Chapter 19
No matter how much dried mud flakes off my skin, I never feel any cleaner for it.
Everything feels kind of mucky. The air smells earthy, rather than beachy, and the ground feels wet and sloppy underneath my feet. The last thing I need is to fall again (although if I’m going to, better to do it now, before I get cleaned up).
I’m walking with Lockie to the lagoon so that we can get cleaned up. I’m muddy from when I fell and he got covered in second-hand mud when he carried me.
Without really saying as much, I guess we’ve decided to keep up the act – well, imagine if our new friends knew we were show plants now – but also, we don’t really know what’s going on, so best to stick to the script.
Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t troubleshoot things together. Or shower together.
‘It doesn’t seem like the cameras are working here either,’ he says as we reach the lagoon.
Wow, it’s so beautiful. It looks perfect – the beauty of it being man-made, with crystal-clear water falling from the waterfall.
‘That’s what I was worried about,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I’ve noticed they’re not following us. It’s a dead giveaway.’
‘So no camera feed, no audio – nothing,’ he continues, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
‘But they wouldn’t just abandon us here,’ I insist. ‘They would send help, send someone to get us, get the show back on the road – something. Anything!’
‘But no one meant to do this, it was the storm,’ he reminds me. ‘It’s probably fried half the tech. If the rig’s down or the signal is blocked, they could be cut off from us completely. Big boats can’t get close, it might not be safe for small boats yet.’
My heart pounds so hard if this were a cartoon you would see it jumping out of my chest.
‘So we’re actually stranded?’ I say, although I know the answer. ‘And all alone?’
I half-expect him to laugh at how silly and dramatic I’m being but he doesn’t. This isn’t some manufactured-for-TV twist, Mother Nature is the showrunner now, and she’s even worse than Simon.
‘Not forever,’ he says, like that will do anything to soothe me right now. ‘They’ll come for us when they can. We just need to keep calm and take care of each other.’
‘You can’t just tell me to “keep calm” and expect me to feel better,’ I insist.
‘Think about the flight here, when the turbulence hit,’ he reminds me. ‘I was there then and I’m here now. Okay?’
I nod reluctantly. He has a point.
‘The good news is that I don’t think the whole island is without power because, look, the waterfall is still running,’ he points out.
‘So not only can we still shower, but it’s a sign of life.
Perhaps it’s just the transmitters, for the audio and video that are down, which is why they can’t see or hear us, and we can’t hear them, but they’ll be working on it. ’
‘I really hope you’re right,’ I reply. ‘But the show can’t go on, not with everything broken, and the island trashed. They’ll have to send help.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ Lockie replies.
I step under the waterfall, letting the freezing cold water crash over me for the first time, and it’s as shocking as it is invigorating. I can’t help but scream.
Lockie steps under too, to wash the mud away.
I try to focus on the feeling of the water, the sound of it crashing, of the pump that carries it to the top so that it can crash down over us.
And then I feel Lockie, behind me, his hands finding their way to my shoulders, rubbing them, trying to massage out some of my tension.
I let out a little moan. My God, that’s good.
For all the bravado and excessive manliness, his touch is actually quite gentle, but firm where it needs to be.
I lean back into him before my brain can object, my spine pressing against his chest, my bum practically clicking into place against his shorts as the water pours over us.
I turn my head slightly so I can look at him and as I stare into his eyes he gives me a smile that says—
‘Am I interrupting something?’ Ozzy calls out.
His voice practically barges between us, separating us suddenly.
‘I’m just – we’re just washing the mud off,’ I say, probably too loudly, like someone caught in the act.
‘Find anything out, mate?’ he asks Lockie.
‘The cameras look dead,’ he replies. ‘I think we’re offline. We’ll just have to hole up until the crew sends a rescue.’
Ozzy’s reaction is very on-brand: no meltdown, no worries, he just practically embraces the potential end of the world. ‘Okay,’ he replies. ‘Then I’ll manage the emergency protocols. We’ll be back up and running in no time.’
Of course we will. Ozzy lives for stuff like this.
‘The shelters are half up,’ he tells us. ‘We’ve still got the beds. I can get a fire going with the dry stuff I found under the tarps. There’s driftwood everywhere. The weather has levelled out. We’ll handle it, so… let’s go.’
I’m so glad he’s here – our island daddy. Well, with no producers pulling the strings, no supply drops, no hatch giving us just enough stuff to keep us going, we really are surviving on our own.
Ozzy walks off into the trees.
‘We’d better follow him,’ Lockie says, running his hands through his wet hair.
I can’t help but let out a little laugh.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I tell him. ‘Next time you’re thinking about raising the stakes.’
He half smiles, half sighs.
Well, it’s all good and fine saying you want the islanders to feel deserted, until you are one, and you’re actually cut off from civilisation.
All we can do is our best now. It really will be survival of the fittest – or whoever is coupled off with the fittest, at least.