by Jake Bible
She shoved past the stunned Tessie and hurried from the master cabin.
“Are you kidding me?” Tessie snapped as she turned to follow. “You’re going to pull that crap on me? Really?”
“Just back the hell off,” Nivia said as she stepped into her cabin and moved to shut the door. Tessie jammed her foot in the way. “Hey!”
“You don’t walk away from me,” Tessie growled. “We agreed to take this trip together with some serious ground rules in place. One of those was you wouldn’t treat me like an outsider.”
“Like you treat Kyle?” Nivia growled back.
She dropped her towel and hunted through the piles of clothing for her swimsuit bottoms. She found the black ones with white piping and shimmied into those. She picked up her wet towel and threw it at Tessie as she grabbed a faded Clash T-shirt from the edge of the bed and slipped that on. Tessie swatted the towel away and took a step towards Nivia as the head door slid open.
“Whoa,” Kyle said, ducking back in fast to hide his nakedness. “Uh…everything alright?”
“Stay in there,” Nivia said.
“Will do,” Kyle replied and slid the door closed.
“You,” Nivia said and pointed at Tessie. “You’ve been with my brother long enough to not be an outsider, but do not ever think you can step in front of me. Understand?”
“Just because you got married doesn’t suddenly make you perfect in the eyes of your parents,” Tessie scoffed. “They love me. They always have. You’ve been nothing but a disappointment to them. You could have been a doctor, but you became a nurse instead, pissing away all that schooling for nothing.”
Nivia started to respond, but the words caught in her throat, and all she could do was move the direction her finger was pointing from Tessie to the door. She jammed the finger at the hall a couple of times until Tessie relaxed, a smug smile on her face.
“I’ll give them gorgeous grandkids and they know it,” Tessie said as she turned to leave. “You’ll just give them little nerds.”
As soon as Tessie was out, Nivia slammed the door closed then threw herself onto the bed. She slammed her fists into the comforter over and over until she knew she wasn’t going to cry.
“Can I come out now?” Kyle called from the bathroom.
***
“Everything alright down there?” Bart asked as he waited up on deck for Tessie. “It sounded like maybe you and the new bride may have had some words.”
“Everything is just fine,” Tessie said and gave Bart a thin-lipped, tight smile as she handed him the bright red first-aid bag.
“Yikes,” Bart responded, taking the bag and throwing it overboard into the small motorboat that waited by the yacht, bobbing up and down in the slight chop that had come up as a small thunderstorm passed by a few miles off. “Be careful, girl. Van may love you more than he’s intellectually capable of expressing, but that is his sister down there. It’s a tight family, Tessie love. I’ve known them a long time and they will cut out anyone that tries to split them up.”
“Shut up and help me into the boat,” Tessie said, but not cruelly. “Van needs to clean that cut so he doesn’t get some weird jungle fever.”
“Love, the only jungle fever around here is the one burning hot because three couples are jammed together in a very small space,” Bart said as he helped Tessie into the boat then followed quickly behind. “Having this island should smooth the moods. Nothing like a little space between loved ones to keep things civil.”
“What does that mean?” Tessie asked as Bart started up the boat and pointed it towards the beach while Tessie undid the lines holding it to the yacht. “We aren’t going to stay on the island.”
“You don’t have to, but I sure as hell am,” Bart said. “Some solid ground underneath me will be wonderful. We have plenty of camping gear, including some fabulously ridiculous tents. Have you seen them? They’re like canvas condos. You should really find a spot for you and Van to hide away in.”
“We’ll see,” Tessie said as Bart piloted them to the shallows. “I refuse to let her run me off.”
“Sweetheart, it’s her family yacht,” Bart said. “If she wants to run you off, there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
Tessie didn’t respond, just sat at the bow and hung on as Bart raced the boat in towards the beach where Van and Frank waited for the arrival of the first-aid kit.
***
Van patted the bandage, smoothing the outer edges, then gave Tessie a big smile.
“Great job, baby,” he said and leaned up for a kiss. She gave him one, but it was distracted and not very enthusiastic. “Uh, oh. What happened?”
“Your sister,” Tessie said, reluctantly. “We got into it.”
“How bad?” Van asked and stood up, testing his weight on his leg. When it held with little discomfort, he grabbed Tessie by the shoulders and brought her into a tight embrace. “Please tell me you didn’t try to pull rank.”
“She just loves pointing out how I’m not part of this family!” Tessie snapped then burst into tears, her face pressed into Van’s chest.
Van didn’t respond, just let her cry it out as he stroked her hair. There was no response he could give. Tessie wouldn’t marry him, and as long as that was the case, then Nivia was right. His parents were very clear on what constituted family. When dealing with the amount of money at stake, they absolutely refused to budge on that point.
“Oh my God!” Frank cried as he walked up to them. “We find paradise and there’s nothing but drama! Can we cut the tears and enjoy this beautiful sunset, please?”
He walked by and smacked Tessie on the ass, making her jump and almost sending her and Van toppling backwards.
“Channel that crybaby crap and come help me find some firewood,” Frank said. “Bart’s digging a fire pit and we need fuel to make this baby burn, baby, burn.”
“I know where there’s a ton of firewood,” Van said. “Back towards the waterfall.”
“Oh, are we allowed to go see it now?” Frank asked, his voice filled with sarcastic sass. “Thank you, Lord of the Flies, for granting us travel privileges.”
“I didn’t want you guys getting distracted,” Van said. “Follow me, I’ll show you where it is.”
He gently pushed Tessie back and looked into her tear-swollen eyes.
“You want to come see it?” he asked.
“No, no,” Tessie said, wiping at her face. She checked her fingers for eyeliner smudges, but they came away clean. “You two get the firewood. Be careful on your leg.”
“You fixed me right up,” Van said, giving her a quick kiss. “You’ll be fine here?”
“I’ll help Bart,” Tessie said. “I can grab blankets and chairs from the boat and set them up around the fire pit. We’re going to have a cozy night on the beach.”
“Sounds perfect,” Van said, kissing her again. He turned to lead Frank into the jungle to find the weathered wood he’d spotted earlier and was quickly lost from sight.
***
“That’s not wood,” Frank said. “It is so not wood that I can’t even make a joke about saying the word wood.”
“What the hell?” Van muttered as he crouched next to the pile of what he had thought was weathered wood. It was not even close. “This can’t be.”
“Oh, it can be because it is,” Frank said. “Those are bones, Van. Big, old bones.”
“But from what?” Van asked as he picked up what must have been a femur. Belonging to what species of animal, Van had no clue. “Look at how big this is.”
“I’m looking, don’t you worry,” Frank said.
“Elephant?” Van mused as he turned the femur over and over in his hands. “It’s not as heavy as I thought it’d be.”
“Hollow,” Frank said as he picked up a cracked bone, possibly another femur. “All the marrow is gone.”
“But they’re so thin,” Van said. “Like giant bird bones. They’d still be heavy, even without the marrow, if they were from a mamm
al.”
“Are you Steve Irwin now?” Frank asked. “Because life didn’t turn out so great for him, you know.”
Frank threw the broken bone back onto the pile, wiped his hands on his swim trunks, then looked around the clearing. “More over there.”
Van set his bone down and looked where Frank was pointing. Several more piles could be seen. They walked over, not in too huge of a hurry, and stared at the new piles.
“Those are teeth,” Frank said, all joking gone from his voice. “Van. Those are teeth.”
“I see that,” Van said, nudging one with his toe. It was easily as long as his foot.
“You care to tell me what in the hell has teeth that big?” Frank asked as he started to check the area with wary, scared eyes.
Van started laughing.
“What?” Frank asked. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“I’m not laughing at you, man,” Van said. “Don’t you see what this is? It’s a gold mine! These fossils have to be worth thousands and thousands of dollars!”
Frank’s demeanor changed instantly. “Thousands? And thousands?”
“Do you have any idea how many museum boards my dad is on?” Van chuckled. “We claim this find, and it’ll pay for our entire trip. Plus a little left over. I can replace everything I took out of my trust fund. You and Bart will be set for years.”
Frank smiled and started to chuckle as well. “Well, hello fossil island! I am so very glad we met.”
“One problem, though,” Van said.
“What?” Frank asked, his joy evaporating instantly. “What’s the problem?”
“We still need to find firewood,” Van said and patted Frank on the shoulder. “Sun’s going down fast.”
***
Between the huge fire and the bright moon above, the cove was lit like a fantasy scene. It was all dark blues and flickering lights with ghostly embers soaring high into the night sky.
“Okay, I could stay here for a while,” Tessie said, nuzzling her head into Van’s chest as they lounged in the sand close to the fire pit, a light blanket under them. “A month should be fine. Do we have enough provisions for a month?”
“We do,” Van replied. “Not to mention all the fishing we can do.”
“We’ll need at least a week if we’re going to document all those lovely fossils,” Frank said. “We want to make sure that we know exactly what’s here.”
“We’ll get to that,” Bart said. “I love how industrious you are being, but how about we relax and enjoy paradise for a few days before we turn into Indiana Jones?”
“He was an archeologist,” Van said. “Not a paleontologist.”
“He had a sexy whip,” Frank said. “That’s the important thing.”
“I agree we should enjoy the island before even thinking about playing with old bones,” Tessie said.
“I played with an old bone once and he nearly had a heart attack,” Bart said. “You have to be careful with the grey ones.”
Van laughed. “Okay, we’re in agreement that we have fun first before we think about reporting our find. We’re in no hurry. If anyone happens by, which I doubt since this island isn’t even charted, we’ll shoo them away.”
“Shoo, poachers,” Frank said.
They laughed and settled into the evening. In minutes, Frank and Bart were snoring as they lay in each other’s arms in the sand, a faded blanket under them. Tessie looked over and watched them for a minute then turned back to Van and began to slide her swimsuit bottoms off.
“Here?” Van whispered.
“Here,” Tessie replied.
She wrapped their blanket around her waist as she pushed Van’s shorts down and straddled him. Van sighed and Tessie leaned her forehead against his as she moved slowly on top of him.
“Hey,” Frank muttered.
“Shit,” Van said and the two lovers froze.
Frank was sitting up, his hand swatting at the back of his neck.
“What the hell?” he cried as he jumped up and started swatting at his bare shoulder. “Bart! What is it? What is it?”
Tessie scrambled to find her bottoms, but they were lost in the tangles of the blanket, so she just wrapped herself up and stood as Van yanked his shorts back on.
“Frank? What is it?” Bart asked as he stood and tried to calm his man.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Frank cried, still swatting at himself. “It bites!”
“Honey, calm down,” Bart said. “You’re getting—OW! What was that?”
“Guys?” Van asked as he scrambled to his feet, putting Tessie behind him so he was between her and the panicked men. “What’s wrong?”
“There’re bugs biting us!” Frank shouted. “Oh, God, they hurt!”
Van squinted into the firelight and could barely make out shapes hovering around both Frank and Bart. He couldn’t tell how big they were because of the bad lighting, but he could see they weren’t small. Maybe six or seven inches long with wings that made a low hum. The hum reminded him of a cross between a cicada and a hummingbird.
“Van?” Tessie whispered. “What do we do?”
“We help,” Van said. He moved to the fire and pulled out a burning log.
The end he grabbed was cool enough to hold, but the other end was a flaming torch. He rushed to Frank and Bart and swung the flaming log at the first flying thing he saw. He struck it with a solid hit and it fell to the sound, quivering and smoking.
Van bent and looked at it then recoiled as it righted itself and flew back into the air. But instead of rejoining the attack on Fran and Bart, it went straight for Van’s face. He jumped back, collided with Tessie who had come up behind him, and fell into a tangled heap of limbs on the sand. The burning log was knocked from his grip and it sizzled then went out as sand covered the flaming end.
“Van!” Tessie screamed.
He turned to see three of the large flying bugs going for her face. She waved her hands at them and one latched on, long, sharp mandibles piercing the flesh of her forearm. “VAN!”
She let out a long, blood-curdling scream as the other two bugs latched onto the same arm.
Then, in a matter of seconds, her entire arm, up to the shoulder, was covered in huge bugs. They latched on and her screams rose in volume and intensity.
“Holy shit,” Van said as he rushed to her and began snatching bugs off of her arm. She screamed louder as one he pulled off came away with a chunk of her flesh. “Sorry! Sorry!”
The pain that struck him was almost overwhelming. It hit at the base of his neck and shot down his spine. Van reached back and found two bugs attached to his skin. He tried to pull them free, but their mandibles only gripped tighter, and he knew if he pulled too hard, he’d shred himself.
“The water!” he yelled and reached out for Tessie. “Take my hand! We have to get to the water!”
Tessie reached up for him and that arm instantly was covered in flying bugs. She screamed until her vocal cords tore and all that came out of her mouth was a strained whine. Her eyes pleaded with Van, glowing orbs of pure terror in the firelight.
Van dove at her and threw her up and over his shoulder, fireman style. More pain hit him as some of the bugs that had been on Tessie decided to switch territories and go for him.
Van ignored the pain as much as he could and shouted to Frank and Bart, “The water! Get into the water!”
His legs had never felt so heavy. He struggled through the fine sand to the water’s edge. Without hesitating, he threw Tessie off of him and directly into the surf. Over half the bugs detached and flew off. The other half detached and went right for Van. He staggered back and almost tripped and fell, but a weight pressed into his back and he stayed upright.
The weight was several dozen of the flying bugs. They tore into his back and flayed his skin open. Van screamed then started choking as one of the flying bugs dove inside his mouth, its mandibles clamping tight on his tongue.
Tessie flailed in the surf, but managed to get enough control
of herself that she could scramble to the small motorboat that bobbed up and down, its anchor keeping it from floating back out into the bay.
Van spun around and around, and in seconds, his entire body was covered with flying bugs. Blood streamed down him, mixing with the waves, turning the surf a deep black.
Tessie was able to pull up the anchor and get the motor started. She had the boat turned and headed for the yacht when the next wave of bugs descended on her.
Frank and Bart’s screams had already ended, their bodies still next to the fire pit, covered in wriggling masses of attacking insects.
***
“What is that?” Kyle asked, sitting up in bed. “Do you hear that?”
Nivia mumbled in her sleep and swatted a hand at him to be quiet and lie back down.
“No, seriously, listen,” Kyle insisted. “Is that screaming?”
Nivia came awake and sat up at once, her nurse’s training kicking in. She cocked her head and listened then bolted from the bed as Kyle’s fears were confirmed by a wailing from out on the water.
“Clothes!” Kyle yelled as he got up and sprinted after her, her silk robe clutched in one hand as he tried to pull on a pair of sweat shorts with the other.
By the time he got out of the cabin and up on deck, Nivia had all of the yacht’s floodlights turned on and was waving her arms over her head. Kyle wrapped the robe about her and she absentmindedly cinched up the waist before going back to waving.
“This side!” she yelled. “Over to the ladder here!”
She rushed to the side of the yacht as the boat careened into the ladder. She had a brief second to glimpse what was in the boat. No longer a who, but only a what. She gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth as the boat bounced off the hull of the yacht and went racing out towards the open ocean.
“Who was it?” Kyle asked. “What’s going on?”
Nivia lowered her hands from her mouth and whispered, “Get below.”
“How do we grab it?” Kyle asked as the boat kept going out to sea, its small motor competing with the loud hum coming from the almost-devoured body that lay in the boat. “Is there a hook?”
