Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) (6 page)

The tropical heat was overbearing by now and the bonfire only added to its intensity. Looking up at the vast blue sky, I glimpsed that the sun was directly overhead. From its position, I guessed it was about noon. The rescuers should have been here. But I hadn’t seen a single soul.
No helicopters or boats.

An aching sensation came over me. If they hadn’t come by now, there was a chance they were not coming at all. Or maybe the search team had already surveyed this island
while I was asleep and didn’t spot me. Possibly, they had already given up the quest.

No, that could not be. With so many kids missing, they would give it at least a few days, probably weeks. At least, I hoped they would keep trying. The alternative possibility was
too crushing to ponder.

My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything since the hotdogs at the football game. Even though I didn’t want to leave the sho
re in case someone came for me, I needed to find food and water sources until that happened. On the unthinkable chance that nobody came, I didn’t want to wait until I was starving and dehydrated to look for food. Now was the time while I still had my strength and wits.

I found some rope over by the crags. With that, I made a makeshift belt and tied empty water bottles around it. If I found a freshwater creek on my way to town, if there was one, I could fill them. It was unfathomable that there was a vast ocean before me with plenty of liquid,
yet I couldn’t drink any of it.

Trying to push my morbid thoughts aside, I stood there upon the white sandy shore looking up at the jungle ahead. What if this tropical woodland expanded across the entire island and there wasn’t any human civilization within it at all? What if I was here alone?

I hoped upon entering, the trees would clear shortly and give way to something more civilized, some place with telephones. The idea of an uninhabited island near the Florida Keys seemed unlikely.

But then, I remembered how my mother used to surf the internet for remote islets for sale. It was a short lived dream of hers to build a home on our own private island. Until now, I had entirely forgotten about that.

We didn’t have the money on her waitressing salary, but she had ideas that we would get rich someday. I recalled her showing me small uninhabited properties of such out in the tropical regions of the Atlantic. I was surprised how many there were. Could I possibly have washed onto the shore of one? If that was the case, I could be out here all alone.

I had to stop thinking and just move. With that in mind, I carved a huge S.O.S. in the sand with the end of a stick upon the shore like I had seen people do in movies. If a helicopter flew by, I hoped it would be seen. And upon chance, if somebody came to the island while I was scavenging, they would come looking for me or at least they might wait for me to return.

For about a half of an hour I just stared at the edge of the rainforest. I was terrified to go in. As depressed as I was, I didn’t want to die like that. At least not yet. I felt terrible. All my thoughts were agitating me.

“Buck up, girl. Just be brave and go.” So that was what I did. I forced myself to face my fears and us
e my intellect as best I could.

Now, I headed into the jungle. There could be innumerable dangerous creatures in this dense rainforest, a
nything from cobras to tigers. I wished I had a knife or better yet, a gun. But it was just me and my pathetic survival skills that I tried to convince myself were more advanced than they actually were.

Who was I kidding? I was a skinny girl with some geeky scientific knowledge and survival information from TV and text books. I was no Zena warrior woman or no Jane Goodall.

Trees surrounded me from every side. Everything looked the same. Ferns, bushes, trees, and more trees. Only minutes into this monstrosity, I feared I was lost. And it was hot!

In a sudden desperation, from that point onward, I began tearing branches with my bare hands and pillaging them into the ground as landmarks. Hopefully, they would create distinctions in this soupy mess of outgrowth and help me find my way back to the beac
h after I found water and food.

As before, I was shocked at my newfound strength. My hands should have been raw and bloodied from the rough, jagged edges of the bark that I grasped so violently, but my skin seemed to be unusually thick and durable.

I was starting to feel a little mad from the heat. My imagination must have been playing tricks on me because I started hearing music. It sounded like it was coming from the beach or even the ocean. The melodies were distant, but enticing. It was like the slow, ominous instrumentals of the Doors, a creepy calling, juxtaposed with the erotic desperation of Led Zeppelin.

I felt
so damn hot! The sounds pounded in my mind. And though I had surpassed any expected injuries, I still suffered immensely from the hellish temperatures.

Oddly, I should have been completely soaked from the warmth and humidity, but my body remained perfectly dry like the skin of a snake. It was weird.
Why in the world was I feeling more like a reptile than a human being?

I kept touching my forehead expecting it to be drenched
in sweat, but it wasn’t. My armpits were dry, my chest, my back. Every spot that usually sweated showed no usual indications of perspiration.

My temperature must have reached at least 115 degrees Fahrenheit. From my recollection, normal body temperature was approximately 98.6 degrees. A person could die at just 104. My experience was inexplicable.

Why wasn’t I perspiring? In the past, I was like a water fountain at my parks and recreation gymnastics practice. And when I walked to school in the heat, my forehead always beaded up with moisture. But right now, I swore my body temperature matched that of the air and my skin was as dry as could be. And yet I was still alive.

I thought about what Mr. Kipper drilled into our heads in Biology class my sophomore year. He said human beings were warm blooded which meant that they regulated their body temperatures in all environments. In hot weather, the blood vessels in their skin dilated to lift the excess heat to the surface causing them to sweat. He must have told us that a hundred times. Warm blooded animals sweated to cool off and shivered to warm up.

But cold blood creatures were unable to do the same. Instead of warming themselves up or cooling themselves off to maintain normal body temperatures, they just became the same temperatures as their surroundings. When they got too hot, they moved to cooler places in the shade or water, etc. and vice versa. When they got too cold, they sunbathed on hot rocks or moved to warmer water regions. 

Yet in this tropical weather I wasn’t sweating at all like a human being should. As oddly as it seemed, I felt more like a cold blooded creature, more like a lizard, a frog, or even a fish, all of which take on the same temperatures as their environments. Yes, I would have betted my life on it—my body was at least 115 degrees.

All I wanted to do now was run back to the ocean to cool off. The desire was accelerating by the moment. Everything within me called me to the sea.

My hallucinations must have been growing. Now I heard grand, powerful songs. Alluring melodies that
drew me to the waves, a place I could refresh myself.

I wouldn’t listen. No, I would not. In preparation of what lay ahead, I had to find food to eat and fresh water to drink or I could die.

As I forced myself along, pulling branch after branch, stabbing them into the ground, I started to pant like a lizard with its mouth open. For a moment I stopped there in the dense greenery. I didn’t feel right. No, I certainly did not.

In an overwhelming rush, the heat became too much. Suddenly my instincts seemed to take over. I found myself digging into the wet ground. I got down on my knees. My hands and arms were covered in wet mush.

In no time at all, I had made a hole for myself that I climbed into. Once inside, I covered myself like a frog with the cool mud. Instantly, my body heat seemed to lower to the same temperature as the brown wetness that surrounded me. I felt better.

With my head sticking out of the ground now, I surveyed my environment. If
Savannah was around, she would have had a field day laughing at me. To my surprise, I felt quite comfortable.

Oddly, my eyesight appeared to be exceptional—way better than normal. I could see everything far and near. When I looked high up into the trees, I could even see the tiny veins in the leaves in pronounced detail. There was a colorful bird way up on a branch with crevices in its orange beak and a red plume on its tiny head. And
there was a thick, fat caterpillar with a yellow stripe down its back as well as other tiny creatures within the flora.

My senses appeared heightened too. How could this be? I not only saw in clear detail, but I seemed to also
feel
the vibrations of the numerous insects buzzing in the soupy air. There were millions, small and large. Mosquitoes and other oddly shaped large bugs swarmed around my face. I should have been scared, but more than that, they actually seemed appetizing to me. My stomach grumbled in its hollowness.

Intellectually, my cravings seemed gruesome. But the more I stared at their plump bodies and whiskery legs, the more I wanted to eat them. And once they landed on my lips, inserting their tiny stingers, that is what I did. I swallowed them whole, one after the other.

If only my mother could see me now! What a peculiar girl I had suddenly become. The physical changes and desires I was experiencing since I woke up on this island were unfathomable.

My stomach began to fill. Again, t
o my surprise, I felt thoroughly satisfied with my meal of insects now. Strange enough, I even enjoyed the feel of the rough textures of their bodies in my mouth. I especially liked the way their moving legs tickled my throat as they slid down.

And the mud had cooled me off just right. I knew I should get out of this hole that I had dug for myself, but I didn’t want to. It was so
comfy. Though, if I did not return to the beach soon, I might miss the rescue party.

That thought motivated me to dig myself out. Until the search team found me, I knew I should keep to the shore as much as possible. On the beach I was in plain sight. Anyone looking couldn’t miss me, especially if I kept a constant fire burning.

At once, I heard a sound. And then more sounds. Leaves were crushing under feet. Tiny branches were snapping. There was something coming through the jungle.

Chapter Five

I didn’t have time to run or hide. My clothes and body caked in mud, I froze as still as a statue. My adrenaline rushed as my heart beat fast against my chest.

But then,
I heard voices. There were people approaching.

Disoriented, I tried to hide behind a bu
sh, but there was hardly time. My body partially concealed in back of the thistles and thorns, three teenagers came through the trees.

Emotions rushed through me. M
y mind lit with excitement and then relief. I moved out of the lush greenery to an open spot. My classmates, Emily Monroe, Jake Stevenson, and the bombshell French exchange student, Brigitte Couture, were standing right before me. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the people who died, I wished it had been Jake Stevenson.

They were pretty shocked too.

“Raz?” Jake asked, his eyes widening. “You look different.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “Mother pig.”

My throat tightened.
I supposed he was making fun of me because I was covered in mud. But my opinion changed when I saw Emily’s jaw drop and her eyes widen even bigger than Jake’s. “You’re unbelievably gorgeous,” Emily said.

At that I scoffed. Wondering what the hell was wrong with them teasing me at a time like this.
I didn’t need this bull. My head was pounding and I felt light headed.

“
How’d you make it to shore?” Jake asked with that same surprising bemused look in his twitchy dark eyes. His tuxedo pants were torn and tattered, but his tuxedo shirt was still intact. He must have lost his shoes in the ocean. His feet were wrapped in fabric.

“I, uh…” I was still processing the realization that there were other survivors.

Emily interrupted me midsentence, “Oh, Jewel—I’m so glad you’re alive!” She threw her arms around my muddy body. I was annoyed that she called me by my first name. It was a hand-me-down name from my grandmother and I didn’t like it. Her body was shaking. “I don’t understand it.” As she spoke, her voice shook. “I just don’t know what happened. And you look so different. Look at your hair; it’s so long.”

With her arms around me,
I was surprised that she didn’t care about soiling her prom dress or her blond hair. They were a bit in disarray anyway, but still—that wasn’t like her. She held me tight. The closeness made me extremely uncomfortable. Some strange sensations stirred inside of me causing me to fear losing control. A part of me wanted to rip her arms off and I didn’t understand why I had such violent feelings. Maybe she sensed this because she stepped away and threaded her arm through Jake’s. She was stupid to put her trust in him.

“I’m glad you survived,” Brigitte whispered, tucking a strand of her long black hair behind her ear. Her ocean blue eyes sparkled when she looked at me.
Even though she acted nice enough, I got the feeling she didn’t like me.