Swamp Monster Massacre by Hunter Shea

looked over the now-still surface and saw nothing. Double fuck! Now even if he did get out, he had zip to disappear with. Cortez would be on him like fat asses at a barbecue.  
    But this wasn’t just about him.  
    Every inch of Liz and Jack’s exposed skin was pocked with red bumps and welts from countless mosquito bites and scratches from bushes and tree branches. Seeing Liz like that was like seeing Maddie, which added to the intensity of his personal hurricane. They walked for ten minutes while he scanned the treetops. When he found what he was looking for, he said, “This will do.”
    “Do you see something?” Liz asked. She had fully regained her composure, what he assumed was a temporary state so she could get to the business at hand. There would be plenty of time for grieving. At least he hoped there would be.  
    He pointed upward. “I sure do. See the way those limbs converge? That’s a perfect blind. You and I are going up there. Jack, you’re staying down here. I want you to lie on the ground and start hollering like you’re really hurt.”
    “I am hurt,” Jack said.  
    “I mean hurt all to shit! I need you to sound desperate, weak, vulnerable.”
    Jack shook his head. “I see where this is going. You want me to be bait!”
    “You must have been the smartest kid in your class,” Rooster said with unrestrained sarcasm.  
    “No way. I’m not going to sit around waiting for one of those skunk apes to tear me apart while you play Tarzan with Jane over there. That’s suicide.”
    Rooster’s jaw clenched so hard it felt like his molars would explode. He was about to tell Jack that he would be the one to hurt him when Liz jumped between them.
    “Wait! I’ll do it as long as Jack gives me his gun. I want a backup in case things don’t turn out the way we planned.”
    She held out her hand. Relieved, Jack was only too eager to hand his gun over.  
    Rooster laid a hand on her shoulder. “You sure about this? I can make him do it.” He shot a glance at Jack, who looked like he had just wet himself.  
    “I’m not afraid. Not anymore.”
    She tucked the gun into the front of her jeans so it was nestled against her stomach.  
    “I’ll be right up there. When the time comes, you and me are gonna make them wish they never fucked with us.” He pointed at Jack. “Asshole, start climbing.”
    Jack scampered up the tree with a good deal of difficulty. Liz lay down at the base of the tree and moaned. Rooster made the climb with the ease of King Kong going up the Empire State Building. The tree limbs were sturdy enough to support both their weights.  
    “Let it rip,” he called down to Liz.  
    She began to wail in agony, calling out for them to come back for her. He had to give it to her. She sounded like her leg had been snapped in two. Her cries were piercing. In between her labored screams were tears. He knew they were tears for Maddie, just as her false shouts of pain were for Maddie’s revenge.  
    It didn’t take long for it to work. The Bigfoots’ rotten stench wafted over them.  
    He tightened his grip on the machete, and waited.  

Chapter Twenty
    Liz’s scream caught in her throat the moment the skunk ape’s nauseating smell wormed its way into her nose. Instead, she gagged, fighting the desperate need to vomit. She couldn’t afford to lose whatever scant fluids she had left in her body, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be wracked with spasms when death was so close. Her heart went crazy, like a wild horse set free. She prayed Rooster knew what he was doing. She’d seen the murderous look in his eye, and knew in that instant that he was no stranger to death.  
    Thinking about Maddie got her to calm down, to focus. Yes, they had killed the skunk ape child, but it had been an accident. In return, the creatures had taken six lives in the most brutal fashion conceivable.  
    In the small amount of time they had been together, it was easy for her to see that Rooster had