by M H Ryan
“Yup,” Aubrey said. “I knew this would eventually be our reality, I just figured we’d be rescued by now.”
“This is our fourth night here,” Benji said. “And I haven’t seen as much as a plane in—”
“Fourth night?” Kara asked.
“Yeah, Jack and I were on the same island. A tiny thing. Jack save my life that first day, twice.”
Kara shook her head and put her hands over her ears. “This is impossible,” I heard her mutter. “I spent one night on that…hell. I think it was one night.” She rubbed her temple with her palm.
“One night?” Aubrey said. “How’s that possible?”
Kara looked as if she might start crying again.
“Just leave her alone,” Sherri said. “Kara, you tell us when you’re ready.”
“Where is everyone else?” Kara asked.
A silence spread over us, and then Benji spoke. “We haven’t found them yet. It’s just us so far.”
“Found?” Kara asked.
“We keep finding more of our sisters. We went to you because we saw the smoke,” Benji said.
Kara nodded as if she understood and didn’t say any more.
“Well, why don’t we get some sleep? We have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow,” I said.
“Oh God, this is like a never-ending hell week at training camp,” Aubrey said.
“Are you kidding?” Sherri said. “This is going to be awesome. We are going to live off the land. We are going to create something from nothing out here. How many people get this opportunity?”
“I hate you,” Aubrey said, laughing as she got up off the sand. “And can we make some chairs, maybe a couch?”
“Sure,” I said. “We should make a list tomorrow of wants and needs, then we can start making the stuff we need, you know, in case we’re here for….”
“Ever,” Aubrey said somewhere between laughter and despair.
“No, but until we get rescued,” I said.
“Every day that passes, that seems like a more distant dream.” Aubrey sighed.
“Hey,” Benji said. “Jack’s ship is out there. We saw it. It’s looking for us.”
“Yeah, unless it’s just some ghost ship,” Aubrey said as she stretched.
“Ghost ship?” Kara said, bringing her knees against her chest. “I saw a craft.”
“What?” I asked.
“It had a sail and…”
“What?” Sherri said.
“A person on it,” Kara said.
“Like a rescue ship?” Aubrey asked.
“No, it was homemade. Like a tree on the water. I would have yelled, but I didn’t have the energy.”
“Where did it go?” I asked.
Kara looked around the forest and then back toward the ocean. “I don’t know. I didn’t care at the time. I just wanted to…” She stopped and rubbed her forehead and eyes.
“Can you tell us what happened on that island?” Aubrey asked.
“It crushed me,” Kara burst out. “It spoke to me, telling me terrible things,” Kara said, hugging her legs.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find you earlier,” I said. “But you’re with us now. We’ve got you.”
She nodded her head as if she understood, but a tear fell from her face. Benji scooted next to her and hugged her friend.
“Can we find more?” Kara said.
“I think it’d be irresponsible of us if we didn’t try,” I said.
Aubrey, still standing, yawned and stretched. “Okay, well, we can discuss more of this in the morning. I’m going to bed.”
“Yeah, we all should,” I said.
As if on cue, a shadow crossed the beach and a squawk rang out from the sky above.
“I’ll take first shift,” I said.
Chapter 22
A tongue glided across my face, and I opened my eyes to see a much cleaner sea cat standing on my chest. It gave a soft meow and hopped to the sand next to me. With the black tar gone, her shiny hairs showed in bright green and blue stripes. And yes, the girls discovered the gender of the things while cleaning it.
Still lying down, I petted her smooth fur, and she arched her back in response. She yawned, her wide mouth full of teeth. That’s when I remembered I wasn’t looking at a normal cat. This was a cat of this place. A sea cat of some sort. Even her paws were wide, spreading over the sand like soft butter.
Sherri was next to me, still sleeping, with her arm draped over me and her hand resting on my penis. That was a better wakeup call than the cat’s tongue. I carefully moved her hand and rested it on her hip. Then I slid to the edge of the platform and sat in front of the cat.
“Who’s a good kitty?” I said.
“I cleaned her up more on my shift,” Aubrey said, looking weary and sitting across from the fire pit.
Smoke trailed up from the long-dead fire.
“’Morning,” I said.
“Yup, it certainly is,” Aubrey said, poking the ashes with a stick.
“No!” Kara screamed.
I jumped up, scaring the crap out of the sea cat. Kara was sitting up and clutching her chest, her eyes wide and terrified as she looked around, frantic.
“What the Justin Bieber's was that?” Sherri asked, sitting up.
“This is real?” Kara said.
“Good Lord, second-day jumpers are kicking in,” Aubrey said. “I remember those.”
I did as well. You almost assumed that this couldn’t be your reality, and the nightly escape often led to a world where the things around you didn’t want to kill you. Or at least not directly. The shock of waking from one world to the next could be harsh.
Benji hugged her friend from behind. “Just a bad dream, Kara.”
Kara blinked, looking around the forest and us for a moment. “This isn’t a nightmare. Where I was, that was a nightmare.”
“Feeling better?” I asked as I got to my feet. The shock of her scream still had my heart racing.
“I don’t know.” She held her hands over her ears.
Then, for the first time since we’d rescued her, she smiled.
“The voices are gone,” she said, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Voices?” Aubrey said.
“What voices, Kara?” Benji said, sitting behind her and hanging on her shoulder.
“Maybe they weren’t voices but thoughts,” she said, frowning. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I feel better. Not great, but better.”
Kara patted Benji’s hand and then stood up.
It was my first good look at her in the daylight. She was stunning in her black bikini, with the strings wrapping around her stomach and to her bottoms. That bottle of sunblock was definitely going to be her friend. I was surprised she wasn’t burned already. She had small breasts that fit her slender figure nicely. Her straight, black hair ran to her shoulders and moved easily in the light ocean breeze. She wore a few dark-colored rings and had a piercing in her nose and navel. A tattoo that I couldn’t quite make out ran up the entirety of her front, appearing and disappearing between the bikini. She had a few more tattoos on her arms that looked more like cartoon characters. None that I recognized, but I wanted to know what they meant to her. She had a few on her wrist that I did know but It seemed we might all have plenty of time to get to know each other. Speaking of that—I had a secret I was keeping from the girls. I didn’t like it, but I had to tell them soon about Rebecca Brown and her mission across the sea. I knew her obsession, and why we were on these islands had to be related.
Kara made eye contact with me, and it felt as if for the first time she was really herself. Before, I’d only seen fear and despair in those striking blue eyes, but now there was something else, something firmer, like she had a bottomless will to live. Her eyes were a well that I wanted to jump into and drown. A man or woman could kneel before that gaze and be grateful for the moment of time they held yours.
“Glad you’re feeling better,” I said. “And I’m glad everyone’s awake, because I
wanted to have a meeting.”
The girls sat around the fire pit. Aubrey handed out some water pouches she’d made overnight, and the girls started drinking.
“First off, I’m making a trip to Food Island to grab some supplies.”
“Are we really down to naming these islands like that?” Aubrey said.
“There’s a bunch of them, and they seem to serve a function rather than just being another island, so yeah, I like the idea of naming them after their function.”
Aubrey shrugged. “Okay, just seems…uninspired.”
“I’ll be happy to have suggestions on naming but that isn’t what I want to talk about.”
“We’re in an archipelago,” Kara said.
“What?” Aubrey asked.
“It’s a group of islands,” Sherri said. “You had minor in geography, right?”
“Yeah,” Kara said, looking at the ground. “There’s a bunch of these around the world, including off the coast of Florida.”
“Archipelagos,” I said. “I think I played a game with that name. Cool name, though.”
“Pela,” Sherri said. “Short and sweet.”
“Okay, who’s in favor of naming these lands Pela?” Benji said, raising her hand.
Kara and Sherri raised their hands.
“You do know Pela means—” Aubrey started to say.
“Three yes, two no,” Benji said. “The yeses have it. Pela is the name of these lands.”
“We should make a flag,” Sherri said, slapping her knees.
“A mango could be on it,” Benji suggested.
“Oh my God,” Aubrey muttered. “We aren’t creating a country out here.”
“Says you,” Sherri said.
“Actually, if we are the ones to discover this island chain, we could have the rights to name it,” Kara said, keeping an eye on the ground. “Like the Cook islands.”
I wanted her to look up. I wanted to see those eyes again, but she was holding them hostage like some stingy gazer.
The cat meowed and rubbed against Benji’s leg.
“We need to give her a name as well,” Benji said.
“We rescued her from the tar pits, maybe Blacky?” Sherri said with a shrug.
“I had a friend in elementary school named Moshe. He said it was a version of Moses and meant ‘to be taken from the water,’ ” Aubrey said. “That name just always stuck with me.”
“Moshe?” Sherri said. “I like it.”
I raised my hand, as did the rest of them.
“My little Moshe,” Benji said, rubbing the cat’s furry cheeks.
“Okay, now that we got that settled,” I said, deciding to find another time to tell them about Rebecca. “Back to the topic at hand: we’re out of food, and I think it’s worth a trip to Food Island to get some.”
“I know what I’m getting,” Benji said.
“We also need to make some modifications to the raft. The raft is good for floating, but it drags in the water like we’re pulling a dead shark behind us. We need a more streamlined design and something that can accommodate more people.”
“We could sharpen the tips of the bamboo so it cuts through the water better,” Aubrey said.
“Brilliant and simple,” I said. “What else?”
“It’s more about water displacement,” Sherri said. “Too much of the raft is making direct contact with the water. If we took two or three larger logs, strapped them to the bottom of the boat and sharpened them to a point, it should cut through the water faster.”
“You don’t think it’ll be too high off the water to still paddle?” I asked.
“Not if we sliced off the top of the log. We might be six inches higher off the water,” Sherri said.
“And it would make it more stable,” Kara said, glancing up at me before looking away.
“I’m loving these ideas,” I said, and I began to think of the logistics before Aubrey popped into the conversation.
“All good, except for how we are going to cut down a tree with a chef knife and a tactical blade?” Aubrey said.
“I think I can create an ax,” Benji said. “We didn’t just make bows in archery camp; we made all kinds of stuff. If we can find the right type of stone, I might be able to make a kind of chopping tool for us.”
“Well, that would be freaking awesome. My God, you ladies are incredible,” I said. “It’s like having my own elite force.”
Kara swayed from side to side, looking at the ground still, but I saw a smile from under that black hair hanging over her face.
“Okay, I think we have some great ideas on the raft, now what about the shelter? We need to start thinking of something more permanent. I’ve been thinking of this for a while now, but I saw something on Food Island, a cave.”
“A cave?” Aubrey said. “Where?”
“I spotted it at the base of Mount Baldy, but there is a current occupant.”
“Great, was it a dragon?” Aubrey said. “Tell me it was a dragon and see if I’m surprised.”
“It’s sort of like a dragon. It’s one of those crocs. A monstrous one. It seemed to live in the cave.”
“It might not be alone, either,” Sherri said.
“So we’re moving?” Benji asked.
“I think we should scout it out on this trip, see what it’s like. With a cave, we could seal the door and be protected from the elements and the creatures out here. What would happen if we get a flock of those birds?”
Benji sighed. “But this island…feels good.” A hint of color lit her cheeks.
“It does,” Kara said and rubbed her feet into the sand.
“If that island you were on were the yin, then this is the yang,” Benji said.
“Yang Island,” Sherri said and raised her hand.
Benji shot her hand up, as did an amused Aubrey.
“Three votes, Yang it is,” Sherri said.
“Yang,” Aubrey chuckled. “I had already been calling this place Wang Island because that’s mostly what I think about while on it. Yang’s close enough.”
I sighed and felt the heat between Aubrey and I as we made eye contact. The moment we spent behind the waterfall and then the fern clearing wasn’t something I’d ever forget—in fact, I desperately wanted to repeat it— but I had a duty to these women, keeping them alive. It would be easy to get sucked into a world of ecstasy, and I was sure at least two women near me would be happy to join, but it would be a drug, an addiction, and shit wouldn’t get done. First, we build it, and then I will come.
“You better stop looking at me like that, Jack. I will rip those clothes right off of you and do you right here, right now,” Aubrey said, laughing.
I swallowed and looked away from her while adjusting my shorts.
“Are you all having sex with him?” Kara asked.
“Not all of us,” Benji said, turning red again.
Kara glanced up at me with those blues and then quickly looked away.
I could feel some heat in my cheeks now. “Okay, so, why don’t we get the raft loaded up, and I’ll make the quick fix of pointing the front bamboo sticks for now, and then we can set sail to Food Island. We can worry about the major overhaul of the raft when we get back.”
“Perhaps we should refresh the raft with some tar?” Sherri asked.
“Great idea, any volunteers?” I asked in jest. “Okay, fine, I’ll do that as well.”
It didn’t take long to sharpen the logs at the front of the raft. I wasn’t sure how well it would work, but if anything, it gave us another defense against shark attacks. While I was using some leaves to scoop and spread the tar out over the raft, the girls made another paddle and gave Kara the basics of how to row. They also gave her a spear, which she took in her hand as if it was a foreign object to her.
We scooted the raft into the deeper water, keeping an eye out for the crocs and sharks and whatever else might be lurking, and then climbed onto the raft and got in our positions. Moshe jumped over the water and landed on the raft
. Guess we had an official mascot now. She walked around the raft and jumped back in fright when she got close to some of the tar at the edge. She jumped over to the supply bags and sat on top of them, looking offended.
Kara and Aubrey were on the left side, and Sherri and Benji on the right. I took the back spot with the pole.
“Were you into sports, Kara?” I asked.
“Curling,” she said, looking at the paddle in her hands.
“Like your hair?” I asked.
Sherri laughed hard and then said, “No, it’s that ice sport.”
“Oh yeah, that ice game where they slid that rock and sweep?”
“Yeah,” Kara said.
“Okay, well, just try to keep up with Aubrey, and let’s all just make as good of a time as we can.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Sherri said and saluted me.
And with that, I shoved off the shoreline and into the ocean. It didn’t take long to notice the crocs in the waves, bobbing up and down with swells. To my delight, they moved away from the raft and started fighting each other as they were forced to share space. Mouths shot open and closed, causing water to get splashed all around us in a fury.
In a minute, we were clear, and Kara let out a long breath.
“What the hell was that?” Kara asked as she tried to catch her breath.
“Just some angry, mutant crocs that would have probably killed us if not for the tar,” Aubrey said.
“Mutant crocs?” Kara asked.
“Oh yeah, and there’s sea pigs, and we know there are full-grown sea cats out there somewhere…you haven’t seen shit yet. Just make sure, whatever you do, you don’t fall in the water,” Aubrey said.
Chapter 23
“Shark,” Benji said.
“You sharks are getting slower,” Aubrey said.
“Keep paddling,” I said. “We aren’t that far away.”
Food Island was in plain sight now, maybe ten minutes away. That’s when I first saw movement in the trees on the island. I pulled the pole out of the water and set it on the raft. Moving to the front of the raft, I used the scope to get a better look at those trees.
