Quaranteam: Florida Man; Part 2 (Patreon)

QT: Florida Man is an Audience-Driven story where your suggestions determine what happens next. The more ‘Florida Man’ the suggestions, the more likely they get chosen for writing.

“I heartily approve of this ridiculousness” - CorruptingPower

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“Fuckfuckfuckfuck,” Jessica muttered as she sprinted to the very end of the dock. The gators were slowly circling, making their way towards Dickie and the girls in that hunting pattern of not knowing exactly what was in the water but definitely deciding to nab a taste.

Getting a little closer, Jessica realised why Dickie wasn’t responding to her shouts - the fucker was wearing those Goddamn waterproof earbuds he’d ordered from Amazon.

“Motherfucker!” Jessica growled. She pulled her sidearm and went down to one knee, bracing against one of the dock posts as she sighted down the iron sights. Dickie was easily over thirty-five yards away, and while she had clear shots at the gators her sidearm wasn’t going to do shit to them unless she was pressing the barrel to a soft spot in their skulls - and even then, they might not care.

A part of her, one little part, wanted to just shoot some holes in the fucking rowboat so that the girls could join Dickie in his death by dinosaur. The problem was, other than that being contrary to her job, she did like Elly. Barb not so much.

Thirty-five yards, and a target the size of a beer can. There was a significant risk she’d miss, or hit his hand as he was jerking it around to keep the beer above water.

But Jessica didn’t have time to worry about that because she could see the size of some of those gators.

Bang-ptang!

The can went spinning out of Dickie’s grab and he jerked away from it.

“What the fuck!?” he shouted, and Jessica wasn’t sure if it was from shock or him needing to yell over his music. He started treading water and looking around, and when he saw Jessica motioning violently for him to get in the boat he took out one of his earbuds. “What!?”

“Get in the fucking boat, Dickie!” Jessica yelled at him.

He looked at her dumbly for a long moment. She had to admit, she probably looked a little ridiculous - Jessica was wearing a bikini top and Daisy Duke jean shorts. She’d reasoned to herself that even though she was a glorified bodyguard, she could blend in better and deal with the heat if she dressed down. That decision definitely didn’t have anything to do with feeling jealous of Elly, or the attention the other two women in their insane little vaccine pod got on a regular basis.

“Why?” Dickie asked.

“The fucking alligators!” Jessica shouted.

Dickie blinked and raised his eyebrows in surprise over his sunglasses, then swam back to the rowboat and started to try and climb in. Barb just howled with laughter, but Elly moved to try and help him. Unfortunately, her moving also shifted the weight in the rowboat and lowered the side dangerously towards the waterline as Dickie grabbed it and started pulling himself up.

“God fucking mother cock sucking-” Jessica growled, jumping into the speedboat and praying the keys were in the ignition.

They weren’t.

Scrambling back out of the speedboat, Jessica’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped as she saw one of the big gators drop beneath the waterline, turning to make a dash towards Dickie. Her primary was pulling himself into the boat, but his legs were still in the water. Time seemed to slow for Jessica as he levered himself up, his feet clearing the water at the same time as the gator broke the surface, jaw opening.

Inches. Centimeters. Less. The gator probably tasted Dickie’s leg hair as it missed him by a breath and a prayer. The snap of its jaw was a meaty smack as it caught nothing but part of the tow rope, and Jessica almost sighed in relief.

Almost.

The tow rope went taught and the boat jerked. Elly fell onto her ass. Barb tottered as she’d been standing to apparently try and hand Dickie one of her wine coolers, almost going over the other side before falling onto her ass on the seat. The gator had a mouthful of rope, but it didn’t know that. What it did know was that whatever it had, it was trying to pull out of its mouth.

It did what gators do and it started to death roll, splashing wildly for a long moment before it surfaced.

The two rope was wrapped around it, including through it’s jaw. And, tasting nothing, it started to swim away.

Jessica watched with her jaw agape as the rowboat started to travel down the river away from the house.

“Fuck!” Jessica shouted, sprinting back up the dock. She burst into the house and ran to the key ring rack that was just inside the kitchen near the side door. She pulled it open and immediately realized that the others hadn’t been putting things back in their place. All the keys were there, but the ATV keys were on the speedboat hook. The key to the back storage shed was in the ATV spot. Dickie’s extra car key was dangling there, and the key to the nuclear shelter built under the house was just missing.

Jessica finally found the speedboat key and grabbed it, heading back outside. The rowboat was almost a hundred yards down the river now, and all three of the idiots were cheering as they got a free ride. At least two more gators were following them like it was a fucking parade.

The speedboat turned over easily - she’d taken it for a couple of test drives when they moved in and she made sure it stayed gassed up since it was a secondary means of escaping if the house came under attack. She very much thought it was more likely that they got attacked by drug dealers Dickie owed money to, or the DEA, than whatever Dickie’s father or grandfather might have imagined. Maybe they expected all the ‘poors’ to rise up and take revenge.

Not that Jessica would blame them, considering this fresh hell she was living in.

With the engine running, she unmoored the boat from the dock and reversed the boat out, turning it around and then moving up to a speed she felt comfortable with. She had to be careful she didn’t hit the fucking gators that were following the rowboat - not that hitting them would damage the boat, but they could probably damage the motor and the last thing she needed was to get stranded in the middle of the river.

She slalomed around the gator-parade and pulled up next to the row boat, but that panicked the towing gator and it shifted away from her.

“Fucking fuck!” Jessica groaned. She stood up, using one hand to steer the boat as she pulled her sidearm from its holster with her other, aiming over the side. This close, if she emptied her magazine, she might be able to kill the big fucker. Especially because it was stuck close to the surface. It had to be over ten feet long, though it was a little hard to tell in the murky water and with it thrashing around.

“Wait!” Dickie shouted, half-standing and rocking the rowboat as he put out a hand to stop Jessica.

“What?” Jessica growled.

“I think it’s Bubba!” Dickie said.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“He’s my pet alligator from when I was a kid. I raised him from when he was, like, this big to this big,” Dickie said, gesturing vaguely from a few inches to a couple of feet. “Then my Mom found out about him and made me release him in the river.”

Of fucking course Dickie was that idiot kid who tried to have an alligator for a pet.

“I really don’t think it’s the same gator,” Jessica said.

“How do you know?” Barb challenged her. “You can’t know that.”

Jessica considered shooting Barb first.

Instead, she shifted her aim and shot the tow rope a couple of inches from the nose of the rowboat where it was taught and doing the least amount of moving. The rope separated and the tangled gator immediately dove lower into the water.

“No, Bubbaaaa!” Dickie shouted, leaping forward and looking over the nose.

“Shut up and get in,” Jessica growled, pulling the speedboat up next to the rowboat. She holstered her pistol and threw one of the mooring ropes over. The other gators that had been swimming around had disappeared under the water, and the last thing she needed was one of those fuckers to take a flying leap out of the water.

When they get back to the dock, what brilliant idea does Dickie have on how to spend the rest of the day?