Island Jumper 2

by M H Ryan

  “What if the geyser still hasn’t erupted?” I asked. “What if that is the pressure Kara is feeling? What if it has something to do with what Eliza is feeling?”

  “We should check out the geyser,” Sherri suggested.

  “I agree,” I said.

  “I’ll stay here with Cass,” Aubrey said, brushing back the hair on Cass’s face.

  “Think my chickens will be okay?” Eliza asked, holding the cage and eyeing Moshe.

  “I’ll watch them,” Aubrey said, extending her hands.

  Eliza handed the cage to Aubrey.

  “If the chickens give you any trouble, just give ‘em a good shakin’. That’ll settle ‘em down for ya,” Benji said with a Midwest twang.

  “What?” Aubrey asked.

  “Napoleon Dynamite?” Benji said, looking affronted.

  “I swear, Benji… I wish you had spent more time watching Survivor or some Bear Grylls show than these other movies. Might be of some use out here then.”

  “Are you kidding?” Benji said. “There isn’t anything more important than keeping up your spirits in a situation like this.”

  “Amen,” Sherri said. “Nearly everything can have a positive.”

  “Tell that to Cass,” Aubrey said. “At least when she wakes, I’ll have someone that isn’t fucking Marry Poppins out here on my side of things.”

  “Hey, if she’s anything close to as awesome as you are, Aubrey, we’ll be damn lucky to have her,” I said.

  “Ah, shucks, Mr. Sawyer,” Aubrey said. “Now go on. Find out what’s wrong with the only good island out here.”

  “Will do,” I said and took the rest of the girls into the forest.

  It had rained a lot when we were at both the other islands, and it was safe to assume that this island had a similar deluge, but the plants seemed dry, as if they hadn’t had water in weeks. I touched a few green leaves and broke them open, searching for the scarce moisture in them. As we got closer to the pond, the dryness lessened, but it still wasn’t what we’d typically seen on the island.

  Then we saw the pond itself, or what would more accurately be described as a sand bowl. The pond that was once the size of a large swimming pool, filled to the edge with its glorious liquid, was now barren. The waterfall that had continually fed the pond and creek was nothing more than a dark, smooth rock overhanging the pond now. It was as dry as the rest of the rocks around it and the sandy bottom.

  “Our water,” Benji said. “It’s gone.”

  The very source of nearly all of our water since arriving on Pela. We had some water stored—we could maybe get by for a few days—but this water was everything out here. It’s ease of access allowed us to concentrate on other things, like building and rebuilding our camp and raft, and rescue. I had big plans now that we were back home and had some decent materials to work with, and now this. I knew of a few other ways we could look or even make drinkable water, but nothing was as easy as dipping a bag into an ever recirculating pool of water within a minute of camp.

  “Hopefully, the geyser has something,” I said.

  Even a small pool of water would be immensely helpful. We got up to the geyser platform and stared into an empty hole in the ground.

  “Well, shit,” Kara said. “I loved this water too. It was one of the things that got me through it.”

  Seeing the emptiness shocked me, even though I suspected it. I felt the hot rocks under my feet and kneeled down, feeling the hot air coming off the rocks below.

  “Still thermal,” Sherri said.

  “I can feel the heat down there,” Benji said, touching the rock under our feet. “Lower, they’re much hotter though.”

  “Is there water there?” I asked.

  Benji shook her head. “I don’t know, but there is pressure there. I can feel it in my chest, if that makes sense.”

  “This whole island is pressure building,” Kara said, as if she understood exactly what Benji meant.

  I used my extra sense and felt below, but it came back as blank as the girls did. There wasn’t any kind of animal responsible for this, but on these islands, who knew what was possible.

  “What do you think, Sherri?” I asked.

  “My guess is something got shook loose down there and blocked this spring up. Now it’s boiling and building down there, pushing up at us and causing these quakes. I bet the whole island is heating up. Might explain the plants struggling as well. Their roots might be getting cooked.”

  “I think you’re right, and that means the water isn’t gone but trapped down there,” I said. “Can you tell what’s going on with the water below?”

  Sherri shook her head, looking confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You can feel the water, Sherri. Like I can feel the animals, Kara the island, Benji the rocks and Aubrey the air and weather.”

  “You guys noticed that?” Sherri said, looking shy.

  “Hello,” Benji said. “Mrs. Whirlpool finder here.”

  “It’s just a little crazy to think it’s real though, don’t you think?” Sherri asked.

  “It was and it is,” I said. “These extra senses have saved our lives many times now. From Benji moving rocks and Eliza warning us of a danger, to you helping us avoid the whirlpools.”

  “The first one almost killed us,” Sherri said. “Sorry, I knew something was wrong ahead, but you know, you just tell your gut to shut up and stop being paranoid. Thinking you have some kind of… power…is a little more than hard to swallow.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it either, Sherri,” Benji said. “But when I saw Jack stuck in that cave, about to be eaten by those birds right in front of me, I knew I would do anything to save him. Including letting go and grasping my power with both hands, even if it felt completely insane. Jack is here because of that.”

  Sherri looked nervous and got closer to the edge. She closed her eyes and held her hand over the hole. I knew this technique, and I used it often with the animals. It seemed to help when you shut down one sense and allowed the other one to work. I noticed that the more I used this extra sense the stronger it got, and I could feel things further away. Even from up there, I felt the ocean’s static…and a watcher.

  Damned watchers. I would deal with them later. They didn’t seem to be an immediate threat, but I was irritated to know they were still with me.

  “I feel it,” Sherri said, opening her eyes in excitement. “It’s so hot down there that the water is more or less compressed steam. It’s trapped, but if something gives, it’s going to blow out.”

  “Like a kernel of popcorn ready to pop,” I said, staring at the hole. “Benji, do you feel any weakness down there? Maybe we can release some of the pressure?”

  “I don’t know. I can feel it out,” Benji said. “I’m not really good at this, you know.”

  “Hey, you were incredible back in that cave. You saved my life down there, and I know you can do this as well,” I said.

  Benji didn’t look that confident, but she took a deep breath and touched the hot rock under our feet.

  About a minute passed and then I felt a vibration in the rock and a whistling sound.

  “Oh shit,” Benji said as her eyes shot open. A strain came across her face.

  The ground rumbled, and I heard rocks cracking under us. Benji kept her hand on the rock and had an unblinking stare into the hole.

  A gust of steam blew from the hole, missing us by a few feet, but we felt the hot air from it.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Did you—”

  “Run,” Benji said and I was about to ask why when she screamed it again. “Run!”

  Kara and Eliza took a few steps back.

  “We need to go,” Eliza said, rushing down the rock. “Now!”

  The steam blew from the hole like a train whistle, getting louder with each passing second.

  “I’m not leaving you, Benji,” I said, trying to block some of the heat from the steam from her.

  Kneeling next to her, I saw her f
ace straining in agony. When I used my sense, I felt a strain, if I tried hard enough, but nothing like what she was going through. Had I not been pushing my gift to the limit? Benji’s hands were starting to shake, and tears were welling in her eyes.

  “I can’t move,” Benji said, a tear flowed down her face. “I’m holding it back so you can get away.”

  “I’m not—”

  “We’re not—” Sherri said, kneeling next to Benji and using her hand to block some of the heat from hitting her face.

  “I can’t hold it for much longer, Jack, and when I can’t, we’re all going to die,” Benji said.

  Chapter 20

  One time on my dad’s construction site, I had been in charge of helping an excavator dig a deep utility trench for an apartment complex. It was a stupid job that required about as much skill as a stop sign, but at least it was outdoors, and there was a soothing feeling watching heavy machinery digging through dirt.

  Now, what I didn’t know was that Dig Alert had missed a major eight-inch gas line running right through where we were trenching. This main line had about five hundred pounds of pressure sealed in it. A typical house only had a few pounds of pressure.

  The excavator hit the line, tearing through the metal pipe, gouging out several inches from the top. All the pressure escaping through the small hole made it sound as if a 777 jet engine had been dumped in the hole and was blowing out of that trench. Thankfully, the operator wasn’t a smoker and nothing immediately exploded. Later I was told if it had, it would have sent me to the moon and leveled a city block.

  The sound of that gas escaping that pipe made me run faster than I’d ever had ran in my life. At that moment, I was sure I was going to die.

  The steam and water escaping from the hole in the ground sounded much like the gas pipe we hit, and I was beginning to understand that it was just as deadly. The difference was that I had a person that I was not leaving alone to face this. I wasn’t running for my life but staying for hers. She needed me, and the very least, I wasn’t going to let her die alone. Neither was Sherri and I didn’t even try to get her to leave. I saw in her eyes the same thing that I felt.

  Kara and Eliza had fled, and I knew they went to warn the others. I hoped they would be safe from this.

  “Jack, please,” Benji said, shaking from the effort.

  Sweat dripped from her face and spit flew from her mouth as she spoke.

  I put my hand on her shoulder. Her skin felt hot to the touch, and her face had turned a deep shade of red. I didn’t think it was from the heat but rather the strain of whatever she was going through. It didn’t escape me that I asked her to do this, and I would do whatever I could to make sure that she wasn’t harmed.

  “Benji!” I yelled. “We’re going to jump for it all at the same time. I need you to keep your mind on whatever it is your holding for as long as you can.”

  “I can’t!” she screamed, and Sherri held onto her other shoulder.

  “We’ll grab her and run with her, Jack,” Sherri said.

  Benji was small, but still, she wasn’t a stuffed animal. We’d have trouble moving fast with her, but if Benji could hold on for a few seconds even…

  “Straight toward the woods,” I yelled over the jet of constant steam, and Sherri nodded. “Benji, we’re getting you out of here. Hold on.”

  The muscles on her neck were bulging out, and her mouth was open as if she was screaming but she nodded. She heard me.

  “On three,” I said, grabbing Benji under her left leg and Sherri did the same on her right. I placed my hand on her back and got ready to lift and run. I screamed the first number as loud as I could to be heard over Benji’s now audible scream and the roar of steam blowing out.

  “One, two, three!” I said and lifted Benji.

  We couldn’t be gentle. This was a matter of life or death, but I still felt bad in handling Benji so rough. Bruises would heal, and I could apologize to a live Benji later on. If we lived through this.

  With Sherri’s help, Benji felt light and we both had her tight in a near cannonball position as we jumped from the rock. The whole motion took less than a second. We landed partially down the bank and we kept running hard.

  “Sorry,” I heard from Benji.

  That’s when I heard the explosion and the ground rumbled. I wasn’t sure if a shockwave or the earthquake caused us to fall but we all fell, rolling over the ferns near a tree. I scrambled to my feet, finding Benji and Sherri right next to me.

  Glancing back, I only had a second to see what was coming at us. Before, when the geyser had blown, it wasn’t anything more than what Old Faithful looked like in Yellowstone, but this plume of highly pressurized water and steam looked kind of like those Bikini Island videos where they tested nukes in the water. The nukes would cause a column of water a thousand feet across to shoot up into the air.

  The exact size and width of the water column weren’t as important as the fact that I knew we had no time to move any further from it, and we were most likely going to die like lobsters at a restaurant.

  In my last moment, I covered Sherri and Benji with my body in the hope that I could take the hottest water and spare them a grisly death. I was face to face with Sherri. My God, she was so beautiful, and if I had to die, I couldn’t have asked for two better women to be on top of when I did.

  Sherri wasn’t looking at me, though. She had that same strained look Benji had, with her hand out and her face contorting and coloring with effort. Then the water crashed down around us with the force of a wave.

  Chapter 21

  I tensed, expecting the boiling water to hit me in the back with the forces of a north shore wave. The tension in me built as I closed my eyes tightly. If I pressed them tight enough, I hoped I wouldn’t be blinded. Seconds went by, and I heard the water splashing around me and felt some heat, but not much more than a blast from a hairdryer. I dared a peek.

  The steaming water poured around us, but didn’t touch us. It moved around us as if we were water repellent.

  Looking down at my patriotic wonder, and seeing her face in a contortion of pain and panic, I asked, “This is you? You are doing this.”

  She didn’t need to answer, and maybe she couldn’t, as she focused on something unseen above me.

  Then a rock hit the bush near us, kicking up some sand. I tensed again as more rocks hit the island and spread over against the girls. Sherri might be protecting us from the water but I doubt that protection extended to the falling rocks.

  It sounded like a meteor shower hitting the sand and water as the super-heated rocks, spewed from the geyser, landed around the island. I only hoped Sherri could hold on a moment longer and that my body was large enough to block any object landing on us.

  Benji hadn’t moved or spoken, but I felt her chest moving with breath under me.

  We lay there, holding each other for what felt like a long time but it might have only been a minute or two, and when the sounds of rushing steam and falling rocks subsided, I lifted up a few inches, looking around us.

  The forest, one used to heated water, hadn’t fared well against this next onslaught. The leaves of the nearest trees had been stripped away. The ferns and bushes had been compressed down, as if some giant with wide feet went stomping through. There were a few twigs still sticking up, but most of the wreckage had been carried out to the sea with the heated wave. I glanced up into the sky and there was only a column of steam rising from the geyser hole.

  Somehow, we lived through it.

  The two girls under me, the marvelous Sherri and the incredible Benji, were alive. I was alive, and I lay back down with them, hugging them tightly and laughing.

  They both put weak hands on my back and hugged me.

  “Are you two okay?” I asked, searching their bodies. I noticed a few red marks on my arms.

  “I need to lie down for about a month,” Benji said.

  “I’m right there with you,” Sherri said, chest heaving with heavy breaths.


  “Sorry, guys,” Benji said. “When I went feeling down there, I dislodged something, and it was like I popped the champagne cork on that thing, and when I tried shoving it back in the bottle, it sprayed all over all of us.”

  “Then it burst,” I said. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have had you do that. I wasn’t thinking of the consequences.”

  “No, it was my fault. I was trying to show off for you,” Benji said.

  “You can’t impress me any more than you already have,” I said, looking into those blue eyes of hers and not the Sponge Bob blues on her tits.

  “Hey, I did some shit as well,” Sherri said, sucking in quick breaths.

  “Yeah,” I said. “How did you do that?”

  “Well, I couldn’t let my friends die, now could I? So the water and I came to an agreement that it wouldn’t touch us.”

  “An agreement?” I asked.

  “I can’t explain it because I don’t understand it, but that’s what it was,” Sherri said.

  “Crap, you think the others are okay?” Benji asked, breathing hard.

  I got to my feet as the hot fog spread over the island. I heard the waterfall behind us going again and smiled in relief. One problem solved, but if these islands had proven anything, it was as one problem went down, five more would show up.

  I helped Sherri and Benji get to their feet. They both draped their arms around me. What they did was not only the most incredible thing I’d ever seen, but it also wiped them out. They leaned on me on the way back to camp.

  We crossed the forest, which had taken the heat blast remarkably well. The fog had thickened, and a few stones the geyser sent out were steaming on the forest floor. Other than that, the leaves were still on the trees and the forest floor still held the wide variety of leafy greens and ferns.

  “Oh my God,” Kara said, running toward us. “Are you guys okay?” She rushed to Benji, looking over her body.

  “Just tired,” Benji said. “Jack here saved our lives, again.”

  “Well, that isn’t exactly true. Sherri and Benji are the real heroes,” I said.