The first sign that something’s wrong is the missing callaloo. The closest source of food for us, it grows right outside our door. Beside it stands the tree where we get our coconuts, but it’s bare. Bare.
“Well that’s strange,” she muses. Foreboding grows in my chest, because this was how it all started before.
“Come on,” I say quietly. We need to check the fruit and other coconuts trees.
We walk in silence until we get to the cluster of trees we always go to. She’s frowning.
“No coconuts? What? Where did they all go to overnight?” She shakes her head and looks all around the ground around us. “If they were knocked down by the storm, they’d be on the ground. But there’s nothing.”
I sigh. I won’t repeat what I told her this morning. There’s no need.
I know what we’re going to find.
Goddamn it.
Our search for fruit yields the same. We walk to the water, and the usual signs of sea life are just as quiet as before. It’s as if someone’s set off an atomic bomb, and all signs of living creatures have vanished.
There’s nothing.
Fucking nothing.
“It’s a damn good thing we have some food put away,” she mutters under her breath. “How could a storm have wiped everything out like that?”
I don’t think it was the storm, but I have no idea what else the reason could be, so I don’t answer. And I’m not sure how long the stores we have will give us.
“We’ll have to make our supplies last,” I tell her. Until we have food again.
If we have food again. What if this time there’s no resurgence?
We spend the day looking for something, anything at all that we could use as a food source but find almost nothing. Finally, when we’re reaching midday, Harper looks thoughtful.
“Maybe we should go look on the other side of the island? Keep looking for anything at all?” It’s a small island, and walking to the other side won’t take long. It also means there’s not much of a chance we’ll find anything. The reason we built the shelter here to begin with was because of the close proximity to food.
I think about this before I agree. Nodding, I look up at the clear blue sky, dotted with only the faintest wisps of clouds. “We can at least go look by the waterfall,” I tell her. I didn’t look there before. It will at least give us something to do.
And maybe this is in my head. How would the island itself be conspiring against us? It isn’t logical. But I’ve gone there mentally before.
I wish we could barricade the shelter so that no one else can get in, but any barricade we use short of a lock—something we definitely don’t have—will keep us out as easily as it would someone else. We hide some of our food, though, and in various places, and then head to the waterfall.
We hear the waterfall before we see it. Vibrant orange and pink flowers line our way, reminding me of the fruit that I already miss. My stomach growls, and Harper gives me a sad, almost wistful smile.
“Hungry?” she asks.
I shrug. “Little. You?”
She shrugs. “I’m alright. I went for full days not eating when I was in college. I’d just get too wrapped up in what I was doing to care about it.”
I chuckle. “So you’re one of those girls.”
“What?” she says, smiling yet defensive. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Dedicated to her work and goals. Overachiever?”
She gives me a self-deprecating smile. “I suppose you could say that. Not you, huh?”
“Babe, when I was that age, I’d drink a keg for breakfast and a second for dinner. That was all I needed.”
She snorts derisively. We’re so close to the waterfall, it’s almost hard to hear one another speak. “So you’re one of those guys,” she says.
“One of what guys?” I say warningly, drawing close enough to see the faint pink coloring in her cheeks at my warning look. Of course, she’s just as welcome to tease me as I am her, but I like to play this game with her sometimes. It takes my mind off the dire straits we’re in.
“Those guys,” she says. “A frat boy who kills his brain cells with beer and gets laid more than he cracks a book open.”
“Kinda. Not a frat boy, though. I enlisted before college.”
It’s the very short version of the story. There’s more to it. I think, anyway. My mind still plays crazy tricks on me. Somehow, though, talking about this almost reminds me of something. Almost. I pause and frown, pinching the bridge of my nose to try to stoke my memory, but it doesn’t work. There was something I was grasping for there for a minute, but it’s gone.
“That’s admirable,” she says, swinging her arms as she walks easily through the trees, and hell if she isn’t a sight to see, all tanned and freckled limbs, wavy, unruly hair, full lips and bright eyes that miss nothing. Her dresses have faded from sunlight and use and are a little baggy on her now.