and the ax in her right hand.
I took one side of Connie; Billie took the other. We held her by the arms.
With Kimberly in the lead, we started downstream.
Connie whimpered and groaned and sometimes cried. With Billie and I holding her steady, though, she was able to stay on her feet and support her own weight, most of the time. Every now and then, she sagged and we had to struggle to keep her from going down.
We stuck to the stream; it was easier going than the jungle, and seemed like the most direct route back to the beach.
Sometimes, the stream was too narrow for the three of us to walk side by side. We always managed to keep Connie up, through places like that.
We only had real trouble once. That happened when we were making our way down a fairly easy slope. We would’ve been fine, but some damn bird suddenly flapped up out of nowhere and crossed right in front of us. It startled the hell out of us. Billie yelped. All three of us, I think, flinched and jumped. But then Billie had a foot slip out from under her. We tried to hold each other up, but we all fell down, splashing in the shallow water and landing on the rocks of the stream bed.
Only Kimberly, a few strides ahead of us, got away unscathed.
The rest of us weren’t scathed in any major way—not from that. It just added several new sore places to each of us.
Soon after that stupid fall, we hobbled out of the jungle and onto the clear, bright sand of our beach.
The big hunt was over.
We hadn’t found our prey, but we’d been preyed upon.
Connie is mighty damn lucky to be alive.
All that was yesterday.
Andrew’s lighter, in my pocket at the time of our fall into the stream, got soaked and stopped working. This had us very worried. A couple of hours in the sunlight yesterday afternoon dried it out, though, so we were able to get our campfire going again.
Connie is doing fairly well. The gash on the side of her head isn’t large. It bled a lot for a while, then clotted and hasn’t reopened. She’s got quite a lump there, under her hair. She complains of fierce headaches and shoulder pains, but nothing serious has happened so far. I mean, she hasn’t fainted or had dizzy spells or blurred vision.
We think she’ll probably make a full recovery.
Agony, by the way, has improved her personality; she’s in too much pain most of the time to be a bitch.
Also, she seems to be busy feeling sorry for herself and wanting everyone’s sympathy. At least when she’s awake.
She didn’t have to do any guard duty last night. Kimberly, Billie and I took turns, with me taking the morning shift so I could work on my journal here.
Been writing like a madman, ever since dawn.
A while ago, Kimberly woke up. She came over to the fire and we said “Good morning” to each other. She asked how the journal’s coming along. I said, “Fine. I’m just about caught up.”
“I hope you’re making it clear that Wesley’s behind all this,” she said. “Wesley Duncan Beaverton the third. So there won’t be any doubt about who murdered Keith and Dad.”
“It’s all here,” I said.
“And he’s probably the one who dropped that rock on Connie yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“You got that?”
“Sure do.”
“Good.” She shook her head. “I’d sure hate for him to get away with this. If he ends up killing all of us, maybe that diary of yours’ll be the only way anybody ever finds out the truth.”
“My God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“It probably won’t,” Kimberly said. “Anyway, I’m going in for a swim. Can you hold down the fort for another ten or fifteen minutes?”
“Sure.”
So then she jogged down to the shore and charged into the water.
She came out of it a few minutes ago. When she first came out, she did some push-ups on the beach. Then sit-ups, knee-bends, etc. She just now walked over for the ax. I guess she plans to swing it around, the way she did yesterday. I’m going to watch. So long for now.
Thelma’s Story
And who should wander out of the jungle this afternoon but Thelma?
At the time she put in her appearance, nobody was actually keeping watch.
Billie and Kimberly were out in the water, trying to spear some fish for supper. Kimberly was going after them with Connie’s special spear, while Billie stood by with the pot. They’d just finished nailing their second fish when Thelma came toward our campsite.
Connie was asleep under one of the shelters. We’d let her drink a few slugs of bourbon after lunch to ease her aches and pains. It must’ve helped considerably, because she zonked out. She’d been snoozing for a couple of hours by the time Thelma showed up.
I was stretched out on my back beneath the leafy roof of the other sun shelter, my head propped up by a mound of sand, my paperback held above my face with both hands. I’d been reading, watching Kimberly and Billie, reading a bit more…
Thelma’s shout of “Help!” startled me so much that I flinched and the book jumped out of my hands.
I flipped over onto my belly.
The paperback had landed in the sand about four feet away.
Thelma was about fifty feet away, walking slowly toward me. More of a stagger than a walk, actually. Small, stiff steps. She was bent over a little, as if cramped. Her arms hardly moved at all. She carried herself like someone who’d recently fallen down the cellar stairs, or something.
She had some pretty good damage to her face, including a shiner and a fat lip.
One sleeve was missing entirely from her blouse, leaving her right arm bare to the shoulder. The blouse was filthy, spotted with blood, and untucked so it hung down in front of her shorts.
Even though her blouse was buttoned up, I saw right away that she’d lost her bra. You couldn’t miss it. She has large breasts. Un-leashed, they swayed and bounced, making the front of her blouse leap around as if she had a couple of wild animals trapped inside.
One bare knee had an abrasion similar to the one on Connie’s shoulder.
Her hands were empty.
There was no sign of Wesley. I figured he might be nearby, though, using Thelma as a diversion while he snuck in.
Also, Thelma had given us a taste of how dangerous she could be without any help from Wesley.
I reached out and grabbed the ax. Hanging on to it, I crawled out from under the shelter and stood up.
She raised an open hand.
I twisted around. Kimberly and Billie were still busy fishing. Apparently, they hadn’t heard the shout.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Billie! Kimberly!”
Their heads turned. Because of the slope of the beach, I doubted that they could see Thelma. They could see me, though. I gestured for them to come out, and added, “Hurry! Thelma’s here!”
I looked over at Connie. She was curled on her right side, the same as before, to keep the pressure off her wounds. The shouting must’ve woken her up. Her eyes were open, watching me.
“Thelma’s here,” I told her, even though I was repeating myself.
She didn’t say anything. She barely moved. But her upper lip twitched slightly.
Kimberly and Billie were sloshing toward shore.
