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Although it was Rose's idea to throw a big party and give away all the food in the Swan Hatch pantry, she didn't mind one bit if Hugo took the credit. After all the jars, boxes, and cans had been distributed (or so everybody thought), after the beach camp castaways had bedded down by their fires, Hugo stole a hammer and saw from a Hatch storeroom. He crept past an oblivious John Locke, too distracted by his own preoccupations with the station's whirring computers to notice Hugo sneaking out of the Hatch.
Hugo sawed away at the bamboo which grew everywhere. He cut down one long straight pole after another, unable to slow down his racing thoughts.
Kate and Jack had disappeared right after the party. Maybe they'd stolen away to one of the rooms in the labyrinth-like Hatch, or maybe they were making love in the jungle. Not that Hugo blamed Jack. Kate was hot, even if Hugo didn't go for the Natural Born Killers type himself.
Sayid was probably getting some loving tonight, too, but who knows. On her best days, Shannon acted like a beautiful grenade ready to go off in your face. Now nobody could keep track of her moods, not even Sayid. One moment they'd be all over each other, making people grumble that they should get a room. The next moment Shannon would fight Sayid like a wild cat, then switch back to tender again.
Now Shannon was saying strange things, and seeing them as well.
Maybe he should tell Shannon that he'd seen a few things in his time too, but Hugo dropped that thought like a hot coal. Sure, he'd told Jack he'd been a psych patient, but doctors were supposed to keep that stuff secret, right? But Shannon would blab to the whole beach, and once that story got around, nobody would trust him ever again. Anyway, Shannon thought he was a slob, that was obvious.
Not that she was wrong.
Hugo stumbled on the rough path as he carried his bamboo poles to a woodsy copse near the Swan Station's back door. A grinning crescent moon hung high in the sky as he cobbled together some crude shelves. Tears came to his eyes, and not just from the occasional smack of a hammer.
The makeshift bamboo shelves were done. Now it was time to stock them.
Even his hammered fingers couldn't divert Hugo from the irresistible force which pushed him onward. The higher the crooked moon rose, the faster Hugo moved at his task, almost tripping as he toted cans and jars from the Swan pantry, weighed down by his backpack and his own compulsions.
A moment of clarity struck him. This really sucks. What the hell am I doing?
After the plane crash, Hugo had been so ravenous that his teeth ached. He would have stuffed anything in his mouth: sedge grass, tree bark, unripe fruit. But even in the throes of near starvation, something inside had changed. Something was missing. At first he chalked it up to being genuinely hungry for the first time in his life.
But after he got used to the fish, the unusual tropical fruits, the eggs, the coconuts, his gnawing hunger had died down to mild nagging emptiness. A single dried octopus was delicious now. Enough was enough. The urge to mechanically eat until near-unconsciousness had disappeared.
Hugo wasn't reflective, and didn't often put his thoughts into words. All he knew was that a low constant ache had vanished, one which he didn't know he had until it was gone.
The old urge was back, if not quite in the same way. Hugo used to eat openly, even when his mother yelled about whole boxes of cookies disappearing, or when he packed away a twenty-piece bucket of hot wings.
Now he felt the need to keep it secret.
On the bamboo shelves he carefully arranged jars and cans just right. Other than polishing off a few Apollo bars, he hadn't even opened any of the food. Simply knowing it was there gave him a nauseating sense of excitement. Hiding it brought more pleasure than the eating itself.
Soon it was Hugo's turn to sit in front of the Hatch terminal and wait until the counter reached 108 minutes. Time to “play the numbers,” as he put it to himself. Locke's glance traveled from Hugo to his backpack and back again, but Locke said nothing as he let himself out into the jungle night.
Hugo typed in the fatal sequence, fighting off a sick feeling of wrongness. Eventually he drifted off to sleep in front of the computer terminal, exhausted from having traded the weight of his first burden for one heavier and even more strange.
*:*:*:*:*
Two weeks later, the beach camp was in turmoil. Never a dull moment on Craphole Island, as poor Shannon would have put it. Only now she was dead, shot by one of the new people who materialized in the nearby jungle as if out of nowhere.
That wasn't all. Sawyer's latest stunt was to steal all those guns from the Swan Hatch armory, and no one could figure out how he pulled it off.
The morning light found the beach camp huddled together and quiet. People whispered in small groups, darting glances over at Sawyer, dropping their eyes if he looked in their direction.
Hugo was sick with fear that Sawyer might lose his temper and shoot someone. He walked around the whole beach camp to avoid Sawyer's shelter, then headed out for that part of the jungle where no one would follow.
Everybody was afraid of the French chick. Everybody but Hugo.
For one thing, Rousseau liked him. Not only had she given him a battery when he asked for one, but also a long hug topped off with an awesome kiss. Sure, he tried to catch her eye a few times after that, and sure, she ignored him. That was the story of his life, wasn't it? Girls might make out with him behind closed doors, but stepping out with him to the Troubadour for a concert, that was another story.
Rousseau was hot, though. Too bad she was 31 flavors of crazy and a baby-napper besides.
The pesky inner fragment of sanity kept insisting that something was wrong, so Hugo pressed on it with all his might, trying to shut it up. Just like he'd been doing for the past two weeks.
A bird called out from high in the canopy, cawing out the long syllables which sounded just like his name. The first time he heard it was on the trek to the Black Rock, right before the smoke monster showed up. Before all hell broke loose.
There it was again, shrill and insistent. Trying hard not to listen, Hugo pushed on faster, and soon the bird cries vanished into silence.
In a shady clearing he plopped onto carpet-soft moss and unpacked his backpack. He spread out the cans and jars all in a row and compulsively touched each one, then arranged the Apollo bars and chocolate cookies in a line. In pride of place he set a half-gallon tub of Dharma Ranch Dressing.
Nearby tree limbs hung heavy with unpicked mango that even Hugo could reach. No one from the beach camp, not even Kate, would forage out here. He plunged one slice after another into the white, sticky mess, but mango made a poor substitute for chips, and the combo tasted pretty disgusting. He kept on eating anyway, relishing being alone, hating it at the same time.
Crouched over the foul-smelling jar of salad dressing, seized with weird compulsion and pleasure, something inside Hugo reassured him that he needed this. He was owed it. Hadn't he done so much for everyone over the past two months already? Think of it as payment. He was due.
In his mind's eye Claire sat close to him as she wrote in her blue leather-bound book, while Hugo soothed baby Aaron to the tune of the crashing sea. The silence between Claire and him wasn't strained like the kind when no one knows what to say, but peaceful. Everything is in its proper place, and all the pieces fit.
Well, if Claire saw him at this moment, he could kiss that idea goodbye, because she wouldn't come within ten feet him, for sure. Look at what had happened when Charlie's heroin-tooting habit got displayed all over the beach. Now Claire wasn't even speaking to him, not after yelling that she wouldn't have liars around her baby.
Well, Hugo had to be the biggest, fattest liar of them all, didn't he?
Just as bad, Sun had almost caught Hugo resupplying his backpack from the secret shelves. Then again, what was she doing all alone in the woods herself, far from the beach? He'd offered her a candy bar, but she glared as if he'd handed her a rotten fish.
As if things couldn't get any more bizarre, a couple of days ago he'd been doing laundry in the Hatch when that tall, lean Tailie named Libby had put on a purple sequined shirt right in front of him, and hadn't taken it off since. He tried to keep things light between them, but whatever he said to her always seemed to come out wrong or not good enough. Also, she looked familiar but he couldn't place her, like when you remember a lyric but draw a blank on the song.
He was still puzzling it out when a familiar voice sneered directly into his left ear. “Women. Mooning over 'em's just a waste of time.”
Hugo gave a little start. He had to be making it up, didn't he? Because that sounded just like his friend Dave, from the mental hospital. Who Hugo thought he had banished. But maybe not.
As the voice droned on, Hugo couldn't deny that it was Dave speaking clear as a bell, just like he used to in the hospital.
“Take your buddy Sayid there," Dave said. "What's love done for him? Dude almost went postal on you when you gave him Bernard's radio. The fights, the tears, the drama... Man, believe me, they're not worth it. Hump 'em and dump 'em, that's what I say.”
Of course nobody was hiding nearby in the jungle. Hugo knew the drill, how it started. First you hear voices. Then you start talking back to them. And if you're really unlucky, the voices grow faces, bodies. Before you know it, you're stuck in your own private Idaho having energetic conversations with the walls.
He ate another mango slice and decided okay, he'd play along. What the hell. “So, Dave, what happened with you getting out of Santa Rosa and banging hot chicks? Change your mind?”
“That's right, bro, hot chicks, not like the skanks around here—”
“Shut up,” Hugo said, and amazingly, Dave did.
All at once, a tiny peeping sound piped up. A small creature leaped through dappled shadows and landed on the log directly at Hugo's feet. The tiny frog chirruped again and fixed Hugo with an eye black as a jet bead.
Without thinking, Hugo reached out his laden hand towards the creature. “Hey, little buddy.” White gluey sauce dripped from the mango chunk onto the log. The frog just chirped, ignoring the offering. “I guess you want flies or something. Sorry, little dude. You're gonna have to catch your own.”
It was a pretty thing, green as an emerald with deep violet-black patterns across its head and back. Hugo's nightmare of compulsion slid away from the chirping piebald jewel as if repulsed by it. He saw himself in a cold, merciless light, hiding and ashamed, hand sticky with white residue.
What in the hell was wrong with him?
With a frantic chirp, the frog leaped to nearby low branch. Another chirp, another leap, and Hugo swore the little thing wanted him to follow it.
Hugo thought about clambering to his feet, but chasing the frog would mean leaving the food. There would be no time to stuff it back into his pack. “Damn,” said Hugo, stricken and unable to act. The frog darted away into the trees, peeping loudly as it disappeared into that neck of the woods where none of them went.
Might as well dip another piece of mango. The Dharma ranch dressing's label read, “Fully hydrogenated. Shelf-life seven years without refrigeration." Hugo was so busy pondering how the hell it could keep that long, that he didn't hear someone pushing through the bushes.
Things went from bad to worse. Over him loomed Sawyer, red-eyed and furious. At the sight of the food, he bellowed with laughter.
When Sawyer caught his breath, his cold grey eyes sliced up and down Hugo's body like surgical instruments, carving the flesh beneath stained clothes, laying bare Hugo's massive and shameful secret.
If Sawyer told what he knew, Claire's small smiles would change to disgust. Sun's face would go blank and remote, and let's face it, it was no wonder Sun traipsed off into the forest with Michael, instead of with Hugo himself. After all, Michael wasn't fat, was he?
Libby, well, Libby would be kind. Her sweet professional tones reminded him of the Santa Rosa hospital nurses who could calm you down without calling in the muscle. At least Libby wouldn't laugh at him. Probably.
But none of it mattered because all Sawyer had to do was breathe a few words in the right ears, and everyone would know. Hugo felt like crying.
Still, he didn't have much choice, did he? If finding the frog was the price for buying Sawyer's silence, Hugo would have to pay.
In the end, it didn't matter. Sawyer killed the frog, plunked it in Hugo's palm, and stomped off into the jungle.
Rage mounted in Hugo like a column, then collapsed, and Hugo did cry outright. When the frog's body stopped twitching, he braced for the worst as he slowly opened his hand. There wasn't much mess, just a few drops of blood on his palm. The frog's black-bead eyes had gone blank and dull.
Sometimes Hugo had come upon coupling frogs in the jungle, clutching each other as if they would never let go. That's all this frog had wanted in its small life. It didn't have television, or concerts at the Troubadour. To be fair, it didn't worry about keeping a job. And it probably hadn't killed its abuelito with a curse, either. All it wanted were lots of flies, a few matings, then spawning and death, but it certainly didn't deserve this one.
He wiped his tear-stained face, but that was a big mistake. Frog slime stung his eyes and only made him cry harder.
The Dave-chatter resumed. “Hey, man, better go check your stash. What if Sawyer took it? Run back and see, chop, chop.”
Hugo screamed out the way the guys in the mental hospital did, “Just. Shut. Up!” Then, with a soft half-sob, “Shut up, shut up, omigod, I'm crazy, crazy, crazy, going crazy.”
But crazy or not, he wasn't going to let the frog's body shrivel up in the hot afternoon sun. He began to dig a hole with his big hands, but a wave of sickness almost knocked him over. Probably punishment for eating ranch dressing from That Seventies Show. Food poisoning could kill you dead as a plane crash.
The frog's body glowed with a pale purple light. As Hugo covered it with earth, rainbow-colored streaks like colorful comet tails followed his hands wherever they moved.
“Happy trails to yooouuu,” Hugo half-sang, half-laughed. “Until we meet again—” All at once his heart pounded in his chest, but slowly, way more slowly than a heart should.
Was this it? The coronary his mother had always dreaded? As she never stopped reminding him, that's how both his grandfathers went. That it runs in families. Hugo's heart pulsed like some huge drum, and the dense green leaves echoed in perfect time.
Maybe it wasn't his heart which had slowed, though, but time itself. A few flies ambled through the misty air, drawn by the smell of frog blood. Other bugs floated like tiny balloons caught in a light breeze, trailing pretty pink and blue streaks behind them.
“Dude,” Hugo whispered, before remembering to say the proper words. He touched the dirt mound with one smeared hand and spoke in a slow, slurred voice. “Sorry, little buddy. Sorry that jackass killed you, and I couldn't stop him. I hope you find lots of bugs and a hot Mrs. Tree Frog.”
Afterwards, it wasn't worth getting up. A kaleidoscopic movie spread out before his eyes, where every leaf, creeper, and blade of grass glowed with life. Inside the leaves, tiny cells sucked in sunlight, grew, divided, and wove together to form a living jungle tapestry.
Something fluttered in the tree-tops, followed by harsh shrieks of, “Hurley, Hurley, Hurley.” That damn bird again, he grumbled to himself as he clambered to his feet to bug out of there.
He didn't get far, because the bird landed right in the clearing where he stood. It was large as an eagle, its emerald feathers edged in gold. Its scarlet feet ended in sharp claws good for stabbing the small creatures which scuttled along the forest floor.
Suddenly the bird spread its wings to full span and raised itself up into an almost-human stance.
Okay, he knew he must have sprung a main gasket, because with a few wing-shakes, the bird's feathers fell off in one piece, like a dress dropping to the floor. Its eagle-beak softened into a pert, young face. Wings melted into round arms, and long black hair barely covered the bird-girl's naked curves. Her olive-green skin glistened in the sunlight.
Hugo drank in the sight of slim waist and round breasts. When she crept closer to him, he smiled and murmured, “Hey there, green chick.”
She didn't smile back. In fact, she looked positively stressed, not chill at all. He could have gazed at her all day long and into the next, but she wasn't having any of that. With wide gestures, she sputtered out an urgent cascade of squawks and trills mixed with rapid-fire syllables.
It was just as incomprehensible as when Sun and Jin fought in Korean. The bird-girl started making flapping motions with her hands, jumping about with agitation when he didn't get it.
Whatever sand got in her gears, it was busting them up pretty good, but given the view, he wasn't complaining, and he started to laugh. Annoyed, she shook him by the shoulders, which only made things worse. Or better, depending on your point of view.
“Okay, okay, relax,” Hugo said, and she stopped shaking him. “Man, are you ever gorgeous,” just made her throw her hands up in a universal gesture of frustration and despair. When the trees began to rustle, he ignored it at first, entranced as he was by the green girl.
The low, siren-like roar got his attention. Thick black mist filled the nearby tree-tops, then blew back and forth as if impatiently waiting for something. With a terrified squawk, the bird-girl grabbed her feather dress and bolted into the jungle.
The whispering started out as a low hum, then grew louder until it formed into a kind of song, like a chant in church. That was when the lights started, like a demented disco ball flashing in the middle of the jungle.
Closing his eyes did no good. The flashes pierced right through the lids and into his brain, pulling something out of his very core. It was as if his mind wanted to vomit, rather than his stomach.
The column of dark smoke towered over him, and Hugo could have sworn it grinned, even though it had no face. Slowly the grin changed into one which Hugo recognized: bald, jowly, thick-nosed and weak-chinned.
“Dave?” he said in a weak voice.
All at once the dark vision disappeared, taking Dave's face with it. Every leaf was ringed with pulsating halos which called to him in choleric yellows and urgent reds, acidic blues and rotting purples. Each said the same thing in its own spectral language.
Run. Just run.
Hugo took the advice, tripping along the way, pulling himself up only to trip again. A few times he left his body just as he had back in his hospital days, gazing down on his wobbling form with pity and contempt.
He stumbled his way back to the spread-out food. Every ant on the Island must have gotten the invitation to the Dharma ranch-dressing party, because the white glop was covered with a black, wriggling mass.
Hugo couldn't believe he had ever put that repulsive mess in his mouth. Things got worse when the bug-covered ranch dressing oozed its way out of the jar. It pulsed across the jungle floor towards his athletic shoes, stopped short of the toes and sat there, quivering.
What if the slime-like mass formed tentacles and grabbed ahold of his legs? On the second look, though, there was nothing but a tub of spoiled salad dressing and a few cans. He swept the whole mess into his back-pack and got the hell out of there.
*:*:*:*:*
Maybe Hugo should have turned left instead of veering right, or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, the path twisted away every time Hugo thought he'd gotten a foothold on it. Nothing looked familiar. Broad white flowers hung down from low-hanging creepers, and every flower held a small human face. When he brushed them aside, they laughed at him with voices like small, tinkling bells.
He stopped short at the sound of moving water. Protected within a shady grove, a spring bubbled over large stones. Garlands of ferns hung over the water's edge, and small breezes cast a refreshing mist over Hugo's red, sweating face.
If anyone from the beach camp had found this place, Hugo had never heard of it.
It was an open invitation, and he took it. At the beach camp they were climbing all over each other for a turn in the Swan Station shower. Most of the castaways stripped down and bathed in the ocean, but Hugo would have cut off his own head before doing that.
The spring was private as a bathroom with a closed door, so Hugo undressed and stepped into the roiling water. The tree canopy rustled with bird wings, but when Hugo looked up, there was nothing there.
The pool itself was big enough for him to stretch out in. He plunged his head underwater, then lay back so that only his face and round belly-curve broke through the surface. Everything leached away: sweat, anxiety, sorrow over the little frog, the unnatural forest colors, the nightmare vision of black smoke forming itself into Dave.
When Hugo finally pulled himself out, the bees flew to and fro at their normal busy pace, and the flowers no longer had faces. In the fading sunlight, leaves glimmered gold, not uncanny purple. A peaceful hush hung over everything, and the whole experience faded like a half-forgotten dream.
*:*:*:*:*
He plodded back to the beach camp, not sure how he'd missed the path in the first place, because it lay before him as clear as markings on a map. As he rounded the curved shoreline, he almost collided with Libby, running towards him like her life depended on it. When she slowed down, he gave her a shy smile.
“Hey,” she said, pivoting towards the beach camp.
“Back at ya.” In an act of rash bravery he added, “How 'bout if I, um, join you tomorrow? You know, for a run?”
At first she looked surprised, then collected herself. Her smile was as cool and measured as her voice. “Sure. I'd like that.” She took off with the rhythmic, disciplined strides of a marathon runner and was soon way ahead of him.
Hugo trudged on, hoping everyone would be too busy with the evening meal to notice him, trying hard to stay out of Sawyer's way.
(the end)