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A loud splash distracted Sam from his onerous task.
"Mikey, what the hell was that?" he demanded with a frown, letting the rapidly purpling head of the dead assassin flop over the edge of their battered craft.
Michael lurched with the boat's sudden motion and fixed his partner with an annoyed glare. "It was probably just an alligator, Sam, the Everglades are full of them," he replied succinctly.
"Because that just makes me feel so much better," Sam groused, but he heaved the stale corpse overboard with a grunt. He wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his sleeve and stared up into the warm night, swatting ineffectually at the haze of mosquitoes dogging their small craft.
He had just about composed an especially off-color joke about the ice they'd used to preserve the ill-fated stiff and their boat's tragic lack of alcohol when a deafening bellow split the night with migraine-inducing force.
Michael jumped about three feet in the air and in the same breath had a gun pointed out into the black. Sam scanned the night, even sweeps of his high-powered flashlight revealing only an empty expanse of dark water and jagged trees, shadows studded with hundreds of tiny eyes. He turned to face Michael with a shrug, but stopped dead suddenly when the beam flashed across a tall dark shape, silhouetted against a cypress island some thirty yards out.
A large, hairy, manlike form regarded them from the shore. It appeared to be watching them intently, staring back with small, deep-set eyes in a furry, puckered face. The thing bared its teeth in fear or challenge, shaking its head, then vanished backwards into the trees with a swift flicker of movement.
The two men stared after it in shock, then flinched back as a shift in the wind struck them with an overpowering, animal stench. The foul breeze rattled the sawgrass briefly, then fizzled out complacently, leaving them alone in the hot, sticky night.
Michael and Sam stood there in silence, speechless. Their eyes locked.
"Okay then!" Sam said heartily, goosing the outboard motor with a bit more enthusiasm than was usually advisable when dumping a body. "Time to head back, we missed happy hour and I need to make up for lost time."
Michael shook his head in disbelief, then nodded mechanically. Taking up position at the bow, his hand lingered on the gun in his waistband as Sam piloted them out into the humid, impenetrable darkness.