Chapter 6 | Wade
Wade shrugged his jacket off and tossed it to the side. Technically, he didn’t need it on the island. There wouldn’t be anyone to impress except the local flora and fauna.
And Adam.
He paused in ripping the strips from the discarded clothing, looking off in the direction that Adam had disappeared to find supports.
When Adam first talked to him on the airplane, Wade was, to his shame, rude about it. Terrified of take-offs, he wanted to deal with it alone. Regardless of how ignorant Wade had been, though, Adam hadn’t held a grudge. He’d still helped Wade get the life jacket on and fix the oxygen mask to his face.
Wade's final thoughts as they went down were of Adam. Wasn’t that odd, when facing death, to think about a man he didn’t know and didn't want to talk to?
Not just odd but worse yet, his thoughts were fixated on what it might be like to kiss the man.
Kiss.
Preposterous.
Wade wasn’t into men. He’d had girlfriends, and planned on marrying a woman, one day.
And his thoughts were about the man who helped him in what he thought were his last moments?
What was that even about? That was just his fear and panic talking. Feeling like you were in your last moments of death, the brain did funny things.
Wade frowned and pushed the confusion away.
Now that initial fear had gone, he could focus on his future. He’d survived, for whatever reason. He and Adam had been the only two to make it out alive, as far as they could tell.
So, he was just superimposing his initial fear over survivor’s guilt or something. That’s all it was.
All they had to do was stay alive until rescuers found them.
To do that, he only needed to focus on the here and now.
Through the rest of the afternoon, Wade worked on his strips until he had enough for bindings for ties. He stretched them out to let them dry a bit before use and stepped into the overgrowth to see how Adam was doing. They were going to run out of daylight soon, and there were still plenty of things to get done.
Adam piled a collection of sticks, twigs and small logs. “Here’s what I was able to get from the ground or pull from the trees. A lot of the wood had rotted, but these seem to have some resilience in them. Is this what we need?”
Testing a few, Wade started sorting them out. “These I can use,” he said of one pile. “Those will be good firewood, which we’ll need to figure out next. Oh, and also what to put over the top of our structure.”
Wade turned in a circle, studying the area. Off to their west were a small copse of saplings. “I’ll use those,” he said, pointing as he headed for them, “to provide the basic structure.”
He paused and looked back at Adam. “I’m sorry. I’m acting like you don’t know anything and like I’m some instructor or something.”
Adam held his hands up in front of him. “Don’t apologize to me. I’m the herb guy, not the Boy Scout,” he said with a smile that made Wade’s insides wiggle pleasantly. Wade shook that feeling off.
“So you know what’s edible and what isn’t?” Wade hacked at a sapling that wouldn’t work and tossed it off to the side.
“A little. I intended to forage in the morning if we can make it through the night without getting eaten by a predator.”
Wade straightened and motioned for one of the branches near Adam’s foot. “Did you see one?”
Adam trotted over with several of them, so they didn’t need to keep walking back over. “No. Not yet. I hope we don’t. Unless you wrestle bears, too. Then I’ll relax. Do they teach bear wrestling in the Boy Scouts?”
Bare wrestling?
“Oh, bears?” The thought made Wade smile as he drove one of the limbs in the ground and motioned for Adam to hold it. Adam’s fingers wrapped around his for a brief moment. That wiggle in his stomach did a full jig. He pulled his hand away before it got too awkward.
“Yeah, or wolves. Aren’t those the predators on the survival shows?”
“Wrong part of the world.”
“Oh.”
They lapsed into silence while Wade got the basic framework in place. He paused once to take a sip of the water Adam had managed to hold on to during the crash. It wasn’t going to last them long. That was the next task after he got something built to keep the elements at bay.
He stepped back and looked at what he had done. “Not bad for fifteen-year-old knowledge.”
“I’m impressed. I don’t know what I would’ve done. Stayed out in the cold, I guess.”
“It’ll keep the wind off and the heat trapped. We just need something to go over the top and sides.”
Adam snapped his fingers. “I know just the thing. So I guess, you work on the fire, and I’ll get the roofing and the cushioning for the floor.”
While Adam did that, Wade started on the fire.
Here was where his outdoor survival knowledge would fail him. He’d learned the mechanics of how to start a fire with a stick and a rock in Scouts. But that didn’t mean he was ever any good at it.
Rooting around the area, Wade was able to scare up what he’d need for a fire starter and piled it at the mouth of their lean-to. Moss, dried leaves, twigs and sticks of all sizes. With his bare hands, he made a fast depression to serve as a fire pit and piled everything in there to start.
What he needed most was a fast way to twist his stick.
One of the strips he’d torn. That was perfect. He was able to peel a smaller width from one and spun it tightly to serve as his pulley system.
It took a few configurations of starting and failing before Wade figured out the best way to start a fire solo. He worked at it until he had his embers and nurtured it until he had a small fire going. And not too soon, judging by the falling ambient air temperature.
Adam worked diligently to get the roof over their head, consisting of the large, green waxy leaves.
All in all, not a bad first day’s work.
It wasn’t much to look at, even by Boy Scout standards, but if it kept the rain off them and helped to shelter against the winds, they’d be all right.
As the sun started to set and the fire provided their only light, Wade settled in next to it to keep it stoked for the night.
“Should we keep it going all night?”
“Probably not in the future. I mean I can bank it for the night. That doesn’t put the fire out completely. It’ll be easier to stoke back to life with live coals.” Wade poked at the fire, then tossed his poking stick on the pile. “But for the next few nights, I’ll keep it going. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much anyway.”
Adam settled onto the ground next to him. He drew his knees close to his chest and for the first time, Wade noticed that Adam was wearing shorts. His legs were tan and lean. They were legs that were used to a lot of outdoor activity.
He’d said he was the ‘herb guy’. With legs in that good a shape, and dressed like that, Wade wondered if he was dealing with an outdoor enthusiast. Wade huffed in exasperation.
“What?” Adam asked, chin still resting on his knees as he stared at the fire.
“If you have been putting me on with your innocent ‘never done this before’ routine, I’m going to punch you.”
Adam looked startled, and he blinked rapidly. “Um, why would you think that?”
With a stick, Wade tapped at his shin. “You’re not a city boy, and you know about foraging in the woods?”
“That doesn’t mean I know anything about building lean-tos or bear wrestling.” Adam pulled his backpack over to rummage around in it. He pulled out a small jar and handed it to Wade. “I’ve been studying with my grannie’s herbalist teacher. I’m more into holistic healing than surviving on berries and leaves but to do that, I still need to know what’s poisonous or not.”
Trying not to focus on the image of bare wrestling, Wade took the offered jar and opened it to sniff. It wasn’t awful smelling. Not something he’d eat, either. “So did any of your other herb stuff survive?”
Adam took the small jar and put it back in his pack. “Just some vitamin E oil.” He pulled the bag of mints out and made a face. It looked like they’d melted. “I’m not sure about those.”
Before Adam could put it to the side, Wade took it from him. “We may be able to save them. Let’s dry them out and see what happens.”
With a shrug, Adam kept digging. A wet magazine. Underwear. Incense. A leather wallet. A comb. An iPod. A notepad and a pen. A bag of Cheezbitz.
Wade reached over to pick up the Cheezbitz. “Holistic, huh?”
Adam grinned shyly. “We all have our weaknesses. Breakfast, I guess. What’s your weakness?”
“White cheddar flavored popcorn.” Wade stretched his feet out and leaned back to rest on his hands. “I have stashes all over my house.”
Adam nodded and zipped his pack up again, giving it a toss behind him. “I wonder if the snack cart survived.”
It took Wade a moment before he started laughing. “Yeah. And to think I didn’t want the pretzels when she brought out the ginger ale. I wish I’d put them in my pocket now. That’d be dinner.”
“How long can we go without food?”
“About three weeks. But only three days without water. Maybe less. So first thing in the morning, we search for water. At some point, you’ll need to teach me how to recognize which mushrooms to pick for lunch and which ones to avoid poisoning us.”
“We should bury the bodies.”
Seeming to think about that, Wade hummed and tilted his head to one side. “I don’t know how, though. With no spade, that’s a lot of a hole to dig with our bares hands.”
“I think it’s important, but not our first priority,” Adam agreed. “We urgently need water, food and shelter. At least something to get us through tomorrow.”
With a nod, Adam scooted back under the shelter. He moved around some of the softer leaves he’d found when putting their roof on. It would make the ground a little more comfortable to sleep on. “Wake me if you need me to take over fire watching.”
“I’m not tired, so you catch some shut-eye.” Wade stood and went to the woodpile to get more fuel for the fire.
While up, he checked on the state of his jacket. It was dry enough that he could roll it into a pillow. That would help with comfort, at least. By the time he got back to the fire, Adam was already curled up. His breathing had slowed, indicating that he was fast asleep.
Sitting at the fire, Wade watched the flames as they licked upwards. Every so often, his gaze shifted to look at the sleeping man. Now that Adam was still and quiet, Wade was able to get a good look at him.
Adam had the kind of good looks that never seemed to age. He wasn’t sure how old Adam was, but Wade wouldn’t peg him as more than early twenties.
For a man, Adam was very attractive.
The pit of Wade’s stomach wiggled again, and he placed a hand over his abdomen with a frown. That had never happened before.
Wade shifted to sit with his back to Adam so he didn’t continue to stare at the man like a creeper.
Nerves, coupled with anxiety. That was all.