Otis lent them a hand hauling the carcass up and over the fence. With a bunch of grunting, pushing and shoving on both sides of the fence, the limp carcass smashed down on the other side of the fence.
“Get in shape fat fuck, whaaaaack!” Armand teased from his branch.
Otis did his best to ignore the bird and went in to boss mode and began barking out orders. “Get back to the gatehouse, girl. The guests will be here soon now. Cleetus help me bring the gator over to The Shack.”
Ava looked to the ground, shoulders sunken and walked back to the gatehouse. Cleetus and Otis made their best attempt at a comedy routine, hauling the gator’s body over to The Shack.
The Shack was once the farm’s quaint little cafeteria. Now it served as the place where Otis and Cleetus brought the dead gators. They told Ava the bodies were piled up in the restaurant's long dead walk-in freezer. It was the only way to keep the stench down so as not to attract any predators. Or hungry zombies. They disallowed Ava to enter The Shack for her own sake. The thought of the farm’s dead gators piled up and rotting was enough to convince her not to be too curious about it anyway.
* * * * *
The first group arrived about a half hour later. They made their way up the entrance walkway carefully. The guests were visibly weary of walking through the painted areas and stepped as quickly as they could through them. They weren’t exactly sure why the path was painted in various colors but they knew enough not to linger in those areas for too long.
Ava greeted the guests as they walked up to the window, “Welcome to Gator Aid gator farm, what have you brought for admittance?
“Thanks, I’m Russ, we were told about this place by some of the others back in St. Augustine.” Russ held up two obviously dead chickens by their feet, “We’ve brought a few chickens. I hope it’s enough.”
Ava unbolted the steel door next to the window. Russ placed the chickens in the door and Ava locked it again. She bid the group an enjoyable visit to the Gator Farm and raised the gate via a lever in the gatehouse. She knew two chickens for five admissions would upset Otis but that suddenly didn’t matter to her. There was a boy, roughly her age, that was part of Russ’ group. Upon setting her eyes on him, her heart began to flutter and her knees weaken. She was suddenly grateful she was seated on her stool or she would have fallen over for sure.
The boy lingered at the window as the rest of his group shuffled in. His smile so big and perfect, Ava could barely get the words out to acknowledge him. She stumbled out her usual welcome, through the glass partition, never taking her eyes off the gorgeous guy. “Welcome to the uhhh Sexy Aid... I MEAN...Gator Aid. I meant to say Gator. Oh god.”
She tried to hide her beet red face behind her hand. The handsome teen smiled a million dollar smile at her. He was clearly tickled by her faux pax. He held up the backpack he had clenched in his hand and Ava looked at it curiously. Ava unlocked the intake door, grateful there would be a little more of an offering from the group. He winked at her and Ava was left catatonic.
“My name is Jason, by the way. Maybe you could show me around later, if you’re not too busy,” he said as his whiter than white smile never left his face.
Ava could only muster an uncomfortable, “Yeah,” and then giggled uncontrollably. She couldn’t regain her composure until he was out of her sight.
What is wrong with me? She thought to herself. She had never been stricken so hard before. Being around Cleetus and Otis for the past several months had actually put the idea of boys and romance way far back on the burner. The farm had had its share of young gentlemen visitors before but she never gave them a second glance. But Jason...
“Jason...” she sighed softly to no one.
She checked out the contents of the backpack Jason had dropped off. She unzipped the opening just enough to peer inside. She gasped! M&M’s, the backpack was full of one pound bags of M&M’s. My knight in shining armor Ava thought and couldn’t think of much else after that.
She was swooning so hard she hadn’t even noticed a new guest had approached the window. He coughed to get her attention and she snapped out of it. He was an older gentleman, completely gray hair, thinning out both on top and his beard. He was wearing khakis and a pith helmet. Ava fought back a laugh at his ridiculous choice of attire.
“Oh! I’m sorry I was just daydreaming. Welcome to Gator Aid gator farm. We barter for entrance. What do you have in trade for a visit to our farm for the day?”
“Well, I got some—”
Ava suddenly cut him off by pulling the lever on the gate and commanding him to get in immediately. The old man was stunned for a moment at the sudden switch in gears but quickly got the message when he saw Ava looking worriedly over his shoulder back down the path. He scattered in past the gate and she shut it behind him.
Just above the gatehouse glass was a bank of more levers. Ava studied the zombie as it shambled up the path toward the gatehouse. He was about to walk over a part of the path painted out in yellow. Ava reached up and grabbed the yellow lever in the control bank.
The zombie reached the midpoint of the colored yellow box and Ava pulled the lever. From the stand of Cypress standing on either side of the path, two logs swung in toward the path, one on each side. They slammed together end to end simultaneously, sandwiching the zombie’s spongy rotting skull in between them. Its head splattered like a ripe blueberry pinched between two fingers. The remaining torso and legs dropped, like a wet blanket, to the pavement.
Ava, breathing heavily from the sudden excitement, watched the path intently for more of the zombie's friends to show but none did. Otis barged into the gatehouse, his face flush and scrunched like a rotting pumpkin.
"Did you get the fuckin' thing?" he asked Ava, the question dripping with as much accusation as the beads of sweat that rolled down his forehead.
Ava pressed back into the glass of the booth, trying to place as much space between her and Otis as possible. She only answered him in affirmation with a nod of her head.
"Good then. Get out there and clean that up before it scares off any more visitors. Get that booby trap reset too, girlie. I'll man the booth 'till you're done.
"Dang it, this is gonna put us behind schedule. Git goin' now, girlie, ain't no time to be starin at me."
Ava skittered past Otis, holding her breath so as not to catch a whiff of his body odor. None of them had a decent shower in a week but Otis seemed to have a special reek, all his own, even after a good soak in a tub.
Otis took in the last bunch of visitors for the day as Ava reset the log trap and cleaned up the leavings of its last victim. Inside the farm, the guests mingled around the gator pens observing them and listening to Cleetus spew his well rehearsed monologue on interesting and not so interesting factoids about Florida gators.
“The American Alligator can grow up to twenty feet long and weigh nearly half a ton. It has a lifespan of close to fifty years and once they get about four feet long, they have no known enemies.” His signature goose honk of a voice called out to the crowd of guests who listened idly. The guests lazily watched the pen full of less than interesting alligators, who themselves were generally just laying about watching back.
“Alligators feed on fish, birds and small mammals primarily but they are opportunistic and will eat most anything foolish enough to wander too close to the water’s edge, where they are laying in wait just below the surface, ready to strike.”
“That is why Gator Aid is a safe haven for folks to come and get a little distraction from what is going on outside these gates. Our gators are not only entertaining you, they are protecting you. We are Florida’s only operating tourist attraction because of the very nature of our business.”
Cleetus spied Otis giving him a nod from the gatehouse. It was time for the show.
“Folks, if ya’ll follow me, we’re gonna have a special alligator demonstration for all ya’ll.”
The guests fell into line behind Cleetus as he made his way up a rear access path to
the arena. There was a time early on when they would lead guests back across the boardwalk path to tour the natural swampland of the farm and the avian sanctuary. Nowadays, there wasn’t much left back that way to look at; all the animal exhibits had become food sources to sustain the alligator population.
When Cleetus and the guests wandered out of sight, Otis told Ava to secure the front gate and prepare for the show. Otis went off to the restaurant to begin his own preparations for the day.
Ava double and triple checked that all the traps were set and the gates were sealed shut. She grabbed the few chickens the guests had traded for admission, the backpack full of M&M’s and a noosed catchpole then sprinted for the backstage area of the arena to get ready for the demonstration.
The guests all seated themselves close to the sandy arena floor. The seating area wasn’t much more than several aluminum bleachers, situated behind a wooden railing. The stage was a sandy foreground area with a small concrete pond behind it. The guests could see the head and spine of what appeared to be a large alligator looming just under that surface of the water.
Cleetus peered out at the arena from the backstage area. When the guests had situated themselves and appeared settled in for the demonstration, he fetched his bamboo rod. Ava was butchering up the chickens and tossing the pieces, feathers and all, into a stainless steel bucket. Cleetus reached in and grabbed a still bloody hunk of leg. Satisfied the show preparations were all in place, Cleetus made his way out to the stage.
The guests began to applaud when he came out to center stage. Cleetus raised the rod to acknowledge the crowd and walked back to the pond. He kneeled down and slapped the chicken leg against the surface of the water a few times to get the lone gator’s attention. The large gator swiftly paddled through the water toward the commotion Cleetus was causing with the chicken leg.
The massive gator propelled through the water like a torpedo. Cleetus let go of the leg and backed off just as the gator scooped up the piece of meat as it shot out of the pond onto the sandy staging area. It swallowed the leg whole, stood sentry at the water’s edge, staring straight at Cleetus. Cleetus used his bamboo rod, the only tool he needed to control the gator, to tap the gator on the end of its snout. The gator reflexively opened its jaws.
Without taking his eyes off the giant alligator, he began to address the audience, “This is Goliath, Gator Aid’s oldest and largest gator. He is just over fifteen feet long and weighs well over seven hundred pounds.”
A collective gasp emanated from the audience, shocked by the numbers. It was simple enough to see that Goliath was much larger than any gator they had seen so far, but putting quantitative figures to it made him appear that much more impressive.
“We estimate him to be about forty years old. You can see he is a big boy and, as you can imagine, he needs to eat a lot of food to keep this massive body going. That is why your donations are not only important to us but to these gators as well.”
It was a pitch to their heart strings. The audience would return to their safe havens with stories of the important work Gator Aid was doing. They weren’t just keeping themselves alive but also the alligators that were important in combating the problem with the dead. More would come back with food to do their part.
Cleetus continued his demonstration with Goliath. He demonstrated the power of an alligator's jaws. He showed how alligators were not as dangerous to humans as they might be led to believe, that they only attack when provoked or when you happen upon their territory. He urged the audience to leave the alligators in the wild alone and even encouraged them to seek safe houses near where alligators lived to serve as a natural defense to themselves.
Soon it was time for the grand finale.
* * * * *
Ava peered out at the audience from the side of the stage. She scanned the crowd searching for Jason and her heart skipped a beat when she spotted him. He was watching Cleetus go through his demonstration. She felt embarrassed, secretly staring at him, but could not stop herself. His face was a magnet for her eyes and her eyes could not disobey the laws of nature.
Jason’s attention shifted unexpectedly from Cleetus and he turned his head and looked right at her. She was frozen with fear; he caught her peeping him out. He smiled his big white smile at her but she panicked and ducked behind the facade at the side of the stage out of sight.
“He’s going to think I’m a freak now,” she lamented to herself.
“Whaaaaaak, it’s showtime!” Armand suddenly squawked from behind her.
Armand was perched on a shelf just next to the catchpole. Ava thanked Armand for snapping her out of it and reminding her that her cue was about to come. She fetched the catchpole and told Armand she had something special for him after the show.
Armand screeched with delight. Ava made her way to the perimeter fence that was near the backstage area. There was a length of heavy chain attached to one of the fence posts. The end of the chain was in a zombie’s mouth, who was struggling to remove himself from the chain. The barbed end of a vicious looking fishing hook, protruding out the side of the zombie’s cheek, was preventing him from doing just that.
Ava swung open the gate next to where the zombie was caught and noosed him with the catchpole. Holding the zombie back with the catchpole with one hand, she used to other to give the chain a sharp yank, ripping the hook and the half eaten hunk of meat baited onto it out of the zombies mouth. Its cheeks tore away and some black congealed blood oozed out of the wound but the zombie wasn’t bothered by that ghastly gash. Ava however was more concerned with the zombie’s more carnal desires then she was with its hunger pangs.
Ava led the zombie back to the side of the stage and waited for Cleetus’s cue. Armand eyed the zombie from his perch and squawked. When the zombie turned in the direction of the sound, Armand greeted him, “Whaaaaak, hello gator bait, whaaaaaak”
The zombie made to go after Armand. His sudden lurch made Ava drop to the floor, losing her grip on the catchpole. The zombie ambled to Armand who flapped his wings in surprise. The zombie reached up to grab the Macaw when suddenly it was jerked back by the neck, falling flat on its ass.
“That’s strike two, girlie.” Cleetus admonished. “Ya missed yer cue, I shoulda let this fella have one last meal before his execution. “
“Fucking Asshole, whaaaak” Armand bellowed at Cleetus.
Cleetus’ face turned beat red. “Why you ungrateful little pigeon! That’s it! I’m coming for ya when the show is over, count on that!” He stormed off onto the stage with the zombie.
Ava sat on the floor, dejected and defeated. She didn’t know if she could keep Armand away from Cleetus. He was a spiteful bird and Cleetus was going to get a hold of him sooner rather than later. Ava herself wasn’t going to last much longer around Cleetus and Otis if Armand wasn’t around to direct their anger at. She put her head in her hands and began to cry.
A soft, warm voice cut through the sound of her tears, “I never did get your name.”
Ava lifted her head and looked over her shoulder to see Jason standing over her. He smiled at her and extended his hand to her to help her up. She wiped away her tears, now more embarrassed than ever. It was bad enough she was caught staring at him but now he was here seeing her in her weakest moment. Wait a minute, he was here?
She took his hand and he pulled her up. She looked at him questioningly.
“What are you doing back here? You’re not supposed to be here!” she admonished him with a whisper. She feared Cleetus catching him back here. Worse, she feared Cleetus catching him back here with her.
“The gator keeper seemed concerned when he stopped the show to go backstage. I snuck off to see if everything was okay. I saw you back here earlier and I was worried something may have happened to you,” Jason said genuinely.
“You were worried about me?” Ava was floored. Suddenly all her embarrassment and worry had left her, replaced by awe and wonder. This gorgeous boy, who had only exchanged a few uncomfortable words wi
th her earlier, had come to her rescue out of genuine concern for her well being?
Was she really giving off that much of a damsel in distress vibe? Not just trouble backstage but a real sense of a girl in trouble? Perhaps she was as she had been feeling that way since getting stuck here at the gator farm so long ago. Was it months? Over a year? Time barely meant anything anymore.
He cradled her cheeks between his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. He looked into her eyes.
“When I look at you, I want to help you, whatever help it is you need,” he paused scanning her heart through her eyes, “You need to get out of this place, don’t you?”
Ava nodded. Slowly at first, then more emphatically as she felt the warmth and caring of his hands flow into her. He was here to rescue her, to take her away from here. Gator Aid seemed safe on the surface but boiling just below was deceit and danger.
* * * * *
Cleetus dragged the zombie out to center stage. He did his best to smile through his aggravation with that good-for-nothing girl. They got stuck with her when the shit hit the fan and her parents didn’t make it. He and Otis were glad to have her as an extra hand around the farm but her headstrong teenage ways were getting the best of her. She was more and more a burden than a help and he was beginning to feel like she had to go just like that dang candy eatin’ bird.
The finale of the alligator demonstration was a live feeding of a zombie to Goliath. Eating zombies seemed to make Goliath’s stomach turn. He would be sick for a day or so after consuming one but he would crap out that bad stuff and start feeling better. It served to demonstrate and reinforce just how important the gators were in this new world. That was more important to Cleetus than the upset stomach his favorite gator had to endure for a short time.
He dragged the zombie over to Goliath, who didn’t seem to have much interest in the geek for the moment. The zombie, however, seemed quite eager to have Goliath for lunch. Cleetus loosened the noose and the zombie immediately fell on the gator, trying in vain to bite through its thick skin.
Dying Days Ultimate Box Set 1 Page 15
