Chapter Five
The people inside the grotto turned and stared at the opening, breath held and hearts pounding with anxiety. All was quiet except for the bubbling spring in the corner, the crackling fire as it shot sparks into the air, and the drumming of rain. Matt edged closer to Greg, and Lauren cautiously crawled into Sara's lap. Even in the feeble mind of a three-year-old, she sensed the need to be silent.
Catherine glanced over at Sara, who met her gaze nervously. They shared a confirming stare than looked back at the entrance. Another crunch caused Sara to gulp noiselessly and squeeze Lauren's shoulder, whether to ease her own nerves or comfort the girl was unclear. Was it a wild animal, come to investigate the strange new island inhabitants? Or maybe something worse? What if it was something better? The sounds came closer, and a flash of lightning revealed a tall shadow slanting into the cave.
From his silent perch, Greg spotted a spare rock on the floor. He reached forward for it as quietly as possible and enclosed its smooth surface in his fingers. The others turned to observe him pick up the stone. Greg looked to Sara for silent permission, who met his gaze with a solid stare. The two then looked to Catherine for further approval. She nodded.
Greg raised the rock above his head with his left hand and threw. It soared out of the cave and made contact.
"Ow!"
Enormous sighs were released around the entire hollow.
"Ecklie," Catherine said aloud, her voice filled with what could be relief, or perhaps disbelief.
"Who threw that?" Ecklie's voice echoed like an annoying alarm clock.
Sara's lips were pursed, her eyes crackling with fury.
"I did!" Greg called.
"Sanders!"
More crunches, faster this time, and Ecklie materialized in the cave entrance.
"Glad you decided to join us Ecklie." Catherine said in a false voice.
"I'm only doing this because you have dry wood and I don't." Ecklie stepped further into the cavern. He was still wearing his black suit, though it was heavily dripping water. There was a bump on his head, bigger than Lauren's, and much more pronounced. "I would have gathered some of my own if I wasn't as busy constructing my lean-to."
"Is that what you call it?" Sara said. She hoisted Lauren closer to her. "Only, when Greg described it, it seemed kind of like you were having a bit of trouble keeping that up. That it was more of an…inefficient blanket?"
"Sidle, I'm warning you. You want to believe that dolt? He threw a rock at me!" Sara held her tongue. She wanted, so badly, to say that she would have done the same.
Ecklie walked even closer to them, his black suit now clearly ruined beyond repair. Tears, sand, and stains covered it. The water pouring from its edges splattered the ground around him and for some reason he reminded Sara of that dark, mysterious figure arriving in the night from those murder mysteries she had read as a child. Only this time it was a much more comical situation.
"Gimme your suit Ecklie." Catherine ordered. She stood up, gesturing for him to hand her the jacket.
Ecklie rolled his eyes as if thinking, 'I can't believe I'm listening to you', wriggled out of the suit jacket, and placed it in Catherine's hand. She swept past him, back towards the cavern opening with the jacket in hand. Once at the entrance, she grasped its ends tightly and wrung it out.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Ecklie cried. "That's expensive!"
"Oh, well too bad you decided to wear it in a plane crash." Catherine said, small grin on her face, walking back into the center of the cavern. She met Sara's eyes to see the woman also trying to conceal a grin.
Ecklie glared at her then reached out to the jacket.
"Uh-bup-bup…" Catherine slapped Ecklie's hand. "You aren't getting this back."
Ecklie's jaw dropped and his eyes widened.
"What do you mean I'm not getting that back? Of course I am, it's mine!"
Catherine walked past him back towards the back of the cave. She placed it on the rock face above the fire, then turned back to Ecklie.
"Now your pants, that blouse, and that tie. Greg, you should probably get out of your shorts. Help Matt too. We don't want any of you guys getting sick."
Greg quietly muttered things in the background about how the women got privacy but the men didn't and etcetera as he pulled off his shorts. Ecklie however, wasn't budging.
"There's one in every gender." Catherine muttered, more to herself than anybody else, and placing her hands on her hips.
"One what?" Ecklie demanded.
"Stubborn person who won't strip to their underwear! What you don't seem to get, is that it's just like wearing a swimming suit. Sara was the same way."
Sara's lips curled with the concept of comparing herself to Ecklie. Ecklie glared at Catherine, his beady eyes hardening even more than usual. Then off came the tie, and then the blouse, and finally the pants, shoes, and waterlogged socks.
"There, was that so hard?" Catherine bent down to the soggy clothes then lugged them over to the new makeshift clothes-rack, laying them each out carefully upon the rock.
Ecklie's face was still tough, even as a light red flush began to creep along his cheekbones.
"Er…when am I going to get my clothes back? Or are those permanently the property of Catherine Willows now?"
"There's no need for a suit jacket on a desert island, except for maybe a blanket."
"You're making my hundred-dollar suit a pathetic blanket?"
Catherine walked around to the front of the fire and sat down by Sara, Lauren tipping herself into Catherine's lap.
"Hey, it's better than your 'lean-to'."
Ecklie's face twisted into a sarcastic smile, as if he just might possibly find her funny. But it then faded and he pursed his lips. The other three adults turned back to activities. Matt was still sitting quietly by Greg, both of them in their underwear. Catherine cooed to Lauren, whose brown eyes were beginning to droop. Sara stared ahead at the fire, apparently entranced.
Ecklie, finally realizing that attention was no longer on him, strode forward towards the cluster of people huddled by the fire. Then his cold eyes fell on the pile of coconuts and wood Catherine had brought in earlier that day.
"Hey…uhhh…can I have one of those coconuts?" he asked.
The others seemed taken aback slightly, for none could recall a time they had heard Ecklie ask for permission from any of them to do something. Catherine and Sara looked at each other, and Sara shrugged. After the initial shock had settled, Greg stopped paying attention and instead stared at the fire, leaving Catherine to address the matter.
"Umm…You can have some."
"Why some?"
"Because you don't need to eat an entire coconut."
"An entire-" he sputtered, "an entire coconut? That's barely anything!"
"Only some." Catherine said, with a threatening finality in her voice, handing the drowsy Lauren back to Sara, reaching forward for one of the coconuts, and beginning to open it with a rock, nicking away at its shell. A hole was formed and Catherine drank from it.
"Hey!" Ecklie cried as Catherine gave some to Lauren, and then handed it to Sara who drank and passed it on.
"What?" Catherine said innocently.
"That's mine!"
"Didn't you ever learn to share?" Sara said cynically as Matt drank from the shell and finally Greg.
Ecklie didn't say anything as Greg passed the nearly empty coconut to him. He drank the last of it then gave it back to Catherine, as if expecting her to serve it. She placed it on the ground then meticulously smashed at it with a rock until it cracked in half. Ecklie bent down, snatched up one of the halves, sat down, and began to scoop out of the flesh of the coconut eagerly, shoveling it into his mouth. The others stared at him, Lauren being the first to express what everyone was thinking.
"Ooh...He's hungry," she said.
Catherine chuckled at Lauren's blunt observation then scooped out the other half of the nut, feeding it to the two kids. Ecklie finished eating soon and tossed the empty half of the nutshell aside. Catherine glared at him, her stern face clearly indicating that there would be no littering in the cave, and to hand her the empty shell. Ecklie did so, though he made sure to express his irritability in the process.
"We should save the half coconuts for cups or something so we're not living on coconut milk the whole time we're here." Catherine pointed out, examining the shell as if she were still back home at the lab, investigating a piece of evidence. She edged over to the spring without standing and dipped the shell into it, tilting it back so it would gather water. She took a giant sip, allowing the liquid to hydrate her even better than the milk. Then Catherine refilled it to the brim and gave it to Lauren.
Sara had gotten the gist and, setting Lauren down on the ground, grabbed the second half, filled it with water, drank from it, and then passed it along. Ecklie was again last to get his share, though he drank the water greedily.
"All right…Ecklie, we have a job for you."
Sara's face snapped to Catherine, an eyebrow raised as if saying, 'You're trusting him?' Lauren edged into Sara's lap again, one hand sticky with coconut and the other still gripping the Barbie doll after all this time.
"And what could that possibly be?" he scoffed.
Catherine was quick to answer. "Before we give you your clothes back, you need to go outside and grab a bunch of palm leaves. A bunch. We've got to set up some beds. They'll be wet, but they'll be beds."
"Why do I have to go out there?" he complained.
"Because Sara and I can't go out there since we have clothes on. Greg has already done enough by making the fire and Matt isn't tall enough to reach any of those leaves. Besides, he's a kid."
Ecklie seemed to see Catherine's point, even if everyone knew he wouldn't admit it. He turned on his bare heel and stormed out of the cavern and into the pouring rain. Another flash of electricity lit up the surroundings, followed by a giant drum-roll that left after a few seconds, leaving them with the sound of pitter-pattering rain.
"Here you go Greg," Catherine began, interrupting the relative silence by standing and walking over to the clothes. She tossed Greg his shorts and sandals, as well as Matt's t-shirt, jeans, socks, and shoes. Greg took them, slipped his own limited wardrobe on and then re-dressed Matt.
Catherine sat back down and they all stared ahead for a few minutes. She leaned her head on her palm, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning on them. Lauren looked exhausted again, and was leaning back in Sara's arms, eyes half-closed, and relaxed. Sara was running her fingers through Lauren's brown curls, perhaps to unwind herself or lull the girl to sleep.
Greg had sat down again, leaning back on his two hands on the right of the fire, Matt seated at his right, still unspeaking. Catherine was beginning to worry about that little boy. The shock of losing both your parents at once and then swimming to an island with complete strangers couldn't possibly be easy.
Many minutes passed, thunder still rolling, all the cave's inhabitants seated calmly, before Ecklie returned. They turned to see him. His arms were loaded with dripping vegetation. They were so numerous they hid his face from view as he stumbled in. Nearly tripping on a rock, Ecklie released the leaves, causing them to tumble to the ground.
"Bring them over near the fire." Catherine ordered in a half-whisper, for Lauren had fallen asleep in Sara's arms.
Ecklie listened unenthusiastically, hefting the leaves back into his arms and moving closer to them. Catherine took a handful of them then arranged them near the fire, not close enough to burn, but close enough to dry out. Ecklie stood there, holding the rest of the foliage tightly.
"Gimme those…" Catherine took them from him and gestured over at Greg and Matt to stand up. They did so, and Sara too began to stand, but Catherine waved at her. "We don't want to wake up Lauren." She laid out the leaves where Greg and Matt had sat. Then, she shifted the leaves into her left arm and pulled Ecklie's clothes (excluding the suit jacket) off the wall.
"You can put your clothes back on now…" Catherine muttered absently, laying out more leaves. Ecklie grumbled quietly about the clothes smelling like smoke, but put them on anyway. When Catherine had finished filling up as much drying space was possible with the leaves Ecklie had brought in, there were still a few left, so she set them off to the side to dry later if they needed them.
After that, she sat down next to Sara with a heavy sigh, turning her head and watching Sara absently comfort the little girl in her sleep. Greg sat too, and Matt followed suit. Ecklie, instead, acted like a hermit and headed out to the front of the cave, to sit alone.
And they waited.
A/N: I wanted to get this one out to you guys because it's been awhile. Ecklie's being SUCH a pain, but it's so fun to write him. I need a small suggestion, if you want to lend a hand. Tell me something Ecklie would do, that would send one of the adults out of the cave in a frustrated rage. (I'm not going to tell you who storms outthough) I already have an idea for something he could do that would annoy me at least. Any ideas? Reviews are still appreciated! (Geez, why wouldn't they be?)