Crocnami Pt 3 - the end?

Shit was getting real. Very real. The first beast of the Crocopalypse had rounded the corner and clocked him. The bloody thing stared straight at Kev like it was staring at a six foot high steak, medium rare. It growled. The rumble in the behemoth's throat was so loud the earth shook. 'It wasn't like it hadn't shaken enough already in the last 24 hours' thought Kev. 'First there was Shazza, (although that was more like a dull rumble), then there was the wave that shashimied the salt water reptile world ...and now this. The first of the horde of sashimigees bearing down on him like the leader of a gaggle of New York socialites at a Gucci sale.  

Kev glanced over his shoulder to look for Dino again. Nothing. The bastard had completely disappeared. The top of the hill was empty but for himself and Bruce, still whimpering under the log. Where the fuck was Dino? There wasn't anywhere for him to go.... The top was only about 60 feet across and was mainly dust, with a few blades of grass to shade the bull ants... and the log Bruce was currently under that doubled as a bench seat for those who wanted to look at the view, of course. 

What there was of it. Cooktown wasn't exactly a bucket list destination. 

Kev returned his gaze to the marauding horde. He reckoned there was about 2 minutes before the last thing he heard was the sound of snapping jaws. The crocs weren't exactly up to a full sprint. Truth is they were probably as buggered as he was. But that didn't change the fact that he was truly and irrecoverably fucked. 

He heard a rustle behind him and glanced over his shoulder again. Dino was standing about six feet away. Well, perching. On one leg. The other was crooked at right angles with the foot nestled into the opposite knee. He looked like a bird. One of those weird fuckers with skinny legs. Only Dino wasn't skinny. He was the size of a building. 

"Dino mate, What the fuck are you doing!?" Yelled Kev. 

"Hiding" replied Dino. Calmly. Too calmly for Kev's liking... 

"Hiding!? What do you mean hiding?" Kev raised his voice, "there's nowhere to hide, there's nothing up here! Just dust, grass and a se... a log!"

"There are places if you know how to look Kev," said Dino, "an old Abo guy taught me how to do it when I went walkabout a few years back. Won't do you any good now though, takes a bit of practice. Took me years to get it." Dino sounded even calmer than before. In fact he sounded positively chilled. Like he had smoked a joint the size of a Cuban cigar. He didn't sound like a man who was about to be eviscerated by a marauding horde of pissed-off crocodiles...

"Well, that's no good then is it Dino, I'm screwed" Kev snorted. He look back at said crocs. He was about 30 seconds away from the jaws of the leading one. Kev had already named it Genghis. Fucker was staring straight at him... Taking a deep breath, he hefted his warratah. He didn't think whopping it on the head of Genghis was going to achieve much - other than pissing him off even more.... At least he assumed it was a him. It could have been a her ...A she devil from the pits of Asgard. Typical, a chick sending him toes up. Fuck. Kev lifted... Bruce... high above his head, ready to do as much damage as he could. 'No time even to roll a smoke' he thought. 

“Hey Kev" whispered Dino, "grab Bruce and come over here.”

‘Huh? which Bruce?’ Kev thought. He turned round and looked at Dino, who was still standing stork fashion. Kev’s look must have said it all. 

Dino spoke this time, weirdly. “Kev, grab your dog and come here now,” 

Kev ran to the log, grabbed Bruce and hightailed it to Dino. Didn’t even realise he was doing it until he had.

“Hold my arm” Dino commanded.

Kev could smell the breath of the morass of reptiles. Like an excretion from the ass of the world. 

He reached for Dino’s arm. As soon as he grabbed it, shit went strange. It felt like that movie with small people, ugly fuckers, dudes in tights and wizards... when one of the small fellas put a ring on. Everything went blurry and dark. 

“Hold on to me, keep quiet and stay as close as you can” whispered DIno. “If you get too far away they’ll see something and we’re meat.” Kev nodded.

Dino hopped. Kev almost fell over. 

Dino hopped again, toward the edge of the hill. 

The lead croc stopped right where they had been, two hops ago... and bellowed. 

Kev almost pissed himself. 

Nine agonising hops later they were at the farthest point from the crocs and about to descend the slope... well a slope in the broadest sense of the word. It was more like a cliff, with trees. Kev was also all too aware that there were a few hundred seriously disturbed crocodiles stomping their way up the hill a few snaps below him. Well, all around him really. 

“Keep holding on to me. Do not let go.” said Dino as he hopped over the edge. Into a tree. 

Kev quickly followed, not nearly so elegantly. They stopped. Kev turned to look at the horde of noisy hell-crocs as they burst onto the top of the hill. 

There were hundreds, like a rolling wave. Jaws started to snap as space became a premium. Snakes, in their own titanic struggle, were boiling their way around the feet of the largest crocs, like a vision from a greek epic. 

Suddenly, Kev heard a roar. Only it wasn’t from the hill. The sky darkened (what he could see of it - it was very blurry) and the noise increased. ‘Uh oh’ thought Kev, ‘another wave of  jaws...’.

The ground started shaking, the tree whipping back and forward. “Hold on!” yelled Dino.

It sounded like a swarm of large passenger jets was flying past. Kev saw water, boiling underneath him down the cliff. Then he saw a shape crashing over the edge. It looked like Genghis. He looked at the top of the hill. The crocs were panicking and in a gory bath of flesh and blood were throwing themselves off the top. Some crashing down the slope entwined in each others jaws, frothing blood.

‘This is too much’ thought Kev ‘I can’t deal with this’. He closed his eyes and hugged Bruce (his dog and warratah) in one arm. His other was tightly round Dino’s right bicep.

A cacophony of noise and a lot of shaking followed. Kev couldn’t really see what was going on. He had his eyes closed anyway. 

He didn’t know how long he was out to the world. But when he awoke, there was silence. Kev opened one eye. 

The water had receded. There were no crocs to be seen. Or at at least he couldn’t see them. “Fuck me,” said Kev. 

“You can let go now,” piped up Dino, “I can’t hold this much longer.” Kev let go. Immediately light came flooding into his eyes. The visceral colours of death surrounded him. Blood and croc parts were strewn all over the hill. Bruce wiggled. ‘Must be hungry,’ Kev thought. 

The weary crew of man, dog and warratah extracted themselves from the tree, which by now was looking very much the worse for wear, and dropped to the ground. Suffice to say it was a little slippery. 

Depositing Bruce on the ground to snuffle at the bits and blood, Kev climbed up the hill - Bruce the warratah clutched firmly in his hand. Peering over the edge he surveyed the top. Empty. 

Weird.

He pulled himself up and stood on the 60 foot plain. Kev took a long look around.

“Oi!”

Kev looked toward the sound, down at Dino - who was reaching up at him.

“Give me a hand will ya!? I keep slipping on bloody croc!”

Kev, bent down and extended Bruce within reach. “Here mate, grab this” he barked. Dino grasped the warratah and pulled himself to the top.

“Cheers, mate.”

Together they had another long look around the empty plain. Even the log was gone. 

“Well, that was close, bugger me...” muttered Kev. “Right ho Dino! shall we descend this hill of blood and head back into town? I dunno about you but I need a stiff drink after this here malarky.”

“Kev mate, I don’t think there’ll be much of town left. You saw the size of those waves. The pub’s fucked, that’s for sure.”

“Christ! piss! bollocks!” Kev cursed.

He hefted Bruce and drove the warratah into the ground. That was the last straw. Reaching for his shirt pocket he took out the tobacco packet and proceeded to roll a spliff. 

Dino walked toward the other side of the hill to see what he could see. It was quiet. Not too quiet, like a blood-melee of death and destruction was about to descend, but well... peaceful. 

Kev finished rolling and put the spliff in his mouth. He patted his shorts to find a lighter. After a minor panic, he located it and sparked up. He took a long draw.  

“Bruce!” He yelled, “come here mate, we’re going to head home to see if there is anything left!” Bruce trotted up over the edge to Kev’s side. “Dino? You coming mate?” 

Dino turned back from where he was and sauntered over. “Better bring your warratah mate, there’ll still be a few seriously pissed off crocs around. Hopefully the buggers have dined too well on their bretheren and are asleep, but you never know.”

Kev picked up his warratah in one hand, spliff in the other. “Ok, let’s go check on the pub anyway aye.”

“Yeah” replied Dino. As always, a man of few words. 

They turned toward the track that led down the hill and set off. Bruce scouting ahead for monsters. 

Crocnami Pt 2 - the maelstrom

... which wasn’t likely, ‘cause no bastard was around. The usual sounds of life had completely disappeared. Like completely. No distant sounds of chainsaws hacking their merry way through wood harder than a glass asshole. No air-conditioners rattling their last breath on the roofs. Nothing. He hadn’t noticed the absence of human activity because of bloody John and his dulcet refrains. 

“Fuck” Kev muttered. 

He turned on his heel and ran, well shambled, back inside. “Bruce!” He yelled, “where the fuck are ya! We gotta go fella...” The verandah door slammed shut behind him with a clang. 

Dashing into the hallway Kev burrowed into the hall cupboard and fished out his backpack. Thankfully still half full from his last sojourn into the outback, 3 months ago. ‘Well,’ Kev thought, ‘if there are any dirty clothes in there they’ll be ticketyboo by now.’ Running to his room, then to the pantry, or what passed for a pantry - which was really just a couple of shelves suspended in mozzie netting above a hole in the floor, Kev stuffed whatever he could think of into the backpack. Throwing on a pair of Target’s finest shorts and a pair of Blundy’s, he grabbed two bottles of water, a couple of tinnies (after debating the merits of beer over water for an extra tinny vs the second bottle of water) and one of the dead looking packets of tobacco on the table. 

Out onto the verandah, he yelled for Bruce again, grabbed for his trusty warratah, Bruce the Slayer of Things (Bruce for short, oddly) and fucked off into the bush toward the river. ‘The river, hang on’ Kev thought, something about going near water was a really really bad idea when there was a giant wave coming at you from a few hundred miles away.’ Bruce (the dog) caught up with him just as  Kev hairpinned it for the nearest hill instead, a couple of k down the road.

8 minutes later Kev had cleared the main part of the town and was about halfway toward the hill. Puffing. Only problem was, he realised, he was heading toward the ocean, not away from it. Another really, really bad idea when a wave the size of a mountain was coming. Apparently. He reached into his shirt pocket for his baccy to roll a smoke - to calm his jangled nerves ...and pulled out the pack. As it exited his pocket he got a whiff of something like mint. “Fucknuckle. Wrong pack!” he cursed. This one just wouldn’t do right now. It was what was left of his wonder weed from last night. Kev stuffed it back into his shirt. For later. 

The track he was following skirted by the estuary - which by now should have been swirling with the detritus that only the north eastern part of the Great Southern Land could provide. Living and dead. 

Only it wasn’t swirling. It wasn’t even there. There was just... mud. And flopping things. 

‘Uh oh’ thought Kev. 

Then he heard the noise. Like a jet. Not just any jet. But one that was fast. And noisy. 

Bruce yelped and took off toward the hill. “Bruce!” Kev yelled, “get back here ya yellow bastard.” Bruce wasn’t listening. 

“Fuck!” Kev yelled, and tore off after the dog. 

It was only later that Kev realised the little fucker probably saved his life. He was about 50 feet up the hill when he felt the rumbling, turning to his right he looked out over toward what passed for a beach in Cooktown - well in name only, you certainly couldn’t swim there. There were six kinds of  thing that would kill you before you got within two feet of the water and countless things that would kill you if you dipped even a toe into it. And that was just the stuff that breathed air. 

Now that water was coming right at him.  As a writhing hill of foam, wood and what appeared to be thousands of crocs. Big ones. With mainly teeth. Like Sharknado, only with legs. 

“Fuck!” Kev yelled again, he tore his gaze away from the vision of hell and ran as fast as his legs could carry him... lungs screaming and threatening to burst forth from his chest in a maelstrom of blood and aveoli. 

The noise was unreal, like the soul of the earth was being torn from its bosom. A screaming, louder than Shazza in full flow on all fours. 

Kev was now, by all accounts, fair shitting himself. He rounded a corner to see the wave, below him, thank fuck... smashing itself into the headland. Bits of croc flew high into the air off the rocks, like a torrent of sashimi.  

He crested the hill and collapsed, watching the wave flow round the headland and continue toward the town. Scouring everything in its path. 

Flopping onto his back to stare at the sky, Kev called for his dog. “Bruce! Bruce! Come here mate” He heard a wine from underneath a log and saw Bruce’s poor excuse for a tail sticking out, “come on fella,” he said “its ok, its over.”

“Its not over yet,” a voice piped up from across the hill, “its only just begun, digger, there’ll be more. This is the end of days” It was Dino, or as the locals called him ‘The Wandering Wog’. Suffice to say he was as crazy as a bag of cut snakes.

“Whaddya mean more?” Kev shot back, “that was the tsunami mate, it isn’t as if they are queuing up for a free hand job” 

“They come in waves” replied Dino. 

“No shit” said Kev. 

“No, no, they come in lots of, well lots...” said Dino. 

“What the fuck are you talking about Dino?” asked Kev, who by now thought the crazy bugger was serious.

“I mean that this is the first of a few such waves and quite possibly not the biggest one either,” Dino replied, all too confidently for Kev’s liking, usually he was quite servile and well... weird. This was the longest conversation Kev had had with Dino, in fact anyone had had with Dino. Dino preferred to talk in grunts and hand gestures. And not ones that a nun would be comfortable with either... 

“Okay, so are you telling me that we are due for more sashimi as well?” Kev asked.

“‘Fraid so mate, that was the vanguard, the main battlefront is on its way.... and they’ll be pissed methinks”

“Didn’t know Crocs drank” quipped Kev.

“Not funny mate, we’re fucked. The buggers will be looking for somewhere to dry out. Do you see any other hills around?” Dino shot back. 

‘Strewth, the bastard's right’ thought Kev. He took stock of the current lay of the land. 

Yep. They were fucked. No escape. The headland was now an island surrounded by a mass of croc bits and every other living thing that, in one way or another, will fuck you up.  

He heard a low growl coming from the log. Bruce was now standing to attention, tail out and pointing his muzzle down the track. Kev heard a lot of noise coming from that general direction. Lots of snarling and crunching. What sounded like crocs... Crocs didn’t generally discern between prey and their own family... if it was remotely edible and it was moving, or even if it wasn’t and had been lying in the sun for four days, it was fair game. 

It didn’t sound like it was a party he wanted to go to. More like the sort of party for footy players, a kilo of coke and a ton of jelly.   

“Dino mate?” Kev yelled, “Do you have anything that might stave of a horde of pissed off and hungry crocs? ‘Cause I think the buggers are heading this way...”

There was no answer. 

“Dino?” Kev looked around, Dino was no where to be seen. “Dino, where the fuck are ya?” Kev yelled again. He couldn’t have gone far. There was nowhere to go. Like nowhere... 

More growls ...and in the distance, just coming round the corner, the butt ugly leg of what was no doubt many more legs heading his way. There also seemed to be lots of writhing around the legs. Snakes! Fuck! Kev hated snakes. Minions of the underworld they were. With their legless antics. Slipping and sliding like a German supermodel in a pot of strudel. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck” Kev muttered. He looked around. The only thing he saw was his trusty warratah. Bruce the Slayer of Things. Well he called it Bruce the Slayer of Things because for some reason, whenever he carried it, chicks flocked to him - like moths to a flame.  Well, there were no chicks here. Only pissed off reptiles. He had never understood why chicks dug his rod of iron. Maybe it gave him an air of the knights of old. ...Sir Kev - Knight of Northern Queensland. Now a knight about to have his ass eaten by a rabid horde of crocs. It was not how he thought he would exit this world... 

Kev grabbed his warratah and hefted it, feeling its familiar weight. No broadsword here. Only a rusty piece of iron. Fuck.    

Looking towards the track, he waited...