Chapter 28

Jeremy woke up in a tangled heap of bodies. He slowly extricated himself and went over to the lagoon to wash up. The sun was just coming up over the horizon and the sky was the color of port. That is to say, it was dark and red and the message from it hit him strongly.

He raced to the highest point on the island to have a look at the sky in all directions. It was mostly clear, some light, puffy kind of clouds scudding across the sky, nothing to be alarmed with for now.

He got his hunting spear and moved the precious salt works into the cave as well as many of the provisions. Nicole looked up from where she was sleeping. “Hey Jeremy, you’re up early. Something the matter? You look a little worried.”

“Don’t worry too much, Nicole, odds are we will be okay, but I think there is a typhoon nearby.”

“You know Jeremy, that’s one thing that has always puzzled me. In the Pacific they are called typhoons, and in the Atlantic they are hurricanes.”

“Actually, north of the equator they are hurricanes and south of the equator they are typhoons. Either way, if it hits this island, we are in big, big trouble.

Jeremy collected a long string of line and got to work braiding it to something more resembling a rope he just hoped would hold. He wasn’t particularly worried about the Japanese buildings. Most of them were made of concrete, but he started doing calculations in his head anyway.

They were, by his best reckoning, about 10 feet above sea level. Storm surge from a weak tropical storm could be expected to be greater than 4 feet and if it was a big ugly, nasty one, it would wipe out the island. There was no good way to plan for this, he thought. The spire of land that the cave was on was perhaps 50 feet tall, and the cave was cut up as well. Far enough? He had no idea.

He made a crude torch out of dried grass and fish grease and put that aside. The other girls were waking up. “Hey Jeremy, didn’t see you when I got up, what happened?” Sunni asked.

He looked over at Naomi, who was yawning.

“The sky this morning was blood red.”

“Seriously?” Naomi asked, looking at him now intently. Jeremy just nodded. “We’re on an island. What can we do?”

“Survive, I think, is the best course of action.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Anabell asked. “I mean you two are mister and miss secret.”

“How long do you think we have?” Naomi asked, ignoring Anabell’s question.

“Few hours on the outside I think.”

“Well, some warning is better than no warning,” Naomi said.

“Right. I’ll need to check some things everyone gather up as much food as you can, and fire wood, and well no I guess that’s about it isn’t it. Store it in the cave for now. I have to look at something in here.”

He made two more torches and lit the first in the fire, and he climbed into the cave, looking up and using the sides of the cave to climb up higher. There was, in fact, another chamber about 20 feet above the floor. He climbed up by feeling, having to hand his torch back to one of the girls below him. It was a smaller space. It would barely fit all of them and it wouldn’t be comfortable.

He lowered the rope and tied it off to a natural hole in the wall and then climbed down the rope. It appeared that it was sturdy enough. He took some more of Sunni’s line for making clothes and showed Sunni and a few girls to make a net, something that they could pack supplies in and pull up.