Island

by Richard Laymon

  Crippled, but alive.

  Or dead would’ve been just fine and dandy.

  But not this.

  I groaned and clutched the banister. Shivers scurried up my back.

  He might be anywhere-

  I twisted sideways and glanced down the stairs.

  Thank God, he wasn’t sneaking up behind me.

  Thinking that perhaps he’d managed to crawl a short distance from where he’d originally landed, I climbed the final six or seven stairs.

  No sign of him.

  He might’ve gone into one of the rooms off the hallway, or back upstairs, or downstairs ... or anywhere.

  Now what? I wondered.

  Easy. I’ll find him, or he’ll find me.

  I thought about doing a room-by-room search. But quickly gave up the idea. A search like that would be scary, dangerous and time-consuming. Possibly a waste of time, too.

  He might not even be in the house.

  He might’ve gone over to the cages.

  What if he’s with the gals, right now? Doing things to them?

  Whatever he might be doing, he wasn’t attacking me at the moment. He wasn’t available for me to deal with. I needed to figure out my next move.

  Go to the cages?

  No, no, no! Find the keys, and then go to the cages.

  Wesley hadn’t seemed to be carrying the keys when he fell down the stairs. Which meant they were probably still in the upstairs room, unless he’d returned for them.

  I dashed up the stairs. Most of them were pretty wet, so I kept a hand on the banister, ready to catch me if I should slip. But I reached the top without any trouble.

  Though the hallway was lit, the bedroom was dark. I rushed in and searched the wall near the doorway until my hand hit the switch. An overhead light came on.

  No keys on the rumpled white sheets of the bed. I snatched up both the pillows. Still no keys. Nor could I find them on the floor or nightstand or dresser. After scurrying around the room, I even dropped to my knees and looked under the bed.

  Not a completely thorough search.

  No luck. By then, however, I wasn’t expecting to find them. Wesley had returned to the room, all right. He’d either hidden the key-ring, or taken it with him.

  Taken the keys to the cages?

  I rushed to one of the windows.

  Seeing little more than my own reflection in the upper pane, I crouched and peered out through the screen.

  Out beyond the moonpale front lawn, a small area of the jungle shimmered with an orange-yellow glow of firelight.

  It gave me a nasty sinking in my stomach.

  I muttered, ‘Oh, jeez.’

  And ran from the room.

  Return To The Cages

  On my way down, I took a fast detour and grabbed up Connie’s fishing spear.

  Spear in one hand, machete in the other, razor in my sock, I trotted the rest of the way downstairs and raced out of the mansion. I leaped down the veranda steps. I sprinted across the front lawn, leaving the lights behind.

  From ground level, I couldn’t see the fireglow. Too much jungle in the way. I was certain the glow had come from the area of the cages, though.

  And wondered if I might be running into a trap.

  Wesley seemed good at traps.

  Maybe he wanted to play it safe just in case I should win against Thelma. Maybe he’d even watched us, and knew I’d taken her out.

  And figured I’d be coming after him next.

  Just his style, he might light a fire to draw me into position. But he wouldn’t be at the fire. He’d be nearby, instead, waiting to ambush me.

  With that in mind, I changed course. Instead of heading straight for the cages, I veered to the left and ran to a far comer of the lawn before entering the jungle. I went in fairly deep, then turned to the right and started making my way back.

  I was quick about it. If Wesley had gone to the cages for some reason other than to ambush me, he needed to be stopped fast. There wasn’t much need for quiet, either. With all the regular jungle noises, he wasn’t likely to hear me crashing through the bushes. Not, at least, until I was very close to him.

  When I spied the glow in the distance and off to my right, I slowed down. It seemed to come from a strange height, shining on leaves and limbs about ten or fifteen feet above ground level.

  I couldn’t recall any hills near the cages. Had Wesley climbed a tree and planted a fiery torch among its branches?

  Reminding myself that he was probably not at the torch, I hunkered down and crept closer to the area. I listened for voices, but heard none.

  I figured Wesley would probably jump me at any moment.

  The last time I’d seen him, he had been holding one knife and wearing a belt with one empty sheath. There’d probably been a second sheath on his other hip, holding his other knife.

  So I could expect him to be armed with two hunting knives.

  At least. No telling what else he might’ve grabbed before coming over to the cages.

  Not the ax, I hoped.

  I hadn’t seen the ax since our ‘last stand,’ when we’d used it as an anchor for the rope. Hadn’t seen the Swiss Army knife since then, either.

  Wesley or Thelma must’ve taken both those weapons.

  The Swiss Army knife didn’t worry me much. Though wickedly sharp, my razor was sharper. And the little pocket knife was outclassed, big-time, by my machete.

  The ax was a different story, though.

  If Wesley snuck up on me with the ax ... or some major weapon I didn’t even know about, such as a chainsaw ... or even a gun ...

  No gun, I told myself. If he’d found a usable firearm, he would’ve started using it a long time ago.

  Probably.

  But God only knew what other sorts of weapons he might’ve found. If he’d looked in those storage buildings behind the house ... A family that keeps a tractor mower might own a vast assortment of nasty tools: a chainsaw, a scythe, hedge-trimmers, a pickax, a sledge hammer.

  Most of those, I figured, wouldn’t be much worse than the ax. The ax had to be somewhere. Not in his hands, I hoped.

  I’d seen, close up, the damage it had done to Andrew’s head.

  The ax really scared me.

  Scared the living hell out of me until the moment I found out what Wesley did have.

  Then I wished he’d had the ax instead.

  Wait, wait. Time out. That was jumping ahead. The last thing I want to do is jump ahead - bring myself closer to when I need to write about what’s coming, anyway, much too soon for my taste.

  I wish I could just skip the whole business.

  I’ve come this far, though. I’ve already written about all sorts of nasty shit that hurt to write about because it was so disgusting or horrible or personally embarrassing. What’s coming is worse than anything else, so far. I’d love to stop writing, right now, and avoid the rest.

  That’d be chicken, though.

  It’s not as if I haven’t known what’s coming. For days, ever since I first started to write ‘The Rest of the Story,’ I’ve known how things turned out at the cages that night. I’ve known how painful it would be to write about. Now that the time is just about here, I can’t just call it off. Even though that’s exactly what I’d like to do.

  I mean, it’s the end of the story. I’ve gone through several ballpoint pens, my entire spiral notebook and most of a smaller notebook that I found in Erin’s bedroom (everything is on Erin’s paper since ‘Last Words’ at the end of my journal) all to keep track of what has happened from the time Wesley stranded us on this island. I’ve probably spent some seventy to eighty hours writing. I didn’t go to all that trouble just to go yellow and quit before telling how things came to an end.

  So, here goes.

  Sneaking toward the fireglow, I found myself in the bushes behind one of the seven gorilla cages. From where I crouched, the cage was only a dim, black shape. It appeared to be empty, but I couldn’t be sure. The fire was still a good
distance off.

  Keeping the spear and machete in my hands, I crawled between the bushes and scurried across a strip of open ground toward the back of the cage. Before I got close enough for the bars to interfere with my spear, I turned to the right and hurried to the cage’s far corner. I slipped around that comer. As I crept along the side of the cage, I looked through its bars.

  The fire came from that direction. It was high and far away, as if Wesley had flung a blazing torch on top of one of the cages. The back-light let me see that the cage beside me was empty. So was the next cage down. The torch seemed to be directly above the third cage.

  Much farther away than it might sound.

  Each cage was shaped like a rectangle, about twelve feet high, fifteen feet wide and maybe twenty-five feet long. There was an open space of about five feet between cages. So the torch must’ve been some seventy or eighty feet away from me.

  Because of the distance, my angle of vision and all the bars in the way, I couldn’t see if anyone was up on top of the cage with the torch.

  But I could see a woman inside the cage. Her face was anybody’s guess. I recognized her figure, though, in spite of the distance, bars, and murky light. She stood near the middle of her cage, almost directly under the torch, her naked body half-concealed by shadows but unmistakably Billie.

  She didn’t walk anywhere, but turned around slowly as if looking for someone.

  Maybe looking for me.

  Facing my way, she seemed to stare at me. She probably couldn’t see me, though, in the heavy darkness at my end of the cages.

  So where’s Wesley? I wondered. Up on Billie’s cage with the torch, or waiting to jump out of the jungle and take me from behind?

  I needed a clear look at the top of her cage.

  If I could climb this cage ...

  No. I might’ve been strong enough to shinny up the bars, but I sure couldn’t do it without setting down my spear and machete.

  Which weren’t going to leave my hands. Not, at least, unless I knew for sure that Wesley wouldn’t be jumping me.

  Keeping hold of the weapons, I retraced my way into the jungle. In among the bushes and trees, I watched the glow of the torch and took a route parallel to the row of gorilla cages. I stayed far enough back to keep the cages and the blaze of the torch out of sight.

  For a while, I planned to sneak in near Billie’s cage and try to see if Wesley was on top.

  But if I could spot him, he could spot me.

  I hit upon a better idea.

  Don’t look for him - ask.

  Sticking to my route, I continued through the jungle. Past the torchlight. And on, and on, leaving the glow farther and farther behind me.

  When I judged that I’d covered enough distance, I started sneaking to the right.

  I thought I had probably overshot Erin’s cage, and would need to backtrack and search for it. Luck was with me, though. I came out of the jungle behind the middle of her cage.

  After a quick look from side to side, I started crawling across the strip of open ground.

  Erin didn’t seem to be aware of my approach. She stood at the door of her cage. Though she was merely a dim shape in the darkness, she appeared to have her back toward me. Her hands were raised to about the height of her head, and seemed to be gripping the bars of her door.

  Pausing, I looked to my right and saw Alice’s cage. The girl was hunkered down - as if cowering or trying to hide - at the back comer nearest to Erin’s cage.

  I couldn’t see anyone inside Connie’s cage. Which was closer to the torchlight, but a fair distance away from me. I figured she must be in it - just out of sight. Maybe lying down.

  The next cage was Kimberly’s. The light was better, way over there. Not so much darkness as a shivery glow. What with the distance and my angle, though, I couldn’t exactly tell where Connie’s cage left off, Kimberly’s began or ended, or Billie’s began.

  Someone seemed to be roaming around down there, in among the confusion of bars. I supposed it must be Kimberly, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I tried to spot the torch.

  Couldn‘t, though. Not the torch, just its glow.

  At the other end of the cages, I’d been a lot closer to it. From my new position, the bright aura of torchlight might’ve been coming from on top of Kimberly’s cage. I figured the torch was probably still above Billie‘s, though.

  Anyway, I stopped inspecting the place and finished crawling across to Erin’s cage. When I was almost there, I turned myself sideways. I lay down flat, mashing the tall grass on the ground alongside the bars. The grass was maybe six inches high, so it would help to conceal me. It felt cool and wet. I put the spear and machete by my sides, and propped myself up on my elbows.

  Erin still stood at the door of her cage.

  I called out to her. It was a whisper, really. She didn’t respond, so I whispered her name more loudly. The pale blot of her head jerked. Her hands fell away from the bars. The width of her body narrowed, then widened, as she turned around.

  ‘Erin,’ I whispered again.

  She started walking toward me. She had a slight hitch to her gait - a limp.

  Which gave me a sudden, harsh reminder of what I’d watched them do to her. Wesley and Thelma. In the downstairs room. How they’d brought Erin in wearing a white blouse, a cute tartan kilt, and knee socks. How they’d stripped her, brutalized her, done such horrible, sick things to her ... All while I watched, guilty and aroused. It made me feel strange, just thinking about it. I had to squirm a little in the dewy grass.

  ‘Rupert?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah.’

  She stopped at the bars and lay down on her side of them, matching my position, her head turned, her face close to mine.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Okay. What’s going on here?’

  ‘Wesley came.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Up on top of the cages. I think so, anyhow. It’s kinda hard to keep track of him all the time.’

  ‘Is everybody okay?’

  ‘Rupert?’ Alice’s voice, her whisper loud.

  I turned my head and found her. She was still at the comer of her cage, but no longer in a hunched position. She was poised there on all fours like a dog, her face to the bars. ‘Don’t leave me out of everything,’ she said.

  ‘You were asleep, anyway,’ Erin told her.

  ‘Was not.’

  ‘We’d better keep our voices down,’ I said. ‘Come on,’ I told Erin. I picked up my two weapons. Then she and I crawled, side by side, the bars between us.

  I wished there was more light. I wanted to be able to see her and Alice. But this was better than last time, when the darkness had been almost total. This time, at least I could make out their shapes - sort of. Basically, they weren’t much more than pale blurs without any distinct features.

  At the comer of her cage, Erin halted. I crawled around it, turned myself so I faced the rear, put down my spear and machete, and sat in the grass between the two cages.

  Alice on my left, Erin on my right.

  Like old times, except this time we were gathered at the back of the passageway, not the front.

  ‘I thought you were asleep,’ I told Alice. ‘That’s why I didn’t...’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’m sure glad you’re back.’

  ‘Is everybody okay?’ I asked.

  ‘All depends,’ Alice said. ‘What do you ... ?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Erin said. ‘I mean, you know. Not exactly fine and dandy, but we’re the same as before.’

  ‘He hasn’t been at us,’ Alice explained.

  ‘Where’d you go?’

  ‘Over to the house, for starters. I went looking for the keys, so I could come back and let everybody out.’

  ‘Did you find them?’ Erin asked.

  ‘Wesley doesn’t have them?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I know he hasn’t got them,’ Alice said.

 
; ‘Well, he didn’t unlock any cages.’

  ‘He walked by. You could see what he had and didn’t. And he didn’t have any keys. Not if they weren’t, like, stuck up his kazoo.‘

  ‘He couldn’t fit them up his kazoo,’ Erin pointed out, sounding a trifle annoyed. ‘That big brass ring? No way.’

  ‘It was a figure of speech, stupid.’

  ‘Anyway, I guess she’s right. We would’ve seen the keys if he’d had them.’

  ‘What did he have?’ I asked.

  ‘A boner,’ Alice said.

  ‘Very nice,’ Erin said.

  ‘Well, he did.’

  ‘I’m sure Rupert wants to hear all about it.’

  I was blushing, but the darkness kept it hidden. ‘What sort of weapons did he have?’ I asked.

  Erin said, ‘Two knives. Does the torch count?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Okay, then the torch. And a can of gas.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A can of gasoline.’

  ‘We keep tons of it around for the generator,’ Alice explained.

  ‘For a lot of things,’ Erin added.

  ‘Mostly for the generator, though. We’ve got tons.’

  ‘Wesley has about two gallons,’ Erin said. ‘He took the can up with him.’

  ‘He says he’s gonna incinerate us,’ Alice said.

  Me And The Twins

  ‘He won’t do it,’ Erin said. ‘It’s just a threat. If he burns us up, he won’tbe able to mess around with us any more. It’d wreck everything for him.‘

  ‘Yeah? Well just suppose he only burns some of us?’

  Erin didn’t have a quick answer for that.

  ‘He’s already doused Billie,’ Alice added.

  I felt my stomach sink and shrivel. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It was the first thing he did,’ Erin explained. ‘He showed up, I don’t know, like maybe an hour or so after you took off? With the torch and gas.’

  ‘And no pants on, as per usual,’ Alice added, sounding disgusted.