BY CHOMPERS THE GATOR

I woke up and tongued her blood from my teeth and it tasted like rust so I Listerined.

The memories of the night were all blurry and throbbing and I bounced a few names around in my head, hoping one of them might catch.

Catherine? Linda? Emily? But my brain was fogged and dragging. Coffee and a cigarette focused my eyes a little and a bump really straightened out my scales and I was ready to deal with it.

I wasn’t hungry. If I were hungry, this would have been easier. There were two sets of poorly-shaven legs curled out of my bathtub like wilting sunflowers and something was rolled up in a sheet on the floor of my bedroom.

A hacking cough bellowed out of my lungs, and I choked out a pale gold wedding band.

I didn’t remember what had taken place last night, but it didn’t really come as a surprise. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: gators have needs.

While Allegheny does a fine job providing me with just enough water to submerge everything but my eyes in and a very long toothbrush, they can’t really do much with my taste for fresh meat. You get a couple gin and tonics in me and its go time. It’s not like alcohol causes these urges. Going to a basketball game is like sitting down in a sweaty all-you-can-eat buffet.

When you give me a high five, I’m smelling you.

You smell good. You all smell so good.

But I digress. A basketball game needed a mascot in forty-five minutes and the garbage man came in thirty. I couldn’t leave these people decomposing. It was too late to call off the housekeeper, and I like to come home to clean sheets anyway.

It was then a stroke of genius hit me. I’d made an offhand comment at a staff meeting about going “hunting” a few months ago, and a week later, an industrial freezer was on my doorstep. The Mullen family was smiling on the front of the card. “Keep that venison fresh,” it said on the inside.

The freezer was in the basement. So was my bandsaw, which was convenient. It took a bit of artful stacking, but the bodies fit.

I still had ten minutes to kill. I sat down at my computer and tapped out a quick e-mail.

“Beautiful friends! Tonight, I will be hosting a dinner party…”