Randy White - Haunted

He called me the foulest of names while I winced, expecting to be slapped again. He didn’t, but banged me against a stack of terrariums, then forced me to the floor. Behind my ears, a sizzling hum of rattles warned that only glass separated me from the snakes within. I didn’t turn to look. Nor could I stomach the craziness in Theo’s eyes. So I continued staring at the floor until he finished his rant.

It took a while. He raged about the chimps, alternating between anger and his eagerness to dodge blame. Oliver was thirty years old, Savvy was a younger female, but both could outsmart the electric collars they always wore. It wasn’t Theo’s fault. “Accidents” happened.

“People underestimate their intelligence. Not me. Oliver helped me with math homework up to about third grade-oh, he’s brilliant in many ways. Do the research: a Bondo’s short-term memory is off the charts compared to humans. Same with chimps. Their analytical skill, in some areas, is far superior. And their eyesight, their sense of smell-my god, Oliver’s nose is as good as any bloodhound’s.” Theo squatted in front of me to ask, “Do you know what the real difference is between them and us?”

My anger got the best of me. “I don’t kill and eat children. I’d prefer not to guess about you.”

He rocketed to his feet. “That’s disgusting. I won’t tolerate it. You don’t know what the word loyalty means, do you?” The subject seemed to flip a switch in his head. Tears began to well. “Ollie practically raised me after Mother died. Fed me with a spoon until I was old enough to feed him. Every day, we played together. Slept together, even swam and took baths together. Twenty-seven years we’ve been like brothers. Our father never gave a shit. Oliver was the first person ever to stand up to that old bastard- finally . Now you expect me to turn him over to the cops?”

I didn’t trust myself to speak. Our father? But Theo’s tears scared me more than his craziness and threats. I didn’t look forward to dealing with Lucia but was hoping she would come into the room.

“Think about it!” Theo yelled and began to pace. Soon his mood took another sharp turn. As he paced, he talked about how misunderstood he was and said abusive things about me and “Bertie.” If I really was a descendant of Sarah and Hannah Smith, they had to be white trash. Then he became a tour guide. I had to sit there while he went on and on about snakes and how important his work was to medical science.

Finally he wheeled around as if to leave but had to stop one last time and say, “This is all your fault. Finding that canoe, then the girl-I didn’t ask you to come here. So don’t blame me for what happens next.”

He left, slammed the door, fiddled with a padlock outside and jammed the dead bolt to seal me in.

I felt like bawling. My hands were bound behind me with plastic-coated wire called a tie wrap. My ankles were joined with two loops of the stuff so, even if I managed to get to my feet, I would have to take short shuffling steps to walk. Theo had found my cell phone, too, while Carmelo went through my pockets-just thinking about the incident made me cringe. The way his hands had lingered, Carmelo’s sickening leer while his fingers explored my blouse. This was after he had slapped me, but it was the humiliation of his hands on me that had finally caused a meltdown of tears.

I was too mad to cry now. Escape and contact the police-that’s what I had to do. Even so, my mind wandered to my stolen backpack.

Who took it?

Then moved on to the pistol, a chrome-plated weight in my imagination but steady in both hands when I squeezed the trigger.

Three times I pictured myself firing yet couldn’t decide Who will I shoot first?

As if wearing clogs, I shuffled around the room searching for a way out. Old 1960s fixtures dated the construction. On a desk was a modern touch: two large computer screens monitored a dozen cameras around the property.

Every ten seconds the checkerboard images changed. The parking area, with the old Land Rover Theo had mentioned, a couple of other cars there, but no sign of the camper or my SUV. An interior shot of a withered little man sleeping in a rocker, a blanket tucked around his shoulders-Theo’s father, I assumed-sitting motionless as a painting while an antique TV set flickered. Next, three shots from what had to be Theo’s apartment. Theo hadn’t returned to his party yet, but I recognized some of the people. A voyeur’s view of the bathroom, where a girl sat on the toilet, her zebra-striped tights at her feet-it was Krissie’s friend, Gail, in her outlandish costume. In the kitchen, Lucia held a bamboo tube and tilted it toward the face of one of her witch friends.

I had to wait for the images to cycle to see why: now Lucia had her lips on the tube and appeared to blow powder up the woman’s nose, the overweight witch reeling back as if stunned. Soundless laughter-no audio-which made it appear as if it was all happening underwater.

I moved away and continued to search. All around me were terrariums and shelves of acrylic trays that contained snakes. More than a hundred pit vipers, Theo had bragged. Diamondbacks and pigmy rattlers, bushmasters, moccasins and copperheads. Banded kraits and cobras were spaced along the far wall. As I passed by, a cobra flattened its head in warning and watched me with satanic eyes.

The prize specimens, though, were two dozen coral snakes that shared a terrarium in the center of the room. Nearby was a milking table. I shuffled over for a closer look, but not too close-if I fell, I would crash face-first because my hands were behind me. Mounted on the glass was a plaque. It bore an inscription which I had to scrunch down to read:

In Memory of My Loving Mother

Lydia Rom Slew

Artist, Actress, Showman, Historian,

&

Descendant of Egyptian Queens

Theo, even when not in the room, had something to say. The serpentarium had been named for his mother, who, before dying of snakebite, had passed down her interests to her son, along with her out-of-control ego.

Egyptian royalty. Bizarre. But her middle name, Rom, tugged at a recent memory-something Birdy had said regarding Gypsies.

It didn’t matter.

My attention shifted to the coral snakes. Their bodies were slim, a couple of feet long, with skin as colorful as jelly beans-red and black segments separated by yellow in Life Savers bands. Under any other circumstances, I would have marveled at their beauty. Now, though, I only considered their possible usefulness.

I’m not terrified of snakes, but I avoid them and have never had the desire to handle a venomous reptile. If I had to , though, I would choose a coral snake. Only once had I seen one in the wild-actually, it was under my mother’s house. The snake had been so docile, it was no surprise when I’d read that corals seldom coil and strike. The few people bitten usually made the mistake of surprising them or handling them roughly. A dangerous mistake because their tiny fangs inject a neurotoxin far more powerful than any snake in North America. Slow-acting-almost a full day before the human nervous system shuts down-but deadly.

“It takes two years and fifty thousand milkings to produce a pint of venom,” Theo had claimed. “And if bite victims don’t get antivenom within twenty-four hours, they die. Any wonder why I’m a rich man?”

A deranged egocentric, more like it. It was weird to be in this space while, at the same time, Theo appeared on one of the computer screens and reached for the bamboo tube Lucia had offered.