Blubber Island Chapter 2 Gorilla Shakedown in the Jungle (part 1 of 2)

Blubber Island is Shitty Blubber Island Survival Guide

Blubber Island Chapter 2 Gorilla Shakedown in the Jungle (part 1 of 2)

If you haven’t read Chapter 1, click here

Chapter 2

For your relax time. (ablogtoread.com)

Elis wrote in his journal:

I’m listening to the sound of waves outside, glad to have escaped my life. I no longer owe it anything. My tea is almost finished boiling. I’m excited because I’m using the herbs I collected by the waterfall. All this feels fake.

Elis had been living on this beach for several months now. He began to find the peace he so longed for. His old life was unbearable and, one day, decided it was no good anymore. He determined the best thing to do was throw it away, but reconsidered, and threw himself away instead.

He sold all his personal belongings then called his office and told his boss he wouldn’t be showing up that day—or ever again. The boss freaked out, demanding he show up that moment. Elis calmly told him to “shut the hell up.” This wasn’t about him; it was bigger than both of them. Elis wasn’t close to his family nor did he have any real friends, so he didn’t bother to contact anybody. He removed himself from his life and now lived on a remote beach, far away in a place he hardly knew.

Elis sipped his hot tea. He inhaled the intoxicating aroma, allowing it to permeate his senses. Exploring the jungle, he discovered that certain herbs had psychoactive properties. His evenings were beautiful nights of self-discovery and exploration of the cosmic mysteries. Upon the rhythm of crashing waves, he elevated to a higher plane. He transcended beyond the human body, to where reality is irrelevant. Truth blossomed in his mind like a shining star in perfect darkness. Elis sat close to his hearth. Everything glowed in a flickering orange light by the fireside. For the first time in his life, Elis felt safe. There was nothing to fear or pressing deadlines to meet. No, he refused to belong to the modern world. Elis took another drink of his tea then set his cup down and continued writing.

My old life murdered me slowly. Though I’m more vulnerable now than ever, I’m also the most free. In the city, I was safe but dying rapidly. Here I feel my life is my own, not a divided commodity.

A noise outside took Elis’s attention from his journal. He stood and walked through the entryway cloth to have a look outside. Breaking surf and a blue night sky was all he saw. Elis smiled and turned back into his hut. He froze at the entrance. A man in a black suit stood inside his home. “We can’t let you do this. You have to return with me,” he spoke in a calm manner. Elis was shocked. He hadn’t seen anyone since his arrival, and especially never expected anybody like this man.

How are you doing? (orlandotouristsafety.com)

“I’m going back with no one. Who are you? Is this about some unpaid taxes or bills? Because I can assure you…”

“No.” The suited man spoke, “I am not part of any agency. I am your old life, Elis, and I am here to bring you back. Back—to your bullshit life.

Snatching a spear lying against the hut, Elis screamed and charged. The suited man did nothing to defend himself. Elis harpooned the man’s chest, exploded through the hut and crashed into the sand. Elis scrambled to his feet. The businessman lay on the sand with the spear lodged in his chest. The rod looked like a flagpole jerking with his convulsed breathing. Elis towered over the wounded man, regarding him with an unforgiving stare.

“You haven’t escaped. You can’t escape. Why won’t you understand that?” said the man.

Elis grinded his foot into the man’s face and wrenched the spear out of his chest. “I’m never going back,” Elis whispered fiercely.

Suddenly, the earth shook all around him. Zombies exploded out of their shallow graves and came down in showers of sand and barnacles. Elis tried to run but a decaying hand seized his ankle, face-plant into the sand. He screamed as rotting hands emerged from the beach, digging their broken nails into him. The maggot-infested zombies staggered towards Elis. The suit-wearing man laughed hysterically. “You’ll never escape! You’ll never escape!!” Gaping mouths rose through the sand. The zombies closed in on him. He screamed again as he was about to become a zombie buffet. The suited man stared at him and bellowed “Take that, butt-face! HA, HA, HA!”

Fun in the apocalypse. (etsy.com)

The undead moaning drowned out the crashing surf. Elis struggled to free himself. Another diseased hand rose by his head and clutched his face. Through the cold, rotten fingers, Elis watched zombies rise from the shore. The businessman’s laughter boomed in his ear. Elis’s crumbled hut became a giant fireball on the dark beach.

Elis couldn’t think. His mind was in a white panic. He screamed, “Nooooooooooooo!,” and defecated into his pants. A zombie was upon him. Elis saw its yellow eyes and smelled its acidic breath. The zombie neared its yawning mouth to his face. Jagged teeth slowly broke the skin on his cheek until they clamped on muscle. Elis could feel his face being torn from his skull as ligaments snapped audibly inside his head. Blood and sand crusted his eyes.

Thundering footsteps shook his spine as the zombie gnawed his face off. With the raw force of a diesel truck, the zombie exploded into a spray of pus and splintered bones. Elis rag dolled through the air. Disoriented, he struggled to his feet and fell back down. Bloody sand crusted his eyes. He could barely make out hulking shapes silhouetted against his burning hut. They savagely assaulted the lumbering zombies with inhuman speed. One of the giants fell upon the laughing man, screamed with bestial rage and pounded him with colossal fists. The man howled insane laugher until the beast smashed his skull. With the last of the zombies destroyed, the figures turned to Elis. He tried to run, but his leg didn’t work. They moved closer until one of the hulks lifted him in its enormous furry arms. A massive gorilla mug blew hot banana breath in his face.

The mangled body of the businessman jerked to life as if pulled by invisible wires. It tried to speak, but only made angry insect noises. It faced Elis and the gorilla gang before releasing an unnatural screech, swinging his arms frantically. The sand bubbled and a fresh round of undead surrounded them. The gorilla holding Elis shot a knowing look at another gorilla, which nodded back as if to say, “I got it, gorilla brother.” He broke away and threw himself into the blazing hut. The gorilla’s fur instantly caught fire, turning him into a screaming fireball of pure rage. Like a primal comet, he exploded out of the burning hut and flung himself upon the businessman and his zombies. The tantalizing aroma of roasted gorilla meat was impossible for the zombies to resist. They sprang on the sacrificial gorilla and feasted on his flaming flesh.

That’s delicious. (frumforum.com)

The gorilla band took this as their cue to escape. They charged through the burning zombie pack and scattered them like bowling pins. The gorillas were now in their element, running through the jungle with the swiftness of gazelles. Elis tried to see where they were taking him. Plant foliage bitch-slapped his face as they moved at amazing speeds. After a long time, the gorillas finally stopped. His rescuers let him get to his feet.

A small lagoon laid before Elis. The moon light reflected off the pool, turning the surrounding plants into a silver mystery. The gorilla leader nudged Elis towards a hut bathed in the moonlight. The gorillas lined up, creating a path leading directly to the entrance. Elis tried to back away and bumped into a gorilla who gave a warning growl. His only options were to enter the strange hut or piss off the 800-pound gorillas. He walked towards the shelter under watchful eyes and hot gorilla breath. He looked up and saw a row of human skulls arched over a cloth door stained with bloody hands streaks. Elis stood there staring in terrified awe. He hesitated until a gorilla kick to the ass sent him through the blood-spattered door.

A small pile of embers glowed in the center of the floor. The hot air inside the hut felt disgusting on his face. “You have been bitten,” a brittle voice spoke from the embers. An old man with long white hair and tattoos covering his face and body materialized. He sat like a statue, only moving to smoke his pipe. Hanging talismans glinted like tiny green and blue-indigo galaxies orbiting around him. The old man blew out a stream of smoke which moved in snake-like wisps around Elis before finally entering his nose and mouth. Elis became dazed and dropped to his knees.

“Damn, old man, what’s in the pipe?” he said, blinking the psychedelic fuzz out of his eyes.

“Don’t even think about asking for some. Your pansy ass couldn’t handle it,” said the old man and took another hit. “When the moon passes over the horizon, you’ll become one of the undead. By now, you can already feel it spreading through your body.” Elis felt strange. He broke into a sweat, his hands trembled uncontrollably, vision became stained in different colors, and a furry serpent stirred against his stomach and spread through his veins.

The old man sat motionless and watched Elis painfully clutch his stomach. “Yes, it seems the sickness is spreading faster than I thought. You’ll become one of the undead soon enough, and one of my gorillas will have to smash your head like a ripe cantaloupe.” With this analogy the old man exploded into a fit of wheezing geezer laughter and choked on his smoke. “Heh heh heh”—cough—“like a fuckin’ cantaloupe”—cough—“heh… that is a good one…Heh heh.”

Old and wise. (dragonball.wikia.com)

“Hey! I thought your gorilla crew rescued me for a reason! Mix some of those weird-ass herbs together and make an antidote or something! Hey! Listen to me, you old man! I’m gonna turn into one of those things if you don’t help me!” Elis shouted but the old man just sat there, pointing and laughing at him. Enraged, Elis let out an animalistic scream and charged. The old man shrieked and threw a boney fistful of herbs in his face before Elis began strangling him.

They smashed around over the fire. The inside of the hut exploded into a shower of orange embers. Elis and the old man ripped through the cloth door and thrashed into the sand. Elis pinned the old man down, strangling him until his eyes bugged out. Suddenly, Elis released the old man. An ungodly wave of nausea hit, and he vomited a thick, putrid green slime.

The old man quickly got up. “You idiot boy!” he screamed and kicked sand into Elis’s face with his scraggly feet. Elis hurled more emerald sludge.

Elis shoved him back forcefully. “Get away from me, you crazy old kook!” he hollered, wiping his mouth.

“You moron! Wait till my gorillas! Wait—” The old man swung around, his eyes confused. “Where are they?! They’ve vanished!”

“Screw your dumbass gorillas. They’re probably off in the jungle corn-holing each other.”

“Ahhhh!! My hut!” The old man’s home burst into flames. “The cuuuuuuuuuure is in there! All my herbs! Grab it before it’s burned to nothing!”

“Fuck you! I’m not going in there! You burn alive!”

“No! No! I’m too weak and oooooold and will surely die! Don’t you see? If you don’t save the antidote, you’ll become one of the walking dead!”

“Shit!” Elis knew the old man was right. By then, the hut was a house of flames. “It’s the grommet jar with the green feathers. Hurry!” Elis ran to the burning hut. The flames burnt him as he got closer.

“What are you waiting for, you imbecile? Hurry!”

Elis charged into the inferno. Immediately catching fire, he screamed hysterically, grabbing at anything in arm’s length. He crashed out of the burning hut and collapsed in a flaming heap. The old man tried to put out Elis’s flaming body with his skeletal feet, but quickly became tired and urinated on him with his wrinkled wang.

Elis fizzled out in a yellow cloud of steam. The old man frantically rummaged through the charred gourds until finding the right one. He raised it above his head and declared, “Yes! This is it! This is the one! I must admit, I thought you’d burn up faster than a match head, but you did it!” screamed the old man in joy. Elis’s body was collaged in second and third-degree burns.

The old man looked up at the moon drifting off into the horizon. “Quick! The moon is almost gone! Drink it!” ordered the old man before uncorking the gourd and shoving it into Elis’s fire-blistered hands. With hot, white pain shooting through his body, Elis stood up, holding the gourd in the jungle night.

(http://www.allbestwallpapers.com)

“This is the cure? If I drink this, then I won’t become one of them?” he asked, holding the gourd to his mouth.

“Yes!” the old man cried with wild eyes. “The moon! Hurry before it’s too late!” Elis looked at the moon disappearing over the palm tree silhouette. Elis lifted the gourd to his lips only to stop it a hair’s breadth from his mouth. He could save himself…

Elis pulled the gourd away, lowering his burned arm. Slowly, the liquid poured onto the sand.

“No!” the old man gasped, watching the antidote disappear into the ground.

“I’m sick of humanity. This is why I came here—to get away from everyone, but still, people manage to interfere. I don’t even want to be human anymore. Look at all the so-called ‘people’. They’re the real brain-dead zombies. Why would I want to turn into one of them? At least as a zombie, I’ll be able to live in the jungle. Hell, I might even wander to the bottom of the sea and check out what’s going on down there. By the way, old man, you got any more of that stuff you were smoking earlier?”

The old man grabbed Elis by his charred shirt and desperately stared into his face. “But, zombies are evil!”

“Zombies are evil? Look at me! Because of you, I’m human bacon, covered in piss, and a gorilla kicked me in the ass— In the ass! No, you’re evil, along with the entire human race!” accused Elis, pointing a condemning finger at him.

“Where are you going?” shouted the old man.

“I’m’a look for that businessman. After meeting you, maybe he won’t be such an asshole after all,” said Elis as he walked off into the jungle. The old man hurried behind him, pleading for Elis to reconsider, but he would do no such thing. Elis quickened his pace, but he had no idea which way he was going. Completely lost, he moved in whatever direction he pleased, and yet, all the while, couldn’t shake the old man off his trail.

After wandering aimlessly for hours through the sweltering jungle, Elis became exhausted and thirsty. The old man stood next to him, leaning on his walking stick, then looked around until finally seeing what he searched for. Elis watched the old man walk off into the dense vegetation where he lost sight of him. When the old man returned, he presented Elis with a round fruit, one he’d never seen before. The smooth surface was covered with beautiful spirals that changed color in the moonlight. The old man broke off the stem and stabbed two holes into the fruit then passed it to Elis. Reluctantly, he accepted the fruit and drank its juice.

“My god! This is delicious! Is it possible? I can see the flavor of the juice!”

Taste the colors? (http://www.flickr.com)

“Yes, this is one of many plants here that have the property of not only being able to taste its nectar, but see its flavor with your mind as well. There are countless species of plant life here with attributes the world knows virtually nothing of.”

Elis felt himself relax after drinking of the mysterious fruit. In his mind, the aftertaste of the sweet blues and sour yellows lingered in his imagination like the first few seconds after turning away from an impressionist painting. He had to admit that amongst the landfills of bullshit, there existed fleeting moments of pure beauty; the radio playing a song he hadn’t heard in a long time, witnessing somebody wet their pants in front of a crowd, sharing sweet ganja with close friends. Elis floated away on a cloud of nostalgia until he shook his head and the dream state vanished.

What about the ugly things? The grinding stress, failed soul-mates, demeaning jobs that shit on us for eternity. All the destroyed dreams re-destroyed. And forget our petty issues. There is the systematic waging and re-waging of wars based on lunatic rationale. World super powers crush the dirt-poor people of earth. Masses of fools scream in ecstasy, “VICTORY!” for their own demise. The cost of living is astronomically high. We pay our employers to let us work. Every penny earned buys a bullet in a man’s head, a grenade concealed in a woman’s bread basket, an exploding bomb in the sky, a forgotten mine. We’re like a red hot engine raging to its breaking point. The foot of humanity smashes on the gas. Who’s behind the wheel?

“Yo, buttholes.”

The voice caught Elis and the old man off guard. Together, they turned around. The Samurai sat on a stone, drinking a cup of sake from a bamboo jug hanging around his neck. His face was flushed with alcohol, yet he sat still as stone.

“Whoa! A ninja!” exclaimed Elis, amazed.

The Samurai took a drink. “I’m a Samurai, you idiot.”

“Yo.” (strategywiki.org)

Elis ignored the insult. “How do you speak English?”

“The same way you do.”

“Yeah, but what are you doing here?”

The Samurai’s pause had a deeper silence than all the darkness of the jungle. He became like a statue. Elis and the old man stared at the Samurai then looked back at each other, both unsure if he was even breathing. The three of them remained that way in what seemed unnaturally long.

“I am tired.” The Samurai’s words were like black pebbles falling into a chasm. His face and voice lacked expression.

Judging from his tone, Elis couldn’t decide whether the Samurai meant to lay down for rest or renounce the world. Nothing made sense, and thereby, everything made sense. ‘Does that make sense?’ Elis thought to himself.

The old man stepped forward, clearing his throat. “Ahh, yes, hello there. I’m not sure you’re aware, but there is something of a situation on this island. The undead are crawling out of their graves, you see, and there is a man who appears to be controlling them. Now this young imbecilic man here has singlehandedly managed to get himself bitten, destroy my home along with the antidote, and frighten away my noble band of loyal gorillas. Seeing as that zombies will eat anyone without prejudice, it is in everyone’s best interest to work together. Also, it being that you’re a highly trained swordsman and I am a man of science, we can live!”

The Samurai set down his cup of sake. Without looking up, he responded to the old man, “Coming to this island, I left behind a life of blood and sorrow. Like your gorillas, I too was loyal to a Master. In my absolute surrender to his knowledge, I realized the nature of the absolute. In the beginning, everyone is as the both of you are now: afraid, confused, lost, mistaken. There is no shame in this, as there is no shame that a newborn must cry. We feel ourselves trapped in a dark labyrinth of solitude, and so, we search for an escape. At first, each new corridor seems to promise liberation, but only leads to a multitude more. And this, we believe is good, for one of these passageways is sure to let us out. Yet passing through countless thresholds, we find ourselves only infinitely lost, and in despair, we strike the walls and cry out.”

The Samurai paused for another drink before continuing.

“For years and countless sessions of deep meditation, my Master and I searched for an escape. At times, the Master would venture so close to discovering the true way out, but he was an old Master, and it seemed he also neared closer towards death. Through wars and famines, we never wavered in our search, yet time was not on our side. He grew weaker each day. One day, my Master informed me this would be his final attempt, that the mat he meditated on would be his death bed. We partook in a farewell tea ceremony, then sat for my Master’s meditation onto death. Sitting in shared meditation, I sensed him reaching levels of consciousness defying the boundaries beyond good and evil. At the moment before death, he emerged out of meditation and grabbed me. Looking at me with deranged eyes, he muttered, ‘The walls are soft! Soft, they are…’ ‘Master!’ I shouted. At the threshold of death, he looked at me and spoke, ‘Blubber Island’.” The Samurai became silent once more.

“Then what happened?” inquired Elis.

“His head exploded.”

“His head exploded?”

“Yes, it is completely natural when engaging in Harakiri Meisou-suru.”

“Your head explodes?”

“Yes,” the Samurai answered in a matter of fact way.

The old man pushed Elis out of his way. “Yes, exploding heads are unfortunate, but let us stick to the matter at hand. You are a great warrior, and with your skills, we may destroy the zombies on this island, and thus, you may continue your search for this Blubber Island your Master spoke of.”

“It is obvious you do not understand anything I’ve said. Every corridor will only lead to more. I will not choose a way. I will not become lost.”

“So you’re just going to give up and stop searching for a way out? You can’t! You’re a Samurai!” said Elis.

“No. I am not.”

“But you just said you are! When did you stop being one?” Elis demanded to know.

“I never did,” responded the Samurai. Having said so, he poured a cup of sake and drank it without hurry. The Samurai then stood to face Elis and the old man. He gave them a gentle look and with closed eyes, became the embodiment of serenity. The Samurai put his hands together in the pose of meditation and bowed deeply.

Then his head exploded.