In case you’ve missed the installments on Facebook and Twitter, we’ve only got a couple of weeks left, and one character didn’t make it through this week alive…
All three ate in front of the TV, DJ sprawled on a duct-taped orange sofa, Rarick in a folding chair, and Kat on the remains of a Lazy Boy. They didn't know the name of the movie. Some ex-wrestler and an ex-rapper trying to be action heroes.
They had just reached the darkest before dawn part of the film, when the spring in Kat's recliner creaked. She hit the floor, half-crawling down the hall and fell through the bathroom door.
"Shit." DJ jumped from the sofa, going after her.
"Relax," Rarick said, "That's normal when you're not used to spicy alligator."
Later, DJ stood outside the locked door of Rarick's bathroom. "No way, Kat. If it were food poison, wouldn't we all be puking? Oh, God. You don't think you're pregnant?"
Through the door and the gagging, he thought she said, "Morning sickness not afternoon sickness, you stupid Duck." But knowing Kat as he did, DJ must have gotten that last word wrong.
Late evening. Across the bayou, the skinny kid and Rarick were climbing into the boat. The girl wasn't with them. They weren't leaving yet.
Bobby Grim squirmed in his tree stand, rubbing his arm. Not healed, but close. Still, he was ready to leave this God-forsaken swamp. He couldn't finish his business with witnesses around, and the longer these two followed Rarick, the less chance they had of seeing twenty-five.
Ten minutes after the boat's rooster tail slid around the bend, Grim stood at the front door of the camp, this time an unlocked door. Inside, the TV blared, but no sign of the girl. The room where the gator latched on Grim's arm, locked again. A shiny-new Masterlock.
He made three steps on the creaky Cypress floor before the girl, Kat, stepped out of another room. "Who the fuck are you?"
Rarick slowed the boat at an inlet four bends from camp. DJ frowned. "Rube, the chicken's still on the hook."
"Happens sometimes, kid. Don't worry, if they're all empty, we'll switch back to bow-fishing and snag'em in open water."
Rarick hit the throttle, and around the next bend, both their eyes widened. "Yea, we got one. That head's as big as a garbage can."
Water and hide wallowed and sprayed below the spot where the chicken had hung, the huge head striking sporadically at the rotating line. "We gotta get closer, son. I'll hook the line with the butt of the rifle, then you grab the line and pull him in the boat."
"Pull him in the boat. You freaking crazy?"
Rarick laughed. "We gotta haul him back to camp. Just relax, when you pull the line, the gator's head will come up first. I'll shoot, and we both pull his dead ass into the boat."
The aluminum flat slowed, the motor stopped, and the gator bit into the hull, four inches from DJ's knee.
“Shit!”
Rarick jumped up and popped the gator's snout with the butt of his rifle, and the beast flopped back into the water, still hooked. "See, he's no so tough."
Rarick pulled a pair of eight-inch bow cutters from his coat.
"What're you gonna do with those?"
"When we drag him in the boat, I’ll need these to cut the cable. We can cut the hook out at camp."
DJ grabbed the cable with both hands and looked at Rarick. Rarick nodded, and DJ jerked the line. The gator sprang from the bog, head first and jaws opened wide.
DJ felt a kick just below his waist. He twisted and fell, then teeth bit into his chest and back. Above, he saw Rarick cutting the cable, before green water covered his eyes and filled his lungs.
For those just joining the party, here’s what we’ve been doing: In the tradition of the fast-production pulps of old, we’ve got a wild plot and some zany, but dangerous characters, and through Twitter and Facebook, readers are giving me hints, helping me create a crime fiction short story in posts of less than 140 characters.
Our plot again: When Wild Child Kat LeRouge hooks up with Bad Boy DJ Ponchatoula, they find out the hard way that some New Orleans cab drivers carry guns. Desperate for safer income, Kat decides to blackmail a crooked Louisiana politician—a scheme that brings this modern day Bonnie and Clyde face to face with CIA Black-Ops Baddie Bobby Grim.
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