Crocs, p.9
Crocs, page 9
The recordings were played over and over. After a short silence, the men received a thunderous response that was lionlike.
It was the real crocodile. And the crocodile was very, very close.
“Here she comes. See the size of that monster?” Leon said. He sounded excited. “Good! She’s carrying a bunch of babies on her back. Steady now, steady. I’ll get ready with the cast net.”
The man knelt to lift a cast net off the deck. He cursed when he nearly lost his balance. “Donny, you dimwit,” Leon said to his partner. “Don’t screw this up. Keep that stupid light underwater or you’ll blind us both in this fog.”
It was true. The beam of a bright light turned the swirling cloud into a mirror. It was impossible to see anything.
“Sorry, boss,” the skinny man, Donny, said. The spotlight angled downward. From the shadows, a huge, dark shape cruised into the circle of green water. Only the crocodile’s head broke the surface. Clustered on the croc’s back were five or six babies. The tails of two other infants stuck out from the creature’s teeth like whiskers. There was no way of knowing how many more hatchlings were hiding nearby.
The kids watched from the shadows as Leon looped the cast net over his shoulder and prepared to throw it.
Sabina leaned closer to Luke. “He’s evil,” she whispered. “He wants to kill the mother or steal those babies. Probably sell them for a lot of money on the Internet just like Doc told us. What happened to Carlos?”
Maribel interrupted by speaking into her sister’s ear. “Not another word. Please. I’ve got the video camera ready. We need evidence. Just sit quietly and see what happens.”
Luke pressed a finger to his lips in agreement. He had noticed a plastic garbage bag on the deck of the flat, wide boat. Something inside the bag was silent but moving as if very angry. It was Carlos, he guessed. The men had caught the goose. They had probably taped the bird’s beak and legs to keep it from getting away.
Maribel saw what happened next through the camera’s viewfinder.
The crocodile seemed unaware of the strange-looking boat—until the big man stomped his foot. That changed everything. Frightened, the giant reptile sank with a splash. Leon twisted and threw the net as the babies went skittering across the surface.
Too late. The net opened like a large spiderweb. Lead weights crashed the surface and dragged the infants to the bottom.
Sabina allowed a horrified groan to escape her lips. Puzzled, Leon glanced in their direction as he towed the net in. Tangled in the net were six or seven crocodile babies. Their chirping no longer sounded like little birds. They grunted rapid-fire, terrified.
“Hurry up,” Leon ordered. “Get that box open and throw them in there. Watch your fingers!”
“Yes, sir, boss,” Donny replied.
Maribel continued to shoot video. The men went to work until they heard a whuffing growl. Concerned, they turned to look. In the pool of green light, the giant reptile had surfaced. Its body was puffed up wide, scales shiny beneath the swirling fog. The animal’s pointed snout made another whuffing sound. A massive tail slapped the water, and the creature rocketed toward the boat.
Leon realized they were being attacked. He lunged, got the engine started, and swung the boat around. The motor’s propeller kicked a muddy stream into the shallows. Close behind was the mother crocodile. In a panic, Leon opened the throttle. It was a race, but the creature wasn’t fast enough. The strange-looking boat zoomed past within a few feet of the kids. It was a tense moment, but the spotlight’s glare and the fog protected them from being seen.
The mother crocodile drifted to a stop. She made a pathetic grunting noise and waited on the surface. Only two of her snakelike babies reappeared. The animal opened its jaws. The babies scurried in. They all sank to the bottom.
Sabina didn’t realize she was crying. “We’ve got to get back to the house and call Hannah or Doc. Do you think they killed Carlos?”
When Luke was angry (which was rare), his voice softened because he was prone to stutter. You stutter ’cause you’ve got no confidence, and you never will, his stepfather in Ohio had chided the boy more than once. There was nothing wrong with stuttering. A lot of people stuttered. But Luke didn’t stutter now. “Carlos is okay. The goose is in that garbage bag. Let’s go.”
“In this fog?” Maribel asked. “Where? I don’t know how to get back to our camp.”
“They’ve got an electronic chart and a GPS,” the boy replied. “It’ll lead them back to the guy’s dock. So just follow their wake until we get near Pony’s place.”
Maribel patted her pocket to confirm the camera was safe. “Good idea. The sun will be up in an hour or so. Hopefully, the video came out. We’ll show Doc and Hannah.”
“We don’t have time,” Sabina insisted. Furious, she slammed her little backpack on the deck. “We’ve got to sneak down to that ugly house before the man kills Carlos.”
Luke had been thinking the same thing. “Yeah. And maybe rescue those baby crocodiles if we get a chance.”
SIXTEEN
TRAPPED BY THIEVES AND A RATTLESNAKE
The lights on the new neighbor’s dock were smoky yellow in the fog. The kids arrived on foot in time to watch the two men load the box of baby crocodiles onto the sleek cabin cruiser. It was one of several boxes they carried from a storage shed to the boat.
Next, the heavy garbage bag was thrown aboard. It landed with a fleshy thud. Leon, the biggest of the two, swung the bag into the cabin, down what sounded like stairs.
“The goose is still alive,” Luke whispered. “I could see the bag moving.”
Maribel had to grab her sister’s arm. “Don’t lose your temper. Wait and let’s see what they do.”
When the men clumped, heavy-footed, across the yard to the house, Maribel shouldered her backpack and crept closer. Luke and Sabina followed. Fog made it impossible to see much but the dock and moonlight reflecting off the windows of the huge concrete house.
A hedge of mangroves made a good place to hide. They squatted there, still wearing the inflatable suspender-like life vests. A door slammed. Lights flickered on inside the house. At least one of the men had gone upstairs to the second floor.
“Think they’re coming back?” Luke asked.
Maribel replied, “I wonder what’s in those other boxes. Maybe Sabina was right—they catch baby crocodiles and other animals and sell them. That’s illegal. We should go back to Pony’s place and call the police.”
“Carlos will be dead by then,” Sabina insisted. “She’ll suffocate in that bag.”
Luke got up. “I’ll go get her. If those guys come out of the house, whistle or something to warn me.”
“No,” Maribel said. Her heart pounded as she pictured what might happen. “We can’t separate. That’s a team rule. We all go. If they catch us, we’ll—”
“They’re not going to catch us,” Sabina said. She grabbed her little backpack and trotted off into the fog. Luke and Maribel scampered after her.
It was a long dock with railings. The odd little boat the men had used was tiny compared to the craft at the end of the dock. The cabin cruiser was two stories high with a tower. Its powerful motors had been tilted down. Tied above the motors was a tiny inflatable boat with oars—a dinghy. Maybe the men were preparing for a long trip.
One by one, the kids climbed over the cruiser’s railing and crawled across the deck to the cabin door. Maribel went last. “When you get inside,” she whispered, “don’t turn on any lights. Use a flashlight.”
Sabina replied sharply in Spanish. She was frustrated. Her light was buried in her bag beneath a diary, the green witch’s mask, and a bunch of other stuff.
“I’ve got mine,” Luke said. “I’ll go first.”
He opened the door and stepped into a dark space that smelled of plastic and cigar smoke. “Maybe you two should stand guard out here. I won’t be long.”
“Move your butt, pig farmer,” Sabina ordered in Spanish.
Luke had heard the phrase so many times, he understood. He switched on his light. The cabin was equipped like a deluxe RV. Beneath a bank of windows were plush captain’s chairs. The console was loaded with electronic screens, all dark. But there were no boxes or a garbage bag.
To the right was a wooden stairway. Sabina followed the boy down to a lower deck. There were storage closets along the wall. At the front of the boat, behind a curtain, was an oversized bed beneath a pair of porthole windows. Orange life jackets were piled there. They were the big puffy kind that were uncomfortable to wear. Stacked on the floor outside the curtain were several plastic boxes with lids. The garbage bag lay nearby.
Sabina rushed and tore the bag open. There was Carlos. The goose’s orange eyes blinked at the brightness of the flashlight. The men had used electrical tape on the bird’s beak and legs. Sabina cradled the goose in her arms and made cooing noises. Carlos struggled briefly, then seemed to understand.
“Don’t take the tape off yet,” Luke whispered. “She’ll start honking. The way sound travels in fog, they’ll hear.”
Maribel was at the top of the stairs keeping watch. “What about the baby crocs?” she called down. There was a sense of urgency in her voice.
“Are the men coming?” Luke asked.
“I’m not sure. I might have heard a door close, but I can’t see the house because of the fog. Did you find the babies yet?”
Luke squatted by the plastic containers. There were six. The lids were heavy plastic, pocked with airholes. He couldn’t see inside, so he opened the lid of the nearest.
“Turtles,” he whispered. “A bunch of them. Newly hatched, I think. They don’t look like sea turtles.”
Sabina was stroking the goose’s back. She glanced down at a scrambling mass of small turtles. Their round, leathery-looking shells were caramel brown.
“Hurry up,” Maribel called. “Check the other boxes.”
Luke popped three more lids. They all contained dozens of small turtles. But a different type. Many had hard shells splotched with diamond shapes.
In the next box were the baby crocodiles. Seven of them. In the flashlight’s glare, their eyes sparked with red as if a fire burned inside. Their high-pitched gunk-gulp-purr chirping vibrated through the boat’s fiberglass hull.
“Quiet,” Sabina hissed. “You want those bad men to hear you?”
Luke pulled the last box closer and popped the latches. Inside was a mound of wood shavings covered by a towel. The boy was about to pull the towel away when he heard a familiar noise. It was the sound of sizzling grease. His hand froze, inches away.
The sizzling sound stopped. The towel moved. Something curled beneath it. The towel mushroomed upward into the shape of a coiled snake.
At the same instant, Maribel came flying down the steps. “They’re coming,” she said. “I didn’t see them until too late. We’ve got to hide.”
Luke fumbled the lid when he tried to reseal the container. It went clattering onto the deck as Maribel grabbed her sister’s arm.
“Hurry,” she whispered. “Get behind the curtain. And turn out that light!”
The last thing the boy saw before the room went dark was a snake sliding over the rim of the box. Its body was long and thick. Its scales were decorated with bars of cinnamon and gold.
Leon and his partner had captured the rattlesnake that Luke had almost stepped on. It was free now.
But where?
“Get on the bed,” Luke urged the girls. Maribel had already pulled the curtain closed. “Don’t let your legs dangle over the side. I mean it.”
They hadn’t seen the snake, but they heard the fear in the boy’s voice.
The cabin cruiser tilted with the weight of the men when they stepped aboard. Leon’s harsh voice was low and distinctive.
“Donny—get away from that fridge. You’ve had enough beer for one night. Go below and make sure those boxes are sealed tight.”
His partner’s nervous laughter was like ice clinking in a glass. “No need, boss. Already checked them. Why don’t we both have another beer? This fog gives me the creeps.”
“Creeps? You’re scared of a little fog?”
Donny sounded scared when he replied, “Dude, it’s Halloween. Could be anything out there. Ghosts from that grave you started to dig up. Werewolves, the walking dead. Who knows on a night like this?”
Sabina smiled at what she’d just heard.
Leon had an ugly laugh. “Werewolves my butt. You’ve got the brains of a ten-year-old. You know that?”
“Seriously, boss. Strange things happen on foggy nights. I saw this TV show—a documentary with experts. The thing was on the Internet, so it had to be true. I’ve studied this stuff.”
“Uh-huh. Stop arguing and do what I say. Go below, and don’t mess with that garbage bag. If that crazy goose isn’t dead, it will be soon.”
“Snake food,” Donny said with sarcasm. “Perfect. Animal sacrifices on Halloween. Sounds like something a zombie would do. I saw this zombie movie once. And, boss, it was so freakin’ real—”
Leon hollered, “Shut your mouth and do what you’re told.”
Muttering, the skinny man came down the stairs and hit a light switch. Luke scooted away from the curtain. The sisters were on the other side of the bed, huddled among the big, puffy life jackets. The goose, its beak and legs taped, was wedged between them.
The rattlesnake had disappeared.
Maribel looked at Luke. She touched a finger to her lips. Sabina was whispering a prayer or a magic spell while she tugged at her blue-and-yellow cowrie necklace. Behind the girls, a porthole showed a wisp of fog in the moonlight. The sound of a fast, outgoing tide could be heard through the fiberglass hull.
Footsteps approached the bed. The curtain rustled. The man was either drunk or scared—or both. He didn’t take time to notice the empty garbage bag or the open box.
“Dude doesn’t believe anything I say,” Donny grumbled. He returned up the stairs in a hurry.
The light went out.
Leon’s gruff voice hollered orders. “Check the running lights. Untie those ropes from the dock. Do I have to tell you everything? No—don’t come back into the cabin. I want you up front to keep watch. We’re leaving.”
“Stand outside, you mean?” Donny complained. “No way, boss. This fog is freaking me out, man. The sun will be up soon. Why not wait? Neither one of us knows much about this boating stuff. You said so yourself.”
Leon’s response was loud and profane.
“Have another beer if it’ll shut that yap of yours,” the man added. “Stand at the front railing—that’s an order. With all these computer screens, this boat practically drives itself. Even you could do it. You might see something up there that I don’t.”
“Then why don’t we trade off?” Donny hollered back. “Please, boss. Please. You drive first, then we’ll trade places. Think about it, huh?”
Leon found his partner’s pleading tone infuriating. “You’re making me crazy. Know that? Sure … I’ll get us into deep water, then you can drive—until I change my mind. Which won’t take long.”
That got a booming laugh out of the big man.
Four huge outboard motors rumbled to life. The sleek cabin cruiser banged the dock hard and pulled away.
The kids were trapped.
SEVENTEEN
A BOAT CRASH AT BONES GATE
Maribel didn’t panic until she felt the cabin cruiser go faster and reach top speed. She got on her knees and looked through the porthole window. All she saw was a spotlight’s beam and mist rocketing toward them.
Maribel was an experienced boater. If she couldn’t see, it meant the driver couldn’t see. At any second, they could crash into the mangroves or hit a dock. She also knew the tide was flowing from the bay into the Gulf of Mexico. There were a lot of shallow oyster bars and rocks in the area.
By then the boat was lunging across the water like a greyhound.
“That man’s a fool,” she said over the roar of the engines. “He’s using a spotlight. That’s the dumbest thing you can do in heavy fog. We’ve got to stop him before he kills someone—maybe us.”
Sabina was scared and mad. “He’s drunk. They’re both drunk. I hate them.” The cruiser slammed through another wave. The girl had to cling to the goose to keep them from being thrown off the bed.
“We’ve got to do something,” Luke said. “But I can’t get to the engines. They’ll see me. And we’re going too fast to jump overboard.”
When Maribel took out a small flashlight, he stopped her. “We don’t need that. You’ll blind me. There’s plenty of light coming through the porthole for me to see.”
He didn’t want to startle the rattlesnake.
“Our eyes aren’t as good as yours,” the girl reminded him. “There has to be a hatch down here that opens into the bottom hull. We might be able to cut the fuel hose. Or find the fuse box and kill the boat’s electrical system. That would stop them.” She snapped her fingers. “Or pull the drain plugs out—like I did to save Pony’s boat. If they slow down for some reason, the boat will flood.”
Luke had to picture it in his mind. Even expensive cabin cruisers had a drainage area at the rear called a bilge. He’d spent enough time working at the marina to know. Inside the bilge would be all sorts of stuff—fuel hoses, electric wires, and pumps.
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s smart. I’ll go. It’s safer. I won’t need a flashlight to see.”
Sabina interrupted, “I’ve got a better idea.”
“What?”
“This.” She reached into her backpack and found what she wanted by feel. It was her horrid witch’s mask with the warts and green rubber skin. “I’ll sneak up there and scare them so bad, they’ll both jump overboard. Then we’ll steal their boat and call for help on the radio. I already put a hex on those two. They’ll be sorry!”
When the girl was angry, she often claimed to use magic spells and curses to get her way.
