Tide of Carnal Desire

Chapter 7: Joining the Fray

“Who’s there!” Suddenly, a shout rang out from the back of the cave. It was Euphie! Since Elsa, Yvonne, and I had moved to the mouth of the cave to grill our wolf kebabs, she had been left all alone. Handing the skewer over to Elsa, I limped as quickly as I could over to Euphie, who was now sitting up and rubbing her eyes in bewilderment.

“Where am I? Who are you?” Euphie hollered, the strident nature of her voice betraying her underlying fear. I could understand why she seemed angry. After all, she had just woken up in the middle of a dark cave with someone strange nearby. Since her last memories were probably of being on the plane, being in a cave was definitely hard to fathom.

“I was on the plane you were an attendant on, remember? It crashed, and we landed on the beach. There’s two other colleagues of mine, Yvonne and Elsa, with me too,” I explained, hoping that mentioning the two women’s names would make her feel more comfortable. “Yvonne, Elsa, and I brought you to this cave so that we wouldn’t have to sleep on the beach. It was getting really cold.”

“Are you telling the truth?” Euphie demanded, pulling the two halves of her shirt around her tightly. “You didn’t undo my shirt and… and rip my stockings?” Euphie’s voice trailed off at the end as she looked up at me pitifully. Tears glistened in the corner of her eyes, and I knew it was because she was afraid. Her black stockings had been ripped to shreds, since pantyhose was prone to rips in the first place, but I knew that I had not been the cause.

“No, Euphie. I didn’t. My name is Forrest Chaplain,” I began, trying to introduce myself. Her stomach interrupted me, though, with a very loud growl.

“Let’s go join Yvonne and Elsa,” I suggested. “We killed a wolf earlier, and we’re barbecuing some of the meat.” The wind shifted just then, and it seemed to be all the encouragement Euphie needed. The smell of the wolf kebabs wafted into the cave, and she shot up and sprinted right out, leaving me to hobble along behind.

When I finally caught up, I stifled a chuckle. Euphie had fallen upon the skewer I had left Elsa like a starving beast. Her cheeks were already bulging, but she was still trying to cram another bite into her mouth.

“Slow down, Euphie. We’ll share. Yvonne, I think she needs some water too,” I instructed.

“Hang on, Forrest. We don’t have much left. There’s only four bottles now,” Elsa objected. “We’re going to run out of fresh water.” From the way her face fell, I knew that I had not been successful in hiding my shock. f**k! How could I have forgotten about water? We should have distilled some earlier when we had the help of the sun, I scolded myself. We had shared a bottle while snacking on the fish earlier, and had used a small amount to clean my wounds, too.

“Alright. There are four bottles left - that’s one for each of us, until I get more. I’m going to try and distill some water tomorrow using seawater, but we’ll need to wait until the sun is up before we forage for materials to build a distillation rig. Each of us will have to ration our own water, got it?” I commanded, my words coming out strong and sure. It helped that all three women were looking at me now, hoping for a voice of reason.

“Fine,” Elsa grumbled, while Yvonne merely flashed me a sunny smile. Euphie accepted the bottle of water gratefully, and took a tiny sip before screwing the cap tightly back on again. We settled back in to finish off the meat that we could eat, chowing down in silence until Yvonne spoke up.

“Forrest, how do you know how to distill water?” 

“Well… I was in the Boy Scouts as a child. Funnily enough, though, I stumbled across some survival videos on the Internet last week,” I chuckled. “I didn’t think they’d ever come in handy.”

“Who knows if it’s real, though? Maybe they were just made as clickbait,” Elsa sighed. After all, our company did specialize in creating content, and each of us - except for Euphie - was well-versed in all the tips and tricks content creators used to bait viewers.

“We’ll know tomorrow. Try to make your water last until tomorrow morning at least, OK?” I told all three of them, receiving a bevy of nods. “I’ll stay up tonight and tend the fire for a little while. The rest of you should sleep first - if you don’t mind, I’ll wake one of you to take over after a few hours.”

“You can wake me,” Elsa volunteered while Yvonne and Euphie got up and headed further into the cave. “I don’t mind, Forrest.” Once the other two had ventured a little further in, she plopped herself down next to me, wrapping an arm around my waist and putting her head on my shoulder. We sat in silence, gazing out at the stars in the sky.

How long is this going to last? I wondered, trying to get my thoughts in order. Tomorrow, we’ll need to figure out how to distill water. I just need something that I can boil water in, and something that water vapor can condense on. Then I’ll need something to catch the water that’s condensed. Maybe the person who’s on the beach right now will be able to help us with that - surely the plane has got to have something usable. 

“Go to sleep, Elsa,” I muttered. She had fallen asleep on my shoulder, and I nudged her gently until she got up and stumbled over to join Yvonne and Euphie. What else is there? I asked myself as soon as she had left. We need food, so we’ll have to see if there’s any vegetation we can eat in addition to whether there are any other wild animals we can manage to catch and kill.

I stared into the fire bleakly, feeding it a twig or two from time to time. Hypnotized by the flames, I was on the verge of dozing off when a sudden sound startled me.

“Ah…” I heard from the depths of the cave. Maybe it’s just someone talking in their sleep. There’s no way one of the girls is doing… that, I told myself. Then I heard it again. 

“Mm!” This time, there was no mistaking what I had heard. Was one of the three girls m**********g?