Part 110: Day 24

The group continued their journey into the new undiscovered country. The grass was greener, the trees were taller and the fruit was plentiful. A few of the survivors joked they should have landed over on this side of the island instead of the other side. Eddie was indeed the happiest ; sometimes he would eat so much fruit he would complain he was stuffed. John had to carry him on piggyback while the little tyke slept.

They had been trekking for a few days but still no sign of a beach. No cave were found along the way either. McKay was getting slightly worried, concerned with how big this side of the island might be. Even though they were in good spirits, he wasn’t sure when they would reach the beach area to hopefully where the other survivors were.

As they walked along, they had reached an area of the jungle that consisted mostly of trees and vines. The trees were decently spaced out but only for the others to walk past them with ease. Taylor paused at a tree; massaged her thigh and kept walking. McKay was concerned that she might be cramping up; a sign of dehydration. He took out his canteen and handed it to her. She smiled, taking it and having a drink of his water.

Tony held onto Marita with Eddie following behind, who was holding Yolanda’s hand. The blind doctor kept all his other senses sharp. If there was anything out of the ordinary that he could hear, he was concentrating on finding. Then something happened that he did notice. Not of sound but of smell. Tony then stopped in his tracks, and Marita along with him. The blind doctor took a deep inhale. “Tony, what is it?” the Latina asked.

Tony then slowly kneeled down, reached out with his right hand and pulled up chuck of grass and weeds. As he stood up, he brought the weeds to his nose and sniffed. “Oh, my god, “Yolanda laughed, “Did you find Marijuana, Tony?”

“What is Mary Wanna?” asked Eddie.

“I’ll tell you when you are older,” the black stewardess immediately responded.

Tony took another whiff of the weeds, then held them out for Marita. “What does that smell like to you?” he asked.

Marita leaned over and sniffed the plants. She then reeled, gagging. “UGH!” she grunted, “It smells like . . .gasoline.”

“What?” McKay said, stopping and turning around.

“Does the ground look like it’s been burned?” the blind doctor asked.

“Not that I can tell,” Marita replied.

“Why would a grouping of weeds smell like gasoline?” asked Mandy.

“Gasoline is just like any liquid, it gets saturated into the ground,” The doctor replied, “The trick will be determining where it came from.”

Marita looked around, for any possible sign of a gas can. Her thoughts were that if she did found one, it would be a sure clue that there were indeed people on this side of the island. However, she didn’t find a single one in her range of visions. Then another thought occurred to her. She remembered the suitcase full of medicine that fell from the tree, because it’s strap was hung on a branch. Marita slowly looked to the sky and then gasped at the sight before her. “TONY!!” she said, tugging his arm, “There is a helicopter in the trees!!”

“What?” exclaimed Tony.

The group of survivors turned their gaze upward. Up in the trees, hanging by several branches and vines was a small sized copter. It was a light brown with markings on it but they were eroded due to weather damage they assumed. Tony smirked at the thought of a helicopter crashed landed on the island. “The gasoline must have leaked out onto the ground when it landed in the trees.” He said.

“God bless your nose, Tony,” McKay chuckled, “Had you not smelled the grass, we would have missed it.”

John then looked up at the vehicle, slightly laughing to himself. The part that he found that was so funny, as that by all accounts, he already knew this helicopter was here. He walked over to Mia, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “Mia, it’s YOUR helicopter.” He giggled.

Mia blinked, remembered her first vision of the bald man showing her a helicopter plummeting from dark clouds in the sky and crashing through the trees. It was even yet another one of her visions that came true. “Oh . .wow.” she stuttered.

“Someone has to get up there,” Tony mentioned, “There might be supplies in it.”

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McKay grunted as he used his rope to get under the helicopter. Jenny used the vines to climb up onto the tree area so she could get a decent look inside the copter. She worried that the vines weren’t going to hold her but Seth pointed out they were strong enough to hold a helicopter. The young teenager joked that once and a while, he made a little sense.

Jenny maneuvered herself as close to the helicopter as she could. She could already see the pilot in the cockpit plus someone else sitting next to him. They clearly weren’t moving. She held onto another vine and then shifted her foot to place it on the copter’s railing. The vehicle shifted a little under her new added weight. “JENNY, BE CAREFULL!!!” Kristy called down from below.

“YEAH, THANKS!!” she called back sarcastically.

Jenny then grabbed the door handle, and pulled it down. The she shoved it to the side, opening up to the view of the inside. The young girl had to keep from gagging at the side of the two women in the back with flies buzzing around their faces. “WHOA, GOD,” she grunted.

“JENNY, YOU OKAY??” McKay called down from below.

“THERE ARE DEAD PEOPLE UP HERE!!” she said, looking in the opposite direction.

“That’s fine, back away.” The Australian told her.

As Jenny crawled out to the tree, McKay found what he was looking for at the bottom. Near the fuselage was a small but thick piece of wood that had pierced the fuel tank. He grabbed it and grunted; yanking it out. When he did, two drops of gasoline dripped out. From what he could tell, the gas tank was empty. He smelled of the piece of wood and it confirmed what he thought. “TONY!!” McKay called down, “YOU WERE RIGHT!! THE FUEL TANK IS EMPTY!!”

“GOOD!” Tony called back, “BRING IT DOWN!!”

McKay swung back to his tree and then climbed upward, above the copter. Jenny did the same, following his lead. Then when they were in range, they both took out the small short swords and began to hack away at the ton of vines. As they cut one at a time, the helicopter started to turn on it’s side. Then back to it’s other side, and back again. Jenny grunted with each hack. McKay continued to chop, seeing down below that his friends were getting out of the way. Then Jenny screamed, delivering one blow that managed to cause a branch to break. Then the copter made it’s way to the ground.

Everyone took cover as the copter plummeted to the jungle floor. When it landed, the metal bent inward slightly and the glass shattered. It wasn’t that big of a crash cause it didn’t have that far to fall. Eddie leaped up and down, yelling about how cool the crash looked. As Jenny and McKay made their way downward, the other group ventured closer to the helicopter. The small crash had made one of the bodies to flop out onto the ground. John slowly removed his pack and his quiver. He tapped Seth on the arm. “Help me get these bodies out of here.” He said.

Seth put down his pack and stepped into to help him. The others waited till they were out of the way. John grabbed the first woman, grunting as he hauled her away. It wasn’t that easy of the task; the poor woman was severely overweight. Seth grabbed the other woman by the shirt, and dragged her out of there, trying not to hurl from the stink. Martin stepped in and grabbed the co-pilot, un-securing him and dragging him away. John came back and then got the pilot out of there. As the dragged the last body away, McKay and Jenny had finally landed on the ground. The Australian walked over and looked inside the copter. The first thing he noticed a giant blue cooler. He grabbed it by the handles and dragged it out. “We got a big cooler, Tony,” he mentioned.

“If it had ice, it’s definitely melted and we can use the water.” The blind doctor said.

McKay opened it up and looked inside. He cupped some of the melted ice water and sipped it. He quickly spit it out. “It’s stagnant.” He coughed.

“Damn it.” The blind doctor muttered.

“But the good news is we got a consolation prize, “McKay said, holding up a can of Mountain Dew.

“MOUNTAIN DEW!!” Mandy screamed, grabbing it from McKay.

The others reached and it and pulled the cans of soda out of the giant bin of water. It wasn’t just Mountain Dew, it was other flavors as well. The Australian picked up a can of Coca-Cola and walked over to his blind friend. He gently took his hand and placed the can into it. “Here you go, Tony,” he smiled, “It’s not ice cold but it’s still Coke.”

“Thank you,” the blind man giggled with anticipation.

Tony popped the tap, hearing the familiar fizz. He raised the can to his lips and started to chug the liquid. The acidic part burned his throat but he didn’t care; it was a taste he longed to have again. As he gasped from the drink, Marita then helped herself to some of it, moaning at the taste. Eddie leaped up and down wanting a sip as well. John laughed at all the survivors drinking some type of soda. It was something they missed so they all enjoyed it.

John walked in to the helicopter and started to grab the other bags to the people in the copter. They seemed to be overnight bags or backpack; no actual suitcase. Seth took notice of that too. He looked at the markings on the side of the copter, rubbing away the debris and dew. He could make out the letters of Gran and uide but nothing else. “It’s like a bag game of Wheel of Fortune,” he muttered.

John handed him a third bag while he pulled out the other two. The archer kneeled down and unzipped the gear. It had a mixture of several bags of dried fruit, power bars, and at least two bottles of water. Plus it had matches and gloves. Seth started to check the bag that John gave him. It was directly under the seat of the fat woman. As he opened it up, he was expecting to find similar supplies like John found. However, all he found was various junk food snacks. All with an universal theme. “Geez, “he coughed, “This woman had a serious peanut butter fetish.”

“Peanut butter?” Shanna lit up.

“Yeah, I got peanut butter crackers, peanut butter Kudos, small Reeses and several individual squeeze tubes of peanut butter.”

“GIMME THE REESES!!!” Shanna screamed like a wild animal.

“WHOA, TAKE IT!” Seth backed off as she jumped him.

The red-head grabbed the small bits of candy, quickly unwrapped them and stuffed them in her mouth. She then giggled with her mouth full, landing on her back and kicking up her legs in joy. Seth smirked at his friend’s reaction to the candy. As he turned around, he saw Mandy, Taylor, Natasha and Yolanda staring at him, with their mouths practically watering. The young bookstore worker just sighed and held up the bag. The four women dove their hands into the backpack, grabbing what they could.

Tony and Marita enjoyed some power bars and dried fruit. Eddie was sucking down one of the tubes of peanut butter. John went through the bag that was under the copilot. He searched through, finding roughly the same stuff. He even found a small box of cigarettes. Since he didn’t smoke, he tossed them behind him like unwanted trash. Mia then saw what he did, gently picking them up. She then looked to Cecil. The old man saw the whole display, giving her wanton eyes. The Lakota girl could tell that he really wanted to smoke but he wasn’t saying anything. She gently sighed, then walked over and gave them to him. “Here ya go.” She whispered.

“Thank you,” Cecil replied, taking them and getting the box open as fast as he could.

Mia walked back over to John, already hearing Cecil light up one. The archer looked at his girlfriend and took her hand. “You’re a big person, Mia,” he smiled, “I’m not sure if I could have been so kind.”

“It’s all he has left, John,” she sighed.

John stood up, nodding his head in agreement, tell her he understood. Then he pointed to the bodies. “Let’s check them out,” he mentioned, “Maybe we can get some kind of clue where they came from.”

Mia and John walked over to the grouping of bodies. McKay was already there. He had pulled out a kind of dark brown safari hat from the co-pilot and the hiking shoes off of the smaller woman. He was washing them out with his canteen. John smirked. “Always the resourceful type, eh, McKay?”

“Have to be, partner,” the Australian said, “Besides these people don’t need them anymore. Their sacrifice will help us.”

Mia then kneeled down and grunted, holding her nose while she checked the bodies of the women. John checked the pants of the pilot, and then pulled out his wallet. He checked out and realized his name was William Bellfont by way of his credit cards. Strangely enough the man didn’t have a driver’s license. John then checked his side pockets and his vest pockets. He found another Zippo, which he quickly tossed to McKay. Then inside his vest pocket was a long piece of paper. He slowly pulled it out and began to unfold it. He felt his eyes expanding at what the paper was telling him. John wasn’t sure it was possible but clearly it was cause he was looking at it. “Mia.” He mentioned.

The Lakota girl stood up and walked over to where he was kneeling. McKay saw what he had brought out and scooted over to take a look. John shifted the giant paper around, revealing it was a map. Mia gently placed her hand on the wording at the top.

It read Grand Canyon Sky Guide Tours.

“That’s . . .not possible,” she whispered.

“How the hell did a tour copter get from the Grand Canyon all the way here?” McKay exclaimed, “We are hell and gone from that part of the world.”

“But yet here it is,” Mia whispered.

“Guys,” John whispered, “Where the hell are we?”