Richard Laymon - Island

What the hell was I supposed to do, now?

I could think of only two possible courses of action.

1. Get the hell out of the house.

2. Enter their room.

To be honest, I ached to get out of there. If I stayed, bad stuff was bound to happen.

I thought about getting out and setting fire to the house. It would be a fairly safe, effective way to kill Wesley and Thelma.

Not a half-bad idea.

Trapped this high up, their chances of escape would amount to zilch.

There was only one drawback.

(Seems like there’s always a drawback.)

Wesley had probably taken the cage keys into the room with him. If I burnt down the house, what would happen to the keys? For starters, I might not be able to find them in the rubble. For enders, what if they melted in the heat? I’m no expert on the melting temperature of gorilla cage keys. After going down with the blazing house, they might be reduced to puddles—or at least distorted enough to be useless.

In which case, how would I get the cages open?

If that’s the only drawback, I thought, then what you’ve gotta do is sneak into the room and find the keys. Take the keys, then get the hell out of the house and set it on fire.

It seemed like a very good idea.

It had only one drawback: to get my hands on the keys, I would have to enter the room and look around.

And how could I hope to find them in the dark?

Into my head came a voice that sounded like Kimberly. It said, “Quit thinking about all this shit. Just do it.”

She was right.

Or I was right, since the voice wasn’t really Kimberly’s, but mine.

I didn’t want to do it.

But I’d found Wesley and Thelma. They were sleeping. Asleep, they were helpless. They were in my power. This might be the best chance I would ever get. If I chickened out, I would hate myself forever.

If I blew it, the women would be the ones to pay.

Before entering the room, I slipped the razor out of my pocket. I thumbed open its blade.

By then, I was doing that schizo thing again: standing outside of myself, a critical and worried observer.

You must be outa your ever-lovin’ mind, I thought.

I stepped over the threshold.

The floor squawked.

One of the sleepers snorted. (Wesley, I think.) The other continued to take those long, easy breaths.

They’re dead to the world, I told myself.

Unless they’re faking it.

And then I thought, What you oughta do is slit their throats right now.

I knew I couldn’t do that, though. You’d have to be damn cold-blooded to murder people in their sleep. And even if I could bring myself to nail Wesley that way, Thelma was a whole different story.

Being a woman.

How could I slit the throat of a woman?

I couldn’t, that’s how.

(But I could burn her by setting fire to the house? Apparently. Even while deploring the notion of slitting throats, I fully intended to burn the house down around those two monsters. Go figure.) Stopping just inside the room, I saw Wesley and Thelma sharing a bed. At least, I supposed it must be them.

I couldn’t see them very well at all.

On each side of the double bed was a lamp table. The lamp tables and the bed stood against the wall between the windows, so they were bypassed by most of the moonlight.

Wesley and Thelma (at that time, I could only assume it was them) lay side by side—vague, dark shapes on the white sheet.

The body on the left side of the double bed appeared to be larger than the one on the right. The snores came from there. Also, the body had a patch of white that I took to be Wesley’s chest bandage.

Which put him on the left, Thelma on the right.

I made my way toward Wesley’s side of the bed. He was the keeper of the keys. If I were him, I would’ve placed them on the lamp table, where they’d be within easy reach.

I needed a free hand. I wanted to hang on to my razor, though, so the lighter went into my pocket.

Both the sleepers continued to make their usual noises while I crept closer and closer to Wesley’s lamp table.

When I got there, I turned sideways so I could keep my eyes on them.

If you stare at people, though, they seem to feel it.

One or the other of them would wake up, for sure.

So I looked toward the doorway, instead, while I gently patted the top of the lamp table.

Not gently enough.

Searching blindly, I nudged the key-ring with my fingertips. It moved, scraping against the wood. A few of the keys must’ve bumped into each other. They made two or three clinking sounds.

Wesley snored on.

Thelma popped up off her back.

I froze.

She sat there on the mattress on the other side of Wesley, not moving, not saying a word.

I couldn’t tell which way her head was turned.

She had to be staring at me, though.

Could she see me?

I didn’t move. I tried not to breathe.

Maybe I can wait her out.

If she couldn’t see me, and if I made no sounds, she might relax after a while, lie down and go back to sleep.

Pretty soon, I had to breathe. I did it slowly. She probably couldn’t hear me over Wesley’s loud snores.

She still sat there.

I was turning into a wreck. I felt as if I couldn’t get enough air. My heart raced. My whole body trembled—including my hands.

The key-ring was pressed against the tabletop by the fingertips of my left hand. If my trembling got much worse, I might not be able to stop myself from giving the keys another jangle.

I thought about lifting my hand.

But taking it away might cause a jangle.

Maybe I oughta just snatch them up and run like hell.

No no no no no!

Wait her out, I told myself. Any second now, she’ll lie down. Before long, she’ll be sound asleep.

“Come here, Rupert,” she whispered.

I flinched and gasped and clutched the keys. They clanked together for a moment before my hand squeezed them silent. Wesley made a choky-sounding snort. Moaning, he rolled onto his side. Which put his back toward me, his face toward Thelma. She stayed silent. After a few seconds that felt like an hour, Wesley resumed snoring.

I stood by the bed, the keys in one hand, the razor in the other.

I stared at Thelma.

Though I couldn’t see her eyes—or even which way her head was turned—I knew she was watching me.

Slowly, I began sidestepping toward the foot of the bed.

She’ll think I’m coming, I told myself. Right up to the instant I bolt for the door.

At the foot of the bed, however, I didn’t bolt

One step in the wrong direction, and Thelma would let out a shout. I knew it. I didn’t have the slightest doubt. Her outcry would wake up Wesley, and they’d both come after me.

Deal with her alone, or deal with them both.

Also, I was curious. It seemed very strange that she’d whispered, Come here, Rupert. Why had she done that instead of yell?

She continued to sit upright while I crept past the foot of the bed. Wesley continued to snore.

When I rounded the corner, she eased herself sideways and lowered her legs. She sat on the edge of the mattress and waited for me.

A pace or two away from her, I stopped.

She grabbed the front of my belt. Not resisting, I let her pull me until I was standing in front of her. She pulled me closer to her. I stepped in between her knees. Her legs rubbed against mine.

Still gripping me by the belt, she whispered, “Give me the keys.”

This time, her whisper didn’t seem to disturb her husband. He kept snoring, and he didn’t move. The way I towered over Thelma’s head, I had a fine view of him. I just couldn’t tell whether or not his eyes were open.

“I don’t have ’em,” I whispered.

“Wesley?” Not a whisper. Not terribly loud, either, but enough to make him sputter and give out a moaning noise that sounded like a question.