Page 19 of Stranded

“Man, this is fucking embarrassing.” He lets out a deep breath. “The store owner saw me looking at it and said something about how my girl would love it. I didn’t want to admit I was looking at it when I was single, so I bought it.” He drops his hand and shakes his head. “Pathetic, right?”

“Awe, hey man, I think that’s sweet!” I tell him honestly.

He looks up at me, searching my face for the truth with a doubtful look on his face.

“Really,” I say, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “You bought it for a future girlfriend, there’s nothing weird about that. She’d probably love that story, too.”

“Thanks, I guess. I thought it might work to…” he trails off, his eyes looking up, even though we’re inside, and we nod.

“Good idea, who knows what will work,” King says, gathering all the items as he exits the hut and moves across to the other one, pushing the door open with his shoulder.

“Hey! There’s another waterskin here now!” West and I quickly move to follow him, and sure enough, a third waterskin is on the same table where we had found the first two.

“I’ll be damned!” I say with a smile. Our native is definitely not upset at us. Unless they just wanted us to lower our guard.

King passes the waterskin to West then places all the items he’s holding on the table. He starts to look around and quickly finds what he’s looking for… a bag.

“Good idea,” I say, as he hooks it over his head so the shoulder bag sits at his side, then he stuffs the items inside. This way, we’ll have our hands free to climb down. Plus, the bag would be useful in the future. In fact… I look around, pleased when I find another spare bag.

“There’s a lot of stuff in here,” West says, looking around.

“We figure it’s stuff the previous inhabitant made. The other hut has even more, but everything looks much older, like it was the trial run stuff. This stuff is much better quality.”

“Fuck, whoever did all this has been here for a while,” West mumbles, following King back out to the skywalk.

I close the door behind me and make my way down the ladder, leaving West to watch from the main hut. King starts to place the bait near the fire and I casually stroll out of camp to my assigned spot.

Eventually, I decide to take a seat, finding a spot where I can just barely see the bottle of shampoo. And I wait… and wait… and wait.

After what feels like a few hours, West calls my name. I stand and stretch as I head back into camp, seeing all the items still sitting there, with West and King frowning down at them.

“Nothing?” I ask, and they both shake their heads.

“I need some water and something to eat, why don’t two of us go get some fruit and refill our waterskins, and one person can stay here and watch?” West suggests.

“Yeah, I just emptied mine and I’m starving. I’ll stay and watch, if you want?” I ask, looking between them. They both agree and I hand them my waterskin and climb up the ladder, deciding to find a spot where I can sit on the deck and lean against the hut for some support as I watch the bait.

The heat of the jungle and lack of stimulation make me yawn as my eyelids grow heavy. I’m determined to keep my eyes open, but the next thing I know, I’m jerking awake, looking around me for threats.

How long was I asleep? What woke me? I notice a coconut sitting beside me and frown as I pick it up. “You weren’t here before,” I mumble. Turning it, I realize it’s been cracked open. I shake it and hear the liquid sloshing around inside.

I lick my lips. Iamreally thirsty. How much do I trust that this is safe to drink? It’s not like they have access to drugs on this island, right? Knowing what the other two would say, but too thirsty to care, I tip it up and let the coconut water quench my thirst. We probably weren’t drinking enough. With this kind of heat, we should’ve been hydrating way more than we had been.

Lowering the coconut, my eyes move down to our bait. The soap, shampoo, socks and… “What the hell?” I whisper, dropping the coconut and quickly climbing down the ladder.

I stare down at the items and scan them, making sure nothing is missing before leaning down and picking up the rock that’s now sitting in the middle of them.

My eyes scan my surroundings before I flip the rock over and read the name engraved on it. “Steve.”

Chapter eleven

Darla

These men were… strange. Why did they leave their stuff out and then try to hide? Were they trying to trick me into coming out? Did I want the stuff they left out? Sure I did. The thought of cleaning my hair and putting on soft socks was pretty tempting.

But I’m not a total idiot. I’ve managed to survive here on my own because I knew when to be careful and when to take risks. They might have done something to this stuff. They could have booby trapped them somehow or laced them with poison for all I knew. Besides, it didn’t feel right to steal from them. They haven’t done anything wrong… yet.

So instead, I left them Steve. I wasn’t actually going to let them keep him, but I was interested to see what they would think of my rock. I was really tempted to swipe the pretty necklace, but figured it must belong to a woman that one of them knew, and that felt wrong.

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