2
Luke Johnson gently set his pole into the small holder he'd dug in the lush paddle grass, absently watching his line twitch as a fish toyed with his bait. He leaned back, clear eyes full of worry, as bees and other fat insects buzzed around the beach and moved on, drawn to the waves rushing ashore with more garbage.
The monthly supply plane hadn't come since December, and they hadn't been able to raise anyone on any of the CB's or satellite phones. And now, Frank hadn't shown up for their annual week together. The two men had forged a strong bond in the jungles of Vietnam and the retired pilots, who'd both been shot down and lived through 18 months in the same POW camp, never missed their week together. Not once in 30 years.
The retired soldier stood up to stretch, wishing he had one of those internet hookups all the tourists had been attached to last summer. It was just a little black case that opened up like a Battleship game. Sometimes technology was great, but out here, it was nearly nonexistent.
This island was about as cut off from civilization as anyone could get. The whole island had only one bay for ships, the rugged cliffs foreboding, and there wasn't a single telephone line. The lack of communication to the outside world was frustrating sometimes, the island taking back as much as it gave, but for the most part, it was why people came here and stayed. "It makes us uneasy though."
Luke thought of the silent Coast Guard, who they could normally hear even during storms, and then the ocean itself. Not one cruise liner in the distance and he'd know, he was on the 'traffic' side of the beach most of every day - fishing, reading, swimming…forgetting. There was nothing but static and debris. Pitcairn Island seemed to have been completely forgotten.
It wasn't a crisis here. The 61 people calling this tropical paradise home had learned to pull their needs gently from the land around them, but it was causing unrest and lowly-spoken conversations in town. What had happened to their old lives? Blown away? Luke nodded, almost sure. He'd spent time in a war zone and knew the signs. No contact, strange sunsets, rough storms despite it not being the season, and of course, all the debris.
The water levels had risen, bringing in load after load of garbage until they' had to expand the town dump. Even now, Bounty Bay was alive with crawling crabs, booby birds, and broad-winged albatrosses that were pillaging the trash. The explosions that had left behind this much wreckage had surely cost lives, he thought, packing up his gear. What the hell had happened? Had America gone to war and lost?