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They stopped when they saw Dessaline stroking the unconscious alligator’s large, creamy white stomach. Ringo took a sharp-pointed machete from one of the men and carried it forward. He said, “Do you want me to kill it?”
Marc touched a place near the bottom of its throat. “Here,” he said, “Straight down to the brain.”
Ringo used both hands to send the point home, going completely through the animal and burying the point an inch deep in the wooden floor. The reptile’s legs stiffened, then slowly relaxed until they were limp. Marc rose and said to the others, “Now we can continue.”
Another huge gust of wind hammered the building, and the rest of the roof somersaulted away into the swamp. There was no more protection from the storm. The rain fell so heavily everyone felt like they were breathing water.
Marc pulled the machete from the alligator and walked to Denson. The wounded man was conscious but in great pain. His leg was hanging by a thread. Marc leaned down and sliced his jugular with the tip of the machete. Blood washed away so fast in the deluge that it seemed to disappear.
Pansy stood facing Marc. He touched her face, saying, “Darling Pansy, so loyal and true. I admire you.” She was surprised, expecting to be killed. She relaxed as he turned away from her.
In a fast move, Marc spun completely around and cut off Pansy’s head.
When her body hit the ground, Marc told Rosalie, “Harvest the skulls, plus any organs you need, and we will reconnect after the incoming boats deliver.”
“And after the storm,” Rosalie said.
“Yes. Young and Jean Claude will go with Ringo and me. You take those you need to meet the boats at Homestead. It will be more protected there because of the bay.”
“We will not be long here. Do you want us to burn it when we leave?”
“Yes, if it will.”
“I have something special that might work.” She smiled as she said it.
Marc said, “I can always depend on you.” He turned to the others that would go with him, “Load up, we need to hurry.” He glanced one more time in the direction where John fled in the airboat, then turned back to business.
~*~
John tried the phone again. It rang, and Randall answered, “Hello?”
“Randall, its me, John.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Somewhere in the everglades near Big Cypress, but coming your way.”
“What’s that noise? Sounds like you’re standing beside an piper cub.”
“We’re in an airboat, coming across the sawgrass.”
“Look, let us come pick you up.”
“You can’t, we don’t know where we are exactly. But we’ll find a landmark soon, I think.”
“What is going on?”
The line went dead. John redialed, but it did not go through.”
Ariel said, “The storm’s getting stronger.”
John redialed once more and Randall answered. John said, “Before I lose you again, here’s what’s coming your way.” He told Randall, but couldn’t tell if his friend heard all of it or not, because the service crashed somewhere in the middle of his talk. He pushed the phone in his pocket and increased the airboat’s speed.
Chapter 10
Randall called Hunter first, then everyone he could think of about the situation with John and Ariel, and about the boats coming in at Dania Beach and Homestead. Half his calls didn’t complete as Hurricane Kyle intensified to a mid-level Category 3 and jumped its path north to put crosshairs on the area between Dania Beach and Hollywood, with Dania to the north. If the path stayed true, Dania Beach would be slammed by the right side of the storm. The most deadly side.
The winds increased, reaching and then surpassing the minimum hurricane strength of seventy-four miles per hour, with shrieking gusts even higher.
