The Bite is Worse than this Bark
Glig 5:2
Glig fell back into the canoe. Half a dozen blood-red crocodiles surrounded them, their dead, black eyes poking out of the muddy river.
“Stay calm,” said Mahani, “They probably just want to eat us.”
The water bubbled, one of the crocodiles nudged the canoe with its snout. Glig gripped his paddle.
“Okay, so the ones you really need to worry about are the blue ones, the Royals,” explained Mahani, reaching slowly down into her backpack, not taking her eyes off the water. “They’re the ones that control minds and feed on memories and stuff. These ones are all red, which means they’re just, you know, the normal kind of ancient psionic crocodile, that read your thoughts and eat you.”
A chorus of low growls gurgled out of the river.
“Eating pinecones.”
Glig looked sideways at Mahani.
“Think about eating pinecones,” Mahani repeated.
Maybe a Royal had already eaten her brain.
“Porcupines. Porcupines eat pinecones,” said Mahani, through her teeth. “Crocodiles on the other hand, eat almost everything. Fish. Coyotes. People. Whatever. But there is one thing they don’t eat. Porcupines. Well, the smart ones don’t at least.”
Her eyes darted back and forth across the water. “These crocodiles are psionic, right? They read minds. So we are going to think about what porcupines think about. Which is eating pinecones. Yummy, crunchy pinecones. Straight from the branch. Maybe some yummy twigs. Maybe some yummy bark — actually I think I even have some bark.” She slowly reached into her bag, handed Glig a piece of bark, then stuck a piece in her mouth and chewed it loudly.
“Yum. Bark. I sure love eating this stuff,” Mahani said, chewing the bark, “I could eat it all day long. And I do. Because I’m a porcupine.”
Glig looked at the bark in his hand, trying to think like a porcupine, but still stuck trying to imagine what it would be like to have teeth.
“Yep. Just a couple of pinecone-loving, virtually inedible porcupines,” she swallowed, “Sitting in, uh, sitting in a canoe. Eating bark.” She choked on some bark. “And twigs, and pinec — “
The river erupted as the first crocodile lunged out of the water.
It only had its jaws half open before Mahani’s oar cracked it in the eye socket, sending it back down, stunned.
Two more replaced it, two giant pink mouths bursting from the froth and biting down on their canoe. Splinters bristled up from around where they bit, a plank split, water poured in. Glig brought his own oar down on one of them, aiming for the eyes, like Mahani had. It howled and threw itself back into the water, replaced by another, then another.
“Lightning! Spiders! Apples!” Mahani yelled, smacking a croc in the head, kicking one in the nose, jabbing her oar into the back of one’s throat, causing it hack and gag as it sank away. “Falling off a cliff! Falling over a waterfall!” She was probably trying to disorient them, barrage them with thought-noise, but Glig couldn’t think of anything except the crocodiles and his oar.
Glig was not a warrior, but he hadn’t survived in the Motherfen as as long as he had without occasionally having to hit something. A cobra. A wild burrback. A birdman raider. And when he hit, he hit as hard as he could.
Glig swung until his arms ached, until his palms were slick with blood from the rough oar. When the oar broke, then he stabbed at the crocodiles eyes with the broken handle. He fought until the crocodiles stopped attacking, until they hissed and retreated back to the riverbed.
Until he couldn’t move his arms. Couldn’t move at all. Until he realized he was frozen there, paralyzed, goosebumps covering his entire body.
Until a giant set of royal blue jaws closed around him, and pulled him into the brown river.
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