Crocodile Disposal Units

My alarm is blaring, reminding me it’s a school day and telling me to yank my lazy arse out of bed. It sure does have a lot to say for a small inanimate object.

I’ve only had about two hours sleep and to be honest that is not enough for a fourteen year old boy. I fling the alarm clock across the room where it bounces off the wall and breaks. At least it’s silent.

I doze off again but not for long.

I’m suddenly wide awake and screaming in pain. I could not believe the sheer cruelty but Mum has walked into my room, seen me still asleep and slashed my bare back with one of Dad’s thick leather belt. Holy cow that stung.

I try so hard but the tears fall anyway. After the beating I took last night and now the strap, I was finished with Mum. I never wanted to see her again.

After Mum was sure I was not going to go back to sleep, she left the room. I got up and gingerly dressed, trying to find clothes that didn’t aggravate my new injuries. I knew I couldn’t go to school. Not with a black eye and bruised cheekbone. I also knew my days here at home were numbered, Mum would end up killing me.

I packed a small bag with spare clothes, all the cash I had, my hunting knife and a photo of my Dad. I was sad to be leaving my Dad as we had a good relationship, if you ignored the fact that he didn’t protect me from Mum.

I drop the packed bag out my bedroom window to be collected later. I was ready to leave.

I poked my head into the kitchen and said goodbye to Mum. Of course she had turned the other cheek and was now the loving mother she should be. She wanted me to sit and she’d cook me my favourite breakfast. I told her I had to get to the library before school to finish a project that was due today. She let me go.

I ducked around to my bedroom window and picked up my bag. Of course I had no intention I’d going to the library or school.

I headed bush, through the thick forest undergrowth and kept moving. I knew these woods like the back of my hand as I had been playing in them most of my life. If I didn’t want anyone to find me, I knew I had to keep going until I hit the swamp. There I would make camp.

It would be the last place anyone would look for me as the swamp was full of crocodiles. No one in their right mind would come near this area. The crocodiles didn’t scare me though.

Who is the biggest predator on earth? Humans!

So if I’m scared of anything it’s my Mum. She has an evil streak a mile wide!

I found a great spot just back from the swamp edge and decided to set up camp. I had all day to get camp prepared, so I was set before the sun went down.

As I’ve been camping in these woods for years I was pretty self sufficient. I built a covered structure to live in using tree limbs for the structure and branches for cover. I built a fire pit between my living structure and the swamp. Crocodiles don’t like fire. I dug a hole close to the swamp. This would keep any food I had cool. I made sure I dug it deep enough that crocodiles wouldn’t dig it up and eat it.

For drinking water I would boil the swamp water and strain it through a T-shirt. Would it taste nice? No but it would keep me alive. Food would be whatever I could catch and I had a idea, a start of a plan, of what to hunt.

At first I was able to collect berries in the forest and small fish from the swamp. Then as the days wore on I was able to start putting my plan in action. I needed protein and lots of it. I’m fourteen years old and a high protein diet is essential to healthy growth into manhood.

But where to get large amounts of protein when you don’t have money to buy it.

By becoming a professional hunter and so that’s what I decided to do.

About 2 kilometres from my camp there was a council camping ground, where tourists could come and stay as they pleased. The swamp had a large animal net surrounding the campsite to keep the tourists safe from crocodiles. It was even safe enough for them to swim.

That night I decided to try my hand at professional hunting. I silently crept through the forest, keeping the swamp close on the left hand side, until I was on the outskirts of the campground.

There was only one family on site and they had no idea I was there. I watched this family for a few hours and watched aghast as the father become drunker and drunker as the night went on, until he got to the point where he had enough liquid courage to start beating on his teenage daughter.

This riled me up as I knew what it was like to live this way. I had to do something.

I waited until the father was alone and the rest of the family was asleep and I entered the campsite crying. I rushed to the father asking him to help me, telling him a crocodile had my little sister.

He jumped up to follow me and the two of us ran through the woods. The father was still drunk and was struggling to run in a straight line but that was an advantage to me. As we got to my camp I pointed to the swamp and as the father was standing there gazing into the water trying to see where the crocodile was, I come up behind him and hit him over the head with a large rock. Didn’t take much, with the alcohol he’d drunken that night, to knock him out cold.

With some rope I brought with me, I tied his hands behind his back. I then dragged his body up to a tree. After hammering in some nails to make rope links, I threaded the rope through the links and was then able to pull the body up into a standing position using the rope links as a form of a pulley system.

Once standing, I tied him to the tree. There was no way he would escape and now I had plenty of protein. I wanted him awake before I scored my kill.

A few hours later he finally woke and I was waiting for him. He started blubbering once he realised where he was and begging me. I told him I watched what he did to his daughter and he didn’t deserve to live. He kept promising me he’d never do it again.

I’d had enough and used my hunting knife to slice through his carotid artery and watched him bleed out. I left him there for a couple of hours while I got some rest.

On awakening, I checked on my protein and noted it was time to butcher my kill so I had enough meat for a few weeks. I preceded to untie the kill and removed the best cuts and the healthiest offal. Once I had sufficiently buried my meat, I threw the scraps as far out into the swamp as possible.

The crocodiles will take care of the waste. I had nothing to worry about there. Automatic garbage disposal units.

Within 24 hours the police happened upon my campsite, asking questions about a man that had gone missing in the night, from the campsite not far away. I said I’d seen nobody since setting up camp but if I did spot him, I would let him know they were looking for him.

They asked me what I was doing out here and I explained that I often camped here and my parents were okay with it. They let me be after that.

A couple of weeks passed in blissful peace and quiet. No beatings, no screaming matches, no bruises. Mum and Dad hadn’t reported me as missing or the police would have been back out here asking me questions. I guess Mum was too scared in case the truth come out.

I was running out of meat though and needed another plan on how to get my next few meals.

I decided to see if Mum would be interested in sorting things out, if I was to invite her out here. Only one way to find out.

I waited until I knew Mum would be out of the house and I snuck back home. I wrote a note to Mum giving her directions to my campsite and asked her to come out tomorrow afternoon so we could talk.

Would she come? I’m not sure. Only time will tell.

The next day I was sitting quietly watching the world go by when I heard footsteps coming through the woods. I couldn’t believe it, she had really come.

Luckily I had everything prepared just in case.

I welcomed Mum to my camp and offered her a tree stump to sit on. I explained I had collected some delicious berries earlier and they make a delicious sweet tea. Would she like some? She accepted and I set about making it for her.

She noticed I was not drinking any and I explained I had just finished a cup before she arrived.

We made small talk for a few minutes until suddenly Mum slipped off the tree stump backwards, out cold. The berries actually had an extremely strong sedative property to them and it knocked Mum out.

I tied Mum’s hands behind her back and using the same method as I’d done with the male from the campsite, I pulled Mum up to the tree and tied her in a standing position.

All I had to do now was wait until she woke.

Finally after a few hours I heard a groan. Mum was beginning to come round. Her eyelids fluttered and slowly opened. She was still groggy enough that it took awhile for her to realise she was tied up. But when she did she started cursing me and telling me what she’d do to me once she got out.

I laughed. I laughed so hard at the idea that she thought she’d get out of here alive. Not a chance.

Once I stopped laughing I just stared at her until she could see the shadow of death in my eyes. That’s when I saw the fear in hers and that’s all I wanted to see.

I calmly walked over to her and sliced her neck from ear to ear, with my hunting knife, and watched the lights drain from her eyes. She would never hurt me again.

After Mum had been drained of blood, I started butchering the choicest cuts of meat. I didn’t need a lot as I wasn’t planning on staying at the campsite much longer. I could only take what meat I could carry.

The rest, well the crocodiles would enjoy a nice feast.

After cleaning up the campsite, throwing the carcass to the crocs, I wrapped the meat I had kept and made my way home. After putting the meat in the fridge, I sat down to watch TV, until Dad arrived home from work.

He asked me where Mum was but I hadn’t seen her since I’d gotten home. I explained I’d been out hunting for a couple of days and I’d put the best cuts in the fridge.

“Hungry Dad, I’ll fry us up some steaks if you are,” I asked.

“Sure Son, I would appreciate that. I’ll dive through the shower while you cook us up something,” Dad responded.

And off we went, Dad to have a shower and me to cook up a piece of Mum that we would both enjoy.

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