“Do you feel this, patron?” she asked him. “Can your legs feel the heat of God, trying to enter?”
Once again, Tomlinson and I exchanged looks, as Carlson’s eyes widened, and he said, “Maybe… maybe I can… I’m not sure.. . but something’s happening. Wait… yes! I do feel it. Yes, my skin is burning! I can feel your hands, Tula!”
“They are not my hands, patron,” Tula told him, not surprised. “It’s the warmth of God’s love you feel. He is in your body now. He has traveled from my body into your legs.”
The man’s face contorted into tears, and I watched him move one pale foot, then the other.
Carlson was crying, “Tula, you’re right! I can feel my legs!”
I was pleased to know that I had been wrong about the man’s broken spine. Shock, or a damaged nerve, might explain the temporary loss of feeling in Carlson’s legs. But my interest in an explanation was short-lived because nearby I heard a man yell in Spanish, “It is back. The alligator is back. Someone shine the light!”
I swung the Golight toward the lake, where I saw a reptilian wake, and two bright red eyes riding low in the water.
The huge gator, still alive, still determined to feed, was gliding toward the bodybuilder, who was already screaming for help.
SIX
Sirens descending on Red Citrus RV Park was bad enough, but when Harris Squires saw red eyes breach the water’s surface, glowing twenty yards behind him, he felt a charge of panic beyond anything he had ever experienced, aware that he was about to lose one of his legs, maybe worse.
Squires understood what those eyes meant because of all the nights he’d spent hunting in the Everglades or getting stoned and plinking away at gators in ponds that dotted his four hundred acres.
Fifi was back. The biggest damn gator Squires had ever seen in his life was still alive, watching him, her eyes glowing in the light of a lantern that someone had brought so the two white guys could give first aid to that nosy old drunk, Carlson.
Squires tried to scream, but his voice managed only a high-pitched yelp, as his legs and arms went into hyperflight, trying to free himself from the muck. It was like one of those sweaty damn nightmares he sometimes had when he stacked testosterone and Tren. Nightmares in which he’d try to run, or call for help, but his body was dead, unable to respond.
Mired up to his thighs in mud produced the same sickening terror. He was desperate to run and he was trying… he even managed to get his right leg free. But then Squires felt a tearing pain in the back of his leg and realized he’d pulled a hamstring muscle.
The pain brought his voice back, and he yelled to the cluster of men, only a few yards away on the bank, “The gator! The gator’s after me! Throw me that goddamn rope again!”
Suddenly, someone on shore turned on the Golight. The dazzling beam confirmed that the gator was swimming toward him, and Squires felt like vomiting, he was so scared.
Four times, the Mexicans had lobbed coils of clothesline to him. But each time the rope wasn’t strong enough, or the men weren’t strong enough, and the rope had broken or pulled free.
This time, though, a Mexican with some brains had produced commercial-grade nylon with a weight taped to the end. When he lobbed it, the coil went sailing over Squires’s head but landed close enough for him to grab the rope before it sank.
As Squires looped the rope around his chest, he risked another glance over his shoulder, and there was Fifi, gliding closer. Her eyes were a ruby pendulum, swinging with every stroke of her tail.
Squires whirled toward the bank and hollered, “Pull, you dumbasses! Don’t you see that goddamn gator? For God’s sake, pull!” He began to thrash with his arms, trying to help the men tractor him the few yards to safety.
At first, there must have been a dozen Mexicans on the bank willing to help him after the Bible-freak girl had ordered them to do it. When the sirens became audible, however, half of the little cowards had gone scrambling. Now there were only four little men onshore, in jeans and ball caps, all hitched to the rope, and they leaned against Squires’s weight.
“Pull! Get your asses moving!” Squires screamed. “Jesus Christ, she’s coming faster!”
The first heave of the rope yanked Squires forward. Another heave flipped him onto his back so that his eyes were fixated on the alligator when his left shoe finally popped free of the mud and he began to float toward the bank.
Now Squires’s mind returned to nightmare mode, and everything happened in terrible slow motion. He was flailing with his arms, screaming for the men to move faster, while sirens and lights converged overhead, filling his head with a chaos so overwhelming he could barely hear his own voice. The night sky echoed with throbbing lights that were the exact same piercing red as the alligator’s eyes.
Fifi was so close now that Squires could see the black width of her head. The animal pushed a wall of water ahead of her that lifted his body as she closed on him, which caused Squires to roll his body into a fetal ball, preparing himself for what was going to happen next.
“Get me out of here, goddamn you!” Squires voice broke as he pleaded, and he rolled to his stomach, unable to watch as the gator’s mouth opened to take him, the animal a massive darkness only a few yards away.
As he turned, he realized he was close enough to touch the bank, where weeds were knee-deep. He lunged, got a fistful of grass in both hands and tried to pull himself out. He was too heavy, though, and roots ripped away from the earth, causing him to fall back into the water butt first.
As Squires hit the water, everything was still happening in slow motion. He got a snapshot look at three figures running toward him. It was the Bible-freak Mexican girl and the two white guys, the hippie two steps ahead of the guy named Ford. Ford appeared to have stopped for some reason, maybe to fish something from his pocket, but the girl and the hippie were coming fast. But then Squires didn’t see anything else because he closed his eyes as he fell backward and landed on Fifi, who felt wide and buoyant in the water.
An instant later, Squires endured a watery explosion beneath him. He floundered for a few seconds, then he felt bony hands on his shoulder and realized someone was trying to drag his weight up the bank but wasn’t having much success.
Squires used his fingers to claw at the sand as he crawled out of the water, picturing the gator opening its jaws again to snap off one of his legs, but it didn’t happen because then he heard: WHAP-WHAP!
Two more gunshots.
Several long minutes later, Squires was on his knees, breathing heavily, aware that headlights of an ambulance and two emergency vehicles now illuminated the area like a stage.
He heard men’s voices calling sharp orders, one of them yelling, “Put the weapon on the ground. Step away and show me your hands. Do it now!” Then he heard the same voice, louder, say, “Show me your goddamn hands and walk toward me!”
An asshole cop. It had to be-no one but a cop could mix contempt and authority in quite the same way. But Squires realized they were yelling at the big guy, Ford, not him, which was a relief. It gave him some hope.
The hippie was trying to help Squires to his feet, but Squires yanked his elbow away, saying, “Get your goddamn hands off me!” but then winced when he tried to take a step. He hissed, “Shit,” because the back of his right leg was knotted and hurt like hell because of the pulled hamstring.
The hippie said to him, “Are you okay? Did it bite you? That was damn close, man!”
Squires put some weight on his leg and took a few experimental steps, watching the big guy walk toward a semicircle of cops and EMTs, holding his hands high. Then he listened to Ford say in the distance, “The injured man’s over there, he needs attention right away. An alligator grabbed him, I don’t know how bad. Then it came back after the big guy. That’s why I had to use a weapon.”