Jack stomped his foot into the hatch door as loud as possible, working hard to stay standing upright as the deadweight body of Sawyer sprawled across his back kept wanted to throw him off balance.
"Come on John." He hissed, his thighs trembling at the strain. He knew he was strong enough to hold Sawyer up easily if he had some help, but with Sawyer completely out of it and his entire body slack, it was like holding a two-hundred-pound sack of potatoes that kept shifting erratically across his back.
It took a couple more stomps before the door finally opened and Jack shouldered past a very confused looking Locke. But he followed Jack silently into the back room where the bunk bed was, watching as Jack fumbled with Sawyer's body.
"Help me." Jack demanded, bending his knees so that Sawyer's legs crumpled around him.
John came forward, but wasn't certain. "What do you want me to do?"
"Get him up on my shoulders, I have to get him onto the top bunk." John locked his arms beneath Sawyer's armpits until Jack could get into a better position of taking the man sideways across his shoulders, draping him like a shall.
"Why not the bottom?" John asked perplexedly.
"Hurley." Was all Jack could press out through clenched teeth, moving as quickly as his precariousness would allow him as he climbed the ladder up to the top bunk. His neck strained with his veins popping out, climbing wrung by wrung, and finally bumping Sawyer's back against the ceiling. He let out a growl as he folded himself enough for the unconscious man to roll off of his shoulders.
There was a horrifying moment where Sawyer almost accidentally rolled the other way, but Jack managed to catch him with a hand at the small of his back and shove him onto the mattress, making sure to leave him lying on his side, should he vomit.
"What about Hurley?" John asked as Jack climbed back down, panting intensely.
"He's still out there, he's unconscious," Jack stalked past him. "Look, I need you to find a board or a net or something to help me get him in here. I'm going to find Sayid, I'll meet you back here at the hatch in five minutes."
Before Locke could question anything, Jack was already out of the hatch and running through the jungle towards the beach.
It took him a bit to find Sayid sitting next to Charlie, a ways off from their campsite.
"Sayid!" he called out, ignoring the somewhat bothered look that came from the Iraqi. "I need your help." Everything that had transpired about the their questionable prisoner only a few minutes before was still fresh in Sayid's mind.
Sayid rose to his feet warily, taking one interested look at the frazzled man before looking to Charlie, who was about to rise, until Jack called him on it. "Not you Charlie, I just need Sayid." He disappeared back into the jungle before he could see the dagger-ridden look Charlie'd given him.
"Now Sayid!" came Jack's call and Sayid trailed obediently, tromping off through the plants.
When Sayid came into view, Jack took off at a sprint, "come on." he tore through the jungle, everything around him becoming a green and brown blur, and he hoped that Sayid was keeping on his heels. The voice from behind him assured that he was.
"Where are we going Jack?" Sayid's tone was distantly nonplussed.
"We're headed for the hatch. Locke's meeting us there. Hurley's passed out in the jungle." That was all Jack really needed to say because they'd come back to the hatch and sure enough Locke was standing there, though he was empty-handed.
"I couldn't find anything." Locke said simply. And knowing him as a rather resourceful man, Jack believed him.
"Damnit!" Jack huffed with his hands on his hips, blinking to keep his eyes from going fuzzy.
"What exactly could you not find?" Sayid asked, barely out of breath.
"We need to get something to move Hurley back here…" Jack panted. "…like a board or a net."
Sayid stiffened, "I will be right back," and he took off. Leaving Jack and Locke to stare hopefully at his retreating backside.
When he returned a few minutes later, he was holding a large, crudely-made net in his arms, some of it dragging along the ground behind him. "A net." He said simply, getting a grateful smile from Jack – who'd regained his breath – and now took off past him. "This way."
He led them through the dense fronds, shifting through cypresses, until finally they came to Hurley, lying on his side on the ground, having puked again.
All three men went into immediate action as if they'd trained for this; Sayid threw down the net behind Hurley while Jack and Locke went to both of Hurley's ends, Jack taking his shoulders and Locke taking his feet, and on the count of three, rolled him onto his back carefully.
Then the three men took a place at the loose end of the net, got a good grip on it, and began to drag Hurley through the jungle. "We keep this discreet and quiet." Jack said, though he didn't really have to.
He knew that these men understood how humiliating this would be for Hurley if he knew someone had found out about this. But this all boiled down to what had to happen to get him back to the hatch, he was a big guy, too big for any of them to carry, and getting him indoors and figuring out what was wrong with him was Jack's number one priority.