Walk With Me
Who: Helena and Ryan Where: The long trek around the entire island. What: They discover something spooky When: Day 30, late morning to early evening Rating: TBD Status: In Progress
Packing a few little things to eat and her filled plastic water bottle, Helena paused at the campfire to wrap a few slices of the grazer jerky and a handful of boiled pesk eggs into her scrap of a pillowcase. She already had some of the leftover flatbread she'd made the other day in there. It had hardened into a sort of stale cracker but she still fully intended to eat it. Meal packed, shoes strapped on and a loosely woven straw hat planted on her dark head, Helena looked for someone to tell that she was leaving. Not far today, she hoped, but she wanted to walk the entire shoreline of the island. There were still plenty of places undiscovered, plenty of items she surely hadn't found. It was time to do a little bit of exploring.
Ryan had grabbed some breakfast earlier, and as he emerged near the campfire from the direction of the stream, he was munching on a hunk of grazer jerky. It wasn't the best thing he'd ever eaten by any means, but he'd learned to be grateful for food of any sort. For the most part, they didn't go hungry now, and that was something for which to be thankful. He could see somebody nearby, and when he got close enough to see who it was, he smiled. "Hey, Helena. How's it goin'?" he asked her.
Helena looked up with a smile. "It's going really well. My head doesn't hurt at all today." She rubbed the back of her neck to demonstrate that her injury was much improved. "I'm just packing up a little food to take on a long walk with me today. I was planning to follow the beach all the way around the island." She shrugged her narrow shoulders inside her faded blue t-shirt. "I just wanted to tell someone where I was going in case I'm not back by nightfall." She cocked her head curious. "Unless you wanted to come along? Get you out of camp today and a beach walk should be pretty straightforward, right?"
"Good, I'm glad you're doin' better," he told her. He'd been lucky enough to escape without any injuries the day the dogs had attacked camp, but everyone hadn't been. He looked interested when she described her plan for the day, and when she asked if he wanted to come along, he brightened. "I'd love that, actually. I think I might go fuckin' nuts if I have to work with clay again today without a break." Some physical exercise would be good.
Grinning, she gestured for him to shoo. "Well, get yourself ready then and we'll find someone to tell and then be off." She had plans to really scour the beach for anything useful or any sign of Olivia. They were all feeling pretty certain she must have drowned in the lake but one never knew. She was determined to make it all the way around the perimeter of their hunk of land. Who knew what they'd see? Or...what she would see, anyways. Ryan was always good company, regardless.
"Alright," Ryan said. He went off to the pile of bedding where he, Thorne and Ro slept to scrounge up the knit hat he'd appropriated from Cross back when they'd been at the other camp; he figured it'd be easy to carry, and he could use it to put a few pesk eggs and his unfinished hunk of grazer meat in. Once he'd stuffed it with some food and gotten himself a drink of water from the big covered pot he'd made-- which was kept beneath a stand of nearby shrubs to hold some drinking water for anyone who wanted it-- he was back at the spot near the campfire where he'd run into Helena so he could wait for her.
Helena had managed to inform Irish and Meredith where she and Ryan were heading and elicited a promise from both of the girls that they would notify Kenneth if Helena and Ryan weren't back by the time the dinner plates were scraped out. That taken care of, she nudged Ryan gently. "Ready for another adventure?" She didn't mind wandering into the personally unknown with Ryan by herself. He may have been mostly blind but next to her, he was a giant. Something about the easy-going Louisiana man was reassuring.
"Sure," Ryan replied, sliding an arm around her for a quick hug. He was always ready for adventure, but he was hoping this adventure wouldn't include blood and nastiness like the time they'd gone to the laugher den. Hopefully it wouldn't include Olivia's dead, drowned body either. Bleh. He put morbid thoughts out of his mind. "So which direction are we headin'?" he asked, curious about how she'd want to begin this trek.
Helena peered up and down the beach for the slice they could see from camp and finally got them rolling along toward the west. "We always seem to head toward west," she commented toward him. She let go of his arm once they reached the beach and the ground was mostly flat and predictable. "I guess it's not a bad direction, huh?" They'd found treasures the last time. His crocs and a blanket, not to mention a backpack full of that dark red clay near the Laugher dens.
"Not bad at all," Ryan said. He was content with the plan for the day. He was full, he'd slept well, and right then he felt as if he could walk for hours without complaint. He settled the hat he was holding into a comfortable position in one hand-- if he'd been wearing jeans he probably could have stuck it in his waistband, but the pajama bottoms wouldn't hold it, he feared-- and walked along beside her. "Wonder what we'll find this time?" he mused. "Last time me and Thorne went lookin' for medicines, we found a flint and little bitty monkeys." He grinned. "They wouldn't get off of us, so we had to bring 'em back to camp with us." Cute little things.
"Yeah, I've seen then." She sent a grin his way. "Curious little things. Everyone is afraid that they're thieves." She chuckled as she walked. "I make sure to tuck everything important way at the back of the lean-to. They'd have to climb over Cross to get at our stuff." She shook her head as though it would be folly to try it! Not that Cross had proven to be a light sleeper and a deadly guard. She wondered if he was just as intimidating to animals as he seemed to be for the people around the camp.
"Dude, that'd be like climbin' Mount Everest for them, I bet," Ryan said, highly amused by the mental picture of miniature monkeys trying to scale Cross' massive torso. He darted a glance at her, though he couldn't see her features with much clarity at this distance. "So I gotta ask you," he began. "Does he actually talk? I think I've gotten a few monosyllabic grunts out of him before." He'd often wondered what was up with the guy, but he didn't imagine that asking would yield any real answers. Cross seemed the sort who'd just ignore any questions he didn't want to reply to.
Ryan was definitely right about the fact that Cross would likely ignore anything that was uncomfortable to him, or any frivolity like calling him Mount Everest. Though she did agree that the image was vivid for her. She chuckled. "He calls you 'The Blonde Kid'," she informed him with a smile. "So yes, he does talk. Cross just doesn't waste words. If you struck up an actual conversation with him though, or asked him an honest and direct question, he'd answer you." She hoped he would anyway. She had nothing but tender feelings for Cross and she thought he was pretty mannerly in comparison to a certain Texan she could mention. He just came off cool and disinterested to just about everyone else. In fact, she'd thought he was disinterested in her more than once but he did keep coming back to her, usually with a private smile and a kiss, so she thought it was all just the illusion of him. The meticulously manufactured and maintained mask of the man. However, she had a sense that if she went around divulging his secrets, Cross might feel a tiny bit betrayed. She kept these things to herself, no matter how trustworthy Helena thought that Ryan was.
"Nice to know I'm so memorable," Ryan said, but he was laughing. At least Cross knew who he was? Yeah, he could definitely look at it that way. "He gives off the impression that he might bite you if you looked at him cross-eyed," he said. "Guess he knows that, though." The man had to know how he came across, but this was the first time it had occurred to Ryan that it was probably on purpose. Ryan considered Helena to be a good judge of character, and if Cross didn't make her nervous, that said a lot in his opinion. She shared a lean-to with the guy, after all. "We all have our quirks," he concluded.
Helena nodded. "He's got them, I've got them. But I've looked at him cross-eyed every morning and I still have my nose." She chuckled as she rubbed the feature in question. The rest of the morning was eaten up with little side tracks as Helena spotted this or that and dragged him along to investigate. They talked about the rest of the people in camp good naturedly and it inevitably came around to Ryan's own personal life. "So, you've gotten involved with Thorne, right? I haven't talked to him in ages. He's always looking so busy these days."
Ryan enjoyed the little side trips, the walking in general and the conversation. The time passed so quickly that he was surprised when he realized just how much time had gone by. "Yeah," he replied, since it was fairly obvious to most of the people at camp that he and Thorne were close. Luckily, it didn't seem as if there was going to be any more drama with Bazzer, although he and Ryan pretty much never spoke. He couldn't speak for Baz, but he preferred to avoid conflict when it was possible. "Yeah, he's busy. There's always a lot for the only doctor around to do, ya know?"
Helena nodded. "I bet, but Jasper seems to be doing better. I haven't really gone to see how Ken's doing but I really should." She sighed and spotted a rock near some bushes. "Let's go have a seat in the shade over there and have some lunch." She guided him in the right direction. With a sigh she settled down on the cool flat rock and fished out some of her jerky. "So are you sick of clay yet, or what?"
"I'm glad she's gonna be okay," Ryan said. He knew how worried Thorne had been about Jasper, how he'd felt as if nothing he did was good enough to help her... in this case, he was very glad to see his friend proven wrong. He nodded when she suggested lunch. "Sounds good. I wouldn't mind a little rest." He settled himself down next to her and opened up his makeshift lunch bag. "Oh, man, I seriously am," he replied to her question about the clay. "I don't feel like I ever really get it out from under my nails."
Helena smiled at that. "Well, as our resident artist, how to you think you can contribute to our survival in a different way?" She nudged his shoulder with her own. "Maybe I can help you make it happen." Hell, if he wanted to mosaic the firepit, she'd help. If he wanted to experiment with pigments and paint frescos on the spring, she'd fully support that. Art was just as important as survival in this place. She firmly believed that their ability to create, even under as much pressure as they were living with, further underlined their humanity and civilization.
They'd been in such a race for survival since they'd been here, it seemed like, that Ryan hadn't thought much about the possibility of doing art again. The thought made him smile, too; creativity had been such a vital part of his life, and he'd lost most of his outlet for that. "I'll have to think about that," he said, then popped a boiled pesk egg into his mouth and chewed on it contemplatively. Once he'd swallowed it, he added, "I'm not sure what I could do here without any supplies. Well... I could make some, maybe?" Necessity was the mother of invention. He couldn't remember who'd originally said that.
Helena nodded encouragingly. "I think that's a good idea. Think about it. Even if you just figure out a way to make out clay goods, well, more you. More us. Like how the ancient Greeks told stories on their jugs and stuff. We're...an early civilization now, you know?" She heaved a sigh. "It would be nice if there was something left over to be found by some other group of people eventually." She turned her attention to nibbling on her jerky.
Ryan found that a bit depressing, and he was quiet as he finished his lunch. He was coping well in the short-term, and some of that was because he made a point not to think about the long-term. It might not be the healthiest attitude ever, but he'd prefer not to be doom and gloomy all the time. The thought of growing old and dying here without ever seeing his family again did not give him the warm fuzzies, exactly. He still had some food left when he was done, and he decided to save it for later. "Gonna wash up," he said, then got up to move the short distance to the water to rinse his hands and splash his face, maybe take a drink if the water looked okay.
Realizing too late how her verbalizing might affect the younger man, she murmured an acknowledgment and let him have his time down by the water before heading down herself. Gathering up her walking compatriot they passed on down the beach. Some conversations were struck up and Helena made a point to keenly describe anything she saw that she found striking or curious, waiting as Ryan crept close to things to have a look for himself. The sun was on a downward arch as they came to the far western tip of the island. The land was much higher here with the beach sloping away at an angle sharp enough that you could almost call it a cliff. Helena pointed out that fact and wondered aloud what the view might be like at the top of the point. Arm in arm, it took her a few minutes to really recognize what she was looking at. There was some of that tall purple grass that grew in the field here. There were also eight or maybe nine weatherbeaten crosses paced several feet apart but neatly in two rows. "Oh..." she said, taking in the tiny graveyard they seemed to have wandered into.
It usually didn't take Ryan long to recover his equilibrium, and he'd been chipper during the walk, appreciating Helena's efforts to describe things and her patience when he took the time to examine the finds with his hands and look at them close up. Once they'd stopped, he squinted at whatever she was looking at. "What is it?" he asked. He could see shapes up ahead, but at this distance he was unable to identify specifically what they were. He gently pulled his arm out of hers and began moving closer, curious about where they'd ended up.
"It's a graveyard, I think." She approached the nearest stump and bent to pick up the crossbeam of the monument from where it was lying in the grass. "Hmm," she mused as she turned it over in her hand. "Someone scratched in some words. It says..." She turned it to catch the afternoon light better as it was heavily worn. "Here Lies Alfie Greyson. Drowned One Morning." Frowning she turned it further but there was no more writing. "No date," she told him as she carefully set the bar back where it had lain.
"That's really kinda creepy," Ryan said. He wondered if it struck him that way because he knew there was no way these bodies were embalmed and in coffins, or if it was the simple fact that this could have happened to any of them. Might have happened to Olivia. He knelt down to explore the cross next to the late, great Alfie's, skimming his fingers over it and finding it still securely tied. The inscription, however, was too weathered to read. He could feel where it had been carved into the wood, but he couldn't see enough of it to make it out. "Did you know cemeteries in New Orleans are aboveground?" he asked idly. "'Cause of the water table, how far below sea level the city is."
Helena was attempting to decide if she really wanted to explore further but it was too curious a find not to get up and move to the next cross. "I think I knew that. It's in some movies I've seen, I think. Um, Interview With A Vampire? I'm such a Brad Pitt fan." She chuckled mildly, hoping to buoy the odd heaviness in the air hovering over this little point on the island.
Ryan could feel it too. Despite the warmth of the day, there were goosebumps standing up on his arms, and he kept talking as well, like maybe he could cast it out. "They're really cool... the crypts? Sometimes people decorate the urns outside 'em with Mardi Gras beads." He'd seen that more than once. "I guess these guys did the best they could with what they had, huh?" he said of the graveyard they were currently in.
"I guess so," she said mildly, noting that the next cross was secured with several yards of plastic fishing wire. Part of her wished she knew what had caused the deaths of all of these people. If it was due to cold then they'd have an answer. Maybe the grazers leave this place eventually and migrate someplace else, so maybe it was starvation. Or maybe there was a new threat that lingered here completely unnoticed or unfound.
Ryan wasn't thinking about how these people had died, necessarily. He was thinking that it was odd how they'd chosen such a perfect location for the graveyard. It was insulated from the wind by brush and rocks, more so than many areas of the island were. Had they hunted until they'd found this spot, or was it more of a coincidence? They'd never know, most likely. "We didn't know about this when Quinn was buried," he said rhetorically. How many more things were on this relatively small island that they didn't know about?
"Yeah, I know," Helena said, understanding that Ryan meant that it seemed more right that Quinn be resting here. Even though they were strangers, though the place had a bit of a creepy air, she also thought it felt as though it were the correct place to be laid to rest. "I wonder if they had a cleric of some sort with them," she said. "I wonder if Alex knows what to do in order to consecrate the ground properly." She thought he likely did know how it was done, but she wasn't sure if he had all of his tools to do so.
"I bet he would," Ryan said. He didn't know the priest well at all, but the man always seemed so calm, competent and sincere. Ryan felt sure he'd know about anything having to do with religious rituals. His nose wrinkled. "Wonder if he'd want to rebury him here?" He almost didn't even want to think about that because of the grossness involved. Cross and Arlo had put the guy down into a hole in the ground, naked. No coffin, no embalming, no grave liner. Ugh.
Helena drew in a reflexive breath, not in shock because it was a logical question but rather in disgust as well. Quinn had been dead for a week and in the ground for almost that long. Unembalmed and without a coffin, she just couldn't imagine moving him at this time. "No," she said. "I think I would fight to keep him where he is. Alex already blessed his grave anyways. I hope the priest wouldn't want to disturb him now that he's already situated." Still, she shuddered at the thought. Spoiled meat wasn't an unfamiliar smell in this place. Their hunted food often went bad before they could consume it all. It just seemed all the more horrible when the spoiled meat in question used to be a young man that most of them had known, talked to and laughed with. It was just too much to really bear with any grace.
"I'd fight with you," Ryan muttered. The very idea gave him the creeps, and he just about wished he hadn't even mentioned it. Death had always been an abstract concept to him, even after Hurricane Katrina, probably because he'd evacuated before things had gotten bad. Being here made it real for him, and he didn't like it. He moved over to the next gravesite, finding that the cross was completely unearthed and out of the ground, lying in two pieces on the grave. Immediately he began trying to work the pointed end that had been buried in the earth back into its place.
It was easy to fall into a rhythm as they worked to put the graveyard to rights. There was a loose fence or at least the sketching of one made from the round stones that Helena used to bake clams. They were overgrown with the purple grass but she found herself yanking it out by the roots and casting it over the stones and out of the tiny cemetery. "Can you fix that one?" she asked, pausing to shove some of her hair out of her face and catch a breather.
Ryan had found a fist-sized rock to use to pound the wood back into the ground, and he paused in that effort when Helena spoke. "I can get the vertical piece back in, but there's nothin' to tie the horizontal one back on with. Unless we can find something around here, we might have to come back another time." They hadn't spoken of it, but to him it seemed important to restore this small graveyard as best they could, and she seemed to feel the same way.
"Hmm," Helena said as she wandered the small space, eyes on the ground. Back and forward, she finally answered him. "I don't see anything that we could use. Maybe we'll have to come back with some braided cord. All of our rope is natural though. It would degrade over time but if we made a point of caretaking here every so often, that probably wouldn't be so bad." She squinted up at the sun, most of the day gone by now. "We're going to have to leave if we want to make it back before it gets dark." She felt that the island was fairly safe, but wandering around in the dark had its own dangers.
Ryan got to his feet, brushing off his pajama pants and stretching after he'd set the horizontal piece neatly against the base of the upright one. "Yeah, I think we should," he said. His vision became so much worse when the sun went down, and he'd prefer to be close to camp when that happened. It was embarrassing to be falling over things and worrying that he might run right into something he couldn't see. "I bet some of the others would like to see this place. We can come back with cord and anything else we can think of."
Helena nodded and moved to take his arm again. "Yeah, and maybe build up the wall a little to keep the grazers out. I can see their hoof prints plain as day in here," she said as she led him out and down the embankment to the edge of the water again. "Interesting find, huh?" she said to him as they set their gait toward home. "We always find interesting things when we take a walk together."
"We do," Ryan agreed, turning his head to grin at her as they walked along. Fortunately this time they hadn't found anything truly traumatic-- the laugher lair they'd ventured near had been seriously creepy, although he'd come out of it with a pair of shoes, so he couldn't complain. "Guess that means we should walk more often."
"I think you might be right," she said with a smile. "Every couple of days we should just pick a direction and go." They both had shoes now, which made it all an awful lot easier. The rest of the walk home was easy and fair. The northern curve of the island sported smooth beaches and frolicking monkeys. Nothing new jumped out at them for which Helena was sort of relieved and they made it back to camp just as the sun was dropping below the horizon. It was time to go and share their discovery with the others.