Wildlife- Reckoning

by Jeff Menapace

  Cooper looked at his family. “Got himself a cheerleader.”

  “He surely does,” Trudy said. She moved towards Bryan and stood before him. Leaned in close, her missing eye making Bryan squirm and avoid eye contact. “Let me ask you something, cheerleader: What makes you so confident in your friend? He wrestled alligators before?”

  “He’s a trained fighter,” Bryan replied. “He flips tractor tires at his gym like they’re bicycle tires. I think he can handle getting that thing onto its back.”

  “And these tractor tires…they bite back, do they?”

  Bryan frowned. “What do you mean, bite?”

  Trudy bit Bryan’s ear, ripping a piece free and spitting it onto his lap.

  Bryan screamed. They all screamed.

  Darla squealed and bounced on Cooper’s shoulders.

  Trudy plucked up the piece of ear and held it before Bryan. Eyes closed as he grimaced in pain, she waited until his attention was back on her to wiggle the piece of ear and say: “Bite.”

  Blood dripped from the ear, tracing a thin red line down Bryan’s cheek. “I know what the fuck ‘bite’ means,” he said. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Trudy licked the blood from her lips. “Oh, I getcha now—” She waved a hand back towards the alligator. “You thought we was gonna keep his jaws wrapped shut for the wrestling match, did you? Well, what the hell kinda challenge would that be? Hell, Darla could win that match.”

  “Wait, wait, wait…” Mick said. “Are you telling me—?”

  “Hush,” Trudy said. “No more talking.” She looked back at Cooper. “Time to place bets?”

  Chapter 33

  Five chairs against the wall now.

  Five instead of six because Mick’s chair had been dragged out into the center of the room, a few feet from where the alligator lay.

  The alligator was back to looking as disinterested as it’d been since it first arrived, almost asleep—its one burst of energy that was sending a charging Darla across the room (to her great delight) now gone, as if that was to be its one and only bit of exercise for the day, thank you very much.

  Bets were in place. Only Wayne had Mick winning. Liked how he’d handled himself at Jumbo’s, he’d said. To which Cooper happily responded that the two drunken idiots at Jumbo’s were a far cry from a ten-foot, five-hundred-pound living dinosaur.

  ***

  Cooper stood behind Mick’s chair, ready with a knife.

  Trudy held the camera to her good eye, recording.

  Travis and Wayne were back with the alligator, Wayne now brandishing a pistol for all to see. The duct tape around the alligator’s mouth had been removed, but the rope harness still held its jaws shut. Back legs had been cut free, but its front legs remained bound behind the reptile’s spiny back. Once again, Wayne sat behind its head, Travis on the base of its tail.

  “Now, I’m gonna cut you free first,” Cooper told Mick. “Let you stand and get some circulation back in your legs, seeing as how you’ve been sitting a spell. You gonna behave yourself?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Mick said.

  “Smart boy,” Cooper said. “Hope you’re fixing to stay smart. Don’t feel like I need to remind you what might happen if you try anything. I reckon Wayne there can fire a bullet—plenty of bullets—before you can fire a punch. And he’d surely place that first bullet into your pretty little missus there—” He gestured to Morgan.

  Mick glanced over at Morgan. Much as he entertained thoughts of attacking everything that moved the moment he was cut free, the son of a bitch was right: He wouldn’t stand a chance of taking them all out with his bare hands before the bullets started flying.

  “I won’t try anything,” he said.

  Cooper patted his head. “Good boy.” He cut him free.

  Mick stood, shaking blood into his limbs, taking a moment to look around the den. It was officially night; he could see that now as he scanned the room in all directions, settling on the den’s doorway leading into the kitchen. He could see his reflection in one of those kitchen windows that now worked as a poor man’s mirror with night on one side and the lighting of the kitchen on the other.

  He could not turn his head away from that reflection. The moment was too surreal. He felt like a man who’d made drastic changes to his appearance and forgotten, only to happen by a mirror, catch a brief glimpse of himself, then instantaneously return to that mirror with a start, asking the obvious and not-so-obvious: Who is this guy?

  He felt that now, looking at the distant reflection of a man standing in a den out in the middle of nowhere, held captive by sadistic people, his friends tied up around him, and—lest he forget—one hell of a fucking alligator on the floor that he was meant to somehow get onto its back for a “pin.”

  Who was this guy indeed.

  And then an inner voice, answering with an intensity that rivaled anything he’d ever summoned in his fighting life (no—scratch that; an inner voice that knocked any inner voice he’d summoned in his fighting life the fuck out) had its say: I’m the guy that’s eventually going to find a way to kill every crazy motherfucker in here.

  “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Morgan started to cry again. “Please don’t make him do this…” she begged them.

  Mick turned back to her. “It’s okay, sweetie; I can do this. It’s like Bryan said; I just gotta get behind the damn thing.”

  “But its mouth…” she sobbed. “They’re going to untie its mouth.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve seen YouTube videos of people dealing with alligators with no equipment at all. It can be done.”

  She dropped her head and shook it, crying harder. “But they knew what they were doing…”

  “I’m fast, and I’m strong. I can do it, baby. Morgan, look at me…”

  Morgan kept shaking her head.

  “Morgan, look at me.”

  She lifted her head. Her eyes, swollen with tears, looked at Mick with both desperate love and pain.

  “I can do this,” he said again. “Okay? I can do this.”

  Morgan returned a weak nod.

  Mick turned towards the alligator, towards Wayne and Travis. “Ready when you are, assholes.”

  Wayne made a face. “You think that’s wise talking to us like that?”

  “Ask me how many fucks I give.”

  Wayne laughed and turned towards Cooper. “I do like him so.” He turned back to Mick. “I knew there was a reason I bet on you.”

  Mick said nothing.

  Wayne carefully removed the harness around the alligator’s mouth, then slowly backed away. Travis did likewise, slowly backing away from his seat on the alligator’s tail.

  Mick took note of this. The slow movements the two men had made. Not that it was any great revelation. The little girl had been flung across the room because of her sudden charge towards the big reptile. Now, with its mouth free, capable of not just sending him across the room, but biting him in two, he was not about to rush the thing and go to town. A fight at Jumbo’s this was not.

  “Ding, ding,” Cooper said.

  Chapter 34

  With only its front legs bound, mouth and back legs now free, the alligator still looked as though it was content to kick back on the den floor and doze in and out like an old man in his chair.

  And this was just fine by Mick. Creep up on it, gently roll the big bastard over onto its back, tickle its belly,

  (where had he heard that? Was that an actual thing? Tickling an alligator’s belly puts it to sleep?)

  and then send it to the farthest region of dreamland. Lay on it ever so softly after that, and count one, two, three for the win. Ding, ding yourselves, motherfuckers.

  Mick crept forward a step. A floorboard beneath him creaked.

  He stopped. Kept a laser focus on the alligator’s eyes. They were currently shut, the thing seemingly asleep. The second even one of those eyes opened, even if just a lazy slit out of idle curiosity, he would freeze statue still, poised and rea
dy to launch himself wherever need be.

  Another step forward. Another creak of a floorboard beneath him. Oh, come on!

  The alligator’s eyes stayed closed. Its breathing was deep and rhythmic. Keeeep sleeping, brother.

  He began working his way to the side of the alligator, his plan of getting behind it sensible even to an urbanite; no way did you want to face that mouth head-on.

  He passed the head without incident. His friends sighed relief, but he heard nothing; his focus was too strong.

  At the middle of the reptile’s thick torso now. The brutal humidity in the den, the fear of the task at hand—Mick was wiping sweat from his brow almost by the second.

  So what now? What was it Bryan had said? That Mick flipped tractor tires as easily as bicycle tires? He appreciated the vote of confidence, but flipping tractor tires was hardly easy. Still, the same technique used for doing so might work here, the major exception being that once you got that tractor tire up and standing on its tread, you typically shoved the damn thing over, and with not a little force.

  There would be no forceful shoving here. This particular tractor tire did—and he hated to quote one of the crazy fucks—“bite back.”

  Slow and easy was the name of this game. Bend at the knees, gently ease those hands under the gator’s belly, and then ever so, ever so gingerly, lift with those legs and roll the big fella onto his back. Easy peasy.

  Like fuck it was.

  Mick wiped more sweat from his brow. Squatted next to the alligator’s torso. Paused and looked at his hands. They were shaking. He put one in his mouth and bit it hard, the pain taking his mind off the fear. He wiped more sweat from his brow, actually glad he was sweating as much as he was. It lubricated his hands and could very well make the task of slipping them beneath the gator’s belly easier.

  He placed his hands on the gator’s torso and kept them there for a moment. They rose and fell with its breathing. From where he was squatting, he could only see one of its eyes, but it remained shut.

  He began to slide his hands down the gator’s side, towards its belly. Inch by inch, pausing every few seconds to check that eye.

  At the base of the gator’s body now. It was time to slip his hands beneath its stomach—

  “This is boring!” Darla yelled.

  Mick’s heart stopped in his chest. His breath left him.

  All five chairs gasped.

  Wayne grabbed his daughter and pulled her to him, wrapping a hand around her mouth to quiet her.

  Mick sat frozen in his squat position, thighs burning, heart pounding. He didn’t dare blink, just kept his gaze on that one eye…that one eye that remained blessedly closed, undisturbed by Darla’s outburst.

  Cooper leaned over and whispered to Wayne: “Girl do got a point. It is kinda dull.”

  “Strategy, is all it is,” Wayne whispered back. “Damn smart.”

  “Just saying that ’cause you were the only fool that bet him,” Cooper replied.

  “So what if I am? A win’s a win. Now keep quiet or this becomes a wash.” He tightened his grip over Darla’s mouth, bent to her ear and whispered: “You especially keep quiet, baby girl, you hear?”

  Darla nodded into her father’s hand.

  For a moment, Mick had gone deaf with adrenaline, the incessant pounding of his heart the only constant. And then, like a water-logged ear finally popping, sound trickled back with a whoosh—enough for him to hear Morgan crying.

  He looked over at her. She looked at him. He nodded at her and mouthed that it was okay.

  She returned an exhausted smile.

  He took a hand off the gator and held a finger to his lips, urging her to hush.

  She nodded back and sniffed hard to clear her runny nose.

  The alligator opened its eyes.

  Mick simply wasn’t quick enough. The alligator swung its massive jaws towards him and clamped onto his skull.

  Morgan screeched. So did Darla. One looking like she might succumb to shock; the other, to delight.

  Despite desperate attempts at prying open the alligator’s jaws himself, Mick truly was by himself in those attempts. No one intervened, and the continued and unrelenting pressure of the alligator’s bite eventually crushed his skull.

  Chapter 35

  “Fucking cheating is what it was,” Wayne said.

  “How you figure that?” Cooper asked.

  Wayne pointed to his daughter. “Darla’s outburst. It woke the gator.”

  “Bullshit,” Trudy said. She pointed towards the wall of chairs, towards Morgan. “It was her sniffin’ like a bull before its charge that done it.”

  Wayne shook his head. “Like hell.”

  The wall of five sat quiet, and hardly by choice; their minds were in lockdown, unable to comprehend what they’d just seen. Morgan especially—she could only stare at the spot where the alligator and Mick had been (removed from the room now; both the gator and Mick’s corpse tossed into the same pit), as though waiting any moment for Mick to return unscathed, to declare that it had all been some masterful illusion, so surreal and unfathomable in its horror that it was the only explanation that made any sense.

  “I say it’s a wash,” Wayne argued.

  “Wash, my ass,” Trudy said.

  They argued in front of the five against the wall as though they weren’t there. As though what had just happened carried the weight of nothing and was not the anvil that had leveled everyone else.

  Travis had remained curiously quiet during it all. It was not for lack of interest, but more the way a boy experiences his first ball game, caught up not just in the event, but the pageantry of the whole experience.

  Still, was he satisfied completely? Had Cooper and Wayne’s promise to satiate his growing need for atrocity been quenched? He didn’t know. Maybe? It was early days, of course, and Cooper had even taken him aside after they removed the alligator and Mick’s remains and assured him that the best was yet to come, but…

  But what? Was it the lack of intimacy between him and the victim? Delightful torment was in abundance during the first “event,” but was he not just a witness like everyone else? Played a hand in it, sure, but that hand…it was not exactly “hands on,” was it?

  Cooper, Wayne, and Trudy continued to argue on the porch about who should be awarded what as far as points went. Darla capered around the house like a kid on Christmas Eve, periodically pausing before the wall of five to taunt and prod and poke.

  Travis fetched his needle and returned to the den with it. He thought about adding another slash to his arm—Mick the sixth. A surrogate like he’d been considering. He turned his forearm over and considered his tattoo.

  “Got a score to settle, huh?” Stacey said.

  Travis whipped his head towards her as though she’d just screamed. His face was the very picture of stunned.

  “What do you mean?” he blurted.

  “Your tattoo,” she said. “It means ‘showdown’ in Italian, if memory serves.”

  “It’s Latin,” he countered. “It means ‘reckoning.’ To give account.”

  “Tomato, tomato.”

  Travis frowned.

  “Ink looks fresh,” Stacey said. “I imagine you’ve recently collected on those accounts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Mick number six?”

  Everyone turned their heads towards Stacey and gaped at her, visibly shocked at her questioning.

  Travis didn’t reply.

  “What could Mick have possibly owed you?” Stacey asked. “You didn’t even know him, did you?”

  Again, Travis said nothing.

  “Is it something we did that we’re not even aware of?” Stacey went on. “Is it the documentary we were doing? Does it offend you somehow?”

  “Just shut up.”

  “Tell me about your reckoning. About the five people on your arm. What did they do to you?”

  “There’s no movie anymore, lady. At least none you’ll ever see.”

  “I know t
hat,” Stacey said. “We’re all going to die, right? So what harm—?”

  “Stacey,” Bryan said. “What the hell are you—?”

  She shushed him. Went back to Travis. “So what harm can it do to tell us?”

  “Why the hell you care if it ain’t for your movie?”

  Stacey shrugged. “Call it simple curiosity.”

  Weird girl, this one, Travis thought. “You’re curious about me when you and your friends are about to die? What kind of crazy lady are you?”

  She actually smiled at him. “A nosey one. Call it the filmmaker in me.”

  Travis stared hard at her.

  “Fine, don’t tell me,” she said. “It’s just…”

  Travis set the needle aside. “Just what?”

  Stacey shrugged again. “You just seem different than them, is all.” She flicked her chin towards the porch where Cooper, Wayne, Trudy, and now Darla continued to argue about who should be awarded the win for Mick. “I can’t put my finger on it, but…I don’t know—just different.”

  “You don’t know anything about me, lady,” Travis said.

  “I know that; it’s why I’m asking.”

  Travis continued to stare at her. He felt naked all of a sudden. Vulnerable. Like she was trying to trick him somehow. “I don’t trust people like you.”

  “People like us?”

  He nodded once and hard.

  “Why? What is it about people like us you don’t trust, Steven?”

  “My name ain’t Steven. It’s Travis.”

  Stacey’s face changed. “My God,” she said. “You’re Travis Roy.”

  Chapter 36

  “So what if I am?” Travis said.

  Good Lord, Stacey thought. How to work this new information into whatever the hell kind of armchair psychology I was trying before? Think, dammit.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just took me by surprise, I guess.”

  Okay, okay, think, just think…Travis was sent away after his father confessed to everything, right? He was sent up north to boarding school.