Guidry's Arc

Chapter 8 of 14

Guidry grabbed the rusty shotgun from beneath his seat. His fingers closed around the metal, still cold from the morning air. He didn't aim it — wouldn't have done any good against something that size — but holding it kept his hands from shaking. Croaker noticed and said nothing. The old man understood. When fear came at you like that, you held onto whatever felt solid. They drifted closer to the vine-covered ruins, and Guidry saw more than claw marks. Fresh scales littered the collapsed archway, each one the size of his palm, still wet and gleaming. The creature had scraped itself against the stones, maybe marking territory or shedding old skin. Guidry cut the engine and let the boat glide to a stop. He needed to decide right now: turn back and lose everything he'd risked, or push forward knowing the thing they were hunting was close enough to touch their hull. Croaker broke the silence. "You're the guide," he said. "What do we do?" Guidry looked at the scales scattered across the ruins, then at the passage beyond. For forty years he'd navigated by patterns in the water — safe routes, hidden channels, predictable currents. But this creature didn't follow patterns. It made new ones. If he wanted to be the best guide in these bayous, he couldn't just know the safe paths anymore. He had to know the dangerous ones too. Guidry set the shotgun across his lap and started the engine. "We follow it," he said. "But we stay close to the shallows where it can't reach us from below." He turned the boat toward the passage, mapping a new route in his mind — one that tracked a monster instead of avoiding it. Respect would come from this: from being the only guide who knew where the creature hunted and how to navigate around it. The knowledge settled in his chest, heavy as the shotgun. He wasn't just selling a secret route anymore. He was learning to guide through living danger.