Flotsam and Jetsam

Right now, a chill ran down my already freezing spine as I watched her walking towards the water unbelieving, not making a sound, but with her arm accusingly pointing towards us. Had it not been so threatening, it might have been funny. Her expression was one of profound horror, totally exaggerated, like in some 1920s silent movie. Her mouth was open as if in a scream, but no sound came.

We were staring at her and I almost wished she'd finally get over with it and start to scream. That was exactly what she did and we watched aghast as the others jumped up with a start, looking around in confusion.

Finally, Liam grasped the situation. He grabbed Pattinson and Holloway and pulled his drowsy henchmen toward the beach.

"Come on," I urged Liz forward. We had forgotten to swim as the small drama unfolded. Now, as Liam started to run towards the water, we had found some extra motivation. I looked back from time to time and saw him laughing like a madman as he was running into the sea. He seemed happy in a totally crazy way.

"He can't swim, right," Liz asked between her strokes.

"That's what he said."

"I'm gonna get you! You won't survive this," he happily shouted from behind us. "Ouch. God damn!" It sounded like he had found one of the sharp coral chunks that were scattered on the sandy ground. Weirdly, I winced a bit as I could almost feel his pain. To my surprise, it didn't slow him down much. If anything, the pain seemed to spur him on. He looked like some Greek God in a rage. Damn, this could get real ugly fast.

"Stop, you assholes!" he tried to convince us, but we both strongly tended to decline. "Wait," he idiotically added. Again, we didn't follow his suggestion. I turned around and saw the reason for his willingness to negotiate. He was up to his neck in it, literally.

"We don't think so, as long as Holloway is in the mood for a swim."

Liam turned around and saw Holloway right behind him, executing some ridiculously schoolboy-like swimming moves. He was clearly not the most experienced swimmer in the world, but he was still better than his master. Liam stopped him with a gesture and sent him back to the beach.

"Jacob, we could really use you here. Liz, you too. Help me out, mate." He tried to change his tone, but he wasn't very convincing. Besides, I'm not a mate. I'm a bosun.

"I don't believe a word he says," Liz said, while she was paddling on the spot. "He'll kill us immediately."

"Shut up, woman! This is a discussion among men. Listen, Jacob. I know that you are a better leader. Our supplies are running out. Actually, they have already run out. You know this island survival shit better than we do. Help us out, mate."

"Why should we believe you, Liam?" I calmly asked.

"Well, why not? We'd all be better off if you returned."

"What about your search party? You shouted something like 'I will kill you slowly' if I remember correctly."

"I was frustrated, man. We needed your help and we couldn't find you."

"I see. And because you needed our help, you wanted to kill us?"

"Come on, I was angry, okay? I'm calm now."

"I see. That's why you told us that we'd not survive this just a few minutes ago?"

"Come on, don't believe everything I say. You know that I have a temper."

"Yes, I know. We all know. So, you think we should trust the man who killed Richard Jenson because he wanted his wife?"

"Man, that was an accident. Everyone knows that."

"Harold Smythe? Another accident?"

"Come on, now. He was a blithering idiot."

"What about you trying to rape poor Helene and killing her when she resisted you?"

"You asshole! I see this is leading nowhere fast. You know what? You're right. I still want to kill you. You know this and your bitch knows it as well. Okay, you're cleverer than me. You are the better leader. And you know what? No one gives a shit because you will never lead anything. All you're going to lead is a very short life." He chuckled upon hearing his own wit.

"So, you want to swim to the wreck? Go ahead. We know our way around in there as well. We know where you are now. We're going to get you, asshole."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why are you going to kill us? What's in there for you?"

"What? What do you mean?" The question seemed to surprise him. This was quickly turning into the weirdest conversation I ever had, and I had quite a few weird ones. Liz was watching it, fascinated.

"Well, why wouldn't I?" he answered after a while.

"Only morons don't need a reason. Problem is that you are one. You have already been unable to organize shit, here. You have been unable to find me. Your life is misery, while I had it good.

"If you follow us to the wreck, we'd have a fight of the smarter one against the stronger one. Who knows how it would end? You don't know why you want to fight, but I can tell you why you don't want to. You might get injured or killed. You want to risk everything, but you don't even know why."

He seemed to think about that. I just hoped he'd do it quickly because the sea was still damn cold at this time of the day. After a while, he looked pleased, as if he'd just had a brilliant idea. I just hoped it was the right one.

"Know what? Fuck you. I don't give a shit, I'll kill you just because I want to."

I just shrugged my shoulder, turned to Liz and said "coming, my dear?"

"With pleasure, my love," she answered gracefully and we both continued to swim.

"Holloway, you asshole! Where are you?" he shouted towards the beach. The poor guy had just reached the shore and reluctantly turned around again, wading back into the water.

"What?" he shouted towards Liam.

"Go, get them!"

"Okay," was the meek reply. The rest of the group was passively standing on the beach like a flock of sheep.

We easily won the ensuing low-speed chase and reached the wreck well before he did. Luckily, the sea was still absolutely calm, so we could avoid the ragged metal edges while entering what once was a gangway. Remnants of the wooden interior decor could still be seen, but some of it was torn and everything was blackened. It was a miracle that anyone had survived this.

The torn open gangway seemed to be the only access to the wreck, so this was where Holloway was heading as well. I had tucked the machete under my belt during the swim and we calmly watched him approach us.

"Holloway, you know that I can't let you aboard, right?"

Unsure, he looked towards the shore. I knew that he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he obviously still tried to think things through.

"He told me to get you."

"Look, we are two and you are alone. I have this machete and you don't. Just go home, okay?"

"I have a knife," he exclaimed, smiling brightly while giving away his surprise element.

"I knew he was no Einstein, but I never realized that he's such an idiot," I told Liz, who was standing next to me.

"Well, if you had stayed around, it would have been hard to miss."

"What do we do now? I can hardly kill the intellectually unarmed." He was still patiently treading water while we negotiated his fate.

"Well, he does have a knife and is intent to get us, which probably means kill us. Wait, I'm going to ask him."

"Holloway," she pleasantly addressed him. "What does 'get us' mean? Do you want to kill us?"

"Yeah, I guess that's what he wants. He talked about nothing else for days." He was too dumb to be dishonest.

"We might kill you instead," she continued in the same pleasant tone, as if speaking to a child.

His mind was made up, apparently, and he continued to swim towards us.

"Liz, find a club, please."

"What for?"

"I can hardly use the machete."

"Jacob, I can't decide this for you, but you can either kill the idiot or let him kill us. If you beat him unconscious, he will drown anyway."

Damn, she's right, I thought. We can hardly bring an injured Holloway back to the shore. Damn. He was just ten yards away now.

"Just stop, Holloway. I don't want to kill you."

He tried to answer something that sounded like "then don't," but it was hard to hear as he seemed to be very tired. Shit, this would be like drowning a kitten. I just wasn't the guy to do such things. Liz's hand on my shoulder reassured me a bit.

"This is the weirdest combination of being hunted down and an execution I've ever seen," she dryly remarked.

"How many have you seen before?"

"Smartass. Jacob, you have to decide now. Kill him, injure him or let him on board."

"The latter is not an option. He's blindly loyal to Liam."

"Right. Injuring him in the open sea is like killing him slowly."

"Shit. I don't want this."

Holloway had almost reached his final destination by then. He was grinning happily at us when he grabbed the twisted metal, pulled his body upwards and stabbed at my lower body with the knife that he had kept underwater so far.

Instinctively, I stepped back, avoiding the slashing move and answered with a stabbing one with my machete. I stepped onto a wet patch and slid forward more than I wanted to. From different points of view, we all watched in surprise as my machete was deeply embedded into his neck.

Weirdly, a crooked smile appeared on Holloway's face while Liz just said "Oh" behind me.

Yeah, oh. I had just killed a man for the first time in my life. I had also saved my lady and myself, but it still didn't feel right. Not at all. Helplessly, I watched him slide back into the sea, conveniently leaving his knife behind on the wet floor. Quick-witted, Liz grabbed it before it could follow him into the sea. Me, I didn't feel quick-witted at all. I felt numb.

"He gave you no choice. Come on, Jacob. Don't blame yourself. It was self-defense in its purest form."

I nodded, not really convinced. At least he had been sneaky in the end by hiding the knife underwater and trying to stab me. This justified what I had done a bit.

"Come on, Jacob, let's explore the wreck." She obviously tried to distract me and I appreciated it.

"You are aware that we can't go back to the island, right?"

She saw what I was looking at, which was Liam raging on the beach. It was difficult to tell from the distance, but he seemed to be practically spitting fire.

"True," she somberly confirmed.

"He'll try to get us here, on the ship, at all cost."

"Probably."

"We will have to prepare for that day, Liz. Who is left, anyway?"

"Liam, of course. Pattinson, the mute ghost. He's loyal, but not much help. He just follows Liam like a shadow. Emily is more or less doing the same, just not out of habit but because she truly adores him."

"Right. What about the rest. Kendall?"

"Have you seen him? He's lost some weight, due to our special fruit diet, but he's still fat as hell. No way he's going to reach this ship."

"Okay, then there's Lawson."

"He's in his 60s, Jacob. I admit that he's rather fit. The thing is, he's only interested in one thing, which is his own survival. If he thinks that the scales are tipping, he will switch sides in the blink of an eye. He's the classic opportunist. He might fight for Liam if he's forced to, but he won't risk anything for him."

"Lovely."

"Who else is left? The Claymoores and Anne Campbell."

"What about them, Liz?"

"I doubt that they'd swim over here to find and kill us. The Claymoores are in their 60s as well. Anne is a no-nonsense woman. As you've seen, she's also not the most attractive woman on Earth."

"She's ugly as hell," I couldn't stop myself saying.

"Jacob!" she reprimanded me like a wife might, but was still smiling. "We all know Liam will leave her and Colleen Claymoore alone, so they won't leave his side if they don't have to. Those three are being mostly ignored by everyone."

"Okay, let's check the ship."

"Aye."

I wouldn't call the results disappointing. They were actually devastating. Decomposing corpses were everywhere, the whole interior was blackened and still stank burnt and of rotting flesh. It was like entering a whole different world. The outside was bright, colorful and full of life. Inside, it was dark, spooky and depressing.

"I can't do this," Liz exclaimed just as we were stepping over the remains of Mark Wharton, one of the ship's stewards. I only recognized him because of the weird white shoes he always wore.

"We need to," I bravely said, but felt like fleeing myself. It was hot and stifling in there, water was dripping from the ceiling and the air was so thick that it was hardly breathable.

After a while, we reached the entrance of the panorama lounge right at the front of the superstructure. Surprisingly, its solid doors were still closed. The blast had occurred early in the morning, so the lounge had probably been locked and empty at the time. I knew where the key was and tentatively, we opened the doors. Anything could be behind them. Hordes of angry survivors, piles of corpses, a big gap where parts of the ship had once been.

As it turned out, it was just the plain old panorama lounge. It looked exactly as it always did. I always thought that it looked rather unremarkable and a little bit worn, but right then, it looked like heaven. Even the snack stands were filled up, as they should be.

Okay, some of the weird turquoise armchairs and light red tables had been toppled, but that was easily fixed. The bar was still immaculately overstuffed with pink faux leather and even the chandeliers were still ugly, but otherwise intact. The checkerboard floor was absurdly clean. I almost felt like I was desecrating the place, like a caveman entering the Sistine Chapel.

In short, it was paradise.

Liz' "Whoohooo!" shocked me to the core. I hadn't realized how silent it had been in here. Surprised, I turned towards her but was stopped by her fierce hug and kiss. Before I could react, she had left me again to raid the snack stands. Soon we were mock-fighting over a pack of peanuts, although there were countless available. We were laughing like crazy and we agreed that those peanuts were the tastiest thing we had ever eaten.

Liz was soon busy relieving the chairs and sofas of their cushions. Too tired and confused to do anything, I just watched her until I understood that she was building a nice, comfy bed for us.

Damn, things were seriously looking good at this point.

Liz seemed to agree as she approached me with a predatory look in her eyes, obviously wanting to road test her contraption. In the name of science, I resigned myself to the task.

"These cushions beat the leaves in our cave by a mile," I remarked afterward, feeling utterly content.

"Maybe," she answered while dragging a finger across my breast in deep thought. "But it was so very romantic back there. I believe that we will never see our cave again. I already miss it."

I didn't know what to say, so I chose the male standard solution of keeping my mouth shut.

We were looking at the sea in silent contemplation. We couldn't see the island, as the lounge panoramic windows were looking towards the sea, but the sunset was marvelous.

"Did Harold's death affect you much?" I asked, out of the blue. Their relationship had always bothered me a bit. I might not have been worthy of her, but he definitely wasn't.

"Harold? Why? I hardly knew him. Yes, he was interested in me. He was a gold digger, pure and simple."

"Gold digger? Why would you think that?" I asked, absentmindedly. I realized that I wasn't really interested in Harold all that much.

She looked at me, surprised. "You really don't know?"

"Know what?" I continued to rifle the box I was checking.

"Who I am?"

"Liz, I have no idea who anyone is. What does that even mean? You're Liz and that's enough for me."

She seemed to like that answer, as it earned me a big kiss.

"What the hell are they doing over there?"

There was no need to hide. We could watch the camp openly from the torn passageway; they knew where we were anyway. Right then, not a single person was to be seen in the camp for the first time ever.

We had heard an endless tok-tok sound all morning long. For just about the first time ever, they were actually working on something, but we didn't know what. Finally, Anne, Lawson and the Claymoores appeared, pulling a palm trunk from the forest. It looked tedious as hell. They just dumped it onto the beach near the shore and returned to the forest.

"They don't seem overly motivated," Liz stated dryly.

"As motivated as slaves in Old Egypt, pulling blocks of stone around, I'd say."

"With the one difference that Liam's pyramid is a raft."

"Damn, you're right." How could I not have seen that?

"Language, Jacob."

"Sorry," I said, but I smiled because she again sounded like a wife chiding her husband.

For some reason, she had been trying to rid me of my sailors' slang, with varying success. I still didn't know why she bothered to take on such a long-term project. "You need to be prepared," she had answered cryptically when I asked her and she refused to clarify it afterward.

"He's eventually going to get here," I stated unnecessarily.

"Obviously, yes. He can't swim and the others won't kill us, should they come here. They'd probably just ask if they can join us."

"Right." She was a smart cookie.

"So, what do we do, Jacob? Barricade the lounge entrance?"

"No," I answered. "He'll find a way inside; he knows this ship very well. We'll have to fight them, Liz."

"In the lounge?"

"No, in the dark corridors. We need to know our way around with closed eyes if we want to win this. Liam is a formidable enemy."

"What about traps?"

This contradicted my sense of fair play and Liz knew me enough by then to read my face.

"Jacob, this will be a fight to the death. We can't afford to be squeamish now if we plan to survive. I don't know about you, but I plan to have a happy ever after ending. For us, that is, not for Liam."

For us? Wow. Don't get your hopes up, I thought. She's far out of my league. Our rescue would end our relationship immediately. She's a fine and obviously loaded lady, I'm just some sailor bum. She certainly had a vast number of suitors, all of them educated, rich and certainly damn good looking. I was just some kind of extended holiday romance. I snapped back into reality.

"You're right, Liz. We need to do what needs to be done. He's coming here to kill us."

"Right," she said and for some reason, she felt the need to suddenly kiss me.

We watched them as they built the float, as Liam pointed to us threateningly for no apparent reason, as a storm came and went, as Liam hit Lawson, possibly for working too slow or just because he felt like it, but we didn't do it all the time. We were mostly busy doing other, far more pleasant things in our lounge. We just went to the lookout maybe twice a day to avoid surprises.

The float was a haphazard contraption made of trunks and vines. I personally thought that using that thing when being unable to swim was a suicide mission, but Liam somehow never came around to ask me for my opinion.

On the day the raft was obviously declared finished, the sea was churning and even Liam seemed to decide that he had no chance to clear the reefs this way. We knew that this would just delay the inevitable and looked into each other's eyes anxiously.

Shit, why couldn't he just leave us alone?

Finally, the big day was there. Liam was going to war. We watched him as he tried to make his already ugly face look scarier by blackening it with something. He boarded the raft, carrying the machete. Reluctantly, Pattinson followed his example, holding one of the knives.

I had a feeling of dread. Four people were entering this deathmatch and it seemed rather certain that not all of us would still be alive by the end of the day. Why did life have to be so shitty all the time? I had found real love for the first time in my life and of course, some caveman had to be nearby and try to kill me or my lady.