The Island From Hell

Chapter 11

Charlie thought that the best person to disclose this information to was Moxxie. She waited til Moxxie was alone, til he had gone off to take a whiz, and then she discreetly approached.

"Mr. Hamiliton." She called softly with her eyes covered.

"Ah!" He said pulling up his pants startled. "Miss Morningstar, didn't anyone tell you not to sneak up on a man trying to relieve himself."

"Sorry to choose this moment to come to you but I need to talk to you about something privately. Something I think you need to know and I...I wasn't sure who could be trusted so I waited til you were alone."

"What do you mean?"

She pulled the tape recorder out from her jacket pocket.

"I found this in Dr. Bodine's tent. It was your father's journal. Listen to the last entry he made."

Moxxie did and it took all his willpower not to start crying when he heard his father's voice. It's amazing how even the sound of the person you loved and lost could cause you to grieve all over again. But grief quickly turned into suspicion when he paid attention to the words that had been recorded.

"Now I haven't heard Dr. Hamiliton speak in a very long time and I could be wrong about this." Charlie said. "But is that his voice?"

"Yes." He answered bitterly. "I'd know my father's voice anywhere."

"So he didn't want this place turned into a theme park or whatever."

"I knew it." Moxxie said getting upset. "I knew there was something fishy about this whole thing. What did Dr. Bodine say?"

"Nothing. He doesn't know that I took the recorder and I haven't showed this to anyone else."

"Good. For now keep this to yourself. At least until we find out what's really going on here."

"Alright, but what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to show this to Blitzo. Find out if he takes his position as a lawyer seriously. In the meantime, you just go back to your tent and act like nothing's changed. Okay?"

"Okay."

"And Charlie."

"Yes?"

"Thanks for telling me this. Not a lot of people would be this honest in circumstances like these."

"You're welcome."

Charlie did as she was told. She went to her tent, finished the last part of her report for today, and began to get ready for bed. She was just about to pull off her shirt to change when she had that feeling again. The one that made her feel like she was being watched.

"Max?" she called, hoping that it was the boy trying to scare her again. "Max is that you?"

She heard footsteps.

"Max if you scare me again, I'm telling your parents this time."

There was no answer. She could see a shadow on the tarp of her tent. Her hands were now starting to tremble. She was suddenly very afraid. She slowly picked up a book with a hard cover and raised it to attack, ever so slowly she pulled back the tent to find that the shadow belonged to Quinlan.

"Oh! Hello Miss Morningstar." He said grinning in attempt to look innocent.

"Mr. Hickey what are you doing creeping around my tent?" Charlie said.

"I wasn't creeping. I was just grabbing a smoke and I happened to thoughtlessly move to your tent. Did I frighten you? I'm sorry."

She looked at his hands. There was no cigarette and she didn't smell tobacco on him. He must have thought that she was really stupid. But she wasn't.