Chapter 5 #2
I’m snappy, but my patience is already threadbare. I hate being outside, there are mosquitos coming for me with the tenacity of a Spartan legion, the humidity out here is stifling, and it’s been a long fucking day.
Lucky turns to me with his whole body, oozing exasperation.
“It’s not my fault, boss,” is all he said, and it makes me feel even more like a kindergarten teacher than before. I suppress a sigh.
“Well, it’s not mine,” Trigger says, his voice deep and significantly more calm.
“I’ll say it one more time, what is the problem? And why is my evidence still lying around? Isn’t this what I pay both of you to deal with?”
Trigger’s lip curls, but he stays silent. Lucky frowns, before crossing his arms to mirror Trigger’s posture for about a half a second, until his endless twitchy energy gets him moving again.
“I did my fucking job. I drove out to this shithole, fought my way through hordes of rabid honey badgers—”
“They’re skunks, you moron, and the only thing here that’s rabid is you,” Trigger interrupts.
Lucky half smiles before leaning forward to snap his teeth at him like an animal, clearly happy he got a rise out of the man, and Trigger pulls his mask of impassivity back down in return.
“What. Is. The problem?” I repeat myself, feeling my temper flare for the millionth time today.
“Look!” Lucky points at the floating body. “They won’t fucking eat it. His stupid pets are supposed to eat the bodies, and instead they’re just sitting there like useless little dinosaurs.”
My gaze goes back to the water, and this time I notice what I missed before—several pairs of greenish-brown eyes are peering back at me from just above the surface of the water.
I guess I never actually asked how he disposed of the bodies.
I inherited this resource, and all I knew was that they were gone, and not buried or lying around in a way that could be traced back to us.
I’m not totally sure what I was picturing or why I hadn’t asked before, but fuck it. We’re here now.
“Phenomenal,” Fallow whispers beside me, gazing out at the water as awe slips into his voice. “These motherfuckers lived with fucking dinosaurs, and they’re right here in front of us.”
Great. Apparently, he finds basically every animal we encounter amazing, but thinks of me as his personal sex toy that he sometimes chews on.
Clearly, he’s the rabid one.
“You can’t… make them hungry, or something?”
Trigger shrugs, like this happens all the time.
“Usually, you give me a little warning, and I can cut their food back. They’re not feeling it today, obviously.
Your bodies must be defective.” He tips one body at an angle with his foot, a look of disdain on his face as he sees the “1488” tattoo on the guy’s neck.
“Or maybe they just have discerning taste. You’re bringing me fucking Nazis now? ”
“Better dead than alive,” I shrug, and Trigger makes a face like he takes my point.
Lucky fumes silently, still roiling with a disproportionate amount of anger.
“Did I really have to come all the way down here to—”
“They’re not defective!” Lucky interrupts me, his attention still on Trigger. “They’re fucking meat. Make them eat it! I’m not dragging them back to the car, and I’m sure as shit not burying them out here by myself.”
Trigger shrugs again, his nonchalance clearly designed to get under Lucky’s skin.
“My babies have refined palates, what can I say? And I never said you were allowed to bury them here. You’ll have to take them away and pay somebody else to dispose of your trash. And next time, send a goon that isn’t afraid of a little physical labor. Or maybe just… taller.”
I roll my eyes, because this seems much more like a pissing match between the two of them than something that I actually need to be involved in.
I think I’m getting a headache. As my hand comes up to rub the bridge of my nose, Fallow starts to giggle beside me.
“This is fantastic,” he sighs, looking between the three of us.
“Look, can you just incentivize them or something?” I ask, at my wit’s end.
Trigger gives me a hard look for a minute, before stooping to grab onto the body closest to him on the ground. It’s naked, the clothes presumably in a burn bin somewhere, and when he starts to handle it, I can see everywhere that Fallow’s blade sunk into the man earlier today.
It’s a reminder I didn’t need of this morning, and I move my gaze and my body as far away from Fallow as I can manage before I get distracted.
Trigger hoists the corpse, demonstrating a kind of strength that’s impressive enough to have Fallow wolf-whistling.
“Knock it off,” Lucky and I both say at him in unison, which is frankly more terrifying than the gators. Fallow’s eyes widen as he looks between us, and I fight back the flush threatening to stain my face.
“Possessive?” he asks, although I don’t know which of us he’s talking to, and I don’t really care.
“Shut the fuck up. Both of you.”
I’m going for a commanding tone, but I think it falls flat. Thankfully, we’re all distracted when Trigger finally gets closer to the water and heaves the damn thing in, landing with a splash near the other body.
The gators don’t even flinch. One gives the body a slow-blink and then just disappears entirely beneath the surface of the water.
“I don’t know what to say, Colm. They don’t want it. Y’all can fish those out and take them somewhere else, because I don’t want them rotting here and poisoning my water,” Trigger says, arms crossed.
“Alligators only eat once a week in the wild. They can go years without food before they starve to death. You’re not going to convince them,” Fallow says, like a fucking encyclopedia.
“I don’t want to know why you know that,” I say before turning my attention back to Trigger. “Jesus fucking Christ, do you not have something else we can feed them to? I’m not spending all goddamn day on this.”
I feel exhausted, even as I spit the words.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Fallow says, bouncing on his toes as he grins beside me. “Snatch!”
The three of us blink at him, waiting for some follow up, which makes him sigh like we’re the weird ones here.
“Snatch. The Guy Ritchie movie.”
Still, nothing.
“Fucking Americans,” he mutters. “No fucking culture. Not even Brad Pitt can drag you to a decent film.” Fallow sighs again, looking like a put-upon ingenue in the golden afternoon sunlight, before he continues.
“They have those big hogs. The ones raised for meat. And they feed people to it. Do you have hogs?”
Trigger’s eyebrows climb upwards before he answers. “No. No hogs. I only do wildlife here, not domestics.”
“Is there something else big enough?” I ask, problem-solving the stupidest problem I’ve ever been roped into.
Trigger’s mouth twitches, like he’s going to answer, but he stays silent. Lucky notices anyway.
“There! You thought of something. What do you have?”
Trigger sighs.
“I have two reticulated pythons, okay? But I’ve never given them a person before, let alone three.”
Fallow’s hand shoots up like we’re in grade school, and I turn to look at him.
“I would love to see that in real life,” he says, a note of awe in his voice and his eyes bright. “Bet it shits all over watching it on TV.” I’m already shaking my head when he hits me with my own word from earlier. “Please. Colm.”
Jesus. That’s only the second time I think he’s actually said my name out loud, and it’s doing something to me. I crumple like wet paper.
“Fine. Let’s go watch the fucking snakes eat the damn Aryans.”
“Yes!” Fallow fist pumps. “Fucking excellent.”
He’s absolutely glowing with anticipatory joy, and I refuse to admit how much I like the sight of it.
Fuck my life and however I got here.