The Missing

by Kiersten Modglin

  “Potato, patahto. Whipped cream tastes better.” He winked.

  “Are we planning to eat your legs?” Noah teased. “I’m not super into the whole Hannibal thing, and if we’re eating anyone’s anything, you would not be my first pick.”

  James rolled his eyes, not taking them off Ava for even a second. “Whatever. Either way, I don’t feel like walking anymore.”

  “I agree,” I said, nodding dramatically as my lungs burned with a sudden stitch. “I need to rest.”

  “It’s going to be dark soon anyway,” Harry agreed, though his tone was rife with disappointment. “We’ll make camp here for the night and then head out as soon as the sun’s up tomorrow. James, can you get a fire started?”

  “Sure thing. Ava, you want to help me?”

  She nodded, following him away from where we stood. I realized then I’d been right before, in my assumption that there might be something between them. Though they were the closest in age, it struck me as odd that James, the brawny but mostly silent one had taken so easily to the outspoken and fierce Ava. Still, I found myself feeling thankful they had each other, even while nursing a bit of bitterness myself to be alone.

  God, sometimes I missed my husband so much it felt as if it were burning me from the inside out. At least, if he were here, I thought tempestuously, without the cell service he’s so reliant on, he’d be forced to focus on me. With or without his focus, I knew with him there, I’d feel safer than I did at present.

  “Good. We’ll leave the pack with the coconuts here, so in case we get split up, we know where to come back to. While you are building the fire, we should look for food and more coconuts for the night. You two want to come with me?”

  “I’ve been the coconut fetcher the past few times. What do you say I take a rest this time and keep the place safe?” Noah asked.

  Harry’s brow furrowed, but he’d learned Noah’s quirks by then. He knew, as we all did, that he’d try to push the boundary. The trick was learning how to push back without causing him to shut down or lash out. “Fine, just give us your gun,” he said, extending his hand.

  “No way.”

  “We need a gun if we’re going to hunt. So, either you come with us, or we need to borrow it.”

  “You’re going to get it back, Noah,” I added, placing the sack next to a tree and resting my hands on my hips. “Come on. Before it gets dark. Don’t you want to eat something real for once?”

  Groaning, he stepped forward. “Alright, fine. I’m coming.”

  We’d only been walking for a few minutes when I heard the rushing of water in the distance, and I realized we must be close to the stream that led to our waterfall. Noah and Harry heard it at the same time, everyone’s heads perking up at once. Noah met my eyes, a question in them, and I gave a stiff nod.

  Who were we to say no at this point? Perhaps it was the dehydration getting to me again, or the desire to wash my body for the first time in…days? Weeks? How long had we even been here? It all seemed to run together anymore.

  “Do you hear that?” Harry asked before we could say anything.

  “It sounds like water,” I said, hoping Noah would play along.

  “Fresh water,” he agreed. “It sounds close.”

  Harry made a sharp left and hurried forward. As I made a move to follow him, I heard something else. A rustling behind us. I froze, though both of the men were moving ahead without me. I spun around, looking in every direction, searching for the source of the sound. Had I imagined it?

  “Hello?” I called, gripping the handle of the machete in my hand. The forest around me was silent except for the distant sounds of the stream and the men’s voices carrying on ahead. They hadn’t realized I wasn’t keeping up with them.

  As another rustling sound came from just in front of me, I took a step backward. Someone was definitely there. Just beyond the tree line. I took several steps backward, weapon outstretched, refusing to turn my back to them.

  “Who’s there?” I called, trying and failing to keep my voice steady. I spoke loudly enough that I hoped the men would hear me and come to my aid, but soon the sounds of the voices had faded altogether, and I knew I was alone.

  Shhhhshhhshh…

  The rustling had grown closer. My heart leapt into my chest, and I found myself unable to take a breath. I took another step back, my entire body trembling with fear, and heard a snap beneath my feet. My body tensed, and I stepped off the broken branch I’d cracked just in time to hear rushing footsteps headed in my direction. As I did, I saw a flash of blonde hair just beyond the trees.

  A woman. I was sure of it.

  “Hello?” She’d been watching me.

  The footsteps grew closer, and I felt a hand on my back. I jumped. “Are you okay?” Harry asked.

  At the same time Noah said, “What are you doing?”

  “There was a woman,” I said, pointing toward the trees where I’d seen her only moments ago. “A woman in the bushes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Was it Ava?”

  “No, no… She had blonde hair. She…I didn’t get a good look at her, it was just a flash. I think she was following us. She must’ve heard you coming and gotten scared off.”

  “Maybe it was just a bird,” Harry said, squeezing my shoulder carefully as Noah moved forward to investigate, his gun drawn. “I’m sorry we disappeared. Why did you stop?”

  “I heard something, like swishing…the trees, I guess. I could hear her moving around through the grass…”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “You were already far enough ahead by the time I realized it, and I didn’t know if I was in danger. I was worried if I screamed, I’d draw attention to myself if she didn’t already have eyes on me.”

  Noah had been swallowed up by the forest, but I could hear him moving through the grass in the distance. The same sound I’d heard earlier. The sudden crack of a gunshot caused us to jump and birds to soar through the air.

  “Noah?” I cried out, my skin cold. Harry was trembling beside me, his jaw slack.

  “Noah, you there?” Neither of us moved, both frozen in place from fear. The rustling sound was back, and then he appeared, a giant grin on his face as he dragged the hairy body of a wild boar toward us.

  “Dinner is served,” he said, licking the sweat from his upper lip as he breathed heavily.

  I took a cautious step toward him, my belly growling at the thought of food. My mouth was suddenly full of saliva, and I swallowed twice before speaking. “Did you see anyone out there? The woman?”

  He bent down, lifting the boar’s legs and walking in the direction he and Harry had come from. “Nah, I hate to break it to you, but you didn’t see a woman out there. What you saw were birds.”

  The white ones that had flown up when he shot the gun. But…it wasn’t possible, was it? I knew what I’d seen.

  “It was a woman. I saw her hair.”

  “Blonde hair, right?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “Like the white of the birds. Pretty ones too…seagulls, maybe? I don’t know. Either way, there was no woman. Or, if there was, she’s long gone.”

  Harry ushered me away, one hand still on my shoulder, and I was pretty sure he thought I might be having dehydration-induced hallucinations, but he didn’t say as much. Instead, he kept a firm grip on me, leading me away from the place where I’d stopped and toward the sound of the rushing water.

  When we finally reached the source of the sound, a fast-moving stream with crystal-clear water and dark rocks throughout, Harry chuckled to himself.

  “I can’t believe we actually found fresh water. This is amazing.” His hands dropped from my shoulders and I moved forward, leaning down over it and dipping my hands in before rinsing my face.

  “Is it safe to drink?” Noah asked cautiously.

  “It’ll be safer once we boil it. We’ll set up camp here tonight instead of the clearing. It’s probably okay, with the rocks and moss to help filter it, but I
don’t want to take any chances. We don’t have anything to help if someone gets sick.”

  “Someone should head back and tell Ava and James that we’re eating here instead,” Noah said, not offering to do so himself. I bent down, letting the water wash over my calves and arms, its crisp coolness refreshing. I hadn’t realized how dry my body felt, how much I craved water in every way.

  “I’ll go,” Harry said finally. “I need to get the sack anyway, so we can start boiling some water. Will you be okay here?”

  I nodded, sinking down in the water, my teeth chattering from the chill of it, but I found myself unable to move. “I can go with you, if you want. Just give me a minute to rinse off.” I brushed the water up over my shoulders, washing my face.

  “I’ll be fine. They’re not far. Just stay right here and relax, but don’t drink anything. Be careful getting it too close to your eyes, nose, or mouth.” With that, he was off, disappearing through the trees, and Noah and I were left alone.

  He stepped into the water, keeping a safe distance between us as the whites of the crashing rapids slapped into his calves. “Did you really think you saw a woman back there?”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I don’t know… It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He gestured toward the water, the answer in his movements.

  “You know why I didn’t say anything about that.”

  He nodded. “I do, but I didn’t honestly expect you not to.”

  “Well, I didn’t. And now here we are, and none of it matters anymore.”

  “Our secret isn’t our secret anymore,” he said slyly, staring up at the trees. “What do you think we’ll find out here? Someone? Something?” A pause. “Nothing?”

  The question weighed heavily on me, and I wondered what exactly I hoped we’d find. Did I want to find people? Someone who’d put us here? Or was it easier to believe it was an accident somehow? But then…what about the note? And the SOS signal? No, there were too many signs that pointed to this not being an accident, but rather, by design. So, then, the question became, did I want to confront the person who’d brought us here or would I rather go on not knowing?

  I finally settled on, “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “What do you think they want from us?”

  “They?”

  “The people who brought us here. Whoever they are…”

  I hadn’t truly considered that there were multiple people involved, though I guess it was more logical than thinking one person had managed to do it all themselves. Was the blonde woman just one of many? “I don’t know, honestly.” The truth was, whatever scenario I managed to come up with, it just didn’t make sense. “I mean, we can’t be on a TV show, it’s just ridiculous. But they’re obviously setting us up for something.”

  “To kill each other,” he said, sucking in a breath. “Look, we could make a pact, you and me.”

  “A pact?” I scoffed.

  “Why not? You already know you can trust me, and I know I can trust you. We kept the secret about the water. It’s perfect.”

  “I’ve already told you, Noah, I’m not going to hurt anyone.” I couldn’t even make myself say the word.

  “I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying… I mean, if shit hits the fan, you’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours.”

  “Fine, but I’ve also got Ava’s back, and Harry’s, too. I care about them.”

  “But if it came down to it, if you had to make a split-second decision and save one of us…” He waited for an answer, one that I couldn’t give.

  “I don’t want to play this game,” I said, standing up out of the water finally and making my way to the shore. The mud squished between my toes as I kicked out of the flip-flops I’d been wearing. “I don’t know why you feel like we have to all pit ourselves against each other. Why you need an alliance. Why you need secrets. The boar you killed feeds us all. The water Harry will purify gives us all something to drink. The shelter they built kept us all safe. Can’t you see we’re all in this…” I stopped, refusing to make the High School Musical reference he was waiting for. “We can’t do this alone. None of us. If any of us get off this island, we all do. When will you accept that?”

  He bent down in the water, brushing it up over his bare stomach. The tops of his shoulders had started to turn pink, and I realized he still hadn’t asked for his shirt back. “Probably around the same time you accept that it’s just not feasible for the five of us to live on this island forever.”

  “I don’t want to live here forever. I want to go home.” Tears pricked my eyes at the truth in my words. Our time on the island had worn on me, and though I still didn’t feel ready to confront whoever had done this to us, I felt exhausted by the idea of staying in a constant state of survival forever. Utter hopelessness swelled in my chest.

  “Then you have to be willing to do whatever it takes. Just like the note said.” His face was serious, his eyes drilling into mine.

  I looked away, forcing myself to regain my composure. If I hoped to survive this, I had to get ahold of myself. “Well, if we are on a TV show, you’ll be the one to end up in prison when it’s all over.”

  He gave a dry chuckle and scooped a handful of water to run over his raven-colored hair. When he looked up, his expression was serious again, his voice softer somehow. “Do you think your husband is still looking for you?”

  “I hope so.” The truth was, sometimes I wondered if he’d even noticed I was gone yet. Though I knew it was implausible, there were times that I thought maybe he’d holed up in the suite, grateful for the uninterrupted time, and just forgotten all about me. I knew it was impossible by this point that he still hadn’t realized I was missing, but how else could I explain why they still hadn’t found us? My husband had every resource in the world available to him. If he wanted to find me, he would’ve…

  Unless life is easier without my nagging… My constant fussing and interruptions.

  If I believed that terrible thought, I’d have to believe my husband was a much crueler man than I knew him to be. But why hadn’t he found us? It just didn’t make sense. I couldn’t deny the voice in my head saying he’d given up on me. But where did that leave us? What did that say about my marriage?

  Sometimes we know the truth about the people we love; we know the truth in our bones and in the fiber of our being, but we can’t admit it, not even to ourselves. Sometimes the truth lies in the quiet moments, in the first thoughts, the answer that pops into our heads before we have time to tamp down the intuition that we so often do, because it’s easier than admitting the truth.

  We’d rather live with the mistakes we’ve made, shut out the things we’ve learned, the way we’ve grown, than take on the challenge of admitting our marriage sucks, or our friend is toxic, or our relationship with our parents isn’t healthy.

  So, we ignore the voice, ignore the feeling in our gut that grows stronger every day, and we pretend that life is so much longer than it is and that we’ll get more chances for better days. And that was what I’d done with my marriage for so long. If I was back in the real world, it was what I’d continue to do. But here, on the island with nothing to muddle my head, only silence and my thoughts, I’d been forced to reckon with what I’d known for so long.

  My husband didn’t love me.

  Not like he should.

  He tolerated me, sure.

  Took care of me.

  But some days I felt like little more than something to interrupt his constant flow of work.

  Did I think he’d still look for me? Of course.

  Did I think he’d be sad that he couldn’t find me? Yes. He wasn’t a monster.

  Did I think losing me would reawaken something in him, make him realize how much I’d meant to him and how much he’d missed out on? It was possible. A girl could hope. But, at the moment, all my hope was being used up just to make it through the day.

  �
��Who do you have looking for you?” I asked, realizing we’d been sitting in silence for way too long.

  He shrugged, shaking his head. “My parents, probably.”

  “Brothers, sisters?”

  “Nope, just me.” He shook his hands off, swiping them over his shorts, and made his way out of the water. “I had a brother who died when I was young.”

  He wasn’t looking at me as he made the confession, but somehow, as he revealed something intimate about himself, it felt as though we were locked eye to eye, baring our souls to one another.

  “Oh, Noah, I—”

  “Do you think they have our pictures plastered on the news? Like real news, not just local?” He changed the subject, grinning then, though I saw the sadness behind it. “I’ll bet we even have a Twitter hashtag. Something like HashtagTheFiveWhoDisappeared or HashtagTheMissingFive.”

  “The Florida Five,” I joined in, picturing it in my head. Would there be national news coverage for something like this? Would they still be searching for answers? Or would they have already written us off as having drowned or ran away? Would they be digging into our internet searches or our cell phone data? Trying to pinpoint where we were?

  “I’d obviously be the face of the campaign,” he joked. “People everywhere will wonder how something like this could’ve happened to someone so handsome, intelligent, talented—”

  “Humble…”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “There’s no room for humility in the real world. People only want you to be humble so they can make sure you don’t shine.” He dusted off his shoulders, standing up and pretending to shoot a basketball. “Besides, bragging comes naturally when you look this good.”

  “Bragging? Noah? Never.” Ava’s voice carried through the forest as they appeared, the three of them carrying an armful of sticks, with the sack hanging off Harry’s arm.

  Noah feigned a laugh and held out his knife. “Come on, Annie Oakley. Daddy brought home the bacon. The least you could do is be grateful.”

  “The bacon, literally,” James said, spying the hog and rubbing his stomach hungrily. “Oh, hell yes. Tonight, we eat like kings.”

  “Why are you giving me this?” Ava stared at the knife, but didn’t take it.