He pastes on an innocent look that I don’t buy for a second. When I check back on his mom and dad, they’re pulling out one of the bodies.
What in the entire hell?
Anders shakes his head and runs over, stopping them.
“Mom! I told you! Me and Dad take the bodies. You have your bad back.”
She puts her hands on her hips and stares up at him. “Don’t you dare give me any shit about this. I work hard to stay strong. I can handle a body.”
His father holds up his hands, clearly familiar with this debate. “You know better than to argue with your mother, son. Now go make sure the gate is open.”
“Fine, but if her ortho gets mad at me, you will never hear the end of it.”
Samuel and I look at each other and then the Bash family as they argue over who is going to take which body. I’m not one to judge, given the family I come from, but…this is different, right? I mean…
And just like that, I remember thatTexasis Norwegian for crazy.
It certainly explains a whole lot.
Anders says, “Hey, you two, why don’t you get into the car. Dave and Millie don’t know y’all, and they get a little testy around strangers.”
Neither of us is inclined to disagree with the family who handles dead bodies together, so we get into the car, and I reach over and lock the door.
“Oh, Jesus,” Samuel says, his fingers digging into my arm.
An alligator the size of my Land Rover has ambled up to the gate and is waiting patiently.
“Holy shit,” I say under my breath as a second alligator, almost as big, joins the first one.
Anders opens the gate, and Mrs. Bash undoes the coverings, rolling the body of the man I killed through the gate. The bigger alligator grabs the man and takes him back into the woods. Mr. Bash rolls Anders’ kill pass the gate, and the second alligator comes up and plucks it away, the way a dog might take an oversized treat.
I can’t promise that this is accurate, but it really felt like the second alligator smiled at me.
The three Bashes stroll back to the car, chatting with one another as though they hadn’t just rolled two bodies into a swamp. The three of them crowd into the back, looking at me expectantly.
“Omar?” Anders asks, biting back a smile.
I curse under my breath and put the car in drive, pulling us up to the beautiful house situated in a big clearing.
We get out of the car, and Mrs. Bash immediately goes up to Samuel.
“We’re gonna get you taken care of, you hear? Anyone comes looking for you, we’ll introduce them to Millie.”
I get out of the car, looking around just in case they’ve got any other prehistoric creatures lying about.
“C’mon, Omar,” Anders teases. “You act like you’ve never seen an alligator before.”
I give him my best stink eye, but he isn’t impressed.
“I think you know this isn’t about the alligators, although they do lend a certain…quality to killing these murderous assholes.” I pause, rethinking it. “Okay, wait. It is a little about the alligators. It’s really fucking weird, dude.”
“What can I say? My parents are Norwegian. They’re nothing if not practical. When they realized Odd and I had certain proclivities, they figured it would be appropriate to find out the best way to dispose of a body.”
“So…this is supportive parenting?”
“At its finest.”
Mrs. Bash hangs her head out the door, a quizzical expression on her brow. “Are y’all coming in?”
