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Where were they--Mississippi? Alabama? Nowhere they wanted to be, that was for sure, Howie and Kent thought, as they stared down at the smoking engine of their car.

"I thought you said it would get us to Miami, no problem," Kent said. It was Howie's car, and he'd been suspicious that old Geo Metro would actually be able to make it all the way there for Spring Break, but Howie had swore up and down that it was solid--he'd even taken it in for work right before they'd left.

"Huh, must be the transmission," Howie said, picking at something in the engine, but it was too hot to touch.

"How do you know that?"

"Oh, the mechanic said something about taco conversion or something. I don't know. But shit, it was like a thousand dollars to fix! I figured it wouldn't be a big deal."

"Great--fucking great." Kent just started at his idiot friend, and wondered why in the hell he'd joined up with him on this fool quest to go "bang bitches on Miami beach," as Howie had been saying for weeks now. Apparently, he'd always wanted to go--having watched MTV Spring Break specials as a teenager, and now that he was in college, he was desperate to go. Kent had been roped into the whole fiasco because he was 21 and could buy booze for Howie, who was only 20. Of course, Kent had wanted something out of the deal, and having his friend take care of all of his math homework for the entire semester was a nice reprieve. Despite Howie's idiot demeanor, he was a bit of a wiz when it came to school--but when it came to common sense, he was, well, less skilled. Kent pulled out his cell phone--no bars. Howie had pulled off the highway a ways back, saying he'd found a shortcut on the map, and now they were a good ten or fifteen miles from the last sign of civilization on the road. "Well, I guess we're walking."

"Don't you have Triple A?"

"No, do you?"

"Hell no, I just thought you were the kind of guy who'd have it."

Kent rolled his eyes. "I don't have cell service anyway--so yeah, it looks like we're walking."

"Where the hell to?"

There was a gas station aways back, we can go there."

"Dude, that was like, 20 miles. I'm not walking that far."

Kent clenched his fists, breathing slow. He can't kill him, even if it would make him feel better. Instead of answering, Kent just set off back down the road the way they'd come. They'd passed an old gas station a ways back, and he'd seen a pay phone there. They could call a tow truck and find a mechanic and get the car fixed. Howie caught up with him after a few paces, and thankfully didn't say anything--Kent didn't want to hear him speak at the moment.

They walked in silence for close to a half hour, the spring sun slowly setting in the distance, and Kent wished that they had a flashlight--the swamp was close on both sides of the road, and the road was unlit--he was worried that in the dark, they'd stumble in accidentally, and then, well, who knew? Snakes? Quicksand? He didn't really want to think about it.

"Kent? Hey, come look at this," Howie said. Ken realized he'd stopped following and was a few yards back, off on the side of the road. Kent had been too deep in thoughtful anger to notice the overgrown dirt road leading off into the swamp, and Howie was obviously interested in taking it.

"We have no idea where that goes."

"Well it's closer than wherever you were going."

"I'm not taking some old, dirt road in the middle of nowhere--now come on."

"This is bullshit!"

"You're the fucker who couldn't get your god-damn car fixed--this is your fucking fault!"

"Oh fuck you," Howie said, ducked into the underbrush and started walking down the dirt road.

"Howie--Howie!" Kent shouted, but his friend didn't turn around and just kept walking. Kent started after him, but thought better of it. Let him dig his own grave--he didn't have to care, and he kept on going down the road, leaving Howie to whatever mess he might get into.

It took Kent nearly half the night to pick his way back down the pitch black road to the lone gas station. He did his best to not care about what might have happened to Howie--he'd probably come to his senses, and he'd pass him on the road in the tow truck, or find him back at the car. Naturally, the station attendant said that most towing services wouldn't be able to get there for a while, but that there were two local mechanics who could probably help him out faster. Sure enough, within the hour, a tow truck pulled into the parking lot, and even the sight of the fat, hairy swamp dweller driving couldn't dampen his elation, at least until he climbed into the cab and caught a whiff of him. He stank, and Kent could barely stand the drive with the window rolled down. As they drove, there were a few other, unsettling details that he passed off on sleep deprivation, like how the driver's teeth seemed a bit--pointed, and his skin looked like it had some sort of strange rash all over it.

After a couple of miles, he noticed that the driver had been taking sips from a mason jar the whole time, and he asked, "Wait, are you drinking alcohol? What the fuck?"

"What, ya wanna sip, boy?" the driver said, holding out the jar for him, and Kent grabbed it and chucked it out the window.

The driver slammed on the breaks, and Kent, who's seatbelt turned out to be broken, was flung forward, his head connecting with the dashboard with a loud thunk. "Why in tarnation did ya do that?" the driver shouted, "That was my brother's finest batch yet, ya cunt!"

"I'm not gonna...gonna be driven around my some drunk redneck who smells like a fucking asscrack! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Kent said, but his words weren't coming very easily, and he thought he might have sustained a concussion. Something warm was running down his face and stinging his eyes, and he realized it was blood.

"Ya went and cut yerself," the guy said, shrugging off Kent's attack, pulled out a second mason jar, soaked a greasy rag in it, and pressed it against the cut on Kent's head. He winced, but the redneck held it there for a couple of seconds, and then had Kent keep the pressure on it. "Here, have a drink, you prude--it'll numb ya right up--I promise."

He put the jar up to Kent's lips and he drank a few sips of the very strong liquor, before the driver sped off again down the road, occasionally giving the still woozy and addled Kent sips of the moonshine.

He must have gotten a concussion, he realized, and he was starting to black out. He tried to tell the driver, but the redneck just shushed him and stroked his bloody brow, licking the blood off his fingers with a long, inhuman tongue. "Gonna take ya home son, and get you fixed right up--no need to worry 'bout anythin', just let daddy handle everything."

***

Howie was fucked--he knew it, and he crouched down on the muddy ground of the small sandbar he's waded to in the middle of the swamp, and hoped that dawn wasn't too far off. He'd gotten a good ways down the dirt road when the path had taken a sharp turn, and not paying attention, Howie had stumbled down the slope, ending up soaked in the swamp's muddy water. Disoriented, he'd tried to find his way back up, but now he was certain he was further from the path than before. The ground was somewhat dry here, but he was freezing from his earlier soak, and he hoped that with more light he'd be able to find his way out.

Still, he was fucked, and it really was all his damn fault. He'd just wanted to head to Florida for a good time--he wasn't good with all of this responsibility shit, and he'd been so defensive and flustered back with Kent that he'd sounded like a total idiot. He should have just ponied up the money and fixed the car, but--well what use was there worrying about it now? He just had to hope that Kent wasn't too angry to not come find him when he didn't show up, because it was pretty hopeless otherwise. He pulled his wet overshirt closer around him, wishing he were dry and listening to the sounds of the swamp around him. He checked the clock on his phone, ad then shone the light around a bit, just to chase away the dark for a moment, when he saw something lit up slither away suddenly.

He didn't know what the noise was that erupted from him was, something between a whimper and yelp, but he hushed himself almost immediately, and scanned the dark around him for any sign of the creature he'd spotted. Or, that he'd thought he'd spotted. What if it had been nothing? Maybe just shadows playing with his head.

"Now what do we have here?" a voice said, from behind him, and Howie spun around in terror, almost stepping back out into the water, "A little boy, lost in the swamp?"

The voice was deep and resonant, but with a strange sort of articulation, with a hiss-like edge. He stared into the dark, and could barely make out the sound of waves lapping up on the sandbar. Should he light up his phone again? No, that would just attract attention. He needed to stay quiet, and stay still.

"Nothing to say, boy?" the voice said again, circling around him now, coming closer to him, "Maybe you'd like some help? I could...show you the way out, if you'd like. Come on--I'll take you home with me."

He didn't know what this thing was, or where it's home was, but Howie knew that he didn't want to find out. Suddenly, there was a low distant growl, and he thought the beast, or whatever it was, was preparing to attack, but then he saw lights in the distance--headlights. A car! The road! He broke out of his paralysis. Maybe he could catch the car, flag them down. He swam, the sound of the beast laughing behind him, and he swam as hard as he could, drug himself up the slope in time to see the taillights glint off around the next bend, and he sprinted off after it, unsure whether he was imagining the laughter echoing in his ears, or if the beast was following as well, in the water down the slope. A chill unrelated to his sopping wet clothes ran up his spine, and he ran faster.

***

The shuff of dirt, the cool mulch against his back, his shirt riding up as the man drug him along the ground, over the threshold of the shack and onto the splintery wood. Kent tried to roll over with a moan, claw at the ground and hold his place, but he was too weak and tired to do much more than flop limply, the tow truck driver letting out a low shush, and saying, "Quiet son, we'll get you all taken care of, don't you worry. That was quite the blow you took, but you'll be right as rain by morning."

He dropped Kent's feet to the floor and tromped past him to shut and bar the door, before turning around and helping him sit up. "Got quite the mouth on you boy, but I gotta admit, ya have balls. Was just gonna cook ya up fer my bro 'n I, but well, we've been gettin' a bit lonely out here. Maybe a sweet young man like yerself would like tah keep us old men company?"

Nothing the man had just said made a lick of sense to Kent, and he wasn't sure if he was hallucinating all of this after hitting his head in the truck. Certainly the man's voice didn't sound right, almost as if he were hissing a bit at the end of his words. When the man brought a mason jar up to his lips and plugged his nose, Kent tried to resist, spilling some of the moonshine down his front, though he couldn't help but drink some of it down, and the fire that erupted in his gut was enough to spur him further towards waking, or deeper into his nightmares.

Finally able to open his eyes, Kent looked up, expecting to see the driver looming over him, but instead, he looked into the eyes of what could only be described in his mind as a gatorman, a massive reptile standing on two clawed feet, nearly bursting out of his clothes, their previous looseness now explained, the long snout somehow grinning, showing two rows of wicked teeth, somehow gleaming through the rusty grime coating them. Rusty, bloody, the eyes of a predator, and Kent tried to will his limbs to move, to shove himself back along the floor, but he was captivated by the murderous gold glinting in the light of the fireplace and oil lamps of the shack.

"Don't be scared son, like I said, if I was gonna kill ya, I would've ripper out yer throat by now, and trust me, from that taste I got earlier, you would have been plenty delicious," he said, running his long tongue between his teeth, "But I got other plans for you. You aren't prey, no-sir-ee--yer a predator, ya've got some good guts, 'n I can respect that. But mostly, well, ya said I smell like ass, 'n I'm not one to let something like that slide by just killin' ya."

What was Kent supposed to do? Beg for his life? Ask to be let go? He couldn't do, well, anything. He was just frozen in place, struggling to comprehend everything going on in front of him, everything the gator had just said. He wasn't going to kill him, but then what was he going to do to him? Why bring him here? The liquor fire wasn't dying away, if anything it was growing worse. Had it been poison? He was feeling sick, and he felt desperately close to retching in terror. Finally though, he managed to eek out a response. "Then...then what are you going to do to me?"

"You mean, what am I already doing to you, I think," the gator said, then bent over and helped Kent stand on his wobbly legs, and helped him over to the ashy glass windows. From the right angle, Kent was able to catch his reflection in the flickering light, and at first, he thought it was just the imperfections in the surface marring his image, but then he took a closer look, and wondered if this was what it meant to go insane.

His face--apparently he'd cut himself worse in the truck than he'd thought, because he had a long gash down his brow, but it looked to be healing already, the skin on either side mashed together into an ugly scar, but the skin--his skin--it was green, and scaly, and spreading. Already, it had pushed out and down around one of his eyes, and he saw the double eyelids blink in surprise, the gold iris as hungry as the gatorman's behind him.

What was it? How had that happened? He thought back to what he could remember in the car, and the rag the driver had soaked in the liquor--the moonshine, it had to be that, and the flame in his stomach. He truly retched this time, trying to empty his stomach, but in his heart he knew it was too late, confirmed for him when nothing came up. It was already inside, changing him. As he watched, his lips and jaw, from where he'd drank earlier started to swell, his teeth grinding and crushing against each other, the skin of his neck and chest where the swill had run down his body growing dry, cracking apart into scales before deepening to a muddy green. He ran one of his still human hands along their smooth surface, then along his jaw, or rather, his snout, opening his jaws to see his sharp, predatory teeth. He was hungry, he realized, and the only thing he could think about was meat--any kind of meat, but he pushed it away, and tried to wrench himself away from the gator holding him in place. "Let me go. Let me go!" he said, the strange hiss no inflecting his own words.

"Sorry son, but you're one of us now--there's no other place for you to go, besides, this is your home, here with your daddy and your uncle."

Kent's stomach turned, when he realized that this twisted thing meant to induct him into his own family, and he struggled harder, the gator dragging him away from the dirty window, before spinning Kent around and bringing their eyes together. Kent, again entranced, looked into those golden iris' and saw his own reflected in them, nearly the same, and he felt his body go limp. He'd heard that there were some reptiles capable of hypnotizing their victims with their stare, and now he knew what that felt like, fear and terror emptying his mind of all it's rational content, leaving pure, simple emotion, but at the core of it, he didn't feel fear. Sure, there was some fear in there, but down deep in his core there was a different sort of resolve. This, he realized, is what the gator had seen in him, a predatory instinct, a willingness to fight, to kill. How had he never noticed it in himself before?

As the liquor inside him coursed into his bloodstream, the changes began to manifest on the rest of his body, but Kent's awareness of his changes were no set in the background. The gatorman was now speaking to him, almost too low for him to hear, and his mind was so primal now that he could barely process what it was saying. Daddy--this gator was his daddy, he learned that. He had an uncle, currently out hunting for the family's next meal in the swamp. He loved his daddy, this gator who had given him everything, who had...had freed him. Yes, freed him from the tangled morality of humanity, taught him his true nature, shown him the predatory spirit that had slumbered deep within him. But there was more. Love--bloodlove, the love of families. He shared blood with his daddy now--but it was more than that. His daddy...owned him. Controlled him, and in exchange for his subservience, Kent would be taught the ways of the predator.

New memories started filling in, and he realized that his rational thought wasn't simply paralyzed--it was gone. Devoured by that same primal self he had unmasked, and now, his daddy was giving him a new life, a new history. The fangs which had sent chills through him moments before were now beautiful, reflections of his own, but what he noticed first, was the smell. The reeking stench that he'd insulted in the truck was now...amazing, now that he could sort through the multitude of odors. Not simply musk, though there was plenty of that. His daddy and uncle rarely showered, aside from their swims through the muck of the swamp, but there was more, the scent of death, of animals and men and women and children whose lives they'd ripped from their throats, and hunger, so much hunger ripped through him. Hunger, not just for meat, for flesh, for life, but for...his daddy as well.

Their snouts smashed together, tongues slipping out and interlacing, the sensation of two scaly bodies together new and thrilling to Kent. He wanted to grind himself into his daddy, take on his musk as his own, that sweet scent would be his own before long, after his first kill, after his first bath in the blood of prey, but first, other needs. He felt his father's cock grow stiff, driving into Kent's scaly underbelly, his own hardening in response, but then he pushed his gator son back. "So son, you think I smell like ass? What do you think now?"

"I think you smell...smell great daddy," Kent said, and stepped forward to close the distance between them, but then his daddy unhooked the clasps of his suspenders, letting them drop to the ground, and bent over, presenting his ass to his new son, who licked his lips.

"Eat it boy, show daddy how much you love the stench of his ass," and then Kent was on his knees, his snout buried between his daddy's cheeks, cleaning the crack with his long tongue, relishing the scent and taste, the texture of the scales against his face, lightly raking his newly clawed hands across the older gator's cheeks, one reaching underneath to jack's his daddy's cock. Tomorrow, they would hunt--but for now, they had other, more important, predatory desires to satisfy.

***

Howie had long since lost track of the car on the winding, twisted dirt road, but he only dared slowing down enough to keep his feet well away from the slope down into the swamp. He was certain now that whatever creature he'd encountered minutes before was still following him, and he couldn't be sure if the sound of chuckles and growls was something vicious, or simply wind whipping through the gnarled branches of trees. His mind, the rational bit recovering from the terror moment by moment, was busy trying to tell him that he'd imagined it--imagined it! How could he have? Then again, how could it have been real? He'd never caught more than a glimpse, and the voice...what if he'd just, well, thought it all up? He didn't know what was real and what was fake anymore, all he knew was that he had to get out of this swamp, and that car had to have been going somewhere. Sure enough, after picking his way along the dark road for about another mile, nearly falling in again in several places, he saw lights begin working their way through the trees--a house. Or a shack. Something between the two, sizable but ramshackle, shoddy but established, surrounded on all sides by water, aside from this long road out into the middle of the swamp. Parked out front, askew, was a beat up tow-truck, and Howie couldn't believe his luck. He could get his car towed, find Kent, and get on their way tomorrow, and still have time for some festivities and banging chicks. Things were going to work out alright after all.

Howie went up and knocked on the door, and only noticed then the noises coming from inside, two inhuman voices snarling and growling at each other, which silenced immediately after he made his presence outside known. Doubt, and a bit of fear, crept in then. Maybe he should have peeked in a window or something first, to see who he might be dealing with, but it was too late for subtlety now, but he could hear voices through the door now.

"Go...somethin' tah wear."

"Alright...Daddy."

The chill that ran through him was impossible to stop. That same articulation, that same hiss--no, it couldn't be, could it? Still paralyzed, the door swung open a second later, and when Howie say that the man in the doorway was stinking, grimy and shirtless, but human, he breathed a sigh of relief--at least until he cocked the shotgun he held in his hand.

"What the fuck ya doin' on my property?" the man said, leveling the barrel at Howie's chest, who felt a hot burst of piss soak the front of his jeans. The man took a deep sniff of the air, and grinned a bit too widely, looking down at Howie's jeans. "Smells like someone isn't much of a threat."

Howie didn't know how the man could tell what had just happened--his pants were still sopping wet from his earlier dip in the swamp, but unintentionally, pissing himself in terror seemed to have spared him two loads of buckshot to his chest.

The man stepped out, wrapped one dry and cracked arm around Howie's shoulders and pulled him inside. "Nevermind, where's my hospitality? My son 'n I were just thinkin' bout eatin' anyway."

His son, was that the other voice he'd heard? Strange that the odd hiss wasn't at all present in the redneck's words--maybe he'd just imagined it again? That did seem to be making a case for his own head getting the better of him, didn't it? He glanced around the home, which seemed to be relatively spartan, though not uncomfortable. "I'm sorry to just...uh, drop in like this. But really, I was hoping you could help me out."

"Oh? With what?" The redneck said.

"Well, my car broke down back on the main road, and I'd be really grateful if you could tow it to a mechanic for me. I saw you have a tow truck out there--real lucky, eh?"

The redneck grinned, and again, it seemed too wide, with too many teeth. "Yeah, what a coincidence, eh? Well the boy 'n I are just starvin', but we're waitin' for my brother to come home--he tends to work late--before we all eat together. I'd love it if you'd stick around though, 'n maybe we can find ya some clean clothes of my boy's tah wear, since ya made a bit of a mess in yours."

Howie blushed a bit, still not sure how the redneck had noticed his accident, but still, he was hungry. Who was he to throw their hospitality in their face?

Hey Kenny, where ya at? We got's a visitor--come be polite."

"Comin' Pa!" a voice called out, and Howie did a bit of a double take. Whoever that was sounded just like Kent--if Kent sounded like he'd grown up in the deep south, and had a bad smoking habit. And then he saw the redneck's son come out of the house's bedroom, dressed in clothes a bit too big for him, and Howie wasn't sure what to think? Could it really be Kent? Some of the features were right, sure--his wavy light blonde hair, something about the way he stood in the doorway, but so much was different too. His eyes, for one--gold iris' must run in the family. And he wasn't as clean as Kent, that was for sure--he seemed to be covered with just as much swamp muck as his father, but when their eyes met, and he saw the momentary flash of confusion and recognition in the young man's eyes--he knew.

"Kent? Is...is that you? What the--" he looked from Kenny over to the big redneck and said, "What the hell did you do to him? What's going on?"

Silence held the air, but it was only terrifying for Howie, caught between these two men, a strange swampman and his friend, twisted beyond easy recognition. What was going on here? No answer came, and Howie bolted for the front door, yanking it open, and running headlong into the gut of a massive,muddy gatorman. He tried to pull away, but the man wrapped one scaly arm around Howie's chest, holding him just tight enough to make simple breathing more urgent than wriggling free. "Aw, there's my meal--I see ya've met mah brother, Al," the big gator said, though he looked over at Kenny, confused, "Though it appears there's someone new I haven't had the pleasure a meetin' just yet."

"That's yer nephew--I found him on the road earlier. Trust me, a real predator at heart."

"Oh? He hunted yet?"

"Nope, though we had some prey wander in--was waitin' fer ya tah come home tah start the festivities, though it sounds like ya've been stalkin' this one fer a bit."

"Sure have, we met out in the swamp just a little while ago--I like playin' with the chicken ones, ya know that."

"What do you think son, you ready for your first hunt? Ready to show me and your uncle what a good predator you are?"

Kenny licked his lips and bared his fangs, the gator in him working it's way back to the surface, growing bigger, stripping off his clothing as he started outgrowing it. He smelled it too--Howie's piss, his fear, the prey. He could remember his frat brother's idiocy, his foolishness, and he felt a deeper joy, knowing that this would be his first hunt in the swamp. "Sure am Pa, let 'em loose--dinner's on me tonight."

"Hmm, well, since it's your first, I don't suppose there's any harm in giving yer prey a little handicap," the Al said, and Howie gave a breathless scream as the arm around him tightened, several of his ribs cracking under the strain. The gator let Howie fall to the ground, then bent over, and with both hands, snapped the bones of his right leg apart, the second scream not nearly as silent as the first.

"Aw bro, I think that's too easy for him."

"We'll see," the driver's brother said, watching Howie roll over and start crawling back towards the road, before picking himself up as best he could, and limping off. The leg could only hold him up for two paces, and then he was down, over the slope, and the three gators heard a loud splash as he entered the water. "I suppose it's up to you, nephew--you want to give him a head start?"

"Fuck no," Kenny said, pushing past his uncle, "I've got business with this one to settle."

The two brother's look at each other, nodding approval, and then sit out on the porch, smoking and drinking their moonshine, listening to Howie scream down in the water. Their newest family doesn't kill him quickly or painlessly.

"You really did find yourself a predator, didn't you?" Al said, smirking a bit.

Dylan just grinned, feeling his stomach growl in hunger. "Hey boy, finish 'em off already--we're gettin' hungry up here, waitin' while ya play with the food."

They could both sense a moment's hesitation on Kenny's part--he was enjoying the game a bit too much to stop, but they heard a loud splash, as he drug the prey under water, the splashing settling after a few moments, and it was done. "Predator indeed--I have a feelin' he's gonna do us real proud."