Bum's Rush

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All frolickers, fellators, and fuckers in this work of fiction are of legal age to fornicate.

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Prologue

Three years ago, I started working at this venture capital place as a web-designer. It's a fairly large company - but it's small enough that everybody mostly knows everybody.

The benefits are above average, and the employees are motivated by profit-sharing options and a 401k with a superior matching program.

Three months ago, there was an opening in our fitness and wellness department. I emailed the info to my sister. She applied and got the job.

Megan is not a supermodel - but she's fit, taller than most women, and has thin legs - so her butt (while not big) draws the eyes of most men. With her light brown hair (that stops just short of her shoulders) and her mostly flat (B cup, maybe) chest, she looks like a gazelle - strong and graceful.

Last month, one of the founder's kids - Rich Ridley - who is an Assistant VP in Marketing - asked Meg out.

The first date went well enough - and he's (obviously) connected - so she said "yes" to a couple more.

Ridley quickly turned into an ogre on a power-trip so Meg started turning him down.

A week later, he appeared at my desk - to try to get me to pressure her into changing her mind.

The conversation started with promises - but moved to implied threats fairly quickly. It was pretty easy to see why Megan was telling him "no".

Besides that, I'm not about to push her into a relationship with this arrogant fucker when I spent so much time convincing her this was a great place to work.

The entitled twat came back a couple more times - each time with a new angle - and then he suddenly stopped showing up.

Last week, Meg and I each got pulled into HR. We're being moved to a new branch office that's opening near Panama.

We each get $100k in moving expenses and will be part of an advance team that will be coordinating logistics from the ground up.

It's an "opportunity of a lifetime" - they said - and not optional.

Of course, as soon as I got back from HR, I started asking my computer-nerd coworkers about the new Pearl Islands office. They peeked into all of the data we have access to. As far as we can determine, there is no office opening in Panama - and never will be.

Welcome to the Bum's Rush.

What to Pack?

From what Megan and I are being told, we're flying into Panama. From there, we'll travel by boat to the prospective location.

Supposedly, there's an intermodal cargo (Conex) box of supplies getting dropped off with us.

We'll have international phone service via towers on the mainland. We'll set up and organize the new campus - using local labor - and notify the corporate office when we're ready for the rest of the team members to be deployed.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that a fitness trainer and a web-programmer would not be the right people for this task - which helps confirm that the whole story is a work of fiction.

Since it's pretty obvious we're being dropped on a deserted island and left for dead, I started trying to figure out what I needed to take with me.

Honestly, I'm betting we get chloroformed and dumped - with nothing more than the clothes on our backs - but I'd like to hope it won't be that bad.

Best-case scenario: I load a backpack with as much shit as I think I can carry - and hope the fuckers they hire to dispose of us are generous enough to let me keep it all.

Maybe I'll carry a wallet, overloaded with cash, and either use that as a bribe - or hope they just knock us out, steal the money, and take off.

When I got home, I dug through my storage crates, looking for my old Boy Scout shit.

Most of the stuff our Scout Troop had bought (or made) was already stored in non-descript containers - like an Altoids tin for the fire piston and the char-cloth scraps.

I found my old trail-pack and started grabbing stuff that looked useful.

I threw a couple knives in - with a sharpener. I found some tools that fold down to make them easier to transport: a tree saw, a shovel, and a mattock.

Of course, I pitched in a bundle of parachute cord, a roll of duct tape, and a small tarp.

For meals, I grabbed two mess kits, a couple small pots, and a net hammock that could double as a net for fishing.

I found a small first-aid kit, sewing kit, a hand mirror, a compass, iodine tablets, a wind-up flashlight - as well as some bug spray, aloe, and sunscreen.

I didn't see any mosquito netting so I ordered some with expedited shipping. It showed up the next day.

I packed all the items into the various stuff-sacks I'd collected over time, loaded them into the bottom of my pack, and threw a couple outfits (plus spare socks & underwear) on top.

The bag was nearly bursting at the seams. When we leave Panama, I need a couple bottles of water - for both the water - and the bottles.

In my pockets, I'll have my phone, an extra battery, and my charger - whatever good that'll do - in a waterproof pouch (since I expect to be tossed overboard).

Megan came over. She was crying before I even got the door open. I wrapped her in a hug and pulled her inside. It took a while, but I eventually got her settled down.

I assured her that this was no more her fault than mine - and that going back to the jerk would have accomplished nothing if he was this easily angered - and this empowered.

My goal was to survive long enough to be rescued - and come back to find another job outside of his circle of influence.

In the meantime, the $100k would be invested and - someday - his "severance package" should fund the bulk of my retirement - which I viewed as the ultimate revenge.

Meg was not as up-beat, obviously, but, after we talked for a while, she decided that my approach offered: (a) the best shot at surviving this with our sanity still intact, and (b) a way to minimize the long-term effects (assuming we lived to tell about it).

I'm not that smart but, being a couple years older, Meg has always come to me when she needed to deal with something that she didn't want to bug mom & dad with.

We talked about how much we could share with them about what was going on.

HR had made us sign an NDA that seemed a little cagey but I didn't have any lawyer friends to run it by to see for sure.

In the end, we decided to go with the company story for mom & dad - but leave an "in case of emergency" Manilla envelope under the pillows in our old rooms that they could open once we'd been declared MIA.

Meg had just been getting ready to go apartment hunting when Ridley started causing problems - so her stuff was all still at home.

I'd had my own apartment for a while now but I'd informed my landlord about the transfer and would be moving all of my shit back to mom & dad's.

I dug around a little more in my leftover Boy Scout stuff and ended up filling half of Meg's pack with duplicates of most of the items that were in mine.

She didn't get the foldable tools but I found a small hatchet that seemed like it might be a good idea.

I only had one fire-piston so she ended up with a flint & steel but - other than that - our loads were fairly similar.

I also threw two small BPA-free water bottles in her bag.

A couple days before we were scheduled to leave, $100,000 showed up in each of our bank accounts.

After doing a little research, I visited the State Department, set up accounts for each of us at the US Embassy in Panama City, and transferred $5000 to each account.

The rest of the money (as well as most of what was in my savings) went into moderately aggressive mutual funds that would shift to more a conservative portfolio a little at a time over the next 30 years.

For Meg, we left her savings alone (there wasn't much there yet) and just shifted her $100,000 into mutual funds set up the same way mine were.

Print outs of the accounts, sign-in IDs & passwords, and everything else we didn't want to lose went into the Manilla folders and got tucked under our pillows.

We gave mom & dad hugs and caught an Uber to the airport.

Meg had $300 stored where it was easily accessible and another $200 in a thin money-belt around her waist. She was dressed in long sleeves and full-length pants that would keep skin from the UV rays - as well as from roaming eyes.

I was also dressed to avoid the sun - but in fabrics that were as light as Meg's - with $500 hidden in my money-belt and $1000 in my wallet.

Our money belts also had laminated photocopies of the ID page from our passports.

When we got to the gate and sat down, Meg took my hand in hers and wouldn't let me shake her off.

I tried to talk her off the ledge - and she really didn't seem that stressed - but she insisted on maintaining physical contact the whole time.

When I complained that I needed both hands to reply to an email, she hooked her left arm through my right one and leaned against my shoulder.

Once she was sure I was done with my business, she reclaimed my hand.

Expatriates

As soon as we were in our seats, Megan was back to insisting on either the hand-holding or the arm-lock with the head on my shoulder.

I kissed her forehead and told her it would be fine.

She kissed my cheek, snuggled under my arm, threw her arms around my chest, and hung on like we were falling out of the sky. We were still waiting on the rest of the passengers to load.

The stress must have exhausted her because she fell asleep before we'd even taxied to the runway.

I hooked my arm through hers, interlocked our fingers, and leaned her head on my shoulder.

A little over five hours later, we were waiting on the people in front of us to get off so we could disembark.

We went to baggage claim and collected our two large packs.

With all the questionable hardware inside, the only way to take them with us was to check them.

Meg's pack didn't look like it had been touched - even with the hatchet inside.

A few of my things were, obviously, not where I had put them - so they'd at least done a cursory inspection of the contents of my pack.

We flagged down a taxi, told him our destination - with one waypoint - and climbed in with our bags.

Our first stop was the US Embassy. We checked in, confirmed that our money was sitting there, and then gave them as many details as we knew about where we were going and what we'd been told we were doing.

Since we didn't know when we'd be back, there wasn't really a way to tell them when they should start looking for the bodies - but at least they'd have a record that we'd been here at this point.

We returned to the taxi which, thankfully, was still waiting - and - bonus points! - our packs looked untouched.

The driver headed towards the piers to track down our charter boat.

The gentleman at the office seemed fairly normal - and the guys loading the supplies on the boat didn't seem that much worse than we'd expected.

Maybe all our fears about being kidnapped by a drug cartel were just the result of overactive imaginations ..

Listening to the workers speak, however, the only guy who seemed to understand English was the one we'd just given our paperwork to.

The rest of the workers spoke in a version of Spanish that wasn't quite the same as the one that I'd learned in high school.

With my rusty memory - and sluggish speed at parsing their words - I only had a vague idea of what they were saying.

I decided that I was better off acting like I didn't understand them at all.

The boat was about the size that I'd been on when I took a dolphin cruise at Myrtle Beach.

Soon enough, we were escorted aboard the craft and the crew began shoving off.

As I had anticipated, there was no Conex box on the ship.

"Maybe it's already sitting on the beach," I thought to myself. "Yeah, right."

I half-expected to have my arms bound and a burlap sack thrown over my head.

Meg was back to holding my hand again. A few of the crew members definitely noticed her nervousness (and probably mine) but I didn't see any overt reactions so I tried to play it cool.

After about an hour of traveling across open water, we pulled into a small, quiet bay with a beautiful sandy beach and sparkling blue water.

A large gentleman who seemed to have the respect of the rest of the crew approached us and motioned for us to stand.

He took us to the side of the boat and pointed to the shore.

It was going to be about a quarter-mile swim and there's no way we'd be able to do it with the packs we were carrying.

He pointed to a small lifeboat, tethered to the side of the boat, and made a motion that seemed to indicate that he'd sell me the dinghy if I had enough cash.

I took out my wallet, thumbed through the bills, peeled off half of them, and handed them over.

He looked at what was in his hand and then at what was in my wallet.

He motioned to the guy next to him - who handed him two oars.

Holding the oars, he looked back at my wallet.

I dug out the rest of the bills and gave them to him.

They disappeared into his pocket.

He nodded at the crew members and they started untying the small craft.

Once it was in the water, they helped us into it, handed us our packs, and then passed us the oars.

The captain gave me a little salute and then one of the crew members gave us a shove with his foot.

I got the oars into their mounts and started rowing.

As soon as we were a quarter of the way to the beach, they started their boat and disappeared.

As they pulled away, I was relieved and angry, all at the same time.

Meg threw her arms around me and hugged me.

I paused my rowing until she got that out of her system and then I went back to work.

Half the time, the waves seemed to be helping me; the other half, it felt like all my forward progress was erased each time one of them hit us.

Meg took over for a bit and I took a drink from one of the water bottles I'd grabbed.

As soon as she petered out, I took over again.

It seemed like another hour passed before we got close enough that we could hop out of the boat, into waist-deep water, and drag the thing to the sand.

I decided the dinghy was going to serve one of two purposes - maybe both by the time we were done. It would be a hard roof for a shelter or - when the rains came - it would be a reservoir for fresh water.

We drug it away from the water's edge and looked up and down the thin beach.

Stranded

I dug the mattock out of my pack and Meg got her hatchet.

We left the rest of the things in the lifeboat and went through the gap in the bushes to look for water sources, wildlife, shelter locations, and edibles.

Not really seeing anything - good in the case of predators - bad in the case of everything else on our list - we headed back to the boat.

Although it had looked like midafternoon when we'd arrived, we could tell that we didn't have a lot of time before it was going to be dark.

The layout of the benches in the boat didn't look like we'd be able to rest by just lying in it.

We found a few lengths of bamboo that looked like it had washed in from somewhere else and laid them across the benches.

There weren't quite enough to fill the whole area but it should work - at least for now.

I ran the para-cord between two palm trees, threw the tarp over it, staked down the sides, and then we drug the dinghy under the roof.

I'd read that there are biting flies here - so we unrolled the mosquito netting, removed the tarp, hung the netting, replaced the tarp over the top, and then draped the netting around us as we sat on the bamboo pallet we'd constructed.

Meg surprised me with a small package of beef jerky - which we split - chasing it with a few sips of bottled water - before trying to use our extra clothes to make a thin mattress on our pole-bed.

We didn't hear any large animals but as true-dark set in, there was a lot of "scuttling" sounds.

I shined my phone's flashlight at the palm tree at our feet to find little multi-color fiddler-looking crabs hanging from the bark, staring back at me.

It seemed like they hadn't been able to climb up the sides of the boat so, for now at least, we didn't have to share our bed with them.

I was hotter than I've ever been when trying to sleep - but Meg insisted on snuggling into me the whole night.

I put my arm around her head & neck so she'd have a little more of a pillow - although I was pretty miserable by the time the sun started coming up the next morning.

Overall, our first night wasn't horrible.

The crustaceous crusaders had been kept at bay, no large animals seemed to be around, and the netting had kept most of the flies off of us.

We would probably acclimate to the heat - but it was still going to be a problem for a while.

We definitely needed a shelter with ventilation.

Day 1

We'd just started to leave our boat-bed when a coconut dropped out of the tree and slid down the tarp - striking the edge of the boat with a sound that made it clear that we didn't want to be hit with any of those!

I added hardened-roof to the list of amenities that our shelter needed.

Meg was still clingy. She wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom by myself. That was a little awkward.

You ever watch girls pee? That must suck. Glad I can just whip it out, go, tuck it back in, and be on my way. What a pain in the ass! (And it sounds like a fire-sprinkler going off - but anyway ..)

I used the tree saw on the green coconut that hit our shelter and was able to get a hole we could drink out of.

I'm sure we'll grow to hate it but - for now - we both enjoyed the flavor of the water it held inside.

I found a bag of fruit snacks in my pocket so we split those for breakfast.

I didn't know what else Meg had for food - but that was the last of what I had with me.

I finally remembered to check my phone. Of course, there's no signal. I shut it off and put it back in the waterproof pouch. Meg did the same with hers.

Today's tasks: catch some fish, start a fire, and get started on a more permanent shelter.

First, however, we should probably do a little wider tour of the area and see if - just maybe - there's a fresh-water source around. That would make things a hell of a lot easier.

We walked directly from the beach to whatever would be on the opposite side of this land mass.

I tried to keep my path as straight as possible.

As we walked, we collected every straight stick we could find and laid it along our path, pointing back to the boat.

We each finished our first bottle of water and still hadn't found anything helpful. We turned around and followed our stick-trail back to base.

As we went, we collected anything we could use for firewood - but left the stick-trail where it was.

Meg and I took the hammock-net for a short walk in the lagoon and netted (pun intended) ourselves a half dozen hand-sized fish without too much effort.

We dug a hole, cleaned the fish, buried the refuse, and covered it back over - well away from our base-camp.

I got a fire going and fed it until we had a nice bed of coals in a small pit.

Meg used her hatchet and I used my mattock and we got the husks off of a few brown coconuts. We cracked them open with her hatchet and refilled our water bottles (and our bellies) with the fluids.

The brown ones have "distilled" a little - acquiring sweetness from the meat - so we needed to alternate this with either fresh water or coconut water from the green ones - in order to avoid bathroom problems.

We took a burlap-like husk from a palm tree, squeezed the "cream" out of the coconuts - spilling it into one of my small pots - before adding the fish and setting it on the glowing coals.