Part 17 (1/2)

Sarah had the grace to look chagrined. ”Sorry. What I meant to say is that we need to clean it really good and do what we can to get the infection out.” She nodded her head to add some affirmation to her words.

”Oh, s.h.i.+t, I don't feel so good,” moaned Kevin, holding his stomach. He sat up and vomited over the edge of the boat.

He heaved over and over again, making Jonathan only slightly worried that Kevin's guts were going to come out and float away. He'd never seen anyone so violently ill.

Candi leaned forward and patted him on the back, clearly at a loss.

”Kevin, what's going on?” asked Jonathan. This wasn't normal for a hand wound as far as he knew.

”I don't know,” gasped Kevin. ”I think I ate something bad on the s.h.i.+p at dinner.” He gulped uncomfortably. ”Did anyone else eat those ... G.o.d, I don't even want to say the words ... raw oysters?”

Everyone looked at each other, shaking their heads. Jonathan answered for all of them. ”Nope.”

Kevin wiped his mouth off with his hand and dipped it into the water. Then he fell back into the boat, landing on his back, moaning. ”f.u.c.k me. I've been poisoned.”

Candi's eyes bulged out of her head. This was not good.

”Kevin, you need to drink some water. You're going to get dehydrated quickly if you do have food poisoning and keep vomiting like that.” Jonathan turned his attention to Candi. ”Candi, get the water bottle and get at least four ounces of water in him over the next thirty minutes.”

Candi nodded her head, moving to follow his instructions.

Sarah just sat there numbly, looking worried, nodding her head at nothing in particular. Then she stopped nodding and started squinting at Candi, examining her, as if seeing her for the first time.

”What?” said Candi.

”What do you mean 'what'?”

”I mean, why are you staring at me?”

Sarah shrugged. ”No reason. I was just thinking that you look like total c.r.a.p.”

Candi got immediately offended. ”Well, thank you very much, Miss Thinks She's Perfect, and may I say that you don't look so hot yourself!”

Sarah reached up to touch her chapped and salty lips. Her fingers glided over the skin of her face, which pulled tight every time her mouth moved. It had a layer of salt coating it that Jonathan knew from his own face, felt like a fine, dry crust. She shrugged. ”I probably do look less than my best, but at least my hair doesn't look like there's a family of rats living in it.”

Candi laughed bitterly. ”I wouldn't be so sure about that, if I were you.”

Sarah frowned and then reached up to touch her hair. She pulled some of it forward and stared at it, obviously surprised to see that a light salty coating had come to rest all over it, making it go from blond to nearly gray. She reached up with both hands to feel her entire head of hair. ”Oh. My. G.o.d. It feels like teased cotton candy. What the h.e.l.l ... ?”

Jonathan wasn't paying any mind to what they were saying. Something he saw off in the distance was grabbing his attention.

”I think I see land!” yelled Jonathan, suddenly.

”What?! Where?” said Candi, twisting around as far as she could, to see where Jonathan was looking.

”There!” answered Jonathan, pointing off in the distance. ”It has to be. Otherwise there wouldn't be flies.”

”I thought it was seagulls that flew around land,” said Sarah sarcastically.

”Yeah, but flies too,” said Jonathan, ignoring her att.i.tude.

Kevin sat up with obvious effort.

”Land. Cool.” He laid back down and closed his eyes.

Jonathan began rustling through one of the boat's storage bins behind him.

”What are you looking for?” asked Candi.

”I think we have my small telescope here, don't we?”

”I don't think you need one it's definitely land, I can see it from here. We're getting closer.”

Sure enough, the current seemed to be driving them towards the land at a rapid pace.

”Sweet,” said Jonathan, a smile breaking out across his face as he confirmed Candi's a.s.sessment. ”I guess we can just sit here then and wait until we wash up on the sh.o.r.e.”

”What sh.o.r.e is it, though?” asked Sarah, trepidation in her voice. ”I mean, where in the h.e.l.l are we?”

”I have absolutely no idea,” said Jonathan, ”but we're about to find out. Do you have any idea how lucky we are right now? To have run into an island like this?” He couldn't stop himself grinning from ear to ear.

”Are there any, like, wild cannibal tribes out here that eat people and shrink heads and stuff like that?”

Jonathan frowned at her. ”Don't be silly. We're in the Caribbean. You'd have more trouble with pirates and drug runners than cannibals out here.”

”Ha! Pirates! That's a good one,” said Sarah, looking out at the island with a smile. ”Johnny Depp can come after my treasure any day of the week. I'll barely even put up a fight, I promise.”

Jonathan broke into her daydream with his serious response. ”I'm not joking. There are modern day pirates out here that hijack and steal from unwary boaters and do all kinds of other things that we probably don't want to know about.”

Sarah was instantly p.i.s.sed again. ”Are you serious? Because that's just great, Jonathan. Great. Pirates! And I thought sharks were our biggest problem.”

”Sharks are definitely a problem; but there are also poisonous jelly fish, barracudas, venomous snakes ... ”

Sarah's face grew more and more alarmed with every word that came out of Jonathan's mouth.

”Okay, Jonathan! That's enough, we get it now!” said Candi.

”Did you hear that, Kevin? We're getting out of the frying pan and heading right into the fire,” said Sarah, bitterness lacing her voice.

”Mmmph, fire ... ” was all they heard in reply. Then Kevin started singing, very out of tune, ” 'Come on baby light my fiiiirrre, try to set the night on fiiirrre ... ' ” He petered out at the end and went quiet again.

”Kevin?” asked Candi, tentatively. He sounded so out of it.

Jonathan reached over and put his hand on Kevin's forehead. ”He has a fever. I don't know if it's that hand or the food or what, but he's burning up. Seems kind of soon after the injury to have an infection that bad. We need to get him to that land over there and cleaned up and hydrated. Let's put the tarp up over his part of the boat to give him some shade. Sarah, you see if you can get him to drink some more water.”

Candi began securing the tarp over Kevin to give him some shade.

Sarah wasn't registering Jonathan's orders. ”Are my eyes fooling me, or are we moving away from the land now?” asked Sarah.