Back at the yacht following the tearfest, there finally was some movement as she stood from the table that was serving as her personal crying station. It was as if she could here the calls of her name in the ocean breezes. Her focus was becoming stronger as those breezes built to a near whistle coming through the doorways.
Feeling as though she was all alone on the ship, she grabbed for some confidence and cautiously began to walk around the lower deck. She was in search of anything that would help her realize where she was and what had happened. Her last memory was arriving at the boat docks with her husband to embark on this adventure that would reshape their lives.
Now, she had no idea what time it was or even what day it was. With the exception being the bright hot sunshine protruding throughout the yacht, she was clearly in the dark.
She moved from small cabin room to small cabin room, checking dressers, beds, and closets for any clues whatsoever. Maybe a cell phone was left behind. All she knew was that she couldn’t find hers.
Dyane was engrossed in an eerie feeling. Once surrounded by twenty one others in sharing this ship, she was now all alone in the cabin areas with the sights of everyone’s possessions, but no one around. It was as if they just vanished into thin air, leaving things just as they were, neat and untouched. At least that was the scene in almost all of the rooms.
The eating area was a completely different story.
Supplies of all kinds, food and dishes were strewn all over. It looked at though there were some mighty struggles there, but she couldn’t recall anything happening there that she was a part of.
In one of the cabins she found a cell phone on a bed next to a gym bag full of summer clothes.
“Yay!” she whispered to herself in a mini celebration.
She picked up the phone and flipped it open.
“I wonder where Jim is…shall I call him?” she said playfully.
She tried dialing her husband’s number. Nothing. She tried again. Same result. She looked at the phone frustrated. It wasn’t even working.
“Damn…what the heck…” she said aloud.
She played with the phone, but came away still frustrated. The phone kept asking for a code to unlock the keypad.
“There’s a code I have to put in? DAMN!” she whined. “What good are you?”
Dyane tossed the phone on the bed and semi-stormed out of the room. She walked about ten paces or so showing the signs of frustration, and then turned abruptly around and cruised back to her original spot. She picked up the phone again and reexamined it. Nothing had changed.
“Shit” she said. “Gotta find another.”
She didn’t want to look through bags for a couple of different reasons…privacy being first and foremost. She had no idea what was going on, so she actually had some inklings that everybody may return; just like they had gone on a group swim…or something. Dyane always had a good positive heart, so she always thought optimistically. This was so opposite of her husband Jim. Jim always found the challenge and struggle in everything and his sense of humor mirrored Alan Mayes in the sense that it was drier than a martini and stinging like a cold slap in the you know whats.
Dyane continued to look around the room, discovering nothing that would help her in her quest for clues and answers. She moved on to another room. She came across more bags, but the same results: no clues.
She repeated the process in another two rooms before she came across her and Jim’s bags that were in a small cubby hole of a closet. She opened her bag but found nothing helpful.
She laughed “of course nothing useful…I packed it!”
She opened Jim’s bag. Summer clothes and toiletries…the usual were found. No help.
“I really have to teach him to be more helpful to me…” she laughed again.
There she goes finding some laughter in the face of unknown adversity. Yet, that’s usually how she dealt with everything…but how would she deal with Jim’s current situation?
He was still lying in the same spot on the island and weakening by the minute as the pain and fever increased consistently.
Rusty and Summer hit an impasse as Alan became increasingly upset. For the usually calm and stoic Alan, that was a stretch. But he sensed that Jim was losing the fight for life and quickly. Alan wasn’t ready to concede defeat.
Rusty packed up her bag of medical goodies.
“What are you doing?” Alan asked her.
“I have to check on my husband…” she replied.
“Your husband? What about Jim? He’s dying!”
“My husband isn’t doing well either” she said.
“But what about Jim?”
“What about Jim? We can see how he is. And it is not good. I can’t do anything else here. I am not a miracle worker. I need to help save my husband.”
“To hell with your husband!” screamed Alan. “This is my best friend! We need to save HIM!”
Alan was so pissed that he almost blew a gasket in his brain. Ramon took exception to his lack of temper control as R-Tard and Silly Willy came running over to them on alert with hands on swords.
“Look. See this bag? It’s not a bag full of magic tricks. I have no miracles…” she ripped into him. “I am not a doctor. I can do some things, but not others.”
“Save him” Alan demanded in a more respective tone. “Save him.”
“I am not a god. I cannot make decisions on life and death…” she countered.
“I don’t care if you are not a doctor. I don’t care if you’re not a god…” Alan answered. “I only want you to save his life. And out of all of us standing here, you appear to be the most qualified. So do it.”
“What can I do? I am at a loss here. Even if I reopen his gashes and dig out the infection, there’s no guarantee that it will help. And he’s not in shape for any of that anyway.”
“So you are saying certain death. No options here, just certain death.”
“It looks that way” she conceded.
“Then give me your bag, stand aside, and you tell me what I need to do. You won’t do it. At least I will try.”
“What? That’s insane! You have no idea what to do. Hell, I don’t even know either!” Rusty exclaimed.
“Well, someone’s gonna try. He may still die, but damn it, we have to do something!”
“I admire your passion and loyalty, but you are only going to put him into more pain and suffering. Do you really want to do that to your friend?”
The tug of war between an impassioned Alan and highly emotional Rusty continued to escalate. Alan grabbed for the bag.
Rusty held onto it, turning away.
Ramon interceded.
R-Tard put his sword onto the sternum of Alan, not breaking skin as yet.
Summer was standing behind and to the right of Rusty. When Rusty turned away from Alan, she turned toward Summer almost hitting her. Summer grabbed the bag and took three steps away from Rusty. Alan stepped backwards as well, away from R-Tard’s long blade.
What that all accomplished, no one knew. It was an emotional play to illustrate a point. After all, Alan and Summer had no weapons, so it’s not like taking the bag from Rusty suddenly meant that they were in control of the situation.
R-Tard made moves to close in on Summer…Ramon as well.
“Wait! Hold fast!” Rusty commanded. “Don’t hurt anyone else. It’s just a bag. They are both emotional over their friend.”
Alan and Summer were still on their guard awaiting what was to happen next.
“I applaud your passion. But you don’t seem to be getting the big picture here…” she calmly told Alan and Summer.
“You have to have something in here to help him” Summer commented. “You gave him something before.”
“Yes…I have some penicillin…but that didn’t help.”
“Then what is the next option?”
“There is no next option.”
“You said something like surgery?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?” Summer was on a roll.
“For one, I don’t know how. Two, we don’t have the tools. Three, we risk further infection. We’re going over no new ground here. I told you this before.”
“How far away are we from the mainland?”
“That’s not an option.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not gonna give up our lives, our history, and our future because your friend is dying. We are pirates and no matter how weak and emotional you try and make me, I’m not giving my way of life.”
“Rusty, we’re talking life and death. Your husband is at home in a similar condition. Are you going to watch him die?”
“No I wouldn’t. However, he is not as bad.”
Rusty hesitated in her words. The thought that Bones could very well be in the same shape crossed her mind. A chill went through her body.
“I…I need to check on him. Now, give me the bag. We can do this easy, or we can hurt you. Either way, I need the bag. I will check on my husband and then I will come back and check on your friend once more.”
Alan and Summer knew that they had run out of options here. They played their cards, went with the passion play which bought them a little bit of time and some emotional weakness from Rusty, but in the end, they both knew that their was little more if anything that they could do.
Summer turned over the bag.
“You just did the smart thing” Rusty said. “I’ll be back.”
Ramon and Rusty immediately left to check on Bones while R-Tard backed down to his original guard position, leaving Summer and Alan with the feverish Jim.
•••
The fishing expedition arrived back to the island and if a full net was any indication, it looked like they did quite well for themselves. Caleb and Dylan were on that exposition with the point being to catch enough fish to feed their group for the day. Needless to say, everyone was seriously hungry and getting to a point of malnourishment.
Upon making back to the camp, Caleb came right over to check on Jim. Dylan accompanied.
“How’s he doing?” Caleb asked.
“Hanging in there…barely.”
“Have they shown any kind of interest in Jim?” Caleb questioned Alan.
“Yeah, they have. But it looks bleak.”
“Why’s that?”
“She gave a lot of excuses, equipment, not trained for this, you name it.”
“What about getting him outta here and to a real hospital?”
“Caleb, we are working with pirates here. Do you really think that they care about any of us? I’m surprised we have made it this far…really” Alan confided.
“How bad is he?”
“Feverish. Weak. And calling for Dyane. I don’t think that he has much time left, but who am I to know?”
“Wow. We have to find a way off of here, not just for us, but for him especially.”
“I’m all ears. You have something in mind?”
“Al, these are modern day pirates, right?” inquired Caleb.
“I would guess…what are you getting at?” Alan asked.
“Think about this…modern day pirates take us over and hold us captive…for what? What could we possibly have that would interest them?”
“Good point so far…” replied Alan.
“Now think about this…modern day pirates…right? This is 2011, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Well then riddle me this Batman, what are modern day pirates doing in a primitive wooden pirate ship chasing us down? Granted we were in a yacht, but a real lookalike pirate ship hunting us down? What’s up with that?”
“Okay…I’m still following you Caleb…two good points. Where are we going with this?”
“Al, think about this…modern day pirates…traditional ship…doesn’t make sense, right?”
“Right…”
“And what about those swords? What is truly up with that? When I was in the service and battled some of those Somalian pirates, hell, they had machine guns…and motor boats…shit that would blow these muthas away…”
“Yeah…I agree with all of your points Caleb, but what are you trying to say?”
“Al, there is no way on God’s green earth that these guys are living back in the 1800’s. Come on, how gullible do they think we are?”
Dylan agreed.
“Hey, we saw some stuff on their ship while fishing. Caleb is right. This makes no sense. They have to be hiding stuff…somewhere. There is no way that these are pirates and this is their way of life…” Dylan let on.
Caleb interrupted in agreement pushing the point further.
“There’s no way that these people survive like this. If they are truly pirates, it’s about drugs and running them, it about high stakes shit…big bucks and big whammies…”
“Okay…” Alan continued to agree.
“I’m telling you Alan, they are hiding some shit around here…they’ve got to be. I’m talking speed boats, high tech weapons, drugs, everything.”
“Caleb, I understand you points and I agree. You have some thoughts on a plan? Can you get us out of here?”
“Dylan and I were working on it. Doesn’t it seem odd that they don’t tie us up? I mean, they gave Dylan and I a lot of freedom on the fishing trip. Yeah we worked our asses off, but if we wanted to jump, we could have. I have no idea if they would have left us out there or shot us or turned and run us over, but it did seem strange that we were able to do the things we did if we were slave like prisoners…”
“I’ve got to tell you guys, a lot of this makes no sense.,,” Alan confessed. “I’m baffled.”
“Me too” Summer nodded.
“Okay, so you know, we are thinking of somehow leaving camp and searching for their hidden toys. Dylan and I are convinced that they have some and that they are here…if we can find them and get all of us to them, we can make a break for the open seas and take our chances…” Caleb unveiled.
“I like your thinking” smiled Alan.