by G A Chase
“Not for the last twenty-four hours.”
“And Riley thinks I would be inclined to help?” Sere knew she had to do something, but letting the gator hunter squirm a little might ensure that the fool stayed in his place later.
“She just said to find you and let you know what’s going on.” Cody reached into his grubby khaki camouflage shorts. He pulled out a key with a float fob on it and tossed it to her. “If you can get through the gator blockade, you can use my boat.”
She stared at the key in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“You already stole the damn thing once. I’m just trying to limit the damage you do to my livelihood. All I ask is that you keep her afloat and clear the bayou of whatever has the gators spooked so I can get back to work.” His fat ass cheeks clenched as he waddled back to the cab of his truck.
Sere waited as he cranked the grumpy engine back to life, squealed the power steering into turning the truck around, and rambled off in a cloud of blue smoke toward Riley’s bar. Then she holstered her shotgun. “Looks like we’re headed into the deep swamp,” she said to her snakes. “At least no one will be gunning for me this time.”
She fired up the Triton. There wasn’t another vehicle on the road for the short ride to Riley’s bar, where the parking lot was filled with trucks. Sere could just imagine every one of the macho hunters huddled around the windows, watching her—the little girl on the motorbike—taking the dirt road to the swamp to confront the big evil. “Cowards.”
Bart’s Ducati was parked in the otherwise empty lot at the end of the dirt road. The big man stood at the edge of the shore with his hands in his back pockets.
Sere parked next to his bike then took off her helmet. “I thought we were going to meet at Joe’s cabin.”
He turned away from the bayou. “News of the gator navy spread fast. I thought you could use some help.”
“Always.” The response escaped her before she realized how easily she’d accepted his assistance. “I’m not expecting a battle, though. Lefty probably found something interesting and sent his friends to let me know.”
“Right.” Bart didn’t sound convinced. “Then I’ll just tag along with you. If there isn’t a danger, at least we’ll have a nice romantic outing in the moonlight before heading to the cabin for some serious action.”
She knew he was being sarcastic, but in her mind, she could already see them making out naked on a quiet shoreline then heading to the cabin for some more intense activity. Before they could indulge in their carnal pleasures, however, there was work to do. “Have you seen the alligators?”
He waved toward the open body of water. “Come have a look. I think we could walk on their backs out to the deep swamp.”
She took her saddlebags off the Triton and joined Bart on the walkway to the dock where the boats were moored. Out in the water, countless green marble-shaped eyes broke the surface. When the gators noticed her, they started thrashing around in the water like puppies at feeding time.
“That’s a lot of alligators.” She pulled Cody’s key out from her pants. “Just to be safe, think you can disable his GPS? I don’t want that fool thinking he can backtrack our location to Lefty.”
Bart grabbed Riley’s rifle from his motorcycle before hopping on the johnboat. With a quick twist of his knife, he had the control panel open. “So long as we’re not going to use his navigation equipment, I’ll just shut the whole computer down.”
Sere dumped her bags in the aluminum hull and stepped up to the controls. “Works for me.” She waited until he had the access door back in place before cranking the outboard motor.
He leaned against the side of the console. “What are you expecting to find out there?”
“Joe once told me he tried to prepare for anything but went into battle without expectations. I’ve yet to achieve that level of calm. I’d be surprised to find doppeldemons, but if there’s a problem with the hell mouth, we could be facing damn near any other form of life imaginable.”
He turned toward the front of the boat to watch the flotilla of gators leading the way through the river. “You mean like Lefty?”
She kicked the saddlebags at her feet. Her two snakes emerged then wiggled to the front of the boat. They weren’t bad lookouts, especially when it came to identifying their swamp companions.
“Lefty is my friend. However, there are a lot of other creatures in hell’s swamp who wouldn’t give a big rat’s ass about me. At least demons work on a logic I can understand and anticipate. What a cockroach the size of a pedicab might be after is anyone’s guess.”
Bart looked back at her as if there might be one buzzing up behind them and hesitated in a way she’d never before. “They seriously get that big?”
“Not that big, at least not the cockroaches—the size of a child’s pedal car maybe. The rats can get rather impressive.”
“At least they don’t have to eat.” Bart turned back toward the river.
“I don’t have to eat. Doppelgängers are based on the professor’s equipment and are powered up from paranormal energy. Bugs, animals, and basically all of what you would call nature were the creation of Agnes Delarosa. They eat plenty, and ever since my father fucked up their environment with his paranormal nuclear meltdown, they’ve grown in relation to how much they consume.”
Bart fondled the handle of the Bowie knife stuck in his belt. “That’s not making me feel better.”
Sere swung the boat into a narrow river, following the gators. “The animals are only half of the fun. All this water hyacinth, wisteria vines, hemlock—basically every plant that feels like it’s out to get you in life—actually is a danger in hell.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you didn’t take many romantic moonlit boat rides.”
The snakes slithered away from the bow of the boat. Sere cut the power and looked out in front to where the alligators had been, ripples on the surface indicating they’d dove for cover. “I don’t get it. What did they see?”
Bart headed for the front of the boat. “It’s probably just Lefty. There’s something lounging about a hundred feet in front of us in the reeds.”
Sere threw the throttle into reverse to stop their momentum. “If it was Lefty, he’d be out here greeting us. Besides, my snakes and the other gators don’t fear him.”
“Well, there’s something out there,” Bart said. Two large, red marble-shaped eyes popped up above the grass stalks as a loud snapping sound preceded the downing of a section of tall grass. Bart grabbed a flashlight from the boat’s storage locker and shined it on a large swamp-green claw. “Looks to be a crawfish the size of a young alligator. Think you can shoot it from here with your shotgun?”
Sere edged the boat closer. “It wouldn’t do any good. The pellets would just bounce off the shell. As Crawfishy isn’t based on the professor’s technology, the paranormal shell wouldn’t make any difference. At least now we know there’s something out here worth investigating.”
Bart turned toward her. “So what do you propose? It’d take a cast-iron claw-foot tub to boil just one mudbug of that size. I can shoot it with Riley’s rifle, but that will alert everything from here to the hell mouth that we’re nearby.”
“Save the ammunition. We may need it to get out of here. I’m backing this boat out before we get bogged down in the water hyacinth.”
The outboard motor was drowned out by the rush of Lefty opening his gigantic jaws and lunging out of the swamp. Crawfishy scampered along on his twig-like legs but never made it to the water. The loud crunch of the thirty-foot gator biting the tail of the hell crustacean echoed around the swamp. With a twist, he split the crawfish in two and had the roast-sized piece of tail meat out of the shell. He devoured it in one chomp. As the front portion of the crawfish slipped toward the water, Lefty closed in behind and sucked the innards out of the head.
“Now, that’s some textbook mudbug eating right there, buddy,” Bart said to the gator.
“I just hope he’s hungry.” S
ere backed the boat out of the canal. “I’ve never known a crawfish to be out on its own.”
Sere swung the johnboat back into the main river. A slow but determined current from the deep swamp forced her to increase the throttle. Lefty dove under the boat then popped up ahead of them to lead the way.
“Aren’t you worried about what we might find out here?” Bart asked from the front of the boat.
“Lefty wouldn’t guide us into danger unless he thought he had to. Either way, I need to see the hell mouth. Even if we can’t fix the problem tonight, at least we can get a look at the scope of the issue.”
Bart opened the front locker. “In that case, I’d better figure out what Cody Boy left for us. We’re going to run out of bullets fast if we’re fighting an army of marching crawfish.”
The boat slowed as if someone had just thrown an anchor off the back, and Sere lurched into the wheel. She kept one hand on the controls as she turned to check out the stern. A four-foot-long crawfish clasped the gunnel with both claws. It flipped its tail like it wanted to pull the boat under.
“We’re in trouble.”
Bart jumped from the bow, vaulted off the center thwart, and drove a five-foot-long grappling hook over the stern like Ahab harpooning the great white whale. He then tossed the skewered crawfish far behind the boat. “There’s a shit-ton more of them down there.”
Sere laid into the throttle until the lever couldn’t go any farther. “Crawfish are scavengers—lowest rung on the food chain. They won’t attack, but I’d just as soon not get one stuck in the prop. Think you can keep them off my ass?”
Bart thrust the pole back down behind the boat. “So long as one of them doesn’t jump over the bow.”
Ahead of them, Lefty’s fifteen-foot tail undulated through the water, taking up nearly the entire width of the river. “We’ve got protection up front,” Sere said. “My boy is probably kicking up the mudbugs from the bottom like a broom sweeping dog hair off the floor. If I stay in line behind him, we should be okay.”
The boat lurched as Bart cleared another tagalong off the side, “Until we run across whatever is hunting the crawfish.”
“Those little buggers are escape artists,” Sere said. “It makes sense that they’re the first critters out of the gate. They must have made a break for it last night. We can’t be too far from the hell mouth.”
Lefty slowly submerged, leaving only the ripples on the water’s surface to indicate that he was still moving upstream. Then, like a whale breaching, he lurched out of the water with another four-foot crawfish in his jaws.
Bart swung the pole through the water as if swishing away flies. “They’re not getting any bigger. Hopefully, that’s just Lefty’s way of showing us that we’re still in the crawfish layer of hell’s escapees.”
“The first opening of the new-and-improved hell mouth was last night, and I’m not expecting anything other than crawfish as that dimension’s appetizer just yet. But with each opening, other creatures are sure to follow.” The cypress grove that bordered the river thinned to marshland. In the middle of the fields and streams, a dark black-and-gray cloud swirled. Small lightning bolts lit up the gang of monster turtles the size of VW bugs that swam out of the impending storm. “Shit,” Sere said. “What time is it?”
Bart pulled his pole out of the water. “You late for some date I should know about?”
She cut the throttle so she could check her army analog wristwatch. “Midnight. We’re seeing the hell mouth open.” She cut the wheel all the way to the right and hit the gas, spraying a rooster tail toward the oncoming armored armada.
Bart aimed the hook around the boat as if expecting a sea monster to surface in the river. “Turtles are lazy swimmers, so what’s the big threat?”
“Hurricane Agnes is brewing up from hell.”
8
“Would you mind explaining to me what we’re in for this time?” Bart bellowed over the sound of the outboard motor.
Even in the dead of night, a red glow highlighted everything in the swamp. “Andy believed time in life had to match time in hell to make the crossover. That’s when everything got squirrelly last night for Fisher and me. As a native of Agnes’s dimension, Doughnut Hole must have been an early warning sign of what was to come. If that storm manages to break through, we might not make it back to land. There’s no telling what could be caught up in the waterspout.”
“But if time in hell is stuck at midnight, won’t the storm end at 12:01 our time?”
Sere knew they wouldn’t be that lucky. “Our sexcapade last night should have been proof to you that the storm can continue longer than that. Hell gains a foothold at midnight but continues its influence until those affected find a way of exorcising the connection. And like the crawfish, if the storm gets out, it won’t dissipate just because the gate closes.” She steered the boat based as much on instinct as on memory, but with hell’s power growing, her mind shifted from running to fighting.
Bart stood at the bow of the boat and pointed to a section of river. “Big school of crawfish on the right.”
Instead of swinging the boat wide, Sere cut the throttle. “Come and take the wheel.” Without realizing what she was doing, she hopped over the side of the boat and onto Lefty’s back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Bart yelled as he raced for the controls.
She held up her hand. “Toss me that grappling hook. I need to skewer me some mudbugs.”
He stared into her eyes. “Next hell mouth opening, let’s make sure we’re somewhere we can work out your aggression in peace.” He threw the long pole like a javelin.
“Deal.” She caught the weapon and turned toward the open water.
Lefty swung toward the mass of crustaceans like a three-hundred-pound football player who’d just eyed a picnic table sporting a crawfish boil. When the water started teaming with claws and tails, Sere dove off the gator’s side. The pole she held in both hands registered a satisfying crunch as the tip penetrated the closest shell. She spun in the water, sending up a cloud of yellowish-green gizzards. A claw large enough to snap her neck penetrated the goop. Holding the steel pole the way she gripped her motorcycle’s handlebars, she thrust it into the serrated opening and twisted hard to the right. The deadly appendage snapped off at the joint and floated up toward the surface. Angry but now harmless, the creature continued to charge at her. Its all-red eye stems bent forward, but not for long. She grabbed them with one hand and yanked them from the head.
Lefty tossed a barrage of empty shells at Sere with his massive tail. Show off, she thought as she struggled through the husks to the surface. The whole river looked like a boiling pot of gumbo with innards, shells, claws, and angry live crawfish bubbling up.
“You done yet?” Bart yelled from the boat.
“Do I look done?” she demanded then dove back into the fray before he could answer. Lefty glided up under her. The pointy scutes on his back made for perfect foot supports, like the pegs on her Triton. She leaned forward against the current, wondering what new adversary he’d sniffed out.
The head of the giant snapping turtle looked like the leading edge of a submarine as it emerged from the watery depths. She scooched her hands down to the bottom of the grappling hook. Even at five feet, the pole might not penetrate far enough to kill the beast. As the monster opened its beak-like mouth, she thrust the steel hook as far as she could reach. The hell turtle snapped its mouth shut, bending the pole. She pulled back hard, but the creature had the spike firmly in its grasp.
The turtle’s neck was fully extended toward Sere’s arm. Lefty bent his head to the side and opened his cavernous jaws. His two rows of razor-sharp teeth clamped down on turtle boy’s neck, severing it from the armored body. She tossed the pole with the reptilian head out of the water just before Lefty surfaced. A turtle shell that could have accommodated a family of four and all of their luggage lazily capsized.
Sere stood on Lefty’s back, admiring the carnage. “Now I’m done.”
Bart tossed her a towel. “You’re not getting back in this boat covered in hell goo.”
With one pass over her head, the dull-white terry-cloth towel was saturated in green slime. “So I guess making out is out of the question?” she said.
Bart stayed well back from the side of the boat. “Maybe you should have Lefty swim you to a less contaminated section of water. In fact, maybe a couple of sections. I’m not sure all that slime is going to come off with one rinsing.”
She looked down at the crawfish guts and scaly turtle flesh that hung from her skin and clothes. “The whole woman from the swamp lagoon look doesn’t do it for you?”
He didn’t laugh. “Not really.”
She bent down and patted Lefty on the side. The big gator pushed through the carnage like an icebreaker cutting a path through a frozen ocean. When he rounded a bend in the river and entered relatively clear water, she dove in. She swam alongside him, feeling the refreshingly cool current pull the slime off her body. As she began to feel like her former hell-free self, she angled toward the aluminum hull of the boat.
With a firm kick against the river bottom, she shot up through the water and grasped the side of the boat. “Better?”
Bart bent down and rubbed her head with a towel. When he took it away, her hair fell around her face. “There’s the woman I love.”
She looked at him through her dripping auburn locks. “You love me?”
He offered her his hand to help her out of the water. As soon as she grabbed it, he yanked her out and set her on the transom. “We’ve fought together, rescued each other, spent every available minute together, and reached levels of passion I’ve never before experienced. I can’t imagine how I would ever feel closer to someone. I’ve proclaimed my love to other women who I didn’t have half the connection to that I have with you. So yes—I’m not too proud to say that I do, in fact, love you. Even if you still smell like absolute shit.”