By: Daiyu Tang
You remember how I talked about the storm being dangerous? Well, that’s been proven true in more ways than one and for this article, we explore one very large way. So anyway, I was setting up outside the Theatre and was halfway through counting sandbags when the storm answered back with teeth.
The Theatre, repurposed as Hathian’s main storm shelter (which I have not yet got around to covering) was buckling under Ruth’s worst: power flickers, doors bowing, soaked strangers barking orders over the wind.
Medical staffer Trinket Shaw-Suzuki had the thankless job of playing bouncer against a Category Who-Even-Cares-Anymore: “We are still taking people in… get your asses in here already! I need to close this damn thing,” she yelled over the wind, dragging supplies and trying to wrestle the door shut as more bodies spilled in out of the black water.
Two HPD officers, Juno (‘never link me to women’) Graves and Officer Vitonie argued about bolting for HQ. The theatre howled, the door fought back, and Trinket snapped, “It’s your life, Graves. Either help here, or go!” Seconds later, the wind answered with a new problem: a massive alligator heaving up out of the flood like a bad miracle. “CLOSE THE DOOR!” Trinket shouted, then, (God help her andFast forward: He didn’t), she stepped over the sandbags. “Juno, GUN NOW! Get Vitonie out of here!“
The Lunge
The gator took Trinket by the leg and death-rolled… That the butcher’s corkscrew spin you hear about and hope you never see, at least unless you’re in Laveau and into the Gore scene there. Oh, or if you watched Camden host a fight where a gator killed an Aussie, but shit… generally you don’t want to see it!
Trinket screamed and fought it, reaching for a knife, trying to rake at the eye. Flesh tore. Blood sheeted, although since the rain was doing that as well it was mostly pink mist. The wind didn’t even notice. “LET ME GOOO YOU DAMN OVER-GROWN LIZARD!” she howled as the animal thrashed and dragged. The (ex?) Hopper became the Hunted.
Officer Vitonie did the dumbest brave (dumbrave?) thing I’ve seen this year: she jumped on the gator’s back and locked her arms around its neck, trying to pin it in place so Trinket wouldn’t be hauled away. “FOR FUCKS SAKE! SOMEONE SHOOT THIS THING!” she screamed, clamping on even as the reptile rolled with her like a rodeo ride from hell. A civilian, phone in one hand moments earlier, produced a pistol and fired; in the chaos, a stray round ripped into Vitonie’s thigh. She just gritted and held on tighter. “MOTHERFUCKER, I CAN’T…” We think she was trying to say ‘get off’ which in Hathian, well. That’s a problem for a doctor or shrink. This was also a doctor problem.
Good thing then that across the barrier, Shelby Henderson hurled her lunch (yes, a chicken wrap) at the gator’s snout and bellowed, “Aim for the tail…” Juno, who has a thing for old dinosaur entanglements took the shot and punched rounds into the tail while the thing coiled to charge him. He stumbled, lost his footing and his gun, and crab-crawled backward under hurricane force winds while the animal powered straight for him. “Oh man… look, water! Go there!” (Reader: the gator did not go there.)
Trinket, free now but mangled, stabbed into the tail as she crawled for cover; Shelby dropped to her knees and did that doctor tourniquet thing to Trinket’s leg with a hoodie, twisting scissors under the knot to crank it tight. “KEEP FUCKING SHOOTING! Throw the sandbags!” she yelled over the gusts. More shots cracked. The gator faltered, jaws snapping inches from Graves’ boots then finally sagged to its belly, eyes closing, fight gone. Not ‘dead’ perhaps but seemingly done.
Daiyu’s Survival Notes
Triage in a hurricane: Henderson’s improvised tourniquet likely saved Trinket’s life. If you carry nothing else in Ruth, carry a belt or a strip of cloth you can twist with a pen. Or better. Don’t fucking go out in a Hurricane in Gator Land. Every year… every fucking year.
Friendly fire is real: Amid the panic, a bystander’s round appeared to have struck Officer Vitonie as she straddled the gator. She stayed on anyway. That’s either heroism or madness. Maybe both. Maybe a shit ton of HPD on Cocaine to numb pain? Cocaine Bear – that’s a horror/comedy film. Vitonie-Gator-Wrestling: the same.
Crowd control? We had filming, flirting, and someone singing ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite‘ while the wind tried to make it literal, except instead of a kite it was Alice-Fucking-Crow. Yeah, the Sewer Monster emerged and was as cracked as ever. Shelters magnify people; hurricanes strip them down. Alice just… ah you know if you know.
Gators at Your Door? Ruth’s Gnashing for You
Hurricane surge turns drainage into animal highways. Alligators don’t ‘hunt people’ as a rule, but they’ll follow scent, warmth, and noise into weird places when floodwater redraws the map. The death roll isn’t drama; it’s a meat-ripping physics trick. If you’re grabbed, fight the head, eyes, nostrils, the sensitive snout and make noise; do not play dead. And forget the zig-zag myth: if you can run, run straight and fast. Tail shots? Tonight suggested they just make it mad. Eye jabs and loud, violent teamwork did more.
Keeping Tally of The Score
Trinket Shaw-Suzuki: Severe lower-leg trauma from bite/roll; extracted and tourniqueted on scene before transport. “Dinner goes one way, not the other…” she spat through pain. It went the other tonight and sometimes it’s good for Hathian to remember Nature in storm or monster Gator is king.
Officer Vitonie: Gunshot wound to thigh during the scrum; multiple abrasions from riding a prehistoric blender; remained conscious. Drug Tested? No clue.
Officer Juno Graves: Nearly taken in the final lunge; uninjured beyond storm knocks and the ego bruise of being charged by ‘a dinosaur’.
Shelby Henderson: Deployed the only weapon that mattered: pressure and a tourniquet. Also, RIP to the chicken wrap.
Final Thoughts
Storm Ruth has officially crossed from inconvenient to apex predator at the door. What I watched tonight wasn’t pretty: a city of strangers turning into a single, panicked organism shoving, shooting, swearing, stitching until the thing with teeth stopped moving.
We’ll ride the rest of Ruth out together. Stay inside. Help each other… And if the water brings something ancient to your threshold? Remember the playbook we learned the hard way: eyes, snout, tourniquet, teamwork then shut the damn door. Bolt It… and if all else fails? Feed it your worst enemy. (Joke?)
