking yourself."

"The sailors call it… the Island…" he takes a moment to tilt his head toward her while bugging out his eyes and whispers hard, "…Macabre."

She scoffs, "Your eyes are about to dry out, Teach."

"I jest you not. That's what they call it."

Rooke's interested, "But what about this lone survivor character?"

Orion stumbles out of the men's room slamming against the pay phone. He winks at Rooke and then belches an, "Excuse me" as the receiver swings from the cord. Orion's a hulk of a man and drunk off his ass. "Ahoy, Teach." He squints at Rooke's beer, "You gonna finish that, honeycomb?"

Teach points to Rooke, "Rooke, meet Captain Orion. The lone survivor of the Island Macabre."

"I've done cooler things than survive some lame island on the Rotten Sea."

Rooke clears her throat, "And what might that be, Captain Orion?"

"A pair of triplets in the Philippines." He lets out a guffaw and chugs the beer.

"Twin triplets?" Teach asks.

"One of them ODed half way through the sex carnage and we didn't find out till morning. We thought he just passed out." Orion scratches his head, then holds up the empty glass toasting, "To Josefina!"

"And what was cool about that?" Rooke asks.

"I finally had an excuse to leave the Philippines." Orion staggers into the thick of the crowd.

"That's your hero, Teach?"

"He's not my hero. He's the only one that will take us there." Teach goes after him.

Orion staggers across the rickety pier towards his landing craft, Orion's Bitch. It's an old World War II amphibious assault landing craft with a naked mermaid bound and gagged in S&M gear painted along its hull.

Rooke squints at the mermaid, "Uh… is that your boat, Captain?"

"Oh, yeah," Orion turns around stone drunk as Rooke walks right into him, "Sorry about the mermaid, honeycomb."

She's a little jittery. "That's fine. No need—"

"She needs a little touching up. You can't see the nipple anymore. I mean, that's the money part. Right, Teach?"

Teach clears his throat, "Oh, I, uh… she's quite a lovely, young lass."

Orion turns back to the boat, "Lovely alright. A lovely pain in the ass. Bitch broke my fuckin' heart."

"Say, are these one of the Higgins boats that stormed Normandy?" Teach asks.

"Hell no. I wouldn't want one of those pieces of shit. Those things were shot to shit. This here hunk of beauty stormed Iwo Jima."

"Were you in the Marines, Captain?" Teach says.

"Army."

Orion, Rooke and Teach walk up the landing craft's ramp. There's an old sand-colored Deuce and half and a 1990 Land Rover Defender. "Don't fuck with the Rover. It's a classic. Best in the world. They don't make 'em like that anymore."

"Don't they?" Rooke studies its shabby condition.

"Actually, I think old Temba screwed me on it. Every time I see the guy he's always grinning that checker-tooth grin of his. But one of these days I'd like to drive by his little hut and show him how great it runs." Orion punches the Rover as the rearview mirror falls off. Orion shakes it off. "Alright, I hate to sound like a shore whore, but I gotta get paid up front."

Teach reaches into his backpack, "Oh, of course." Teach counts out a series of hundred dollar bills. "How's ten thousand?"

Orion stands there for a second. "Sounds great, but I think somethin's wrong with my fuckin' ears." He looks at the money again, "No. I'm dreaming because I see 10 grand in your hand." Orion shrugs. "Fuck it. Who am I gonna argue, uh?"

"Is it too much?" Rooke asks. "Have we insulted you?"

"Fuck no!" Orion snatches the money and stuffs it into his cargo pocket. "Just a lot of money for some romantic midnight island hopping. Happy honeymoon."

Rooke and Teach stare at each other and say in unison, "Wait!"

Rooke flusters, "We're not together."

Teach reassures, "We don't want to island hop. We want to go to Island Macabre."

There is a long dead silence while Orion stares at him hard. Then he turns to Rooke who says, "We're not together… romantically."

orion="" hands="" teach="" back="" his="" m.."" i="" m="" takin="" a="" tenner="" for="" my="" troubles.="" size="3"> I think you owe me a drink or two after this little titty-tease." Orion begins to shuffle them down the ramp. "Scoot, scoot, scoot."

Teach looks at him with sorrowful eyes, "But you're our last hope."

"Don't grease me with those puppy dog eyes. It'll be more convincing coming from her."

"Please," Rooke begins, "We need to get on that island."

"There's nothing for you there. I fuckin' assure you. I motherfuckin' guarantee you that."

Teach hesitates, "There's valuable archeological evidence there."

"That island is protected by the elements."

"We know it's haunted." Rooke says.

"Haunted? You obviously don't know what you're talking about. But by fuck if that place will kill you. It's got insects that'll lay eggs under your skin and hatch in your brain. Storm patterns that rain poisonous frogs. Unstable geography that occasionally shifts making maps useless."

Rooke says, "You're the last and only known survivor of that island."

"Not really if I go back there and get my stupid ass killed."

Teach interjects, "There's a treasure."

Orion snickers, "There's no treasure, professor. Trust me on that." Orion starts to shuffle them off the boat. "You don't know what's on that island and you don't wanna know."

Teach gets Orion's attention saying, "I can tell you why the Bushido's Breath didn't take you."

"Just because you looked up a couple words doesn't mean you know—"

"You have a tattoo." Orion sneers as Teach continues, "On your chest. Over your heart. It's the only way you can survive the Bushido's Breath. It's protecting you until the warrior soul returns to the temple. I can help you find some of the answers you've been asking yourself."

Orion stands there mulling it over. "You in on this too, honeycomb?"

A guilty grimace cracks across her face, "Yes. But I'm looking for evidence of paranormal activity."

Orion sighs while shaking his head. He sucks on his lip while looking at Teach's sorrowful puppy dog eyes. "Can you make that face, honeycomb?"

Rooke tries to make that puppy dog look, but it's just a malformed grimace.

Orion shakes his head, "Never mind. Looks like you got Montezuma's Revenge. The professor's better at it anyway." He sighs again, "I hate to be greedy, Teach, but you think you can muster up another 5K?"

"Of course."

"15K, a case of scotch and all your educated answers?"

"My good man, that's an accord."

Orion scratches his head, "You two are gonna need tats."

***

Orion's Bitch cuts through a barrage of choppy waves as a wicked bolt of lightning streaks across the black sky. The Rover smashes up against the landing ramp as a heavy wave coughs up over the hull. The Deuce is chained to the floor, but still gets tossed around.

In the pilot house, Orion struggles with the wheel while Teach and Rooke hold on tight. Rooke shouts over the storm, "Is it always this rough?"

Orion answers, "We're on a collision course for an island of death, honeycomb. I don't think it's rolling out the tea party welcome wagon."

"Why do you keep calling me honeycomb?"

"Your hair's all wound up tight like a little honeycomb."

A streak of lightning scratches up against the window making Teach and Rooke jump.

"Oh shit that was close!" Orion turns the wheel again as a gust of white water sprays over the ship flooding the cargo bay with a few feet of water. A couple of sharks smack up against the pilot house window.

Teach is startled, "Oh dear me!"

Orion forces the wheel to the side. "Yeah, this storm has a nasty habit of pickin' things up and throwin' 'em at ya."

Teach tries to steady himself while looking at a bandage on his chest. He turns to Rooke's bandaged chest seeing part of her breast bounce, "Uh, do you suspect they will heal nice and proper?" Rooke's boob jostles as Teach's eyes bug.

Orion powers up the motor as they climb a wave. "Just don't rub it. You'll tear off the skin and some of the design."

Teach notices the radar blipping. "What's that?"

Orion turns to the radar. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit!"

"You should've went before we left." Rooke says.

"Hold on to that sense of humor, honeycomb."

Rooke asks, "What is it?"

"There be pirates," he answers.

A red Hercules C-130 dubbed the Big Red Cock breaks out of the black sky with a twin strip of lightning bolts following it. The nose art reveals a red rooster with boxing gloves. The aft ramp lowers as the Big Red Cock buzzes the pilot house. Several counter-measure flares shoot out across Orion's Bitch illuminating it. Two single-manned jet skies slide off the ramp and splash down into the water on both sides of Orion's Bitch.

The radio squelches as a raspy voice cracks, "Avast, ye motherfuckin' hornswaggle!"

Orion picks up the radio while turning the wheel, "Shiver me timbers. If it ain't Shanghai Mars. How're you this fine evening? Never thought I'd see you and your scurvy fucks this side of Hell." Orion sees the two jet skis streaming along side the hull. A wave pushes one of the jet-skiing pirates into the landing craft's cargo bay. "I see your boy, Sugartooth, just invaded my boat."

"Aye, Sugartooth is an ambitious sort," says Shanghai Mars. "He be the master of the machete. I taught him well."

With a machete blade between his teeth, Sugartooth grins evilly while his jet ski putters toward the pilot house, but then the two sharks jump up, drag him into the water and pull him apart.

"Guess he missed a class," Orion says.

More jet-skiing pirates plummet out of the Big Red Cock cruising along side Orion's Bitch. Orion turns to Teach and Rooke, "Go in that cabinet behind me and collect some firearms. We're in for a fight."

To be continued…

© 2007, Philip Davetas



Appendix


Orion's Bitch




The Big Red Cock