40

The massive, charred, and severely wounded monster of a gator begins swimming toward me at a rapid rate of speed. My first instinct is to run. But I can’t do that. I need to take it out with the gas can. The explosion should be enough to finally finish the beast off. Exposed gas burns. But when it’s stuffed inside a metal container like a jerry can, it explodes. It’s what I was going for up in Leach’s office. But apparently, I didn’t do a good enough job of it. I only managed to stun the beast—to knock her cold and maybe loosen a few unnecessary body parts. But now, I’ve finally got a real chance to take this thing out, even if it kills me.

The prison is burning all around me. I find myself trapped in the middle of an inferno I might never escape. That is, I live through this. Maybe I should cut and run. Max Gator will likely die anyway. It can’t escape the flames. But I can’t run. I can’t take that chance. I need to stand my ground and wait until the gator is floating directly beside the can so I can shoot it and watch it explode. I need to make certain the evil beast is dead.

And yet with every inch of the basement lake that it covers on its way to attacking me, the gas-filled jerry can begins floating back toward me. If I shoot it, I’ll take out the gator, but I just might blow myself up in the process.

“Fucking chance I gotta take,” I whisper as the sweat pours down my chin, the rain drops that leak through the ceiling pelt my head, and the heat from the ever-expanding fire gets more and more intense. “Come on, you fucker. Just a little closer. Come on. Don’t you want to eat me, you bastard? Don’t you want to tear me to shreds? Don’t you want to rip my head off and eat my brains?”

The gator opens her jaws. She’s only fifteen feet away at most. Now’s the time to shoot, but the can isn’t positioned correctly. It needs to be on her back, under her belly, or right beside her already-damaged ribs. Or better yet, it needs to be inside her fucking mouth.

That’s when I inhale a breath of the rancid air and work up the courage to do something I never thought I could possibly accomplish. I don’t run from the gator. Instead, I approach it, sloshing through the knee-high water. She stares into me with her dead green eyes, her jaws open and ready for the kill. I come to her and reach for the jerry can. Grabbing it by the handle, I shove it into her open jaws. I then back away as fast as I can. She’s choking on the can when I take aim and slowly release my breath.

The detonation is so powerful, I’m lifted off the basement floor and blown onto the staircase. I black out. For how long, I can’t be certain. All I know is that when I come to, the fire is roaring in Gen Pop, inside the office facility, and along the narrow corridor that leads to the mess hall and the yard. The heat is so intense, it feels like my skin is about to blister and boil off my flesh and bones. Slowly shifting myself back down the stairs on my ass, I can see in the glow from the fire that Max Gator has been blown into a thousand little pieces.

But resting on the lower flight of stairs, above the water line, is her head. The jaws are open maybe half mast, exposing her teeth and fangs. Or, I should say, the long sharp teeth that have been spared the explosion. Her eyes have rolled and all that’s visible are the cloudy whites. But they stare at me, nonetheless. They stare at me in death, and that’s just fine by me.

I go for my M16, but it’s nowhere to be found. I must have lost it in the blast. Outside the prison, the lightning flashes, the thunder crashes, and the rain pours ferociously onto the damaged roof. But inside the prison, the fire grows ever more intense, as though at this point, the heat is so intense, the concrete is burning. I realize I have one shot out of here. And that’s make my way into Gen Pop, run past the burning guardhouse and out through the front doors. It’s the only place I didn’t soak with gas.

Crabbing in reverse back up the stairs, I struggle to get up on my feet. I then inhale some of the air. But the air is so hot it burns my lungs. I run. I run into Gen Pop, dodging the fierce flames with my every step. I run past the guard house and toward the corridor. I’m screaming the entire way while the flames slap me and burn me. But I keep going anyway.

When I finally make it to the corridor, I realize I’ve lived through the worst of it. I head through the open steel doors, into the glass-walled waiting room, throw myself out the doors, and onto the rain-soaked pavement. I proceed to roll my body around on the pavement in attempt to put out any fires that are burning on my orange overall-covered body. But as I roll, and the water soaks into my skin, I realize just how lucky I am. The fire hasn’t burned me after all. That is, I haven’t been seriously wounded anyway.

Standing, I stare out onto the gravel road that services the prison. No EMS vans are parked along the shoulder. No fire trucks. No police cruisers. No on-the-spot satellite news vans. I’m all alone with the burning prison. I make my way onto the empty road and walk maybe one hundred feet toward the civilization that exists outside the Everglades Park fence. Only then do I about-face and get one last look at my old home. It’s all going up in bright red/orange flame. In my mind, I’m not seeing a prison at all, but hell.

Turning back around, I walk. I walk for what seems like hours, but in reality, is only minutes. After a time, I remember the money and the contracts that officially free Blood and me from the confines of the super ultra max prison. I reach into my right pocket. I feel the money and one last twenty-round M16 magazine. Pulling out the magazine, I toss it across the road and into the swamp beyond it.

I reach into the left pocket and feel the contracts. Like the cash, the paper is wet, but it will dry out soon enough. I smile and feel exhaustion wash over my body like the wind and rain. Lightning flashes but the thunder doesn’t come for maybe ten seconds. The wind has calmed a little too. It tells me the hurricane is either dying or fast on its way to getting there.

When I come to the old fence gates that once protected the rocket facility that occupied the spot of precious Everglades that the burning prison does now, I spot an old, rusted tin sign that’s attached to it. Axelrod Rocket Works it says. But someone has painted a pentagram on it. In the center of the pentagram is an upside-down cross painted bright red. The satanic symbols send chills throughout my body.

I walk through the open fence gate and continue walking toward town on the main, paved road. Like the gravel prison access road, there is no humanity to be found for as far as the eye can see. Just downed trees and severed, sparking powerlines. I’ll have to walk around them. Blood is waiting for me at the hospital. My brother from another mother. Only we survived The Oven. It will be something to tell our grandchildren one day. That is, we live long enough to have grandchildren.

But then, I’m not sure I’ll ever speak of The Oven or Max Gator again. I think it would be better to just put them out of my mind and carry on. Sometimes forgetting can be just as important as remembering. Perhaps more so.

I walk and feel the cool rain on my face. The rain mixes with my tears. I pray the rain never stops.

If you enjoyed this thriller, you’ll love all the Vincent Zandri thrillers. Just go to WWW.VINZANDRI.COM to check them out.

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Description automatically generated with medium confidence Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel for MOONLIGHT WEEPS, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than 170 novels and novellas including THE REMAINS, THE SINS OF THE SONS, THE SHROUD KEY and THE FLOWER MAN. Zandri's list of domestic publishers include Delacorte, Dell, Down & Out Books, Thomas & Mercer, Polis Books, Blackstone Audio, and more. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, Japanese, and Polish. Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times and he has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the "Best Books of 2014." A freelance photojournalist he is the host of The Writer’s Life YouTube podcast. Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Writers Digest, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in Albany, New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to WWW.VINZANDRI.COM

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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published in the United States of America

The author is represented by Chip MacGregor of the MacGregor Literary Agency