Fortnightly Writing Competition -SERIAL (Results)

Started by Baron, Fri 13/05/2016 00:31:50

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Baron

Gaps are fine, as long as the reader can piece together what is happening.  Have fun with it! :)

Ponch

Honestly, I think gaps would work better for some stories. Wild jumps in the plot could be used to great comedic effect (affect? I can never remember that rule). :cool:

Sinitrena

Aphrodite's Dress

Prologue


She caught the light with her hands from the surface of the water. It dribbled back down into the basin of the fountain while a breeze caught her long blond hair and the light cloth of her summer dress. Laughter pearled from her lips like the twitter of the birds surrounding her. It was early in the morning. The sun had just started to rise behind the horizon and doused the private park of the villa into a red gleam that shared its colour with her full lips. She leaned back on the edge of the basin, one leg up on the marble, the other on the fresh grass. Her naked toes played with the morning dew on the blades of grass.

Her father wouldn‘t approve. She was alone. Only a book accompanied her on her stroll through the park. She had slipped her lady's maid and her father's servants to relish the first warm morning of spring on her own, forgetting for just a while her duties as a prospective lady and future bride.

This evening she was supposed to début, to dance and converse. Her instructors weren't happy with her. They said she was wild, uncouth. She liked to run and to dance, as long as it wasn't a formal dance, to sing the bawdy songs she wasn't even supposed to know. She liked to sneak away. She took the rough clothes of her servants and slipped out of the house in the evening.

This morning, she only sneaked into the gardens. Her father still sat in the smaller of the two dining rooms, drinking his tea and reading the morning papers. A letter had come with them. He awaited a visitor and hadn't noticed that his daughter had slipped away. She had received a letter as well, only the night before and not in a traditional way.

I had sent them both.

Now, the girl stood up from her place at the fountain and looked back at the house for a moment. Our rendezvous was just a short time later in the labyrinth at the southern end of the park. She didn't bother putting her sandals back on her feet. Instead, she dangled them from her delicate hands as she skipped over the gravel path that led away from the nymphs that decorated the fountain and further away from the villa. Naked gods and heroes flanked the path, alternating with violas that bloomed in elevated flower beds. After a few steps, the violas were replaced by roses that entwined arched grates that spanned the path.

She reached the labyrinth after a short time, entering it with sure steps. She walked the same paths since she was a child. It was a long time since she got lost between the hedges. Three paths led to the statue in the middle of the maze that was our meeting place. Aphrodite stood on a pedestal, a swan curled around her ankles. She held a mirror in her left hand, high above her head and looked up to it or the sky above.

But Laura was more beautiful than the goddess at whose feet she sat down now. The goddess was just marble and the fantasy of men, while Laura was alive. Her cheeks were rosy while Aphrodite's were cold and pale. Blood pumped through Laura's veins, whereas the veins in Aphrodite's skin were just the lifeless patterns of Siena marble.

I stepped out from between the hedges. Laura did not see me yet. She had her back to me and her eyes were closed, bathing her face in the refreshing sunlight. She smiled and so did I.

I moved as silently as possible to better surprise the beautiful girl. The gravel crunched under my feet and Laura opened her eyes and looked in my direction. She expected someone else.

A small “Oh!” escaped her mouth and I closed the distance between us instantly. She smiled at me. “I...”, she began but I was right next to her already.

She didn't see the knife in my hand.

Now the veins of Aphrodite fill with life while it disappears from the still form of the blond-haired girl. The heart still pumps it through her veins but the rosy cheeks become pale and cold. The marble becomes warm and sticky. My fingers trace patterns through the liquid and drum a faint rhythm on the stone. She breathes still. She looks at me, not understanding. She doesn't scream. They never scream. I grab her hair and she twitches. I draw circles in her blood with her own hair. The blond locks are red now. I need to wash them later but I like the stripes the strands leave behind when I move them around. It is just a little indulgence I allow myself. I watch her breasts, heaving up and down with ragged breaths. They are shallow already. It won't be long. When the last bit of air leaves her lungs and her eyes are still open, I cut off her hair. This is what I came for. Everything else is for my audience.

Ponch

“The Door At The Bottom Of The Ocean” (Part 3)
King of the Mountain

The red paint of the 1928 Indian Scout motorcycle had faded a little from the tropical sun, but the engine still ran as smooth as a top. Supposedly, the bike had been shipped to Toru Marama as a gift from someone trying to curry favor with the previous magistrate. But by the time the crate was unloaded from the ship that had ferried it here, the old magistrate was dead and the new one, Pierre Lecocq, was already on his way from France. Pierre had no interest in motorbikes. Eventually, he put it up as a bet in a card game one night at his mansion. After that it had changed hands every so often over the course of a decade, until it was finally given to Corrigan as a gift by Ikale, the chief of the smaller of the two tribes on the island, in exchange for smuggling in the occasional black market goodie from the larger islands Corrigan visited on his regular mail runs. One-legged men had even less use for motorcycles than island chieftains, so the Indian belonged to me now. The fact that I was an Indian who rode an Indian around the island was pointed out to me on a regular basis. It was a joke that never got old for anyone on Toru Marama; unless you were me, of course.

The bike was solidly made, and rugged as hell. I kept it in a shed behind the hangar, out of the elements, trying to make it last as long as possible. When it was gone, the hills and trails of this island would likely never know the roar of a motorcycle engine again.

I steered it along the dirt road that connected one side of the lagoon with the other. It was one of three roads on the entire island. Everything else was a footpath at best, or else an unmarked trail through the tall grass.

The natives waved at me as I passed their village along the shore of the central lagoon. A few of the boys abandoned their chores and tried to run alongside, laughing and cheering. They never tired of seeing the machine. I shifted into a higher gear and goosed the throttle, going as fast as I dared, leaving them behind, still whooping wildly.

“Ma'ue!” they shouted. ‘Fly'. I did, the wind whipping my clothes, the leaf spring suspension of the bike mitigating the bumps and dips in the road admirably.

The island of Toru Marama is an old volcano with three craters, the older ones beneath the newer. The lowest and oldest of the three formed the basin of the lagoon, so essential to the island. The second crater was much smaller, halfway up the mountain, and filled in with regular deposits of rainwater to become a large, freshwater lake. The topmost crater was sizeable, the very peak of the mountain that formed the heart of the island. It was filled in with grass now, and none of the natives believed it would ever erupt again. Even in their oldest myths, there were no stories of it having ever done so.

The road ahead of me began to rise up from the low forest and wetlands around the base of the mountain, going up and up, winding around the side of the rocky cone. The Indian carried me along, as surefooted as any horse, and together we left the draping greenery of the forest canopy and thick carpeting of mangroves below. The magistrate's mansion was just ahead. I was on my way to see the king of this particular mountain. I was wearing my best shirt.

Magistrate Lecocq had only invited me up to his residence twice before. Once, when he had first arrived and wanted to meet the pilots in his employ. And again a year later, when Corrigan had lost half of his left leg to a shark. I figured Lecocq wanted to make sure I was up to the task of handling the mail run solo. I was wrong. He'd had other plans. That evening, I'd been a guest at a very exclusive dinner party: just three people. Lecocq, a beautiful young French actress vacationing in nearby Tahiti for whom he'd no doubt paid a lot of money to secure her company, and me.

I'd always assumed that Pierre had earned the nickname “the middleman” because he'd served as the go-between during assorted business or political arrangements on behalf of the French government. As it turned out, I didn't know the half of it.

It had been one hell of an awkward dinner; I can say that for certain.

I hadn't been back since, though Pierre extended the offer every so often, discreetly of course. This time, however, it wasn't a request.

Pierre wasn't a bad guy. He was friendly to the natives, and seemed content to leave them alone, though admittance to the spacious grounds of the Maison de Justice was by invitation only. A lush, lovely, well-tended garden staffed with servants and watched over by armed guards. The previous magistrate, a man by the name of Demonte, built it at sizeable expense for the French government. He'd been a well-connected man with many enemies. One of them finally got to him, all the way out here, and cut his heart out. Pierre had been appointed as his replacement. He wasn't the sort of man who would bother to build such an impractical palace (a large, comfortable apartment at the lagoon hotel would have been more than sufficient, or so he claimed), but he wasn't the sort of man who would order such an opulent place torn down either. Pierre was practical, if nothing else.

The double gates rose up in front of me, at the end the narrow, twisting mountain road. Two guards were there; one of them I recognized. He was the man who had collected Lillian and brought her up here yesterday. His hard eyes told me to stop. A rifle was in his hands. I hoped she was alright.

Haggis

DEEP SEA DANGER
Episode 55: When Larry Met Billy


Larry's rotund near-naked frame sweltered in the glare of the midday sun. His tanned face scrunched into an anguished ball of pain as his hunched back slowly crisped in the heat. With a near mechanical action, the leather palms of his cracked hands fed a steady line of cable into the ever hungry water. His pale blue eyes squinted at his watch from beneath wild unkempt eyebrows. “I really need to ask about that pay rise,” he considered briefly before hastily dismissing the idea as the realization set in that Doris was probably the only person crazy enough to employ him. It had been fifteen years now since she'd dragged him out of that bar in downtown Havana and sent him crashing face down into the gutter with one thunderous right hook*. Larry afforded himself a smile at the memory, rubbing the sandpaper that was his jaw as he licked the empty socket where the tooth had been with his whiskey soaked tongue. He and Doris had been friends and business partners ever since.

A couple of tugs on the safety line indicated a new request from the deep. He staggered back to his feet, placed his hands on his hips and arched his sagging body in an attempt to straighten out his heavily folded figure. Larry was certainly past his peak, and his peak really hadn't been anything more than a bump, but there was something about him that Doris valued. He was certainly cheap, but more importantly he was loyal and in a strange, whiskey-fueled way he was dependable. That in itself was vital for this line of employment

After a few minutes Larry retreated from the oxygen pump, wiping the stinging sweat from his eyes. Grabbing the ever present bottle, he tossed his head back and took a few thirsty swigs. “Wow," he croaked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "This stuff really hits the -”. Larry was rudely interrupted by the billy club that came crashing down on the back of his skull. As he crumpled to the deck, the shadow of his assailant hovered over him menacingly.

“Oh boy,” sighed Larry's internal subconscious. “Out cold again.”


*As covered in episode 2 - ‘Hullabaloo in Havana'

Haggis

DEEP SEA DANGER
Episode 56 â€" The Scuttling Scotsman


The Scuttling Scotsman had been built in the murky waters of the Clyde. In its heyday it had been one of the jewels in the British fleet, a furious cannon-baller responsible for many a victory. Yet that was not the true cause for its fame. Its notoriety lay in the well documented stories regarding its nefarious treatment of prisoners of war, mutineers and, in many cases, ordinary sailors unlucky enough to have appeared on her horizon. Put simply, the Scotsman had been worse than any pirate on the seas. If the legends were to be believed, it was these wicked deeds that damned her to the deep. If legends were to be believed… my god, what if they were true.

Doris ruthlessly terminated the siren of optimism before it had a chance to trick its way into her thoughts. “Thinking like that will get you into trouble D,” she reprimanded herself, checking the integrity of her safety line for good measure. She clambered through another of the seemingly endless cabins, once inhabited by evil men, now home to an array of morally ambiguous sea creatures. The eerie silence of the dead ship broken only by the dull thuds of Doris navigating through its fragile shell.

At the summit of a precariously unstable flight of rotten stairs, Doris found what she was looking for. The Captain's quarters. A set of ornately jeweled doors, still attached and, despite a century on the ocean bed, resplendent in the shafts of dim light piercing the puncture wounds in the upper deck. Doris eased them open.

The Scuttling Scotsman had been captained by the malevolent Hamish McStaven. His cabin, hauntingly preserved, was faintly illuminated in muted splashes of colour by the surprisingly intact rear facing stained glass window. There was more than enough treasure here to fund a number of debauched late night escapades. Gold, gems, and all manner of trinkets lay strewn around the room, no doubt scattered by the ships violent death throes. But that's not what Doris was here for. “Alright Hamish you evil bastard, where is it?” As her words subsided, the Scotsman exuded a long tormented groan as its carcass shifted in the silt.

Doris tumbled backwards, twisting her body so as to land face down. As she pushed herself to her feet dark shadows snaked and coiled their way out from behind her, slithering across the room and suffocating what little light there was. Doris turned to face the window, her expression one of fearful knowing. “Oh shit.”


DEEP SEA DANGER WILL CONTINUE ON MONDAY 

Ponch

In this installment: sexy intrigue and air conditioning!

“The Door At The Bottom Of The Ocean” (Part 4)
Red Wine and Blood

“Tahoma! How have you been, my friend?” Pierre always called me by my proper name whenever he was trying to butter me up for something. He was dressed to the nines, like always.

“No complaints,” I said, shaking the well-manicured hand he offered.

The large sitting room was pleasantly cool, with a nice breeze moved around by ceiling fans powered by diesel generators in the side yard, the sound of them muffled by the thick walls of the sheds in which they were kept.

“Come, come,” he said, one arm extended, showing the way to the dining room. “We should not keep our lovely guest waiting.”

He led me through the ornate doors. Lillian was there, wearing a very fetching dress, her hair down, and her face lovely. She smiled warmly when I entered the room.

There was red wine chilling in a bucket of ice. Both were luxuries in the tropics. A bowl of fresh bread was on the table, with butter readily available. The smell of cooking beef was unmistakable and surprising. Fish was the staple food here. Maybe once every couple of weeks, someone would cook up a chicken, or on special occasions, a pig. But beef? Cattle were impractically large livestock for small tropical islands. My guess was that it had arrived aboard yesterday's ship, shipped in at great cost for Pierre's personal kitchen, probably all the way from Australia.

The seat at the head of the table was reserved for Pierre, of course. Lillian was seated to his left. He motioned that I should sit to his right. I sat down. A servant was placing small porcelain bowls of steaming soup at each place setting.

“Bread and consommé, to start, naturally. The main course will be served soon,” Pierre said. “Hachis de Boeuf Parmentier.”

I had no idea what that was.

“Oh, how nice! I haven't had that in ages,” Lillian cooed.

I nodded, hoping it would be a thick, juicy steak. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had one.

Pierre said something under his voice to the servant, who disappeared into the kitchen. He then turned his attention to me.

“While we wait, perhaps I could appeal to your knowledge, Tahoma?”

“Sure.” I said, settling back into the chair, munching on a slice of buttered wheat bread.

“My guest, Dr. Price, has shared with me her hope to charter the island's plane to find her missing father.”

I nodded. It wasn't a question. I knew from prior experience that Pierre Lecocq liked to take his time getting to a point.

“I have contacted my fellow officials in both the Windwards and Leewards, trying to find some trace of the man. He was last seen leaving port at Rapa Iti, sailing southeast.”

“He was headed to PÃ,,“ Niho,” I said.

Lillian nodded, sipping her wine.

Pierre wasn't convinced. “I could not find it on any of my maps. Are you sure it is real? Perhaps it is a phantom, like Tabor Island or Wachusett Reef.”

“It's real,” I said. “Chief Ikale hired Corrigan to make a run out there last year, about a month before he got attacked by that shark.”

Pierre raised an eyebrow. “He did? I was not aware of it.”

I avoided eye contact, pretending something very interesting was going on over by the window. “It was sort of… well…”

Pierre covered his smile with a wine glass. “Off the books?”

“Yeah.”

Pierre made a big show, sighing like a disappointed parent. “I hope you were paid handsomely for stealing my plane.”

“We were.”

“Good,” he chuckled. “That takes some of the sting out of the offense.”

“Why did you go there?” Lillian asked, mistakenly assuming I'd been part of that trip. I didn't correct her.

I looked at Pierre. “Remember that group that paddled in from Rotoava? That guy who tried to kill Ikale?”

”I remember. Ikale very nearly killed the man â€" a witch doctor, if I recall.”

“Yeah, well… Ikale hired Corrigan to take the guy to PÃ,,“ Niho and dump him off.”

“That would be certain death,” Pierre mused, eyes twinkling.

“The guy did try to kill Ikale.”

“I would have done the same,” Pierre conceded with a small smile. He waggled his glass. A servant hurried to refill it.

Lillian fixed her gaze on the soup. Life in tropics wasn't the picture postcard many people assumed it was. Life was cheap here. Laws were few, and easily bent.

“Assuming you're okay with it, I'm ready to make the trip.”

“<Please say yes, Magistrate>,” Lillian said in perfect French.

Pierre smiled, placing his hand over hers. “It sounds like an adventure to be had. Perhaps I should come along. Having a representative of the French government could be beneficial … for everyone.” He turned his hooded eyes towards me. “Your plane seats three, does it not?”

I kept my tone professional. “Not if it's going to make it all the way to PÃ,,“ Niho. We're going to have to travel light, strip some of the extra gear out to maximize the fuel efficiency. That means just one passenger. And one bag, Doctor. A very light one, I'm afraid.”

“Speaking of which,” Lillian said, easing her hand away, making room for the arrival of the main course, which was not a steak at all, sadly, but a thick slice of some sort of baked dish, a meat pie, “where are my bags, Magistrate? I'm running out of clothes to wear.”

Pierre winked at me discreetly, one man to another.

“Someone was sent down to the hotel to collect the rest of Lillian's luggage this afternoon, Tahoma. Perhaps you passed him on your motorbike ride up here?”

I cocked my head. Was this a joke? “Didn't see a soul.”

He furrowed his brow. “Odd.”

As if on cue, a guard appeared. He hurried across the room. I noticed the flap on his pistol holster was unbuttoned, in case he needed to get the gun out in a hurry. He bent at the waist and whispered to Pierre. His gravely voice carried easily across the table.

“Sir, we've found the missing man.”

Pierre was unhappy now. “Where is he? He'd better not be drunk!”

The guard cut his eyes towards Lillian and me.

Pierre glowered, good manners forgotten in the face of insubordination. “Spit it out!”

“He's been… decapitated, sir.”

Pierre gaped, as mentally off-balance as I'd ever seen him. “Someone cut his head off?!?”

“Ripped it off, sir.”

Haggis

:O :O :O!!!!
RIPPED IT CLEAN OFF!

Pierre needs his own spin off - the cad.

Ponch

Clean off, indeed! :grin: Now onward and upward to the next chapter!


“The Door At The Bottom Of The Ocean” (Part 5)
The Rotten Tooth

I adjusted the scarf around my face. The wool-lined leather jacket was zipped all the way up. I could barely feel the controls through my thick gloves. In the seat behind me, shivering inside the cramped cabin, Lillian was wrapped up in the blanket I usually kept in the emergency box. She looked like a mummy, but I couldn't blame her. Nobody comes to the tropics with winter clothing in their luggage.

Outside the cabin, it was a few degrees below freezing. Simple electric heaters kept the controls and gauges from freezing up, but that's about all they were good for.

We were soaring at 9,500 feet, close to the plane's maximum altitude. The throttle was nearly wide-open too. Normally, low and slow was the way to go with this old plane, but we were close to our destination. I needed to see as much of the world as possible. Even on a clear day like this, a little slice of nothing like PÃ,,“ Niho was easy to miss. And if we missed it, the next stop was the uninhabited Marotiri, if the fuel held out, which it probably wouldn't. And if we missed that one, there wouldn't be anywhere else to get out stretch our legs until Carney Island, down in the Antartic, 3,500 miles away. A long way to go for floatplane that could make maybe 500 miles on its best day.

“We're not lost, are we?” Dr. Price asked from the seat behind me. She had asked a variation of that question at least twice an hour since we'd put Tupua'i behind us this morning.

We left Toru Marama just before dawn, refueled at the little science station on the atoll of Maupihaa, and again at Maiao, then legged it to another gas station at Tupua'i, then spent the night at Raivave. A few hours before noon this morning, we'd hit Rapa Iti, a little speck that was the last place to fill up in the Pacific. I'd topped the tanks all the way up to the gas caps. Now it was midday and we were two hundred miles southeast of that little island, well beyond the border of French Polynesia. These waters belonged to no one. I doubted the small radio onboard would be of any use if we needed help. I didn't like this at all. It's a good thing for Lillian that she had such great legs. I don't think any amount of money could have convinced me to make this trip. Toru Marama was a thousand miles away now.

“Nope,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster. “We're right on course. Should be there soon.”

“All right,” she said nervously. “Good.”

I discreetly checked the map, the compass, the altimeter, and the airspeed indicator. We were still on course. I studied the fuel gauge and did the math. We weren't going into the drink anytime soon. But on the trip back, it was going to be close. The winds had better be kind to us. A strong headwind on the return trip could force a water landing just shy of Raivave. We might have to spend the night on uninhabited Marotiri, or one of the Motu Araoo atolls until a rescue ship could be sent. Truth be told, I wasn't averse to the idea of a night spent alone with the lovely doctor.

I picked up the binoculars from where they hung by the strap around my neck, and began to scan the ocean again. We had maybe another forty minutes of loiter time left before I would have to turn around and head back.

We'd seen a military corvette on the horizon early this morning, probably English, and probably out of Pitcairn, a small warship on a lonely patrol. That was hours ago. We hadn't seen another soul since.

I rubbed my tired eyes. Corrigan was back in Toru Marama. There was no backup pilot to spell me for a while. A long day of flying yesterday, and another six hours in the air today. I was getting tired and I couldn't afford to get sloppy. This far from human civilization, even a small mistake could doom us. A few degrees off course, this way or that, and we'd fly right by the landmark we were looking for. Errors compounded quickly when the only thread linking you to the rest of the world was an invisible one that existed only in your mind, a slender lifeline made up of complicated calculations that permitted no mistakes.

I took a deep, calming breath and brought the twin lenses of the binoculars to my eyes again.

There it was, ahead and to my left, far below. A black, glittering, crescent moon shape, with a dark, inky smudge staining the water all around it, the shadow of the submerged volcano.

“Found it,” I said, as though I'd been here a thousand times before. The truth was I'd never been this far out on the edge of the world in my life. Lillian sat forward, anxious. I passed the binoculars back to her and pointed in the general direction that she should look. “PÃ,,“ Niho. It means ‘Rotten Tooth.' The natives steer clear of it. Bad luck or something.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed happily. “I see it!”

She kept the binoculars trained on it while I reduced the throttle, slowing down to about 50 mph, and began to descend in a lazy, slow circle, taking us around and around the small curl of dry land, dark and foreboding, no more than three-quarters of a mile long. It grew larger outside the cabin window with each slow pass.

With the binoculars, she must have seen the wreckage of the ship before I did, though she said nothing.

Every instinct I had told me to pull up, kick the big rudder hard to port, bring the nose around, and fly as fast as I could back to the safety of the French islands we'd left behind the day before.

Instead I cut the throttle and shuddered when I felt the plane vibrate and rattle as the pontoons made contact with the sea. We were landing in the cloudy, stained waters over the submerged crater. There was no going back now.

Haggis

QuoteErrors compounded quickly when the only thread linking you to the rest of the world was an invisible one that existed only in your mind, a slender lifeline made up of complicated calculations that permitted no mistakes.

What a line... pun not intended.

Ponch

Thanks! Looking forward to the next installment of DSD. I'm also curious where Sinitrena is going with her story following that nice twist at the end of the prologue. :cool:

Sinitrena

Chapter 1: Doctor Whyte

The girl was surrounded by men. They stared at her nearly naked form. It was necessary. They had to examine her body, assess the damage her murderer had done to her. Her dress was ripped or cut. It was difficult to tell. There was too much blood, too many slashes in her flesh.

Two of the servants held her father back. Master Simmons wanted to wrap his daughter in a blanket or in his arms but everyone knew that the inspector needed to observe the scene as it was found. They had sent for him already. And for the doctor.

The women stood further away. They cried silently into the arms of their friends. Everyone had liked Laura, with the exception of her instructors maybe, but those weren't there. She didn't have a live-in governess since she was little.

It looked like a wild animal had mauled the poor girl. There was blood everywhere: on her skin, on her dress, between her legs. There was a lot of blood between her legs.

“She was raped...,” the cook whispered to me.

“Raped and left do die...,” the gardener, who had found her just an hour ago, answered silently.

We all waited for the doctor to arrive. In an angry cry just minutes before, Master Simmons had screamed that Doctor Whyte should have arrived half an hour ago. He had written and asked for a meeting, or so he said. But when he didn't arrive even after the poor girl was found, one of the stable-boys was sent for him.

He arrived before the gendarmes did. He pushed his way through the crowd of servants and stopped in his track. I never saw him so pale before. It added an interesting contrast to the waves of his black hair. The doctor was young, only slightly older than Laura had been and all the servants knew of the looks they cast each other whenever he visited the frail old man. I shook my head. This wasn't the right moment for such thoughts.

“I... Laura...,” he stammered as soon as he saw the girl.

Just then, Master Simmons broke free from the two servants holding him. “You... Where were you? What took you so long? She's dead... She's dead because of you!”

“What? I... What? Laura...?”

“Your letter said you'd be here by nine, and if you'd been...” The rest of his accusations was buried in his sobs and in a punch against the doctor's jaw.

Doctor Whyte stumbled back and into the arms of a police officer who had just arrived through a different opening in the hedges.

“What is going on here?” he asked with authority in his voice.

Until that moment, most of the servants had been silent, only whispering among themselves, too shocked to actually say anything. Some had cried silently into the shoulders of their friends or commented on the gruesomeness of the scene. But now they started to talk. We all wanted to  explain what had happened. We wanted to tell him about poor, innocent Laura and about the letter the Master had received this morning. After all, that was the reason the master's anger was focused on Doctor Whyte, wasn't it?

With a simple gesture, the inspector stopped the nonsensical babbling and turned to the master of the house and Doctor Whyte.

“Doctor Whyte,” he said sternly, “Mister Simmons. What is going on here?”

“He was supposed to be here this morning! He wrote to me. But he didn't come and now my Laura is dead. She is dead!” His voice was shrill from hysteric wailing.

“That is hardly important now.” the inspector said after a moment's hesitation and with a sad look to the girl's still form. “We'll talk about it later. For now: Doctor, please examine her body. Mister Simmons, I must ask you to leave. The servants too.”

“No. Please, no. I can't leave her. She...” He finally focused his attention on the dead girl instead of the doctor again.

“I understand, Sir. But, as painful as it is, you can't do anything for your daughter now, except allow me and the good doctor to do our duty. Please retire to your house and wait there. Unfortunately, I will have questions for you later.”

“No. It is not right,” Master Simmons sobbed, “Someone should stay. She shouldn't... It is not right. A woman should stay with her. Someone... She deserves better... She deserves some respect...”

The inspector nodded his head. He understood that a father wanted to make sure that his daughter was treated with a modicum of respect.

“Of course, Sir. One of the servant girls can stay, so that you can be sure that we do not mistreat your daughter. But you are no help right now. I'm sure one of the girls will stay with her and protect her.”

Master Simmons nodded slowly and the inspector looked around. Shyly and with downcast eyes I raised my hand.

Her head is bald. Only stubbles remain. Her left hand is on Aphrodite's foot. Her head leans against the swan. Red feathers adorn the elongate neck. The girl's dress spreads around her like the wings of an angel. The cook and the gardener were right. Laura was raped: My knife is long and sharp. It enters her easily. I don't care whether it cuts her or not. She doesn't either. She won't care ever again. This is just for the audience. On her stomach is a pattern of cuts that doesn't make sense. It doesn't need to. Her face was so beautiful before. Now it is pale and full of pain. I pity her. She was so young, so innocent. There is compassion in my heart. Is there?

Baron

Oooooo!  The plot thickens like inky tendrils of shadow at the bottom of the sea. ;-D 

I usually don't read submissions until voting time, my reason being that they will all be fresh in my mind when it is time to cast my vote.  But I am all up to date now, and I want more, more, MOAR!!!!1!  There's only four days left in the competition, and I fear there won't be enough time for resolution. :sad:  If only I could travel back in time to edit the OP to ensure that some sort of synopsis-of-what-would-have-happened blurb was appended to any unfinished story!  I guess the only solution now is to encourage you all to write, write like the wind.  Goose the throttle of your keyboards like you've never goosed before! :=

Stupot

[EDITED]
I've pulled out. I didn't have time for a second entry, and the first is crap. I'll leave it below in spoiler tags for posterity.

Spoiler


Thicket of Evil

Peter digs a finger into Sean's chest, "You're fucking my wife!" Turns to the woman, "You're my fucking wife!"

"I'm sorry, Pet.."

"She's my wife! Oh shit, how could she...? How could you..? My WIFE!"

Meanwhile, a shadow moves across the barn door. Something stirs in the leeks. A frightened girl lays shaking in her bed.

"My..." The farmer drops to his knees and slowly lowers his head to the floor and begins sobbing violently. Great heaving anguished spasms. Sean and Tracey look at each other.

"Tracey. Go get Kelly, we should leave." Sean says, sensing something not quite right.

Tracey moves swiftly across the room and starts to ascend the stairs, but then Peter's crying suddenly stops and the air is silent. An age seems to pass as they stare at the silent shaking ball of pain on the floor. A candle flickers on the table, droplets of red wine glistening as they silently fall from the coffee table. Finally, Peter, head still on the ground between his knees, says "Kelly stays with me"

"Peter..."

"Kelly. Stays. With. ME!"

Tracey again starts to move up the stairs, more urgently now and Peter shoots up from his foetal position and darts after her. Sean scrambles behind Peter, tackles him and pins him to the ground. Peter throws his fists at Sean, but his flailing attempts are easily absorbed by the stronger brother.

Then. A scream.

"Tracey?" Both men call. Forgetting their fight, they both hurry up the stairs to find Tracey looking at an empty child's bed.
[close]

Haggis

Ooo you are spoiling us on this Monday Morning! A new part and a new entry - superb!

DEEP SEA DANGER
Episode 57 â€" An Old Nemesis


The monocle struggled to steady its position as the wrinkled brow that encased it quivered with suppressed rage. The beady grey eye behind it peered down the long pointed nose and disdainfully out across the deck of the Golden Bilge. Larry, now trussed like a plump, badly burnt seasonal fowl, was awkwardly dangling from the mast in a makeshift cage of cargo netting. His face, which appeared to be supporting the full bulk of his bulbous body, was pressed into the ropes in such a way that his nose had violently re-positioned itself somewhere between his right eye and ear. Of course, Larry was still out cold, his subconscious trying without success to free the erratic conscious from the mischievous unconscious.

“How is it that a pair of simpletons, floating around on this crudely fashioned rust bucket, continue to outsmart a mastermind like me? ME?!” squealed the monocle wearer with a hint of cabaret.

“Well…” growled a second voice confidently, “If you was bein' outsmarted by a couple o' simpul'uns… well… that would make you a master simpul'un!” The speaker drew out the word master with an air of misplaced authority. To add unwitting insult they followed it up with an even further misplaced grin.

Baron Vaistlande shot his henchman a look that clearly instructed him to make a swift exit over the side.

“Leave him!” bellowed the Baron as a number of the unfortunate henchman's colleagues rushed to pull him from the water. “We have more pressing matters at hand, it seems our old friends have done the hard work for us.” he barked, “Ready the Iron Turtle for diving!” The henchmen scurried off to carry out their masters commands.

The Baron minced his way over to the diving hardware and crouched down onto his haunches over the now dangerously unmanned oxygen cable. He picked it up and held it close to his body, cradling it as though it were a child. His mind drifted into a flashback…

That full bodied figure bouncing towards him, those plump lips calling out his name. Now she was upon him, manhandling him, dragging him across the floor, tossing him out into the street. He paws at her boots, she pulls him to his feet, he protests his innocence, she winds up a sledgehammer of a left uppercut*. Crunch**. The flashback ends abruptly.

“Doris,” he whispered, caressing the cable, “my sweet Doris, we could have been so good together.” The Baron held the cable up to his cheek and gently kissed it.

Then he pulled out a knife, severed the line and tossed it into the water.


* To be honest, if Doris wasn't throwing punches at you by the end of the evening you either hadn't pissed her off, or she just didn't like you that much.
** In her defence, the Baron had certainly deserved it! See episode 27 â€" Fracas in Fiji.

Ponch

Never trust a monocled man. (wrong)

Also: hooray! more entries! :grin:

Sinitrena

Chapter 2: Inspector Lively

The inspector had chosen the smoking room as his temporary office in the manor. It suited him. He had the same distinguished demeanour the room tried to convey. Long grey hair, combed back and tied into a neat ponytail, sat flat over a crooked Greek nose. His eyes were small and jumped around the room like an excited rabbit. A pipe hung in the corner of his mouth, unlit for now.

He had ordered his constables to round up the servants and tell them to go speak to the inspector one after the other.

They were nervous. They didn't know exactly what the inspector would ask or the details of what had happened to Laura, but they had seen that it was gruesome. And then there were the rumours that travelled through their minds. No-one knew where they were coming from.

Laura wasn't the first victim, they said, actually, she was the third.

The cobbler's sister was the first.

And then there was the old widow...

The murderer took their hair.

From Laura and the cobbler's sister â€" what was her name again? - he took even more.

Not from the widow?

Well, she was married before...

You can laugh about gallows humour, even if you don't want to, even if you try not to. The silence afterwards was awkward.

The inspector called Master Simmons into the luxuriously furnished smoking room first.

“I am terribly sorry, sir. I hadn't had the opportunity to properly introduce myself before. I'm Inspector Samuel Lively and I promise you that I will find out what happened to your daughter. But please understand that I need to ask you some questions...”

I offered tea. Inspector Lively thanked me and asked for milk but Master Simmons send me away.

“How bad is it? How bad, honest?”, the cook asked me when I came into the kitchen.

She sat on an old bench. On a pot on the oven a soup simmered. It didn't smell like it usually did. I added a pot for tea.

I shook my head. That was so difficult to talk about. We where both silent for a while.

“So bad, huh?”

“Yes, so bad.” I watched the tea steeping.

After Master Simmons, the inspector called Doctor Whyte into the smoking room. They talked already while the doctor examined the girl but at that time the inspector didn't understand yet why the master got angry at him. They just talked about the lifeless body and her wounds. They whispered about two other victims. Maybe the rumours were started then.

The doctor smiled at me when I brought the tea. He wasn't really paying attention to me, of course. A small smile was the only acknowledgement I received. White teeth blinked under bright red lips.

“You wrote to Mister Simmons this morning, didn't you?” Inspector Lively asked.

“I wrote? No, I didn't write. Why should I?”

Inspector Lovely unfolded the thick paper, shaking the letter a bit to straighten it. He cleared his throat. His small eyes flitted over the words. “You didn't write?”

“No, no I didn't. I really wouldn't know why I should. I mean, Mister Simmons was feeling better, so unless he requested a visit, there was really no reason for me to...”

“Well,” he said, putting the letter down and puffing at his pipe, “be that as it may.” He turned his attention to me: “Would you be so kind as to open the curtains slightly before you leave, dear?”

The curtains were heavy and smelled of cold smoke. Through the window I could see the alley leading to the labyrinth. James, the gardener, and Sam, the coachman, carried the broken body to the house. They had wrapped her in a blanket. Only her naked feet were uncovered. I think the white blanket was red, soaked through, around the middle of the body.

“Someone mentioned that you might have been in love with Miss Laura?”

I had to leave.

Blood festers in the hair. I wash it and clean it in the stream. Dance, golden shimmers, dance. Ride on the waves. Up and down in the stream they go, up and down. Aphrodite watches from afar.  The hair belongs to her. It slithers in the water, drawing patterns in this liquid like it did in the blood. I prefer the blood. There, the patterns stay. Here, in the water, they wash away. And sometimes the water takes a strand of hair away. Steals it away. Steals it from me. I try to catch it in my hands. I catch sunlight in my fingers instead. It disappears. Everything disappears. Three colours are mixed in the bunch now. It isn't enough. I fear it will never be enough. Aphrodite needs more. I need more thread to sew her dress. But I have time. Aphrodite waits. People stole her dress and put the threads on their head. Aphrodite called to me. Her buttons are somewhere else. I saw them today. I don't know why I didn't see them before. They shone their white smile at me. Sad. But I saw them. And I'll get them. I wring the water from the hair.


-----------------------

Note:
I originally meant to write the chapters from a different point of view than the prologue but changed my mind. So the prologue isn't actually a prologue but the first chapter. I leave it as is, because mistakes like that do happen in serialised stories.


JudasFm

R&R - Part One

MISSION TO MAGDA: OFFICIAL REPORT â€" CHELSEA GOODWIN

Transcribed by Amalla Firenze


Is this thing on? Okay. Right.

Well, it all went wrong from the start, really.

Our orders were simple enough: ambush the road crew, kill the guards, rescue Tomoko and Rowena and anyone else who wanted to come, and then get out again.

Only it didn't quite turn out like that. I don't know what Aiko put in her report, but I can't think it's going to be too different from this one.

Oh yes, before I forget: we have four new recruits. Three boys and a girl, ages around ten to fourteen. Not sure what you guys on the bridge want to do with them, but for the moment they're together in the brig. Maybe we could bend the six-people-to-a-new-Team rule and let them stay together. Just a thought.

We don't, however, have Rowena or Tomoko, because they weren't on the road crew that Selena insisted they would be on!

Anyway, I don't usually go along on these missions, as you know â€" my job on the Nemesis is running CGT â€" but this one was personal. I mean, Rowena's my Teammate, and Tomoko's Ken'ichi's sister, and Ken'ichi's always been friendly toward me. I kind of figured I owe him.

What I'm trying to say is, that what happened was in no way, shape or form my fault, and I'm sure Aiko will agree with me!

You all know Rowena and Tomoko were taken when we stopped on Luna, and we managed to track them to a labor camp on Magda. Selena assured Aiko and me that she knew how these things worked and that at least one of them, if not both, would be on the road crew first thing.

So. Easy, right? We go in, rescue them, come home.

Nope.

Hunter flew my group down in the Cosmic Hawk. We landed, the doors opened and some of us â€" not me, but more seasoned raiders like Neil Cox and Ismene Trajan â€" shot the guards. From there it should have been easy, but no-o-o! No, nothing's ever simple, is it?

We were supposed to get the keys off the guards and unlock everyone's shackles, and we did. That was one job I could help with; I don't think I could have actually killed anyone, but freeing slaves is just fine.

The problem was, our crewmates were nowhere to be seen! None of the workers could tell me where they'd gone, and most were too frightened to even look at me, much less answer. Out of the twenty there, one of them came along willingly â€" that older guy in the brig; I think he may be Terran, but I'm not sure. We didn't exactly have time to stop and chat, since the guards' biorhythms are connected to the control center at the labor camp, as I'm sure you know, and I could already see the transport in the distance. I grabbed the nearest kid and threw her into the Hawk, and Neil grabbed another one, and the guy we freed took another one, and then we had to get the hell out before the transport arrived.

Four kids got out of a labor camp, so in that respect, we didn't do too bad a job.

However, not only did we fail to rescue Rowena and/or Tomoko, but we put the guards on the alert and as good as told them that two of our people were in that camp! Anyone care to take bets on how long it'll take them to home in on the latest acquisitions? Don't all shout at once.

This was a failure, pure and simple.

SELENA'S REPORT

I should have known better than to let an untrained civilian like Chelsea along on this mission, but Aiko insisted she was ready. Chelsea's report is largely accurate; however, it might be an idea to re-examine it with a view to investigating Aiko's suitability as commander of the raiding forces, perhaps with an eye on replacing her.

AIKO'S REPORT

No it might not! You were the one who provided that intelligence, Selena! You said at least one of them would be on the road crew and we acted based on your words! Chelsea did the best she could; it wasn't her fault they weren't there! Even though she couldn't rescue the targets, she adapted to the current situation and came away with four new potential crew members.

ADDENDUM: SELENA

True, but hardly a substitution for a successful mission. Suggest Aiko Shizuya investigate possibility of additional training for 'raiders'.

ADDENDUM: AIKO

Suggest hotshot so-called commander Selena Mount investigate possibility of removing stick from butt. If hotshot so-called commander unable to locate aforementioned butt, would be more than happy to indicate approximate location with foot!

FURTHER ADDENDUM: SELENA

Aforementioned suggestion rather laughable, as I have serious doubts as to Aiko's ability to locate her own rear end with both hands and GPS, let alone somebody else's.

FURTHER ADDENDUM: AIKO

Suggest Selena trying to run from own mistakes and put blame onto Chelsea. Not good behavior for a commander, is it?

FURTHER ADDENDUM: SELENA

Chelsea screwed up, plain and simple. Nothing more to be said, although would advise Aiko to be more selective in her choice of field operatives.

FURTHER ADDENDUM: AIKO

She screwed up because you did! Why can't you just man up and accept responsibility for your own incompetence?

OFFICIAL RESPONSE FROM BRIDGE CREW

For fuck's sake, we get it already! It was a screw up from beginning to end! There's nothing to be done but sit back and rethink this whole thing.

Chelsea managed to get herself and four others off the planet and none of us have any doubt that she could have succeeded in saving Tomoko and Rowena, had they been there. It's damn difficult to rescue someone who's nowhere to be seen, however, so we can hardly blame her for her failure in this.  We'll talk it over and come up with some alternatives.

END OF REPORT

-

AN: This takes place in the Nemesis world last seen in the Writing Whodunnit challenge, so some names may be familiar to you ;) I've no idea how many parts this is going to span, but I guess we'll see :D

Haggis

This competition is really taking off now! More entries, more updates! Fantastic stuff.

THIS WEEK â€" DOUBLE LENGTH FEATURE!

DEEP SEA DANGER
Episode 58 â€" Tarantopus Terror!

Tarantopus (octopodes terribilis). A member of the octopodidae family, yet superior in size, power and, most formidably, intelligence. The name consequent of the black and orange pattern that adorns its skin coupled with the venomous barbs deployed within its suckers. For deep sea divers the tarantopus represents the ultimate nightmare, the monster that stirs you from your sleep, floundering in your own secretion.

This one was an adult. A big one.

Doris stared into the glassy unblinking eye of the beast. The beast stared right back, its expressionless gaze betrayed by the eight spiraling tentacles frantically searching for an opening into the ship and to its prey. With a burst of delicate power it crawled across the stained glass window, each movement creating a kaleidoscopic dagger of light that stabbed into the darkness of the Captain's cabin.

She stood deathly still, watching as the tarantopus stalked her. The situation was, to be optimistic, grim. It had been five minutes now since Doris had noted the growing staleness of the oxygen in her helmet, but that issue had to take a backseat. There seemed to be a methodical process to the way the tentacled beast was now moving across the glass panes. “What are you up to,” she thought, watching as the tarantopus settled on the central pane. Slowly it extended its eight limbs, reaching them out until they formed an eight pronged star enveloping the window and creating an underwater eclipse within the cabin below.

The penny dropped. Doris broke out into the closest thing to a run given her burdensome diving suit, the underwater environment creating a natural slow motion effect.

The tarantopus paused, seemingly for ominous effect. Then it propelled itself violently away from the ship, its tentacles tearing away the entire rear section of the cabin. Back it came almost instantly, gliding with speed and power through the silty debris like a gelatin rocket. It poured into the exposed cabin behind Doris, unfolding its black and orange mass in a terrifying orgy of snaking tentacles.

Doris felt the tentacle wrap itself around her ankle. She pulled her knife and spun to face her frenzied aggressor. The beast bound itself to Doris, embracing her in an eight tentacled grip of death. Its razor sharp beak excitedly snapping in voracious anticipation. Doris was shocked by the crushing strength of its jelly limbs, its suckers hungrily trying to penetrate her suit*.  She retaliated, punching it in the face with her knife**.

The tarantopus hadn't expected that. It discharged a thick cloud of obsidian ink and released its grip, thrusting a tactical retreat across the cabin to assess its wounds. Doris, sensing an opportunity, turned to flee the confines of the cabin. Murphy's Law, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. The cabin floor gave way beneath her, its already questionable resilience fatally compromised by the dramatic entrance of the beast.

Doris sank through the newly gaping hole in the floor. Below her, through the cloud of wreckage and ink, emerged the ruins an extravagant four poster bed, the rusted metal frame the only feature still relatively intact. Where there had once been bedding of luxurious and exotic fabrics there was now a blanket of seaweed adorned with a vibrant constellation of anemones. Beneath the partial cover of the foliage lay a skeleton, the empty sockets of its skull fixated on Doris as she drifted down towards it.

“Hamish I presume,” murmured Doris, a cold chill dancing down her spine. As if in acknowledgment, the skull slowly turned itself away from Doris, fastening its stare on something else secreted away within the weeds. Doris followed its line of sight. The seaweed billowed in a hypnotic arch, momentarily revealing the object sharing the bed with the eternally slumbering Captain. Doris gasped.

“I should have known,” Doris exclaimed, “you bloody well slept with it!”

A tentacle reached over her shoulder and latched onto her armpit. With a powerful tug the tarantopus twisted her around to face it for one final struggle. It locked onto her just as she nestled into the skeletal arms of Captain McStaven. Using her left arm to shield her body from the sustained attack Doris reached out for the item in the leafy foliage. Her fingertips agonizingly brushed its shaft, serving only to knock it further away. Murphy's law was enacted for the second time. Freezing cold water poured into Doris's diving suit, courtesy of the Baron's devilish handiwork. The sudden change in pressure caused her head and lungs to throb with pain as the crushing weight of the ocean bore down on her tiring body. The tarantopus, encouraged by the signs that its prey was in trouble, coiled a pair of tentacles around the copper helmet and squeezed, plunging Doris into darkness.

Freezing wet, deprived of oxygen and increasingly crushed by the sudden change in interior pressure and the embrace of the tarantopus, Doris put every ounce of energy she had into one last anxious grab. She trusted in herself. She trusted in the legend.

In that second, the tarantopus, which had never really known true fear, emptied its bowels.


*It was fairly common for Doris to find herself in situations where ‘jelly limbs' and ‘hungry suckers' were trying to penetrate her attire, usually on a Friday night down at MacGrory's. Every single one was dispatched in the same way, with a broken jaw.

**No tarantopus specimen has ever been caught dead or alive so very little is known about the internal framework of these terrifying sea beasts, but you can rest assured that if they had jaw bones, this one's would have been smarting something fierce.

Ponch

Almost done! And good thing too, my pulper is getting tired!

“The Door At The Bottom Of The Ocean” (Part 6)
The Wreck

The dead water was as smooth as a glass mirror. The cold air was very still. It was eerie. No whales or fish could be seen in the cloudy depths around this rock. No birds rested on the jagged shore. It was as though every creature in the world had enough sense to avoid this place. Except us, of course.

I had dropped the plane's small anchor, which would keep it from drifting too much while we were gone, and I was paddling us towards the shore with one oar, Indian style, in the small, flat-bottomed aluminum boat normally stowed against the plane's belly, between the pontoon struts.

The wrecked ship was a motor yacht, a sixty-footer, I figured. It had run around on those sharp rocks, ripped to hell, and not just at the water line. Something other than the local jagged obsidian had damaged that ship. Parts of the gunwales and the deck had been gouged by something I couldn't even guess at. Axes or machetes hadn't made those wounds in the wood. It looked almost as though a shark had sank its teeth repeatedly into the sides and top of the boat.

I was grateful that before we'd left, I'd bothered to find my Iver Johnson .45. I wish I'd been able to find more than four bullets for it. I made a mental note to pick up a box of ammo for it the next time I was in Pap'ete. Assuming I made it out of here in one piece, of course.

This tiny islet was the most solitude that could be found in this world, if you asked me. More than a thousand miles away from my hammock at Toru Marama. If anything went wrong, nobody would ever find us.

How drunk did Corrigan have to be to make that trip out here last year, with nobody for company except a half-dead, trussed up witchdoctor stuffed behind the seats, where we usually kept the mail. I'd helped load the poor bastard into the plane. Ikale's shaman had painted the doomed man with all sorts of weird symbols. I'd never seen anything like them at the time. But now I was suddenly seeing them again.

The weird, broken columns jutting up from the volcanic glass had strange markings on them, just like those I'd seen on the witchdoctor. The symbols didn't look chiseled or gouged, but more like they'd always been a part of the rock since it cooled from the volcano that had spewed it out who knows how many centuries ago.

“What the hell's up with those columns?” I asked, working the oar with noticeably less enthusiasm now.

“Stele,” Lillian corrected, studying the approaching shoreline, green eyes squinting against the harsh, reflected rays of the sun. “Columns are architecture. Steles are monuments.”

“Whatever they are, what are they doing out here? I didn't think any of the islanders ever set up shop on this place. Bad juju or something.”

“This place is too remote and too small,” she replied. “People couldn't live here for any length of time. No grass. No crops. It was probably a religious site for them, or something along those lines, I'd imagine.”

“Ikale never said anything about it. He said PÃ,,“ Niho was cursed. Older than the waters. The place where misfortune was birthed. Stuff like that. He said he wouldn't come out here for any reason. Not even to save his own children, if it came to that.”

“Yet he sent his would-be assassin out here to be left for dead,” she countered.

“Worse curse he could put on the man,” I answered, remembering Chief Ikale's words to Corrigan and me as he convinced us to take the job. “Watching the moon rise over PÃ,,“ Niho is ‘a doom worse than any death.' That's what he said.”

“Then let's be gone before nightfall,” she said dryly.

“Good idea.”

The aluminum of the boat scraped against the submerged rocks. We had arrived. We stepped out onto the glossy black shore of PÃ,,“ Niho.

“What the hell was your dad looking for out here?” I asked, keeping my voice low. Dread was clawing at me. The wind was silent, saying nothing.

“While he was still a student, my father did some important work for Harold Copeland, the famous traveler and author.”

“Never heard of him,” I shrugged, picking my way cautiously across the uneven shoreline. I preferred The Shadow or Doc Savage when it came to light reading.

“He wrote Prehistory in the Pacific: A Preliminary Investigation with References to the Myth-Patterns of Southeast Asia,” she answered. From her tone, it was clear that she knew I wouldn't have read it. “He also wrote The Ponape Figurine. That was the one my father assisted him with.”

“Ponape?” I asked. It was a familiar name, part of the Caroline Islands, northwest of the Marivellas. “Like the island?”

“Yes,” she answered, watching worriedly as I levered myself up and over the side of the wreck, onto the angled deck.

There were spent shell casings on the deck, twinkling at the bottom of a shallow pool of fetid water that had collected along the tilted basin of the gunwale. There was blood on the deck too, splotches and streaks of it, sprays too, all of it dried in the sun. There were no corpses to be seen.

The revolver was a comforting presence in my back pocket; I only wished I'd had more bullets for it.

“Help me aboard,” she called, reaching up for me from the black rocks below.

“Probably safer if you stay down there,” I said, resting one boot on the edge of the boat, trying to look confident. “There's… uh, it's a mess up here.”

“Help me up,” she insisted.

I did, reluctantly. She stared at the gruesome mess and said nothing for a moment. Her eyes were worried. She paled a little. Her voice was shaky when she spoke again.

“We should check the wheelhouse and the berths below. There might be something left… Someone, I mean.”

“You're the boss,” I muttered.

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