Final Scream (29 page)

Nick’s alter ego found it impossible to break through the
Superior’s
blockade spell over Riai Island’s west beach. Each time he was close to breaching it, he ended up back where he started on the slope overlooking the pair of savage sea serpents and his friends. He was caught in a magical loop that he couldn’t defeat. He watched helplessly through the fog as one of the sea monsters crowded Noah and opened its maw to strike.

Nick’s supercharged brain spun and spun like a slipping clutch and got nowhere fast. There had to be a means of defeating Morgan’s spell,
but what was it?

He watched Noah stumble away from the aggressive serpent and shrink beside Gabriella, Crow, and Sue, but the second monster stirred to life and slithered closer to the group. There was nothing Nick could do to prevent it. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! Both serpents were about to chow down on his fiancée and friends while he stood there staring like an idiot…

A brilliant solution washed over his self-pity.

There was no guarantee the plan would work, but he had to try it …
now
. His friends were out of time.

He teleported himself beneath the heaving waves beyond Morgan’s spell. His chrome eyes were impervious to the ocean’s briny sting, so he was able to keep them open as he conjured a speedy mini-sub. He grabbed a hold of the handles and sped toward the beach until he was close to the sea serpents’ swishing tails. So far, so good. He had avoided the witch’s loop spell.

With his superhuman strength, Nick seized the tail of the monster nearest Gabriella, yanked it off the sand, and heaved it far out to sea, where it splash landed over a quarter-mile away. Then he repeated the procedure for the second beast. It bellowed loudly as Nick’s alter ego tugged it away from its meals and cast it near the first one’s landing site.

The first problem was solved. Now to the second—getting the others off the beach before that psychopathic witch, Reese Morgan, returned to murder them herself. That one seemed more difficult until he heard a familiar voice inside his head.

“Thanks, Sweetheart!” It was Gabriella’s voice. She was communicating telepathically with him.

Of course! That was the answer.

“Is everyone okay? No one was eaten, I hope.”

“It was close, but we’re still alive. All four of us. Now what?”

“I want you and the others to walk into the ocean. I’ll meet you underwater about a hundred feet out—just past Morgan’s spell,” he instructed her.

“Noah wants to know if there are any mermen around.”

The supernatural Nick sensed a substantial school of the green eight foot predators converging on his mini-sub.

“Thank, Noah, for the heads-up. Hold off on wading into the ocean until I give you a signal that it’s safe,” he said.

“What kind of signal?” Gabriella asked.

“You’ll recognize it when you see it,” he replied cagily.

 When the mermen were within striking distance, Nick spun his body three hundred and sixty degrees, going faster and faster until he became a blur. The rapid movement created a massive sound wave that deafened the creatures. Clapping their hands to their smallish ears, they retreated into the ocean depths like fleet torpedoes while the ocean’s surface erupted into a soaring water spout.

Gabriella poked Noah’s ribs. “Time to go! That’s our signal.”

The foursome ran splashing into the heavy surf, and it wasn’t long before the water’s depth was over their heads. They ducked beneath the rolling whitecaps and kicked toward Nick and the mini-sub waiting just ahead. Nick teleported them to dry land on the east side of the island, where Gabriella dried their clothes with a mere snap of her fingers. They hurried toward several coughing sounds and found Neo and his merry band of Shabaccoes. Now that the immediate danger was past, Nick transformed back to his human form and they exchanged reports. Everyone laughed at the Shabaccoes’ rock-filled containers trick.

Afterwards, Gabriella asked, “What happens now? Do we go home?”

The Shabaccoes shook their heads in unison.

“You cannot leave yet. You must first meet with our leader, who will decide if you are honorable enough to trust with our secret,” the speaker explained.

Nick raised his hand. “Not so fast.”

“Yes?” the Shabacco said, puzzled.
What could be more important than meeting with their glorious leader?

“First, we’ve got to locate Reese Morgan and put an end to her and her plan,” he stated resolutely.

Noah stepped forward. “Since I’m the one she made a fool of, I want to help bring her down.”

“And you will,” Nick promised.

“We’d better hurry up and come up with a plan,” Gabriella reminded them. “She could show up any minute.”

Nick smiled grimly.

Her eyes narrowed. “You already have a plan, don’t you?”

Nick hugged her tightly. “I do, but it’s dangerous … and pretty bizarre, especially for you, Noah.”

“I don’t care how weird it is,” his cousin asserted. “I want to catch Reese in the worst way.”

The Shabaccoes, Crow, and Nick’s aunt also vowed to join him, despite the peril to themselves.

“Thank you. I appreciate your confidence,” he told them. “My idea calls for a lot of assistance from the Shabaccoes, as well as my fiancée.”

The purple aliens bowed solemnly. “Within reason, of course.”

“Of course. One thing you can do right away is order the Lothrans off the island until our mission is over. They’ll just get in the way.”

One of the unchanged Shabaccoes spoke quietly into a device suggestive of a futuristic cell phone. None of the people understood its language.

After the communication gadget was stowed away in its tight fitting garment, the speaker announced, “It is done.”

“Good. That’s one less variable in the mix.”

Gabriella hugged Nick again. “What can I do?”

“Lend a little magic assistance.”

“You got it. I take it this is going to be another one of your elaborate traps?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Nick replied as he eyeballed the perfect setting, although without his chrome vision, he couldn’t see through the darkness and fog nearly as well.

Noah scanned the area around the barge for mermen and sea serpents. He was still gun shy from his multiple near-death experiences on Terror Island.

“So what do
we
do?” Crow asked.

Nick glanced at his long-time friend. “You guys help set the trap.”

Gabriella regarded him curiously. “You already know where Reese is, don’t you?”

He smiled shrewdly. “Oh yeah, I do.”

“Well?” she asked, hands on hips.

“Well, what?”

“How could you possibly know that?”

He chuckled. “I studied her
Final Scream
contestant application during my Oracle visit the other day.”

“This is like pulling teeth.” She smacked his arm. “Where
is
Reese?”

He shrugged. “Her location isn’t that important to me right now.”

She groaned. “Oh? Then what
is
?”

“That she show up.”

The second staging of
Final Scream: Terror Island
was a go.

Gabriella conjured exact duplicates of the reality show’s production boat and dock in the Riai Island cove after casting the barge and tug boat far into the Pacific.

The distant eruption finally slowed to an occasional belch, allowing the cove’s atmosphere to gradually clear. Nick and Neo led the group of Shabaccoes saddled with the arduous task of molding a similar cove and adjacent jungle setting to the original one on Terror Island. Another alien group crisscrossed the nearby jungle trees with television wire and cameras. Others cut a series of adjoining paths through the dense understory.

The Shabaccoes had an ingenious process for rounding up and transporting the carnivorous extraterrestrial creatures to a hastily erected compound on the north end of the island. The chosen
beaters
drove the odd beasts into a clearing like their African counterparts, and when the animals appeared, the Shabaccoes wielded an energy device similar in shape to their long rifles that reduced the sizable creatures to atoms. Broad communications dishes wired to the devices swiftly transmitted the atoms to a reassembly chamber inside the compound. Once the creatures materialized, they were allowed to roam the camouflaged fenced-in area. As Noah watched, he identified several giant praying mantis-like beasts, a pair of menacing Quirinus leviathans, a dozen or so freakish Plantman giants, and a herd of eight-legged boar creatures. There were other frightening carnivores Noah hadn’t seen on Terror Island, and he was grateful for that.

One of the Shabaccoes shape shifted into the late Jack Brunnel and deliberately paced the polished teak deck of the production boat in full view. That delusion was a critical piece of Nick’s multifaceted strategy. Crow considered the poor alien
bait
.

Gabriella conjured all the equipment Nick needed to finish recreating the initial Terror Island setting for the reality show. He teleported back and forth from Riai Island to Oracle headquarters several times, but he refused to divulge the reason for his interaction with the network people.

Crow and
Geronimo
primarily focused their computer expertise on converting the tangled jumble of jungle television wires into live switchable video feeds.
Geronimo
also linked the
Final Scream
video feeds from the island to Oracle’s production facility by way of a nearby military satellite. Crow defended
Geronimo’s
unauthorized satellite networking by declaring
what the military didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them
. The others chuckled uneasily at the wisecrack.
Geronimo’s
security breach could land them all in prison for years—except the Shabaccoes.

Hours later, the Riai Island setting was ready. The actors stood by, waiting for their cues.
Final Scream: The Trap
was officially a go. Nick, the show’s novice director, instructed
Geronimo
to forge the transmission link with Oracle through the satellite. Gabriella, Sue Wright, and Crow hid in a small cave near the base of the volcano where the cameras couldn’t detect them. However, it was imperative those three stay current with the show’s activities, so Nick arranged for six television monitors to be installed inside the cave. They were to remain hidden until Reese Morgan showed up. At that time, Gabriella would emerge and perform the trap’s final task.

Noah played Noah. He was accompanied by nine shape shifted Shabaccoes in the replicated Terror Island Lion Hearts campsite. One of the Shabaccoes managed to alter its appearance to look like Reese Morgan, which creeped Noah out.
How would he recognize the actor from the real Reese when she arrived?
If she arrived?
Nick assured him he would know the difference. He hoped his cousin was right.

Crow snugged the radio headphones/microphone device over his head. “The uplink satellite feed is on its way to the Oracle facility as I speak,” Crow informed Nick. “So far, the military doesn’t have a clue we’re piggybacking their satellite.”

Neo peered at Nick. “It looks like all our ducks are in a row.”

“Excellent,” Nick said, rubbing his palms together as he checked the monitors. Everyone and everything was in place. There would be no apology or explanation rendered for the previous
Final Scream—Terror Island
tragedy during this live telecast. “Okay gang, listen up. Ready on the set!”

He listened for protests, but received none.

“Action!”

It was show time.

Geronimo
commenced the live video feeds. The television viewers tuned to the Oracle network early that morning were flabbergasted by the unexpected interruption of their regular program by the
Final Scream
reality show. Twenty-one minutes after the hour. Definitely an odd start time.
Was this a network joke?

The Oracle logo, a shining silver blank Greek sculptured eye with a multicolored lightning bolt zigzagging through it, filled the screen, along with a snipe proclaiming, “The network with an eye toward your future.” And then came the purpose of the interruption. “We are pre-empting your regular programming to bring you a special presentation live from Terror Island in the South Pacific.”

A close-up of the longhaired, unshaven Jack Brunnel with an ash haze and a luxuriant tropical jungle as a backdrop displaced the logo. “Welcome to the live presentation of
Final Scream—Terror Island
. This is the one true survival reality show where our chosen contestants attempt to conquer their innermost FEARS! Over the past six months, we’ve selected twenty brave souls who claim to have nerves of steel. We divided these twenty into two enemy teams of ten: The Lion Hearts and the Stout Hearts. These winners of our preliminary, no-holds-barred nationwide tryouts have pledged to defy death in pursuit of the one million dollar cash prize awarded to the lone surviving contestant. These people don't scare easily, folks! They know how to swallow their screams before they escape their throats. How will we guarantee they won’t cheat? Their movements and sounds are recorded for posterity on one of our numerous hidden cameras in the jungle behind me.

“So the intriguing questions are, ladies and gentlemen of the audience,
how long can these contestants survive a relentless gauntlet of hair-raising terrors?
” He paused for dramatic effect. “
What bloodcurdling horrors await our contestants in addition to each opposing team’s staged pranks and our sneaky network generated frights?
As the silver-tongued personality always declares on those boring infomercials, ‘And that’s not all.’
So what other dangers lurk on this island?
Predatory monsters that threaten to tear the contestants to shreds? Monsters that feed on their dying screams?
The answer to both of these questions is indubitably
yes
! I can assure you folks such horrors exist on this island …
because I’ve seen them!

The shot cut to E.V.A.N. roaming the thinner sections of the jungle. Unbeknownst to the television audience, the huge beast was actually roving the north side of the volcano. It was much safer for the people involved in setting Nick’s trap near the cove.

“Monsters that won't let anyone leave this wretched island
alive
. This is Terror Island’s twin, folks.
Terror! Island!
Riai! Island!
Your worst nightmares! The only way to escape this horrifying jungle is to scream or survive or …
die
!”

The camera faded from Jack’s face to a slow pan of the ominous jungle before cutting abruptly to the Lion Heart campsite, comprised of five pitched two-man nylon tents, a stone-and-mortar fire pit, a makeshift shower girdled by a canvas shower curtain, a pair of Fiberglas picnic tables, and several coolers stacked against the trunk of a guava tree. The phony Jack Brunnel continued his pitch off-screen. “Our production team has put together a pecking order for those most likely to succeed on both teams, and for the Lion Hearts we have unanimously voted for Noah Wright and Reese Morgan.”

Nick spoke to Crow inside the cave over their radio connection. “Heard anything from
Geronimo
yet?”

“Nothing, Great White Father,” Crow replied with his usual playful remark. Despite the tension, the computer specialist always found a way to keep things light and in their proper perspective. He was not one to panic … unless trouble found his wife and son.

Nick began to doubt himself and his intricate ruse. He figured Reese would have arrived on Riai Island by now.
What was she doing? Sleeping?

Thousands of miles away in the cozy little town of Marlborough, Connecticut, Reese Morgan sat with her bare feet pressed against the worn arm rest of her faded brown love seat. Bored, but not quite ready to hit the sack, she decided to channel surf one more time in hopes of locating a watchable show while the blue nail polish on her toenails dried. But she skipped over the Oracle network.

Ten minutes after
Final Scream
pre-empted the Oracle’s regular program, Reese’s cell phone rang. Although she wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat after losing a fortune in the Shabacco operation, she went against her better judgment and picked up the phone. The caller was Mandy, her closest friend, who was another witch, although less powerful.

“God, Reese, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you are, like, on that
Final Scream
reality TV show after all,” she chastised her BFF.

Reese sat up. “What the hell are you jabbering about?”

“Turn to the Oracle channel and see for yourself!”

She grabbed the cable remote and switched channels. Her jaw dropped to the floor. “You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” she hissed when she saw herself in the Lion Heart camp with Noah.
When the hell did they tape that?

“Hey, you still there?” Mandy demanded.

Reese put the phone back against her ear. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“
See
what I’m talking about now? They’re interviewing
you
! How’s that possible if you’re home?”

Reese didn’t have a clue. She wondered what was going on herself.

“Hey, you still there?”

Reese recognized the tropical background, but it wasn’t the Terror Island jungle. There was too much ash floating in the air, and Terror Island’s air was crystal clear in the beginning. This version of the show was being broadcast from Riai Island,
but how was that possible?
She wasn’t giving a
live
interview to Jack Brunnel, as the television station claimed, and for two damn good reasons. First, Brunnel was kissing barnacles down in Davy Jones’ locker.
Wasn’t he?
And second, she was currently a couch potato in Marlborough.

Were they going forward with the show without her?
It sure as shit looked that way!
Was that really Jack?
That was his voice, all right.
But wasn’t he dead?
Her hand doubled into a bloodless fist. If Brunnel had somehow managed to rise from the dead, he apparently hired some skanky look-alike to double for her. How dare he!

“Hello? Anybody there?” Mandy shouted.

“Still here, but I gotta go, Mandy. Catch up with you later.” Reese abruptly ended the call, cutting off Mandy’s goodbye. She leaped off the couch and changed into her
Final Scream
camouflage outfit that would blend with the Riai Island jungle topography while she spied on the production. She wouldn’t leave until she discovered what was going on there. Maybe there would be an opportunity to recover the lost alien weaponry. After murmuring a chant, the spell whisked her away and deposited her on Riai Island.

“Nick!” Crow shouted.

“I’m here.”

“
Geronimo
picked up a cell phone call to Morgan from a woman named Mandy Perkins. The Perkins caller told her about the show, and five minutes later Morgan’s cell phone wasn’t in Connecticut anymore.”

“Where is it?”

“Here, on Riai Island!”

Exhilaration bubbled beneath his skin. It was time to change into his chrome-eyed alter ego. “Where exactly?”

“Outside the Lion Heart camp, where the phony Reese and Noah are being interviewed.”

“Gabriella?”

His fiancée scooted in front of the computer camera. “I’m here.”

“Do your thing, Babe.”

Gabriella smiled broadly. “With pleasure.”

The real Reese Morgan found it impossible to stay hidden while someone pretended to be her on
national
TV. She would expose the imposter and ruin the whole show. She boldly broke free of the tangled understory without regard to the noise and confronted her double. Her rage blinded her to the fact that she was being televised to a national audience. The viewers were watching her every move and listening intently to her comments. She swore loudly at her double and made her disappear with the wave of a hand. Next, she turned her wrath on Noah.

“After all we went through together on Terror Island, I can’t believe you’d let some bimbo fill in for
me
!”

Noah threw up his hands. “Hey, wait a frigging second, Reese. You were the one behind all the murders on Terror Island.
And for what?
To make a buck! So when Jack showed up and asked me if it was okay for someone to stand-in for you, I gave him the green light. To tell you the truth, I didn’t want a murdering bitch like you hanging around the production.”

A corner of Reese’s upper lip trembled angrily. She drew her right arm back as if to hit him, but instead she had a change of heart and decided to cast the spell of all evil spells on him. Make him suffer. Plague him with a mystical and painful disease unknown to the medical profession, and therefore incurable. How dare he refer to her as a
bitch?
!

But her arm lingered too long behind her. Gabriella appeared in the campsite clearing behind Noah. Reese’s mouth dropped at the sight of Gabriella, who slapped her with a temporary freezing spell that transformed her to marble.

Seconds later, Nick’s alter ego appeared, lifted Reese off the ground, and vanished with her.

Noah glanced gratefully at Gabriella. “You cut that close. I thought I was a goner there for a second.”

“You were never in any real danger. I waited until Reese was the most vulnerable before I showed up. I didn’t want to get here too early and start a magic battle with her.”

“Thanks, and I mean it from the heart. So what’s cousin Nick doing with her?”

“He’s going to drop her off in an isolated and uninhabited dimension.”

“Part of me feels sorry for her. I mean, she seemed pretty nice when we were stuck together on Terror Island. I realize she conjured a lot of the hazards, like the invisible barrier she made vanish a split second before we crashed into it. And then there was the lousy sniper who missed us with every shot.”

Gabriella hugged him. “Sympathy is a natural reaction, Noah, but eventually those feelings will fade. I’d like to hear about your Terror Island adventures sometime. Maybe you could write a book about them,” she suggested.

“Sure. Later.” He looked up and saw a tree-mounted camera staring down at them. “Did the whole world see what happened to Reese?”

Gabriella laughed. “No way. As soon as Reese moved her arm back,
Geronimo
disconnected the network feed and replaced the video with a screen announcing,
Please stand by. We’re experiencing technical difficulties.
”

Noah was thankful for
Geronimo’s
quick thinking. “So what happens now? Is this nightmare finally over?”

“I guess Nick and Neo will round up the rest of the bad guys once we return to the states, starting with the NSA’s rogue Jonathon Foster.”

“What about the Shabaccoes? Will they let us leave here?” he asked, pointing up at the rim of the volcano.

Gabriella puckered her brow. “Those are excellent questions, without excellent answers.”