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Muttering all sorts of filthy words, I stripped off the life vest, waded toward the bubbles until the water reached my chest, then swam-flailed the rest of the way. One thing was for sure: as soon as we were done with this bullshit, I was going to take some goddamn swimming lessons.
After a deep breath, I dove under and found the boat about a dozen feet down where, by some blissful miracle, it had settled right side up. No way would I be able to pull the thing to the surface on my own, so I groped around the interior until I came across the cooler. It took some tugging and desperate kicking, but I managed to free it and reach the surface before my parasite decided to turn me into a wannabe fish again.
Now the hard part: getting back. The current wasn’t as strong along the edges of the bayou, but swimming one-handed with my already pathetic stroke meant I’d most likely reach the others sometime next year. Switching tactics, I veered closer to the bank until my toes brushed the bottom then made my way toward the little beach with a combination of tiptoe-wading and spastic semi-freestyle. The mud squished through my toes in the most disgusting way, and I tried hard not to think of the many icky things that might be lurking in it. Broken bottles. Giant water moccasins. Man-eating squid.
The body of a diver.
I shuddered and forged onward. I’d progressed to where the water was only chest deep, with maybe twenty feet to go. Marcus had turned his head to watch me and offered a weak thumbs up with the hand that wasn’t pressed over his chest. Marla gave an encouraging bark and started toward the water, clearly ready to help play this fun game.
Rosario’s eyes widened. “No!” he gasped. “Marla, halt. Angel, watch out!”
The dog stopped then growled, hackles rising as her gaze fixed on the reason for Rosario’s sudden alarm.
A puce and snot-green log with a pair of milky yellow eyes slid soundlessly through the water toward me. A big log.
I froze, heart pounding as the alligator approached. The zombie-gator. Absolutely no doubt in my mind. Not with those blank eyes and odd coloring. In my periphery, I saw Rosario pull his gun, hand tremoring as he brought it to bear.
“Don’t,” I said, gulping. “You might piss it off.” Plus, the gator was only a few feet away from me at this point.
I remembered enough of my high school science to know its kind had been around for millions of years. Apex predator. But I’d been a southern chick all my life, and I knew this wasn’t normal behavior for an alligator. They were known to attack humans, but mostly when they felt threatened. Or when they think they have vulnerable prey? Here I was, bleeding into the water. I could almost certainly survive an attack, but it would really hurt. And, dammit, I did not want to be regrown all over again.
The zombie-gator stopped with the tip of its snout barely a foot from my chest. We stared at each other while its breath ruffled the water between us. One big sweep of its tail, and it could lunge forward and grab my face in those toothy jaws.
Noooo, I didn’t need to start thinking about horrible shit like that. “Nice gator,” I squeaked out. “N-now shoo. Go home.”
In reply it lifted its snout and let out a weird croaking growl, water vibrating around its midsection. What the hell was that? A challenge? A mating call?
Shhhthook.
I barely had time to register the dart in the gator’s hide before it reared up, thrashing. I scrambled back, fully expecting it to attack me in retaliation, but instead it dove to the side and swam away, powerful tail churning the water.
Trembling with relief, I looked over to see Brian pulling in a sampling dart while Pierce lowered his pistol. Between them, Rachel sucked on a brain packet and scowled down at the hole below her sternum.
“Sorry to chase off your new friend,” Pierce said. “Couldn’t shoot it without risking hitting you, though.” He angled his boat to run aground near Marcus and Rosario. Brian leaped onto the bank and pulled it further up then waded out and helped me in. And “helped me” meant he wrapped an arm around my weak-kneed body and hauled me and the cooler to the bank.
Pierce shoved an already-opened brain packet into my hand. I greedily wolfed the contents down and two more after that. Color and sensation seeped back into my world. The bullet popped from my thigh and fell to the ground. By the time my wounds closed and my hunger returned to manageable levels, Marcus was healed. While he, Brian, and Pierce discussed how to retrieve the sunken boat, Rachel worked on field-dressing Rosario’s hole-y ass.
“Lucky bitch,” I murmured without thinking. She jerked her head up and gave me a narrow-eyed glare. I gave a slight chin lift toward the bandage then turned my hands over and made the universal sign for squeezing a butt.
The glare vanished, to be replaced by a quick conspiratorial smile. She affixed the last piece of tape then pushed to her feet and angled her head toward mine. “I almost shoved Pierce into the water so I could get to Rosario first,” she said under her breath.
“I can hear you,” Rosario muttered good-naturedly.
I smothered a laugh then had to act all serious as Marcus glanced our way.
“We lost all the weapons and supplies in the flatboat,” he said, expression dark. “And even if we could raise it, there’s no way we’d get the motor working.” He turned to Pierce. “I take it Saberton got away with the body?”
“They did,” Pierce replied, much less grimly. “But all is not lost. Not only can we fit in the one boat, we have a tissue sample from the body, thanks to Rachel’s quick thinking.”
Brian lifted a baggie with a severed hand in it. “When Rachel went down, she finished pulling the hand off and stuffed it down her shirt.”
Rachel gave a mock-shudder. “Definitely not the way I want a hand on my boob.”
“Excellent work,” Marcus said with a relieved smile.
“That’s the good news,” Brian said. “The bad news—besides the fact Saberton was here at all—is that they also had a live, trussed up alligator on board. Looked a lot like the one we chased off.”
“Let’s discuss the Saberton angle after we get the hell out of here,” Pierce said. “That much shooting is sure to draw attention. We have samples, Angel had a heart to heart with a gator, and Rosario can’t catch a break.”
