The Nautilus finally arrived at the unnamed island. Even below the surface of the ocean, Captain Nemo's vessel was filled with devices for keeping track of date and time. Night was definitely approaching, and the League members felt fatigued from their long journey. It was decided that everyone aboard the vessel would have a good night's sleep before emerging and setting foot on the mysterious island.
Tom Sawyer found it incredibly difficult to sleep. He tried. He really did. But being trapped in a closed space, even a space as vast and free as the interior of the Nautilus, was not his style. His mind raced across all of his earlier adventures. Running away from home with Huckleberry Finn. Aiding in the rescue of a slave named Jim. Opening a detective agency. Joining the League and battling a fiend known as the Fantom. Then his mind latched to the present adventure. Rodney Skinner was the only member of the team that had a piece of the action so far. Sawyer thought about Skinner's description of the monsters that had attacked Germany. The images he tried to construct from the descriptions caused a chill to run up and down his spine. Sawyer wondered how accurate the images were. They seemed almost exactly like the images described by Skinner, but then Rodney Skinner was prone to exageration. Then again, so was Tom Sawyer.
Sawyer's mind then turned to Mina Harker. The thought warmed him up immediately. Right away, Tom Sawyer, ever the Southern gentleman, felt ashamed of his lustful thoughts. Mina had made it clear that she was in no way romantically interested in him. In fact, she looked at him as a child. Sawyer thought perhaps that was part of the reason he wanted her so badly. Because he knew he couldn't have her.
Sawyer wondered what it was about Mina that made him so irresistably attracted to her. Perhaps it was the same cloud of mystery and darkness that everyone else noticed about her. Or perhaps that was just caused by the fact that she was a vampire. People that didn't realize that saw only that there was something indescribably wrong about her. They didn't realize what the illness was that was plaguing Mina. They hadn't seen her shred a man's neck to bit with her long fangs the way Sawyer had.
This brought Sawyer back to his original question: After seeing all of this, how could he still be so attracted to her? Because she wasn't like all of the girls Sawyer had known. She wasn't dainty and gentle. She didn't need anyone to look after her and protect her. On the contrary, she was the dangerous one. Most men needed the protection from her.
What were the girls Sawyer had known like? Sawyer's mind traveled and arrived at Becky Thatcher. Sawyer closed his eyes in an attempt to squeeze back the tears that were forming in his eyes. He knew the rest of the League members wouldn't see the tears. Not in Sawyer's private cabin in the Nautilus. Still, Sawyer felt ashamed of the tears. He lit the small reading lamp on the wall of his cabin and reached into the chest he kept all of his items on while aboard the Nautilus. The others relied on their desk and dressers. Sawyer just needed the chest. Reaching in, he found a picture of Becky.
She had been Sawyer's first love. It is said that a man never forgets his first love, and for Sawyer this was true. He had told her that he didn't want a serious relationship. He had told her he just wanted to be friends. She had given him a bloody jaw for those statements. The woman always could pack a punch. Perhaps it was that fierceness that attracted Sawyer to women. Or perhaps it was that fierceness in Mina that just reminded Sawyer of Becky.
She hadn't been really fierce, though. For the most part, she was the perfect Southern belle. A real dainty and gentle little lady. A girl that needed protecting. She was everything Mina wasn't, yet at this moment Sawyer could not deny a longing to see her again. Why didn't he ever look for her? Sawyer had planned on visiting her several times. Yet, something always stopped him. Probably the same thing that stopped him from making the commitment to her that she had wanted in the first place. And perhaps the same thing that, in a warped way, attracted him to Mina Harker. Fear.
This conjured up the images of the zombies Skinner had described once again. All of this thinking soon exhausted Sawyer, who fell asleep before he could even remember to turn out the reading light.
> > > > > >
Sawyer awoke late the next morning for the same reason the rest of the League had. He heard loud footsteps on the roof of the Nautilus.
The Nautilus had only been partially submerged that night. The top of the vessel had been exposed, just slightly above the surface of the ocean. Just enough to take more oxygen into the Nautilus without being easily detected. Apparently some sort of creature, or creatures, had decided to climb aboard.
Sawyer joined the rest of the League in the main corridor of the Nautilus. Captain Nemo was peering anxiously through the viewing piece of the Nautilus' periscope. Sawyer noted the look of perplexion and fear on Nemo's face. Sawyer was surprised to see that it reflected on the face of his fearless mentor, Allan Quatermain.
"May I have a look?" asked Sawyer. Nemo silently stepped back and let Sawyer press his face against the viewing piece.
Sawyer felt sick. He saw strange, disgusting figures, figures that just barely resembled human beings, pacing back and forth across the surface of the Nautilus. Sawyer screamed when one of the creatures moved forward, bringing his body right up to the other piece of the periscope. The view revealed varying colors of flesh. Shades of white, gray, and yellow, exactly as Skinner had described. Sawyer now realized that the figures resembled walking, rotting corpses.
Sawyer recoiled from the periscope in terror. Skinner looked at Sawyer, his arrogant smile painted in his usual face grease.
"I told you so," said Skinner mockingly.
Nemo returned to his place at the periscope. The monsters were wandering across the surface of the Nautilus, jumping up and down, clawing the surface of the vessel. The loud, metallic echoes inside the ship reflected each move they made. The creatures continued to jump and claw. It was as if they were studying the Nautilus. Trying to figure out what it was.
It was a waiting game. Nemo realized that the monsters would only poke and prod at the Nautilus until they lost interest. In the meantime, the League could only huddle together and wait for the danger to pass. They waited for what seemed like hours, waiting for the pounding and clanking to stop.
Eventually, silence replaced the loud echoes. Everyone aboard the Nautilus breathed a sigh of relief. Just to be same, Nemo suggested the Nautilus fully submerge and not emerge until it was certain the danger was past. Quatermain concurred. Jekyll, Skinner, Quatermain, Sawyer, and Mina spent an hour trying to find ways to keep themselves amused while Nemo stayed at the periscope and watched for danger. Sawyer returned to tossing playing cards into his Stetson. Finally, Nemo announced the coast seemed clear and gave the order for the Nautilus to slowly rise to the surface.
> > > > > >
The six Extraordinary Gentlemen stretched and stumbled as they climbed off of the Nautilus onto the island, desperately trying to regain their land legs. Nemo ordered his crew to submerge once again and then to reemerge only as they needed oxygen again. Other than that, they were to do nothing without more orders from their captain.
The members of the League looked around them. They were situated on the beach of a tropical paradise. The warm sun basked their skin. A cool breeze blew through the palm trees above them. In this jungle habitat, Quatermain felt truly at home for the first time since joining the League.
"Whoa," said Sawyer.
"It's beautiful here," said Mina. "I can't believe this is the island all of those German ghost stories have been told about. It doesn't seem like an island clouded in mystery and haunted by death."
"All the same," said Nemo, "this does seem to be the location the beings that visited the Nautilus this morning came from."
The League nervously tried to peer through the lush vegetation around them.
"Are you sure we're safe here?" asked Sawyer.
"I think we're alone here," said Quatermain. "All the same, stay alert, men!"
Allan Quatermain felt an undeniable rush of adrenaline. Some instinct promted him to draw his pistol and carry it on, pointed in the air. Mycroft may have been the official leader of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen now, but in the field, Quatermain was still the captain of the team. Quatermain felt the pressure but at the same time felt proud of the weighty responsibility.
> > > > > >
Even with his pistol drawn and prepared, Quatermain did not realize that behind a thick clump of greenery, he was being watched. Three figures like those he had viewed through the periscope of the Nautilus that morning were spying intently on the five men and one woman trespassing on their island. Among them was another figure unlike the rest of them. Compared to these strange creatures, the other figure appeared to be human. Yet, compared to most humans, this figure was another monster. His face was twisted, a hideous birth defect. And his back was misshapen. It was bent and it bore the weight of a humongous hump. The four deformed creatures watched the League with great interest before sneaking out of the clump and in the opposite direction of the beach.
"What do we do know? What's the plan?" asked young Sawyer eagerly.
"To be perfectly honest," said Quatermain, "I don't know. I wasn't sure we'd actually make it this far."
"Huh?"
"Just start looking."
Jekyll, Skinner, Nemo, and Mina began to eagerly walk back and forth
across the beach. Quatermain soon joined them.
"What are we looking for?" asked Sawyer.
"Just about anything," said Quatermain.
"I found something!" called Mina. The others rapidly flocked around her. Mina was holding a cigarette case with the engraved initials: "Z.S."
"Zachary Schultz," suggested Jekyll. "Dr. Watson's friend."
"I take it this is what you were looking for, Mr. Quatermain," said Nemo. "Signs that human life has been recently on this island?"
"It's a start," admitted Quatermain. "Now we need to find a boat landing."
"A boat landing? What for?" questioned Sawyer.
"Somehow, bloodthirsty beasts have been coming from this island to Germany," said Quatermain. "Either there bloody good swimmers, or they have some other mode of transportation. Thus, a boat landing. Or at least a boat."
Again, the League began to diligently comb the beach.
> > > > > >
Meanwhile, the small band of zombie spies and their deformed companion arrived at the monstrous building located at the exact center of the island.
A young, handsome man with jet-black hair emerged from one of the smaller laboratories within the building. Despite the boyishness and pleasantness of his face and figure, his face also held a certain look of derangement. Victor Frankenstein ignored this quality in his reflection as he removed his white lab coat, now quite red from bloodstains. He was becoming used to the gore. He had worked in his line of science so long that he was beginning to lose the sick feelings he once had at the examination of human corpses, and all that was within them. Still, the blood made him sick, not because it was a sign of life, but because it was also a symbol of the opposite. The one subject that made him sick to the stomach. Death.
Frankenstein shrugged off this feeling as he left the bloody lab coat behind and adjusted the ostentatious necktie that had been hidden beneath it. He sat in his oversized, overstuffed chair, which he had intentionally set up to resemble a throne, and beckoned for the hunchback, Quasimodo, to enter.
Victor Frankenstein was careful to look straight into Quasimodo's eyes so that the hunchback could read his lips.
"Report," said Victor Frankenstein slowly, giving Quasimodo the time to decipher the symbols. Quasimodo's response was agonizingly slow.
"Fi-I-ive ma-e-en. Ooonne wo-o-ma-e-en. They arrrrre on the be-e-e- aaach, llllo-o-o-oking arrrr-ound. They arrrrr-I-I-vvv-ed frrrrom Ggg-erm- a-nnnnnnnnnn-y. by ssssommmmme ki-I-ind of mmmmma-ch-I-I-ne. Oooonne is o- lll-ddd, with a whi-I-te bbbb-ear-ddd and a strrronnnnnng bodddy. Ooonne is ooon-nly a bbbboyyy. Ooonne is alllll whi-I-te and wearrrrrrrinnnnnnng b-b-b-l-l-lack. Ooonne is Indddd-I-ian. Verrry strronnnnnnnnng. Ooonne is verrry p-p-a-ale and skkkinnnny. Verrry gaunt-tly. Ooonne is a wo-o-ma- e-en. Verrry b-b-b-l-l-ack. (By this, Quasimodo described the intangible darkness always surrounding Mina Harker.) The kinnnnnnd with lo-o-ong ttt- e-eth. They arrrrre llllo-o-o-king arrrr-ound on the be-e-e-aaach."
Victor Frankenstein laughed. He ran his fingers through his silky black hair.
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," he said. "And some say they are merely a legend. Allan Quatermain, the great White hunter. The irrepressible Tom Sawyer. The invisible man. Captain Nemo of the vessel Nautilus. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And one of Count Dracula's mistresses."
"W-a-a-ttt dooo yoooou w-w-a-a-ant mmmeeeeee to dooo?"
"Nothing yet," said Frankenstein. "Let them satisfy their curiosity. No one else has made it this far yet. Perhaps they'll realize that and turn around. In the meantime, they pose no immediate threat. Tell the troops to leave them alive. But by all means, keep an eye on them."
"Aaasssss yooooou wi-I-ish, mmmma-a-a-ssss-terrrr."
As Quasimodo exited, Victor Frankenstein once again smiled and burst into evil laughter.
> > > > > >
Meanwhile, the League had spent hours marching across the shoreline and still had not caught a glimpse of the boat landing Quatermain was looking for.
"At this rate we'll be at it for hours more!" groaned Skinner.
"I'd hate to say it, but Skinner's right, Allan," said Sawyer. "We need a change of plans."
"I just don't understand it," said Quatermain. "It seems to me the most practical place for the boat to be stored would be on the coast facing the mainland, and this is it."
"Perhaps our adversary isn't concerned with being practical," said Nemo. "Perhaps he is more concerned with remaining undetected."
"Perhaps he put the boat landing on another side of the island," added Jekyll. "He'd have to move around the island, but the extra time may be worth it to him to avoid being seen by boats coming from the mainland."
"Then we need to check every side of this island," said Quatermain.
"We can't just keep marching along the coast like this," said Jekyll. "We'll be at it for days, not just hours."
"Perhaps we should split up," said Sawyer. "We can cover more ground that way."
"You're right, boy," said Quatermain. "We should split into smaller units and spread out. Let's start out with Mrs. Harker. Who will be her partner?"
"Me!" Jekyll, Skinner, and Sawyer all volunteered at once.
"Nemo," said Quatermain. "You take Mrs. Harker as your partner."
Nemo nodded in agreement as the three young men groaned in disappointment.
"Sawyer," said Quatermain. "You'll be partners with Dr. Jekyll. If trouble arises, Mr. Hyde can protect you."
The thought of Hyde brought an extra shade of pale to Jekyll's face, but no one noticed. Nemo and Mina came together and stepped back from the huddle. Sawyer and Jekyll did the same.
"Skinner," said Quatermain. "You'll come with me. Are there any questions?"
Skinner moved over next to Quatermain, and they took a step back as well.
"Captain Nemo and Mrs. Harker, you take the Eastern coast of the island. Dr. Jekyll and Sawyer, you take the Western coast. Skinner and I will cut through the center of the island. We'll all meet up at the Northern shore. If anyone runs into trouble before then, retreat back to the Nautilus."
The members of the League all huddled together again and put their hands together, one on top of the other, as they had done on various occasions before, silently confirming their unspoken pact with one another. After that, they returned to the Nautilus to grab backpack, already filled with all of the supplies necessary for any mission. This finished, the six simply parted and began to march in their agreed upon directions.
Quatermain finally took a deep breath and began to march away from the beach into the thick jungle ahead. As he passed through the first row of palm trees, he saw a large, mossy hill.
"All right, Skinner. You first."
"Why me?"
"Because if someone's on the other side waiting for us, you can warn me?"
"Why do I have to give warning? I'll be the first one to be
attacked!"
"Yes, but if someone takes a shot, they'll be more likely to miss you
than me. They can't bloody see you!"
"No fair," murmured Skinner, already wiping off his face paint and taking off his coat and hat, handing them to Quatermain to add to his backpack. With that, Skinner marched forward and began his climb.