The Most Dangerous Island

When General Zaroff woke up he had no recollection of what had happened. He was in a dimly lit, cold prison cell in the basement of his tropical mansion. He tried to get up but found out that his hands and feet were chained to the wall. Then all of a sudden all the events of the past week came to him. He remembered how Rainsford had jumped out from behind the bedroom curtain and knocked him out with the pistol butt that he had obtained from the room. He was outraged and started throwing the contents in the cell at the barred door and yelling at the top of his lungs. After several minutes of this he stopped and heard footsteps coming down the old, creaking wooden stairs. When Rainsford appeared at the door he saw Zaroff sitting quietly on his small, straw cot.

He said in a cold voice, “How was your sleep general it would have been tragic if you froze down here”

“It was pleasant and cozy now that you mention it, but I could use a good night’s sleep in a warm bed,” said the General in a way just as menacing. ” I congratulate you for winning the game and I am curious to know why I am in my own prison cell. I was going to let you go remember? I always keep my promises.”

“You are in here because u are a murderer and deserve to die like the victims you have killed. You are to report to me whether or not you wish to die being hunted or to die with a rope around your neck,” Rainsford said as he was walking away.

“But wait I thought that it was a fair deal that I let you go if you win. You can’t do this to me I gave you food and a place to stay after you fell of your boat, said Zaroff pleading even though he knew it was useless.

“You’re pleading will not help you anymore. You hunted me and you will have a choice just like I did. I hope you choose wisely,” he said as he walked up the stairs leaving the pitiful general behind.
After Rainsford went upstairs, Zaroff hastily checked his pockets for his key to a secret trap door he had in the cell. He installed the trapdoor in the cell just in something went wrong and he found himself on the wrong side of the bared door. After a few tense minutes of searching he found it in a corner under the bed. He quickly inserted the tiny key in the key hole, and lifted the door up slowly as to not make any sound. When the door was all the way open he dropped into the shoulder high, manmade tunnel and pulled the door closed behind him.

While Zaroff was making his escape attempt, Rainsford was quickly making his way to the library. When he had knocked out Zaroff two days earlier, the small key to the trapdoor fell out of his breast pocked onto the floor. Rainsford wondered what it could be for and set off to Zaroff’s sleeping chambers hoping to find his diary after putting him in the cell. He found the mysteriously blood red diary in a draw in his bedside table. After reading through the horrors of Zaroff’s diary he found the page with what the key was for and a diagram of the tunnel and where it led. He then went back to the cell and quietly slipped the key back into the unconscious Zaroff pocket hoping that he would use the key to escape for his own plan to succeed.

When Zaroff finally made it to the library were the tunnel ended he saw Rainsford fumbling with the rifle on the mantle of the fireplace. He slowly crept out of the tunnel opening and was about to grab a vase to throw at him when Rainsford said, “I’ve been expecting you Zaroff you feel right into my trap. There is nowhere for you to run and you have no weapons.”

“I’m surprised at you Rainsford. How did you find out about the tunnel?’

“Found your key and looked in your diary and found what it was used for. Now time for you to die,” Rainsford said. But when the word “die” came out of his mouth Zaroff threw the vase he had been holding at his head and it landed with a shatter of glass. Some of it cut into Rainsford’s face and he fell screaming, the gun dropping to the out of his hands to the floor. Zaroff ran to the gun and shot Rainsford twice in the chest and ran to his room and opened a secret safe that held all of his money. He packed it into sacks and ran outside into the bitter, black night to his 30 foot boat that he kept hidden in a cove along the shore. Once the money was loaded up he went back inside and got some supplies that would last him a few days until he reached the mainland. He started the boat and pulled it into the channel completely forgetting about the rocks that lay there waiting for their next victim. Zaroff put the boat on full throttle and smashed strait into the jagged rocks off the port bow. He stood at the helm in dumbfounded at his own stupidity. Then started to make his way to the back of the sinking ship where he kept a life boat that is used in case of emergencies.

As he was making his way to the stern, he went to his cabin and grabbed some food and basic supplies that he would need. Just when he was about to grab the last can of food the boat lurched and groaned when a wave hit the side of it making the hole even wider. The dresser that Zaroff was standing next to feel on top of him and broke his leg instantly with its mighty weight. Zaroff let out a sharp cry of help but none cam. As the water quickly poured into the boat and over his head, he saw his life flash before his eyes and realized what he had done and hoped that hell was forgiving to him.