“If we take from the sea, as most do when they come here, it’ll likely be a non-issue with the tribal members because the sea is viewed as something that always gives. Stealing fresh pineapple from them is another matter, regardless of how massive this field is, because it takes time for them to grow. Who knows how large the tribe is, or how much it depends on this field? They might have planted it themselves for all we know. If that’s the case, then we’re crossing boundaries. Daniella and Alexa, how many pineapples do you have now?”
“I have seven,” Alexa said.
Daniella had an armful. “I have eight,” she said.
“That’s plenty to last us two days—maybe more with the coconuts and whatever fish Jennifer can teach us to catch. So, that’s it. Put them in the sack.” He lowered it from his back, they put the pineapples inside, and then he looked at me. “Later, you can fish. But you’ll need a spear for that?”
“I will.”
He leaned down, lifted his left pant leg, and exposed a knife strapped to his calf. It appeared to be about six inches long—maybe seven. “Then I’m glad that I travel with this,” he said. And then he lifted his other pant leg, exposing a gun. “And this. And, yes, it’s loaded, and I have plenty of ammunition for it. It’s one of the things that Cutter grabbed off the plane for us. We have rounds of ammunition sealed in an envelope you probably didn’t notice.”
We all looked at him in surprise.
“Why didn’t you use either one of those on the boars that attacked us?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t need to. I’m big enough to handle a mother boar. What I might not be able to handle is a scarier unknown, such as the tribe that’s watching us now. So, on that note, let’s go. I’m beginning to sense that we have no choice.”
“We should take an alternative route back,” Alexa said.
“Why?” Tank asked.
“Because we could come upon a water source along the way. If we do, then we’ve scored.”
“Good point. Which way do you suggest?”
“The land slopes downward to our left. Gravity is water’s best friend. We should cut left through there, and see what we find. The beach where Lisa is working won’t be far from it.”
“You’re a genius,” Blackwell said.
She smiled at that, but that smile proved short lived. As she started back into the jungle, she cut left and moved with purpose through grass that was so tall, it occluded her view of a thick, massive spider web that stretched the distance between two palm trees.
Alexa walked straight into it.
Within an instant, her body was cloaked with the sticky silk, which encompassed her body, and which was enough to send out the largest spider I’d ever seen from one of the trees. It had to be at least a foot long, if not longer. It looked unreal to me.
When it started to scurry toward her, I screamed along with Blackwell while Alexa thrashed in an effort to release herself from the web, but it only seemed to make matters worse. And then, as instinct set in, she stopped before being rendered immobile.
“Help me!” she shouted.
Tank rushed toward her.
The web was strong and Alexa had done enough damage that she was unable to move. She looked like a mummy to me—and probably like a feast to the spider that was rapidly closing the distance from the tree at my right to Alexa herself.
Tank bent down and reached for his knife.
But he was too late. The spider reached Alexa’s neck and crawled around her throat twice before stopping, ready to claim its prey. I felt faint at the sight of it—and could only look on in horror as the spider reared back on its hind legs, ready to do the inevitable.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Only it didn’t get the chance.
With the same deftness he’d shown with the boars, Tank slashed the knife toward Alexa’s throat in such a way that I was certain that he’d cut straight through her.
But he didn’t.
Instead, the knife sliced through the spider’s broad back, killing it instantly. Its legs fanned out in shock and then crumpled in on themselves as the spider spiraled down in a thick thread of webbing to the forest floor. To make certain it was dead, Tank stomped on it as if he were stomping on a rat, finishing it off for good.
At first, there was a moment of relief, but we soon realized that the spider that had first appeared was only one of hundreds hidden within the trees on either side of Alexa. She was caught in a nest of them. While the others were tiny—likely the young of the spider Tank had killed—they nevertheless scrambled out of the trees and toward her with surprising speed.
Alex saw it, sprinted to Tank’s left, and started to tear away the web from Alexa’s body before the spiders could bite her.
“Watch your hands,” Tank said to Alex as they tried to free her. “Be careful.”
Together, they tore at the web, but there was so much of it encasing her that some spiders managed to crawl over Alexa’s cocooned face before she could be freed.
Tank and Alex swatted at them, trying to get them off her before they could bite.
“One is just over my right eye!” she said. “Kill it!”
Alex killed the spider just as Tank, with a great effort, took hold of her arm, which was alive with spiders, and ripped her free from the web. Then, with haste, he ran his hands up and down the length of her arms and legs, essentially crushing each spider with his bare hands. Noting this, Alex quickly began to do the same.
Together, their hands moved down her torso, then down her legs to her feet, and finally up to her head and her hair, which seemed to be covered in an overlay of gauze. In an effort to prevent her from being bit, they ripped away at the web, slapping at whatever spiders they saw. But then Alexa cried out.
“I’ve been bitten!” she said.
Blackwell, Daniella and I moved closer.
“What can we do?” I asked.
“Stand back,” Tank said. He looked at Alexa. “Where were you bit?”
“I felt two stings at the back of my neck. And I’m not feeling well—my body is starting to seize up. It’s becoming difficult to breathe.”
Blackwell charged forward. “There are more spiders on her,” she said. “On her legs—here.” She crushed them with her palms. “And on her arms, there.” Again, she moved into action, joining Tank and Alex to rid Alexa of the spiders that had swarmed her body and the web that still clung to her. My heart began to race at the sight of it all—and then, with unexpected force, came a cramp that made my knees buckle. When another one hit, Daniella took me by the arm and gently led me away from Alex so he couldn’t see what was happening to me.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You need to sit down. You shouldn’t even be out here. You should have done what Tank said and stayed back at the hut to rest.”
“I felt fine this morning.”
“The cramping could mean that you’re still pregnant.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but her logic was sound. For once, Daniella had actually said something of worth.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Bring me over to that stump. Let me sit down. I don’t want to let Alex see me like this. I don’t want him to worry. I want him to have hope.”
“I think you do have hope,” she said. “Why would you cramp otherwise? If the baby was lost, it wouldn’t make sense to be cramping unless you were having your period.”
“No, this was different.”
“Then what you need to do is just sit your ass down and do nothing. What you need to do is to take care of yourself.”
“She’s been bit,” Tank said. “Twice that I can see.”
I looked over at them and saw that they’d carried Alexa away from the infested area and that she now was lying face down on the ground. The web was mostly off her, but were the spiders? Had they gotten them all? Had they crawled within her clothes? There were so many that had come pouring out of the tree
s, it seemed unlikely to me that some still weren’t on her—and that she was might get bit again. And if not her, then perhaps Alex, Tank, or Blackwell. Since they were working with their bare hands, all of them were at risk. Anything could happen.
“Lie still,” Tank said to Alexa. “This is going to hurt, but we need to get the poison out now.”
He checked the back of her neck, identified where she’d been bitten, and then, with quick a slash of his blade, he made a small incision in her neck, pressed his fingers on either side of the cut, and began to squeeze hard until blood pooled out in thick red ribbons that dripped onto the jungle floor.
“Do you need to suck the venom out?” Blackwell asked.
“What came out of that tree was a hive of baby spiders. Alexa is strong, and their venom isn’t toxic enough to harm her with any significance. I just need to keep applying pressure here and let the venom come out along with the blood. Then, after a day’s rest, she should be feeling back to herself. She got lucky. If the mother had bitten her, she could be dead.”
“What kind of spiders were they?”
“I’m not sure. Given the size of the female, I’d say that it was a wolf spider, which are known to live around these parts. But who knows? It might have been something else. As I said to all of you earlier, this is exactly why we need to watch ourselves in the jungle. There are poisonous creatures everywhere, from snakes to spiders to insects.”
“And tribesmen,” Blackwell said. “Who are likely watching us now.”
Tank didn’t respond to that. Instead, when he was finished applying pressure to the wound on Alexa’s neck, he leaned down toward her ear and asked her if she was feeling better.
But she didn’t answer him. Instead, she started to sweat—and then to shiver.
“What’s wrong with her?” Blackwell asked, the fear clear in her voice.
“She’s having a reaction to the venom.”
“She could have been bitten somewhere else.”
“She could have. That’s why we need to get her back to camp ASAP, disrobe her, and check her body for other bites.”
“But we should do that here,” Blackwell said. “Now. While time is on our side.”
“We didn’t kill all of the spiders on that web, Barbara. Even though we moved her over here, those spiders are agitated and fast, and they could be upon all of us at any moment. I suggest that we all get the hell out of here and take Alexa home, where I can examine her.”
“Is she going to die?” Daniella asked.
“She’s not going to die.”
“But how do you know?”
“Tank is trained for this, Daniella,” I said.
“That’s not good enough.”
“What’s not good is that we’re wasting time.” Tank stood. “Alex, you take the fruit. I’ll take Alexa. Let’s go.”
And with that, Tank lifted Alexa in his arms, and we all began the trek back to the hut, unsure about Alexa’s health—or the repercussions of how her body would absorb whatever toxins had been needled into it.
WEEK TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It took four full days for Alexa to finally get back on her feet, but not without one hell of a fight from her—and from Tank.
In the medical supplies that Cutter had removed from the plane before he went missing were three things that were critical to her care—all of them common: Benadryl, to assist with the inflammation and itchiness; Tylenol, to stave off her fever; and penicillin, to fight off infection.
Alexa was lucky in that she’d only been bitten twice by the young spiders that had swarmed her. No other bites were found on her body, which Tank attributed to the sheer amount of webbing that had encased her.
Water was critical to flush the toxins from her system, so Tank did as he said he would and showed us all how to get water from the many bamboo trees that surrounded the hut.
Apparently, all one needed to do was to take a knife and hack away at the tender bark, and purified water eventually would flow in a steady stream, which filled our empty water bottles—and then some. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I was grateful that Tank had. Access to that water saved us, as did two additional trips to retrieve fallen coconuts from the forest floor.
Increasingly, we were beginning to feel the tribe’s presence. We heard random footsteps in the jungle during the day and near our hut late at night. So we decided to leave the pineapple alone, and only went for the fruit that had recently fallen to the ground.
Besides the coconuts, which Tank opened by smashing them against a jagged rock, we also ate the breadfruit and papaya Alex and I had found during an excursion into the jungle with Tank. In addition, Tank made a spear for me, so I was able to catch the red snapper that was accessible at low tide. Tank and I cleaned the fish and cooked them over an open fire on bamboo skewers. It wasn’t perfect, but it was food—and we were grateful to have it, even if we had to eat the fish with our hands.
And even if it seemed that, for whatever reason, no one was looking for us.
When we first arrived back at the hut with Alexa, Lisa had finished her ‘SOS’ sign on the beach. But instead of taking a branch and dragging it through the sand to carve out the sign, she had gone above and beyond. She’d found rocks, and had labored to build a huge, three-dimensional sign that easily could be spotted from the air.
But today was the beginning of our second week on the island, so at this point, I wasn’t sure if anyone would ever see that sign.
Everyone had a theory about why we were still here, which ranged from the destruction of the black box that was near the rear of the plane to the question of where the cockpit had fallen when it ripped away from the aircraft before we crashed. We were going so fast at that point, Tank said it could have fallen into the ocean fifty miles away from us, which is where search teams might be focusing their efforts, thinking that the entire plane had fallen into the ocean at that location.
Hope for being found hadn’t left any of us yet, but worry, stress, and tensions were rising. Was this it for us? Would they never find us? These were questions none of us could answer. In fact, the only answer was to survive—and to wait. And to hope. And to pray, just as we prayed each day for Cutter’s return, bleak as that appeared to be as this point.
Twice, Tank had returned to the wreckage site to search the jungle for his friend, and each time he returned to tell us that there were no signs of Cutter’s body. No bones, clothes, or flesh left behind by the plane’s explosion. He was convinced that Cutter was still somewhere in the jungle, either abducted by the tribe or unable to move likely because of severe injuries.
What none of us said was how could anyone survive what must have been major injuries without food or water for a week? It didn’t seem possible to any of us except Tank, who mentioned more than once that Cutter had been trained for just this sort of situation, and that there were ways to survive in isolated places such as this—especially on a tropical island, which provided so much to sustain life. Though he did reluctantly admit that the window was narrowing.
The one positive thing that came from Tank’s search for Cutter was that he’d found a waterfall that each of us now used daily to wash ourselves. This is where Alex and I were now, with Tank nearby for protection, but out of sight. He had his gun and his knife on him. All of us were allowed to wash once per day, but only if Tank accompanied us for safety’s sake.
Nobody complained about that.
Before Alex and I disrobed, we stood at the water’s edge and admired the waterfall that tumbled and shimmered from the high peak ahead of us. It was surrounded by thick, lush foliage and flowering plants that popped with a host of vibrant colors. There were deep reds, purples, blues, yellows, and pinks. And then there were the birds—dozens of them, all chirping or squawking as they flew from tree to tree. Looking at the view, it was as if it had somehow been shot straight out of a Hollywood set, and not lodged into—what had become for us—a nightmare. Still, its beauty was so arre
sting, and the sounds of the falling water and the birds were so soothing, it offered what all of us needed when we came to it—a necessary, illusionary escape.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Alex said.
“It has no right to be, but it is.”
“And yet you eclipse it.”
I blushed when he said that, even though I knew that it wasn’t true. “Thank you for that, but have you had a good look at me lately? I’m a wreck.”
“Not to me, you aren’t. You’re more beautiful than ever.”
I turned to him, and when I saw the love reflected back to me in his eyes, I sank into his embrace and kissed him deeply, knowing that even though Tank wasn’t far away, he’d never pry on us or disturb our privacy. For this moment, my husband and I were alone.
“How are you?” he asked me as he stroked my hair.
“Happy to have you with me,” I said. “Relieved that your throat is nearly healed and that you have your strength back again.” We parted, and I placed the palm of my hand against his cheek. “I can’t imagine life without you, Alex. I don’t ever want to imagine that. You gave me a terrible scare when we crashed. We haven’t talked much about it, but seeing Tank give you CPR was one of the worst moments of my life. He brought you back to me, and for that, I owe him everything.”
When he smiled at me, it was so gentle and loving that a little bit of me fell away at the sight of it. At that point, the stubble he’d always sported had grown into a full beard, which I thought suited him—even though the dimples I loved so much were pretty much hidden at this point.
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“I love you, too. More than you know.”
“Tank brought me back, but so did you.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not over yet. I know things look bleak right now, but eventually, we’ll be found. That’s something I have to believe in. And when we are found, we’re going to grow old together, have children together, run Wenn together—and then we’re going to hand off Wenn to our kids and run away together. We’re still young. We have our whole lives ahead of us. After the crash, I fought to come back for you, and for our future. You and Tank are the reasons I’m alive now. Tank did the physical work, but you were the magnet that pulled me back.”
Annihilate Me 2: Omnibus (Complete Vols. 1-3, Annihilate Me 2) Page 27