“Well done, sir,” I said, admiring his handwork when he was done.
He wiped his hands on his pants and gave me a tense smile.
I stooped over and entered the tent. It was a four person tent so it was just big enough that I could stand up, albeit hunched over with my neck at a crazy angle. We laid out the large foamy mattress on the bottom and put the sleeping bags and pillows on top. I took the right side and put down my backpack, bringing the books out and other essentials I didn’t want to go digging for later.
Dex pointed at the books. “You better get your script ready. We don’t have much time if we want to shoot some stuff before the sun goes down.”
“What kind of stuff?” I asked, stiffening. For some reason I didn’t think we’d be shooting anything with me on camera today but, like I said earlier, he was an opportunist.
“Just the intro, you know the drill. There’s that little grassy hill to the left out there that looks over the beach. Would be a perfect shot. You go whip something up, I’ll get everything here ready. Then we’ll shoot it, come back here and we’ll figure out what to do for dinner.”
Dinner sounded good. The Triscuits were barely holding out inside of me. I scooped up the books, as well as a notepad and pen, and got out of the tent. He obviously needed some time alone to get his shit together. Probably wanted some privacy to talk to Jenn on the phone or something like that. I looked down at the beach and the dried, reddish logs sprawled out along its length. It looked like the least scary place for me to do some work.
I walked further down the beach than I initially planned. Picking what log to sit on was a bit like trying on underwear. Some had bird poop on it, some were too small for my ass to rest comfortably on. Eventually I found a nice broad one and took a seat.
I was at the very end of the beach and had a wonderful view of our blue tarp poking up amongst the trees and leafy bushes, the grassy knoll that Dex had been talking about and the short distance to Little D’Arcy across the way. Gulls flew about in the sky, letting out an occasional cry, while other birds floated among the waves.
I wasn’t sure where to start with my reading and what I should incorporate into my quick introduction script, but it didn’t take long for me to feel completely creeped out again.
It turns out that where the lepers’ housing had been was where the campsite now was and that the graves where they were haphazardly buried were all over the place. Apparently they were never marked either, except by a small mound, or by the placing of a boulder or two. I had already seen a few places like that around the tent and that realization turned my spine to custard.
I twirled around on the log, suddenly afraid with my back to the dark bushes and had this mounting urge to flee. I know I had read that they were all buried here, but I figured maybe a place like the dead mossy glade would have been the area. Or, you know, an actual cemetery. Not where I was, where we would be sleeping tonight and where so many other people had slept. To think that the next suspicious looking rock might house a rotting casket underneath…
I shivered violently.
I didn’t need to read anymore. I didn’t feel like I needed a script either. The history of this place already felt ingrained inside of me. I wanted to enjoy the casual scene of the beach, the glittery waves and the open space as the sun made the shadows long. The beauty of D’Arcy Island was so misleading.
I closed the books and gazed over the scenery. I did this for a few blissful minutes before I felt a little itch in my head. Surfing the internet seemed like a better, more distracting use of my time. I pulled out my phone and noticed the battery was already half used and the reception bar was nonexistent. Uh oh.
I opened the browser and it spun around for what seemed like forever until it latched on to a page. The bar wavered and then disappeared again. I had a feeling staying in touch wasn’t going to be easy here. Then again, nothing had been easy so far.
Still, it at least allowed me to check my Twitter and Facebook accounts. There wasn’t anything too interesting there. I was still new to the whole Twitter thing so I didn’t have many followers but occasionally someone would “tweet” me and say something nice about the show. Today someone had said they really liked the concept of the show and asked where we were going next. I replied back and told him he’d have to wait and see. Dex and I had decided it was probably best if we never gave anyone straight answers – keep people in suspense, something Dex did very well.
It was nice that I never got any nasty comments on my Twitter (so far). I think people reserved that for actual famous people and stuff like that since Twitter accounts weren’t anonymous; well, not really. You were still held accountable, plus it was easy to block people on Twitter. One click and you didn’t need to look at them anymore.
The blog, of course, was another story. Every single nasty comment was left by someone anonymous who didn’t provide a name or an email address. I suppose there was some way I could try and figure out who they were by finding out their IP address but that involved doing something in the back end of the blog and Dex would have to do that himself. I knew if I asked him to look into it, he’d respond with a flat–out no and then chide me for caring what other people thought.
I couldn’t help it though. Every time I thought about checking the blog out of some strange torturous compulsion, I felt so nervous I was almost sick about it. I hated not knowing when these comments were going to come and what they were going to be about. They went straight to my email, too, which didn’t help. Even if I avoided looking at the blog, I still had to check my emails at some point, and that’s where they were, waiting for me.
Like this time. It’s not like I got a lot of emails from people but sometimes it was from my cousin Jonas in Sweden, sometimes it was a concert announcement, sometimes it was catching up with my friend Gemma who lived down in Eugene. To be honest, I didn’t get enough email to warrant being an obsessive checker but there I was, checking anyway. It seemed I got comments more than anything else.
Case in point, as the browser slowly logged me into my email account, I could see four messages from the blog comments. Three of them had names assigned to them, which usually meant they were benign or spam. I always checked those last to raise my spirits. The final message was by Anonymous.
That sick feeling returned and my heart started to pound loudly in my chest. It was a different kind of fear than the one I was experiencing on the island. It was almost more upsetting in a way, which was really ridiculous. It was just words, silly stupid words from people I didn’t know. It shouldn’t have been as terrifying as camping on a ghostly leper island, yet it was.