The curse of Curtis
By Ian Henderson
Chapter 1 The beginning

I woke up with my head under a pile of itchy seaweed. Then I remembered! I had just gotten in a boat crash with my friends Jesse, Jack, and Parker and of course me, I’m Ian. I pulled my head out of the seaweed and looked over at the rocks and saw our boat “Serpent” wedged between the rocks with a large hole in the hull. After seeing that, I decided to wake up my friends before anything else could happen.

I started to shake Parker, but after a few seconds he started to groan, “Uhhhhhhhh. . . . Mom just five more minutes.” I sighed. When Parker is asleep, it’s almost impossible to wake him up. I waded into the water and picked up a small crab. I walked over to Parker and placed the crab near his head. It clamped down hard on his lower lip. Suddenly, Parker’s eyes flew open and he sat up clawing at this face trying to get it off. “What was that for?!?” The crab on his lip bobbed up and down as he spoke, and it slowly slipped off. “Sorry, I couldn’t get you up,” I said. “Oh well, next time please….” he replied. “Wait! What! Where are we? Oh right yeah.” “You wake up the others,” I said. “I’ll go find some wood for a fire. Kay?”

When Parker was done waking up the rest of my friends, and I was picking up my last piece of wood, I saw a large X in the sand with a rather large rock with something engraved on it next to the X in the sand. I looked at the rock and said “Guys??… Come look at this.” Jack, the fastest of them, arrived first and said “Cool, it’s just like Indiana Jones or something.” “Jack, it’s not funny. Right.” I read markings on the rock aloud to them. “It says: leave or die”. “Oh that doesn’t sound good” Jesse said. “See Jack, I told you!” I said and I looked over my shoulder and saw Jack digging where the X used to be. “Jack, what do you think you are doing?” “What does it look like to you?”
“Jack, you don’t go digging a hole when you are about to die in the wilderness.”
“But what if we get rich?”
“What good will it do us if we might not ever make it home?”
“Oh!” Jack exclaimed as he hit something while digging. It was a chest with a note tapped to it. “What does it say?” Jesse asked. Jack called back to us “It says ‘this will be your final resting place.’” “Cool” Jesse said, “What does that mean?” “Open it up and see what’s inside” Parker exclaimed.
And that was the start of my awesome adventure.

Chapter 2 Midget

“There’s nothing in here but a knife,” Jack called back to Parker. “Oh,” Parker said looking disappointed. “Well maybe we should try to figure this out guys,” I said. No answer. “Guys?” Jesse motioned for me to be quiet and pointed behind me. I slowly turned around and scanned the edge of the woods, and then on the rocks I saw a man. But the man was no taller than one foot and he had whitish tan skin and no clothes. In his hand he had what looked like a miniature blow gun. “See the blow gun?” Parker whispered. “Yep. See the sparrow?” Jack whispered back to him. About five yards away from the man there was a sparrow. It was hoping along enjoying the beautiful morning. Then the man silently put his blowgun to his mouth and made a spitting noise and out came a very small dart. We saw the sparrow up ahead drop to the ground dead with the dart lodged in it’s side. Then the short man hoisted it up on his diminutive frame and carried it away into the woods.
As soon as the short man was out of sight, Parker shouted “I call dibs on the knife!” I grinned and said, “Well then I call dibs on sleeping on the boat. By the way the seaweed feels nice and it would be a well fit bed for you guys,” I said sarcastically. They all looked at me grimly and walked of to their beds among the rocks draped in seaweed. As I climbed into the small boat I thought about how that short man killed a sparrow. If he could kill a sparrow he could easily kill a sleeping person, and that is what kept me up the whole night.

Chapter 3 The Woods

“Well somebody’s grumpy this morning.” I teased as Jack sat up with seaweed in his hair. “Shut up Ian, it’ll only be a matter of time before I find something to bust your chops about!” he growled. “So how’d ya’ sleep? I couldn’t sleep one bit.” I told him. “Well I slept like a strand of seaweed.” He snickered. Jesse and Parker had been looking for supplies but apparently hadn’t found anything when they came back with empty hands. “Well look who’s up,” Parker said. “Lets go into the woods today!” Jesse said excitedly. “Whoever votes we go into the woods say aye!” Parker said. Of course I was the only one to say no. About 15 minutes later we were off the beach and in the woods. This place didn’t seem normal. It just had a strange aura of negative power…… it almost felt cursed. We walked for about 30 minutes discussing things that had happened on our adventure and things that might happen next. Then we arrived at the dead man.

There right in front of us there was a skeleton in ragged clothes. His bleached bones were as white as milk. He was hanging two feet off the ground with his neck in a tight noose. “Let’s check for supplies!” Parker said. “Maybe even some money!” Jack shouted with joy. Jesse stood back. “Guys this doesn’t feel right. Don’t steal from him, he could be cursed.” Jesse said worriedly. “Pffft!!! Yeah right you’re just trying to scare us!” Jack said reaching out to touch the skeleton. But as soon as Jack touched it, we heard a twig snap somewhere in the brush……….

Chapter 4 Attacked

………………… “Uh guys what was that!?” Parker said. “Nice going Jack,” I whispered. “Ow!” Jack suddenly yelped. I looked down and saw a short man with a small sword. I cringed. That short guy really creeped me out. “The knife.” I said impatiently holding my hand out ready to take it from Parker. He handed me the knife that we had found in the treasure chest and I lunged at the short man slicing him in half. When I killed him I expected him to fall over dead, but instead he melted like a candle would. “Guys I think he’s made out of wax.” I said. Then we heard what sounded like the war cry of an Indian. All of a sudden about fifty short people burst out of the bushes with their weapons at the ready. I picked up the sword of the short man, which was the size of a large dagger, and gave it to Jesse. We all jumped into battle stomping and jabbing, slowly winning. Soon we were killing, and just as fast as they where melting. We all had weapons and there were only about two dozen wax men left. “Ian! Behind you!” Jack yelled. I spun around and saw a bunny made of wax with claws at least a foot long bounding straight towards me. I had one second to think about this. I mean really! A spiked war bunny? It was twenty feet away, now ten. As it got about one foot away I jumped over it and landed behind it. It spun around and I had to back up to avoid a blow from one of it’s claws. Jack approached it from behind. When he got close it turned around and swiped his dagger out of his hands. While it was occupied with Jack, I stabbed it from behind and it slowly melted away. “That was way too close for comfort” Parker said, “Let’s go back to the beach.”

Chapter 5 The beacon

As we arrived back at the beach we saw a long wooden pole propped up against our boat with a note taped tho it. “Of all things”, I thought, “The wax men have duct tape.” The pole was a few inches thick and about five and a half feet tall. It had elaborate designs etched into the dark wood with a square shaped slot at the top of the post. “What is it?” Jack wondered aloud. Well the note says BECON. “I think it says beacon and they just spelt it wrong,” Parker said. “We probably need to find something to make light with,” Jesse added. “Well then let’s get going to find something for the beacon.” I said.

We began walking on the beach, but nothing happened but small ambushes from the short men. Then we wandered into the woods and searched for something helpful. I walked in front of everyone listening to them talk about the moonstone Jesse had supposedly found. “Wait a second”, I thought “We could use it for the beacon since moonstones glow in the dark!” I spun around and said “Where’s the moonstone? We could use it for the beacon!” “Its in the water,” Jack said casually using his best poker face. “I got six skips,” Jesse said happily. “Your kidding right?” I said. “Nope,” Parker told me shaking his head. “Well might as well go back to the beach and find something to eat.” I said.

Chapter 6 Mostly thinking & talking

“We’ve been really hungry. Did I mention that already? I’ve been really hungry. But I just haven’t had enough time to process all of this in my brain so I haven’t thought about food which should be our top priority since it’s our second day on this stupid island!” I shouted aloud. “It’s been a great experience though.” Parker said. “Oh be quiet Parker……………… Wait! What! You just read my mind Parker.” I said loudly. “No.” Parker told me. “Actually you said that aloud.” He corrected. “Oh, I didn’t know I was talking.” I said. I could see the beach up ahead. As we neared it I felt a strange felling something …… Or someone was watching us …

Chapter 7 Death cove

Ever been to Death cove? Yeah nice place and all that sure, but I have some things to say about it. Number one top priority; DON’T go there. And if you just follow those directions, you should be pretty good to go.

So this is what happened. When we arrived back at the beach we of course got ambushed. No biggie though. we’d gotten used to the ambushes after the recent attacks. Anyways it started out like any other attack but there were more of them. More wax men kept coming out of the bushes at us and there were at least eighty wax raiders within a couple of minutes. Soon we noticed that there was nothing left to do but run. We ran for about fifteen minutes before coming to a beach.

It was big beach with black rocks sloping downwards toward the beach. The beach had black gravel for sand. And I mean BLACK gravel like pitch black. It was littered with bones of humans and had a few full skeletons and skulls embedded in the sand. We walked along the beach completely horrified at what we had found. Soon we came to a skeleton with a machete stuck in it’s cracked skull. It was cuddling with a ripped up teddy bear. The machete had red and yellow feathers at the base of the hilt.

My friends fell over laughing pointing at the teddy bear and pounding their fists on the ground. Eventually Parker got up, his face red from laughing. He bent over to reach the machete when a dart went whizzing past us and hit him in the back of the neck. We all froze.

Chapter 8 To make a long story short

We fainted.

Chapter 9 Happy dreams

When I was out I had weird dreams. I dreamt that I was flying above Curtis island like a bird. On the far end of the island I saw an old burning lighthouse slowly crumbling lit by ghostly white fire. Suddenly from above a giant eagle made of stone with ruby eyes swooped down from out of the clouds. It tucked its wings on its back and dove straight at me. I didn’t have time to react. It plowed straight into me. My vision blurred and my vision changed.

I was looking at a pit of boiling lava in a cave and I saw my friends dangling by chains over the pit of death. Then Parker looked at me with panic in his eyes and said “Ian.” Except it was Jack’s voice. Then everything was black and I heard Jack’s voice say “Ian” again and I came to.

Chapter 10 Lizard folk

Jack was standing over me. “Well finally!” Jack said loudly in my face. “Hey sorry it’s not my fault that I had messed up dreams!” I said back. “Uhhhhhh…?” Jack said awkwardly. “It was really weird I got attacked by this huge demented eagle thing.” I said with a calmer voice. ” I also had weird dream.” Parker said. “It was really short and all black but a voice said ‘go straight into the woods.’” Jesse turned and started walking towards the woods. “Where are you going?” Parker asked in Jesse’s direction. “Straight into the woods.” Jesse replied without looking back. We looked at each other and followed Jesse into the woods.

We had been walking straight for awhile until we came to a mucky swamp and walked for about ten minutes before coming to a large tree. “What do we do now?” I asked Parker. “I dunno no one told me” he said. “Nothing” said a deeper voice from behind us. I turned and saw a tall humanoid lizard with webbed fingers and toes. He was holding a shield that was actually a turtle shell and in the other he had large hammer. “You’ve met the captain of the lizard folk, so absolutely nothing.”

Chapter 11 Ooo-oo-eee-eee!- Part 1

Meanwhile on the other side of the island there is another victim of who tells his story…

I trudged through the swamp with my scorched boots squeaking under me and I could feel the black flies eating away at my wounds. How did my boots get scorched you say? Good question! Then why don’t you ask the stupid monkeys! Sorry for yelling you don’t even know me yet I’m Julian Duggen. This is the answer to your question. I was walking through the woods and it was very odd. You know walking through the woods on some creepy messed up island listening to your iPod. Soon I came to a large area of willow trees and saw all these big flowers. And I mean big flowers like ten feet tall. They were looking at me. I know just how weird that sounds but listen to me. I swore they where looking at me and of course I wasn’t sure until… evil purple and pink monkeys started climbing out from behind the flower petals. At that very moment I knew I was a goner just from hearing: Ooo-oo-eee-eee!

Chapter 12 Ooo-oo-eee-ee – Part 2

Surprise monkey in the face! Yep that’s what happened. A huge pink monkey with fangs just jumped on my face… A word of advice, never try what I’m about to do EVER. I grabbed the nearest vine, ripped it off, and flung it around the monkey and jumped on it’s back. I slapped it’s behind and it reared up on it’s hind legs. I yelled “giddy-up” (please don’t laugh) and it bounded forward talking large loping strides towards the other monkeys. All of a sudden we were hit by what looked like a buffalo with the head of a chicken. I went flying of it’s back and fell into a small pond and found myself face to face with the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen in my life.

Chapter 13 Buffalo Chicken wings

Guess what? The giant turtle breathes fire! That’s a bad thing by the way. And I know how weird that sounds, but somehow under water it breathed fire at me. But the current of the water wooshed it straight onto my boots, which also blew me out of the water straight onto the back of the buffalo chicken, which now had wings. It ran off into the woods being chased by the monkeys. I looked over my shoulder at the monkeys that where slowly gaining on us. Up ahead I could see a wall of what looked like red trees, but I was too far away to tell. I held on tight and hoped the buffalo chicken would turn away and not hit the wall. Instead he passed right through it as if it wasn’t there, and I came out into open daylight.

Chapter 14 Dryads

My eyes hurt from the sunlight. I looked around and noticed that I was inside a large clearing surrounded by red trees. In the center there was a pond and in the middle of the pond was a red tree so tall you couldn’t see the top. I saw what looked like people walking around doing chores and children playing. The strange thing was they were all women and girls. Soon a tall woman in saggy green robes stepped out of what looked like a door on the tall tree in the center of the clearing. She walked up to me and bowed then said with a plain expression on her face “Master awaits you.” The woman grabbed my buffalo chicken by the scruff of the neck and guided it outside the clearing and then motioned for me to get off of the buffalo chicken. After a I got off she slapped the butt of the buffalo chicken and it ran off into the forest. She brought me back to the tall tree in the middle of the clearing “Master awaits you” she said again. So I went in to the tree. I walked up a flight stairs carved into the wood and soon I came to a large room with many surrounding doors and a table in the middle of the room with a bowl. I walked across the room to the bowl and looked inside. Its contents were what looked like black shriveled up cockroaches. I reached out to touch them when a female voice said from behind “I wouldn’t touch those if I where you.” I jumped and turned around. I saw a tall well-built girl about my age, maybe fourteen. “Come” she said and she took me up another flight of stairs.