Summer Island - Writing Club

Theme:

Summer Island

Word Count:

3267

Characters:

Cody, Maxx, and Zach

Month:

August

Warnings/Tags:

It gets gruesome/gory at some parts. Death, blood, plane crash, horror in general. Please read at your own risk if any of that effects you.

We had just wrapped up another part of the tour, and couldn’t wait to be back home. It seemed the other guys and I had underestimated how much we needed to rest. Of course, I wasn’t tired at all. In fact, I was fully awake at three in the morning watching as the lightning crackled in the clouds surrounding the plane.

The lights in the plane had been dimmed, giving the cabin an eerie glow. Zach and Maxx snored in the two seats next to me, blissfully unaware of the extreme turbulence which shook the plane. My fingers gripped the edge of the seat, turning my knuckles white as I tried my best to calm down.

I looked for a way to distract myself, and decided to let my gaze wander the cabin. Everyone else on the plane seemed to be asleep, which wasn’t very surprising. The dim light highlighted Maxx’s facial features, whilst Zach had fallen over and had his face buried in the blond’s shoulder, probably drooling on him.

I chuckled quietly to myself, then stopped and grimaced as the plane shook once again. A pit formed in my stomach as the aircraft dropped a bit, but soon rose back up. Eyes closed, I tried to find comfort in the sound of several others’s slow breaths, but the darkness wrapped around my throat and made it hard to take in air.

My eyelids shot open and thunder boomed outside the window, and a few seconds later a crash followed. I looked around to see if anyone else had heard it, but alas I was the only one up. I heard beeping and the pit in my stomach returned. I could feel us dropping. Falling lower and lower, into the dark, murky abyss below. A loud and deafening crash shook the plane and the beeping grew louder.

For the next few moments, I had no idea what was happening. Some people woke up and started bawling their eyes out. I, however, sat in my seat hyperventilating and tried to wake up my friends. My throat felt tight and I couldn’t talk, but by the worry in Maxx’s expression I think he understood. One moment, it was the three of us sharing terrified gazes, and the next several people lie on the cabin floor with blood oozing out of their skulls.

All around me, people awoke in a panic. The sound of people weeping and total chaos filled the destroyed cabin, and I struggled to breathe. Black spots danced around the corner of my vision and I inhaled a rather foul stench. Dead bodies. I gagged and put a hand over my mouth. One of the flight attendants was shaking someone who looked like the pilot, but they clearly had no life left in their body.

One by one, all of the survivors exited the plane. We had crashed on a deserted island, surrounded by black waters as far as the eye could see. For a moment, I was stunned by the view. Then, I ed what had happened. I fell to my knees in the sand and my two remaining friends sat beside me.

The rest of the night ed by in a blur. We counted the survivors (only ten), scavenged what we could from the wreckage, found a place to set up camp, and turned in for the night. Weeping and sniffling coming from the others around us kept me up all night long, but I understood and didn’t bother getting mad. We had all decided to sleep in a cave, which turned out to be a wise idea. That night, a ferocious storm swept across the island and waves crashed upon the shore. Rain poured and thunder boomed, but miraculously I managed to out.

When I awoke in the morning, there was no trace of a storm. Some of the survivors stood in the cave and whispered to one another, glancing at the sleeping bodies which surrounded me on the cave floor. I counted the number of people. One gone. I shook the worry from my head before it formed. Surely, someone had just gone out to search the island, right? That was the only explanation I could think of. As the minutes turned into hours, nobody came back from searching. People woke up and I searched their worried faces for an explanation. Nobody seemed to have one.

“Has anyone seen Chris?” Someone asked, and everyone slowly shook their heads. The woman who had spoken up seemed frantic, and beyond worried. The way she was nervously fidgeting with the ring on her index finger made me assumed that “Chris” was her husband. If so, I felt terribly sorry for her.

I talked with Maxx and Zach for a bit, checking in to see if they were okay. Maxx had grabbed a medical kit and was going around and helping people with any injuries they had, whilst Zach and I had volunteered to go out and look around the island. I couldn’t just sit idle and wait for someone to bring good news back, and neither could the taller male.

Walking through the densely packed forest, I began to wonder. Where had Chris gone? No sane person would wander off, and nothing else lived on this island. If this person had been abducted, why only take one person? As a warning? I voiced these thoughts to Zach as we trudged through the layers of vines and leaves. He only gave me a concerned frown and shrugged. He had looked worse than me last night after the wreck, and I couldn’t blame him. I almost felt bad, but I ed how strong of a person he was.

The sound of rushing water ripped me from my thoughts. We pushed past a layer of branches and the sound got louder. Before us stretched a mighty waterfall flowing off a cliff far above. I was taken aback by the sight.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, breaking the silence that had lingered between us. The sunlight that shone through the clouds made the water glisten as though it were made of crystals.

“It’s clean water,” Zach replied, and I cracked a small smile. It brought me a small amount of joy that we had managed to find a source of water, and rather quick in fact. At least we wouldn’t be dying of thirst.

“Come on, we should go tell the others.” I started to walk back, and he followed me. When we arrived back at the base and shared the good news, we led everyone and filled up containers with the water.

The sun was already setting when we all made it back to the cave, and cooked up fish someone had caught. The food and water was shared among the remaining few of us, and we all shared a moment of peace. Some of us even shared quiet laughs as stories were shared around the fire. Everyone fell asleep later, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I could feel a storm coming.

When we awoke the next morning, two more people had disappeared. I thought back to yesterday’s hike with Zach and ed seeing sets of eyes peering at me from the shadows, and people in long, black robes hiding in the corner of my vision and in the shadows. I hadn’t thought to make a note of them until now. Surely my brain had been playing tricks on me, right? I was just delusional.

Another day ed by in a blink, and two of the other survivors had also disappeared. Everyone was getting panicky, and I tried to think through all of the chaos. These were the things we knew. Every night, someone, usually two people, would go missing. A storm would roll across the island and chill us down to the bone but leave behind no evidence. People in dark robes lurked across the island. Could those people be the ones kidnapping the others?

That night, everyone was scared to fall asleep. We all closed our eyes for five minutes, but when we awoke shortly after the other two people had disappeared. Now, it was just Maxx, Zach, and I. The storm raged and I decided then and there that I couldn’t wait another second.

“I’m not going to sit by while everyone else dies. I’m not losing you guys, too. Come on, we’re going to find out where they went,” I said, standing up and grabbing a spear made out of wood and a sharp rock tip that had been leaning against the cave wall.

Zach did the same, and so did Maxx, after he tied back his hair with a long, skinny leaf as a makeshift bandana.

We trudged through the storm, ground slick beneath our boots and dirt smeared on our hands. The storm showed no mercy, thunder booming and lightning striking, providing us with a bit of light to see where we were going. We were growing closer to the center of the island. I had a gut feeling that we would find something important there. As we grew closer, the rain let up.

“We’re in the eye of the storm,” Maxx spoke, wiping mud from his cheek. Zach raised his head to look up at the dark clouds above, then looked around. He appeared to be scouting the area.

Electricity coursed through my veins, the power of the storm making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. A harsh breeze almost blew me off my feet as I swayed back and forth. The tree branches around me rustled and I saw a dark figure leap in between the tufts of dark green surrounding us up above.

Around me, fires sparked from pits of coal in the ground, roaring around us. The bright fires grew higher and danced in front of us, and the wind howled louder than before.

“We have to go,” I said, spinning around to face my friends. They nodded and we began to sprint, fires flaring up around us as we ran. I froze at the entrance to an abandoned, run down village but I pushed forward.

We stopped running and began to walk, looking around. Up ahead, I noticed that Maxx had stopped dead in his tracks.

“Guys, I think I found the others,” he called in a less than pleasant tone laced with fear. The brunette and I turned and walked over. He lifted a shaky hand and pointed upward, an expression of pure horror plastered on his facial features.

When I reluctantly lifted my head, a gasp slipped from my lips. In front of us was a large tree with thick branches tangled above our heads. Hanging by vines from the branches were the other survivors. Their throats were slit and blood pooled below each of them.

The blond knelt down and touched two fingers to one of the puddles of blood. I was about to speak, then I saw him shudder. He wiped his hand on his pants and rose to his feet.

“It’s fresh. Whoever did this probably knew we were coming,” he told us. That, though, wasn’t the worst of it. When we got one of the bodies down, I noticed it was covered in several more cuts I hadn’t seen before, as well as dark bruises creating sickening shades of purple, green, and blue. When I stared long enough, I could tell the other bodies had gotten the same treatment. Looking at them for too long made me feel nauseous.

Slowly, I counted the bodies. There was one missing. I stared down at my blood covered hands and looked around in a panic. Where was the last ‘survivor’? My eyes flickered around the area and my breath caught in my throat. Realization washed over me like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on my head.

Those weren’t vines. I hadn’t found the last survivor, but rather their insides.

“I have a bad feeling about this place-” I started, but was cut off as lightning struck the ground in front of us and a deafening noise echoed around us. I fell onto my knees and scrambled backwards, the two other guys doing the same.

I gripped my spear and rose to my feet as a robed figure stepped out of the trees. They grew closer and my hands tightened around the weapon. The person raised their head to the dim light, revealing glowing, snake-like eyes and a large scar that cut across their eyes. A shrill laugh came from them as they lifted their head to the sky.

More figures that looked identical to them came out of the trees and stepped forward. They wore cloaks of darkness that looked as if the fabric had been pulled straight from the night sky.

“Cody Carson. Maxx Danziger. Zachary DeWall. I’ve heard plenty about you three.” The leader hissed, seeming to grow larger. The crowd behind them roared and stomped their spears against the hard earth.

“We don’t take kindly to visitors, now do we, boys?” They raised their arms up and turned back to the others, and another wave of yells followed. The leader put the hood of their cloak down, revealing a man with dark hair and high cheekbones. Something about him didn’t seem human.

He took a step forward and when I instinctively stepped back, a sharp glare was shot in my direction. He pointed his spear at me, and with a sly smile declared, “Nobody move, or you’ll end up like your friends. Got it?” We gulped and nodded.

He walked toward Maxx and with the end of his spear, lifted up his chin. “Maxx Danziger. The healer, the smallest, the runt. You don’t have a strong bone in your body, do you? Depending on your friends to stay alive in this hellscape, how pathetic.” The crowd laughed and laughed.

Next, he moved to Zach. My fists clenched and unclenched nervously. “Zachary DeWall. The fighter, the outcast, the destructive one. You ruin everything you touch, and yet you can’t even throw one punch to save your life. What a coward.” A blade was pulled from his belt, and he dragged it across the tall male’s cheek, producing blood. Even with Zach’s height, the snake man towered above him.

When he cast a mischievous look in my direction, I felt lightheaded. I was paralyzed. “Oh, Cody Carson. The leader, the ‘brave’. What a lie that is. You lead your crew into this mess, you stood by when everyone else died. You are selfish, and when you realized you could be next to die, that’s when you really took action. You, my darling, are a freak.”

He stepped away with a satisfied smirk, and held up his hand to silence the roaring behind him. He snapped his fingers, and three people from the crowd stepped forward.

“If you think you are so strong, why don’t you prove it? Of course, you can’t fight with those puny weapons.” A sword and shield were thrown down in front of the guitarist, a bow and arrow in front of the drummer, and a plethora of blades in front of I.

We quickly picked up our items and I slid a small dagger into my boot, while the rest of the blades hid on my belt.

“What do you say, boys? Are they worth the fight?” The man turned back to face the crowd, and they cheered, raising weapons in the air. He held up his hands and it fell silent, then he pointed a finger at the earth below his feet. A small boy emerged from the crowd and brought out a wooden instrument, playing a small tune before running up to the man. He was picked up and hoisted upon his shoulders.

“Release the wolves!” He shouted, and the crowd surged forward toward us. The little boy clapped his hands and laughed from up high on the man’s shoulders.

Maxx shot every arrow he had, killing a person with each. Zach slashed and defended himself until his weapons broke. I fought until I ran out of blades. I watched in horror as the crowd broke into two parts. One headed for Zach, and one for Maxx.

“No-!” I cried, but I was too late. My friends were murdered mercilessly before my eyes, and in that instant, all I did was run. Back into the storm, I clawed at tree branches and climbed up slippery, yet jagged rocks. Rain poured in sheets, drenching me down to the bone. I climbed as high as I could, overlooking the forest. I was back at the waterfall, but this time at the very top.

It was sudden and unexpected. One moment, I was standing and overlooking the cliff, savoring the seconds of peace I had, but the next, a cold blade had been placed to my neck.

“Turn around, Cody,” an all too familiar voice sneered, and I reluctantly turned to face him. Now that he was closer, I could see the scar across his face and how his lips always seemed to curl up into a sinister smile. He took a step forward, and I took one back, forcing me closer to the edge of the cliff.

“You left them to die, to freeze to death in this pouring rain. You didn’t even bother defending them, you just ran.” He pointed his knife at me and I stared down the blade. He took another step forward, and my foot slipped on the edge of the cliff as I tried to move away. He tucked the knife away in his robe and grabbed the collar of my shirt.

“I can see your past, you know. You’ve done so many bad things, hurt so many good people. You are sick and disgusting.” With no warning, my throat was grabbed and I was lifted up into the air above the edge of the cliff.

“A twisted human being like you does not deserve to live, don’t you think?” He smiled as sweet as he could, then tightened his grip, cutting off my air supply. My mouth hung open as I clawed at his arm, but it did nothing.

Lightning struck and thunder crashed once more, but he stayed still as stone, not even moving a blink. My vision had begun to go black around the edges, and I could faintly hear him hurling more insults. At some point, his grip went slack enough for me to breathe just a bit. I took in as much air as I could.

“You’re..wrong. I am not selfish.” I slowly brought my foot up, subtly pulling my last knife from my boot. My nails dug into his arm and his eyes widened in surprise.

“You’re the twisted one. Go fuck yourself.” I brought up the knife and stabbed him in the side of the throat. At that, he let go and with that, I fell.

I fell down the cliff, and the world seemed to slow. I floated through the air, staring up at the night sky and at the scenery around me. The stars looked so beautiful, and I just wished I could’ve said one last goodbye to my loved ones, to my friends.

My body crashed into the water and jagged rocks below, and I let out my final breath. A warm feeling washed over me until there was no feeling at all.

This was the end, but also a new beginning. I was at peace. I was with my friends, and that was all I could wish for.

That's the end! I hope you enjoyed it. Please excuse any typos or incorrect grammar. Leave your thoughts in the comments if you like!

Bye lovelies!

#leaderreview