Survival Island: Last Man Standing

by Anya Merchant

  The janitor sighed and mumbled something else, and then there was no sound from the hall. Cyrus pushed Ms. White down flat on the desk and began pumping into her hard. Ms. White started to moan, quietly at first, and then increasing in volume.

  “That’s right, Ms. White,” said Cyrus. “You’re so busy in here. Giving extra special, extra tutoring.”

  “Jesus,” moaned Ms. White. “Cyrus!”

  He pumped into her hard, loving everything about her reactions and the control he had. Cyrus slammed into his teacher, feeling her soft butt against his crotch, her tight cunt accepting his hard cock. He… went bit too fast, and didn’t pull himself back in time.

  “Oh…” he grunted, losing a bit of his aggressive state. “Whoops.”

  The orgasm was brilliant, flooding his body with pleasure to the tips of his fingers and toes. He almost collapsed on top of Ms. White, whose body continued to gyrate underneath him, seeking a release that it didn’t quite get.

  Cyrus was too inexperienced to know what to say, or where to go from there. Part of him, most of him, in fact, was mortified by the things he’d said to her and the way he’d said them. He pulled back, sheepishly pulling up his boxers and avoiding eye contact, expecting serious consequences or at least a vicious reprimand.

  “Cyrus…” Ms. White buttoned up her t-shirt and leaned back against the desk, crossing her legs. “…You understand what happens if you tell anyone about this?”

  Cyrus could see his cum leaking out of her, staining her tight black skirt, proof of where he’d been.

  “I… understand,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Ms. White smiled at him.

  “Oh, don’t apologize,” she said. “That… was amazing.”

  “Cyrus?”

  Cyrus blinked. Amy was frowning and looking at him expectantly.

  “Uh... what?” He scratched his head.

  “You’ve been staring at the fire for like, minutes now,” she said. “Did something happen between you in my sister?”

  “No,” he said, smiling. “Of course not.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Night came on in full force, and as it did, it became clear to all of the survivors that they would at the very least, be spending some of the night on the island. The fire crackled and offered a small measure of warmth and comfort, but none of them relished the idea of sleeping out on the sand.

  “We can make small sleeping pads for our heads out of the leaves,” Cyrus said, answering a question one of Amy’s friends had asked. “But there’s no getting around sleeping on the beach, at least not for tonight. We’ll just have to rinse off in the ocean in the morning.”

  “If we’re still here in the morning,” said Peter.

  Something tells me we will be.

  Cyrus kept the thought to himself, not wanting to demoralize anyone, and started off toward the jungle’s tree line. It was dark, but the light from the fire was unobstructed across the beach, and they managed to find a few plants with large, glossy leaves, each one about the size of a small pillow. He picked enough for the group and walked back to the camp, passing one out to each survivor.

  “Thanks,” said Tamyra, the new woman. Cyrus nodded to her.

  “Sorry, we didn’t really get a chance to talk before,” he said. “Are you doing okay?”

  She just nodded and stared at him. After a second or two of it, Cyrus coughed and moved onto the next person, feeling uncomfortable.

  Peter sat a little apart from the rest of the group, and once all of the other survivors had settled in for the night, Cyrus walked over to him and sat down. He waited for a minute. Usually it was easy to tell what was on Peter’s mind, but the chaos of the situation made it hard for Cyrus to get a read on him.

  “Tell me honestly what you think, Cyrus,” said Peter, looking out into the ocean, rather than directly at him.

  “Straight to the point tonight, huh Pete?

  “Fuck you.” Peter flicked a handful of sand at him. “Come on man. What do you think? The truth, as you see it, of our situation.”

  Cyrus took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “We went down in the middle of the ocean,” he said. “We’re on an island, sure, but the Pacific is a pretty big place. We might end up being here for a few days, at least.”

  “I don’t buy that shit for a second,” said Peter. “They must already know where we are! How could they not?”

  “You asked for the truth,” said Cyrus. “And that’s not to say that we’re doomed, or anything.”

  “I know,” said Peter. “Of course. We’re all still alive.”

  Not all of us, thought Cyrus. Not Darius.

  He bit back the thought, knowing that the last thing Peter needed was for him to lose start losing his cool.

  “I think we just need to take practical steps to ensure that we make the best of our situation here,” said Cyrus. “Simple things, our basic needs. We can start tomorrow.”

  Peter was silent for a moment. Finally, he turned to face Cyrus, clapping a hand on his shoulder and flashing a perfect smile.

  “Cyrus, you’re the best friend a guy could ask for,” said Peter. “Having you here, and knowing that you have my back, it makes all the difference.”

  “Thanks, man,” said Cyrus. “Same to you.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have any weed on you?”

  Cyrus snorted and pushed Peter over on the sand.

  “Come on,” he said. “We should both get some sleep, too.”

  It was a lot easier than Cyrus had been expecting to pass out on the beach, even while dealing with the ants and tiny bugs that made it their home. He was physically and mentally exhausted from the events of the day, and fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched down on the leaf.

  He awoke early the next morning, rising with the sun. Most of the other survivors were either already awake or slowly stirring. A few, like Amy’s two friends, were reliving their initial states of shock as they confirmed that the crash hadn’t all just been a bad dream.

  Maggie walked over to Cyrus and sat down next to him, smiling and flicking a few strands of crab grass out of his hair. She looked a little disheveled, but no worse for wear overall, though it was clear enough from her body language that she was dying for a chance to wash up.

  “Sleep okay?” she asked. Cyrus shrugged.

  “Surprisingly, yeah,” he said. “You?”

  Maggie smiled sadly.

  “Couldn’t stop thinking about Darius,” she whispered. “But I knew he would have wanted me to get some rest, so I tried.”

  It took Cyrus a minute to think of what to say back to that.

  “Yeah, he would have,” he finally said. “He would have wanted you to do everything you need to in order to keep surviving, and make it through this.”

  He reached his hand out and gave one of Maggie’s a squeeze. Those perfect emerald eyes settled onto his, accompanied by a soft, grateful smile.

  “Attention, everyone.” Peter was making his way to the approximate center of the group, next to the burned out fire from the night before. “I’ve thought a lot about our situation, and where we need to go from here.”

  Maggie shot Cyrus a curious look, as though asking whether or not he was comfortable with letting Peter take charge. Cyrus just shrugged.

  “We’re going to build a raft,” announced Peter.

  He’s out of his mind.

  CHAPTER 10

  A long moment of silence hung over the group. Peter had his hands set on his hips and was grinning at them as though he’d reinvented the wheel. After about ten or twenty seconds of listening to the group whisper to each other, Peter continued.

  “We build a raft, and we get the hell off this island,” he said. “Odds are good that we’re within like, a hundred miles of Fiji, anyway.”

  “That’s not how odds work,” said Maggie, frowning at him. “Unless you have some information we don’t.”

  “Look, we can’t just sit here on our asses and do
nothing.” Peter jutted out his chin. “It’s the only sensible thing to do.”

  “What about waiting here for rescue?” asked Amy. “What’s not sensible about that?”

  Peter made an annoyed noise and looked as though the only thing holding him back from swearing was the fact that he was now talking to Amy.

  “Look, I was as sure as anyone yesterday that the rescue choppers would be on us within the day,” said Peter. “But they never showed up. They might have already written us off as a lost cause.”

  “You’ve seen the news stories before, surely, Peter,” said Maggie. “That’s not how it works. The families of the passengers, hell, the whole world keeps looking until they find something. They’ll find us, it’s just a matter of-“

  “And when they do, we’ll be safe and sound, either on the raft or in Fiji,” said Peter. “Survival is proactive. Right Cyrus?”

  Cyrus had remained silent during the discussion, and now all eyes turned toward him, including Peter’s.

  I know what those eyes mean, he thought. He’s asking me if I have his back.

  A fist slammed into Cyrus’s abdomen, feeling no different from a heavy rock or a steel bar as it introduced itself to his stomach. He doubled over, winded and nauseous from the force of the blow.

  “Jackson doesn’t want an apology,” said one of the two men who’d jumped him. “He wants his money.”

  “I’ll… get it,” muttered Cyrus. “Just a couple more days.”

  “He wants it on time!” One of the men kicked him hard in the ribs and Cyrus let out a deep, aching groan. It wasn’t the first time he’d come up short to his dealer, but this was the first time anyone had laid hands on him over it.

  The alley they were in wasn’t all that far from Weston High, but Cyrus knew better than to call for help. It was after school hours, and on top of that, these were the last people he’d wanted to end up being associated with in a police report.

  “You’re going to pay him double, you hear?” asked the first man. “And you’re going to have the money ready by-”

  Peter came out of nowhere, slamming the man in back into the alley’s wall before anyone could react. He whirled to face the other one, dressed in his track and field outfit and holding a metal baton in his hand.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” snarled Peter. “Now.”

  “There’s two of us!” said one of the men.

  “And there’s two of us.” Peter kept his eyes on them as he reached down to help Cyrus to his feet. He struck a somewhat intimidating figure, tall, strong arm and leg muscles openly showcased on either side of his shorts and t-shirt.

  The man that seemed to be the leader of the two glared at Cyrus and pointed his finger.

  “You don’t pay Jackson by the end of tomorrow, and it’s going to be worse,” he said. “Remember, it’s double now, and you give it to me, not to him.”

  “Fuck off,” managed Cyrus.

  The two men departed from the alleyway without turning their backs to Cyrus and Peter. Cyrus slumped against the side of the nearest wall and tried to remember how to breathe.

  “You okay?” asked Peter.

  “Yeah,” said Cyrus. “Jesus. I knew Jackson was sketchy, but I never thought that he’d take it this far.”

  “Why don’t you have his money?”

  Cyrus shook his head.

  “I made the mistake of leaving some of what I’d already earned in my mom’s hands,” he said. “She’d been doing better, for a little while. And then she disappeared again, and rent was due last week.”

  Peter shook his head slowly, frowning at Cyrus.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Peter I-“

  “How much?”

  “One hundred,” said Cyrus. “Well, two hundred, now.”

  “All of this over a hundred bucks?” Peter scoffed. “Here.”

  He pulled out his wallet, and before Cyrus could stop him, set five crisp twenty dollar bills into his hand.

  “Peter, I can’t take this,” said Cyrus. “I won’t be able to pay you back.”

  “Good thing it’s a gift, not a loan, then,” said Peter. “Give it to the guy you actually owe, not that muscle brained scumbag, okay?”

  Cyrus stared at his friend, feeling strangely horrified by his generosity.

  “Peter, seriously, I can’t.”

  Peter slapped a hand down on his shoulder and leaned forward to meet his eye.

  “The thing about you, Cyrus, is that you don’t realize how much you mean to other people,” he said. “It’s kind of endearing on some days, and really annoying on others.”

  Cyrus took a deep breath and offered a slight shrug.

  “Thanks, Peter,” he said. “I won’t forget this.”

  “Well, Cyrus?” asked Peter. “What do you think?”

  Cyrus nodded slowly, feeling caught between a rock and a hard place.

  “I do think we need to be proactive,” he said. “But we haven’t had anything to eat, or drink, since we first crashed here.”

  “So you don’t agree with me on this?” asked Peter.

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” said Cyrus. “I’m saying that we need to multitask. We build the raft while we work to take care of our other needs.”

  Peter shuffled slightly and waved his hand through the air.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That works. Anyone who wants to work on the raft today, find me. That’s what I’ll be doing.”

  Peter turned and started walking down the beach, leaving the rest of the survivors to their own activities. Cyrus felt the eyes of the group settled onto him, and fidgeted a bit.

  “Well,” he said. “I guess we need to focus on our basic survival needs. Food, water, and shelter.”

  Cyrus watched as Candace and Aiden both raised their hands in unison.

  “We’ll start working on improving the camp here on the beach,” said Candace. “If that’s alright?”

  “Sure,” he said, nodding.

  Sargent Tamyra Douglass and Maggie’s friend, Kyoko, were both sitting side by side on one edge of the burned out fire.

  “Can you two start looking for food?” asked Cyrus. “There are plenty of coconuts around to collect. You won’t even need to head into the jungle.”

  They nodded, and slowly rose to their feet to get to work. Cyrus could see the fatigue in their movements, and felt the pressure on his shoulders intensify slightly. There were, relative to the island’s size, a lot of them, and they’d all be pulling from the same, limited pool of resources.

  Maybe Peter is right about the raft. Maybe we need to get out of here as soon as we can, even if it’s dangerous.

  “Cyrus?” Maggie stood next to him, patiently waiting with her hands clasped together. “What about me?”

  “We need to find a source of freshwater,” he said. “That’s priority number one. Food, we can manage without for a couple of days. Water… well, we’re already starting to feel the effects of dehydration.”

  Maggie nodded and fell into place beside him. The two of them had started walking toward the tree line of the jungle when Amy skipped over and began to follow.

  “I’ll go with,” she said.

  “I think we have it covered, if you want to stay here?” Maggie flashed an odd smile at her.

  “That’s alright,” said Amy. “I need to stretch my legs, anyway.”

  She brushed up against Cyrus as she started walking on his other side. Cyrus shrugged.

  “Alright, then,” he said. “Let’s get started.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Cyrus realized in short order that he was not giving the dense foliage of the jungle the respect it deserved. He’d led Maggie and Amy forward through the trees, assuming that it would be similar to forests he’d gone camping in back home, around Weston.

  The branches of the trees intersected overhead, thick enough with their leaves to create a natural canopy that allowed only scant rays of sunshine through. Vines hung at odd angles, forming curtains
in some places that had to be physically parted in order for them to pass by.

  Dozens of different bushes and plants sprung up from the sandy soil underfoot, many of them bearing colorful patterns that made Cyrus wary of poisons and allergens. It was like navigating a maze as he moved forward, constantly stopping to hold back vines and push aside vegetation to allow Maggie and Amy to follow.

  “There’s so much life here,” said Amy. “It’s like a reverse oasis… land surrounded by a desert of water.”

  “I don’t think that’s a bad analogy, all things considered.” Cyrus brushed a section of tall grass aside and continued onward.

  “We’ll have to be careful about what we attempt to eat,” said Maggie. “Some of this stuff looks dangerous.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be able to figure out what’s edible and what’s not,” said Amy.

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Maggie replied.

  Cyrus looked over his shoulder at them. The two were oddly tense around each other, as though still in the process of sizing one another up and drawing boundaries. They’d never been close back home. In fact, Cyrus wasn’t sure they’d ever spent any time together outside of a basic introduction and a few words here and there.

  Darius would bring up something that we can all talk about, he thought. Find common ground for them.

  The memory of his brother was no less sharp and piercing than it had been the night before, but Cyrus took solace in thinking about how Darius would have acted in the situation. It might have been a defense mechanism against both the situation of the island and the grief of his brother’s death, but it was exactly what Cyrus needed to stay focused.

  “So about the raft,” said Cyrus. “Do either of you think it’s a good idea?”

  “No,” Maggie said, immediately. “For a half dozen different reasons.”

  “I agree,” said Amy. “There’s just too much that could go wrong. Storms in the open ocean are no joke, and we’d have to bring fresh water and food with us.”