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Chapter five

Kingsley

I wake up slowly to the sounds of ocean waves and birds chirping. Is this a new playlist? I roll onto my back and open my eyes. The sight of the yellow raft brings me crashing back to reality. The crash, the island.

“Fuck,” I whisper as the memories flood back in.

Someone had tried to kill us.

About five hours into our flight from Perth, the controls started to go haywire, making it almost impossible for West to control the plane.

After about ten minutes of that, a small explosion came from the empty co-pilot seat, taking out half the dashboard.

The plane started going down quickly after that.

Bower and I rushed to the storage closet for the parachutes, and when we opened it and saw only one there, we looked at each other and swallowed heavily before our gazes turned to the pilot, West. It was obvious someone had placed an explosive on the plane, something small enough that it would make us crash, but would be hidden from us.

I’m not sure why they bothered leaving one parachute, though.

Maybe to torment us with the choice of who gets to use it ?

But I knew who would be wearing it. So did Bower.

We had made some enemies in life. We weren’t bad people, but when you have money, you make enemies everywhere just by existing.

So we grabbed West and man-handled him into the parachute.

He fought us the whole time, but we didn’t give him a choice.

I anchored Bower and I with tight rope before he opened the door and we shoved West out.

I can still hear him cursing us, even now.

I really hoped he survived, he didn’t deserve to die just because he had the bad luck of being our pilot that day.

At least Bower and I saw eye to eye on that.

Reece, Bower and I were closer than brothers.

We’d all been through a lot over the years.

Bower and I grew up together, and when he was twelve, his parents died, so my parents took him in, adopting him into our family.

We met Reece in prep school. He was this angry teenager, ready to fight anyone just for looking at him.

He didn’t want anything to do with us. But I could see he was in pain.

Bower had lost his parents, and I had lost my own father only a year earlier, so we were no strangers to grief.

When Reece finally opened up, it changed everything between us. The three of us became inseparable and eventually went into business together.

Many people had tried to push us apart, especially any girlfriends Bower or I had over the years.

But as soon as they realized we’d choose our friendship over them, they’d bail.

They were all after us for our money, anyway.

That was if they got that far, most of the time Reece scared them off.

He had zero tolerance for women, thanks to his first girlfriend leaving him in such a brutal fashion.

“You awake?” I turn my head to see Bower watching me.

“Yeah.” I glance down at my watch, which was a failed prototype of sorts for a new technology our company had been working on. It didn’t do what we wanted, but it still worked as a smart watch, and apparently it’s waterproof, too.

“Seven-fifteen.” I lift my head and glance out the hole to the calm ocean. “Looks sunny out, too. Ready to go see what this island has in store for us today?”

He groans as he gets on his hands and knees. “Not really, I’m starving though, where’s the breakfast buffet when you need it?”

I chuckle as I follow him out, pushing to my feet from the sand. I turn towards the island and gasp. “Holy shit, what—Where did all of this come from?” I ask, my wide eyes looking at an array of fresh fruit on the ground behind our raft in the shade.

“Maybe it was my little lemur buddy?” Bower asks, dropping to his knees and grabbing a mango.

“Fuck this is good!” he mumbles around a mouthful.

I sit with him and we feast on the food.

I know we should probably ration it, but right now, I’m starving and don’t care.

Besides, if fresh fruit grows here, I’m sure there’s more to be found.

There are mangos, something that look similar to a plum, guavas, prickly pears and lychees. We silently feast, watching the ocean for any sign of life.

“Should we build a fire, or make a giant SOS sign out of sticks or something?” Bower asks, as he grabs a fresh lychee and digs in.

“Probably. The fire would have to be huge to be seen from far away, though, and we don’t want to risk burning down the island.

But if a plane gets close enough, it could work.

We should set it up on the beach here. We could build it pretty big without risking the jungle,” I tell him, considering our options as I speak.

“Why don't we investigate the interior a bit first? Hopefully, we can find fresh water and a place to set up camp. I’m not convinced the beach is the safest place to sleep in a storm. ”

“I’m pretty stiff from laying in the sand. What are the chances there’s an abandoned five-star hotel out here somewhere?”

“It’d say your odds are slim to none,” I tell him, finishing off the last guava. “We need to thank your little friend for our breakfast.”

“Yeah, I wonder where he is?” Bower asks, turning his gaze to the trees.

When we finally finish eating, we start to gather all the wood we can find at the edge of the jungle. “Do you want to keep collecting more, and I’ll start laying out SOS?” I ask, realizing this is going to take some time.

“Sure, at least I can be in the shade a bit, it’s bloody hot out here.” He pulls off his shirt and throws in on his bag in passing and I do the same. I don’t want to get burned, but at least I wasn’t pasty white to begin with. My shirt was already drenched with sweat, anyway.

It takes us a few hours of hard work, but finally we have a large SOS sign and a giant stack of wood we can light if we see a plane. Not that we had a way to light it.

“I don’t suppose you have a lighter on you?” I ask, staring at it with concern.

“Fuck, no. I didn’t even think about that. Can’t we like, rub sticks together or something?”

“Haven’t you ever watched Survivor? Those contestants practice before going on that show, and most of them spend hours trying to light a fire. If we see a plane coming, we need a flame, fast. This whole thing needs to be blazing within minutes.”

“Maybe we can find something useful in there,” he says, pointing to the jungle behind me.

I sigh before scrubbing my hand through my hair. “We may as well take a look. I’m ready for some shade anyway, I’m gonna put a dry shirt on. ”

“Yeah, good idea.”

I kneel down and open my bag, rummaging through, looking for my favorite shirt. “Hmm, where are you?”

“You can’t find a clean shirt?”

“It’s my favorite one, I can’t find it.”

“Do you need to borrow one, I have another?”

“Nah, I got a spare, I was just looking for that specific one. I must have left it… somewhere,” I mumble, frowning as a pull on a clean t-shirt. I know I had it with me, I wore it when we left San Francisco. Did I leave it somewhere in Perth?

I suggest we take our bags this time and Bower agrees. I look around, hoping to find a path that will miraculously appear, but in the end we decide we’ll just have to push through the dense jungle. “Fuck!” I swear, when I’m whacked in the face with a branch.

“Ouch!” Bower cries out, being attacked by the same foliage as me. A small thump to our side pulls us to a stop and we both look to our left. “What was that?” he whispers.

“I’m not sure, we should go look,” I whisper back, unsure of my decision.

We carefully push through the hanging branches, vines and bushes and about twenty feet later, I step out into the middle of a path.

Looking to my left, I can see it reaches the beach, only a few leaves covering the entrance.

“Son of a bitch,” I say in defeat, realizing we missed the path and were pushing through the dense jungle for nothing.

Bower sees what I’m looking at and swears. “Shit. Well, at least we have a path to take now,” he says excitedly, looking in the other direction. It weaves around a corner so we can’t see very far, but we have no choice but to take it. I wasn’t eager to leave this path now we’ve found it .

Eventually, we come to a split in the path but can’t see much in either direction.

“Let’s go left,” I say, hopeful there is something there.

Bower leads the way and we walk silently as I consider what could have made these paths.

They are naturally made. Are there large mammals that walk through here regularly?

I suppose smaller mammals could have done it if there were enough of them.

It was only about four feet wide, but the perfect width for us.

“Keep your eye out for a good place to make a more permanent camp,” I tell Bower as I look into the jungle beside us, hoping to spot something. A small, vacant cave, perhaps?

“How about that?” he asks as I turn my head back to him. He’s stopped in a clearing and I step up beside him, my jaw dropping open.

“Holy shit! Who built this? Swiss family Robinson?” My eyes bounce around the three huts built into the trees. Three different sizes. The smallest looked really run down, but the other two were in much better shape.

“Did the lemurs build this?” he asks, and I whip my head to him.

“You can’t be serious right now, Bower.”

He laughs, giving me a wink before stepping closer to what appears to be a hanging ladder. “Of course not. But who do you think built it?” And are they still here? “Hello?” he yells up to the treehouse. We wait silently, and when we hear nothing, he shrugs and starts to climb the ladder.

“Be careful, we don't have any weapons to defend ourselves,” I warn him, as my eyes continually scan our surroundings for any sort of threat.

When he makes it to the top and pulls himself to his feet, he looks around before moving to the door of the largest hut. “Honey, I’m home!” he calls, right before he pushes the door open and steps inside. I hold my breath and anxiously wait for him to either say it's safe or call out in fear.

“Holy shit!” He comes out, his eyes bright as he looks down at me with a huge grin. “I think we just found our five-star hotel!” I smile back and quickly climb up, eager to see what has him so excited.

When I step inside the hut, I see a makeshift bed from an animal hide, a hammock hanging across the other side of the room, and a table and chair. The walls are covered with tiny marks that looked like they’ve been carved into the wood, one by one, too random to of been made any other way.

“Look at the roof,” Bower says, pointing up.

“That looks rain proof.”

“Nothing in here is wet from last night's storm,” Bower says, unable to stop smiling.

“Fuck, this is amazing. I wonder who built it.”

“You think they got rescued?”

“It’s either that or..” I trail off, we both know if the person that built this is gone, it either means they got rescued or they’re dead.

“Why don't we check out the other huts?” I suggest, looking for a change in subject.

I choose to believe the person who built this was saved from this island, which means our chance of rescue is more likely, too.

We carefully walk across the skywalk to the middle sized hut and open the door. “Wow, look at all this stuff,” Bower says, walking around and touching everything.

I pick up an object that could resemble a bowl…

If I squinted. Beside it is another one, marginally better.

Then I find another. I realize that they progressively get better.

Whoever made these spent a lot of time making th em over and over, trying to get the design right.

The same went for the plates, utensils and bags.

“Hey, look what’s laying right here! Are these for water?” Bower says, stepping up to the table in the center of the room. I move beside him and pick one up, looking it over.

“I think you’re right, they look like waterskins. These are going to be lifesavers.”

“Do you think that means there’s fresh water here?”

“Maybe, they might have filled them with coconut water, though.” I untie mine and give it a sniff. “Doesn’t smell like coconuts.”

“Let’s check the other hut,” he suggests. We throw the convenient straps from the waterskins over our necks and move to the last hut.

The door is a little stuck and we have to give it a good yank to get it open.

“Whoa,” Bower says as we look around. It’s like the junk drawer of the island. It’s filled with lots of handmade items, like furniture, bags and baskets. Most of it, if not all of it, is broken and poorly made. I see more than a few attempts at chairs and tables.

“There’s a lot of stuff in here.”

“Yeah,” I agree, my eyes scanning the jam-packed hut. “Whoever made this stuff was here a long time.” I shiver as I step back towards the door. “This place feels like it’s filled with ghosts.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Bower agrees. We make sure the door shuts behind us and I decide I’m going to avoid going back in that hut as much as possible.

“Okay, why don't we leave our bags in the main hut, then go back and see where that other path leads?” I suggest .

“Sounds good to me. Maybe my little buddy will pay us a visit and leave us more food!” Bower says hopefully, making me laugh.

“What? Like island Uber?” I ask with a smile. A lemur that delivers food? I shake my head at the thought. Who knows what else this island has in store for us.