Swamp Body

Diana’s body was discovered somewhere deep in the marshy Everglades. Some tourists were taking one of those airboat rides to where alligators hang out when they spotted her body, blue and bloated. They were all surprised that the alligators hadn’t gotten more bites out of her. They took her arm and a chunk of her calf but left the rest of her in tact. She must have tasted terrible.

She had told Alexa, several times, and Jesse too that she was worried her relationship with Dr. Harris wouldn’t work out. He was married, of course, and their history professor. Ironically, he taught about Floridian history, with a focus on the Everglades. But, really, he spent most of their two-hour lecture staring at Diana’s boobs, and Michelle’s, and Valencia’s. He was the cool professor. That is to say, he was good-looking and not too old, and gave you ‘A’s as long as you bought into the idea that he was “cool”. Alexa didn’t get ‘A’s often. She thought he was a loser who always had something stuck in his teeth. Jesse didn’t mind him too much. She liked the way he always threw his head back when he laughed.

Both girls were surprised when Diana brought up that she was seeing him. Her last boyfriend, Anthony Gonzalez, was dopey and mostly harmless. They broke up when he dropped out of college and started working at the Burger King. He was devastated. It took Diana two weeks of sitting in the front of the class to rebound and Dr. Harris was happy to oblige. The two would go for coffee during his office hours and she loved how generous he was with extra credit. He had one opportunity after the other for her, and on, and on. They would study the flora of the Everglades, or something. Jesse liked to joke that the only flora that was actually being studied was the one between Diana’s legs. It was a stupid joke but it always worked on Diana.

Their relationship was going well enough, until Diana saw Dr. Harris and his pretty, perfect wife having dinner in the Gables. Diana did not have blonde face-framing curls or a shiny, straight-tooth smile. She was just young and brand new to

Harris. If he was cheating on his wife, it was only a matter of time before he got bored of her too. The three-way call that night was unbearable — Diana sobbing after every other word, Jesse telling another dumb joke to “lighten the mood”, Alexa barely keeping it together.

“Just dump him already, Di. You could do so much better,” Alexa said. Jesse hummed in agreement.

“I can’t, Lex, I can’t. He’s so good to me. It’s just, I’m never going to be his wife.”

Alexa resisted a sarcastic comment. As annoying as it was, no one likes to watch their best friend get their heart broken. To spare Diana any more pain, Alexa went to bed early. She left Jesse and Diana to figure things out. Jesse was always much better with people, especially people like Diana.

The next day, Diana wasn’t on campus. Neither was Dr. Harris. Then, a few days later he was back and Diana was floating in swamp water. Their best friend was dead, and no one believed them when they pointed out the obvious suspect. Diana had been excellent at keeping their relationship secret. Neither of the girls had ever seen a single message or picture that proved the two had ever been together. There was no way any authorities were ever going to help them actually get justice.

It’s hard to tell where the idea started — whether Alexa suggested it first, or Jesse. But it started with remembering that Jesse’s dad was a hunter, that he liked to keep his hunting rifle on display right in their living room. He never bothered to lock it up, and he always kept it loaded. They could easily slip it right off the wall while he slept. It might even be fun, hunting Dr. Harris for sport. Then, they could leave him to the alligators and they’d take care of the rest.

Alexa wore a tiny skirt school. She never really felt comfortable in one, but Diana had gotten herself killed and that meant making sacrifices. At Harris’s office hours, she did her best impression of the kind of girls he usually went for. She leaned towards him, elbow on his desk, head cocked, flirty smile. He didn’t even hesitate — it was disgusting. Diana had only been dead a week.

“Jess and I always talk about you, you know. Both of us are very interested in extra credit,” she said, chewing lipgloss off her lips.

He picked them up much later in his sleek, black Lexus. The girls had already stolen the rifle which sat in their camping bag — made much heavier by all the crap that was keeping the rifle hidden. Dr. Harris showed up, honking his horn, not a care in the world. Jesse rode shotgun and giggled the whole time.

Alexa couldn’t understand how Jesse was so calm, her big brown hair bobbing up and down every time Harris so much as opened his mouth. In the backseat, Alexa’s leg bounced up and down, hitting the metal of the gun every time that her leg came up.

The Everglades were hot and sticky, especially during the summer semester. Setting up a tent was exhausting enough, there was no way that Harris was worth having sex with in a tent while mosquitos ate Diana alive.

While Dr. Harris stood outside their tent, taking a piss in the swamp, Jesse started to unpack the duffle bag. She pulled out a few pillows first, some beer, then, a bright pink perfume bottle. Alexa grabbed it with shaky hands.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was Diana’s. I think he’ll recognize it and it’ll freak him out,” Jesse said, snatching it back and spraying it until their tiny tent smelled of their dead friend.

It was becoming apparent to Alexa how little they had thought this through. With every item that came out of the bag, more of the gun was revealed. Jesse noticed Alexa staring and zipped up the bag. She stood and grabbed Alexa’s hands.

“We’re doing this for her, Lex. No backing out of it now,” she said.

Harris did not comment on the smell of Diana in the tent but he did seem more eager to drink and Jesse was happy to supply. After a couple of beers, the hunting rifle in the bag was less intimidating, though they didn’t do anything to distract Harris. When Jesse and Alexa developed the plan, they knew that one of them would have to have sex with Harris, or at least get him to believe that’s where the night was going. Alexa had never been good with guys — they made her skin crawl, so Jesse ended up rolling into Harris’s lap. She kicked the duffle bag over to Alexa while she let Harris stick his tongue in her mouth.

Alexa downed the rest of the acrid beer before she could even look at the bag. The whole scene unraveling in front of her was a mistake. She had loved Diana, but killing for her wasn’t going to prove any kind of devotion, and it wasn’t going to bring her back. The rifle remained hidden, until Harris stuck his hand up Alexa’s skirt. His hot hand squeezed at the soft, fleshiness of her inner thigh. In a moment, the beer inside her started to do what alcohol does — made it easier to act on impulse, to unzip the bag slowly, to bite back tears.

The sound the gun made was not as bad, as the sick squish of Jesse’s brain when the bullet hit her, or her body hitting the ground. It wasn’t as bad as the scream that left Alexa’s

throat raw and burning. When she pulled the trigger, Alexa shut her eyes and the bullet landed inside her only other friend. Harris remained unscathed, except for the blood on his face and neck and chest. It was a relief when Harris pulled the gun away from her, and even more of a relief when the gun hit the back of her, knocking her into a sweet darkness.

The tent was hot and humid in the morning. It smelled of rot and feces, and in a still sleepy state, Alexa could contemplate that the smell was probably the reason the alligators didn’t finish off Diana. As the pounding in her head eased up, she realized Harris was still in the tent beside her, fast asleep in Jesse’s blood. An empty can offered up an explanation, white residue lingered where Harris’s lips had it. Jesse must have drugged him in an attempt to make things easier for her. And she had repaid her by shooting her brains out. Alexa bit back the bile that was threatening to spill out of her. She had one last chance to make any of this count. It was much easier to shoot Harris after everything, and even easier to shoot the gun into her left leg. The park rangers didn’t question her when she came limping to them for help.