As Jeff walked back down the dock, a pickup truck pulled up, and he felt suddenly self conscious about being both naked and smooth crotched. His hands dropped to cover himself. He was surprised to see a bunch of young men climbing out of the truck, but they were fully clothed.
"Here for the jock hunt?" asked the first man, who looked like he was about 20, "If I were you, I'd be miles from here when it starts."
"First Jock Hunt," confessed Jeff nervously, "Why aren't you - er, why are you dressed?
"Oh, well, I'm 22, and everyone knows that jockimals are only for males the ages of 18-21. Public Service, they call it. Damn, I spent a week on the wall at my frat house, it was fucking humiliating. But I'm here for merjock fishing, not hunting this year."
"Hey, Sam better get tailed up with your kid bro Dan."
"I'm already tailed up!" shouted Sam from the backseat of the pickup. The other guys were unloading SCUBA gear and spear guns.
"Oh, fuck," whispered Jeff, as he saw the spear guns, and the floppy fishtail stuck out of the pickup door.
"I'm already tailed. A little help here," called Sam.
"Hey, you, help me carry Sammy boy to the end of the dock. I'll give you some tips, so that you at least stand an even chance of not ending up mounted on a wall."
"Or a rug in front of a fireplace?" Jeff added, as he grabbed Sam's tail, while the other man grabbed Sam under the arms. They carried the merman down the dock.
"My name's Ken," said the 22 year old.
"I'm Jeff," replied Jeff.
"I'm Sam," added the merman.
"He knows," laughed Ken.
They began swinging the merman between them and tossed him off the edge of the dock and into the lake.
"Haha, very funny!" shouted Sam spitting out water.
"Anyway, you should hightail it as far from here as possible," Ken said, "Maybe go for a swim, get rid of your body odor. They use dogs to track you. Basically, if you can hide until Tuesday, you'll be safe. Be careful where you leave pee, shit or food. Oh, and some blokes will try trapping you with bait. Don't even look twice at an abandoned picnic lunch. It's a trap. You know it's after 10 am, you should probably start animalizing , and it's usually better if you are already deep in the woods. If you become a deerjock, your legs will freeze up while your toes fuse into hooves, and your knee joints reconfigure. So while you're ambulatory, you better move."
"Our fathers told us to wait here," Jeff protested.
"Idiots! They must not realize that there are going to be at least 100 hunters for each jockimal."
"What?!" Chad had been lounging neaby eavesdropping.
"My father used a Chronivac on us, we have to wait here," Jeff explained.
"That's fucked. What's his phone number?"
Jeff told him.
Bill answered the strange phone number.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Bill, you don't know me, but I'm down at the dock, ready to go merjock fishing, and your boy and his buddies are down here, and they're like sitting ducks. There are a bunch of nerds just waiting for noon in the parking lot outside the hunting preserve, and your boys are sitting ducks. But they say they have to stay here until you tell them to go deep in the woods."
"What nerds?"
"Nerds, frat boys, other fathers. My uncle dropped his boys off last night to give them a head start getting deep in the woods. There are supposed to be at least 100 hunters for each jockanimal, that's why I'm fishing. Better odds of catching one."
"Well, thank you, uh, could you put me on speaker."
"Sure thing. Boys, Bill wants to tell you something."
"Run! Go deep into the woods! Or you'll end up trophy boys? Now go!"
Jeff turned and sprinted straight into the lake, and started swimming across it.
"Smart boy!" shouted Ken.
Chad looked around a bit, and back at the nerds, and he ran along the shoreline and the bolted up into the woods. Tim looked at his brother, and then at Kyle, and the three walked down to the shore and walked through the water following Chad.
Ken stripped down to his Speddo and put on his wetsuit, and gear. He grabbed his spear gun and aimed it at a tree. He fired. Sam suddenly stopped swimming, and shot upward out of the water, shouting, "Wowee!"
A white liquid splattered against the tree instead of a metal spear. Ken laughed, and clicked the reload button. A shiny near spear appeared in the special spear gun.
Back at the cabin, Bill was upset. He hadn't considered that there could be so many hunters. He thought Ken mightbe exaggerating, but when he checked Google he discovered that the State Legislature was considering expanding the jock pool from 18-21 to 17-25 to increase the odds. Needless to say, those over 21 were complaining that they already completed their service, and the 17 years olds were clamoring for voting and smoking rights.
He looked at the white splattered fence. All the tin cans had been knocked down. They were ready to take their places down by the parking lot for when the Game Wardens blew their whistles and officially started Jock Season.