From the dark hollows of Appalachia to the steamy bayous of Louisiana, Austindale Crockett has spent a lifetime hunting the largest, most ferocious beasts ever to roam the backwoods of his beloved South. Creatures like Possumzilla (below), Raccoonasaurus, and even the dreaded saber-toothed squirrel — they all met their fate at Crockett’s mighty hands. Among his fellow outdoorsmen, he is known as a hunter of singular skill and courage, a man who once, bereft of his trusty Winchester rifle, laid low a one-ton, 200-point buck with little more than a machete and his own gleaming incisors.
Only last month, he spent a week tracking the legendary Skunk Ape through the wilds of the Everglades, finally bringing about the demise of his mighty, malodorous adversary with a deathly submission hold. Crockett then returned to Evenfall, his stately manor in the Georgia mountains; it was there on the porch one Sunday afternoon, while sipping Bourbon and reading aloud selected passages from the Iliad, that he received an urgent call on his satellite phone.
“Good lawd!” he cried softly when he heard the news. It seemed that the fair city of Pensacola, Florida, was under attack by a deadly new foe — a creature more fearsome than Ol’ Cerebus, the vicious, three-headed bloodhound, and even more horrible than the Chewbacabra, the mysterious and grotesque creature of the Okefenokee Swamp, known for a glandular discharge redolent of rancid chewing tobacco. Crockett quickly packed his hunting implements and a fresh pair of SuckerLab seersucker pants and headed south in his hot-air balloon to face off against none other than … the Manateedon!
As he hovered over Pensacola, Crockett soon caught sight of the gigantic abomination as it waddled through the heart of the city, entire families of tourists impaled on its gigantic tusks, city buses crushed beneath its blubbery mass.
Crockett strapped on his parachute and dove from the balloon, streaking through the humid summer morning until he landed squarely on the monster’s back! Well, the Manateedon bellowed and slashed at Crockett with its razor-sharp whiskers, but Crockett, nimble in his airy, lightweight seersucker pants, parried the vile cryptid’s blows and then climbed into its mouth and scorched its innards with his trusty flame-thrower!
The beast cried mightily and, with its last remaining strength, made its way to the beach, where it collapsed in the powder-white sand. A crowd of bikini-clad lovelies cheered Crockett as he emerged from the Manateedon’s mouth, he and his SuckerLab trousers none the worse for wear.
“To all the beasts that walk the Earth, swim in the sea, or fly in the air,” cried Crockett, “know that I am your master!” For good measure, he then snatched a pelican from the air and gobbled the bird whole.