The Adventures of Arbuckle: The Island of Lost Souls
The Adventures of Arbuckle
The Island of Lost Souls
There was nothing but an expanse of blue beneath Jon as he dropped toward the ocean. All he could do was scream loudly, and flail his limbs as he fell.
The closer he came, he started to see something else, but couldn't focus on what it was, since he was too busy plummeting, but whatever it was, he was headed right for it.
When Jon finally landed, and found what he hit was surprisingly solid and dry.
He got up, and found himself in a small rowboat with a couple of oars and a length of rope. When he looked around, and saw nothing but blue in every direction.
"Somebody," Jon shouted, hoping for the off chance that he would be heard. "Anyone!? Boys!? Garfield!? Odie!?"
He was alone. Completely isolated in an endless expanse of water.
Jon slumped in one of the boat's seats, unsure if he would be able to get out of this situation. Even still, his pets were somewhere out there, and he wouldn't find them by sulking. After a moment of searching, Jon picked a direction, and started rowing.
"Garfield! Odie!" Jon shouted his pet's names every few strokes or so, knowing they wouldn't answer, but in the back of his mind, he desperately hoped to hear one of them respond.
Jon rowed for what felt like forever to him. As he traveled, a fog rolled in, keeping him from seeing anything around him, and deepening his sense of isolation.
His strength waned with every stroke of the oars, but his resolve grew. He had come so far, and he wasn't about to give up on finding his pets. Come fog, storm or rough waters, he was going to find them, even if he had to do it alone.
But nobody is ever truly alone at sea.
Below the surface a large figure swam, circling the curious silhouette above it. It was different from anything the creature had seen before, but from past experiences, anything on the surface was edible. Food was hard to come by in the open ocean, and it was going to take this opportunity to sate its appetite.
Back on the surface of the water, Jon trudged on, unaware that his ordeal was about to become much more difficult. His first sign was when the water started to swell, followed by a large mass of bubbles.
"There's a Garfield-sized burp, if I ever saw one," Jon said whimsically as he rowed, unaware of what exactly flipped the train during his last adventure. "Wait a second!"
A Garfield-sized burp? Maybe there was a chance!
"Nah. He hates water. He won't even go near it after he watched 'The Dimwitted Teens of Shark Attack Bay.'"
Little did Jon know that he was about to end up living one of those cheesy B-horror movies that Garfield loved so much.
With a loud splash, something broke through the water very near Jon and sailed high into the air. He couldn't see what it was exactly. Only that it was big. Very big.
He looked up to see what it was, only to lose sight of it in the fog. The only thing he could see was its mouth open wide as it fell back towards the water.
Jon screamed and rowed faster when he realized that it was about dinnertime, and he was on the menu.
He rowed with all his might, in an effort to escape his gigantic predator.
For the most part, it was not in vain, but with only his limited wimpy strength, all he could do was paddle just out of the way of the monster.
The resulting splash created a swell that heaved the boat, sending Jon flying out of his seat and into the water.
Jon held his breath as he was suddenly plunged into his foe's territory, but almost lost it when he finally got a good look at his aggressor.
It was blue in color. Almost completely blue, except for its pitch black head. Scratch that. Its head was pitch black, except for its open, pink mouth full of gleaming white teeth.
It paddled quickly towards him with four webbed feet, and a rudder-like tail.
Jon spun out of its way, but got struck by one of the creature's feet.
Jon was sent spinning by the blow, flipping end over end in the water. When he stopped upside-down, he saw the creature swimming back towards him.
He pulled his head out of the way just as it passed under him.
He righted himself as the creature came back and paddled just above it, bumping its snout, and sent tumbling across its back as it passed again.
From the energy he was expending, and the time he spent under the water, his breath was growing short. He needed to get back to the surface, and fast. And nothing motivated a man like the giant monster swimming below them.
The creature opened its mouth to swallow Jon, only for his hooves to be jammed in its mouth.
It paddled upward more and more, shaking its head so that its prey would be washed into its maw, until it finally reached the surface. Once there, it snapped its jaws shut, anticipating the satisfying crunch of a meal.
Instead, Jon jumped ever so slightly, so that his four hooves balanced on the creature's snout.
Wasting no time to escape, Jon jumped into the water as the creature splashed back into the ocean.
Ahead of him, he could see the shadow of his boat through the fog.
He swam forward as quickly as he could, knowing what was surely close behind him. He swam harder and harder, the boat seemingly floating further away from him.
There was no more time. The longer he stayed in the water, the more danger he was in.
Finally, he reached the boat, and climbed aboard just as he heard the snap of jaws behind him.
Jon was out of danger now, but only slightly. He was still well within the reach of the beast, and now he couldn't tell where it was, now that it dove under the water again.
Then he saw the rope on the boat unraveling. Somehow, the rope had gone overboard, and was now snagged on the creature.
That was it! Now that the rope was attached to it, he could pinpoint its position.
"Wait a second," Jon thought, "The only reason for a rope to be on a rowboat is to tie it to something so it won't drift away. That would mean..."
The length of rope was almost done unraveling, when Jon saw the other end of it tied to the boat. He should have known. Things like this were becoming so routine for him.
"Why me," Jon sighed, before he yelled for dear life as the boat was suddenly jerked forward at high speed.
He held fast to the boat as it skipped over the waves, threatening to send him back into the ocean.
Up ahead, Jon saw another large shadow through the fog. Then another, and another after that. And he was headed right for them. As he got closer, he saw he was headed straight toward a group of rocks.
Jon swerved the boat to the side, missing one rock, and scraping the bottom of the boat up the face of another.
The boat sailed through the air, until it landed on the top of a shorter rock and bounced off onto another and another, and another after that.
The creature weaved through a closely packed cluster of rocks, draining the color from Jon's face when he saw where he was headed.
He steered the boat as best he could, as the rope hooked onto the curvature of the rocky formations and sent him swerving wildly through the water.
Ahead, there was a barricade of rocks that were too close together to pass.
The creature jumped to avoid them, but Jon could do no such thing.
His mind raced for a solution as the rocks got closer to him, but he came up short.
The barricade was upon him now, and all he could see was the spaces between them, which were only big enough for a pony to squeeze through.
It was his only chance.
Jon arranged his four legs so that they were placed one in front of the other, sucked in his gut, and prayed for mercy.
The two sides of the boat shattered, allowing him to stand only in the middle of it like a makeshift surfboard.
This new mount was much more difficult to balance on. Jon wobbled back and forth as he dodged each rock, nearly falling over each time he did.
Beneath him, one of the rocks was slanted, so that only its top part could be seen above the water. Except that Jon couldn't see it through the fog.
As he was pulled through the water, he felt the board beneath his hooves scrape the bottom of the rock, and then he felt himself pulled through the air.
The creature in the water below looked up, and saw its snack flying above it. Now was the perfect opportunity to rise up, and snap down on its hard earned prey.
But if only it were looking where it was going, and didn't crash head first into the oncoming rocks.
Jon flew free of the board, sailed out of the fog, and into the sunlight once more. Grateful that he now had clear vision, he was even more grateful when that clear vision yielded land, and he was headed right towards it.
He lost momentum, and went down, only to skip across the surface of the water like a stone. After a few skips, and he was closer to shore, he started tumbling end over end across the water, until he felt mud beneath him. Once on land, he skidded to a halt on his face, and got a mouthful of sand.
"I don't believe it! After almost thirty years, look who washes up on my shore!" Jon heard a voice say.
He looked up from the sand to see a pony with a black mane and a bushy mustache, who was clothed in a green turtleneck sweater and black khakis.
Jon stood up and spat out the sand in his mouth. "Sorry, but do I know you from somewhere," he asked.
The other pony shook his head lightly. "Can't say I blame you if you don't remember me. Last time I saw you, you were in a body cast after Garfield blew you both up with a killer bubble bath."
"Wait! You know Garfield!?"
"Yeah, I know him. He used to terrorized the heck out of my poor dog. Speaking of: how's Odie doing?"
It all came rushing back to Jon. He recalled a time when there was more than just himself, Garfield and Odie. A time when he had a human confidant, who gave him a sense of connection with a real human being. Something he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.
"No! Way!" Jon said as it hit him like a train.
"You'd better believe it, buddy. I'm back, and better than ever," the mustachioed pony said. He then paused, waiting for Jon to continue their reminiscence.
However, Jon remained silent. It didn't come as a surprise, given how nobody else knew his name. The pony decided to help Jon along.
"Lyman."
Then it really hit Jon. His jaw dropped to the ground, a feat that only Garfield had done when he destroyed the living room on a scale incomprehensible to the civilized mind. Jon tried to speak, but it only came out in incoherent sputters.
"You-- But-- Disappeared-- You went--"
"Yup," Lyman finished for Jon. Apparently Jon's message was getting through well enough.
"But you were--"
"I know."
"But I was--"
"Uh-huh."
"Then you--"
"Yeah, sorry about that."
"And now you're--"
"That's right. Welcome to my new home." Lyman motioned for Jon to take a look at where he was now.
Jon looked before himself, and saw only the beach around him and a ridge before him. Past the ridge, he could see something else poking over the top of it in the distance, but from where he was, he couldn't tell what it was. And all around, the color was different shades of the same drab brown. Not a dot of variety was found in the color of the landscape. The sand, the rocks, the ridge, they all looked the same to him.
"It's a...nice place you got here. A little bland, but it looks homey."
"About as good a home as any, I guess," Lyman answered, "But my place is over here. Why don't I show you around?"
At first, Jon hesitated. He hadn't seen his friend in so long, he wanted to take things slow and catch up on all the lost time with him. He knew that normally, Lyman would have done the same. Now, it felt like Lyman was cutting pleasantries short for some reason.
"Come on, Jon. We have a schedule we like to keep around here," Lyman called from up ahead. Jon scurried forward, and caught up with his friend to explore his new surroundings.
The walk up the hill was short, and as soon as they crossed over the ridge, Jon saw before him a small, quiet town with rocky buildings that looked like they were built right out of the formations, with a pitiful little farmland nearby. He could see ponies walking around, doing their sundry activities, living their lives peacefully. All and all, it was very austere, and familiarly mundane.
Past the town, he could see a mesa with what looked like a cave at the top of it. Other than its size, jagged formations, and steep slopes, Jon could find nothing of particular note about it.
"And that's the grand tour," was all Lyman said as he walked down the slope into the town.
"Huh," Jon said as he followed behind his friend, "But there has to be more than this. Aren't there any nearby towns we can go to?"
"There's only one town on this island, and this is it."
"Island!?" Jon knew he was far from civilization, but he was hit hard when he learned just how far he was. "Is there a way back to the mainland from here?"
"Nope," Lyman answered briefly as they entered one of the buildings, likely his house. Once they were inside, Lyman began packing various foods into a bag. "People only come to this island. Nobody knows how we do, but this is where we come to stay."
"But that can't be right. I know if I lived here, I'd want to move," Jon said.
From what little he saw, Jon knew this wasn't the most desirable place to live. In fact, the only person he knew who lived in such a minimalist, dreary condition was a guru who tried to convert Jon to his way of living.
"Well, that ain't in the books, Jon. For all anyone else cares, we can all stay here forever," Lyman answered as he left his home with Jon in tow.
Jon couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was there really no way off the island? And stranger still, the pony he was talking to sounded nothing like the Lyman he knew back home. From when they met in high school, to the day he disappeared, Lyman was always amiable and funny. Now, he sounded cynical and brazen.
"What's that supposed to mean? For all who cares," Jon asked.
"Take a look around you, Jon. Get a good look at the ponies here," Lyman said as he indicated the various ponies around them.
Jon did so, and saw that each of the ponies had the same grim look on their faces, as if they were simply drudging through their lives, with nobody to help them through it. He also noticed how each one of them acted like they didn't acknowledge one another as they walked about. One stallion walked right by a mare who was obviously struggling to pull a heavy sack of something down the road toward the direction of the mesa.
"We don't know all that much about each other, but everyone here has one thing in common: the world doesn't need us in it," Lyman continued as he and Jon walked down the road past the mare, "It doesn't matter how much we helped others, or that we made people happy with our selfless acts. We were always left behind and forgotten about. Taken for granted. And if that wasn't it, we just got pushed into the background, until we left on our own accord. We learned the hard way that nice guys finish last. So, on behalf of everyone here: welcome to your new home, Jon Arbuckle."
Jon stopped walking, stunned by his friend's words. He knew that his friends (however few they may be) would never take him for granted. But it wasn't that what stung Jon the most.
What Lyman said was true. In the months before Lyman disappeared, Jon saw him around less and less in favor of talking to his two pets. Once Lyman left, he acted like he didn't notice that he was gone. In fact, he actually didn't notice he was gone. The less he saw Lyman, the more he was pushed away. And now he was here, with the rest of the friends that ponies (and possibly more people) forgot, and it was all his fault.
"I'm sorry, Lyman," Jon said before he started walking again. "I know I wasn't the best friend to you in those last few months. I probably should've been nicer to you, and took the time to acknowledge you were going away."
"That's nice of you to say, Jon. But, what's done is done," was all Lyman said. "To be honest though: living here isn't all that bad. Even though we don't help each other out a lot, it's still nice to help someone. And Blowhard is about the most grateful there is for selfless acts."
"Oh, that's nice," Jon said. He knew he was going to regret asking, but he had a gnawing curiosity to know, "Who's Blowhard?"
"Our neighbor up on the mesa. We all visit him a couple of times a week to share our meager little harvest with him."
"All of you," Jon asked.
He didn't see anyone else there, but himself, Lyman, and a few ponies in front of them. When he looked behind himself, he saw the rest of the town's population, carrying bags stuffed to capacity. They sure were bringing a lot of food. It was likely that this neighbor of theirs had a Garfield-sized appetite.
But, Jon didn't get his hopes up. There was no way his pets could have ended up here. After all, they weren't anywhere else he was before.
The rest of the trip was passed in relative silence. There wasn't much to talk about for either of them. Nothing much changed in either of their lives since they parted ways. Only that Lyman's dog was now living with Jon.
It made Lyman slightly happy to learn that his dog was being taken care of, but it wasn't much solace that Garfield was still punting him off the table once every other day.
The ponies' trek took them to the base of the mesa, where a makeshift elevator, crafted from a large woven platform and many thick ropes, hoisted them all high into the air.
Jon looked over the edge, and saw how high they had all been taken. It was dizzying to see the ground from such a height, and looking up showed that they still had several hundred feet to go.
He was glad when the elevator reached the top. He was the first one off of it, and he practically hugged the solid ground.
"Sweet terra firma," Jon said as he reveled in the dirt.
As he was rolling around, the other ponies departed the elevator, and walked all over Jon like a doormat.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Jon yelled as he had his face driven into the ground over and over.
Finally, the last pony passed by, and Jon rolled to his hooves.
All the ponies were gathered in front of the entrance to the cave. The top of the mesa was quite large, big enough to allow each of the ponies to move about easily, which made it easier for Jon to push his way to the front of the crowd where Lyman was.
They all waited at the mouth of the cave. As the seconds passed, Jon became tense, anticipating something very bad to come out of the darkness. But still, after almost a minute, nothing happened, making Jon think that maybe it was a bust. Then a rumbling came from within the cave.
After the rumbling, a hot wind blew from inside the cave, and blasted the faces of every pony present. As the new arrival, Jon didn't know to expect, and was knocked off his hooves while everyone else braced themselves, and remained upright.
Then the ground shook, and Jon looked up to see the nightmarish sight of a huge dragon coming out of the cave.
It towered over the ponies at almost ten times their height. Lending further to its intimidating appearance were the spines down its back, its oversized claws, and its bladed tail.
"Hello, Blowhard," one of the ponies in the crowd greeted him.
"You're early today," the dragon rumbled.
"We remembered how upset you were when we came late the last time."
"I was. I was very upset."
"Well, we all thought that this would make up for it, and hopefully you wouldn't...burn our town like you said you would."
Blowhard stared intensely at the pony before him. He watched as the pony began to tremble in anticipation of the dragon's answer.
"Water under the bridge," Blowhard answered with a smirk. "You'll have to forgive me for losing my temper, because I know how we help one another here."
Jon couldn't understand how he was helping them. Blowhard was giving off the vibe of a real nasty customer whose good side you wanted to stay on. He reminded him of his first boss when he started working as a cartoonist, or his aunt Gussie, who was kicked out of the marines for unnecessary roughness.
In total awe, Jon watched as each of the ponies stepped forward and placed their bags of food in front of the dragon, some of them cowering under his gaze.
"What's everybody doing," he asked Lyman, who had just gotten back from dropping off his bag of food.
"We're giving our neighbor a hand," Lyman answered. "It's really hard to find food around here, so we like to help each other. We try to grow food, and what we do grow, about half of it goes to Blowhard. And to help us out, he doesn't eat anyone in town."
"That's crazy," Jon shouted, loudly enough for everyone to hear him.
"What!?" Blowhard said as he shot his gaze in Jon's direction.
As soon as they saw the Blowhard's ire rising, the ponies around Jon all too several steps away, isolating him for the dragon to see.
"What did you say, pony?"
Any other time, Jon would have felt faint if he was facing an angry dragon, but Blowhard had just offended every one of his sensibilities.
"I only just got here, and I already hate you as a neighbor! You stay up here threatening and extorting the ponies, and you act like you're being their friend for it!? You don't care about any of them! You--You're just a bully is all!" Jon fumed at the dragon.
Nopony had ever spoken to Blowhard in such a way. Even though they all thought of him as their friend, they were all terrified of what would happen if they spoke out of turn. And Blowhard liked it that way.
As long as the ponies were under his claw, life was good for him. And now one of the ponies was threatening that.
Blowhard bored his intense gaze into Jon, knowing he would cower under it like every other pony on the island. "I've seen ponies like you before," he said in a low voice, "You think you can get ahead by spreading your goodwill, and being a friend to everycreature you cross. It always feels good at first, but you never get what you want, or where you want to be. And do you know why? Because they assume that you will always be that way, and will allow you to continue your charity without giving anything in return. Wouldn't you rather share your deeds with a creature who would truly appreciate it. A creature like me?"
Once again, Jon was at a loss for words. Ever since he started looking for his pets, he had been helping others with their problems, and never found who he was looking for. And even before that, he tried to be as nice and civil as he could, only to end up publicly humiliated. Even when he tried to be nice to Garfield, that cat always rebuked him and repaid him in some nasty way.
"So what...I know that they'd prefer the way I'd treat them over what you do."
"And what makes you so special? What have you done for any of them?"
"Nothing...B-But I know that they're all as sick of you as I am! And I know they want you out of here! In fact, if I could do it, I'd get you out of here myself!"
Blowhard's mouth smoked malevolently, and he lowered his head to Jon's, leveling his glare for the cartoonist to see in full.
"Is that a challenge, pony!?"
Jon didn't know if he should answer that. When he was younger (in fact, even at his current age) he was beaten unmerciful by anyone who saw him as a lesser human being, which was pretty much everybody. He spent his whole life living in fear of people like that, and now he was facing a dragon with that same disposition.
But after all he had gone through, things may have been different for him. He saved a town from a tyrannical politician and his burly goon. He defeated, and turned in the most notorious gang in the west. Slaying a dragon would be no problem for him.
"Yeah...it's a challenge," Jon squeaked out.
"What was that? SPEAK UP, PONY," the dragon demanded.
"I said..." Jon took several deep breaths, and fought against passing out, "It's...It's a challenge!!" He said with a heavy exhale.
Blowhard reared up to his full height, displaying his imposing figure as he spread his wings. "You don't know what you're getting into, pony," he said as embers drifted out of his mouth.
"I'm not worried. I know that I'll have help." Jon looked around the crowd of ponies, hoping one of them would join his side.
Not one of them did. They all stepped backwards, shaking their heads slowly, conveying that not one of them was willing to help him, even though the look on their faces told him they desperately wanted to.
"But..." Jon said as he turned to look at a different group, only to see them back away as well. "Lyman?"
Surely, his oldest friend would be at his side for this.
"Sorry, Jon," Lyman said flatly, "You're on your own for this one."
Even when he was alone at sea, Jon never felt so isolated. Among an entire crowd, he was alone. Nobody was going to help him, even if out of the goodness of their hearts. If anything was going to change, Jon was going to have to do it himself.
Slowly at first, Blowhard trudged forward, but his pace soon quickened to a trot, and the ponies around Jon parted out of the way.
Jon backed away, trying to come up with a plan. He didn't know what people did when they faced down a charging dragon.
This wasn't a fairy tale, and he wasn't a knight in shining armor. Unless something happened soon, it was curtains for him.
And then he went sprawling backwards over the mesa.
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You brought Lyman back! I always liked him even if Jim Davis dropped him eventually.
Thanks for the update!
Lyman... I wondered what happen to him...
Actually, the setting seems to be ancient China. The episode number is 37, the part called "China Cat". (For those with the DVD sets, that's volume 2, disc 2.)
I really missed Lyman...thank you for acknowledging his existence and bringing him back!
Gotta go with the crowd--having this be what happened to Lyman is great! He just stopped showing up in the comic, except in one background scene many years later.
This is gonna be an epic battle!
Huh, so there's Lyman. Looks like Jon just instigated a tough challenge for himself at the end of the chapter. Too bad if he wins he can't brag to any women home about fighting a dragon, since they'd never believe him
Now I feel bad that I forgot about Lyman.