The Lady and the Flies

Chapter 22

Guys, it's the last chapter! i can't believe we've made it this far. ah. i want to say all my goodbyes and farewells but I'm too choked up, but i will say that this moment has long been delayed, the moment in which The Lady and the Flies comes to a winding stop. I remember starting this and being so nervous. I'd had the idea in mind for a while—and yet it was all of you that really made this conclusion possible. There were a few times I almost gave up, but then I remembered, oh yeah, only satan writes unfinished fanfiction. So. Here it is. THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE LADY AND THE FLIES

xoxo

NeverlandsDreamer

————————————————————

Ralph and Clare layed in their covert, Ralph was wondering about Clare's wounds. Her bruised flesh was inches in diameter over her right ribs, and bruises trailed down her neck and chest from where Roger and Jack left their marks.  Ralph was in pretty bad shape too for his hair was full of dirt and tapped like the tendrils of a creeper. All over he was scratched and bruised from his flight through the forest. By the time he was fully awake, he had worked out that bathing these injuries would have to wait. How could you listen for naked feet if you were splashing in water? How could you be safe by the little stream or on the open beach?

Ralph listened. They were not really far from the Castle Rock, and during the last feast he had thought he heard sounds of pursuit. But the hunters had only sneaked into the fringes of the greenery, retrieving spears perhaps, and then had rushed back to the sunny rock as if terrified of the darkness under the leaves.

He had even glimpsed one of them, striped brown, black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill. But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt. Of course he couldn't tell Clare this or it would frighten her to death if she found out they were being hunted.

The afternoon died away; the circular spots of sunlight moved steadily over green fronds and brown fiber but no sound came from behind the rock. At last Ralph and Clare wormed out of their shelter in the ferns and sneaked forward to the edge of that impenetrable thicket that fronted the neck of land.

They peered with elaborate caution between branches at the edge and could see Robert sitting on guard at the top of the cliff. He held a spear in his left hand and was tossing up a pebble and catching it again with the right.

"They want to kill us, don't they?" Clare whispered suddenly. Ralph looked back at the girl sadly, and slowly nodded his head. She gasped and fell to the floor in tears.

Behind them a column of smoke rose thickly, so that Ralph's nostrils flared and his stomach growled. He wiped his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and for the first time since the morning felt hungry. He could see the tiredness in Clare's stride meant that she was hungry too. The tribe must be sitting round the gutted pig, watching the fat ooze and burn among the ashes. They would be intent.

Another figure, an unrecognizable one, appeared by Robert and gave him something, then turned and went back behind the rock. Robert laid his spear on the rock beside him and began to gnaw between his raised hands. So the feast was beginning and the watchman had been given his portion.

Ralph saw that for the time being they were safe. He limped away through the fruit trees, drawn by the thought of the poor food yet bitter when he remembered the feast. Feast today, and then tomorrow. . . .

He argued unconvincingly that they would let them alone, perhaps even make an outlaw of them. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again.