Slither - Edward Lee [14]
It was true what they said: Her fife did indeed flash before her eyes, and she saw now what a shallow life it had been. Cocktails and yacht clubs and fancy jewelry and a supersharp divorce lawyer. That was pretty much it for the woman about to drown in Big Jaw Swamp.
After the life-flash: more blackness. Her brain was misfiring. Did she hear someone shout? Did she hear a loud clack? Like her name, none of this mattered. Bub bles exploded from her mouth and then she bucked like a fish on a pier as her lungs filled with water and the frenzied thuds of her heart ... stopped.-
Now the blackness-hell, perhaps-was all-pervading.
Impressions, then. A splash in reverse. Something tugging at her. Hands? Who knew? She was dead.
The-vomited water. Thrashing, and a coughing fit that threatened to tear her chest out.
"Got her." A voice seemed proud. "Got her back."
"Ya don't say?"
The woman's eyes shot open in the brightest moonlight. She shivered, heaving, on the floor of a flatboat. A longhaired man with a kind face knelt aside, tending to her.
"You all right, lady?"
Her brain refit the scattered jigsaw puzzle that was her consciousness. Drenched, she hacked up more water, and sucked in hard breaths. Eventually, she figured what happened. "My God ... you saved my life ..."
"Sure enough did, ma'am. Pretty fancy piece of work if I may say so."
More sentience gathered. Providence had given her a second chance! She leaned up and looked around. The longhaired man held her hand. At the other end of the boat, a stockier, bearded man was hauling a limp alligator aboard with a grappling hook. The moonlight crisped the image; she saw a hole in the animal's head-the same animal that would've eaten her. A bullet hole ...
What a stroke of luck. God had thrown down a lightning bolt to save her. As she was drowning-and was about to be chopped apart by gator jaws-this pair of poachers had happened by.
"How can I ever repay you?" she sobbed, hugging the longhaired man.
"I'd say you're damn lucky."
"Oh yes, I know! And I'll repay you, I promise."
The bearded one had stacked the dead gator atop of several more. "Lady, you must not know about Big Jaw Swamp. They call it that for a reason."
She nodded absurdly, still partially disbelieving that she was still alive. "Thank you, men. Thank you, thank you..."
"You're a long way off from the campground, a damn sight. And this swampland, Big Jaw? It's been closed to campers for years-too dangerous."
The longhaired one: "That's why we're here."
To poach, of course. "Oh, I understand. And I wouldn't dream of telling anyone what you men were doing out here."
Silence.
The woman looked at both men, who remained stone-faced.
"I'd say you're damn lucky," the longhair repeated, "if it was anyone else that pulled you out, I mean."
"Whuh ... what?" she pleaded.
"Nice jewels." Her diamonds were pulled from her fingers. A hand rummaged through the big pocket of her shorts, extracting her soaked cash, ID, and cards. "Um-hmm. ATM card."
Before she could reckon more, her top was torn open. She shrieked, spitting water. Rough hands twisted the six-thousand-dollar pair of implants. "Yeah, she's a looker, all right, for an old one."
"Old one's more seasoned!"
Aghast, she was flipped over on her belly and her shorts were hauled off.
"Please, please!" she tried to reason. "It doesn't have to be like this! I'll do anything you want, and give you
"Um-hmm."
A hand was laid so hard across her buttocks the sound could've been a bullwhip. She shrieked, then shrieked again when that same pinkened buttocks was bitten hard.
"What you gotta understand, lady," the longhaired one said, "is we ain't got time to fuck around. Just some quick fun and we're gone."
"That's fine, believe me," she pleaded more as her spirit turned dark as the water, "that's fine. We canwe can-I'll do anything you want."
The other one sat toward the rear of the boat, near the hulk of fresh-killed gators. "Ain't no fun to poke 'em cold anyways."
They took turns, chortling as they splayed her middle-aged