Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance (16 page)

             
Bobby
howled out a stream of obscenities, and then suddenly out came an
infrasound bellow.  That meant the second trigger point had
worked.

             
Brandy
broke away at lightening speed and shifted herself just in time to
meet Bobby face-to-face, reptile-to-reptile in the dirt at the ground
level. 

             
He
never stood a chance.

             
She
immediately grabbed him with her jaws and dragged him into to the
water. It took her several minutes to knock Bobby unconscious, and
then Brandy finished him off, chunk by chunk. 

             
She
locked on to a choice part of his anatomy with her teeth, then swerve
into a death roll to snap off a limb or a piece of his tail, which
she proceeded to swallow whole. Bit-by-bit, she whittled him down to
a scaly nub.  By the time was finished, just enough of Bobby was
left for a single fried gator bite at Sons-of-Guns Bar & Grill.

             
After
shifting back into human form, she took a shower and cleaned herself
up. Brandy needed to stop off at a 24-hour drugstore on the drive
back home.  In the parking lot, she downed a half-bottle of
Pepto-Bismol to try and settle her stomach.

Chapter 18

             
Brandy
was running out of time before she had to finish the job of getting
rid of Hugh Cliburn.  'Shirley' needed to be taken back to the
swamp since her week was up, and the deadline that Brandy and McEvans
had agreed upon was fast approaching.

             
She
always knew where Hugh was at night from the faint whiff of marijuana
smoke that trailed off from one corner of the manmade swamp, but
she'd had indigestion for a few days now.  She needed to recover
from the incident with Bobby before she had a second meal of
Cliburn
tartare.
So
she had been eating yogurt every day and taking acidophilus
supplements, hoping to increase the healthy bacteria in her
intestinal tract.

             
Brandy
decided that after a show she might actually have her chance. 
Once the audience was gone, and McEvans left the gator pit, she could
make it happen fast before she had to report to him before she left
for the evening. It was brazen and risky, but she couldn’t put this
off any longer.

             
So
on one evening, McEvans was supposed to have been gone from the gator
pit, but he had noticed another weak spot in the fence and was
examining it when he heard some thrashing in the water behind him.

             
Unbeknownst
to him, Brandy had shifted and already had Hugh Cliburn at her mercy
underwater. 

             
Or
so she thought.

             
McEvans
looked around instinctively for 'Shirley', but didn't see her.

             “
Shirley!”
he called out.  It was a given now that she would come whenever
he called.

             
She
was still nowhere to be seen.

             “
Shirley!”
he called out again. “Where the hell are you?!” 

             
This
was no way to talk to a lady, he knew, but he was getting nervous.

             
The
thrashing now sounded more serious, and then suddenly he could see
'Shirley' and another alligator (Hugh) rolling around at the water's
surface. Suddenly, the fog he had been walking around for the past
two weeks momentarily lifted, and he had a moment of clarity. 

             
This
felt like
deja
vu
,
but what McEvans DIDN'T have this time was a gun. 

             
What
he had instead was a machete, hanging off a hook on a nearby post. 
McEvans kept it around as an all-purpose weapon. 

             
Right
now, this looked like an even fight, so McEvans considered just
letting it run its course. After a minute or two, however, 'Shirley'
looked like maybe she wasn't doing so well. 

             
Hugh
Cliburn had some moves of his own, and Brandy had underestimated
him. 

             “
Fucking
bitch!” Hugh roared at her through the water spray as they flipped
and charged at each other.

             
The
truth of the matter was that Brandy relied quite a bit on general
intimidation and rarely, if ever, had to tough it out in such a rough
and tumble fight as she had with the Cliburns. She usually had the
matter settled in less than two minutes.  With Hugh, however,
she was equally matched in terms of the level of vengeance in their
respective hearts.  Hugh's desire to survive, in addition to his
anger over the death of two brothers, pushed his adrenaline past its
normal sociopathic levels.

             
What
happened next was something Brandy would never forget and would tell
her grandchildren about. 

             
McEvans
unsheathed his machete and dove straight into the swamp with it. His
lean mass was just as muscled as a gator, and fortunately he was a
very good swimmer. McEvans could hold his breath for three minutes
underwater.

             
When
Brandy realized there was a human in the swamp, she broke away from
Hugh.  She had McEvans in her sights underwater now, and so did
Hugh.  She was horrified at what might happen to him, but she
didn't quite know what to do.

             
McEvans
had been in dangerous situations before.  He was among the few
people who could claim to have survived the bite of the deadly black
mamba snake in sub-Saharan Africa.  He had dodged guerrilla
bullets while on Safari in Rwanda and poison darts while
unintentionally trespassing on tribal lands in the deep Amazon. 
He and a small camera crew were even lost at sea for 14 days in the
South Pacific without food or water.

             
The
closest he had come to a bare-knuckle fight with an animal before,
though, was facing down a grizzly in Montana.  But he had never
before actually been in the position of needing to rescue someone
ELSE. Just himself.  And he had never unintentionally forgot
about his own safety like this for someone else.              

             
Once
he was in the water and in the thick of it, McEvans realized that he
might actually get himself killed this time.  But there was no
time for second guessing himself.

             
He
was having a hard time seeing underwater, because swamp water is not
exactly the clearest.  There was no mistaking the size
difference between the two alligators, however.  Hugh sized
McEvans up, but before actually going in for the kill, McEvans dove
beneath Hugh.  He shot straight back up and plunged the machete
into Hugh's thick underbelly, dragging the blade straight through the
length of his torso, literally splitting his gut.

             
The
pain put Hugh into shock, so he didn't quite get that the blood he
now saw now billowing in red watery clouds all around him was his
own.  But he felt a surge of anger that he turned back on
Brandy, instead of going after McEvans.

             
Brandy
was so stunned at seeing McEvans destroy Hugh, that she was
completely caught off guard when Hugh made one last attempt on her
life. 

             
All
Hugh managed to do, however, was go at her left leg again, but that
was enough to set into motion the inevitable.  The pain was so
bad that Brandy shifted back into human form before she could get out
of the water.  When she dragged herself past the waters edge,
she turned back to see McEvans staring at HER while standing knee
deep in bloody water, machete still in-hand.

             
Brandy's
eyes darted around, but she couldn't see Hugh at all.  He must
also have shifted by now, and Animal Sphere couldn't handle the
publicity of having a dead body in the alligator pit.

             “
Brandy
– what the hell?!  Were you swimming in there?” 
McEvans demanded to know.

             
Brandy
nodded.  She was on real thin ice here with this one.  He
had saved her life for the second time, and Brandy couldn't
conceivably think of any sane explanation as to why she was swimming
in the gator pit naked in the dark, other than making up more
cockamamie half-truths and stories about her childhood.

             “
I
think you saved Shirley's life,” she said.  “I saw all of
it.”

             
“
I
didn't even see you!
”
he
yelled at her.
“
That
was goddamn dangerous! I don’t care if you want to go swimming with
gators on your own time at home, but you will NOT do it here when are
alone in the gator pit!”

             “
I'm
not the one who went looking for a fight,” Brandy lied.

             
McEvans
felt weird about something – and it wasn't just the fact that his
employee was sitting naked in front of him, not even looking shy
about it.

             “
Would
you please go get me a towel?” she asked.“I'm starting to get
chilly here and don’t want to put my clothes on when I’m still
wet.”

             
McEvans
looked down, dropped his machete to the sand, and walked off.

             
When
he was safely out of sight, Brandy knew she had only a few minutes
and a small window of opportunity to take care of business.  She
shifted again, dove underwater, and immediately found Hugh. 

             
Hugh
Cliburn was in human form, sunken deadweight at the other end of the
swamp.  He had bled out. She devoured him and then floated to
the water's surface.  She scanned the whole area and saw no
sight of McEvans yet.  Brandy crawled back out of the water. She
immediately shifted back, then turned around in the sand and realized
she had seriously miscalculated.

             
McEvans
had, indeed, returned with a towel at precisely the right or wrong
moment, depending on how Brandy's grandchildren would interpret the
story years later.

             
The
two of them stared at each other in the dark. 

             
McEvans
had seen a lot of strange things in strange lands, but he had never
seen THIS. 

             
What
WAS this?
he
asked himself. He had heard stories, though, from witch doctors
mostly, spinning tales around campfires.  They told tales of
powerful human beings who could transform themselves into animal form
at will – harnessing all the characteristics of that animal.

             
Brandy
knew she had just made a huge mistake.  Fear gripped her in the
gut. 

             “
Please
tell me I didn't just see what I think I saw,” McEvans said. 
His voice was shaky.

             “
What
do you think you just saw?” Brandy asked him gingerly.

             
McEvans
swallowed hard.  He realized he had stopped breathing because of
the shock, and he finally remembered to inhale.

             “
I
think I just saw something that is not humanly possible,” he said.

             
Brandy
felt too weak for the moment to stand up.  McEvans tossed her a
towel and remembered his manners, averting his eyes while she got
dressed. Brandy twisted her hair to squeeze out the water, like
McEvans had seen her do before.