Johnny opened the MRE and took a bite. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Now that he had food in his hands, it was hard to convince himself to eat slowly. In between bites, he glanced at Dalton.
“You’re not having one?”
Dalton shook his head. “I ate earlier.”
On the morning of the third day, Johnny felt almost better. When he awoke, he was still sore and hungry, but the fever was gone. The back of his neck was cold and slick. His arms and legs ached with tension. The muddy places where his buttocks rested against the earth were wet. Looking down at his body, he saw a spider with long spindly legs climbing up his trousers. Johnny brushed it away and sat up.
“Thirsty?” asked a voice. Johnny jumped. Dalton, of course. He was holding out the canteen. Johnny took it.
“You back already?”
“It’s almost noon,” said Dalton. He was sitting on his haunches again, watching Johnny like a mother hawk over her chicks. He must have been waiting there awhile. “You want anything to eat?”
Johnny squeezed his eyes shut and stretched his arms and legs. “Better not,” he said. “There’s only two left, right?”
“Three.”
Johnny did the math in his head again. They’d both eaten two so far, so there should be only two left. “You didn’t eat yesterday?” asked Johnny. Dalton smiled and shook his head. “You have one then,” said Johnny. “I can have one tomorrow.”
“What’s the point of that?” asked Dalton. “I’m not planning on starving to death, no matter how little I eat. But you need some food if you’re gonna get better.”
“We’ll split one.”
In a few minutes, they were eating. After a while, Johnny sat up higher and looked around the little camp that Dalton had built over the past two days. There was a place cleared for the fire with a bit of wood drying nearby. Dalton’s blanket was hung across a couple of wires stretched between the trees—a tent or a water collector, maybe. And that was it. That was the whole camp.
“Where’s the rifle?” asked Johnny.
Dalton licked his fingers, trying to suck the last bit of grease off them. “Ditched it,” he said. “Threw it into the ocean like I said.” He leveled a finger at Johnny. “I want to ditch the knives too, both of ours.”
Johnny shook his head. “We’re gonna need them. You should have kept the gun too. What if there’s an animal we could have shot? Or what if somebody shows up?”
“We’re running out of food already,” said Dalton. “It’s like I told you before, things are going to get desperate and who knows what we’ll do then. We just gotta keep from killing each other and maybe we’ll be okay. Just get rid of the weapons, and we’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Johnny darkly. “I’m still gonna starve to death.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know what’s gonna happen.”
“Forget it,” said Johnny. “I’m keeping my knife. You said yourself that you could take me in a fair fight. I’m sick and I’m not as strong as you. If we get rid of the knives, then I got nothing. This is all I got.”
Dalton suddenly stood up, gripping his scalp in his hands. “Don’t you get it?” he said. He was kicking the dirt like a mad bull. “I can’t kill you! I can’t do anything to you at all! I’m bigger and I’m stronger and I’m healthier, but none of that means anything. Even if I still had the gun, it wouldn’t make a difference! If I come at you, I’m the only one who’s got a chance of getting killed. I’d have to be an idiot to risk it!”
“You thought about it?”
“What?”
“You thought about coming at me?” asked Johnny.
“Dammit, kid. I thought about everything.” Dalton looked down at Johnny. His face was harsh. “I thought about every possible way to get us both out of here alive, or one of us, or neither of us. I’m trying to figure this thing out. I’m trying to think up a plan where neither one of us gets hurt. So yeah, I thought about jumping you while you were lying there passed out. But what good would it do? What would be the point? I’d just be risking my neck for nothing. We gotta do this together. It’s the only way, and I know I can get us through it. But we gotta get rid of those knives to do it.”
“Forget it!” Johnny’s voice was loud. He had taken his knife out and was holding it now, squeezing the handle tightly. “If we ditch the knives, then there’s even less hope we’ll ever eat again. And dammit, Dalton, even if you can’t kill me, there’re other things you can do.”
Seeing the knife out, Dalton drew his, too. “There’s no point dragging this out then, is there? Why not just do it now if you’re so sure how it all ends?”
“That’s what I thought,” said Johnny. “You keep pretending that you don’t think I’m gonna kill you. You keep pretending you’re not afraid of me. But now what? You trust me so much that you want to fight me when I’m sick?” Johnny lurched forward, half rising. The blood rushed to his head and he almost fell over, but he regained his balance. “You want to come at me?” He waved his knife at Dalton. “You want to come at me, then come!”
Dalton looked from his knife to Johnny’s. He clenched his fists and let out a howl. Then he turned and stalked into the jungle, slashing at vines and branches as he went. He didn’t come back at all that day.
Johnny hardly slept at all that night, but he dozed a little towards dawn. Still sick and weak, he couldn’t force himself to keep watch any longer. When he woke, Dalton was sitting calmly on a log at the edge of the camp. He held up his hands to show they were empty.
“You were asleep a long time,” said Dalton. “If I’d wanted to do anything, I could have done it easily enough.”
Johnny nodded, rolling over. “Where’s your knife?”
Dalton jerked his head over his shoulder. “See it?” It was sticking out of a nearby tree. “Can I bring you some water now?”
A few minutes later, the two men were facing one another a couple of yards apart. Johnny still kept his knife, but he had sheathed it. They were talking almost easily again.
“I found a spring yesterday,” said Dalton. “It was down in a cave, practically underground. I wasn’t going to tell you about it...” He paused a minute, then cleared his throat. His jaw was tight when he spoke again. “It’s like I said, though. We do this together or not at all.”
Johnny sneered. “Yeah.”
“Look, the way I see it, this can still turn out a few different ways. I could have left you here and taken the food and the canteen and not told you about the spring. Then I could have let you chase me all over the island. As long as you never caught up to me, I’d be safe. And eventually you’d starve.”
Johnny snorted and looked away. “Is that supposed to scare me?” he asked. “I’d get you sleeping or something.”
“You’re missing the point, kid. I don’t want to do it that way. I don’t want to be sitting here trying to think up ways to get rid of you. I want to get us both out. And if I didn’t have homicide on my ticket, we wouldn’t be at each others’ throats like this. It’s just because we think we already know how it’s going to work out. But maybe we’re wrong. That’s the point I’m trying to get at. Maybe we’re wrong. There’s more than one way to look at this yet. It doesn’t have to be us fighting until you kill me, and then you starving to death by yourself. So forget about that machine and those damned predictions, and we’ll just work this out our own way.”
Johnny shuddered and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Dalton was holding out his hand.
“Come on, kid. What do you say? Let’s be friends still. We got a chance to get out of this alive, both of us. Let’s not give up yet.”
Johnny sighed and then nodded. He reached up to take Dalton’s hand. They shook. “You found a spring then?”
“Yeah,” said Dalton. “If you’re strong enough to walk, you can wash off some of that muck.”
It had been days since Johnny had been on his feet, and after five minutes of walking he could feel it. The jungle
was still sticky and hot, and roots kept tripping him up. Dalton led the way, breaking off branches and clearing a path, but Johnny still recoiled from every leaf and every spider web that brushed against him. His nerves all felt like they were twice as sensitive as usual.
“You okay back there?” asked Dalton. He didn’t turn around. Johnny only grunted.
Johnny lost track of time. It could have been an hour or two hours. It could have been twenty minutes. All he knew was that he was taking step after step, his hands moving from tree trunks to vines, trying to steady himself. He hated those palm trees. He’d only ever seen them on TV and movies before he shipped out. They had them in Hollywood and Miami, in glamorous places like that. But looking at them up close, they didn’t even look like real trees. They just reminded him that he was going to die thousands of miles from home where everything was different. There were moments when he would have given his right arm for an oak or a maple and an ugly little squirrel. Everybody had to die someday, he knew. But why did it have to happen in a place you hated?
Dalton paused and pointed into the jungle. “Fruit tree,” he said. “I don’t think they’re ripe yet, but it’s something.” Dalton grinned. It was the first time he had looked at Johnny since they started walking. “So don’t give up hope yet, kid.”
They pushed on a little while longer, and then Dalton stopped at the lip of small cliff. It led down into a dark chasm about fifteen feet deep. Johnny could only see that the walls were steep, and that it was dark under the canopy and rock below. “How you feeling?” asked Dalton. He didn’t even wait for an answer. “It’s down there, down at the bottom. That’s how I missed it the first time.”
Johnny leaned forward, his hands on his knees. He didn’t hear any water, but it had to be there. He was exhausted. If he was ever going to make it back to camp, he needed a rest and a drink—and food. “Give me a minute,” he said. He didn’t even want to think about how he was supposed to get down to the spring. Dalton should never have brought him. He should never have come.
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Dalton, pressing his palm against Johnny’s back.
“Wait,” said Johnny. Dalton’s hand pushed against him. He took a stumbling step forwards. “Wait.” The pressure grew more insistent and Johnny felt himself tipping. He took another stumbling step. The edge of the chasm opened wide before him, stony and dark. Johnny’s feet sank into thick carpets of moss.
“Sorry, kid,” said Dalton. And suddenly Johnny was moving faster than he thought possible. The ground and the trunks of palms rushed by him, spinning into each other as his feet dragged and scuffed and then lifted entirely into the air and for one breathless moment Johnny was touching nothing. He had no connection to anything except Dalton’s hand clutching his shirt, and then that too was gone and Johnny tumbled lightheaded through a cushion of air. His arm brushed something rough and the skin split wide open. He tried to push away but it kept coming at him, pinning his shoulder tight until a stabbing pain sliced through his body. Just when he thought his shoulder must snap, his left leg struck hard against something and he sprung free, spinning through the air again before coming down hard once more on his leg. Something happened in Johnny’s ankle and a rush of black swallowed up his eyeballs in a single gulp and left him tingling for a moment.
When Johnny opened his eyes again, there were hands on his body. He thought it must have been three or four pairs, but only Dalton was there. He was stepping back, away from Johnny’s body, a knife in his hand. Dalton was sweating hard. Johnny tried to move, but his ankle flared into a throbbing ball of pain. There were brands burning all over his body, sharp points of fire on every muscle and bone.
“Come on, kid,” said Dalton. “Listen to me, kid. Did you hit your head?” He was looking down over Johnny, his hands searching his face and head. “Come on, you’ll be okay.”
Johnny didn’t say anything. His mouth was full of blood and rocks. Sharp, hollow pebbles biting into gums. Johnny spit out the blood and the pebbles. Teeth, he knew. Even then he knew. He breathed through his nose. That smelled like blood too.
“I’m sorry,” said Dalton. “I’m sorry I had to do it. But I couldn’t let you have that knife. I was gonna take it when you were sleeping, but it was too risky. You could have just woken up and stabbed me. You could have just been pretending to sleep. So I had to—I had to. You understand that. I had to do it like this. I knew it wouldn’t kill you, so I had to.”
Dalton looked down at the knife in his hand. He shook his head and suddenly flung it away, up over the rim of the chasm. “It’s gone now,” he said. “It’s just you and me now. Just us. And we’re gonna make it, just like I told you.” Dalton crouched down, lowering his face next to Johnny’s. “Just trust me, that’s all. I’m gonna look out for you. I’m gonna look out for both of us. I’ll be back with food and water every day. I promise. I promise I’ll be back. I know I can do this.”
Dalton stood again. “You were shutting down,” he said. “You gave up. You can’t do that. I learned that here. Even though you think you’re gonna die every minute, you just keep going. You keep doing whatever you can to beat that. And this is what I had to do. And now we’ll be okay. You’ll see—just trust me, kid. I know I’m not gonna die here. I’m gonna die an old man, murdered warm in my bed. And you too, kid. Both of us, we’ll be so old we won’t even know what happened.”
And then Dalton was gone again, climbing up to the rim of the chasm. Johnny lay there at the bottom alone.
Time passed. A lot of time passed. Dalton came now and then. Or at least Johnny was aware of him now and then. He brought helmets full of water and left them for Johnny. Warm, gritty water. There was no spring in the chasm, of course. That had been a lie, like all of it. Holding the helmet in his good hand, Johnny lapped at it. When the fever was on, the water seemed to be full of crawling and swimming things, tiny snakes and tiny fish. But Johnny drank it anyway and the snakes and fish wriggled around inside his belly. They wriggled through his intestines and down his leg, down into his swollen ankle. It was broken, maybe infected. But it always hurt and Johnny couldn’t put any weight on it. His wrist was better, at least. It was just stiff and sore. Johnny could squirm his way from place to place at the foot of the cliff. He could squirm up to the wall and lean against it. He could squirm over to where Dalton left the water. He could squirm to the corner if needed to relieve himself. But he was stuck down there. There was no way he could make his way back up.
Sometimes Johnny was able to fall asleep just before dawn. He would wake a few hours later, the fever gone for a little while. It was then that he felt hungry. The hunger built inside of him, day by day, brick by brick. First it was an emptiness, and then it was a nauseated feeling. Johnny heaved now whenever he awoke to the hunger. It was the hunger that was going to kill him and he didn’t want to die. So he woke and he heaved, and nothing came up save some sour juice and a panic that threatened to swallow him.
Every now and then, Dalton brought something to eat. A piece of fruit, a little bit of fish, some grubs. They were in a jungle, for God’s sake. There should be food hanging from every tree, washing up on every shore. But day after day Dalton brought only leaves to chew. He was eating plenty, there was no doubt of that. Johnny never could have kept up such activity on the scant food he was getting. No, Dalton was eating everything and only bringing him the scraps he couldn’t finish. It should have been the other way around. It should have been Dalton lying in that hole with leaves to chew, and Johnny out filling his belly from the jungle. Dalton wasn’t going to starve. Johnny tried telling Dalton this once.
“You were right,” said Johnny. He could barely mumble the words. “You were right. You’re not going to starve and I’m not going to get stabbed.” Johnny’s fingers clutched Dalton’s sleeve weakly. “I’ll give you my knife for the food. You take my knife and give me the food. You won’t starve and I won’t get stabbed.”
Dalton unhooked Johnny’s fingers from his arm. “There is n
o knife,” he said calmly. “Now listen to me. No one’s coming for us. They would have been here by now. I need to swim to one of the other islands and see if I can find anybody.” Dalton set down the helmet, full to the brim with water. “I’ll be gone a couple of days at least, so be careful of the water. Until I get back, that’s all there is.” Dalton stood and reached up to climb the cliff wall. “And I will be back,” he said. “Don’t think I won’t be.”
More time passed. Johnny lapped at the water in the helmet. The hollowness in his stomach grew and sharpened, and then dulled again. He didn’t heave anymore when he awoke. The hunger was too familiar. How long had it been since he had eaten? Johnny didn’t know. He didn’t even know how many days he had been in that hole. He moved his good hand over his body, feeling his arms and legs and ribs and face. He wanted to feel how much flesh had wasted away, how thin he was. He didn’t feel like a skeleton yet. There were still some meaty parts on his body. He had seen pictures of people with nothing but skin and bones, so he still had time. Of course he did. Hadn’t he read that it takes a month to starve to death as long as you have water? But he didn’t have much water. Not anymore.
More time passed. Nobody came. Had Dalton left him there? Had Dalton been killed or captured? Or was he just sitting up above at the rim of the chasm, waiting for Johnny to finally starve to death? Johnny licked a wet rock experimentally. Was that how he was going to live? Was he going to spend a month licking rocks while he slowly deteriorated into a bag of sticks? Johnny’s ankle and wrist hardly hurt anymore. He couldn’t feel anything beyond the ravening tumult in his stomach. Dalton had done this. Dalton had killed him, had tortured him to death. How long had he been gone? Two days? Three days? If he were coming back, he should be back soon.
Johnny lifted his good leg slowly. Inch by inch, he raised his knee to his chin and curled his body so he could reach the boot. How long had he worn this boot? No doubt his toes were shriveled and black inside. Covered in mold maybe. Infected, gangrenous. Dalton had done that to him too. Slowly, Johnny picked at his bootlace. It took him ages to untie the knot and pull the lace out of one eyelet. He stopped and rested. His fingers were numb and they felt raw. Johnny pulled at the lace again. For hours, he worked at it, pulling it from eyelet to eyelet, until finally it was free of the boot. He clenched his fingers. The lace was still strong at least—it hadn’t rotted. It would hold fast. He would pull it tight, like a noose, and it would hold fast.
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