Free Swamp Monster Massacre by Hunter Shea Page A

blast of lightning, derailed his train of thought. Dominic was sitting atop the vertical trunk with his feet raised in the air. One of the gators had come in for the kill and just missed him.  
    The forest plunged into darkness and a shot cleaved the air.  
    “Don’t shoot them,” Rooster called out. “You’ll only get ’em madder.”
    With that last burst of light, he had seen that the pack was turned his way, with the exception of the one trained on Dominic. It wouldn’t wait long to try again, and it wouldn’t miss Dominic twice.  
    “You all gotta go now!” he ordered. A series of flashes made it look like they were under a strobe light in a nightclub. He saw Mick grab Liz’s wrist, and together they scampered around the gator to their left. Dominic walked along the tree like a trapeze artist, and as the gator leaped up to grab ahold of his thigh, he jumped, hitting the ground running. The clack of the gator’s jaws slamming shut on nothing but air sounded like a pair of two-by-fours smashing together. Jack was right behind him, scrambling to get to his feet, his messenger bag cast aside. He lost his balance, bumping into John’s side and sending him forward. John didn’t even put his arms out to break his fall. He just went facedown and rolled to his side.  
    The lightning was relentless, which was to their advantage. Thunder decided to roll in, shuddering the bones in their chests, drowning out the Bigfoots.  
    Liz, Mick and Dominic raced past him and back to Maddie.  
    “John, get your ass up!” He screamed so hard he tasted blood on his tongue. Every gator was fixated on the prone man.  
    It would have been so easy to leave him there. Rooster had bailed out on plenty of other guys when things shit the bed. It was all part of his instinctual self-preservation skills, which had kept him alive in a line of work where people did not stick around long enough to collect social security.  
    “John! John!”
    Dammit! The guy didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t deserved to see his wife die. And what would Maddie think if Rooster left him to die? For some odd reason, that mattered most.  
    “I’m coming for you, John!”
    Rooster ran. Thunder clapped, and it sounded like the sky was breaking apart.
    He had no idea how he was going to get past the gators, scoop John’s deadweight off the ground and get them both out of Dodge. All he could do right now was plow forward, even though his body and half his brain were screaming at him to go back.  
    When he felt the tip of a long tail under his foot, he stopped and jumped back a step. He cocked the gun back. If one of them was about to take a bite out of him, he was going to shove the gun into the soft inside of its mouth and pull that trigger until the gun was empty.  
    Nothing happened.  
    Instead, he heard what sounded like tearing fabric and a series of grunts.  
    The lightning returned, and his heart trip-hammered.  
    All four gators had formed a circle around John. The tearing sound was that of his flesh and bone being rent from his body. His head was in one of their mouths. All that showed was the very bottom of his chin. The gator flexed its jaw, and John’s skull gave way like Styrofoam. Another had clamped on his side and locked on. One had pulled his arm free, and the other was gnawing on both legs.  
    “Do you have John?” Mick cried out behind him.  
    What the hell could he say? Sorry, John just became a late-night snack?
    It was then that he noted the stink. It was heavy as an anvil, and close.  
    Flash!  
    Two of them were on the other side of the trunk, looking down at the carnage, just as he couldn’t take his own gaze away. The big one with the breasts, the momma Bigfoot, gaped at John’s dismemberment with calm satisfaction. Rooster’s stomach quaked when he thought he saw the hint of a smile at the edges of its thin-lipped, grimy mouth.  

Chapter Sixteen
    Liz and Maddie told everyone else to just run while they went back