Castaways Ch. 02

The rocks in the can made a sound startling John. He bolted upright and with Em beside him, she felt him move. It was still dark outside, just before dawn. Next they heard groans and then what sounded like thrashing. John jumped to his knees. He grabbed the small scissors from his back pocket and a club he had. He wished he'd had more time for making weapons. He moved to the door, looked out, and then got up outside the hut. Em moved to the doorway with the flare gun in hand.

The sight before them made them both freeze in astonishment. John's booby trap had worked beyond his wildest dreams. On the other side of the old campfire, both Manuel and Pacho lay or hung speared by the boards from the trees. Manuel must have tripped the vine since he was in front. He apparently had stopped in his tracks when he did which was a huge mistake. The sharpened board from one of the palms had swung loose with the broken vine trip wire and come swinging down. John had only hoped that they would actually hit someone but Manuel had stood right in its path.

He must have turned slightly to his right before the point hit him as it had entered his body on the right side of his stomach. John couldn't see an exit wound, so it must have struck bone, and probably shattered inside him. Surprisingly, the vine holding the board had held up in the palm and Manuel, not yet dead, was on his knees staring straight at them. He had a faraway look in his eyes and what looked like a spear in his hand.

Pacho had, unfortunately for him, been about a step behind his brother. Like Manuel, he had turned towards the oncoming board that struck his brother, apparently never seeing the one from the other palm. It hit Pacho above his left kidney and exited out the right side of his stomach. His vine, however, had broken under his weight and he lay dead in a heap behind Manuel, the board protruding from his back.

John was in shock until he heard Duane scream and throw something at him. It was a spear like Manuel's and just missed John as he sidestepped to the right. It went through the side of the hut and disappeared inside. Duane was screaming again as he charged John with the same large piece of broken shell he had used on Em's shirt and bra. John had little time to react before Duane slammed into him and the two of them into the front of the hut. John's back hit the driftwood supports of the hut cracking something. He felt a sharp pain in his back and dropped the board as they rolled to the ground. Duane was on top of him and still screaming.

"You fuckin' bastard! I'll kill you," Duane hollered.

He brought his right hand with the shell down hard at John. John's back was on the sand but he managed to catch Duane's hand on the descent with his good left hand. The scissors on his fingers of that hand just hung there useless to him. Duane pushed down with all his might, trying to stab John with the long sharpened end of the shell. It was fortunate that John was using his good left hand to hold Duane's right but Duane had the downward leverage on him. Duane was able to use his body weight to further strengthen his thrust. John fought as hard as he could but sensed he might be losing ground.

Duane tried punching him with his left hand and all John could do was block some of the blows with his right arm. His hand caught one and hurt worse than the punch would have. John tried wrestling Duane off him but the guy had too good of leverage and renewed his pressing attack with the knife-like shell. John could feel himself weakening and the blade was coming closer to his neck. He was looking into Duane's hysterical and determined face. Duane was determined to kill him for what he had done to his friends.

John was just about out of strength and the blade inches from his neck when Duane's facial expression changed dramatically. Suddenly he had a pained look and the strength drained from his arms. John managed to push him off just as a gush of blood sprang from his mouth onto the sand beside him. It was then, John noticed Em standing over him. He also saw a spear protruding from Duane's back. From the blood coming from Duane's mouth and nose and his raspy, shallow breathing, he knew Em had punctured a lung. Duane lasted less than a minute before he completely dropped to the ground from his elbows and knees.

John jumped up but felt the pain to his back. He put his hand back there and it came back bloody. He must have stabbed himself on one of the pieces of driftwood in the hut. It didn't feel too deep though. John saw that Manuel had already slumped over, but the board and vine remarkably still held him up somehow. Em was hugging John and crying. He held her tightly as he surveyed what had happened in less than five minutes. All three of the men were dead.

He held Em for a long time until her crying stopped. When she stopped he led her back to the hut and told her to wait inside. He didn't want her to see any more of the carnage that covered their campsite. John's back hurt, his hand hurt, his leg hurt, and he was still catching his breath, but he managed to cut Manuel down with Duane's makeshift knife.

He used the vines to tie around the feet of the dead bodies and one by one dragged them from the camp and down onto the beach. He planned to bury them later after he rested a bit. He cleaned up the blood by just throwing more sand over it. He dismantled the rest of his trip wires. John had the camp somewhat back to normal but the time he went to Em in the hut. She was curled up on the bed in a fetal position. He lay down and hugged her. She squeezed his arm back.

That day they buried the bodies but not before removing a lighter from the pockets of each of them. They also surprisingly found bags of condoms on Manuel and Pacho. They learned their full names from their wallets. They had been from Miami.

Afterwards, they ate coconut and peanuts again, chasing it with water. Em wanted to know why those guys would've had so many condoms on them. The only explanation John could come up with was maybe they were mules, traffickers of narcotics, and used the condoms to put the cocaine in before somehow stuffing them inside their bodies. He had heard or read somewhere of such crazy things. Some people had even died from overdoses when the condoms broke.