Pattern for Panic

by Richard S. Prather

  I should have thought of my torn pants and the rest myself. He must have known all the time. But I had to keep pretending he was wrong.

  He left for a moment and Monique walked over to me, bent down with her face near mine. “We have our turn, Shell,” she said.

  “I've told that madman everything I know."

  She smiled. She still looked lovely, and even now I couldn't hate her. I couldn't understand her, and maybe that was part of it. If I ever understood her completely, I might hate her.

  She said, “He doesn't think so. I don't either, Shell. He says you're very strong—and foolish. But you know, don't you, that there are snakes here at the Center? You know what he uses them for, don't you? They're his pets, like other men have dogs for pets."

  I felt a slow, rippling shiver in my belly, in my groin. This was a different kind of torture, not pain, but an anguish of the brain. I remembered General Lopez telling me of dead men found lying in the hills, the two little punctures in their skin, the venom in their blood. I could hear again his deep voice saying, “—perhaps others have not been found, and only their bones now lie against the ground—"

  Villamantes stepped close to me and there was a sudden sharp pain in my arm. I jerked away, saw light gleam on the hypodermic syringe in his hand. “You bastard,” I said thickly. “You lousy Communist sonofabitch, you psychotic pile of—"

  He smiled. “You don't understand, it won't hurt you. It's to make you feel better, give you strength."

  “Sure."

  Monique touched my shoulder. “It's true, Shell. It's a stimulant. You'll feel better, stronger. It will make all your senses sharper, your mind clearer."

  I rubbed my arm, felt the puffy blisters there where I'd been burned. I waited, wondering if cramps would grip my belly, but nothing happened. In a few minutes I was actually feeling stronger, my mind clear.

  Villamantes went into his office, came out and left the door standing open, carrying something in his hands. It was the glass-walled box, snakes moving inside it. I thought I knew now why I'd been given a stimulant, why they wanted my senses sharp again. Villamantes thrust the box at my face and involuntarily I shrank back, turning my head.

  Villamantes laughed, the first time I'd heard him laugh. “Now you will tell us where the girl is. That is the last thing, Mr. Scott. Then you can rest."

  “I told you I don't know. I don't know anything about her.” My voice was thin.

  “Can you stand up?"

  “Hell, yes, I can stand up.” I got up, not feeling too weak, but pain jumping in my body. Three men stood near me; one held a gun in his hand. Villamantes walked by his open office door and ten feet beyond it to the other door I'd seen when I'd first been dragged into this big room. He opened the door and waited by it as men pushed me forward. Inside, steps led downward into darkness.

  “This was once a church, this building, Mr. Scott. Beneath us is what you might call a tomb, a catacomb, where long ago dead priests and holy men were placed when they had died. Their mummies are still there. It is a most unpleasant place, cold and damp. But fine for snakes.” He laughed again.

  They took me down the steps. The darkness was black, almost palpable below, and the air was chilly and moist. Someone brought a lantern and in its red glow I could see the silent, dried brown figures that lined the wall: mummies with skin like parchment, brown bony hands folded, faces blank and withered. The men held me, bound my hands and feet, placed me on my back on the damp earth. Then all left but Villamantes.

  In the light from the lantern on the ground, his face looked distorted, shadows slanting upward above his cheeks and between his eyes. He left and came back with the glass-faced box; I could see writhing movement in its shadows.

  He held the box near my face and shook it as the hissing, rattling sound grew in my ears and mind. One snake struck at the glass, fangs clicking against it, and twin streams of orange-colored venom slid slowly down inside the glass like tiny snakes themselves.

  “Spare yourself this, Mr. Scott,” he said. “Observe.” He put his hand at the top of the box, pulled gently and the glass wall slid upwards a quarter of an inch. I almost shouted at him to stop. “Observe,” he said, “how simple to release the snakes all around you. One man placed here went mad before he died. So tell me now where the girl is, and you will be spared this."

  I couldn't believe he would kill me until he knew he had all that he wanted from me. I couldn't believe he'd actually go through with it, couldn't believe that he would leave those ghastly things free in this tomblike place to slither into corners and wait for any other who might come down here. I shook my head.

  He stared at me solemnly, then turned the flame of the lantern out. The last thing I saw before complete darkness fell was light glimmering on the glass face of the box.

  I heard him moving in the blackness and finally I heard the other sound close by me. It was the sliding as of wood rubbing, as if he were lifting that glass wall of the box to let the ugly things crawl forth upon the ground. I heard his footsteps rapid on the steps, then light flashed briefly as he opened the door above me and slammed it shut—and something stirred, moved near me, before blackness enveloped me again.

  I held my body motionless, my mind shocked. I told myself that this was only mental torture, a psychological technique to soften me up and make me talk; that Monique had told Villamantes of what I had done to her, and planted the idea in his brain that this was the way to make me break, turn back on me the treatment I had given her.

  But I heard, or thought I heard, the soft, slithering sound of snakes crawling, gliding nearer me over the cold ground, feeling for the warmth of my body. I strained my ears, tried to peer motionless through the darkness, my eyes the only part of me that moved. I thought I heard that sound again and I couldn't stop the ripple of movement on my spine, tension growing in me until I wanted to shout.

  And then I felt a touch, a faint, cold touch upon my skin.

  I held my breath—and then I knew. I felt the touch again, felt the thing crawl upon my skin, the slow, ugly, sinuous movement of a snake that glided upon me. My mind seemed to freeze inside my skull, like the horror that had been behind Amador's dying eyes—then there was another ugly crawling thing upon my naked flesh, and then another and another as I bit my lips until I tasted blood. The blackness all around me writhed and boiled as cold seeped deeper into my bones. Cold, rancid sweat oozed from my body like poison, mingled with the touch of the snakes’ bodies, became a slime mat covered my skin.

  I could see again that vision from my dream, my nightmare, the great, ugly brain pulsing; and it seemed as if that vision roiled my brain, and that my own brain moved, pulsed, as that great snakelike brain had pulsed.

  I lay for minutes or hours, my thoughts frozen, and then suddenly light flashed against my eyes, blinded me. I couldn't move or think. As if still in a nightmare I saw the light float closer, held in his hand, Villamantes’ hand, and then my arms and legs were free and other hands dragged me to my feet and pulled me forward. My bare foot pressed against something that squirmed beneath it and I leaped toward the light, crying out.

  In the big room, faces were a blur around me. Villamantes’ lips were moving as he spoke softly to me: Buff, the girl. Or did I want his pets to crawl on me again? At first I couldn't understand what he was talking about. Then a little of the blankness in my mind dissolved, thoughts moving slowly.

  “The girl?” I said. “Buff?” My voice was thin and weak. “You've found her?"

  He seemed to be quiet for a long time. Then he said, easily, “Yes, Mr. Scott. We have found the girl. So there is no further need to worry. We found her where you left her."

  “In Tlaxpacin? She's—is she all right?"

  “Of course, Mr. Scott. We found her there in the home of—” He paused, waiting.

  “Home?” I said. “No, the little hut near—” I stopped. The thought of Buff, of General Lopez, of writhing snakes, twisted together in my mind. I remembered General Lopez
, remembered that he would soon be here, and truly believed it as I stared at Villamantes.

  “Near what, Mr. Scott?” he said.

  Finally the alarm rang in my brain, faintly, but enough. I held my tongue. He spoke again, questioned me; but I refused to say any more.

  I saw him turn, speak, saw others leave me room. There was movement, but it had no significance. It didn't yet mean anything to me. Someone put a chair behind me and I sat down, and finally, after long minutes, I separated the blurs into recognizable figures. Monique and Villamantes were together. Others walked around the big room. The door to the place below where I had been was closed; near it on the floor I saw the ugly cage, snakes writhing behind the glass, two thin threads of venom still glistening on its inner side. Revulsion was my only emotion for a while; then slowly it was replaced by disbelief and wonder.

  I had heard Villamantes slide the glass door up, release the snakes. And there could be no doubt that snakes had crawled upon me, on my stomach and thighs and throat. But these were still inside the box, not slithering in darkness down below.

  Villamantes walked toward me. “How are you now, Mr. Scott? Do you like my pets?"

  “The snakes,” I said. “I thought—"

  “My pets are still below,” he said. “And they were real enough. But harmless things.” He turned, walked to the door and went down the steps. He came back in a moment with a black thing wriggling in his hand. “You see?” he said. Then he flipped his arm forward, threw the snake at me.

  I yelled and jumped without thinking, sprawled from the chair and landed on my hands and knees, pain shooting through my left wrist and shoulder. Villamantes laughed gleefully as the snake wriggled away over the floor. I got to my feet as Villamantes stepped closer.

  “You were very difficult,” he said. “I almost believed you were never going to tell us enough. But we are through with you now, Mr. Scott."

  I knew what that meant. I had nothing else to tell him, so there wasn't any reason to keep me alive. I wondered if he'd kill me like the others, with the snakes—the rattlesnakes this time, the ones in the box on the floor. I thought again of General Lopez. At least there was a chance that he'd get here in time.

  Villamantes was watching me. He said, “You know of course how we found you, don't you?"

  I remembered the Plymouth, the truck. “I think so."

  “It was the car, of course. When Monique and her driver failed to arrive with Emilio's reports, the logical deduction was not too difficult. I reasoned that whoever had upset my plans—you, as it turned out, and as I had reason to suspect—might be driving the car. It was, at least, a possibility I could not overlook."

  He smiled. “But how did it happen that we found you near the service station in Tlaxpacin? There was much noise there, señor. The sounds of pumps, men shouting, asking and answering questions. Or so the General's maid told me when she phoned. Your General is not coming, Mr. Scott."

  Chapter Nineteen

  For a moment I wouldn't let myself believe him. Then I realized it must be true. And I understood, finally, that I had told Villamantes enough so he could easily find Buff. Now he knew every bit of it. And the maid had, after all, been one of Villamantes’ plants—General Lopez would never even know I'd phoned him. The thread had been thin all day; I'd almost lost it before; finally it had broken. I felt washed out, empty. But in me a small hot core of anger fluttered, grew.

  He said, “You were stupid even to oppose me, Mr. Scott. You should have known you had no chance from the beginning. We have organization, strength—"

  I cut him off, swearing filthily at him, the anger bubbling inside me. I had killed men—even wanted to kill men—before, but that had always been in sudden passion, fighting, or when they had been trying to kill me. Now, though, simply standing here and looking at Villamantes, I wanted to kill him, murder him. I looked around. There were at least ten men in the big room, most of them armed. Even Villamantes had a gun under his coat. But he was several feet from me. On my left a man stood near the open door to Villamantes’ office, a big automatic dangling in his hand. Near me, against the wall, the snakes moved silently behind their wall of glass.

  I held my breath, my mind swinging slowly from one thought to the next. I knew I couldn't get out of here, much less completely away. But my mind was racing faster, grabbing at every hope. I was as good as dead already, so anything I might try, anything at all, was better than simply waiting to be killed.

  I turned to Villamantes and started swearing at him again. I called him mad, insane, depraved. I called him a woman, a stupid man. And while I talked I put my hands in front of me, pain flickering through my sprained left arm and shoulder. I pressed my hands together, wincing as torn muscles pulled in my flesh. I'd have to chance it anyway.

  I said, “Villamantes, you stinking sonofabitch, nobody but a completely crazy man would have stuck me down there with those snakes—"

  “It was effective."

  His face showed a growing anger. He hadn't seemed to mind before when I had sworn at him dully, but I'd pulled out all the stops this time.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It worked, up to a point, but it backfired, too. I'm not afraid of them now. Not even the real ones.” I pointed at the box, three yards away on the floor. And I was lying in my teeth. But I kept it out of my voice. “Hell, you sonofabitch,” I said. “I'm a snake charmer from here on in. I eat the things. I bite off their heads.” I made the first step then, and every nerve in my body jumped and jangled. I stepped toward the box, and kept the words squirting out. “I can kiss the ugly things—"

  That was at my second step and Villamantes woke up. He shouted something in Spanish and from the corner of my eye I saw him leaping toward me. I jumped forward, bent toward the box and got my right hand curled around its side, my left palm pressing the other corner as pain ripped up my arm. I squeezed my hands together, heard Villamantes shouting as he rushed toward me, and I whirled, swinging the box around with all my strength.

  I heard a shot crack out somewhere in the room and then all I could see was Villamantes’ contorted features a yard from me, and I kept spinning, shoved the box squarely at him, and heard him scream as it crashed, splintering, into his face.

  I whirled, sprinted toward the man near the open door to Villamantes’ office. He was staring past me, his mouth open, but in that instant he jumped backward, flipping up his gun. He fired once, the bullet burning across my hip, then I crashed into him, my right hand grabbing, fingers curling around the barrel of the automatic. I twisted the barrel away from him, drove my knee between his legs and jumped past him, clutching the gun, as two shots cracked in quick succession behind me.

  The open door was right in front of me. I jumped through it, whirled around and started to slam the door with my gun-weighted fist. I caught a brief glimpse of the big room, snakes squirming on the floor and men running. But one of the flat-faced indios was looming in the doorway, empty hands reaching for me.

  He crashed against me, spinning me around, and then his momentum carried him past me into the office. I shoved my shoulder against the door, slammed it shut and banged the bolt home as the indio leaped on my back. His arms whipped around my throat and I bent forward, trying to throw him over my head, but he grimly clung on. I fell to my knees, trying to protect my left arm, and the gun slipped from my fingers.

  His legs wrapped around my waist, the arm cut into my neck, and spots started to whirl before my eyes as I strained forward toward the gun. My fingers touched it, slid along it. I got my hand around it, my finger on the trigger as a roaring grew in my skull. I pressed the gun flat against my side, its muzzle pointing toward the man behind me and pulled the trigger.

  The gun boomed and he jerked violently. Slowly his arms relaxed; I heard him gasp, then heard the sound of his body hitting the floor. I struggled to my feet and looked down at him. He was alive, his hands pressed against his side, blood welling between his fingers. I jumped to the phone, jerked it from the receiver and
let it clatter on the desk top while I dialed General Lopez’ number. A weight crashed against the door. I put the phone to my ear, the automatic in my right hand. There was another bang at the door and I fired through the wood. Somebody yelled outside. The indio's voice rattled in his throat. He coughed, moaned.

  The phone buzzed in my ear. I was sweating. Then there was a voice. A man's voice. "Bueno?"

  It sounded like something from another world, that casual "Bueno?" I shouted, “General Lopez?"

  "Sí. Aí, my ear, it—"

  “Shut up. This is Scott, Shell Scott. I'm at the Center, El Centre."

  “The Center? What is—"

  “Shut up Sand listen! I'm five kilometers past Tlaxpacin, dirt road to the right leads to the Center. Culebra is here. Villamantes.” There was another bang at the door; it moved inward perceptibly. I slammed a shot through it and the General chattered in my ear.

  “For God's sake,” I yelled, “get out here. Bring a cannon, anything. Ten-foot wall around the place. Wooden gate. You hear me?"

  “Sí, but—"

  “Listen, it took me nearly an hour to get here. But coming fast you can make it in half that, even less. These bastards are gonna kill everybody—"

  “But I must get help."

  “Get anybody, but hurry."

  His voice got brisk, businesslike. “Sí, I understand. I come."

  I said, “General, there is a girl in Tlaxpacin. She's—General!” The line was dead. He hadn't heard what I'd started to say about Buff—but he could hardly have reached her soon enough, anyway. I jiggled the receiver. There was no sound from the phone; the line had been cut.

  I wondered why there had been no further attempt to force the door. Then I remembered the snakes. A dozen or more deadly snakes were squirming around out there. The men would have to get them out of the way or killed before they could move around with any freedom. That would help. Every minute helped.

  I checked the automatic, took out the magazine. Two cartridges in it, one in the barrel chamber. Three shots left. I went to the indio. He was dead. There wasn't any weapon on him, and there were none in the room. I saw the coiled-snake statue, slammed it against the wall and shattered the obscene thing into bits. Then I shoved the desk against the door and waited.