parking lot that night had but one intention behind them. It wouldn’t take them much time once they caught her. If she hadn’t found the girl by now, she might not find anything besides a petite decapitated body. Moni would never gaze into the brown jewels of her eyes again.
As the fluid in Moni’s brain lapped around violently like a storm inside a snow globe, she jammed her thumb into her temple and beat back the pain. She wished she could jab her eyes out, and rub the agony away, but she couldn’t stop looking for Mariella for a second. Moni kept scampering around the trailers until the tremors rocking her head literally brought her to her knees. She steadied her hand on the wooden skirt of the trailer. Moni fought to regain her balance. Then she realized that the wood moved easily when she pressed it. She hobbled behind the trailer and scanned the narrow column near the A/C unit. She saw one skirt halfway off. With the pressure in her head mercifully fading, Moni dashed through the opening.
When she ducked underneath the trailer, she couldn’t see a thing in the darkness beyond the narrow angular path of light that spilled from the opening. Realizing that the light reflected off her face, making it a clear target, Moni sidestepped into a dark corner. She hunched down so her head didn’t hit the floorboards. Moni heard the kids in the classroom above her scuffing their feet and shuffling around their desks. They yammered on gleefully without any idea that a mutilator of human beings lurked below them. Moni didn’t see him; she knew it by the way the putrid scent of salty fish intestines stung her nose and made her eyes water.
Some part of her also felt Mariella, waiting for her underneath that trailer. She couldn’t hear the girl breathing or moving with all the commotion from above. But the Lagoon Watcher wouldn’t let his catch stray far from him. He would keep her right in his paws, where he could slice her open at any moment.
With a trail of sweat rolling down the back of her neck as she suffered under the sweltering heat, Moni fumbled for her flashlight. It would reveal her location, but she’d rather have the killer target her than focus his wrath on the little girl. She hoisted her pistol, and turned on the light. In just a few seconds of sweeping the beam through the dusty compartment, Moni spotted the shiny black hair of Mariella in the far corner. The girl stared at her not in surprise, but in relief. Beads of sweat glistened on the girl’s trembling lips. She sat scrunched into the corner with her legs against her chin. She had been so petrified by him, that she couldn’t even reach out her arms. Her sleeves were soaked in blood.
I’ll kill that motherfucking pig.
“Just stay there, baby,” Moni said softly, as if a loud word would set off a stick of dynamite. “I’ll be right there.”
Moni crept toward her with her beam squarely focused on the girl. Mariella’s eyes darted around, casting a wide net through the darkness. The Lagoon Watcher wouldn’t make this so easy. Moni kept an iron grip on her pistol, and her eyes shifted in both directions. It didn’t do much use. She couldn’t see a thing outside of the narrow beam of light bathing Mariella. Suddenly, she heard a footstep that didn’t come from the floor above but from a few feet away. Moni swiveled to her left-directly into a gloved fist that pummeled her cheekbone. Her head snapped around as she stumbled backwards. She dropped her flashlight. Yet she kept her pistol, which she raised in the direction of the blow. Before she squeezed a shot off, a damp jacket brushed over her face, followed by a knee crashing into her ribcage. A gloved hand snared her wrist and another hand swatted the pistol free. Her only weapon fell under cover of darkness. The Lagoon Watcher shoved her into a wooden board that bruised the back of her rib cage.
“The girl doesn’t belong with you,” the Lagoon Watcher said. A breath that stank like rotted squid wafted into Moni’s nose. “It’s inside her, but it’s not my fault. She’s a victim of the money-grubbing agri-processors and politicians that started this mess. Forces beyond nature are making it a hell of a lot worse. I’ll try my best to fix her. If you don’t leave her with me, you’ll lose the girl.”
“I ain’t leaving my baby with you, you pervert!” Moni hollered as she clawed her nails at his face. They nicked his flesh, but he caught her wrists. He bent them backwards. Her joints couldn’t take any more.
“My love for the lagoon is no perversion. There’s nothing wrong with caring about nature.”
“There is if you care about nature more than you do about human life.”
Moni stomped on his foot and squirmed out of his grip. She bounced off the wall, and raced for Mariella. The Lagoon Watcher’s gloved hands pinched her under her arms and hoisted her up. Moni’s head bonked off the underside of the floorboard. She saw stars that didn’t belong in such a dark place. When he let her go, Moni collapsed on the pavement. The Lagoon Watcher scooted around her with his sights on Mariella. Moni kicked him in the shin. He growled and hurled his body on top of hers, squishing her back against the unforgiving ground. Moni wrapped her legs around his body like she had learned in jiu-jitsu training, but her hands weren’t strong enough to control his fists. He blasted his knuckles into the side of her neck. Moni wrenched her neck in pain as its tendons contracted. The next blow hammered her on the jaw and even the slightest move of her mouth caused her agony. Even worse, a sticky liquid oozed from the Lagoon Watcher’s head onto Moni’s face. She couldn’t see it, but she remembered how the infected snakes had purple venom dripping from their fangs. Moni swatted the goo off her forehead. She rocked her head from side to side as she tried to avoid getting infected. A steady stream of it kept pouring down on her. She felt the Lagoon Watcher rear back and throw another punch. This time she caught his arm in both hands and clamped it down against her chest. Moni slinked one leg over the trapped arm and pressed her opposite leg atop the man’s head. She bent one leg, locked her ankle behind her knee and pulled down on his head with both hands. That brought the Lagoon Watcher right into her triangle choke. Her flexing thighs cut off the blood flow to his brain before he could utter a word. Like a novice, he pushed against her legs, which only increased the pressure on his neck. In less than a minute, his arms went limp and he passed out.
Moni would have loved nothing more than to keep the choke locked on until the Lagoon Watcher went brain dead, but she couldn’t let Mariella worry for a second longer. She tossed the man’s dead-weight body to the side, scooped up her flashlight and pistol and searched for the girl. She hadn’t left the corner the whole time. Since she couldn’t have seen anything, the girl couldn’t have known how close Moni had come to meeting her end. She would have heard her die. Moni thanked God the girl didn’t have to witness another parent killed.
“You can relax now, baby,” Moni said. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
As she plodded toward the frightened little girl, Moni remembered when she had found Mariella among the mangroves on that blood-soaked day. This time, the girl quivered with fear whereas before she appeared more nervous and shy. Moni hadn’t recognized pure terror in the girl’s eyes until that moment. Yet, with every step closer she took, the chains of dread strewn across Mariella’s face loosened. Finally, her arms reached out. Moni stepped into them. She embraced the girl with all her heart as they stood in the place that might have been a grave for both of them. Mariella tied herself around Moni’s neck like a sweater. She reluctantly untied the girl and rolled up her sleeves. Despite the blood on her clothes, Mariella didn’t have a scratch on her. She better keep it that way. They still had the Lagoon Watcher underneath there with them, but not for long.
Holding the flashlight together with Mariella, she found her pistol and scooped it up. She focused the beam on the man’s sun-beaten head as he lay face down. Moni pointed her pistol along the same line. She wrapped her finger around the trigger.
The bastard deserved it more than anyone, she thought. He had claimed so many lives with his deranged experiment on the lagoon. He had taken everything from Mariella, including her innocence and joy. This man had stalked her and kidnapped her. He had murdered people. The Lagoon Watcher would get the death penalty anyway, so she might as well expedite the process and insure that he doesn’t catch a lucky break in court.
She took a step closer and steadied her aim.
He’s unconscious. This man is no longer a threat. What the hell am I doing?
Moni had never shot a person. She had never felt comfortable making a split-second judgment of whether someone should live or die. The Lagoon Watcher could easily be arrested without any more violence. She would sleep a whole lot better, as would Mariella, if he had a bullet rip through his spinal column. Moni took a deep breath. Mariella squeezed her hand as if she were pleading for an ice cream cone.
“Anybody in here?” Sneed hollered from the opening in the wooden skirt. He nearly toppled over as he squatted down with his hefty gut dragging past his knees. His eyes went wide. “Holy crap! That’s him!” Sneed tried arching his back and ducking under the trailer, but his tank-like frame couldn’t handle anything close to a limbo. “Connors! Get over here and arrest that man.”
Moni sighed as her chance to end the Lagoon Watcher’s pathetic existence passed her by. When she traded her pistol for a pair of handcuffs, she realized that she could at least make the most out of her first big arrest.
“You can tell Connors to hold off,” Moni told Sneed. “I’ve got this one.”
She briefly turned the flashlight on Mariella and herself. Sneed looked like a toddler who couldn’t believe he
