The explosion completely rocked the island, shaking the ground and quaking the trees for a significant stretch of time. It was immensely loud, signaling the kind of power that was behind it.
The camp, which was still in severe disarray from the moves just minutes earlier that led to the deaths of two leaders, stopped everything. Everyone halted in their spots and turned toward the direction where the explosion originated. Everyone looked toward the sky and all of the pieces of debris that appeared to be flying through it…looked like a massive flock of gulls under the spell of some psychedelic mushrooms…
Even Rusty looked toward the sky through her tears and pain.
“What the hell was that?” she posed rhetorically.
The shaking of the ground sent some eerie chills up and down her spine. It drew her concern. Of course, she didn’t expect an answer, but one was forthcoming anyway.
“Sounds like someone just dropped a bomb on us…” Briggs said, breaking his statuelike shock from the recent festivities.
“You’re a master of the obvious, Briggs” she replied.
Briggs snickered at the sarcasm.
“Also sounds like it came from the other side of the island. There were no signs of planes. Don’t know if there are any boats on the other side…want me to take a few guys and check it out?”
“No, I want you to stay here and help get this mess cleaned up. Have Ramon and Razor clear these bodies. Send R-Tard, Silly Willy and Tibs to check out the explosion.”
“Rusty, the three of them couldn’t find a coconut if it fell from a tree and hit them in the head. If they were lucky, between them they would possess half a brain of a parrot.”
“Send them anyway. Maybe this will turn out to be the best day of their lives” she commanded.
“Aye, Rusty.”
Briggs left to carry out the wishes of Rusty, who was still standing in the same position holding onto her daughter Jewel.
“Mom, I’m scared. I can’t take this anymore.”
“What do you mean Jewel? You’ve always been the strong one in the family. Nothing phases you…” Rusty said maternally.
“Mom, you haven’t noticed what I’ve been going through for such a long time…” she confessed. “I’m not the strong one, never was and never will be.”
“Oh honey…” reassured Rusty.
“Mom, I can’t take this anymore. Daddy’s gone, Uncle Kat is dead. And these people are innocent people who did nothing wrong but paid for all of this with some of their lives. I can’t take this! Mom…help me please!”
Jewel was still hyperventilating and out of control. But who could blame her.
Rusty was at a loss as to what to do next. She continued to hold her daughter as she sustained her hysterical nature.
Dyane was pretty much frozen in time following her knifing of Katmandu, staring at the body she had fallen upon when she passed out. Coming back to consciousness wasn’t a blessing in the least bit. She opened her eyes and realized that everything was actually fact. She saw the deep red blood still flowing from the neck of her victim. She strained to elevate herself when she accidentally put her hand on her dead husband to try and steady herself, only to fall down in pain and disgust. It was a tough slap of reality to someone who had a front seat of participation in this whole scene.
Dyane climbed back to her feet and saw how bad off Jewel was, and somehow found the insane thing to do within the craziness of everything. She hugged Jewel, at first saying nothing, and then whispering reassurance.
That didn’t sit well with Rusty. She turned her body and Jewel’s so that it pushed Dyane away from her emotional daughter.
But Dyane didn’t back away. Instead, she repositioned herself to again hug Jewel. Jewel was receptive, though utterly confused. In light of everything, why was Dyane hugging her? And what was she saying to her? No one could make anything out, though Dyane was still whispering to Jewel.
Rusty was silent. She was dealing with myriad emotions. These emotions not only dealt with the losses of family, and of all the pain and suffering of Jewel, but also what she herself was going through. These three days were not a bed of roses for Rusty. And now all of the events of the last few days had culminated into one of the biggest and heaviest sorrows of her life, and who was there to help her through it…or even just help at all? No one…
•••
Mark rolled over in the sand of the island along the shore he was stranded on. He had all kinds of issues since he arrived there with his open wounds and sheer loneliness in the past face of incredible terror and heroism. Days had gone by and all he could muster were a few feeble attempts at washing his open wounds.
“Damn, I’d do anything for a Wilson volleyball…” he would joke with himself as he tried to maintain his sanity.
Well, the explosion from the pirate island was so massive that it woke him up as he slept on the shore of that glorified sandbar.
It not only managed to get him up, but seemingly sobered him up into the current reality.
He rolled around still wincing from his adventure and awoke in fright that something could be so loud and so close…or at least it seemed so close. He saw the smoke from the explosion and made the rash decision that he had to get there, no matter what. It didn’t matter how sore he was or how much pain he was experiencing from his leap from the boat amidst bullets flying, he had to get there. The feeling inside of him grew instantly thinking that his friends were somehow connected to that explosion.
So without thinking any further, he struggled to get to his feet. He shook off the little sand crabs that were attached to him in some way and walked gingerly to the shoreline. He bent over at the waist and attempted to touch his toes. Every part of his body was tight, from the hamstrings in his legs to his skin that were in some places badly sunburned and blistery.
He stayed in that stretching position for about fifteen seconds, feeling somewhat good that he was getting the feeling going in his legs, yet struggling with that nasty sunburn. He repeated the stretching moves and added a few more, somehow dealing with the skin agony.
And although quite dehydrated and to a point a little lightheaded from malnourishment, he walked into the early morning warm water. The open wounds were still not accepting of his decision, but had no choice but to go along with the rest of his adrenaline filled body in search of his friends.
He walked in the water for about five minutes or so, getting used to the feeling of it surrounding his skin. In some ways it was a cool feeling of soothiness, yet in other ways, it was downright painful. But being a past swimmer in school and junior Olympic team competitions, he put all that discomfort behind him and focused on the task at hand.
He began to swim.
Mark stayed close to the shore for a few minutes as he continued to stretch his muscles in the water by swimming in differing strokes.
And with a determination that only can be felt at championship levels, he took off in the direction of the smoke filled the sky. He had that burst of energy, but just how long it would physically last was the only concern. He was not familiar with the area, where the sandbars were positioned for rest, or the much deeper shipping lanes which could be his major challenges with currents. He was not prepared to be swimming such a journey in the Caribbean Sea for it was a much different challenge than, say, swimming in an Olympic size pool against a competitor. And mentally, could he stay headstrong in the face of a possibly deteriorating physical condition?
Oh…and…where are the sharks and barracudas?
He didn’t think about anything else but his friends.
So he swam.
•••
R-Tard led the small contingent of manpower through the jungle to investigate the unexpected explosion. There were no planes buzzing overhead, and the views that they had of the inlet and the seas on the other side of the island were all clear of any ships. The timing of the explosion shortly after dawn made the explosion that much more unbelievable.
But the dark smoke and ensuing fire in the jungle bore proof that the unexpected did actually happen.
The pirate trio made it to the outskirts of the smoke and fire in about fifteen minutes. They had no firefighting gear or breathing apparatus to use, so they cautiously moved around the boundaries of smoke and flame ensuring that they wouldn’t trap themselves in the middle of it.
While sidestepping as much as they were able to, they made a couple of startling discoveries accidentally. Silly Willy walked right into one and tripped over it, falling into the thick brush.
“W-w-what ar dese?” R-Tard asked the others.
“No idea, man” replied Tibs. “But they look pretty serious.”
“I w-w-wunda” R-Tard continued “dey look like bombs of some kind…”
“They are fucking huge, man…” Tibs answered. “I ain’t never seen these before. They’re bigger than the old cannonballs we have…”
“Yeah” Silly Willy responded in awe. “Look at their shape…they look like they have arms…”
They had discovered a handful of mines close to the original explosion. There was no sign of human life around the area that they were in. The mines weren’t sitting out in an obvious way, all were somewhat covered with jungle growth. But they were still mines nonetheless.
One would have thought that the pirate civilization would have found these on routine walks through the jungle, but it was quite clear that R-Tard, Silly Willy and Tibs had not done so. Fact is they had never seen a mine to begin with. So they were curious to the dark metal objects with the funny looking arms.
Their curiosities brought them closer to the mines. But they weren’t as cautious as maybe they needed to be.
Silly Willy and Tibs went right up to one, uncovered the vines and brush from it and began to touch it and prod it. R-Tard stayed a good twenty feet away showing apprehension.
“Guys, be caireful. We don’t know anything ab-b-bout dem…” R-Tard commanded.
“No problem, man…” Tibs said as he still poked and prodded the object.
BOOM!!
The explosion was as loud as the first one, but seemed closer to where everyone was situated in the prisoner area.
Pieces of pirates went flying through the air like they had just been launched from a rocket launcher from NASA. Those pieces had quite an excellent distance to them, some making their way all the way to camp. Remnants of arms and hands and torsos landed not far from the camp, and the cloud of smoke was similar to the initial blast that originated the search journey.
The ground shook some more. Pieces of brush and jungle also flew to the camp area. The fireball was easily seen and lasted just an instant.
Rusty had seen enough.
“Everyone battle stations! Some one or some thing is out there! And they are getting closer! Everyone else take cover!” Rusty ordered.
The initial chaos hadn’t quite subsided as yet when the second one took place. The second chaos was insane.
Pirates ran back to the village. Pirates ran to the huge wooden row boats tied to the shoreline to make sure they were secured. And yet others ran for the secret area where they housed their speed boats and modern weapons.
The captives?
They were left standing there in disbelief. Or some decided to run for the water and try to swim to the pirate ship or the yacht anchored well offshore in the inlet. That plan didn’t get very far for the few who did try and escape that way. Whether it was the sheer terror of what just happened or the mystery of the unknown, all of the captives attempting that got only so far into the water and paused. It could have been the group of pirates running to their row boats that made them stop. No one really knew.
Rusty grabbed hold of Jewel and they both scampered back to their house in the village. That was quite a distance away, and Rusty ensured that neither wasted any time in doing so.
Ramon and Razor left Katmandu’s body in the sand and took off for their battle station. Briggs took off with Rusty and Jewel for their protection in case it was really an attack of some kind.
Dyane was left standing alone in shock as all she had to look at was either the cloud of smoke in the sky or her husband’s torn and tattered body. She was speechless with little movement…just standing there. No one really noticed her standing there in all of the commotion as all of the captives had either moved for cover inside the building where they already were or attempted an escape of some kind. Those who chose to stay inside the building could really only hide under the wooden slabs.
There was a lot of background noise. A lot of people were breathing heavy, or just labored with the overwhelming emotion that came with each blast.
And like a total oddity in the face of the events, a lone woman raced from under one of the wooden beds and ran to Dyane. She took hold of Dyane with both hands on her arms and looked at her straight in the eyes and blurted out “I hope Dylan is okay…” as she stood there in shock.
Another word was not heard or said. They stood there for what must have seemed like an eternity when Alan raced in and grabbed both of them immediately ushering them under a raised wooden slab.
“Come on ladies, take cover” Alan said.
The ladies just stared out into the abyss.
•••
The second blast sent Mark into an instant stoppage in the sea. The vibrations could be felt through the air as well as the water. It was an unusual feeling of rumbles going through his lower body that was submerged below sea level.
Mark had made some decent time as he was stroking towards the site of the first explosion when the second one took place.
Unfortunately for Mark, the sea life scattered away from the island and some came directly into his path. Those sea life creatures included all kinds of fish, including barracudas and sharks…
He tried to swim forward following his pause from the second blast. The obstacles proved too great…