Living Legends

26) The Nightmare Is Only Beginning

As soon as Hayley’s scream pierced the humid air, Jack felt like someone had stabbed him in the chest.  He watched helplessly as her body tumbled down the cliff.  “No!” he wanted to cry, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate.  He was frozen in shock and horror.

            Even Clyde seemed stunned.  He cursed under his breath, though his frustration in no way mirrored Jack’s.  To him, Hayley was just a pawn.  To Jack, she was…what? Hope? Beauty? Encouragement? With a painful cry, Jack realized just how much she meant to him.  Before he knew it, his eyes pooled with tears.

            Hayley’s scream reverberated off the solid stone cliff.  It was cut short when her hand snagged on one of the ledges.  Her legs flailed for a few moments before she found her footing.  The entire camp let out one collective sigh of relief.

            “Hayley!” Jack yelled, sprinting forward.  “Hold on! Are you okay?”

            “I’m f-fine!” she called.  She looked so small compared to the massive cliff.  High above her, the Tree of Death loomed menacingly over her petite body.  Judging by the streaks of dirt and small rocks still tumbling down, Hayley had slid a good fifteen feet.  She stopped, clutching the ledge harder than before, and waited for a few minutes.

            Jack could barely watch as she slowly worked her way down, ledge by ledge.  She stumbled a few times, eliciting a few gasps and shouts of encouragement.  Jack was surprised by how the men were reacting.  They wanted her alive, of course, but judging by some of the worried expressions, they also cared for her.  To a point.

            Hayley took twice as long getting down as she did climbing up.  Every movement was made with extreme caution.  Jack knew her fingers must have been screaming in pain from such exertion.  As soon as she touched the ground, he was the first to rush over to her.  Even Clyde didn’t pull them away when Jack wrapped his arms around her neck.

            “Dang it, Hayley, I thought I’d lost you,” he said.

            She laughed nervously.  “Not yet.”

            Jack thought he had never felt something as wonderful as her laughter vibrating against his chest.  “You must be scraped up,” he said, reluctantly pulling away.

            “A little.”  She raised her arms for him to see, wincing when Jack touched her tender skin.  She was bruised, scraped, and bleeding in multiple places, but she was still whole.

            Clyde watched silently as Jack and another man, who had some rudimentary medical knowledge, tended to her needs.  “That was quite a show,” he said once they were done.  “Good catch.”

            Hayley, still shaken up, couldn’t even muster a glare.  Jack did it for her.

            “So what did you see?” Clyde asked greedily.

            “L’eau.  Water.”

            “Again?” he muttered.

            Hayley looked away.  Jack wished there was something else he could do for her.

            “Well, what are you waiting for?” Clyde snapped.  “Get the other half!”

            Jack scowled.  “Can’t you give it a rest? She almost died.”

            “I don’t care if she was beamed up by aliens.  I’m on a schedule here.  We need to find that treasure!”

            “Fine,” Hayley said, exasperated.  She held Jack’s hand with much less strength than she normally used.  They closed their eyes.  Clyde leaned forward eagerly, watching as different expressions flickered across their faces.

            “My God,” Jack murmured.

            Clyde pounced.  “What? What is it?”

            “I can’t believe this,” Hayley said in an awed tone.  She and Jack witnessed the brilliant light and jumble of symbols, as usual, but all the other clues paled in comparison to the one they now saw.  It glistened and shone like a diamond.  The words burned themselves into their minds.

            “What?” Clyde said again.

            Jack and Hayley opened their eyes and dropped their hands in unison.  “Wow,” she breathed.  Jack whistled between his teeth.

            Clyde, feeling left out of the loop, frowned and folded his arms across his chest.  “This better be good.”

            Jack ignored him.  “O-R,” he spelled for Hayley.

            It only took a fraction of a second for her to put the pieces together.  “L’eau d’or,” she murmured.  “Golden water.”

            “Water? Water?” Clyde cried.  “Of all the things…!” He swore and stormed away, causing Hayley to cringe.  Jack instinctively placed a hand on her arm.

            “Don’t,” she said when he opened his mouth to speak.  “I know.  I just need to ignore him.”

            “He should’ve learned by now that the clues aren’t very specific.  It’s always by luck that we find them.”

            “Luck?” She turned to face him.  “We’re talking about a map that only we can see—one clue at a time—in our minds when we close our eyes and hold hands.  How is that even rational? How is any of this rational? Why are triangles and words magically appearing all over the island, but only we can see them? It’s like someone can see into our minds and reveal a part of the map to us bit by bit.  It scares me.”  Her voice shook with fear.  Jack wondered if she was simply strung up from her near-death fall, but the next thing she said slammed him with conviction.

            “You act like you only know as much as I do, but I know better.  You’re hiding something from me.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “You know what this map is.”

            Jack winced but remained silent.

            “Whatever.”  Hayley bit her lip and walked away, ignoring the tendrils of hair that kept falling in front of her face.  With her wild hairdo and soiled clothes, she looked just as rugged and exhausted as Jack did.  “I need some time to think.  I just want to get out of this crazy nightmare.”

            A reply was on the tip of Jack’s tongue, but he restrained himself.  I’ve been living this ‘crazy nightmare’ for my entire life, Hayley.  I wish I could explain it to you.  Maybe someday I will.  Here and now were obviously not the time and place, though.