Suffer Not Evil: A Florida Action Adventure Novel

by Scott Cook

  “Wha…?” Brad mumbled, trying in vain to reconstruct his wits.

  The solid fist that crashed into the side of his neck and lower ear didn’t help him regain his wits any. He simply stared at the man whose menacing glare was nothing short of savage.

  “Where are both women, Brad?” Jarvis asked, appearing next to the man who held him.

  “In… in there,” Brad pointed toward the island. “The kid took off when we hit the bar and Sarah Beth went after her. They’re both armed.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Clay spluttered.

  “What… what was that thing?” Brad croaked.

  “A Burmese python, I think,” Jarvis said. “Biggest bitch I’ve ever heard of. If she’s not twenty-five feet long and five hundred pounds, I’d be shocked.”

  “Are you telling me that Bradford chick is hunting my kid?” Clay asked Brad, shaking him. “And now that horror movie monster is in there, too?”

  “Hunting each other,” Brad said. “The kid has a gun, too. I heard them exchange shots like a half hour ago… but nothing since.”

  “Come on, Scott!” Clay said.

  “Jackie, keep an eye on him, huh?” Scott asked. “And watch for creatures.”

  “Yeah, great…” Jackie muttered.

  Clay and Scott bolted across the sandbar and into the woods.

  Shelby was hidden well. She’d found a way to wedge herself between three feeder roots and keep a good eye on all of the approaches to the top of the hill. She could hear Sarah Beth getting closer and knew it was only a matter of time before the crazed woman found her. Not that Shelby thought Sarah was homing in, just that she was moving to the high ground too and would get lucky.

  Then the shots came. To Shelby, it sounded like a big gun and it sounded like they’d come from the direction of the boat. And… was that a scream?

  “Hey kid!” Sarah called from no more than a few dozen yards away. “Did you hear that? I think we need to get out of here! Come on out and let’s go make sure Brad’s okay.”

  Shelby almost laughed sardonically. As if she’d fall for that or even give her position away. She only sat perfectly still and waited.

  If she could be patient, it could be possible to get past Sarah and back down to the beach. That boat must have a radio and it might be possible to call someone. It would all depend—

  Sarah Beth screamed and sounds of something large… no two large somethings… barreling through the underbrush and tree trunks right toward Shelby made her start. She moved to her right just in time to see Sarah Beth enter the cover of the banyan tree, followed by something large and grunting. Shelby almost laughed.

  “What is it!?” Sarah exclaimed, waving her gun around.

  “It’s a wild pig,” Shelby said. “Stop making so much—“

  Sarah’s foot hit a patch of moldy leaves under which was a loose pile of gravel. Her feet went out from under her, her pistol soared into the air and with a shriek of terror and frustration, Sarah Beth half-slid and half tumbled down the slope straight into the ringed nest ten feet below.

  Shelby watched as the hog, apparently as startled as Sarah had been, ran the other way and back into the brush, squealing in abject fright. That was weird…

  “Shelby!”

  The voice was a man. It was far away and muffled, but could that be her dad? Shelby waited.

  “Help!” Sarah shouted. “My ankle…”

  “Shh!” Shelby said.

  “Help me, dammit!”

  “Dad!” Shelby cried as loud as she could and then stopped.

  There was another sound. Something else was moving through the underbrush below. Something far larger than the pig and it was headed for Sarah.

  “Be quiet!” Shelby urged.

  Sarah Beth lay on her back, holding her twisted ankle in both hands. The pain throbbed and pulsed, and she had to clamp her teeth together to keep from crying out. Even over her moans and grunts of pain, though, she heard what Shelby heard.

  In spite of the pain, Sarah Beth suddenly went silent. Some part of her brain, a part that was far more ancient than her primate frontal lobe… something far closer in construct to the brain of the creature now approaching her in fact… blasted a very clear warning.

  Her pain was suddenly secondary to a primitive terror that seized her and froze her in place. The pit… the eggs… it stank… stank like rotting meat… and something huge was coming for her.

  “Oh God… Oh god…” Sarah whispered.

  The underbrush exploded and something straight from the monster movie screen reared up, its hideous jaws open and its horrific hiss brought a pungent stench of decay to her nostrils. A body as thick as her waist began to coil and loop and seemed to fall upon her. She began to scream, although not for long. It was like being wrapped up by vines as thick as a human body. Muscular coils whipped around Sarah Beth, cutting off her screams and squeezing. Blackness began to close in and her vision tunneled. The thought that she might soon come face to face with the mother she’d helped to murder was the last cognizant thing she thought before the world went gray. Somehow it felt poetically right.

  As the darkness became final, Sarah heard three of her ribs crack…

  It didn’t hurt, though… at least there was no pain…

  …and then suddenly she could breathe again. She gasped and filled her lungs with an earthy rotting stink that brought bile into her throat.

  Sarah Beth was lying on her back, surrounded by unmoving coils that were as thick as tree trunks. The head of the giant snake lay half a dozen feet away, lying flat on the ground in a pool of blood, brain and loose scales.

  Standing just outside the nest was the kid, Shelby, holding her pistol in two hands. The barrel still smoked from the expulsion of the three shots she’d fired. The two women simply stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

  At least until the two men broke from the foliage a dozen feet away and shouted and ran to them.

  “Shell, don’t!” Clay exclaimed, misreading the situation.

  “She isn’t,” Scott Jarvis said and smiled at Shelby. “She just saved Sarah Beth’s life.”

  “Should’ve let me die…” the overly distraught woman said, starting to cry. “Oh God…”

  “No,” Scott said, coming to stand by Clay and Shelby and putting an arm around the girl. He looked down at Sarah and shook his head. “No, Sarah Beth. You’re going to live. And every day you do, you are going to have to live with the knowledge of what you’ve done. That’s far greater justice.”

  “Pretty hard, Scott,” Clay stated.

  Shelby scoffed and Scott shrugged, “She conspired to kill her own mother, Clay. A woman who didn’t deserve it and whose useful and worthwhile life was stolen from her in a way more horrible even than the fate her daughter was about to face. I don’t know… doesn’t seem so hard to me.”

  Shelby nodded slowly, “Me either.”

  Epilogue

  The schooner Surprise was running under full main and foresails, along with inner and outer jib. Although the breeze was probably no more than eight knots, the nearly two-hundred-ton vessel was making a steady five. Of course, it wouldn’t last long, as a line of thunder squalls was brewing off to the east, over the unseen shores of Saint Petersburg.

  “We’re going to have to take in a reef soon,” I said from my seat next to the helmsman.

  The helmsman at the time was Shelby Delaney. She stood behind the big old-fashioned ship’s weal and guided Surprise on her roughly southerly course toward Egmont Key. Beside her sat Clay. On the other side of me sat Lionel and Trish Argus and on the other side of the cockpit sat Wayne, Keisha and Lisa.

  Far forward, leaning out over the windword bulwarks with their heads stuck through the railings stood Rocky and Morgan. The two dogs’ ears flapped in the breeze and their jaws were open, absorbing the wildness of the scene. They’d already taken to the new boat and were both quite pleased about the accommodations.

  “I say we just ride the blow!
” Lionel stated with a grin.

  “Yeah, I’m okay with that,” Shelby said with a big grin splitting her face.

  “Oh, you’re all sorts of tough now, huh?” I asked, patting her arm. “Shelby the Python Slayer.”

  With my new boat, I had to set up a schedule to take everybody out. Since Lionel and Trish were my partners at the Spindrift Bar and Grill, and since Wayne and Keisha had yet to go, it was their turn. Clay and Shelby were doing a little dad/daughter weekend together, so it seemed appropriate.

  “How’s all that going, anyway?” Trish asked. “It’s been a couple of weeks since that day, right?”

  “Yeah, since the Crocodile Hunter bagged the world’s record for largest python ever found?” Wayne asked with a laugh, shooting Shelby with a thumb and forefinger.

  “You’re the bomb, girl!” Keisha emoted and reached out and gave Shelby some dap.

  “Well, it took me, Clay, Shelby and Rick to carry that big snake down to the boat that afternoon,” I said. “There’s a herpetologist out in Immokalee that took possession of the snake. It was a Burmese. A verified length of twenty-four feet and she weighed four hundred and thirty-eight pounds. At her widest, her body was twenty-two inches in diameter.”

  “God damn!” Wayne whooped and then blushed a little when he looked at Shelby.

  She and Clay only laughed.

  “Aside from that,” I said. “Marcus Bradford and his wife along with Sarah Beth were arrested, along with Trip, Earl and Dale, when Cutler and Alex arrived at Rick’s cabin. Brad Raker and Doctor Campbell, too, obviously. Charges are still pending and there’s an ongoing investigation on the state and federal level.”

  “What about that Franklin guy?” Lionel asked.

  “All things considered… the worst thing he really did was only slightly illegal, I suppose… I mean he did funnel company funds into an offshore account to be then put back in later… not legal but not a capital crime,” I stated. “He was hedging his bets. He’s now been made CEO with Andy as vice president. Let’s just say that this was suggested to the BA board… or what was left of it… if they wanted to keep their DOD contracts.”

  “Uh-huh…” Lionel said and grinned.

  “There’s still something I don’t understand,” Keisha put in. “Why did that Cardoza guy get involved?”

  “He was paid,” Wayne stated.

  “Yeah… but that doesn’t seem enough,” Keisha insisted. “I mean, he’s a big-time dope dealer. Why would he even take a contract for a hit? Seems like more trouble than it’s worth.”

  I grinned at her, “My guess there is Campbell. I also think that Marcus Bradford has a connection to him. Marcus wasn’t just a drunk. Also, the daughter’s coke habit… but I think Campbell was the thread that tied them all together. Favors for favors and that sort of thing.”

  “There’s a lot coming out on him now,” Lisa said. “He’ll be going up the river for a long, long time.”

  “Listen to you, girl,” Wayne teased. “Up the river…”

  Lisa smiled, “What should I call it? The sneezer, the gray bar motel, the clink?”

  “Yeah,” Lionel chuckled. “He’s gonna rattle his tin cup on the bars just to piss off the screws.”

  In the east, the line of the storm had already grown more prominent. We were about ten miles out, far enough away that we couldn’t see land but close enough that the two tall pillars of the Sunshine Skyway were visible on the horizon. The storm had already covered them. It would be a good blow.

  Sensing a change, Morgan and Rocky strolled back to us from their station. Both dogs loved the spacious deck as well as the special three-by-three-foot tray of sod that acted as a doggie seat of ease.

  “Okay, officer of the deck,” I said to Shelby. “We need to snug down for that storm. What should we do?”

  She frowned for a moment, “Well, we need to turn into the wind to shorten the main and fore, right?”

  I grinned, “Exactly. Lionel, you and Trish take the fores’l. Lisa and I will take the mains’l. We’ll double-reef both. Wayne, you and Keisha bring in the inner jib and shorten the outer to about half. Everybody ready? Let’s do this! Put her into the wind’s eye, Mr. Delaney, there!”

  Shelby turned the big boat hard to starboard, turning her great bowsprit into the light westerly breeze. As she did, the four sails began to luff and then flap as the pressure came off.

  I released the brake on the main halyard and began to slowly let it down. As I did, Lisa hooked the reef tack onto the horn at the gooseneck and then gathered the loose foot of the sail, using the reefing lines to snug it to the boom. I then took in a little slack on the clue line and heaved on the halyard, tightening the sail up again.

  By using the upper reef points, we’d shortened it to about a third of its full size. I could see that Lionel and Trish had done the same forward. Wayne was already shortening the big outer jib. It had only taken a minute or so. Very nicely done.

  “Very nicely done,” I said. “Okay, Shelby, fall off now. Southerly again. Have you got enough way on her?”

  Shelby spun the big wheel to port, “I don’t think so… I’m hard over, but we’re not turning.”

  We’d only been doing five knots and with the boat pointed directly into the breeze, all the way had come off. She was in irons. However, there were several ways to deal with this, the easiest of which was to start the engine and power off the wind… but that’d be too easy.

  “Standby aft!” I said. “Clay, haul the main traveler all the way to starboard… now lock in the traveler stops… good… now haul in on the main sheet there… yup, just like that. Now be ready. Once we begin to turn, you’re going to need to ease the main and release the stops. Just watch your hands.”

  With the big main boom forced off-center and to starboard, the wind directly in front of the boat was being scooped into the sail. This created a slight backward pressure and was actually making the boat sail backward, although slowly at first. As she began to slowly gather speed, the rudder began to bite. I had Shelby put the helm hard over to starboard. As the rudder bit and the pressure on the sail began to push the stern, the bow began to fall off to port.

  “Okay, get ready…” I said to Clay. “Almost… let fly! Shelby, hard to port!”

  Clay released the main sheet and unlocked the traveler stops, allowing the boom to gently swing over to port to match the fores’l. Now all three sails were drawing on the starboard tack and Shelby putting the wheel over, turned the big boat off the wind and she began to move forward again on her southerly course.

  “Awesome,” I said. “Nicely done, everybody. Think it’s time for a dark and stormy, considering what we’re about to go through.”

  “Will it be rough?” Shelby asked.

  “Yeah, pretty much doomed, boss!” Clay said in his gruff Captain Ron.

  We all laughed.

  I shrugged, “Nah… not the sea state. It’s coming off the land, so it won’t get too rough out here. When that storm front hits, though, we’ll get thirty knots of wind or more. It’s not a monster, but pretty big. That’s why we shortened sail so much. Now we can ride that blast of cold wind and still maintain control over the boat. A boat this size can handle that weather like a champ.”

  Lisa, Trish and Keisha volunteered to make the drinks. A dark and stormy was simply ginger beer and dark rum. In this case, we used a Pyrat dark, which I liked better than Meyers. For Shelby, they mixed some Perrier that Trish brought with white grape juice and cranberry. We all toasted each other and the storm.

  We were off Anna Maria Island, although it couldn’t be seen when the front struck. The light breeze rapidly grew chilly and increased to a whopping thirty-six knots. The boat heeled over ten degrees or so and our speed went from four-point-two knots to eleven rather quickly. Shelby was still at the wheel, clutching it for dear life but whooping with delight as the ship gathered her legs and leapt into a gallop.

  “Yeah!” Lionel hollered. “Now this is what I’m talkin’ ab
out!”

  “Hell yeah!” Keisha whooped. “Can we all take a turn?”

  “What do you think, OOD?” I asked Shelby.

  She grinned, “Well… okay.”

  We let the ladies go first. The thing about storm sailing, in truth, is that a fast-moving squall passes rather quickly. Once that initial front moves over, the wind dies back down, if not to where it had been then far less than the initial blast. If it comes with rain, the way this one did, then the rain can further kill the wind, although not always, and also tends to flatten the sea a bit.

  The waves, which had been almost non-existent, grew to about three feet over the next twenty minutes. Although I directed the helm to keep us turning so that we could ride the edge of the storm, it was just too fast. Eventually, we turned northeast, sailing into the rain on a light twelve-knot breeze at a modest seven knots.

  “That was awesome!” Shelby said, wiping rain from her face.

  Although the cockpit was covered, the wind had driven in some rain and spray. Now, though, with the more modest wind, we were once again dry and enjoying another round.

  “Yeah,’ I said. “In a boat this size, you don’t worry too much about weather. You just ride the storm like a champ.”

  “What about this lightning?” Keisha asked.

  Clay grinned, “Yeah, boss… not as big a fan as I used to be.”

  I chuckled. Clay had once been nearly struck by lightning and fell off a roof. Miraculously he hadn’t gotten anything more than a few bruises.

  “We’ll be out of it soon,” I said, pointing forward. “It’s already clear by the bridge.”

  “So we’re going in now?” Wayne asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

  “Well, it’s four,” ‘I said. “We’ve still got a couple of hours of sailing and motoring… so yeah, this way we’ll be back by dark. Don’t worry, the fun’s not over yet.”

  After a few moments of companionable silence, Trish met my gaze, “So, how are you doing? About Veronica’s death, I mean?”