The Island of Death

By Bob Gebhardt

The Island of Death.... La Isla de la Muerte.... Terrifying ghosts, human bandits, terrorists, dangerous geothermal phenomena, all threatening, but pirate treasures and great wealth may be in the offering, trudge on or get the hell out. A group of adventurous people are led to a terrifying island by the writings on a medallion recovered in an ancient pirate treasure, chronicled in the novel Trove. The island, identified on nautical charts as, "Dangerous area, keep well clear, La Isla de la Muerte, Island of Death." Locals give this mountainous, God forsaken island, a wide birth, as people who venture there, to find old pirate treasures, according to myth, never come back. Could this novel have a happy ending Bet your bottom doubloon!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257500727

Book preview

The Island of Death

The Island

of Death

a novel by

Bob Gebhardt

Copyright © 2010 Bob Gebhardt

All rights reserved.

Second Edition

ISBN: 978-1-257-50072-7

No part of this book, eBook, EPUB, text, or the likes, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, data process or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, typing, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Contact Bob Gebhardt

Email

[e-mail]

Website

www.gebhardtnovels.com

Purchase Gebhardt novels online

Lulu Bookstore

www.lulu.com/spotlight/BobGebhardt

This book is dedicated

to my loving wife

Patricia A. Gebhardt

For her tireless assistance, her encouragement,

and support in the preparation of my novels.

Very special thanks to my friend, neighbor

and professional illustrator,

Mike Bartus

for his help, advice and illustrations

in this and my other novels.

Other Books by Bob Gebhardt

Trove

The discovery of a hide map that leads to a pirate trove

of riches and lifelong friendships.

Pirate’s Ghostly Spirits

The friendly paranormal interaction with the spirits of the pirates.

Treasure a Sailor’s Siren

A pirate’s spirit complicates the hunt for untold riches.

El Dorado Relics Recovered

The story of the world famous legend of El Dorado’s elusive treasures.

Sailors Tacking from Murder

The lure of romance, riches and high-seas adventure.

Extra-Dimensional Visitation

A parallel dimension of advanced humans

making rare visits sharing enlightenment.

Sailing Simplified

A short, to the point, lesson on how to sail

small-to-medium sized sailboats.

Visit the author’s website at:

www.gebhardtnovels.com

Disclaimer

This novel is a totally fictional rendering of the author’s imagination including all of the characters and some of the locations. Any similarities between persons or activities must be considered purely coincidental.

The spiritual topics should not be construed as true, real or aligned with any religious teachings. Parapsychology and psychic abilities are unproven, controversial and unexplained mental phenomena at this time.

The presence of angels and Guardian Angels, as well as different types of afterlife activities are beliefs that have been present for eons and many are comforting to believe and interesting to contemplate.

List of Characters:

Albert - the psychic

Alvarez - captain of the tug

Bart - lighthouse worker

Bob Banner - Pat’s husband, the oldest couple of the group

Catherine Wellington - woman friend of Paul Carter

Cheryl Curtis - archeologist

Chris Adair - Pam’s husband and helicopter pilot

Crow - navy SEAL

Don Arnold - the man who called in a mayday

Father John - the religious exorcist

Janet Keller - Russ Koenig’s woman friend and geologist

Joan - lighthouse worker Bart’s wife

Joann Mc Mann - Ron’s wife and the technology geek

Joe - one of the workers on the lighthouse

Jose - the pirate captain, also known as Mojado

Juan Alvarez - first mate of the tug

Kevin Banner - Bob and Pat’s son and associate of the group

Kurt - one of the workers

Mary Arnold - Don’s wife who became distressed in the hurricane

Mike Curtis - archeologist

Mojado - the captain named Jose, who dammed the pirates

Nobe - Captain Norman Bent a navy SEAL

Pam Adair - Chris’s wife, the push for return to the island

Pat Banner - married to Bob and is a nurse

Paul Carter - owner of Albatross Marine Aviation Service

Ron Burgess - Joanne’s husband and leader of the group

Russ Koenig - the lighthouse designer and engineer

Salvador Miguel - the dead kingpin whose body was found

Sharon Stark - Ron’s marine business manager

Smart - the intelligence official

Spike - female navy SEAL

Suzan Barto - Kevin’s woman friend and real estate agent

Tom Jarvis - the attorney

Prologue

The wind freshened, after twelve hours of dead calm, filling the sails and pushing the overloaded schooner over the calm sea. The crew started stirring from their hot and uncomfortable tropical siesta, gathering at the windward rail to take advantage of the fresh breeze. As they awakened, their thoughts returned to their planned raid on a nearby island where they would sneak in and kidnap several women and restock their spirits or rum supplies. The women would be for their pleasure as they sailed to their home island there they would celebrate their successful looting of four ships loaded with treasures.

Just before sunset of the following day their ship lay off of the island of Jamaica around an unoccupied forested area; the pirates prepared to go ashore. In full darkness they sailed their longboats around a point of land and could see fire and candlelight in the distance. Mooring their boats in the shallows they quietly waded ashore and made their way through the forest toward the lights. As they neared the building they spread out and quietly approached, trying not to alarm the occupants until they were close enough to have the advantage of surprise.

Suddenly all hell broke loose, women screaming, men hollering until quieted by the insult of a knife blade.

Four men were quickly and easily dispatched as they were unprepared for a pirate raid and were unarmed.

The woman’s screams were quieted with gags so as not to alert any others within earshot, however several children were seen running off through the bushes causing the pirates to hurry. As one group of the pirates gathered at the boats they met with several others who had captured one additional woman and a hardy supply of spirits. The woman and rum were placed below while the men tended sails and shipboard duties to get underway, knowing they would have a drunken orgy upon their arrival at their next port of call. About a two-day sail, principally south, they arrived at their uninhabited home base, an extinct volcanic island where they had drunken orgies and hidden their treasures numerous times before.

They had also lured other pirates to the island with promise of a safe holiday from the boredom of the sea, many women, good food and all the spirits they could drink.

When they got them drunk they would slaughter them and take their booty, hide it on the island and sail off to find the next ship to raid.

Unbeknownst to them, they missed slaughtering one man, the pirate captain named Jose. In their drunken state he was stabbed in the right side, but the blade only pierced the meat of his side under his shirt, producing a lot of blood and causing him to fall to his knees in pain. Another man bludgeoned him with a belaying pin about the head.

He fell unconscious and they thought him dead. When he came to he played dead until he was sure they were not around.

He had seen a lot of death and had done his share of killing, but seeing all of his men slaughtered and lying about in this grotesque manner, a couple of whom were his officers and close associates, made him physically sick. He managed to drag himself around the bodies and through their blood and hid on the island.

After the pirates had sailed off, he almost died from his wounds. He ate everything they left or discarded and swore he would avenge the murder of his shipmates, if he survived.

He eventually fashioned a raft out of old ship parts and with a very small piece of cloth he made a sail, collected the last remnants of the now decaying foodstuffs, and filled a rum cask with fresh water. He then pushed off.

He remembered being adrift for many days and became so weak he could not sit up and eventually lost consciousness. He woke up on a pirate ship manned by scummy bilge rats they called a crew. He was thrown below and given some half rotting food and grog which he consumed ravenously. He managed to get more food with the crew when they ate and he quickly regained his strength. As he began feeling better he mingled with the crew and was expected to work as a crewmember. They nicknamed him Mojado, or wet, when they pulled in out of the sea and it stuck.

He slowly realized that this was the same pirate crew that murdered his shipmates and stole his share of the treasure, and his ship. However did not recognize him in his emaciated condition.

He resolved to avenge his and his shipmates’ treatment and this became an obsession with him to the point of making it his life’s work. He decided to work hard and become a trusted crewmember and eventually torture and kill each and every one of them.

Over the next few months they raided two ships and they all looked forward to raiding an island, kidnapping women for their pleasure and returning to their home island. Mojado was now back in better physical shape and had gained the trust of the other crew members. He resolved to kill them one by one in the most brutal manner he could device.

He later learned that they had returned to the island of his crew’s slaughter while he was unconscious, unloaded the booty, and left in a hurry while he was recovering below decks.

They apparently had a target ship or harbor town in mind as they were sailing North by Northwest as fast as the wind would allow, eventually rounding a landmass he believed to be Cuba. Sailing about ten miles off they caught up with and started to overtake a merchant ship. The pirates fired a single shot from the forward bronze deck gun, notifying them of their intent to board.

The merchant ship immediately hove to and the pirates came alongside and boarded her, without another shot.

Command and crew surrendered and pleaded for their lives but many were quickly slaughtered and thrown to the sharks.

The remainder of the crew had pledged allegiance to the pirates and were allowed to assist handling the ship but under guard.

They knew that the merchant ship was loaded to the gunnels with gold from South America on the way to Havana where she was to be escorted back to Spain by several ships of war. After unloading the merchant they scuttled her silently and fled.

The pirate crews wasted little time in the area knowing that warships were in the area awaiting the merchant ship. They backtracked sailing southwest around the island to get away from Cuba’s heavily populated city and then turned east bordering the south side of the island. At this point they raided a small fishing settlement where they kidnapped women and restocked their rum supplies. Two days later they sighted their island and celebrated in a frenzy knowing they has stolen the merchant ship right from under the noses of the armada of escorts and warships.

Mojado was made to help the crew unload the gold and take it to several locations where it was stored in extinct volcanic tubes or caves. On one trip several heavily loaded longboats were in a lagoon when the water started bubbling and boiling up so violently it capsized the boats spilling the gold and men into the water. Mojado managed to get to the bank and with great difficulty climbed out. A few of the men drowned quickly and several tried to get out where he was standing.

He let two of them out but got their muskets and powder horns and pushed them back in to drown in the violent water, at last getting revenge on a few.

As they struggled in the violently bubbling water he stood up with raised arms, appearing and sounding like he had lost his mind. He started raving I am the violated captain, the great Jose. I am now your captain who damns and curses you to spend eternity roaming this island, protecting all of your precious treasures. I declare this island off limits to any living humans. Damn you all! He suddenly realized that he was screaming and could possibly be heard by the others, so he forced himself to calm down. After assuring himself that all had drowned, he struggled to make his way up the sides of the lagoon in an effort to get back to the others.

Mojado, Captain Jose, found his way back to the area but hid in the woods and plotted on how he would kill the pirates. He would spare the merchant crew since he would need them to crew the best of the sailing ships he would commandeer from the island harbor.

After secretly recruiting, through fear and a promise of freedom and/or the sharing of untold wealth, the merchant seamen assisted him in systematically torturing, damning and slaughtering the entire crew. Jose, appearing so psychotic he scared the merchant seaman out of their wits as he sadistically tortured each soul and as they died were thrown in caves alongside much of their stolen treasures while Jose gleamed.

Return to the Island

Pam was in the middle of an outdoor thatch hut on a white sand beach in the Caribbean. There was a steel band playing with people dancing and having a good time surrounding her. She, herself, had been having a good time until she sat down to rest up from dancing when the image of their island popped into her mind. La Isla de la Muerte, the Island of Death.

She was a partner in a treasure hunt and recovery wherein she found and became the owner of a medallion describing another treasure trove on an island. That island, The Island of Death, was supposedly haunted by pirates and had been deliberately, due to fear, unclaimed until she and her partners claimed ownership. The partners, who called themselves the August Delusion Group, visited the island and did recover an additional sizable treasure but were harassed by local banditos and some very unusual happenings that they refused to believe were supernatural. They eventually vacated the island and opted for some fun, rather than worry about the banditos who frequented the area looking to hijack any treasure that they found after braving the wrath of the ghosts of the pirates.

The group had discussed returning to the island at a later time to attempt to recover more treasure, however there was an underlying reluctance, or fear of the unknown, so no specific plan was made.

They were all now rather wealthy, from their treasure finds, and were carefree vagabonds sailing the Caribbean in their yachts.

Pam was obsessed with thoughts of the island and the possibility of finding more treasure ever since she started understanding and interpreting the message inscribed on her medallion. She was the push to search for and find other treasures on the island even in the face of some pretty scary natural or supernatural phenomena and human criminal activity.

Her husband Chris saw the blank stare on her face so he asked, What’s wrong, honey? She just shrugged it off as deep in thought and quickly returned to the fiesta.

The next afternoon, after two fabulous but very tiring scuba dives on the reef, they were resting in lounge chairs in the shade of a couple of coconut palms when Chris apparently dropped off to sleep. Pam thoughts returned to her desires to return to their island but could not figure out how to convince the group to return, and it was obviously too dangerous for her and Chris to return by themselves.

As she laid there in the shade with a gentle cool breeze blowing over her she drifted off as she dreamed up a plan.

She awoke with a start as Chris was shaking her leg to wake her up saying, it’s time to dress for dinner.

Her mind raced back over her plan or dream trying to remember all of the details knowing that dreams are frequently forgotten if a conscious effort is not made to remember them.

As they removed their swimming suits and showered together, she was deep in thought and only became conscious of her surroundings when Chris became amorous. She quickly became involved in their lovemaking and totally forgot about the island.

The three couples of the group met for dinner and had conversations about their next dive activities when the opportunity presented itself for Pam to bring up her thoughts about their island. We have an opportunity to develop our island into a resort, even better than this one. It can serve Caribbean yacht cruisers and others vacationers who can be flown in by seaplane or helicopter.

Chris shrugged his shoulders, as the others looked at him, and said, This is the first time I’ve heard about this, but it sounds intriguing.

Ron, the group’s unofficial leader, looked around and said, Let’s hear more.

"We can use the geothermal heated water of the coves or lagoons