Free Rebound by Michael Cain Page A

out here.”
    The woman chuckled
and gave Susan the eye. “So you were talking to someone who’s not
there?”
    Susan stood
speechless. How was she going to explain this? And to a complete
stranger. “Not really someone...more of a voice in my head.”
    “I didn’t mean
anything by that, honey.” The woman ran her wrinkled hand down the
smooth gleam of the surfboard’s outer lip. “Believe me, I talk to
myself all the time.” She fixed a hard look on Susan. “Just be
careful. Those voices in your head aren’t always yours.”
    Susan felt a queasy
knot in her stomach. “What do you mean?” So many thoughts flooded
her mind. Mental illness, radio waves, ghosts, the devil...
    “Just that sometimes
the voices in our heads that judge us and tell us what we should be
doing, they aren’t our voices at all.”
    “Whose are they
then?” The devil, most assuredly. The thoughts that had been
rushing through her head had to be planted by the devil.
    “Your mother’s.” The
woman shrugged her shoulders. “All our mothers.”
    Susan smiled politely
at the deranged old woman. The voice that was in her head, telling
her to go get Kevin, that voice was clearly not her mother’s. Her
mother would have an aneurysm if she even thought Susan wasn’t
still a virgin.
    “I’m just going to go
find my friend,” Susan said, turning to walk away.
    “If you’re looking
for that tall drink of water with the great pecks and hazel
eyes…”
    Susan stopped and
turned in her tracks, suddenly very interested in what the old
woman had to say.
    “He turned off that
way.” She gestured with her thumb to behind where she was standing.
“Headed up to The Virgin Drop on Twelve Apostles Lookout.”
    “The Virgin Drop?”
Susan said dubiously, shielding her eyes with her hand as she
peered up the jungle choked hillside.
    “Virgins go up there
and are never seen again.” The woman wriggled her eyebrows. “They
all come back women.”
    “Funny,” Susan said.
“But how did Kevin get up there?”
    The woman gestured
with her long, thin arm. “There’s a path, there. Leads up to where
you want to go.” The woman’s eyes widened as she peered past Susan
at the ocean. “Excuse me, dear, but my ride’s here.” She grabbed
her board and started sprinting toward the surf, running into the
water and diving onto the board heedlessly. A few strokes and she
broke past the waves lapping at the beach and cut her way out to
sea, where the waters were roiling, and Susan could see larger
waves looming in the distance.
    She turned and looked
to the hillside again, and had to really search to find the mouth
of the trail. She had seen too many horror movies. It was never a
good idea, under any circumstances, to go off into the woods--or a
jungle--by yourself. In slasher flicks, it wasn’t a good move to
enter a forest at all.
    But then that part of
her that wanted her to go paragliding chimed in that at least if
she was killed by a maniac, or savaged by a wild animal, she
wouldn’t have to face Kevin. Wouldn’t have to apologize or get
turned down again.
    But if she didn’t go
she might never see him again, and that thought alone propelled her
into the jungle and down the path leading to Kevin. She had to see
him.
     
     

Chapter 6
     
     
     
    The old surfer chick
was right. Standing looking over The Virgin Drop, the view was
outstanding. The palm trees parted and gave a full panorama of the
beach, the other hills and mountains, and far out into the blue
ocean. Fragrant flowers swayed in the breeze, their scents both
soothing and intoxicating. But no landscape was going to help Kevin
sort out the jumble of thoughts quickly turning into a swamp
crowding his head.
    What was Susan trying
to do to him? Had she lost her goddamn mind?
    Or was she really
interested in him that way, the way he’d always dreamed of?
    If so, what was the
problem again?
    Kevin couldn’t pin
down the problem, but he knew it was there, festering, waiting to
kill