Friends
By Thomas Mc
Chapter 10 : Heading Home
Tonya was hugging Terry, as they celebrated their achievement, when a thought occurred to her and she voiced her thought to the others. "You know this place really needs a proper name. Something other than 'The Subterranean Sea'."
Madison spoke up. "How about 'The Dolphin Sea'?" She suggested.
"That sounds perfect to me." Jacob responded. At the approving nod of the others, he called out. "As the discoverers of this great underground sea, we dub thee 'The Dolphin Sea'." His words continued to echo through the great cavern as the others cheered.
Finally as the euphoria wore off they began setting up camp for the night.
That was when they realized that they had a problem. Unlike all the other beaches, this one was rocky rather than sandy and the rocks were fairly large. Finding a comfortable place where they could set up their sleeping bags turned out to be impossible. After about an hour of fruitless searching for a suitable campsite they decided to start back and stop at the first sandy island that they encountered.
After an hour and a half, they found a suitable island to setup camp. Like the last two nights, Madison and Michael set up their sleeping bags next to each other, as did Desmond, Sharon and Devin. The children were all very tired and went right to sleep. The four adults stayed up a bit later and discussed the trip back. They decided to set a straight line course for their departure point rather than retracing the route they had taken to get here.
Finally Terry and Tonya fell asleep while Linda stayed awake and kept Jacob company.
~ x x x x x ~
(Day 7)
The dolphins turned out to be much friendlier than before. Several of them came close enough to the boats to be petted. Around mid-day the explorers stopped at one of the many small islands for lunch. Madison waded out into the water and was soon playing with a couple of the dolphins.
Once they were back underway all the children wanted to swim with the dolphins. Jacob could sense no hostility in them. He had actually felt something very much akin to pleasure or happiness from the dolphins when Madison had gone out to them during lunch. After a quick discussion all four parents agreed to let the children swim with the dolphins.
Soon they were taking turns jumping into the water and the dolphins would take them on high speed rides around the still moving boats. This activity seemed to amuse the dolphins as much as the children. Eventually the adults couldn't resist and also took turns in the water.
Desmond and Sharon were both in the water on either side of a dolphin that was towing them both in a large loop around the boats. Suddenly their dolphin turned and made a beeline straight to the boat. As soon as they reached the boat the dolphin was urging them to get in, practically shoving them up into the boat with its nose. Sharon squawked when the nudging got a bit too personal but she continued clambering into the boat.
At the same time Jacob noticed that half of the dolphins that had been escorting the boats, had disappeared and the remainder had moved in closer to the boats. The actions showed every indication of forming a protective ring around the boats.
About a minute later a major commotion broke out a fair distance off to the left. It was too far away for him to see what was happening but there was plenty of splashing and movement going on. The commotion lasted about two minutes then all was quiet again. Shortly after that all the dolphins in their escort had apparently returned. A few minutes later they noticed that some of the dolphins were sporting brand new cuts and bruises.
As evening approached they started looking for a suitable island to stop for the night. There didn't seem to be any. That's when they realized that they hadn't seen any islands at all for the last several hours. They had passed plenty of the great columns but none of them had been surrounded by a beach. There was nowhere to land the boats.
"What are we going to do?" Linda asked. "There's no place to land."
"It seems counter productive to turn around and it would take too long to reach any islands in that direction, anyway." Jacob remarked. "What do you suggest?" He asked Terry.
Terry replied. "The best thing I can think of is to just continue on. We can take turns stretching out to sleep in the boats." He paused and Tonya suggested. "We should probably tie the two boats together; just to be sure we don't get separated if everyone falls asleep."
Jacob considered it a moment. "It sounds workable. These boats are large enough for three people to sleep side by side."
They tied a rope between the two boats and decided that they would sleep two at a time in each boat.
Three hours later Linda spotted a beach straight ahead.
Soon everyone was awake and watching the approaching beach. They quickly realized that the beach cut across their line of travel as far as they could see. Once they reached it they found that it was more of a sand bar than an island. Once they beached the boats they quickly set up a rudimentary camp and were soon asleep. Tomorrow they would figure out what to do.
~ x x x x x ~
(Day 8)
Jacob woke up to find Tonya and Devin already up and looking over their situation. The sand bar, they were on, appeared to be about a third of a mile across and extended to the left and right as far as they could see. It appeared that the only way past it was to walk across it. Not the best of options considering everything they would have to carry with them.
Tonya kicked at the sand as she walked toward Jacob. "Normally I'd say just drag the boats across to the other side . . ." She paused as she again kicked contemplatively at the sand then picked up a handful of it. "But this sand is so coarse that I'm afraid it could damage the bottom of the boats."
Terry and Linda both joined them as they gazed up and down the long stretch of sand. They woke the rest and ate breakfast while discussing their situation. Terry consulted his mapper. "This sand bar couldn't extend more than four miles to the left of our current position or we would have encountered it on their way out." He looked up. But we have no idea of the shape it might take in that direction or what other problems we might encounter along the way." He waved negligently toward the shoreline on the far side. "We can see the other side from here."
Devin jumped in. "These are inflatable boats; they're not that heavy. The nine of us could easily carry them across that sort distance to the other side."
Linda added. "We could do it in three or four trips. Once for each boat and not more than two trips for the equipment."
"That seems to be our best option." Jacob replied.
Devin was left behind to watch over the rest of their equipment while the remaining eight carried one of the boats the third of a mile to the other side. Michael stayed with the first boat while the rest carried over all of their equipment. That took three trips. Finally all but Michael carried the other boat across. It was a little after lunch time when they finished.
They ate lunch and took a quick dip in the sea before repacking the boats and setting off. The dolphins were already waiting for them when they shoved off. Once they were convinced that it was safe, the kids were allowed to go into the water and soon they were spending as much time in the water playing with the dolphins as they spent in the boats.
The adults noticed that, even in the water, the previous pairings held. Madison and Michael always ended up in the water together and the same was true for Desmond and Sharon. Something about the way the dolphins behaved around them suggested that they were also aware of the pairings.
The islands were much more numerous on this side of the sand bar and, after three hours of travel, they had no trouble finding a place to stop for the night.
~ x x x x x ~
(Day 9)
The entire party awoke to the racket of several dolphins chattering at once. Up until now the dolphins had rarely made any noise at all, which made the current din even more remarkable.
"What's going on?" Jacob called out.
"I don't know." Devin replied. "It just started a couple of seconds ago."
"I'm getting the same emotions that I got when we were approaching the rocks beneath the falls." Jacob commented.
"Does that mean we should stay or leave?" Tonya asked.
"I think it means that our current actions put us in danger." Devin responded.
"Since our current actions consist of is sitting on this island, I suggest we pack up and leave." Jacob glanced out at the dolphins. "Right now."
"Quickly, pack up the boats." Terry called out. Immediately everyone began picking up their sleeping bags and whatever else was handy.
Linda was tossing her armload into the boat when she suddenly stopped and cried out. "Good lord, what is that?" She pointed beyond the other side of the boats. The beach thirty feet beyond the boats was moving, writhing.
"Load up now." Jacob called as he scooped up everything within reach and leaped towards the boats. The writhing section of beach also was moving rapidly toward the boats and the party.
A half beat later the rest of the party was doing the same thing. The writhing beach reached the boats at the same time as the party and began flowing up over the sides as the adults began pushing the boats into the water. The explorers jumped into the boats as the writhing beach that flowed over the sides of the boats resolved itself into hundreds of small sand colored crabs. Both boats were full of shrieks and cries as the explorers batted away the attacking crabs that had managed to get aboard.
As the boats drifted uncontrolled away from the island that now appeared to be one living writhing mass, the explorers continued to battle the crabs that had gotten aboard. The crabs nipped at any thing that came within their grasp as the explorers continued to knock them off of themselves and each other.
Madison jumped, yelping, when one of the crabs that had gotten under her floatation vest, nipped at her in a very tender area, and fell overboard. Ignoring the ones that were clinging to his fur, Michael jumped into the water to help her. Several of the dolphins had moved in close to the boats and were literally snatching the crabs out of the air as they were thrown overboard. While Madison thrashed around shrieking, Michael struggled to get her life vest off of her.
Meanwhile two of the dolphins were going after the crabs that were clinging to Michael's fur. They would lunge in, bite down on a crab, crushing its shell, and yank it away. Michael got Madison's vest off. There were three crabs under it, tearing at her thermal wet suit going after the tender flesh beneath. Michael knocked two of them off while one of the dolphins snatched the third one off. A moment later one of the dolphins had removed the last of the crabs that had been clinging to Michael's fur and clothing.
On the boats the battle continued. Safety vests and bits of clothing came off as the crabs continued to get inside them. Meanwhile Jacob and Devin concentrated their efforts on retrieving the crabs from among their equipment and tossing them to the dolphins. It turned out that the crabs were having difficulty getting through their fur.
Devin yelped as one of the crabs managed to get through his fur protection. He paused just long enough to remove the offending creature before returning to the task of digging them out of the equipment.
Linda reached out as Michael and Madison approached the boat then jumped with a shriek as one of the crabs got her in a sensitive spot. She snatched the offending crustacean and threw it away from her as hard as she could. Ten feet away, a dolphin leaped out of the water and snatched it out of the air. Linda meanwhile returned to helping Madison and Michael back into the boat.
For several more minutes, the party continued to eject the remaining crabs from their boats. Finally all of them had been rooted out and removed. The battle was over.
None of the non-leonine members of the party had been unscathed. They were all stripped down to a point that would have been just short of scandalous at poolside, because of the tiny animals' tendency to get under the clothing. They were all covered in dozens of small wounds where the crabs had taken tiny bites out of their skin. For Jacob and his sons, their fur had tended to protect them from the crabs for the most part.
They had also lost almost half of their food supply when several of the crabs had managed to get into one of their food lockers.
Both boats carried well stocked first aid kits and these were now put to use. All of the antibiotic and self adhesive bandages were used up in the treating of their wounds.
When they were finally able to pay attention to where they were, they discovered that they had not drifted far from the island where they had been attacked. They all glanced at the writhing surface of the island and with a collective shiver they turned the boats and set off in the direction that Terry said they should go.
By the end of the day they were tired, achy and ready to stop. They chose a likely looking island and pulled up on its beach. The dolphins could be seen out in the water circling the island. After a quick dinner they were soon all asleep except for Jacob and Terry, who both took first watch.
~ x x x x x ~
(Day 10)
The new day started uneventfully and after a light breakfast the explorers were once again on their way. After a little over an hour, Terry announced that they had just crossed their own out bound path and should reach their starting point in another two days
Late in the day they spotted two large irregular rounded shapes ahead. As they got closer the shapes resolved itself into a fallen column and a large pile of broken rock next to it. The explorers spent almost an hour and a half examining the fallen column and the island of broken rubble beside it.
The fallen column was four hundred feet across and about a thousand feet long. The large pile of rocks appeared to have broken free from the ceiling when the column had collapsed. From the amount of erosion on the ragged broken ends of the fallen column Terry guessed that it had been laying here for well over fifty thousand years. After mapping the location of the broken column they were once again on their way.
An hour later, after the broken column was lost in the mists behind them, they found a suitable island to beach for the night. Several in the party were showing signs of fatigue and the camp ended up being a little more sparse than usual.
~ x x x x x ~
(Day 11)
Right about the middle of the next day they could hear the roar of a distant falls off to the right. After glancing at his mapper, Terry informed them that they were now passing the high falls where they spent their first night.
About four hours later they stopped at a convenient island. All of the non-leonine members were showing signs of extreme fatigue. They beached the boats and began setting up their campsite.
Michael noticed that Madison was dragging even more than the others and insisted that she rest while he covered for her.
Madison curled up in her sleeping bag right after dinner. The rest of the party was feeling wrung out as well and lay down for the night a very short time later. Michael set up his sleeping bag right next to Madison's as usual. He was just a bit worried about her and decided that he would make sure that she didn't overexert herself again tomorrow.
As Jacob sat up watching over the sleeping explorers he thought about the last two days. It occurred to him that the normal members of the party had been a bit subdued last evening as well. He wondered if it was a reaction to the crab attack. That incident had been even more frightening than their run-in with that squid like creature days earlier.
Jacob glanced down at Linda, cuddled up in his arms fast asleep. She had been as frightened when Madison had fallen out of the boat as if it had been Michael or Sharon. He once again turned his attention to their surroundings as he watched dolphin fins appearing and disappearing out in the water.
Continued in Part 11
'Beauty and the Beast' and its characters are owned by Witt-Thomas Productions and Republic Pictures. No infringement on copyrights is intended. This story is presented merely for the enjoyment of fans. Original concepts and story elements may be used by other authors as long as appropriate credit is given.