Island Jumper: An Archipelago Series

by M H Ryan

  We separated and spent the next thirty minutes collecting most of what we needed to build a base and a weather wall.

  With the sun setting, I rushed the girls to help me set up the lower beams that would be our base support. The logs weren’t that straight, but we rotated them until we found the flattest spot as we attached them to the tree’s cleared lower branches. Instead of using more string or duct tape, I cut notches into the found logs with matching grooves into the tree branch, creating a pocket for them to fit securely into, kind of like the old Lincoln Log kits my dad had me play with as a kid.

  I think my dad wanted me to take over the family construction business, but I wasn’t ready for that as a young man. I’m sure he would have suggested a modification to the base of the platform, but I think he would have been proud of what we built out there.

  With the beams secured and complete, we all took part in the assembly of branches onto the beams. The beams were more than a foot and a half apart, so we were able to use smaller branches as the floor. To save on string, we weaved them in bundles of ten before securing them to the platform beams. We tackled this process with teams of two and made a bit of sport out of it. Thankfully, the forest had plenty of smaller branches about the width of my thumb or greater.

  While we didn’t have cat eyes, the large moon provided a decent amount of light, and after the first hour, our eyes adjusted well to the darkness. It was an odd thing, not having lights available to you. My mother was sort of an obsessive electronic user, spending more hours scanning the digital pages than she did mothering me. It could have been the reason for my dislike of the online world. It took precedence for my mother over all else. When she did look up from her pixelated paradise, she often looked ill and unhappy.

  The women around me complained about not having their phones, but even out here in the darkness, weaving what felt like endless branches together, they had a brightness to them that I found more attractive than their looks.

  A tedious task was a sure way to make time slow. I wasn’t sure if that was scientific fact or not, but it felt like ten hours before we set the final bundle in place. In reality, it could have been one hour. The girls massaged their hands and looked sweaty and tired, but we weren’t done yet.

  Periodically, two of us would go back to the stream and fill our bag with water. We’d use a few purifications tablets, and usually by the time we got back to camp, the water was ready to drink.

  “Please, tell me this is it?” Aubrey whined, squeezing water from one of the bags we filled into her mouth while pulled her hair back with her other hand.

  “Unfortunately not. We still need to build a weather wall in case another storm hits us tonight, plus the roof, and walls. We’ve got some work left to do.”

  Aubrey slumped and looked to the dark sky. “Fine, but we need some hair ties up in this bitch.”

  “Agreed,” Sherri said, pulling some of her hair off the back of her neck.

  “Use some of the string,” I said.

  “That okay?” Benji asked. “We might need it for the shelter or some other critical thing.”

  “We need it to keep your hair back and out of your face while you’re working,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  The girls delighted in cutting the strings and then tying up their hair into different styles.

  “All good?” I asked, and they nodded. “Great, let’s get back to it.”

  We spent another couple hours on the shelter and got a weather wall up. We used smaller sticks about the size of a pencil and basket weaved them through a few thicker branches along the ocean-facing side. This allowed us to conserve the string we had left, using only a short length along with a few strips of the duct tape.

  Near the end, I could tell the women were done so I used two emergency blankets for a ceiling, propped up by just a few branches. If a storm actually hit us, we’d have to do some quick modifications, but the sky had been clear all night. Finally, we covered the platform floor with a bunch of fern leaves and secured our last blanket over it all.

  “Wow,” Benji said. “This is like twice as big as the last one and looks even better.”

  “Yeah, well, we had more help this time, and I learned a few things from last time.”

  “And it was fun to build. I mean, how often in this modern life do you get to build the very thing you’re going to sleep in, from scratch?” Sherri said, touching the edge of the platform.

  Aubrey snorted and crossed her arms. “It’s pretty cool, I guess.”

  I walked the perimeter of the shelter, checking the construction. A few of the emergency blankets had rips in them now, and I knew eventually we’d have to find a natural replacement for the wall and ceiling. I’d been eyeing the fronds from the palms, but we weren’t there yet. Might as well use the easy stuff first. If we didn’t get rescued before the blanket ended up in tatters, we’d have more to worry about than getting wet in a storm.

  “Can we rest for a bit?” Aubrey asked.

  “Almost, Aubrey. Can you help me find some rocks so we can build a fire pit?”

  “Can I help as well?” Sherri asked.

  “Of course.”

  Soon, all three of us were combing the beach and nearby forest, looking for rocks. There were plenty to choose from, and soon we had a nice fire ring built near the platform. Close enough that if some water pigs came for dinner, we’d be able to bounce right up on the platform.

  The girls slumped next to the empty fire ring, sitting on the sand. Benji leaned against Sherri’s shoulder while Aubrey held onto a spear, poking it into the sand in front of her. The soft sound of the ocean created a soothing background noise. A light breeze cooled the sweat off my shirt and body and gave a pleasant sound as it passed through the trees.

  “Can you show us how to build a fire?” Benji asked with a yawn.

  “Yes,” Sherri said. “That would be awesome.”

  “Actually, we should all know how to get a fire going quickly. We never know when that rescue ship coming back,” Aubrey said.

  “Good idea. Did you guys do any camping growing up?” I asked as I gathered a few things to make the fire.

  “My dad took me camping once,” Sherri said with a chuckle. “But…I was a miserable bitch of a teenager and pouted the whole time that I couldn’t keep up with my Instagram account because there was no internet access and I was going to lose followers. God was I lame. He was just trying to teach me the basics of camping, like making a fire, cooking, setting up a tent and…” She sucked in a breath. “I was so terrible to him on that trip…and if I knew just a year later he’d be…” She slumped and looked at her hands in her lap.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but I wanted to comfort her.

  Benji, sitting next to her, beat me to it, hugging her friend. “How old were you…you know, when he passed?”

  “Sixteen. It was like he was trying to connect with me in a way he understood, and I just wouldn’t let him in. I thought I was being punished by him taking me out there,” Sherri said. “He sort of gave up after that trip, and we more or less became strangers in the same house. What I wouldn’t give to have that camping trip again.”

  “Hey,” Benji said, shaking her with a hug. “He’d be proud of you for how well you’re handling this situation. You worked your ass off tonight on the shelter and other stuff.”

  “He would love this shit,” Sherri said with a smile, looking around at what we built. “For years after he died, I told myself I’d take a trip…just to go…I don’t know, anywhere into the wilderness, and learn the things he was trying to teach me, but every year, it was just a new excuse. In fact, once I knew I wasn’t going to die today to those water pig things, I realized what a gift this island is for me. That’s what’s so exciting about this place. Me…us…we are going to have an adventure my father would have been thrilled to experience. I think I’m here for a reason.”

  “This isn’t some camp, though,” Aubrey said, poking the sand with a spear. “I’m sorry
, I get you’re happy, and you’re getting to do some bucket list thing out here, but every second we’re out here is another chance we’re going to die. I will be doing what I can to help us get rescued.”

  “And you don’t think I will?” Sherri asked.

  “I saw your face when we spotted the boat today. You were disappointed,” Aubrey said.

  “Disappointed?” Sherri said. “You’re damned right I was, but I was also doing everything I could to make sure that ship saw us. There is a difference between being grateful for what has been given to us and being suicidal. You don’t think when I was in that tree, looking down at my death for all those hours, that I didn’t collect a respect for the danger I’m in out here?” Sherri’s voice had risen.

  “No, it’s not that…” Aubrey said, taking a slow breath. “It’s just—I’m tired, and my hands hurt, and I’m just not the camping type. I feel like I’m the only one of us that truly wants to get out of here. You three are just…happy here. I mean, we still don’t know what happened to our other twelve sisters.”

  “If we made it, they can too,” Sherri said. “If any house can make it out here, it’s ours.”

  “I agree,” Benji said. “And if we found you two, we can find more.”

  “I guess,” Aubrey said, drawing what looked like the letter “I” in the sand.

  “I say we make the best of this,” Sherri said. “It’s easy, especially here, to find the negatives, but if you want to find them, there are tons of positives.”

  “Yeah, I just want to get rescued before something happens to one of us,” Aubrey said, now making a circle in the sand with the “I” in the middle.

  “We’re going to get rescued,” I said. “And the top priority will be keeping us alive long enough to see it happen. We’re in this together, and I’m with Sherri—I say we make the best of this.”

  “I’m with you too, Jack,” Benji said.

  A few beats later we all had eyes on Aubrey, and she finally noticed our expectant gazes.

  “Yeah,” Aubrey said, shaking her head. “I’m in, too. Just didn’t know we were taking some kind of vote on living or dying.”

  “Can you show us how to make that fire now, Jack?” Sherri asked.

  “Okay,” I said and knelt down next to the pile of materials next to the fire ring. “The trick with fire is to start small. Use kindling, like this dead grass. It lights fast and easy, but quick. That is what the next size stuff is for, either the twigs or dried moss here should work.” I picked up a handful of moss. “Then it’s just about building on top of what you started, slowing adding to the fire but being careful it has enough air to breathe. You don’t want to smother it out, and you can always blow it to bring it back up as well.”

  They all three giggled.

  I cleared my throat and went to light the dry grass with a match. They all clapped, and Sherri even hollered out in joy at the flames. I went step by step, having them add to the flames and blow on the embers as needed. Sherri was the natural with it, working the fire into a nice flame in a few minutes.

  “Now we can just enjoy it, adding wood as needed,” I said.

  Fire had a special ability in bringing those around it even closer. The flames were the entertainment, bridging the moments of silence with crackles and pops. My dad would say fire was the TV before there was TV, while my mom would be Googling the best type of wood to use for a fire on her phone.

  The three women huddled up close to the fire pit and extended their hands toward it, feeling the warmth. I watched the three of them, and the light of the fire somehow made them even more beautiful. Perhaps Sherri was right. We were here for a reason. Even with the horrible events leading to this moment, I felt lucky to be on the island with them.

  The conversation shifted to lighter topics, with Benji busting out more impressions and a full-blown movie trivia game of Napoleon Dynamite. I, at least, was able to tell what high school they went to—Preston High—to an impressed Benji.

  Watching her goof around made me happy, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have her and them in my life. If we had just gone to port, I doubt we’d have shared more than that moment of saliva. Now, we’ve fought sharks, water pigs, and crocs together, rescued her friends, and made a home of sorts on a tiny island but there were more of them out there.

  Twelve.

  That number echoed in my head. I hadn’t had a number to them until that moment. That meant there were nine more out there. It ate at me, a pang of sour guilt in my gut. If we found Sherri and Aubrey, we could find more. I thought about bringing up my idea right then, but I knew it would smother the flames of our good time. We can have one night of fun, right?

  In the morning, I’d bring up what we really needed to be doing. It wouldn’t be an easy decision, and it would put us at greater risk, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew it was the right thing to do.

  Chapter 12

  For the second morning in a row, I watched the sunrise over the ocean. I yawned, trying to stretch out my back from sitting for too long. I definitely wanted to build a chair, but the necessities would come first. I sat on the edge of the platform with my feet hanging off the side with three amazing women asleep behind me. I used a spear stuck into the sand below to balance myself as I leaned forward.

  Thankfully, no predators had come through the night, and the only thing that broke the eerie dark drone of waves was the occasional screeches in the sky and splashes of water in the ocean. I thought I heard the spouting blowhole of a whale at some point, but for most of the night, it was just static out there, except for some brief moments that sent chills down my arms. I’d never been afraid of the ocean, but there were things I felt in it now that might have swayed me from my nautical career as a young man.

  As a kid, I’d have races with my friends. We’d jump into the waves and just keep swimming. I’d swim way past what my friends were comfortable with, going past the buoys with warning signs attached. I kept going until I reached a point where the shore was hard to see over the swelling waves and touching the bottom was a distant option. I’d lay on my back and just float there beyond the breaking waves, rising and falling with the ocean, as if it was breathing. There was a comfort I found out there. I had loved the water and the ocean all my life. Now, being stranded in it all, forced a new appreciation for the beauty and danger of it all.

  In a way, Sherri was right; this was a gift. A gift that wanted to kill us.

  Through the night, there was an occasional snapping of a branch that gave me a jump start, but I suspected that a dead limb had fallen from a tree. About halfway through the night, the geyser erupted again. It sent some drops of warm water over to us, but it was more of a mist than a rain, and once it was over, a fog spread over the forest for about an hour. If the snapping noises and splashes from the ocean made me jump before, I was launching out of my skin when I couldn’t see more than ten feet around us.

  I thought for sure the girls would wake up from that, but they must have been dead tired, and most of the night it was just the soft sounds of them breathing. I did hear Aubrey stirring once, though, as if she was having a nightmare. I thought of waking her, but she settled down back into a soft slumber.

  I felt the fatigue as well. I hadn’t slept much in a couple nights now, and I thanked the growing glow on the horizon. The sun was coming up, and I knew the fight against sleep would be easier in the daylight.

  With weary eyes, I watched the glowing orb climb above the water, sending out streaks of light through the thin clouds. With the new light, I took out the telescope and eyed the island I’d been staring at through the night. It wasn’t far away and looked barren, except for a few features I couldn’t quite make out.

  The blanket behind me crinkled, and I glanced back at the girls. Benji sat up and rubbed her eyes. She looked around for a few seconds before making eye contact with me. This was my third day with her, and she still took my breath away. With smiles shared, she carefully crawled over to m
e and sat on the edge of the platform next to me.

  “Did you stay up all night again?” Benji whispered and glanced back at Aubrey and Sherri, still sleeping.

  “Got to make sure we’re safe,” I whispered back.

  “If we’re here again tonight, we’re taking shifts,” Benji said. “You can’t not sleep, Jack.”

  “Okay,” I said, but I knew if I had to, I could go another night without sleep.

  “I’ve got to use the little girl’s room,” Benji said hesitantly.

  “Sure, I can watch out for you.”

  I hopped off the platform, landing on the sand. Benji did the same and walked behind a tree and bush we had designated as the latrine area, which was nothing more than a hole in the sand. Another item on the list of things we needed was a proper way to control our waste. I supposed the ocean could be a great way to dispose of waste, but with so many deadly creatures stirring at the edges, I preferred to keep us all back from it.

  Benji emerged from behind the tree, looking a bit disgusted. She had her hands out and shook them as she tiptoed away from the area. It made me laugh a little as she scurried over to me in her ridiculous, SpongeBob bikini.

  “Oh my God,” Aubrey groaned. “We’re still fucking here.”

  I spun to see her at the edge of the platform, looking around the forest.

  “That bed sucked. My back hurts. My muscles are sore, and dear God, I never thought I’d miss my phone this much.”

  “Can you be any louder?” Sherri said, sitting up and looking annoyed.

  Sherri scooted past Aubrey and hopped off the platform. She paused, as if realizing what she was doing, and fear filled her face. She spun around, looking for boars, likely, but they hadn’t shown back up since the killing on yesterday’s beach. Once she realized we were safe, she relaxed and went to the food bag on the edge of the platform.

  “Freaking starving,” Sherri said. “We got anything better than that flavored brick from last night?”