by M H Ryan
“I love it!” She stood up and gave me a hug. “But you shouldn’t have wasted our supplies on me.”
“We’re getting rescued, right?” I said. “Besides, it was only a couple feet of line. We have plenty left.”
“You are…” she began to say, but didn’t seem to be able to find the right words. She lifted the necklace over her neck and examined it.
“You don’t have to wear it,” I said.
“I will, and don’t try to stop me,” she said with a little bit of sass. “It’s really nice of you, Jack. I—I’m not used to guys being…you know?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Sort of. It’s complicated, with my sisters. Can we talk about it some other time?”
“Sure.” I sensed she was getting uncomfortable. “So, are you having the best birthday ever?” Shaking jazz hands brought my enthusiasm home.
She laughed. “Totally. And the night’s still young.” She gave me a sultry look, but couldn’t hold it for long before she broke out laughing again. “But really, thanks…thanks for doing this.”
“You’re welcome. I’m just happy we landed on the same island. Can you imagine doing this alone?” I said.
“Yeah, it’s crazy, if you think about it. I mean, what are the chances that the guy I was kissing earlier today, who’d already saved my life, would end up being my stranded-on-an-island buddy?”
I chuckled and thought about Aubrey. I hoped she was okay. I hoped they all were.
We talked for the next thirty minutes about life back home and where we came from. Benji wasn’t from Florida but a small town—Preston, Idaho. Her parents were still married, and she was an only child. She even had a Labradoodle named Alfred. It was easy talking with her, even in our current circumstances of possible death. She seemed happy, as if she knew we were going to be fine. It made me happy just being next to her.
“Did you know I do impressions?” she asked, breaking the lull in our conversation.
“I didn’t, no.”
“Do you want to see my Jerry Seinfeld?”
“Hold on,” I said, repositioning myself slightly. “Let me get comfortable. I don’t want to miss this.” I genuinely wanted to see this.
She stood up, handed me my shirt back, and stepped to the other side of the fire. The orange light danced over her features, giving her a soft glow against the black backdrop of the night behind her. The soft waves rolled over the sand and the crackle of the fire made it all seem magical. She took a few breaths, and then ran her hand over her face. Her expression changed to one that looked half arrogant and half annoyed. She already had me in stitches as she looked around our small island with her strange expression.
“What’s with this island?” she said in her Jerry Seinfeld voice, and it wasn’t half bad. “I mean, I like beachfront property, but it’s nothing but beach. Where’s the property?” She looked around, and her mannerisms were the funniest part. “It’s all sand. We’ve got nothing but sand. It’s like the clingiest relationship you’ve ever had. No matter how hard you try to shake it off, you just can’t get rid of it.” She started laughing and covered her mouth. “That was so bad.”
“Are you kidding? That was amazing.”
I mean, here was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever laid eyes and lips on, wearing a sexy, SpongeBob bathing suit, stranded on an island, doing a halfway decent Seinfeld impression for me on her birthday. I applauded, and she bowed.
In her regular voice, she said with excitement, “Hold on, see if you can guess this one.”
I silenced my laughter and waited.
She moved her hand over her face again and an expression of confused anger washed over her. “I hate all the orphans in the whole world,” she said with a Mexican accent, and again, it was her over-the-top characterization that made it so funny. “I only believe in science.”
“Nacho Libre!” I said.
She put her finger on her nose, as if we were playing charades. “Yes. Okay, what about this one?” She shook her hands and cleared her throat. Then an impressive Midwest accent came next. “Now, I need 8,000 hens moved into their new cages. Sometimes, they don’t want to cooperate, but if you give them a good shaking, they’ll settle down for ya.”
I didn’t miss a beat, adding, “Do the chickens have large talons?”
“Do they have what?” she asked, giving me crazy, squinty eyes as she cocked one ear toward me.
“Large talons.”
“Boy, I don’t understand a word you just said.”
I laughed hard, and she dropped her act, laughing with me.
“I’m so happy you know Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre,” Benji said. “Jared Hess is a genius. I’ve watched those movies like a hundred times.”
“I basically know them by heart,” I said.
“Jack Sawyer, are you trying to get me to fall in love with you?” Benji said with a charming, Southern girl accent.
A strong gust of wind blew her hair over her face, and she pulled it back.
“Why don’t you come over here and find out?” I said and patted the spot next to me.
She sat next to me and leaned against my shoulder. We sat like that for a few minutes, watching the fire.
“I miss my sorority sisters, but I’m glad I got stranded with you.” Benji sighed.
I put my shirt over her and pulled her back into my side. She nudged closer, resting her head on my chest. It felt good to have her against me once again. The mood changed when she rotated slightly and laid a soft kiss on my chest. Making a trail with her mouth up to my neck, her hand slid down my chest and rested on my abs.
My blood coursed through my veins as she sucked on the sensitive skin just under my jaw. She made to move on top of me, and I assisted her in straddling my lap. Her chest rubbed against mine, hair falling in my face as she bent down to kiss my lips.
She leaned back and said, “Just kissing, okay?”
I nodded, feeling drunk, and pulled her back in. Her lips tasted of a mixture of mango Chapstick and salt, and I allowed her full reign of my body as she ran her tongue across my lips and into my mouth.
My shirt fell off her back as she wrapped both arms around my neck. I snaked my hands around her waist and down over her backside. That’s when I felt a creeping sensation of being watched, and I opened my eyes in alarm. Just past her, on the other side of the fire, were a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness.
I pulled back in a panic, and it felt as if the fire’s heat had doubled. I held my hand out.
“What’s wrong?” Benji said, looking confused at my sudden change of pace.
“Don’t freak out, but something is standing on the other side of the fire.” I gestured by nodding, and she grabbed me tightly as she turned to see the pair of eyes staring back at us. She gasped, and I moved her off my lap and pushed her behind me.
I heard splashes of water, and in a few moments, the eyes had friends, probably a dozen of them. The heat pulsed, and I realized I was feeling something from the boars, as if their anger was pushing against me in molten waves.
They were investigating us from the other side of the fire, staying a ways back, so the light from the fire didn’t give me a good view of what they actually were. As my eyes adjusted, I saw they were the hairy pigs from before,—maybe six of them. Too many to deal with, and if they were as mean as the one from earlier, we were in deep shit.
Chapter 3
“Where the hell did those things come from?” Benji whispered. “There was nothing on this island. I walked the shit out of it while searching for wood.”
“I don’t know. They must be able to swim.” But an ocean-faring hog was something I knew didn’t exist, which brought a bigger question about, something I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. “I think they’re scared of fire, though.”
I bent down and grabbed one of the torches I’d set in the flames earlier that night. The fire crackled and popped as I lifted it out. I aimed and threw the stick. I yelled as it hur
tled through the air and sent out a flurry of sparks. The flaming stick landed in the middle of the horde of hairy, aquatic pigs. They scattered, snorting and squealing as they did. Now they were spread out into two different packs, three on each side. Thankfully, the torch scared the little bundles of sea bacon into staying even further back from us.
With a bit of space between them and us, I went to the bag near me and took out the knife. I regretted not making weapons. Now we had six boars to contend with; I hoped they weren’t as aggressive as the first one I met. There would be no way to deal with them all at once. Another strong gust of wind swept by us, kicking up sand in my face. I glanced to the sky and saw a good portion of the sky hid the stars. Cloud cover, just great.
“What do we do?” Benji asked.
“For now, let’s stay next to the fire and get you a weapon.” I grabbed her hand. “I won’t let them hurt you, I promise,” I said, trying to think of a better weapon than a rock.
She nodded and stayed close to me.
Getting an idea, I yanked one of the bamboo sticks off our shelter, breaking the duct tape in the process, and then used my knife to sharpen its edge. I handed the makeshift spear to Benji. She took it, looking much more comfortable with a weapon in her hands.
“Thank you,” she said. “If we make it through this, I’m making a bow and some arrows. I’d fucking stick all these pigs like pin cushions if I had one right now.”
“We’ll make it through this,” I said as I grabbed several more sticks from our shelter, letting the shiny blankets collapse to the ground.
Sharpening the end of five additional spears, I stuck them in the ground within arm’s reach. I would have made more, but the bamboo patch was clear on the other side of the island, and the boars were in our path.
Spear in hand, we stood our ground. It was a waiting game now. What would last longer, our fire, or the boars’ fear of it?
Over the next ten minutes, we kept an eye on the water pigs and tended the fire, but there was another growing concern, as if we didn’t have enough to think about—the freaking weather was turning on us. The occasional gusts had now turned into a steady wind, and the small waves had turned into large ones, slapping the shoreline with a roar and hiss. This, mixed with the wind, sent a constant blast of ocean mist right over us and the fire—taming the flames with each passing second.
I tossed more wood onto the fire and the flames built up, then I noticed a wave roll up just a few feet shy of the pit.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I muttered.
It would only be a matter of time until a wave rolled right over our fire, extinguishing it like fingers pinching a wick. I glanced at the sky, praying for some divine intervention, when I saw a shadow move over the stars, followed by a loud screech. I watched the shadowy figure dive down until it disappeared into the darkness of the shoreline. Had it landed? Whatever and wherever it was, the boars went absolutely crazy, running in all directions, fleeing. They snorted and splashed into the water. One boar squealed abnormally loud, and I spun to see the shadowy figure lift it off the ground—the hog snorting and kicking high into the sky.
One last hog made a dash for it into the ocean. In the inky, angry, moonlit water, a massive shark breached the surface and snatched the boar, dragging it under water.
“What the—” I wiped my face and blinked rapidly, trying to process what I’d just witnessed.
The wind blew, and the salty ocean spray dripped from my face, stinging my eyes. I grabbed the last flaming stick out of the fire, taking most of the fire with it, and walked around the fire in an ever-growing radius, making sure they were all gone. What the hell was this place? Had something really just swooped down and taken that pig? That boar had to weigh fifty pounds or more.
“Are they gone?” Benji asked. Her body glistened, and she looked like a swimsuit model who had an overly eager spray-bottle-boy attending to her. She stood fierce, spear in hand, ready to kill.
Goddamn, was she real life, or was this some fantasy I’d conjured?
“They’re gone, for now,” I replied. “But we need to gather more wood and build a platform off the ground. I don’t know how high this water will go.”
We rushed over to the bamboo cluster and I hacked at the base of the shoots, while Benji piled it behind me. With a decent bundle, we dragged our wood back to the fire, and that’s when I saw a wave roll over the flames and extinguish it.
“Shit,” I said, dropping the wood and yanking the bags back and away from the water. Thankfully, they weren’t wet.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, a shark flopped around in the shallows, trying to get back into the ocean. It appeared to be the monster that had taken the sea pig, and it was definitely big enough to take a nasty bite out of us. In a few seconds, it was back in the black water and gone.
I glanced to Benji, who was watching as well. The wind blew her wet hair back, and she stared at me, fear filling her eyes.
“We’re going to get through this,” I yelled over the growing storm. “Grab the other end of the bamboo. We’ve got to build a platform.”
I wasn’t sure if Benji was going to snap out of it, but then she blinked and looked out at the dark sea as steady waves washed over our fire pit. “Let’s do this,” she finally said.
The three palms were in a triangle, about six feet apart. It took us some work, but over ten minutes, we were able to create a somewhat sturdy base made up of bamboo slats strung up between the three palms, measuring four feet off the ground. We quickly filled in the spaces between the slats with more bamboo, and by that point, the waves were licking our feet.
I couldn’t tell if it was raining or not; the wind blew hard enough that it sent the ocean spray sideways. It could have been raining buckets for all I knew.
Benji hadn’t been doing well since the storm hit, so my focus was to get her safe first and then make her more comfortable. This wasn’t going to be the end of us. I slapped and shook the base we built, testing it for strength. We did well, and it was sturdy. I just hoped it was strong enough. Next, I threw palm fronds onto it, then motioned for Benji to hop up on it.
“I’ll help you up.” I knelt and locked my fingers together like a basket.
She stepped on my hands, and I lifted her up onto the platform. I grabbed the different emergency blankets off the ground and made sure I hadn’t left anything behind, then I climbed up onto the platform with a hand from Benji.
Kneeling next to her, I took a second and touched the side of her face, wiping away some of the water. She looked exhausted—mentally and physically. I wanted to comfort her, but we had more work to do.
I stood, grabbing more bamboo and the duct tape. She helped me, and soon we had a few sticks propped up like a wall on the windy side. We then struggled a great deal to get an emergency blanket hung around the outside of the bamboo wall.
The second we had the wind wall up, the sideways spray ended, and the wind, while still loud against the fabric, had slowed to a breeze. I went to the other side and set up another bamboo stick a bit lower than the other side and then stretched another blanket across and above us. It was easier done than the first one, but the wind fought it the whole way. Once we got the roof secured with more duct tape, I cut a few pieces of the nylon rope and secured it all down. The setup cut the wind down dramatically, and the rain became a mist that swirled around the whole platform. It wasn’t great, but it was a hell of a lot better.
I set a blanket under us, then sat and leaned against some of the bamboo wall we’d created. “Come on, get close to me,” I said, holding out my arm.
Benji curled into my side, laying against my chest. I pulled the larger blanket over both of us and did my best to tuck us in. We were wet and cold, but at least we weren’t getting any wetter. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t damn proud that the shelter was working. Sure, some mist came in from the sides, but it was a fraction of what we’d been dealing with.
“Thank you,” she mu
ttered against my chest.
I felt her body shaking against mine. I wasn’t sure if she was crying or cold. Either way, I gripped her tighter and just held her.
The waves continued to crash, sometimes sending Benji into a tight ball as one slammed against the palms. The water rolled under us, and at times I couldn’t even see the sandy island anymore. If we’d been down there, we’d have been washed away like driftwood. I just hoped the sea didn’t rise anymore.
Sometime later, I couldn’t really tell how long—it could have been an hour or maybe five—the wind died down and the waves settled into a soft rumble. I was still damp, but not completely wet. Benji had fallen asleep against my chest, most likely due to the constant white noise and exhaustion getting to her.
I pulled the blanket around us tighter and kissed the top of her head. I wasn’t comfortable sleeping because too many things out there wanted to kill us. Her slumbering breaths made me happy, though. She was able to sleep through this nightmare, and tomorrow, I’d make things better. I could lose a night of sleep to ensure she was safe.
I gazed out the side of our little tent platform and looked at the moonlit island on the horizon. It was right then that I knew, as soon as the sun rose, we were going to have to prepare to leave before the next sunset. We’d been lucky this time around, but luck would run out, and I couldn’t let that happen.
I’d bring it up in the morning. Tomorrow, come hell or high water, we were leaving this island.
Chapter 4
Benji kissed me on my neck, her tongue sliding along a sensitive spot, while her friend, Aubrey, pulled at my shorts. The rest of the boat deck was filled with music and laughter as the women partied. A great wind gust blew through, sending Benji into the air and over the railing.
I ran, jumping in with her, pulling her back to the ladder and back on the ship. We were greeted with cheers. I was the hero. That’s when the thunder struck so loud my ears rang. I yelled for Captain Rebecca Brown to turn the boat, but she wouldn’t listen. She stared straight at the storm as if it was the very thing she’d been searching for—her obsession.