“There must be a volcano somewhere on this island,” Alexa said. “Perhaps you could offer yourself to it.”
“Fuck you, Alexa.”
“You see? You can’t change a leopard’s spots….”
“I meant what I said. I am sorry. And I’m coming.”
“Great. Can’t wait.”
Tank turned to Lisa. “How are you this morning?”
“Sore like everyone else, but I’m good. And I’m also happy to come along and help.”
“I have another idea. How about if you stay here? You can go to the edge of the beach, just where high tide ends, and spell out the letters ‘SOS’ in the sand. Grab a branch in the jungle—a thick one—and use that to make the letters as large as possible. Are you up for that?”
“Of course. And I’ll be on the outlook for Cutter should I hear him.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“I’d like to come,” I said.
“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”
“There’s no more spotting. I checked when I was in the jungle. I’d like to come along. A walk would do me good.”
“I should also go,” Alex said.
“Somebody needs to stay here with Lisa.”
“I’ll be fine,” Lisa said. “I’ll be out in the open on the beach. No insects. No snakes. If any boars come, I’ll just go into the water and wait them out. I doubt if they’d come after me there.”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone.”
“If the others want to go, let them. I don’t mind. And you have to admit that being out in the open on the beach is pretty low risk.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
Tank looked at Alex and me for a moment as if he were assessing us, which of course he was. “If you’re going to come, Alex, I first need to check your throat and change your dressing. If there are no signs of infection, you can come because it really is just a walk. But if you have an infection, all bets are off. You and Jennifer will have to stay here.”
But when he changed Alex’s dressing, everything appeared to be fine.
“You’re healing,” he said. “Obviously, it’s still raw, but I think we got to it in time. I don’t see any signs of infection at this point. I think the ointment helped.”
“Then apply more.”
“Done.”
When he finished treating Alex’s throat and wrapping it in gauze, he stood and looked at everyone. And then he seemed to make a decision.
“We’ll all walk together,” he said. “If we find water, we’ll stop to fill our empty bottles. If we find fruit first, we’ll gather it and move on. Expect to attract boars at any moment. They’re out there. We need to be prepared to confront them.”
“How am I supposed to run in heels if those hoary beasts come running after me?” Blackwell asked. “And in ruined Chanel, no less?”
Tank tucked his bloodied shirt into one of his back pockets and shrugged. “If you’re concerned about any of that, then I suggest you stay here with Lisa.”
“I was just offering an amuse-bouche,” she said. “These heels won’t be the end of me. I’ll find a way.”
“Of course you will,” he said. “You’re Blackwell.”
“You say that as if I’m superhuman.”
“You are.”
“I know that people think that I am—it’s been written. Whispered. Spoken about in certain circles—the right ones. But I’m not. I’m only human. For instance, if I were indeed superhuman, would I be dying for a cigarette right now? Because I can tell you that I am.”
“You’re dying for a what?” I asked.
“A cigarette. I used to smoke these lovely Sobrianie cocktail ciggies back in the day. You know, years ago, when it was still in fashion. They were long, thin, and black. And they had this lovely gold-tipped foil for a filter. So decadent—and beyond elegant. They alleviated stress, and I loved them for it.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Then came the movement. Then came the warnings. One shouldn’t smoke. It was as if a switch had been flipped—suddenly, smoking was no longer considered an indulgence. Instead, it became a poisonous addiction. So, naturally I stopped, even though I hated to do so. But I’d take one now in a heartbeat. Hell, I’d smoke the damned pack.”
“I can’t believe you used to smoke,” Daniella said.
“Well, believe it. I smoked for years.”
“I bet you smoked while you were pregnant with Alexa,” she said. “Finally, an answer to why she turned out the way she did. No wonder she’s so consumed with battling the world for clean air.”
“Shut up, Daniella.”
“Actually, I’d given it up by then,” Blackwell said. “But when I was carrying you?” She shrugged her shoulders at Daniella. “I can’t quite remember, but I might have been smoking heavily when I was carrying you, so you might want to think about that, my dear. And whatever consequences that came from it…”
“Mom!”
Tank gave Lisa a kiss, and then he motioned forward. “Let’s go,” he said. “There’s work to do.”
* * *
With Tank in the lead, we all fell into place behind him and started into the jungle.
Before we left, Tank had found a small plastic sack in one of the boxes, and he’d filled it with our empty bottles, which needed to come back full. Daniella carried her blanket over her shoulder to use when we came upon fruit.
While the two girls were dressed casually, the rest of us were not. Like Blackwell, I also wore heels, though at least the heel itself was minimal. Still, moving through the jungle with its thick foliage, damp ground, and cords of vines curling beneath our feet proved a challenge. To help steady me, Alex held my arm, just as Alexa held onto her mother’s. The best was coming out of everyone now, but I had to wonder how long it would be before frustration inevitably set in if we weren’t found soon.
As we walked through the lush greenery, I put my arm around my husband’s waist, kissed him on the cheek, and sent off another prayer for our child. The fact that there was no spotting this morning gave me hope. What I didn’t know is—if I had lost my child—when I would have my period. I couldn’t be on my normal schedule at this point, could I? I had no idea, and so I asked Alex if he would change places with Alexa so I could talk with Blackwell.
“What’s the problem?” she asked when she took my arm. “If you’re tired, there’s no shame in turning around, Jennifer. Alex will go with you. The rest of us will be fine.”
“No, I’m good. I just have a question.”
“Ask away.”
“If I lost my child, when would my period come? Would it come right away? I can’t imagine I’d be on my normal cycle anymore. I need some insight, and I was hoping that you might have some.”
“Over the years, friends of mine have shared with me their experiences, and I’m afraid it’s all over the map. Sometimes they’ll have their period the next day. Sometimes it will be a few weeks. Sometimes, the next month. It’s unpredictable.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“I know it isn’t, but that’s what I know. The fact that you didn’t spot this morning is a good sign. Has there been any more cramping?”
“None.”
“Morning sickness?”
“Not today. It seems to have left me—which also worries me.”
“So, let me break this down for you. You’ve had no food today. You’ve also smelled no food. When you were in New York, when did the morning sickness hit?”
“I didn’t know it was morning sickness then. I thought I was throwing up due to the stress of what was happening with Wenn.”
“Think.”
I thought back to the times I’d gotten sick, and tried to remember what was happening before I needed to rush to the bathroom. “It happened once when Alex was cooking breakfast,” I said. “Another time, it happened when I had coffee. When I had lunch with Lisa, the moment I caught a whiff of her salmon, it was
over for me. And then there was that time on the plane, when we were served breakfast. You should remember that because you’re the one who held my hair.”
“And yet you’ve experienced none of that today. Nothing to trigger the sickness. We need to look at that as a positive sign. We will find coconuts on this island, and here’s the thing about them—they have a strong odor. We’ll need to assess how you react when one of them is served to you.”
“I think I might have lost it, Barbara,” I said in a low voice so Alex couldn’t hear. “I can’t imagine a fetus that’s only a month old surviving that crash.”
“Don’t you dare give up hope on that child,” she said quietly. “I haven’t, and neither has your husband. You need to keep positive until we know for sure. Yes, we landed hard. Yes, you spotted and experienced cramping. But that child might still be alive. Look at where we are right now. Certainly, stranger things have happened.”
And when she said that, stranger things did happen. Without warning. Right in front of us. And what we saw was a horror show.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“What is that?” Daniella asked with fear in her voice.
“Stand back,” Tank said. “All of you.”
Tentatively, he moved toward a tree that was just a few feet away from us. I moved to the side to see what he was looking at, but because of his broad shoulders and wide back, I couldn’t see anything until he moved to the right to examine the object further. It appeared to be a boar’s head—shrunken and withered, but not yet skeletal. Its eyes were gone, and what was left of its mouth was yawning open as if it had been caught in a scream when it died.
Somebody had speared it to the tree.
“We’re not alone here,” I said.
At first, Tank said nothing. Instead, he looked the head over, examined every inch of it, and then stepped away from it and faced us. “Jennifer’s right. We’re not alone.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Daniella asked. “A boar’s head?”
“It is.”
“How old is it?”
“Not as old as I’d like it to be. Maggots are still feasting on it. Flies are as well.”
“How old do you think it is?” Alex asked.
“Maybe a week. Maybe less.”
“Then there are others on this island,” Alex said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What does it even mean?” Blackwell said, looking at the head. “Why would somebody stake a boar’s head on a tree like that?”
“It’s one of two things. Either it’s meant as some primitive sign to warn off other boars—or other people. Or it’s there to honor the kill, either by a tribe or by civilians.”
Before I could respond, Blackwell said, “Who else is on this island?”
“Perhaps an indigenous tribe.”
“Then we should turn back,” Alex said. “Whoever is here must have heard us when we crashed.”
“They absolutely heard us when we crashed. But why have they been silent so far? If they are hostile, they could have taken us last night, but they didn’t. Why?”
“You tell us,” I said. “And what did you mean when you said that civilians could have killed it?”
“No matter how remote this island might be—and I can only assume it’s remote because no one came to assist us when we crashed and because the island isn’t wired with electricity from what I’ve seen—there have been other civilians here. I can guarantee you that. They’d come to fish, for instance. Some of the best fishing in the world is in the South Pacific. They’d also come to hunt boar, and then they’d get in their boats and leave with their catch or kill. Generally, hunters and fishermen stay no longer than a week, and then they’re gone. So, a hunter could have done this, which is possible given the grandiosity of the act. But, if there is a tribe here—which there might be—then they might be staying hidden so they can watch us, and they’re probably hoping we’ll leave soon. Primitive doesn’t mean stupid—don’t ever think that. They know this island better than we know ourselves. If a tribe did this, then they have seen our plane—and they’ve also seen us. We didn’t arrive by some random boat that drifted ashore. We arrived on a plane that smashed onto this island and then exploded on land. If they exist, they’ve already processed our situation. And they now have a plan for how to deal with us. Right now, it’s a waiting game.”
“A waiting game for what?” I asked.
“To see if we pose a threat.”
“What constitutes a threat?”
“Being here. Stealing their water. Their food.”
“What if no one comes for us?” Daniella asked.
“Someone will come for us,” Tank said. “The question is when they will come for us.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “You said it was possible that the black boxes were compromised in the crash.”
“I said that the box on our part of the plane might have been compromised. I’ve said nothing about the box that was in the cockpit.”
“Which is miles away from us. How am I supposed to hinge my hopes on that when I’m faced with a boar’s head speared to a tree?”
“You don’t,” he said to her. “With this alone, everything has just changed for us. We have a whole new set of problems on our hands. It’s likely that there are people on this island. They might be watching us now, and they might have been since we first came here. So, listen to me. We work as a unit, and we work quickly.”
He paused to look around him and above him in the umbrella of trees. “Over there are several coconut trees,” he said. “The objective isn’t to climb the tree—it’s too dangerous, and we don’t have a machete to free the fruit. Instead, we’ll check the forest floor for any that might have recently fallen free, and are still fresh. Let’s check the ground over there and see what we find.”
When we did, we scored twelve coconuts, large green globes with only minor bruising from the fall.
“These are in great shape, but they’re heavy,” Tank said. “Let me have your blanket, Daniella. I’ll carry them.”
“If there are people watching us, won’t they think that we’re stealing their food?” I asked.
“Look at how many coconuts are on the ground, all about to rot. They aren’t worried about the ones that have fallen free. If there is an indigenous tribe here, they are experts at climbing these trees and getting the freshest fruit possible. That’s what they want, not the ‘waste’ they see us gathering.”
“Since when do I eat waste?” Blackwell said.
“Since you crashed on this island.” He motioned ahead of us. “It looks as if there’s a field just ahead of us,” he said. “Do you see it? In the clearing? If we’re lucky, we might find water there.”
At that moment, I heard movement in the jungle. It didn’t sound like the boars that had threatened us yesterday—these were footfalls, and as stealth as they were, the sound of them was unmistakable. Tank also heard them. He quickly glanced around us, keeping his head low—and keeping his cool.
“We’re being watched,” he said.
“By whom?” Blackwell said.
“I would imagine by members of the tribe. So, we keep to ourselves. We take only what we need. These people are used to people visiting this island for the very reasons I listed earlier. Fishing. Hunting. If anything, they’re curious about who we are, especially because of the way we arrived. I say we go into the field. We need water. I know of other ways to source water if we need to, but it’s not as efficient as finding a water source we can go to every day. We need to push forward.”
“But is it safe?”
“If they wanted a confrontation of some sort, they would have initiated one by now, so I do think it’s safe.”
“We should turn back,” I said.
“If we’re going to survive, we need food and water, Jennifer. They know that. This won’t be the first time someone has come to their island for both. So, let’s do this.”
He hoisted the coconuts ov
er his back, and we followed him out of the jungle with its broad canopy of trees and into a massive clearing just beyond the jungle, where—as far as the eye could see—was a wealth of lush, low-growing plants with spiny tops lit by the sun.
But I didn’t see a brook, a pond, or a lake. At least not here.
“Pineapple,” Tank said. “And look how much of it there is. There must be hundreds of acres of it here.”
“We have coconuts,” Daniella said. “Shouldn’t we just put this on our list under ‘Where Food Is,’ and try to find a water source later? The coconut milk will hydrate us. And we can’t leave Lisa alone forever. Now that we know that people are on this island, we know that she’s vulnerable.”
“We’re here, so we might as well grab what we can. We’ll take a dozen pineapples—which is nothing in a grove this large—and then we’ll call it a day, and get the hell out of here before we overstay our welcome.”
“But what about water?” I asked.
“Water is all around us on the beach.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“It’s in the bamboo trees,” Tank said. “Chop away at the soft bark, and eventually the tree will let loose with liters of purified water. As I said earlier, it’s not as efficient as I’d like. But if we have to, we’ll fill our bottles that way, and we won’t have to worry about any pathogens that could harm us. The bamboo provides its own kind of purification system, so we’ll be safe. As for bathing and cleaning our clothes, we’ll still need to look for a lake or a waterfall. But that’s not a priority now. Food is.”
“Tank,” I said as we walked into the pineapple groves to harvest the pineapples. “My Uncle Vaughn was a lobsterman in Maine. And a sports fisherman.”
“I remember you telling me that.”
“From him, I know how to spear a fish because he taught me how to do so. I also know how to catch lobster. Are their lobsters here?”
“Spiny rock lobsters are everywhere here.”
“I can get us food that way. I saw along the beach a few shallow, coral areas that were filled with fish. I mostly saw red snapper. If there are rock lobsters there, they won’t be as easy to catch, but I know how to corner them. And when they’re cornered, that’s when you snatch them.”
Annihilate Me 2: Omnibus (Complete Vols. 1-3, Annihilate Me 2) Page 26