Chapter 1


A/N: This story is being written at the request of AM83220, one of the best writers on this site, one I have had the good fortune of working and interacting with here since 2013. Some of my earliest stories of fanfiction were quickly-written tales of Lord of the Flies as it was depicted in the 1990 film adaptation, and I focused my fanfiction around exploring the magnificently-portrayed 1990 Jack Merridew, played by Chris Furrh.

So when AM83220 got an idea for a Lord of the Flies story, he approached me and asked me to write it instead. He insisted that he could not depict the story and characters so well as I already have, and gradually convinced me I would be better suited to write the story. After all the assistance and support AM83220 has given me, reviewing so many of my stories and chapters and exchanging countless pieces of correspondence, writing a story on request is certainly an appropriate thing to do in return. Numerous plot details and events have and no doubt will be supplied by AM83220. Even if I am the writer of this story, it was his idea- he came up with it. So credit must be given to him where it is due. And as a matter of fact, looking through some old PMs, I found that this story's story first begins when I sent a message to AM83220 asking him to elaborate on his idea about a LOTF fanfic, and he responded with a bunch of details for a particular story idea and explained the idea itself. That was May 2013.

I never actually said I would not write it, but I was hesitant for a while, and more than that I was busy writing The Good Sons, my third story based on the 1993 movie The Good Son. So it took 4 years for this story to even get far enough to have an actual Word document in my files for it. But now that I've gotten it that far I have every intention of writing it to completion.

This story is set, as I said in the description, in the 1990 Lord of the Flies movie adaptation. Jack Merridew in that version is a tall, lanky, foul-mouthed jerk who bears some resemblance to Draco Malfoy in looks as well as personality. He is a spoiled, arrogant bully, and one of my favorite movie antagonists. Since this story is set in the 1990 version, all descriptions and details of characters and the island will be based off of it. Jack in the 1990 movie is blond, rather than red-haired, and there is no Pablo or Rapper in the 1963 film or the book.

If you know your American military schools, you will notice that the uniforms the boys are wearing when the movie starts are the red-trimmed grays of the high school cadets at the Valley Forge Military Academy & College in Wayne, Pennsylvania. They're an exact match apart from the generic, apparently made-up patch on the jacket's right shoulder. They use U.S. Army ROTC/JROTC rank insignia rather than the British rank insignia that VFMAC uses, but other than that, those are their uniforms. Since Valley Forge was depicted as Bunker Hill Military Academy in the 1981 movie Taps, a movie I'm a big fan of, I noticed the cadet grays shared by both movies immediately.

Since the boys in the 1990 movie attend a military academy, it makes plenty of sense that they swear a lot more than the British choir boys did in the 1963 film or the book. If you've ever attended a military school in the United States, you've heard some of the language used in the barracks, by cadets of any age. It's part of military culture, even if it's against regulations. I was reading about the making of the 1990 film, and the original script called for WAY more profanity than the final one used in filming did.

Lastly, since this is an adaptation of the book that includes many original characters who have little to no resemblance to those in the book, I will identify the list here and note rank where applicable. Interestingly, Roger actually outranks Jack here, but never even tries to tell Jack what to do, and in fact is his right hand man from the beginning. The rank of most of those few that even have rank beyond private is not seen much. Most of the boys ditch their jackets fairly quickly- logical given the conditions and how uncomfortable military dress uniforms are at any time- and a lot of the boys don't appear very prominently in scenes anyway, meaning that you will not get many chances to see their rank even while they're still wearing it. The standard cadet rank insignia in the U.S. is that of Army ROTC/JROTC, and that's what's used here.

Most of these boys are never identified by name in the movie, and have few if any lines. I had to find a web page that lists name, actor, and a picture of the character to figure out who half of them were for the purposes of writing the story. That is something the 1963 film does much better than this one.

Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Ralph

Cadet Captain Roger

Cadet First Lieutenant Jack Merridew

Cadet Sergeant Pablo

Cadet Corporal Steve

Andy

Billy

Eric, Twin #2

Greg

John

Larry

Luke

Mikey

Patterson

Peter

Piggy

Rapper

Rusty

Sam, Twin #1

Sheraton

Simon

Tony

Tex

Will


The airliner was small, a Bombardier designed for private flights and the shorter runs that were hardly economical for one of the giant airliners to do. The twenty-four boys from Bunker Hill Military Academy took care of all but one of the Bombardier 210's open seats. The Academy band instructor who'd gone along on the trip, Captain Benson, was up front near the pilots along with Ralph and an overweight boy with glasses, both of the sitting across the aisle from him. Altogether, twenty-four cadets plus a teacher filled up the plane and then some.

It was late in the day; the sun would be setting soon. Most of the boys behaved well enough, which was good, since the pilots weren't that interested in playing babysitter.

The turboprop engines, one on each wing, droned endlessly, and some of the younger boys were complaining about it. A handsome blond kid told them to stop whining. That was Jack Merridew, ranked number three after Ralph. The pilots didn't really keep track of cadet chain of command, but it interested even them that the boy commanding Band Company, Roger, seemed to say next to nothing. He talked to Jack; the two were thick as thieves. But in most situations, Jack talked and Roger seemed to just back his authority. It was interesting how one boy had higher rank, but the other appeared to be in charge.

XX

Jack Merridew, just turned sixteen, was tall and lean, blond and handsome. He wore his red-trimmed gray uniform well and had the perfect looks of a cadet officer, even if he had been sent to military school for the stereotypical "troublemaker" reasons. Jacks preferred to call it having fun, being adventurous. You'd never have much fun if you didn't break the rules sometimes.

Slouched in his seat, Jack glanced at the Pacific Ocean outside. The sun reflected nicely off the water, which stretched off into fucking eternity. Some islands here and there, but that was it. The sun also made the twin silver discs on his shoulder gleam. Jack might have been an unbreakable stallion at heart- and he liked to brag that he fucked like one, too, even though he'd had sex once so far and had lasted all of thirty-four seconds then- but he had worked his way up to officer rank fairly quickly. He was smart and wanted to be in charge, and Jack had really taken off as a cadet when he'd figured out he had more to gain by playing this dumb school's game. Guidon corporal, platoon sergeant, now executive officer of Band Company. He'd done all right for himself in the past months.

But the boy to his left, his best friend, had done better still. After the original company commander of Band had been kicked out for hiding weed in his room, Roger had taken charge as captain, and Jack had moved in to occupy the vacated XO slot. After chapel the following Sunday, Jack had asked Roger if the previous captain really had been into weed- he hadn't been known for it, and Jack knew all those guys.

Roger just said, "No. I planted it in his room and tipped off the TAC officers."

He had said it so calmly, so simply. Without even a hint of remorse for making another boy take the fall. He'd gotten the other boy kicked out and taken his rank. Jack had admired Roger's relentless way of going after something he wanted. He liked Roger's dedication to the manly arts, most of all physical strength. And most of all, he appreciated how Roger had backed up Jack from the day he'd arrived at Bunker Hill. Despite outranking him this whole time, Roger treated Jack with respect from day one and had always allowed the much more talkative Jack act as if he was in charge of the Band Company floor in the barracks. Roger backed Jack's hand and Jack backed Roger's. Together they were a force nobody messed with.

Part of the reason Roger let Jack do the talking was that Roger couldn't talk all that well. He was tall and handsome- another boy who looked like a natural cadet officer- and was probably the strongest cadet on the plane. Yet Roger was also stiff and awkward. His speeches to the company were about as interesting as a plank of wood. Up close, one-on-one, Roger was different. He could intimidate and frighten other boys years older than himself. He had beaten up a couple of boys and routinely harassed and extorted the little ones, yet nobody had ever turned him in. Not once had someone ratted on Roger. That was because Roger had the look of a boy who'd kill you the second he discovered you'd sold him out. Jack had seen it himself. Roger had the stare of a killer. Jack tended not to look directly into Roger's brown eyes when he talked, because the generally cold look there made him uncomfortable.

But hey, nobody was perfect. Jack had decided to make Roger his best friend and most trusted ally a while ago. He could put up with his friend's faults.

For one thing, the good things about him made it easy to have fun, like right now. Bored out of his mind, Jack tapped Roger on the three silver discs that represented a cadet captain, pinned to his right shoulder.

"What?" Roger asked.

"Let's have some fun," Jack said eagerly.

"Okay."

"I'm gonna sing some dirty cadences," Jack told him.

"Okay."

Wow. Roger sure made for an interesting conversationalist sometimes. He could be eloquent sometimes- he'd recited the entire fucking monologue from "Hamlet", the "To be or not to be" crap without a single glance at the book in English class once- but frequently spoke in short sentences. He would often talk like he was paying good money for each word he spoke. But Roger was a hell of a fun guy, and Jack knew that well. He raised his voice so it would carry easily throughout the plane.

"Throw some candy to the children," Jack sang out. He had a gift for singing, able to call cadence skillfully with little effort. The other cadets followed his lead right away.

"Throw some candy to the children!"

Beside him, Roger grinned like a wolf. He knew this cadence and loved it from the moment Jack had made it up.

"Watch 'em all gather 'round!"

"Watch 'em all gather 'round!"

"Lock and load your M16 now!"

"Lock and load your M16 now!"

"Mow those little fuckers down!"

"Mow those little fuckers down!"

"Sound off!"

"Sound off!"

"One, two!"

"One, two!"

"Three, four!"

"Three, four!"

"One, two, three, four- one, two, three, four!"

Jack launched into another cadence, another dirty chant. He'd gotten in a lot of trouble for yelling this as he led Band Company on a PT run past a group of prospective parents one afternoon, but like the previous one, it was an instant favorite with every dirty-minded cadet in barracks.

"Napalm, napalm, sticks like glue!"

"Napalm, napalm, sticks like glue!"

"Sticks to the women and the children, too!"

"Sticks to the women and the children, too!"

"Okay, Jack, I think that's enough," Ralph called from up front.

"Come on, one more, sir," Jack said, seemingly sincere and pleading. He held up two middle fingers where Roger could see, and mouthed "FUCK YOU", and Roger grunted laughter.

"Fine," Ralph said, even though he didn't sound like he was very happy about it.

"I don't wanna go to war!"

"I don't wanna go to war!"

"I'd rather get laid in Singapore!"

The little ones were just squealing with delight now, and Sam and Eric, the twins, were cracking up. The boys were all awake now and most called out the cadence with glee, even though some were too young to do any such thing as the cadence talked about.

"Jack," Ralph said in a warning tone.

"And if I die on the Russian front!"

"And if I die on the Russian front!"

"Box me up with a Russian cu-"

"That's enough, Jack!"

Ralph had turned around and stood up on his seat with one knee, letting the other cadets, including Jack, see his revulsion. The boys didn't echo the latest chant since Jack didn't complete it, but some of them looked disappointed about it. Others were struggling to contain silent laughter, and still more avoided Ralph's glare, suppressing guilty smiles.

"Come on, Colonel, it's just a song," Jack said.

"We're representing Bunker Hill. You, me and Roger are cadet officers. Pablo's a cadet sergeant, and Steve's a corporal. We have a responsibility to do things the right way."

"Wasn't I calling cadence the right way? I got volume, pitch, everything!"

Ralph looked really annoyed now, and Jack was unable to keep a shit-eating grin off his face. "Jack, that's not the point!"

"What is the point, Colonel, sir?"

"You shouldn't be calling dirty cadences, Jack! That's the point! Now give it a rest, we've got a long flight ahead of us still."

"As my Colonel commands, yes, sir," Jack said, saluting while still slouched in the seat.

Ralph looked irritated at that, but he probably knew he wasn't going to get much better. He sighed and sat back down. "Sorry, Captain Benson," he said, looking across the aisle.

"Boys will be boys. You guys are fine."

The ranking cadet just sulked where he was, having gotten no support- even passively- from the sole member of school faculty on the plane. The pilots had chuckled a couple times during the calling of the dirty cadences- they had the cockpit door open- so there was no chance of them helping out. But after a minute, Ralph decided he wasn't giving up just yet.

"No more dirty cadences, Jack," Ralph called out. "We have little boys on this plane. I'm not gonna have us go home and have their parents say you corrupted them."

"Hey, we ain't little babies!"

"Yeah!" a bunch of other small boys agreed.

"I like Jack's cadences," Tony said from the row behind. "They're awesome."

"Yeah!" the little ones chorused again.

Ralph just sighed again and gave up.

Jack grinned and high-fived Roger. At the exact moment their hands smacked together, the plane gave a sudden, violent lurch.

Most of the boys weren't wearing their seatbelts and were jostled or outright thrown from their seats. A few guys screamed.

"What the hell was that?" Jack yelled.

"Stay in your seats, I'm gonna have a word with the pilots," Captain Benson announced as he stood up. He looked nervous, which only worried Jack more.

Then there was a tremendous bang, and Jack was hurled into the seat in front of him. It was like God had drop-kicked their tail. The overhead lights went off. Jack shouted as the plane went nose-down, but he couldn't hear himself over the commotion. Half the boys on the plane were shouting or screaming or doing some combination of both.

"Brace yourself, boss," Roger barked, and Jack marveled at how calm his friend sounded as they hurtled toward oblivion.

XX

Jack was knocked senseless by the impact, but Roger hauled him bodily to his feet. "We gotta go, Jack," the taller boy said. He was remarkably calm; the water was already up to their necks.

The boys were panicking, but they had enough sense to go for the exit doors and force them open. Even with one arm, Ralph got one open by himself, and he hollered for everyone to get out of the plane now.

Jack thought that was a fine idea.

It was pandemonium outside. The aircraft's fuselage went under in less than a minute, but so far as Jack could tell, everyone got out. All the cadets, anyway. Sure seemed like it because everywhere Jack looked there were panicking cadets. Around twenty boys, all of them shouting and yelling. Jack looked around and spotted Roger, calmly treading water, not making a sound. His expression was blank, like he wasn't worried at all. Roger noticed Jack looking at him and nodded.

Where the hell were they? What had happened to the plane? Jack didn't have any idea. He thought about shouting along with the others, but didn't want to look like a fool in front of Roger. He forced himself to stay calm.

Something broke the surface off to his left, in the middle of the floating boys and aircraft debris. The loud hissing noise it made as it inflated drew everyone's attention- and shut all the scared little kids up.

There was no need to give instructions. Everyone immediately went for the octagon-shaped black rubber raft. Roger, being one of the strongest boys here, had no problem hauling himself up over its steep side. He reached over and helped Jack up, and the two of them started pulling the other cadets in. Ralph they had to be especially careful with; he'd hurt his arm in the crash and was using his white uniform shirt to make a sling.

Captain Benson even made it, pulled to the surface by Ralph and brought aboard the raft by a couple of the boys. He was unconscious and looked to have hit his head pretty good.

Ralph did a quick head count, looking around at the soaking wet, frightened cadets. "Who are we missing?" he asked. "We're two off."

"It's the pilots," Roger said tonelessly. "They're dead."

"How do you know that, sir?" one of the smaller boys asked.

"The plane sank almost immediately," Jack said. "Captain Benson barely got out. If the two pilots aren't here by now, they're not coming."

"I wanna go home," a boy complained, starting to cry. "I don't wanna die."

"Nobody's gonna die," Ralph assured him.

"Hey, look. There's some oars here," Tony said from behind Ralph. He produced three good-sized plastic oars. Jack took one, Roger took one, and Ralph, insistent despite his injured right arm, also took one.

"There's land over that way," Ralph said, pointing at an island in the distance. "We should head over there." Even at a glance, Jack could see it was a pretty big one. It wasn't anything like the little sandy island with a single palm tree like you'd expect. There was a lot of green, tons of trees it looked like- and more than just palms. In the distance, reaching up toward some low-lying clouds, there were what looked like freaking mountains. What Jack couldn't see were signs of civilization. Not on the island, not anywhere. This raft and those in it were the only proof before Jack's eyes that mankind even existed.

Jack wasn't looking to spend the rest of his life in this raft, which was pretty crowded with twenty-four boys and one unconscious adult in it. He would have preferred the island filled with hot girls, but since this deserted-looking one was the only option available, Jack was up for it. He rowed steadily, privately glad that he was alive to row at all.

Nobody talked much as everyone's breathing slowed, and the fear-induced adrenaline rush wore off. As the island slowly got closer, Jack was amazed at just how big it was. Holy fuck. This was nothing like the tiny little island he'd always figured he'd wind up on, if something like this ever happened to him. Of course, he'd also figured something like this would never happen to him, so the deserted island not matching his imagination kind of made sense.

A glance back showed the ocean already reclaiming what little was left of the plane. Inside of a few hours, all the debris would be carried away or sink or both. All the big wreckage was way down in the Pacific somewhere, and Jack had heard this was one deep fucking ocean. No way was anyone gonna find that thing anytime soon. Jack realized they might be here for a while.

They steered in for a sheltered cove, guarded on either side by tall, black boulders with rich green vegetation growing on top of them. Whole trees, actually. Jack had never seen anything like this; it would have been invaded and turned into a resort a long time ago if it had been anywhere near civilization. All the same, Jack was amazed no one seemed to have ever come here.

As the raft neared the shore, Jack climbed over the side, both feet making a dramatic splash as he landed in the shallow water. Roger jumped over the other side, and together they hauled the raft forward until it ran around on the sand. More and more of the boys started climbing out, and they pulled the raft the rest of the way up onto the beach.

The boys all stayed clustered together, not seeming to want to stray very far. Ralph, the highest-ranking cadet, strode forward and came to a halt, surveying the beach and the tree-line, the mountain peaks covered in green. There were a lot of trees; vegetation thrived on this island. It probably rained all the fucking time. Jack unbuttoned his dress jacket, opening his bare chest up to the air some. In this warm part of the year, he was always going without his white uniform shirt, getting in trouble for it when somebody checked up close.

Academy regulations were not going to hold up very long around here.

Jack came up and stood on Ralph's right, and Roger stood on his left. The three oldest boys present were also the three cadet officers, so all the younger boys had two reasons for kind of just standing around, waiting to be told what to do. They probably assumed the three had some kind of plan, or they'd come up with one.

"Fuck," Tony said from behind them.

"Bend over," Roger replied.

A few boys sniggered.

"All right," Ralph said. "We don't know anything about this place, but I think this cove looks okay. It'll help cover us if a storm blows in, so it's better than an open stretch of beach."

"Maybe there's a cave or somethin' farther in there," Pablo, cadet sergeant and the only Hispanic cadet present, said, looking further inland.

"Maybe there is," Ralph said. "But if we go heading right in looking for it, we might not find it or be able to get back here before dark."

Just then Captain Benson was carried past the group; Simon and a few boys had lifted him out of the raft. They set him down under one of the palm trees.

"I'm not leaving him here," Simon said. He spoke quietly as he looked at everyone, but it was clear he was serious.

"Okay," Ralph said, nodding. He took a head count to make sure everyone was present, then announced, "It looks like everyone made it except the pilots, like we figured. Right now, everybody just take a break. We just survived a plane crash. That's no joke. We'll stay put for now and figure out if we're gonna move tomorrow."

They did some scouting around the area of the cove, but found nothing to eat. Just a lot of tropical plants. Most of the boys were pretty wiped out by the terror of the plane crash, and didn't want to go very far. They stayed on the beach in little groups, talking and reliving details of the crash, trying to figure out how it happened. Nobody had any real idea.

Neither Jack nor Roger could figure anything out. Even they couldn't determine what had gone wrong. Whatever it was, the plane had gone down fast as hell. Since the pilots were dead and the plane at the bottom of the ocean, chances were no one would ever find out what caused the crash. It was a mystery and that was that.

As it got dark, Ralph took a glowstick out of the pack they found in the raft. He bent it until it made a slight snapping sound, and shook it a bunch of times. It lit up after a moment, casting a lime-green glow over everything.

"What is that?" Greg, one of the smaller boys, asked as he looked at Ralph.

"It's a glow stick."

"How does it work?"

"Some kinda chemical."

"Do you think anyone else is here, sir?"

That question came from Larry, a short blond boy standing to Jack's right. Irritated by such a dumb question, Jack couldn't quite keep a sneer off his face as he said, "It's just an island. There's nothing here."

"What if there's no water?" Peter piped up. Another little one, with dark brown or black hair.

"Why isn't there any food?"

Ralph raised his hands as the little ones- and some of the older boys, to be fair- started complaining or asking questions.

"We're all tired and we're all hungry. We should just try to get some sleep. Everyone find a spot right here on the beach, and stay close by. Tomorrow we'll figure out what we're gonna do."

Nobody else had anything to add. It had been a long and terrifying day. They were tired, and largely just glad to be alive. Jack didn't see why they shouldn't go with Ralph's idea, and it would quiet the little ones down for now. He wasn't here to be anyone's babysitter, so if Ralph had a plan that shut the kids up, that was good with him.

Jack picked out a spot on the sand to lie down. Roger took a place nearby, the loyal right hand man, looking out for his boss. Jack liked that. He was number three out of the top cadets, but with Roger backing his play, he was basically number two. That was good enough for now. Ralph might have been a cadet lieutenant colonel, but Jack was the oldest. Pretty soon the guys would all realize that, and he'd be in charge for as long as they were on this island after that. Jack closed his eyes and slept. As tired as he was, he had no trouble falling asleep.

XX

Simon stayed up long after the other boys went to sleep, even the officers. He wasn't sure why he decided to stay up. He didn't ever seem to do anything quite the way the rest of the boys did. Simon was an anomaly, an oddity. Nobody had ever known quite what to do with him. Not his parents, who sent him off to Bunker Hill so he'd have some stability in his life as they divorced- and so he'd miss the ugly fights they'd been having beforehand. But Simon had heard them. He'd heard them all through the central air vent in his room, which was connected to the same duct as the one in the kitchen.

Quiet, thoughtful, and modest, Simon was not well-suited to the special brand of macho attitude so prevalent at a prestigious military prep school like Bunker Hill. He could wear a uniform and march and follow orders and clean the barracks, but other than that, he was useless. Simon had no interest in athletics, because he didn't really care about competing with the other boys. He was always wandering off, and had gotten in trouble more than once for being found going to or coming from the woods behind the school, which was off-limits most of the time. Simon knew it was against regulations, and told the school authorities that if they demanded if he knew them or not. He knew the regulations said no. He just didn't see why he couldn't go in the woods once in a while.

Simon loved being alone in nature. Really, he loved being alone. He didn't mind people, he just didn't have anything to say to them most of the time. The other guys always had something to talk about, were always competing and playing games. Simon wasn't into any of that. But now, in this rugged and unknown place, he wondered if all of them going to bed at once was such a good idea. They were always talking about military this and military that at Bunker Hill. Some of these cadets thought they were as tough as soldiers. Didn't soldiers post sentries, especially in unknown territory?

Oh, well. The fact was that these boys were not soldiers, and Simon knew that. He was probably worrying more than he needed to anyway.

He'd heard some birds, but that was it. It seemed like they were safe enough here. But they were going to need to find food and water soon; if they didn't, it wouldn't matter where they set up a camp. They'd be in trouble.

Simon resolved to get going first thing in the morning. He tended to wake up before reveille sounded at school, so that would serve him well here. And if he could get out there and find everybody some fresh water, it'd go a long way to helping everybody.

Beside him, Captain Benson slept fitfully. He would mutter and groan every so often, and it worried Simon that his condition seemed to have gotten worse since the crash, not better like it had for everyone else. Of course, no one else had been knocked out like Captain Benson had been, and in his weakened state, he may have gotten sick. Simon heard him muttering about water a couple times. Maybe if they found him some, he'd get better.

It was amazing that all twenty-four of them had made it. Had the plane sunk even a little faster, they might not have been so lucky.

Ralph, the cadet lieutenant colonel, had a lean but sturdy frame and was well-respected by cadets and Academy staff alike. He wasn't much of a womanizer, but girls' heads turned when he walked by, more than Ralph probably noticed. He had curly brown hair, cut short as per school regulations. Simon liked and respected Ralph, and appreciated him for being one of the few who seemed to understand Simon was just a loner and a thinker. Unlike most of the boys at Bunker Hill, Ralph was neither macho and aggressive nor militaristic or pushy. He was never needlessly harsh nor pointlessly cruel, and made decisions as fairly as he could.

The same wasn't true of Jack Merridew, cadet first lieutenant and Band Company's second in command. Jack was smart, thought, moved, and acted fast, and could be as smooth and charming as anyone Simon had ever met. He was tall, lean, pale and handsome, with golden blond hair that he was always carefully conditioning and parting to one side. Jack was good-looking, and he was very, very aware of it. His vanity made him extremely sensitive to slights, and if you got Jack mad, he never forgot it. He took an authoritarian approach to leadership, wherein the dictator knows best and everyone else should just do what he says.

Roger was the same way. He was sleeping not far from Jack, close at hand in case the "boss" needed him. He was one rank higher than Jack, but didn't seem to mind Jack's strutting and swaggering and generally acting like he was in charge all the time. Roger wasn't much of a talker, whereas Jack almost never stopped talking. The two complemented each other well. Jack talked and Roger made sure everyone listened, and together they owned Band Company. No one crossed Roger, because he was tall, strong, and mean. He didn't have the lively, energetic look in his eyes that Jack always did. Roger's blue eyes, staring out at the world from under his neatly-combed brown hair, were cold. He bullied other cadets endlessly, yet got away with it because no one dared to report him, and he always knew when and how to avoid the teachers. Roger also could go from calm to furious in a second, and he always got you back if you crossed him. Simon liked to look on the bright side, and believed everyone had something genuinely good about them. He found it very unsettling that there was nothing good he could think of about Roger.

Pablo was the senior cadet non-commissioned officer in the group. He was okay. Tan skin, black hair, and a solid if unremarkable build to him. He'd survived as cadet sergeant because he never bucked the system in Band Company. Pablo wasn't cruel like Roger or vain and hot-tempered and vain like Jack, but he didn't go against them. Simon didn't really blame him. You asked for a lot of trouble if you crossed Roger and Jack, and Pablo, like a lot of guys, didn't want any part of it.

Blond, lean Steve was cadet corporal and the lowest-ranking cadet with any official authority. Some days he strutted around and acted like an Army sergeant, but most of the time he'd lie around and complain about how he always had to do all the work while ordering the cadet privates under him to do it. Steve, like more than one cadet at Bunker Hill, admired Jack

Rapper, like a good number of the boys, was twelve. Unlike anyone else here, he was black, which made him stand out instantly in the group. He wore his jet-black hair in a "high-and-tight", very short on the sides and a little longer on the top. The boys had given him the nickname of "Rapper" immediately; he was one of only a small number of black cadets at Bunker Hill, and the pervading stereotype was that all blacks liked rap music. Rapper actually did, though, and in fact was always smuggling in cassette tapes of rap music and selling them to other cadets.

The twins, Sam and Eric, were twelve and identical in behavior and looks. They bickered all the time, but they would drop it the second someone else bothered one of them. Simon had observed them enough that he knew the lanky, brown-haired twins were good friends. They were so hard to tell apart that most people just called them "Samneric," short for "Sam and Eric". You called them that because not only did you see them separated about as often as you saw a unicorn, but they talked and acted alike and had so close a bond, they were almost a pair that made up one person. Shut one of them up and the other started chattering like a sarcastic rodent. Get one of them mad and you'd have them both angry inside of a minute. Whatever one thought of you was what the other thought. The twins were sleeping side-by-side. Sam briefly stirred while Simon was watching him, and Eric briefly woke up too. They looked at each other, mumbled a few things, then nodded and went back to sleep.

Patterson, yet another brown-haired member of the group of cadets, was athletic-looking but generally kept to himself. He and Luke, the one who wore his hair just like a lot of Marines did- an even shorter and sharper-looking high-and-tight than Rapper wore- got along okay. Will, blond and lean, generally followed Jack's lead. John, another of the thirteen-year-olds, didn't get involved in leadership disputes or ego contests in the barracks; like Luke, he just did what the loudest and highest-ranking cadet said.

Andy, the one and only red-haired boy present, was even-tempered and liked keeping track of current popular TV shows. His family had just gotten a color TV, so he was always talking about it. He had just turned twelve a week ago.

Tex, Larry, Billy, Rusty, Greg, Peter, Sheraton and Mikey were the little ones. They were ten or eleven, but Mikey and Tex were nine. Mikey had the distinction of being the only Jew in this group of twenty-four; Roger had a way of singling out Mikey and making fun of his religion that Simon did not like. Whether Roger was actually a Nazi, Simon had no idea. There was a good chance Roger picked on Mikey simply because he was small, which made him an easy target to begin with, and his religion made it easy for Roger to find a way to get to him. The little ones had it the worst at Bunker Hill, their small size and low physical strength putting them solidly at the bottom of the pecking order. They tended to travel in packs and were all assigned to I Company, where all the 4th and 5th graders were.

That was everyone- except an overweight boy with a brush cut and thick glasses who'd joined them for this trip not long after coming to Bunker Hill. He ranked even lower than the little ones militarily; he was still a plebe. That was any cadet who hadn't yet survived the Crucible, the week-long series of physical and mental challenges and trials that, provided you passed, ended with a ceremony in which you and the others who'd endured the Crucible alongside you were declared full cadets and granted the right to wear your capshield, the elaborate metal badge that was fixed to the front and center of your dress cap. Nobody had a cap or capshield anymore, though. Their headgear had gone down with the plane. Simon tried to think of what the heavyset boy's name was, and was privately embarrassed when he realized he didn't know. He normally prided himself on knowing everyone's name, even if no one seemed to know his except when taking roll throughout the day.

Simon never actually decided he was going to sleep. As he sat there leaned up against the tree, his eyes drooped shut a few times. Eventually, they stayed that way.

XX

The group was gone when Simon woke up. Every single one of them. Simon sat bolt upright, staring around in shock. It was still dark! Had they gotten up even before he did and just left him here, all before dawn? Was it possible they'd left him behind in the morning and Simon had proceeded to sleep through an entire day? Even Captain Benson had gone. The man was incapacitated; he hadn't woken up since the crash. Had the other boys carried him away when they left?

Simon suddenly became aware that someone was standing over him. A tall figure was casting a shadow over him, blocking the light of the moon. Looking up, he saw the nametag, the Academy teacher's uniform and rank insignia. Captain Benson! Simon's heart skipped a beat, and he sprang to his feet. "Captain Benson! Wha- where'd everyone go?"

"They're coming back, Simon," the band instructor said gently. "I need to talk to you a minute."

"What about, sir?"

"This isn't just some island. It's more than just sand and trees and mountains. There's danger here."

Simon was afraid of that. "Is it like big cats or something? Predators?"

"The time's coming when you're going to have to choose between being a hunter or one of the hunted, Simon. I know you like to try to help everybody but that won't work for very long here."

This didn't make any sense, and it was really winding Simon up. "I don't understand. Is a fight coming? What if I don't want to fight?"

"You won't have a choice."

XX

Simon woke up just after that, and he looked around, staying completely still. Everyone was here. The other twenty-three cadets who'd been on the plane with Simon were all lying around in a cluster, resting after a long and difficult day. They hadn't left. Captain Benson hadn't made any sudden and miraculous recovery, either. He was still lying next to Simon, a bandage around his head.

What was that about? Had he just imagined that? Captain Benson had looked well in that dream; his uniform was even clean and neatly pressed and ironed. Simon was uneasy about what had been said. It sounded like something bad was going to happen on this island. Like they weren't going to just spend however long it took to get rescued working together and staying alive.

Hunter and hunted, having to fight- that was some pretty ominous stuff. It didn't sound like it was going to be against the elements or against animals on this island. It sounded more like the fight would be between these cadets, against each other.

Simon didn't care for that thought at all. Still, he knew he couldn't just dismiss it. Uncomfortable as it was, he resolved to keep the dream in mind. If something bad was going to happen in this island while they were here, having advance knowledge of it could only help him.

It was almost dawn. Simon felt rested enough, and he knew the others would be getting up before too long. The youth decided to head out on his own, making his way into the tropical forest as he began the search for fresh water. Simon found a stick to use for walking, and possibly as a tool if he needed it. It was bamboo, just the right length for him, good and sturdy.

As he headed further inland, surrounded on all sides by the trees and plants, listening to the birds squawk and fly overhead, Simon felt again what he so often felt when he wandered the woods behind the main grounds of Bunker Hill. Away from all the people who didn't know what to make of him, nor he of them, Simon was remarkably at ease. Set on completing the mission he'd assigned himself, he journeyed onward, finding a fresh water stream and pond not long after the sun came up.


A/N: 3-30-2017. So I got the first chapter posted, for the first-ever story I'm writing on request. AM83220 and I will be working together again on this story, so if you like my work, think about looking at his. I will also be making some references to CocoSushi's superb descriptions of the personalities of Jack and Roger in the 1990 movie in that user's LOTF story "Dirty Game", and maybe will make mention of that story's OC, Arianna Lovejoy. Obviously she won't appear in this story but Jack and Roger might talk about her. This is of course dependent on CocoSushi not objecting to any of it.

I like to make references to things in my stories. When Tony says "Fuck" and Roger replies "Bend over," that is a reference to Stephen King's 1984 short story "Beachworld". When the narrative from Jack's POV notes that the beginning of the plane crash was "like God had drop-kicked their tail", that is a reference to the 2006 novel "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War" by Max Brooks.

The "throw some candy to the children" cadence is one that I actually heard and marched to while I was at a private military boarding school. Needless to say, that is one you didn't hear cadets calling cadence sing much when faculty and staff were close by, but a lot of cadets thought it was hilarious. The cadence about napalm is an old Army cadence I heard used to be sung back in the day. Since Jack is very much the stereotypical cocky, dirty-minded teenage male, he'd probably turn out to be a virtual catalogue of dirty and inappropriate cadences.

I made an effort to get this first chapter done and get this, one of my 8 currently active stories, going. It's definitely a good thing to at least get one chapter completed and upload it to the site. I think it helps make the story a little more "real". Plus, readers can get a look at the beginning of it, gives you an opportunity to see what people think. This was mostly an introductory chapter, but things will pick up soon enough. I can't promise exactly when the next chapter will be uploaded, since my Voice of the Night fanfiction, "What You Wished For", and my offline commitments take priority. But I did want to take the time to at least get the ball rolling on this one a little bit. To any readers and/or reviewers, thank you. It is appreciated.

Chapter 2