by Ky Tyrand
Wiggling through the woody columns, Lexi stopped at each of the stumps, both to rest her arms, and to replace the diagonal barricades. But she had to be careful to make sure her water was leaning securely. The first time she took her hands off it, the tube had nearly fallen over.
When she got back to her clearing, the fire was ready for some fuel. Lexi added a couple chunks of wood before propping the water container beside the fire.
Step 4: Build a shelter.
“Hmmm, I wonder what to make a shelter out of?” Lexi scratched her head. She tapped her chin. She looked up at the sky. “Well, according to my calculations, it’s going to be … Bamboo!!!”
It was difficult to be sarcastic when nobody was around to appreciate it. Parma would have laughed at her, though. Lexi could always make her best friend laugh.
Trying not to let her mind wander back to Parma, Lexi forced herself to stay focused on the task at hand. It didn’t take her long to chop enough pieces out of the woodpile to make a small platform. She wished she had rope, but made do with the thin branch ends to weave between the tubes, just like she had with the fish trap.
The platform was big enough to lie down on, and was raised off the ground on a couple of thick cross pieces.
After the downpour yesterday, Lexi definitely wanted some kind of roof over her. But she was really powering down. The bamboo was surprisingly light for its size, but the girl could tell that she was overdoing it. All she’d had to eat was a handful of berries, which she just realized hadn’t hurt her stomach at all. Lexi considered going back for more.
But she felt herself beginning to tremble, and decided it would be wise to sit down for a bit. Before she did, Lexi checked on the water.
It was working! The water was boiling. Lexi wished she had enough energy to be excited about it.
She tried to move the tube away from the fire, but didn’t anticipate how hot the bamboo was going to be. Her fingers jerked away, and the water bottle tipped, emptying onto the fire with a hiss of smoke.
Lexi’s shoulders dropped.
She didn’t have the strength for this.
The girl flopped herself down onto the platform. She needed to rest.
I’m going to die here.
Lexi wasn’t sure how long she had been laying there, thinking about Parma, and her parents, and about how bleak her situation was. She had dozed off at one point, but the discomfort of the hard platform woke her up.
It turned out that flat bamboo rails weren’t much more comfortable to sleep on than tree branches. But at least Lexi didn’t have to worry about falling out.
Maybe if I wasn’t all skin and bones, it would be more comfortable.
Lexi needed to eat.
Her day had actually perked up after defeating Braidbeard. She had found a safe place to hide. Salvaged some gear. Built a fire, and a bed. Boiled water.
But it all came crashing down, including the pain she had been feeling earlier. Her body hurt all over, but her stomach most of all.
The fatigue had weakened her to the point of trembling.
Lexi needed to muster up enough strength to get up and find some food. Everything else could wait.
She forced herself up.
There had been berries along the trail she had come in on, even closer than where she’d picked her handful. If she was fast enough, she could get to them before dark.
The girl grimaced as she passed the snuffed fire, and the spilled water tube that had swamped it. She still needed water. Lexi picked up the stupid top-heavy container in disgust, figuring that if she left it by the water while she foraged, she would save herself a trip through the bamboo barricades.
She wasn’t sure which was heavier – the empty container, the Imperative Rod, or herself. It all felt like it weighed a million pounds at the moment.
I need to eat.
Lexi shuffled to her exit trail, fearing that she was becoming a zombie herself.
She fought her way through the bamboo obstacle course, wishing that she had cut a wider path, with shorter stumps, and hadn’t stuffed in all those horrible diagonal barriers.
It was darker than she thought. The Sun had almost set, filling the bamboo thicket with gloomy shadows. She didn’t have much time.
But a splash in the water ahead brought her to a halt.
Lexi couldn’t see where the noise was coming from.
God I wish I had my glasses!
Another splash.
She set down her water bottle and crouched low. Her Imperative Rod was in hand, but she kept the energy within the handle so as not to draw any more attention than necessary.
The girl cautiously crept forward, ready for the zombie, or dragon, or three-headed crocodile, or whatever else this retched place had to throw at her next.
More splashing.
Lexi tried to look through her fist. Why can’t I see anything!
Everything seemed calm. There was nothing in the creek. Nothing on the shore except …
Lexi’s heart leapt.
Her fish trap.
Throwing caution aside, she jumped to her feet and darted for the water’s edge, tearing the roof off her trap.
A fish!
15
Lexi could barely contain herself.
A fish! She’d never caught a fish before. It wasn’t very big, maybe a little larger than her hand, with iridescent silver skin and a strange hooked nose. Weird looking, but definitely a fish!
Okay! … Now what?
The girl had no idea what to do with it.
She knew she had to eat it. She knew she wanted to cook it first. She just hadn’t figured out the in-between parts, yet.
Right now, it was splashing around in circles frantically looking for a way out.
Lexi couldn’t help but feel bad for it.
The girl knew what she had to do, but she’d never killed anything before. Except for bugs. A whole lotta’ bugs. And white-eyed zombie-vampires. Two of them. But she considered all of those instances to be in self-defense. Including the bugs.
This was different.
This was more like … self-offense.
Now she was the monster. And it did not feel good.
Lexi returned to camp with a fish to eat, and a full bottle of water to drink. She wasn’t proud of the length of time it took her to “do the deed”. Or of the sounds that she made as she taught herself how to clean a fish. But at least she was confident that nobody had heard.
Her dad never told her that it was the most disgusting thing on Earth (that’s right, I caught a fish, therefore I’m on Earth!). He never mentioned that there were slimy bits, and more slimy bits, and … a head. With eyes that would, all … look at you, and stuff.
Lexi hadn’t known what to do with the parts that she wasn’t going to eat no matter how hungry she got. She let the current carry some of them away, but then started to wonder if any of it could be used as bait. So she left some particularly disgusting bits tangled in the leaves inside her trap, before plunking the roof back on. You never know.
It didn’t take Lexi long to get another fire going with the Imperative Rod. She propped the water up beside the fire – this time she didn’t fill it right to the top in hopes of having somewhere cooler to grab hold of – and tried to figure out how to cook a fish.
She went through her list of ingredients: A fish.
She went through her list of cookware: Bamboo.
Lexi wondered if there was an easy way to whip up a grill of some kind, but that sounded too complicated for the state she was in. The fish ended up on the end of a stick like a hotdog, skewered through the skin so that it didn’t fall into the fire.
The girl was so hungry that she didn’t care how it tasted. She was just happy to get some food into her, and hoped that it wouldn’t upset her stomach. Lexi finished the fish, grinning as she licked her fingers, wondering if she could catch more tomorrow before she headed downstream.
She would love to have a full stomach when she was rescued.<
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Speaking of which … The girl wanted something on her feet for the hike out. And she wanted something on her body, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed when the rescue team showed up. It was already dark, and she hadn’t even started on her clothes.
Lexi checked the fabric.
The leather was still a bit damp, but the pieces of brown zombie-pants were completely dry.
The boots were dry on one side, but still wet on the other. She spun them around and threw another chunk of bamboo on the fire, before plucking the fabric off the tripod and carrying it back to her platform.
At least with the Imperative Rod to work with, cutting fabric and working in the dark was not an issue. Coming up with a good use of the materials, on the other hand, was.
The girl wished that she could have created a beautiful dress, or some awesome pants and a nice top. But it didn’t quite work out that way. As it turned out, designing clothes was much more difficult than it looked. And putting them together was just as hard, especially with limited resources and not enough material to try different things out.
She thought that she could turn the leather into a vest or tunic. But she had no way of stitching seams together. Everything she tried stuck up around her shoulders like she was wrapped in a tube.
In the end, she settled for something more like a poncho, with a hole cut out for her head, and a length of leather hanging down her front and back.
Her idea for comfortable pants turned into an uncomfortable skirt that wrapped around her thighs in two pieces, but didn’t want to stay up because she didn’t have any hips or a way to tighten the waist.
All in all, it was a complete disaster, and Lexi hoped beyond all hope that Tonya Henderson was not part of the rescue team destined to find her. She would rather stay out in this God forsaken jungle forever than go through that humiliation.
She made out a little better with her footwear, though. Of course, the boots themselves were way too big for her. But Lexi planned on using the soles to make a pair of thongs. However, her idea evolved as she went, as she discovered a way to shrink down the boots and create something that was partway between boots and sandals.
With some thoughtful planning, Lexi was able to keep the entire back and most of the sides of each boot, separating all but the back heal area from the soles. After cutting away the fronts and most of the sides, she was still left with plenty of material for her tiny legs.
The fronts of the boots had sturdy straps and buckles to cinch them, which Lexi had to cut off and re-attach around the outside. Laces probably would have made it easier for her, but she found a way to wrap two of the straps into holes that she put on the sides of the soles, allowing her to fasten the leather pads to her feet. The rest she could wrap around her skinny calves.
Unlike her clothing, the boots got the Lexi Robinson stamp of approval.
They weren’t going to keep her feet dry, but at least she wouldn’t be traipsing around the jungle barefoot.
And if Tonya Henderson didn’t like them … too bad for her.
With a long yawn, Lexi decided she was done for the night.
She had pulled the water away from the fire earlier, and it had cooled to the temperature of warm bathwater. Mmmm. She gulped it down, wishing she had some ice cubes.
Before lying down, Lexi gathered up all the thin bamboo branches and tops from her clear-cut. She put a thick layer of them down on the platform, which made it way more comfortable than the hard poles by themselves. Once she was lying down, Lexi pulled a heap of leftover branches and leaves on top of her. They weren’t as soft as the comforter she had at home, but hopefully they would keep her warm tonight.
The girl wished that she’d had the time and energy to build a roof over her bed, and hoped that it didn’t rain.
16
It rained.
Not as bad as it had the day before, but enough that Lexi wished she was under a tree like the one that had covered her last night. Just not one that used to be a zombie – wait … did I sleep in a zombie tree last night?!?
The thought was more than a little unsettling.
Lexi figured that the leaves that buried her helped repel at least some of the water. But not enough. She slept huddled in a ball under the bamboo, with her legs tucked up to her chest to get as much coverage as she could out of her leather top, which was twisted over her side in an attempt to keep the rain off. Between her chest and her knees she hugged the alien device, letting some energy out of it from time to time to help warm her up.
As soon as the rain stopped, Lexi pushed the leaves off of her, thinking that they would drip on her forever if she didn’t. Pink on the horizon suggested dawn was on its way.
Despite being tired, the girl didn’t want to waste any time. She had a lot to do, and did not want to be late for the rescue.
First order of the day was to get the fire going and more water boiling. Lexi planned to drink as much as she could, and then take a full bottle with her. Not knowing how far it was to the rescue point, she was tempted to make a second bottle. Who am I kidding, I’ll be lucky if I can lug this one very far.
The firewood was all wet, but with the power of the Imperative Rod, Lexi commanded that it burn. And it did.
Once the fire was going on its own, Lexi headed to the water to refill her bottle. As she untangled her bamboo barricades, she realized how much easier it felt today. The fish she’d eaten had done wonders for her energy, and her stomach felt great. Lexi was actually getting excited to see if her fish trap would offer up any more bounty. She could hear splashing before she had even moved the last cross-piece, and threw it aside so she could race to the trap.
Holy crap!
There were three of them, all but one larger than yesterday’s!
The girl stared at the fish in disbelief, wondering what she was going to do with them all.
“I’m going to eat them!” she reminded herself, shaking her head like she was talking to a fool.
It was late in the morning before Lexi was ready to get going. She had eaten a full fish – the biggest one (the whale) – but knew that she would make herself sick if she ate the rest. The girl didn’t know how long it would take for the leftovers to go rotten, but an idea came to her while she was cooking the whale. Her dad had a smoker that he used to preserve his catches, so she figured why not give it a go. Lexi didn’t have any fancy equipment, but she had a fire, and she had a whole jungle full of rain dampened foliage. So she made a heap of wet bamboo leaves (her blanket) over the fire, and spread the fish out on top.
The girl didn’t know if it was working or not, but there sure was a lot of smoke.
While the fish and fire were doing their thing, Lexi went to work braiding thin whips of bamboo together. She needed rope, and the narrow branch ends were surprisingly strong and supple, though not very long. But if she sat and twisted enough pieces together, Lexi could make it as long and as strong as necessary.
By the time she determined the fish were “smoked”, Lexi had made a belt to keep her poncho from flopping around, a second one to keep her skirt from falling down, and two straps that she fed through the top of the water tube so that she could sling it over her shoulders.
She found some large leaves to wrap the fish in. They looked the same as the ones she had been slurping water from – which didn’t seem to cause her any harm – so she considered them to be “Food and Lexi safe” leaves. Something that might be good to know if she were to be stuck out here much longer. Which, of course, would not be necessary because the girl had every intention of being rescued today.
Lexi said goodbye to her bamboo fort, which she actually considered to be pretty awesome despite never getting a roof.
The usual sounds of splashing greeted her at the creek side, where she discovered that her trap had already been re-stocked. The girl lifted the lid to find two good sized meals thrashing about. She frowned at the thought of passing up food in her condition, but didn’t have time to smoke them. Not at the risk of
missing the bus. Or the plane. Or the boat. Or whatever they were sending to pick her up.
So Lexi began pulling the bamboo stakes out of the creek bed. She couldn’t leave a trap behind. The fish swam off the moment the opening was large enough. By the time she was done, there was a small pile of golden tubes stacked beside the water.
Satisfied that she was leaving everything as she should, Lexi stood up, ready to get a move on.
The first thing she noticed upon getting up was that the zombie-tree in the middle of the creek looked even bigger today. Broader and taller. The water was beginning to bulge up and churn around the expanding roots that tried to block its path. And the branches were now covered in small green leaves.
“This place is messed up,” muttered Lexi before she headed off, giving a final wave over her shoulder. “Adios, messed up place.”
The girl followed the shallow water south, wishing that the Sun was behind her so that if the dragon tried to sneak up on her, she stood a chance of spotting its shadow before its huge talons got hold of her. Instead, Lexi kept her eyes peeled, constantly looking over her shoulder. There could be a dragon, or a white-eyed zombie, or a circus clown, hiding anywhere around here. With her eyes as bad as they were, she probably wouldn’t see it coming.
But she had to be prepared.
The Imperative Rod was at the ready. And though she thought the trip to the ocean would go quickly, Lexi hadn’t anticipated the slow speed of being on guard the entire way.
The creek got dark and narrow in places, with the water creeping up to her waist, and the thick jungle closing in on her sides. And in other areas it opened wide and shallow, where she kept to the shore for fear of the dragon swooping down on her.
The gear she’d made was working pretty well for the most part, except for the water bottle which smacked her rear with every step, and her skirt which kept trying to fall down, especially after it got wet in the deep water.