by Perrin Briar
“We shouldn’t rely on there being natives,” Bill said. “If there’s evidence of them we’ll seek them out. Otherwise, let’s focus on surviving. After shelter we need ready sources of food and water. We’ll check out the sunken ship we saw before. It might have supplies we can use.”
Francis reached into Liz’s backpack and extracted his computer game.
“When did you pack that?” Fritz said. “Nice to know you’ve got your priorities straight.”
“While we were packing for our lives Francis was packing for his leisure time!” Ernest said.
“Give me that,” Bill said to Francis.
He did. Bill took out the batteries.
“Hey!” Francis said, making a grab for the batteries.
“We’ll need these for the torch,” Bill said. “We all need to pull together, pool our resources. It’s the only way we’ll survive.”
Francis’s bottom lip trembled.
“He can have a little go on it,” Liz said.
“No,” Bill said. “This is the way things are now. Finite resources. We have to make everything count.”
He tucked the batteries in his pocket.
“How long do you think we’ll be stuck here?” Fritz said.
“I don’t know,” Bill said. “But this doesn’t look like it’s part of a major trade crossroads to me. And given the state of the world at the moment I doubt there’ll be much trading to speak of for a while.”
“So, we’re stuck here?” Fritz said. “Forever?”
“Yes,” Bill said. “Or at least until we learn the virus is gone. But cheer up. It could be worse.”
“How could it be worse?” Fritz said. “We’re hundreds of miles from anywhere! And no one knows we’re here!”
A thick silence settled over them.
“Where do you think we are?” Ernest said to his father.
“On a random island out in the Pacific somewhere,” Bill said.
He took out a map and drew a circle around a wide blue area with his fingertip.
“So far as I can tell we’re somewhere in this area,” he said.
Liz peered at the map.
“Miles from civilisation,” she said.
“Yes,” Bill said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be civilised. I’m not going to lie to you. The next few weeks are going to be tough. But if we persevere there’s no reason we can’t build a new home for ourselves. Believe me, we’re a lot safer here than anywhere else.”
The others didn’t look convinced.
“I’ll make a deal with you all right now,” Bill said. “So long as there continues to be evidence of the end of the world we stay here. But if at any time we see signs of normal life going on we’ll strike out for the mainland. Agreed?”
Bill held out his hand. Liz and Ernest put their hands on first, followed by Francis and Jack. Fritz hesitated.
“Fritz,” Liz said. “We need you.”
“Liz, don’t,” Bill said. “We all have to make this decision for ourselves.”
Fritz considered the pile of hands. He put his hand on top.
“Until there’s evidence,” Fritz said with a nod.
Bill got to his feet.
“We’d best get moving,” he said. “Our home isn’t going to find itself.”
They picked up their bags and approached the jungle’s edge.
“Last night doesn’t seem real, does it?” Liz said. “I sometimes think it was just a nightmare.”
“If it was, it was one we all shared,” Bill said. “But it did happen. And we have to prepare as best we can.”
“Prepare for what?” Liz said.
“For when it happens again,” Bill said, and he entered the jungle.
Chapter Four
“WE SHOULD split up,” Liz said. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”
“No,” Bill said. “We stick together. We don’t know what’s lurking in this jungle.”
Yellow spots danced on the jungle floor, the heat close and intense, each movement bringing a fresh wave of perspiration. Birds flittered through the air, flapping their wings, drifting from one branch to another. Liz approached a hedge of various brightly coloured flowers.
“I don’t recognise most of these plants, Bill,” Liz said.
“Just pick the ones you’re certain are safe to eat,” Bill said. “We’ll test the others later.”
Ernest plucked a broad leaf from a tree and brushed off the bugs crawling across its surface. He turned it inside out and bent it into a bowl, folding over the edges so it held together. Liz piled the greenery into it. Jack looked at the vegetation with his lip curled in disgust.
“Aren’t there any meat plants?” he said.
“You obviously studied hard in biology,” Ernest said, rolling his eyes.
Bill tugged on a vine that hung from tree limbs like cloth hanging from a Roman senator’s arm. It was too strong. Bill bent down and picked up a sharp flint rock shaped like an arrowhead and cut at the vines. A long length fell to the ground.
He wrapped the vine around a tree trunk and tied a small noose around one end. He identified a furrow, a path often used by a creature in the undergrowth, and sat the noose around it.
“All right,” Bill said. “That’s one trap set. Let’s set up a few more.”
They set up five traps before they sat down in a clearing to eat the vegetation Liz had picked.
“Sorry it’s not the most delicious meal in the world,” Liz said.
“It’s safe and nutritious,” Bill said. “It’s as much as we can hope for right now.”
Bill peered up at the giant trees stretching up into the sky around them.
“What kind of trees do you think these are, Ernest?” Bill said.
“Looks like a sequoia, but the leaves here are larger,” Ernest said. “Maybe from a related genus?”
He approached a pine tree, levered off the bark and sliced through some of the underside. He popped it in his mouth.
“Ernest!” Liz said. “What do you think you’re doing? Spit it out!”
“It’s edible,” Ernest said.
“You just said it’s similar to the sequoia!” Liz said. “That doesn’t mean it shares all the same properties. It might be poisonous.”
“This is a pine tree, not a sequoia,” Ernest said. “I highly doubt it’s poisonous.”
“You might doubt it,” Bill said, “but your mother’s right. We shouldn’t eat anything until we’re absolutely sure it’s not dangerous. If we get sick or injured on this island there are no pre-made medicines or hospitals to help us. Best to play it safe.”
Ernest shrugged and spat the bark out.
“All right,” he said.
“At least we’ll know if this bark is all right or not,” Fritz said. “If Ernest drops dead in the next few hours we’ll know not to eat it.”
“Glad I could be of service,” Ernest said. “If I do die I wish it could have been something tastier than tree bark.”
Bill rapped on a tree with his knuckles.
“I suspect pitching up in a tree might be the best option,” he said, returning to the original topic. “We can be out of reach of most of the dangerous animals on the ground and keep an eye on the world below. Plus, if any zombies come we can better protect ourselves.”
“Don’t call them that,” Liz said.
“Call who what?” Bill said.
“Zombies,” Liz said, lowering her voice as if she were swearing.
“What should we refer to them as instead?” Bill said. “ ‘People who were normal but have now come back to life and are trying to eat us’? Quite a mouthful.”
“Meat Sacks,” Fritz said. “It has a nice ring to it.”
“Corpse Creepers,” Ernest said.
“Shuffling Cyborgs,” Jack said.
“They’re not robots,” Ernest said.
“I know,” Jack said. “But it sounds cool.”
“Lurchers,” Ernest said.
“That gets m
y vote,” Fritz said.
“The Walking Dead,” Francis said.
The family turned to look at him.
“Maybe zombie is all right after all,” Liz said.
“We need to get to a higher vantage,” Bill said, looking up at the tall trees. “Make sure we’re heading in the right direction. But how do we scale such things?”
Jack looked up at the tall swaying tree canopy.
“I can climb it,” he said. “It doesn’t look too difficult.”
Bill looked from Jack to the tree and back again.
“Are we looking at the same thing?” he said.
“This tree?” Jack said. “Sure.”
“No,” Bill said. “You can’t climb this tree. It’s too tall.”
Jack set his jaw.
“But I can climb it!” he said. “I’ll show you!”
Jack ran toward the tree. Bill caught him and held him still.
“I didn’t mean you couldn’t climb it,” he said. “Only that you shouldn’t. It’s too dangerous. If you got hurt I could never forgive myself.”
“I won’t get hurt,” Jack said.
“Don’t,” Bill said. “For me.”
Jack sighed.
“Oh, all right then,” he said.
The trees became shorter, narrower, and less dense as the day wore on. A million alien sounds called to them from the copse of green, chief among them the birds – from large sleek parrots to small fluffy finches. None of them were drab in colour, but bright and full of life.
Darkness creeps quickly in the jungle, tinting the canopy through every shade of green until the Flowers were tripping over unseen vegetation on the forest floor.
“How much farther, Bill?” Liz said.
“I don’t know,” Bill said. “I thought we’d reach the beach hours ago.”
Something landed on a branch. Its eyes were bulging and yellow, slitted like a cat’s. It screeched at Ernest, and then flew up the tree with breathtaking speed.
“We need to get out of here,” Liz said, panic edging her voice.
“Stay calm,” Bill said. “It’s all too easy to slip and break something in here.”
The family forged on, the hoots and trills following them, cajoling. They were foreigners here, and the jungle was not shy in expressing its dissatisfaction at their presence. The grunting and yowling grew loud and cacophonous, so loud they could hardly hear themselves think.
Then the jungle sounds died away, and the family came to a steep incline with slabs of flat flint like ice cubes on a frozen lake. Panting and out of breath, the Flowers crested the peak.
Perched atop the hill was a crown of ancient trees, bent and crooked, crippled with knots, huddled together sharing their secrets with sibilant whispers through their branches. Their trunks were almost as thick as those of the sequoias but they were nowhere near as tall, favouring a squat and sturdy disposition.
Bill climbed the tree. The top of the trunk flattened out like a floor, the tree branches sprouting from around the edges like the fingers on the palm of a giant hand. Bill helped Liz up. The boys followed. Jack pulled himself up with a single movement.
“The boys can sleep here,” Bill said, gesturing to the largest open flat section. “And we’ll sleep here.”
The trunk rose up through the middle of the floor, which would give Bill and Liz a little privacy. There were no walls, save the canopy that hung limp like a teenager’s fringe from the upper foliage.
Bill turned. The umbrella of the jungle spread out beneath them, bumpy like broccoli, covering every inch of the island. Bill smiled.
“This is it,” he said. “This will be our home.”
Liz looked up at the trees, not so convinced.
“Shouldn’t we get up as high as we can?” she said. “In one of the sequoias, maybe?”
“With our current level of technology we’d never be able to get to the top of them,” Bill said. “And even if we could it would take so long the-” Bill lowered his voice “-zombies would be able to get at us.”
“There are no zombies here, are there?” Liz said, looking out at the jungle.
“We thought they couldn’t be on The Adventurer either,” Bill said, “but we were wrong. They could have originated from here for all we know.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Liz said. “We know that’s not true.”
She sat down and opened her backpack.
“This is the last of the food reserves,” Liz said, sharing it out.
“Thank God for that,” Fritz said. “I was worried we might have had an endless supply of this stuff.”
“You won’t be so happy when we run out,” Bill said.
“You watch me,” Fritz said. “Anyway, we’ve set traps. We just have to wait for the animals to come.”
“So, what do you think?” Bill said to Liz.
“Of what?” Liz said.
Bill gestured to the tree.
“It’s good,” Liz said. “Are you sure you can build it?”
“Yes,” Bill said, “though it will take time.”
“Time, fortunately, is something we have,” Liz said.
“I hope so,” Bill said.
He unfurled the life raft. They took turns in blowing it up, one puff at a time, until it filled out. The boys took positions on the raft. They became still and slept. They were all so exhausted that not even the incessant chirruping and hooting of the jungle could keep them awake.
“I’d murder for a cup of tea,” Bill said.
Liz opened her backpack and rooted through it.
“As we’re probably the only people on this island, might I suggest you not murder anyone?” she said. “It might be someone we like.”
She took the teabags out of her bag.
“You’re a life saver,” Bill said. “Thank God for your obsessive nature.”
“It’s about time you recognised it as a strength,” Liz said.
Chapter Five
THEIR VIEW the next day was nothing short of breathtaking. The Flowers were on the bluff of a big hill, affording them scenes of almost the whole island.
The orange beach on the opposite shore had wild white waves and foamy water. The sea to the south, where they had been shipwrecked, was smooth and calm, lolling gently against the yellow sand. The pale blue sky was streaked with dissipating white clouds to the horizon in every direction. It was hard to believe they were not intentionally stranded.
Bill, Liz and the boys surveyed the clear stream running down the mountainside. Beside Bill was a small fire, a small can with water inside it bubbling away. Bill took it off the boil and dropped in some crushed petals. He mixed it with a stick and watched for any reaction.
“Appears to be clean,” Bill said.
He put his cupped hands into the stream, raised them to his mouth and slurped the water down.
“Tastes good,” he said.
The boys jumped into the tiny stream, kicking up water and splashing Liz in the process.
“Easy!” Liz said, stepping away.
The boys took no notice, and lowered their faces into the stream, swallowing with deep thirsty gulps.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen them so happy about drinking water before,” Liz said. “We should have brought them here years ago.”
Jack cupped some water into his hands and threw it over Francis, who froze, his expression registering shock. He backed away with a curdled look of fear on his face. He turned and began to run down the mountainside.
“Francis?” Liz said. “Francis?”
He didn’t stop. Liz ran after him, grabbing his arm halfway down the slope.
“Francis?” Liz said. “What is it? Francis?”
Francis dropped to his knees and hugged his mother around the thighs.
“Francis?” Liz said, voice breathy with concern. “What’s wrong?”
She crouched down beside him. He looked up at her with his big round eyes.
“What is it, Francis?” Liz said.
Francis’s voice was soft, and Bill couldn’t hear him. Fritz moved to Bill.
“What’s up with Francis?” he said.
“Never mind that,” Bill said. “Give me a hand with this water.”
Bill dipped a hollowed-out coconut shell into the stream. Once it was full he handed it to Ernest, who gave him another shell.
“Where do you think this water comes from?” Ernest said.
“It might be rainwater,” Bill said. “Or from an underground well. Wherever it comes from, it doesn’t look like it’ll be running out anytime soon.”
Liz gave Francis a hug. He re-joined his brothers.
“What was it?” Bill said.
“He’s afraid of the water,” Liz said.
“The water?” Bill said. “Where did that come from? He’s never been afraid of water before.”
“He’s never nearly drowned before either,” Liz said.
“The events on The Adventurer caused this?” Bill said.
“Of course,” Liz said. “It’s affected us all. Haven’t you changed after that night? I think we all have. The world has changed, so have we.”
“You and the boys take the water and head home,” Bill said. “Fritz and I will check on the traps.”
“A bit early to be referring to it as home, don’t you think?” Liz said.
“You might be right,” Bill said. “But right now it’s the closest thing to home we’ve got.”
Chapter Six
A CLUTCH of rabbits, startled by Bill and Fritz’s sudden appearance, leapt in the air, spun, and ran through a thorny hedge, gone in an instant.
“At least we know there’s plenty of game,” Bill said.
“And acrobatic game at that,” Fritz said.
Bill knelt down and inspected a trap. He waved away the flies that encircled the half-eaten carcass of a small rabbit.
“Something else got to it,” Fritz said.
“Yep,” Bill said. “Another problem of having so many animals. Too much competition.”
Twigs snapped somewhere in the depths of the jungle. Fritz stood up and tried to watch the whole jungle at once.
“Listen,” Fritz said.
The background jungle noise became silent.
