Gilligan walked through the jungle with the Skipper and the professor at his side. He was chattering mindlessly to them about coconut cream pies and the Howells hosting a dance that night.
The Skipper and the Professor exchanged an indulgent look behind Gilligan's back and smiled.
Finally, they reached the lagoon and Gilligan waded out into the water to feel the cool, refreshing water rush over his feet. "Hey, Skipper!" he called out suddenly and excitedly. "Look, it's a boat, it's a boat".
The Skipper's eyes widened slightly but he didn't seem to share Gilligan's excitement. "Let's go back into the jungle", he said quietly.
"But...but, Skipper", Gilligan protested. "They can save us, they can rescue us".
"The Skipper's right", the professor agreed. "Let's go back into the jungle".
The three men slunk back into the jungle and seemed to melt into the shadows. "But why, Skipper?" Gilligan complained.
The Skipper grew quiet, not quite knowing how to answer the question but the professor rescued him. "Because we don't know if they're good people or bad", he said grimly.
Just then, Mary Ann and Ginger came up. "What's going on?" the beautiful red head asked, sensing the tension.
"There's people here", Gilligan said. "But the Skipper and professor want to see if they're good or bad people before we talk to them".
"Well", Mary Ann said slowly and thoughtfully. "We have run across some really bad people over the years so maybe it's not such a bad idea to wait and see".
"Wait and see what, my dear?" Mr. Howell asked as he and his wife came up to the rest of the group.
"There are people in a boat coming to the island", Mary Ann said as she looked a little nervously at the Howells.
"Oh, dear", Mrs. Howell said, shrinking back further into the shadows.
They peered from the trees and bushes and watched as the small boat was beached and two men climbed out.
The men were talking quietly between themselves, too low for any of the castaways to hear them.
After several minutes, the two men wandered off and into the jungle, not too far from where Gilligan and the others were hiding.
The men walked for a while but then stopped and stared at the totem pole where Gilligan had made a carving of Mr. Howell's head to replace the one that looked so much like him. The men made a few comments about the carving and then continued walking until they came to the little bamboo car that the castaways used. Gilligan thought they were going to take the car but the men merely checked it over and commented on it before continuing on with the castaways silently following them. Gilligan tripped at one point, crashing to the ground, he froze then, expecting the Skipper to get angry and the men to turn and look at him but neither happened. The Skipper helped him up and the men didn't even seem to notice.
The men reached the clearing where the huts were and they spotted the huts and began talking excitedly between themselves. "It's true", one of the men exclaimed as they began heading in the direction of the Howell's hut.
Gilligan started to surge forward to confront the men about why they were there and what they wanted but the Skipper held him back. "Stay here", the Skipper ordered.
"You never let me go to the huts anymore", Gilligan complained. "I'm tired of being in the jungle all the time and anyway, what if those are bad guys? What if they take Mr. and Mrs. Howell's money?"
"Don't worry about the money, dear boy", Mr. Howell said a little sadly. Gilligan looked at Mr. Howell as though he had grown another head. "Don't worry about the money?" he said in surprise, his voice rising to a squeak.
Mr. Howell quickly waived away his protests and pointed. One of the men opened one of the double doors to the Howell's hut and it came off in his hand. The man cast it aside and they entered the hut. They were only in the hut for a few minutes before they came out. Both of them looked grim. The castaways watched the men move to the hut that was shared by Mary Ann and Ginger. They seemed to hesitate for a minute and then went inside. Gilligan moved to where he could watch through the open door and he saw the men taking some of the clothes from the closet that he and the Skipper had made for the girls. He looked desperately to the Skipper but he didn't seem to inclined to stop what was happening so he looked next to the professor but the other man merely shook his head quietly. Gilligan finally turned to Mary Ann and Ginger but neither one seemed to care that the men were now going through their jewelry.
Finally, the men came out and walked to the professor's hut. They left the door open to his hut too and Gilligan could see them poking around his test tubes and books. He looked at the professor but the other man simply watched them calmly. He glanced over at the Howells and frowned with worry. Mr. Howell had his arm around Mrs. Howell and she appeared to be weeping quietly. Gilligan started to speak but the Skipper cut him off and pointed. The two men had reached the supply hut by now and were poking around inside.
"Skipper", Gilligan hissed. "They're going to take the food we have in there".
"Don't worry, Gilligan", the Skipper said. "There's not much in there anyway".
The men came out after a minute or two and walked past the supply hut. They stopped just out of Gilligan's line of sight then and stayed there for several minutes. They were talking quietly to themselves and all Gilligan could hear was the quiet hum of their voices but not what they were saying.
Suddenly, the two men reappeared and began walking in the direction of the hut that Gilligan shared with the Skipper.
"Skipper", Gilligan whispered urgently. "They're going into our hut now".
"I know", the Skipper said solemnly.
"But...my comic books and my lucky rabbit's foot is in there", Gilligan moaned. "What if they take them?"
"They won't", the Skipper said softly. "Now be quiet and watch".
Gilligan grew quiet and watched and after less than a minute of the men being inside, they came stumbling out, crying out in a panic. The two men flung themselves down to sit in the sand outside the hut and both were shaking and talking in low voices. Finally, nearly two hours later, the men got back up and slowly made their way back into the hut.
Finally, Gilligan couldn't take it anymore. They had stood by and watched while these men had invaded all of their huts and done nothing. He bolted forward towards his hut then.
"Gilligan! Stop!" the Skipper cried out. "Don't go in there".
Gilligan reached the hut and then hesitated. Why wasn't anyone else coming to help him?
He peered in through the window and that's when he saw it. He stumbled back in horror when one of the men lifted the blanket on the form in the lower hammock and he fled back into the jungle, right before the men exited the hut.
"Skipper", was all Gilligan could choke out.
"I'm sorry, little buddy", the Skipper said as he put an arm around the younger man.
"But...but...", Gilligan's voice failed him then as he watched the men board their boat and leave.
"You were the last one, Gilligan", the professor said gently. "There was no one left to bury you and put you at peace so you never really knew that you had died".
Gilligan sighed sadly and then walked into the jungle with the rest of the castaways. As they went, he looked to his left and saw where the men had gone when they left the supply hut. There was a small, neat graveyard there and he slowly began to remember digging each grave. He remembered asking Mr. Howell when Mrs. Howell was born and the older man refusing to tell him. "She wouldn't want her true age listed", Mr. Howell had said sadly. "And I shall respect that even in her death".
Gilligan remembered when Mr. Howell had died not too terribly long after and how he had dug his grave as well.
He choked a little when he remembered the Skipper's death and how badly it had affected him.
He looked at the professor then, remembering his last days and how the scientist had been too ill to even come up with an antidote for what ailed him and how he had slowly withered away.
His eyes fell on Ginger next and he clearly remembered how he and Mary Ann had tended to her as best they could in her last days.
He looked to Mary Ann then and remembered how he had taken over Ginger's bed when it was just the two of them and how he and Mary Ann had lived together, just the two of them for several years, spending their time remembering the others. Finally, Mary Ann had succumbed to an illness due to age and Gilligan had dug one last grave, taking several days to do so due to his own advanced age.
Gilligan had roamed the jungle then, spending nearly four months just wandering the island, sleeping where he could and eating what he found. He didn't know what he was looking for but in the end, he never found it and he eventually returned to the huts. He settled down and lived by himself for another three years but one day, he got up and washed his face and went out to eat some of the fruit that he had left on the table the night before. When he was done, he returned to his hut and laid down on the bottom hammock. He had long before given up trying to make it up into his own. He pulled his blanket up to his chin and quiet closed his eyes.
The spirits of Gilligan and the others wandered back into the jungle then and spent their days enjoying the sunshine and the cool waters of the lagoon.
But one day, their quiet and calm was broken and a boat beached on the island.
"It's those same two men", Gilligan said. "The ones that were here last week".
"I see that", the Skipper said, sounding slightly annoyed.
They watched as the two men climbed from the boat and headed in the direction of the hut that Gilligan had shared with the Skipper. They brought with them, shovels and a large, white, canvass tarp. They took everything into the hut and about fifteen minutes later, they came back out with something wrapped in the tarp. They carried the bundle over to the grave yard and climbed over the fence and gently laid their burden down. They took up the shovels then and began digging a hole next to Mary Ann's grave. Once the hole was big enough, they lowered the bundle into the hole and then covered it up with the sand that they had just dug up. Once they were done, one of the men went back to the boat and retrieved a large, flat package. He brought it back to the grave yard and opened it up and then they fixed it above the mound of sand that they had just created. Once that was done, both men removed their hats and bowed their heads and were silent for a few minutes. After a short while, one of the men nudged the other and motioned to the boat. "Let's go", he said quietly.
Both men left and when they were done, the castaways slowly approached the graveyard and looked at the newest headstone. There was no date of birth or death. There was only one word. Gilligan.