A/N: I am speechless. I haven't updated in months, and yet I fid this stuff that I had already written but had not yet posted! To quell the hunger of my readers, this bit will serve as a short tenth chapter, while I put off studying for final exams and start to write the eleventh chapter! Sorry I've taken so long. I guess my Tintin fic has become my main priority. Remind me not to post hockey fanfictions on FP again. Apparently, I angered a Canadian after she/he read mine, despite plenty of warnings. Moron. Anyway, enjoy this short little chapter; I promise to have more up soon!

-mo

…

When the fourth straight day of rainstorms arrived, it didn't take long for the boys to figure that the rainy season had finally begun. What was once a tropical paradise (marred, of course, by deaths and fires and food shortages…) turned into a soggy, miserable, and chilly hell. As rain crashed down into the jungle, mud would run in thick rivulets to the already soaked beach, carrying away the rich, dark soil. The sky, once a brilliant, azure blue, was masked by unheeding, gray clouds, revealing not even the slightest glimpse of what they hid. Even at night the rain would continue to fall, a steady drumming on the thatched roofs of the huts, a splat-splat-splat on the exposed granite. Cases of hypothermia and fevers ran rampant through the boys, only adding to the level of misery they endured.

Meanwhile, the only absence that had been noticed was that of Roger. And Jack, having come this far with his tribe, was not about to give up on anything. The chief was far from being happy.

"Three whole days, Ralph," Jack grumbled, as the two of them sat cross-legged in the shelter of their cave. "Three days, he's been missing."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

The chief squinted outside, watching the raindrops strike the pink outcrops of rock, then bounce off at random angles. "I'm not sure," he responded truthfully. "It makes me think -- what if he's dead, and all of those killings weren't his fault? What if we were wrong, and it really was the…" Jack's voice trailed off, and was drowned in the sudden boom of thunder.

"The beast?" Ralph asked. "It doesn't exist! We've been everywhere on this stupid island! There's no such thing!"

"Still, you've got to wonder."

"If there is a beast, it's Roger. And he's been gone for some time now."

The chief scratched his chin. "I wonder where he's gone to."

"I, for one, hope he got washed out to sea," Ralph muttered, picking up a smooth, black pebble and tossing it from hand to hand. "Then we wouldn't have to worry about him running around and killing people."

"Maybe…"

…

The day wore on, but it was hard to tell, for the sky remained the same gloomy gray the whole time. Boredom was mounting, but neither Jack nor Ralph wanted to step beyond the protection of their cave into the wet sogginess outside. The red-haired boy poked at his forearm with a small, sharpened twig until a trickle of blood began to run. Grimacing, he began poking himself, again, a few inches away from the initial wound.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Entertaining myself," he responded quickly, not looking up at Ralph. Instead, Jack continued to prod himself until another cut in his skin appeared. Ignoring the pain, he moved on up his arm.

"Stop it!" Ralph said, but made no move to halt the other boy's self-destruction.

"I have nothing better to do," Jack grumbled gloomily. "I'll stop if you have any better ideas."

Ralph raked his brain, searching it for a better activity than bleeding oneself to death. He came up with plenty of alternate ideas, but most of them were naughty, and he didn't want Jack to return to his silent, depressed state again. "We could take a walk," the fair-haired boy said at last.

Jack dropped the stick. "Are you batty?! In this weather? You wanna catch a fever?"

"Are you scared?"

"No!"

"Then come with me outside." That said, Ralph crawled out of the cave, wearing nothing but his tattered shorts. He winced as the cold rain struck his back, but like the waterfall many days before, it had a sort of cleansing, purifying effect. As expected, Jack soon followed, but he wrapped his arms around himself, shivering horribly. Ralph frowned, and put an arm around his chief. "Come on, Jack. Let's have a walk down the beach. It could be worse."

"Do tell."

"Umm…" An idea dawned on Ralph, and he was thankful, for once, that he had paid attention in his science class back home. "You know those big, pink rocks, Jack? It's granite. You know where granite's from? Volcanoes. Which means that this island is or used to be a volcano."

"Your point?"

"What if it were to erupt right now? It'd be raining lava and raindrops. That's far worse than our situation right now."

Jack rolled his eyes and leaned in closer to the other boy. "Sucks to the volcano."

At that moment, however, things did erupt, but not in the form of molten rock. "Jack! Ralph! Hey, Jack!" A figure was running down the beach at full tilt, as fast as his legs could carry him. Ralph squinted through the rain and recognized the boy as Maurice, though he had no idea why he looked so panicked. A few seconds later, the boy had collapsed at the feet of Jack and Ralph, panting, trying to get his breath back. He spat, then said, "It's terrible! … Horrible!"

Ralph let go of Jack and knelt down beside the third boy. "What is?"

Maurice looked up, and for the first time, several bruises and gashes across his face could be seen. "Him! Roger! He tried to kill me, he…"

Jack's eyes narrowed as he, too, squatted down beside the injured boy. "What did he do?"

But Maurice couldn't answer. Instead, he bit his lower lip, trying to suppress his sobbing. Hugging his knees to his chest the boy began to shudder, and the rain picked up until it was falling so hard it was painful.

Ralph shot Jack a disturbed glance, then asked the crying boy, "Can you at least tell us where we can find him?"

"By the platform," Maurice whispered in between sobs. "He's over there, hiding out, he's…" He broke down into a fit of violent tears. "Kill him, stab him, do whatever you can to just get rid of him!"

…

The sharpened stick Jack held was like an old friend. He hadn't used one in a while, except to hunt, but as he grasped the spear tightly, the chief convinced himself that today was a good day to put the weapon to use. Ralph, too, carried a sharpened stick. The boy hadn't used one since the day he was being hunted by the tribe; as he toted the primitive weapon, he felt as if it were a ghost to haunt him. Ralph shuddered, but followed his chief as they slogged down the beach.

"We're not actually going to kill him, are we?" the older boy asked, gripping the spear so tightly his knuckles were turning white. "That would make us just as bad as him, you know."

"Did you see what he did to Maurice?" Jack hissed. He pushed his wet bangs from his forehead and scowled. "Roger didn't just try to kill him. He's scarred him for the rest of his life!"

"I don't understand…"

"Then maybe that's a good thing, Ralph." The two of them pushed on, the wet, gritty sand abrading against their bare feet. Jack winced, for he could feel his heels chafing, bleeding, the skin tearing. He pushed the notion of pain away and wondered to himself what it would be like if the grains of sand found their way into his bloodstream. "We are going to kill the bastard!"

Ralph frowned. That wild, primal look was returning to Jack's eyes. It was unfamiliar, at first, but soon the fair-haired boy remembered it all too well. With the memories came fear, and with fear came hate. Ralph denied it. He balled his fist until his nails dug into his flesh, trying to convince himself that Jack had changed, that he was no longer the savage that he had once been. Jack was not a murderer. Jack was not a beast. Jack…

"Stop," Ralph said, taking the other boy by surprise. "Stop."

"What's wrong?!" Jack asked, his face hot with anger and his blue eyes wild with the anticipation of finding Roger. "Are you afraid? Overcome by your sense of morals? Do you not care?"

"No, it's just…" Ralph looked directly at Jack, his eyes boring through him. "Show me that you've changed. Show me that you aren't the savage that you used to be, Jack. Show me…" The older boy let his voice trail off as he dropped his spear into the sand. Quickly, showing no sign of fatigue, Ralph wrapped his arms around Jack -- feeling just how cold the other boy was -- and forced him into a kiss. It was chaste, not like the movie-star kisses that Ralph remembered seeing back home. Jack didn't respond, at first, most likely because he was so surprised. But slowly, after a moment's pause, he returned the kiss, wanting very much to deepen it into the kind that he had seen on the silver screen.

For that moment, it wasn't raining. For that moment, the sky above was blue and cloudless, and the air felt warm and balmy. For that moment, neither Jack nor Ralph were on the island; they were in London, on the stony path of a street corner, with no one else around for miles. There were the welcome fumes of car exhaust and the familiar sounds of faraway vehicles.

It lasted but a second, and as Ralph pulled himself away from Jack, he said hoarsely, "I knew you had changed."

Jack grinned. "Never want to let you down," he replied, and picked up his spear from the wet sand. A frown swiftly covered his features, and the boy added, "We've got to do this, Ralph. We might all end up dead if we don't."

"It doesn't sound like a half-bad idea," the older by mused, retrieving his spear.

…

Roger had been waiting for Jack and Ralph, ignoring the pounding of the chilly rain against his back. This kind of furious weather made the sadistic boy happy, although it was nothing compared to the joy he obtained from frightening and hurting the younger members of the tribe. He sat on a fallen palm tree trunk; its bark was damp and soggy from the constant rain they'd been receiving. Roger dug his toes into the sand and awaited the arrival of Jack and Ralph. When the time came, he'd be more than glad to show them the true meaning of pain. The other boys, whom Roger had slain, those were a mere warning. Nothing more.

And yet, besides his quest for something that could satisfy, Roger could not present himself with a reason for being so violently ruthless.

…

A/N: To be continued… You know more will be on the way! I plan to have this story be a maximum of twelve chapters, so by now you know things are starting to wind down. Until next time… Drop some reviews, and I'll see to it that the next chapter will be posted much quicker than this one was!

-mo