If I’m right about Matt and the woman being inhabitants of the island, did they live in a house? Is their house the place where Wesley got his hands on such things as the ax and rope?
Where is their house?
If I find it, will I also find Kimberly, Billie and Connie?
I think so.
I think so, yes. If they are still alive, I’ll probably find them at the house.
Last Words
Okay. I’m up to date with my journal, now. In fact, I’m done with it. I have no more reason to procrastinate. I can’t build my Winchester House of words; there’s no more room for words - or hardly enough to matter.
Tomorrow, I’ll set out to search for my women. I don’t expect I’ll be returning to our beach. I plan to travel light; wearing Connie’s towel-vest, Andrew’s shorts, and my own socks and shoes. I’ll carry the lighter in my pocket, of course. And I’ll take along Billie’s sun-block, mostly because it reminds me of her and it smells good. My only weapon will be Thelma’s straight razor.
I’ll take my journal with me in the book bag, along with a couple of pens that haven’t yet run out of ink (in case I should stumble upon paper but no writing implement), my swimming trunks (though I haven’t worn them since acquiring Andrew’s shorts), the pink blouse that Billie gave me (though I now prefer to wear Connie’s vest), and a few remaining items of food.
I’ll leave just about everything else behind. Including Andrew’s camera. I haven’t used it yet, so I can’t see a good reason to lug it around.
The less I have to carry, the better.
I do wish that I had something of Kimberly‘s, though. Her Swiss Army knife (Andrew’s before it came into her possession) would have been a great treasure. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere, though.
I have nothing of Kimberly’s to carry with me.
Only my memories of her.
With luck, though, I’ll be with all three of my women soon.
If I can find the mystery house, they’ll be nearby. I’d bet on it.
Whether or not I find them alive, I’ll take care of Wesley and Thelma.
I’ll make it hard for them, too.
Very hard.
Bet on it.
I’ll make them pay for every hurt they’ve done to my women.
Which sounds like a mean-spirited, brutal way to end my journal. But so be it.
Obviously, I’ll tell the rest of my story if I’m able. To do that, I’ll need to find a new source of paper. And I’ll have to still be alive.
Both good tricks.
So long.
The Rest Of The Story
My Quest For The Mystery House
I’ve gotten hold of a new notebook.
A lot has happened since my last entry.
I’ll take my time, though, and tell about it in the proper sequence - starting with the morning when I went off to hunt for the house.
The island obviously had no shortage of vacant beachfront property, so nobody in their right mind would’ve built a house somewhere deep in the jungle. You’d want an ocean view. You’d want easy access to the water.
If I just followed the shoreline, I was almost certain to spot the home of Matt and the dead woman.
I started out early in the morning. After a light breakfast of smoked fish, I filled an empty booze bottle with water from the stream (just in case), put the bottle in my book bag, shouldered the bag and set off, heading north.
This had been our route on the morning of the ‘last stand,’ until Kimberly ran off without us.
Now, I was alone as I hiked the beach.
Though I started my journey with eagerness, sure of success, my optimism dwindled along the way. There might not be any house. Its existence was nothing more than a theory of mine.
For all I knew at the time (I’ve found out plenty since), Matt and the woman hadn’t necessarily been residents of the island. They might’ve come to it for a brief visit - parked their boat and come ashore to do some exploring, have a picnic, who knows? Or they might’ve been castaways: survivors from a boat wreck or airplane crash. If so, I was searching for a home that didn’t exist.
No, no, I told myself. There has to be a house. If not, where did Wesley get his hands on the ax, the rope, the machetes, the sheath knives he wore on his belt, the belt itself... ?
That argument comforted me for a while.
But then I remembered how, within a day or two after being marooned, Billie and I had come up with the theory that Wesley must’ve made a prior visit to the island.
He had obviously toured the region to search for a good island to use. Just as obviously, he would’ve taken steps to avoid becoming a victim of his own plot. That is, he planned to maroon the bunch of us, but he sure didn’t want to find himself trapped on an island without the means to ensure his own survival.
So we had figured out, way back at the start of the whole mess, that he must’ve come ashore earlier and hidden a load of supplies.
Supplies that might’ve included the ax, rope, etc.
By the time I’d spent a few hours hiking along the shore, I had pretty much convinced myself that I wouldn’t be finding any house. The house was a phantom, thrown together by bad logic and wishful thinking.
It would’ve been too convenient, too easy.
Find them all in a shack by the shore. Go sneaking in late at night, commando-style ...
No, it wasn’t going to be that simple.
I would probably need to hunt for them in the jungle. In the region above the lagoon and in the areas beyond where I’d never been before. Who knows? Maybe they had a cave.
The problem was, I didn’t want to go looking for them in the jungle.
I wanted to stay on the beach, where I could feel the sun and the soft breezes, where I had a fine, open view in all directions and nobody could sneak up on me.
Besides, the house might exist.
Even if it didn‘t, there were plenty of good reasons to continue along the beach. No telling what I might find. We’d always intended to explore the boundaries of our island, but had never gotten around to it. Thanks to Wesley, there’d always been more urgent matters to deal with first.
I was finally getting around to it.
I decided to keep at it, too. Any journey into the jungle would have to wait for a day or two, or however long it might take me to circle the island.
I felt as if I’d been granted a reprieve.
Then I found the house.
Some time earlier, I had rounded the north end of the island and started back along the eastern shore. I’d been hiking southward for quite a while when I came to a cove.
From a distance, the cove had been out of sight. I’d seen nothing ahead except more beach - ocean on one side, jungle on the other. Though my view had been obstructed, here and there, by rocky areas, I assumed that I was approaching a continuous shore-line.
I was climbing over a low spine of rocks when I first noticed a break in the beach ahead.
Seeing my forward progress blocked by water, I felt frustrated and annoyed; it was an inconvenience that would force me to walk a lot farther than I’d expected. Within a few seconds, though, my curiosity took over.
I could see across the water to where the beach started again, but very little of what lay to the right. The trees at the edge of the jungle got in the way. What seemed to be ahead, however, was a small bay, or cove, that looked at least five times as large as our little inlet on the other side of the island.
Hurrying down from the rocks, I ran through the sand. With each stride, more of the cove’s opposite shore came into sight. More and more.
Nothing but sand and rocks; jungle further back.
When the boat loomed into view, it scared the shit out of me. I dived for the sand.
Stretched out on the beach with my head up, I gazed at the vessel.
There’d been no need to panic; it wasn’t under way, as I’d thought.
I saw anchor lines stretching down into t
he water.
I saw nobody aboard.
It was a big white cabin cruiser - about a forty-footer.
Matt’s boat, I figured.
And our ticket out of here.
Now all I’ve gotta do is find my women ...
That’s what ran through my mind, for a few seconds. I was elated. Then scared, realizing I might’ve already been seen. Just because the boat looked deserted ...
I stared hard at it, and wondered if Wesley or Thelma might be staring back at me through a window or port.
No sign of anyone.
I scurried on my belly for the edge of the jungle. In the shelter of the bushes and trees, I got to my feet. Then I snuck through the thick foliage until the cove came into view again.
From my new position, I had a full, wide view.
Off to the right, perhaps a hundred yards beyond the anchored cabin cruiser, a dock jutted out from the shore. Floating at the end of the dock were two dinghies. One of them had probably been used to transport people (Matt and the woman?) ashore from the anchored cruiser. The other looked a lot like our dinghy.
I’d last seen it heading north, Wesley aboard, when he was making his getaway after splitting open Andrew’s head.
He must’ve brought our dinghy here, and docked it.
I hardly got a chance to think about the dinghies, though, because the house suddenly caught my attention.
For my high-school graduation present, just last summer, my parents took me on a special trip.
It started with spending a week in Memphis, Tennessee.
There, I almost got trampled to death by a mob of spectators in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel when I tried to catch a glimpse of the damn ducks that march through twice a day. I almost got scared to death when we visited the Civil Rights Museum at the old Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King got shot. My white parents and I were pretty much the only people of that shade roaming through the museum, which seems to be a monument to the evils of the white man.
Memphis wasn’t all bad, though. It had delicious barbeque and fabulous music. Every night, we walked from our hotel to Beale Street, where the blues were born. Beale Street was great.
While staying in Memphis, we also visited Elvis’s home, Graceland.
The house on the cove didn’t remind me of Graceland.
No, this house was what I’d imagined Graceland would be like: a huge plantation-style mansion.
Graceland had turned out to be smaller, more modem than I’d expected. But I had a chance to see plenty of actual plantation houses after leaving Memphis.
My real graduation present wasn’t the visit to Memphis, but a trip down Old Man River on an authentic paddlewheel steamboat, the Mississippi Queen. (For one thing, I’m a big fan of Mark Twain.) We spent six days and nights on the river, and ended up in New Orleans.
Along the way, we stopped at places like Vicksburg and Natchez. And visited God-only-knows how many ante-bellum homes. These were plantation houses built in the period before the War Between the States. Big old hunchers, usually three storys high, full of narrow stairways and tiny rooms, their outsides loaded with columns, balconies and verandas.
They were very interesting until you’d been through about two of them. After that, they mostly looked alike. (Mom is big on antiques and Dad is a Civil War buff, so they were happy as pigs in slop. My fondness for Mark Twain didn’t extend far enough, though, to cover endless, dreary tours of mansions.)
The deal is, the white mansion beyond the cove looked as if it had been plucked off the grounds of an old cotton or tobacco plantation on the Mississippi, and plonked down here.
I gaped at it, stunned.
What the hell was an ante-bellum mansion doing on a little lost island like this one?
My imagination told me that a Southern Gentleman had settled here, long ago. Maybe he’d lost his original plantation house during the War Between the States (most of them went up in smoke, though you wouldn’t think so if you ever got pushed into touring them), so he’d sailed to this island to start over again - far from the Yankees - and built this home in the image of the one he’d lost.
Sort of a romantic notion, and probably wrong.
Maybe it was built in the 1980s by a rich guy with a weird fondness for Scarlett O‘Hara (or Rhett).
I kept staring at it from my hiding place at the edge of the jungle.
I would’ve been pretty thrilled to find any house at all.
But this!
I felt as if I’d taken one small step into The Twilight Z ne. All I needed was Connie to give me the ‘doo-de-do -do’ music and her Serling intro - One Rupert Conway, eighteen, took a little walk along the beach one day in search of his missing ladies. Instead of finding the ladies, he found himself venturing into a strange land ruled by the limits of the imagination...
I stared at the mansion for a long time.
It had probably been the home of Matt and the woman I’d found in the lagoon. Just as the cabin cruiser and one of the dinghies must’ve been theirs.
Theirs until Wesley came along.
He had taken everything from them: their home, their boats, their lives.
And then he’d taken over.
All his, now.
Maybe he’d brought us to this island - killed our men and captured our women - because he wanted belles for his cotillions.
Or servants for his mansion.
Or slaves.
Recon
After watching for a long time and seeing nobody, I made my way through the jungle. I moved cautiously, stopping often to check around and listen. Usually, I stayed away from the cove. Every so often, though, I snuck closer to it for another look.
I saw nobody: not on the cabin cruiser, not on the dinghies or dock, not in the water or along the shore, not in or around the mansion. Nowhere.
Nor did I hear any voices or other sounds, such as pounding, that would tell of people nearby. Of course, it would’ve taken some major noise to reach me through all the squawks and squeals and shrieks from the birds and other animals. (Some of the shrieks sounded almost human, but I figured they probably came from birds.)
Finally, when I took a left and snuck toward the cove, I came to a lawn instead of the shoreline - a broad field of grass that led to the rear of the mansion. The lawn looked as if it had been well-kept until recently. It needed a mowing.
At the far side of the lawn was a red tractor mower. It didn’t seem to belong there. The way things looked, someone might’ve started to cut the grass, but quit before getting very far and never got a chance to put the tractor away.
Off beyond it, past the side of the house, were a couple of brick outbuildings. One had an open door large enough for the mower to fit through.
I couldn’t see what was inside. Just a small, empty space near the front - probably where the mower should go.
In places where you keep your lawn mower, you usually store other equipment and tools. Things like shovels, picks, pruning shears, hammers, saws ...
Axes.
My heart pounded a little faster.
This could be the place where Wesley had gotten hold of the ax.
Maybe the rope, too. The rope he’d used for hanging Keith.
He’d strung Keith up during our first night on the island. So he must’ve come here immediately after blowing up the yacht. Is that when he killed Matt and the woman?
No. Impossible. Neither of them had been dead that long. Matt had probably been alive for most of the first week - killed only when they needed a body to double for Wesley. And the woman must’ve been killed the very same night I found her body in the lagoon.
Wesley had probably held both of them captive from Day One until their deaths.
Where had he kept them?
In one of the outbuildings?
Aboard the yacht?
Inside the mansion itself? Maybe in a bedroom or attic or cellar?
Somewhere else?
The place where Matt and the woman had been kep
t was, almost for sure, the prison where Wesley now held Kimberly, Billie and Connie.
If they’re still alive.
He took them alive. Otherwise, I would’ve found their bodies at the battlefield.
He took them alive, and he’s keeping them alive.
I had to believe that.
I had to hang on to that belief, no matter what. It was like a rope over the edge of a chasm - only not a shallow chasm like the one beyond the falls.
One so deep I would fall for a mile. If I lost my hold, down I’d go, screaming all the way to the bottom.
They’re alive, I told myself. I just need to find where Wesley’s keeping them, set them free, and take Wesley and Thelma out of the picture.
Not necessarily in that order.
What should I do first? I wondered.
Find someone. If not my women, at least find Wesley or Thelma.
Get up and go, I told myself.
But I stayed put.
I just couldn’t force myself to break cover.
That’s because Thelma and Wesley were almost sure to be nearby. If one of them should spot me sneaking around, I’d lose any chance of taking them by surprise.
Then I’d probably lose my life.
If that happened, I’d not only be dead (which I hoped to avoid for as long as possible), but I would pretty much cease having a chance to rescue my women. If I couldn’t save them, who would?
More than likely, I was their only hope.
Barring some sort of miraculous rescue by outside forces, they would remain at Wesley’s mercy for weeks, months... maybe even for years.
Maybe for the rest of their lives.
For their sakes (not just for my own), I needed to be extremely careful, take no chances; under no circumstances allow myself to be captured or killed.
What I oughta do, I thought, is get the hell off the island and bring back help.
It sounded like a chicken way out.
But it also seemed like the smartest move-by a long shot.
Take the cabin cruiser to the nearest inhabited island, get in touch with the authorities, and come back with a rescue team.