Chapter 12
A WRACKING SOB RIPS from my throat as I sit on the ground, head in my hands, horrified.
It’s not just the fact that there is a dead body lying there, a body that has been here this whole time, but the fact that nobody has come for him. Nobody has looked, nobody has found him, or is it that wherever the hell we are is so far away that it is impossible to find.
“Hey,” Ace says, squatting in front of me. “Grace, look at me.”
I lift my head. “Nobody came for him, Ace. Nobody fucking came for him, so that means nobody is coming for us.”
“We don’t know that. This man might not have anyone looking for him, this man might have died on impact and people are still wondering where he is.
Just because they didn’t find him here doesn’t mean nobody has looked or that nobody ever goes past. The ocean is huge, and he may have been far away from where he was meant to be. There are explanations.”
He’s trying to make me feel better, I know he is.
He makes valid points, but the thought that we might never be found is crippling.
“We have people looking for us,” Ace goes on.
“How do you know?” I yell, my voice high and shrill. “My father wanted to give me away, Ace. So, what makes you think he’s going to fucking look for me?”
“Maybe your father felt that way, but those other girls, their families didn’t...”
That hurts, like a punch to the chest.
“We have to look at the positive. That boat, we could use it. We could fix it up and get the fuck off this island, do you see that?”
I blink the tears away, staring at him. “We can?”
“That is a big boat, one sturdy enough to get us safely through the ocean. If we can fix it up using the lifeboat, and whatever else we can find on this island, we might be able to leave. It could take a while, but it’s hope, Grace, and it’s all we have.”
I nod, swiping away more tears.
“You gotta get it together.”
He’s right, I do.
“What about him?” I whisper, jerking my head towards the boat. “What...”
“Kellen, Zeke and I will deal with that. Let’s just get back and let them know what we found.”
I nod quickly.
“Hey,” Ace says again, taking my face in his hands. “You got this, Gracie. You know you do. We will figure this out. You have to pull it together.”
I take a deep, shaky breath. “Let’s go.”
“Atta girl.”
He helps me to my feet, and we begin our walk back to camp.
We make it back to camp in record time, branches clawing at my shins and raindrops flicking off the leaves as we push through the tangled paths.
I almost run, wanting to be as far from the dead man as possible, outpace the memory of his twisted body and the sunken darkness where his eyes once were.
Ace lets me lead, but keeps close, his hand sometimes on my back like a reminder that he is there, always.
We reach and everyone is there. Zeke and Rachel are building the fire back up, Kellen drags large logs out of the way, Aggie is hanging blankets up to dry and Tatiana is perched on a rock close by, trying to sew something together out of palm fronds.
They all look up as we approach, and the moment they see our faces, concern washes over theirs.
“What happened?” Kellen asks, dropping the log he was dragging. “Look like you seen a fuckin’ ghost.”
“I mean, we kind of did,” I murmur.
He looks confused.
“We found a boat,” Ace tells him.
Even Rachel perks up at that. “You did?”
“Is that a good or bad thing?” Zeke questions, crossing his arms.
“It’s a good thing,” Ace continues, voice so calm you’d think this was just a routine report. “It’s been there a while, it’s in rough shape but it looks solid and I think we could do something with it to get off this island.”
Zeke grins, and it transforms his entire face. “Fuck yeah.”
“There’s a catch.” My voice comes out rough.
Aggie, who has now joined us, frowns. “A catch?”
“There is...well...ah, there is a body stuck under there,” I tell her.
Her mouth drops open and Rachel gasps.
“Well, someone had a really bad day,” Adrian mutters, crossing his arms. “Man or woman? Decaying? To what degree? Are we talking murder, or mother nature?”
“Adrian, do you ever think before opening your mouth?” Aggie shakes her head.
“Fuck you,” he mouths to her, literally mouths it.
Not a single word.
Tatiana wheezes.
“So there’s a fuckin’ body in there?” Kellen asks, eyes widening.
“Yeah, a man by the looks, and it has been there a while,” Ace informs them for me. “But, we just gotta focus on the boat because it could save us.”
A long silence holds us all, until Kellen asks, “What do we do about the dead dude?”
Aggie smothers a giggle, and we all try to ignore just how cold yet hilarious Kellen can be.
“He could hold vital clues and give us answers on the fact that we might not be alone on this island,” Adrian whispers, and his eyes dart from left to right.
Fuck me, he is too much sometimes.
I bite my lip so I don’t laugh.
Ace glances at me, then back to the group.
“We need to get rid of it. Because we’ll need to get inside the boat if we want to move it.
Zeke, Kellen, you help me with the body issue.
Girls, you start packing up camp. We need to move to the other side, it is far better cover, and you can see a lot more. ”
“Plus, we need to be close to that boat,” Rachel says, a sudden flash of life on her face.
We get moving.
The guys leave to remove the body, refusing to take Adrian who is more than fascinated with the whole situation.
Instead, they send him on a hunt to find them some items they can turn the boat with.
They can probably do it with sheer strength, but they are just wanting him to go away.
Us four girls start hauling things on our shoulders so we can get moving, too.
“You really saw a dead body?” Tatiana whispers, eyes wide.
I nod.
“Like, up close?”
“Yep,” I mutter. “It was really bad.”
Rachel shudders. Aggie comes over and puts her arm around my shoulder.
“I can’t believe we’re going to try and fix a boat to get out of here,” she says.
We all feel a kind of hope we haven’t experienced yet.
Like maybe this isn’t the end of our story.
“We should get going,” Rachel says, cutting through the silence of hope we are all holding onto.
“Yeah, we should,” I agree. “It’s a decent walk.”
“I hope they have gotten the body away by the time we get there,” Tatiana shivers. “That scares the life out of me.”
“I kind of want to see it,” Aggie shrugs, throwing a blanket over her shoulder.
“There is something very wrong with you,” I grin in Aggie’s direction.
She laughs.
We set off, heading towards our new home.
We reach the new location just as the afternoon sun drops low, letting us know we only have a few hours to set up for the night before the sun goes down.
The boat sits on the shore, and the guys are working around it.
I don’t bother to go and see, not until I’m certain that it’s safe.
I don’t ever want to see something like that again.
Ace only comes over to inform us that they found a good spot about thirty meters away, with a large overhanging rock and soft sand.
We head off to find it.
It doesn’t take long to find it, because the rock is huge.
It looks almost unnatural, the way it towers off a larger formation of rocks by the shore.
But, I can see what Ace means, it could work.
It is hanging over enough we can build off it and it has sand below, which makes it softer for all of us.
It isn’t too far from the drinking water, and we can see the ocean.
It’s a win-win, and it is certainly better than where we were.
“Oh, this could work,” Aggie says when we reach it, looking around. “We can build a shelter off the side of this, once we work out which way the wind blows mostly, then we can make sure we block some of it out.”
I smile at her, not because she is saying anything funny, but because she is acting like someone who is surviving, and I am so proud of that. She isn’t drowning, or sinking, she’s thinking ahead and creating something that works to keep us all safe. That’s exceptional in this situation.
“Let’s do it then,” I say, putting my stuff down.
After a while, the guys join us. Kellen looks exhausted and filthy, Zeke looks ready to throw up.
Ace’s hands are red and scratched up, like he has just done a lot of digging.
It takes a lot, to do what they just did.
To clean up something like that wouldn’t have been easy.
On the body or the mind. Adrian hasn’t returned, and honestly, nobody is that concerned about it.
“We buried him, up the ridge,” Ace tells us, sitting down and staring at his hands. “Fuck, I need to wash up.”
“I’ll come with you,” I say, pushing to my feet. “I need to do a water run.”
“There is a box we found, full of cooking items,” Kellen tells us. “I’ll take some to wash now, but there is a pan, a kettle and some utensils.”
“So we can cook fish on a pan and not just sitting in the coals,” Rachel says, pressing her hands together. “If I never have to eat coal-coated fish again, it would be too soon.”
Kellen scowls at her. “Sorry, princess, that your meal isn’t served on the finest china.”
I press my lips together, trying not to laugh.
“Oh, shut up,” Rachel mutters. “You don’t need a response for every damn thing I say, you know.”
“Well, if you didn’t say stupid shit, I wouldn’t need to.”
Zeke mutters something under his breath, and lays down, pressing his forearm over his eyes. Ace glances at Kellen, lip twitching. “Come on, brother. Let’s get cleaned up.”
Kellen gives Rachel another look, and then disappears to get the cooking equipment they found.
“There were also more fishing lines,” he calls, jogging down the beach. “Just in case the princess needs her next meal.”
Aggie giggles and Rachel glares at Kellen’s vanishing form.
I can’t help but laugh.
I follow Ace into the jungle, still smiling long after the sun stops warming my skin.
It has been a while since I have laughed, it felt good.
Right now, we take anything that feels good.