by Guy Adams
He stood up, the rest of the snake hanging from his hand, and looked to the rabbit. It was dead, the venom having done its work. No matter, he had meat enough.
He took a large bite. It was pretty bland, certainly not his favourite, a bit like chewy fish. But it did the job and kept his belly from rumbling all night.
He turned to head back towards the camp then noticed that the grass all around him was on the move.
“You been sneaking up on me?” he asked, though of what he could not yet tell.
He backed away, the night suddenly filling with the distinctive rattle of many more snakes.
“How many are you?” he wondered before a host of heads poked from the grass around him and he turned to run.
“THE SNAKES WERE always a problem,” said George, taking a sip of his drink. “I don’t know why there are so many of them around here, but it was a fool who went to bed without checking underneath the blanket. The scaly bastards just love it around here. They breed at the creek, nests of them building over the years until it got so that they were a fixture.
“’Tweren’t such a big deal; snakes are vicious little bastards, but they’re easily scared. You just had to be careful. We’d kill ’em and dump ’em, or spice the cooking pot with ’em. They avoided the town, for the most part. Snakes don’t like people, as I say. You’d get a few, but it was nothing we couldn’t deal with.
“Then they changed.”
He took another mouthful of his drink, rubbing his finger around the rim of the glass, trying to be casual but failing.
“They always come at night. You’d step out on the porch and the sound of their goddamn rattles could be heard all over the town. Shine a light on the street and you’d see great rivers of them.”
“But what was attracting them?” asked Hicks.
“Who knows? It weren’t natural. They weren’t behaving right either: they were brave, aggressive. It was like an invasion. They forced their way into shops and houses, attacked people, killed people. It wasn’t an infestation, it was a goddamned attack.
“’Course, we tried everything we could think of. A group of us went up to the creek and burnt the place out. Old Sam Winston even set a bunch of dynamite charges, damming it up so it would run dry, maybe drive them elsewhere. Didn’t make a spit worth of difference. That night the same great shoals of ’em were slithering their way through the town. We dammed up the doors, sealed the windows, whatever we could do to make sure they couldn’t get in.
“It ain’t easy to seal a whole town, though. Pat David ran the stable and livery, woke up one morning to find he didn’t have a single horse left. The snakes had killed every one of them.”
“Surely a horse would just trample the thing?” asked Hicks. “I’ve seen horses spooked by snakes before, but I wouldn’t lay a bet in the snake’s favour if it came to a fight.”
“You ain’t seen what these things are like. Like I say, they’re aggressive. Damn it, they’re intelligent. They go out of their way to attack and kill. It can’t be food they’re after; the day a rattler tries to eat something as big as a man or a horse is the day of the Second goddamn Coming. They just want to kill.”
“And they’re coming here?” said Hope. “Wonderful.”
“Oh, we’ve pretty much got this place covered,” said George. “We seal it up tight as a drum, you’ll be safe enough as long as you keep inside until morning. The snakes leave at first light.”
“Why do you stay?” asked Hicks. “If it were me I think I’d have been one of the first over the town line.”
“I built this place up,” said George. “Took every penny I had. We’ll move on soon, but I guess I keep hoping someone figures out a way of putting a stop to them. I don’t like to abandon everything just because of some bastard serpents.”
Hicks shrugged. “Sometimes it pays to be a travelling man, I guess. When a place gets so it’s not comfortable anymore, you just move on.”
“And what is it you do?” asked George, prompting Hicks to begin his usual spiel about being a messenger from God, spreading The Word.
Hope stopped listening. She’d heard his speechifying often enough. Besides, she was drawn to George’s wife. She acted terrified. The woman had a look on her face that Hope recognised well enough, having seen it on her own mother’s face. It was the look of a woman who had been subdued. A woman that did as she was told, knowing that the consequences of doing otherwise would be too much to bear.
Hope did not trust George.
“YOU AIN’T GOING to believe this,” The Geek shouted, running back into the camp, “but I swear I have a whole damned posse of rattlesnakes on my tail!”
“Probably heard you’ve eaten their Ma and Pa,” said Knee High. “It was only a matter of time before the animals got organised and decided to get rid of you.”
“It ain’t a laughing matter,” The Geek insisted. “I’m telling you there are hundreds of them, and they’re all heading this way.”
“Snakes don’t act like that,” said Toby, offering what he felt was his professional opinion.
Of course, Toby was related to the reptile by stage name only. The skin condition that gave him the look that had, if not earned his fortune, at least kept him fed and watered for most of his life, had come on when he was a kid. His father had taken one look at him and announced, with conviction, ‘That boy just ain’t right, I want him out of the house before the rest of us catch it.’ Such callous parenting had seen Toby on the road and fending for himself before his tenth birthday. Opportunities were slim and kindness rare, as most people seemed to think he had leprosy or some other complaint that they feared they’d pick up. He had been shooed away from homes and businesses and chased out of towns. It was only when he had fallen in with ‘Dr Bliss’ that he had found security.
“You’re ugly as a nine-day old turd,” Lieberwitz had told him, “but I don’t think you’ll do us any harm.”
The opposite had been true: after a little aesthetic alteration (getting Toby so drunk he was virtually comatose, then slitting his tongue with a heated Bowie knife), he had become one of the freak show’s best earners. There had been a period of dissent when Lieberwitz had forced him to eat live rats and The Geek had complained, but once such little battles were won, he had become part of the weird, dysfunctional family. This didn’t mean for one minute that they took his word as gospel.
“What the hell would you know?” asked The Geek. “My dingus is closer to being a snake than you are.”
“He’s right,” said Jones, getting to his feet. “Snakes aren’t aggressive unless you invade their territory. However many you say you saw, I doubt they’ll come within spitting distance of us and the fire.”
“You think that if you like,” The Geek replied, “but I’ve seen the sons of bitches and they are on the rampage.”
Jones held up a hand for silence, cocking his head to one side. “I can hear them,” he said, listening intently, “...and you’re right... there’s one hell of a lot of them...”
“Still, they won’t come through here, will they?” said Harmonium.
“They’re certainly coming this way,” Jones replied. He thought for a moment, his senses stretching out beyond their little camp, screening out the sound of the fire and the breathing of his companions, focusing in on the creatures that moved in the long grass nearby.
“Seriously, Mr Jones,” said The Geek. “I know snakes, you know I do, and these weren’t acting natural. Something’s set them off and they’re riled and heading right for us.”
Jones nodded. “Everybody get in the caravan.”
“Ah, Jesus,” moaned Knee High. “I was just getting comfortable.”
“You can get comfortable in the back of the caravan,” said The Geek. “Pipsqueak like you should be the first running for the hills, you’re barely taller than a rattlesnake’s eyes.”
“Shut your face, you lanky streak of piss!” Knee High retorted, never one to take an insult towards his size. “I’m tal
l enough to kick your ass to hell and back, and you know it.”
“Shut up the both of you,” said Jones, “and get in the damned caravan.”
The evening air was filled with the sound of rattlesnakes, like a hundred angry toddlers advancing on the camp with rattles in their hands.
They gathered up their few belongings, Harmonium whipping them into action while her husband stayed on the edge of the fire’s light, facing sightlessly out into the dimming evening.
“Henry?” she called, climbing up into the driving seat once everyone was aboard.
“They’re here,” he said, turning and running towards the caravan as the line of long grass around them suddenly shook, countless rattlesnakes emerging into the clearing.
“Get moving!” he shouted, jumping up next to her.
The horses had ideas of their own, panicking in their restraints and bolting towards the road.
“Damn you!” she shouted, trying to pull them back as they overshot and plunged into more long grass.
“We’ll shake our damned wheels loose at this rate,” said Jones, pulling out his gun and firing a couple of shots over the horse’s heads. It didn’t startle them into a halt as he had hoped, but with both of them grabbing the reins they managed to yank the creatures back towards the road and town.
“Maybe we’ll spend the night inside after all,” he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIGHT OF THE SERPENTS
ONCE GEORGE HAD finished his story, Hope decided she’d try and get his wife talking. This proved difficult, but Hope Lane was not a woman easily dissuaded.
“How long you been married?” she asked.
If this was an easy question—and certainly Hope had assumed it to be so—Genevieve didn’t agree. It seemed to confuse her terribly.
“Oh,” she said, looking to her husband, “I have such a bad head for dates.” George was talking with Hicks and unable to come to her help.
The woman hugged her child closer to her and looked at Hope with fearful eyes. “I guess it must be a couple of years now. At least.”
Which was interesting, Hope thought, as the child was five if he was a day. She guessed that plenty of people had children out of wedlock—hell, there were sporting girls up and down the country that had borne their fair share—but she found it hard to imagine it happening within this little picture of domestic bliss. She decided to risk questioning her about it:
“Is the boy not yours, then?” she asked.
Genevieve was clearly utterly thrown by that suggestion. “Of course he’s mine,” she said.
“I’m sorry, my mistake,” said Hope. “’Tain’t none of my business anyhow. So how did you and George meet?”
This was another simple question that Genevieve found painful to consider.
“You know how it is,” she said, flustered, “you just end up falling in with someone.”
Hope supposed that could often be the case, but she didn’t believe a word of it.
IF HICKS HAD known of Hope’s misgivings he would have smiled and nodded. If there was one language he spoke fluently, it was bullshit, and he had been listening to it for some time. George was full of excuses and justifications; he was selling a story and Hicks wasn’t buying.
Not that Hicks cared. Whatever George was up to, it didn’t affect him.
“Well,” he said, “if you’re willing to put us up for the night, I’d sure be grateful. I can pay you a fair rate, especially if you’d be willing to throw a meal in.”
“I wouldn’t send you back out there now,” said George. “It wouldn’t be Christian.”
“That’s mighty good to hear, we religious men have to band together.”
George reached for Hicks’ bag. “I’ll take your belongings upstairs and clear out a room for you.”
“That’s fine,” said Hicks, not willing to let his bag out of sight.
Both men had a hold of the heavy satchel and both men tugged.
“You’re carrying quite a burden,” said George, a curious look in his eyes.
“Ain’t we all, brother?” Hicks replied, trying to pull the satchel from the man’s grip.
The bag shook and jangled. George held on.
“The religious business must pay well,” he said, “to hang so heavy on your shoulder.”
“I get by on very little,” Hicks insisted. “The rest is prayer books.”
George stared at him a moment longer, both still holding the bag.
If Hicks’ attention had strayed away from his most important luggage—which it never would—he would have seen that Genevieve was staring at them both, fear in her eyes. He didn’t notice, but Hope did, and she realised that they were brushing against the truth of matters. If she had been able to act on her instincts, what followed might have been avoided. Instead, weighed down with her own baggage, she looked to Soldier Joe, who had sat oblivious through the entire conversation, his eyes glazed, his mouth slack.
“I don’t believe you,” said George and with a speed that Hicks would never have predicted, he snatched the bottle of whisky from the bar table and swung it down against the preacher’s head.
JONES AND HIS wife steered the caravan over the town line, finally able to bring the panicked horses to a controlled stop.
The streets of Serpent’s Creek were as empty as before, but their attention was firmly fixed on the route they had just taken.
“Any sign of them?” Jones asked Harmonium, his head cocked. “I can’t hear them no more.”
“We’ve lost them,” she said. “Whatever was making them act like that, they must have quit now. Maybe there was a fire somewhere, something that drove them all out of their nests in panic.”
“I didn’t smell no fire,” said Jones. “And I have a feeling this ain’t something so easily explained away.”
He thought back to the first time he had heard of Wormwood. Sat by his trailer after a typical day of performing for idiots.
Lieberwitz had picked up a drunk by the name of Alonzo, an ex-performer, so he claimed, down on his luck and happy to earn the price of a meal and place to sleep by doing chores.
“I used to be the talk of the circuit,” he had said, “You never saw a better knife thrower. Alonzo the Armless, they called me.”
Which raised a chuckle from those acts within earshot, given that the man was in clear possession of both his arms.
“Oh, pay these no mind,” he added, waggling said limbs. “I used to bind them up, claimed I’d lost them in the war. Then I’d throw the knives with my feet. It made a better show of it and I was one nimble little bastard. I could split an ant in two from twenty feet.”
Jones hadn’t believed a word of it; the man was all talk. But if Lieberwitz wanted to have him hang around for a few days then that was up to him, Jones would keep his money locked away and his gun close.
“I’d pay to see you try,” someone shouted, but Alonzo just shrugged.
“Can’t do it anymore. My legs ain’t so supple and my eyes are dim. I can still make myself useful, though. Sweeping up, minding the animals, whatever you need.”
Lieberwitz had taken pity on him. There was an unwritten rule on the circuit that you looked after your own, and Alonzo wouldn’t be the first old performer to benefit from shelter at Dr Bliss’s Karnival of Delights.
He had stayed longer than most, filling his days with whatever spare jobs could be found and his nights in a drunken heap.
The distrust Jones had first felt began to wane. Naturally he could never claim to have liked the man (Jones didn’t really like anybody, except for Harmonium), but he grew to respect him a little. Alonzo’s claims of his knife-throwing ability may have been exaggerated, but they weren’t completely fictional, and Jones recognised something of himself in the man. He had a skill for killing that he wasted on matinees.
And Alonzo treated Jones with respect. He complimented him on his skills, asked no questions about his sight and addressed him with reverence rather than the usual badly-dis
guised disgust.
“You’ve got one hell of a hand,” Alonzo told him once. “Reminds me of a gunslinger I used to know when I was young. One hell of a man he was, shot like he was simply pointing his finger. Didn’t seem to be a thing he couldn’t hit. ’Course, like so many of the good old boys, he’s dead now. Lost wherever it is old shootists go.”
“Hell, I imagine,” Jones had replied, never one to fool himself with the notion of divine forgiveness.
“I wonder.” Alonzo had been a little drunk, of course; when was he not? But he was at that hallowed stage between laughter and oblivion, where the liquor made you reflective, opened your head to honest thoughts and considerations before the weight of them saw you drink another gutful and wipe them clean.
“I keep hearing stories of a place called Wormwood,” he said after a moment. “Probably no truth in it, but... well... you hear a thing often enough, from enough different people, and you get to wonder if there might not be something to it.”
“What is it?” Jones had asked, not particularly interested, but content enough to let the man talk. If he was talking, then he wasn’t drinking, and Jones could take his turn on the bottle.
“They say it’s a way of getting into Heaven without having to die first.”
Of course, Jones scoffed at that, but Alonzo paid him no heed, just continued to sit and think, staring up at the stars on that quiet Georgia night.
“Like I said,” the old man continued, “probably no truth in it. Still, the idea of walking into the afterlife and setting up home, well... I like that idea. Ain’t that what we all thought we were doing when we came here? Carving ourselves a slice of the promised land?”
