Max Gator, page 11
“Water moccasins,” he says. “They must have gotten in through the sewer grates. They bite us we’re dead men. Back up the staircase. We can try and get a shot at Max Gator from there.”
Acting on instinct, we both begin to backstep slowly, carefully, our eyes peeled on both the water moccasins and the now empty spaces where the gator might be resting, licking her very serious wounds. For all we know, she’s circling us, waiting for the right moment to spring out of the water once more and sink her fangs into our bodies, not because she’s hungry, but because she’s angry and in pain.
“Keep moving, Steele,” Blood insists. “As soon as she shows her snout, let her have it.”
“Maybe this time a headshot will be just the thing she needs,” I say.
The words aren’t out of my mouth and the monster shoots out of the water, its jaws open. It clamps the jaws shut on Blood’s right thigh. He screams and drops both his Maglite and his weapon.
“Shoot the fucker, Steele,” he insists through clenched teeth.
But I feel myself falling backward again. Her sudden presence has upset my balance like the entire world is shifting on its access. I aim the launcher at the beast’s head and press the trigger. But the round misses entirely and hits the far fall, exploding on impact.
“Shit,” I scream.
That’s when I open up on her head with the M16, my finger pressed on the trigger, the fully automatic rapid-fire rounds making contact with her hard skull. It’s enough for her to open her mouth wide again, releasing the hold she has on Blood’s thigh. Issuing another high-pitched scream, she drops back down into the water and swims to the staircase, where she proceeds to make the climb back up to The Oven’s ground floor, leaving a trail of her own blood behind her.
“My leg,” Blood says. “Is it still there?”
“You’re still standing, aren’t you?” I say.
“Good fucking point,” he says. “Grab my bandana and wrap it around the wound. I don’t get this dressed soon it’s gonna infect with all this putrid shit in the water.”
“Can you make it to the staircase?” I say while shouldering my weapon. “Those water moccasins are getting closer.”
“Shoot ‘em, for God's sake,” Blood says while I wrap the bandana around his wounded thigh and tie it tight. He winces in obvious pain but at least the bleeding will be somewhat stopped for the time being. “Shoot ‘em now.”
Pulling my M16 off my shoulder, I shine the Maglite on the big snakes and at the same time, take aim. I pour the remainder of my magazine into them. For a change, my aim is good, and I manage to hit all of them. They silently sink to the bottom of the indoor lake.
“Go to the stairs,” I say. “And watch out for Max Gator. She could be waiting for us at the top.”
“You don’t have to tell me what I already know,” Blood says, limping his way to the staircase through the knee-deep water.
I follow, but not before retrieving his weapon, and the one grenade we have left.
33
Blood uses me like a crutch to make it to the top of the two flights of rain-soaked concrete stairs without losing his footing and faceplanting. He’s wincing in pain, breathing heavily, and for a Black man, I can see that his face has become pallid. When I peer at his wound, I can see that the bandanna isn’t really doing its job and he’s bleeding out fast. I get a sinking feeling in my gut.
“Blood,” I say, “I think it’s possible your femoral artery has been punctured. If that’s the case, we got to get back to Leach’s office and make him call the governor for another EMS van. Or...”
“Or, I ain’t gonna make it, is what you were gonna say,” he says.
“Does your radio still work?” I ask. “I lost mine a long time ago.”
With a trembling hand, he presses the broadcast button on the chest-mounted device.
“Leach, Arty,” he says. “Is anyone there? Over”
There’s a lightning strike that’s visible now through an opening in the damaged metal roof followed by pounding thunder.
“I repeat,” Blood says despite the excruciating pain he’s in. “Is anyone there? Over.” He turns to me. “Dead,” is all he says.
We make out a scream then, coming from the direction of the office facility. Max Gator appears inside the now-open, breached metal door. She’s got the body of a man clenched between her long jaws. It’s Arty. His legs are gone and so are both his arms. She’s chomping on his midsection.
Arty somehow spots us.
“Shoot...me,” he pleads. “Don’t let her eat me while I’m alive. Shoot...me...now.”
The gator stops in its tracks while continuing to chew on Arty. It’s as if the beast is throwing the guard’s horrible death in our faces and trying to prove to us that no matter how badly damaged she is, nothing can stop her.
“Shoot him,” Blood insists. “Put our little friend out of his misery, Steele. Then blow the fucker up for good.”
Swallowing something dry and bitter, I aim for Arty’s head and put three rapid-fire rounds into it. My eyes tear up. I hate myself for what I have to do. But at least he doesn’t know what hits him, thank God. Next, I aim the Blood’s grenade launcher at Max Gator. But she manages to do something that surprises the hell out of me and the wounded Blood. She quickly turns, heads back through the open door, and bolts up the concrete stairs.
“How the hell did she manage that with her stomach and her chest blown open?” I spit.
“It ain’t from this world, Steele,” Blood says in an agonized voice.
Another voice screams. If I had to guess, the scream is coming from the fourth floor.
“Deirdre,” I swallow.
Blood limps his way through the open door, following Arty’s blood trail. The blood is pouring out of his leg now. It becomes immediately apparent that if I don’t get up to Leach’s office now, he’s going to bleed out and die. I can’t fucking allow that. Not on my watch.
I remove my mini-M16 and hand it to Blood.
“Sit yourself down, Blood,” I say handing him the machine gun. “We’ll switch up pieces since I need the last grenade to take care of that monster. Change out the magazine. It’s empty. I promise you that by the time you see me again, the beast will be dead, and an EMS van will be on its way. Just hang in there, brother.”
He nods slowly.
“Just do your best to make it quick,” he says. “I’m already feelin’ lightheaded.”
“What am I standing here for?” I say.
“Exactly,” Blood says.
With the grenade-loaded M16 in hand, I take the stairs two at a time, doing my best not to slip on the blood and rainwater that’s accumulated on them. My breathing is heavy and shallow, not due to over-exertion or exhaustion. I have too much adrenaline running through my body for that. Too much anger and the need for pure, naked revenge. My head spins and my blood runs through my veins far faster than God intended. In a matter of seconds, I’m about to come face-to-face with Max Gator.
Now that the screaming has stopped, and silence has resumed, I sense that the beast and I will be the last ones standing. Let the best monster win.
34
Coming to the top of the concrete staircase, I catch my breath on the fourth-floor landing. Like every other piece of flooring in The Oven, it’s caked with fresh blood. The metal door has been smashed off its hinges which means there’s no reason to open it. Instead, I take a couple steps forward and poke my head out the opening. In a word, the corridor has been trashed. Just about every office door has been smashed or ripped open. In my speeding brain, I picture the human carnage that exists in every one of the offices.
What’s not so conspicuous is the location of Max Gator. I try to swallow, but my dry mouth won’t allow it. Rainwater pours down from the damaged ceiling. The wind howls and pounds the concrete building. Lightning strikes are coming from every direction and the thunder pounds like the wrath of God is on full display.
But inside The Oven, it’s the wrath of evil that’s on full, graphic, horrific display. How nature could have created such a creature is beyond my comprehension as a mere man. A strong man, but a weak man in so many ways too. But then maybe like Blood and I have already intuited, the massive gator might not be of our world, meaning it might not be earthly nature that created her. Maybe God had nothing to do with her birth. Maybe she came from a planet that is more evil than anything mankind has ever experienced.
These are the things that are racing through my mind as I inhale a deep, putrid breath and step out into the dimly lit corridor. I feel the rain dripping on my face and I listen to the raindrops falling into the inch or two of water and blood that has collected on the floor. With my weapon tightly gripped in my sweating palms, I keep a sharp lookout for the beast, knowing that despite her injuries she can pounce on me at any second.
I walk, each step I take a demonstration of either insanity or determined bravery on my part. I don’t know which. But considering I’m so frightened now, my limbs trembling, I’d say my forward movement is due to stupidity. Can’t I just turn tail and run away at this point? The prison is so empty of guards and inmates, I could simply hit the buttons that open the front doors and walk out into the rain, wind, lightning, and thunder, and not a damn soul would know the difference.
I would be counted among the dead, no question about it. Just another casualty of a monster who doesn’t know she’s a monster. An evil monster that doesn’t know she’s evil. It’s a creature that’s performing as designed by whatever creator out there in the cosmos is capable of producing such a thing. Why should we blame her for wanting to kill and feast on human flesh just because she was engineered that way?
Or maybe I’m overthinking this. A giant swamp-thing-alligator broke into The Oven most likely via one of the large diameter sewer pipes, and now it’s acting like a fat kid in a candy store. That’s about the extent of it. Only now it’s up to me to kill her. Only I have the capability to make it happen. It’s all up to me, a man who plucked the eyes out of the son of a bitch who sucker-punched me, and who would do it all over again if given the chance.
Does that make me just as evil as Max Gator? Yes. Maybe more so, since I, as a human being, am supposed to not only possess a conscience but also know right from wrong. Fuck, I was an altar boy when I was growing up, for Christ’s sake.
Finally, I come to Warden Leach’s office door. Like the others on this floor, it’s been demolished. Kindling wood comes to mind. But the thought quickly escapes me while I gaze into the room and see precisely why Max Gator has been so quiet these past few, heavily weighted minutes.
35
Leach is seated in his swivel chair behind his desk. His eyes are not only wide open, but they seem to be bulging out of their sockets. He’s still alive, but not for long. His face is drained of all its blood. He spots me and tries to say something, and yet it’s impossible for him to utter even a single word. Max Gator’s body from the tip of snout to tip of tail, takes up most of the office. To say she smells like putrid shit is putting it so mildly as to be laughable. She’s slowly eating the warden, consuming him like a giant anaconda might consume a hog, bit by bit; pound of flesh by pound of flesh.
At this point, I feel all fear leave my body. Shouldering the M16, I take a step forward to get a better shot at the feasting but wounded beast. I have no time to spare. My brother from another mother is downstairs, bleeding out.
“I need another ambulance, Warden,” I say as casually as ordering a Whopper from the Burger King takeout window. “But first, I’m going to kill Max Gator. It’s likely you will die too. Collateral damage the soldiers call it.”
Leach gives me one more wide-eyed horrified look while blood begins to pour out both corners of his mouth. He nods in approval. No, that’s not right. He nods because he doesn’t want to go on living a second longer, any more than Arty did when he asked me to kill him.
Max Gator is so consumed with feeding on the warden, that she doesn’t take any notice of me. She must realize I’m standing in the room and that I represent a threat to her. She must know I’m here to kill her. But it’s as though she is taking so much pleasure out of tearing the leader of this private super ultra-max prison to shreds that nothing else matters in the world. Not all the men she’s killed, not the hurricane, not the fact that she must realize she’s not crawling out of this prison alive.
Or maybe I’m giving the rabid giant animal way too much credit. Maybe it’s simply acting on instinct and has no clue what it’s doing other than what it’s been programmed to do. And that is to kill and feed, as much as possible. I have one grenade left. If it doesn’t do the job, my assumptions about her not getting out of here alive will be all wrong. It will be me who won’t get out alive. Blood will die too and all the fault will rest with me.
How can I be sure I will kill Max Gator with this one last grenade?
“She not only needs to be hit with the explosive, but she needs to burn,” I whisper to myself. “But it’s not like there’s gasoline stored up here.”
I spot the whiskey bottle on Leach’s desk. My spinning brain goes to work, despite the exhaustion that plagues it.
“Whiskey,” I say.
I give Leach a good look. His eyes are rolling back in their sockets and a gusher of arterial blood is pouring out his mouth and nostrils as the gator completely separates his lower torso from the upper portion. Now’s the time to make my move or I’ll never have another. I go to the storage closet located near the narrow opening between the warden’s office and his assistant. Opening the door, I find not quarts, but gallons of whiskey.
“Whiskey is flammable,” I say.
Shouldering my mini-M16, I grab three of them and make my way back across the office to where Max Gator continues to feed on the now-dead Leach like it doesn’t want to miss even a single succulent morsel of human flesh. I make my way around the back of Leach and, when the creature opens its mouth wide, I toss in all three gallons of whiskey.
Clamping its jaws shut, Max Gator begins to choke. I suppose I could wait to see if it chokes to death, but I’m not betting on it. I pull the M16 off my shoulder and take aim with the grenade launcher. That’s when Max Gator looks me in the eyes with her dark green, lifeless eyes. She’s no longer choking, having swallowed the three gallons of whiskey whole. I swear to Christ, she’s smiling at me if such a thing is possible. She’s smiling at me like I’m her next meal. And I am, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m now aiming the M16 at her, point-blank.
“Later gator,” I say in my best imitation Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Laughing out loud, I pull the trigger.
36
Max Gator opens its blood-soaked jaws wide and lunges for me at the very moment the grenade shoots from the tube. It goes right down her throat and explodes. Her entire midsection blows apart, spraying the walls, windows, and ceiling of the office with her guts, bone, skin, and blood. The rest of her body lights up in a terrific alcohol-induced fire.
Wiping some of the carnage from my face with the back of my hand, I can’t help but notice that she’s still somehow alive. She’s screaming a high-pitched wail. But the wailing is getting weaker and weaker by the second as life escapes her. With most of her nearly completely severed skull and snout intact, she peers at me with eyes that roll into the back of her skull, just like Leach’s did moments ago when death finally touched him. What’s left of her drops to the floor, dead weight. It’s then I know for certain, that Max Gator is finally dead.
I could just stand there and stare at the dead monster for a while, as the lightning flashes on its mutilated and burning corpse. But Blood is bleeding out downstairs. He needs help immediately or I’m going to lose him. I go to Leach’s phone and grip the handset. Assuming the governor was the last person he spoke to, I press redial. Much to my surprise, someone picks up after only three rings.
“Governor’s line,” someone barks.
The fire is so hot now and the stench of burning gator so foul, I carry the phone to the opposite side of the office. Luckily, there’s enough landline to accommodate me.
“I’m calling from Warden Leach’s office at the Overlook Ultra Super Max Prison,” I say. “Is this, in fact, the Governor?”
“You know it’s the governor, Leach,” he snaps. “Don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve still got a serious fucking emergency on my hands. This hurricane doesn’t want to let up.”
“First things first, your excellency,” I said. “Leach is dead. They’re all dead. Most of them anyway. A few are still alive and need medical attention immediately. We need four ambulances now. Stat. Understand?”
There’s some commotion in the background, and the sound of pouring rain, wind, and thunder. Something tells me the governor isn’t lying. The hurricane isn’t letting up but instead, getting worse. It doesn’t matter. We still need those ambulances.
“You listen to me, pal,” the governor says in a gruff voice. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, or where you get off demanding even a stick of gum from me. But I’m up to my ass in civilian casualties from this storm. Civilians equal voters, get it? I already gave Leach what I could spare for his second-in-command. The rest of the EMT teams are needed for this damn storm. You got that?”
“Gonna be a damn shame when I head outside and talk to that MSNBC reporter about how you’ve been grafting money from this private super max ever since they broke ground. No, actually, I’m wrong about that. How do you think they got a permit to build this place on what was environmentally protected swampland and Everglades? It’ll be no surprise a monster like Max Gator was agitated enough to breach the prison and take her revenge on all the humans who occupied this place. In fact, news of what you’ve done will not only destroy your political career and your, um, anticipated run for president, it’ll end you up in federal prison for a stint that would make Joe and Hunter fucking Biden blush. You getting my drift here...Governor?”
