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, just relaxing in the smooth warmth of the water, relishing the way it slid over my body, always very aware that it was like a magic vanishing fluid: I could make parts of me, or all of me, disappear at will.
For a while, I felt as if I’d found a wonderful new home.
I would abandon our camp at the beach, and live at the lagoon.
Over near the north end, I saw a place where a slab of rock the size of a dining-room table slanted down into the water. I had probably seen it before, but paid no attention. This time, though, it caught my eye. Though the rest of the shoreline was either dark or dappled with specks of moonlight, the special rock was brightly illuminated. It must’ve been aligned perfectly with the moon and a break in the treetops. It looked pale and smooth like a patch of snow.
I wanted to climb on.
I wanted to lounge on that glowing white slab and bathe in the moonlight.
I swam most of the way over to it, then waded.
When I first started wading, the water came as high as my shoulders. With each step, the level lowered a little. It was waist-deep when I stepped into something soft and squishy that wrapped around my foot and tripped me. I fell headlong with a splash, and my foot pulled free.
Whatever had grabbed my foot, it wasn’t like anything that I’d ever stepped on before.
I didn’t know what the hell it might be.
Standing again, I turned around. Nothing to see except black water and a few shiny coins of moonlight shimmering on the surface.
I had my ideas about what had tripped me.
I needed to find out for sure.
So I took a deep breath and bent down into the water, reaching toward the bottom with both hands. At first, nothing. I walked slowly, moving my arms.
Instead of finding the thing with my hands, I bumped it with my right foot. I kept my balance, though, and didn’t fall. After coming up for air, I went down again, bending and crouching, and explored it.
A naked woman.
She was split wide open from sternum to crotch.
She had a load of stones where her guts should’ve been.
When I figured it out, I screamed or something. I’m not sure what I did, exactly, but I took in a mouthful of lagoon. I popped up choking. I would’ve screamed my head off then, except that I couldn’t breathe. I could only cough and gasp for air and cough some more.
When I was breathing again, I just stood there and shook.