The Summerounds Trilogy: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3!

From the dark hollows of Appalachia to the steamy bayous of Louisiana, Austindale Crocket has spent a lifetime hunting the largest and most ferocious beasts ever to roam the backwoods of his beloved South. Possumzilla (seen above), King Coon, even the dreaded Saber-Toothed Squirrel --they all met their fate at Crocket'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 deer with little more than a machete and his own gleaming incisors.

Only last month, the intrepid hunter spent a week in the wilds of the Everglades tracking the Skunk Ape, finally bringing about the creature's demise with a shot from his crossbow, followed by a deathly submission hold that even his mighty, malodorous adversary could not overcome. Soon after that adventure, Crocket returned to Evenfall, his stately manor in the Shanandoah Valley, and it was there on the porch that his traditional Sunday afternoon of whiskey and selected passages from the Iliad was interrupted by a call on his satellite phone.

"Good lawd," he said softly, when he heard the news. The fair city of Pensacola, Florida, was under attack. And this creature would be his greatest challenge yet: More fearsome than Ol' Cerebus, the vicious, three-headed bloodhound, and more vile than the Chewbacabra, the mysterious and grotesque creature of the Okeefenokee Swamp, known for a glandular discharge redolent of rancid chewing tobacco. Crockett quickly packed his hunting implements and a fresh pair of Summerounds and headed south in his hot-air balloon to face off against none other than the Manateedon.

As he floated over Pensacola, Crocket soon caught sight of the horrible abomination as it waddled down the heart of the city, entire families impaled on its gigantic tusks, city buses crushed beneath its mass of blubber. Crocket strapped on his parachute and dove from his balloon, streaking through the humid summer morning until he landed squarely on the back of the megafaunal monster! The Manateedon bellowed terribly and tried to slash at Crocket with its razor-sharp whiskers, but Crocket, nimble in his airy, lightweight Summerounds, easily parried the vile cryptid's blows and then responded by climbing into its mouth and scorching its innards with his trusty flame-thrower.

Well, the beast cried mightily and with its last remaining strength, it made its way to the beach, where it collapsed in Pensacola's powder-white sands. A huge, bikini-clad crowd cheered Crocket as he emerged from the Manateedon's mouth, he and his Summerounds none the worse for wear.

"To all the beasts who walk the Earth, swim in the sea, or fly in the air," Crocket cried, "know that I am your master!" And then, as if to assert his dominion over the world's wildlife once and for all, he snatched a pelican from the air and gobbled the bird whole.