Coffin Island Read online

  However the remaining stitches were cheerily rigging the ship. They were singing sea shanties while they worked. The stitches were so stupid that they were apparently below the purview of the shackles. Maybe the sails weren’t that bad after all. They were gentle giants. They weren’t going to take you on the sail of your life from which there is no retrieval. Those sails are nothing to worry about. If the idiots are content what have you got to worry about? They’re only rigging your ship. It’s only your survival that they’re in charge of. What’s the big deal?

  Chapter

  The stitches also didn’t seem to notice that most of their rank had been thrown into the emerald ocean by The Wind People. They hadn’t noticed that most of their rank had been devoured by primordial sharks with toothy digestive tracks either. Nobody was doing anything to save the pirates that were still in the emerald ocean including me. This did not alarm me. I actually found myself enjoying all the gore now that I was at a safe distance up on the poop deck in shackles. You’ve got to keep all that blood and guts just beyond your doorstep. That war torn parking lot that once was a country is wonderful as long as it stays on the television. If it climbs out of the television and grabs you by the throat then we’ve got a problem.

  The limbs that were being thrown up into the air like baby seals didn’t bother me at all out on the emerald ocean. On the contrary, I was actually enjoying the disembodied body parts. They were quite humorous actually because they were formerly attached to the architects of all of this. This debauched mess was entirely the fault of the pirates. They deserved to be treated brutally even in death. Throw those severed limbs around out there on the emerald ocean a bit. I approved heartily.

  I was also silently rooting for the primeval sharks. That gruesome species had been victorious since time immemorial. Why bet against the winners however hideous they may be? What’s a swamp without some gators in it too? It’s a pond for paddling. We can’t have that. We need our swamp to have some brutality. Why not serve it up red hot. Put those steaming guts in a skull. Pass me a spoon. Let’s not get squeamish here.

  I was grateful that thought wasn’t a crime in this world because I should be arrested for what I think. I should be taken out back and shot. My thoughts were getting super squirrelly. Witchcraft was manipulating them. I was absolutely convinced of it. Then I would just forget about it. It was like I was touching on something too sensitive. It wouldn’t allow me to linger for too long. Fortunately there were more pressing and constructive matters like watching Madison die.

  “Don’t save them,” Madison groaned.

  Madison had been lying in a puddle of her own blood for sometime. I had thought she was dead.

  “I’m rooting for the opposition,” I admitted. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I was,” Madison groaned.

  “Well,” I said. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “The pirates tricked us,” Madison groaned. “They nearly got me killed by The Wind People. They used me as a decoy. Can you believe that?”

  “What happened to The Wind People?” I asked. “I’d like to speak with them with them now that they are being more reasonable. I believe that I can reason with those puffs. How do I go about having a word with the wind?”

  “They’re coming back to finish us off,” Madison groaned. “Give me a second to climb out of my coffin.”

  “By all means,” I said. “Take your time.”

  Madison was doing the snow angel on the deck of Doctor Fast in her shackles. She possessed an incredible amount of blood. She had somehow managed to stand up. There were bloody footprints behind her that terminated in a massive pool of blood. Madison had seemingly walked out of all her blood.

  Madison looked like a corpse on exhibition in the funeral parlor yet somehow she wasn’t dead. Was I the funeral director? Or did I just need to mercy kill her? This world is downright troubling, I thought. I wanted to kill whoever was in-charge of it brutally. That was about the only clear thought that I had. Everything else in my mind was too dark and mysterious to fathom. Witchcraft was filling my head with all sorts of chaos. There is something to be said for how your surroundings can warp you. All that butchery was really getting to me. It was making me want to kill Madison.

  However there was absolutely no way that I was going to kill Madison. That was someone else’s thought. Witchcraft was trying to trick me into that. I just beat that thought back and told whoever was attempting to manipulate my mind that I coming for them. I just kept banishing the witchcraft thoughts from my mind to the best of my ability. I also started claiming them as my own to be contrary and difficult. Then I would just dismiss them as so much rubbish. I wasn’t letting witchcraft get anymore credit. Whatever was trying to operate me wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of controlling me anymore. I was running myself from here on out even if something else was running me. You can’t really work around that. Now can you? Get out of my mind whoever you are. I won’t do your bidding. I’m actually going to kill you before this little outing is over. That’s right. I’m making a death threat to the occult and I’m going to follow through. And stick a sock in it below deck or I’m coming down to kill you too. Miraculously the screaming below deck stopped.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I have two feet in my coffin literarily,” Madison groaned. “I’m climbing out right now. I’m in the land of the dead. And witchcraft is trying to takeover my thoughts. How do you think that I’m doing?”

  “It seems like there are some pros and cons to your situation,” I said.

  “That about sums it up,” Madison groaned. “I’m no longer dying. I’m coming back to life. But this really hurts. Living like this makes you want to be dead. There is also that whole troublesome creature trying to hijack my thoughts. I want to kill that.”

  “I have one of those too,” I said. “I’ve got it cordoned off in my mind sort of.”

  “I’m doing the same thing,” Madison said.

  “How is it working?” I asked.

  “Not so good,” Madison said.

  “I refuse to give up,” I said.

  “Why should we?” Madison demanded.

  Madison was retracing her bloody steps. Her blood was reentering her body through her feet. Madison stepped in the pond of blood. She groaned like she was taking a bullet. Her blood flowed back into her like it was being pumped. Fascinating, I thought. I might have to give dying a whirl in this world. I might as well get as many experiences in before witchcraft finally finishes me off.

  “Why didn’t you climb into your coffin?” I asked. “Isn’t death and dying preferable if you know that you’re going to be reborn in this world? It seems redundant to fight it.”

  “I was up to my neck in it,” Madison said. “Death had all but snuffed me out.”

  “Why did you climb out?” I asked.

  “The emerald ocean makes you suffer horribly,” Madison said. “It takes forever to climb into your coffin. It took so long that I started to recover. It was incredibly painful being stuck between life and death. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I began climbing back towards life in anger. I was clinging to revenge.”

  “Is that why those dead pirates and mermaids are still out there in the emerald ocean?” I asked.

  “They’re trying to climb into their coffins,” Madison said. “They’re too damaged to recover. The emerald ocean is making them suffer horribly. Thankfully their cries are growing fainter now.”

  “I can’t hear anything,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing them suffer a bit.”

  “You need to be dying yourself,” Madison shrugged.

  “They’re getting what they deserve,” I said.

  “They are getting worse than they deserve,” Madison said. “Their howls were terrible. I couldn’t even enjoy them. Their misery haunted me. I haven’t felt pain of any sort since I became a witch. It was terrible. All that regret and misery was horrible.”

  “At least there is some justice
in this world,” I said.

  “The pirates were begging for your forgiveness for trying to steal your ship,” Madison said. “It’s apparently a hideous crime in this world. It’s a burning offense.”

  “The mermaid said the same thing,” I said. “But how can Doctor Fast be mine if I am in shackles?”

  “They claim Doctor Fast belongs to you,” Madison said. “You own the shackles and the whole shooting match.”

  “This evil ship belongs to me?” I asked.

  “You are magically fixed to this ship,” Madison said. “That’s why they couldn’t steal it from you.”

  “All of this is my fault because I am magically attached to a ship that they tried to steal from me?” I asked.

  “If you break into a house and a vicious dog attacks you,” Madison said. “Is it the dog’s fault?”

  “What were they trying to do with Dr. Fast?” I asked.

  “They refuse to tell me,” Madison said. “They say it’s too horrible to admit. They say the doldrums have warped Professor Coffin’s mind but they are helpless to defy him. He has a certain hold over them.”

  “We’ll get it out of Professor Coffin,” I said.

  “He’ll just tell us if we ask him,” Madison agreed.

  “He’s as crooked as they come but at least he’s honest,” I said.

  “However you have to be very careful with your questions,” Madison said. “Or he’ll just lie.”

  “He probably views it as being colorful,” I said.

  “He’s just a descriptive guy,” Madison snorted.

  There was no longer any blood on the deck of my ship. I was starting to think of Doctor Fast as mine. It was an incredible ship to behold. I was proud to be the owner of such an evil craft. I was just trying to figure out if I wanted Madison on it.

  “Try not to bleed on my ship anymore,” I suggested. “Are those deck shoes that you are wearing?”

  Madison was wearing impossibly tall jackboots. She clicked around in them quite gracefully. It’s rare to see a woman spider around like that. Typically they lurch when they get over a certain height limit in the shoe department. I quite liked watching her mark up the deck of my evil ship in those impossibly tall jackboots. Madison was quite the creature to observe in shackles. Just don’t get too close because she bites.

  “You want me take them off?” Madison challenged.

  “We have more pressing matters,” I said. “But those jackboots really trouble the male mind.”

  “It’s on purpose,” Madison said.

  “I got that far,” I said. “Then I took the thought a little farther.”

  “It feels marvelous to have my blood back,” Madison laughed. “I’m going to try to keep it off the deck.”

  “That’s a good policy,” I said. “Now we just have to deal with your jackboots.”

  “We’ll hold that thought until we go back to the dorm room at Coffin Island,” Madison said.

  “Is it a ghastly dungeon?” I asked.

  “It’s far worse,” Madison said.

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  “You bet,” Madison said.

  Chapter

  “I thought that I was going to die but I was already dead and being dead made me want to live,” Madison said.

  “Sounds weird,” I said.

  Madison and I were talking about life and death. We were trying to figure out which way to steer our journey before it steered itself for us. The inevitable was approaching us over the horizon. A black cloud was moving towards us ominously. It was moving very slowly. Whatever it lacked in speed it was picking up in sheer force.

  The storm was picking up everything in its path including the ocean. Why not end the world with the world? Nobody had ever prophesied that.

  The end of the world also seemed to be picking up momentum. It was probably going to reach a certain mass and just come at us like a planet. Or at least that’s what it appeared to be doing. The end wasn’t here just yet. It had to try to scare the daylights out of us first.

  Madison and I had some time to talk and plot so that’s what we were doing. We were also waiting for Professor Coffin to show up. We needed to have a few choice words with him. We were pretty convinced that he was the architect of all of this. Showing his ugly mug would confirm it, the costumed fool.

  “You wanted to live for revenge, Madison,” I said. “Don’t forget that. The only reason why we are still standing here is because you want to kill Professor Coffin. I’m supporting you in this decision because I want to kill him too.”

  “What’s wrong with that motive?” Madison asked. “Professor Coffin is the architect of everything that is wrong in our lives. He deserves to die.”

  “Of that much I am certain,” I said. “But I don’t see to what end. Why is he doing this to us? That’s the mystery.”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Madison said.

  “It probably won’t make any sense,” I said.

  Madison shrugged.

  “How do we fire up The Wind People?” I asked. “I’d like to sail this ship.”

  I was peering at the horizon and shuddering. It looked like the planet Jupiter was coming to get us. It was methodically building mass to crush us. The whole world was behind it. I could see Mount Coffin poking out of it.

  “The Wind People should be here shortly,” Madison snorted.

  “I don’t think they’re going to disappoint us in the wind department,” I said.

  “I just wonder how we are going to sail through all that planetary refuse,” Madison said.

  “Why didn’t they kill you?” I asked. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  “They couldn’t pull it off because I’m magically attached to you,” Madison said. “So they went back for more wind and water for you and Doctor Fast.”

  “They’ve collected the whole planet,” I said.

  “The only reason why they are leaving any ocean in front of us is because they want to crush us into something other than dirt,” Madison snorted.

  “That’s good news,” I said.

  “They’re going to try to blow and then crush us to our deaths,” Madison said. “At least that’s the threat.”

  “We set the world’s fastest sailing record,” I said. “Then teleport back to the peak of Mount Coffin, which is inside the planet Jupiter, before we are crushed to pieces by the planet Jupiter.”

  “You might get your wish,” Madison said. “They are determined to sink this ship. And they’re determined to kill us. They’ve sentenced us and Doctor Fast to death. We’ve also been banned from the emerald ocean forever. It doesn’t matter how many times we are reborn in our coffins.”

  “They’ve banned us forever?” I asked. “That’s not right.”

  “We’ve been excommunicated by the wind,” Madison said. “Tell it to the breeze.”

  “Can they do that?” I asked.

  “They already did it,” Madison said. “It’s done.”

  “I hate when people do that,” I said.

  “They aren’t people,” Madison said.

  “Sometimes this world seems like a shuck,” I said.

  “Until you’re struggling through it,” Madison said.

  “I can understand why they would want to sentence us to death and sink the ship,” I said. “That’s alright in my book. But I’m not standing for banishment from the emerald ocean from a bunch of Wind People forever. That’s a very long time if you have eternal life.”

  “We could never leave Coffin Island ever even if it’s buried inside the planet Jupiter,” Madison agreed.

  “They’re a tough enemy to fight though,” I said.

  “How do you fight the wind?” Madison asked. “I’m being serious.”

  “Could we possibly use words?” I asked.

  “It might be our only option,” Madison said.

  “We have to figure out a way to use language to attack them,” I said. “Or at least bully them into lifting the life time banishm
ent.”

  “I say we go big with threats,” Madison said.

  “We puff our feathers,” I said.

  “Then we can back down,” Madison agreed.

  “We appear reasonable after we pretend to be totally unreasonable,” I said.

  “Even if we’re not,” Madison said.

  “We have to save this ship too,” I said.

  “If we could get out of the shackles,” Madison snorted. “I think we would quite like it.”

  “It’s not going to be much use without the emerald ocean,” I said.

  “Witchcraft might provide us with another ocean,” Madison said.

  “Perhaps we should accept the banishment just to see what happens next,” I said.

  “It will probably backfire in their faces,” Madison said.

  “Or in ours,” I said.

  “We end up in some ashcan of an atoll for all eternity,” Madison said.

  “A penal colony populated by vicious dwarfs,” I said.

  “We do nothing,” Madison said.

  “Let the witchcraft come to us,” I said.

  “Bring it on planet Jupiter,” Madison shouted.

  The hideous planet just kept creeping towards us. What’s the rush if you have all the mass in the galaxy? You can take your time crushing the little people. Make the little people wait. Let the little people get all in a twist. That’s why they’re called little people because they’re little.

  Madison and I were seemingly the last two little people left on this dreadful planet which helped account for the enormous size of the planet that was bearing down on us with such troubling lack of haste. Everything and everybody was truly out to kill us. Hurry up and kill us. However this world doesn’t work that way. You’re going to have to wait. And wait you will. It’s not going to do your bidding. Frankly why should it? You just sit there white knuckled and wait. That’s what you do.