by M H Ryan
“What you mean?” Benji asked.
“I have an idea, and if it works, it might allow us to travel more safely and maybe even find a way off these islands.” I looked back up the hill. “I think I washed my hands too soon.”
Chapter 16
With a lot more of the black tar collected, I started moving around the raft and applying the mess to all the edges. I smeared it with my hands over the spear tips and the outriggers and everything that came in contact with the water. I kept the deck clear, though. It was messy work, but if it succeeded…
I checked my little cat buddy, and it lifted its head as I walked by. I scrubbed the final handful of tar on the edge of the raft. Finished, I looked at my clothes, amazed to see only a couple of black dots. Somehow I managed to stay relatively clean. I scrubbed my hands in the sand and the ocean water, working the majority of the gunk off.
“All aboard,” I said, climbing onto the raft first.
“Thank fucking God,” Aubrey said. “Another minute on this island, and I was about to slit my wrists.”
“I really can’t wait to get back to our island,” Benji said.
I reached out with a smile and offered my dirty hand to Aubrey, which she curtly rejected.
“Don't you be thinking you’re going to be touching me with those hands,” Aubrey said. “You know, I think I spotted some soap bushes near camp. It might work for your hands and that sea kitty,” Aubrey said.
“Soap bush?” I asked.
“Yeah, you rub it together, and it creates a nice lather. I saw a few bundles back at the island. Not edible, though,” Aubrey said.
I looked down at the feline. If she was right, we might get the thing clean. It seemed like the ladies had already cleaned it off somewhat, and their efforts made it all the more clear—it wasn’t exactly a cat, much like the boars weren’t exactly boars. It had larger front teeth that stuck out from its mouth, and its body seemed slender, the feet wider than a normal cat. I patted it on the head, and it gave out a soft meow.
“It's a water cat,” I said.
“It's kind of cute,” Aubrey said. “If this is some new species of cat we discovered, do you have any idea how much money we can make from this? I mean, rich people out there will pay a hefty price for the rare and unique."
“We’re talking about all new species out here,” Sherri said. “This is like the Galapagos Islands being discovered all over again. It’s insane. How is this even possible? The sharks, these plants, the very water itself is all different. This is truly the adventure of a lifetime.”
I could tell Aubrey wanted to lash out about Sherri’s adventure, but she held it in and just went to her paddling spot. Good. I didn’t really want to have another argument break out on this island. I really wanted to get off this brown lump. Each minute sapped my energy and my spirit. I could see it with the girls, as well. Even Sherri had a frown on her face now. This place just felt wrong, and the soon we got away from it, the better.
With all of us back on the boat and in position, I gave one look at the cat to make it was staying near the middle of the raft and I pushed off the shoreline and into the ocean.
“There’s sharky,” Benji said.
Well, we didn’t get a few hundred feet off the island by the time we saw our good friend, now christened Sharky. He was the big mako with the large dorsal fin, but he seemed content to stay away from us. Then his two smaller friends joined in on the party, but they all kept back from the raft.
Then one of the smaller ones crept closer. Benji had her bow ready, but the shark made an abrupt turn, swimming back toward the bigger one. The cat hissed at the shark.
“I think it's working,” I said, feeling the trepidation coming from the sea.
They seemed more confused than angry.
“You're a freaking genius, Jack,” Benji said, lowering her bow.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said, but I felt a spark of hope.
If we could travel without the risk of getting attacked, everything would change. We could explore the other islands and see if we could find more of their sisters. We could go get food at Aubrey’s starter island—including mangos for Benji. Heck, we could even go back to the postage stamp Benji and I woke on and collect more bamboo. I glanced back at Frank’s island. That was an island I had no intention of returning to.
One shark being deterred didn’t necessarily mean my theory was correct, but it felt good to have a small win. We made good time across the ocean, and the sharks kept up with us, but never got closer than fifty feet.
None of us had said a word in a while. Maybe they felt the same way, and they didn’t want to ruin a good thing by acknowledging it. The raft rubbed against the sandy beach and came to a stop.
The silence broke, and we all cheered at the same time.
“It worked, Jack!” Benji exclaimed and gave me a hug.
I held my hands out, making sure not to touch her with my dirty hands. Aubrey and Sherri also joined in, hugging me and thanking me. It felt good to be gone from that island and back on ours. It felt like home.
That’s when I noticed our camp had been destroyed.
Chapter 17
Broken sticks, torn emergency blankets, and a scattered fire pit made my heart sink and my blood boil. Even the platform had been knocked over, hanging against the tree, held on with a thread of rope and duct tape.
I held my spear out and scanned the forest for the intruders. Who or whatever did this would pay for it.
“What happened?” Benji asked, her bow in hand.
“We just got ganked,” Aubrey said, holding her spear out in front of her.
“We don’t know what or who did this,” I said, making sure they didn’t just assume a person did this. “Let’s spread apart and sweep the island. It may still be here.”
Leaving the water cat safely on the raft, we stepped toward the forest.
“Stay here, kitty,” Benji said.
I knew how Aubrey and Benji were in a ground battle; they were warriors, but I hadn’t seen Sherri in a fight yet, and I stuck close to her. She held her spear with a shaky hand and kept glancing over to me.
“I’m here with you,” I said as we stepped into the warm, green forest.
She gripped her spear tighter and gave me a firm nod.
The silence of the forest made each of our steps become pronouncements of our movements. I tried to walk lightly but cringed at each snapping twig or rustling leaf.
I spotted a path of broken bushes and smooshed ferns—something had been here before us. I used a few hand signals, and Benji nodded. Aubrey shook her head and shrugged, looking confused.
“Over there,” I whispered and pointed.
We needed to work on hand signals, and I stored it in the long shit-that-needed-to-happen list.
I led the way along the trampled path and stopped when I saw a clump of sand fly through the air and hit a fern, followed by another and another, as if someone was throwing sandy snowballs.
I crept around the green bush blocking my view from what was causing the sand flinging and froze as I spotted a massive bird—and I mean massive, about the same size as myself. Its two long legs held wide feet that were scooping the sand and kicking it back toward me. It was crouched over a hole about two feet deep, and then I realized its goal as it bent down and picked up a white egg, breaking it open with its immense brown beak. The egg broke and it gobbled down the soft, almost gelatinous croc embryo. Some of the juices fell from its beak and slid back to the green and blue feathers on its neck. It seemed content, if not happy, a feeling I hadn’t come across from any animal so far.
Aubrey inched up next to me, craning her neck to see what I saw. In the process, she stepped on a twig. The cracking sound was about as noticeable as a gun firing into the forest. The human-sized bird whipped around toward us and let out a squawk that sounded more like a hiss. Its benign mood shifted to the opposite, and I remembered the winged creatures that had snatched the boars on our firs
t night after the shipwreck.
I held out my spear and used my other hand to push Aubrey back. The dense foliage would give the girls cover, at least temporarily. The bird couldn’t see more than a dozen feet through this part of the forest. I took one step back, feeling the warm water on the plants around me. The bird rose up, extending its thick, brightly colored neck, making it nearly seven feet tall.
“Easy, big fellow,” I said, holding out an empty hand. “Are you the one that destroyed our camp?”
It screeched again, but this time it was two quick bursts, with its beak turned toward the sky. I looked up and spotted another bird like this one, flying above the canopy.
“Shit!” I said, turning my head back to the girls. “We’ve got one above us.”
“What the hell is that?” Sherri said, standing a few feet behind me.
“I don’t know. It’s like a colorful ostrich on steroids…that can apparently fly.” I glanced back up to find an empty sky. “Watch your sides, ladies. There’s another one around here, maybe more.”
“Holy shit, it’s a fucking Snipe,” Benji said.
“It broke our shit,” Aubrey said. “I say we kill them.”
“We don’t know if they are the ones that did it,” Benji said. “They’re just big freaking birds. We don’t need to kill them.”
I wasn’t sure about that. Glancing at its talons and thick legs, it seemed to have the power to break the shack apart. One thing I knew for sure—this big guy wasn’t happy. Its anger felt like hot waves against my skin. I’d rolled up on him, and if it wasn’t looking for a fight, we certainly were giving it a reason to reconsider.
The bird took a step toward me, and I thrust my spear forward, hoping the thing might think twice about attacking us. It let out a low guttural sound, almost like a growl, as it eyed my spear. Its throat shook from the effort, and it opened its mouth, displaying the small, sharp ridges that lined the edge of its long, yellow beak.
“What the hell are you?” I whispered. “Stay close to a tree, and put your back near it,” I said to the girls as I backed away from the bird.
It followed forward, matching me step for step. It seemed to be waiting for something, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what—or who, rather.
“Jack, I hear something near the pond,” Sherri said.
“There’s at least one other bird on this island, and I think they’re trying to corner us,” I said.
“Birds aren’t that intelligent,” Sherri said. “And we aren’t its prey.”
The big bird squawked and took a step toward me. I moved back, keeping the pointy end of the spear between us.
“Any suggestions would be great right now, Sherri,” I said.
“It’s eating the croc eggs. This is its feeding ground, I bet. If we all leave the area, I don’t think they’ll attack,” Sherri said.
“Okay,” I said, backing up. “New strategy. We’re leaving this area and slowly walking back to camp.”
“There is a croc hole near our camp,” Sherri said. “I don’t think they’ll stop bothering us.”
“What are you saying?” Aubrey asked. “That we have to leave the island?”
“Just while they feed. I don’t think they’ll be here long…unless they start nesting.”
“Fabulous,” I said while taking steps away from the bird.
I didn’t want to kill the creature unless I had to, but I wasn’t about to give up our watering hole. It was the only water source we’d found on all four islands. We’d be dead in days without water.
“Keep going back to camp. If they leave us alone, we leave them alone.”
“And if they don’t?” Benji asked, arrow nocked and pulled back.
“Then we kill them. Benji, you stay at the back with me, Sherri and Aubrey up front. Let’s stick together and cover our backs.”
The girls nodded, and we formed a loose circle, Benji and me walking backward as Aubrey and Sherri lead the way forward. The bird kept a steady fifteen feet back from us, moving with us each step.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Benji said. “I could hit it in the brain or the heart right now.”
“Just hold on. We don’t know how many of them there are,” I said.
“Okay, but if this thing leaps for you, I’m ending it.”
“I would hope so,” I said.
We crept another twenty feet toward camp. I wiped the sweat from my brow and wondered how long since the last time the geyser blew. These birds must be aware of it, and hopefully, they weren’t planning on staying here. The geyser would make for a poor nesting area.
“We’ve got another one on the right,” Sherri said.
I heard the crack of a branch and the ferns and brush rustled as it moved through the forest. The second one was about the same size as the first, with the same bright-colored feathers and a long neck. It hissed at us and opened its mouth, displaying those serrated, teeth-like ridges.
“Just showing us it’s tough,” Sherri said as we kept walking.
“Easy, big guy,” I said. “We’re just going back to our camp, and you can eat every damn croc on this island. Please do, in fact.”
“Another one on the left,” Aubrey said.
“Dammit!”
This one was smaller, but only by a foot. It made a clicking sound and opened its mouth with a hiss.
“This is good,” Sherri said. “They’re showing us their cards.”
“How’s that good?” Aubrey asked, pointing her spear at the new arrival.
“If we can see them, then they aren’t planning on a surprise attack. They want to scare us out of their area.”
“I can kill two of them, but that will leave the third open,” Benji said.
“Not yet,” I said. “And hopefully it won’t come to that.”
The birds kept our slow pace through the forest, moving in and around trees and bushes as they kept a good fifteen to twenty feet away but never retreating.
The biggest one of the three lifted its head up and squawked into the air. I glanced up and saw several more of the big birds flying above the trees.
“Incoming,” I said, and for the first time, fear rose inside me. The numbers were starting to stack against us, and if we didn’t act soon, we’d be hopelessly outnumbered.
“Crap,” Aubrey said.
“This isn’t good,” Benji said. “They’ll have numbers on us soon.”
“Aubrey, we need to move faster,” I said.
Aubrey picked up the pace to a fast walk, and we followed with her. The birds seemed agitated by our increased speed and began squawking at each other as they kept pace. I glanced up and was glad to see the birds were still in the sky, gliding above the canopy.
After a minute of heavy walking through the damp, hot forest, I stepped on the white sands of the beach. The site of our wrecked camp pissed me off almost as much as the first time I saw it. One of the birds pecked at one of our emergency blankets, ripping a large hole in it.
“Hey! Don’t touch that, you son of a bitch!”
It hissed at me but backed away from the blanket. The other two birds stayed in the forest.
“Get out of here,” I yelled, jabbing my spear at the bird near the forest’s edge.
It let out that low guttural growl and crouched. The one that was pecking at our camp stopped and stared at us. Some string hung from its mouth—our string. String that would be very hard, if not impossible, to recreate out here. The sight of it infuriated me, and I snarled at the bird.
It dipped low and growled back, taking a step toward us. All three birds were hot with anger, and I felt the heat turning up from them. An attack was inevitable.
“It’s them or us,” I said. “Sherri, take the camp-destroying asshole over there. Benji, hit the one on the forest edge, next to the fern cluster. I’ll take the one near the palm.”
I checked my side, feeling Frank’s knife at my hip. I heard a weak hiss from near my feet, and I looked down to see the water cat h
unched down near my foot, glaring at the bird.
“We got this,” Benji said, pulling back the nocked arrow near her cheek.
“Aubrey, you’re on lookout in case there is one we’re not seeing here,” I said.
“No problem.”
“On three,” I said.
Then the overgrown-chicken-slash-camp-destroyer jumped straight at Sherri. Sherri hurled her spear, striking the thing dead center in the chest. It flopped to the ground in a spasm of pain just as I heard the release of an arrow from Benji. The arrow hit the next bird in the neck, going through and sticking out the other side. I didn’t waste a second longer and ran at the third bird with my spear. It jumped back from my thrust and shot into the air a few feet, snapping at the spear.
The thing flapped its wings as it flew over me, heading straight toward Sherri. In a burst, I ran, jumped onto a lower branch, jumped again off the branch and threw my spear at the bird as hard as I could. It struck the bird with a thud, penetrating its chest. The feathered monster fell to the ground and slid a few feet from Sherri, but it wasn’t dead. It flailed on the ground, snapping at Sherri. I pulled my new knife out and jumped on its back, slicing across its throat. It reeled back at me, beak open, before going limp and crashing against the sand. Aubrey stuck the thing once more with her spear, just to make sure it was dead. Also possibly out of spite.
I hopped off the bird and glanced around. The forest looked empty and silent except for the heavy breathing of the girls.
“That thing was coming right for me,” Sherri said. “You saved me, Jack.”
“There were a few in the sky,” I said, moving and trying to get a better look through the canopy.
I didn’t see them anymore, but I heard a distant squawk followed by a chorus from the sky. I held my hand up to silence the girls, and we all listened as the birds’ cries grew distant and finally faded away.
“That sounded like a lot of them,” Aubrey said. “All the more reason to work on getting rescued. We can’t defend from the air.”
“Yes, we can, but we might need to reconsider where our camp is,” I said, watching the sky.
