Loot - by PM2K

[PM2K]

The way Lure of the Swamp should have gone... IMHO


Loot - by PM2K

Maria holds Krysta tight, feeling the blonde haired girl shudder against her person. The Latina woman looks deep into the other woman's wide blue eyes, which stare at her in disbelief.
"Sorry..." Maria says quietly, "but it was you or me..."
She swiftly extracts the stiletto, buried hilt deep in Krysta's chest, just below the left breast, and feels a hot spurt of blood splash across her chest, staining her sleeveless white shirt. The light in the blonde woman's eyes fades, as she slowly slumps to the bottom of the aluminum boat.
Maria stares for a moment at Krysta, sprawled lifeless, her long tanned legs folded, clad in black hot pants and yellow t-shirt, which is now slightly bloodied. Right through the heart. Quick. The least I could do, she thinks, and slowly wipes the blade on a cloth she keeps in her denim cutoffs.
Seated at the back of the boat, Craig remains expressionless as he wrestles with the large outboard motor, guiding them through the waters of the dark swamp. He seems unfazed by the heat and humidity, dressed in a long sleeved blue shirt and jeans.
Craig watches as Maria carefully makes her way around Krysta, maintaining her balance barefoot in the flat bottomed vessel. She grasps the girl's ankles and pulls hard, straightening her legs, then reaches under a nearby tarp to extract a loop of thin metal cable. Lifting Krysta's feet, Maria works the loop around them to the ankles, then pulls it tight, tugging to make sure the cable is secure.
Craig runs his left hand through his bleached crew cut, while easing up on the throttle with his right. He looks into the murky, green scummed waters, catching glimpses of the muddy bottom through the wake of the boat.
His hard grey eyes lock onto Maria's dark ones, and without a word spoken, he leans on the motor as he cuts the throttle, lifting the prop clear. The boat drifts slowly through a thick pool of still duckweed. Maria struggles with a pair of large cinderblocks, exposed after she had pulled away the rest of the olive green tarp. The metal cable glitters in the afternoon sun as it snakes its way through the concrete, to end tightly secured to Krysta's ankles.
Craig secures the motor and, bent slightly forward, makes his way carefully to the bow. Reaching Krysta, he carefully grasps her under the arms, and lifts her body upright off of the metal hull. With a grunt, Maria lifts the two blocks and carefully holds them over the side of the boat, as Craig does the same with Krysta. Both note how the warm green coated water laps at her bare feet.
As one, Maria lets go of the blocks and Craig the body. With a muted splash, all vanish quickly beneath the seemingly bottomless swamp water, leaving only a thin trail of bubbles in their wake.
Maria sighs. Her feelings for Krysta had been mainly of convenience, but she still regretted having to kill her. But she just couldn't rely on her when the hammer came down.
The duckweed closes in around the boat, removing any traces of disturbance on its surface. Maria looks away, as Craig returns to the stern. He grabs a paddle, and using a slow j-stroke eases the boat around towards the main channel.
"Guess it's just us now, huh?" he says, a small smile flickering across his face.
Maria forces herself to smile back, and sits down close to him. He responds by draping an arm around her. She represses a shudder, but doesn't shrug off his hand.
"Next stop, payday!" Craig says, and fires up the boat's outboard motor.

The robbery was supposed to have been simple.
The seven of them - Maria, her cousin Mark, his friend Craig, Mark's girlfriend Krysta, Mark's platoon mates Seth and Jonathan and Jonathan's brother Bob - had selected the diamond exchange months ago. Mark and Bob worked as guards there, and after a few hash and beer fueled skull sessions, a plan had been formed.
On an evening when the latest shipment arrived, Bob and Mark would give the other four an opening and allow themselves to be robbed. To make it authentic for the security cameras, the others would wear balaclavas and be heavily armed - Craig knew how to get a hold of some Italian auto loading shotguns - and would leave the guards tied up while they made their getaway. Jonathan knew someone who would fence the diamonds, and after a month, they would all share a tidy sum.
It all went like clockwork. Then it all fell apart.
Mark and Bob were overpowered outside the exchange as planned, the diamonds secured, and the crew were about to depart when an off duty police officer happened upon the scene and drew his gun...
Krysta fired first, somehow missing the cop and instead blowing Bob's head apart as he sat tied up beside Mark. The officer squeezed off three rounds before Craig dropped him with a shotgun blast to the chest. One of these rounds struck Mark in the jaw, tearing away part of his face, the other two smacked into Seth, one through his throat, the other entered his forehead and blasted a crater out of the back of his skull.
Grabbing the briefcase with the diamonds, Maria raced over to try and calm Krysta, who was nearly hysterical over the turn of events. Craig went to Mark, who kept making moaning bubbling sounds.
Jonathan, who somehow managed to stay under cover during the exchange of gunfire, emerged now, shaking his head. Then he calmly raised his weapon and killed Mark with a single shot to the back of the head.
"Jesus!" Craig sputtered. Maria stared in shock. Krysta let out a screech of horror and despair.
"We couldn't take him, man... you know that..." Jonathan said. "Too much risk. My contact..."
"Fuck your contact!"
Before everyone's eyes, Jonathan's chest explodes, his body toppling backwards. The shotgun's roar barely subsided when Krysta fired again, and again, and again, destroying the man's upper body and face before Maria wrested the weapon from her grasp.
All they could do then was run...

Later, Craig came up with a plan. He would take the diamonds and hide them in a safe place only he would know. He mentioned how he knew the swamps well, and noted few ever ventured into them. Fewer still would come out.
"You have to trust me..." he said. It was unlikely they would connect him and Krysta to the robbery, and Maria only had her cousin as a link. If they didn't know where the loot was, they could honestly say that if questioned by the cops.
They would wait five years, then meet up again. Craig gave them the location of his home town, where he said he would hide in plain sight, running his dad's bait shop on the edge of the swamp.
Maria reluctantly agreed. She knew Craig didn't have the means to fence the gems, but she might... In another city, she knew someone who knew someone who could do the job....
Krysta was still pretty shaky, but she also agreed. And so they parted ways...

Maria leans back in the boat, remaining silent as Craig steers it through the tight weave of trees, fallen logs, reeds and Spanish moss.
The police never did get around to questioning them. After a year, it seemed they were satisfied with the theory the robbers had killed the guards and had turned on each other when the officer surprised them, heroically dying in the line of duty. No mention of any diamonds ever made it to the media.
Jonathan was a bastard, Maria thinks, but he was a smart one. He had suggested records of the delivery be altered, so one shipment of gems wouldn't be listed. The presence of the rest of the diamonds, scattered about, would cloud the issue further... and it seemed to have worked. No one missed them.
When the time came to get together to collect the stones, a mere week ago, Maria arrived at the bait shop several hours early only to be surprised to see Krysta already there. Retreating quickly behind a nearby tree, her eyes widened when she saw her embrace Craig, kissing him hard. He responded passionately, and Maria bit her lower lip hard as she watched him slide his hand under the waistband of her nylon shorts and cup her ass.

"Maria?"
She starts, and looks over to Craig, who smiles warmly at her, a warmth which doesn't reach his eyes. "We're here..."
He guides the boat close to shore of what appeared to be a small, low island in the middle of the swamp. It is hard to gauge how large it is because of the heavy growth of cyprus trees, hanging moss and grass, but it might be a couple of acres.
Craig makes his way to the bow just as the boat scrapes into the sandy bank. He hops out, and quickly ties the boat onto a nearby branch, using a loose knot.
"We won't be long..." he says, as Maria, now topless, reaches for a small nylon backpack. She had stripped off the sleeveless shirt, still soaked in Krysta's blood, and hadn't bothered to pull on a spare. It was just so damn hot... in moments, her breasts are glittering with a fine mist of sweat.
They follow a clear path towards the center of the island, really an overgrown delta surrounded by swamp water, Craig in boat shoes, Maria walking barefoot, and within a few moments both stop.
Craig smiles and points across a flat light brown expanse of dirt, flecked with clumps of green grass, towards a dead tree, six feet tall and hollow, cut in half by lightning years before. It stands alone about twenty feet away.
"Treasure ahoy! Right there..." he says. "And for added security..."
He never finishes the sentence. A heavy blow drives him forward, and he gets a weird sensation of the ground rushing towards his face as everything grows dark.
Maria squeezes off two more rounds into the back of Craig's head, the Ruger Security Six revolver bucking in her grip. Satisfied by the sticky wad of blood and brain matter spilling out from his shattered skull, she replaces the gun inside the pack sack and zips it up, then sets it down beside him.
Unlike with Krysta, she feels nothing but smug satisfaction with her actions. After all, it could have easily been her ankles tied to those concrete blocks back in the swamp.

Staring at the tree for a moment, Maria prepares to walk forward, but something holds her back. Something Craig said... about security...
"Craig... you son of a bitch..." She shakes her head, smiling. Looking around, she finds herself a long branch, about an inch thick, and picks it up.
It'll be just like him to put a cottonmouth or similar creature in with the diamonds... Maria thinks. Can't take the swamp out of the boy...
Now armed, she steps forward, relishing the warm, wet feeling of the ground beneath her bare feet, and the way her breasts bob free in the hot humid air. The tree stood in the distance, its dead limbs outstretched as if to greet her.
Maria has ventured about a yard closer to the tree when her feet begin to sink in what feels like gritty jello. Frowning, she looks down to see herself ankle deep in wet earth.
She shrugs, and prepares to keep going. Shouldn't be surprised to run into a little mud in a swamp, she thinks, and with a grunt of effort, wrenches her feet free. The mud makes a slurping sound, almost sexual in its wetness, and Maria finds herself smiling, even as her feet slip under again, forcing her to keep struggling to move forward.
So determined to reach the tree, she fails to notice how the entire clearing is shaking with each step she takes... nor how the shallow holes her feet leave behind are filling with water, then smooth out.

"What the fuck?"
Maria cries out in surprise as she reaches the center of the clearing. Each step leading here had become increasingly difficult, with her feet sinking deeper each time. The effort of moving has soaked her in rivulets of sweat, which pour over her bare skin and chest, plastering her dark hair in slimy strings to her back and forehead.
Sunk shin deep, she had been wiggling her hips in an effort to free her legs, her denim shorts growing dark from being soaked through with persperation, when the mud suddenly melts beneath her, plunging her crotch deep in the gritty thick slime.
"Son of a bitch!" Maria curses, twisting around to survey the situation. Her actions cause the brown muck surrounding her to quake and ripple, and she feels the curves of her ass begin to slide under the wet mass of soft earth.
Quicksand? Is this....
"Oh, fuck!" she blurts out loud, not really believing her own thoughts. Living in the city all her life, she always thought quicksand was a myth, something out of jungle and horror movies... but now, she finds it all too real.
Wiggling her pelvis, Maria feels herself sinking deeper, and far beneath the surface of the lukewarm mass of muck, her toes can feel nothing but endless depths of shifting jellysand.
Oh God... I can't move... I can't get out... and I'm sinking!

Fighting waves of panic as a thick ring of quicksand rolls over the waistband of the shorts to press tightly on her bare belly and back, Maria looks around frantically. There is nothing within reach to pull herself free of this deadly sucking bog... no branch, no vine, no root, nothing! Even the stick she holds isn't long enough to be of any use, and she angerly tosses it aside, watching the surrounding grass tufts resting on the surface bob and wobble in response to her movements.
I don't know... I don't know what to do! Maria thinks, her eyes wide with terror. Why the hell would a girl from the inner city know anything about quicksand?
Even as she becomes paralysed with fear, Maria continues to settle deeper into the sandy ooze. Every breath she takes seems to encourage the quicksand to take another swallow of her firm body, and she shudders as the sloppy mire creeps over her torso.

"Help me! Somebody! Help! For God's sake! Help meeeee...."
Maria doesn't know why she is screaming, all too aware there is no one within miles of this spot to hear her. She is up to her bare breasts now in quicksand, both of them half submerged and bobbing gently as she struggles to stay afloat.
She digs frantically at the thick, gooey sand, her eyes wild, her arms and hands making wet slapping sounds as they strike the surface. The area around her quavers and rolls as she thrashes, her motions succeeding only in speeding her descent.
"Oh, Jesus... please... don't let me die like this... please!"
The top of her breasts slide under, and she can no longer lift her arms free. The trenches she had dug out have collapsed on top of them, the quicksand heavy as wet cement.
Maria lets out a whimper as her bare shoulders slip under, finding it hard to breathe properly. The warm sodden mass of gritty sand surrounds her neck, then creeps up to press against the underside of her chin.

"Oh... God... please.... someone help me..."
Maria barely manages to whisper. She can barely hear her own voice, her ears stopped up with warm quicksand, only the oval of her face remains above the sucking surface. She catches a glimpse of the tree, which mocks her now.
"Oh.... Jesus... forgive my sins... for..."
Maria gurgles and sputters as the quicksand rises over her lips and fills her mouth. A spray of filthy foam appears on the wet sand, as the last of her air fights its way free. Maria's dark eyes bulge as the sand seals off her nose, and she manages to make some muffled whimpering sounds before the quicksand flows over the rest of her face...
The quicksand's thick surface bucks, bubbles and heaves, reflecting Maria's final thrashings beneath it as the bog squeezes the last of the life out of her.
Finally, after endless moments of quiet agony, the quicksand falls still. All traces of her vanish as the sand trap smooths out...

A hundred yards away, the boat drifts free, its rope having fallen from its mooring. Two days later, a curious alligator finds Craig's corpse, and with some effort manages to tug it into the still swamp waters.
No trace or trail was ever found of the three people who had ventured into the swamp, save the boat, found two months later awash near the river mouth outside the massive wetland.
The diamonds, still lodged deep within the tree, remain in place, perfectly safe and forgotten for all time.

[quickbeard]

Once again you have proved the old adage - nice girls go to heaven bad girls end up in quicksand. Nicely done.

QB
"once more into the beach, dear friends "
(With deep respect to those into the Military for the misquote)

[jack c]

PM2K - good "film-noire" type story. It reminds me of "Lure of the Swamp" where the blonde murderess gets her just desserts going under. Although your description is much better than the old B/W movie to which I refer. Thanks for posting, as always.