part, and get it over with, before I’m free to stop writing and do whatever comes next.
I was last seen above the waterfall, running naked through the jungle with the straight razor in my sock.
I found the place where Billie, Connie and I had joined up with Kimberly. Without her to lead the way, though, I had a difficult time finding the chasm from there. I became lost. More than once, I arrived at a boulder or tree that I recognized because I’d recently walked past it. I was roaming in circles.
It didn’t bother me. I was in no hurry to reach the chasm. I didn’t want to reach it, in fact. But the chasm (the area above it, actually) was the place where I needed to go, so I kept searching for it.
Eventually, I got there. Peering around a corner of rock, I scanned the scene of our battle.
No bodies littered the moonlit field.
I murmured, “Thank God.”
Then I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it.
I’d fully expected to find the remains of my three women on the ground near the top of the chasm. If not all of them, at least one or two.
Relief overpowered me.
The relief lasted about as long as my tears. I no sooner recovered from the crying than things came back into perspective; the absence of their bodies was an excellent sign. It didn’t, however, guarantee they were still alive.
Wesley and Thelma might’ve killed my women and dragged them away: buried them, burned them, sunk them, tossed them off a ledge, hauled them off somewhere to play nasty games with—God only knows.
Or they might’ve taken my women away alive—as prisoners.
Stepping into the open, I wondered if I might be walking into another trap. After all, this was enemy territory and we’d been ambushed here before.
I crouched, drew the razor out of my sock, and flipped open its blade. Then I made my way slowly toward the area where we’d been attacked. I crept along, turning, checking to my rear and sides, glancing in every direction.
Not far from the edge of the chasm, I found Connie’s beach-towel vest. The last time I saw her, she’d been wearing it. Now it lay crumpled in shadow beside a block of stone. I clamped the razor handle between my teeth, then crouched and picked up the vest. I spread it open and studied it. The stripes looked like different shades of gray in the moonlight.
The vest appeared to be free of blood—another good sign.
I couldn’t leave it behind. I wanted to keep my hands free, though. Wearing the vest seemed like the best solution, so I put it on.
And felt closer to Connie. As if the vest was a living part of her, keeping company with me. (This explained a lot about why Kimberly had gone around almost constantly in her dead husband’s Hawaiian shirt.) While still crouched in the place where I’d found the vest, I spotted a wadded rag and picked it up. Though it was dark with dry blood, I wasn’t alarmed. It appeared to be the piece of old T-shirt that Connie’d been using as a bandage for her shoulder. She must’ve lost it along with the vest.
I dropped it, took the razor out of my teeth, stood up and continued my search.
I probably looked like a madman, roaming through the night with my wicked straight razor—and wearing not a stitch except for the vest and one sock. A demented Crusoe. A castaway Sweeney Todd.
Anyway, I continued my search of the battlefield.
The ax and rope were gone. I found none of our makeshift spears or tomahawks, either.
Nor could I find the Swiss Army knife.
I looked very carefully for that, not only walking a grid pattern over most of the area, but getting down on all fours to study the ground in the vicinity where I’d last been holding it.
The knife wasn’t there. Except for Connie’s vest and bandage, it appeared that nothing had been left behind. Someone must’ve carried away everything that had fallen (including the women?).
I didn’t find blood on the ground, though. Which gave me more reason for hope. If Wesley had used his machete on anyone, vast quantities would’ve gotten spilled. Even though several days had gone by and I was doing my search by moonlight, a mess like that should’ve been easy to spot.
Unless someone had cleaned it up.
I pictured Thelma on her knees with a bucket and scrub brush. Ridiculous.
In some other setting, dirt and leaves might’ve been spread around to cover telltale blood. Not here, though. Most of this area was bare rock.
If blood had been spilled, much of it would’ve remained for me to find.
Nobody’d been chopped or slashed or stabbed to death, not on our field of battle.
Before leaving, I crawled to the edge of the chasm and peered down.
Nothing at the bottom except Matt.
He appeared to be on his back, the way I’d left him.
Staring up at me.
He was not staring up at me; he had no eyes. Down there after turning him over, I’d gotten a good look at his face. It had been smashed apart: nose flat, cheekbones and mouth demolished, nasty little craters where his eyes should’ve been.
But I felt him staring up at me. My skin crawled.
What if he gets up and starts climbing out?
A dumb thought, but mine.
It creeped me out plenty.
The moment I was sure that nothing new had been tossed into the chasm, I backed away from the edge.
One more quick look around the scene of our “last stand,” then I scrammed.
For a while, I couldn’t get Matt out of my head. We’d been almost like buddies when I was down at the bottom with him. But now I felt as if he hated me. Maybe because I’d gone off and left him?
I pictured his mutilated, rotten corpse scurrying up the chasm wall, coming after me.
Stupid. But you know how it is. You get some sort of spooky crap into your mind, and it’s hard to get rid of.
Trying to get away, I got lost and went in circles for a while. I half expected to rush around a boulder and bump into Matt. Didn’t happen, though. Finally, I came to the stream.
By then, I figured I’d given him the slip. (I know, I know, I’m nuts. I was spooked. So sue me.)
Anyway, I felt better and better as I followed the stream downhill toward the lagoon. An irrational relief at leaving Matt behind. More than that, though, I felt a growing sense of elation about my women.
Sure, they might be dead.
I doubted it, though.
No bodies at the scene of the fight. And no blood.
It now seemed more likely than not that they’d been taken alive.
If you take people alive, you probably want to keep them that way. Otherwise, why not just go on and kill them in the first place? Save yourself the trouble of tying them, taking them somewhere, risking an uprising or an escape.
By the time I reached the top of the waterfall, I felt certain that I would be able to find my women alive, and rescue them.
I felt great!
So great that I had an urge to leap off the falls—in spite of knowing the water at the bottom was only waist-deep.
Already wrecked enough from various plummets, I fought off the urge and made my way down to the lagoon by foot. I stopped on the flat rock by the side of the falls and made sure the razor was secure in my sock. Then I took off Connie’s towel-vest and rolled it into a bundle.
After lowering myself into the water, I raised the vest overhead with one hand. I kept it dry all the way to the other side of the lagoon. Not climbing out, I tossed it onto the same rock where I’d left my shorts, etc.
Then I spent about fifteen minutes having a very pleasant time: floating on my back, sometimes swimming,
