Island

by Richard Laymon

  ‘No!’ Thelma blurted. ‘It’s a lie!’ She started to blubber. She still held a half-eaten cracker with a slab of half-eaten cheese on top. I expected her to throw it. Instead, she shoved it into her mouth. Then she flopped over and scurried away from us on her hands and knees. When she was clear of the group, she staggered to her feet and trotted away.

  Kimberly started to get up.

  Billie raised a hand and shook her head slightly. ‘We’ve gotta make some plans. She’ll be all right.’

  Kimberly stayed.

  Thelma stopped just short of the water’s edge, then sat down on the sand, her back to us.

  With Thelma out of earshot, a change came over Kimberly. She let her anger out. ‘The dirty bastard. I knew it had to be him. He’s gotta be the one who killed Keith, too.’

  ‘He probably plans to kill us all,’ Billie said.

  ‘Guys first,’ I added.

  ‘What’re we gonna do?’ Connie asked. She seemed more frightened than her mother or Kimberly.

  ‘We can’t just sit around and wait for him to make the next move,’ Billie said.

  ‘That’d be me,’ I said.

  Though Billie nodded in agreement, she said, ‘It might just be the next person he happens to catch off guard. I realize he started with Keith, then got Andrew, but ... he couldn’t possibly have known who’d be going after the dinghy this morning.’ She hesitated. ‘When I think how close we came to letting it go ...’

  ‘If I’d kept my big mouth shut,’ Connie said.

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ I told her. ‘Andrew wasn’t about to let it go.’

  ‘I could’ve stopped him,’ Billie said.

  ‘Nobody’s to blame,’ Kimberly said. ‘Nobody but Wesley.’

  ‘He’s awfully damn sneaky,’ I said. ‘We’ll really have to watch ourselves.’

  ‘We’ll have to do more than that,’ Billie said.

  Kimberly nodded. ‘We need a plan of action.’

  ‘I still think we oughta get off the island.’ That was Connie, of course.

  ‘No,’ Billie said. ‘Your dad was absolutely right about that: we’ve got food and water here. We can survive indefinitely.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Look what happened to him.’

  ‘Wesley did that,’ Kimberly said. ‘What we’ve gotta do is eliminate Wesley.’

  ‘Or eliminate ourselves,’ I suggested.

  Billie asked, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He can’t kill us if he can’t find us.’

  ‘You mean we should try to hide?’

  ‘It’s just a thought. The thing is, we’d have to find him before we could do anything to put him out of action. That might be a pretty good trick.- But he knows exactly where we are. We’re almost always in plain sight, here on the beach. All he has to do is hang back in the jungle and spy on us till he spots an opportunity to strike. But what if he comes looking for us and we aren’t here?’

  ‘He’d find us,’ Connie said. Always the optimist.

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  Frowning, Kimberly said, ‘I’m not too crazy about playing hide and seek with the bastard. I want to take him out. Hunt him down and kill him.’

  ‘Why not draw him in and kill him?’ Billie suggested.

  ‘How would we do that?’ Kimberly asked.

  ‘Pull a disappearing act,’ Billie explained, giving me a nod. ‘Lure him in and ambush him.’

  I liked the sound of that.

  From the look on Kimberly’s face, so did she. ‘How would we pull it off?’ she asked.

  Billie shrugged. ‘We’ll have to figure something out.’

  So we sat there talking about it, tossing schemes back and forth as we passed around the bottle of wine. We were in agreement on the general principle of the thing, but kept running into the same snag; we had to figure that Wesley might already be watching us. How could we possibly pull off a vanishing act (especially one that would allow us to hide nearby and attack him), right in front of his eyes?

  Even in the middle of the night, with the fire out, the beach wouldn’t be dark enough to completely hide our activities. The sand was too pale, and too much light came from the moon and stars.

  ‘We need to keep the fire going,’ Billie said. ‘It’ll screw up his night vision.’

  ‘But if we don’t put it out,’ Kimberly said, ‘he’ll be able to see us in the firelight.’

  ‘Maybe we can figure a way to make that worker for us,’ I suggested. ‘You know? Make him see what we want him to see. And while he’s watching that, the rest of us might be sneaking to our positions.’

  Billie nodded. ‘Distract him.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘If, say, one of us creates a diversion he can’t take his eyes off of, the rest of us could do just about anything.’

  ‘What sort of diversion do you have in mind?’ Connie asked. From the look on her face, she must’ve already suspected what I had in mind.

  I shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know. We could stage a fight, maybe.’

  Not what I really had in mind, but I would not be the one to suggest a striptease.

  ‘A fight would take at least two people,’ Billie pointed out. ‘That only leaves three to maneuver around and jump him.’

  ‘It’s just the first thing that came into my head,’ I explained.

  Right.

  ‘Three could be enough,’ Kimberly pointed out. ‘I want to be one of them, that’s all.’

  ‘Connie and Rupert,’ Billie said. She glanced at each of us, then met Kimberly’s eyes. ‘They can have a quarrel during their watch tonight.’

  Typecasting.

  Billie didn’t stop there. ‘A real knock-down drag-out fight.’

  ‘A quiet one,’ Kimberly added. ‘They don’t want to wake us up.’

  ‘Right. And while they’re at it, we’ll slip out of our beds and hide.’

  ‘Hide where?’ Connie asked.

  ‘You’ll be out in the open, fighting with Rupert.’

  ‘I don’t mean me. Where’ll you go, where Wesley won’t be able to see you? The rocks are too far away.’

  ‘We’ll do some digging this afternoon,’ Kimberly said. ‘Make ourselves a hidey-hole or ...’

  ‘He’ll think we’re digging a latrine,’ Billie said.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘Connie and I get his attention by having a big fight. You guys sneak over to your ambush positions. But how do we get Wesley to come out of the jungle?’

  ‘You and Connie split up,’ Billie suggested.

  ‘She runs off,’ Kimberly elaborated.

  These two women made quite a team.

  ‘She runs to the water to get away from you,’ Kimberly continued.

  ‘Leaving you alone and upset by the fire,’ Billie added.

  ‘We should have him walk toward the jungle,’ Kimberly said to Billie.

  ‘Right. After all, he’s the one Wesley probably really wants to kill next.’

  ‘Let’s not make it too easy for him,’ I suggested.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Kimberly told me. ‘We’ll be right there, just out of sight. When he comes for you, we attack.’

  ‘What if he’s got that ax?’

  ‘He won’t get a chance to use it,’ Kimberly said.

  ‘We’ll kill him before he gets close enough,’ Billie said.

  Connie raised her hand. She had a bit of a smirk on her face.

  Our plotting sure had pulled these gals out of the doldrums. They were acting as if they’d forgotten all about Keith and Andrew being dead. Apparently, scheming vengeance is a great cure for the blues.

  Anyway, Connie had a little problem with our plan. ‘What makes you so sure Wesley’s gonna be in the jungle while all this is going on? I mean, I’m supposed to go running down to the water, right? Just suppose that’s where he is? And there I am, all by myself, while you guys are waiting for him all hell and gone over here.’

  Billie grimaced. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Why does she have to leave the f
ire?’ I asked.

  ‘So you’ll be alone,’ Kimberly said.

  ‘I’ll be alone, anyway, when I walk to the jungle.’

  ‘Connie can’t be watching,’ Kimberly explained, ‘or Wesley won’t make a try for you. He’ll be afraid she might see what’s going on and raise the alarm.’

  ‘He’ll be thinking the rest of us are asleep in our usual places,’ Billie said. ‘If Connie yells and wakes us up, we might come running to help you. He doesn’t want that.’

  ‘He has to think he’s got you alone,’ Kimberly added.

  Connie started up again. ‘If you think I’m gonna go running off by myself...’ .‘

  ‘Wesley’ll probably be in the jungle,’ Kimberly said.

  ‘Like last night when he took off with the dinghy?’

  ‘I know how we can do it,’ I said, meeting Connie’s frown. ‘We’re having our big fight by the fire, okay? Now, suppose I really land one, and knock you out?’

  ‘Oh, terrific,’ she said.

  ‘It’s pretend,’ I told her. ‘I wouldn’t actually hit you, but you’d go down and stay down. Like you’re unconscious. That way, you’ll be safe and sound by the fire, in plenty of light and not very far from help. But you’ll be out of the picture, as far as Wesley knows.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Billie said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kimberly. ‘I don’t see any problem with that.’

  Connie wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered.

  ‘What’s the matter?’I asked.

  ‘It seems ... kind of corny.’

  ‘Corny?’ I asked. ‘This guy killed your father.’

  Wrong thing to say.

  ‘You think I don’t know that? Fuck you!’ She flung a handful of sand at me.

  At least it wasn’t a spear, this time.

  I turned my head away, shutting my eyes and mouth. The grains of sand stung my cheek. They got in my ear, too.

  ‘That’s enough, Connie,’ Billie told her.

  ‘He’s such a creep!’

  ‘Just calm down, honey. The thing is, we’ve got to do whatever we can - whether it’s corny or not. It isn’t just that he killed your dad and Keith; he’ll kill us all if we don’t stop him.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  I said, ‘Maybe everything’ll turn out wonderful, and he’ll stop after he nails my butt.’

  Connie glared at me. ‘Yeah, maybe so.’

  A smile actually lifted the corners of Kimberly’s mouth. ‘You guys oughta be able to pull off a very convincing fight. ’

  ‘Only why don’t you save it for tonight?’ Billie suggested.

  Connie was sort of snarling. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she muttered. Then she turned her head and looked over at Thelma. ‘What about her?’

  We had a brief discussion about that. The upshot was, we decided to keep the plot to ourselves. For one thing, Thelma wasn’t in good enough physical shape to be much help in eliminating Wesley. For another, she’s his wife. She apparently loves him, even if he did chop her father’s head in half.

  After deciding to leave her in the dark, we figured out where to construct our ambush site.

  The ‘latrine’ would go about two-thirds of the distance from our campfire to the edge of the jungle, then off quite a way to the south of the stream that cuts down through the middle of the beach. (The route to be taken by Kimberly and Billie shouldn’t cross the fire. Diversion or no diversion, we don’t want them backlit as they sneak to their position.)

  For the next couple of hours, we dug in the sand with our hands, with our spears, and with cups and pots. Thelma wondered what we were doing. We explained that we were making a latrine so that we wouldn’t have to risk our lives by going into the jungle. She seemed to think that was a good idea, and she even helped.

  While digging, we came up with the idea of adding an enclosure. So we made a couple of frameworks out of branches, then went to the edge of the jungle and gathered foliage. When we were done, we had a double-sided stall with two walls about four feet high. They ran parallel to the edge of the jungle, so Wesley wouldn’t be able to see in - not if he was watching from the general area where we expected him to be.

  The make-believe latrine should provide a great hiding place for Kimberly and Billie, if they could just get to it without being spotted.

  A problem came up, though, a while after we finished. Thelma wanted to use it.

  I had already started to write, but I was sitting within earshot. Kimberly intercepted her. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ Thelma said.

  ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You can’t use it.’

  ‘I helped build it.’ She was indignant. ‘What’re you talking about?’

  ‘Nobody can use it till tomorrow.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘It has to set,’ Kimberly explained.

  Thelma frowned and looked confused. ‘What?’

  ‘The sand needs time to set. Otherwise, it’ll all fall in and fill up the hole.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘No, it’s true.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

  ‘It’s true,’ I chimed in. ‘You never use a sand latrine the first day. I thought everyone knew that.’

  Thelma wrinkled her face. She looked quite perplexed, and vaguely suspicious.

  ‘Where am I supposed to go, then?’ she asked her sister.

  ‘The same place as always.’ She nodded toward the jungle. ‘I’ll get Billie and Connie. We’ll all go together, from now on.’

  ‘What about me?’ I asked.

  Thelma narrowed her eyes at me. Kimberly, though, is always a sport. She knew I was mostly kidding. ‘I think you’ll be fine right here. We won’t go far.’

  ‘Don’t you think you might need a guy along for protection?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll be fine, Rupert.’

  ‘Have it your way.’

  So all the gals went trooping off into the bush without me. I stayed where I was, but quit working on the journal for a while. I didn’t want any distractions, in case Wesley might pop up out of nowhere and make a try for me.

  Even though I felt vulnerable, I was fairly safe. I was surrounded by stretches of sand, for one thing. For another, I was fairly well armed - a spear, a club and a selection of rocks within easy reach.

  Also, the gals never went very far. They only pushed into the jungle far enough so I wouldn’t be able to see them. I could hear their voices, though, so I knew they’d be able to hear me if I had to yell for help.

  Nothing happened.

  It’s been pretty uneventful, since then. I’ve just kept working on the journal here, taking my time, keeping an eye on the gals. Kimberly and Billie went in swimming for a while. Connie went for a climb on the rocks, but never wandered out of sight. Thelma has mostly just sat around and napped.

  I’ll probably try to take a nap, myself.

  It may turn out to be a long night.

  Day Four

  The Diversion

  Thelma turned in, last night, shortly after dark. That seemed to be a good thing, since we needed her out of the picture. She’d worried me, the way she had spent so much of the day sleeping. I was afraid she might be wide awake, ready to stay up all night, and manage to wreck the ambush we had planned.

  I said as much to the others, after she’d gone off.

  ‘It’s not uncommon at all,’ Billie said, ‘for people to sleep a lot more than usual when they’re going through tough times emotionally. It’s a way of escaping from the pain of the situation.’

  Billie had been a high-school teacher before marrying Andrew. She’d taught English, but you have to learn a lot of psychology to become a teacher - at least in California. That’s probably how she picked up the stuff about escaping with sleep. Or maybe she picked it up watching Oprah.

  Kimberly said
, ‘Sleeping’s about the last thing I feel like doing.’

  ‘You’re a lot stronger than Thelma,’ Billie said.

  ‘A lean, mean, killing machine,’ said I.

  Which earned a friendly smirk from Kimberly, a roll-upward of the eyeballs from Billie, and a snarl from Connie. (You can’t please all the people all the time ...)

  Anyway, we kept sitting around the fire and talking about this and that for another hour or so. We mostly avoided the topic of the ambush, but I bet it was the main thing on all our minds. We were talking about trivial stuff to keep ourselves from dwelling on it.

  I felt awfully shaky, and even got goosebumps from time to time. Not because there was a chilly breeze, either. There was a breeze, but it was warm and felt good. It felt so good that I’d taken my shirt off, just after sundown.

  I’d started wearing a shirt, now and then, especially during the hottest times of the day - to keep from getting a sunburn. It wasn’t so much a shirt as a blouse, actually. A bright pink silk blouse that belonged to Billie. It had been retrieved from the inlet, along with so many other things, by Andrew and Keith. The lower back of the blouse had gotten burnt off, but otherwise it was fine.

  Billie is the one who picked it out for me to wear. That was way back on the day after the yacht blew up. (Seems like about ten years ago.) It was the best of the lot. I said she might want to keep it for herself. She told me, ‘If I need it, I’ll know right where to find it.’

  So far, she hasn’t asked for it. She’s been happy just going around all the time in her bikini. (As I might’ve written way back at the start of all this, she is sort of a borderline exhibitionist. We’d be seeing a lot more of her, I bet, if her daughter wasn’t around.)

  Billie uses some pretty heavy-duty sunblock. When she runs out of that, maybe she’ll start wearing more clothes. I’m not looking forward to it. I like her attire just the way it is.

  The way things are going, however, we’ll probably all be dead long before we need to worry about running out of sunblock.

  Never mind. I don’t want to think about what the future might hold for us.