A/N: I've gotten a lot of hits on this story but only one review. This is the third chapter I've posted. Please, if you are taking the time to read this story, review. I like being able to know where you stand with the story so that I can know where to improve and what to embellish or what you like or don't like. I'd just really like to hear from the people who are reading this story, so please-REVIEW! It really isn't that hard, guys... ;) Thanks, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Castaways

Chapter Three

Joe had managed to build himself a small fire on the beach. He lay by it through the dark night, weak with hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. He had no food on him or any way to obtain it. In the morning he planned on exploring the rest of the island...

He woke up later in the night to the sound of a quiet motor. He groaned and forced himself up, squinting toward the ocean and into the night. He saw a dark shadow moving toward the beach but there were no lights to guide it. He assumed whoever was driving the boat was trying to be stealthy. Was it Frank, Chet, and Biff? He didn't think so; the motor didn't sound like the Sleuth's.

Minutes passed, then the motor ceased and there came the sound of splashing. Joe scrambled up, kicked sand over his feebly sputtering fire, and ducked behind a tree on the fringe of the forest. His detective instincts were kicking in; he had to see what had brought these people to this deserted island in the middle of the night. He heard the grunts of someone heaving something heavy along the sand, labored breathing, and then quiet whispering that carried through the silence of the night easily.

"Man, what luck! I mean, finding that abandoned motorboat in the middle of the ocean. We needed another craft."

"I just wonder what happened to the blokes that owned it," another voice, this one with an English accent, piped up.

Joe's ears pricked. Could they be talking about the Sleuth? He hoped not; that would mean that they had found it floating about in the middle of nowhere, completely deserted. That couldn't mean anything good for his brother and friends.

There was silence for a little longer, then the British man, closer than Joe had expected, spoke up. "Looks like one of the ol' boys has been out here recently—fire pit."

"Well," grunted the American as he shoved something big ahead of him, "Luther told us he was gonna check inventory sometime this month to make sure nobody's been skimmin'. He probably just decided to come out here earlier than planned, that's all."

They moved into the trees, still toting their heavy cargo. Joe, now totally absorbed by this strange turn of events, waited until they were about thirty feet ahead and began to stealthily follow the strangers through the thick foliage. For what seemed like forever, they kept moving toward the center of the island. Joe finally stopped short as he saw the men drop what looked to be a large shipping crate onto the ground. Then they walked a few feet, dropped to their knees, and began to feel around the earth.

Joe moved even closer, trying to see what these men were up to—his gut told him it wasn't good, and his gut was usually right. One of the men found what they were looking for, brushed off the sand and dirt, and found a rusty trapdoor handle. Together the men pulled and heaved the heavy trapdoor open and lowered the crate into it. Then they closed the trapdoor again, wiped their brows, and began to walk off. "Before we leave, I have to take care of some business," the American guy said quickly. "Did you bring your shovel? Something tells me Luther hasn't installed that outhouse yet..." His voice trailed off as the two men disappeared into the trees.

Positive they were gone, Joe crept forward and pulled the trapdoor open. Glancing around cautiously, he lowered himself into a small bunker not unlike the bomb shelters used during World War II in Europe. The underground room was about seven feet deep, one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. Nearly every square inch of the floor was covered in crates like the one the two guys had deposited earlier.

Joe hurried to the closest one, the one the men had just left, and pried one of the boards up with his fingers. In the dim light from the moon up above he saw that the case was full of bottles of various shapes and sizes, bags, and boxes. When he saw what these containers held, he knew he had stumbled onto something big—and illegal.

Drugs—not just illegal narcotics like cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD, but prescription drugs that must have been stolen from pharmacies' shipments and storage. He stood rooted to the spot as he replaced the slat of wood on the crate and found another already opened, half of the drug content removed. This must have been why that Luther fellow—the head of the drug ring, probably—had wanted to take inventory. Some of his gang members must have been stealing from the stolen hoard of drugs!

Piecing everything he had discovered together, Joe realized that he had stumbled onto a drug ring that must use this island as a cash! The head of the drug ring was probably this Luther fellow. He began to search the bunker meticulously for any sign of clues to the ring's identity, members, headquarters, or anything else that might be useful in a case against them. Caught up in the excitement of the mysterious turn of events, Joe forgot for a moment that he was stranded on a deserted island. Finally, in one of the bottom boxes, he found a scrap of paper that looked like it could have been torn off of an order form of some kind. He pocketed it, hesitated, then stuffed the piece of paper into his still-damp shoe. He then resumed his search.

Not five minutes later, he found another slip of paper, slightly bigger, which held four names: Leon Luther, Harry Brown, Ted Jones, and Melvin Gatsby. Elated by his discovery, he stashed away the paper. He had just found a small door near the rear of the bunker and opened it, revealing a very modern radio transmitter and was about to go and see if it worked when he heard a sound behind him, a stealthy footstep in the early morning twilight. He spun around to find a large blonde man with rippling muscles and a sinister grimace blocking the exit of the bunker. "Melvin, Jones!" he yelled and the two men that had brought the drugs to the island scurried from the woods to find him.

"Mr. Luther!" the British man said quickly. "When did you get here for the inspection?"

"Just now," Luther snapped, then pointed down in the bunker where Joe stood, his muscles tensed, ready for action. He was still very weak from having nothing to eat and from his harrowing adventures at sea, but he was determined to fight with all the strength he had left. "Is this yours?"

"No, sir," the American man stammered. "I didn't know he was here—this place is deserted—I..."

"Maybe it's his boat we found in the ocean," the British man put in helpfully, then proceeded to explain to his boss about how they had discovered the Sleuth abandoned and taken it.

Luther stood for a moment, mulling over his thoughts, then asked, "Are you the only one here?" When Joe didn't answer, Luther reached into his jacket and pulled out a shiny black pistol. "I said, are you the only one here?"

Joe sighed. "Yes. I'm alone. I was on my boat with my brother and his friends but there was a big storm and I got washed overboard. I have no idea what happened to them, considering your flunkies found our boat abandoned." The seriousness of the situation hit him like a punch to the gut—where were Frank, Chet, and Biff?

Luther considered Joe's words for a moment, then motioned at him with the gun. "Get out of there." Joe hesitated and Luther waved the gun. "Now."

Scowling, Joe jumped up and grabbed the mouth of the trapdoor with his fingertips and, feeling weak and helpless, hoisted himself out of the bunker and sprawled on the forest floor, exhausted from the energy it had taken to complete the task. He felt someone grab his arms and pull him to his feet. He was supported by the two men working for Luther, one on either side, holding his arms.

"What are we going to do with him, boss?" the Brit asked.

"I have an idea," Joe said bravely. "Let me go because I haven't done anything."

"You've seen our hoard," Luther argued.

Joe lied, "What are you talking about? I haven't eaten since yesterday noon and I was hungry. I figured you guys had some grub in your hideout so I was just about to look for it when you showed up."

"Hold him tightly," Luther said, then frisked him. Finding nothing on him, Luther frowned, paced, and ordered, "Take off your socks and shoes."

Joe stared. "What? Why?"

Instead of answering, Luther motioned for his men to shove Joe down, then Luther yanked off his shoes and socks, discovering the list and the order form scraps. "Clever, kid," he said, "but not clever enough." He went into the bunker and returned with a long length of rope, several rags, a bottle of liquid, and a needle. Joe stiffened when he saw the drug in the man's hand but Luther didn't seem to notice.

Instead, he began to tie Joe up. First, he tied the boy's wrists behind his back, so tightly that the rope cut into his skin and he gasped in pain. Then his ankles were bound together and a rag stuffed into his mouth to prevent him from making noise. Finally he picked up the bottle and the needle. Instantly Joe began to struggle violently, wriggling and twisting in his captors' grasp against the ropes that bound him. Luther slapped him across the face, hard, then filled the shot halfway with a clear liquid and inserted it into a vein in Joe's arm. He shoved down the plunger with a wicked smile on his face. Joe became rigid for a moment, his eyes wide and glassy, then he lost consciousness.

Frank woke up to clear skies early the next morning. Biff and Chet were snoozing on the sand next to him and he quickly nudged them awake. They decided that they would explore the island before doing anything else to determine whether or not it was isolated and to look for anything that might help them get off the island.

They began to march through the thick brush, swatting at flies and mosquitoes. They found an apple tree and ate hungrily. Soon they were on their way again. The island was beautiful, not much different than the islands in and around Barmet Bay which gave the boys a bit of hope—maybe they weren't too far out i the sea. Someone was bound to come by soon.

They walked for over an hour, marking their way by hacking big X's on tree trunks with Chet's knife. Suddenly Chet exclaimed, "Hey, there's a clearing!"

The boys surged forward and soon found themselves on the opposite side of the island, their feet in the sand, staring out at the ocean. Then Biff gasped. Tied to a makeshift dock on the shore were two motorboats, one of them the Sleuth! Suddenly he heard a loud, British voice call out, "Oi! You blokes going somewhere?"

After giving Joe the drug, Luther had turned to his partners. "That was just something to knock him out," he had grinned. "Now do what you want with him as long as he never sees civilization again. Everything else seems fine so I'm going to get back to our headquarters." He had left the forest and soon the two cronies heard his boat's motor start up and the craft take off through the water.

Melvin Gatsby, the Brit, looked at his partner, Ted Jones. "What do we do with him?"

"Leave him here," Ted responded. "We'll tie him to a tree and he may find a way to free himself eventually...or not. Either way, we'll take off and he'll have no way to get off the island and he can't tell anybody about us."

"Do you think it's best to leave him alive?" Melvin asked warily. "If he does get free and finds a way off the island, we'll get into some big trouble with the boss and the law."

Ted dismissed his partner's suggestion with a wave of his hand. "Nah. Leaving him alive won't be a problem."

"Why not?"

"He'll be dead within three days from thirst. Trust me, there is no way this kid will leave the island alive."

They had tied the unconscious boy to a tree and, just for spite, tied a rag over his eyes so he couldn't see anything when he woke up. Then they had started for the beach. Someone was already at the boats, though. Three teenagers. The drug dealers realized that the kids must be the brother and friends their prisoner had mentioned. They pulled back into the trees for a quick discussion.

"What do we do?" Ted demanded, looking agitated at the turn of events.

"Relax. They probably think the kid is dead since he was washed overboard. We'll ask them what happened and if their story checks out and they really think the kid is dead, we'll offer them a ride to shore. That way we get them away from our island and they don't know any better. Face it, if we kill all four kids, we'll be in a lot more trouble than we could be in if someone squealed on us right now. And if they already think the kid's dead then we won't even be suspected for killing him. Eh?"

Ted grinned. "Alright, Gatsby, that's a pretty good idea. I'm impressed." They hurried to meet the boys.

Yet again, I implore of you-please review! If you've taken the time to get to this little note at the end, surely you can spare thirty seconds so that I can know how the story is being accepted.

~Emachinescat ^..^