ISLAND

Chapter 2

Focused.

That's not a word you'd expect to describe someone who had just crash landed on an isolated island after watching a shuttle with 85 passengers still inside get destroyed by terrorists. But focused was the word to describe Carter as he climbed out of the escape pod and took stock of his surroundings.

They had landed on the beach of the island about 500 yards from the shore. To his right nothing but empty ocean, to his left a densely overgrown forest. It was warm, humid. But there was a breeze. The air tasted of salt, but there was a faint putrid scent. As though an animal had died somewhere deeper in the forest. They should be careful, there may be predators.

Carter watched as the others filed out of the pod and wandered in circles in shock. If they were going to survive they'd need to work together. Carter sighed. And that meant dealing with people. First things first, he needed to get everyone to function. It was so much easier with machines. He didn't know how humans worked. Never could figure it out.

He started calling for everyone to come together "alright. Let's all gather around in a circle. If we're going to survive this we need to work together and be efficient. Let's start with introductions. Everyone state their name and profession. I'm Carter, I'm an engineer." He gestured to the one at his left.

"Um... My name is Dan and I was in charge of inventory."

"Great, thank you, Dan. And you?" He said gesturing to the next.

"I'm Mike and I did maintenance and janitorial work."

They continued down the line, Carter forgetting most of the names within seconds of hearing them. They had a Geologist, a Crew Manager, a Resource Manager, some experienced Astronauts, and a couple more maintenance workers.

They continued down the line until they got to the first woman in the group.

"I'm Emily and I was the Head chef."

"Thank you, Emily." Carter turned to the man who had been yelling at him in a state of panic.

"I'm Kevin and I'm a construction worker. They brought me to help build on the new world."

Figures.

Lastly, he turned to the woman directly to his right. "And you are?"

"I'm Angela and I'm a Microbiologist."

She must have been one of the Scientists lucky enough to get first looks on the new terrain. Or at least it had seemed lucky at the time.

"Alright. Dan, go see what we have for supplies, he gestures to the resource manager, "you go help him and work out how to ration supplies." He turns to the geologist "I would love to hear anything you might be able to guess about where we are" pointing at the crew manager he says "you take everyone else and get them working on shelter and anything else that might be useful. I'm gonna see what I can do about sending for help."

In the next hour, Carter learned two very valuable things. That geologists are completely useless, and that no amount of angry willpower could make a radio function if it had a broken circuit board. Not even with the motivation of how useless the geologist was. Why hadn't the radio been more impact resistant? In all fairness, it probably wouldn't get signal in another star system so it wasn't that surprising it wasn't made a priority. However, it made their situation a lot worse than it was already.

Dan and the Resource Manager had informed them that there were enough supplies to last them all three days comfortably, five if they were willing to make themselves miserable. After that, they'd be forced to find food and water on the island.

Water wouldn't be hard to come by, they could build a basic distiller with some of the supplies on the pod to make the ocean water drinkable. But food would require them to venture into the forest with no information as to what else might be living there.

Having given up on the radio Carter went to see where he could make himself useful. He saw the crew manager directing Kevin and some other workers to build some makeshift tents out of cloth and driftwood they'd found on the beach.

Walking up to the manager, what was his name Justin? Carter greeted him. "How's the camp coming along?"

"Well enough. Most of these people aren't used to this kind of hard labor but we'll have it done by tonight."

"What about that one?" Carter asked pointing towards Kevin hammering a makeshift support post into the ground, "know anything about him?"

"Who Kevin? A real rags to riches sort of story. I hired him myself. He grew up in poverty as the only white kid in his neighborhood. He had it rough growing up, his father was an abusive addict, his mother turned to prostitution just to pay the bills." He turned away as one of the workers called from across the camp.

"Hey Joseph! Where do you want us to put the wood we can't use?"

Joseph! That was it. Carter thought.

"Bring it over to Emily she's building a cook fire!" He yelled back.

Turning back to Carter he said "He grew up fighting to eat, fighting to survive, he couldn't leave his house without getting cornered by some group of kids just because he stood out. His whole childhood he had to prove himself, had to look tough and strong and brave all the time. He had to pick fights he knew he couldn't win just to get the others to respect him. It's certainly carried over into his adult life. But it motivated him to achieve more."

"He certainly seems to have achieved a lot." Carter replied, absorbing all of this new information. He began to feel a measure of sympathy for him.

Joseph nodded in agreement, "That's how he ended up hired to work on another planet when he was too busy taking care of his dying mother to finish highschool. Cancer took her, appearantly his dad died of 'mysterious' circumstances. You'd be amazed the kind of information you end up with when you hire for these kinds of jobs. Confidential of course, But that hardly seems to matter given the circumstances. I tell you this so you might have a little sympathy for him. I know he can be abrasive but he's really not a bad guy."

"I'll certainly keep that in mind." Carter replied. No wonder Kevin acted so unstable. It must be hard for him to deal with his trauma while still acting like nothing scared him.

"The people listen to you." Joseph observed, "you're a natural leader. Your mind would be put to good use managing others."

"It probably would." Carter replied, "but people don't interest me. I don't enjoy their company and all they seem to enjoy doing is fucking me over the first chance they get."

"You say that like you aren't one."

"Maybe that's because I don't feel like One." Carter said walking away.

He made his way over to Emily trying to build a fire. "Would you like a hand with that?" He asked.

"I can handle it." She said in a guarded voice.

"I'm sure you can." He replied, "but couldn't two people handle it as well or better? I have nothing else to do."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye for a moment. "I guess having the help wouldn't hurt"

Carter squatted down and started shaving off more bits of wood for kindling. While he did Emily gathered together small sticks to restructure the initial fire with. Carter saw a small pile of similar sticks that were singed but clearly never lit properly.

Once Carter had made proper kindling they built a cone structure around it with sticks. Once it was finished they took turns using the flint and steel from the emergency supplies to light the kindling, then turns blowing on the ember to get it started. Before too long they had a proper fire going.

"See? Having help isn't so bad is it?" Carter said as he stood to walk away.

"No..." Emily said quietly, "thank you."

Carter stopped and glanced back. He didn't think those words left her mouth very often. "You're welcome." He said, then continued walking as he went out onto a sand dune to observe the camp.

The sun was starting to drop over the horizon. The day had gone by quickly but they'd gotten a lot accomplished. Carter watched the camp for a while before walking down to the fire. He found himself sitting next to Angela as Emily handed him a small bowl of stew, no doubt made from rehydrated ingredients. He thanked Emily and then turned to look at Angela.

"So how did you end up on the shuttle?" He asked Angela taking a bite of stew. It tasted about as good as he could expect emergency supplies to but he ate without complaint.

"I was always the most innovative scientist in my lab so it made the most sense for me to go. What about you?"

Carter chuckled. "I served coffee and kissed ass for 8 months until they started taking me seriously."

She laughed slightly. "You don't strike me as a kiss-ass."

"I'm not. But I'm a very good actor when I want to be."

"So you conned your way in then."

"I wouldn't say conned, I'm a good engineer!" He said feigning offense.

"Is that why you did such an amazing job getting that radio working?" She asked laughing genuinely this time.

"Oh shut up," Carter said, laughing as well. He liked her. She seemed to have more personality than the rest.

As the sun began to set and as it got darker there was a sudden noise in the woods. Trees crashed together, it sounded like things were breaking. So loud it could have been anywhere on the island. As it got darker it was followed by shouts and howls. They sounded primitive but almost human. Distorted, but human.

"What the fuck is that?" Kevin broke the silence.

"I don't know. But I hope we don't find out" someone else said. Everyone mutters in agreement.

"It's dark," Carter said. "Let's try to get some sleep."

"You're gonna try to sleep with whatever that God awful noise is all night?" Kevin demanded.

"We don't have a lot of choices," Carter pointed out. "I'm sure there's something in the pod we can use as earplugs."

"Fuck that. I'm not just gonna lay here and wait for whatever that is to come find us. I'm gonna go check it out. We should at least know what to prepare for."

"I don't think that would be wise. It could be a dangerous predator or even natives to this island. You'll be at a disadvantage in the dark when you don't know the terrain."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing!" Kevin insisted.

"Alright fine. If you want to help the rest of us stretch our supplies further be my guest."

Kevin hesitated for a second, then stocked off into the wilderness. Everything was silent save for the mysterious yelling coming from the forest.

Several minutes passed with no one saying a word. After what felt like a very long while the yelling was interrupted by one long, piercing and very human scream.

Everyone was silent, looking that direction in horror. Then as if by unspoken consent they all got up and went into their tents. The noise had quieted down significantly after the scream, but Carter would have bet a years wage that no one was sleeping.