Lost, p.4
Lost, page 4
He doesn’t like it. “It took us this long to get here… we’re really going to go back to them empty-handed?”
“What else are we supposed to do? And we won’t be empty-handed. We still need to find water.”
We stare at the birds and banana trees a few more minutes, trying to think of a way—any way to get the fruit. We’re too tired already, and without knowing how much farther the water is, we agree to come back for the fruit later.
Another thirty minutes of walking and we’re almost dead on our feet. “Are we turned around?” I ask. “Do we even know which direction we’re headed? Or are we walking in blind circles?”
It’s so hard not to take my frustration out on Caleb. He’s the one leading the way, after all. Even though I tell myself he’s just as thirsty and tired as I am, it doesn’t make me feel any better.
He glares at me, unspeaking. Then his eyes go wide. “Listen!” he hisses.
I hold my breath, straining to hear whatever he’s heard. My heart is hammering in my ears, and I will it to calm down so I can focus. A second ticks by, and then another. And then—I hear it. The sound of water.
It’s so faint, I’m barely able to catch it, but it’s there, in the distance. “A river?” I whisper.
Caleb shakes his head. “No. Probably something smaller like a stream. We’ll have to be quiet to find it.”
“Do you think it’ll be clean enough to drink?”
“If it’s flowing, it should be.”
“What about you know—” I grimace. “Animal poop.”
Caleb rolls his eyes at me. “We’ll have to look, but it should be fine. Flowing water is the most important thing.”
I have no idea how he can tell, but I don’t really care either. All I can think is fresh water, because I was starting to doubt that we would find any at all. I follow him in silence the rest of the way, hoping and praying that our ears aren’t deceiving us.
CHAPTER NINE
By the time Caleb and I get back to camp, the sun is almost down. I expected to smell the smoke of a campfire, but I don’t. Because there is no fire. Still. I had also hoped that someone might’ve found something to eat, and from the looks of it—they haven’t.
Caleb and I give each other a look as we come back to the camp, now with a completed shelter and the rest of our group lying in the sand. No one is doing anything. A burning rage runs through me, igniting my blood. One look at Caleb tells me he feels the same.
We’re too tired, too hungry to be nice. For a split second, I want to chug all the water we managed to carry, right in front of the others. They can watch me quench my thirst and then hike for hours to go get their own. Before I can do anything stupid, I set the water down.
“We’re back,” Caleb calls, not trying to hide his irritation.
“Water?” Lauren croaks, unmoving.
“Any luck with that fire?” he asks, ignoring her question.
“Any luck finding food?” I ask no one in particular.
No one answers.
Tom is the first to get up, and when I see him, it hits me how thirsty they all must really be. Caleb and I drank our fill after hiking all day, but they haven’t been able to after building the shelter and trying to do everything else. The bottle apiece we had was gone too soon.
“Thank you,” Tom says from between chapped lips.
I soften. “We found a banana tree. We just have to find a way to get them down. There were little birds too, tons of them, but Caleb thinks maybe they’d be a wasted effort.”
Tom takes his fill of the water, then says, “He might be right about the birds. Where are the bananas? I’ll go now.”
I shake my head. It’s getting dark, Caleb and I are both too tired to show him the way, but my stomach growls, making me think twice. We’re going to starve to death in no time if we don’t get some food. “How will you get them down?” I ask instead.
“I’m going to climb.”
“But—what if you fall?”
“I won’t. I know what I’m doing.” He smiles. “Besides, I’m too hungry to be scared and bananas sound delicious.”
“They were green,” I say, trying to come up with anything to dissuade him. The idea of him climbing thirty feet or more up a tree is terrifying to me, and in the dark—and I’m not even the one going to be doing it.
Tom chuckles now. “Of course they are.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to worry. I might be a writer, but I know what I’m doing. I can climb up there and back down before you know it. I’ve done it a hundred times.”
“In the dark?”
“You bet.”
I look to Caleb, hoping for a voice of reason, but he only nods. The others, who are now done drinking their fill have heard our conversation. “I can go with,” Marcella offers.
“What if we wait another day? Lauren’s friend might come for us tonight and then this would be all for—”
“He’s not coming back,” Marcella cuts in. “Stop being so blind. Can’t you see our situation? We need food before we’re all too weak to do anything.”
I bite the inside of my lip. Who am I to stop him if he really wants to do this?
Marcella turns to Tom. “Are we going or what?”
He nods. “I’m ready.” He turns to Caleb and me. “Which way are we heading?”
“If you’re going, the stream we found isn’t far from there,” Caleb says. “You should try to bring back more water too, if you can.”
“How far?” Marcella asks.
“It took us hours to find the bananas,” I say. “The stream wasn’t much farther.”
They look at each other, finally getting the point that I was trying to make. Hours in the dark. Climbing a tree—in the dark. “Let’s go,” Tom says. They gather a few bottles we’ve already emptied and head back into the forest.
Later, I lie on the sand, close to the water, watching the tide roll in. Wade comes to sit next to me. “Thanks for finding water for the group. You probably saved our lives.”
“Yep.” I stand and move farther down the beach, having no desire to be alone with him. Once I’m settled again, I see him in my peripheral vision, watching me. He’s weighing coming to try again with dropping it. I really hope he drops it. I’m exhausted and not in the mood for this. There’s nothing to say.
A minute passes. Wade stands, waits, then heads in my direction. I almost groan as he approaches, bracing myself to stand again the minute he sits down.
“We’re really alone,” he says, standing next to me, understanding I’ll move again.
I’m not sure what to say—what he wants me to say, so I don’t speak at all.
“Erin, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.” He places a hand on my shoulder, and I shrug it off. I stand, ready to walk away and avoid this entire situation. “Wait,” he says.
I spin on him out of patience. “You said it yourself, Wade. We’re alone. We might die here because we all made the stupid decision to trust another human being. He’s not coming back for us. Nothing else matters now besides surviving.”
He starts to reach for me, but I put up a hand to stop him. “Don’t touch me,” I say.
Wade reels back, hurt by my words and my tone, but I don’t care. I need to hurt him, to cut him so I can release some of my own anger. “Why don’t you meet Marcella again to relieve some of the pressure?” It’s a low blow, uncalled for, childish—but the words spill out of me before I can stop them. I take off down the beach, more alone now than ever.
CHAPTER TEN
I wake in the night with a full bladder, finding that I’m somehow sleeping between Wade and Graham again. This time, I’m facing the opposite way—toward Wade now instead of Graham. His breath comes in slow puffs, so close I can feel it against my cheek.
Our conversation comes back to me—my scathing words to him. It’s for the best.
Graham is pressed up against my back so close, it’s as if we’re one body. I close my eyes and allow myself a brief moment to relax against him. I feel his warmth, his surprisingly solid chest, his body heat against me.
As Graham’s chest rises and falls in a steady pattern against my back, I nestle closer at the comfort. He’s such a jerk, but oh, how comfy. There’s no connection with him, only another body, nothing to make things complicated. I allow myself to imagine that I’m leaning against Matt, warm in bed, at home, instead of here. Nothing’s changed. We haven’t grown apart. He hasn’t forgotten I exist.
It’s been so long—too long since I’ve been held. I wouldn’t consider this being held, really, but it’s close enough. Especially with Graham, who I don’t particularly even like.
I try not to think about Matt for long, but it’s nearly impossible. He could be in the same room as me and not even know I was there, would be too concerned with work. I could strip naked in front of him, and he wouldn’t—no.
I stop my train of thought before my blood starts to boil. It’s over now. It doesn’t matter anymore. Longing for my old life will do no one any good.
As I inch forward away from Graham, his arm tightens, stopping me. My breath catches at the surprise, my heartbeat increases.
“You don’t have to leave,” he breathes in my ear. Gooseflesh rises on my arms. I’ve never heard this tone from him—he’s been a jerk for days; I’m surprised he’s even interested… Okay, maybe not that surprised.
I pause for a moment, considering what he’s offering. I could be reading him wrong. Maybe he’s referring to body heat—but his fingers start to move up my body, slowly, and I know it’s not body heat he wants.
My eyes pop open. Wade is right here. “I can’t,” I whisper. I try to rise again, but he holds me back again.
“We can move,” he says, reading my mind.
It’s tempting. So tempting. Even though I don’t like him—it doesn’t matter. Who needs to like someone in order to feel? Feel something other than fear, isolation, loneliness. I’m so… lost. Maybe it will be better because we don’t like each other.
Graham waits patiently for me to say something, and I’m sure he can feel my racing pulse where his fingers brush against my neck. I’m about to say okay, but as I open my mouth to speak the word, Wade opens his eyes.
There’s nothing between us. I don’t owe him a damn thing, especially after his little meeting with Marcella in the forest. He literally has zero claim on me, or I on him, and I made it crystal clear yesterday, but for some stupid reason, I do care what he thinks. There’s no doubt now that he’s heard Graham’s whispers.
Wade stares at me, waiting just like Graham for me to speak. I’m tempted to say okay still. Why shouldn’t I? Hell, maybe I should just ask Wade to join us and really spice things up. No, I can’t do that. The difference is that he seems more inclined to care, and after Matt, I can’t do that right now.
My decision finally made, I roll over to face Graham, my back now to Wade. I bring a hand up to Graham’s face and stroke the stubble on his cheek. I brush his long hair away from his ear and whisper so quietly I’m not sure I even hear myself speak.
“Rain check.” Then I get up before he can stop me again.
After leaving the shelter to relieve my aching bladder, I sit on the beach and stare at the still-empty firepit. My stomach growls as I watch a crab scuttle across the sand. We need to set some traps. We need to do something else to get more food or we’re going to starve. Bananas aren’t enough.
I play with the idea of writing. There’s still a little battery life on my laptop—I could pop it open for some late-night word count. It might help me clear my thoughts, but I don’t think I could focus if I tried.
There’s a sliver of an idea, a grain of something that’s gnawing. It’s what I’ve been working on so far, but I think about the little life my battery has and don’t dare waste it. Instead, I decide to brainstorm ideas about characters and different ways the plot might take me. If I can get the baseline down, even a rough outline in my mind, I can make the most of what I have left of the computer. Who knows how long I’ll have to go without charging it.
It’s been so long since I’ve written—since before Matt and I got married. I’m rusty, but rusty is okay. None of that matters, anyway. What matters is getting the story down. I just have to figure out where I’m going with it.
I stay awake for hours, lying on the sand, thinking. Every now and then, I think I hear noises coming from the trees behind me. Something rustles, and I sit up to stare blindly into the dark. When I do, everything goes quiet, and I know I’m being watched.
There’s some kind of animal on this island, and I’m afraid to find out what it is and what it wants. We could be in its territory, unwanted invaders. Will it attack us or allow us a temporary stay? Out here alone, I feel vulnerable—like a target with a beacon.
I’ve had enough brainstorming for one night. I go back to the shelter, where the others are long passed out, and move to the other side to lie next to Tom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A morning jog is exactly what I needed. My bare feet hit the soft white sand one after another, the warm sea breeze blows across my face and in my hair before the humidity of the day hits. My lungs expand as I breathe in deep gulps of air. My feet take me as far as my lungs allow before I see a cliffside that blocks the path around to the other side of the island.
I stop running to analyze the rock face. I wonder how far around it goes… The more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s the best thing to do. We need to hike up into the forest from here, then we’ll be able to get on top of the cliff and see what we’re dealing with on the other side.
“We have to move our camp,” I say to the others as soon as I’m back. The men are all up, trying to get the fire going again. Lauren is awake too, but still lying next to Marcella, who’s snoring softly.
“What did you see?” Wade asks.
“I didn’t see anything. But the cliff—we should be closer to it. We can work on getting up over and around it. Who knows what we’ll find on the other side.”
“What about the water and food? We’re already so far away from them… if anything, shouldn’t we be moving closer to them, not farther away?” Caleb says.
I look at Graham, who normally has something smart-ass to add, but he’s staying silent so far. “We can stock up a little today and move tomorrow,” I say. “I can go back with Tom, and we can grab as many bananas as he can pick. Others can carry water. I really think getting to higher ground will be good, the cliffside can protect us if a storm comes our way—”
“We outran the storm,” Lauren calls from where she’s lying.
“It could still get to us eventually. Who knows which direction it was traveling? Or there could be another? It is hurricane season, after all. Remember the cheap tickets that Andrew hooked us up with?”
That shuts her up. She pinches her lips together, her face flames.
“We’d have to build another shelter,” Wade says.
“We could try keeping part of this one, maybe carry it in sections or something. There might be more umbrellas and loungers over there.”
“That’s so much work if there’s not,” Lauren says, daring to speak again.
“Do you have something more important to do?” I can’t hold back the snap in my voice. I’m starting to get so irritated with all the complaining, all the can’t, can’t, can’t, it’s like I’m the only one who wants to get out of this damn place.
“I wouldn’t mind going back,” Tom starts.
“Let’s all calm down for a second,” Caleb says, interrupting. “I see your point, Erin, but it’s going to be a lot of work. Anyone up for a vote?” He looks around at the others.
“Let’s wait for Marcella,” Wade says.
“I’m up,” she calls.
“How much did you hear?” he asks.
“I heard enough. And I think it’s stupid.”
I look from her to each of the others, and it’s clear she’s not the only one who feels that way. Graham still hasn’t spoken. He’s normally the first to say when something doesn’t add up, so what’s his problem now?
“Okay, that’s a vote for no,” Caleb says. “Tom, yay or nay?”
Tom looks at me, then around the group. “Can I stay neutral?” he asks. “I don’t mind either way.”
“We’ll come back to you later then. Wade, what’s your vote?”
“I don’t think it’s in our best interest to move,” he says.
“Lauren?” Caleb asks.
“No.”
“I’m going to have to vote no, too,” he says. “Graham, you’re up.”
Graham frowns. “Erin’s right. We need to get around that cliff. Who cares if it’s more work? We’re trying to get out of here, aren’t we? What’s wrong with all of you?”
I feel a pressure lift off my chest. I’m not alone.
“The calories we’d spend getting set up over there—” Caleb starts.
“Calories!” Graham barks. “We’re talking about getting off this island, not making ourselves cozy!” He looks at Tom. “Tom, if you don’t care one way or another if we get off this godforsaken place, your head is not in the right place, man.”
Tom purses his lips. He nods. “I suppose—”
“No—you’re not doing that,” Marcella says, coming closer. “He’s the only one who can climb a banana tree, and you’re not taking him from us.”
“No one is taking anyone from anyone,” I say. “We’re all doing this together.”
“I’m not moving a foot down the beach,” she says, crossing her arms.
I grind my teeth, wanting to throttle her. She looks at Wade. “Wade?”
“What?”
“Hey, I can think for myself, thanks very much,” Tom says, giving Marcella an annoyed look. “I’ll go with the majority,” he says. “Whatever the vote turns out to be.”
