"The Isle..."

"The Isle..." Prologue and Part I...

"The Isle..."

PG 13

Summary: What "Riverdale" did to "Archie and Jughead" and "Betty and Veronica", I'm doin' to "Gilligan's Isle" ...

Disclaimer: All characters of Gilligan's Isle remain property of that series...Any resemblance of fictional characters to those living or dead is purely coincidental...

Prologue...

An apparently deserted stretch of beach, on an apparently deserted island uncharted and lost in the South Pacific...Thousands of miles from civilization...

A relatively small charter boat, clearly having borne the brunt of heavy seas and storms, with several large holes likely torn open by the island's coral reef and rocky shoals...Beached and leaning on one side... "S.S Minnow, Island Charter..." visible on its upper front side.

Aboard, the tempest-tossed crew of two accompanied by five charter passengers, exhausted by the struggle with the heavy seas, sleep the sleep of the unknowingly damned...

All but one...

Still awake, despite near-heroic exertions...Not only awake but alert and watchful...

Though, for his own reasons, choosing to conceal his wakeful state for now...Only with infinite care stealthily rising to survey the beach and the ship for brief periods.

For he is not what he may seem...

Eyeing his unconscious comrades on deck...Three of them passengers...

Mary Wholesomeby, the nearest...In gingham dress, innocent smile on her face as she sleeps, stretched on deck, covered by an extra tarpaulin, her braided hair matted beside her face. A tourist in the Hawaiian Islands who'd never guessed how fateful her impulsive decision to board the Minnow for a three-hour tour of the more distant and less known islands would be...Nor how she'd been used as a pawn in a game even the players only partially understood.

He paused at viewing the next passenger, a rather surprisingly famous one...The star of a number of reasonably successful TV series and some films, likewise reasonably successful and regarded...Ginger Grant, sprawled about a portion of deck, her famed red hair tossed about her, still in the quite elegant green gown she'd boarded in three days ago, covered by a yellow oilskin coat, her high-heeled shoes kicked into a corner....

Equally clueless as to the fatefulness of her decision to board and her status as another mere pawn, despite her claims to Hollywood-style fame. A desire to momentarily escape an overly enthusiastic fan group pursuing her on her "vacation" as well as a tourist's curiosity motivating her.

The third, also sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, a tall man in his early forties, of striking good looks and reasonably good build, Professor Roy Walter Hinkle, professor of both chemistry and physics at a small state college...

Though likewise a pawn, a man with deeper motive than mere tourist's curiosity for making this supposedly brief and entertaining voyage.

The fourth, a heavy-set man, seated in a bolted desk chair, captain's hat askew on his balding, white-haired head, likely the most exhausted of all, Captain, or as he preferred to designate himself, "Skipper" of the Minnow, Jonas Grumbie...A Navy veteran who'd seen battleship duty as a junior officer and commanded a light cruiser before his retirement a number of years ago...

His supposed retirement...Equivalent to his supposed former duties in the Navy...Not entirely summing him up.

Known to friends and many others throughout the South Seas as an old salt, a bit cantankerous but a true lover of the sea and a capable and able sailor who'd refused to give up the sea in retirement, choosing to start a small charter business rather than accept a number of more lucrative and shore-based offers....