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wall protruded from the cliff. Although clearly man-made, Howie couldn’t make out the material. Immediately on the other side of the wall, the shore sloped back to the sea, calmed, and spread out in sand dunes. A final wave rushed them past the cliffs and whispered the boat calmly up the sand. Tongueless leapt out of the prow to pull them beyond the surf.  The other lifeboats rushed ashore as well, disgorging their passengers on the beach. There were woefully few.
    Howie had to pee right now . What had once been a dull ache in his abdomen had swelled to a hardened baseball. If he held it a moment more it would explode. But where? In front of everybody, right on the beach?
    A childhood event battled its way into his consciousness. Meeting his Great Aunt for the first time, no sooner had he arrived in her plastic sheathed home than he made a beeline for the restroom. His mother fed him an earful on the way home. “The first thing you do is piss in her house?”
    Somehow, the black maw and white hair of Tongueless reminded him of his Great Aunt. How would he react if, immediately upon reaching safety, he pissed on this man’s land? “Thank you for bringing us to your island. Now I’ll give you my autograph.”
    No. He would have to hold it for a moment or two more.
    “Ouch.” Emily leaned on Howie for support, like a leaf resting on a boulder. “I stepped on something.” A gleaming blue shard protruded from a seeping red liquid in her heel. She plucked it out.
    “You’re bleeding,” he said. He would have offered to carry her, she was so slight, but he was ready to explode as it was.
    “I was asleep when the ship went down. I don’t have any shoes.”
    Broken shells, dismembered crab exoskeletons, and black volcanic rocks littered the shore. Of the survivors in his boat, only Howard wore shoes.
    “Here, wear mine.” Howie pushed out of his sneakers, leaving on a pair of wet, grungy white socks. “I don’t need them. My feet are calloused and bunioned like a turtle.”
    The shoes floated around her tiny feet like boats. She doubled the laces around her ankles just to keep them on. Better than nothing.
    Only Max remained in the boat, hanging over the rail and staring out to sea. He hadn’t even seen the island yet. Mason made sure he wasn’t forgotten.
    The boatmen stretched a sheet of plastic around their oars to form a temporary litter. Mason and Lauren hauled Max out of the boat and onto the stretcher. Lauren volunteered Carter to help carry it, each taking an end to stumble up the beach.
    They set out in single file, White Hairs in front. Survivors from a second boat joined them in a line up the dunes. After so many hours in a lifeboat, Howie’s fellow passengers felt like family, these other survivors like strangers.
    The sun already baked the sand. Despite his calluses, he could feel the heat through his toes.
    Being a fat man has its advantages. Already he’d fallen slightly behind the crowd. A little slower and he was the last man in the group. When the sun fell behind a small cloud, he ducked down and ran to the nearest depression.
    There is something orgasmic in the release of long-held urine. Only truck drivers and old men know this. That sense of immense relief can be better than sex. Eyes closed in bliss, he heard the patter of relief smacking the sand in front of him. He signed his name. He could have written a book. 
    But there was something more to listen to. He heard a dry, rustling sound. Something moved under the sand. The stream no longer hit dry sand but sputtered on something pliant and flat. He opened his eyes.
    Something soft brushed past his leg, across his foot. He couldn’t see it, or his feet, through the fat of his belly. The thing felt light as the wind until it pulled his legs out from under him. He collapsed backward, knocking the wind out of him. His body clawed for breath while his mind desperately sought to identify this threat. His chest wouldn’t draw air. Soft