Thankies for the review. Here's the next chapter... :) Hope you like. ttfn!
Chapter two
Leah burst into the room, breathless. "There's been an accident… The Blaxland is missing."
Tension suddenly filled the party.
"It was Kim, he said that the Blaxland ran into some trouble during the storm, and their radio went out after Alf sent out a mayday message. The Hunter twins, Cassie and Ric were also aboard, He said they'll need as many volunteers to scour the beach as possible…" she paused. "They don't know where they are."
Leah's eyes landed on Sally, who was fighting back tears frightened tears. Silenced reigned for a moment.
Dan cleared his throat. "Leah, Sally, could you stay here 'n' find some blankets?"
Leah nodded, and put her arm around Sally's shoulder comfortingly.
"Peter, Lana, Flynn - we'll go down to the surf club and see if we can help."
Sally and Flynn shared an embrace before he followed Peter, Dan and Lana to Dan's car. They drove to the Surf club as fast as the speed limit would allow.
When they arrived inside the surf club, Kim immediately began assigning them jobs. "Dan, could you stay here with Beth?"
Dan's eyes filled with compassion as they, through the crowds of people in orange vests, found Beth, sitting anxiously, worrying over the fate of her missing children, their friends and Alf.
"Sure," he replied, and left to comfort Beth,
"Flynn, can you come on the search vessel with us?" Flynn nodded. "Grab an orange vest."
"Detective," Kim said. Lana supposed he was referring to Peter. "Grab a vest - you can join the land search party."
Peter and Flynn both grabbed vests and waited for Kim's verdict on Lana.
"Name?" he asked her.
"Lana Sadler." He scribbled it onto a very important looking clip-board.
"Any life-saving experience?"
"Silver medallion - my C.P.R. is out of date, as of last month." She replied, and Kim handed her an orange safety vest, and ticked beside her name.
"We need as much experience as we can get," he stated. "Are you new in town?"
"Yeah, moved in last week - I'm teaching drama at Summer Bay High."
Kim smiled and then climbed onto the bench. "Can I have your attention please? Thank you. Everyone coming on the rescue vessel make sure you have a life vest and head out to the jetty. The rest of you will be allocated jobs outside."
Two large, white boats were tied to the jetty. Flynn, Peter and Lane all followed Kim to the jetty. Lana pulled the fluro orange vest over her head - it was dusty, like it hadn't been worn in a while, and she sneezed.
A tall man wearing an orange jump-suit stood at the end of the jetty and addressed the search party; "Okay, those of you who have been instructed to go on the boats op on now."
Flynn and about twenty other orange vest wearing people headed to the boats.
"The rest of you, I need you to get into teams of five, appoint a leader and send them to me to get supplies."
The cloud of orange vested volunteers burst into noise. Peter grabbed Lana's arm. They made a group of five with Jack, Tasha and Robbie. Pete, who was elected leader, got their supplies; five flashlights, two walkie-talkie radios, a map of the coastline, with a section highlighted, a disposable raincoat for each team member and a first aid kit.
"As you may notice," the man in the orange suit said when all the groups had bee formed, "the map you've been given has a section of the coastline highlighted. This is the area your group is assigned to patrol until you're notified to stop, via" - he held the walkie-talkie radio into the air - "This. If you come across any sign of the missing persons or missing vessel, notify head base using your radio."
Tasha held Robbie in her arms. She could feel his anxiety - his younger brother and sister were missing, feared dead. It was only an hour ago that they were supposed to have safely arrived on the jetty where they Tasha was now standing. All Robbie wanted to do was go, go and find them, all safe, secure healthy, not a scratch or bruise to speak of. But he knew how unlikely that was to happen.
They were dismissed, and followed Jack into the car park where they got into his unmarked cop car and drove to their designated patrol area.
The beach was bare. Jack, Robbie and Tasha took their flashlights, walkie-talkie radio and rain-coat and started to search the southern half of their area.
"Are you okay?" Tasha asked Robbie after walking in silence for a few minutes. Jack trailed behind them, looking out to sea.
Robbie laughed. "Am I okay?"
"I suppose that's a bad question." she said. "Do you want to talk?"
"Not really." He replied to his wife.
Robbie and Tasha had eloped just over six months ago. A month into their marriage, Tasha fell pregnant; her belly was now a rounded shape - the bright orange safety vest was hardly big enough to fit around her.
Both Robbie and Tasha had pulled out of school with a term remaining when they found out about Tasha's pregnancy; although Tasha's investments were enough to support them in the meantime, they decided that they wanted to save as much as they could to buy a house to raise their child in, so Robbie took a full time position as a personal assistant to one of Josie's acquaintances in Yabbie Creek.
However, Robbie regretted leaving school, and after discussion with Tasha, quit his job and re-enrolled at Summer Bay High to finish grade twelve and earn his H.S.C.
"You're so brave," Tasha whispered, comfortingly touching her husband's face.
Behind them, Jack's eyes searched the water before him. The full moon lit the water slightly, and from what he could see, there was nothing disturbing it.
In front of him Tasha was hugging Robbie around the middle. It made him long for Martha, who was probably still at the surf club, worrying about Alf. He should've stayed up there to reassure her… Too late now.
"Is anyone there?" Peter called as he stopped jogging.
"Matilda, Henry!" Lana yelled, catching up, her two 1/2 inch black stilettos swinging in her hand. "Ric! Cassie!"
They had been searching for ten minutes, but hadn't found a trace of the Blaxland or any of its passengers.
Peter looked out over the ocean. Nothing. Lana kept walking, the cool sand beneath her feet, then she climbed onto the rocks. She shone her flashlight out to sea. Nothing. She shone it onto the rocks in front of her. Nothing. She shone it on the sand on the other side of the rocks blow her - "Peter!"
Lana covered her mouth.
"What is it?"
Lana pointed down to the unconscious body lying in the bloodstained sand below her.
"It's- It's," she whispered, fearfully, "Cassie."
"Yes, it's Cassie." Peter spoke into the radio. "Looks like a head wound, her arm may be broken… Unconscious… Yes, we've searched the surrounding area and found no sign of any of the others…"
There was a lot of blood. Cassie's face was bloodstained; her nose was bleeding, blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and from a deep cut in her forehead. The sleeve of her shirt, which was once blue, was now drenched in blood.
Lana was sitting beside her, checking her pulse; it was slow and weak, and she was starting to get cold. Lana found it hard to imagine that this girl who was now fighting for her life was the same girl she taught three days ago; so full of energy and life.
"The medics will be here in a few minutes," Peter told her and jumped off the rock to join her. "How is she?"
"Her pulse is the same, she's still breathing. I think she must've swam in and then hit her head on the rocks, knocking her unconscious. If not, it's a miracle, she's still breathing." Lana said, brushing some, bloody, sandy strands of hair from Cassie's face and tucking them behind her ear. "The poor thing… They said when I was doing my first aid course that lots of blood usually means the injury isn't too severe, I hope that's the case here."
"Peter! Lana!" they heard a voice call from behind the rocks.
"We're down here!" Peter yelled. "Cassie's down here!"
It was Jack. In his arms her cradled Matilda.
"She was conscious when we found her. She said that Ric was helping Mr. Stewart and then she passed out. I would have radioed you, but our batteries are flat or something."
Peter grabbed the walkie-talkie radio. "We've found Matilda Hunter. I repeat, we've found Matilda Hunter."
Light shone strongly from behind the rocks. "Peter?"
The voice belonged to Flynn, who was followed by a group of paramedics, who scooped Matilda out of Jack's arms and took her to the nearby ambulance.
Flynn jumped down of the rocks and rushed to Cassie's aid. Muttering to himself, he took her pulse and checked for injuries, before letting the paramedics lift her onto a stretcher and take her to the ambulance.
"Will she be okay?" Lana asked Flynn as he turned to follow the stretcher.
"She should be. She's broken her arm and lost a bit of blood, but her head injury doesn't seem critical. We'll run some tests when we get to the hospital."
He turned to join the paramedics when Lana said "It was nice meeting you, Flynn, I hope I see more of you in the future."
Flynn paused and smiled. "Yeah. I hope so too." He replied, and got in the ambulance, and drove into the distance as Tasha and Robbie arrived on the rocks.
The sky, filled with clouds once again started to unleash heavy water droplets, and erupted in lightning and thunder for the second time that night. Kim and Lana pulled out their plastic raincoats, and put them on.
"Everyone's been found." Peter announced from behind Lana and Kim. "They found Ric and Mr. Stewart off shore, Henry was found by another group just north of us washed up on shore. They're all going to be admitted to hospital overnight, but they said there are no serious injuries."
"So…"
"We can go home." Peter smiled with relief.
When all of the equipment had been given to Jack, Peter and Lana started walking over the hill to Leah and Dan's house.