Subj: HAWAIIAN HONEYMOON Part Eleven
Date: 8/13/00 7:38:34 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

The man brought his small inflatable raft to the shore of the island. He pulled it up far enough on the beach so it would not be pulled out by the next tide. He had cut his pants leg on an object that was partially buried in the sandy bottom about three feet from the shoreline. He went back to the exact spot and reached down to investigate what that object was, and with some little effort he pulled out an ornate long necked bottle. It looked to be of eastern influence in it's origin. The craftmanship was quite fine and the article looked to be aged. This piece belonged in a musuem surely! He carried it to the solidity of the nearby land.

He scanned the horizon and called out, but he really didn't expect a response, and when he got one he nearly jumped out of his skin. But he had heard it. A faint somewhat far off voice spoke in apparent agony the one word. Beware. Beware? Beware of what?

He followed what seemed to be a well worn path through the island jungle and came upon a most unexpected sight! It was a building made of bamboo and stone and vegetation and sunbacked dirt. It was at least three stories high, and it was adorned with flowers and feathers, and the heads and skulls of a number of animals. It looked like some castle out of a fairy tale. It was amazing, and Tony feared he was suffering some dreadful hallucination! How could this be? How could it be here? Where was he?

"Beware! Bewaaaarrree!" He saw a figure, a woman he thought, oddly decked out in rags and feathers and leaves. She was sitting on the ground in a circle that had been dug out of the earth itself and she was wailing and moaning as she studied some small objects that lay at her fingertips. Tony moved toward her slowly and cautiously. He was standing about four feet away when she shot him a direct gaze and spoke to him. "You must leave this place! You must leave this place NOW before it is TOO late! The cards are never wrong! This is you." She picked up a withered wilted piece of grass and shook it with fury at Tony who listened in silence. "And this," pointing to part of an old coconut shell. "This is me, and for me there is no escape, ever."

Tony was sure the woman was a lunatic, but that did not explain what she was doing here or what the "castle" was doing here either. He asked the woman a question. "Excuse me, but could you tell me who you are and why you are here, and where did this building come from?" He spoke quietly and carefully so as not to agitate the woman unnecessarily, but it was to no avail. She threw back her head and her eyes rolled up into her head until only the whites remained and the sound that escaped her throat was not human sounding!

Tony was taken aback by her reaction, but when all the dogs began to howl as if in response he stopped short. Dogs howling? There are dogs on this island?

Before he could pose another question to the crazy woman the massive door of the castle began to creak open, and a man emerged who was hunched over who approached Tony with a lolling gait dragging one foot behind the other. "Welcome, welcome to Gilligan's Island! You have arrived on a most auspicious evening, sir. The Master is having one of his affairs!" The odd bent man politely addressed Tony as he dramatically gestured back to the castle door where three women, three voluptuous women, had just emerged. No, actually they seemed rather to have simply appeared, but Tony felt that his eyes were just playing tricks on him.

Then another woman, a more stately person did walk out of the door, and she was accompanied by two men who looked like they were dead on their feet. She was wearing a crown of some kind and gave the appearance of being a Queen. The dogs howled louder and there was a more angry growl that came from inside the castle itself. Tony looked up to one of the windows and there he saw a wolf in mens clothing, snarling and snapping down at him!

And before he could use his good sense and leave the scene, Gilligan made his entrance to the group as he made his exit from the castle. He was wearing a crown as well and a sweeping crimson cape. He had a gleam of sheer malignant power and control as he eloquently said, "Good evening, I am Count Gilligan and this is the Countess Angelique. I see you have already met the dear doctor," he pointed to the mad woman on the ground. The woman introduced as the Countess Angelique smiled evily and said, "We so rarely have any guest here. You really MUST stay...for dinner!" She began to laugh, a mere chuckle really, but it grew and grew until she was laughing uproariously, and no one else found anything amusing. No one else joined into the reverie. Tony took three careful steps backwards as he turned to make a hasty retreat.

He tripped! Over? There was nothing, but he fell to the ground nonetheless, and he fell hard! The bottle fell from his grasp as he went down, and the stopper came loose as it did. The bottle hit the ground open, and just as suddenly a large volume of pink smoke came shooting out and soon there was nothing to be seen except for this pink fog, and was that another woman that Tony saw?

Dah, dah! Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah!

The End...

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production