“We’ll help,” I said. “But I had some questions first.”
Chase scowled at me and I swallowed. I knew what needed to be done would be hard, but I was one of the few people still thinking clearly.
“We need to find out what happened to him…as best we can.”
“What does that mean?” Chase asked in an accusing tone.
“We need to know…why he died. We need to know how, for all of our sakes”
Chase took a deep breath and rubbed his face. “We…we were just sitting around. Him and Reggie went exploring…he was fine.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t fucking know! Then he died.”
I knelt beside Conner and started to roll up his sleeve. “I know it’s hard man, but if he died from something on this island, we need to find out.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Chase growled and took a step toward me.
“Looking to see if he was bitten or scratched by something.”
“Bitten by what?”
“I don’t know. We’re in the jungle. Something had to happen to him, people don’t just die.”
“He just died!” Chase barked.
“Look man, I know he was your friend and I’m sorry. I really am. But if something happened to him we need to know, before the same thing happens to someone else.”
Chase frowned then nodded at me and turned around. I rolled Conner’s sleeves back down and continued looking. “Trevor, help me turn him over.”
He looked at me and blinked like he’d been off in some other world. Shaking his head, he grabbed Conner by the legs and we rolled him over.
I pulled up his pants leg to check, fighting against everything inside of me. Every fiber telling me to stop, every thought telling me I belonged somewhere else. I didn’t want to be the one doing it, but it had to be done.
I paused and stared at his lifeless shell. It was just this thing that was there, this empty thing that had once been a home. Now it was empty and no one else would live there again. Where did people go when they died?
“He’s not here anymore,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What?” Trevor asked.
“Nothing…help me get his shoes off.”
Trevor nodded as he started on the shoe closest to him. I untied the other one and tugged at it until it popped off and I fell back into the dirt, clutching his filthy sneaker.
“What the hell?” Trevor suddenly said in disgust.
Conner’s foot was badly discolored. It was swollen and blue, with dried blood crusted around his ankle. Each toe was inflamed and lumpy with flakes of skin falling off.
I stood up and took a few steps closer. It looked like he had been bitten by something, but his foot was so disfigured there was no way to know.
“Wha…what happened?” Chase stuttered as he hesitantly edged toward the body.
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel!” Trevor suddenly shouted. “Daniel the shoe!”
I looked down at Conner’s muddy tennis shoe that I was still holding. A black and yellow spider was crawling out, climbing over the tongue. I yelped and dropped it on the ground.
“That’s a banana spider,” Trevor said.
Chase pushed me to the side and stomped on the thing like he was trying to break the ground apart. Twisting his foot, he smashed it into the dirt. “That’s what killed him?”
“Must be. We need to be careful out here,” I said. “Those are probably everywhere in this damn jungle.”
“A fucking spider,” Chase mumbled. “A fucking spider.”
I took a deep breath and looked around. The idea of dying from a spider bite was terrifying, but at least we knew. We didn’t have to guess what happened and there was some level of peace in that.
“Let’s finish the hole,” I said and grabbed one of the thick pieces of palm tree.
With two hands, I stabbed the splintered bark into the soil and grunted as I pulled it toward myself. Trevor and Chase joined me in the somber task. There were no words shared between us, just work.
After a few minutes my arms burned like fire and I couldn’t even tell I’d done anything. I was working harder and harder with less results, but it kept my mind busy.
“How deep should it be?” Chase asked.
“Like six feet or something right?” Antonio replied.
“Something like that,” I huffed then scooped away another mound of dirt.
An hour passed in silence as we struggled to penetrate the soil with our makeshift tools. No one complained, no one quit. Under the sun’s piercing stare, we worked, practically ripping into the earth with our bare hands.
“Mind if I help,” Amber asked as she stepped into the clearing with McKinsey beside her.
We paused and looked up, but no one answered. No one needed to. Her and McKinsey grabbed two long branches and started jabbing the edges of the hole making it wider and wider, doing their part of a job that no one wanted to do.
My mind was empty as I heaved the densely packed soil into the air. I didn’t think about Conner, I didn’t think about anything. It felt good, for a little while I was just occupied with digging, not the reason why.
The crackling of branches pulled me from my haze and brought me back to reality. Sherry and Reggie had made their way to the clearing and for a moment just stood near the trees watching.
I stopped and looked back at them. Reggie’s face was red and smeared with dirt from wiping away tears. Sherry looked drained, her mouth hung open and she tilted her head to the side, her eyes locked on Conner.
I could see it now. In their grief and in Conner’s death, I could see the resemblance. I could see her brother in her pain. His shadow hidden behind her face, his voice in every tear that rolled down her cheeks.
“We’re…we’re almost done,” I said hesitantly.
Frowning, Reggie stepped away from Sherry and headed toward Conner’s body. He knelt and placed his hand over Conner’s chest.
“I should’ve, I should’ve paid more attention,” he quivered. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a spider,” Chase said in a faint voice.
“What?”
“His foot, he got bit by a spider.”
Trevor glanced at me as Chase pointed to Conner’s feet. I shrugged and looked away. That wasn’t for us.
Grimacing, Reggie covered his mouth as a monsoon started down his face. “I should’ve known. I should’ve paid attention.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” I told him.
In silence Reggie stood up and walked toward Sherry. He grabbed her and she buried her head into his chest.
“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry,” he moaned.
I looked around for a moment then turned my attention back to digging. It took us another twenty minutes to finish the hole. It was so deep we had to push and pull one another out.
Afterwards, we all stood around, staring into the dirt, unsure of how to proceed. Reggie and Sherry were still standing to the side wrapped in each other’s arms and no one wanted to disturb them. I felt uncomfortable even being there, like I was intruding on some intimate moment.
It had passed the midpoint in the day. The sun had fallen behind the island and the dwindling rays were slowly receding. It would be dark again soon and we still hadn’t found any more food or water.
“Should…should we say something first?” Chase asked.
Everyone except Reggie lowered their heads and shrank. He was staring down at Conner, his eyes dulled by the pain. With a few deep breaths, he stepped forward and grabbed Conner’s legs.
“Chase can you help me?” he asked.
Chase took a step back and held his hands out. “I…I can’t. I just can’t,” he stuttered.
“I got it,” I jumped in.
Grabbing Conner’s arms, I helped Reggie lower his body into the grave. There was no easy way to do it, the hole was too deep and eventually we just had to let him fall.
His body hit the ground with
a muted thud and Reggie cringed. He fell awkwardly then rolled sideways into the dirt. Shaking, Reggie stepped back a few spaces and wiped his face.
“Um…I don’t really know what to say, but this sucks and I’m gonna miss you and I’m really sorry.” Reggie finished his impromptu speech then turned away.
Sherry bit her bottom lip and took a few steps forward. She gave Reggie a hug then turned around and gazed at the rest of us.
“Conner, Conner was a part of me. He was like my heart beat. Ever since we were little he was always there for me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for him. Conner, I love you.”
Sherry and Reggie hugged again. Reggie’s eyes filled with tears as he sulked and mumbled some words that I couldn’t understand. With quivering lips, he gulped a mouthful of air then turned around and walked off.
“Reggie,” Sherry called after him. “Reggie come back.”
“I can’t it’s too fucking much!” Reggie shouted and stormed toward the beach.
With tears running down her face, Sherry took off after him, leaving the rest of us standing around in confusion. I ran my fingers through my hair and clenched my jaw, wishing I could wake up from this nightmare, wishing I could be anywhere else.
“Should we finish?” I asked.
No one answered. They just looked back at me with blank stares and teary eyes.
“If you have anything you want to say, speak up,” I continued.
“I hardly knew him,” Amber mumbled. “But, I’m sad you’re gone Conner.”
“Sorry,” McKinsey whispered.
Chase opened his mouth then swallowed his words and lowered his head. A few of the others mumbled some form of sorry then fell silent.
“Isn’t there something you’re supposed to say when you bury someone?” Hanson asked. “Like some kind of prayer or something.”
I shrugged. I’d never been to a funeral and had no clue what the proper protocol was. It was all becoming too much for me, I just wanted it to be over.
“Let’s just finish this,” I replied and grabbed a piece of palm tree.
As I pushed the dirt over Conner’s body I felt like I was burying a piece of myself. He represented the end to my childhood, the end to a life where my biggest problem was going over on my data plan. We weren’t just burying Conner in that hole, we were burying our innocence.
Everyone else started to join in, pushing the mound of dirt with their hands or shoveling at it with sticks. It was depressing work, a task that no one at our age should ever have to do, but we had each other to help.
Trevor paused and straightened up. He stood back, staring into the hole as the soil slowly obscured Conner’s body from view.
“Trevor?” I called. “Trevor, you okay?”
He rubbed his face and took a deep breath. “Earth to earth,” he started.
Everyone paused and turned toward him. I twisted my face in confusion as he glared down into the grave with tears running down his cheeks.
“Please…” Chase mumbled. “Don’t stop.”
Trevor looked at him then cleared his throat. He gave him a weak smile and nodded. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he continued. “Looking for that blessed hope when the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain, shall be called up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the lord, wherefore comfort ye one another with these words.”
CHAPTER 9
A SIGNAL FROM AFAR
“The prayer?” I asked Trevor as we rounded the beach and headed for the rocky shore.
It was early morning and the air was cooling off as the days grew shorter. Winter in the tropics was never really winter, but it was a short reprieve from the sweltering heat.
“What about it?” Trevor asked nonchalantly.
“How’d you know it?”
Trevor frowned and flicked his hand. “You were at some geek camp,” he started.
“Science camp,” I corrected him. “At the coast guard academy?”
“Yeah…that one. You remember what happened that summer?”
“Douglas,” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
Douglas was a kid that Trevor knew for a few years. They hung out off and on, but during one summer while I was away at camp, Douglas died suddenly from a rare form of brain cancer.
I’d never met Douglas before, I just knew him as Trevor’s friend. I was twelve and Trevor was ten which at that age might as well have been a decade apart.
When I got back from camp, I heard about him dying. My parents didn’t tell me much and Trevor said less than that. So, life went on and Douglas eventually faded from memory. His death was one of those things I tried to forget. One of those things that reminded you how fragile we all are, but kids are supposed to live forever.
“I was there,” Trevor said. “When he died, I was there in his room. I’d gone to visit him, we were talking and then…” He frowned and looked away. “They said he was getting better.”
“I didn’t know you were that close,” I whispered and placed my hand on his shoulder.
“You didn’t know much about me back then.”
I took a deep breath and held it. “I’m sorry Trevor.”
“That, that prayer,” he continued. “The preacher said it at his funeral. Just seemed like the right thing for Conner. You know?”
I nodded. “Everybody loved it.”
It’d been two days since we buried Conner. We spent the entire day after his makeshift funeral, lumbering under a cloud of depression. Reggie and Sherry were obviously taking it the hardest, the rest of us were dealing with thoughts of our own mortality that’d we’d been able to ignore up to that point.
Eventually, empty stomachs and thirst pulled us out of our haze. We’d run out of food and still hadn’t found a source for water. So, while Conner’s death still weighed heavily on our minds, we needed to find the rest of the supplies or we all were going to die.
We approached the cluster of rocks with high hopes. Sobbing, Reggie had told us where we could find everything. It took us two hours to make it around the island to the rock littered shoreline. It was much more than a quick walk, as Reggie described it, scaling the jagged rocks and craggy boulders was a test of determination.
“Are we in the right place?” Trevor asked.
“The island is basically a circle…it’s hard to get lost.”
“Okay…so if we’re not lost, then where are all of the supplies?”
“The fucking storm,” I said and leaned my head back. “Damn it!”
Trevor groaned and dropped his shoulders. “I’m so hungry man. What are we gonna do?”
I could hear him talking, but I wasn’t paying any attention. I was staring out into the water, trying to figure out what the dark object bobbing in the tide was.
“Daniel!” Trevor barked and clapped his hands in my face. “Do you hear me?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Man, what the hell are we gonna do? I’m starving.”
“What is that?” I asked and pointed.
Trevor took a few steps toward the water then squinted his eyes. “I think it’s another one of those fridge things,” he said in excitement. “How far do you think that is?”
“Not more than fifty yards,” I replied. “You gonna go get it?”
“Fuck no! You go get it. I’m not trying to end up maimed on those damn rocks.”
“So, swim out from the sand. It’s not that much farther.”
We were standing on a piece of island that jutted out into the water with rough, broken stones. Behind us there was a stretch of beach a little further away, but much safer. While the waves broke against the rocks like the water was being fired from a cannon, the beach was calm and easily accessible.
“I’d do it myself, but you know I’d drown,” I continued. “You really wanna be responsible
for me drowning? Come on man, you’re the swimmer out of the family.”
“Fine, but if we find anything, I’m eating before we even think of taking anything back to those tools.”
I smiled and we walked back around the beach nearly thirty feet to reach the calmer water. Trevor pulled his shirt and shoes off then waded into the tide until it was past his waist. He paused and looked around the shallows. Schools of small fish darted back and forth like tiny arrows, but we didn’t have time for him to sightsee.
“Hurry up!” I yelled to him.
He flipped his middle finger at me then dove into the waves and started swimming away. The water crashed over his head as he pulled through the ocean like a seal. He belonged there, land was never meant for him.
“Doing good man,” I screamed in sarcastic encouragement.
It didn’t take him long to make it. Once he swam out passed the breakers, he cruised through the water in minutes. Wrapping his arms around the black case he leaned his head back and floated for a few seconds.
“It’s a mini-fridge!” he shouted back. “It’s still cold.”
“Well bring it on home shark boy!”
He bobbed up and down with the cart, holding onto for a few minutes longer while he caught his breath. Then he got behind it and started thrashing his legs like a dolphin.
Tide was heading out, but he didn’t have much difficulty cutting through the turbulent water. In ten minutes he was back to the shallows, dragging the hefty box through the waves.
I waded out to help him. “See not that bad,” I told him as I grabbed one side of it.
“Oh yeah? Next time you go get it.”
We made it to the beach and Trevor dropped into the sand and started huffing for air. He laughed in between gasps as the water sloshed over his legs.
“I am so out of shape,” he panted.
“You’ll live.” I turned the cart over and flipped the metal latch. With a nervous excitement, I swung the door open. “Fuck!”
“What?”
“There’s barely anything in here.”
“Don’t play with me like that. I’m too tired Daniel.”
“I wish I was. There’s…four bottles of water and a jar of cherries.”
Trevor sat up and looked inside of the cart. He shook his head from side to side and clenched his jaw. Grunting, he grabbed a bottle of water and laid back down.
Overboard: Deconstruction Book Four (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller) Page 9
