Relocated (Chapter 2)

The letter from the drones said the following:

“The world as you know it is about to be destroyed with nuclear warfare. The five of you have been spared. Through the rainforest, at the base of the mountain, where the cluster of papaya trees is, there is an underground bunker that has been prepared for you. Find the bunker quickly as it has items that you’ll find useful.”

Mitch swallowed, without saying anything. The girls were still dripping from the ocean water. The lump in his throat felt as large as a mango. The four of them just stared at him in shock.

“Well?” Asked one of the girls who was nicknamed Skippy.

“What the heck does it say?” She didn’t wait for Mitch to respond and snatched the letter from Mitch’s hand. Her name was Cyra.

The four girls huddled around the letter. Cyra read it aloud. After they’d finished reading they looked at one another in utter shock.

“Ohh… dear God!” Skippy wailed.

“This can’t be happening!” Cyra rolled the letter back up aggressively.

“Noooo way….” said one of the girls who started to have a panic attack. Her name was Trista.

The most motherly one, named Wini, started patting Trista’s back.

“I hate this! Panic attacks suck!” Said Trista as she started slowly rocking her body back and forth in an attempt to self-soothe.

“You gotta focus on breathing,” Wini hugged Trista closer, trying to comfort her.

Skippy swatted at a humongous mosquito that had landed on her shoulder. She was the one whose bathing suit had busted off earlier, as she had not-so-gracefully-flopped into the water. She was used to being the clown and she was always the one to go to great lengths to make the others laugh or lighten up. “What a fantastic summer vacation this has turned into y’all. We’re stranded in the middle of a jungle, with mosquitoes the size of bowling balls, with a guy we just met, the world’s supposedly ending… oh and I have to pee! I wonder if there are any port-a-potties out here?”

“Eww, those things are nasty.” Cyra pretended to dry heave.

Seemingly unfazed by all the sudden responses from the girls, Mitch stated, “We’ve gotta go.” He stared blankly into the distance. “Through the rainforest, to the bunker…” he continued and then trailed off.

Skippy looked around with another silly expression. “What’s your hurry? It’s not like it’s the end of the world or anything.”

“He’s right.” Cyra shook her head. “We need to go now.” She looked at Trista and Wini who were still crouched down.

Skippy giggled. “Okay, it’s a good thing we packed light this time.”

Wini pondered aloud. “I wonder what happened to all our stuff in the car and how far we actually are from the car and beach anyway?”

“Why would the drones take us here and drop us off?” Cyra asked, as she was processing things.

Mitch didn’t understand any of it really at all but he felt an urgency to get to the bunker quickly. “None of this makes sense now but we’ve gotta get to the bunker and then think it through more later.”

“Right.” Cyra said, as she helped lift up Trista.

Trista moaned painfully. “Too rough, Cyra!”

“We’re all okay.” Wini brushed her wet hair away from her face, while helping Trista walk through some ferns. All of the sudden, in the far distance, they heard a loud boom. The ground shook. They looked at each other and started hurrying through the rain forest. It was difficult to see too far ahead in certain parts of the forest due to the thick foilage. After a few minutes of walking, they started hearing loud animal sounds.

“What on earth?” Skippy looked up into the high tree tops.

“Those are howler monkeys.” Mitch nodded. “Don’t worry they don’t attack from what I’ve read. They’re just loud.”

Wini and Trista were trailing behind. “Wini, they’re kind of cute in their own way,” Trista motioned toward a group of the monkeys who were standing on a very long tree limb.

“They’ve gotta be very scared after hearing that boom,” Wini looked at the monkeys with gentleness and compassion.

“I’m still very scared too.” Trista shuttered in her skin.

Skippy started mimicking the monkeys in the trees with her own monkey sounds. “I always wanted a pet monkey growing up, but my parents only let me have fish. They said all the other types of pets were too much work.” She giggled and looked back at Wini and Trista to see if they were listening. “One time me and my brother pulled out one of our silvery fish and got this idea to paint the fish blue because we were tired of his silver complexion. We’d also just read the Dr. Seuss book about fish so this is where some of this inspiration came from. Anyhow… my brother grabbed the fish out of the tank. The fish’s name was Mr. Gills. I had the blue paint brush ready and I painted him as quick as I could. Then we were fanning the paint on him, so it’d dry quick enough before he stopped breathing… ya know? Well… he slipped out of my brothers hand and then blue paint started getting everywhere! After several attempts, we finally caught Mr. Gills with my brothers baseball cup. You know… the plastic thingy that baseball players wear to protect their giblets?” She giggled and snorted. “Anyhow, we caught the fish and got him back in the fish tank. He was still alive and everything so that was good. The blue paint was staying on him mostly. Then….” She started laughing at her own story hysterically. “My dad comes in the bedroom and says to my brother and I ‘What’s all the noise about?’ and I say nothing dad, we were just tryin’ to find something dad… and he looks at Mr. Gills in the fish tank, who was trailing blue paint, and says just as serious as a heart attack… it looks like Mr. Gills is suffering from blue diarrhea there. And the three of us busted out laughing.” She laughed again, so loud this time that Mitch and Cyra looked back at her, shaking their heads. For the first time since they’d been in the jungle, Trista in the back of the line smiled. The worst of her panic attack had subsided. The five of them trudged on through the dense rainforest, looking for the mountain and papaya trees desperately.

Read chapter 3 via the following link: