Welcome to Nightmare Island

Welcome to Nightmare Island Devin Cabrera Copyright © 2023 Devin Cabrera All rights reserved. ISBN 9798386803124 Cover art by Greg Chapman CHAPTER One Jonah awoke with a start. Through half-closed eyelids he looked at the clock on his bedside table: 3 AM. He groaned and shifted in his blankets. Blinking rapidly, Jonah struggled to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Shadows of tree branches danced across the walls of his room as light from the moon cast its glow through the open window. He watched as the curtains billowed along with the cold breeze that floated in. Something didn’t feel right about the room. Did he leave the window open? Of course not, it was the middle of winter. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up. It felt like someone was watching him. Jonah cast his gaze around the room, searching for the culprit. That’s when he saw it. A massive dark shadow was lurking at the foot of his bed. Jonah tried to look closer, to make out what it was, but his eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light in the room. Then the shadow began to move, inching closer to Jonah. He sat bolt upright in his bed, eyes glued to the moving shadow coming ever closer. Suddenly, a pair of thick gnarled hands reached out of the darkness, visible only through the moonlight coming in through the window. He screamed as the hands curled around his ankles and pulled. Then he woke up. Audrey was shaking Jonah’s foot. “Wake up babe, we’re gonna be late,” she said. Satisfied that his eyes were finally open, she walked out of the room to wake up one of their other sleeping friends. Jonah looked around the room, searching for the dark shadows, the unknown creature with those thick gnarled hands. He didn’t see anything. Taking in some ragged breaths, he reached onto the nightstand for his inhaler. Finding it, he brought it to his face and took two steady pulls from the container. He steadied himself, allowing a few moments for his breathing to return to normal. Rolling over, he grabbed his notebook from his bedside table and jotted down a few notes about his dream. Jonah allowed himself to relax a little before switching his gaze over to the alarm clock again. 7 AM. Shit, they really were going to be late, Jonah thought. He threw off his blanket, rushing over to the dresser to get changed. “Does everyone have everything they need?” Audrey called out from the other room. A chorus of yes’s could be heard throughout the house. “Then let’s go, I’d be a much happier person if we didn’t get stuck in traffic on the way there.” Their group of friends were about to leave for the next stop on their yearly horror trip. They were horror junkies, and every October since college they had taken a trip to spooky places throughout the country. Other people like horror movie marathons, they preferred the real thing. In the past they had gone to Salem, Massachusetts -- the location of the witch trials, the Amityville Horror house, the Charles Manson house, and many more. This year they had something new in mind. A brand-new horror-filled attraction that was supposed to be scarier than all the rest combined. Needless to say, they were thrilled. Jonah grabbed a brass pocket watch from the top of his nightstand. Fitting in the palm of his hand, the pocket watch shell was ornately decorated like nothing he had ever seen. The casing had a carved insignia of a ram skull over a pentagram. The brass front had been rubbed down, worn by countless hands passing over it. It had been a gift from Jonah’s father and had been passed down from his father before him, and his father before him as well. For countless generations, this watch had been in the family. And now it belonged to Jonah. He stopped, opening the watch to reveal a photo of his parents under its lid. They had both died tragically in a car accident when he was younger, leaving him to be raised by his grandfather. His grandfather had been a little crazy. A very eccentric old man who seemed a tad obsessed with the existence of ghosts, which he passed down to his grandson Jonah. He slipped the watch into his pocket and left the room. Jonah’s friends began filing through the hallway, each dragging their luggage behind them. First came Annie and Chuck. These two had met in college and had been joined at the hip ever since. Annie was originally a friend of Audrey’s, and Chuck was a friend of Jonah’s. One day they each decided to bring a friend as a plus one and they hit it off immediately. Chuck was tall, handsome, and voted “most likely to succeed” in high school. Chuck’s father was one of the most successful lawyers in their area, and he instilled that drive to succeed in his son as well. He received perfect grades in school and was even captain of the school football team. Chuck followed in his father’s footsteps of protecting the innocent, and soon after college, he became a deputy at the local sheriff’s office, where his large frame tended to come in handy. Annie wasn’t that bad looking herself. She was blonde with blue eyes, and legs that went on for days. Athletic in her own right, she led her college tennis team to its first championship in half a century. Annie came to a stop beside them with her pink luggage by her side. Jonah heard a commotion coming from the hallway and knew that Kevin was close behind. Kevin was the third wheel of their group. While the rest of the group was out doing couple things, Kevin tended to make fun of them for public displays of affection, that is, unless he was trying to track down a date of