by David Banner
"Where'd you learn to drive this thing?" I asked.
"I told you, I like it down here,” she responded.
But just as I was starting to relax I noticed another, small light in the distance. "What's that?" I asked.
"I'm gonna say that’s your friends,” she said, speeding the boat up.
"What the hell are we gonna do?" I asked.
"Shit!" she yelled. "The only thing we can. Hold on tight, and keep that light shining. We're gonna take a little detour."
Hope was an expert driver, that was easy to see. But so it seems was whoever it was that seemed to be following us. Every move we made, every turn we took or land patch we glided over they remained right on our tail. As the seconds turned to minutes I became more and more afraid were weren't going to make it out of this alive.
"Get that light ready,” she said.
"Ready for what?" I asked.
"There's a place just past that patch of tall grass over there,” she said pointing into the distance. "The locals call it alligator circle, a lot of the new moms kinda hang out there to protect the babies. When I give you the word, get out and put the light down on the grass behind them. Maybe our friends will make a couple new friends of their own, get me?"
"We're gonna try and kill them?" I asked.
"Better than let them kill us. They might make it out okay,” she said.
"How do I know the alligators won't attack me?” I asked.
"We don't,” she said. "You just gotta be quick. Try not to go in the water, you'll have a better chance."
"Chance of what?” I said.
"Of not being eaten,” she replied, coming to a stop. "Go, we only have a second."
With a big gulp and a surge of adrenaline like nothing I had ever felt I hopped out of the boat and onto the soggy land of the everglades. I only had a couple of seconds to get this done or else the other boat would be close enough to see what was actually happening. That or I'd become a midnight snack for a gator mamma and her babies. Either way I needed to get my ass moving.
Running toward the spot Hope pointed to I slammed the light into the ground, making sure to keep it visible to the other boat. Then I made a mad-dash back toward my boat, but I was just a second too slow. Just a few feet ahead of me I saw a gator sitting on the land, its mouth stretched open.
"Oh my God!” I yelled.
"Listen," Hope yelled back. "Grab some mud, make a ball and throw it in his mouth."
"What?" I yelled.
"Just do it. The sensation will cause his mouth to slam shut, when it does jump on him and hold it closed, then jab something it his eye." Her words were quick and frantic. "Hurry."
"Are you fucking serious right now?" I said, barely comprehending what she was saying.
"Yes!” she yelled. "Be quick, you'll only have a few seconds. Hurry they're almost here."
Looking behind me I could see that she was right, the other boat was gaining on us and quickly too. The things she had told me to do were ludicrous, what kind of person leaps onto an alligator’s back in the middle of the night?
But nothing about these last few days had made even a dime’s worth of sense and my life, my brother’s life and now Hope's too, they were all suddenly on the line here and I had no choice but to trust she knew what she was talking about and that I'd make it back into that boat and out of the fucking swamp.
Dropping to one knee I dug my hands into the marshy ground, pulled up a chunk of wet earth and quickly rolled it into a ball. I was never going to be a professional pitcher but, back in the day, I once had a pretty good arm. So, with a deep breath I launched the ball right dead-center into the animal’s mouth. And just like Hope said, the thing’s mouth slammed shut. Quickly slamming my foot down on its mouth I jabbed both my thumbs into its eyes. It started to thrash and pull back. And seeing my opportunity I made a beeline for the boat.
In seconds we were off into the darkness of the everglades once again and for the briefest of moments I felt a sense of relief. It was short lived however, when from behind us I could hear the sound of screaming coming from the other boat. Just as she predicted they glided right over the top of the gators and I guess the mammas weren't too happy about it.
We stopped for a moment to watch the scene unfold, from what we could tell one of the men had gotten hurt pretty bad, and after a few moments the other boat turned back and headed for shore.
"What the hell was that?” I asked.
"With the gator?" she replied.
"Gators have a reflex in their mouths, they slam shut if anything touches them. They also can't use their jaw muscles to open their mouths. Only to close them which is why I said to jump on its back, but slamming your foot on its mouth seemed to work fine. Now, time to get moving,” Hope said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP ON THE WAY TO SONNY’S CABIN, BECAUSE THE NEXT THING I REMEMBER WAS HOPE WAKING ME UP, TELLING ME WE'D BE THERE IN JUST A FEW MINUTES. I woke to see the sun starting to rise. Bright orange streaks filled the clear Florida sky and I watched as steam rose up from the narrow waterways all around us. It was beautiful.
"No more gators?" I asked.
"Oh no..." Hope chuckled. "We passed a few, they didn't bother us, we didn't bother them."
"That’s the best way,” I said.
"Damned straight." She smiled.
"So... whats your deal?” I asked. "You said you were something like Sonny’s daughter. And you sure seem to know how to drive a boat. Not to mention the cards back there."
"I didn't have the best childhood. Sonny found me and gave me somewhere to go, taught me to count cards, taught me to drive boats, how to hunt... He taught me a lot of things,” she said.
"Oh..." I said. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" She gave me a wicked smile. "You don’t like the way I turned out?"
"I..." I muttered.
"It’s okay.” She smiled. "I'm just busting your balls."
"Right,” I said.
"Hey!” she exclaimed, pointing to another, slightly smaller airboat that sat off to the side. "Sonny’s here."
As we glided up to the cabin, our boat slid onto the land, eventually coming to a stop. Until then I had never been on an airboat and honestly didn't know anything about them. I found it interesting how they could drive on both the water and the land. I had never really tried that before, most of my time in Florida had been spent on beaches. But I was starting to realize there was a whole other side to this place and I kind of liked it.
We stepped out of the boat and onto the soft ground. Hope called out Sonny’s name a few times, but got no response. Eventually just shrugging her shoulders and heading for the door.
"Wait!" I said. "Are you sure he's here? He said there would be a red light on. On the porch. That light isn't on."
"Yeah," she said. "That’s strange."
"Let’s take a look around." I said. "It didn't go so well for me the last time I went traipsing into an empty house."
"You can look around all day,” she said, ignoring me completely. "I'm going inside."
"I really don't feel good about this,” I said.
"Listen, Brandon. I've carried us this far, and I say there’s nothing to worry about. Sonny and I are the only two people in the world that even know this cabin is out here. We built it,” she said.
"Why don't we just—”
"No," she interrupted me. "Now get out of my way."
With a heavy push to my shoulder she walked past me, but I knew something wasn't right. This felt like Anna Maria Island all over again. The long walkway, the empty house, no one around. I could just feel it in the air, something about this was all wrong.
Running past her I made my way to the side of the cabin, it sat a few feet off of the ground and I wasn’t quite tall enough to see into the windows. That’s when I remembered the bucket, the one sitting on the boat. I ran back, grabbed it and made my way back.
I placed it under a window, stepped up and looked into the c
abin. Nothing, it was empty. "I don't think he's in here,” I said. Then, grabbing the bucket I moved on to the next window. Nothing. The last window proved a little bit more useful though. Peering through the glass I saw something that sent chills down my spine. A wire was tied to the door handle, I couldn't see what the other end was hooked to, but I knew it wasn't anything good.
"No!" I yelled. "Don't!"
Jumping down from the bucket I rounded the corner of the cabin just in time to see Hope's hand turning the handle. With what little strength I had in that moment I lunged forward, sending my body crashing into hers just in time to see the house explode into a mess of fiery smithereens behind us.
We hit the ground hard as the searing heat scorched my back. The world went dark for a second, then lit up again in a million flames. The cabin had been booby-trapped, set to explode as soon as we walked through the door.
Hope flailed underneath me, wiggling her way out from under my weight.
"You fucking asshole!" she yelled through a world of tears. "What did you do?"
"I was trying to save your life,” I said. "I saw the trip-wire from the window."
"Sonny was in there,” she cried.
"You don't know that,” I said.
"Yes, I do!" she cried.
"Did you see him?" I asked.
"His boat is here. I know he was in there!” she yelled. "You should have let me go in!"
"So you’d be blown off the face of the Earth?" I asked.
"So I could save him,” she said.
"How?" I asked. "It's a goddamned fireball. No one could survive that."
"That wasn't your decision to make!” she yelled, her face red with anger.
"I'm sorry. I did what I had to,” I said. "I don't see anything here. We should go."
"Go?" she said through confused anger.
"Yes,” I said. "It won't be long before someone notices that there's a massive fireball out here, look at this smoke. Not to mention if these guys come back."
"If they come back I want to be here!" she cried.
"But what if the police get here first? There's no way either of us will get out of this okay,” I said.
I watched as she dropped to her knees, her face cupped in her hands. She was a mess and I could understand why. She had seen the only person she ever believed cared for her explode into a ball of fire. I could remember how I felt when my parents vanished, I could imagine having seen something like this happen to them.
I walked back to the boat and sat down. A few minutes passed, then thirty, then an hour as the house still burned in front of me. Hope sat in a puddle of silent tears just staring at the blaze, I couldn't imagine what she must have been thinking. Maybe she just needed some time to process it and I would have loved to have given her that, but there wasn't time.
In the distance I could hear the sound of another boat. It was headed our way. And fast. "We've got to go,” I said. "Someone's coming."
"Where are we gonna go?” Hope asked.
"Anna Maria Island,” I said. "That’s where Sonny said he was headed when I left him, and that’s where I was framed for murder. You don't have to come if you don't want to, but I need to figure all this out."
"If whatever's happening up there was important enough for Sonny to go, then it’s sure as fuck important enough for me. But they know who I am now too, and your picture is all over the news. We need new names and a new ride. We gotta make a stop,” she said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A FEW HOURS LATER WE ARRIVED IN A SMALL TOWN ABOUT A HALF-HOUR SOUTH OF TAMPA. My parents had disappeared ten years ago, leaving my brother and I to fend for ourselves for a long time. Though I tried to keep us as honest as possible in all of that it wasn't always possible, from time to time we'd do things, then have to skip town for a little while and wait for the dust to settle.
In all that time though, I had never experienced anything like I had been through these last few days. It seemed like one endless nightmare, everything that had happened since Micah was arrested. It all seemed like some big action movie I wasn't prepared to star in. Sure, I had gotten myself into a couple of rough situations, but I never thought my life was on the line. At least, not in the very real way I did now.
"Listen," Hope said as we passed under the small towns only red light. "This guy can be a little off sometimes. Just follow my lead."
"So, we're getting new ID's?" I asked.
"New everything.,” she said. "We need every advantage we can get now. Especially now that you’re being wanted by both sides of the law."
"This is all just so crazy to me,” I said. "I haven't killed anyone. Neither of us."
"I believe you,” she said. "But a lot of people don't, and we gotta manage to stay clear of them for as long as possible."
"This is it?" I asked.
We came to a slow down in front of a long gravel driveway, lined on either side with a white wooden fence. There were horses grazing in the grass and a small barn to the left. On the back of the property sat a white two-story wooden house with a wrap-around porch and a few rocking chairs. Having spent the last few days hopping from one low-rent bar to another this was the last thing I pictured.
"We're going to a farm?" I asked.
"You were picturing a supermarket?" she said.
"I... I don't know what I was picturing,” I said, noticing a a figure off in the distance.
"That's him," she pointed to the figure. "Standing over there feeding the horses. Remember, roll with me."
"O... Okay..." I said.
As I pulled the car to a stop near the front of the house, we got out of the car. I began making my way toward the man in the distance, but I was pulled to a stop by the feeling of Hope's hand on my shoulder. She grabbed my wrist and guided me to the steps of the front porch.
"No," she said. "Just grab a seat here. He'll come for us when he's ready."
"I don't think he's seen us,” I said.
"He knows we're here,” she said. "Just wait."
We sat there in silence for probably an hour, just looking out into the countryside. In almost any other situation it would have been a nice day, relaxing even. But my foot hadn't stopped bouncing since the moment we sat down. My mind was racing a million miles an hour and I had to find a way to silence it.
"Tell me something,” I said.
"Something like what?" Hope responded.
"I don't care," I said. "Anything. I'm going to go crazy just sitting here in silence. How'd you learn how to crack phones?"
She stared at me for a moment. I could see she didn't want to get into this and I couldn't blame her. No one wants to go down through the sordid history of their lives with a person they just met two days ago. Especially not under such extreme circumstances. But I didn't care, I had to make the time pass somehow.
"Well..." she said. "Sonny wasn't much with computers, but he got this thought stuck in his mind that ‘computers are the future’ and so he wanted me to learn everything I could about anything that had even the smallest amount of tech involved."
"That’s cool,” I said.
"Yeah..." she said. "I guess."
"At least he cared enough to watch out for your future like that. Did you go to college for it?" I asked.
"Sonny wasn't really the college type,” she said. "He never could get on board with the cost of the whole thing. He had this whole conspiracy theory about how the system was stacked against people like us. About how they made it cost so much to keep the rich people rich and the poor people in their place. Not that he didn't have money, he just wasn't going to spend it playing their games. That’s what he always said."
"So how'd you learn?" I asked.
"For a long time he was a bookie on the side. He'd gotten out of it recently, but back in the day it granted him a lot of high profile clientele. Sometimes they'd owe him money, and instead of breaking their legs or whatever, he make a deal. I'd sit in with the tech guys from various companies learning everything I could ab
out anything I could."
"What kind of companies?" I asked.
"Every kind,” she said. "And not always companies. Sometimes it'd just be some random guy whose brother owned a cell phone repair shop. I once spent four days working in a pawn shop."
"Whats a pawn shop got to do with tech?" I asked.
"Nothing!" she said. “He just knew that people pawned electronics. But it wasn't even always about that. As long as I was learning how to survive in the real world he didn't care what I was learning."
"That sounds kind of amazing actually,” I said. "Like such an awesome youth."
"I always thought the same thing about the people that got to vacation in the Keys,” she said, her words slowing. "To just be able to spend your time lying on the sand, not having to think about anything or worry at all. To just be with people who loved you, people that found joy in watching you play in the water... I never got that."
I hadn't thought about it like that before. I mean, I knew my parents loved us. Of that I had no doubt, but I never thought about other people not having the same thing. I never really stopped long enough to let it sink in, especially not since my parents disappeared. After that I just kind of blocked everything out. The memories, the feelings... I hid them all away, afraid that if I let Micah see them he’d lose his innocence to the worry and the darkness that I knew could so easily fill a person.
"I'm sure he loved you,” I said.
"I know he loved me,” she said, a small flair of anger in her voice. "And your parents loved you too. But look at us now. We're both here, both in this same shit-storm."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean..."
"I know what you mean,” she said. "I'm just trying to process all of this. I still can't believe he's gone."
I wanted to tell her that he might not be. To remind her that we never actually saw or heard Sonny in that house. But I knew this wasn't the right time for that. I could feel it. It was all still too new, too fresh. Besides, I'm not sure how true any of that was. In all likelihood Sonny was gone, blown to smithereens back at that cabin.
"Hey there, little lady," a gruff voice said.
