Chapter 5

“There is something the matter with, well, almost everyone, Joe and Sunni and Nicole and Shannon,” Sara said.

He crawled out of his shelter and looked at Sara, her face and arms and legs were glowing red.

“Sara, you get inside here and rest. I’ll go see about the others.”

The sun was starting to sink toward the horizon. He walked the quarter mile down the beach to where the others were located. Six of them were getting sick, and Joe was obviously passed out. Nicole and Sunni and Anabell were on their knees puking their guts out. Rachel and Tiffany and Shannon were lying on the ground clutching their stomachs. Pricilla and Rose seemed okay. Gary was sitting in the shade near Naomi, the stewardess. Aside from Gary and Naomi, they all appeared to be suffering from some sort of heat casualty or another.

“Rose, you and Pricilla help me move everyone into the shade where it’s cooler.”

It took almost half an hour before everyone was moved, then Jeremy began to gather coconuts. There were many of them all over the ground and he worked on husking as many as he could on a large stone. Then when there was a dozen or so husked and the light was starting to fail, he punctured them in short order and gave everyone a drink.

“What the heck happened?”

Sunni who seemed to have recovered for the most part said “Well, Speedo boy was hot and said we should drink something, so we all got a drink from the surf, but that didn’t stop it, it just got worse the more we drank, the thirstier he got then he staggered onto the beach, burped, and passed out.”

“Wonderful! It’s bad enough that you guys are already dehydrated from the sun, but Joe adds insult to injury by drinking sea water. Too much seawater will kill you, dry you out even worse than you are,” Jeremy scolded Sunni, who cowered at the presentation of the new information.

“You saved us, didn’t you,” Shannon said. “When the plane crashed, you got us all here alive. You really are trying to keep us all alive, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jeremy said. There were looks of surprise from all around, though Gary gave him a dirty look.

Shannon looked around. “Then I choose you to be our leader. I’ll do whatever you say, just lead the way.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said. “Anyone else want to come?”

The twins hopped up with Norman between them, and Nicole and Tiffany followed. Jeremy directed them to pick up the unconscious stewardess and carry her back to their camp. They crawled into the shelter.

All six girls were sleeping. Jeremy, now feeling a bit more rested, walked back to the cave. He picked up a good-sized rock and banged it against the obsidian outcrop. He gathered up the glass-like shards and carried them back to camp. He sat down in front of the hut and after a few minutes decided that he wasn’t going to get anywhere making anything till daylight. He leaned back against the shelter and noticed two figures walking down the beach toward him. The moonlight was bright enough that he could make out the silhouettes.

Rachel spoke first. “Gary doesn’t seem to like you very much, and he was quite adamant about me staying, or I would have come with you. I just, well, I can’t abandon him.”

“Jeremy, we don’t know what to do. Will Joe get better? I mean, he’s sick, but will he wake up?”

“I don’t know Anabell, he might, but it will be a long, hard recovery. He needs more modern medicine and if he doesn’t get it. I don’t know. Rachel, look, I don’t know what’s between you and Gary. I don’t really care what he thinks about me. I just want to get as many of us through this as possible.

The next morning, Jeremy got several coconuts full of water from the spring and passed them to the sunburned survivors, and with a little ingenuity, managed to make everyone as comfortable as could be. He made several trips to the spring, filling one empty coconut after another and bringing them back to the party. It was midday before he had enough of a stockpile that he could take time to work on his small pile of rocks. He began knapping out a blade first. He would get the axe as soon as that was usable, then a scraper.

Jeremy, once finished with the scraper, set about making a fire drill, painstakingly carving out the shaft and the fly and then the bow. It was nearing dark, and he was far from finished, but he couldn’t do much more with the fading light, so he put his things away, and made for the entrance to the shelter.

A scream echoed down the beach, and all heads turned in that direction. Shannon and Sara padded quickly behind Jeremy, who sprinted down the soft beach sand. When they were close enough to the scene, they saw Nicole, laid out on the ground, and Sunni was pinned by Gary.

“Look you little slut tease, you’re going to suck...” Gary growled at his prey.

Jeremy snatched up a heavy piece of driftwood and swung it. It connected with Gary’s head. He tumbled to the side, not moving.

Jeremy knelt beside Gary’s unmoving body, feeling for a pulse. There was no blood, so far so good, and he found a pulse.

Sunni got up and ran to the fallen Gary and kicked him right between the legs as hard as she could. She kept kicking again and again, sobbing as she did,

The whole time the other two girls stood in shock for several seconds and then, apparently gaining their senses, took Sunni by the arms and pulled her away.

Gary was still breathing, as was Joe, Jeremy was relieved to discover, and he piled sand on them so that only their heads were showing. That should keep them cool, he thought, keep them from losing too much body heat too.

“It appears,” said Anabell, who had arrived about the same time as Jeremy’s party, “that you are the only decent man on the island.”