Richard Laymon - Island

“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.

Back to a subject I can write about with a certain amount of pleasure—the wardrobe.

Kimberly has continued to wear Keith’s bright and flowery Hawaiian shirt most of the time. She never buttons it. The shirt is always open, often blowing behind her in the breeze, giving me a wonderful view, whenever I look, of her bare brown skin and her skimpy white bikini.

Connie wears her own skimpy bikini. Hers is orange. But she keeps her T-shirt on nearly all the time. The T-shirt is white, large and loose. Sometimes, it hangs off one shoulder or the other. It covers her all the way down to about mid-thigh, like a short dress. The material is so thin that you can see through it.

Thelma has continued to wear the same…

Thelma.

I guess I’d better stop wasting time, and get to what went wrong.

I’m not real eager to do that.

Procrastination, thy name is Rupert.

“We’d better get on with it,” as Billie said last night by the fire.

We had been doing some procrastinating, ourselves.

“Is everyone about ready?” she asked.

Kimberly didn’t say a thing, just made a single nod with her head.

“Are we really gonna go ahead with this?” Connie asked.

“Unless you have a better idea,” Billie told her.

Connie wrinkled her nose.

“He hasn’t left us any choice,” Kimberly said. “It’s him or us.”

“Are you two really gonna kill him?”

“If we can,” Billie said.

“You’ve got the knife,” Kimberly said to her.

Billie had Andrew’s Swiss Army knife on her hip. The thick plastic handle was tucked down the waistband of her bikini pants, all the blades and tools folded in.

“Do you want to be the one to use it?” Kimberly asked.

The two women stared at each other, the firelight flickering in their eyes.

“You want to, don’t you?” Billie said.

“Yes.”

They were not exactly beating around the bush.

“Okay,” Billie said. She pulled the knife out, leaned sideways and passed it to Kimberly.

Kimberly shut her hand around it, and pressed her fist against her belly.

Billie glanced from me to Connie. “Do either of you have any questions?”

“Guess not,” Connie said.

“I’m ready,” I said. “Just don’t let him kill me, okay?”

Kimberly got to her feet.

So did Billie. “Good luck, you two,” she told us. “Make it look good.”

“We will,” I promised. “You be careful out there.”

Side by side, carrying their spears, they walked away from the fire. I was facing the fire (and Connie on its other side) so I had to look over my shoulder to watch them. They went to the stream—the usual routine—drank from it and brushed their teeth (using fingers). Then they wandered over to the rocky area at the north side of our beach. As they started to climb, Connie snapped, “Quit watching. Jerk.”

“I can’t see anything,” I said.

“Not that you aren’t trying.”

I faced front—to be on the lookout in case Connie chose to throw her spear at me. “I’m not into watching ladies take a leak,” I explained. “Maybe you are, but…”

“Fuck you.”

“Give it a rest, okay? Why don’t you just sit quietly and try to work on your vocabulary?”

“What a wit.”

I looked back over my shoulder, but couldn’t spot Billie or Kimberly.

“This is such a treat for you,” Connie said.

“Really.”

“A dream come true.”

“Right.”

“Trapped on an island with a band of women.”

“And a maniac who wants to kill me. It’s a blast. Why don’t we save all this for our big fight scene, okay?”

She didn’t come back with a crack, so maybe she liked the idea.

After a while, Billie and Kimberly reappeared. They climbed down from the rocks and came across the beach. After crossing the stream, Billie waved and said to us, “Night, now.”

“See you in the morning, people,” Kimberly said.

They split up and went to their own sleeping nests—beds, as Billie calls them. Billie lay down alone. Kimberly, a few yards away, eased down into her place beside Thelma.

From where I sat, not much could be seen of them. They weren’t completely beyond the glow from the fire, but the light that reached them was pretty dim and murky. Just the way we wanted things.

“Let’s wait a little while,” I said to Connie.

“Your wish is my command.”

I sighed.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay. First off, we’re in a real mess. You know? People have died…”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered.

“I just think that, under the circumstances, it’d be nice if we didn’t have to fight among ourselves. I mean, my God, it’s pretty weird to be bickering with each other about a load of insignificant crap when there’s a guy out there killing us off. I know you’re upset and scared, but that doesn’t give you any excuse to go around making everyone miserable.”

She showed me her teeth. “Do I make you miserable?”

“You make me want to smack you silly.”

“Well, two can play that game.”

“Why the hell did you even ask me to come on this damn trip? All you’ve done the whole time is dump on me.”

“Maybe I like to dump on you,” she said.

“Sure.”

“You’re such a fucking loser.”

“Why did you ask me to come? I don’t get it. Did you just want to show your family what a loser you’ve got for a boyfriend? That doesn’t exactly make sense. Not that I ever exactly expect you to make a whole lot of sense, but…”

“Up yours.”

“Why am I here? Why did you invite me? You needed someone your own age to pick on?”