Trial by Fire by Jeff Probst Page B

across the rocks, and just kept going. It was a way to get off by herself for a little while—a chance to get her head together before she tried to face the others back at camp.
    Now, here she stood, transfixed by what she’d found.
    The boat was nearly twice as big as the
Lucky Star
had been. Vanessa didn’t know much about this kind of thing, but it looked as if it had been built for carrying cargo of some kind. Not a pleasure craft, and definitely not a sailboat. But it was hard to tell any more than that.
    It seemed to be made entirely of metal. The outside had turned halfway back to the colors of the earth around it, with a heavy coat of green algae on its rusted hull. If there had been a name painted on the side at some point, there wasn’t anymore.
    Then slowly, it dawned on Vanessa that the boat, however long it had been here, might still have something on board that they could use. Blankets, maybe. Tools. A tarp. Anything at all.
    She had to work her way inland a little bit to get closer. She pushed through vines and fallen limbs, keeping an eye on the tiny bay to her right through the trees, looking for the best way to reach the boat.
    As she came out of the woods again, it was onto a small spit of sand, not even big enough to be a beach. At the far end was a stream trickling down through a wide crack in the rocky shore. At the top of that were more woods on a level piece of ground overlooking the boat itself.
    And if Vanessa wasn’t mistaken, there was some kind of small structure up there. She squinted, trying to get a better look. It wasn’t a building. It was a post of some kind—something in the ground. Definitely man-made.
    â€œHello?” she called out. The sound of her own voice in the silent cove startled her, and for a moment she forgot about the boat.
    She worked her way up through the crevice in the rocks, stopping long enough for a long, sweet drink of fresh water from the stream—her first in days. Then she climbed a little higher, until she was standing in a woodsy, sun-dappled clearing at the top.
    There, sunk into the ground, was a crudely made wooden cross. It had no name or markings. It was just two planks with a single nail in the middle to hold them together. Vanessa’s heart pounded as she took it in, considering what it all meant.
    As her eyes traveled a few feet farther into the woods, she saw something else. Something much worse. Lying on the ground, under some number of years’ worth of growth and decay, sat a skeleton. A
human
skeleton. Half covered as it was with leaves and fallen branches, there was still no mistaking the shape of it for anything else.
    Vanessa staggered back. As she did, a fuller realization came to her. Whoever those people had been, they were trapped here on Nowhere Island, too.
    And more than that, they’d never been rescued.
    Without another look, she turned and ran back in the direction from which she’d just come. The new boat, the stream of fresh water—all of it would have to wait.
    More than anything right now, she had to tell the others.

EPILOGUE
    KONA, HAWAII—Progress on the search for the Benson-Diaz party from the missing Lucky Star has been slow, according to Coast Guard officials. Initial hopes were that the rescued captain and first mate of that vessel would be able to point rescue operations in the direction of the four missing children. So far, those efforts have proven unsuccessful.
    Dexter Kingson and Joe Kahali, captain and first mate of the Lucky Star, say that they’re thankful to be alive, but that their first concern has been, and remains, the Benson-Diaz family children—Vanessa Diaz, Benjamin “Buzz” Diaz, Carter Benson, and Jane Benson.
    Commander Carl Blakey of the U.S. Coast Guard expressed both relief at the recovery of Captain Kingson and Mr. Kahali, and also some continued hope that they will be able to offer unique assistance in the ongoing search.
    â€œIf