The Wildman - By Rick Hautala Page 0,66
having all weekend.
“Jimmy Foster’s brother,” Jeff repeated as the realization sank in deeper.
Evan nodded even though it was obvious the motion caused him great pain.
“So how did he …? Whose idea was it to have us all come out here this weekend?”
A trace of a smile touched Evan’s lips as he lowered his head.
“It was my idea,” he said softly. “I just never thought he would … do what he did.”
“Why did he tie you up and hide you out here?”
“Because he was through with me,” Evan said with a trace of sadness in his voice. “I was no longer useful to him.” He sounded somewhat better. “Once I got all of you out here, he was finished with me—”
Before he could say more, his voice choked off, and he leaned forward and started coughing again.
“You want another drink?” Jeff asked, not knowing what else to do.
“Please.”
“I wish I had something to put it in.” Shining the flashlight around the infirmary, he looked around but didn’t expect to find anything useful. The place had been stripped clean long ago, so he went back to the open door and filled his cupped hands again so Evan could drink.
“It’d be best not to drink too much at first,” he said as he poured the rainwater into Evan’s open mouth. He reminded him of a fledgling bird being fed by its mother.
“How long have you been out here?”
Evan squinted and shook his head, looking confused.
“I have no idea. What day is it?”
“It’s Saturday … Saturday night,” Jeff said even though it felt as though he had been stuck on this island a lot longer.
“Jesus … Saturday night.” Evan was still shaking his head from side to side. “That means he … I’ve been out here four days.”
“Four days! Jesus Christ!”
“I came out to the island on Wednesday to get things ready for the reunion. They delivered the Port-a-Potty, and I was hoping to get a generator hooked up and running so we’d have electricity.”
Jeff was still working to loosen the rope that bound Evan’s legs. There were a lot of knots, and they had been pulled tight, maybe from Evan’s efforts to free himself.
“How’d he trick you into this?” Jeff asked. “I don’t get it. And why would he? What’s he after?”
Evan sniffed with dry laughter and looked at Jeff with glistening eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious? He wants to kill us.”
“Kill us?”
Jeff wished he could stop sounding like Evan’s echo, but this was too much to absorb.
“He wants to kill everyone from Tent Twelve.”
“But why would he—”
Before he could finish his question, Jeff already knew the answer.
“Because of what happened to his brother,” Evan said.
His voice sounded so distant Jeff could easily imagine it was his own thoughts. The chill of the night suddenly cut deeper into him, freezing his bones with an icy touch.
“He blames us?” Jeff asked.
He closed his eyes for a moment and saw a mental image of Jimmy Foster the way he remembered him when he was twelve years old. Jimmy was smiling his big bucktoothed grim that wrinkled his freckled cheeks and made his blue eyes gleam. But Jimmy’s grin instantly melted into a frightening scowl, and both sides of Jimmy’s mouth drooped down as if his face was made of melting wax. His lips peeled back, exposing wide, flat, white teeth that were clenched to hold back a scream. The light in his eyes was snuffed out, and for a terrifying timeless moment, Jeff could see that his friend was terrified as he stared into the bottomless depths of eternity.
“He blames us for Jimmy’s death,” Jeff said, his voice so soft he could barely hear it above the sound of the wind outside.
“He totally set me up,” Evan said weakly. “He set us all up.”
“How do you know this?” Jeff asked, suddenly growing suspicious. He stopped working on the knots and sat back when a sudden paranoid thought came over him.
Maybe this is part of the plan, too.
How could he believe this was really Evan Pike?
Maybe it was some elaborate setup to torment Jeff and his other friends, to torture them with guilt about what had happened.
“He told me, for Christ’s sake,” Evan said.
Looking at him, Jeff was convinced that no one would go to such extremes, sitting out here in their own shit, piss, and vomit in order to entrap someone. This had to be the real Evan, and he must be telling the truth.
“He was convinced Mark did it,” Evan said.
“Did what? You mean killed Jimmy?”
Evan