Coffin Island (18 page)

“
I’m going to strip,”
Madison said. “I’ll get a buyer.”

“
Me too,” I said. “I’ll get
some action.”

“
Sexy slaves,” Professor
Coffin bellowed.

“
What do we do about him?”
Madison asked.

“
You don’t think that we can
keep him out of our little frolic,” I laughed.

“
Professor Coffin,” Madison
asked. “Can you behave yourself if Booster and I take a ride on The
Rollercoaster of The Absurd in the buff?”

Professor Coffin looked like something
that should be stomped out. It was hard to read his intentions. I
was struggling to read my own. Were Madison and I supposed to make
baby witches on The Rollercoaster of The Absurd? Did the future of
witchcraft depend on us? Were we about to be dispatched from this
garden of glass for nefarious behavior? Were we going to be
brutally decapitated while engaging in carnal acts on The
Rollercoaster of The Absurd? I was willing to test the limits of
witchcraft. Madison in her underwear was quite the shudder factor.
However we were going to have to deal with that spectator,
Professor Coffin.

“
Don’t mind me,” Professor
Coffin bellowed. “You young people frolic without any clothes on.
I’ll just keep an eye on you like a wild turkey.”

“
Wild turkeys can see three
times better than humans,” I said.

“
Two hundred and seventy
degrees of vision,” Professor Coffin confirmed. “And their gobble
can be heard for over a mile.”

“
If that doesn’t spoil the
moment,” Madison sighed.

“
Old wild turkey with the
hairy eyeball,” I said.

“
And the gobble,” Madison
said.

“
Every beach has its
creeper,” Professor Coffin countered.

“
I feel like I was born on
this glass beach with that old buzzard,” I groaned.

“
Professor Coffin is our
unwelcome triplet,” Madison sighed.

“
Hatched into this world of
glass like a test tube baby,” Professor Coffin fumed.

“
There is nothing worse than
having a witch ignore you,” Madison said. “Pretend that you don’t
exist.”

“
Leave you on a glass beach
with nothing to eat or drink,” I said.

“
Not a speck of shade,”
Madison said.

“
Put you on an invisible
leash,” Professor Coffin said and tugged his invisible
leash.

“
Sharks in one direction,”
Madison said. “Glass in the other.”

“
Stuck in the middle with
Professor Coffin,” I said.

“
Do they expect us to attack
that glass Alcatraz,” Professor Coffin huffed.

“
I’d rather sit here and let
skin cancer do its work,” Madison said.

“
I couldn’t possibly get any
leatherier,” Professor Coffin grinned.

“
Attacking isn’t a bad
idea,” I said.

“
Could be misguided,”
Professor Coffin cautioned.

“
What about the witches?”
Madison asked.

“
They might attack us while
we are attacking,” Professor Coffin warned.

“
You think that they’re
going to attack us while we’re trying to incarcerate ourselves in
their prison?” Madison asked.

“
They will certainly attack
me,” Professor Coffin said.

“
We can’t blame them for
that,” Madison said.

“
Absolutely not,” Professor
Coffin agreed. “I would attack me if I weren’t me.”

“
They aren’t going to kill
us,” I said.

“
I doubt that they will kill
you two,” Professor Coffin agreed. “They’ve hardly had a chance to
hate you.”

“
We have to get off the
invisible leash, Madison said.

“
Then we have to get to
Alcatraz in glass,” I said.

“
Prison is how you get
free,” Professor Coffin agreed.

“
We have to get across that
glass desert first,” Madison said.

“
I’m not walking,” Professor
Coffin said.

“
We have to get across that
lake of bubbling rum,” I said.

“
Why didn’t a pirate think
of this?” Professor Coffin lamented. “We could have been living
like pharaohs with a bubbling oasis of rum at our
fingertips.”

“
They’re all your ideas,”
Madison said.

“
They’ve just been
manipulated by the upper class witches,” I said.

“
Then they took on a life of
their own,” Madison said.

“
That’s the problem with
ideas,” Professor Coffin said. “They get too big for their
britches. Then they bite you in the pantaloons.”

Chapter

“
Look what the harpoon
dragged in,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “The Red Lady made the
voyage.”

“
What is that sociopath
doing here?” Madison demanded.

“
I knew a harpoon would
figure into this drama,” I snorted.

“
Is she the man in the box
pulling all the levers?” Professor Coffin gasped.

The Red Lady crawled out of the
shipwreck. She looked a little battered from the storm. She was
spurting blood. Perhaps she was the one behind all of this as
Professor Coffin suggested. The torrent of blood pouring out of her
was some sort of subterfuge. The person that is bleeding profusely
tends to be guilty of something. Poor blood management at the very
least.

The bleeding person took the knife in
the chest. The bleeding person forced the hand behind the knife to
stab it in the chest. I don’t know what to make of any of this.
Perhaps she was innocent but I doubted it.

“
We were waiting for someone
to arrive,” I said.

“
Unfortunately it wasn’t
you,” Madison said.

“
She has come to kill us,”
Professor Coffin bellowed.

“
She is spurting buckets of
blood,” I said.

“
I hadn’t noticed that,”
Professor Coffin said. “That’s a very good sign.”

“
She is a fountain of
blood,” Madison said. “How could you not notice that?”

“
Love blinds me,” Professor
Coffin said.

“
What do you want?” I
demanded of The Red Lady.

A bleeding person doesn’t just walk
into a story without some sort of higher purpose. It’s like that
gun that must go off. Perhaps the creature below deck had a handgun
with a silencer. I’d like to get my hands on that. Bust a few
caps.

“
Are you behind all of
this?” Madison asked.

“
It’s either The Red Lady or
Professor Coffin,” I agreed.

“
It isn’t you or me,”
Madison snorted.

“
I’m suspicious of you,” I
said.

“
You’re a candidate in my
mind too,” Madison said.

“
Seeing as we’re the test
subjects,” I laughed.

“
My money is on Professor
Coffin,” I said.

“
Me too,” Madison
said.

“
What do you have to say for
yourself, madam?” Professor Coffin demanded. “Are you the
treacherous villain in this tale of trickery and jokes?”

“
A flood of blood is coming
out of me,” The Red Lady shouted. “Where is all the extra blood
coming from?”

“
That’s your victim’s
blood,” Professor Coffin said. “It’s nothing to be alarmed
about.”

“
Murderous pirates spew
their victim’s blood when they are in human form?” Madison
gasped.

“
The Black Death,” Professor
Coffin confirmed.

“
I thought that was a plague
caused by marmots,” I said.

“
It’s has elements of that
too,” Professor Coffin said.

“
I’m glad that it’s not
serious,” The Red Lady said and grinned a jack-o-lantern of blood.
Happy Halloween, there it was again. What to make of a mind like
this? It should be removed for safe keeping. We just pluck it out
and put it in an autopsy jar with plenty of formaldehyde. Whoever
was controlling this costume drama should be shot.

The Red Lady was looking like a pretty
good candidate for the coroner’s table. Her bleeding was horrific.
Her bleeding was so over-the-top that it called itself into
question. How can a person bleed that much? They can’t. The Red
Lady wasn’t a person. She was some sort of character in the
test.

Madison was greedily looking at her
too. I could tell that she was having the same dark thoughts. Why
don’t we kill the candidate after the interview? Thank for coming
in for the position. What we were looking for was a murder victim.
I know what the advertisement said because I wrote it. I’m just
giving you the decency of telling you what the real position is
before you assume it. Don’t worry about the typing test because I’m
going to cut your hands off. You’re not real.

That was the general vibe of the
situation. Madison and I were getting seriously ticked off about
our examination. The static nature of the test was particularly
infuriating. Hurry up and get this test over. Why torture us thus?
You want to do that whole test of wills here? You aren’t breaking
us in a world of glass. Forget about it. We’ll break you then this
world too. Feed you the broken glass. Help you chew it too. That’s
probably not the response that the examiner was looking for.
Witchcraft wasn’t the only vehicle capable of backfire.

“
I was getting concerned for
a moment there while I was cowering in the keel of Doctor Fast,”
The Red Lady whimpered. “Hurling buckets of blood. It seems to be
slowing down now to mere galloons.”

“
Perfectly normal for an old
murderous hag like you,” Professor Coffin winked. “Enjoy it while
it lasts, you old chippie.”

“
What’s going to happen to
me next?” The Red Lady gasped.

“
We’ll get to that in Part
III,” Professor Coffin winked.

“
Sit tight,” I
suggested.

“
This world wants us to sit
for our examination,” Madison said. “It’ll get it too because now
I’m refusing to move.”

“
Trench warfare,” I
agreed.

“
I enjoy trench foot,”
Professor Coffin said.

“
What about me?” The Red
Lady shouted.

“
Put a sock in it,” I
suggested.

“
Why didn’t I get The Black
Death?” Madison asked. “I killed a lot. Shouldn’t I be spewing
buckets of blood?”

“
You want to spew buckets of
blood?” I asked.

“
Absolutely not,” Madison
said.

“
Witchcraft,” I
shrugged.

The Red Lady was pouring blood off to
the side but we didn’t care.

“
Madison ducked the magical
musket ball for now,” Professor Coffin confirmed. “It happens to us
especially when we are courting it to hit us.”

“
What a close shave,”
Madison said. “For once I am thankful that witchcraft is so
unreliable.”

“
A magical cannonball will
hit you later, my dear,” Professor Coffin said.

“
Witchcraft calls in all its
bets,” I said.

“
It’s hunkering down right
now,” Professor Coffin confirmed.

“
Gathering its strength like
a volcano,” I said.

“
Somebody better shoot me if
that happens to me,” Madison said.

“
We don’t have any firearms
yet,” I said.

“
We could always set you on
fire,” Professor Coffin suggested.

“
Or throw you in the
bubbling rum,” I said.

“
Just do the right thing
when the time comes,” Madison suggested. “I trust your poor
judgment.”

“
It’s nice to see such
friendly faces,” The Red Lady gnashed her bloody teeth at us like a
wolverine with its head stuck in a bear trap. The hunter clad in
his kills stomping on the jaw of the trap to procure his latest
hat. Why not get that furrier visual?

“
I can’t believe how much
blood is pouring out of you,” I said.

“
It suits you,” Madison
said.

“
It highlights your hooks,”
Professor Coffin said.

“
The blood cascading down
your chest like a waterfall,” I said. “Makes you look a hundred
years younger.”

“
Quite the tourist
attraction for the fairy vampires, you old cow,” Professor Coffin
said.

Chapter

“
Maybe a troupe of fairy
vampires will come swarming out of the hinterlands,” I
said.

“
Attack themselves to your
face like a beard of hornets,” Madison said.

“
This isn’t a very
charitable reception,” The Red Lady said while spurting buckets of
blood.

“
You expect a charitable
reception from us just because you’re pouring buckets of blood?”
Madison asked.

“
It does seem like a valid
excuse,” The Red Lady said.

“
You stowed away on Doctor
Fast to kill us,” Madison said.