Chapter XI- The New Way


Day seven. Jack and his hunters, growing slowly in number by the day it seemed, headed out before dawn. They were eager to take more than just a little blood today.

On the beach, Ralph and a handful of others were returning to their base camp at the cove, a set of big shells in hand that, at need, could serve as cups in which to carry water. Mikey and another little one were some of Ralph's most loyal companions besides Piggy; it heartened Ralph that at least some of the smaller boys were able to see past the pushy, loud-mouthed appeal Jack had for so many. Mikey hadn't even hesitated in staying back on the beach with Ralph; it was obvious he didn't like Jack much.

"I've been thinking about a clock," Piggy thought aloud. "We could make a clock."

Ralph laughed a little. "Yeah, sure, Piggy- then a TV!"

"No, really- we could make a sundial with a stick in the ground!" Piggy insisted.

"What's that noise?" one of the little boys said.

Ralph and the others stopped. A distant buzzing, but very different from the bugs and insects they'd all heard before, and by now grown used to.

A mechanical buzzing. From high in the air.

Fanning out over the beach, trying to spot the source of the sound, Ralph and the others soon saw it.

A helicopter, a tan-green in colour, was flying low over the water, at least a thousand yards offshore from the cove.

Right where the Learjet had crashed.

Instantly Ralph and the other four boys began shouting and waving their arms, the shells and their water thrown aside and forgotten. "Hey, hey! Over here!" Each of them shouted, but the effort was useless. At the distance they were from each other, the Marines onboard the helicopter would have been hard-pressed to spot the boys in the cove, had they even been looking over there. And as for the sound? There was no chance. The distant buzzing of the helicopter for Ralph and the boys was, to the pilots, a thunderous roar. They heard nothing and flew on, oblivious to the frantic shouts for help off to their port side.

It took Ralph some five minutes to reach the hilltop; it was the fastest mile he'd ever run in his life. His lungs burned and his legs seared with fire, but none of it mattered. If he could just get up there fast enough, if Jack had only thought to leave a boy or two and keep the fire going…

When Ralph got up there, when his frantic race to the hilltop finally ended… it was obvious the fire had died out hours ago. There wasn't even enough left to send up the faintest wisps of smoke.

Jumping up and down, waving his arms as broadly as he could, Ralph made himself as obvious a feature as possible on the hilltop. "Over here! Over here!" he screamed, yelling as loudly as his lungs and throat would allow. Perhaps the Marine pilots would have seen him then, had the fire been burning. The dark smoke against the blue sky would have, perhaps, given them cause to take a closer look.

But there was no fire, and no smoke. The helicopter flew on, fading into the distance. Before long even the buzzing sound of its rotor blades chopping through the air became a memory.

Ralph soon gave up the effort. It didn't matter. But he knew something that did; as Ralph slowly retraced his steps and returned to the beach, anger steadily built up inside him. It was directed at one name, at the inattentiveness and poor foresight of just one person.

Ralph kicked a rock as he passed it, sending it shooting off the cliff's edge.

Damn him.

The 'blooded' hunters, whose first kill had been scored that morning, now included Will, Liam, Andy, and Charlie as well as Roger and Jack. Their faces decorated with war-paint and deadly-sharp spears in hand, all six boys now glared at Ralph together as they sat on rocks in the cove.

Ralph walked towards them, trembling with indignant rage. "If you guys hadn't let the goddamn fire go out, they would've seen it!"

Jack looked like he regretted his error, but only a little. And true to his usual nature, Jack had already resolved to hide it. Perhaps alone he'd have admitted it, but not here. Never here, in front of the hunters, his tribe. "Hey, man, we were hunting," he said, as if that explained everything. To Jack it probably did.

The dark-haired boy standing over Jack didn't even bother to hide his disgust. "Great," he said dismissively, "you killed a pig! Face it, Jack- you fucked up!"

Anger flared into life within Jack. That was about enough. He was done with this playing around. Jumping up, Jack shoved at Ralph and screamed. "Back off, man! I'm sick of your shit and so's my gang!"

Ralph stared, angry and surprised. "Your gang? What's that supposed to mean?"

Jack was furious and getting angrier by the second. For the first time in his life, he gave serious thought to killing somebody. It crossed Jack's mind to simply spear Ralph in the gut right then and there, just leave him to flop and squirm and bleed his life away on the beach.

He almost did it.

Jack jabbed a finger into Ralph's chest, shouting, "What it means, Colonel, is if you know what's good for you you'll stop trying to run everything!"

Jack shoved Ralph again, and this time the younger boy pushed back. Both were furious with one another, and it was obvious already things would not be the same at the end of today. The Davidson chain of command counted for little on this nameless island.

"Stop it!" Piggy ran forward and got in between the two leaders, determined to break up the fighting before it could go much farther.

Jack just laughed and threw Piggy aside; the tall, lean boy had always been stronger than most his age, and pushing Piggy down was nothing. Ralph turned and helped Piggy stand again, but Jack had his mind elsewhere already.

"I'm sick of all this shit!" Jack spat, looking around him. "I'm gonna make a new camp, for hunters! And guys who wanna have a little fun!"

"Yeah!" a chorus of boys answered him.

Secession? Breaking away over a forgotten signal fire and a brief shoving match? Even now Ralph saw that was too much. Jack had made a mistake, but perhaps Ralph had too in confronting him this way. Jack always had been touchy about his pride.

Making an effort at changing his tack, trying some form of reconciliation, Ralph said, "Come on, Jack, that's crazy! We've gotta work together!" Gently, he asked, "Come on. Whaddya say?"

'

Jack didn't even wait a second in answering.

"I say fuck you!"

Jack turned to his hunters and motioned for them to lift up the body of the pig. Time to move out.

"Come on," Jack said, "let's get outta this kindergarten."

At least seven boys followed as Jack walked away; suddenly, one of the boys sitting on the sidelines in a tree jumped down, running to catch up. "I'm with ya, Jack!" the boy called.

At this Jack did look behind him, a smile on his grimy face. "Right on, Larry!"

Ultimately, Ralph counted Jack to be taking eight others with him. The fact that he held that much sway within seven days was not encouraging for how the next seven would go.

Jack turned to Ralph and the twelve boys standing beside him, hiding his surprise over the fact that twelve included Simon, Peter, and the twins. He'd expected at least one of those four to join him. But Jack shouted back a parting message to the other boys before turning away again: "When the rest of you grow up or get hungry enough, you can come join up, too!"

The strong winds of a powerful tropical storm, still just building some distance off, struck the island that night. While there was no rain and the winds never surpassed 40 miles an hour, it was more than enough to make quite a mess of the cove, and indeed all the island. A number of trees fell, and Jack's first night as leader of a new tribe was a rough one. After a long, frantic dash inland in search of shelter- the hunters had fled in such a hurry they ditched the pig at the base of the cliff leading up to the grassy hill- Jack had finally located one.

There were a tiny few caves here and there on the island, and one, sitting close by one of the creeks, looked like a gift from Heaven to Jack. "Inside!" he yelled, pointing with his spear. The others followed him into the cave in short order; there was more than enough space for them to flee safely in and out of the harsh winds of the storm. Letting the other boys go to bed and get the rest he knew they needed, Jack sat up and listened to the winds howl outside, rushing through the trees. Instinctively Jack wondered where Ralph and his lot were, and how things were going for them on the all-too-open beach at the cove.

Then Jack realised he didn't care.