By the fifth day, Hayley’s skin has darkened to a deep tan and her body is covered in bites, scratches, and scrapes.
It’s suffocatingly humid inside her shelter, the armfuls of leaves she spread to soften her sleeping mat adding an unpleasantly musty scent to the already clogged air. Shifting her body weight, she’s uncomfortably aware of the smell of her own sweat, the stale sweetness that returns no matter how often she washes in seawater. Not that everyone is so concerned with hygiene; Brian can now be smelled from six feet away, as May disgustedly pointed out to him at dinner last night. (“All I’m saying is, you either need to wash or sit downwind.”)
When Hayley wriggles out onto the beach, it doesn’t offer much relief; her lungs feel hot and thick even outside, like they’re full of cotton wool.
Shading her eyes with her hand, she looks out toward the sea. Elliot cuts a lonely figure, standing knee-deep in the water, silhouetted like a statue as he patiently pursues more fish. In the distance, she can just see May’s head bobbing along as she swims the length of the island, a morning ritual she claims is keeping her sane.
The fish they caught last night were a success of sorts, cooked over the fire on a sharp stick, eager fingertips singed as they scraped scales off soft white flakes and picked minute translucent bones from between their teeth. But there was barely a taste for each of them before the fish were gone, the heads and tails sizzling and spitting in the embers.
By midmorning, the bottles of coconut water and the shallow pit they’ve dug in the shade to keep a supply of fresh coconuts cool are empty. Hayley hasn’t kept track of how many they’ve consumed, and she didn’t take an exact count of how many were scattered at the foot of the trees on the western coast of the island. But the supply isn’t infinite, and as one long, hot day stretches into another, they’ve been working through them fast.
“We’re going on a coconut run,” Brian calls to nobody in particular as Jason charges into the trees. “Going to try and get some of the green ones down. Elliot says they’ll have more water inside.” He cups his hands around his mouth, shouting through them like a bullhorn. “Yo, Elliot!” He gestures toward the other side of the island. “Come show us what we’re looking for.”
“But—” Shannon waves a hand dismissively as they disappear without waiting to hear what she has to say. “Your funeral,” she mutters, going back to the damp grass she is carefully twisting into a new length of twine.
When she’s finished, she ties one end to the top of the tall stake they’ve kept by the fire to split coconuts and the other end to one of the closest palm trees, creating a washing line to hang up some wet clothes she’s rinsed in the sea.
“Any of the boys help with that?” May asks as she towels her hair with a dry T-shirt, rolling her eyes when Shannon quietly shakes her head and starts spreading the clothes out on the line.
The row of dangling shirts and pants creates a wall on the south side of the camp. To the west, the tree line is a few yards away, providing a natural windbreak and helping to keep the fire from being blown out. They’ve built up the fire pit with bigger stones and placed some tree stumps, rocks, and airplane seat cushions around it in a rough circle, providing a focal point where they can gather for food and sit in the evenings.
A pair of overhead bins that was thrown clear of the plane has been dragged nearer to the fire, providing a largely rainproof approximation of a cupboard. One side is filled with dry clothes and blankets, the other stacked with firewood.
When the tide is at its highest, the waves lap at the sand about twenty-five yards from the camp, and when it’s low, the beach stretches out in a molten gold flood, the water so far away they almost can’t see it at all. A little ways to the south, close to the tide line, the twisted wreck of the plane remains, but it has become almost normal to them. In less than a week, it has morphed from a shocking reminder of their situation to a familiar landmark that Hayley almost doesn’t notice anymore.
The sleeping shelters stretch out in a line on either side of the camp, four for the girls on one side and three for the boys on the other, about ten yards between them, each leaning up against a sturdy palm trunk.
May and Jessa are sitting in the shade, both wearing black yoga pants and spaghetti-strap tops, using white shells and stones rubbed in black soot from the fire to play backgammon on a board scraped into the sand with sticks.
“Double six,” May gloats, unfolding two scraps of paper she’s picked out of the shoe that holds their makeshift dice.
“Oh, really? Again?” Jessa narrows her eyes suspiciously while May flashes her an angelic smile and skips two of her shells to safety.
“How many sixes are in there, exactly?” Jessa asks teasingly, and May quickly changes the subject.
“Does anyone else have their period? Mine’s due soon, and I have literally nothing to use.”
“Sorry,” Shannon says. “I had tampons in my bag, but it hasn’t turned up in the stuff from the crash.” The others shake their heads too.
“I cannot deal with that here,” May declares dramatically. “We are going to have to get rescued in the next”—she counts quickly on her fingers—”nine days or less. We just have to. It’s nonnegotiable.”
“Right,” says Shannon drily. “Because Jessa’s possibly infected arm can wait, but God forbid we should still be here when your period arrives.”
“It’s getting better, I think,” Jessa interrupts with forced brightness. She flashes a smile that doesn’t come close to her eyes. “I think it’s much better than it was, actually.” She turns to May, abruptly returning the focus to her best friend. “We’ll manage something, sweetie. Rags or whatever. That’s what they used to do in the old days.”
“Oh, good. I’ll look forward to it.” May makes a face.
Jessa leans over to take the shoe and gasps, her face twisting in pain. May leaps to her side, shells and stones scattering beneath her feet.
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing.” But Jessa’s breathing is heavy and she’s biting down hard on her lower lip.
“Show us,” Shannon commands, and Jessa reluctantly loosens the scarf sling, groaning as her arm droops into her lap. Gingerly, she begins to unwrap the bandage, and as the layers peel back, it darkens with a wet, seeping liquid. Hayley’s gut twists as Jessa lifts the last layer from her arm, revealing a slick, pulpy mess that reminds her sickeningly of the fruit she ate for breakfast.
“Jessa!” May gasps, and Jessa swallows hard.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she says shakily.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Shannon sounds almost irritated, but Hayley recognizes the tone; it’s the same disguised panic that crept into her voice when Coach Robinson canceled a Saturday practice at the last minute because the gym roof was leaking. It’s the tone that creeps in when something happens that is outside of Shannon’s control.
“Hayley,” she barks, “get the first aid kit.”
There’s not much left of in the battered red case that Jason dragged out from under the twisted metal remains of one of the plane seats. They’ve already used one of the bandages, but there’s a tube of ointment, some gauze, and Band-Aids.
“Iodine, get the iodine,” Shannon snaps, and Hayley rummages through the box until she finds a small shattered bottle at the bottom, shards of glass floating in a sticky pool of dark ochre.
“It’s broken,” she whispers helplessly.
“We need something else then,” May says, smiling reassuringly at Jessa, her voice about two notes higher than usual. “Something else that’s a disinfectant.” She casts around wildly. “Alcohol!” she shouts. “How many cop shows have you seen where they pour vodka into a wound when they can’t get to a hospital?”
“Can I just say that I am not reassured by how many of our survival instincts on this island have been guided by stuff people have seen on TV?” Jessa says with a weak smile, though her teeth are gritted against the pain.
“It’s actually not a bad idea,” Shannon says. “We need to clean out that wound.” But they can’t find any alcohol in the supplies Jason pulled out of the plane, supplies that have dwindled to some pieces of metal and plastic trays, a fire extinguisher, and random plastic eating utensils piled neatly next to the overhead bin cupboard.
“There has to be something they missed,” Hayley says, cautiously approaching the metal carcass of the jet. “What kind of a plane doesn’t have those miniature bottles of booze on board somewhere?”
She has to bend double to get inside, wriggling between jagged edges and deformed, unrecognizable shapes. She inches forward on her knees, passing a pile of smashed glass, long triangular shards sticking into the sand at odd angles like peanut brittle. And she has to stop for a moment to let the familiar clench of pain pass, to clear her head of the image of making peanut brittle with her mom in a cozy, steamed-up kitchen, laughing more and more hysterically as it completely failed to set and started bubbling uncontrollably over the stove top.
Unclench. Breathe. Don’t remember.
Almost everything that was inside the plane has already been stripped out. The one remaining overhead bin yawns empty, its door hanging wildly off a single hinge. Hayley reaches the tail, where the food was stored. A metal rolling cart lies on its side, its drawers lolling out like dead tongues, emptied of food trays by Jason. But there’s another drawer at the top, a locked drawer that doesn’t look as if it’s been touched. Hayley pulls at the metal handle; something rattles inside.
With some difficulty, unable to fully turn in the cramped space, she looks around until she finds a loose, thin piece of metal. She slides it into the narrow slit at the top of the drawer and begins to wiggle it back and forth, forcing the flimsy lock. The drawer slides open, revealing rows of shining glass bottles with brightly colored labels and metal caps. “Bingo,” she calls, grabbing a handful.
Jessa screams when Shannon pours the vodka into her wound. She can’t help it. Her lips curl back from her teeth and tears spring to her eyes as her fingernails dig deep into May’s hand.
The liquid runs black, then brown, then yellow, then red, like a grotesque rainbow.
“That’s cleaned some of it out at least,” Shannon says apologetically. She pours another bottle over her own fingers to clean them, then dabs ointment into the wound, pausing each time Jessa flinches. Then she carefully dresses it with the remaining clean bandage.
“We need to get you a drink,” Shannon says firmly. “The boys should be back with the coconuts by now. I’d say they’ve had long enough to attempt it on their own. Shall we?”
“Not you, sweetie,” May says firmly as Jessa tries to get to her feet. She gently ties the orange sling back around her best friend’s arm. “You stay here and try to rest.”
“Don’t tell the guys,” Jessa whispers as they leave. “They’re not strong enough to handle it. They think they are, but…” She sighs and closes her eyes.
When they reach the other side of the island, the boys are a sorry sight. Brian is sitting in the sand, panting, nursing what looks like a split fingernail. Jason is a few feet up, clinging to the trunk of a palm tree, sweat beading his forehead, cheeks puffed, desperately clamping his knees together and pushing himself up a few inches only to slide back down several inches more. And Elliot is stripped to the waist, trying unsuccessfully to use his T-shirt as a makeshift catapult, flinging rocks toward the green coconuts clustered twelve feet above him, his missiles going nowhere near his targets but landing dangerously close to the others.
“Knock it off,” Brian shouts angrily as one of the stones whistles past his elbow. They’re so wrapped up in their exertions that they don’t even hear the girls emerging from the trees.
May takes in the scene and starts to laugh, a wicked, infectious cackle that shakes her whole body.
Hayley is starting to think that each person on the island has a like in a game of poker. Whenever anyone mentions how unlikely they are to be rescued, Jessa’s fingers worry at the little crucifix around her neck without her even seeming to realize it. Jason goes quiet at first when he’s worried, but then his panic builds up and builds up inside him until it bursts out in a fit of cursing, usually aimed at Elliot. Shannon becomes hypercritical, her sarcasm sailing off the charts. Elliot withdraws back into his familiar, silent shell. Brian seems to swell somehow, wrestling whole saplings out of the ground and pounding away at the coconut stake like he can smash his feelings away. And when May is scared, she becomes exuberant, a sparkling, bubbling stream of songs and giggles.
“It won’t be so funny when you don’t have anything to drink tonight,” Jason says, his low voice angry.
“I’m sorry,” May gasps, trying to catch her breath, “I’m sorry. But it’s just…hasn’t it occurred to any of you guys that you have a group of people here with the exact skill set you need?”
“What are you talking about?” Jason slides irritably down from the trunk, rubbing his grazed palms.
Shannon cracks her knuckles and takes a deep breath. She flicks up her head, smiles widely, and strikes a pose beneath the palm tree, one arm in the air, the other hand jauntily on her hip. “Go, go, Ridge Raptors, go!” she chants, and the boys look at her like she’s got heatstroke, but Hayley suddenly sees what she’s doing, and May is grinning too as she moves to stand behind her captain.
“Go, team, go! Get into formation!”
And as the guys watch, Hayley moves smoothly, lining herself up directly in front of Shannon, her feet planted shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, hands firmly on her thighs. Ready and braced for the impact as Shannon leaps lightly up behind her, planting one bare foot in the crease at the back of her knee, the next in the small of her back, and then pushing herself deftly up, placing first one and then the other foot on Hayley’s shoulders.
“Steady, now,” Shannon whispers, and Hayley grips the tops of Shannon’s calves as they both focus carefully on a spot in front of them, thinking of nothing but balance, as May scampers catlike up Hayley’s back, clasping Shannon’s hands, using Hayley’s wrist as a stepping stone, and finally emerges on Shannon’s shoulders. She straightens carefully, triumphantly, to her full height, her bare toes curled in a tight grip.
Hayley hears the wild applause of the crowd rushing in her ears, feels the tingling sense of elation she had when they pulled off this formation at the end of the last game of the tour. They’d finished out the trip at Duke Academy, a prestigious Texas private school packed with the children of elite oil oligarchs and banking bosses. It was a rush, that last game. They were five points behind coming into the last quarter, and Hayley saw the strained looks on the boys’ faces as Erickson brought them in for a huddle. Sweat dripped from Elliot’s face, Erickson was shouting something, his clenched fist smacking into his palm, Jason animated beside him. Shannon was vibrating in front of Hayley, her face alight with intense excitement, outlining their final routine, urging them to give it everything they had.
She felt the pressure ramp up as the whistle blew, forcing her high kick higher than she’d ever managed before, the roar of the crowd whirling her out of her handspring as Elliot made a basket, followed quickly by a free throw from Brian, closing the gap between the teams to just two points. And as she felt Shannon’s toes dig into the back of her knee, as the last moments of the game ticked away on the clock, Jason took a long shot from outside the three-point line, the ball sailing past May as she straightened on top of Shannon’s shoulders, the triumphant climax of the routine perfectly coinciding with the ball swishing lightly through the net and winning them the game.
A wide grin spread across her face as the crowd noise surrounded her like a wave; she was aware of the tension in her every muscle as she strained to keep perfectly still. She felt better than she ever could have imagined this could make her feel. And as May and Shannon backflipped smoothly down to land, as they were enveloped in a chaotic, elated sea of hugs and backslapping and sweaty necks, she was, for a moment, one of the squad.
That was when one of the Duke cheerleaders, a tall, pretty girl with curly red hair, had come over to congratulate them and invite them to a party at her house. “To celebrate your last night on tour,” she’d said with a wink, “we can be gracious winners!” And Brian laughed, saying something gross about how much action he could fit into one night, and one of the Duke players shrieked that it would be wild, and Shannon laughed, Jason suddenly there with his arm around her shoulders, his lips on her mouth. Meanwhile, Hayley’s feeling of lightness and excitement quickly hardened into the usual foreboding that preceded any major social gathering—especially a house party with strangers—and she mentally flicked through underwhelming outfit combinations, already planning her excuses for slipping away early.
May lurches suddenly to the left, wrenching Hayley back to the present.
“OW! Careful!” Shannon shouts crossly from above.
“Sorry, mosquito!” May prods experimentally at the bunch of coconuts now immediately in front of her and frowns. “Well, are you all just going to stand there staring, or is somebody going to pass me something to cut them down with?”
Elliot hands the cutting stone over wordlessly. Hayley passes it without looking to Shannon, who reaches up to May, who bends slowly down to get it, one arm out wide for balance.
“Well, we did not think of that,” Brian mutters sheepishly as May begins to cut delicately through the stalk of the first coconut.
“Catch!” She tosses it in Elliot’s direction, and he jumps forward, arms outstretched.
The young coconuts are different; their husks are shinier and tougher, and opening them is harder work. It takes Brian almost half an hour of carving and swearing at one before he finally reaches the hairy brown shell inside. But it’s worth the effort. The meat of these coconuts is less developed, a jelly-like layer almost like underboiled egg whites that clings to the tongue with a rubbery wobble.
“It’s like vomit-flavored pudding,” Brian protests, letting it drip out of his mouth into the sand. But there’s at least twice as much water inside these nuts, its taste far sweeter and fresher than what they’ve become used to. They won’t need to worry about thirst again, at least not for a few days.
It’s ironic, really, that the rain clouds don’t begin to gather until they arrive back at camp with the fresh coconuts. Elliot is already working on the shelters, adding extra layers of leaves and even tucking in pieces of plastic and metal from the plane here and there in an effort to make them waterproof.
The sky is swollen. Gray clouds quickly deepen to heavy, hanging purples and angry browns, reminding Hayley unpleasantly of the wound in Jessa’s arm.
But the rain doesn’t come. They busy themselves finding extra clothes for warmth, moving their supply of fresh fruit and remaining equipment into the shell of the plane to keep it dry. They move quickly, not talking much. There’s something in the air, a kind of electric tension, that makes Hayley feel on edge, like she’s holding her breath, waiting for something awful to happen.
Brian and Shannon disappear into the tree line, hurrying to find as much wood as they can, planning to stash some in the shell of the plane. Jason returns a few minutes later with more palm leaves for the shelters, his eyes darting around, calculating, counting.
“Where’s Shannon?” he barks, and when Hayley tells him she has gone to fetch wood with Brian, Jason disappears after them at a loping run. They reemerge shortly afterwards, Brian’s arms piled with wood, Jason’s hand viselike around Shannon’s.
“Doesn’t want her to be alone even for a moment in this place,” Jessa whispers to Hayley with an admiring sigh, as if this only confirms Jason’s perfect boyfriend credentials. But Hayley, studying the white tips of Shannon’s fingers, is not so sure.
When there’s nothing left to do, Hayley sits in the sand at the mouth of her shelter, scooping up handfuls and letting the grains trickle through her fingers. The methodical, repetitive movement helps her to feel anchored, slowing her racing heartbeat and brain. May is humming the same few notes over and over under her breath, a little ditty that makes the hairs on Hayley’s arms stand on end. Not because there’s anything particularly eerie about the tune, but because she’s heard it before. An innocent trill of notes that might sound absent-minded coming from someone else but that means something completely different when it’s May.
It was about half an hour after that last triumphant game had ended, and the visitors’ locker room was cloudy with steam as some of the girls finished up their showers. Shannon was dressed already and standing at the mirror, putting on cherry-red lip liner with a perfectly steady hand. Behind her, May’s wet hair swept almost to the floor as she toweled it, head hanging down between her legs.
Hayley was tying her shoelace when Shannon blotted her lips and said, “I asked Coach Robinson to film us during the last quarter so we can do a quick play-by-play pinpoint our mistakes and look at where we can tighten up that finale routine. I’ll see you all in my hotel room in thirty minutes.”
May snorted, still rubbing vigorously with her towel. “Good one, Shannon,” she laughed, slightly muffled. “Like you’re going to drill us on the last night of the tour.”
Shannon’s gaze was icy in the mirror. “We need to look at it now while it’s fresh in our minds. This is about putting us in the strongest possible position going into next semester’s competitions.”
“Hmm,” May mused, a sarcastic edge to her voice. “What’s going to put a team in the strongest position to win—a chance to let their hair down and relax with a well-earned night off, or a ridiculously intense captain who never gives anyone the chance to recharge?” She snapped upright, tousled damp hair falling around her flushed cheeks.
“Don’t worry, May, you’ll still make it to your precious party on time.”
“Well, I’d like time to get ready as well. And you’ll need”—May glanced at the clock, pretending to do a calculation in her head—”I’d say a good two hours at least to remove the stick from your ass.”
“C’mon, May.” Jessa’s voice was soothing, ever the peacemaker, as she appeared between them. “We’ve got plenty of time to do both. It won’t take more than half an hour to go through the tape, right, Shannon?”
“I guess we can do it quickly,” Shannon assented, smiling gratefully at Jessa. And Hayley watched irritation flash across May’s face as she bit her lip and said nothing, wondering if it was really the half hour that bothered her or the fact that Jessa had taken Shannon’s side instead of hers. May started yanking a comb through the tangles in her wet hair, humming a trio of notes over and over again.
They’re still waiting for the storm when they hear the engine. At first, Hayley thinks it’s the thunder arriving, a distant, stuttering purr that comes and goes. Or the sea, the sound of the waves crashing more wildly as the wind starts to whip them higher. But it gets louder until it’s unmistakable. A plane or a helicopter, perhaps very close, perhaps quite far away—it’s impossible to tell between the rising wind and the thick, gray clouds.
“It’s a plane! It’s a fucking plane!” Jason laughs maniacally, screaming, “I fucking told you! I fucking told you so!” at no one in particular.
Jessa’s face is flooded with relief, tears pooling quietly in the corners of her eyes. But Elliot looks worried.
“I think it’s coming from the northwest,” he says in a low voice, his eyes on Jessa.
“What does that mean?” Hayley asks him quietly.
“They might not see the SOS. And the fire’s almost out.”
Hayley looks at the fire. Nobody has fed it for hours. It’s only the white powder of scattered ashes, not a single wisp of smoke rising up into the pregnant air.
“Can we stoke it up?”
“Not fast enough.”
Jason has overheard; the elation on his face quickly turns to consternation, then to anger.
“Build it. Build the fire up NOW. Get it smoking,” he yells, assuming the same commanding tone he uses to bark out plays on the court, a tone nobody argues with.
But Elliot spreads his hands. “I can’t. There isn’t time.”
“You idiot. You fucking idiot.” Jason is face-to-face with Elliot, his chest puffed out, his whole body bristling with rage. “You think you’re such a smart little Boy Scout with your clever water bottle tricks and your little fishing lines. But when we actually need a fire, where the fuck are you?”
“There’s a storm coming!” Elliot protests. “I didn’t see the point in wasting wood building the fire up again when it was about to be doused anyway.”
The engine is getting louder, throbbing like a physical presence in the air around them.
“What good are you?” Jason’s eyes are aflame, spit flying into Elliot’s stricken face. “You think you’re such a big man, taking over, seizing control, huh? But you can’t even keep your stupid campfire burning, you asshole.”
“We have to do something,” Jessa says desperately.
They stand there, frozen, staring up at the sky. Hayley is caught by a frenzied desire to start throwing things in the air, as if she could possibly throw anything high enough to catch the attention of a pilot, even in a low-flying plane.
Elliot is patting his pockets, frantically searching for something. He pulls out the mirror he extricated from the phone yesterday.
“We can signal them!” he yells, setting off at a run, crashing into the trees. “If we can get to high enough ground, we can signal them.”
And after a split second, the others throw themselves after him.
Elliot runs without looking back. He turns sharply to the right, pushing through the trees, and for the first time Hayley approaches the steep incline where the ground rises up into a hill, the trees becoming slightly sparser. They are halfway up when the rain starts, fat drops that penetrate Hayley’s clothes and soak her hair, somehow wetter than any rain she has felt before. The noise of the plane is louder at the top of the hill, a motorized roar that sounds as if it must be directly above them, but all Hayley can see are rolling black clouds, the raindrops whizzing down faster now, stinging her eyes when she tries to spot the plane.
Elliot has the mirror in his palm, tilting it this way and that, but Hayley can see that it’s useless—there’s no sun left to reflect, no glinting beam to force whoever is flying above to take notice of them. The clouds are so thick, hanging so close she would be surprised if the pilot even realized there was an island below at all. What was left of the sunset has been swallowed up completely, darkness strangling the island faster and more completely than it ever has before.
Still Elliot strains his arm up, holding the useless mirror above his head like a shield. And even though the others can see it’s useless too, they crowd around him, the ground in front of their feet falling away in a sharp twenty-foot drop. They screech and wave their arms shamelessly, voices grating hoarse in desperation, hands stretched up toward what little moonlight penetrates the clouds. They are drowning, screaming their fear at the dark, bruised sky.
***
Nobody could say later exactly how it happened, or even at what moment, except that one minute they were all there, suspended in the clammy hot-and-cold air, their eyes raking the sky as the rain sliced down in sheets around them, their own harsh voices filling each other’s ears. And the next moment, Elliot was falling, his body U-shaped as his arms and legs floated up toward them, plummeting in slow motion into the welcoming jaws of the bushes and rocks below.