[Let's Play] Storytrails #21 Island of the Walking Dead

[SGamerz]

As usual, I'm doing a different series between my FF playthrough threads. However, the next 2 FF LP threads had already been (sort of) decided. First there will be a Paul Mason book (due to the votes they receive during the poll between different FF authors that we haven't tried). After that (and with probably another brief break of another gamebook LP of a different series) will come Masks of Mayhem, another Robin Waterfield book which received as many votes as Phantoms of Fear in our last LP poll.

So during this LP, I will also run a poll on which Paul Mason book to play next after this one is over, so please vote for the one you prefer!

Here are the back-cover blurbs:

FF32 (Co-written w/ Steve Williams):

"Kallamehr lies defenceless. The army is away, facing an invasion to the north, and now a new threat is at hand - another enemy from the east! Lady Carolina of Kallamehr summons YOU, a famous adventurer, to her aid. But can you help? Will you manage to preserve this stronghold of Good against the invading hordes? Or is this task beyond even your heroic abilities? You will need your wits as well as your sword of Fangthane steel to prevent the sands of time engulfing the city..."

FF42 (Co-written w/ Steve Williams):

"In the mysterious Isles of the Dawn, ancient forces are returning from the past, bringing chaos and war. Their intention is to wrest power from the Child-King and regain their evil rule. It is up to YOU to bring peace to the land once more. But who are you? Woken, it seems, from the dead, you have only unreliable fragments of memory to go on. You must discover your own identity before the Black Vein Prophecy can finally be fulfilled!"

FF47 (Note: this can be considered a sort of sequel to FF42, although you don't play the same PC - but the PC of FF42 does make an appearance!):

"Civil war wracks the Isles of the Dawn. You are a young farmer, unaffected by the turmoil until chaos strikes. A roving band of mercenaries ransacks your village, killing your father and enslaving your mother. This injustice must be righted!

Arcane creatures, martial monks and battle-hardened warriors must all be overcome, as your quest for justice leads you from your quiet village to the very Court of the God-King!"

FF57 (This one happens in the same setting as FF32 (well, part of the book does), but I don't really consider it a sequel since there's pretty much no overlap other than possibly having a couple characters from that book namedropped. The PC isn't even from Titan, but got transported from a different world while chasing his nemesis who fled there.):

"YOU are a Magehunter, tracking down evil-doers and bringing them to justice. Your trusty flintlock pistol and fine steel broadsword have seen many fights, and you have the knowledge, skill and equipment to capture the craftiest sorcerer. But disaster strikes. Magic drags you far from your familiar world, to a land of treasures, traps, and treachery. Strange tales and bizarre transformations must all be endured if you are to win through, defeat your enemy and return to your homeland."

Note that while Paul Mason's FF books are distinct for their relatively deeper plot, story, atmosphere and unique flavour, they also tend to be extremely difficult and highly unlikely to be completed in a single run! Generally not due to tough fights (so even max-stat characters won't have too much advantage...in fact 42 and 57 are BAD for max-stat characters), but in the difficulty in finding the optimal paths.

****

But in the meantime, I'm going to do another book which I kind of said I would be doing a long time ago...

Way back last year I ran a poll for the Storytrails series, and 3 of the books received votes. I've run 2 of them, but somehow never got to the third one, so I'm finally getting this out of the way!

Cover link:
https://gamebooks.org/gallery/strail21.jpg

Here's the back cover:
https://gamebooks.org/gallery/strail21back.jpg

And as usual there's a brief paragraph of background during the introductory pages that also describes the rules. Not that there's much of the latter, since they're just straight-forward CYOA with no complicated game mechanism, so I'll just post only the setting and background of the story, as usual:

San Salvador is one of the small 'out islands' of the Bahamas. It has one town and a population of 800. Today, its attraction is to divers seeking to explore the coral reefs that surround it. But it has a much older claim to fame.

It was on the beach of Long Bay, near to present-day Cockburn Town, that Christopher Columbus first set foot in the 'New World'. That was in the year 1492.

Columbus found the island inhabited by a gentle race of people who called themselves 'Lucayans'. They treated their strange visitors with every honour and kindness but, for Columbus, it was not enough. He had promised to return with 'great treasure'. The Lucayans had none. So, Columbus sailed on, making his way south, until he reached the island of Haiti.

The 'Tainos' of Haiti were a people much like the Lucayans; probably related to them - but the Tainos had gold! They had so much gold that Columbus believed that Haiti must have some vast, hidden goldmine.

Gold-seeking Spanish colonists were soon flocking to the island. They enslaved the Tainos, treating them with such unspeakable cruelties that soon they were running out of slaves. They turned to the Lucayans. The Lucayans believed Haiti to be the home of their gods and were easily lured aboard the Spanish slave ships with promises of a 'trip to heaven'!

It was fifty years before the horrors of the Spanish slavers reached the ears of a shocked world. Bishop Las Casas sent a ship to the Bahamas to search the islands for any survivors of the terror. The search lasted for three years, in which time, only eleven Lucayans were found to be still alive.

Though four and a half centuries have passed, does someone still seek revenge for the death of 30,000 innocent people? Are you willing to join battle with terrifying and supernatural forces to save the senseless spilling of yet more human blood?

With that ominous intro out of the way, the PC's story begins in section 1, but first, a map of the Bahamas and of the town San Salvador is provided for the readers to help them find their way:

The church of St Francis Xavier looks directly down over the harbour of Cockburn Town. If you fail to notice the church, you would surely notice the statue of Christopher Columbus which stands over its porch. The statue is painted bright yellow. And the only explanation you will be given for that curious fact is, 'dat de colour him al'ays bin painted'!

Father Nicolas was standing on the steps of the church, broom in hand, and talking to Mort Jackson, the island's policeman. As I walked over to speak to them I felt a distinct tremor in the ground beneath my feet. It was over in seconds.

"Don't get too close" 'Mort shouted. "The father thinks that one of those is going to bring Columbus down from up there!"

It was the latest of several earth tremors we'd had in the past few weeks. The experts said that it was due to undersea landslips in the deep Puerto Rico trench two hundred miles to the south.

"There has been mortar coming down from somewhere," the father admitted. "I'll have to get Joseph to get up there and take a look."

"Then I'd do it before they fire those cannon off," Mort said. "What those earth tremors haven't done, the cannon might!"

He'd obviously been looking at the short' brass cannon which, I'd had cleaned and set up along the harbour wall. I assured him they were not going to be fired. After nearly five hundred years under water, the barrels would be very likely to explode!

"A pity!" said. Father Nicolas. "I'm sure we'd all been looking forward to the grand salute when the ship's refloated. When is the 'great day'?"

Early next week, I thought. I was on my way down to the harbor workshop now, to see whether Seabrook had fixed a definite date.

Mort said that he would have to go. Sophia had lost two cockerels and Jessie Wells' goat had gone missing. That might be nothing in Nassau where he came from, but in San Salvador it felt like a crime wave was sweeping the island.

Laughing, we parted. I headed for the harbor steps. I saw that the four tugs had arrived and were anchored' beyond the salvage vessel - another reminder that two years' work was coming to an end.

Turn to page 2.

San Salvador is famous for its coral reefs, the finest stretching from Cockburn Town to Sandy Point in the south. But coral is a living, growing organism and, three years ago, was threatening to close the entry to the Town harbour. It was during blasting operations to open up the shipping channel, that one of the larger reefs split from end to end.

It was like the opening up of the two halves of a mould. Lying in the newly formed cleft, was a ship, almost free of the coral which had covered and preserved her for centuries. She was a three-masted Spanish carrack - a merchantman armed with cannon. Her name was the Marie Galante
and, but for a great hole torn in her hull, she was almost undamaged.

Minutes after leaving shore, she must have struck the underwater reef. With her bottom torn out by the razor sharp 'coral heads', she would have sunk like a stone, taking with her all who were aboard. She must have settled in a natural depression, the coral growing over her quickly enough to preserve her timbers from the usual ravages of wood-boring Teredo worms.

The first discovery was that some hundred of those aboard - men, women and children - had been packed like cattle in the tiny hold. The Marie Galante was a slave ship, those in the hold, Lucayans, whose promised 'trip to heaven' had been, perhaps, mercifully short!

The salvage cost was estimated at over four million US dollars and there was no 'treasure' to make it financially attractive. It was, therefore, very unexpected, when the whole of the money was offered by one man, Senor Miguel Alvarez, a Spanish banker from Nassau, the Bahamian capital.

Once the money had been offered, things moved very quickly. Carl Seabrook, best known for his work on the salvage of the Greek galleys sunk at the Battle of Salamis, was appointed as project director. I was working in Portsmouth, England, at the time, on the wreck of the Mary Rose. I was offered the supervision of the archaeological work. Sue Stannard, one of my colleagues, was appointed as my assistant. In nine months, a complete team was assembled. Three months later, the salvage vessel was in place, ready for work to begin.

It had taken most of the two years to empty the ship of all its contents - including the human remains. Everything was now stored in a large house just on the south side of the Town.

During the same period, the fragile timbers of the ship itself had been enclosed in a wooden framework, or 'cradle'. To this would be attached huge plastic bags. When filled with air, they would lift both the cradle and the ship to the surface. The tugs were to steady the cradle during the lift and prevent its being swept against the sides of the cleft by the tidal currents. Everything had been ready for ten days, waiting for the time when tides and weather would give the best chances of a successful lift.

I knew that the tidal predictions made Tuesday and Wednesday of next week two likely days. I was, therefore, surprised to hear that Seabrook had fixed the lift for Monday - if the weather held. It was sooner than Seabrook himself would have liked, but he was increasingly worried about the earth tremors which were getting more frequent, and stronger.

That set a problem for Sue Stannard and myself. Senor Alvarez was waiting in Nassau, ready to fly to San Sal the evening before the lift. Sue and I, probably the only members of the team still working, had been putiing-together a small exhibition of the best pieces for Senor Alvarez' benefit. The cannon on the harbour wall were part of it. It was now Thursday and we had one day less to finish it.

Probably not realising how much work was still to be done, Seabrook suggested that Sue and I borrow one of the Land Rovers and go Granny Lake for a long camping weekend. He added that Malcolm was going to his dig and that we could give him a lift there and back.

Malcolm was one of the team's carpenters, but a keen amateur archaeologist. His dig was a part-excavated site on the other side of the island, which had been a very early Lucayan settlement.

I thought Sue needed a break. If I stayed and worked the weekend, Sue could go with Malcolm to his dig on Friday morning - not quite a 'break', but a change which I knew Sue would enjoy. If I was to get away too, even on Friday night, I would have to settle for a much smaller exhibition than I'd planned.

Do we relish working OT? Or take a break to go camping?

[Thaluikhain]

Sorry for not responding sooner, these things have a lot of text up front and I had things on.

I vote for staying and working.

(Oh, and the pic is too wide for my screen)

[SGamerz]

(Oh, and the pic is too wide for my screen)

Which one? The cover, or the map? (Or Both?)

Sue had taken some persuading to leave me to finish the work on the exhibition alone and had insisted on working late on the Thursday night. I almost had to throw her out of the house at eleven o'clock, reminding her that she was leaving with Malcolm early next morning. I was the only one who actually lived in the house, all the rest of the team staying either at Watling's Castle, the Town inn, or the nearby Columbus Guest House.

I worked on after Sue had left - longer than I had intended. As a result I slept in next morning and had barely finished my breakfast when Cuffy arrived. Cuffy Palmer was my daily 'help'.

When I got to my workroom, Cuffy was already there wildly flapping her duster about and frequently just missing my exhibits!

"Dis house ain' newer finish' cleanin'," she said. No sooner I done de dustin' and de whole place full dem wampers!"

I thought I preferred the mosquitoes to Cuffy's efforts to dispose of them. Not wanting to see any more, I left Cuffy to it and went to Sue's workroom. Earlier in the week, Sue had brought up from the cellar a Spanish and a Lucayan skull for the exhibition. I didn't think the Lucayan skull was one of our bext examples, and so Sue had brought up two more which she had said were on her work table. Lucayan skulls are unique. Lucayan mothers, using a wooden board, would apply light pressure to the skulls of their infants, while the bones of the skull were still soft. The effect was to broaden the forehead and cause to slope back sharply from the brow ridge - though not, perhaps, obvious except to a trained eye.

There was only one skull in Sue's workroom. I took it back to my own room and asked Cuffy if she'd seen the other one.

"No sue you ax me," she said. "Miz Stannard mus' put it some place else. Der be one on dat box by de window."

They were the first two Sue had brought me. It wasn't until Cuffy had left that afternoon that something stuck me as strange. Why had Cuffy said, "Der be one by de window," and not, "There are two by the window" - unless she could recognize a Lucayan skull? Sue could have shown her, yet that seemed most unlikely.

With the rest of the weekend to finish the exhibition, I felt that I was entitled to some time off. The next morning I went down to the Saturday market by the harbor. It sold everything from food and clothes to tourist souvenirs, like conch shells and 'brain' coral. The first person I literally bumped into was Billy Bowleg. That wasn't his real name, but a nickname which seemed to be given to any Seminole Indian. Billy was only half Seminole and spoke Bahamian Creole as broadly as Cuffy. He lived in the stables of an old plantation house on the other side of the island - not far from Malcom's dig. He was obviously a little drunk and was carrying a metal keg.

"Rum supplies?" I joked.

"Wish him was!" Billy answered. "Dat de black powder. I get two o' dem, come on de mail boat. One o' dem heavy 'nough carry back."

Gunpowder was an unusual thing these days, but I remembered that Billy had a museum piece of a gun - a muzzle-loading, seven-barrel, volley gun.

Reckon I needin' him badly," Billy continued. "Las' two nights when I bin out huntin' de night walkers, I seein' de bougamen. I knows dey bougamen, 'cause when I fires de gun at dem, dey don' make no noise - but dey disappears quick quick. Maybe I get something from Sable, keep dem off."

All the islands had their 'bush doctor', a 'wise one' who sold charms, potions, herbal remedies - even casting the odd spell. San Sal's was a woman called Sable who lived in a deserted woodfeller's shack by the great Lake.

"Maybe I better don't," Billy muttered. "Not wantin' kine trouble dat Cuffy Palmer has wo' de policeman."

I pricked my ears at that! I asked what trouble.

"Long time 'go. Dat Sable, she bin takin' de bones from de graveyard for work witch. Make Cuffy hide dem when she tink policeman findin' out. She get Cuffy in de big big trouble. I go. Time quick on me today."

Billy went off. I had been going to spend the day in the Town. Now I wondered if I should be getting back to the house and having words with Cuffy when she came in that afternoon. But I could be wrong, I'd rather forget it than have Cuffy walk out on me!

Confront the suspect?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Which one? The cover, or the map? (Or Both?)

For me, it's the cover; it makes the whole page hard to read.

Confront the suspect since we don't have any other leads.

[Thaluikhain]

The front cover (well, back as well, but that's spoilered).

I vote for talking to Cuffy, and hoping that the book doesn't turn out "Well, it was the 80's, they were like that back then".

[pragma]

Talk to Cuffy -- this book seems mindful of historical racist nonsense, how bad could it go? (Also, seems like we'll get early warning about magical nastiness this way.)

[SGamerz]

For me, it's the cover; it makes the whole page hard to read.

The front cover (well, back as well, but that's spoilered).

I've removed the pics, since they aren't really needed for the play. I left the url links in their places to anyone to still want to check them out.

Cuffy didn't arrive at the house until nearly two o'clock. From my workroom window, I saw her familiar figure enter the drive. She was wearing her brightly flowered 'Saturday' dress and a new straw hat, narrow brimmed and squashed tightly down on her dark, wirey hair. The effect was spoiled by her usual wrinkled grey stockings and a pair of very off-white plimsolls. She was carrying a large, and obviously heavy, straw bag which gave a lopsided and slightly comic effect to her flatfooted walk. Minutes later, she was in my room, breathlessly depositing her bag and hat in the middle of my work table.

I could think of no way of softening the question I had to ask her - "Why did you take one of the Lucayan skulls and give it to Sable?"

"What kine question dat you ax me?, she snapped back. "I hopin' you jokin' - but I not tinkin' dat werry funny. Now you 'scuzin, me!"

As she snatched up her bag, one of the straw handles snapped, scattering the bag's contents across the table. It looked like innocent groceries - until I spotted the odd looking bundle of feathers. Cuffy saw me looking at it.

"I buy dem feather for sew on muh new brim."

"And why would you want a "fetch" on your hat?" I asked. "It is a fetch - a charm - isn't it?"

Cuffy looked uncomfortable.

"I sorry. I tink you laugh at me. You tink Cuffy, she tirty year old woman an' can't act her head. I get him for hang in de fruit tree - keep dem chillum from steal de fruit. Dey tink it bad-lucked."

I'd seen the kind of charms that hung in fruit trees - usually bottles with some kind of powder in them. This was something special. Cuffy was still lying, and she knew that I knew. There was a pause.

"I take de skull,' she said, at last. "I not want to. I honest woman - but dat Sable, she make me. I 'fraid o' dat woman. She not jus' bush doctor. She Haiti woman. Dey say she 'papalol',- big obeah woman. If she light de bad-candle on you, den you dies - terrible slow."

"All right" I said. "I believe you - but you haven't told me two things; why Sable wants a Lucayan skull and what the fetch is for."

Cuffy didn't know why Sable wanted a Lucayan skull, but she'd shown her how to recognize one - "She tell me how de mothers press de chillum's head wid de wooden board, make dem wider an' slantin' backwards. I tink she work some big big witch. She give me de fetch an' she say, 'Sunday night, you hangs dat on de door of de house - an' you don' come out o' the house till de day near to clean'."

I was sure Cuffy had now told me all that she knew. I still didn't know why Sable wanted a Lucayan skull - but it was for something that was going to happen between Sunday night and day-break on Monday morning. It probably didn't matter. If you listened to islanders like Cuffy for long enough, you started believing in witchcraft yourself. I wasn't going to start doing that! Cuffy had been silent for a few minutes. Then she said, "I not come back house, if you not want me - but please not tell de policeman!"

I told her I did want her back at the house and that even if I did say anything to Mort Jackson, it would be Sable I would be blaming.

"You not understand," Cuffy said. "Sable, she get me in trouble wid de policeman before. Mus' be two years ago - 'cause if first time dat Senor Alvarez come to de island. I wants no more trouble like dat!"

Cuffy was very upset. I told her not to worry, helped her to repair her bag with some strong twine, repacked her groceries - and packed her off home.

Some time after Cuffy had gone I saw that she'd left her fetch behind. I couldn't decide what to do with it, so I slipped it into my pocket. At the moment I was too worried to think about it.

I might not believe in witchcraft, but I couldn't get one thing out of my head. Senor Alvarez had visited the island only once before. The first hours of his second visit would be between Sunday night and Monday morning!

I could have words with Seabrook, but would he tell me what I already know - that I was falling for a lot of superstitious nonsense? All that had really happened was that Sable had blackmailed Cuffy into stealing one skull. Should I try to forget it and carry on with my work - that was why I'd been doubtful about taking a break in the first place.

Do we report our suspicions?

[Thaluikhain]

Talk to Seabrook.

[pragma]

Sheesh, they keep assuming I didn't read the cover before showing up at work today. I guess talk to Seabrook, though I expect him to make fun of us. Seems better than not doing anything.

[SGamerz]

I found Seabrook in the harbor workshop, unpacking underwater television cameras and lighting, which we hadn't used since the early days of the examinations of the ship.

I told him the things I'd been hearing - adding that I hadn't suddenly started believing in witchcraft - but that he, Seabrook, was responsible for Senor Alvarez's safety and I'd felt he was at least entitled to know. He started to laugh.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "I wasn't laughing at you. I was remembering myself - many years ago. As a very young man, I started in this business in this part of the world. I spent five years trying to find sunken treasure ship[s along the Great Bahama Bank. I learned then that 'magic' is still a way of life among a lot of people on these islands. I also learned to respect it!"

He must have seen my look of near disbelief.

"Oh! I'm not saying I believe in "magic", but I do know that some of these bush doctors are dangerous people - especially those like Sable with her knowledge of voodoo and obeah. I've seen people go sick for no apparent reason. I've seen what they call "killing at a distance", where the victim just dies. Maybe it's done with poison. Maybe it's because the victim believes in it. Whatever the explanation, it works!

"But you can stop worrying - at least for the moment. I've told Senor Alvarez the situation with these earth tremors and to stay away until either they stop, or we're forced to risk the lift because they're threatening the ship. That's what the cameras and lights are for. I want a twenty-four hour watch kept on the ship from the salvage vessel. I've only got two divers - Bates and Sevnson. I rest are off at the Berry Islands on a fishing trip, after blue marlin.

I asked if he was going to manage with only two divers. I was a reasonably experienced diver, myself.

"We'll manage," he said. "I know you were doubtful about giving up the weekend because of the exhibition. But if you're looking for an excuse to get away from that, I'd not say "No" to your help."

I certainly had work to do. Should I return to the house, or help Seabrook set up the television equipment?

Go back to our own work or help out here?

[Thaluikhain]

Help with TV stuff.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Help him out.

[SGamerz]

It took all the afternoon and most of the evening to set up the cameras and lights, and link them to the monitor screens aboard the salvage vessel. They gave a clear view of the whole ship from both fore and aft. Seabrook insisted upon my having dinner with him at the inn before returning to the house for the night.

I was well used to diving, but not to long periods of continuous work underwater. I was tired and would be glad to have some sleep. Seabrook offered to run me back to the house in the Land Rover, but I decided to walk. It was only after sunset that the air on the island was fresh and cool.

I was actually leaving the inn, when Sue walked in. She and Malcolm were not due back until next evening. Something had to be wrong!

Sue knew that I'd heard about Billy and his imagined sightings of 'bougamen'. Now it looked as if they might not be imaginary! They might not be bogeymen, but there was something out there - and Sue had seen them herself!

It had happened less than two hours ago, at sunset. Sue and Malcolm had been finishing their evening meal at the dig, when they'd heard Dandy, Billy's dog, start to bark. The barking had come towards them as if the dog were chasing something. Then they'd heard Billy's voice - followed by the explosion of his gun. The sound of its seven barrels firing together was unmistakable!

Then, in the fading red evening light, they'd seen two figures, running. The were all of two hundred yards off, but Sue was prepared to swear that they were two men - and that they were completely naked.

The barking faded, and there was another, distant shot. Half an hour later, Billy had come to the dig, alone. He was crying! Dandy was dead. Something had broken the dog's back.

Malcolm had insisted that Sue return to the inn in the Land Rover. He'd gone out searching with Billy. My first instinct was to go out there and join in the search but, as Sue rightly pointed out, I had no way of finding them - and it was dark. The men were probably some drunken visitors - long since gone. There was nothing I could do except get some sleep.

There seemed to be a lot to talk about, but perhaps they were the kind of things which wee better discussed in the cold light of day. I left Sue at the inn and returned to the house.

As I was going up the stairs, I put my hand in my pocket and immediately felt the fetch. I took it out. It was only a bunch of feathers, but there was something about it I didn't like. There was an empty packing case at the top of the stairs. I left it on top of that.

I was not long going to sleep and must have slept soundly until some time near to dawn, I was woken by another of the earth tremors, enough to shake the bed and set the things in the room rattling. Like the tremors before it, it lasted only seconds. I did my best to get back to sleep, but with little success. I was still awake when I saw it was about time to get up.

After my disturbed night, I was awake but didn't feel like getting up. As I lay there I heard the front door burst open! That was the only way that I could describe the sound. It was instantly followed by footsteps - not quite dragging. 'Lumbering' might have been a closer description. I shouted, "Is that you Sue?" - though I couldn't believe that it was!

There was no reply, but now the footsteps had begun to mount the stairs. I felt suddenly frightened! There was connecting door between my bedroom and my workroom. I jumped out of bed and ran into the workroom. There was a speargun which I carried if I was diving when there were sharks around. I loaded it with a spear and began to move towards the door to the landing at the head of the stairs. The footsteps had stopped. Then I heard them turn around and begin to go down the stairs again.

Before I could reach the door, there was another tremor. This one was bad. I had to hang on to the heavy work table to stop myself from being thrown to the floor.

It was several seconds before I dared to try leaving the room.

I got to the stairhead in time to see an empty hall and wide open front door. As I started down the stairs, a figure appeared in the open doorwat, black against the bright sunlight outside.

"Don't shoot!" called a familiar voice. I was Mort Jackson.

"You see anyone as you come up the drive?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "One of the stone balls off your gateway nearly wrecked my car in that last tremor. I came up to see if the house was still standing. I see it's sprung your front door out of its lock."

Perhaps all I'd heard had something to with the tremors. I asked Mort what he was doing around so early.

"Not so much 'early' as 'late'," he answered, "I have just been home, but I've working up at Sable's shack all night. I'm going back now, though I think we've found all there was to find - one mutilated goat, two dead cockerels, and a lot of blood in the shack, which is pretty certainly animal. Sable's been doing her 'big witch' again, as they say. I don't know what for. Sable's still missing letting things 'cool down'. Heaven knows what she imagines she's been conjuring up, but I'll tell you, it'll end up much as it did last time. I lose a night's sleep and she's fined for stealing a goat and two chickens!

"And you've got trouble!" he added. "I've seen Seabrook. The wreck's tilted - or something - and most of his divers are off on a fishing trip. One carpenter's on the other side of the island. The other two are also on the fishing trip."

I asked where Seabrook was.

"I'm not certain. Either at the inn, or the radio station. He's going to try to contact his fishermen and get them back. I know he's already told Senor Alvarez to stay away. Look. I don't think anything's spoiling for a few minutes. Take your time, have some breakfast and go to the inn, or if you think it's that urgent, throw some clothes on and I'll give you a lift to the radio station. I should really report to Nassau. Just make your mind up quickly - and do stop pointing that speargun in my direction!"

Do we think it's urgent?

[Thaluikhain]

Then they'd heard Billy's voice - followed by the explosion of his gun. The sound of its seven barrels firing together was unmistakable!

Hmmm...seven barrels firing together? Only thing that comes to mind is a Nock gun, and those are rather out of date, even for the 80s.

Anyhoo, yeah, sounds like urgent stuff is going on. Not sure why radio stations are the place for urgency, but go there.

EDIT: Dammit, stupid tags.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Your quote tags are broken, Thal.

Also, go to the radio station.

[SGamerz]

Not sure why radio stations are the place for urgency

Mort believes Seabrook would be there in order to call back his diving crew to fix the wreck caused by the tremor.

Mort went off down the drive to clear the remains of the broken stone ball from the road. I went upstairs to get dressed. I found myself stopping at the head of the stairs. The tremor might have sprung the front door out of its lock, but I had not imagined the footsteps - and why had they sopped at the head of the stairs and suddenly turned about? There was only an empty packing case - and the fetch that lay on top of it. I picked it up. Perhaps it was more than just a bunch of feathers!

Seabrook had already left the radio station when we arrived. The members of the team who had gone off for the weekend were three hundred miles away, fishing for blue marlin, somewhere around the Berry Islands. So far, it had not been possible to contact them. Seabrook had gone back to the inn.

I found Sue at the inn, but not Seabrook. He'd gone straight down to the harbor with Bates and Svenson, the two remaining divers. Sue had offered her help, but Seabrook was confident three of them were enough to do the job. The ship had tilted and the danger was of it rolling against the opposite wall of the cleft. The plan was to fix some of the plastic air sacks and inflate them just sufficiently to right it again.

The was little I could do. The exhibition was nearly finished and, with Senor Alvarez no longer arriving that night, the urgency had gone. If I stayed at the inn, then Sue and I - both of us capable divers - were immediately on hand if Seabrook did need us. The events of the last forty=eight hours provided plenty to talk about, but produced no answers.

Da Marco, the inn's owner appeared briefly in the lounge during the afternoon and Sue asked him if there was any news of Charlie. There was not.

I assumed this was Charlie, the inn's odd-job man. He was an odd character - not least in appearance. I had never been able to decide whether he had a very large head, or whether it was his hair - black, very full at the sides, and with a long fringe which came well below his eyebrows.

"Charlie's vanished," Sue told me. "He didn't appear this morning. His bed hasn't been slept in and everything's still in his room - even money!"

Six o'clock came. Charlie was still missing. Seabrook had not returned and I thought it was time to collect Malcolm from the dig.

I decided, first, to walk to the radio station. They should, by now, have contacted the rest of the team, and if they'd been in touch by radio with the salvage vessel, they might know how the work was progressing.

Both answers I got. The team was on its way back to San Sal - though not expected until the early hours of Monday morning. The work on the ship was completed. Seabrook and the divers were back aboard the salvage vessel.

I was still in the radio station when the next tremor came. It was a long one, lasting all of half a minute. We thought it was over when there was one almighty crash on the roof of the building. We all rushed outside to be met with a tangle of wires and steel girderwork. The top third of the 190-foot radio mast had come down!

It looked as though all the pink and yellow washed houses of the town wee still standing, but there had to be other damage. Sue met me as I returned to the in. She'd seen the mast come down. The inn had survived, but she was worried about Seabrook and the divers.

I was able to tell her that they had been back aboard the salvage vessel, though we could no longer contact them by radio. We could only wait.

An hour later Seabrook arrived. The air sacks had held the ship upright, but now the joints in the cradle had opened up. He wanted Malcolm - and quickly. I said I would get him. Seabrook was going back to the salvage vessel and it looked as if Sue was going with him.

I set off in one of the Land Rovers, taking the northern coast road - the shortest route to the dig. I was about half way there when I spotted the navigation lights of a plane against the darkening sky. I was obviously coming to land. It could only be Senor Alvarez - and no one was at the airstrip to meet him! If I turned around, I might just get to the airstrip in time. Was getting Malcolm more urgent - even if it meant the risk of our elderly 'boss' having to walk something over two miles to the inn in the dark?

Which do we think is more important: meeting and escorting our boss or fetching the carpenter?

[Thaluikhain]

We promised to get Malcolm, we did not promise to get Alvarez. To Malcolm!

Mort believes Seabrook would be there in order to call back his diving crew to fix the wreck caused by the tremor.

Oh yeah, missed that.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Let the old man walk on his own, and go find the guy we're already looking for.

[pragma]

I'd vote for finding Alvarez. An old man alone in the dark is definitely going to get eaten. Presumably our payday gets eaten with him.

[SGamerz]

Da Marco should have heard the plane, guessed who it was bringing, and realized that no one would be there to meet it. He could easily have gone out himself in the inn's utility truck.

When I reached the dig, it was dark, but for a last, faint glow of red in the western sky. It was enough to show that the dig was deserted. Malcolm's gear was gone - except for a few of the heavier tools. Someone was approaching. It was Billy.

"Saw de lights," he said. "Was 'spectin' somebody come. Malcom, him gone - walkin' - five an' twenty minutes past. We feels de ground shakin' and he tink, maybe dat ship in trouble an' he needed."

I would have liked to talk to Billy, but I knew that even if Senor Alvarez had arrived at the inn, there was still no one to receive him. I excused myself and drove off.

Senor Alvarez, even if he'd walked, should have reached the inn before I did. But he had not arrived. Da Marco had not even heard the plane. I drove to the airstrip to find the customs officer about to mount his bicycle and return home. Senor Alvarez had arrived, and left - walking. They had offered to find him some transport, but he'd said he wasn't expected and that the walk would do him good.

I asked where his plane and pilot were.

"Needed back in Nassau," was the answer. "Had to do a quick turnaround while it was still light enough to see the runway."

I returned slowly to the inn, carefully scanning the road, but it was empty. Senor Alvarez had still not arrived - though Malcolm had.

I said I would run Malcolm down to the harbor. He could find a boat, get out to the salvage vessel and, at the same time, pass on the news to Seabrook about Senor Alvarez. I would go back and try to organize a search. We couldn't have the man lost - wandering around in the dark.

To reach the harbor, we had to drive past St Xavier's church. The main door was open and I could see candles burning inside. I'd never seen it open at this time of night. I backed the Land Rover up and stopped. Malcolm got out with me and we walked up to the door.

Alone, and kneeling by the altar rail, was the small, grey-haired figure of Senor Alvarez. He was obviously deep in prayer and I felt that we had no right to disturb him. Quietly, I closed the door behind us and we moved to one side of the back of the church.

The slight sound of the door told me that someone else had entered the church - a man, standing in the shadows, yet in some way looking familiar. For a moment, he just stood, then slowly he began to walk down the centre aisle towards Senor Alvarez's kneeling figure. The light from the candles now fell upon him. It was Charlie - from the inn!

From somewhere above in the darkness, came a sound - faint, but rising - like the moaning of a wind. The candles began to flicker. I looked at Charlie. I saw him lean forward like a man caught be a sudden gust of air. His hair began to stream backward from his head, and I could see his clothes pressed against the front of his body - though I could feel nothing!

He was like a man fighting against a gale, but Charlie still moved forward. As he neared the altar rail, Senor Alvarez rose from his knees, and turned. He must have been startled by the strange sight which now confronted him. I could not see the face into which he looked - the faced no longer half hidden by a fringe of black hair. But I could see the face of Senor Alvarez. It was the face of terror! He opened his mouth, as if to speak. The candles flared in a sudden brightness then, as if each had been snuffed out at one single moment, there was total darkness in the church.

There was the sound of a brief struggle, of stumbling footsteps - and then a voice, loud, breathless, yet strangely commanding, "Senor Miguel Yanez Pinzon Alvarez! Stay! Leave this place and I cannot save you!"

Again the stumbling steps - and now others following behind. The sound of the door opening. Then, from outside, a deep rumbling, and earsplitting crash - and sudden silence. Impossibly, the candles in the church sprang back into flame. Other than ourselves, the church was empty. I ran to the door.

The porch door was blocked by stone and rubble. Beneath a block of yellow stone, was a hand, white but for the blood which had trickled, darkly down its fingers.

The noise had brought people into the street. Many hands were soon moving the stone and rubble. Senor Miguel Alvarez and the man, known only as Charlie, were both dead. As they had left the church, the statue of Christopher Columbus had fallen, bringing with it much of the porch itself.

At four o'clock on Monday morning, San Salvador experienced what proved to be the last of the earth tremors. The man on duty aboard the salvage vessel, watching the wreck on the TV monitors, saw his screens go blank. The watch deck reported a heavy turbulence in the water around the salvage vessel.

At daybreak, Seabrook led a diving team to discover what exactly had occurred. They found no ship and no cleft in the reef. One half of the reef, which had formed the cleft, had broken completely away, slipping down six thousand feet into the bottom of one of the underwater canyons. The ship had gone with it.

There could be only one verdict from the inquest held into the deaths of Senor Alvarez and Charlie - 'death by misadventure'. The statue was thought to be unsafe and the earth tremors were more than enough to account for its final collapse. It left a lot of questions unanswered. How did Senor Alvarez come to be in the church? Why did Charlie 'vanish' only to reappear at that fateful moment? And what of the unaccountable events in the church - and the words, "Leave this place and I cannot save you" - from what?

As Mort Jackson predicted, the woman knows as Sable reappeared at her shack. She was arrested and fined for the theft of a goat and two cockerels. I hear that she has since left the island.

The fetch I destroyed, but not before I had shown it to Father Nicholas who had spent some years as a priest in Haiti. He told me that it was a protection against the spirits of the dead!

Memories, even the worst, gradually fade, but still I see that moment in the church before the candles all went out - that look of terror on the face of Senor Alvarez. What could he see that I could not? I would never know. The head of the man called Charlie was crushed beyond all recognition.

There are 4 endings to this book (only 1 good, as is always the case with this series), and unfortunately we've reached one of the bad ones.

The earlier mentioned that the last time Sable attempted to perform some major witchcraft was the last time Senor Alvarez visited this island was a sort of hint that he was meant to be the intended victim (either that or a perpetrator), and we need to keep a close watch on him, which we failed to do so here.....

Rewinding back, and this time, in an alternate timeline, we decide to go provide safe escort for our boss....

I met Senor Alvarez on the road, only a little way from the airstrip - alone and walking. I stopped the Land Rover. Though it was getting quite dark, he immediately recognized me.

"Before you begin to make apologies," he said, the fault is mine. The decision was made at the very last moment. My pilot tried to contact you by radio, but I learn that your radio mast has been damaged."

I asked where the pilot and the plane were.

"Gone," he replied. "I have important business clients to be picked up from Miami in the morning. It was necessary for the plane to leave while it was still light enough to see the runway."

By now, I had helped him into the Land Rover and we had turned around to return to the inn.

"I had better also tell you that customs offered to get me transport - and I refused. I confess to being tired - too much work and too little sleep. I though a walk might revive me."

I put him into the picture as to exactly what was happening at the wreck.

"It is worse than when Seabrook spoke to me. In that case, I am glad that I have come. I want to see the end of the project - even if it ends in failure."

I assured him that if anyone could save the ship, it was Seabrook.

"I know that - but if he does fail, he will feel better knowing that I was here and that I know he did everything possible."

I found myself warming towards Senor Alvarez. I had met him only briefly before. Now, I was finding him modest, kindly and considerate - not at all my picture of the high-powered multi-millionaire business tycoon!

At the inn, he refused any refreshment, asking only that he might take two hours' rest in his room and hoping that it might be possible to take dinner with Seabrook, Sue and myself, later in the evening.

Malcolm arrived, worried about the earth tremors and having walked from the dig! He went straight to the harbor. when Sue got back to the inn and I'd put her into the picture, she decided that it was best she stay aboard the salvage vessel and keep us posted on progress - and whether dinner was going to be possible.

I had settled down in the lounge of the inn, thinking that nothing was going to happen, at least for the next hour, when I saw Father Nicolas walk in and head straight towards me. He sat down beside me on one of the settees.

"I have to talk to you," he said. "I gather that Seabrook is diving - and I regard you as next most senior. I have heard a very strange confession this evening. You know that I cannot break the seal of the confession, but it does not prevent my telling you something which you have to know.

"You know that for several years I was a serving priest in Haiti. It was, therefore, inevitable that I should become familiar with many of the magical beliefs of that island. I can tell you what it is that I believe Sable is attempting to do. I have to stress the word 'attempting'. You have heard of zombies?"

I had. I understood it to be the belief that by magical means the recently dead could be revived and, though with no will of their own, could be made to work the fields for little food and no pay.

"That is the general understanding of the word," the father agreed, "but there is another kind of zombie. It is claimed that those most highly skilled in voodoo or obeah can create a human body from some vile mixture of blood, bone and graveyard earth. They can then cause the body to be inhabited by the spirit of one, long dead, and to obey the magician's every command. It is also said to be a most dangerous magical operation and one which would only be attempted by someone of the standing of a high priest or priestess - a 'papaloi'. Sable is such a person!"

"But you cannot believe this!" I said.

"Believing is not what matters," Father Nicolas replied. "I am certain that Sable attempted it once before - and has attempted it again. Both times, Senor Alvarez was on the island. What I do believe I that she seeks to harm him!"

I was thinking of the Lucayan skull - and the fetch. I took the fetch from my pocket and laid it on the settee between us. The father looked closely at it.

"It is a fetch," he said, "to protect the owner against the spirits of the dead!"

That's a new definition of zombie that I hadn't heard of before this book....somehow associating that word with a magical construct that doesn't involve a full corpse doesn't feel quite right.

Even the conventional version mentioned here sounds odd, stating that they could be put to work for "little food and no pay", which implies that they still need some food. I guess a lot of zombies in scifi/fantasy books and films do eat human flesh, but I doubt that's what the text here was referring to.

"Where is Senor Alvarez at this moment?" the father asked.

I told him that he was resting in his room.

"You are certain?"

There was only one way to be certain. I could see that Father Nicolas would not be satisfied until he had seen Senor Alvarez for himself. His room was on the ground floor, overlooking the garden.

We were half way down the corridor when we were met by one of the chambermaids - screaming, and quite hysterical. The father stayed to calm her down while I hurried on to the room.

The door was open. Opposite to me, where the window should have been, was a blank hole in the wall. I went in. Things were overturned. On the edge of the dressing table was what could have been blood. Senor Alvarez was gone. I came out, leaving everything untouched. Mort Jackson arrived within less than fifteen minutes. He looked at the room and spent some ling time in the garden immediately outside the window.

Sue had arrived back before Mort called us into the lounge.

"I have no idea what happened in that room," he said, "but I've had a careful look at he garden. There's a heavy dew on the grass - and a lot of footprints - some of them of bare feet. There are only two possibilities. Senor Alvarez has ben taken by 'persons unknown'. In that event, either he is already dead or being held captive. I am no Sherlock Holmes, but if I read those footprints right, he escaped and is either hiding or running, somewhere on this island. I want a search started - now. I'll take the harbor and that part of the Town."

He turned to Da Marco.

"Will you take the utility and search the coast road south?"

Da Marco nodded.

"That still leaves two Land Rovers. You can drive, father?"

Father Nicolas said he could. Mort looked at Sue and me. "They're your Land Rovers. Make your choice. There's the airstrip and the coast road north, or the roads at the back of the Town."

This new zombies are discreet and quiet workers too...nobody at the inn heard anything during the apparent zombie invasion in one of the ground floor rooms. And even the victim wasn't heard screaming, so maybe Da Marco should be credited for providing his guests with quality sound-proofing for their rooms.

Where do we search?

[pragma]

I've think that the "little food" reference relates to drugged Haitian slaves, see this reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#Haitian_tradition

I think North is the fastest way to the dig, and I suspect that trouble started out there. Vote North accordingly.

[SGamerz]

If Senor Alvarez was still alive, and running, then where were the most likely places to which he might head? I would certainly have put the harbor area first. Apart from the police station, there was the harbor itself - the possibility of getting off the island by boat, or even heading out to the salvage vessel.

Mort had taken that. The reason I had chosen the airstrip rather than the back roads, was that that was the one other part of the island which Don Miguel knew. Still I didn't have high hopes of finding him there.

Sue and I covered the road, the airstrip and the buildings around it very thoroughly. Everything was locked up for the night and there didn't seem to be any place even to hide. The north road seemed even less likely, but that was the route we'd agreed to take.

We reached Malcolm's dig. It was deserted - as we would have expected. We even walked over to the stables by the ruined plantation house to see if Billy was about, but that also was deserted.

We pressed on, south, down the east coast, meeting up with Da Marco just north of Pigeon Creek. He too had seen nothing. We agreed to complete our circuits of the island and to meet up at the harbor.

As we drove by Long Beach, approaching the Town, there was another earth tremor - though we couldn't know it at the time, the last the island was to experience. We reached the harbor to find it was bustling with people and ablaze with lights - but it was no Senor Alvarez causing the attention.

The salvage ship was experiencing heavy turbulence and the word was that the TV monitors had gone blank. Seabrook came ashore. He couldn't be certain until they'd made yet another dive, but he was already convinced of what had happened. The same earth movement which had opened the cleft in the reef, had begun again, but this time, the half of the reef had slipped further - six thousand feet further! It would be lying, smashed at the bottom of one of the deep, underwater canyons and would have taken the Marie Galante with it!

It was probably the end of the Marie Galante, but not of the search for Senor Alvarez.

With the island's radio mast gone, the radio on the salvage vessel had been used to contact Nassau. The name of Senor Miguel Alvarez was enough to ensure that the first planes landed on the island shortly after daybreak. Within an hour, the place was swarming with policemen.

The search lasted three days. With the help of volunteers, every inch of the island was combed. The lakes, the harbor - even the sections of the reefs = were searched by divers and by boats carrying underwater cameras.

There was no trace of Senor Alvarez - but that was not the only mystery. There was also no trace of Sable, or of Charlie from the inn. Inquests were eventually held and 'open verdicts' recorded on all three.

I returned to England with Sue. A few months later, I was re-employed on another salvage operation in the Gulf of Mexico. It was while I was there, operating out of Everglades City, that I received a strange letter from Dr Anna Wainwright, begging me to visit her in Nassau. Ten days later, I did.

All the archeological remains brought up from the Marie Galante had been shipped to the Institute of Archaeology in Nassau. Dr Wainwright's special interest was in diseases in early man and she had been sitting slowly through the large quantity of human material we had discovered.

"I've got a puzzle," she told me, "two of your skeletons. One of them is the Spanish captain - Pinzon. You remember the skeleton was complete and identifiable by the personal jewelry. He also had the peculiarity of having six toes on each foot.

I remembered it well.

"The other is Lucayan - a perfect example of the skull; again a complete skeleton, a woman, but unidentified."

"Well?" I said, perhaps getting a little impatient.

"There's something wrong. They're both modern -I'd say eighteen months. I am absolutely certain!"

I asked what she proposed to do about it.

"Ask what I did propose to do about it! Last night we had a break-in. Both skeletons are gone - and nothing else was taken. With only my notes and no means of confirming them, what would you do?

And that is a second 'bad' ending of the book, with the mystery left unsolved.

Rewinding to search the roads at the back of the Town instead....

I would have gone for the harbor, but Mort had already taken it. The airstrip was probably the only other part of the island that Senor Alvarez would know - but he must also know that it was completely closed down at night. That was why I had chosen the back road of the Town - though I had little hope of finding him there.

It therefore came as something of a surprise when Sue shouted at me to stop. We'd taken the Land Rover with the spotlight mounted on top of the cab. Sue had been using it to scan the sides of the road. She'd seen something moving in the trees over towards the lakes. The trees were widely spaced. I turned the Land Rover off the road and headed into the trees. we were only yards in when the headlights picked out a figure, stumbling, more than running ahead of us. He didn't even turn at the appearance of the lights. It wsa certainly Senor Alvarez.

We stopped and got out, leaving the headlights burning to give us some light. It took only seconds to reach him - though, even then, he seemed hardly aware of our presence. The man was obviously in shock. There was a cut of his forehead and he looked half dazed. He probably didn't recognize either of us, but he began to stammer our something about naked men in his room - how another with strange black hair had helped him escape, told him to run for the harbor and take a boat - anywhere away from the island. But he must have run the wrong way. I was trying to assure him that it was all over, that he was safe, when Sue grasped my arm, and pointed.

Moving towards us though the trees were men. They were only just within the light from the Land Rover but they appeared to be naked. I turned around. More were approaching from the other side. In a moment, they would have cut off our line of retreat! The came a voice!

"Back aside an' let they pass. Did gun o' mine got you kiver. I tink one you critters killin' my do, an' dat make dis finger jus' a achin' for to pull de trigger!"

Standing beside us with his seven-barralled volley gun, was Billy Bowleg. The figures approaching us had stopped.

"Dat stop dem!" Billy said. "You t'ee bes' get back to dat iron critter. I keeps you kiver."

"You a fool, Billy Bowleg! Dey not stop 'cause dat gun. Dey my creatures. I makes dem - an' dey stops only 'cause I wills it!"

Sable had appeared only yards away from us; it seemed almost out of nowhere.

"It him I wants!" she said, pointing to Senor Alvarez. "You leave him, an' de rest of you can go. My creatures not touch you."

None of us moved.

"You needin' de reason?" Sable queried. "He know. He can tell you de reason."

"The man's injured and in shock," I said. "I doubt whether he even knows what's happening."

"Oh! He know," Sable replied, "but you want reason. Den I shows you mine!"

At that, she whipped off the brightly coloured bandanna which she wore around he jet black hair and swept back the hair from her forehead. Sue gasped. The forehead was unnaturally wide and sloped back sharply fro0 the brow ridge.

"You're a Lucayan!" I said, "but that's impossible!"

"Der was 'leven of us was left," she answered. "Der was chllun, an' de chillun's chillum. Long time we wait - revenge de death of our people."

Holding up Senor Alvarez, we began to back away. The figures moved again. Billy fired. Still they came on. Billy had begun to reload when we saw Sable clap her hands to her head, screaming as if in terrible pain.

"No-o-!" she shrieked. "You not dare! You have not de power. I papaloi! I can kill you!"

I didn't understand what was happening - but the figures had stopped again. I pulled the others towards the Land Rover, bundling them in and starting the engine. But where were we going?

Mort was at the harbor - but could he protect us? There was the house. The cellar had no windows and a two-inch thick mahogany door. Could It keep these creatures out? Sable's creatures were only feet away. The lives of four people might lie in my hands and I had to decide!

Which way should we run?

[pragma]

The harbor. I think we left the fetch at the inn, and an ending with no other characters around seems boring and therefore likely to be bad. Plus, maybe a ghost ship rises from the water if we go to the harbor.

[Thaluikhain]

The harbour seems as good as anywhere.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Check out the harbor and hope for a good ending.