Z Island Series (Book 1): Escape From Z Island Read online

  Escape From

  Z ISLAND

  TERRENCE OSBORNE JR.

  Copyright © 2016 by Terrence Osborne Jr.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  First Printing: 2016

  ISBN: 979-8643651376

  Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

  U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact Terrence Osborne Jr; email [email protected].

  Dedication

  To my lovely family and friends.

  Thank you. Without your support and patience, I would have never achieved my dream.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JUST THIS ONCE

  Sam, a tall 18-year-old boy with short black hair and brown eyes, walks out into the beaming sunlight and squinted his eyes as if he hadn't been outside in forever. He looks around and lets out a deep exhale while rubbing his head. Walking over to the mailbox, he smiles with excitement. He opens the mailbox and pulls out the mail, only to hide his smile away again.

  “Man! Where is it?”

  He flipped through the mail, stops at one letter, pulls it out, and notices it’s from his best friend, Dylan.

  “Oh, no.” Sam burst into the house and runs into the kitchen where his mother, Tina, is cooking. He slams all the mail on the counter and walks away. Tina jumps and turns around with a knife in her hand.

  “Jesus, Sam! Why did you do that?”

  “Dylan did it. He invited me!”

  “Well isn’t that a good thing?”

  “No! I told him no!” Sam stormed upstairs, goes into his room, and flops in his bed.

  Tina stars blankly at the ground, looking almost as if she was about to cry. She goes to Sam’s room and opens his door. She sits in his chair and looks at him. “What’s going on with you has nothing to do with Dylan. You know that right?”

  Sam sits up and looks at Tina. “Yes, I know, but you know I don’t like ships anymore. Not after Dad and Matthew.”

  “That happened, but you can’t just refuse to go because of what happened to them. I want you to go. Not because of that, but because you need it,” she explained. Sam looked down and stood up along with Tina. He then hugged her hard and held that position in silence.

  “I miss them,” Sam sighed.

  “I miss them too.”

  Tina hugs him back and cries silently. The doorbell rings and Tina let go of Sam, wiping her eyes. “I got it,” she says. Tina walks downstairs and walks towards the door while Sam stands in the middle of the staircase observing who is at the door. When Tina opens the door, she smiles and let a boy and a girl in. It’s Dylan and his girlfriend, Sarah. Dylan smiles with his big bright smile and hugs her warmly. He is tall with brown hair and big brown eyes.

  “Hey, Ms. Williams. How are you?”

  “I’m good. How about yourself?”

  Dylan rubs his hair back, “Not bad. No bad.”

  Tina turns over to Sarah and smiles. “Hey.”

  Sarah is tall with short, blonde hair with green eyes as green as smooth grass. “Hi, Ms. Williams.”

  “Where’s Sam?” Dylan asks. Sam walks down the stairs and looks at Dylan. “Really man? You do this to me?”

  “Hey! Sammy!” Dylan goes up to Sam for a high-five, but Sam pulls his hand back and chuckles.

  “Oh, you’re wrong for that! So, did you get my little invitation?”

  “Yes, but sadly I’m-”

  “Going. He’s going,” Tina interrupted. Sam looks at her with awe, but Tina doesn’t look back at him. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Well, you don’t have a choice. If this is going to be your last year at this house before you’re going off to Florida to college, then you are having a break while you’re in this house.” Sam grunted and walked into the living room.

  “Come on Sam. Just do it for us this one time. Please?” Sarah begged.

  Sam looked at all of them and Dylan. “You have something to say, don’t you?”

  “Yes! Just come with us! I mean I know as your loving friend that it would take FOREVER trying to get you to go on a cruise. You’re a pain, but I have to keep trying. Come on.”

  Sam sighs loudly, “Fine, but just this once.”

  “Good because the cruise is in three days!” Dylan mentioned.

  “What! Three days?” Sam yelled.

  Dylan laughs, “Yep Sammy. I knew you weren’t going to open that invitation. It’s in a week.” Sam hits Dylan in the shoulder and laughs along with him.

  “So, did you get the letter from the college?” Sarah asked.

  “No, that’s what I was looking for before I got your invitation.”

  “They will send you one. I’m sure.”

  “Oh, by the way, I made something for you guys,” Sam said.

  Sam leads them up to his room and sits down at his desk. He pulls up a video of all of them from when they first met.

  “I created a video. You know, from when we first met to now.”

  Sam played the video and it was a montage of them playing around and taking pictures while music played softly in the background. Sarah’s eyes start to water and Dylan felt sad as they all watched the video. It was moments of happiness and they all knew they were going their separate ways. The video ended and Sarah wiped her eyes.

  “I’m going to miss you guys!” Sam said.

  Sam stood up and they all hugged each other. “Promise me we’ll stick together,” Sam said.

  Sarah and Dylan promised as they continued to hug each other in silence.

  One week later, Sam is packing the last of his clothes for the cruise and he zips his luggage bag closed. “I got this,” he says to himself. Tina knocks on the door, “You ready?”

  “Yeah. As much as it pains me to admit it, I am.”

  Sam walks out of the house and puts his bag in the trunk. When he gets into the car, his phone vibrates. It was a message from Dylan:

  Hurry up and get your ass down here.

  Sam laughs and puts his phone in his pocket. They finally arrived at the dock where Dylan and Sarah are waving very foolishly at Sam.

  “Save me, Jesus. I’m about to be trapped with these two.”

  Tina laughs, “I think you’ll manage.”

  Sam meets them at the front of the ship, but Sam stops and stares at the ship with uncertainty.

  “Jesus, what did I just get myself into?”

  “A week of awesomeness I say!” Dylan interrupted.

  “Let me get a picture of you guys!” Tina said.

  They all get together and smile big for the picture. After Tina takes it, she lets them look at it and Sarah laughed.

  “What?” Tina asked.

  “We look like an Oreo cookie!”

  “Oh, wow babe. Good one.” Dylan said with sarcasm.

  “Screw you.”

  “Later.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Okay, didn’t want to hear that!” Sam said as he goes into the trunk and grabs his bags.

  Sam closes the trunk and walks up to Tina, “See you later mom. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Sam hugs her and w
alks alongside Dylan, “I so hate you right now.”

  “Aww…love you too!”

  Sam laughed as they started to get on the ship. Sam turned around and waved goodbye to Tina and she waved back with excitement. The ship horn sounds off and scares Sam half to death.

  “Nope. Feeling’s gone. Get me off.” Sam joked.

  They all started laughing while the ship pulled away from shore and headed off into the vast ocean.

  “To the Bahamas!” Dylan yelled.

  Sam looked around the ship. There were people everywhere, walking around smiling and laughing. In front of the ship was two tall water slides that kids seemed to love. Inside was a casino and clubs, bars, everything Sam didn’t think would actually be on the ship.

  “Wow, this is pretty big!” Sam said.

  “Yeah, it’s nice. Come on. I can show you our rooms.”

  Dylan opens their room door and starts chuckling repeatedly as they all admired the room. Sam looks around and gets lost in his own mindset of how amazing the room looked. “Dude, I’m kind of jealous,” Sam said.

  “Don’t be. Got you a sweet room too. Right next door.” Dylan gives Sam the keys and walks to his room.

  While Sam is following Dylan, he notices a girl that is staying two doors away from him. Before she gets in, she gazes at him, but he quickly avoids her and jumps into the room.

  “See something you like?” Dylan asks.

  “Nope. Damn, I can’t look?”

  “My bad. So, listen, what do you say we unpack and meet at the bar in 30 minutes?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Perfect. Later gator.”

  Dylan walks away and Sam closes the door and stares into his room. Sam puts his luggage on the bed and opens it up. Inside he brought a picture of him, Matthew, and his dad out of the bag and placed it on the stand in the room, “I’ll be okay.”

  Hours later, they’re relaxing at the casino laughing and talking. “You almost won something.” Sarah laughed.

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  Sam takes a sip of his drink and notices two men looking suspicious at the crowd, and then they walked away.

  “Sam?” Sarah waved in his face.

  “Yes?”

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah. I’m good.”

  Sam then spots the girl he had seen earlier walking up and he pats Dylan, “Hey, that’s the girl I was looking at earlier.”

  She was tall and sleek, with long brown hair that stretched to the middle of her back with big, beautiful blue eyes.

  “So, you were looking at something!”

  “Not something. Her.”

  “Well, go talk to her. You might get lucky.”

  “Really? A cruise ship is such a romantic place to flirt.”

  “Well, you seem to already be doing it.”

  The girl walks over to him and extends her hand. “Julie.” She said.

  “Sam.” He shakes her hand. “I’m sorry, but how-”

  “You’re not the brightest when it comes to ‘not’ noticing other girls,” she laughs.

  Sam laughs, “Yeah. Sorry. So, you’re alone on this cruise?”

  “No. I’m here with my sister. We’re having our little ‘alone time’ from parent and such before graduation. You?”

  “I’m actually forced on this ship, but they suggested I do so before I graduate also.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep! And he’s going to love it too!” Dylan interrupted.

  “Yes. This is Dylan and his girlfriend, Sarah. They’re my friends.”

  “Hi,” Julie says to both of them.

  “So, where is your sister?”

  “You know what? I have no idea.”

  Dylan asked the bartender for another drink and passed it to Julie.

  “Here you go!” he says as he slides it to her.

  “Thanks.” Julie drinks from the glass and squints her face. “Oh! That’s strong!”

  “I know. You have to take it like a wo-man!” Dylan yells.

  “Oh, wow Dylan,” Sarah says.

  “Here we go,” Dylan raises his glass in the air, “To staying close and making new friends.” He looks at Sam and Julie, “Hopefully with benefits.”

  Sam looks at Julie nervously and embarrassed, “To staying close.”

  Everyone raises their glasses and claps them together. Julie puts the glass down and looks back to find her sister. “Where are you?” she murmurs.

  “Oh! Dylan look! The captain’s here!” Sarah points.

  In the main room of the ship, the captain has come onto the stage and stands in position as everyone confronts him. Sarah gets excited.

  “Why are you so excited?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just…excited!”

  “Well tell me how it goes,” Dylan says.

  “Where are you going?” Sarah asked.

  “Bathroom. I got to go.”

  The captain taps the microphone and speaks. “Good evening and welcome aboard my lady, The Sanctum. I’m glad to be your captain for tonight and I just wanted to give my personal welcome quickly before I crash the ship by being here.” The crowd laughs.

  Dylan is in the restroom, but he hears some men walking away. When he finishes washing his hands, he peeks out of the restroom and noticed men carrying guns. They were moving quickly and quietly into the hall and Dylan snuck out of the restroom and headed for Sam and Sarah.

  “Well, that is all the time I have, but please do enjoy your cruise at-” a gunshot interrupts the perfect evening and the captain falls off the stage, gurgling in blood and bleeding from the chest.

  The crowd screams and began running, but other men surrounded them and pointed guns at them, forcing them to stay back. Some people refused, so the men opened fire at some of the passengers. Dylan sees all of this but doesn’t approach any of them. He looks at Sarah and Sam and waves his hand to get their attention. Sarah notices Dylan and taps Sam.

  “Look! It’s Dylan!” she whispers.

  Sam spots Dylan and tells him to go back so he wouldn’t be caught. Dylan nods and heads back to think about how he’s going to get to them. While heading back, Dylan spots men going into rooms, pulling people out of their rooms, and screaming at them.

  “Get off of me!” the woman yelled.

  “Get moving, bitch!” the man shouted.

  He hits her with the gun and pushes her forward against the wall. Dylan didn’t move. He stared and watched that man abuse her wishing he could do something, but he thought about Sarah and Sam and chose to do nothing.

  In the main room, one man walked on the stage and picks up the microphone.

  “Well, this took a turn for the worse.” He laughed. “I know this is all unexpected for you guys, but if you all just stay calm, we will have no problem.”

  “You are a murderer!” a woman yelled from the crowd.

  “Who said that?” The man looked around and spotted the woman who yelled that and threw his hand up. That alerted the men to go and grab the woman. When they reached for her, she started screaming and refusing to go with them, but the two men picked her up and carried her to the stage. “Put her down,” he demanded. He squats down next to her and smiles, “Now what’s your name?”

  “None of your goddamn business!” She yelled.

  “Well, how rude. The name’s Paul.” Paul grabs his gun out of his back pocket and shoots the woman in her head. All of the passengers screamed, but the men shot in the air to quiet them down.

  Julie hid behind Sam and Sarah looked around for Dylan, but at the same time, held her attention to the guards.

  “Now you see what happens when you fuck with me. You end up like her.”

  Meanwhile, Dylan goes into the restroom and looks in the mirror. “Come on Dylan. Get it together. Get it tog-” Dylan hears slow footsteps approaching the restroom, so he hides in one of the stalls. He closes the door gently, but when he steps on the toilet, he slips off it and slams his foot on the floor. S
am is starting at the exit looking around for Dylan, but there is no sight of him.

  “Right now, one of my men is controlling this ship of yours as we speak, so your little trip to the Bahamas is taking a reroute,” Paul mentions.