Candi laughed bitterly. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, if I were you.”
Sarah frowned and then reached up to touch her hair. She pulled some of it forward and stared at it, obviously surprised to see that a light salty coating had come to rest all over it, making it go from blond to nearly gray. She reached up with both hands to feel her entire head of hair. “Oh. My. God. It feels like teased cotton candy. What the hell ... ?”
Jonathan wasn’t paying any mind to what they were saying. Something he saw off in the distance was grabbing his attention.
“I think I see land!” yelled Jonathan, suddenly.
“What?! Where?” said Candi, twisting around as far as she could, to see where Jonathan was looking.
“There!” answered Jonathan, pointing off in the distance. “It has to be. Otherwise there wouldn’t be flies.”
“I thought it was seagulls that flew around land,” said Sarah sarcastically.
“Yeah, but flies too,” said Jonathan, ignoring her attitude.
Kevin sat up with obvious effort.
“Land. Cool.” He laid back down and closed his eyes.
Jonathan began rustling through one of the boat’s storage bins behind him.
“What are you looking for?” asked Candi.
“I think we have my small telescope here, don’t we?”
“I don’t think you need one – it’s definitely land, I can see it from here. We’re getting closer.”
Sure enough, the current seemed to be driving them towards the land at a rapid pace.
“Sweet,” said Jonathan, a smile breaking out across his face as he confirmed Candi’s assessment. “I guess we can just sit here then and wait until we wash up on the shore.”
“What shore is it, though?” asked Sarah, trepidation in her voice. “I mean, where in the hell are we?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” said Jonathan, “but we’re about to find out. Do you have any idea how lucky we are right now? To have run into an island like this?” He couldn’t stop himself grinning from ear to ear.
“Are there any, like, wild cannibal tribes out here that eat people and shrink heads and stuff like that?”
Jonathan frowned at her. “Don’t be silly. We’re in the Caribbean. You’d have more trouble with pirates and drug runners than cannibals out here.”
“Ha! Pirates! That’s a good one,” said Sarah, looking out at the island with a smile. “Johnny Depp can come after my treasure any day of the week. I’ll barely even put up a fight, I promise.”
Jonathan broke into her daydream with his serious response. “I’m not joking. There are modern day pirates out here that hijack and steal from unwary boaters and do all kinds of other things that we probably don’t want to know about.”
Sarah was instantly pissed again. “Are you serious? Because that’s just great, Jonathan. Great. Pirates! And I thought sharks were our biggest problem.”
“Sharks are definitely a problem; but there are also poisonous jelly fish, barracudas, venomous snakes ... ”
Sarah’s face grew more and more alarmed with every word that came out of Jonathan’s mouth.
“Okay, Jonathan! That’s enough, we get it now!” said Candi.
“Did you hear that, Kevin? We’re getting out of the frying pan and heading right into the fire,” said Sarah, bitterness lacing her voice.
“Mmmph, fire ... ” was all they heard in reply. Then Kevin started singing, very out of tune, “ ‘Come on baby light my fiiiirrre, try to set the night on fiiirrre ... ’ ” He petered out at the end and went quiet again.
“Kevin?” asked Candi, tentatively. He sounded so out of it.
Jonathan reached over and put his hand on Kevin’s forehead. “He has a fever. I don’t know if it’s that hand or the food or what, but he’s burning up. Seems kind of soon after the injury to have an infection that bad. We need to get him to that land over there and cleaned up and hydrated. Let’s put the tarp up over his part of the boat to give him some shade. Sarah, you see if you can get him to drink some more water.”
Candi began securing the tarp over Kevin to give him some shade.
Sarah wasn’t registering Jonathan’s orders. “Are my eyes fooling me, or are we moving away from the land now?” asked Sarah.
Jonathan looked up at the horizon and saw that she was not mistaken. “Oh crap, the current is moving us parallel to the shore. If this keeps up, we’re going to miss the shore completely!”
He got up and shook off his backpack. “Come on, we have to start rowing!” There was no mistaking the panic in his voice.
The girls scrambled to help him lock the oars in place and put them out over the water. “I’ll get this one; you two get the other and row together,” ordered Jonathan.
This was one of those live or die moments. They were going to have to row their asses off and not waste any time arguing.
They got the oars locked in quickly and sat in position, side by side, preparing to pull back on it.
“Go!” yelled Jonathan, heaving back on his oar.
The girls rowed in tandem with him, meeting him stroke for stroke. Jonathan was able to take quick looks back every minute or so to check their progress.
“I’m going to need ... some serious paraffin treatments ... after this,” grunted out Sarah.
“It’s working! Keep it up! Don’t stop!” Jonathan gasped out. They had cut the distance in half with twenty minutes of steady rowing. They could have been closer but they were forced to row diagonally to their goal to fight the push of the current. All of them were wishing Kevin were in shape so he could help, since it would undoubtedly have been a much easier chore with his strong back and arms; but he was out of commission for sure.
Kevin tried to sit up, but his head bumped up against the tarp that Candi had secured over him. “Lemme help, guys, you can’t do it all by yourselves.”
“Just save your strength, Kevin, you have a fever.”
“Don’t be silly, I don’ hava feeve ... ” The next thing they heard was Kevin slumping back down into the bottom of the boat.
“That’s not good. We have to get him to land, guys, row harder!”
Sarah and Candi put their backs into it. Candi moved her hands to a different spot on the oar, and said, “Try to switch your hand position so you don’t pop any blisters!”
Jonathan followed her orders. All they needed was more infections. He wasn’t convinced this land they were seeing was inhabited. All he had seen was green, green and more green when he glanced back over his shoulder at the shoreline.
Finally, after thirty more minutes of rowing, they were within forty yards of the shore. Jonathan told them to stop and locked the oars in place. Sweat was pouring off his body and running into his eyes, stinging them and making them burn.
“Untie the rope, quick.”
The girls did as he asked without question.
He jumped into the water, yelling to the girls, “Tie the rope to the front of the boat and hand me the other end with a loop in it!”
Candi rushed to do what he ordered. She threw the loop out to him so he could start pulling the boat in.
Sarah was staring out to sea with a look of heavy concentration on her face. Jonathan wrestled with the loop trying to get it around his body as Candi looked at her and asked what she was doing.
“Watching for sharks.”
“Oh, good.”
“Jonathan, if I see a shark, I’ll yell ‘Shark!’ and then Candi will haul you back into the boat by the rope.”
“Fine!” he yelled, turning to swim for shore.
***
Candi smiled, a little bit relieved to have a plan. “Good idea, Sarah. Okay. Cool.” She felt a tug as Jonathan began dragging the boat behind him.
Candi kept an anxious eye on him, while simultaneously watching the shore come closer and scanning the water’s surface for the gray triangles of death. As her eyes passed over her brother’s swimming form, she wondered how he could possibly have t
he energy to do this. He’d had hardly any water or food, and was as exhausted as she was. She decided the first thing she was going to do when they reached shore was give him the biggest hug of her life.
“Shark!!” yelled Sarah from the back of the boat.
The fear raced up into Candi’s throat and threatened to choke her. “No!” she gasped, as she leaned over to take the rope that was connected to her brother.
“Yes, look!” yelled Sarah, pointing off to the side of the boat.
Candi’s hand was on the rope, ready to use the adrenaline coursing through her veins to haul her brother back into the boat like Superwoman.
She hesitated a moment. She looked to where Sarah was pointing. “Wait, that’s not a shark ... ” She peered through squinted eyes at the movement of the gray body under the water.
“It’s another dolphin!”
She had noticed it swimming in an up and down motion and not the side-to-side, zigzag motion of the sharks from the day before; plus the fin was rounder or more curved. She took a split second to silently thank Mother Nature for including this telltale difference so right now she didn’t have to be overwhelmed with visions of her brother being eaten while she tried to rescue him using strength she didn’t have any more.
The dolphin chose that moment to leap out of the water and flash them a trademark dolphin grin.
Sarah let out a whoop and shot her fist in the air. “Yes! That is a friggin’ DOLPHIN, ladies and gentlemen!” She turned and shot Candi a huge grin and put her hand up for a high-five.
Candi smiled and slapped her palm. Things were looking up. She checked on Jonathan and saw that he was no longer swimming, but was standing in the water on some sort of sand bar, walking the boat closer to shore. The shallow spot went pretty far out into the water that was now a beautiful bluish green and clear enough to see all the way to the bottom. Candi looked back to see the dolphin again, but it had disappeared.
Now that the shore was so close, the girls could see it in detail for the first time. There was a vast expanse of white sand that ringed what looked like an island about the size of two football fields. The beach was about fifteen yards wide, met at its far edge by a line of palms and other kinds of trees with medium sized, roundish leaves. They were growing together so closely and were so thick with foliage, it was impossible to see too far into them. The left side of the island, which was probably the south side, if Candi’s navigation wasn’t completely off, had some rocks she could see above the treetops. She saw no signs of houses or hotels or anything she was used to seeing on beaches.
Candi felt a little bit sick to her stomach. She looked down at Kevin, wondering how they were going to help him if there wasn’t anyone there with medicine. He was sleeping; she could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. His lips were crusty and cracked with dried blood on them. His face was coated in fine, white salt. She could see the skin underneath was burned pretty badly from the sun. There were little tiny pieces of shell and sand all through his hair, and she could see it in one of his ears too. It must have been churned up by the terrible storms and put on their bodies with all the sea spray. She felt her own face to see if she felt the same things there. Sure enough. She tried to brush it all away, but it hurt the sunburn that she just realized was also there.
A small piece of her was jealous of Kevin’s unconsciousness. She wished she could be sleeping through this day like he was and then be able to wake up when it was all over.
But that was stupid – she knew Kevin felt terrible and was in very real danger without medicine or enough water. Be careful what you wish for. Look where it’s gotten you so far. You wanted to be better acquainted with Sarah and Kevin Peterson; you dreamed of someday having some alone time with Kevin. Well, here you go. That was a very sobering thought. Wishing was dangerous business.
***
“Man, am I glad to get back to civilization. I’m going to go have the longest, most relaxing shower I’ve ever had in my entire life,” exclaimed Sarah.
“Uh, Sarah ... ”
“Shush!” yelled Sarah, holding up a finger at Candi, not bothering to open her eyes. “Don’t mess with the fantasy, okay, Sugar Lump? I’m five seconds away from a cool cucumber facial and a hot oil massage given to me by a man-boy named Juan.”
“Okaaaayyy ... ”
Sarah heard Candi jump in the water and sighed, opening her eyes. She watched as Candi walked in slow motion through the small waves until she reached Jonathan, grabbing the rope that was still around his chest.
“Let me take it now; you can rest. I think you’re overdoing it, Jonathan.”
Sarah strained her eyes to see Jonathan’s face, wondering at the concern she heard in Candi’s voice.
Jonathan didn’t answer. He just took the rope off and continued trudging through the water until he reached the shore. Once there, he dropped down in exhaustion, his face landing sideways in the sand.
“Jonathan!” yelled Candi. She couldn’t move fast enough to get to him because she was still hauling the boat.
Sarah didn’t think – she just jumped into the water and started swimming, cutting a clean line through the surface, swimming freestyle towards the shore.
As soon as she reached the shallow water, Sarah stood up and ran over to Jonathan, dropping down beside him and turning him over.
“Hey! Are you okay? Jonathan! Say something!”
Jonathan squinted his eyes, trying to open them, the color slowly returning to his face.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked innocently.
“Oooh, you ... idiot!” said Sarah, flinging sand on him as she stood up quickly and moved away from him.
Sarah saw that Candi was nearly to the dry sand now. She was trying to figure out how they were going to get Kevin out of the boat so they could start taking care of him. They weren’t going to be able to pull it up very far because it was so heavy.
“Here, let me help.” Jonathan had stood up again and got behind the boat where Sarah had already gone, and began pushing along with her.
The boat made contact with the sand and stopped abruptly. They heard Kevin groan as his body was jerked to the side.
“Errrh! I can’t. Push. This. Thing. Any. Farther!” grunted Sarah.
“Just do your best ... a couple more inches,” said Jonathan, putting his shoulder against the back of the boat and pushing with all his might.
They got two more inches of movement before the boat dug itself into the sand. It wasn’t going any farther today, they decided.
Jonathan and Sarah dragged themselves around the side of the boat to stand on the beach next to Candi.
“How are we going to get him out of the boat?” asked Candi, concern marring her features.
“First thing we have to do is prepare a place for him to be taken to.” Jonathan looked at Sarah. “Can you manage that?”
“Of course I can,” responded Sarah indignantly. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just make some sort of shelter up there in the trees. Use the tarp and the sheet – put the sheet on the ground and the tarp in the tree as a canopy of some sort. We need to protect him and us from the sun as best we can.” He looked up and squinted at the sky.
Sarah could feel her face burning. She looked at Candi and Jonathan and saw that they had pretty bad sunburns too. All she could think about was the skin cancer that was probably being created on her face as she baked under the sun.
He turned to Candi. “Let’s go see if we can wake him up enough to get him out of the boat.”
Sarah climbed into the boat, taking the sheet from the puddle in the bottom and the tarp from above Kevin’s head. She headed up to the tree line with the two items to begin making their shelter.
***
After Sarah was gone, Candi and Jonathan got back into the boat, studying the situation. Jonathan was the first to speak.
“Wake him and try to get him to sit up. When he does, I’ll try to get him on his feet. Watch his han
d.”
Candi bent down over Kevin’s face. “Kevin. Wake up. Kevin, we need you to wake up.” She started shaking his shoulder as she continued. “Keeeevin, wake uuuuup. We’re home! Look, Kevin, we’re home! Time to get up!”
“Mmmph, home. Good. Tired.”
Candi looked up at Jonathan. “He isn’t budging.”
Jonathan sighed, making his decision.
“I’m sorry to have to do this to you, Kevin, but it’s the only way.”
He reached down and squeezed Kevin’s sore hand.
“HOLY FFFFFRIG WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? ... I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”
Kevin sat bolt upright, cradling his hand, his eyes ablaze with pain and fury.
“Grab him!” yelled Jonathan.
Brother and sister each grabbed him under an arm and lifted with all their might. Kevin’s body didn’t budge.
“What the hell are you doing? Getting rid of the dead weight?” asked Kevin indignantly, thinking he was being offed by the Buckley kids.
“We’re trying to get you out of the boat!” yelled Jonathan, frustrated that he had no upper body strength.
“I can’t swim like this ... I’ll drown!” yelled Kevin.
“Kevin, we’re on an island right now. Look.” Candi gestured towards the shore.
Kevin sat up straighter, looking out over the bow of the boat. “Hey. We’re not moving anymore. And there’s trees. Lots of ‘em. Holy shit, Jon, you did it, man!” A beaming smile broke out over his face, now that he realized he wasn’t being fed to the sharks. He looked over at Jonathan. “Way to go, dude. You’re the man. Help me get out of this shitty boat, will ya?”
“Yeah, like I haven’t been trying to do that for the past five minutes,” he said wryly, as he bent over to grab Kevin under his arm again.
With Kevin helping, they were able to get him over to the side of the boat. After a few seconds of calculating and debating the best way to get him onto the shore, Kevin managed to roll himself over the side to land on the sand below. He yelped in pain, but it seemed to wake him up a bit and made it easier to get him stumbling up the sand to the tree line.
When the three arrived at Sarah’s camp, they were pleasantly surprised to see that she had been very busy setting up a temporary shelter for them. “Wow, this is nice,” said Jonathan.