"No, Dougie!" Lynnette screamed herself awake.
Breathing so heavy that she had to sit up on her mattress and catch her breath, the woman clutched
her heaving chest and waited. The image of the little boy in her nightmare still remained, so much so
that her own stomach began gurgling. Lynnette looked all over the tiny, dark space in which she was
resting to find only herself. The instant she reclaimed her bearings she immediately dropped her body
back down onto the sweaty mattress and laid there.
From her face all the way down to her naked toes she was layered in her own sweat. Lynnette couldn't
stop breathing so rapidly. The dream was so intense and realistic that she had to shut her eyes
repeatedly just to make sure she was still awake.
She rolled over onto her left side and reached for a wristwatch that was lying on the floor next to her
bible. Lynnette held the watch up to the moonlight that was shining into her room to see the time that
read 2:42 a.m.
From there she dropped the watch and laid back down again. With her eyes penetrating the ceiling
above her she struggled with the thought of getting up, but her body had other reservations. It desired
only to lie motionless on the clammy mattress and sulk. However, the longer Lynnette rested the more
intense her ramblings seized her to the point where she had to actually force her own body to move
from its quiet comfort zone.
She leaned over and reached for her bible that was lying next to her on the floor. There was a
bookmark within the pages. With her flashlight she turned directly to Joshua 1:9 and read carefully
before placing the book back onto the floor.
With as much energy and bravery that she could muster, the young woman got up, put on a white tank-
top shirt, a pair of torn blue jean shorts and a pair of sandals. She walked over to the foot of the
mattress and picked up a heavy duffle bag from off the floor before sneaking her way out of both her
room and the shack altogether.
Making sure to shut the door behind her as quietly and securely as she could Lynnette turned and
ventured down the steps only to inadvertently bump into a little boy who was already seated on the
stairs.
Gasping for air, Lynnette looked down. "Leo, what are you doing out here, boy?" She sat down next to
the child.
Leo couldn't have been any more than nine or ten years old. Even in the darkness Lynnette could see
his shady image that appeared more troubled and bored than anything else.
"Are you going out again?" Leo asked with his head resting on his right arm.
"Yeah...I gotta make a run. What's the matter? Why are you out here at this time of night?"
Leo didn't answer right away, he just sighed before looking up at Lynnette. "My mama is in dere."
Lynnette looked over at a dimly lit shack to her immediate right. Upon a usual night there were
countless sounds. From that of Reggae music strumming from someone's nearby home, to a few
vehicles tooling down the road. The reeking smell of Ganga was more belligerent after midnight than
any other time of the day. But there was something keeping the little boy out of his own house that
early morning, and Lynnette realized right away that it had nothing to do with a nightmare; she could
hear it very clearly from the steps she was seated on.
Lynnette just sighed before patting Leo on the back and saying, "Don't worry, honey, your mother will
be done in there sooner than later."
"I hate it when he comes by." Leo hopelessly dropped his head.
Lynnette stared at the boy in the most sorrowful manner, as if she were in his shoes. "You know that
your mother still and always will love you. Right now...she's just going through some things. Be patient
with her."
Leo just looked up at Lynnette. He began to sniff. The very last thing she wanted was to see him cry.
"Listen, if you want you can go up to Cusha's and take a nap until it's time to go to school, okay?"
Leo shook his head before Lynnette rubbed his back and got up.
"I should be back before dawn." She somberly muttered.
"Do you promise?"
Lynnette stood perfectly still on the steps for a brief moment before she turned her head and began
down to the ground where she turned a corner to see a bike leaning up against a wall. She then lanced
her duffle bag on the bike's handle and got on. In the dark of night Lynnette rolled on down the
lonesome highway for at least ten minutes or so before she eventually met up with the beach.
She rode along before finally coming to a grinding halt right in the middle. The moon was half full that
evening, but the moon's phases wasn't anything that interested her. All she did was stand and watch as
the shimmering waves rolled in and out just a couple of yards from her. It was such a warm night; the
humidity had all but diminished, as did the rain that had fallen upon the city for the latter half of the
previous day.
Ever since Lynnette arrived in Jamaica the one and only thing that granted her the only measure of
peace and solitude was the sea. For that matter, before August, she had never been to a beach in her
life. On most nights, all she would do was stare out at the water ever so endlessly. She would often
wonder just where the sea would take a person had they ventured out into its great expanse. Or just
what could have been lurking underneath.
Then there came the times when she would just stall. Those were the moments she hated the most.
Shaking her head, Lynnette reached into her duffle bag and pulled out both a piece of paper and her
flashlight. She turned the light on and read the words that were scribbled on the paper.
Lynnette then looked straight ahead at a forest that resided before her, just ten yards forward. As soon
as she put the paper back into her bag she rooted around until her hand connected with something
warm and hard. She pulled out a sawed off shotgun. With her own sweaty hands she checked the
chamber before climbing off of her bike and skittishly proceeding towards the dark bamboo forest.
Her determination was phony, it always had been. The young lady had yet to become accustomed to
neither her surroundings nor her duty, and as luck would have had it, as slowly as she was walking, the
forest drew closer faster and faster.
She crept into the steamy forest with always trembling legs until her feet met with the wet fever grass.
Lynnette kept glancing back at the forest's opening like it was an unshakable bad habit. She couldn't
believe that she was actually skulking about in the dark with a shotgun while in a foreign land. Just the
very thought of such an action was unfathomable to her.
The gun in her right hand and the flashlight in the left kept shaking incessantly as she crept onward.
The sounds of crickets and bats were as loud as vehicles during rush hour. Every so often she could
feel small creatures crawl and scamper around her feet, but looking down to see just what sort of
animal it was never crossed her mind; she had to focus on no matter what.
Lynnette looked up at the moon that was partially hidden behind all the trees. She felt as long as she
could at least see bits and pieces of it then she knew that she hadn't gone too far out of bounds. Before
long, Lynnette stopped right before a small pond. She recalled what was written on the piece of paper
and shined her light all around. The pond before her was murky and still, while the forest itself seemed
to become eerily silent to where even the crickets came to a hush, and much to her dismay, Lynnette
noticed it.
She continued to shine her light all around before hopelessly dropping her shoulders. Right as she was
about to lower her gun, however, the pond ahead of her began to bubble. Lynnette took her flashlight
and pointed it at the commotion that was increasing with the passing seconds.
The woman gradually began to back away before hearing what sounded like a very deep growl, or a
large vehicle turning over. That was more than enough inspiration for her as Lynnette spun around and
raced away. She could hear something splash out of the water and chase her down.
"Help me!" She squealed as loud as she could.
The woman sprinted across the grass as fast as she possibly could while the creature behind her
growled even louder. Lynnette wasn't thinking. She was too terrified to even entertain the notion of
looking back; all she could see ahead of her was the foot of the forest where her bike was resting.
Even though there was only perhaps a few feet separating her and the sand, Lynnette found it within
herself to do something completely out of character. She took a brief pause in between both running
and breathing, turned back around and fired her shotgun at the oncoming brute.
She fired as many rounds as her finger would allow before the gun's chamber went empty, leaving only
a clicking sound in its wake. The woman then collapsed to the ground and shined her flashlight to see a
crocodile bleeding from its head down to its stomach.
Lynnette couldn't even catch her breath. She turned and crawled on her hands and knees the rest of
the way out of the forest until her hands touched the sand. Lynnette rolled over onto her back and
stared up at the moon that was illuminating her sweaty, shivering body. Every so often she would shine
her light back into the forest only to catch glimpses of the drying animal that was still grunting its final
breaths.
Lynnette had been terrified before, but gazing up at the moon and listening to the calm waves of the
sea seemed to gradually bring her back to a jolting ease. Her arms were aching due to the gun's
ricochet effect. It caused her entire body to feel as if it were a quivering bowl of Jell-O.
"I killed an alligator, mama." She muttered to herself while lying motionless on her back and sweating
buckets into her eyes.
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