Adventure to Love (22 page)

Chapter 18

Morgan

Morgan’s Confessional:
For the record, since I’m probably already getting sued for breaching the contract and talking to the cameras, I have to say that it’s totally strange that we keep doing these one-person interviews. Unless you’re trying to document our every move before we die in the jungle, which is probably going to get the studio in a lot of trouble. So, I guess it doesn’t matter that I fucked up the contracts because you’re the ones who are going to go bankrupt when we end up dead in the middle of nowhere. Sorry, I know that’s not really funny, but it’s pretty ironic, you have to admit.

Morgan couldn’t believe it had been there all along.
What kind of bullshit was that, really?
Behind a rusted lantern without any kerosene, a pile of old sponges, and some wet newspaper in the single cabinet in their cabin sat at least fifteen packages of dehydrated food.

Um,
that was something that would have been helpful to them at least
five
days
ago, before everyone went completely crazy due to borderline starvation and some pretty legit dehydration. Starting with Brinkley.

She couldn’t believe that Brinkley had started talking nonsense. At the time, she had assumed it was from sleep deprivation. Brinkley had put her head in-between her knees for what felt like an hour and didn’t say a word. She thought that maybe Brinkley had gone to sleep.

It made sense. They were all completely exhausted, and because of her stomach growling all night long, she herself couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. She imagined it was the same story for Ky and Brinkley. She’d heard Brinkley tossing and turning in the hammock next to her for hours throughout the night.

So maybe Brinkley had been taking a nap, slumped over with her head in between her legs. That was why she hadn’t said anything to wake her or disrupt her. It wasn’t worth the trouble. Besides, what were they going to talk about anyway?

The first few days in the wilderness had been borderline cute. Ky had continued to ask the women questions to get to know them better, about their upbringing, their favorite movies, and how they spent their holidays.

But day after day with the same questions was enough to drive anyone insane. And when you factored serious hunger into the mix, it was hard to have the patience to politely participate in small talk, let alone start a conversation of your own.

So she let Brinkley sit like that. She didn’t want to disrupt her. And then Brinkley had finally lifted her head. Her face was chalk white, almost gray in color. Totally covered with bright red spots. Everywhere. If she had had her iPhone on her, Morgan would have Googled that shit pronto. It looked like some kind of jungle rash or infectious disease.

Brinkley’s eyes were glassy. Her lips were chapped and dry. Morgan drew on all the energy she had left to tell Brinkley that something was wrong with her face. Something was really wrong, like she needed medical attention immediately.

But Brinkley didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. Brinkley pointed back at her with a vacant expression on her face. She seemed like she was looking right through her. It had been spooky and pretty disturbing.

Then Brinkley started talking, still pointing like a character from
The Shining
. At first, it didn’t even sound like she was speaking English, more like gibberish that sounded more like a foreign language. Maybe French. And then she started talking about syrup. That’s when things got really weird.

Morgan had tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was talking about how hungry she was and how she wanted to eat syrup and pancakes? But Brinkley kept on pointing. Her face looked even whiter than before. The hand that she was pointing at her with was visibly shaking.

If she hadn’t experienced firsthand exactly what Brinkley had gone through over the past week, she would have confused her for a junkie looking for a fix.

Then Brinkley started gasping for air like a fish. Her mouth opened and closed. Her hands went to her throat like she was choking.
But what on earth could she be choking on?
They hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in at least a day. It seemed pretty unlikely that she was choking that dramatically on her own saliva.

Ky was sitting next to Brinkley the entire time. He started slapping her on the back and tried to raise her hands over her head. At first she was confused. Was he trying to lift Brinkley up by her arms? But then she realized that he was doing what so many parents did when their kids choked on juice from their sippy cup. They raised their hands to make it easier for them to breathe.

It seemed like a strange thing to do to an adult. And it didn’t even work because within a few seconds, Brinkley had passed out cold while she had sat there with her mouth open like a fish before she sprang into action. Luckily, Ky was right behind Brinkley to catch her before her head hit one of the many sharp rocks surrounding the fire pit. That would have been a disaster. Brinkley might have needed stitches or worse, and they had no way to get to a doctor.

But Ky swiftly caught her in his arms like the hero he was, taking a moment to turn his profile to camera for the effect. She rushed over and helped him gently lower Brinkley to the ground. She began tapping Brinkley on the cheek to see if she would wake up by herself.

Her grandmother had been diabetic. Even though it was always frightening to see someone pass out, she’d learned from first-hand experience, whenever her grandmother had low blood sugar, that it was pretty easy to wake someone up in a few seconds. Normally, they didn’t even know they had fainted in the first place.

But if they passed out for longer . . . That was a bad sign. That was the time her grandmother had to be rushed to the hospital, where she stayed for two weeks in critical condition.

“Brinkley, Brinkley!” she had whispered over and over again. She prayed silently to herself for Brinkley to stir, cough, open an eye, anything.

Morgan wished yet again for some water. She could have poured it on Brinkley’s face or placed a cool cloth on her head to help wake her up.

After a few minutes, she looked at Ky. He was staring back at her with a terrified expression. He raked his hands through his hair. “Do you think you should do CPR?”

Morgan took a moment to listen to Brinkley’s breathing then turned to Ky. “The good news is that she’s breathing pretty steady. So she doesn’t need CPR or mouth-to-mouth or anything like that. Maybe . . .” She paused to give herself time to think and licked her dry lips. “We could just take her back into the cabin and let her rest? We can both keep an eye on her to make sure that she’s still breathing and let her wake up by herself.”

Morgan was thankful she sounded much more confident than she felt. She had no idea what you were supposed to do with a person who fainted and wouldn’t come to. Besides call an ambulance, which wasn’t even an option. Production had to determine if an injury or illness were life threatening.

With Ky supporting the bulk of Brinkley’s weight and Morgan carrying her legs, they brought her limp body into the cabin. They laid her down on one of the soiled mattresses and tucked a tattered blanket around her.

The blanket was pretty unnecessary given that it was at least 100° outside. But Brinkley felt ice cold. Brinkley’s face was still ghostly white and covered with red splotches.

They watched her vigilantly for what felt like hours. Finally,
finally
, Brinkley slowly raised a hand and brought it to her mouth. She started to cough, a dry, rasping sound that never seemed to end.

Brinkley gasped and opened her eyes. Morgan rushed to her side. Ky was already sitting on the bed with Brinkley, her head cradled in his arms.

Morgan knelt beside her and took her cool hand. “Oh, thank God, Brinkley, you scared the shit out of us!”

Brinkley said in a weak voice, “What happened?”

Morgan laughed. Even though it was a totally inappropriate response to a crisis, she didn’t know what else to do. Ky looked into Brinkley’s eyes as he explained to her exactly what had happened. Every gory detail, including how she’d been talking gibberish and shaking like a maniac.

Brinkley’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
That was a great sign!
At least her face looked a little less pale and a little more lifelike.

Morgan let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in and her shoulders relaxed.

Brinkley smiled sweetly. “Thank you both so much for taking care of me. You are too much. I think I just really need some food and water. I guess I passed out because of that.” She immediately started into another coughing fit.

Morgan agreed. They all needed food and water, or else something worse was going to happen. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to wake Brinkley up next time if she passed out again.

Ky stood and put both of his hands on his hips. He looked kind of like Superman. Morgan stifled a giggle as Ky said, in a deep, heroic voice, “Ladies, I will go back into the jungle and bring us water. I don’t know if I can guarantee any food because I’m not as good of a fisherman as Brinkley, but I’ll try to look for some leaves out there.”

And with that, he was off. Which left her with nothing to do other than rummage through every single crevice in the cabin to try to find something, anything, that would give them nourishment. And then she hit the jackpot. She found the stash of dehydrated camping food in the cabinet.

On the one hand, it made her deliriously happy that she was finally going to get something in her stomach. Her mouth was watering uncontrollably. She was afraid she was going to start drooling.

On the other hand, finding the food made her so frustrated she could have punched someone. The food had been there the entire time. Instead of hiking for hours into the jungle to catch a single fish to feed four people, they could have been rationing the dehydrated food for days.

Then maybe Brinkley wouldn’t have passed out cold. And maybe they’d have enough strength and mental clarity to formulate some kind of plan to get the hell out of there.

But the point was that she had food in her grubby little hands, and she was going to make them a real dinner for the first time in over a week.

She walked back to where Brinkley still lay like a corpse on the bed, hardly moving. Morgan held all fifteen packages of food in her filthy shirt as if she was holding an apron full of fresh baked cookies. She felt like Aunt Jemima, or Betty Crocker, or some other cheerful woman bearing delightful, delicious treats.

She had to resist the urge to scream with excitement.

“Brinkley!” she said sharply.

That got her attention. Brinkley mustered all of her strength to sit up on one elbow on the bed.

“What?” she rasped.

“You are never going to fucking believe this. I just found fifteen packages of dehydrated camping food in the cabinet. We’re going to eat dinner. We’re going to eat real food, like—” She started reading off the packages one by one. “Mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, macaroni and cheese, baby carrots, apple crisp.”

She had to stop herself before she tore open each package and licked the inside clean, dehydrated or not. Brinkley’s eyes widened. She began to smile, but then her face changed. Tears started to stream down her cheeks as her shoulders heaved in sobs.

Brinkley waved her hand at her as she continued to cry. “Don’t mind me. I’m just so happy. I can’t believe we’re finally going to eat.”

Without the necessary water to make the dehydrated food edible, Morgan spent the next hour watching Brinkley breathe. It was kind of creepy but also necessary. There was no other option to make sure that she was okay while she slept, other than holding a mirror to her nose. And there weren’t any mirrors around, even in the very back of the cabinet. She checked.

After her random crying jag, Brinkley had fallen asleep. It was no wonder. She would have been exhausted too after a week of very little food and water, followed by a fainting incident. Brinkley was in bad shape.

Morgan didn’t even want to think about what would happen if Ky didn’t come back with water. She also chose to ignore the nagging thoughts in her mind about when they were going to get out of the jungle. Which was pretty hard to do with three cameramen in the room, constantly circling and adjusting their lenses to get the best angle for the shot.

She had to use all of her resolve not to glare directly into the cameras and say, “Fuck you.” The situation had become ridiculous. Not only were they stranded in the jungle without any food or water, but the cameras were still rolling without any signs of stopping.

And the cameramen seemed pretty well fed. Wherever they ended up every night after the group went to bed, they were obviously getting something to eat.

She was jealous, and frustrated, and pretty bitter about the whole situation. None of the cameramen looked like they had lost a pound in the past few weeks. Their skin wasn’t ashy, their cheeks weren’t hollow, and their clothes weren’t filthy and torn to shreds from the jungle brush.

She purposely put her attention back on Brinkley, watching her chest rise and fall in a hypnotic motion. Every once in a while, Brinkley would take in a shaky breath and start coughing in her sleep.

Morgan desperately wanted Ky to come back with the water. Once he brought back water, they could have something to drink, and even more importantly, she could get started on their dinner. She began to salivate again just thinking about it.

No matter how shitty dehydrated astronaut food might taste, she couldn’t wait to inhale the macaroni, and the rice, and even the rubbery-looking Salisbury steak. It was going to be epic.

She heard steps on the porch of the cabin. She turned as the screen door opened and sagged on its hinges. Ky stood in the doorway, carrying a bucket of water in his hands.

Ky stumbled as he sped-walked into the cabin. His face gleamed with excitement.

Morgan held out her hand to stop him. “Watch out! Don’t spill the water!”

She would probably kill herself if an entire bucket of fresh water spilled on the ground in front of her. She couldn’t take the disappointment. She just needed something to drink.

Ky smiled a charming grin. She didn’t know how he did it, but his teeth were still sparkling white, even after they hadn’t seen a toothbrush for more than a week. It must have been some kind of super-blasted professional laser bleaching that he had done at his dad’s plastic surgery center.

Without thinking, she raised a hand to her mouth to cover her yellowed teeth that had definitely seen better days. He didn’t need to see that.