by M H Ryan
The sand here felt coarse and large. It almost hurt to walk on, versus the soft, velvet-like sand of Yang Island. All of us but Kara pulled the raft onto the sand. She walked to the black rocks, touching them, and then knelt down and rubbed the sand between her fingers. The white sands mixed with some of the black sand, giving the beach a salt-and-pepper look.
“It’s not a bad island,” she said, getting back to her feet and wiping the sand from her hands.
“What kind of island is it?” Benji asked.
“I’m not sure; it just is what it is, if that makes sense,” Kara said.
“No, not really,” Aubrey said. “And are we expecting something different here? It’s not like islands have feelings.”
Aubrey looked to the sky and crossed her arms. The cloud cover had thickened and the wind had picked up a tad.
Kara smiled and replied, “I said it’s not a bad island, but there is something here. Almost like contempt, as if staying here and just existing might be enough.”
“So, contempt island,” Aubrey said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure why we can’t find cheeseburger island or pizza island.”
“You can make fun of me,” Kara said. “But after the crap island I was on, I’ll take contempt any day of the week. And don’t act like you don’t feel anything. You can’t stop looking at the sky. What’s the deal?”
Aubrey looked down from the sky. “Shut up. It doesn’t take some ethereal talent to see that there is a storm coming.” She folded her arms and glanced at the sky. “A bad storm.”
“We should make this quick then,” I said, looking at the sky.
“Whatever, I’m checking out this plane,” Sherri said, crossing the sand toward the plane. “I mean, how many places in the world can you see something like this?”
“Be careful,” Benji said. “There could be a dead body in there.”
“If there is,” Kara said, “It’s nothing but skeleton by now.”
“Why?” Eliza asked as she held onto Moshe.
“That plane is old,” Aubrey said. “Like more than half a century old.”
“I’ve never seen a plane,” Eliza said, looking at the metal.
“It’s something we use to fly in,” I said, catching up to Sherri.
“I know. My mom told me about them, but I always kind of thought she was just telling me stories.”
“Sherri, let me check it out first,” I said.
There could be a dozen different things that had taken up home in the partially submerged plane, and all of them would want to kill us. With my knife out, I stepped into the water and got to the plane first.
The glass dome that had once covered the cockpit was gone, leaving the insides open to the elements. A few of the dials and gauges were smashed in, maybe from the impact of the crash or the pilot impacting it after the crash. Ocean water flowed in and out from the bottom of the aircraft when the seat and pedals would have been. It appeared that anything that didn’t rust or degrade was gone. Nothing but an empty shell of a plane now. I inspected some of the metal and thought it would be a good idea to see if we could salvage some of it. I doubted we’d ever run into sheets of aluminum again. Might even be able to harvest enough of it off this plane to fashion a roof on the shelter back home.
I ran my hand along the metal, feeling the smoothness of it and touched some of the rivets still in place. Halfway through the plane, the metal frame twisted, from what I assumed was the crash landing. Had the pilot survived the impact? It seemed unlikely, considering the wreck, and I wasn’t sure if they had ejection seats in this kind of plane. If he had ejected and landed in the water, then he would have most likely ended up in the belly of some shark.
If he had landed the plane, ending up right where it currently sat, then he might have had a chance. The shallow waters where the plane landed wouldn’t allow for the larger sharks to enter, and the sharp rocks would keep many predators at bay. If the pilot landed on this island and survived the crash, then there was a chance he could’ve survived.
“I’m going to search the rest of the island. Need to make sure someone isn’t on the other side, and maybe we can find some supplies here,” I said, backing away from the plane. “Just keep an eye on the water.”
“And the sky,” Aubrey said, and then looked at us with narrowed eyes. “What? There’s a storm coming. It doesn’t mean I feel it. It’s just…look at the clouds.”
“We didn’t say you did,” I said, not really wanting to push Aubrey into admitting she felt the coming storm, but it seemed to be worrying her, and I imagined that meant a bad one was coming. All the more reason to explore the island while we could.
“Can I come with you, Jack?” Kara asked.
“Sure, I could use your extra sense. Just tell me if you feel anything… strange on the island,” I said.
“Um, sure, I can do that.”
“The rest of you, see if you can salvage anything from the plane. Those panels and other things on this could be useful.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Benji said with a salute.
“Yeah, have fun, Kara,” Sherri said and then gave her a big wink.
“Uh huh, don’t forget to tell Jack if you feel anything strange,” Aubrey said with a smirk.
I didn’t understand much of the interaction between the girls, but I had an island to explore and hopefully a person to find. If we were fast enough, maybe we could get ahead of this impending storm Aubrey kept advertising.
Chapter 8
Past the plane, and near the next edge of the island, I climbed over some black, porous-looking rocks, maybe old volcanic rocks. Once at the top, I reached back and helped Kara onto the pile and then onto the slope of the grassy hill that covered the rest of the island.
Ahead of us stood the hill, bigger than I initially thought, maybe closer to eighty feet up. The short grass moved in the wind and covered almost everything on the hill but the protruding rock outcroppings that scattered over it. At the top, we could have a fantastic, panoramic view, but I wanted to walk the perimeter, to see if this island offered anything else that we could use.
“The grass feels nice, like a bed,” Kara said, brushing her feet on the grass and then looking up at me. “We’ve never been alone before, Jack.”
“Oh yeah,” I said absently, scanning the grassy hill, looking for the best route to take to avoid the various rock outcroppings.
Had we never been alone? I guess with as many people as we had now on the home island, alone time wasn’t something that happened unless planned. I looked back to her, and she gazed up at me with those ocean eyes. They seemed more prominent than average eyes, as if she had more to see and maybe more to give. When we first found Kara on that terrible island, those eyes were so sad, and all I wanted to do was hug her and tell her it was going to get better. And it did, for her. She loved the new island, and I think now I got to see the real Kara, with bright, beautiful eyes that matched her petite, perfect face. Her milky white skin gave the black hair and tattoos an alluring contrast.
“Yeah, Benji, Sherri, and Aubrey have a rotation of sorts on you,” she said, getting closer to me.
“What?” I asked. A rotation? I hadn’t even been with Benji in an intimate nature. Was her turn coming up? I wanted to laugh at the notion.
The wind whipped up Kara's hair, and she pulled it back behind one ear. Another gust undid her effort.
“I’m happy to spend some time with you,” Kara said, with her head tilted down so she had to look up into my eyes.
“Well, me too,” I said. “It seems like all we do out here is work. Not enough time to just hang out.”
“Island and chill,” Kara said with a smile.
I laughed. “Well, if Aubrey’s right, we better get around this island before that storm hits.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at little disappointed.
I walked the path with Kara at my side. I kept her to my right, on the higher side of the hill, so the height difference wasn’t as dramati
c between us. Less than a minute into our walk, she stumbled over a rock and fell into me.
“Sorry,” she said, not letting go of me.
“Here,” I said, getting her back to her feet. “Just hold onto my hand.”
“I’m not some kid,” she said testily.
“I know. It’s for safety.” Though, truthfully, it wasn’t just safety. I wanted to have some contact with her.
She grasped my hand, and I was surprised at the strength I felt in them and the roughness of her hands. I rubbed my thumb over the back of her hand and touched her smooth skin. She looked up to me, smiling.
“This is nice,” Kara said. “Did I thank you for saving me from that terrible island and on that raft?” she asked.
“Yeah, a few times, and we’re the lucky ones, to have found you. You are an awesome addition to the team out here.”
“Thanks, but I wasn’t much help when you first found me. I’m sorry about that.”
“Never apologize for being a human. You went through a lot on that island. Just being there for an hour, I wanted to kill myself,” I said, with a laugh. “The fact that you can smile is a miracle.”
“It’s not hard to smile when I’m next to you,” Kara said.
We continued down the path, with me leading the way. The island seemed to be nothing but rocks and grass, and my hopes of finding something useful diminished.
“A place like that gives you an appreciation for the places and times that aren’t bad,” Kara said. “Even in that whirlpool, pretty confident that I was going to die, wasn’t as bad as spending the night on that island.”
I sighed, hating that she had suffered as much as she did. It made me want to double our efforts to find the others. We weren’t going to stop until we found them all.
“What do you think made that island the way it is?” I asked.
She frowned, and I felt her grip tighten as we walked around a large rock outcropping, forcing us to go higher on the hill.
“I didn’t really believe in true evil,” Kara said. “I mean, that I didn’t think things were just wrong because they were born that way or created to be evil.”
“Like a gun isn’t evil but the person behind it could be?”
“Yes, like the gun but before, I didn’t really think the person behind the gun was born evil. I mean, how can a baby be evil? At some point, the mind is corrupted.”
“Corrupted?”
“Abused, or broken, or even some imbalance in their head that makes them the way they are. What I’m trying to say is that before that island, I didn’t think things could be just evil. But on that island, I felt it. It didn’t have a face or a name, but it was there, as real as you are next to me, and it felt ancient and powerful, as if I was nothing but smoke in the wind in. It didn’t feel as if it had ever been anything other than what it was. It just was, always had been, and always will be…evil.”
“Like it was born that way.”
“Or created that way,” Kara said, and stopped to face me. “Jack, I think there is something out there that doesn’t like that we are here, and it, or part of it, was on that island. It wanted more than just my last breath—it wanted my spirit. It wanted everything. It had this hunger in it.” Tears welled in her eyes, and I could see her holding back a blink to keep them from falling.
I had felt a hunger in something else that seemed evil as well. The shadowy figure.
“You’re gone from that place now, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You promise?” she said, blinking and sending those big tears down her face.
I moved closer and wiped them from her cheeks with my thumbs while I gripped the back of her neck with both hands.
“I promise.”
She hugged me, putting her face into my chest. I kissed the top of her head and held her.
“I’m so happy we found each other,” Kara said.
“Me too,” I said.
“I feel safe with you. As if that island isn’t going to get me with you around.”
“I’ll never leave you then.” I wanted her to feel safe and heal more than anything.
She let go of me and then looked up as I looked down to her. She moved her face against mine, and I felt her tears, still wet on her face. She slid her cheek against mine and then against the edge of my mouth where her mouth met mine. She kissed me. A gentle kiss, with a hint of her tongue against my top lip. Brief but firm, as if she had held back.
Taking a step back, she opened her eyes, meeting my gaze.
“That was nice as well,” she said.
“It was,” I said, and started to feel as if I had fewer words for her than I should. “I think you—”
“I like you,” Kara said.
“I like you as well.”
“At first I thought it might have been because of that Yang Island. That island is sort of like pouring gas on the sex flames, so I wanted to wait until we were somewhere…not there…and see how I felt, to make sure that I felt the same way still.”
“To be honest, I didn’t think you were that into me,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and bit her lip, then laughed. “Come on. I see the way you look at me, at all of us—even Eliza, God help her—but you have to see the way we look at you.”
“I don’t know. I’ve just been trying to make sure we have a safe place to live, and then we keep needing to go on these missions.”
“Adventures,” Kara said with air quotes. “Isn’t what Sherri would call them?”
“Adventures,” I said. “That does sound more fun than missions.”
“Yeah, Sherri loves this shit. I’m not even sure she wants to be rescued.”
“Let’s see where this adventure takes us,” I said and offered my hand to her. “Maybe you can tell me more about this curling?”
We continued our path along the bottom of the hill, climbing over or working our way through the obstacle of rocks. Kara told me about her sport. She had been a state champion, and even competed well against the Canadians. I loved just watching her talk, and hearing such happiness in her voice. The Kara that had curled up on the raft and cried was gone. This new Kara loved life and was genuinely happy. She had a brother named Carl that she adored and a family dog she named Alfred. Even as happy as she was, I knew from the tattoos that there was a history of sadness in her life. I had wanted to ask her about them since I noticed what they were, and what they were hiding, but hadn’t had the right moment.
The wind picked up a little bit, and the sun had darkened as the clouds thickened above. Aubrey had been right—a storm was coming.
I suspected we were getting close to doing a full circle around the island when we climbed over another rock pile, and I spotted a cave near the shoreline. I wasn’t sure why, but I ducked down, expecting the crashed pilot to appear and be pissed off.
“What?” Kara asked.
“A cave,” I whispered, starting to feel foolish of my apprehension.
We were about twenty feet above the opening at the shoreline. The salt-and-pepper sand ran right into the opening, which wasn’t more than four feet around. After a few minutes, I climbed down some rocks and dropped onto the sand. Kara landed right behind me, and we walked to the cave.
“Hello?” I called, leaning in and hearing my voice echo around inside.
If one of the girls had ended up here, she would have gone into this cave.
The wind blew harder, creating almost a whistle sound near the entrance to the cave. Mixed with the ever-increasing waves crashing on the shore, it was impossible to hear if anyone responded.
“We should check it out,” Kara said.
“Okay, just stay behind me.” Ignoring my gut telling me to leave it alone, I took my knife out and headed into the cave.
Chapter 9
We crouched down as we entered the cave. The entrance had a musty smell, like wet dirt, and I ran my hand along the smooth walls. At first, it ramped down for about ten feet, getting narrow enough that we had
to crouch low before it started ramping back up and getting much darker as we lost sight of the entry. Ahead had a glow to it, as if there was another opening. After a dozen feet in, the cave widened and expanded into a cavernous room. We both stopped, staring up to an incredible spectacle above us.
“Whoa,” Kara said, reaching for and grasping my hand.
Whoa was right. The cave should have been dark, with only a faint light coming from the tunnel, but this more extensive part of the cave, as big as a house, had a soft bluish glow to it. On the ceiling were hundreds, if not thousands, of small, sparkly sources of light, almost as if there were glowing diamonds on the ceiling. They twinkled, and if I concentrated on one, it went out, replaced with one right next to it. I used my extra sense and felt into the cave. There was a static, much like the ocean, and I assumed that was what was giving off the glow, but I didn’t feel the heat or colors of emotions. They just existed.
“Hello,” I called out.
My voice echoed across the cave, and the twinkling lights seemed to go out as the sound wave rolled around the room, dimming the light considerably. As soon as the sound stopped, they went back to fully luminous.
“What the…” Kara said, softly, but still dimming a section of nearby ceiling.
“They react to sound,” I said, and each word sent of dimming pulse. “Hello!”
My yell sent the whole room into a momentary state of darkness. My voice echoed around the room, and soon, the lights rolled back on like a wave across the room. I gazed down at Kara, mouth open and eyes wide. It defied words.
“This is so beautiful,” Kara said, walking into the larger part of the cave, pulling me along.
Her voice had a similar effect, sending ripples of darkness across the ceiling.
“What do you think they are?” Kara asked, looking at the ceiling as it moved again to her voice.
“I don’t know. I’ve heard of glow worms in caves, but nothing like this.”
“You think they’re safe?”
“Not sure.”
I wasn’t confident in the safety of this place, but we still had to make sure it didn’t hold a person or body in it. Letting go of Kara, I moved forward with a knife in hand. The floor had gradually been getting harder since we entered the larger part of the cave, and now, five feet into it, it felt as hard as concrete yet had a sandpaper-like texture on the surface.