Short Stories

Shipwrecked Sailors

[Note : This was for school. The prompt was The Most Dangerous Game (by : Richard Connell!!]

On the Caribbean Sea, Whitney is sailing to the dark and mysterious island that seems to be swallowed by a dark fog, the Ship Wreck Island. He is looking for his friend that went missing on their way to one of the islands in the Caribbean Sea. He has been missing for five days.

"We're here." said the old grizzly captain, "I'll be dropping you off on the island. We'll keep the ship near the island for you, and your little friend."

"Alight..." Whitney said anxiously.

"But! If you are to not show up in two days. We shall leave the island, pursuing that you are dead." With that the captain continues his work.

Over the last couple hours, Reinsford has been working on freeing the captives from their cells. While trying to do that, Reinsford spots a ship out in the ocean not very far from the island.

Dropping everything, Reinsford races down to the shore and starts to wave his hands around in order to get the ship's attention to stop before the ship's crew ends up in the ocean. It works.

The ship stopped and surprisingly they started to lower a boat to the sea's waters. But from what Reinsford can tell, there is only one man in the ten man boat. As the boat closes to the shore, Reinsford hears a voice.

"Reinsford!" yelled the mysterious man in the boat.

When the boat got to shore, out climbed the man behind the mysterious voice, Whitney. Reinsford just stands there, staring. Whitney runs up to him and hugs him.

"Reinsford! Thought I find you here!" Whitney said excitedly.

"Whitney!" Reinsford hugs him back and smiles, "I thought I was never going to see you again. I've got so much to tell you."

"Well, you can tell me after we get you to the ship."

"Whitney about that... there are shipwrecked sailors on this island and we, I, need to get them off this island."

"There's survivors?!"

"Yes, and they'll need help to get off of this island."

Whitney considers this. "Alright, I'll help you. But we'll need to do this in less than two days, or else the ship will leave the island."

Reinsford started to head back to the mansion while Whitney followed behind. Once there, Reinsford shows Whitney the mansion and starts to explain everything about the island, including its owner and the servant.

The look on Whitney's face says it all. The shock of what and why this island is such a terrible place for ships and sailors.

"I know this is a lot to take in." Reinsford said calmly.

Whitney took a long deep breath for a moment. "Well, we'll need to hurry up on saving the sailors, because from what you told me, this Ivan guy may have not died from the trap."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm saying that there is a high chance of him surviving that blow because judging from the figure you described him as, it would take a lot more to take him down then just a simple stab." explained Whitney.

"Alright, let's go and help the sailors then make a plan for Ivan, if he is still alive as you tell."

They both start walking towards the cells of the sailors. Once they got there, they started to help each sailor out of the cells and either give them food and water or show them where they could sit down. After gathering all of the sailors, Reinsford started to explain what was going on.

"General Zaroff is dead. His hunter dogs are nowhere to be seen." Reinsford started, "We think Ivan might still be alive somehow. Whitney" - Reinsford points to his friend - "has a ship we can use to get off of this island."

One of the sailors stood up, "So what are we going to do once we get off this island, just head on home and forget this never happened?" asked the sailor, who had an American accent.

"No, we will not forget this place, but we can get some kind of rest from it."

A different sailor with an English accent asked, "How do we supos' to do tha?"

"Well, we can always just burn this place to the ground." Reinsford suspiciously.

That got a reaction from the sailors. They started cheering.

"Alright! Alright!" the cheering died down "But, what about Ivan and the dogs? Surely he'll want revenge for the death of his master, General Zaroff." Whitney asked loudly with a hint of anger in his voice.

"Whitney is right. We shou -" Reinsford stopped suddenly. The running of footsteps could be heard coming towards them.

"Everyone get to the mansion!" Reinsford yells at the sailors. Every sailor got up and started racing towards the mansion. Reinsford stayed behind.

"Whitney, go with them!"

"No, you and me are hunters of the same pack. We are to stay together." Whitney responded with.

The running of footsteps are now in sight. A large bulky shadow with five small yet large animal shadows appeared. The largest animal shadow drove its teeth into Reinsford's left arm, right when he started to fling his left arm in defense. With his other hand Reinsford grabs for the dagger in his pocket. And digs his dagger into the beast's heart. The other shadows have stopped now. Reinsford fights off the corpse of the dead dog and throws it off to his side.

"Ivan .." mutters Reinsford.

Whitney and Reinsford are preparing to fight off the other dogs and Ivan. Ivan dropped the leashes of the dogs. They went full speed at the two men. Two to Whitney and the other two went for Reinsford. Reinsford started slashing the dogs left and right until there was no more dogs to fight off. Whitney on the other hand was trying to not get bitten and holding the two dogs back with his whole body. Reinsford ran over and started to slash the dogs that are on Whitney.

Breathing heavily they started after Ivan, but they realized it was too late. Ivan was nowhere to be seen.

"Let's head back to the mansion."

Both Reinsford and Whitney started to run back to the mansion. Once there they started to gather all the sailors to the ten person boat that Whitney arrived on, and started to load in the sailors. There were only about twenty sailors that they found in the cells. Whitney decided to lead the boat to the ship. After two loads, Reinsford and the rest of the sailors got in.

On the way to the mansion, Reinsford picked up a lighter and with it Reinsford threw it into the thick forest.

With that, they left the flaming island behind.

The End