by Darin Harris
"What are you doing?" Hank demanded as he stomped into the room. He wasn’t a big man, but he looked scary. He was covered with tattoos like the woman. I couldn’t tell what they were, but I saw a pair of angry red eyes on one bicep.
Graying hair was flying around his head. He had a gray mustache and beard also. His blue eyes flashed around the room, but they weren’t quite quick enough to see the wooden bed rail flying towards his face.
The board hit him between the eyes and made a terrible sound. He fell down and didn’t move. I hoped that didn’t kill him.
The girl with the black eye stood over him with her bed rail club, and I thought she might hit him again. If he was the one who’d given her the black eye and swollen face, maybe she should have.
I turned back to the third girl and set the pry bar again. I hit it two more times, and the wood finally cracked enough for me to push the pry bar in. I put all my weight on it. Nothing happened. I was worried that we might have to leave her. I tried again and again, but no luck.
I was about to give up when another set of hands wrapped around the pry bar. It was the girl with the pretty smile. “Together.”
I nodded, and we pushed together against the lever. The wood split with a screech. I hit the splinters still holding the pieces together with the hammer, and the pretty-smile girl helped the other girl get the handcuff off the wood.
“Hank!” The tattoo woman was standing at the door. She didn’t come in. She must have seen the black-eyed girl and her club.
The short-haired girl pulled a piece of wood off of the first bed. The girl with the pretty smile took the pry bar out of my hand and held it like a club. I had the hammer, and now armed, we all moved toward the door.
The girl with the pretty smile stepped to the door. “Now we go.” She spoke to the woman with the tattoos. “You no stop us, you no get hurt.”
The woman took a few steps backwards, her tattooed arms held up in the air. We filed out the door, brandishing our weapons. The girl with the black eye started screaming at the woman in Spanish. I have no idea what she said, but it didn’t sound friendly.
“Keegan, Keegan over here.” Brandon’s head was sticking up over the creek bank, and he was waving. Buster was lying down in front of him, snoring. I led the girls to the creek, but I wasn't sure if we should run to the front exit, which was really close. On the other hand, our bikes were down the creek and farther away from the man and woman.
Should Keegan lead the girls to the front exit? M1
Should Keegan lead the girls to the bikes? G2
~~~~~
G2
We hadn’t even gotten to the creek when we heard Joey yelling. “Run!” He was headed toward us, his shirt ripped almost off, pointing towards the bikes.
We ran. Splashing right down the middle of the creek, we raced toward the opening under the fence, where our bikes were located. I was ahead of the others and rushed under the fence.
Turning back, I noticed that Joey had passed Brandon and the three girls. All of the girls had passed Brandon too. Brandon was just not very fast.
Not only was Joey’s shirt torn apart, but he was missing a shoe. I grabbed his hand and pulled him under the fence, and together we grabbed the others and helped them under.
No one was actually following us, so I turned and looked at Joey. “What happened to you?”
He was panting. “She almost caught me when I tripped, but I got away. Then the next thing I knew, some guy came racing around the boys’ dorm, and he grabbed my shirt.” He pulled the pieces of his shirt together, like maybe it could be fixed.
“What’s the big deal?” Brandon smirked. “It’s just a little hole.”
Joey and I smiled, and then Joey continued. “I didn’t stop, even when he grabbed me and my shirt ripped, and I got away.”
“Awesome, dude.” I gave him a high five.
“After I lost her, I snuck into the campground office and called 911.”
“That was a cool move; not in my master plan, but definitely a good move.” Brandon clapped him on the back.
“Keegan, I also called your grandpa and my mom. I didn’t think I should call your mom.” He looked at Brandon, hoping he’d done the right thing. Brandon nodded, agreeing that it was probably best.
Just then, we heard sirens, and in a moment, two sheriff’s cars pulled up alongside us. “Are you the boys who called in?” the deputy driving the first car rolled down his window and asked.
“I am,” Joey admitted, and began to explain what was going on.
“So you were trespassing on private property?” the deputy asked, but seeing the handcuffs on the three girls, he didn’t dwell on it. He climbed out and opened the back door of the car. “You girls get in here. You boys go ride in that car.”
By the time we reached the front gate of the campground, Grandpa and Joey’s mom were pulling up as well. It got pretty crazy after that. We were trying to explain what happened, and the girls were trying to explain why they had been handcuffed to the beds. Most of that was in Spanish, so I didn’t really figure that out until later.
An ambulance came and took Hank to the hospital. I saw that he was handcuffed to the stretcher. That’s what Mrs. Davis, our English teacher, would have called "irony." The tattooed woman was put in a police car. She was in handcuffs too.
Grandpa and Grandma fussed over me, and Grandma fussed over Brandon too until his mom showed up. Grandpa decided it would be best to call her, and when she got there, she didn’t even seem mad at Brandon.
Somehow, a newspaper reporter found out about the whole thing. Her name was Julie Roberts, and she said we could call her Julie. That didn’t seem right. Grandma always said I’m supposed to call adults by Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Julie Roberts was a Ms.
She had frizzy red hair – even brighter red than Brandon’s - and a big gap between her two front teeth. She smelled like French fries, which smells really good when all you’ve eaten is a bowl of cereal and a few bites of some gruesome glop they served at lunch.
“So you boys are the ones who found out the girls were being held here?” Julie (Ms. Roberts) asked.
Brandon pointed towards me. “It was the Alligator Hunter.”
I felt my face flush, but I didn’t think she could tell since it was almost dark. “We were looking for alligators,” I told her, and then Brandon, Joey and I told her the whole story. She took our picture and said we could read all about it the next day in the newspaper.
It was completely dark when the questions had all be answered and we were allowed to leave. I hadn’t seen the three girls hardly at all after the police came. I heard the Sherriff say something about human trafficking, which I only sort of understood.
When Grandpa told me it was time to go I looked for them. They were huddled in the backseat of a police car. The door was open, and I waved and smiled as I walked by. I hoped they would be safe now.
“Keegan.” I’d never heard my name with that accent before. I turned around, and the girl with the pretty smile was out of the car. I had found out her name was Maria.
I smiled at her. “Maria.”
And then she surprised me. She ran up, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me right on the lips. It wasn’t like a Grandma kiss, or even like my mom used to kiss me. It was soft and warm and wonderful. It was my first real kiss, and it wasn’t with Stacy Swanson like I’d always hoped. Maria let go of me and ran back to the police car.
I was probably a brighter color of red than I can ever remember being, but I was walking on the clouds, as Grandma always said. Smiling a goofy smile, I waved again, and then got into Grandpa’s old truck. Maybe we didn’t find any alligators, but right then I wasn’t complaining.
THE END
[back to the beginning]
About the author:
*~* I was pretty sure I wanted to be a writer in the fifth grade. (or a cowboy...or a soldier...or...)
*~* In the twelfth grade I wrote a 5-p
age paper entitled, "When I grow up I want to be a _____." (I found out not many people want to be a line when they grow up.)
*~* I got a 100 on the paper, and decided I wanted to be a writer more than a line, but I waited 25 years before I started working on it. ("Better late than never," they always say - whoever they are.)
*~* Oreos dunked in milk may be what the Bible calls manna from heaven. (I could be wrong on that.)
*~* My wife is super-cool and I've decided to keep her around. My two boys are super-cool too, but one joined the Army and one went to college, so I guess I won't keep them around.
Keegan Scott: Bike Wrecks & Bad Days
Keegan Scott: Bearded Dragon Bandit
Right Arm
Runners
Connect with Me Online:
My blog: https://www.darinsharris.net
E-mail: [email protected]
~~~~~
H1
“Come on, Brandon, don’t be a chicken. Keegan’s not scared. He always say he wants to be like the Alligator Hunter or one of those other guys on TV. Are you ready to face the gators?”
I guess I should explain. Like a lot of people I watched the Alligator Hunter several times a week, and when I saw on the news that Stan Borlan had died I couldn’t believe it. He was hiking in Africa and got trampled by a rogue elephant. Even though I’d never met him, it felt like I’d lost a good friend, and as Grandma said, “The world seemed like a sadder place.”
For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to be like the Alligator Hunter, and after he died, I made a decision. Someday, I was going to do what he did. Once I heard about the alligator, I had started thinking maybe I’d really get to be the next Alligator Hunter.
Anyway, Joey looked at me, and I nodded. “See? Come on, Brandon; nothing’s going to happen. You’ll see.”
Brandon looked at me and nodded slowly. “Okay, I guess.”
Joey lifted a forkful of some currently-unidentified casserole type substance to his mouth. “We need to go check out the old campground. Maybe it came from there.” Brandon’s eyes went wide.
“But I heard the new owners are devil worshippers or something,” Brandon whispered.
“Come on, Brandon; you know that’s just something people made up.” Joey scooped up another forkful of casserole. Brandon was already finished with his. I tasted one bite of mine.
“Brandon, how can you be afraid of the campground but not scared of this creepy casserole?” I lifted up a spoonful and tipped it over so it plopped on the pale, pink, plastic plate.
Should Keegan keep quiet and go to the campground? J1
Should Keegan tell them what he knows about Mr. Gentry? B1
~~~~~
J1
We headed up the creek to the main campground. I was out in front, just in case we came up on a baby alligator. Joey was behind me, carrying Brandon’s mom’s video camera. Brandon had borrowed it without asking, so we had to be really careful. We sloshed through the creek, trying to be as quiet and careful as three thirteen-year-old boys could be. I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen any baby alligators, but I figured the momma alligator would want them close to the pool. If that’s where she was.
We were almost to the main campground, so I slowed down, crawling up the bank every so often to look for the owners. We were behind the building that used to be the girls’ dormitory when it was the Methodist campground. “I’ll go check it out.” I crawled all the way out of the creek bed. The grass didn’t make as much noise as the water, even though I was more out in the open.
I was only out of the creek for a minute when I spotted IT.
I saw Joey and Brandon’s heads sticking up over the top of the creek bed. “Run!” I screamed, and took off myself.
Before I ever reached the bank, I heard them splashing as they ran down the middle of the creek. I planted my left foot and swung my arms forward to propel myself off the top of the bank and into the creek. My right foot and the rest of my body took off, but the left leg of my jeans was trapped in the giant, slobbery jaws of a monster dog.
My body, which had already started flying toward the center of the creek, quickly changed directions. I jerked straight down. The creek was only about eight inches deep, but the banks of the creek were over five feet deep. It was kind of like the creek was at the bottom of a five foot “V” of mud. I barely got my arms down to help break my fall. It wasn’t really much help. My belly and face slapped the muddy bank.
After the initial shock of belly flopping on the creek bank, I started flailing and kicking to try and free my pants from the mouth of the monster. Unfortunately, my head was almost in the creek, while my feet were about five feet above my head on the top of the bank. I looked up at the jaws of the monster dog that held my foot. It was hard to see, because I had fallen face down, and I had to twist my body and peer over my shoulder to look up the slope of the bank. And because the dog was thrashing his head back and forth with my pants leg between his long, sharp teeth.
I was already terrified before I looked, but after I looked, I was like one of those Japanese people in the old Godzilla movies, eyes wide, screams frozen on their faces. The dog’s face wasn’t furry like a normal dog. Greenish-brown scales covered its jaws, scales like Godzilla had, or… Or like an alligator’s. Its mouth was incredibly large. Huge mouth, sharp teeth, scaly jaws – and a big, fluffy tail wagging back and forth – what could it be?
Hanging upside down by one leg, looking for some way to escape, I couldn’t think.What was the scaly, hairy, growling creature that held my pants leg in its mouth? What? What? What? And then I got it. The new owners of the old Methodist campground must have been doing genetic tests, and the creature that had my pants leg in its slobbery jaws was a cross between an alligator and a dog. It was a dogator. The dogator snarled as he yanked on my pants, and my whole body shuddered with each ferocious jerk.
It had never been like that for Stan Borlan, the Alligator Hunter. "may he rest in peace," as Grandma always said. He'd face an eighteen-foot crocodile, jump out of the way of its snapping jaws, and still have a big smile for the camera.
As I hung there, listening to the growls of the monster, I prayed. Oh God, help! I’m about to be eaten by an alligator-dog thing! Please don’t do a death roll.
That’s what it’s called when the alligators spin their bodies around and around to kill their prey. Sometimes two alligators will both grab on and spin in opposite directions to tear the prey apart. It’s really cool to watch on TV, but I don’t think I’d want to see it close up, especially if the alligator had my pants leg in its mouth. I really hoped to be Keegan Scott – the Alligator Hunter, not the Alligator Dinner.
I screamed and kicked and struggled with all I had, but the dogator slowly pulled me up the bank. As I slid in the mud, my hands clawed at the ground, searching for anything to grab on to. Mud caked my face, so I couldn’t see very well, but I was able to see a rock sticking up in the mud to my left. The fingertips of my left hand grabbed on to it and I pulled with all my might. My muscles strained under the effort, and it felt like I was winning the tug-o-war.
Then the dogator made a growling noise that was deep and rumbling, and it pulled even harder. My fingertips slipped off of the rock, and I was fiercely jerked up the bank another six inches. Oh, God, help! Then I saw it: off to my right, like a life preserver thrown out to a drowning man, was a tree root sticking up out of the mud. I reached for it, and the dogator pulled at the exact same time.
I missed the root. I stretched again, and again the dog thing thrashed, causing me to miss the root. It was like reaching for a life preserver, bouncing on the waves, and I couldn't grab hold. I dug the toe of my free shoe into the mud and pushed against the ground, gaining just enough leverage to grab the root. I clung to it, pulling, pulling, pulling, until finally both hands firmly grasped the life-saving root.
I groaned and grimaced.
The dogator growled and grunted.
The tree root was rough on my hands, and it felt like it was scraping the skin off of them. I held on tight. My muscles burned as I strained against the pull of the dogator, but I was able to pull myself slowly down the creek bank.
I tugged on the root and felt myself inch downward, and then, all of a sudden, it seemed as if gravity started working in my favor. I screamed and kicked and prayed as I started sliding down the creek bank into the creek. I’m winning!
The only bad thing was that my pants didn’t move with me. I slid downward, the dogator thing pulled upward, and the snap on my jeans popped. I was too afraid to let go. Please don’t take my pants! Please! The dogator whipped his head back and forth, and my pants slipped. They moved over my hips, and I felt my underwear start creeping down.
Oh no, that’s not going to happen! I grabbed the elastic waistband with one hand, while holding fiercely to the root with my other. The dogator yanked me back toward him a couple of inches, but I was able to tug my underwear back up. Then, with one final yank, I felt my pants slide up past my knees. My other hand grabbed the tree root again, and my pants slipped over my feet, releasing me from the grasp of the dogator. I slid down the muddy bank. I was able to look over my shoulder just in time to see my pants fly up over the top of the bank.
Then I fell face first in the creek. The good news was that the water washed some of the mud off of my face. The bad news was that the water went up my nose, and I started coughing. I came up out of the water and heard my jeans ripping above me, along with the ferocious growls of the dogator. I tried to be quiet, so the dog wouldn’t come down the bank after me.
