by M H Ryan
“It’s done,” I said, pointing toward Tar Island.
Benji looked behind her at the island that seemed as nasty as any of them. Maybe the worst.
“You’re ramming this ship into that island,” Benji said, an incredulous look taking over her lovely features.
“Yeah, the fire should burn it out, but after the fire, this could be a gold mine of material for us out here.”
“Jack, I don’t want anything from this ship and neither should you. This ship should sink to the deepest part of the ocean and rust away there.”
“It’s too late, the course is set, and it’s time for us to get off this thing,” I said and could tell Benji didn’t like what I’d done.
That was okay, when we had steel and other items scavenged from the wreckage, she’d forgive me.
With the raft fully inflated, I took a second to study it. It was shaped like a donut, with a teepee-like tent up the middle. It had an inflated floor across the middle and probably could hold ten people. The red color made it easier to spot from the sky, and it had reflective tape around the borders for the night. I unzipped the door and peeked inside. It had a soft bottom and was otherwise waterproof inside. This was a damn good grab.
Getting a life jacket on Cass, we carried her and put her in the raft. Then we brought the raft to the lowest part of the boat, about ten feet above the water.
“We can hold onto the top and lower her into the water,” I said and glanced at the island we were sailing toward with gusto. We weren’t more than a quarter-mile away now. We might have a couple of minutes before this boat slammed into that tar pit.
I broke the rusted railing and slid the raft to the edge. We grabbed the top of the raft, which was probably six feet high, slowly slid it off the ship. We lowered it, getting all the way down on our stomachs, but it wasn’t enough for the raft to touch the water.
“Drop it,” I said and we both let go.
The raft hit the water with a thud, and Benji and I got into our lifejackets and jumped. I impacted the water right next to Benji and plunged under the water only a few inches before the buoyant life vest pulled me back onto the surface.
I grabbed Benji, pushing her over the edge of the donut-shaped raft. She grabbed the ropes around the raft, and I pushed on the bottom of her foot, getting her into the open door. Then I grabbed the lines, and Benji’s hand reached out, grabbing my wrist. She pulled me in as I climbed, and my momentum pulled us both into the raft. I landed on top of her, soaking wet but smiling.
She shook her head, smiling as well.
We did it. We got off that ship and got rid of the shadow figure. The ship!
I got off Benji and stood at the door. Benji got up next to me, and we had a view of the ship that seemed just like the Veronica but different in every way but the shape. The ship’s fire had breached the deck and the middle floor. Flames poured out from the now-broken bridge windows. Mario’s body was in there.
Then the ship hit the ground. The front of it rose up and then it listed to the right side. The smoke began to cover the vessel, obscuring a clear view of it.
“Good riddance,” Benji said. “Those stones will hopefully burn up or fall into the tar.”
“Yeah, good riddance,” I said, but really, I wished we had that ship intact. No damn shark or whale would stand a chance against us in that.
Black smoke started coming up from the ship now, rising high into the sky.
“At least Aubrey’s got her smoke signal now. Anything in few hundred miles will probably be able to see that,” Benji said and then hugged my side, putting her face against my wet chest.
“You okay?” I asked, touching her wet hair.
“I will be,” she said, and then let go of me. “Found a couple paddles inside.”
She went inside and pulled out two telescoping paddles. I took one in my hand, feeling how light it was. Modern machining in all its splendor, with a mix of plastic molds and aluminum. This was a significant order of magnitude better than what we currently had.
We unzipped more of the tent around the raft and went to each side of the raft, and then we paddled. I felt for the creatures in the ocean, but as when we left cave island, they were gone. I felt a few hints of things here and there, but something had spooked the sea again. Maybe it was the ship and the fire.
This inflatable raft would be no match for a shark. We needed to get back to our island as quick as possible.
With our island in sight, we paddled hard. I needed to see the women’s faces. I had to know they were all okay. I paddled harder.
As we neared the island, I felt a familiar creature. The watchers—several of them, near the island. I sucked in a breath, angry at their presence. I want to scream at them, asking them what they wanted and if they would just leave.
They were curious as ever, with an underlining emotion of concern and anger. It was almost as if we did something wrong or something they didn’t like. A complex emotion, and I was starting to wonder what they really were. Danforth had killed them, seemingly in great numbers, but he never really described what they were or why he killed them.
He said they kept him from leaving, and he wouldn’t be free until he killed them all.
I checked my shorts pocket, feeling for the stone I took and realized it was gone. I searched my other pockets, and even my underwear, but the stone wasn’t there. It must have slipped out when I jumped off the boat. It was probably at the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps Benji was right, nothing could be gleaned from the stone. It was what it was, evil.
“I see Eliza and Aubrey,” Benji said, beaming with a smile as we neared the shore.
Chapter 29
The fog still covered the island in a thick blanket, making it difficult to see much past the sandy beach. I spotted our bamboo raft and a few shadowy figures behind Aubrey and Eliza.
We paddled hard, both wanting to get home and hopefully get some medicine into Cass. I looked back at Cass in the life raft. She hadn’t moved while we’d been in the raft, and looked pale and sweaty.
At the shoreline now stood Eliza, Aubrey, Sherri, and Kara. They were all there and looking well. I felt a great weight being lifted off my chest. We all made it. We were all alive.
They were jumping up and down, hugging each other as they waved and yelled to us. We got to the small waves and felt them rolling under the raft, pushing us the last bit onto the beach. We kept paddling, and I couldn’t stop smiling. We’d made it; we’d all made it.
The life raft skidded up onto the sand, and the girls pulled us further onto dry land. I jumped out with Benji, and together with the girls we pulled it all the way out and onto the dry sand. This raft weighed nothing compared to the one we built.
The women surrounded Benji and I, hugging us and peppering us with questions. I didn’t say much, waiting for the hubbub to lessen.
“We found out who the shadowy man was,” I said, and they all quieted down. “It was Mario, from the Veronica. I knew him. We worked together, but he wasn’t the same man anymore. He went on about some crazy mission from the great king to kidnap people and destroy the islands for him.”
“He was insane,” Benji said, Sherri’s arm wrapped around her, still hugging her friend.
“Unbelievable,” Aubrey said. “If that was Mario, then who the hell took your mom?” She looked at Eliza.
“I don’t know,” Eliza said. “Maybe Mario killed the person that took my mom and assumed the role. It doesn’t matter, because he’s dead. He can’t haunt us anymore. He can’t take any of you away from me.”
“Oh, and we beached the ship onto Tar Island, where it’s completely in flames.”
“I thought we saw smoke,” Kara said, looking back at the sky.
Even through the fog, a trail of black smoke could be seen. It had risen high up into the sky, where it started to flatten out and get carried away in some high current. That trail of smoke might reach far enough for someone to see it. They could follow it right back here.
“I want to hear every detail about this,” Kara said, looking fierce. “You scared the crap out of us.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Why don’t we take care of Cass first? You still have the bark, I hope?” I asked, looking to Aubrey.
“Better than that. I’ve been steeping it since I got here. It should be ready by now.”
“Great, let’s get Cass to the platform,” I said.
“What’s left of it,” Aubrey said.
We gathered Cass and commented about how hot she felt. She groaned and moved slightly as we carried her to the platform, settling her as best we could on the small remaining section. She opened her eyes and locked in on me for the first time. I froze, looking at her pretty, light brown eyes.
She hit me in the face. Not that hard, but the surprise of the attack was worse than the hit itself. I stumbled back as she swung at me again, and the startled girls leaped into action, grabbing her arms.
“Cass!” Sherri said.
“It’s us,” Benji added.
“Yeah, don’t be hitting our man. He’s Jack from…the deckhand, from the boat,” Aubrey said.
Cass grumbled a few incoherent words and closed her eyes.
“Cass,” Sherri said, shaking her friend back awake.
“Where am I?” Cass asked, looking at the trees above us.
It was the first intelligible thing I’d heard from Cass, but her voice sounded weak and dry. Aubrey rushed to a bag of water near the fire and brought it over, shaking the contents as she did. She handed the bag to Sherri who brought it to Cass’s lips. Cass grabbed for the bag but Sherri pushed her hands away.
“Easy,” Sherri said. “Let me help you.”
“It won’t taste good, but you need to drink it, Cass,” Aubrey said.
With Sherri’s help, Cass drank some of the water from the bag. Sherri pulled it away, making sure she didn’t take too much too quickly, and then gave her a bit more.
“That should be enough,” Aubrey said.
Cass lay back down, and her body relaxed against the platform as she slipped back into sleep.
“Let her sleep,” Sherri said. “We’ll keep a watch on her, but it’s mostly out of our hands now.”
“You okay, Jack?” Benji asked, putting a hand on my back.
“Yeah,” I said, probing my cheek. “Is she normally aggressive?” I thought of what Mario had said about her being near ripe.
“She’s a bit rough on the edges, but a kind person,” Benji said. “I think.”
Aubrey laughed. “Rough around the edges. If that bitch hits our man again, I’m throwing hands, coma or not.”
“Chill out, Aubrey,” Sherri said, touching the side of Cass’s face. “She’s been through a lot. Who knows what’s going on in that pretty head of hers?”
“Great, now that that’s all taken care of, you can tell us what happened on that ship,” Kara said.
“And you can tell us what happened on the island?” Benji said.
We sat together near the platform, and I told them what happened with as much detail as I could remember. Benji would add things, especially when it came to the evil Time Bandit rocks, as she called them. Kara seemed very interested in the stones and the connection to them and the island she landed on. Beyond that, they didn’t have many questions, but comforted Benji as her voice cracked when she told them about shooting Mario.
“So you think this island has one of those stones on it?” Kara asked, putting the pieces together.
“I didn’t say that,” I said.
“I am,” Benji said. “There’s one on this island, and I’m pretty sure he planted one on Eliza’s island as well.”
“How? If he wasn’t here then?” Kara asked.
“I don’t know. We arrived at this island at different times,” Benji said. “Maybe Mario got here at a very different time.”
“You think he—or it—sabotaged my island?” Eliza said.
“It seems a strong possibility,” I said. “Benji felt the stone in the boat, and it had the same horrible feeling that the tree had.”
“He’s destroying the islands,” Kara said, tapping her chin. “Turning them into something awful.”
“In preparation for something, for his king,” Benji said. “See, I told you. Insane.”
“Yeah, but where do these stones come from? You said he had a bunch of them,” Eliza asked.
“I don’t know,” Benji said.
“How about we stop talking about this depressing shit, and we can tell you about our heroics when we faced this insane man?” Sherri said.
“Please, I’d love to hear it,” I said.
The girls told us their encounter with the ship and the shadow, mostly told by Sherri with Kara and Eliza adding stuff in. They actually fought him off, stabbing him with a spear, and then in the melee, he got to Cass, flinging her over his shoulder and running back to the ship. That was when I had arrived.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, some bruises and such, but nothing serious,” Sherri said. “I tell you what though, fighting for my life with these women was amazing. These islands keep giving us the craziest lives, and my whole body tingles just thinking about some of the things we’ve seen and done.”
“You’re probably thinking of the things Jack’s done to you,” Aubrey said with a scoff.
“You’re not wrong,” Sherri said, putting a hand on her chest and rolling her eyes back in pleasure.
“What’s Jack done to you?” Eliza asked, looking from me to Sherri.
“You know what,” Aubrey said, getting off the platform and putting an arm around Eliza. “I think it’s time for that detailed talk I’ve been threatening you with.”
“What?” Eliza asked, walking with Aubrey. “There’s more?”
“Maybe we should start with what hand jobs really are,” Aubrey said.
Eliza nodded her head, looking at her nails.
“Wish I’d had an Aubrey to tell me how it was, back in the day,” Sherri said.
The cool ocean breeze blew through our camp, our home, and carried away some of the warm fog with it. It gave us a bit more time to see the two young women walking into the forest. My parents had never sat me down and explained the way things worked between men and women. The school system had tried, but there was a lot of giggling and jokes. I think it would have been cool, though, to go on for as long as Eliza had without the physical knowledge of boys and girls, and then to have a friend like Aubrey explain things to you. My generation was thrown into the internet fire, eyes burning.
“I threw up when I saw it on the internet for the first time,” Benji said. “I was like, twelve, and thought that I would never want anything like that happening to me.”
“I had an older boyfriend in high school,” Sherri said.
“I dated this guy in a band,” Kara said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t ever do that.”
I didn’t like hearing that there were other men in their past, but I had other women in mine. Now, we had each other.
“What are we going to do now, Jack?” Kara asked, moving up against me and putting her arms around my waist.
“We’ve been here for what, a week now?” I said. “I think it’s time we start preparing for a long-term stay here. We still haven’t seen a plane in the sky or a boat on the waters beside Mario’s since we’ve been here. I think this place is some undiscovered, lost archipelago. We may have to rescue ourselves off these islands, and that could take a long time.”
“Too bad we couldn’t have pirated that ship,” Kara said.
“I tried,” I said.
“We have more materials than ever and tools,” Sherri said. “We can kick the shit out of building a new shelter here. That last one is too small, anyway.”
“Yes, a new shelter, and I think we can make the raft bigger with a massive sail from the Danforth’s parachute. We can also have walls around it as well, for more protection.”
“We’re out of water purification tablets,�
�� Benji said. “I think I can make a simple sand filter with a couple of bags. We can use some charcoal as filters, too.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Water is the most important thing, and if we’re going to be here for a while, it’s best to find a long-term solution to safe drinking water.”
“I can build a kiln,” Kara exclaimed, as if coming to a great realization. “The aluminum! I can bend it and puncture holes into it for more air. I bet I could get it hot enough to fire clay bowls and plates.”
“That would be amazing,” Sherri said.
“You said you saw clay near the pond, right?” I asked, looking at Benji.
“Yeah, at least I think it is,” Benji said, looking into the forest. “Jack, maybe you can come with me, see what you think it is?”
“Sure,” I agreed and then looked to Kara and Sherri. “Start breaking down the existing platform, keeping the broken pieces as well, and start piling them up here. When we get back, we can start laying out the new shelter. Something higher up that can withstand a big cat attack.”
“Aubrey told us about what happened on Food Island,” Kara said, looking grossed out. “The pond is full of warm water. You two should get cleaned off. Aubrey already did.”
“Yeah, I’d scrub everywhere if I was in that filth you described,” Sherri said, shuddering.
“Not a bad idea,” I said and sniffed my shirt. It mostly smelled like smoke, but under that, there was a hint of a dead-bird-decaying-in-the-ocean.
“Oh God, I bet it’s in my hair and everything,” Benji said, bringing her hair over her shoulder and looking at it with a disgusted expression.
Chapter 30
We did indeed find some clay near the stream from the spring. It would take some work to get it out, and Benji talked about purifying it, but the important thing was that it was possible. The idea of being able to make stuff from the clay drove my imagination wild. We could have some real storage options, and actually eat off something that wasn’t a rock or a leaf. I couldn’t believe the simple things from civilization that you missed, like having something to hold food with.
