Guy Smith - Snakes

SUDDENLY THE child began to scream, piercing shrieks of terror that died down to shaking sobs, clutching at his mother so that his tiny ringers pinched her skin agonisingly through her flimsy summer dress.

Veronica Jones grimaced in the deep green gloom of the reptile house, had to check herself from giving her five-year-old son one of her habitual cuffs across his head. She held him to her, closed her eyes momentarily, a human ostrich trying to hide her embarrassment from the ghostly white faces that turned in her direction. Trust the little sod to start playing up. You squandered a sizeable chunk of the weekly family allowance to give him a treat and this was how he repaid you. Outside he had complained of the heat incessantly, and shown more interest in playing with the gravel on the paths than looking at the zoo animals, not that there were many on show because the bloody place was closing down at the end of the week and the owners appeared to have got rid of a lot of the exhibits already. Conning you right up to the end, the money grabbers. And now Ian was frightened of the snakes.

'It's ... all right,' she muttered and forced her eyes open.

'I'm frightened, Mam.'

'There's nothing to be frightened of.' she replied, hoping her tone was reassuring, but she could not keep her annoyance out of it. 'The snakes are all in glass cages. They can't get at you.' At least, I hope they can't.

'That one .. .' the boy pointed to a large glass exhibit case with a shaking hand. 'He wants to kill me.'

'Don't be so stupid,' she hissed, the way an angry snake might hiss, 'it...' her voice died away and she felt the sweat on her body turning cold, a clammy invisible hand stroking her, sliding up and down her the way that creature in the cage might do if it got out, A slimy reptile, revolting in every aspect. And deadly.

Veronica tried to pull herself together. It was the heat that was affecting her just like it had upset Ian. Hell, it was hot outside but it was like a blast furnace in here. No air-conditioning, the lighting just a dim green glow designed to make these reptiles doubly sinister. All part of the creep show, like the spook house at the funfair. An extra quid to go in the snake house, half-price for children and we'll guarantee to scare the shit out of them so that neither you nor they will get any sleep tonight. You'll have to have the little boy in your bed tonight, ma'am, after he's seen what we've got in store for him.

'I want to go home, Mam.'

'You'll get a clip round the ear in a minute,' she breathed. 'I can see that I've wasted my money on you, but I'm going to have my money's worth. So shut your eyes and hang on to me if you don't want to look.'

She was aware that he was trembling, shaking with sheer terror, afraid to cry out loud in case she hit him. 'You start blarting and see what you get,' she warned. 'Now, hold on to my hand and let's have no more of this nonsense.'

Veronica Jones wanted to move on, a quick glance at each cage as she passed just to satisfy her own conscience. No more than a cursory glimpse and then back outside into the heat of a summer's day. Except that the crowd in here seemed to have swelled, a crush of bodies hemming her in. You aren't going anywhere, lady. You can't escape as easily as that. You've got to stay and look.

She almost screamed, 'For God's sake let me out,' but she realised the futility of it. Nobody was interested in her, they didn't give a damn whether she lived or died. Just faceless shapes that were supposed to be people, aliens in a reptile den. Everybody just staring, gloating at the hideous things on the other side of the glass. Somebody was tapping on the front of a case, stabbing a finger at the hideous thing only a quarter of an inch away. You can't get at me, you bugger. You'll stop in there till you die. Go on, try and bite me. Go on!

It was the same snake that had scared Ian. Veronica stared at the toad-like head, the large unblinking eyes, features that might have been left unchanged over a million years. Coiled, motionless, you didn't even know if it saw you, knew you were there. It could even have been dead. 'It's a bloody stuffed one,' someone said, but nobody laughed. Veronica felt the watchers move back half a pace; a man trod on her toe and it hurt but she stopped her self from crying out aloud. Don't make a noise, it might hear you. And it might get out.

She found herself reading the illuminated notice below the aquarium-type cage. She read the printed words because for some reason she wanted to know just what kind of creature it was that remained motionless and scared you to hell.

RUSSELL'S VIPER. One of the most feared snakes of India, Burma and Thailand. Its bite is usually fatal, but its venom is sometimes used in medication.

Ugh! Veronica Jones hoped that she had never had any injected into her. You couldn't trust doctors these days, they got up to all sorts of tricks. That snake ought never to have been brought back to England, it should've been left in peace in India or wherever they'd got it. There should be a ban on importing such things. It moved!

At least, she thought it did, although it could have been just her own start of fright. Everybody seemed to move back another half-pace and a clumsy shoe scraped the side of her sandalled foot again. Faces still staring, an entire audience hypnotised by that viper in its pseudo-jungle of no more than a cubic metre. Watching it intently, basking in their terror, though logically it could not get at them. All the same, the finger-poking jibes had stopped, the reptile's tormentor standing well back from the glass. He was scared too.

And then its jaws opened, a reptilian cavern of sheer evil; the watchers felt its hate for them as if a dragon had breathed angry fire. Those glassy eyes fixed them, searched out every single one of them without so much as a blink or a movement of that squat head. A loathsome creature that loathed its captors with a malevolence that even plate glass could not shut in. You felt the sheer power of the viper, felt it turning your lathered sweat to an icy chill, drying out your mouth and weakening your legs, huddling you together; silent mass panic that made you incapable of flight. And if it got out then you wouldn't be able to do a damned thing to protect yourself.

The Russell's viper's spell might have lasted a second or an hour. Veronica was aware of the others pressed up against her, of Ian pinching her flesh in his infantile terror but she made no move to push him away. Greenish silhouettes all around that might have been statues in some underground temple of snake worship. Bow before your lord and master and beg of him forgiveness and mercy.

The snake's eyes were closed and suddenly everybody was moving, just a flexing of cramped limbs, turning one way, then another, as though they had become so disorientated that they had forgotten in which direction the exit lay.

The atmosphere was heavy with the sour smell of human sweat. The tension had built up to a peak; it might have blown but instead it had subsided. You knew it was still there, though, and you wanted to get the hell out of here before something happened.

'Mam, I want to go home.' A distant muffled familiar cry. She didn't want to hit her bastard son any more; suddenly she wanted to protect him, to shield him from this illogical evil. She thought for a moment that she might cry.

'They're nasty things in cages.' She wished her whispers didn't echo, didn't quaver. 'Shut your eyes and think of something else. We'll be outside in a minute.'

The queue had bottlenecked. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry any more. More glass cages, all lit with that same eerie glow. The horror show isn't over yet, folks.

Oh, Jesus Christ, get a move on! Veronica stole a sideways glance, breathed her relief aloud. This case was empty, thank God. The thick glass acted like a mirror, threw her own reflection back at her.