"If you need any help down there . . ." I said. The words were out before I realized they could be taken in a couple of different ways.
I expected Connie to pop out with a nasty crack. She didn't, though.
Kimberly said, "I might want you to lower the knife to me. We'll see."
"Sure. Just let me know."
She bent her arms. The stone edge rubbed its way up her thighs, her groin and belly. Propped up on her elbows, she grabbed the rope with one hand.
I took my position beside the ax. Keeping the knife snug inside my right hand, I held the ax handle down with my left. By the time I looked at Kimberly again, only the top of her head showed. A moment later, it vanished below the rim.
With Kimberly out of view, I focused on the ax and the rope. They looked fine. The ax seemed to be solidly planted in the crack. The rope, taut and stiff, vibrated slightly.
Connie was still beside me on one knee.
Billie still stood near the edge, watching Kimberly's descent.
Someone yelled "YAHHHHHH!"
The noise of it almost stopped my heart. For an instant, I thought Kimberly'd fallen. The yell didn't sound like her voice, though.
Sounded like a man's voice.
I raised my head.
He came at us from the other side of the chasm, yelling as he charged. He didn't look like Wesley. He was Wesley, though. And he was bigger than the guy in the chasm.
Even though I only saw him for a few seconds, I remember every detail as if I'd snapped a photo of him. Or caught him on videotape, to be more accurate -- they're moving pictures. Often, I see them in slow motion.
Somewhere, Wesley had gotten hold of a blue cap. He wore it backward, the plastic adjustable tabs across the middle of his forehead so he looked like some sort of fat, white gangsta rapper.
He also wore Thelma's large, red brassiere. He seemed to be using it as a harness to hold a bandage in place against his left boob; the red cup on that side was stuffed to bulging. The right cup had been cut away, so his hairy tit bulged out through the frame, bouncing and flopping as he dashed toward the chasm.
Since the night of the ambush -- the last time I'd seen Wesley -- he had also found a leather belt. If he'd come upon a pair of pants to go with it, though, he'd chosen to go without. He wore the belt around his waist, and hunting knives in leather sheaths at each hip.
On his feet, he wore a pair of high-topped sneakers.
He wore nothing else except his own sweat, hair, and hard-on.
He was pretty damn funny-looking, in a way.
But there wasn't much amusing about how he ran at us yelling like a madman and waving machetes overhead with both hands.
Even though I'm able to see him in slow motion, everything actually happened very fast. He had almost reached the far edge of the chasm by the time I raised my head and saw him coming.
Connie made a squeaky little noise.
Billie let out a loud gasp.
Wesley was in mid-leap before any of us started to move. Connie started trying to get off her knee. Billie began to turn and take a step backward. On my knees, I opened my hand and glanced down at the shiny red plastic handle of the Swiss Army knife, the silvery edges of the blades and tools that were safely folded away.
No chance of getting a blade out in time.
I started trying to get off my knees.
Billie, glancing over her shoulder, flinched and gaped. Her arms began to rise as she continued to twist around. Something about her expression and posture reminded me of a football player lunging for an interception.
In that instant, I knew Thelma must be attacking from the rear.
I heard Wesley's sneaker whap close by. Still in a crouch, I turned my head and glimpsed him on our side of the chasm -- but not directly in front of me. Off a bit to my right. Charging straight at Connie.
I tried to stand up faster.
Connie had managed to get up. She was in the midst of turning her back to him, flinging her arms forward as if reaching for help.
That's where it stops.
That's all I remember about our "last stand."
Just at that point, I imagine, Thelma must've nailed me from behind.
Perchance To Dream
Here's my guess. While I was out cold from a blow to the head, someone "disposed" of me.
That is, threw or shoved me over the edge of the chasm.
My guess is also that the fall didn't finish me off because I landed on the dead guy.
Lucky me.
My buddy, Matt.
Short for Mattress.
I slept on him for a long time, in a condition known as "dead to the world."
What's the difference, I wonder, between being in a coma and simply being knocked out cold? Just that one lasts longer? I don't know, and it doesn't much matter.
At some point, I "came to" in the night.
I opened my eyes, saw a starry sky above me, wondered vaguely where I was, decided I must be on a camping trip, then faded out again.
I came to again with the sun baking me. I wished someone would make the sun go away; it felt way too hot, and made my head throb. Then the sun went away and stopped bothering me.
Bugs bothered me, off and on. Mostly, I ignored them.
Sometimes, I found myself enjoying how they tickled.
I must've had a hundred dreams. I could write to the last page of this notebook, and not be able to finish describing all the dreams that rambled through my sore head (many of which I'd like to forget, but can't) while I was sprawled there at the bottom of the chasm.
They were much more vivid and realistic than regular dreams.
Some of them were extremely erotic. Those mostly featured Kimberly, but I had some doozies with Billie and Connie, along with various combinations of the three.
Thelma found her way into some of my dreams. Those were usually sexy, but in a nightmarish way. Often her razor played a part. The Thelma dreams were really sick and perverted and repulsive.
The same goes for most of my other nightmares.
Horrible.
In one, for example, I was climbing the tree to cut down Keith's body after he'd been hanged. Which was lousy enough in real life. In my dream, though, it got worse. He suddenly swung toward me by his neck and embraced me -- wrapped his arms and legs around me -- and started to chew off my nose.
That one was nasty, but brief.
I had several nightmares that seemed endless.
Of those, one that I remember vividly involved a group of women who came walking up the beach toward me on a beautiful, sunny day. I didn't know who they were at first. For one thing, they were naked so I couldn't tell them apart by what they wore. For another, they didn't have their heads. Their necks ended at pulpy, bloodless stumps.
I was pretty turned on, but also spooked.
They said I could save them, if I wanted to badly enough. (This in spite of having no heads.) I was eager to save them, and asked how. They said, "You have to match us up."
That's when I realized that each woman was holding something out of sight behind her back.
They brought their arms around to the front.
Each woman was carrying a head.
Among the heads, I recognized the faces of Connie, Billie, Kimberly, Thelma, Wesley, Miss Curtis (my fifth-grade teacher whom I'd had a terrible crush on), Ardeth Swan (a girlfriend from high school -- never got to first base with her), and a total stranger (I think) who looked sort of cute except for all the rings and bolts and pins sticking out all over her face and ears.
The last head belonged to my own mother. God knows what it was doing there, but it sure added to the creepy weirdness of the nightmare.
Right off the bat, it was clear to me that none of the ladies was holding on to her own head.
Wesley's head explained the rules of the game. "If you wanta save us, you've gotta match up our heads correctly before sundown. Think you can do that, little buddy?"
"I wouldn't save you if I could," I told him.
Besides, Wesley's body wasn't even there. Of the nine decapitated bodies standing in front of me on the beach, each and every one appeared to be a properly equipped female.