Late that night, the tropical moon glowed in the window of the crew's hut, bathing everything in soft blue light. Gilligan lay sleepless and alert in his hammock, clutching the cutlass hilt with trembling fingers. He listened until the Skipper's stentorian snoring became regular, and then slowly, carefully slid from his hammock and crept to the window, where the full moon glimmered like a ghostly galleon. Gilligan shivered. Taking a last, longing look at the Skipper, he turned and tip-toed towards the bamboo door.

He was just easing it soundlessly open when...

"Gilligan!"

It was just a whisper, but it nearly shocked Gilligan out of his skin. He turned back towards the hammocks, gulping and smiling nervously. "Hiya, Skipper. I thought you were asleep."

"I can see that." The Skipper was using his deceptively calm, 'I know what you're up to' voice. "And just where is it you're going, at this time of night?"

Gilligan thought fast - too fast. "Ah-well-I heard this beeping noise and I thought I might have left the phone off the hook, Skipper."

"Gilligan, we have no phone."

"And-uh-I think I left the lights on, too."

"We have no lights." The Skipper's tone was getting darker, like the sky before a storm.

Gilligan was babbling now. "And-and-I kinda thought I might have left the motor running in the car, Skipper, and that can really wear the battery down, and with the price of gas these days--"

"We haven't got a motor car either!" the Skipper thundered.

Gilligan shrugged and laughed nervously. "Gosh, no phone, no lights, no motor-car...we haven't got a single luxury, have we, Skipper?"

"Oh - Gilligan! Get over here! Front and centre!"

Gilligan's navy training kicked in. He dashed over and stood at attention beside the hammocks. "Aye-aye, Sir!"

The Skipper, still lying in the lower hammock, couldn't see Gilligan's face through the mesh of the upper.

"Gilligan..." he began, with infinite patience. "I can't talk to you if you're still up there, can I? At ease!"

Gilligan hunkered down by the Skipper's side, where the old seadog smiled benignly. "That's better, little buddy. Now, I asked you a simple question. Where were you going just now?"

"Oh, I - I was just going out to use the latrine, Skipper, and...you know, I was too shy to say so, and..."

"And why do you need-" the Skipper's fingers twirled elaborately and pointed "-that cutlass?"

"The cutlass? Uh..." Gilligan had forgotten he was holding it. He fumbled with it, trying to look nonchalant. "Well, Skipper, the pathway's been getting kind of overgrown lately, and I thought I might have to clear it. See?"

And trying to mime hacking his way through the jungle, he aimed a wild blow sideways.

Thwok! The blade hit the hammock pole, sliced through the hammock rope and dumped the skipper headfirst on the ground, all in a split second.

"Doop! Gilligan!" The Skipper writhed in the sand and struggled to his feet, wrenching the cutlass free as he did so. "I'll clear your path, you nincompoop!"

The first mate cringed away, arms up over his head, at the sight of the furious Skipper brandishing a sword. "Skipper, please don't cut my head off! The pirate's going to do it anyway!"

"Little buddy, don't be ridiculous!" The Skipper threw the cutlass backwards for emphasis, with such force that it sheered through the top of the hammock pole. The severed foot-long shaft of bamboo spun in the air before arcing down to bean the Skipper neatly on the head.

"Oww! The Ancient Mariner had the albatross around his neck...and I've got you!"

"I'm really sorry, Skipper," Gilligan whimpered, still cringing back. "But you've got to let me go! The pirate ghost said I've got to go and meet him tonight!"

The Skipper suddenly realized what Gilligan was saying. He stopped and shook his head, as if to clear it.

"What?" he demanded. "What are you talking about?"

"The ghost, Skipper, the one that I keep seeing!"

The Skipper stared at him, dumbfounded. "But - but how do you remember any of that? The Professor hypnotized you! You said you couldn't remember anything after we went fishing in the lagoon!"

"I had to pretend! I couldn't let him hypnotize me! I have to meet the ghost, Skipper! I have to!"

"Gilligan..." The Skipper threw his arms up and then let them fall at his sides, flummoxed. Nothing seemed to be working. "When is this going to stop? How many times do I have to tell you there are no such things as ghosts? You did not see one!"

"Skipper, I've seen things before, lots of times, and the rest of you didn't believe me, but they turned out to be real!"

That gave the Skipper pause. He fingered his chin, remembering. "Well, yes, but--"

"Remember the headhunter that Mrs. Howell said was a figment of my imagination? And then he captured everybody?"

"W-yes..."

"And the gorilla that took Mrs. Howell's brooch? And then took her? Nobody believed me about him, and he was real too!"

"Yes, I take your point, little buddy, but--"

"And Tongo the Ape Man?"

"Gilligan--"

"And--"

"Gilligan!" the Skipper roared, trying to stem the tide. "I know all that! But there's something about all those incidents that you've forgotten!"

"What, Skipper?"

The Skipper put his hand on Gilligan's shoulder, as if to force him to focus. He tried to make his voice calm. "You were alone when you first saw all those things! But later, we saw them too, and we believed you! But this morning when you saw your pirate ghost, we were all with you, but nobody else could see or hear him! That's why we don't believe you this time, Gilligan! That's why I know he's not real!"

Gilligan slumped, defeated. "Skipper, I can't explain it, but I can't take that chance! He threatened to do away with all of you if I don't go! Please, Skipper! I couldn't stand it if something happened to all my friends!"

"Gilligan..." the Skipper sighed, touched by the fear in his first mate's eyes. "Little buddy...even this morning you were trying to protect us all, weren't you? No matter where your head is, your heart's always in the right place. I just wish there was some way I could help you!"

"You can let me go, Skipper, so I can meet him! I can't let him chop off all your heads! You'd never speak to me again!"

The Skipper chuckled at the absurdity and looped his arm around Gilligan's shoulder. "Little buddy, I am not letting you go out into the jungle all by yourself."

"But--"

"So I'm going with you." The words were out before the Skipper even thought about them - but they felt exactly right. "No pirate's gonna threaten my crew while I'm around!"

The Skipper would never forget the look on Gilligan's face. It was the same look he'd worn the day they'd disembarked from their destroyer for the last time and had been about to go their separate ways...when the Skipper had suddenly called after him and offered him the job of first mate...

Gilligan could barely speak. "Oh, Skipper…thanks, Big Buddy!"

The Skipper laughed good naturedly, glad to ease the tension. "Well, come on, then. Let's go get some torches. And keep it down, so we don't disturb the others."

"Okay, Skipper."

As Gilligan turned towards the door, the Skipper went to the table to retrieve his captain's hat. Then he turned and headed for the door himself, but in the darkness of the hut, he didn't see Gilligan crouched on the floor, trying to find the cutlass. The Skipper stumbled over Gilligan and sailed out the door in a heavy somersault. "Doop!"

Gilligan appeared at the door, cutlass in hand, to see the Skipper sitting splayed on the ground, with a dazed look on his face.

"Skipper, sshh! We're not supposed to wake up the others!"

The Skipper clenched his teeth in exasperation, then sighed. "Thanks alot, Gilligan!" he grumbled, smiling in resignation. "Just get the torches, and let's go!"

There followed what seemed an endless trek through the night-time jungle. The licking flames of the tiki torches turned each grove into a weird, flickering chamber, surrounded by dark archways that sprang into lurid life and back into shadow, each in their turn. Great insects scuttled up the tree trunks, iridescent wings shimmering in the firelight. Strange pairs of luminous eyes winked and vanished in the dark foliage. And everywhere were soft sounds: chirps, squeaks, rustles, hisses, and other sounds too strange to name.

Like visitors in dark cathedral, Gilligan and the Skipper spoke in whispers.

"Gilligan, I wish you'd do one thing for me."

Gilligan blinked, eyes watering from the sting of the smoke. "What's that, Skipper?"

"I wish you'd let me lead!" the Skipper fumed, swatting a big fern that had flown into his face.

"But Skipper, I've got the cutlass. I've got to clear the trail!" The first mate hacked at the thick brush in front of him in demonstration.

"That's what I mean," the Skipper whispered angrily as huge, thick, damp leaves whomped him again. "It's like walking into a wet blanket on a clothesline back here!"

"Oh!" Gilligan glanced back. "Sorry, Skipper. But I've gotta go first. You don't know where we're going!"

"Well then, why don't you tell me?" the Skipper demanded, fuse nearing the powder keg.

Gilligan stopped to slash at a huge tangle of vines that blocked his way. One of the vines, snaking into the canopy, tugged loose some coconuts that came plummeting down. The Gordian knot broke apart just as the coconuts fell to the soft earth - all but one, that landed squarely on the Skipper's hat. The big man was knocked out cold and pitched forward without a sound, his torch falling to land in a patch of mud beside him. The thick, wet leaves hacked loose by Gilligan's efforts covered it, dampening and smothering the flame.

"It's the cliffs on the north end of the island, Skipper," Gilligan said, oblivious to the fact that his captain had gone down with ship. "If you really want to lead, just say so."

There was nothing but silence behind him. "Skipper, are you sore at me?" Still no answer. Gilligan knew his cue. He didn't even look back, for fear of getting a swat. "Okay, Skipper, I get the message. Shutting up now."

And true to his word, Gilligan neither spoke nor even looked back as he made his way through the thick jungle and up the rising ground of the island's mountain range. It was enough to concentrate on not tripping over fallen tree trunks or getting tangled in creepers, and despite the humid, claustrophobic darkness and his own great fear, Gilligan wasn't about to give up. Not with his Skipper behind him.

At last Gilligan heard a distant crash of waves and smelled the salt sea over the reek of tiki smoke. Moments later he stepped out of the jungle onto a bushy, moonlit promontory that commanded a view of the vast moonlit ocean. He knew that if he walked just past the little glade straight ahead, he would go right over...

It almost seemed preferable to meeting that terrible spirit again. Gilligan took a few steps backward, shaking. "Boy, Skipper, am I scared! I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come with me! He turned around at last, to behold only the inky black depths of the mocking jungle.

He was alone.

In the terror that flooded over him, Gilligan almost forgot to breathe. There was no sign of his big buddy anywhere. He suddenly remembered he had not actually heard or seen the Skipper for ages, and lifted the torch with trembling fingers, desperately hoping to catch of glimpse of his friend hiding in the bushes and teasing him. "Skipper? S-Skipper? Come on...d-don't play tricks on me!"

But there was nothing. Even the jungle seemed to have fallen as silent as a tomb. There was only the muted crashing of the waves far below.

And one more sound – a deep, cruel laugh. Gilligan felt the torch drop from his nerveless fingers, then forced himself to turn 'round.