Finish the Fiction Contest - Little Jazz and Lot of Hair in New Orleans

This is my entry for @f3nix 's "Finish the Fiction" contest. The full introduction can be found here along with the contest rules.

...the drummer's voice had lost courage and momentum while something was becoming clear even for a Machete in the grip of his obsessive-compulsive riffs: Tres Culos was missing.

The sound of the nailing Van recalled a moan. The same prolonged moan that, at that moment, not far from the interstate 10, filtered through the basement of an old ruin among the cypress trees of the bayou.

Continued...

The breaks locked up and the van began to slide. At first Tio’s exceptional driving skills were able to make lightning fast corrections until inexplicably he screamed! He covered his eyes as if he had been stabbed in the face and the van began to go sideways.

Drifting and drifting the van skidded on the broken unkept highway and began to list down the embankment. The band members were tossed with the van’s contents like store bought gumbo. Then Mendo saw it: A giant mask’s head laughing while cotton mouth snakes struck viciously at his face. He covered his eyes reflexively as Tio had done and then was overcome with darkness.

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“Did I piss myself?” Machette groaned. The other band members began to stir. The water had come up to the bottom of their seats but had seemed to stop and fill the bucket hollow giving them all a case of soggy ass.

“Holy shit we’re in the lake!” Machette’s voice was so high he sounded like a girl. He panted loudly and put his hands on the window channeling his inner dog. He banged on the window.

Mendo stirred and looked around. This was bad. Were they sinking?

Tio was rubbing his eyes, “Something stabbed my eyes. Snakes.” His large voice was husky and deep.

“Same,” Mendo replied and assessed the situation.

“We’re not sinking,” he observed and cranked down the window on she Chevy. “Let’s go up top and get out of this shit.”

The guys crawled out of the windows and on top of the van and looked about. “Fuck, how we gonna get out of this?” Machette exclaimed. In the distance they could see I10 with an occasional car driving by, but it was very far away.

“How the hell did we get out this far? Well shit.” Mendo looked at the clear night sky and stars and the black murky water. No way to know what the water was like between here and there. It seemed like they were on some kind of sandbar but Lake Pontchartrain was as vast as a sea and unpredictable.

A low humming sound started and Machette cried, “What’s that sound? Do they have bees out in the swamp? What the fuck man!?”

The humming abruptly stopped and for a moment all they heard was the gentle sounds of the lake water lapping against the side of the van.

CLAAACHHUNNK

Image source Pixabay, altered/filtered

A huge beam of light struck them all in the face. They all threw up their hands to cover their face. Machette yelled “NOT THE SNAKES! NOT THE SNAKES!!”

A low chuckle came from the light followed by another.

“Hoo eeey… What we got here, Pierre?” and more cackling.

“Dat look like some kinda chickens ta me.”

“Hmm mebee you ri there.”

Mendo lowered his hands from his eyes and saw the spotlight inspecting the van.

As the light moved along the length of the van Mendo could then see the profile of the swamp boat’s large fan and the two shadowy figures.

“Hey man! Hey!” he called. “Can you give us a lift?”

The two figures chuckled again and spoke in low voices, their French unintelligible.

The swamp boat expertly pulled up to the side of the van and just barely tapped it.

One of the men held up a lantern and surveyed the band.

“How much ya got?”

“What?! You gotta help us!” Machette demanded. The man swung his lantern and looked him up and down and then spit in the lake.

“Taint gotta do nuttin,” and he pulled back a bit. “S’alrigh by me ya can wait for dat po po in the mornnin.” He walked back to the boat’s console as if to make ready to leave.

“We got money, hey!” Mendo finally found his loud voice, the voice he used for his most epic performances summoned up from the stewed bowels of too many po boy sandwiches.

“Take us to our employer, Madame Laveau, she’ll hook you up,” he name dropped. If they could get a ride to TC, all the better.

The two men stood very still and looked at each other and nodded. The captain slowly answered, “Allrigh then. Get in,” and his mate dumped the alligator they had poached over the side.

“Was that an alligator?” Tio asked as the large dead animal floated lifelessly on the surface.

“Laveau pays good 'nuff,” he said abruptly then gunned the engine sending the guys flying backward and clinging to the fiberglass bench seats while their faces were peeled off.

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• I was missing Bill Paxton today for some reason. I don't know if Machette rose to the occasion but that was the feeling.