How Did We Get Here?
“Jerry, get over here – we gotta leave now. The chicken pox vaxx is gunna spoil! I’ll be made a laughingstock,” I yelled from across the tarmac.
“Here I come boss!” Jerry hollered. “Let me finish up fueling the plane. You don’ wanna crash into the ocean do ya’?”
“Fine, just hurry it up – even the dog is ready to go!”
I looked at the sun, gauging how long… I checked my heartbeat – I sure was agitated! I had a lot on the line here – not only my rep as doc, but also… .
I looked up at the sun again. It was about noon when he finally finished fueling the plane. I looked at the looming palm trees swaying in the wind one last time before we started loading the rest of the things on. A cute but-ever-so stupid dog jumped up on me and started to lick my face right before we left, so I just gave him and angry look and a forgiving pat whilst I got in.
“Jerry!”
“Yah Boss.”
“What’s the hold up, NOW!?”
“Boss, I ain’t flown over this stretch of the Atlantic, so I’s checkin’ the coordinates, eh?”
“Jerry, if I was as stupid as you than I would be flying a toy, now let’s get a move on would you?”
“Yeesh, no need to yell I’m right here – couple last things before we go.”
Oh my Gosh, I thought, “What now?”
“I need to feed my dog Henry and talk with the radio towers!”
I turned around to find a strong gust of wind with a hint of dead fish and dog food surrounding me as Henry immediately started kissing me with his wide and ever-so-slimy tongue. I checked my fat Rolex watch, given to me by Louisa on the day I graduated medical school. It was blue and silver, with a gold rim around the face, and I stared as the hand went tick tick tick. I thought about the thirty or more Seminole Indians on that watery, swampy reservation down in remote Florida, north of the Keys, scratching their poor bare arms until blood flowed, blood that the mosquitoes seemed to want to ski down. CAN WE LEAVE!? Patience.
Finally, a few minutes later Jerry hauled his big old carcass into the pilot’s seat. I looked at his golden-brown hat and his goggles that looked like a blind monster made them. Then all of a sudden, the plane lurched forward: we started taxiing but I couldn’t help myself from yelling at Jerry.
“You stupid buffoon!” I squealed. “Hows’bout a warning?”
“WHAT?” he questioned in the loudest voice possible.
There was no use even trying with that man: he was a stupid buffoon after all.
“Hey boss, I will turn this plane around if you keep talking to me like that!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, there isn’t any need to yell is there?”
“Was that sass I heard in your voice?”
As Jerry gave me the warning for takeoff, the plane lurched forward, and Henry was as ecstatic as ever. He was sneezing like there was no tomorrow! As the tarmac turned into water I could feel the plane no longer going straight, but up at a steep angle. In the rearview mirror I could see Henry slamming the walls of the plane with his tail making frightening noises that sounded like we lost an engine. As the plane started to straighten out I decided to try to loosen the tension with some chips.
“Hey! Do you want some Lays?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said not daring to take his eyes off the endless path ahead. “Can you give one to Henry? He might start to beg.” As I tossed one back for the dog I couldn’t help but feel like a god looking out the window into the skies and the ground below – it just gave me a feeling of power.
“Hey? Where are you from?” I asked without any genuine interest.
“I’m from New York. I got Henry there too,” Jerry responded. “Where are you from?”
“I’m from Ohio. My father and grandpa are from there too.” He also didn’t seem that interested in what I had to say so I just turned and looked out the window again. The sun was starting to come down but the view was spectacular, it was like we were in a picture. As the sky was turning dark and Henry less ecstatic, I couldn’t help but feel sleepy; moments later I was in a sweet dream that seemed to go on forever.
When I woke up and checked my surroundings to look for the time I saw Jerry’s eyes on the path ahead not daring to even think about sleep. It was like he was a zombie, but it was his job after all. I found an alarm clock in the glove box that read 3:47. I couldn’t help but feel bad for him.
“Hey? Are you alright?” I asked wondering if I was even going to get a response.
“Ya, I’m all good.” He coughed out while clearing his throat, “I can set an auto pilot for 30 min every hour so I get to relax a little.”
“Why don’t you just keep it on auto pilot for the whole time while you sleep?” I questioned, “and if you can’t have it on all night then why have it at all?”
He was not having it; he didn’t like my constant questions, so I decided to try to go back to sleep.
About two hours later I woke to the sound of Henry yawning and slamming the walls of the plane with his hairy tail. This scared me. Jerry almost lost control of the plane, and gave an angry look at Henry. The dog laid back down and started licking me as an apology.
“Jerry,” I said almost asking for forgiveness for Henry, “He didn’t mean to, ok, he just woke up and got excited to see you, that’s all.”
“At least he got to sleep, I have been flying this plane all night and he still jump-scares me.” He stated angrily, “That dog needs to calm down when he sees new people, he’s like a rock with four legs, a tail, a snout, two long cute ears, and a long wet tongue.”
All of a sudden, the plane started shaking vigorously. Not only Jerry but the engine was screaming too. Henry joined in howling although I doubt he knew what was going on. The plane started diving down and my butt was clenched so hard. The sun was coming up and Jerry was trying to signal to no one, there was no signal and we were going to crash into the water whether we liked it or not. Henry was getting tossed around like a bag of potatoes and Jerry started crying. I was pretty sure that I had well soiled myself and was trying to get a bag to breathe and maybe wipe. We could see the water but like in all movies he hit a few buttons and flipped some switches; he started pulling up on the steering wheel while looking for a good spot to land – maybe he was looking for a wave with some dead seaweed on it so that the plane didn’t tilt into the water and split in half. There was not much time left but it looked like he had found a spot, 100 feet, 50 feet, 10 feet, BOOM!
***
I awakened to a pitch black darkness as I wondered to myself: am I dead? Jerry must have seen me flailing about and lifted the towel from my face. I kept flailing about. I had so many questions, one of which was why were we being consumed by the darkness of the night whilst in the middle of an unknown ocean? In the little light provided by the stars in the night sky, I could see the orange and yellow floatation device we were in. While the rubber appeared to be thick, I could feel all of the little waves that we floated over, the little overhang providing us close to no protection from the cool night breeze.
“You all right, hit your head pretty hard,” he said in a raspy voice. “Sorry if I scared ya, Henry kept lik’in your face like it was some kind of treat.” I couldn’t really understand him and when I tried to talk the words didn’t come out.
“Here, have some water and keep your head down.” After I drank up and Henry stopped fussing I tried talking again but to my relief I could gargle.
“That’s not good…” he said, worry in his eyes. “Your vocal cords look like a clump of worms.”
The bright orange roof and the blazing sun looked alike when I woke again in the raft; Jerry was asleep too with Henry laying on his lap; his pillow was a bulging section of the raft with all sorts of emergency gear. I looked out the small door to see an island. “AN ISLAND!” I yelled in a tangled voice. Jerry awoke almost immediately.
As we slowly paddled with our wrinkled hands and fast asleep dog, I could not help but notice the vultures circling the raft.
“We’re not dead yet!” Jerry yelled, but I wasn’t too sure about that.
“Shoo, scram, scatter!”
“Don’t waste your energy, it’s not worth it.” I said slurring my words a little in pain.
“Yeah, ok mom,” Jerry snapped.
As the island grew closer, the dog sleepier, and Jerry and I more hopeful, we realized that we were almost out of water and had to conserve energy or we might get heatstroke; we had to pray that the tide would carry us to shore.
Slowly but surely, we circled around the small island and came up upon the shore. By the looks of it we were on a small beach surrounded by sharp boulders. The water we had entered from had a coral reef with every color imaginable; I glanced down into the water and saw that there were fish for days and scary looking sharks, eels, and crabs for nights.
As we pulled the sad little raft ashore, Henry still sleeping in it, we started to notice that there were different types of fruit growing on trees. I went over to one side while Jerry checked out the other, Henry close by his side. I found coconuts while he found a newt. I heard his pathetic scream and came running over just to see that Henry had peed on his pants that he had laid out to dry. The ever-so stupid dog came over and dropped them at my feet; I gave him some pats though.
As we started gathering wood for fire and the day getting hotter and hotter, Henry seemed to look like he had found something… WATER! Henry had found a somewhat large pool of water in a small dip in the rocky ground. The water was not fresh, but we could boil it down to make it safer to drink. Jerry continued to gather wood for a fire while I started making a small hut for protection during the long night to come.
We decided, as in me, that Jerry was going to move the camp up from the beach to where Henry had found water. I watched and laughed while I petted Henry because Jerry was continuously tripping over the rocks. Finally, as I got yelled at to come over and help carry supplies, we saw for the first time what happened at nightfall.
Me, Henry, and Jerry all dove behind a nearby bush and hoped that the thing didn’t see us. We heard it scampering around, its disfigured body making disgusting noises. Blurp blotch bloop. Jerry, looking as white as a ghost, stood up and charged at the monster from behind. I couldn’t help but look away – I heard a scream and prepared for the worst, but all I saw was Jerry holding a head. Thankfully the monster was slain but little did we know there were more to come.
Finally, as the sun set, we finished making a secure little hut and a small fire.
“Jerry,” I said, “we should look at the body.” He gave an uneasy nod and we stepped closer to what could have been the end of us. We looked over the bush and Jerry said this with a disgusted face, “It looks like a self-portrait of you.”
“What?!” I whispered angrily. “It’s some kinda alien you dunce.” As we got a closer look however, we found out that it was no alien: in death it had dissolved into a mixture of a bunch of different sea animals.
Area 51 we both thought in our heads – it was the only explanation. We decided to try and cook the mutated monstrosity, but it did not end well… the guts that were poorly taken out by Jerry exploded once we started cooking it. After what felt like forever of cleaning guts off the floor, ceiling and walls off our new camp, me and Jerry went fishing for some ‘reel’ fish.
We were both starving and the wet soup crackers weren’t cutting it.
“You caught anything?” I asked impatiently, “I’m starving over here!”
“Quit your yapping! I am just as hungry as you are and you haven’t caught anything either!”
I was about to say something back to him but I got a hard yank on my makeshift rod and immediately went into survival mode. Jerry came over to help me as fast as he could and in no time, we had a three pounder lying at our feet.
“Thanks,” I said, “but, I caught it so I get to eat it by myself!”
“You try to eat that thing by yourself and I will throw you into the water while you sleep. And besides I helped pull it out too, we share it 50/50.”
Jerry finished gutting the fish and teaching me how to do it about two hours later. We ate the nice juicy fish like a pack of wolves. Me and Jerry both got one pound while Henry also ate a pound as well. After he finished eating, he started chewing on the bones. We were talking about the monsters while having the meal.
“Do you think there will be more of them?” I asked, “I think you should stay on guard duty just in case.”
“Why don’t you be on guard duty? And if there are more, how would I kill them by myself?” he rebutted.
I did not have the patience to deal with him so I just started to doze off.
Blooch blotch bloof we both heard again. We sprang into action and the monster didn’t know what hit it. When a third monster (counting the one whose guts exploded) came from behind Jerry who flung him 10 feet away, I could almost feel the terror in Jer’s eyes. I turned around and got ready for the hardest one on one in my life, but the monster didn’t seem that intelligent. I managed to dodge its large swing and stab it where its armpit should have been and it retreated to the water. The monster was shaped to where all of its limbs were some kind of long fish, the torso was a tangled mess of different sea plant and crustaceans which gave it a tough outer shell, the head was of a shark so its eyesight wasn’t up-to-date. I rushed over to Jerry where he laid unconscious. Henry was standing by not knowing what was happening. Jerry’s arm was bleeding, a little bit of bone sticking out. I dragged him over to our camp and lit the fire so I could see better. I put a flat stick in some bandages as a makeshift cast while Henry wandered around seeing if I wanted to play fetch.
As I was tending to Jerry, I could hear a faint sound of a static kind of voice. Our radio was picking up a signal; I dropped Jerry’s arm and ran over.
“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Hello? This is Floridian Airlines, are you in distress?”
“Yes, me and my friend are trapped on an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Send help please!” After I said that, the radio lost signal with the other person – all I could do was pray they found us. I finished tending to Jerry’s arm and threw a stick for Henry to go fetch.
It was like an alarm, for I could hear the helicopters as I awakened from my slumber. The people on the other side of the radio had traced our location and sent help!
“Jerry! Jerry! They’re here!”
“Five more minutes… wait, who is here?”
“Help! The people who radioed us came to save us!” We didn’t have enough time to keep chatting though because the people started to yell instruction for what to do. It was hard for them to land the aircraft so they told us to move over to a flatter spot on the island. I helped up Jerry and called for Henry as we started moving toward our escape.
I woke up to my wife in my arms asleep and Jerry in the bed next to me with Henry snoring like a pig at his feet. I looked at my wrist and the dirty gold Rolex read six thirty am. The Seminole Indians had been taken care of by a group in New York and Jerry’s arm had been patched up. The doctors had told us that we were going to need to stay in the same room for a while though because the people of Florida were being eaten by alligators.