This is what the listing read when it first caught my eye. I had been perusing Indeed.com for a week or so after finally leaving the previous job I’d been holding down since I was discharged and I almost scrolled past it, but the way it was phrased piqued my interest. I was glad I’d quit my job when I did because it fucking sucked so bad, but other opportunities were scarce. Especially for ex-military. It would seem that no one is too eager to put their employees or customers within reach of a person that could theoretically “snap” at any moment. I can’t say I don’t get it. I clicked on the listing and it expanded to fill the screen of my desktop, revealing an assortment of hidden details about the offer like CONTACT LISTER FOR ADDRESS in a small section at the top. A bigger section called REQUIREMENTS caught my attention.
REQUIREMENTS:
MUST HAVE MILITARY OR LAW ENFORCEMENT BACKGROUND
I guess it wasn’t always that bad.
According to the lister, the job would take place over the course of 100 days. It said we’d get half of the payment upfront and the other half on the last day, but the asterisk at the end of the sentence implored me to read the description. My curious eyes trailed down the page only to be further spurred on by READ DESCRIPTION typed in big bold letters preceding a large chunk of text. I don’t remember exactly what the description contained but I do know it was vague and elaborated on very little. Mostly, it said I’d be part of a team tracking some kind of “predator” through the bayou around the lister’s property. I’d done harder things than that. Hold on… I scanned my way back up the page. There it was. The county the property was in was typed in a small blue font right under the listing and confirmed what I’d already figured.
“Louisiana?” a thin voice filled with sarcastic concern suddenly spouted from over my shoulder and made me jump in my seat.
“You’re going to Louisiana?” my roommate, Nina, leaned over the back of the chair, pressing herself against it and craning her neck in front of me to see the monitor. Her grey eyes darted back and forth as she summarized the ad in her mind before looking down to me. She blinked expectantly and raised an eyebrow. I sighed.
“I’m not going anywhere right now, no, but I have been looking. What? You just wanted to stay here forever?” She ignored my question and turned her gaze back to the screen. Her fading purple hair bounced at her shoulders as she jabbed a greasy finger at the monitor. Her bracelet jingled with the movement.
“Seventy-five THOUSAND dollars?! What are they making you do for that kind of money?”
“Hunt, I guess.” I scrolled back down the page and highlighted the part of the description that mentioned the predator. It all sounded so strangely sincere I almost wanted to help. She shook her head.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Still less than you make.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Yea, because I don’t just work for three months and that’s it. This career shit is real-life bro, I’d kill for a paid vacation to the swamp.”
“Really? You’re complaining about the easiest job in the world? You get seventy-five thousand in one month and all you have to do is dance. I’d kill for that.” She rolled her eyes and started to walk away. It was one of those arguments that we’ve always had but know we’re never going to resolve. I mean I’ll admit it, part of it’s the fact that I envy her, but who wouldn’t? I’m sure that’s just par for the course when you become an internet celebrity. Give me a break.
“It’s not just dancing, asshole, you know that…” Nina called as she rounded the door frame, turning into the hall. She peeked her head back in view for a second, causing her hair to bounce like it was alive.
“…but you should probably show the breadwinner a little respect.” She winked at me before ducking back out of the door frame and I heard her footsteps echo down the hallway. I smiled, shook my head and turned back to the computer. She was right, after all. Nina was the one bringing home the bacon in our little household and while I’d been unemployed and on the job search, she’d been covering my half of…well, everything. I’ve struggled to meet the exact amounts anyway since we moved into the new house so she’d often help me out here and there, but it was never more than a couple hundred dollars at a time and I never once asked her for a handout. I always gave her as much as I possibly could, knowing it wasn’t enough but she never said anything. She’d just take it and the lights would stay on and I’d know.
Anyway, clearly I needed the money. Seventy-five thousand dollars would let me not only cover rent and bills but I’d actually have some money to sit back on while I looked for my next source of income. That hadn’t happened since high school.
The listing said it wasn’t scheduled to begin for about a week, and so I pondered it. I did a little research into the town the lister was located in and looked at the nearby bayou. It was big. I’d never actually seen a bayou in person before and was honestly intimidated by some of the information I found online. I didn’t want to take this place too lightly and end up half-eaten and buried in the mud. Louisiana as a whole seemed so foreign to me, so alien, I could barely even imagine setting foot there. I tried the best I could to find a name or any other information about the lister but only came up empty. Except for the phone number they’d left on the ad itself, obviously. That I called the next day.
I found myself oddly short of breath as I punched in the last digit and raised the iphone to my ear. You know that feeling where you’re not necessarily struggling to breathe but you just can’t seem to catch your breath all the way? Like you’re not able to fill your lungs to their full capacity? I wiped a tiny bead of sweat from my forehead and listened to the line ring. Finally it clicked and a voice like asphalt and thick smoke came through the other end. It had a thick accent, cajun I think, and the kind of whistle-lisp that’s only produced when talking through missing teeth.
“You for the job?” I swallowed involuntarily.
“Uh, actually I was kind of hoping for some more information first, but yea. I saw the listing. Who am I speaking with?” The voice on the other line paused to cough hoarsely and then I heard his breath come back to the speaker.
“Mm. What you wan’ know? I ain’t movin’ on the pay, I’ll tell you right now.” He ignored my question or maybe didn’t hear me. He sounded old. Too old and too tired to deal with bullshit.
“What? No, I don’t wanna haggle, I just want to know more about what I’m getting into. Your ad wasn’t all that forthcoming with the details, man, was that on purpose?”
“You jus’ help me hunt the animal and take the money. That’s all there is to it. You gon’ sign on for 100 days right now and if you wan’ keep goin’ after we talk about it then. You manage to kill the animal, you take a bonus witcha and go home early. That’s it, real easy to understand.”
I’d never seen a job before that provided so little detail into what it actually was and it slightly unnerved me. The little voice in the back of my head seemed to whisper at me disapprovingly, but I was interested. I mean, the only interesting job I’d ever worked before had been the military and I couldn’t even do that anymore after my injury. I craved something new. I started pacing back and forth in my room.
“How many people are on this “team” you mention?” I asked him.
“Six’ll be here, if you sign on. You’re the final fuckin’ member. Seven if you count me, but I don’.” Six?? Five other people had already signed on for this?? Suddenly the whole thing felt a little easier to understand. If other people were willing to take a job like this even with how little it shared about itself, why shouldn’t I be? It was nothing to be worried over, he probably just didn’t want to attract the wrong sort. Plus, that 75K was a little hard to say no to. I cleared my throat.
“Okay. I wanna do it.” The other end was quiet for a moment after I said this.
“Alright then, you’re in. You should be expectin’ to get contacted within a day or some.” He eventually responded.
“That’s it? I don’t have to give you my resume or a background check or anything? I didn’t even tell you my name!” I could hear the man’s lips parted in a smile through his words when he replied, sounding almost amused.
“So what’s your name?”
“My name is James.”
“Well, I’m gon’ see you soon, James.” Then he hung up.
As much as I pretended it wasn’t, this job and the ominous phone call were all I could think about. I’ve never been the type of person to keep constant track of their phone, but for the rest of the day I couldn’t let it out of my sight. I told Nina that I’d accepted the offer and she actually helped me feel a lot more comfortable about the whole thing. She didn’t deny that it was shady, but said it would probably do me some good to get a little danger back in my life, and she was sure that I could more than take care of myself.
Damn. Even though the goal always was (and still is) to get my own place and be able to financially support myself, I’d grown so accustomed to living with Nina I knew anything else would just be boring. We first met in class our senior year of high school and became really fast friends, but as soon as we graduated I shipped out and didn’t hear from her for 10 months. I’d all but forgotten about her and had written it off as one of the many friendships that don’t last past the school year when I ran into her again in the most unexpected place. Not really “ran into” her, I guess. I’d been discharged and was living at my mom’s place, paying rent and a portion of the bills with my minimum wage job, when one night I was swiping through tinder and I came across a girl with bright purple hair and this dumb look on her face that I knew I recognized. Obviously, I could tell it was Nina and swiped to the right only to see that she’d done the same as the screen flashed bright green with “It’s a Match!”
It was probably the last place I’d have ever thought I’d see her again, if I even would, but it was a more than welcome surprise. It didn’t take long for us to reconnect and the next thing you know, I’m moving out of my mom’s basement and into a shitty one-bed one-bath with her. At least the rent was cheaper, and I didn’t mind sleeping on the couch. It was easier to fall asleep with the TV on anyway. About a month or two after that Nina blew up on Tik Tok, and a month or two after that we’d ditched the apartment and settled in a condo in the city. I even had my own bedroom here. And my own parking space! Anyway, the point is that even if she wasn’t the only thing preventing me from turning into a homeless veteran on the street I’d probably still want to live with her. She was kind of the only real friend I’d ever had.
Just like the man said, it was about a day or so before I was contacted. I had absentmindedly pulled my phone from my pocket and saw a message on the lockscreen from a 504 number, but not the one I’d called. I unlocked my phone and it revealed a paragraph of text in a long green bubble. It contained the man’s home address, a second phone number that I recognized as the one I’d talked to him on, and a large portion explaining that I had signed on of my own free will and couldn’t sue him in case of “untoward circumstances” or anything like that. It also explained I’d need to book and pay for my own flights, which was just absolutely fantastic news, and included a short list of basic ingredients that would be in the rations they provided in case I was allergic to any. I wasn’t. At the end of the message it had a date for when I was scheduled to arrive on site and another for when I was supposed to leave. I quickly counted just to make sure, and yea; that was 100 days. I realized I’d have to book my flight rather soon because the new arrival date was even earlier than the one I’d seen on the listing, and of course Nina offered to pay for it when I showed her the text. I wanted so badly to deny her, but I think we both knew I couldn’t really afford to. The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly and I soon found myself leaning back in my seat and staring out the window as the world below me shrunk to tiny squares and multi-colored L-plots of land.
I could smell the wet wind before I’d even shuffled off the plane behind the other passengers. The airport air conditioning was blowing at such stark contrast to the heavy heat waiting outside the doors that they almost felt like two different realms separated by the seal of an automatic glass door. I stepped through the door and was greeted by a warm breeze as I tried to get a taxi. I felt like a fool, standing at the edge of the sidewalk and flailing my arm wildly at every passing cab. After what seemed like at least ten minutes, an old beat-up one with a fifth or sixth yellow coat just barely hanging on puttered up to the curb. I slid into the backseat and hauled my luggage to the other side, laying it on the seat next to me. I pulled on my seatbelt and then the other one for my luggage. I explained to the driver where I needed to go and handed him my phone with the address pulled up; he copied the information into his GPS and set the route. It looked like it would take just over an hour to arrive. Shit. This was gonna be expensive. I uncoiled the earphones that were neatly tucked into my pocket, put them in and rolled down the window. Something about the air just smelled promising and I had nothing but high hopes for the months ahead of me.
At the risk of making one ridiculously long post, I’ve decided to split the story up into parts with around 3,000 words each. I’m not sure how many parts this will end up being but I’m not going to hold back or censor any part of it for any reason. I just need to tell this story, get it all down.