Nenad Pavlović, Salvation on Peril Island
excerpt
 Salvation on Peril Island Publisher: Amazon Date: August 30, 2021 Length: 447 pp. / 1.1 MB ASIN: B09F3PDJG9 |
Chapter 17: Chekov’s Gun
I smelled coffee. As I turned in my hammock, a pain in my side reminded me of the events that led to it the previous day. A flash of shame coursed through my body, but it was already gone as soon as I was up on my feet.
Penelope sat by the fire, poking it absentmindedly with a charred stick in her left hand, eyes and mind totally immersed in the leather-bound tome she was clutching with her other hand. The magic smell originated from the brand-new chrome coffee pot sitting on one of the rocks that surrounded the bonfire.
“Where is everybody?” I yawn-asked.
She took a moment, presumably to finish reading the paragraph, before raising her gaze.
“Mmm? Oh, they’ve left. Rex and Maria are gonna give the south side one more sweep.”
I felt relieved that I didn’t need to confront Maria right away but at the same time let down for not being invited on their expedition.
“They left without us?” I said sadly, not sure if I was just feigning feeling disappointed or if I really felt like that. She read another paragraph. No, it was a page! Damn, that girl could read fast!
“Mm mhm!”
“And what about Johnny, is he around?”
“We are to take care of the fire. Johnny was put in charge of building a raft. Oh, that reminds me, we are supposed to make more of that vine rope! Here, I’ll get you something to eat first. What do you want? We actually get to choose now; the pantry is full! We have fruit and... eggs! Johnny found some this morning. He says they are from a seagull but I’m not quite convinced. Best not to dwell too much on it. There are some leftovers from last night too if you want that... Coffee?”
I ate seagull eggs and warthog bacon. It tasted weird as hell but also pretty good, so I didn’t complain.
By the time I was finished, Pam had already made a couple of feet of rope, not diverting her gaze, not even for a moment, from the book that she propped open with a piece of flat rock.
I went to wash up and to have a drink and a tinkle. As I emptied my bladder in the bushes, I stared at the spring, trying to convince myself that I really had sex in it just the day before, and that it was not at all gross to drink from it now.
By the time I got back, Pam hadn’t moved an inch, but the coil beneath her legs had grown bigger.
“What are you reading there?”
“A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain. Never read this one before. It’s pretty fun. Why don’t you grab a book too? It’s actually pretty easy to read and weave at the same time.”
“I guess. My mom used to read romance novels and knit sweaters simultaneously. I always thought it was because those books were so shallow one needn’t use his brain to read them.”
“No, stop that, why are you being so mean to your mom? No, it’s just that it goes automatically. Here, I’ll show you...”
Birds chirped. The fire crackled, showering us with an extra dose of warmth we really didn’t need in the Caribbean sun. Occasionally one of us would flip a page. Hours, chapters, and feet of rope went by. After a while, I rose, cracked my back, and stretched. Then I poured some more coffee, which was absolutely delicious.
“Enjoying your book?” asked Pam as she presented her cup to be refilled.
“It’s all right. Not my typical read. Some parts are boring, and the others are just plain weird. They are drinking vodka with melted sugar, whaat? That sounds disgusting!”
“Eh, I drank worse,” Pam answered with a light shrug. “Tell me something, Clarence, is this place everything you thought it would be?”
I was taken aback a tad.
“W-what do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, slurping the thick black blend from the tin cup. “Does it look and feel like you imagined?”
I gave the back of my head a quick scratch.
“Well, yes and no. It doesn’t look like I imagined: it’s much more raw, more real. I imagined something more... fantastic and plastic.”
Pam nodded her head of wheat-colored hair in agreement.
“But it feels much better, better than I ever thought possible...”
“Cheers to that!” she said, raising her cup before asking a question that would make me spill mine.
“So, how was sex with Maria?”
My face turned fifty shades of red. My stuttering turned into a full-blown tongue seizure.
“Gue? Did... how... did she tell you about it?”
“No one needed to tell me anything. It was painfully obvious you two bumped uglies the moment you crawled out from the dark. But yes, she did tell me about it. We stayed awake last night long after you clocked out. Had a real nice talk. So how was it?”
“It was okay, I guess.”
“Okay? Just okay? With a woman like that? Aw, man, I thought you’d say it was insane or something like that! Boy, do I envy you right now!”
“You envy me? Do you, like, like girls? I didn’t know that!”
“No, of course I don’t!” She paused, and then continued with the passion of a maniac. “But with a woman like that, ohohoho, I’d make an exception! With those red lips, and that snakelike waist, and those long, muscled legs, and those big, juicy...”
Penelope was almost frothing at the mouth, making hand gestures like she was trying to squeeze-pop two invisible balloons hovering in front of her. Then she calmed down, acting as if she never said anything.
“Sooo, what did she say?” I said as I tried to steady my voice.
“Who?”
“Maria. Did she anything?”
“What, you mean like, how good were you, how big your dick is? Is that what you imagine girls talk about when they’re alone?”
“Red” was past tense. My face was wading deep into the colors of purple now.
“Um... Yes?”
“Well, no. We talked about other stuff. The past, relationships, wounds. She talked a lot about the man she is involved with.”
“’Is’? Don’t you mean ‘was’?”
“It’s complicated, Clarence. That man hurt her, in more ways than I can count. But she never wants to see him again, if that’s what you want to hear.”
“Yeah,” I said with a stupid grin, realizing that I shouldn’t have just as I said it. At that moment, my brain made a quick calculation of how many stupid things I’d said since the beginning of the conversation. The answer was “a lot.” So naturally, I added one more.
“Um, Pam? You are not jealous, are you?”
“Jealous? Of what?”
I just lowered my head and continued knitting silently. But she sensed my bruised emotions and said: “Jealousy is such an ugly thing. There’s no room for it here in this place.”
“But what about...” I continued trying to mentally kick myself in the groin.
“I don’t wanna talk about it. Let’s change the subject. How about video games?”
“Oh thank God!” I exhaled with relief.
“What do you think happened to all those arcade cabinets? Do you think they survived the crash?”
“It’s possible. But even if they did, we don’t have anywhere to plug them in.”
“Maybe Johnny... Hey, there they are now!”
The huge counterweight sank down, making the pulley mechanism clank and squeak. Soon after, Rex’s face appeared, crowned with a wreath of sweat.
We all started cranking the rock back up, releasing it as soon as the voice from bellow confirmed it was okay to let go.
Next up was Maria. She said nothing as she saw me, but the look she gave me was most certainly a benevolent one. The others thought I sighed because I let go of the crank. Good.
One more.
“One huge faggot, coming up!” Rex said as soon as the elevator arrived.
The big walking pile of reeds made a few steps before revealing itself to actually be, in fact, just a tall, reed-bodied man.
Johnny threw the armful of stalks on the ground, revealing a grin on his face.
“Good one, mate! How long did you wait to make that joke?”
“Over a decade, and it was well worth it, hahaha!”
“I’m starving! Gonna grab meself a bite of that smoked trout. You guys want some?”
So we had lunch, and then some coffee, the last of it, actually, as we used up all the dried beans and the rest of them had to spend some time in the sun before being ready for consumption. Pam scraped the last traces of brownish powder from the mortar into the kettle, leaning in to hear what the expedition had to announce.
“Nuttin’! Damnedest thing! Those boxes are pretty big, let me tell ya, and even if you don’ see one, they make a pretty nasty entry point. But still we foun’ nuttin’! Yo, Johnny!”
The spindly Brit was on his way to the entrance of the plane wreck with a bundle of bamboo under his arm.
“What now? I’ve spent the whole damn morning bringing down lumber for your damn raft. Can’t you let me work on my porch for a while?”
“Go grab the blobnoculars and give those west hills a peek, see if you can spot anything.”
Johnny sighed with frustration, but still abided, lifting his arm and letting the bamboo stalks fall on the ground.
“What am I even looking for? There are no crates there, I can tell you that even without using your monstrous field glasses!”
Rex held the translucent plastic map high toward the sun, frowning as he looked at it.
“Those hills are meek. I’m no geologist, but if this side of ‘em is relatively gentle, that can mean that the other side is too. We just need to find a way to get to the other side. Look for goat paths and such.”
Johnny was already standing on the westmost point of the field where we were camped, peeking through the oculus and shouting back his findings.
“Well, I see some goats. Wild goats or wild sheep, something like that. Maybe we can go ask them?”
Rex turned toward us, transforming his throat into a drill sergeant’s megaphone.
“Listen up, people! It’s just a couple hours after noon, we have plenty of daylight left. I say we go down there; we take the shortcut Maria and Clarence found yesterday, and then we head up one of those paths, see if we can get to the other side. Come, let’s not waste any time, throw some green twigs on the fire and let’s move out!”
The path Maria stumbled upon yesterday while chasing a deer wasn’t exactly a staircase, but it was relatively easy to traverse, with only a few points where one needed to lower oneself down carefully or go around a boulder or such. We arrived at the northern base of the hill in less than an hour.
The start of the climb went smoothly but very soon after hit a wall, both metaphorically and literally. Any way we turned, the path led to a smooth, vertical patch. Maria tried to climb over it and pull us up until she knocked a head-size boulder down, missing Johnny’s boulder-size head by an inch.
“Bloody hell! You nearly tore my head off!” screamed the Brit.
The Latina sighed, expressing what we all thought. This was a wasted effort.
We stood in silence on the incline for a second, pondering what to do next. I tried to stay positive. Pam took it one step further and even offered to help.
“We have some climbing gear at the camp. Maybe if I spring back and get it...”
Rex waved his hand dismissively, gaze fixed toward the top of the hill.
“Don’t bother. Even if we get over this part, the next one is twice as bad. None of us are alpinists here; we’re only gonna break our necks. I say we give it up.”
I scouted the area using the so aptly called “blobnoculars.” I was trying to spot a gentler incline on this part of the hill, but I accidently discovered something else.
“There! I see canvas!”
Rex tore the item out of my hands and pressed it upon his face.
“Yeah! Good call, teach! There’s a piece of tarp sticking out of the thick south of here! Daym, we’d never spot it from anywhere else! Let’s go, people! There aren’t so many crates left, this could be what we’re lookin’ fo’!”
We didn’t find a crate. What we did find was right out of my wildest dreams.
“Wow,” surmised Pam, eyes transfixed upward, mouth agape.
It was the penny arcade of the dryads. The thick jungle made for a dark interior, broken only by a few golden God rays of sunlight that pierced the leafy roof. From that very same roof, a small collection of arcade machines hung in midair, supported by strips of sailcloth, swaying ever so slightly. The plastic they were wrapped in sweated beads of dew, shining like diamonds. Donkey Kong gazed down at me from the side of the plywood housing, looking happy to be back in his natural habitat.
“Wow,” repeated Pam before I had the chance to say the very same thing.
Maria and Johnny seemed indifferent to this discovery. But Rex was downright annoyed.
“We should get these down, get them someplace dry. But it’s not a priority; they survived this far, they can hang for a few days more. Actually, fuck this shit. I’m goin’ down this way. I need to replenish my supplies. You fools comin’?”
“You smoke the whole plant already? But it was like three pounds or something!” gasped Johnny.
“Hey, I don’t count how much you drink! Now leave me alone!”
This time Rex didn’t just rip the whole herb from the root but gently removed selected flower buds instead. I followed carefully, only now realizing that it’s the flowers that are consumed and not the leaves, as I was previously mislead by various logos.
After pocketing his drugs, our leader stood in the shade, rolling a joint with one hand (which was still impressive to watch) and rubbing his chin with the other. Eventually he lit up his spliff, took a few drags, and said:
“This here ain’ right. I mean, look at it! Who the hell plants weed like this, just a couple of plants in the middle of nowhere? College kids? Small-time crooks? Yeah, sure! But they do it in their own backwoods; they don’ come to no desert island in the middle of God knows where to do it. No, this ain’ right,” he said and vanished into the forest, leaving only a bluish smoke trail for us to follow. At first it looked like he was walking at random, but soon it was evident that he was following the side of the western hill, which was quite vertical and porous on this front.
And then, suddenly, he disappeared.
“This way, fools!” echoed his disembodied voice.
“Rex? Are you a ghost, mate?” asked Johnny, twitching his head around. Maria gave him the longest look, trying to discern if he was making a bad joke or was actually serious.
“Here!” answered the echo from the thicket southwest of us.
It was an entrance to a cave. It wasn’t hidden in the common meaning of the word, it just looked so bland and inconspicuous that it could pass for a shadow on the mountain slope.
The fiery fane of sunlight followed us for a second or two before leaving us to total darkness, filled only with the echo of our stepping feet. I walked blindly forward, desperately wanting to hold on to the cave wall but I simply couldn’t, as in my mind’s eye it was covered from top to bottom by swarming giant centipedes. So I held Pam’s hand instead. It was funny how our palms found each other in the dark with no problem.
“This is so exciting! It’s like The Thief of Bagdad!” she whispered.
“Seriously? I don’t remember a cave in The Thief of Bagdad...”
Suddenly, there was a click, and an echo of a click. A lighter was flicked and a blazing star was born, extending its power to a dusty oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. There were no centipedes on the wall, giant or otherwise. Rex held the golden Zippo high, and, as my eyes adjusted, I saw that he gripped a pistol in his other hand. Pam and I were the only ones unarmed.
“Keep quiet!” our squad master said, holding a finger to his big, chapped lips.
The armed trio skulked ahead with frightening skill, leaving us two in the back. Pam squeezed my hand tighter. We followed slowly and soon came to a point where sunlight came through from the other side. The others were scattered, presumably scouting, so we waited until someone came to say it was okay to come forth.
“Clear!” shouted Johnny, sounding surprisingly serious.
We walked carefully toward the daylight. There was a lot to see and take in.
It was a natural alcove, carved by the elements into the side of the hill; a half cave, if you will. And someone had been living there.
There was a huge bush in the middle, looking like the tuft of hair of a giant troll doll buried in the ground. There were paths leading left and right and around the bush, eventually leaving the cover of the stone alcove and leading into a couple of wavy, marijuana-covered fields, which eventually gave way to the beach and then the shallows.
Maria stepped out of a dark patch of the stone wall, which was evidently another hollow of the cave.
Johnny came out of another, behind our backs, making Pam scream.
“Jesus Christ, man! Don’t sneak up on people like that!”
He grinned, but only shortly, as he was too excited to report what he had to.
“There’s loads of stuff here! There’s a living quarters, a stove, even a radio and a generator! It’s all old and busted, but I think I can fix it up!”
“I found a motorboat,” said the bush in the middle of the courtyard gruffly.
Disappointingly, it turned out to be just Rex talking from behind it.
“It too is old and busted, and there’s no fuel in the tank. Which is also old and busted.”
“No worries, my friend, I’m on the case! I can fix everything but Ireland!”
Maria took a deep breath, surveying the newfound location.
“Who do you think used to live here?”
“Che Guevara? Or just some hippies? Who cares. Whoever it was, they are long gone,” answered Rex with a steel voice.
“What if they come back?”
“I doubt it. But we’re not taking any chances. Whoever used this base didn’t come through here; the coast is all shallows and reefs, totally inaccessible. No, they came by that cliff cove out in the jungle. They used this place just to crash and plant the stuff. Smart. That’s exactly how I would’ve run it. But we gotta secure that landing point. I just don’t know how.”
“I’ve found some flares. I could set up a booby trap there.”
“Smart thinking, Johnny boy, you do that first thing in the mornin’!”
We continued exploring the abandoned drug plantation. There was really a lot of stuff there, most of it stored in the two caves that served as living quarters and a workshop, respectively, all covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. We found some food cans, which were probably rancid, and a huge pile of comic books, some of them certainly rancid but in the other meaning of the word. Johnny took particular interest in those and stuffed a couple of them down his pants.
Contrary to what Rex guessed, there were no coca fields on the plantations, which helped solidify the theory that this was a hippie commune and not a revenue source for revolutionists, terrorists, or drug lords, but there were also rusty pistols and shotguns hanging on walls all around, suggesting violent actions. Rex warned us not to jump to conclusions as, in his words, “Many a villainy was supported by hash money.”
“It’s not bad,” said Johnny. “Just a couple of lose screws. Could do with some oilin’ up too.”
“Will you stop talking about yourself? We have more importan’ concerns here!”
“I was explaining the situation with the generator!” the lank man yelled out, already holding a screwdriver and an oil can, which he produced from God knows where.
“What about the radio? Could you get it up and running, send an SOS maybe?” suggested Maria with a tone that expressed obligation rather than personal wishes.
“Nah, don’ do that. I mean, see if it’s workin’, but don’ sen’ any SOSs. We don’ wanna be rescued, not just yet. Also, I don’ wanna anyone knowing we’re here.”
“I hear ya,” Johnny answered. “Also, also, unless there’s some hidden stash around here, we are dangerously low on petrol. This old hunk of junk probably slurps it up like I slurp Glenfiddich. It would be wasteful to use it all up on the generator when we could use it to run the boat engine. Speaking of the boat, does this all mean I don’t have to finish that raft?”
“It does. Now try to get the generator runnin’, just a quick test run, and check the radio as soon as you get the juice flowin’. Maria and I are goin’ on one more recon mission, see if we can find that damned crate. You two nerds... Just stay outta trouble.”
I nodded obediently, but Pam already had something in mind and was jumping giddily.
“I have an idea. What say ye we cut those arcade machines down and bring them here? Just to get them out of the rain, you know? And now. We got to do it now, before that generator starts.”
It took me a while, and then the light bulb shone over my head. Just the metaphorical one, as Johnny hadn’t repaired the machine yet.
“Ooh, yes! But there’s no way we two can do it alone!”
“All right, I don’t know why you two you are so excited, but help me fix this antiquity and I’ll help you carry your pinballs, okay? Now grab a rag, get it wet, and start scrubbing this grime off.”
We got the work finished just in time, as it was getting so dark one could hardly see anything in the cave chamber. Rex and Maria were still absent when Johnny pulled the switch. The generator made a lot of noise and even more smoke, but not for naught, as the lights above us soon started flickering with a yellow glow. Johnny then ran to the other room to check on the radio, and Pam and I scuttled to the plywood cabinet like moths to flame.
“We need tokens...” she said.
“No we don’t,” I answered, “I’ll rig it so you need just push this button here... See if you can find that screwdriver Johnny was using.”
“What the hell are you two doin’ there? Where’s Johnny?” boomed the bass, further distorted by the echo of the cave.
Rex and Maria were carrying a run-down water-damaged crate, which they promptly put down in the corner and then sat down on a rough wooden bench, looking tired as hell. The sickly yellowish light didn’t help.
“Where have you two been?” I asked.
“Treasure hunt’n,” Rex answered with slight annoyance in his voice. I just then noticed both of them were wet up to their waists and caked with sand and mud.
“I found some coins!” Penelope squealed, rattling something that was less of a rusty coffee can and more a clump of rust roughly in the form of a can. Just looking at it made me crave a tetanus shot. She poured it out on the floor and started picking out quarters from the mess of screws, shell casings, and Venezuelan bolivars.
Johnny made his entrance from the other side.
“Oh, you’re back! Sorry I was away so long. I got caught up listening to the radio. Some mighty good tunes out there! Did you find it, is that it? Ooh, what’s that?”
Rex opened his mouth to answer, to scold, to say something, anything, but then just gave up and released a tired sigh instead. The easily distracted Brit was already at Pam’s side, staring at the screen like a puppy seeing its first praying mantis.
“We found the one with the jewelry, which is lucky, all things considered. It fell in a hidden gulf full of unmarked graves,” Maria explained, yelling on deaf ears.
“Uh-uh. So, no dice, then? Wait, did you say graves? Oh man, come look at this. This stuff is bonkers!”
The black man and the Latina stood up slowly and shuffled to the wooden box producing chirps and bleeps.
I clutched the stick tightly in my left palm, beating the button with the index finger of my other hand.
“This ain’t pinball!” noticed Johnny excitedly.
“And it ain’ Space Invaders. Unless these are space invaders... Wait, what the fuck did you just do?” Rex gasped.
I was shining with glee. Finally, I was good at something they weren’t.
“This here, my friends, is a game called Dig Dug. It was released by a Japanese company called Namco in 1982. The goal of this game is...”
“Did you just pump that guy up until he blew up? Bloody hell, now that’s gruesome! And I once stuffed a grenade up a POW’s...”
“That’s all right, Johnny, no one wants to hear that story now. Let Clarence play in peace,” said Maria firmly.
“I gather we have about one hour of juice left. Might as well play this... Bloody hell, that’s so awesome! I wanna play! Show me how you make the guy shove the hose up that bugger’s arse...”
I showed him, but he died seconds later nevertheless. The only one of us that could play worth a damn was Pam, even though she claimed she had never played the game before “seriously.”
And so it happened that we had five quarters in total, one for each. By the time the four of us were done, Rex was done with his spliff and the legs of his pants were almost dry, so he reluctantly joined us. We played the same five quarters three times, until the power went out, and then we suddenly remembered that none of us had eaten in a while. We treated ourselves to some canned beans and pork, warmed up on a makeshift campfire, all the while chatting about the day’s discoveries. But even though we found some pretty astonishing stuff, most of the talk was about the video game. A joint was passed at the end eventually, and we all fell asleep on the warm sand in front of the old-man bush.
*
* *
[Author’s note] Salvation on Peril Island, by Nenad “Nash Knight” Pavlović, is a dual-tale of introspection and self-realization told through a mixture of adventure, comedy, science fiction and family drama. It is currently available on Amazon in digital and paper form and as an audio book narrated by the wonderful Benjamin Crow, on almost every platform providing that kind of media.
Copyright © 2025 by Nenad Pavlović
