The Blue Lagoon…Yet Another Version
I do not nor have I ever owned the rights to "The Blue Lagoon."
I'm "throwing" this version out there as well, this version tends to stick a little closer to the film, and is slightly "toned down." Hope yoy enjoy it as well.
The story opens as Dean McMullen and Emma Robinson paddle to a small island in the dingy that broke loose from the party boat, after the police raid.
We rode the surf in through a cut in the rocks jumping out and pulling the dingy in onto the beach. Looking around, it was obvious, that there wasn't a soul around, but only inspection of the island would determine that. There was a metal box in the dingy that had one of those orange plastic flare guns, along with a couple shotgun shell type flares, I grabbed the gun and flares as Emma and I set out to see if there was anybody else on this place. As we headed up into the jungle, Emma and I traded barbs about the party on the boat, why she was there, why I was there, her friends, and finally the statement that bought a surly reply from the prom queen. "I just tagged along to see if you were going to hang out with Mr. "football jock" I observed. "I wasn't there to hang on him," she shot back. "Oh the booze and the grass I saw going around then?" She didn't respond to that one, as we continued to stumble through the jungle towards an unknown destination. Emma freaked out when she almost stepped on a centipede announcing that she hated bugs.
Shortly we came to a beautiful lagoon with a waterfall something you don't often see; some countries survive on tourist dollars that are fortunate enough to have something like this. I suggested we go swimming as long as we were here, but Emma just wanted to find a hotel. As we continued to trudge along, I remembered that I didn't want to go on this stupid trip, but under subtle pressure from dad, I gave in, now look where it's gotten me. We climbed up the rocky shoreline for a better view then back down, finally stumbling into what appeared to be an abandoned base of some kind, there was a couple of those half round buildings, I'd seen pictures of in stories about WW2. There was a concrete structure with thick walls that overlooked the shore, but it was so overgrown with vines we couldn't get into it. There was junk scattered all around, the whole place was overgrown to a degree, except for a yard size area in the center that had seemed to resist the years of neglect. Closer inspection revealed a collapsed dock that had collapsed a long time ago, maybe this place was left over from the war?"
? Well here's your five star accommodations prom queen," I snickered; it's getting dark we'd better try to get a fire started. Emma was freaking out with the prospect of spending the night here, but we simply had no choice, I found plenty of bits and pieces of wood, and used a lighter Emma had to start a fire in front of one of the buildings. We appeared to be on the west side of the island, so I stood on a rock and watched as the sun went down trying to catch the 'flash" that mom had told me about. Emma wanted to know what I was watching for, but I chose not to tell her.
We passed the night in the better of the two buildings, sometime during the night the word "Quonset hut" popped into my mind, that's what these buildings were called, facts known by few, I guess. We didn't get much sleep; there was an old bed frame in the other building, which we dragged over here, throwing a bunch of palm fronds over it made a passable bed. Both of us kept well apart as we tried to sleep, mainly tossing and turning, sometime during the night it started raining, but the roof on our hut kept us dry. In the morning, we found a coconut palm that had dropped some of it's fruit, making a tasty snack of coconut milk and chunks' of coconut. It's a good thing I had my Gerber Multi tool, as well as a pocketknife, Emma had her purse full of stuff sealed in baggies, I kidded her about it, but she didn't catch the joke.
We decided to retrieve the dingy, and try to bring it around to this side, but after an exhausting trip back to where we had originally landed, it was gone. "who could have taken it?" raged Emma, 'I don't think anyone took it." I replied, "I think that wind that came up last night in the storm probably dragged it out to sea." Then a thought occurred to me, "Shit! If they find it floating in the ocean with nobody in it, they'll think we fell overboard and drowned." This didn't sit well with Emma, who sat down and started to cry. I tried to comfort her, but she rejected my efforts. I sighed, and said, "Well it's gone Em, nothing we can do about it now, if he hurry, maybe we can make it back to that camp by dark."
Nobody spoke as we re-traced our path back to the old camp, making it just after dusk, we got a hasty fire started, finished off one of Emma's trail snack bars as well as sharing a coconut. Lying on the bed in the Quonset hut, we talked about the future. "How long do you think we'll be here Dean?" asked Emma. "Not that long," I replied, I'm sure they're looking for us don't worry we'll be off here soon." The next day we poked around the old camp finding all sorts of things, tables, an old wooden desk, chairs, and another bed frame. Emma found a broom so we swept out the hut and brought in the furniture making it rather nice in there. We also found some old ductwork lying outside, using a rusty old claw hammer, I found, I was able to build a crude stove below one of the rear windows, lining the floor with bricks; I placed the sheet metal below the window. Then knocking out the window, I vented the stove out the opening. Now we could have a fire inside the building. Late in the day, we located a natural spring not far away from the buildings, and using a bucket, we could haul the water back to the Quonset hut.
While we cleaned up the camp, Emma commented on the fact that the camp was pretty well hidden by an overgrowth of Kudzu, and jungle vines, as well as low hanging trees. "Maybe we ought to cut this stuff down she said, "Nobody will be able to see us even if they do fly over." "I've thought about that Emma," I replied, but maybe it might be for the best, let me explain."
" "I know it might be hard to see us from the air, but we've got that flare gun, so we'll just have to be ready at all times. But I'm more worried about certain people who might decide to "drop" in. I'm talking about people like pirates, and drug dealers, the Caribbean is loaded with all sorts of people like that, we have to be very careful about who we signal Emma, we don't have any way to defend ourselves, and I shudder to think what they'd do with you were they to capture us." I constructed my story very carefully scaring the shit out of her, which was my intention. Emma is one of those naïve types who are drawn to projects like this school building effort we came down here for. They don't realize there are some really bad people out there. People who are better off dead.
On our third day on the island, we hiked back over to the lagoon, I had seen some nice fish there swimming in the shallow water, so I fashioned a spear and thought I'd try my luck.
Surprisingly I speared three decent sized ones, back at the camp, I tried to recall something I had seen about how they cooked fish in Hawaii. As I remembered it, they wrapped the fish in leaves, then set them on the coals, then covered them up for a period of time. The only thing that seemed to work was kudzu leaves held together with their vines. I set them in the coals then covered them up with more coals, giving them about twenty minutes. They came out pretty good; I thought fifteen minutes might work better next time, however. During this time, Emma continued to fuss about when I thought we'd get off the island. I tried to maintain an upbeat attitude and an "Any day now"! approach, but she was starting to see through it getting cranky and restless.
With the aid of a rusty old machete, I was able to clean up, I attacked the vines and overgrowth that covered the concrete structure up on the rock overlooking the water. While Emma puttered around on her own little "projects," I was half a day into chopping and hacking, when I noticed some irregularities in the concrete work. Investigating further, I discovered a hidden door. Calling Emma up, I showed it to her. "What do you think is in there?" she asked. "Could be anything," I replied. Using crude tools and pieces of metal we found, I got the hidden door to reveal itself; further muscle work got it open to reveal a small tunnel. I quickly made a torch, which revealed a small room containing four crates of what was apparently military rifles, there were six metal cans of ammo, a crate of pistols, and sealed cans of gun oil and bore cleaner. There was a metal crate of what turned out to be camouflage uniforms and boots.
My torch wasn't doing the job, so I took the time to make a couple better ones, out of coconut fiber, kudzu vine and some rags we found. With Emma's help, we opened one of the rifle crates marked Caliber .30 carbine M1. We had hit pay dirt, now we were armed. I took four carbines, a couple pistols and the cleaning supplies. As for the uniforms, we spread them out in the sun to air out; they all had a funny smell having been packed for so long in the crate.
Emma was still being rather standoffish, her football heartthrob and her "Posse" weren't around, yet at times, she acted like I was beneath her. Of course, it didn't help that I amused myself by "baiting" her, by asking personal questions about Steve or Amanda or Helen. Sometimes we'd be sitting up on the concrete bunker watching the sun go down, I kept trying to catch the "flash" just as the sun disappeared below the horizon, and out of the blue I'd ask, "Do ya suppose Steve's bangin' Helen by now?" questions like this would always get a rise out of her. It took a couple days of cleaning to get the carbines and .45's back in shape, I held an impromptu gun safety class, instructing Emma in the proper handling of guns, going over and over certain aspects of how not to handle them, and what to do if one jams on you.
I took my time, carefully explained everything to her, didn't treat her like an idiot, walked her through the steps to actually shooting one, and praised her when she remembered to do something right. A few days later, I held "graduation" spending well over two hours shooting at a bunch of targets I had set up. We went completely through one can of M1 ammo, as well as several boxes of .45 ammunition. The pistol was harder for her to shoot, as the recoil bothered her. However, I showed her how to hold the pistol with two hands, and assume the correct posture and stance.
As we roamed the island, I kept noticing signs of animals present; they turned out to be pigs and goats. I decided to try for a goat first, so we planned for our first goat hunt in two days time, something I was looking forward to, but not so much the prom queen.