I flung my shoes away and hit the water at a run.
God only knows what I hoped to accomplish.
Save Kimberly, I guess.
As I splashed my way forward, I heard the sound of a motor. So I stopped running. In water up to my thighs, I saw the dinghy start moving away to the right. The killer sat hunched over low at the stern, steering.
Maybe it was Wesley.
Could've been almost anyone.
The boat picked up speed.
Kimberly kept swimming, but the boat was long gone by the time she reached the place where it had been.
Three Down, One To Go
I'm the only guy left. On the surface, that might be an enviable position. Here I am, the lone male marooned on a tropical island with four women.
There's one big drawback, though.
The other three males have been killed in quick succession. (That's if you include Wesley, who is dead unless he's the killer.)
The women are still here, intact.
Makes me think it isn't safe to be a man on this island.
In other words, guess who's next?
I'm not sure what to do about it. I can't exactly leave -- the killer made off with our dinghy. No telling where it might be, by now. The last I saw, it was heading toward the north end of the island. Kimberly and I had just dragged Andrew's body onto the rocks around the end of the point. (About where Billie and I did the dishes last night.) Now that I've seen the wound, there's no doubt that the weapon was an ax. It chopped Andrew's head pretty much in half all the way down to his jaw. The back of his head was still intact, sort of. But the front was split open wide -- including his face. Bloody yuck was slopping out when we pulled him onto the rocks. I've never seen such an awful mess in my life. You wouldn't even know who he was, if all you had to go by was his face.
It was terrible for Kimberly to see her father that way. Ironic, too. He'd tried like mad, yesterday, to protect her from the shock of seeing Keith's body. Now here he was, ruined a lot worse than Keith -- and he couldn't do anything about it.
I threw up.
Not Kimberly, though. After we hauled him out of the water, she sat on the rocks with her back to both of us. She was facing out to sea, her legs bent, her arms around her shins. It was the same way she'd sat for a long time yesterday on the beach after she'd finished with Keith's body.
The dinghy, by then, was almost out of sight.
I thought about sitting down with Kimberly and maybe putting an arm around her. I sure wanted to do that. Comfort her. But it might look as if I was trying to put moves on her, so I gave up the notion.
After a while, I said, "What should we do?"
She shook her head.
"We don't want the others to see him like this," I said, figuring that's what Andrew would've said if he'd been able to talk.
She just sat there, staring out to sea.
"Maybe I should go and get a blanket or something," I suggested.
"Yeah," she said.
"Will you be all right out here?"
She nodded.
But when I turned to go, she said, "No, wait." Then she got to her feet and turned around. She was crying softly. She wiped her eyes and sniffed. "Just a second, okay?"
"Sure."
"I'll be all right . . . just a second."
I tried not to stare at her. It made me feel guilty, because a guy shouldn't be paying attention to how great someone looks in her bikini -- not when her father is sprawled on the rocks three feet away with his head hacked open.
She wiped her eyes again. Then she said, "Thanks for helping, Rupert."
I shrugged.
"You're right, what you said. About how he shouldn't be seen this way. God knows, I wish I hadn't . . . He'd want to be remembered the way he was. You know?"
"That's why I thought I'd go back and get something. To cover him with."
"I'm going to tow him out beyond the reef."
"What?"
"Bury him at sea. That's what he always wanted."
"Don't you think we should, maybe, put him over with Keith? So we can take him back with us when we're rescued?"
Kimberly shook her head. "It's different with Keith. Dad would want it this way."
"Shouldn't Billie have a say?"
"Bring her out here. Connie and Thelma, too. Have them all come out. I'll wait with Dad in the water."
"Do you want a hand?"
"No, go on back."
I had a choice of swimming, or walking along the rocks. Since I was shoeless, I swam. Billie and Connie were still sitting on the beach, Billie with an arm around her daughter. Thelma stood nearby, watching me and shaking her head and sobbing.
Nobody objected to Kimberly's plan. Apparently, Andrew had made it quite clear to Billie and his daughters that he desired to be buried at sea.
I put on my shoes, and the four of us made our way out along the rocks to the point.
Kimberly hadn't gone far. She was treading water, thirty or forty feet away. Andrew's body floated beside her. In spite of the water being crystal-clear, you couldn't see what a mess he was in. There was the distance. Also, Kimberly had him face down. The main thing, though, was probably the way the sunlight glittered on the water's surface -- it was almost blinding. All you could see really well was Andrew's gray, furry back. And his right arm.
The arm was stretched across the water because Kimberly had it by the hand.
"I'm going to tow Dad out," she said. "Is that all right with everyone?"
Connie and Thelma were both sobbing like crazy.
Billie wiped her eyes, then said, "I want to come, too." Then she stepped down off the rocks into the water and swam out to Kimberly and Andrew. She went to the other side of Andrew, and came up with his left arm.
They both started swimming away, towing him between them.
It was a hell of a thing to watch. I ended up crying, myself -- and I never even liked the guy very much.
That was a couple of hours ago. We all returned to the beach after the "burial at sea."
It's mighty gloomy around here.
Billie, Kimberly and Thelma have all lost their husbands (one way or another) since we came to this island a couple of days ago. If that isn't bad enough, Kimberly, Thelma and Connie lost their father today.
I'm the only one who hasn't lost one or two loved ones, and I'm worried about the killer coining for me next.
I've been writing in the journal, here on the beach. It doesn't exactly take my mind off our plight, but at least it gives me a chance to think about something other than how much danger I'm in.
There's no doubt that I'm next on the hit list, is there?
He kills me, then there won't be any more men to stand in the way.
In the way of what?
The women.
He wants the women.
We'd better figure out something before it's too late.
We Hatch A Plan
It was only mid-morning, but I was feeling hungry by the time I finished catching up with my journal. Nobody else had eaten any sort of breakfast. The way things looked, it might be a while before they got around to thoughts of food.
It seemed like bad castaway etiquette to eat by myself -- which might be looked upon as trying to sneak more than my share. I didn't want to bother any of the women, though. They were busy mourning.
I felt like more of an outsider than ever, since I was the only person who hadn't lost a husband or father (or both). I hadn't lost anyone I really cared much about. They were going through these huge, awful changes, while I was unseamed.
I actually resented it, to some extent. Maybe because I was keenly aware that I might be the next person to get killed. Also, because I was hungry and they seemed too wrapped up in moping around to care.
As far as they were concerned, I didn't even exist. That's how I saw it, anyway.
I figured nobody would miss me anyway, so why not take a hike? I'd been wanting to see the lagoon -- and swim in it -- ever since hearing about it from Keith and Kimberly. Now seemed like a good time to visit the place. So I put the book bag on my back, picked up one of the spears, and started striding toward the jungle.