Swamp Monster Massacre (4 page)

Walking on unsteady legs, he made it to the wreck of the boat. A few more bodies inside, none of them moving. He felt bad. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. All he wanted was to get away from the Cubans. He’d planned to give the passengers the boat back once he found where he needed to go. Odds were they’d never have been able to trace their way back to him. They were so far off the beaten path, it would be a miracle if they found the dock in Naples. But at least they would have been alive to try.
 

And he had to admit, he was impressed by the girls. They were some tough broads. It took a lot to impress him. More than just a set of boobs and a nice smile. Nah, they were the goods. Too bad they had to bite it this way.
 

Rummaging around the stern, he found a bag full of tools, rope and other crap that collected on boats. He dumped everything onto the sand and set out to gather his money. It had taken him a long time to get all that cash, and murdering Cheech to retain it, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it go now.

Bills were everywhere. A lot of them were caught in a large swath of sawgrass. The sawgrass had sharp edges to it, and his hands and arms got cut up pretty good.
 

He had to be careful because gators liked to nest in sawgrass. Their tough hides didn’t care a whit about the razor-sharp weeds. The last thing he needed was to stumble upon a hungry gator.
 

Speaking of gators, where were the guns?
 

Rooster went back to the boat and checked around. He found one of the pistols and jammed it in his waistband. But the bag was nowhere to be seen.
 

“Nothing’s ever easy,” he lamented.
 

The mosquitoes were out in force now and doing their best to suck him dry. He swatted at the back of his neck and face constantly as he wandered around, picking up stray twenties and searching for the bag of guns.

He finally found it under one of the Jersey Shore guys. The dumb dago had landed on the bag. He was facedown in the sand. His Gucci shades were still stuck in the spikes of his hair, but cracked in half. Rooster found the strap by his neck and tugged. The bag came out and the kid rolled over.
 

To Rooster’s surprise, Jersey Shore’s chest rose. He was alive!
 

Now that was going to be a problem. When Rooster thought Jersey Shore was dead, he’d had no problem leaving his body out here for the gators and panthers. When they were done, the birds and bugs would take care of the rest. The circle of life. Nothing wrong with that.
 

The fact that the kid was alive was throwing a fat monkey wrench in his plans. How was Rooster supposed to navigate the swamp
and
drag him along?

“I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it,” he said. For now, he had to load up one of the pistols in case he needed to make a point with the local wildlife to leave him be. He found the box of bullets in the bag and slipped six inside the pistol.
 

Man, they were some sweet guns. They wouldn’t take down a charging gator, but they may give one enough incentive to find something else to eat.
 

Feeling more prepared, he was turning to decide what to do with the kid when the sounds of moaning filled the heavy air.
 

Rooster looked around, brought the gun up and hissed, “Crap balls!”

Chapter Eight

All around him, bodies began to move. Groans of pain and confusion were everywhere, even coming from places he couldn’t see. It was like one of those zombie flicks where the dead all rise from their graves at the same time.
 

Only this was worse. These weren’t zombies, and he didn’t want to go around shooting them in the head. Unless, of course, they tried to attack him again. Shit, he wasn’t sure he could do that to the girls
even if
they handed his ass to him again.
 

He found a stone in the sand and sat down, waiting to see what the final living count would be.
 

Liz woke up feeling like a spear had lanced her skull in two. The rest of her body didn’t feel much better. Her head rested on the Italian guy’s thigh. She heard him grumble, and from the sound of it, he wasn’t in much better shape.
 

Maddie!
 

Despite the pain, she sat up quickly and looked for her sister.
 

“Maddie, where are you?”

She looked over the side of the boat and found her sister on all fours, marshaling her strength to get up.
 

“I’m fine, Liz,” she said. “Just taking inventory.”

Relief almost swept Liz off her feet. She carefully straddled the edge of the boat and dropped down onto the sand. Maddie rushed over to her and they hugged.
 

“I thought for a moment I lost you,” Liz said, holding back tears.
 

“I’m not that easy to kill,” Maddie replied with a pained laugh.
 

“Uuungh.” The middle-aged guy who had landed alongside Maddie struggled to open his eyes. They knelt down to help him.
 

“What happened?” he said, grimacing when he attempted to roll to his side.
 

“We crashed,” Liz said. “My sister and I took that guy out, but we didn’t count on losing total control of the boat.”

“My wife, is she okay?”

Liz looked at the boat. “I…I don’t know. I saw her in the boat. You want me to check for you?”

He nodded, too dazed to do it himself. Maddie kept by his side while Liz went back to the boat. The woman was coming to, along with the nerdy guy who was fingering the space in his mouth where some missing teeth used to be. The Italian kid was on his knees and massaging his jaw.
 

“Hey, is everyone all right?”
 

Her head jerked in the direction of the voice. The pilot—she thought he’d said his name was Mick or Mike—limped toward them. His face was covered in blood that was still seeping from an unseen wound under his cap.
 

“We’re alive, but far from all right,” she answered. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

“It’s in a metal box by the stern. I’ll come up and get it. Think I might need a few things out of it myself.” He wiped a palmful of blood off his forehead and out of his eyes.
 

For the first time, Liz took note of the heat and mosquitoes. It was exactly the way she imagined hell would feel. The buzzing swarm was a roiling, black mass that had descended on everything and everyone.
 

The nerdy guy scratched a fingernail into the cloth of a seat-back. She watched with revulsion as he extracted a pair of bloody, cracked teeth. He put them in his pocket, turned to her and smiled.
 

“You never know. If I get back to the hotel, I’ll put these under my pillow and maybe the tooth fairy will give me a dollar.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a racking cough, causing him to spit up a quivering gob of blood.
 

“My head!” someone else was shouting. “I think my head is broken!
Madonna mia
, I think I’m gonna puke.”

Liz saw the other Italian guy, this one on the sand about fifteen feet from the boat, rock from side to side on his back, holding the sides of his head with his hands like it was going to come apart.
 

That’s when she saw the big guy, the one who had gotten them into this, sitting on a rock, watching them.
 

He said to the Italian guy, “Well, at least that’ll take your mind off your hand.”

The guy stopped, looked at his hand that was more broken up than a trailer park after a twister, and wailed loud enough to be heard in the Bronx.
 

An osprey swept out of the sun-blistered sky and dove into the water, snatching a fish from its merry way, and disappeared over the tree line. Rooster watched it with a burning envy. He’d arm-wrestle the Devil to have himself a pair of wings. Slogging through the swamp in this heat, and later in the dark, could get him killed.
 

Getting up off his ass was no easy feat, but he made a point not to show the least bit of discomfort. It felt like every bone and organ in his body had been taken out, put through a cement mixer filled with bricks, and shoved back inside, all broken and bruised.
 

This was some motley crew he had to contend with. He sighed with resignation. The way he looked at it, they were all in this together. It was, when he thought about it, his fault that they were stuck here, some of them most likely gator bait. It wasn’t their fault he killed Cheech. And it wasn’t like they had asked to get shot at and spilled all over the place in a wreck. In his book, that made them his responsibility. Not that he knew what the hell to do with them, but it would come to him. Getting out of tight jams was his specialty, though this one was tighter than usual.
 

He’d try to do right by them…unless they pissed him off. In that case, all bets were off.
 

When he saw that he had their full attention, all eyes shifting to the loaded pistol in his hand, he said, “Let’s get one thing straight. I am
not
the bad guy. I was
running
from the bad guys. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“If you’re not the bad guy, how come you’re holding a gun on us?” one of the blonde girls said without a lick of fear. She was wrapping gauze around the pilot’s head. It bled like a waterfall, but head wounds did that. She may have been young and slight, but she and her sister were probably the toughest in the bunch. Despite the pain and their unfortunate circumstance, it kind of turned him on.
 

Rooster slowly slipped the gun through his belt on his right side. He moved his hand away and raised both to show he had no intention of using it on them.
 

“Is that better?” he asked.
 

She didn’t reply.
 

The ones who weren’t dazed shot daggers his way. He had to take control of the situation before somebody did something stupid. When people did stupid things around him, it was usually the last thing they did. The swamp had enough shit out to get them. He didn’t want to be part of the list.
 

“We’re gonna have to move out of here, and soon,” he said. “This is a good time to get yourselves fixed up as best you can with that first aid kit. Those of you that don’t need much should gather things like water and tools and anything else we could use for shelter or protection. I’d help you, but I think it’s best I supervise until you come to grips with my intentions.”

The Jersey Shore kid without the busted hand said, “What happens if we don’t leave? You going to shoot us?”

Rooster could tell the kid was trying to be brave, but the slight quiver in his voice gave him away. It wasn’t a challenge. He was just scared and wanted to know if he should pull out his rosary beads.
 

“I’m not going to do anything. The gators who have been nesting in all this sawgrass, however, will do plenty. They’re out in the water now, but you can bet those fuckers will be coming home soon enough. If you want to lay yourself out like an appetizer, be my guest.”

He let that sink in. Now their anger at him had been replaced by fear of the gators. It was a start in the right direction.
 

The pilot adjusted his cap and gingerly put it back on his head. He looked left and right and sucked in hard through his teeth a few times. Finally, he said, “Man’s right. I count at least a dozen nests just around us. No telling how many more are in spots I can’t see.”

Rooster snapped his fingers. “Okay, now that you all got a second opinion from the good pilot, I say you get your asses moving.”

And move their asses did.
 

The girls patched up the other lady, then helped get her husband to his feet and gave him some Tylenol. The two-handed Jersey Shore was fine, except for the limp, and the little guy looked like he had just come out of the dentist and forgotten to pay the doc for his dentures.
 

The swarthy pilot noisily lumbered all throughout the demolished boat, ransacking every nook and cranny for supplies and things to carry them in. His head disappeared below the stern line and he got real quiet. Rooster was about to check on him, make sure he wasn’t getting any funny ideas, when the blonde girl whose hair had been chopped off on the right side of her head asked him if he needed any medical attention. Her sister was luckier, the blades having given her a more even cut that made her look like a punk rocker.
 

“Nothing that kit can help me with,” he said, feeling the burn of his ribs.
 

She gave a slight grin, casting her gaze downward, and walked away.
 

When they were done with everyone else, the girls went to the other guido, who was the worst for wear of the bunch. From the wet way he was breathing, it sounded like he had some internal bleeding. The rest went to the boat and put what supplies they could find into an old net and some shopping bags.