Blundering Through A Strange Bush Who: Andy and Rae Where: The edge of the Oasis treeline When: Shortly after dawn What: Arriving
Andy rolled over and got a mouth and nose full of fine, cool sand. Sputtering and choking, he shoved himself up away from the unfamiliar...earth? Where was his bed? He groggily looked left and right. This was not his bedroom.
Wiping at the sand that had stuck to the drool track on his cheek, Andy Clark tried to get his brain to wake up enough to understand. Sand. Sand everywhere. He seemed to be in a sort of...sand bowl. It was dark, and cold. His teeth chattered as he pulled his blanket back around his shoulders.
“What the Hell, guys...” he said, petulantly. It had to be a joke, right? There had to be college friends or colleagues from the office lurking just over that dune, right? Right?! “Guys?!”
He pulled his long chicken legs in, his bony knees drawing to his chest. Was he imagining that he felt a vibration. A clod of sand poured away from the dune directly across from him. Andy’s eyes widened as a sound - sheeeeeeshhhhhhshhhhhh - seemed to fill the bowl of sand he found himself in. There was something...in the sand, moving.
Glancing around himself, Andy noticed that he’d pushed his pillow a short way up the edge of the dune. He reached for it and tossed it into the middle of his blanket. If they were just screwing with him, he wasn’t going to just leave his bedding out here. Digging his socked toes into the cool sand, he climbed toward the light of dawn.
Once he struggled to the top, Andy took a moment to breathe air completely devoid of moisture. He looked out over a vast blue desert. On the horizon, a white sun was rising and bleaching the colour out of the sand. But there was....nothing. No buildings, no people. No “friends” hanging around to point and laugh.
A part of his brain was pointing out that Canada didn’t have white deserts. Andy squashed that thought quickly. He wasn’t ready to deal with that yet at all.
The light of dawn touched him and sweat instantly prickled under his flannel pj pants and t-shirt. He was even wearing a gray hoodie because it was damn cold in his basement apartment in Toronto. He took a moment to wiggle out of the hoodie and tossed it into the hobo sack he’d made out of his comforter.
Andy made a slow turn and noticed an oasis to the south east. It was the only shade he could see for what looked like miles. It would have to do. If there were trees, there had to be water, right? Slinging the comforter over his bony shoulder, he headed toward it.
Distance was hard to measure in the desert. Fear also distorted things. Every now and then, Andy would feel that movement under his feet and freeze. Twice, he even saw sand puff into the air like whales clearing their blowholes. That’s what really made him run.
Not ordinarily a “sports guy,” Andy could never explain how he’d made it across that last mile to the oasis. His brain was in a fit of screaming terror. Sweat poured off his scrawny frame. When he burst through the tropical shrubs under the wide branches of enormous and unfamiliar trees, he tripped and landed in a gasping heap. The ground was sandy but also strewn with strange, purplish leaves. He couldn’t think about it, though. It was all he could do to suck air into his lungs.
Everything was different to Rae as she found herself waking up. The cool comfort of her bed was now replaced with the rough grit of sand beneath her. The curtained window that kept the light at bay was gone, and the glaring sun beat down on her. Confusion set in as Rae opened her eyes to find she was no longer in her bed. Where am I? The words flew through her thoughts as she sat up. She still had her pillow and comforter. What this a dream? It must have been. Nothing more than a very vivid dream brought on by too much wine the night before.
Once she was able to make it to her feet, Raelynn looked around as she pushed her hair back and out of her eyes. Sand, sand, and more sand. Ah, but then, there was something green as well. Thick, green, and lush. Anything's better than standing out here in the sun. She thought as she bent to pick up what few belongings she had with her. As she began her trek to the desert oasis, Raelynn felt something different in the sand beneath her feet. Whatever it was, it caused the sand to shift underfoot. Some would say it was just the way she walked, but Rae knew better. She'd spent enough time at the beach in her younger years to know the difference. This felt as if something were rising up beneath her feet.
Another step, and then another, the feelings of impending doom wouldn't dissipate. So, Raelynn did what any rational person would do. She quickened her pace as the oasis became closer. Every few seconds, she'd cast a glance over her shoulder and notice a vibration in the sand that caused her foot prints to disappear. Whatever was beneath her, it was moving faster right along with her. Panic set in the closer she got to her destination. With panic came adrenaline, and before she knew it, Rae was running for emerald land among the golden sands, unsure if she'd find salvation or death, all she knew was she had to try. Wake up Rae, wake up! She told herself as she ran.
As she hit the edge of the oasis, Rae’s foot snagged on an upturned root and she fell face first into the dirt. Her lungs burned from her terror filled run. Her legs ached from her run through sand that fought her at every step. And there she lay for long moments, gasping for air, her meager belongings tossed as she fell.
It felt like hours passed before Andy got his breath back. His t-shirt stuck to him, sand stuck to him, the weird purple plant life seemed to be sticking to him and....and...there was...a monkey looking at him. It had to be a monkey. It had a flat, big-eyed naked face and four..no, six limbs wrapped around the branch it was perched on above his head. A long tail dangled toward the ground, it’s white tip twitching in what Andy hoped was curiosity and not malice. It’s fur was blue and stripped. Like his aunt’s fat tabby cat, or a tiger. Great. A tiger-monkey.
Slowly, Andy pushed himself upright and the little beast bared wickedly curved teeth. He thought he heard it hiss in warning. Still, the creature had to be twenty feet up. Very slowly, Andy gathered up his scattered belongings again and pushed himself to his feet. All the while, the warning rumbles from the tiger-monkey continued.
Pushing cautiously through the bushes, he looked for anything like a path. It took a few minutes, but he found one. It was no wider than what woodsmen called “deer paths,” bits of the forest commonly travelled by woodland animals and hunters alike. Still, Andy thought that maybe it had to lead to some water, right? Eyes open for more of those monkeys, he started to wander.
Thirty minutes later, Andy was pretty sure that the path he was on was following the treeline and not turning inward. In frustration, he flung his sack of stuff down onto a rock and dropped on to it. Tipping his head back, he hollered into the wilderness. “Hello!?”
Rae had no idea how long she lay on the ground, but finally she rolled from her stomach to her back and pushed herself into a seated position. Her body hurt, she was sticky with sweat and whatever sap had deposited itself on her arms during her fall. Grit and grime clung to her bare arms and face as she looked around at her surroundings. Wherever she was, the plant life was unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
Ofcourse, there were similarities, but colors and textures were different. To her right was cane like plants. It reminded her of bamboo, or giant snake grass that she would find as a child around the lake. But the color was off, this had a tinge of purple to it. To her left, Rae saw some truly exotic looking flowers. The blooms were huge, the colors varied in shades of red. The only thing she could compare them to, were buttercups.
I can’t sit here all day. Rae thought to herself and pushed up from the ground. Standing, her legs still felt like jelly, but she found she would be okay. Stooping, she picked up her belongings and after shaking out as much of the filth as she could, Rae pushed on from her spot. There was a small, almost unnoticed trail of trampled foliage before her, this she took as a path and followed it around the outskirts of the oasis. She made sure to keep herself at a distance from the golden sand, still to worked up over the unseen would-be attacker in the sand.
As she walked on, a voice echoed out of thin air. “Hello!” She yelled back, doing her best to figure out which direction the voice had come from. “Hello! Keep talking will you?!”
Andy’s throat felt as though the single cry had torn it. He must have swallowed some serious sand before waking up. He tried to cough and spit, so he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d actually heard someone yell back. When he stopped making so much gross noise, the words “...talking will you...” drifted out of the trees along the path. He pushed himself up, not really sure what to expect.
He cleared his throat, thinking he would have to find some drinkable water soon. “Hello?!” Andy gathered up his bundle and stood in the middle of the path. He cocked his unfortunately large ears, attempting to get an idea of which way the voice had come from. “I’m lost!”
Rae wasn’t sure if she had been hallucinating at first. Had she imagined the ‘Hello’ that had caused her to call out in return. When she got another answer, Rae let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “Just keep talking!” She called out, as she tried to get her bearings.
At first the voice had sounded from what she could guess was the East, this time it sounded as if it came from the West. Growing frustrated, she turned towards the direction the voice had come from and tried to pick her way through the dense foliage. “We’re both lost, I guess.” She called out again, hoping that she’d be able to keep him talking, or if nothing else, he might figure out just where she was.
Andy was pretty sure that it was a girl out there, muffled in all of the strange foliage. He wasn’t a complete nerd. He worked with women at the office, of course. He just didn’t...talk to them often. He gulped, hoped his breath wasn’t disgusting started down the path. “Where are you?”
A weird barking sound drew his attention to a massive tree with long dangling vines. It was so thick and it’s branches spread out so far that he couldn’t see where it ended, precisely. It was positively crawling with those tiger-monkeys. “Oh god...”
Andy turned on his heel and went the other way on the path. The last thing he needed was to piss off a whole herd of killer monkeys by yelling around them.
“I don’t know where I am!” She called out as she pushed her way through the choked ‘path’ she’d chosen to follow. “How am I supposed to know where I am, nothing here seems real.” She muttered to herself as she continued on.
“Ow! Fu--” She cried out as her hand was pierced by a thorny bush. “Just wonderful.” She muttered, as blood began to bead on the surface of her palm. “Hey! Wherever you are, becareful! Some of these plants are painful!” When she got to where she was going, Rae was going to have to look at her hand. At least she knew one thing for certain, this was not a dream.
Andy was careful not to brush up against any of the shrubs directly, but they snagged at his bundled blanket. It slowed him down a little. Still, she sounded like she was getting closer, which encouraged him. As he rounded the path, he saw that the woods only grew more dense. He was about the swear at the top of his lungs when he noticed the shrugs violently shudder. He thought he saw a brunette head ducked down to avoid getting branches in the face, but he couldn’t be sure. “Hey!” He shouted and took a precautionary step back. “Who’s there?”
The voice was closer now, and Rae looked up in shock, which caused her to get smacked in the face with a rather large and thick leaf. Muttering a curse under her breath, Rae ducked down again and shouted in the direction of the voice. “Who do you think it is? I’ve only been shouting at you for the last twenty minutes.” Okay, so she was exaggerating, but there was a point to be made. There had been no one else shouting back and forth with them, so who did this person think would be stomping through a jungle of alien plant life trying to find him?
With one more minor battle between the plants and herself, Raelynn found she was stumbling out of where she had been and into the young man she’d been trying to find. “Hi...” She said as she looked at her clothing and shrugged the strap of her cami back into place. “I’m Raelynn.”
Andy dropped his bundle in order to catch the girl by the shoulders when she fell out of the thicket. Still, his jaw gaped and the 6’4” beanpole set her back from him, taking his hands off as quickly as he could. She had to be pretty, didn’t she? The pretty ones were always the worst.
“Uh,” he said, averting his gaze as he noted that she was wearing one of those scant spaghetti strapped dealies. And no bra. What kind of self-respecting woman ran around in the woods without a bra on? His cheeks burned, and not from sun exposure. “Monkeys,” he said stiffly, gesturing up above them with one long fingered hand.
It took Rae a moment to get what he’d said. “Monkeys?” With that she followed his gesture with her eyes and realized there were creatures in the trees above them. “Oh, monkeys... They do have a sort of monkey look to them don’t they?”
“Thanks for catching me, by the way. I’d hate to fall flat on my face for a second time in an hour.” Her words were followed by a slight smile as she tried to make light of the situation that were in. “We should get moving... I cut my hand, and the looks on those monkey faces might just prove they like meat.” She said as she picked her blanket/pillow bundle up again. “There’s nothing back that way. Was there anything the way you came?”
Andy shook his head, keeping a suspicious eye cocked toward the monkeys. “I don’t think so. We need to find a path that leads in. This one just seems to go around the outside.” He was considerable taller, so he craned his neck to peer over the shrubs. “There’s got to be one. There has to be water, if there’s a ton of monkeys living here.” Great. They might have to fight for space at the local watering hole. That sounded pretty exciting in a “please shoot me,” kind of way.
“Fabulous.” Rae said as she look her hand over. “Well, if we’re heading in, I should call you something other than ‘kid’. Do you have a name?”
It hurt to ball her hand into a fist, but the bleeding had stopped, so she could only think of that as a good sign. Especially under the circumstances. This would have been an easier expedition had they proper tools. Like a machete, or a shotgun to shoot whatever beasts would want to eat them. “Have you found any clue as to where we are?”
Andy blushed again when he realized that she had said her name - Raelynn - and he hadn’t responded in kind. Damn those social niceties. They always tripped him up. “I’m Andy,” he said. He bit down on the pouty urge to tell her that he wasn’t a kid. He managed to hold off on that, though. “And I have no idea. I just woke up out there, in the sand. I was in bed, at my place, last night.” He looked around them. “This doesn’t look like Canada. Are we like...in South America, maybe? Somewhere in Asia?” The thought “kidnapped by weird mofia” crossed his mind.
“Andy, nice to meet you.” Raelynn wasn’t any better with social situations. Its partly why she chose to work with children. At least with them, one could end up acting silly and they’d smile. “You’re Canadian? We’re sort of neighbors. I’m from New York. You’re right though, this doesn’t look like Canada or anywhere in the states that I’ve been. I don’t know about this being South America or Asia. I think if there had been evidence of blue striped monkeys, we’d have known about it. Or, purple bamboo.”
“We should get moving. Its hot right now, I can only imagine how it’ll be in a couple of hours. We need to find some water and possibly some sort of shelter. Maybe see if we’re the only people here.” Whatever was going on, as much as she longed to return to the safety of her own bed, standing around wasn’t going to solve anything. “I need to clean my hand anyway. I do not want to have to deal with a nasty infection when I have nothing to help.”
Andy gaped at her for a minute. He was pretty sure there was a lot about nature he didn’t know for sure. For all he knew, there was blue monkeys in Asia that made their homes in purple bamboo. He was not quite ready to admit what Raelynn seemed to already be coming to terms with.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe we should just push our way through to the middle. It’s a little less dense back this way.” He jacked a thumb over one bony shoulder. How long did it take for infections to set in, in a hot dry place? Then again, they were both covered in sand. This could not be the most sanitary condition for an injury. Andy gestured to her hurt hand. “Is it ok?”
“My hand? It hurts, but its okay, I guess. It ended up bleeding after the giant thorn bush stabbed me. I swear, I hadn’t seen thorns on the blasted thing when I first began to push my way through it.” To prove her point that she was fine, Rae opened and closed her fist a couple times. “I just want to get a better look at it. My hands are dirty, I’d rather be cautious. It beats losing a hand.”
“You’ve been down that way. So if you don’t mind, lead the way.” She really didn’t know what else to say. It was hot, she was sticky, she was hungry, she was thirsty, and above all else she wanted to patch herself up.
“Uh, sure,” Andy said, and turned to backtrack the trail. He walked, conscious of his gait, for ten minutes in silence. They were approaching that massive, monkey-filled tree again. “Um, let’s try turning in here.” He swung his blanket bundle over his shoulder once more, like a hobo on the road, and brushed the foliage aside cautiously. Moving inward was slow and tricky going. The trees got bigger, the roots became tripping hazzards, but the underbrush started to clear.
Soon, they were walking in the dappled light beneath the canopy, without any obstruction. He also had the sense that they were headed uphill slightly. It took the better part of an hour, but soon Andy was coming to a pause. “Do you hear water? Like a brook or a creek or something?”
“Thanks.” She said as she followed close behind to keep from getting smacked in the face with another hanging appendage from the plant life around them. As she followed behind, she let her mind wander back to the world she knew and loved. What time was it back home? Did Caleb wake up and find her gone? What was going to happen at work? She could lose her job for not showing up. What would the children think if she didn’t show up? What were her parents going to think? There were so many thoughts that flew in and around her mind that she kept coming back to the same few questions. So far she had no answers.
Under the canopy of trees, the land didn’t seem so menacing. True, it was darker here, and there were creatures in the trees and in the shrubs that littered the ground, but it didn’t seem so bad. Rae stopped when Andy stopped. Her head snapped up at his words as she looked around their surroundings. “Yeah, I do... Over that way, maybe?” She said pointing just off to the right of them.
Mustering whatever courage he possessed, Andy nodded and changed course. The ground grew steeper much more sharply but he thought he could also sense the presence of water. He’d never noticed that water had a smell before. A taste in the air.
Soon, he was climbing up a rocky outcropping. A spongy purple moss grew on these rocks and it felt pleasant and smelled faintly peppery. With a sigh, they rounded a rock and found themselves beside a spring where it gushed from the rocks. It cascaded down the rocky embankment to a fast moving stream. Following the flow of it, he thought he saw sunlight glaring off a larger body of water through the trees. “Oh, thank god,” Andy melted to his knees and scooped handfulls of water so cold, it almost hurt.
It took Rae only a moment before she followed Andy to her knees and scooped up some of the water with her uninjured hand. “Water has never tasted so good.” Relief tinged her words as she continued to ladle water to her mouth. After a lifetime of moments to relish in the cool, crisp, clear water, Rae stuck her injured hand in and scrubbed at the dirt and blood that had dried around it. Thee wound itself wasn’t big, but it was deep. As she scrubbed at her palm, fresh blood began to bloom across her and down the stream. Smiling to herself, Rae pulled her hand free of the water and sat back.
Reaching behind her, Rae grabbed her pillow and looked at the plain pillowcase. With a sigh and a heavy heart, she ripped at the seam and pulled a strip of cloth off the case. “I don’t see anything bad. No debris, nothing that looks like it shouldn’t be there. I’ll be fine.” She said as she began to wrap and bandage her hand. “This stream has to go somewhere. Maybe we should follow? See what’s down stream from here?”
Andy peered down the stream again. “Yeah, it looks like there’s more water.” He glanced at her, the awkwardness creeping back in now that his thirst was slacked. The decline down to the water was much more gradual on this side. “Like a coast line or something. Maybe we’ll be able to see some buildings.” People had to live here, right? Didn’t nomads tend to settle where there was water? Even in strange deserts?
He gathered his stuff up again and carefully picked his way along the edge of the stream. The last thing he wanted to do was fall in. Or drop his stuff in. That would be just great.
“Anything’s better than sitting out in the sun.” She said as she flexed her hand again. “If there’s no buildings we might just find some sort of shelter.”
Pushing herself to her feet, Rae was both disgusted and grateful for her nightclothes. They were light enough to keep cool under the glare of the sun. At the same time, they were far to skimpy to be wearing in front of a stranger. Mindful of her state of dress, Rae picked up her pillow and blanket and followed Andy down the rocky hillside.
The path here was well defined. Andy was no tracker, no outdoors-man of any kind, but he thought he saw prints in the mud close to the bank that looked like feet. Like, human feet. That gave him a little bit of hope. His sport socks were hopelessly soiled, but at least they offered a little bit of protection while walking in the trees.
In no more than ten minutes, they made it to the beach. Shading his eyes, Andy could clearly make out the other side. “It’s just a pond,” he said, disappointed. He used the arm of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat that was dripping from his temples. It was much more open out here.
But...there was something. Just a little ways down the beach and off the shore... “Hey...are those buildings?”
To say it was hot was an understatement. By the time Andy and Raelynn had made their way to the beach, Rae’s hair clung to the back of her neck. She had sweat along her hair line, that had started to trek down into her face. She was a wreck... and she hated it. And for that she felt guilty. Andy was stuck in the same situation she was, and here she was feeling sorry for herself.
When Andy spoke up, Rae chided herself for her thoughts and turned her attention towards the direction he’d been looking, in hopes of seeing what he’d saw. When she did, her face lit up. “Andy! You did it!” She cried as she gave him a quick hug, her blanket/pillow bundle thumping into his back as she did so. “Come on, let’s go check them out.”
Andy didn’t think he’d done all that much, really. Just blundered through the woods like an idiot. But he had said there would be buildings. And there were.
He wasn’t expecting the hug, though, and she set him off kilter a bit. He stumbled a couple of steps and stubbed his toe on a rock. “Ow, dammit!”
Limping down the beach, he felt a little bit reserved. “Wait...um, Rae...we don’t know if the people there are friendly or not.” The huts, yes, that’s what they were, built out over the water a ways, were quiet. The bleached white wood of their roofs seemed to reflect the sun back at him. It was hard to get a fix on them with his eyes.
“Andy, we’ll never know if we don’t go check them out. I don’t want to sit out here in the sun and become a raisin.” She called as she began to carefully make her way around the beach towards the huts. As excited as she was, she was glad to have at least some bit of self-control otherwise she would have decided to swim across the pond to get there quicker.
Rounding the bank, she kept her eye on the huts. She had at least some common sense. These shelters belonged to someone after all. She didn’t want to just go barging into an unknown village. The villagers might just end up coming after the two of them with spears. “Are you coming?” Her voice carried over the distance between the two of them.
Andy glowered at her back, but he limped a little faster. “Yes,” he said, sulkily.
He was keeping an eye out for movement and still wasn’t sure he saw any. “It looks like one of the huts collapsed.” The one furthest from the bank seemed to have tipped onto it’s side and was partially submerged. There was signs that there had been rope bridges strung between them but all but one had collapsed as well. He shaded his eyes again, checking the bank nearest to the village. “It really doesn’t look like anyone is there at all.” Despite his earlier worries, he was a little disappointed.
“I think that proves that there hasn’t been anyone here for a while. Who would just leave a fallen hut?” She asked as she plodded on through the sand towards the ‘village’. At the edge of the path that went from the beach to the cleared area before the huts Rae stopped and looked around again. “I still don’t see anyone.” She said as she looked back over her shoulder at Andy. “Do you think its safe?”
Andy shrugged his narrow shoulder. There was evidence here that people had been building on the beach. Not huts, but some sort of...storage container? Bee hive? He wasn’t really sure what he was looking at. There was also a small woodpile near the strange little cone-shaped building. As he shifted his weight, the sun gleamed off of bright metal. “Hey, there might be a weapon.” His inner gamer instantly flashed to Night of the Rotten Zombies. His favourite weapon had always been the fire axe. And now here was the very same weapon! T
Dropping his bundle onto the sand, he crossed to the meager wood pile and studied the axe. It was embedded in a scarred stump pretty deeply. The black grip was well worn, nearly smooth as he curled his lily white, long fingered hands around it. Bracing his feet, Andy heaved with all of his might...and nothing happened. It wouldn’t budge an inch. “Dammit,” he panted after struggling with it.
Rae had to agree with Andy, as she followed him around the curious container. If there was any chance of finding a weapon, it would have to be among the wood pile. After all, it didn’t matter where you lived, if you needed wood, you kept an axe nearby. When they came to a stop, Rae had to smile at the way Andy tried to free the embedded axe. There was such determination on his face, at least for a moment. In the end, he was unable to dislodge the axe head and Rae moved forward to pat him on the shoulder. ‘It looks like it’s really stuck in there.”
“I’m going to go check out the huts, see if there’s anything else to be found.” With that said, Rae moved pasted Andy and the stump. “I’ll keep in shouting distance. Just in case.”
Andy had a vivid fantasy of whirling on his heel and punching her. What a stupid, condescending thing to say! Aww, poor weakling. Don’t worry, I won’t judge you as less of a man because you couldn’t free the simple tool that we really need. He bit down on his tongue to prevent some sort of childish remark. After all, he needed her. She was the only other person here. He couldn’t be here by himself! There were monkeys....
His panic was starting to hit the screeching point. Still, in his rising worry, he understood what she said. “Wait, what? You can’t go over there. You’ll get wet!” His wide-eyed gaze fell on some ripples on the pond surface. “What if there are piranha or something?! Maybe that’s where all the people went...” He swallowed thickly, his adam’s apple bobbling ridiculously.
“What? I’m not swimming. I’m walking.” Her words were laced with confusion as she looked him over. “There is a small pathway.” As she spoke, Rae pointed out the small, weed choked path that lead around the water. “I’m going to go check out what’s over that way. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to figure out a way to get to the huts. If it means swimming, than so be it. But, for now, I’m content just scoping out the area.” She wasn’t going to tell him she needed a moment to herself. There were a few things she’d rather keep private.
Andy suddenly looked nearly twenty years younger. Lost little boy in the woods. “Ok,” he glanced left and right. His bladder cramped, reminding him that he hadn’t emptied it yet that morning. Maybe a few moments of privacy was a good idea. “Yell if you find anything,” he told her. Maybe he could figure out what the strange beehive thing was for while she was walking.
“I will.” She said, looking back over her shoulder. The way he looked, it reminded her of some of the kids she had on her floor. They’d pout whenever one of the nurses, or visitors, had to leave. And for moment, she wondered if they’d ever get home. Whatever forces that had deposited the two of them here, must have had a reason for it.
Rae had to pick her way through a rather rough patch of prickly weed like things as she passed through some rather tall grasses. There were small currying noises among the grass, but she refused to stop and check out what it might be. God only knew what she’d find. Some sort of mutated snake or a rodent that’d want to chew her face off. Shuddering at the imagery in her head, she continued on.
After she’d gone a good distance from the spot she’d left Andy, Raelynn looked around. There was nothing there save sand and various chunks of wood that looked as if they’d been set around as seats. With a shake of her head, Rae turned her attention towards the water. It looked so cool and refreshing against this nasty heat. Taking a seat in the sand, Rae rolled up the legs of her pyjama bottoms and waded out into the water. She made sure not to go too far, just in case. The water lapped at her ankles in minuscule waves as she wiggled her toes into the wet sand. So far, there was nothing bad. No flesh eating fishes bent on devouring the meat from her bones.
As for Andy. he found a tree to water and came back to circle the beehive. On the far side, it became obvious that the thing was much larger than it appeared. A narrow ramp lead down to the lower portion. It was cool and dim down at the bottom. Andy’s socked feet dampened as pond water had seeped into the sand this low down.
Still, it was obvious what the beehive was when one looked at it from here. It was a primative oven of some kind. On the lower portion of the hive there was a shelf with char marks and ash. The ask was white as snow and power-fine. He wiped his sooty hand on the bottom of his pj pants He tracked his way back out and scooped up some bluish pebbles. He attempted to side-arm them across the top of the pond but they just sunk. Andy sighed heavily. Today was just great.
As time wore on, Rae turned and retreated from the shallow water. Once back on shore, she moved her way over to one of those chunks of wood and sat down. She wiped the sand from her damp feet and pulled her socks back on. Her head hung for a moment as a tear slipped through closed lids. She missed her life and wanted to return. She’d only been gone a matter of hours, but there were people who counted on her. People who cared for her, and who she cared for. She could only imagine what was going to go through their minds when she turned up missing.
Lifting her head, Rae looked up at the sun and lifted a hand to wipe the tear’s trek form her face. Once finished, she stood, picked up her blanket and pillow and headed on back towards where she’d left Andy. Time to put on a happy face again. She thought as she pushed back through the weed choked path. Before long, the glinting metal of the axe was seen, but as she looked around, she couldn’t see the man she’d left at this spot. “Andy?” She called out, hoping he wasn’t too far off.
Andy stepped out from behind the nearest tree. Standing in the little abandoned village - little more than a workspace - had creeped him out. He’d felt exposed, and he could still hear those monkeys calling to each other. So he’d hidden himself out of sight. “Yeah?”
He didn’t sound like it, but he was glad Rae had come back. What would he have done if he’d really been on his own? Gone a little crazy with panic maybe. He could already feel it, prickling up the back of his neck. Sliding like ice down his knobby spine, despite the heavy heat.
Rae had to heave a sigh of relief when Andy poked his head out from behind a tree. For a moment she had panicked, thinking he’d have run off on her and left her alone out here. “I didn’t find much of anything over on the other side. I did manage to wade in a little bit into the water, and nothing attacked me. Sooner or later, I have a feeling we’re going to have to swim out to the huts. We’re going to need shelter.”
Though he didn’t look happy about, Andy nodded. It was hot on the beach. There was some dappled shade in the treeline, but no real shelter. The spring had been cool, but there was no where to protect them there, either. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the huts were built off shore for a reason. Maybe the monkeys couldn’t swim. “How are we going to get the pillows and blankets over?”
It didn’t dawn on him that if they just draped them over the railings that wrapped around the huts, they would dry in direct sun in no time. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t really know how to swim anyway. He couldn’t manage anything more than a frantic dog paddle.
“We’ll just have to let them dry when we get out there.” There was just no other way around it. the sun would just have to dry them once they swam out. Shifting from foot to foot, Rae looked out of the water. It didn’t seem like it was that far of a distance, and anything was better than staying in the open, especially as the sun rose higher in the sky.
“Did you happen to find anything?”
Andy shook his head. “No not really.” He gestured to the beehive. “They used to burn things in there. Not sure what.” His eyes strayed out toward the huts. He sighed heavily. “I guess we had better get out there before it gets much hotter, right?”
He wandered over to where he had left his bundle.
“Really? So, we have an oven of sorts, that’s good to know.” Now to just find some sort of food worth cooking. Sooner or later they’d have to figure out what was edible and what wasn’t.
“Right, let’s go. The water’s still really cool, I was surprised.” There was a bit of a light tone in her voice. Rae loved to swim, growing up in Ticonderoga, she had spent her summers in the lake, or some of the ‘swimmin holes’ the area. If she wasn’t swimming, or gardening with her Grammy, she’d be fishing, or hunting with the males in her family. So, at that moment, Rae was pleased to be doing something she knew she was good at. “Hey, Andy, just out of curiosity, do you know how to swim? I’m not trying to belittle you or anything, I have an aunt who can’t swim at all, she can’t even float. Once she’s in the water, she sinks like a stone.”
Andy’s head snapped back on the thin stalk of a neck. What was she? Psychic? That was all he needed. A psychic chick. “Of course I can swim,” he snapped. He gathered all of his stuff into his arms and stalked past her to the water’s edge. He’d make it across to those huts if it was the last thing he did.