Something glided toward him across the surface. Slow, but making steady progress, moving from the eye-watering brightness of the sunlight into the shade cast by the tangled trees that bowed over the shoreline.
It was a triangle of three bumps. Two in the back, one in the front. A wake of ripples spread behind the trio of little humps as they cruised toward him, but, at first, Remy could make no sense of them. It wasn’t any sort of bird, that he could tell. Nor was it a turtle, unless it was three small turtles swimming in formation.
Then his mind flashed to the mural painted on his bedroom wall, and he knew what he was seeing.
Alligator.
He jerked up straight. The stick fell out of his hand, and then he scrambled to pick it back up, equal parts thrilled and terrified. “Da–” he started, and was crushed all over again by the knowledge that Daddy wasn’t here, that he was in the company of men who hated him, and hated Daddy more, and he might as well have been all alone.
The gator swam closer, passed out of the shadows and back into the sunlight, and the water was shallow enough that Remy could begin to make out the shape of it beneath the surface, a shadow against the green, the lightness of its belly wrapping up its sides and along its bottom jaw.
He’d been entertained since birth with stories of Daddy’s gator-hunting days. Big Son was as real and mythical as Santa Claus in their house; he could have recited a dozen safety tips by heart had anyone asked for them: chief among them, don’t get bitten.Your arm might look fine, afterward,Daddy said,but that sucker’s gonna rot right off with infection. Gators have nasty mouths. Remy knew they could move fast, and that death by gator was an ugly thing.
But for some reason, he couldn’t move. He sat rooted, the sun burning the backs of his bare legs, transfixed by the sight of that huge shape gliding so gracefully beneath the water, only the tip of its snout and the lumps of its eyes showing.
It drew closer, and closer still, close enough for Remy to see the back-and-forth sweep of its tail, thicker around at the base than his waist, its power held lazily in check. Close enough for its ivory teeth to wink at him through the murkiness. Closer, its hanging claws dragging through the underwater weeds, stirring the sand on the bottom so it boiled up and clouded the water, concealing the beast’s shape until only those three points above the surface were visible once more.
Closer…closer…
“Holy shit!”
Hands clamped painfully onto his arms and dragged him backward just as he heard a raucous splashing in the water. Fallon hauled him roughly across the sand with a cry of alarm, lifting him clear off the ground, and then overbalancing, so they toppled end over end into the weeds.
Remy scrambled out of Fallon’s hold and pushed up onto his knees, winded, scuffed, and bruised, to look back at the beach.
The gator was up on land, propped up on its front legs, head cocked and jaws open. Remy heard a low, guttural growling sound, and realized it was spilling from the gator’s mouth, just before it ducked, and slid backward into the water. The green froth closed over its head and slopped, and rippled, and then the gator was gone without a trace. Remy’s gaze tracked back and forth, searching for the reappearance of the three bumps farther out, but he didn’t see them.
“Oh my God,” Fallon wheezed behind him, still sprawled out in the grass. “Holy shit – holy Jesus – are youstupid, kid? Do youwantto get eaten?”
Remy stood.
“Oh my God – I can’t believe – Jesus fuck, fuck this fucking monster-infested place! What kinda lizard needs to bethat big? Fuck! If you’d gotten eaten, Boyle woulda killed me. Shit!”
Remy waded back through the weeds to the sand while Fallon continued to rant and steam like a boiling-over kettle on a stove. The water was still, now, save a few last ripples. He walked right up to its edge, and stared down into it, seeing nothing but his reflection, and the washed-out white of the sky above.
Then, movement. A bubble. It shivered up to the surface, and burst.
Remy sucked in a breath…
But it was only a school of minnows, mouthing at the muck the gator had stirred up.
“Are you kidding me?” Fallon grabbed his arm, just below his elbow, and yanked hard.
Remy bit down on the end of his tongue to keep from crying out, and had no choice but to turn and follow Fallon as he marched back up the steps to the deck that overlooked the pool. He stumbled, and Fallon jerked him up the next step. Pain burst in his arm, and he closed his eyes, and bit on his tongue until he tasted blood.
“Are youtryingto die, you stupid little shit?” Fallon snapped. His voice was high, and tight, and sharp enough to pierce the bubble of pain that swelled up around Remy as his armscreamedin the man’s grip. “I swear to God–” He fell silent, and thankfully slackened his grip, when the rumble of an approaching engine reached them. “Jesus,” Fallon muttered, let him go completely, and started down the deck toward the side staircase that led around toward the front of the building. He paused, though, and glanced back. Aimed an unsteady finger at Remy in warning. His hair was flattened and flecked with dead grass, and there was a thick smudge of dirt on his cheek.
“Stay there. Stayaway from the water. Do you understand me?”
Remy rubbed at his arm – the sharp pain had eased, but it throbbed, and ached, and he thought something might be really wrong with it – and nodded.
“Say it. Say it out loud.” Fallon was still breathing too hard, chest heaving, and his eyes were too big and white-rimmed. He was terrified, Remy saw, and didn’t know if it was of the alligator, or of whoever had just pulled up, gunning the engine so that it roared again and again.
“Okay,” Remy said. “I won’t go near the water.”
Fallon watched him another moment, then turned and continued around the building.
When he was gone, Remy turned back so he faced the water. It was glass-smooth, now, save the tiny plinks and plunks of dragonflies dipping to snatch water bugs.