Tyrannosaurus Wrecks

by Stuart Gibbs

  The price to visit Snakes Alive was twenty-one dollars a person, which wasn’t that cheap as far as I was concerned (although it was considerably cheaper than FunJungle). Summer had already volunteered to cover the cost, though, and I let her. If this had been a date, I would have felt weird about it, but she had railroaded me into this, after all.

  “How many different kinds of snakes do you have here?” I asked.

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the snakes. I just work the register.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Summer said, in a way that didn’t sound too sarcastic, and we passed through the turnstile.

  The first thing we entered was the reptile room, which was long, narrow, and windowless, drably lit by fluorescent lights. On one side were three shelves, each lined with aquariums. On the other side, the wall was taken up with larger exhibits, all built from plywood and fronted with plexiglass.

  The aquariums on the shelves held the smaller animals; in addition to snakes, there were also lots of lizards, tortoises, and frogs. There were actually some pretty fascinating snakes, like Gaboon vipers and green mambas, though there wasn’t much to their exhibits; each had some dirt, a few plants, water, and heat lamps. Fake plastic human skulls had been placed in with some of the venomous snakes, as if to give the impression that the snakes had killed someone—but still, none of the tourists seemed remotely interested in any of them. Instead, they were quickly drawn to the bigger exhibits, which held larger animals like alligators and water monitors—although at the moment, most of the visitors were gathered around a guy holding an albino Burmese python.

  The python wasn’t as big as Julius Squeezer, but it was still at least ten feet long. The guy holding it had a name tag that said LAMAR. To his credit, Lamar seemed to be doing a decent job educating the people around him about the snake.

  There was a cluster of young children in the group who were all obviously part of a birthday party, as they were wearing conical paper hats strapped to their heads with thin elastic bands.

  “A lot of people think a snake like this kills by crushing you to death,” Lamar said. “But that’s wrong. Instead, it kills by constriction.” He looked the birthday boy in the eye. “If she was gonna eat you, she would wrap around you and squeeze you so hard that you couldn’t breathe anymore—so you’d die by suffocation. And then she’d swallow you whole!”

  The snake flicked her tongue at the birthday boy.

  He screamed in terror and fled down the hallway. “Don’t let it eat me!” he wailed. “I don’t wanna die!”

  The parents shot Lamar dirty looks and ran after the kid. “Johnny, wait!” the mother cried. “He was only joking!”

  “Happy birthday!” Lamar called after them.

  “Does this mean we don’t get cake?” one of the other kids asked.

  “Beats me,” Lamar said. “It’s not my party.” He glanced toward us, then did a double take, and his eyes went wide in shock.

  He had recognized Summer, despite her outfit.

  Normally, Summer might have been bothered by this, but at that moment, she seemed to realize she could use her fame to her advantage.

  Lamar ditched the rest of the crowd and came right over to us, trying to look as suave as someone could with an albino python draped over his shoulders. “You’re her, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I am,” Summer said. “Nice snake.”

  “Want to touch it?” Lamar asked. “Or hold it? I could take a photo of you holding it! That’d be amazing.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Summer said. “Where’d you get her? I’d love to have a snake like this.”

  “Oh, she’s not for sale,” Lamar said, then looked around furtively to see if anyone else was listening. He lowered his voice and leaned in closer than I thought was necessary. “But if you are interested in a snake, you should talk to Rick.”

  Summer flashed him a smile that made him weak in the knees. “Where’s Rick?”

  “Out back by the hyenas,” Lamar said. “If you want to wait a few minutes while I put this snake back, I can take you out to him…”

  “That’s all right,” Summer said. “I’m sure we can find him.”

  Lamar seemed to be giving serious consideration to simply abandoning the python on the floor so that he could accompany Summer, but we slipped out the door before he could act on it.

  Behind the reptile building, there was a surprisingly large plot of land. It held two dozen animal enclosures, all quite spacious, albeit extremely simple in design: They were merely large, fenced-in tracts of grass, some with a tree or two, and a small building for their residents to take shelter in. In one, two American bison wallowed in the mud. A family of capybaras rooted around in another. A petting zoo butted up against the parking lot of Jerk-ee’s; it was mostly goats and sheep, although there was also a potbellied pig and a llama in it. Another birthday party was gathered there, with even younger children, one of whom was crying because the llama had spit on him and then eaten his party hat.

  A sign indicated that a few of the goats in the petting zoo were fainting goats, which is a strange domesticated breed that has seizures and passes out when startled. Although the sign warned that it wasn’t kind to induce this behavior, the park employees weren’t discouraging it. In fact, one was actively showing some children how it worked. He snuck up behind some goats and yelled “Boo!”

  The goats promptly collapsed, as though they had fallen asleep in one second. The children laughed hysterically. So did some of their parents.

  “That’s not cool at all,” Summer commented.

  We found the hyenas by their sound. They were toward the back of the property, yipping excitedly while Rick tossed chicken parts to them through the chain-link fence.

  Rick was in his forties, squat and bald, with the type of muscular build that could only come from using steroids. He’d had to tear the sleeves off his official Snakes Alive shirt so that he could fit his arms through it; the veins along his biceps bulged like earthworms. He carried a bucket full of raw chicken, and the hyenas were hungrily racing back and forth along the other side of the fence, then rearing up onto their hind legs to catch the pieces he threw. A small crowd of tourists had gathered to watch, snapping photos and shooting videos with their phones.

  I wasn’t so pleased. Begging for food wasn’t a natural animal behavior. At FunJungle, the animal keepers worked hard to deliver the food to the animals in more realistic ways: hanging it from trees, or hiding it in logs, or luring the carnivores on a hunt. They never merely handed the food to the animals, and they certainly didn’t make them do tricks for it.

  Rick chucked the last piece of chicken into the jaws of a male hyena. “That’s all folks!” he announced to the crowd. “Though I’ll be feeding the lion in half an hour.”

  The tourists groaned, disappointed the show had ended, then wandered off to look at other animals. Rick started back toward the reptile building, happily swinging his chicken bucket.

  Summer stopped right in his path, and I followed her lead.

  “Hi,” she said. “Lamar told us you’re the one to talk to about getting a snake.”

  Rick paused, looking at Summer. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” Summer said.

  Rick shrugged. Like Tommy Lopez had hoped, he didn’t seem suspicious of us at all. Instead, he looked excited to make a sale. “What kind of snake are you thinking of?”

  “Something exotic,” Summer told him.

  “Exotic things ain’t cheap.”

  “I’ve got money.” To my surprise, Summer opened her purse, revealing a wad of cash inside.

  Rick broke into a big smile. “It’s your lucky day. I just got an anaconda in this morning. He’s a beauty.”

  I figured it was Julius. Tim and Jim had probably returned him first chance they got. And now Rick was trying to sell us a used anaconda.

  “An anaconda’s way too big,” Summer said. “Don’t y
ou have anything smaller?”

  “Come with me.” Rick led us back to the reptile building. As we passed the petting zoo, the fainting goats had regained consciousness—and the Snakes Alive employee was startling them again. Rick chuckled appreciatively. “That never gets old,” he said, then took us through a back door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. DO NOT ENTER UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH.

  We ended up in a room separate from the rest of the building. It seemed to serve two purposes: storage for the animals that weren’t on display and food preparation. Several refrigerators and freezers were lined up against one wall. Along the other wall was a row of shelves that were filled with plastic storage tubs like the one Julius Squeezer had come in, but in a great variety of sizes. I estimated there were at least sixty, although since they were opaque, I couldn’t tell how many had animals inside them.

  In the middle of the room was a baby pool filled with turtles.

  A teenage girl was chopping carrots and lettuce at a small counter.

  “Beat it,” Rick told her brusquely. “I’ve got customers.”

  The teenage girl scooped the vegetables into a bowl and scurried out with barely a glance at us.

  Rick returned his attention to us and smiled, like he hadn’t just been a jerk to the girl. “I bet you’d like an emerald tree boa. Folks love those. They’re gorgeous.” Rick took a medium-size plastic storage tub off the shelves, set it on a table, and popped the lid off.

  Sure enough, there was an emerald tree boa inside, lying on a bed of sawdust. Like Rick had said, it was a gorgeous animal, with iridescent green skin, save for a spot on its tail where it had a white scar.

  “Can I take a picture of it?” Summer asked, reaching for her phone.

  Rick caught her hand. “No photos.” There was an edge to his voice as he said it, a warning that disobeying him would be a bad idea.

  That was a bummer, because it would have been nice to have photos as evidence for Tommy. Summer was shrewd enough not to show her disappointment, though. “All right,” she agreed, then returned her attention to the emerald boa. “It’s nice,” she said thoughtfully, like she was considering a pair of shoes, rather than a live reptile. “But it’s not quite what I’m looking for. What else do you have?”

  Rick slapped the top back on the tub, returned it to the shelf, and perused the other options there. “Ooh. How about a Mangshan pit viper?”

  “A pit viper?” I exclaimed, despite myself. “Those are venomous!”

  “So?” Rick asked, in a tone that indicated I was being a weenie. “A real man doesn’t mind a little danger.”

  “It’s a lot of danger,” I said.

  Rick took a somewhat larger tub off the shelf, set it on the table, and despite my concerns—or perhaps to make fun of them—casually removed the lid.

  Inside this tub was a snake that was perhaps even more beautiful than the emerald boa. It was about two feet long and its skin was marbled with gorgeous green and black bands. Like the last snake, this one also had an injury to its tail, a slight kink near the end where it angled to the right. It didn’t react at all to the movement of its tub, remaining almost completely inert.

  “Trust me,” Rick told us, “there is no greater feeling of power than to own a snake like this. To be able to control something so deadly. It’s a rush. I’ve sold plenty of these—and no one has ever complained. Or gotten hurt. If anything, they come back wanting more.”

  “You’ve sold lots of these Mangshan vipers?” Summer asked.

  “Well, not Mangshans in particular. That beauty there is rare. But venomous snakes in general. Rattlers, cottonmouths, mambas, cobras…”

  “Aren’t all of those hard to care for?” Summer asked.

  “Nah.” Rick made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “They’re easier than a dog. You have to walk a dog, get it shots, clean up its poop all the time. A cobra only eats once every few weeks and poops even less.”

  “But they eat live food, right?” I asked. “That’s not so easy to get.”

  “You can train them to eat dead stuff,” Rick informed me. “And then I can handle that for you too. I’ve got plenty of food.” He opened one of the big freezers, revealing that it was crammed full of dead animals.

  Summer, who had been doing a decent job of being nonchalant so far, made a gasp of surprise.

  The upper shelves were stacked high with the frozen corpses of rats and mice, while the lower shelves were mostly rabbits. It looked like a Beatrix Potter story that had gone horribly wrong.

  “See?” Rick asked proudly. “I can hook you up with all the frodents you need.”

  “Frodents?” Summer and I asked at once.

  “Frozen rodents,” Rick said. “I’m thinking of trademarking the term.” He shut the freezer, then returned to the Mangshan viper, whose tub he had carelessly left open. “So? You want her?”

  Summer pursed her lips thoughtfully, then shook her head. “It is pretty, but…”

  “You want a cobra, don’t you?” Rick asked. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Maybe,” Summer said coyly.

  “Good choice. At least one of you has some guts.” Rick gave me a pointed look, then put the lid on the tub with the Mangshan viper and returned it to the shelves. “Only, I don’t have a cobra… at the moment. But that’s about to change. As you might have noticed, I’m a little low on merchandise right now. But I’ve got a shipment coming in soon.”

  “How soon?” Summer asked.

  “Hard to say.” Rick picked up a hand strengthener and squeezed it methodically, making his muscles bulge. “Should be within the next few days. Maybe even tomorrow. But I never know with these things until right before they happen. That’s how the business works. If you’re interested, though, give me your number. I’ll give you a heads-up the moment I know anything.”

  Summer made a show of considering this, then asked, “What kind of cobra are we talking about here?”

  “I put in for some Egyptians, some monocleds—and a few kings.” Rick grinned at our surprised responses. “That’s right. The king of cobras. The most amazing snake on earth. And one could be yours by the end of the week.”

  “How much?” Summer asked.

  “A thousand dollars,” Rick said.

  “I’ll give you half that,” Summer said.

  Rick countered with nine hundred dollars, and they began to haggle about price. Summer made sure that Rick’s back was to me, so I turned my attention to the other animals in storage.

  Some of the plastic tubs had labels, but many didn’t. Most of the smaller tubs appeared to hold snakes, who, being generally lethargic, didn’t seem to be too cramped by their small spaces. In the largest tub, I could see the coils of an extremely large snake pressed up against the opaque sides; I figured that was the recently returned Julius Squeezer.

  Meanwhile, the lizards were much more active than the snakes. In some of the larger tubs, they were scrabbling against the plastic walls, trying their best to get out. One of the most active lizards was in a tub simply marked $$$$.

  I glanced back at Summer and Rick. Rick’s back was still to me. Summer met my eyes and gave me a slight nod, letting me know she would try to keep distracting him.

  I took out my phone, shifted it to the camera, and cautiously opened the tub with the dollar signs. I was extremely careful to not make a sound, because the last thing I wanted was a steroid-enhanced mass of muscle like Rick getting angry at me.

  There was a big iguana inside the tub, although it was a type I didn’t recognize. It was stocky and mostly yellow, but with a few red patches on its skin. It looked much more banged up than any of the snakes had, with scabs and scars all over its body.

  I quickly snapped a few photos of it, then closed the lid again.

  Rick and Summer were still discussing price.

  I opened another tub. There was a young crocodile in this one. I snapped a photo of it, too, then replaced the lid.

  I felt terrible, keeping the animals trapped in
their tubs. I wanted to yank every tub off the shelves, open them, and set all the animals free before Rick could sell them. But I knew that would be foolish. The animals probably wouldn’t survive—and Rick would pound me into hamburger meat. I was lucky to have gotten the photos I had.

  Behind me, Summer and Rick settled on a price of seven hundred dollars for a king cobra. Rick didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised that a teenage girl had that kind of money. Maybe he had recognized Summer but hadn’t let on. Maybe he had noticed us arriving in a private car with a chauffeur. Or maybe he was used to teenagers with plenty of cash showing up looking for exotic pets.

  He dutifully typed her number into his phone. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Holly,” Summer lied, not wanting to give out her real name.

  Rick dutifully entered that into his phone as well, indicating that he didn’t recognize Summer after all. “Here’s how it works,” he explained. “I’ll call you when the shipment has arrived and set up a time for you to come back and get your snake. All sales are in cash—but with every purchase of an exotic from me, you get three free frodents. Also, I’ll give you the proper paperwork, in case anyone starts asking questions, proving that this is all on the up-and-up.”

  “Is there a chance it’s not?” Summer asked suspiciously.

  “Of course not!” Rick said quickly. “But there are various agencies out there who police the illegal reptile trade, and in case one of them comes snooping around, you just show them the documentation, okay?”

  “Okay,” Summer agreed.

  “Then we’ve got a deal. Now, I hate to rush a good customer like you, but I’ve got to prep lunch for the lion. So if you don’t mind…” Rick opened the door that led back into the makeshift zoo.

  Summer and I stepped back outside.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” Rick said. “I’ll be in touch.” Then he shut the door behind us.

  In the petting zoo, another child had lost her party hat to the llama.

  Summer gave me a wide-eyed look. “Can you believe that guy? He just sold me a freaking cobra!”