Chapter 20 – More to the Island Than We Thought
They walked into the jungle, Boone taking the back of the group, Shannon lingering close ahead, and the Arab guy and the pretty brunette took the lead. Charlie was somewhere in the middle, and they had just steadied their pace when a guy who was hot but looked rather tough joined them. "You decided to join us?" said the brunette.
"I'm a complex guy, sweetheart." Drawled the hot guy, walking to the front of the group.
"So, um, guys, where exactly are we going?" Charlie piped up after a few minutes.
"We're going up to higher ground to see if the radio will work from there," said the Arab guy curtly.
"It didn't work from the beach?" Boone asked. No, idiot, that's why they were going up.
"No," said Kate politely. "What's your name? I don't think we've met."
"Boone," said Boone. "And you're… Kate, right?"
"Yeah," said Kate. "And you're… Shannon?"
"Yep," she said. What was this, summer camp?
"I'm Sayid," said the Arab guy. "Come along, let's move quickly."
"Bet he's used to movin' quickly, hidin' away from all the soldiers tryin' to find him, huh, sweet cheeks?" Said the tough blonde man in a southern drawl to Shannon.
Shannon rolled her eyes. "He's not a friggin' terrorist," she scoffed in a bored tone.
"You're one of those chicks, huh?" He said.
"Look man, who are you anyhow?" Boone interjected.
"Shut up, Boone, let me handle just one thing on my own for once, okay?" She snapped.
"It's Sawyer," said the man, smirking. "Who's this? Friend, friend-with-benefits, sworn enemy, boyfriend, sex-slave, brother, what?" Um ,she thought. All of the above?
"My idiot brother," she said.
"Really?" said Sawyer, looking surprised. "Well, aren't we just full'a surprises here?" Shannon didn't know what to make of this statement.
"So," said the hobbit, "I'm Charlie, by the way. You all everybody!" he squealed unattractively.
"Are you high?" Shannon asked. "Or do you always sing that badly?" The guy named Charlie looked ashamed and did not speak for a long time.
Charlie was the first to see it. "Bloody hell," he exclaimed as his first words since Shannon shot him down. They looked up. There, straight ahead, was a towering, practically vertical face of rock. There weren't going to –
"Well," said the guy named Sayid, "Better start climbing." Shit! What the fuck had she gotten herself into?
"Boone," she whispered, tapping his shoulder.
"Don't worry, you can do it," he said absently. Stupid!
Sawyer, Sayid and Kate started climbing first, and Shannon could tell that they were in very good physical shape, not cautious at all. Charlie on the other hand, tried to appear confident, but tripped a little as he grabbed onto a tree branch. Shannon went next. Hands shaking, she slowly took a strong-looking weed in her hands. Pulling up, Shannon dug her feet into the dirt, and grabbed onto the next branch. Boone started up behind her. Great. He was going to stare at her ass the entire time, and get so distracted he would probably fall down the whole mountain and die. Just fabulous.
Once they had gained a fairly steady pace, Boone ended up more next to her than behind her, which seemed like a better position than behind her, but it wasn't, because whenever she faltered her steps the tiniest bit, he would grab onto her – her elbow, the back of her thigh, her waist, and Shannon wasn't sure she could handle that, and it was annoying, so she threw his arms off of her. They were almost there.
She was breathing hard, sweating, this was probably the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life, not counting the hours she used to spend on the treadmill in her room every spring before bikini season, exerting every muscle in her body so much she would literally faint in her room, and Boone would have to carry her downstairs and put a cold washcloth to her face and watch Friends reruns with her until she summoned enough energy to get up and take a shower – sometimes alone, and sometimes with him, depending on where they relationship stood during that particular spring.
The last stretch of the mountain approached, and she reluctantly let Sayid pull her up (as stupid Boone grabbed her upper thigh, making her shiver). She scrambled to the top, and twisted vines snaked their way towards Shannon's face, scraping her skin as she let Boone hoist her over the clearing. When she was safely at the landing, she sat down for a few minutes, her eyes closed, and Boone gave her his water bottle. "Do you have your inhalers?" He said quietly to her.
"No, do you?" she said under her breath.
"No," he said in concern.
"You idiot! How could you – god, I hate you!" She screamed.
"Would you two quit having a go at each other?" Said Charlie, exasperated, and also sitting down in exhaustion. They ignored him.
"Shannon, you think it's my responsibility to always take care of you and make sure everything's all right, and the second I've done that, you're just screaming at me all over again and – " He was mad at her for Sydney. He was mad at her…
"That's not true and you know it! You're just an idiotic bastard, always trying to be so charismatic, but nobody even likes you! You're so desperate!" She screeched.
"We really need to get going," said Sayid, who had stood up impatiently. "Let's go." Sawyer looked back at Shannon and gave her a secretive smile. What did that mean? The group walked in silence, and again, Shannon and Boone lagged behind.
"You're mad at me for Sydney," she whispered quietly, practically mouthing the last word.
"Yeah, you conned me out of half a million dollars and then seduced me, yeah, I'm mad at you, Shannon." He whispered hoarsely, looking at Charlie suspiciously to make sure he couldn't hear.
"I didn't seduce you, you know I wanted it as much as – " Charlie looked back, but he hadn't heard any of the content of their conversation.
"I'm done talking about this, Shannon," he said calmly as they veered through a green pasture of jungle.
"Okay, wide open space!" exclaimed a voice from behind them. It was Sawyer. Shannon had thought he was ahead of them! She silently prayed that he hadn't heard anything. "You should check the radio, see if we're good!"
"We're not going to have any reception here." Said Sayid in an annoyingly strong accent.
"Just try it!" Sawyer argued.
"I don't want to waste the batteries," said Sayid decidedly, an edge to his voice.
"They fight like an old married couple," she whispered to Boone, forgetting that they were supposed to be annoyed with each other. He chuckled, shaking his head.
Sawyer and Sayid were still arguing, and Shannon wasn't paying attention until suddenly, Sayid flipped out, shouting, "If I just check we might not have any juice left when we get to – " Everyone stopped with a start as Sayid was interrupted by a monstrous sound behind them. It growled, and moved, whatever it was, frighteningly. They all looked around, trying to find this mysterious, dangerous creature.
"Oh my god," Shannon squeaked.
"What the hell was that?" Boone asked.
"Something's coming," Kate said, sounding petrified.
"I think it's coming towards us," Charlie panicked.
"Come on, let's move," someone said, and they all began to run away, except Shannon, who started screaming, she was so fucking scared! Boone grabbed her arm and pulled her away, until she started scuttling along with everyone else. They were all running when a gunshot sounded. Then another. And another. Its echoes reverberated in the quiet jungle. Everyone had stopped running and were staring at Sawyer, at this giant white mass that was tearing towards him, and then, with one final lurch, fell to the ground with a thud.
In realization, Shannon sighed, "That's a big bear." In front of them lay a gargantuan heap of white fur, dead and cold in the grass.
"Think that's what killed the pilot?" Asked Boone. Shannon had heard someone talking about the incident with the pilot as she tanned that morning. She responded to the knowledge, of course, by shutting it out of her mind, as she did with most things that disturbed her.
"No, that's a teeny, tiny version compared to that," Charlie decided.
"Guys, that's just not any bear. That's a polar bear." Kate breathed.
About an hour later, her mind still spinning with thoughts of that horrible bear, Sayid turned on the radio as Sawyer yelled something at him. But sure enough, about a minute later, they were all crowded around the radio, as crackly sounds were now escaping from it in gurgled waves. "Mayday, mayday!" yelled Sayid, as everyone looked at the thing, fascinated.
"What is that?" Kate asked anxiously.
"Feedback."
"Feedback from what?" She said.
"I don't know."
"I'll tell you what would do that," Sawyer drawled dubiously, "This guy not fixing the radio. That thing doesn't even work."
"No, no, no, no, no! It's not broken. We can't transmit because something else is already transmitting." Sayid exclaimed earnestly. Shannon was confused. What the hell was going on, here?
"Transmitting from where?" Asked Charlie.
"What!" she said.
"Somewhere close. The signal's strong." Sayid answered.
"Somewhere close, you mean on the island?" Charlie supposed, "That's great."
"Maybe it's other survivors," Boone said stupidly (but maybe the stupid part was a given).
"From our plane? How would they even –" Shannon argued, but Sawyer interrupted her.
"What kind of transmission is it?" He said impatiently.
"It could be a SAT phone, maybe a radio signal," Shannon didn't know what these things were, but they sounded like they got them closer to being rescued, so she pretended she did.
"Can we listen to it?" Kate said intensely.
"Let me get the frequency first, hold on," said Sayid, struggling.
"There's no transmission," Sawyer said negatively. Shannon already didn't like Sawyer; he was just making things more difficult.
"Shut up!" Kate shouted, annoyed. Shannon wondered how these two knew each other. Maybe they were exes or something.
"The rescue party, it has to be!" Charlie exclaimed. The radio bubbled out a very mangled French voice. "The French, the French are coming! I've never been so excited to hear the French!" Charlie sounded like they had just found the cure for cancer, as did Sayid, who was smiling for the first time she had ever seen him smile. Freaks. But it was… French. She strained her ears, desperately trying to understand or remember anything from the year in hell she liked to call France.
Kate sounded impatient. "I never took French, what is she saying?"
Sayid suddenly stopped laughing and turned his head intently. "Does anyone speak French?"
Boone looked at Shannon. Oh, crap, now she was going to look like an idiot! "She does."
"No, I don't. What?" Okay, so maybe she knew a little, but she hadn't spoken it in years and she was going to mess everyone up, and they'd all think she was really stupid! Now Boone was getting really pissed off, too!
"What the hell are you talking about?" He pointed at her angrily, getting all in your face like he always insisted on doing. "You spent a year in Paris!"
"Drinking, not studying!" She screamed.
"Iteration 7294531." The radio said. What did that mean?
"Okay, what's that?" Charlie asked.
"Oh, no, no, no, no!" Exclaimed Sayid dramatically.
"No, no, no, What?" Kate asked.
"The batteries are dying."
"How much time do we have?"
"Not much."
"I've heard you speak French before." He mustered into her ear. Yeah, studying for a Lesson 1.1 Vocabulary Quiz when she fifteen! "Listen to this. Listen to it."
"I can't!" She yelled. She didn't know why she being so resistant, but she was just going to look dumber doing this.
"You speak French or not, because that would be nice!" Sawyer asked, obviously annoyed with these damn kids who wouldn't stop blowing each other's heads off.
She stared at the radio, shaking her head slightly, as the radio announced, "Iteration 17…"
"That voice is weird. What is that?" Charlie asked, Sherlock Holmes style.
Everyone looked at Shannon, urging her to translate the transmission. She heard it say something. The same thing. "It's repeating," she said decisively.
"It's a loop. Iteration, it's repeating the same message. The counter, the next number will end 533." Sayid said victoriously.
"Iteration: 17294533," said the transmitter. Wow, however lacking in emotional range this guy was, she had to admit that he seemed pretty smart.
"Does anyone know what the hell he's talking about?" Sawyer asked impatiently.
"It's a running count of the number of times the message has repeated! It's roughly 30 seconds long so, how long…" He wiped his forehead, in deep thought.
"Don't forget to carry the one, chief," Sawyer said sarcastically.
Shannon closed her eyes, trying to convince herself to listen to the thing. She didn't know why she was so scared, but if she got it wrong… she imagined the whole group glaring at her, whispering to each other and shaking their heads at how stupid she was. No, she should think more positively… she listened.
"Veuillez m'aider." She thought she heard. M'aider… she vaguely remembered some woman in a lingerie store in France asked her this as she walked into the store… help me… that's what it meant! Veuillez… to want…
"She's saying…" Shannon paused, "She's saying 'please come help me', 'please come get me'…"
"Or not!" Sawyer raged. "You don't even speak French!" Bastard.
"Let her listen," Kate encouraged.
"Shut up, man," Boone stood up for her, and for once Shannon was glad.
"The battery…" Charlie gently reminded.
"Iteration 17294535." Shannon grabbed the radio.
"Je suis seul maintenant…" Je suis was 'I am', seul maintenant was 'only now' – alone now, how Shannon always was in Jean's apartment…
"I'm alone now…"
"Sur suele l'île." 'L'île', island.
"On the island alone…"
"Quelqu'un…" Somebody… "veuillez venir…" please come…
"Somebody please come," she repeated.
"Les autres ils sont, ils sont morts."
"The others, they're all… they're all dead." Shannon swallowed. Maybe there was more to this island than humidity and mosquitoes after all… everyone looked troubled.
"Elle les a tués. Elle les a tués tous."
"It killed them, it killed them all." Okay, now she was officially scared. Maybe it was that thing they had heard in the jungle that morning? She looked at the radio. The message started over.
Boone, always unable to understand information, just said, "That was good," to Shannon distractedly.
"Sixteen years!" Exclaimed Sayid.
"What?" Sawyer asked with an edge.
"16 years and 5 months, that's the count!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Boone asked. Duh, idiot, the transmission. The transmission… it had been going for… sixteen years.
"The iterations. It's a distress call, a plea for help, a mayday." Yes, thank you, we all know what a distress call (call, not coll) is. "If the count is right it's been playing over and over for 16 years."
"Someone else was stranded here?"
"Maybe they came for them?"
"If someone came why is it still playing?"
"Guys…" Charlie looked up in confusion. "Where are we?"
Shannon made a tiny noise of fright. What was this place, and were they going to be here for sixteen years? No, said a voice in her head, they would come rescue them tomorrow, maybe tonight. Maybe Sayid was wrong. He could very well be wrong, right?
Sayid did not say anything, instead he just turned around, and Kate went ahead of them, and they walked in awed silence for a while.
"It's getting dark," Boone pointed out as the sun began to fall behind some trees.
"Then pick up the pace," snarled Sawyer, looking very intimidating next to Boone, who was small in comparison. When Shannon wore heels, he was small in comparison to her. Boone always used to complain about his height, especially when Shannon would make fun of him for being pretty and little. But when Shannon told him it made him seem even more metro sexual then he already was, he refrained from talking abut his height, or any other aspect of his appearance, very often. Except when he decided to cut his hair, also thanks to Shannon, because it looked like he had a comb over.
"Dick," muttered Boone, obviously not one of Sawyer's biggest fans.
"Little louder?" mocked Sawyer.
"We should make camp." Sayid decided.
"What, here?" They were going to sleep in the middle of this monster-infested jungle?
"Yes, here." Answered Sayid rudely. Well, excuse me if he didn't have any compassion for someone who actually did have emotions! Right now, the arrow was pointing to scared. His was pointing to not applicable one hundred percent of the time, she guessed.
They all stopped walking, except Sawyer, who kept on trudging ahead. "Ya'll have a nice cookout," he said, "I'm not stopping."
"Excellent, walk through the jungle in the dark!" Sayid said irritably.
"Oooooh, afraid the trees are going to get us?"
"No, what is knocking down the trees will get you." Shannon noticed that Sayid had this way of making everything sound more dramatic and frightening than it was.
Sawyer smiled cheekily, and suddenly, to Kate and herself anyway, all of his asshole characteristics were suddenly erased. Oooooh, dimples! But what he said next distracted them from this fact. He pulled out his gun and said, "Well, if you're so worried about me, why don't you give me the clip back?"
"Put your gun back in your pants, Sawyer," Kate sighed, as the perverted teenager side of Shannon took charge. Gun in your pants! Sawyer smiled again as his perverted teenager side took advantage of him as well. Kate was not amused, however. "Sayid's right, if you keep walking you're not going to make it to the beach."
"Yeah, why's that?"
"Trust me."
Shannon didn't remember much about the rest of the evening, except about how friggin' miserable she was, and how Sayid made the final decision that they would not tell anyone what they heard.
"So," said Charlie, after hours of sitting by the fire and listening to Sayid give them a lecture. "I guess we should all turn in. I'm going to go take a leak over there," he motioned towards some bush. Farther, Charlie, farther away! The last thing she wanted was to listen to some short British guy pee.
Kate turned over and closed her eyes, and the rest of them followed suit, including Charlie, who stumbled back a few minutes later. Somehow, Shannon ended up between Sayid and Boone, which was just a wee bit awkward, so she crossed her arms over her chest and lay on her back, not expecting to fall asleep at all. Hopefully what's-his-name wouldn't get any ideas. Sayid was like, sprawled on the ground, and Boone was peacefully curled up on her right. She inched towards him. Now that she was near his body heat, she felt a little more relaxed, but it's not like she was going to touch him, because they were so close to everyone else. After a few minutes (or was it hours?) she began to doze off a little… until…
She heard Sayid yell, "What are you doing?" and her eyes shot open, as she looked at Boone, who holding the clip guiltily. Oh, what idiotic thing had he done now?
"Standing guard. You heard what they said is out there!" Standing guard? Five foot nine Boone, standing guard?
"You took my gun off me, boy?" Said Sawyer suspiciously. Boone looked at Shannon for support.
"Please, you've never even held a gun," she said to him. "He doesn't believe in guns. He goes on marches," she formulated. Sure, it wasn't true, but she was standing up for him.
"I don't go on marches."
"Give it back to me." Sayid decided.
"Yeah, give it to Al Jerzeera, he'll protect us!" Sawyer yelled.
"Al Jezeera is the network." Charlie pointed out.
"I'll keep the damn gun." No, he wouldn't! She looked at Kate, who seemed the least annoying member of the group.
"We should give it to her," she said, indicating Kate.
"Yeah, Kate should hold the gun," agreed Charlie.
"Fine with me. Well?" Boone handed the gun to Kate. Good boy, she silently praised her puppy. Because Boone so was.
Everyone, glaring at Boone and looking suspiciously at Shannon, eventually lay down, except for Kate, who sat on a rock alertly. "Why the hell did you do that, you idiot?" She whispered hoarsely to Boone once they had stationed themselves a little further from the group.
"Nobody was watching. Anyone could have…"
"But Boone," she sighed. Why couldn't he just understand that he was stupid? "You don't – I mean, you don't just go grabbing guns off people!"
"But someone could have – "
"And you could have stopped them? By shooting them? You don't even know what a trigger is!"
"And you do?"
"I didn't steal a fucking gun!" She raised her voice.
"Shut up," said Sawyer irritably.
"Yeah, Shannon, shut up," Boone rolled his eyes at Shannon and turned over. She sighed, and lay on her back, begging for sleep to come and claim her.
When Shannon woke up the next morning, hints of sunlight were just beginning to creep over the mountain. She noticed that she and Boone had gravitated towards each other during the night, like they were fucking magnets or something, and that their legs were sort of tangled. Shit. She looked around, hoping no one would notice. But she was the only one awake besides Kate, who was staring in the other direction. She moved her legs, hoping he wouldn't wake up. God, it was freezing! She shivered as she sat up, and her head throbbed from lack of food and sleep.
"Mm," she heard him grunt gracefully. She punched him to make him shut up. Didn't work. Instead he just woke up. God, he never did what she wanted him to do, did he?
"Where are we?" He muttered, still half asleep. She instinctively tucked a random piece of hair behind his ear that was crossing his face, making his almost- unibrow look even more like a unibrow.
"Don't you remember? We crashed on an island, found out there are monsters on said island, you stole a gun, everyone yelled at you?" She said snootily.
He was still beyond consciousness, and he muttered something about chocolate sundaes and Angelina Jolie.
"Wow Boone," she said, "Got some secret fantasies there?" She poked him. "Wake up and quit being cute."
"Oh, so you think I'm cute?"
"I think you're an idiot." Oh my god, she hated it when they accidentally flirted! And it happened all the time, too!
Kate turned around. "'Morning," she said. "Sleep okay?"
"Boone did," Shannon said loudly. "He was dreaming about Angelina Jolie, wasn't he?"
"Shut up," he said good-naturedly. Kate raised her eyebrows.
"It's too early to bicker," Sawyer said, waking. "Quit bickering, you guys are annoying as hell."
When Sayid woke up, all the fun stopped. "Come on, the other's will worry, we should get back to camp." Camp, not comp!
"Where's Charlie?" Asked Kate, as Charlie emerged from a bush.
"Just using the loo!" He exclaimed. "Good morning!"
"Why is he so full of sunshine today?" Shannon asked Boone under her breath.
"Let's go," said Sayid, and they followed him back to the beach.
Charlie walked next to Shannon. "So, where are you from?"
"L.A." she said carelessly, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"Ah," said Charlie, "I can imagine that." She didn't answer, and Charlie muttered something under his breath.
"What was that?" She asked suspiciously.
"Oh, nothing," said Charlie cheerfully, and caught up with Kate, whistling. What a strange, strange man this Charlie person was.
"He's a little odd," Shannon whispered to Boone, who looking angry, as usual.
"You noticed?" Charlie looked back at them, and then said something to Kate, who smiled and nodded.
Sayid wasn't standing for this middle school-esque clique, and thus, he treated them like they were in elementary school. "Stay in line, everybody! We're approaching the cliff, again!"
Shannon closed her eyes and sighed. She did not like that cliff, not one bit. "It's okay," said Boone, "You'll do fine."
"I know that, Boone," said Shannon.
"What was that?" Sayid suddenly said, referring to the tiny sound of Charlie kicking a pebble. "Was that the monster?"
"That was Charlie," said Kate. "He kicked a rock."
"Oh," said Sayid, glaring at Charlie, who shrugged his shoulders.
It rained that afternoon. Well, that would be an understatement. It was more like Shannon was sitting on the beach with Boone, who was helping her with one of the crosswords, when suddenly a torrential downpour decided to make its way up the beach. By the time they could run up the beach, all of the closest pieces of plane to hide under had been taken, so they were forced to go even further, to a secluded area over by a tree, and by the time they got there, they were both completely soaked, their hair sticking to their faces and their shirts dripping. They ducked under the piece of plane, and sat there, breathing heavily.
"Damn," he said after a few minutes.
"Damn," she repeated.
"Got your bag," he said, holding up her suitcase.
"Oh thank god!" She sighed in relief and reached over for it. Her fingers touched his as she took the bag from him, and for a moment, she didn't trust herself with him. So she just smiled tightly and closed her eyes, willing the beat of the rain to send her to sleep.
She dozed off, but only slightly, for a few minutes – Shannon always had trouble sleeping, Boone could just be sitting there, and then suddenly be completely unconscious. There had been many nights when she had gone into his room seeking solace, and he had been, like, dead. When she opened her eyes, sure enough, the steady beat of the rain had driven him to unconsciousness, and Shannon couldn't ignore how peaceful and angelic he looked lying there, with his hair wet and his cheeks still pink from running up the beach. She couldn't help it. She leaned over and kissed him softly on the cheek, her hand resting on the other side of his face. He stirred, and traced his fingers over her hand, but remained somewhat asleep. She looked outside and noticed that, just as quickly as it had begun, the sun had decided to shine again.
"Boone," she whispered, tapping him on the shoulder. "The rain's stopped." He didn't wake up. She shook his shoulder more roughly. "Boone!" she said again. God, what the hell? "Wake the hell up!"
"Five more minutes, Mom," he sighed.
"You idiot! I'm not your mother!" She yelled. Thankfully, they were quite far from everyone else, so this strange girl didn't confuse anyone. "Okay, you pervert," she said, formulating an idea. "Wake up!" She slapped him on the butt. It worked.