by R. R. Banks
Damn. I go to the dark place fast. Something else to talk to my therapist about.
As I ran I had the sudden and somewhat stunning realization that I was perfectly comfortable. Though it was painful and I would have really preferred to have been wearing shoes and actual clothing, I felt at ease running through the jungle, zipping past the trees and ducking the vines that hung low enough that they would have clotheslined me just a few days before. It was as though my father and my brother were right there with me, directing me. I could hear Virgil’s voice following me, but I refused to let it slow me down. He had done that for far too long. Now I had the strength of Hunter and the life of freedom that I had found behind me and I wasn’t about to sacrifice that without a fight.
I finally saw the thinning of the tree line ahead of me and could hear the crash of the waves. I pushed myself faster and soon felt the sand of the beach on my feet.
“Eleanor!”
I turned toward the sound of my name and saw Hunter running at me. I rushed toward him and jumped into his arms, wrapping myself around him as much as I could and clinging to him out of desperate relief. He pressed a series of hard, fast kisses to my neck, cheek, and mouth before setting me to my feet. His eyes frantically searched the sky above us and then length of the beach.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“What don’t you hear?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Virgil said that someone scheduled a helicopter to come this way. Do you hear a helicopter?”
“No,” I said.
“So, he didn’t use the helicopter.”
I felt like what he was saying wasn’t completely sinking in, like the words were bouncing off of my brain and going right back toward him without making any sense.
“What?” I finally asked.
“He said that the helicopter company served him well with a last-minute charter, but neither of us heard a helicopter. He wasn’t talking about himself. Someone else made that charter, which means that someone else is coming.”
“Of course, they are. Because you’re not really stranded on an island until two separate entities are coming after you.”
Just then we heard the sound of the two men and Virgil crashing through the trees toward the beach. Hunter grabbed my hand and we ran down the beach toward the rocks where we had spent the night before. We scrambled up them and Hunter pulled me across the plateau toward the boulder where he had hidden the supply box and the basket of fruit. I thought that we were going to crouch down behind the rocks, but he pulled me around a corner and I saw a small, low gap. Hunter put his hand to my back and pushed me toward it. I didn’t pause to question him but let him guide me through the gap into a tight, low-ceilinged cavern. He came in after me and we huddled together on the cool rock floor.
“I found this when I was up here by myself,” he said to me in a low whisper. “I didn’t explore any further than this, but I can only assume that it is part of a network of caverns that connects to the one that we stayed in during the storm.”
“You are really smart,” I said, feeling like I needed to validate him.
“Not really,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you are. I never would have been able to design the shelter that you did. It never would have occurred to me that there could be caverns here.”
“You really have to stop being so hard on yourself,” he said. “You are an incredible woman.” I looked away, but he caught my face gently in his hand and turned it back toward him. “Listen to me. You are exceptional. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“Hunter,” I started.
I couldn’t keep going like this. I needed to tell him the truth. Before it had been only lust that had brought me into his arms and compelled me to find satisfaction and deliverance in his touch. Now, though, there was so much more at stake. I knew that it wasn’t just desire or even the sexual bond that we had formed that made me want to draw closer to him in the cavern and feel him hold me close.
“Wait,” he said, then made a hushing sound to quiet me. He looked toward the patch of sunlight we could see through the entrance to the cavern. “Do you hear that?”
I listened and in the distance heard a faint sound. It grew louder and I realized that it was the sound of helicopter blades chopping through the air. Hunter and I exchanged glances and I felt fear swelling inside me.
Who was that? Who else could possibly want me?
“What do we do?” I asked.
As the sound of the blades grew louder, Hunter looked around the small space.
“You stay here,” he said. “I’m going to check for tunnels. Don’t move until I get back.”
He gave me another kiss and disappeared into the darkness behind me. I curled up around myself, pulling my knees close to my chest and wrapping my arms around them so I could bury my face. I could feel myself rocking, reverting to the coping mechanisms I had used for years to deal with everything that was happening around me during my marriage to Virgil. This was it. After everything that I had gone through with him, all of the pain and anxiety and fear. All of the questions and concerns. All of the nights that I just knew were going to be my last. Virgil was finally going to have what he wanted and I was never going to leave the island. I was going to spend the rest of eternity a missing person headline.
Hunter still hadn’t come back by the time that the helicopter was so loud that I knew it had gotten to the island. I squeezed closer in on myself, bracing myself for whatever was coming. The harder that I had tried to prepare myself, to protect myself, however, the more that I thought of all that I had gone through, all that I had suffered, and all that I had overcome. Virgil didn’t deserve my fear. He had had control over my life for long enough and he wasn’t worth even another breath of it.
I uncoiled myself and got to my feet, starting in the crouched over way that I had to move through the cavern toward the entrance. I was only a few steps away when a silhouette darkened the bright entrance.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hunter
The cavern grew narrower as it moved toward the back and I briefly thought that I wasn’t going to be able to get through even if there was a tunnel. I had moved beyond the area that was touched by the sunlight from outside and had to put my hands out to either side to feel along the walls to guide me. My arms were getting shorter and shorter, my elbows bending to accommodate the smaller section and I was about to give up when I felt the wall dip slightly and the space began to get larger. The tunnel turned and suddenly I was in another chamber. The ground beneath my feet was heading downward and I could feel the air getting cooler. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of trickling water. I must have found the spring that fed into the small creeks that meandered through the jungle above. I walked cautiously, knowing that at any minute I could wander into a subterranean pool or fall off a ledge into a deeper section of the cavern.
As I traveled through I tried to orient myself. I tuned my mind into the image of the island that I had been gradually forming during our time there, using it like a map to try to figure out where I was in relation to the rocks and the beach so that I could then determine which direction I should go in order to find the cave that we had made our temporary home during the storm. Not for the first time since we had crashed on the island I wished that I had my phone. The flashlight feature would have been a lifesaver. Of course, that would have required charging and if I had the capability of charging an electronic device it was likely that we wouldn’t be in anywhere near the predicament that we currently found ourselves.
Fire.
The thought popped into my mind as quickly as I had dismissed the idea of my phone. If I could start a fire, I could use that as light to get me through the rest of the cavern.
Didn’t I emphasize to Eleanor that I couldn’t ever be a Cub Scout because I wasn’t able to make a fire?
I didn’t really have a choice. Well, I did. The choice was either bumble my way t
hrough the cavern blind and hope that I didn’t kill myself, or channel my inner survivalist and figure out how to start a fire. In the dark. Without sticks.
Awesome.
I knew that Eleanor needed me, which meant that I had to figure this out. I thought as quickly as I could, trying to come up with anything that would help me accomplish this. An idea came to me and I touched my pocket. Feeling the object inside gave me the first glimmer of hope that I had had since Virgil had shown up. I reached in and withdrew the small knife. Sitting down as carefully as I could, I grabbed onto the leg of my pants and pulled the fabric away from my skin. I pierced through it with the tip of the blade and took a breath before slicing through with one fast motion. The cave gods seemed to be with me at that moment because I was able to cut through the fabric without performing a self-amputation, and I repeated the process twice more until I held a square of my pants in my hand. I rolled the fabric up and tucked it in between my teeth for safekeeping.
First step done.
Feeling around me, I searched for rocks that I thought might be suitable. Since I couldn’t see them, I really couldn’t accurately determine if any of the rocks that were around me had the silica content that I knew was necessary to spark. I just had to guess and hope. I set the fabric from my pants on the ground in front of me. I wrapped my hand around a rock, felt its shape and texture, and then struck it against the blade of my knife. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing.
Discarding the rock, I tried another. No success.
“Come on,” I muttered. “Just one spark. I just need a spark.”
I grabbed a third rock and hit it against the blade as hard as I could. There was a tiny flicker of light and I gasped in surprised happiness. I braced myself.
“Alright,” I said. “That’s it. Let’s do it again.”
I struck the blade again, but nothing happened.
“Don’t be like that,” I said. “We did it once.”
I struck the blade again and there was another spark, larger this time. It jumped and landed on the fabric. Before I could second-guess myself, I did it again and sent another spark onto the fabric. Both started to smolder, finally catching and creating a small flame. I tied the end of the fabric into a large knot to prevent it from burning out too quickly and rapidly removed the belt from my pants. Wincing as the flame licked at my fingers, I wrapped the belt around the knot, creating another barrier to prevent further burnout. I cut another few pieces of fabric from my pants to keep in reserves, picked up my torch, and stood, holding the flame up to spread its light as far through the cavern as I could.
It was larger than I would have expected, but I didn’t see any immediate hazards and I quickly made my way across the open floor toward the tunnel at the other side. If my memory of the layout of the island was correct, this one should lead me back through and to the cave deeper in the jungle. I wanted to check it first just to make sure, but if I was right, that would mean we had our own built-in fortress to protect us from the invaders.
I wish my brother was here. This is the best game of War I’ve ever played.
****
Eleanor
“Hello.”
The voice coming at me from the entrance wasn’t Virgil’s and it didn’t sound deep or scary enough to be one of the two men. The silhouette moved back enough that I could see the person’s face in the sunlight and I saw young, familiar eyes and a smile that was a touch too sparkly for the circumstances.
“Did you find her?”
I sagged at the sound of Snow’s voice and scrambled toward the entrance, pushing past Robin and out onto the rocks. As soon as I was on my feet Snow stumbled around the boulder in front of me and grabbed me into a tight embrace. Noah came right behind her and I gathered him in with us. Behind me I felt Robin throw his arms around all of us, completing the group hug.
“Auntie,” Noah gasped. “I’m so glad you’re alright. Where’s Hunter?”
I pointed into the cavern. He went further into there,” I told him. “He’s trying to figure out if we can go through there to get to the middle of the island.”
“I did figure it out.”
A glow of light formed in the darkness inside the cavern and an instant later Hunter was climbing out of the low entrance holding a very treacherous looking torch and wearing half a pair of pants.
“What happened to you?”
“I think that I qualify as a Cub Scout now,” he told me with a grin, indicating his torch. “Let’s go.”
He ducked back into the entrance and I followed with the other three coming after me. Once we were inside we scrambled our way to the back of the chamber and through a tunnel into a larger chamber.
“Put that thing out, please,” Noah said.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone, turning on the flashlight. It was the first sign of technology that I had seen since smashing into the island and though I would have expected that I would want to grasp it to my chest like a baby and hold it until someone pried it out of my fingers, I actually recoiled slightly. I preferred the glow of Hunter’s torch and felt a hint of disappointment when he dropped the torch to the ground and scooped rocks over it to extinguish the flame.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
Robin straightened up, a wider grin spreading across his face.
“I figured it out,” he said proudly.
“GPS,” Snow said.
“GPS?” I asked.
“Robin pointed out that Hunter doesn’t go anywhere without his watch.”
I saw Hunter grasp at his wrist, rubbing the empty section of skin.
“I don’t have my watch,” he said as if it was the first time since we had gotten onto the island that he noticed. “It must have fallen off during the storm.”
“What watch?” I asked.
“Hunter has the most complicated watch in all of existence,” Robin said. “He never takes it off. It does everything except tell time.”
“It does tell time,” Hunter said.
“Yeah, but it also has a calculator, a calendar, a phone, the internet. Lord only knows what else.”
“GPS apparently,” I said.
“Yes,” Robin said, pointing at me. “It has GPS.”
“And a solar charger,” Hunter said. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think about it.”
“Wherever that watch ended up, it stayed charged enough that we were able to track it.”
“How did you do that?” Hunter asked.
Snow looked at Noah, who looked at Robin, who shrugged.
“I have some connections. It’s not always money that gets you your way.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” I said. “But how did you find me?”
“I got a helicopter charter,” Noah said. “When we got over the island, we noticed the HELP sign and then we saw men running from the beach into the jungle. Then Robin noticed the sun glinting off of something on these rocks so we landed and came up here. It was that supply box.”
He pointed to the side and I saw the box full of condoms sitting on the rock. The top was mercifully closed. Now was not the time to explain that development to my nephew. I felt a small sense of relief.
“They’re the ones who got the helicopter charter,” I said to Hunter.
“What are you talking about?” Noah asked.
“Virgil,” I said, turning to him. “Those men that you saw running off of the beach. It was Virgil and his goonies. They were chasing me on the cruise ship. That’s why we jumped off and ended up here.”
“How did you end up here?” Snow asked.
I explained how we got onto Gavin’s boat and the storm that caused us to crash on the island.
“Where is he now?” Noah asked.
“We don’t know,” I told him. “He took a life raft from his boat before it sank and left.” I gasped and looked at Hunter. “The satellite call.”
“The what?” Snow asked.
“Virgil said that a satellite call was made fr
om this area and that’s how he found us. Gavin must have made that call.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Noah said. “We need to get the two of you off this island.”
“The helicopter is on the beach,” Snow said. “We can be gone in a minute.”
We streamed out of the cavern and scrambled down the rocks toward the helicopter. My eyes darted across the beach looking for Virgil and the other men to come running back toward us. We were nearly to the helicopter when I noticed that the cockpit was empty.
“Where’s the pilot?” I asked.
“What?” Snow said, rushing toward it. She whipped around to face us as we followed her. “Where the hell did he go?”
“Virgil must have taken him,” I said.
“Shit,” Noah said. “We can’t get off the island without him.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?”
We all exchanged glances. This wasn’t over.
Twenty minutes later we finally walked out of a tight tunnel and into the cavern where Hunter and I had weathered the storm. My stomach trembled at the thought of how we had gotten through that night and I felt a sinking feeling that that was all falling apart around me. We paused in the middle of the cavern and I felt Hunter’s hand take mine. It was at once reassuring and heartbreaking. I wanted so much to give myself over to it, but the fact that I hadn’t been able to finish my thought earlier was harsh in my mind.
“What do we do now?” Robin asked.
Noah held a finger up to his lips and we all strained for sound. In the distance, I heard a shouting voice and knew that Virgil wasn’t far.
“Dammit,” I said. “We ran to him.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Hunter said. “He has no idea this cavern is here. We’re safe as long as we stay here.”
“We can’t stay here,” Snow said. “We have to find the pilot. If nothing else but to stop Virgil from hurting him, but if we don’t find him, we’re not leaving. That helicopter isn’t moving without a pilot.”
As if the words were a queue, the sound of a helicopter swirled through the air. We looked at each other and ran out of the cavern. I looked up and saw another copter coming toward the island. It didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t the same one that we had left sitting on the beach.
