He has to check several times between the picture in the hallway and the dim reflection in the window. The eyebrows are meant for a hook located inside that hanging crocodile skin in the closet, not his actual head.
“I don’t…get…this,” he says, unsure what the feeling even is.
Moisturizer. I need the moisturizer.
His purse sits on the chair where he tossed it earlier, but with the look Petra is giving him, he doesn’t think he can reach for it right now.
Not the first time he’s smelled it, but the first time he’s smelled it on himself—a faint whiff of fear-tart steams out from between his scales. Not knowing why this is happening doesn’t help.
Petra watches this, sees he’s struggling.
“Right. Your suit is different, and by the looks of it, probably waterproof. That hook won’t work.”
She grabs a round roll from a drawer in his room, and it smells like burning plastic. His right eye twitches at the cracking sound as she unrolls it.
But before he can blink, Petra has taped the eyebrows on with clear packing tape, securing them to his head.
The prosthetic tooth is easy enough to wedge between two of his other teeth.
He tries to look at himself in the window.
“You know, you could use the mirror over the sink,” Petra says.
He looks around, spies the mirror, and leans in close.
“Ho ho! I look…”
Not like myself.
“Like Raleigh’s vision of a mean old crocodile,” Petra says. “If you can pretend to be a mean old crocodile without eating anyone, we’re good!”
Big Sal gives her a side-eye.
Does she know?
He does something he saw someone at the Zit & Grit do: he gives her a thumbs-up.
“Let’s go!” She turns and heads toward the door.
Big Sal sneaks a hand toward the purse, slips the moisturizer out, and rubs it on his hands. The fear-tart eases, and he tosses the bottle back onto the table.
CLUNK
Petra looks back at him. “What was that?”
He looks at the bottle. It’s broken open, and the gentle scent that had brought calm slowly fills the room.
Oh no… what did I do?
“I don’t know what that is,” she says. “But Raleigh is waiting, and we need to get moving.”
Trying to blink something back, he feels water well up in his eyes and run down his neck.
Petra has already turned away, walking fast to the door.
I… I…
He follows, but something inside hurts, and with it comes more water leaking from his eyes.
Running down the stairs after Petra, looking like someone else’s crocodile, Big Sal almost trips. Cilantro arises fast, and Petra seems to know which side of the stairway to retreat to as he slides down a couple stairs.
“Careful, big guy. Don’t want you breaking a leg.”
Ow. I think I stubbed my toe.
“S-so w-where’s this l-livestream?” he asks, recovering and standing more on a heel than toes.
From a pocket in her costume, Petra removes her glowing orb and a gold-rimmed monocle. She wedges the monocle over her left eye, attaching its chain to her clothes with a clip. A mechanism in the middle of the orb pivots, and her deft hands reveal a small camera.
Big Sal gets the impression she’s controlling the camera with the movements of her left eye.
“Wherever I want,” she says. “Don’t worry, we’re not live yet.”
At the bottom of the stairs, they turn right and go through the kitchen, Petra’s orb following overhead.
The stubbed toe and the hurting inside subside as the kitchen scents overwhelm him. Fried onions, French fries, milkshakes of many different flavors…
“What’s that?” he exclaims. Something hot and bubbling smells like cooking meat.
“Deep fried crocodile legs,” says the chef, and when Big Sal’s mean looking eyebrows look even meaner, he quickly follows up. “Well, it’s really crab Rangoon with Worcestershire and sweet chili, but you know.”
This human place smells so delicious and is even more confusing…
Petra stands at the back of the kitchen, sunlight spilling in through a door she holds open, waving him forward.
The direct sunlight blinds him momentarily, and he shields his eyes with a hand.
Outside, a truck similar to the Molly’s Long Haul Moving truck much of his journey took place in has backed up to a loading dock. A ramp extends from the truck’s doorframe to the dock.
“There you are, my friend!”
Raleigh surprises him, his eyes still adjusting.
“Tick tock tick tock—we’re on the clock,” says the pirate captain. “Petra, we’re starting with top shot over the ramp, forty feet up. Descending in a slight outwards parabola, keeping the frame on the closed truck door, then boom down to three feet above the ramp height. I’ll knock three times, open the door, and out we come. Stay on me until I start walking, then hold as I exit the frame. Push in behind me with a handheld wobble when Sal’s silhouette is visible, and dolly out, keeping him center. Sal, you will carry in three loads, and as he does that, Petra, keep the handheld wobble and paparazzi zoom in and out. After three loads, we wrap with a drone shot of the exterior sign. Got it?”
“Got it, boss,” says Petra.
“Sal, you look great! Those eyebrows are amazing!”
“It was Petra…” starts Big Sal, but before he can finish, Raleigh has already moved on.
“Alright! Places, every one!” he says. “You.” He points at the truck driver wearing overalls and steel-toe boots. “Close and latch the door, and let me open it as we come out.”
“But…” says the trucker. This trucker has a very different scent from the other one.
“Tut tut! We’re on the clock! Let’s go!” Raleigh barks.
The truck door opens, and Big Sal’s eyes widen as it does.
It’s so collld…
He walks in, Raleigh trailing behind, but as he does, he can feel his limbs start to numb and his heart rate slow.
“Grab that pallet by the fork notches and pick it up,” Raleigh says.
Big Sal approaches what Raleigh has pointed at, leans down, and has to turn his head to the left. He picks it up, but the top box squishes against the ceiling. Something red with a tomato smell runs down over him as the doors close. For a moment, Raleigh and Big Sal are alone together in the dark refrigerator truck.
Raleigh seems to be counting under his breath. Then he reaches forward with his fist and pounds once.
BANG
BANG BANG
The doors are supposed to open, but when he pushes against them, they don’t move.
“What in blue blazes is this?” Raleigh says quietly.
Then the doors crack open, and he leans against them. They don’t move as quick as he’d like, but after a moment and a half, he bursts through.
“After searching high and low across the jungles and marshes, from the highest of mountain peaks to the lowest of the Nether, I have finally found the treasure I had been searching for!” he says to the hovering orb.
“Wasn’t it at the Zit and…” Big Sal starts.
“At long last, from the plains of the Nile, our leathery friend comes—the beholden crocodile!”
And with that, Raleigh moves forward enough for Big Sal to emerge from the truck. His snout faces left of the pallet, away from the camera, a thick red liquid running down over him. The stack atop the pallet catches inside the upper doorframe, and another box tumbles downward and smacks him on the head, breaking open.
Sounds worse than it feels, Big Sal thinks, remembering the smack after getting headbutted so very long ago.
The trucker stands on the ground, and the two lock eyes. He mouths and points for him to turn the other way.
His neck gives a horrendous crick as he slides his snout vertically over the side of the stack to look at Petra’s orb, and he can’t help but snarl.
Like a hummingbird, the orb darts backward, flitting about just like one too.
Covered in tomato sauce and now something that smells like liquid plums, he walks on what feels like a gangplank.
More cold air spills out of an open overhead door, and he walks through stinky flaps that move aside as he pushes in.
Silent, Raleigh points where to set everything down, then gestures to for him to walk back to the truck.
His heart racing from the effort, he manages to grab the other two pallets and carry them across the narrow gangplank into the refrigerated space of Hook’s.
The overhead door closes, and the lights go off as slams it shut.
Alone in the dark, refrigerated space, his heart rapidly slows, and Big Sal begins to feel sleepy.
Man, if I could just catch a couple z’s…
His breath turns into ice crystals, and he leans against a part of the wall that looks a different color. Something like a knob he hasn’t seen before sticks out of the wall, and he sighs, a wintry mix of tomato and plum sauce freezing to him.
He closes his eyes for a moment. It’ll just be a moment.
And something passes overhead, something that might smell like Raven. He can’t quite tell.
But what he can tell is the berry-sour scent of the vine it carries.
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Chapter 16 podcast drops February 21
Chapter 17 text drops February 28
