LORD OF THE SWAMP

I woke up to the smell of Butch's breath in my face. "What's the problem, Butch?" I asked. The sun was shinning through the tattered curtains. I found it hard to believe it was morning already. It seemed as though I had just closed my eyes. Butch kept barking, looking out over the edge of the bed. "Can't you shut him up," Dennis said, flipping over in his bunk to face the wall. I pulled myself to a sitting position and looked out over the bed to see what Butch was barking at. The entire floor was under water. The water was almost up to the edge of the bed I was on. My heart slammed in my chest. There was a diamondback water snake floating on the water next to the small Igloo cooler in the kitchen area. Its back was to me, but it was slowing turning around. "Oh my God!" I shouted. "Get up you guys! We're sinking!" Butch started whining like a scared child. "GET UP NOW! I'M NOT JOKINGING!" I screamed at the both of them. I pounded my fist on the bottom of the bunk above my bed. "This shack is going under and there is a snake in here swimming toward Butch!" I quickly made my way to the top bunk that Kyle was on. I threw the pillow down at the snake and it changed directions and swam under the bottom bunk that Dennis was on. "Where's the snake?" Kyle asked me. "It's under the bottom bunk where Dennis is." Dennis sat up casually, as if it were a normal thing to have water and a huge snake inside the houseboat. The water was rising fast. All the metal drums under the houseboat must have sprung leaks. The houseboat was not leaning either to the right or the left. We were going straight down to the soggy bottom. "GET BUTCH UP HERE!" I begged as my dog started to whimper. Dennis got down in the water. He handed Butch to me. "Thanks," was all I could say. "There's a snake down there," said Kyle. "We've got to get out of here or we're going to drown in this houseboat," said Dennis. "What about the snake?" I asked, as Dennis waded through the water into the kitchen area. "Snakes are normally scared of people. The fact he didn't come out from under the bed when I jumped into the water proves that." "I'm sure it is trying to get back outside," said Kyle. "I would like to know how it got in her to begin with." My heart was pounding in my chest. Kyle and I watched as Dennis kept trying to edge the snake out from under the bed with a frogging net he got from a hook on the wall by the door in the living room. It did just that, swam out into the middle of the room. Dennis caught it by the head with his right hand and quickly pulled it to him, while yanking the pillowcase on my bed from the pillow with his left hand, and in one swift movement, he shoved the head of the snake into the pillowcase, gently shoved the entire snake inside and quickly knotted the end of the pillowcase and sat it on the table where we had eaten dinner last night. "Yous a big sucka ain't ya? Four, five feet easily," he said to the snake as he patted the pillowcase. "Wow!" is all I could say. I had a whole new respect for Dennis after what he just did, which was downright stupid crazy. "We've got to get out of this houseboat." Dennis said, looking up at the both of us. "All your writing stuff is about to be under water, so you better get down here and throw it up on the top bunk," Dennis said hauling one of the chairs from the living area over to the bottom of the window next to the bunk beds. "The trick to having a blast, and surviving out here in these swamps, is to respect that which has the power to kill ya, or scare ya half to death. Ain't that right, Buddy?" Dennis whispered to the snake in the pillowcase. Kyle and I looked at one another. There was more to Dennis than met the eye. That was crazy what he just did. Dennis was a Lord of The Swamp.