Summer Gardens Mobile Village

Dave draws a big breath as he comes back up, breaking the surface. He's climbing back on board with his find as he hears Thelma dress down the asshole.

"Oh yeah, Thelma, you tell him," the powerful and hairy wrestler says as he presents the first aid kit. Then, noticing Jervis being out of breath, and skinny, and scrawny, El Diablo Fuego adds, "And man, that's pathetic. You need to spend some time in the gym."

Stanley begins to persuade Thelma his question was innocent and he wasn't interested in women who carried around crack pipes in their own cracks when he is interrupted by the luchadore. "Oh look, you're here. Well you may be right, but I can always get stronger whereas you can't get any smarter, so which of us is worse off?" Stanley says with arched eyebrows.

It takes Dave a moment to realize he's been insulted.

"Wha-- what? Oh yeah?!" the man blurts. Holding both hands to his masked head, he bellows, "EL DIABLO FUEGO KNOWS EVERYTHING HE NEEDS TO KNOW!" Then stabbing a massive Italian sausage finger at the smaller man, he lowers his voice and his tone. "You keep it up, man, you got to go!"

Flexing for Thelma, he presses the attack. "I'll hold you over the water like a shark piñata, dude! You keep messing with Fuego, you're gonna get bu-- er, I means you're gonna be fish food!

"Hey Crawdad! Bring that there beer over this-a-way would ya? El Diablo Fuego! Join the party over here why doncha?" Vern shouts as he scrambles up safely onto Thelma's trailer. He doesn't bother to avert his eyes from her ample swim floats. He is breathing heavily from the exertion of paddling the bed over and has to lay his back down on the roof in an effort to catch his breath.

"Why don't you pull that mattress up onto here," he says to the suit. "Keep yourself outta trouble. Whoweeee I am outta shape I am."

Finally, breath all caught up he props himself up on an elbow and gazes out over the water wonderland. "Shouldn't someone do somethng about Cletus? Maybe give him a hand. My lungs are shot."

Cletus was further out from everyone and when he heard his name he flipped onto his back waving toward Vern's voice. The kid's hand hit a floating piece of debris. To some the blackened lilac color of the glass might have resembled a bong but Cletus saw another opportunity. Ha! I got me a snorkel. Now I can go diving!

The first deep breath caused the kid's eyes to bug out before he started coughing. Wanting to look cool he tried to hold back the convulsions racking his body I got it, I got it! Cletus then let the top of the glass skim the surface as he looked for treasures below the surface.

Crawdad pops open one of the beers and chugs about half of the brew down in one big gulp. He holds it up to Vern's view and gives him a beer raise. "Lemme finnish auf dis hare un aun weez bah rite ovuh. Gotz tah git mah brew aun afore dah bouy slapz um bak tah kingdum cum agin."

Stanley makes a disgusted sound in his throat. "Is that all you care about? We need to get to safety and you're all dulling your wits with alcohol! Fine, I'll get us out of here. I have an idea. Back in my limo there is one of those trucker radio things so the driver can communicate with his company. If we can get to it, we can radio for help."

You find yourselves split between the two trailer roofs, separated by 30 feet of shark infested water. Stanley, El Diable Fuego and Thelma on Vern's trailer, and Cletus, Vern, and Crawdad on Cletus n' Thelma's trailer with the deflated dingy and the inflatable mattress. Chunks of dead shark and boyfriend float in the water between you.

The screams are dying down as the sharks make chums of those who can't find high ground.

The sharks are a combination of maneaters, and at least one great white that must be better than twenty feet long from what you saw when it jumped onto a roof and ate that woman. You know it's only a matter of time before that biggun makes a play for one of you. Afterall, not great eatin on a skinny trailer girl.

"So okay, suit. We need to get to your limo. Can't for the life of me figure out why you didn't bring the dang thing at the beginning."

Vern gazes at the limo, wondering how anyone can make the journey without being shark dinner. Then he turns back to the suit, rustles up a good slobbery slug of phlegm and spits it over the side.

"Where's a good chunk of chewing tobacco when you need it, huh?"

The roof of the limo is under six feet of water, so getting the trucker radio will be a moist, and hard to talk, unless you pull it out and find power somewhere else.

That suit thinks the law is goin' save us? When was the last time they did anything but hassle someone when they pop a cold one just cause they're driving. Like most times we need to take care of ourselves.

If we are smart, the red haired freckle face boy looked like epitome of an intellectual genius, we can set up a trap! Then it would be like shootin' fish in a barrel! Ummm, are sharks fish? Cletus looked a bit in pain thinking on such complex matters.

Every good trap needs some bait. Ma had a ham bone she was goin to use to make beans...I HATE beans! So that could be used but ya have to say it was your idea, Crawdad. Ya know Ma can get meaner than a wet hen if we mess up her plans!"

Do ya know there should be three tractor tires Granny used for plantin' her flower garden by the bird bath? What if we set it up where that big one swam through the middle and got stuck? Cletus' eyebrows wiggled up and down as he tapped his forehead with his finger, See? Told ya I was smart!

"Yeah well you know who I'd like to see used as bait? Just stuff him into one of them tires and float him out yonder. His suit is too perty anyways."

Thelma eyes up Stanley. "So yous got a limo? Wow, I've never ... sat ... inside a limo before?" She bats her eyes at the fancy man, with only a fleeting glance at Dave's more muscular body first.

As you discuss the situation, you hear a shout from farther on toward the ocean. You see a man in a wooden canoe, whacking at a shark before hightailing it toward you. "Hey!" He looks like he's dressed as if he's on an African safari.

Stanley, uncomfortable with the sudden attention from Thelma and Vern's suggestion of using him as bait, is relieved with the arrival of the canoe man. Well, not the man himself, but his canoe. "Where did you get the canoe?" Stanley is not one for polite formalities.

Dave relaxes from the flex he's been (nrrgghhhh!) holding for Thelma when plans and ideas are batted back and forth, and when the man in the canoe approaches.

"Hey dude! Over here!" he calls, waving. "Give us a ride! We even got beer!"

Vern passes Vern a cold one just as the safari guy makes his appearance. "Wat doh weez otz hare?!" He shouts loud from the rooftop, waving a beer as if to lure the man toward their position, like a carrot before a rabbit.

In an English accent, he yells back, "What are you blokes doing up there? Don't you know it's bloody dangerous?"

"Phish-shah!" Crawdad says with a dismissive waving gesture of one hand. "Ahz dun been in dah hare drink mor'n unce fer shur aun dey ain't bit'n. Ahz ah feel'n dem sharks er afeerd ov mah fiss en dey haid er dey jus doun't bez cottn tah dah tass uh ol' Cajun."

Stanley, mildly irritated at being ignored (which doesn't happen often to him), rolls his eyes. "Not any more dangerous than that canoe you're in. Where are you headed? Do you have any idea what's happened and why everywhere is flooded with sharks?"