THE UGLY BUNCH

CROC

United States. Somewhere in Florida, 1972.

It's already dark, and a heavy, damp haze hangs in the air, blurring the surroundings like a wall. The vegetation consists mainly of reeds, cattails, and overgrown plants. A few abandoned and dilapidated wooden shacks can be seen in the distance. The bottom is muddy and uneven, and the water meandering through the swamp area is murky and full of seaweed. In this surreal landscape, tire tracks lead through the mud on the ground to a compound where a 2-story Southern-style house stands in the middle of nowhere. On the one-hectare site, there are staggered individual sheds of various sizes, which show their age and have been repaired more than once with new wooden panels. Despite the bleak setting, the grounds appear to be teeming with life - it's home to numerous wildlife and insects that thrive in this wild, unspoiled landscape. Tall palm trees and dense shrubbery grow along the muddy riverbed that runs through the grounds. The air is muggy and oppressive, filled with the occasional splash of alligators lurking in the surrounding pools and canals.

In the darkness, blue lights flicker across the premises, emanating from three police cars parked with their doors open near the house. A few yards away, a 13-year-old African-American boy sits on the ground in front of a boathouse whose doors have been forced open. A policewoman kneels in front of him. The boy appears calm and focused as the policewoman tries to strike up a conversation with him.

"What's your name, boy?"

"I'm Jeffrey. Kodi Jeffrey Jr., Madame."

"Nice to meet you, Jeffrey. I'm Officer Madden. And how old are you?"

"13 years, Madame," Jeffrey replies. The policewoman is taken aback. The boy is taller than her and looks more like a teenager from his stature. She smiles at him sympathetically.

"Can you tell me how long you were locked in there?" she asks him.

"I don't know exactly. My parents always lock me up here when they want to punish me," Croc replies in a childish voice that doesn't really go with his significantly older appearance and stature.

Officer Madden sees scars, but also fresh wounds and alligator teeth mark on Jeffrey's hands. She wants to know more about what happened in the boathouse, which is littered with medium-sized dead alligators with their mouths ripped off."What happened to the alligators?" Asks the policewoman and points to the dead animals in the shed."I had to kill them, or they would have killed me," Jeffrey replies in a childish voice.Officer Madden puts her hand on Jeffrey's shoulder and stands up. I have to go to my colleagues. Can I leave you alone? I'll be right back. Jeffrey nods with a composed and calm radiating look.

The policewoman walks towards the house on the premises, past a number of small and large sheds. She peeks through a slit in a door. Alligators, alligators everywhere. She follows the loud cries of toddlers and arrives at two of her co-workers who are talking while Jeffrey's parents are handcuffed on the floor in front of them. Jeffrey's three siblings, aged between 3 and 6, are crying and clinging to their fixed parents.

Officer Smith says, "I've never seen an alligator farm this big. How could it have gone unnoticed for so long? When I look at how many sheds there are... They must have made thousands of dollars off the animals' leather and meat."

Officer Jones nods in agreement: "Look around, how neglected everything is here. This is no place to raise children. Who knows what they've been through here."

Officer Smith replies, "Yeah, that's really tough."

The police officers shake their heads and sigh as they discuss what they can do to ensure the children are kept safe. They speculate about what will happen to the parents. An illegal alligator farm means jail. Officer Madden looks down at Jeffrey's parents with a disdainful look. You have to keep these monsters away from their children. She wants to point at Jeffrey and show her colleagues the wounds on his hands, but when she turns around, Jeffrey has suddenly disappeared.

Officer Madden walks in the direction she last saw Jeffrey. Visibility is poor, and she can barely see where she is going as the fog thickens. But then she notices movement in the thicket and hears screams in the distance. She runs in the direction of the sounds and sees Jeffrey trying to tame an alligator with his bare hands. He sits on the animal's back and clutches its mouth.

"Jeffrey, what are you doing here?" Officer Madden yells.

"This is OUR alligator. He escaped and has to go back to his stable," Jeffrey replies.

"Jeffrey, release the animal. It's over. We're going to close this farm."

Jeffrey's eyes become more serious, and he repeats his statement, but this time in a clearer voice. "The alligator has to go back to its stable."

Officer Madden slowly stalks Jeffrey and grabs his arm, then yanks him off the alligator with a violent jerk. Jeffrey and the policewoman go down. The alligator squirms in freedom and hisses wildly. Officer Madden has his hand on her gun, but the animal calms down and slowly moves away from them towards the river.

"C'mon, we have to get back to the police car," Officer Madden says to Jeffrey.

Jeffrey hesitates and looks back at the alligators. 

"I can't leave here. I have to make sure they don't escape."

"Jeffrey, those gators aren't important. Look, you're bleeding. You need first aid and bandages," replies Officer Madden.

"No one gets it," Jeffrey murmurs. "The alligators are my friends. They have always protected me. I cannot leave them behind."

The policewoman looks worried at the boy. "We'll make sure they're brought to safety. But now you have to go with us," she says, taking Jeffrey's hand.

The boy reluctantly follows, but his eyes are still on the fleeing alligator, which has since disappeared into the adjacent river. The policewoman looks around worriedly and notices that one of the alligator pens is open.

"Quick, we have to get out of here!" She calls the other police officers from afar. 

Suddenly you can hear dozens of alligators growling everywhere. The animals look starved. They head toward the cops and Jeffrey too.

"They are hungry. They haven't eaten in months. We ran out of money for food," says Jeffrey.

Officer Madden draws her gun and begins firing at the gators while trying to get Jeffrey to safety behind her. Jeffrey stays calm and level-headed while the officer panics. More shots ring out in the distance. Officer Jones and Smith also opened fire on approaching animals. Officer Madden, backing up, protectively shoves Jeffrey behind her back as she tries to keep the approaching animals away with gunfire. She doesn't notice that they are approaching a deep pit where the breeders seem to have dumped the alligator skeletons. Jeffrey notices the pit and steps aside. Now the policewoman stops and notices that she almost fell into the pit.

"Let's go this way," she says to Jeffrey. He looks at the approaching and wounded animals from the shots, which are no more than 40 feet away. He looks at Officer Madden and, without hesitation, shoves her into the 20-foot-deep pit in front of them. 

The policewoman screams as she hits the ground and the partly rotted alligator skeletons with a dull bang. When she fell, she lost her gun. Grimacing, Officer Madden struggles to find her pistol in the chaos of skeletons and excavated earth. Desperately, she crawls across the floor as Jeffrey looks down into the pit one last time before he walks away calmly and unnoticed by the other police officers in the direction of a small rowing boat on the riverbank. 

As he casts off with the boat, he sees flashes of more gunfire in the distance as the alligators slowly approach Officer Madden's pit. He focuses his eyes on the paddles and talks to himself.

"Rowing. Keep rowing." Jeffrey repeats like a mantra with every stroke of the rower until the farm can no longer be seen in the thick of the fog.