Island Jumper 3 Read online

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  “You tried to steal one of these stones?” Kara said. “They are the rot and decay of everything. If we hadn’t found this stone, it would have turned this paradise of an island into another hell. And I’m not going back to hell.”

  “Yeah, looking back, it was probably a bad idea. Thank you, Benji. You’ve saved me more times than I can recall now,” I said, staring at the crack.

  “So, what do we do with this stone?” Benji asked.

  “We have to get rid of it,” I said, looking up at the mighty tree. “Let’s gather everyone for this. I think we all need to see what we are dealing with here.”

  In a few minutes, we had everyone gathered before the tree and the crack.

  “Are you guys serious?” Cass said, looking at the sky. “You think some black rock is creating bad feelings here? And it’s going to destroy this island?”

  “Not destroy,” Kara said, feeling the ground under the tree. “It changes it. It transforms it. I can feel the change already.”

  “Ripen,” I said. “Mario said these stones were preparing the islands for something. He said the same thing about you, Cass. He said you would ripen fast.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Cass asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it wasn’t good. When we were on Yin Island, the island Kara came from, we felt what a ripened island was.”

  “I wanted to just lay in the ashes and not move,” Benji said.

  “I came close to cutting myself, and I don’t want to go back to that. Never again. I will throw this stone into fucking Mordor if I have to,” Kara said.

  “Lord of the Rings!” Benji said, raising her hand for a high five. “It’s more specifically Mount Doom but…”

  Kara slapped her hand with a shake of her head. “Crack of Doom, if you want to get pedantic about it.”

  Benji stared at her in a state of shock and excitement.

  “The tar pits,” I said. “It’s not Mount Doom, but it’s the next best thing. Plus, that island was crap already. I doubt this stone will make it worse.”

  “Brilliant,” Sherri said with a big smile. “See, I knew this was just a momentarily bad thing on this island. There isn’t anything that’s going to ruin this place.”

  “My God. You people…” Cass said. “It’s like we aren’t even trying to get rescued. We should be putting up an SOS or something. Use that mirror to flag a plane. Instead, we’re talking about magical rocks and tar pits.”

  “Sweetie,” Sherri said. “When we take you off this island, I think you’re going to shit your drawers at what’s out there.”

  “I’m a college volleyball player. I’ve seen plenty of shit and shitty people, but I’ve never seen shark attacks or sea hogs, or fucking watchers,” Cass said.

  “Well, they don’t care if you believe in them,” Sherri said. “They’ll bite your tit off just the same.”

  “Cass,” Kara said. “We aren’t fucking with you. This place is dangerous. You've just seen this bubble of goodness on this island. It feels great here. There is love in the air and water.”

  “Is that why you’re all fucking him?” Cass said. “The air and water here?”

  “We aren’t all fucking him,” Aubrey said. “Though, I am getting thirsty.”

  “I think you’re up,” Sherri said with a shrug.

  “I was giving a default pass to Benji here, just in case she caved in to her urges,” Aubrey said and bumped her hip against Benji’s.

  Benji went red in the face. “Aubrey, I told you about talking about that,” she hissed

  “I’m right here, ladies,” I said.

  They often liked to have awkward relationship conversations right in front of me. I didn’t mind; I actually loved the open nature of them, but it usually ended in teasing Benji, and I couldn’t have that.

  “Well, are we going to cut it out of there or what?” Eliza asked. “There is no way I’m letting that stone turn this island like it did mine. Plus, I’m getting a strong urge to purge this stone from our island. Like, we need to do it now.”

  “You heard the lady,” I said and took an ax from Kara.

  I chopped at the tree, and Aubrey and Sherri moved next to me. They joined in, and soon, we established a rhythm, striking the tree in rapid succession.

  After about thirty minutes, I swung and heard a tink sound. I raised my hand, and the girls stopped. The center of the tree had been beaten to a pulp of white wood. It oozed a clear sap down the crack and looked like a basketball-sized pile of wood mulch stuffed into the tree.

  Leaning closer, I spotted a speck of black in the mix of white.

  “There it is,” I said, pointing to the stone.

  Benji moved near me, but she didn’t need to stop me this time. I wasn’t going to reach for it, even though I wanted to. Some things should never be touched, especially when you had a propensity to do so.

  “Pure evil,” Benji said, looking closer at the stone. “It’s larger than the one we saw on the ship.”

  “I bet it gorges on the goodness and pukes back out hell, growing as it does,” Kara said. “On Eliza’s island, I pictured the thing about the size of an apple.”

  “Well, this one isn’t much more than a grape,” Aubrey said, looking close.

  “Who’s taking it?” Sherri said.

  “I’m not touching that thing,” Kara said, backing up.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, reaching.

  Benji slapped my hand back. “Not you, Jack.”

  Holy shit, I had reached for it. “You’re right,” I said, stepping back next to Kara. “It shouldn’t be me.”

  “It should be me,” Benji said, and everyone went silent.

  Benji picked some large leaves off the ground and created a glove over her palm. She reached into the beaten tree and struggled to get the stone free.

  “Knife, please,” Benji said, reaching back for my knife like a surgeon.

  She took the knife, and in a less than a minute, she dug out the black stone. The stone, twice the size of the one on the ship, sat on the leaves on Benji’s hand. She pinched it between the leaves and then wrapped the leaves around the stone in a pouch.

  “There,” she said, holding it up with disgust.

  “I hate that stone,” Kara said, holding onto me.

  “Okay, great. Now let’s get it off this island,” I said.

  Chapter 3

  I decided on taking a smaller group to Tar Island. I took Sherri, Benji, and Cass with me. We paddled over the waves, with the sail doing a good portion of the pulling. Luna, the raft’s given name, had improved dramatically from the tied-together logs Benji and I left Tiny Island with. However, we still had a lot of modifications left to do on Luna.

  Danforth, the dead pilot we found on Cave Island, had kindly donated his parachute to us. That would provide a large amount of lightweight fabric. I hadn’t had a chance to inspect it, but I thought we could use it in layers to offer enough resistance to use as a proper sail. We wouldn’t be winning any races, but I think we could get this thing going a lot faster.

  Faster meant we could travel further, something I expected us to be doing soon. The goal of finding the other girls was ever present in my thoughts. If I dwelled on it for too long, tension built up in me. Finding Cass, unconscious and poisoned, haunted me. I never wanted one of the girls to awaken to that nightmare.

  Cass stood near the center of the raft, holding onto the mast. She looked around at the dark blue waters with a sour expression. I wasn’t sure how much the girls told her, but I doubt they failed to describe the dangers of these waters.

  She didn’t need to worry, though. I reached out again, looking for the sea creatures, and while I felt them out there, there was almost nothing close, and the closest ones were fleeing from us. We were like oil on the water, pushing things away. It didn’t take much imagination to know it was from what Benji’s was holding in her hand.

  “This is nice,” Sherri said and got next to me.

  Sherr
i sensed and felt the water, not the creatures in it and certainly not the stone Benji held. For her, we were taking a cruise on what would be to most, a beautiful, calm ocean. The craft moved through the water, creating a pleasant sound of water splashing. Mixed that with the cool breeze and warm sun and it would be easy to call this nice.

  We stood at the back of the raft as I held onto the paddle that acted as the rudder. She leaned against me, putting her head on my shoulder and wrapping her arms over me. With one hand on the paddle, I put my other arm over her. She felt just as I had remembered, a mixture of soft skin with firm underlying muscles. Sherri had been a track star, specializing in hurdling, with rigorous training. She had a thing about her dad dying shortly after trying to connect with her on a camping trip. Now, Sherri wanted to honor him and loved every second of it out here.

  “You feel anything in the water?” I asked her.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” she said.

  “We’re safe, for now,” I said. “No whirlpools or waterfalls coming up?”

  “No, it’s calm seas ahead, captain,” she said, keeping her body tight against mine. “Thanks for taking me. I like being on the water when it’s like this. No sharks, plenty of sunshine, a nice breeze. Just sailing on the ocean with my lover.” She looked up and kissed me on my neck.

  Chills spread down my back, and I sucked in a breath. “I’m happy to be with you as well.”

  “Oh my God,” Cass said. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t know why you made me come.”

  I sighed, and Sherri let go of me. The mood had been killed.

  “We are on the water a lot, Cass. You need to get some sea legs going,” I said.

  “Yeah, we’ve been sucked into a whirlpool. Try keeping balance during that,” Benji said and laughed.

  Cass rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get this over with,” Cass said, looking at the horizon.

  A black trail of smoke gave us an easy signpost to follow. The ship hadn’t stopped burning since I had crashed it. I once thought it was the Veronica, the vessel that we were on when this all happened. Now, I was pretty sure it was just the same model of ship. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Rebecca Brown must have known its importance. She was Eliza’s mother. At some point, a long time ago, Rebecca and her husband had hit a storm and ended up here. A similar tale to us, but with more tragedy that ended her father’s life.

  The black smoke coming from the ship trailed high into the sky where it got caught in an upper atmospheric current. That unseen wind pushed the smoke away from the island and us. It went as far as I could see and would provide the best signal smoke we could have ever hope for. If there was a chance of rescue, they would see that smoke and hopefully, us as well. I wasn’t holding my breath though. My gut said we were stuck here until we found Rebecca. She had found a way off these islands and a way back on.

  We crossed the waters at a good speed, and as we neared the ship, the smell of burning tar intensified, burning my nose with the pungent smell. The railing Benji and I had broken to lower Cass in a lifeboat, hung off the edge of the boat. We did that right after I set the course that ghosted the ship right into Tar Island, and it worked. The ship had hit the island right where I had found Moshe, our sea cat, near where the tar dumped into the ocean.

  The ship had impacted the island hard enough that the front end slid up onto the beach. The ship had rolled partially to the right side, leaning like a drunk trying to hail a cab. While it had some paint colors showing before the crash, it looked mostly black now. The smoke had covered the ship and still spewed from it, dark as a tire fire. The black color seemed fitting for the ship. It matched the shadow man’s attire. It was a shadow ship now.

  The structure of the ship appeared to be intact, and if the fires died down, I had plans on stripping the ship. We could do a million things with the material a ship of this size would provide.

  “That smell,” Cass said, covering her mouth.

  “It’s not that bad,” Sherri said. “Smells like when they asphalted the road in front of our house.”

  “Smells like ass,” Cass said with an incredulous stare.

  I guided the raft to the far side of the island. We hit the beach, and the raft slid up on the crunchy sand.

  “I’ll just run up there and we can toss and go,” Benji said, jumping onto the sand.

  “Wait,” I said. “I want to refill the tar bags.”

  I jumped off the end of the boat. Benji groaned at my action but didn’t say anything.

  “This place sucks,” Cass said. “Can we just hurry this up? I swear, I didn’t think these islands could get any worse and—”

  “Shut up, Cass,” Sherri said and then covered her mouth. “Sorry, this island sort of pisses people off.”

  “An island can’t…” Cass took a deep breath and walked to the far side of the raft from Sherri.

  Benji and I jogged up the tan, sandy hill. Each step, we broke through the top crust and felt the softer sand underneath. We had found Frank on this island, and I spotted the section of sand that held him. We found Frank dead from an apparent suicide but I had never been completely convinced of that. The guy just wasn’t the type, if there really was one. I mean, how much can you really know what’s going on in a man’s mind? I laughed as I considered that I could. I was able to feel Mario’s mind, his emotions. I wondered if this extended to all males.

  We reached the top of the hill and stood at the edge of the black, bubbling pool of tar.

  There was no ceremony or a single moment of hesitation. Benji tossed the stone into the black goo. I gasped, reaching for it out of instinct. It sat on the surface for a moment before the tar pulled it in.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s gone now,” Benji said. “It can’t hurt us or our island.”

  I wanted to argue but knew that was the stone talking again. I held my tongue and just nodded. Then I knelt to the black goo with my plastic bag. I scooped some of the tar up with my hand and shoved it in. I filled two bags this way, and we headed back down the hill. By the time we got near the raft, we heard the screaming.

  Sherri and Cass were fighting.

  I rushed to the raft and jumped onto it. Sherri had Cass in a headlock and Cass was trying to push her into the waters.

  “Stop it!” I yelled, grabbing Cass and pulling her away from Sherri.

  “Let me go,” Cass said, flailing her arms and leaning her body forward. I struggled to keep my hold on her.

  Sherri, for the first time I’d known her, looked genuinely pissed off. She brushed back her blonde hair from her red face and glared at Cass.

  “What happened?” I asked, feeling some of the resistance lessening from Cass.

  “Let me go,” Cass said.

  “You cool?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Cass said and relaxed. “I won’t touch her.”

  “Cass, it’s this island. It makes our emotions get all…pissy,” I said.

  Cass looked at her arms and sides. “You got black shit all over me, Jack.”

  My right hand was covered in tar. “You didn’t give me much of a choice. I had to break you up before someone got hurt. Don’t worry, we can clean most of it off in the sand and water here. The rest we can clean off with soap bush back on the island.”

  “I just want to leave,” Cass said, tears filling her eyes.

  I wasn’t sure if she meant this island, but I had a feeling she wanted to leave all of this.

  “What caused this?” I asked Sherri as I kneeled down and got some sand on my hands and dipping them into the water.

  “She started talking shit,” Sherri said.

  Cass fumed at the opposite corner of the raft but thankfully didn’t speak.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “It was about Jack, wasn’t?” Benji asked.

  “Yes,” Sherri said, unfolding her crossed arms. “She was questioning you and your motivations. She suggested you brought us here.”

  “What? T
hat’s crazy,” I said.

  “I know, but she just kept pushing me and saying things about you I couldn’t allow to be said,” Sherri said, glaring at Cass. “Jack is the best thing out here, and frankly, one of the best things that have ever happened to me.”

  “He’s drugged you, or something,” Cass said. “I can feel it, as well. It’s in the water.”

  “He has only helped us,” Benji said. “He’s saved all of our lives, Cass. Including yours. Do you have any idea of what we went through to get you back here?”

  “It’s just this island. We need to leave here now,” I hopped off the raft and pushed it into the water.

  I jumped on and pulled the sail up.

  After a minute and some distance from the island, I saw the girls relaxing. I felt the pressure from my chest lifting as well. While there was some truth behind the emotions, that island just amplified them. A minor annoyance might become an impossible obstacle.

  “Cass, I’m not doing anything to keep anyone here. I want to get you all rescued and back to your homes just as badly as anyone, but we have to come to the reality that a rescue might not come. We need to find a way to survive here, and that is my main goal.”

  “That and getting busy,” Cass mumbled.

  “Watch it,” Benji said, touching her bow.

  I waved off Benji, not that I really thought she would shoot Cass.

  “It’s just that island. You’ll feel better when we get back home,” Sherri said.

  “It’s not my home, Sherri,” Cass said, but most of the steam had left her.

  “We’ll all feel better when we can get back to the island and build a house for us to live in. That is what we’re going to do next,” I said.

  Before we left for another search, we had to have somewhere safe for all of us to be. We had the supplies and the know-how, we just needed to implement it all.

  Chapter 4

  Four days had passed since Benji threw that black rock of pure evil into the tar pits. It had also been four days since I last felt a watcher in the waters. In that same time, we had worked together and had accomplished an incredible amount for our house and raft. I had never been so proud to be part of a group of people. We worked as a group, cutting down trees, sorting branches, putting up wood flooring and walls. We had lifted massive beams for the raft and the shelter. Now, I stood on a homemade ladder, putting the final sections of the roof up. We were close to finishing the shelter.