Gator Wave

by David F. Berens

  “It’s not dead!” Gary shouted at the glass, realizing as soon as he said it how obvious that was to the two men outside.

  It’s not dead, he thought, I have to kill it. I have to save them. He reached for the gun in his waistband only to find that it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there since he had thrown it into the swamp after Dani was killed.

  A sudden bump outside sent the RV rocking back and forth. Gary saw that the men were now running circles around the Winnebago. He saw them, through side windows, then the back, then the other side, then the windshield. It was Frankie in the lead, Martin next, and the gator last. Gary was shocked it hadn’t gotten one of them yet. It must still be in a daze from whatever had caused it to be lying in the middle of the road.

  Frankie shrieked as they all made another 360 around the back of the RV.

  “Gun!” he shouted as they rounded toward the driver’s side. “Get the gun in the glove compartment.”

  Gary was momentarily confused. Who was Frankie shouting at? He watched as the man stared right at him through the front windshield again, jabbing his finger toward the passenger’s side in the shape of a gun.

  “Gun!” Gary yelled, again realizing it was a stupid thing to say. “I’ve got it. I mean, I’ll get it.”

  He dove toward the front and slid into the passenger’s seat. Jerking the glove compartment open, he tossed aside a raft of random papers: registration, gas receipts, and extra napkins from McDonald’s. Finally, he uncovered a holster and pulled it out. It was smaller than he expected. He jerked the gun free and saw that it looked kind of like it was plastic and he wondered if it was a real gun or a flare gun or something. On the end, near the open barrel, he could see the engraved logo: GLOCK. He’d heard of them, but this one was much smaller than he had expected. The police would later find the empty GLOCK G42 .380 caliber registered to one Martin Russo apparently tossed into the mangroves at the scene.

  Without realizing that this gun was much too small to do any real damage to the alligator, Gary shoved the thin, aluminum door open, banging it against the side of the Winnebago. As Frankie, then Martin, then the roaring gator raced past, he jumped down, skipping the two metal steps and landed heavy on the road. Frankie apparently decided their circle pattern was getting them nowhere and decided to turn left and sprint toward the dark, swampy area on the side of the highway. Genius, Gary thought.

  He raised his arms and started running after them, screaming and firing the tiny gun as fast as he could. He saw sparks fly off the pavement and distantly heard the pop of the GLOCK in his ears. He realized as he watched Martin’s shoulders pinwheel around that he’d missed the alligator, but shot the man running just in front of it. Martin uttered a strange grunting cough and went down to a knee, clutching his right arm. Before Gary could be shocked, the gator snapped his jaws down on Martin’s leg, made a sudden course change around Frankie, and began to drag the old man between his teeth into the murky black swamp. Frankie’s shrill cries echoed up and down the road as the alligator raced past him. He reached out and kicked at it to no avail. He chased after it, swinging his arms and slapping at the beast, but it ignored him now that it had caught one of them.

  Gary raised his arms, realizing that he still had the gun, and fired three more times until the gun was empty. He hit the alligator with two out of three of the bullets, but it never even blinked. He threw the gun at it and it bounced off the gnarly tail and flew into the mangroves. Frankie was still chasing after the creature when Gary grabbed him by the arms and hauled him backward, both of them falling into the road.

  Frankie tried to get back up, but Gary held him until he stopped screaming.

  “It’s too late,” he said as Frankie wailed. “He’s gone.”

  The night grew quiet as the older man’s sobs began to slow. Somewhere in the brush, they heard a final scream and Frankie passed out. Gary wondered if this was the time to bug out or if he wanted to see what he’d really look like in prison gear. Neither of them saw the car stopped just a hundred yards away from the RV, idling, one headlight out, the other dim.

  39

  That Rings A Bell

  Fifteen minutes before the alligator took Martin Russo off into the night, Dante Caparelli dabbed at the urine soaking the crotch of his pants with a handkerchief. He cursed his aging prostate for allowing him to get all the way to the back of Dion’s Quik Mart before finding his zipper stuck. Any normal adult male would have been able to hold it long enough to loosen his belt, pull his pants down, and complete the job. He’d gotten it almost to the last notch before the sensation of squeezing a water balloon erupted between his hips.

  “No, no, no!” he yelled as the acrid smell of piss blossomed out in a dark stain on his slacks. “Jeezus frickin’ Christ.”

  He considered taking them off to wring them out, but thought better of it. He would just have to wear it until he got back to Woody’s. He had a few extra things in his office and it wasn’t likely anyone would notice his accident in the dim black-lit club.

  He was nearly there when he happened upon an odd scene—even for the Keys. In the glow of headlights (not his, but a large RV parked askew in the center of the highway,) he could see two men sprinting in circles around the vehicle with—he squinted into the darkness, cursing his poor night vision—an alligator chasing them. He inched his car closer, and considered blowing his horn, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure if it would scare the gator, the men running from it, or if it would enrage the creature.

  He reached down between his legs, stretching to feel around under the seat. The smell of his own urine stank and he cursed when his head tapped the horn on the steering wheel. But like many other features of the old Town Car, it didn’t work. He felt around, his fingers brushing the cold steel of his personal pistol. With a heave and a deep breath, he was able to grab it.

  When he looked back up, another man had joined the fray, but this one was chasing the alligator and waving something at it. When he got close, he watched as the third man began to fire recklessly. He ducked when he heard a ricochet ping off something nearby.

  With something near popcorn munching entertainment value, Dante watched as the man in the back proceeded to wing the man just in front of the gator giving the beast time to chomp down on him and drag him into the mangroves. The man in the front began to chase after them in hysterics, but the guy with the gun hurled it after the fleeing alligator and grabbed him. He turned him around, yelling something at the man, but Dante couldn’t tell what he was saying. And then the man who had been in the front of the whole macabre parade fainted.

  Dante eased closer still and thought there was something oddly familiar about the guy who’d been blasting the gun, but he couldn’t place it. The man who had fainted finally came to and began wailing and thrashing about again. The gunman slapped him hard on the cheek and it seemed to do the trick. He helped the frantic man up and they walked toward the RV—still idling and purring away like a two-ton box of a kitten.

  Before they could get in, Dante stepped out and met them, his gun drawn. The younger of the two men yelped. His eyes met Dante’s and the flash of recognition darted across them to be painted with fear shortly after.

  “Don’t I know you?” Dante asked, wagging the gun at him.

  “Do you know this man, Gary?” the previously frantic man asked.

  The man named Gary said nothing. He turned and sprinted away. With Dante’s hobbling speed, he probably would’ve gotten away except for a sudden thrashing and a low growl in the direction the gator had made its exit. Gary stopped suddenly and began to edge his way back toward them.

  “How’s about you and me and this guy,” Dante jabbed a finger in Frankie’s chest as he said it, “get a drink at my bar and figure this whole thing out? Eh?”

  Gary swallowed and raised his hands into the air. “Guess we don’t have much choice, do we?”

  “Nah,” Dante said.

  Dante had put them in the back of his car, activating the child lock
s so they couldn’t get out. He almost laughed at the fact that this was the one thing still working on this old heap. He made a promise he was going to get something new when this was all over, maybe a Cadillac DeVille—do they still even make those things? Eh, didn’t matter, he was gonna get something with leather and cool A/C and plenty of bells and whistles and all that.

  The man named Gary was sitting diagonally behind him, studying his feet. Tears were streaming down the guy's face and he was rocking back and forth. He kept muttering something about losing his true love or something like that.

  “Oh, Dani, Dani, Dani,” Gary moaned, “I can’t believe you’re gone. It’s all over now. I’m sure to be taken out for a long boat ride and—”

  “Hey, kid,” Dante growled, interrupting him, “can it. You ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. I just want to get a feel for what the hell is going on around here.”

  Gary sniffed and swiped his hand across his nose, but he didn’t calm down. In fact, he grew more and more hysterical. So much so, that Frankie was jerking on his door handle, trying to get out—at forty miles per hour.

  “Jeezus, kid,” Dante said, channeling his inner father, “shut your mouth or I swear to you I’ll come back there.”

  “And what? Shoot me in the face?” Gary yelled, snot bubbles popping in his nostrils.

  “I just might, ya frickin’ idiot.”

  The car swerved all over the road as Dante alternated between turning around to try and reach the man and looking in the rearview mirror.

  “Fine by me,” Gary shrieked, “I’ll just be with my beloved Dani then.”

  “That’s it,” Dante slammed on the brakes.

  The car lurched sending Gary and Frankie both hurtling into the seats in front of them. In one swift motion, Dante reached over the passenger’s seat and grabbed Gary by the collar. He intended to slap some sense in the man, but then hesitated. He was holding something in his right hand—a gun, or maybe a knife.

  Dante peered down to get a closer look, his hand reaching for his own pistol. As his eyes focused, he could see it wasn’t a weapon at all.

  “Is that what I think it is, kid?”

  Gary said nothing. He just shook his head from side to side and pulled against Dante’s grip on his shirt. The old man’s grip gave and Gary slammed back into his seat, his hands in his lap, turning a small object over and over.

  Dante reached up and tapped the dome light. Nothing happened. He rammed it with his palm and an amber beam of dim light shone into the back seat.

  “Christ almighty,” Dante breathed, “is that a finger?”

  Gary didn’t answer, but just moaned and sobbed uncontrollably.

  Dante leaned over the seat and saw that, yes, indeed, it was a finger. Something glinted in the low light as Gary … well … fingered the finger. And then Dante saw it, glistening in all its golden glory and wet with Gary’s tears.

  Matty’s family ring.

  40

  Strangers In The Night

  Around the same time that Dante saw the Caparelli family ring on the disembodied finger in the back of his Lincoln Town Car, Troy Bodean and Ian Bass happened upon Martin and Frankie’s Winnebago. It was literally sitting in the middle of the Overseas Highway, lights on, engine on, nobody home.

  Ian Bass approached with his gun drawn, fully expecting a cartel of drug dealers to come pouring out of the RV like a clown car. Troy watched from the back seat of the Explorer, wondering how he was going to get out of the car if Ian got shot. After an eternity of suspense watching Ian poke around inside the Winnebago, the officer waved at Troy through the large rectangular back window. He gave Troy the universal all clear sign and then disappeared back into the forward regions of the large family-style trailer. The sound of air brakes squelched into the night and the RV began to creep ahead and drift to the side of the road—Ian was clearing the traffic lane.

  Troy wondered if Ian was concerned with tampering in a possibly evidence filled vehicle, but then again, there was no crime as of yet. For all they knew, this could be a simple case of—actually, Troy couldn’t think of a single, simple scenario for this, but he left well enough alone. As Ian pulled the large vehicle onto the shoulder, Troy could see a black puddle of liquid out in front of where it had been sitting. Even though it was dark, he could tell what it was—blood. Had to be blood. It pools and congeals like nothing else on earth. Ian jogged back toward the car as Troy waged an internal battle over whether or not to tell him about the puddle.

  As it happened, he would never get the chance to bring it up.

  Five minutes before Troy and Ian discovered the Winnebago and the puddle of blood, Cinnamon Starr and Katerina Kuznetsov were flying past mile marker eighty-one at a speed normally reserved for the Concorde or a Space Shuttle. Cinnamon had composed herself and was applying makeup in the non-lighted visor mirror in Gary’s 1980 “Golden Eagle” model Jeep CJ-7—aka the Daisy Duke version of the popular SUV.

  Having gained no confidence whatsoever in the Islamorada Sheriff’s Department to actually do anything about the deaths of Matty Caparelli or Daniel Kane Kotlerson—Dani for short—Katerina had told Cinnamon that she’d be happy to drive her home. In truth, the old Russian woman was having the time of her life, speeding around town, shooting at strangers, and harassing the local police. She couldn’t remember ever being this excited since her husband had gotten his prescription for his little blue pills.

  “It’s fine,” Cinnamon said. “Just take me to Woody’s. You can take the Jeep up to Dion’s and I’ll catch an Uber after my shift is over.”

  “Are you sure, malyshka?”

  “Yeah. I’m probably safer there than anywhere else.” Cinnamon said, her eyes scanning back and forth on the road. “I mean, Gary’s probably on his way to his apartment and he’s my next door neighbor. I sure as heck don’t want to be there when he gets home.”

  Katerina opened her mouth, then closed it, apparently unsure of what to say.

  “And besides, Matty’s dad is my boss at Woody’s. I’m probably safer there than anywhere else.”

  She felt tears sting the back of her eyes, but promised herself not to cry, she had spent way too much time on her mascara to let it run down her cheeks. Then again, maybe she could pull off some kind of Rob Zombie goth dance with the right amount of black around her eyes.

  “He’s probably sitting in the dark, waiting on me to come home so he can kill me like the others.”

  She lost her battle with the tears and they streamed down her face.

  “Oh, come on, now,” Katerina said, handing Cinnamon a Wendy’s napkin she found in the center console. “I have no doubt you would kick his ass before he could do such a thing. God, look at those legs!”

  Cinnamon couldn’t help but laugh, until she noticed they were about to slam into the back of a police SUV. Without thinking, she reached up and grabbed the wheel and yanked it hard to the right. The Jeep careened off the road onto the soft shoulder and suddenly, they were about to ram into the back of an RV. She jerked the wheel left and they nearly jumped back onto the pavement. The wheels barked as they fishtailed into oncoming traffic and back into their lane, barely missing a silver Toyota Sienna full of chaotic kids.

  When Katerina regained control of the Jeep, she started laughing. It began as a nervous titter and bubbled into an infectious giggle. When Cinnamon joined in, it erupted into a full-on, eyes-watering belly laugh for both of them. The anxiety of the situation broke the dam and they both laughed so hard that Cinnamon wondered if they might need another change of pants.

  Struggling to catch her breath, Katerina asked, “You are sure about this? You want me to take you to work?”

  Cinnamon nodded as she spoke. “Yes, if Gary comes after me there, I’ll have a whole bar full of chivalrous knights ready to come to my damsel-in-distress aid. Katerina looked doubtful, but couldn’t think of any reason not to take her to Woody’s.

  Neither of them gave another thought to the roadblock of an RV and a
police SUV they had just blown past.

  Troy felt the Ford Explorer rock back and forth as the white blur zoomed past the passenger’s side onto the shoulder of the road. His door protested with a loud metallic screeching noise and a high-pitched squeal like fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard. It looked for all the world like the racing vehicle was going to slam into the back of the abandoned Winnebago, but at the last second, it veered back onto the road without hitting it. Ian Bass wasn’t so lucky. He’d been sauntering back to the police SUV, just inside the solid yellow line marking the outside of the traffic lane, when the white car—maybe a pickup or Jeep, yeah, Troy thought, it looked like it might’ve been a Jeep—nearly tilted up on two wheels to avoid colliding with the RV.

  The front passenger’s side wheel bumped over the front half of Ian’s right foot. Though the officer had on boots, Troy felt sure they weren’t steel-toed or protective in any major capacity. He felt sure of this because Ian was hopping around on one foot, holding the other between fingers laced under his shoe.

  He thought he had heard just about every swear word known to man during his time in Afghanistan, but Ian proved him wrong. There were words that made Troy turn away, spewing out of the officer’s mouth as he limped back to the car. He slid in, gingerly and Troy could see the shoe was smashed pancake flat. He thought whatever was inside that shoe was broken in a way that could only be compared to shattered glass. Ian was still swearing and panting so hard that Troy thought he might hyperventilate.

  When he finally managed to slow his tirade, he looked over his shoulder. “Did you see it?”

  “See what?” Troy asked.

  “The Jeep?”

  “If you’re meanin’ the one that just ran over your foot, yeah,” Troy shrugged as he said it, not sure what the officer was getting at, “I saw it all right. What about it?”