Randy White - Dead of Night

“Why? I helped you.” “Because you’re right-I’m a pro. I think you’re a bad actress with an angle. I think you taped your own legs. And if I’m wrong-”

I pushed the door wider, looked out: a rock pit that was gymnasium-sized, mossy coral walls, panes of shattered Plexiglas, retainer screening above ripped away.

“-Lady, if I’m wrong, I hope you have better luck than Frieda. Or Jobe Applebee.”

I took a moment to confirm that the door’s lock was not the sort that latched automatically. Then stepped into the pit.

The quarry floor was coral chips and ferns. Banana thickets and birds-of-paradise created scattered domes of shade. Otherwise, it was a rock crater with walls fifteen to twenty feet high, open to the sky now that the overhead screen had been torn away.

The walls were vertical. There were calcium remains of limpets, brain corals, sea fans, vertebrates-evolution etched in limestone. They’d mined the stuff in blocks, so the walls were scarred with ridges where seeds of ficus and fern had rooted. There were cascading vines with umbrella-sized leaves.

Along the wall to my left were shelves of wooden cages of varying size, some as big as small rooms. Each had a door or lid, usually Plexiglas. Most of the doors were open.

Nearby was an enclosed cement circle, and a laboratory table, not unlike the table in my lab. Beneath a roof of corrugated plastic was an industrial-grade incubator, heating tubes suspended above.

This was a place to hatch crawling creatures. A safe place to extract venom.

A serpentarium.

There were also larger enclosures made of wood and wire mesh. Tire swings hanging from chains; rotting banana peels on rock floor.

Monkeys. They’d been freed, too.

The woman hadn’t lied, as I’d suspected. I’d ignored her warning, and now I’d have to deal with it. It gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.

The incubator was operational. A light was blinking near a row of gauges. I got close enough to see that, beneath the incubator’s opaque cover, were hundreds of eggs in open cartons.

Some reptiles are protective of their nest. They use their tongues to wind-track eggs if they’ve been moved. This was not a place to linger.

I walked to my right. Vines grew sunward on pitted rock. They looked strong enough to hold a man’s weight, and there were crevices for feet and fingers. I had to find a way out of the quarry, or soon face Ox-man, the Russian. Him and his rifle. Maybe him, his rifle, and the woman, too.

Or worse.

I reached, grabbed a vine, feeling its triangular edges, and began to pull myself up the wall, hand over hand. Got a few feet off the ground when the vine snapped. I landed butt-hard on gravel, dust and leaves raining down.

Got to my feet, all senses firing. Stepped toward a neighboring vine. I was reaching to get a grip when I noticed a shadow moving through the high foilage. Stood for a moment, then backed away.

Something alive was up there. It appeared as a descending darkness, thick as a man’s wrist, augering downward at a speed that created a barber-pole illusion. A wall of elephant’s ear leaves, from quarry lip to floor, rustled incrementally, syncronized with the shadow’s slow uncoiling. The expanse of trembling leaves suggested the shadow’s size. Twice as long as I am tall. Longer.

In a pool of sunlight, I got a glimpse: green scales flexing as muscle undulated. A single black eye in a head the size of my fist.

I became a statue, temples thumping.

Ahead and to my left, there was unrelated activity. A second shadow, rustling. Ferns in the area were knee-high. I watched ferns parting in a pattern of serpentine switch-backs as something vectored toward me, ground level.

For an instant, an image of the woman came to mind. Crawling after me over tile.

I began retreating, eyes shifting from vines to moving ferns, until I reached the metal door. Searched blindly. Finally touched its handle. Tested. Felt the door begin to open. Second option, confirmed.

My choices: snakes at feeding time, Russian with a gun.

I’d shifted into crisis mode; began projecting, then rejecting, a rapid list of alternatives. My eyes drifted to the incubator. Paused. Remembered the words of an African friend: “They get aggressive. Deadly mean, if you’re near their nest.”

I touched the door again. Not much of an escape route. But all I had.

I hurried past the cages to the incubator. Opened the lid… then froze.

Shit.

A few paces away, a cobra sprouted from the ferns, skull ribs flattening its head like a mummy’s cowling, black eyes lasering. It leaned toward me, unhinged its mouth wide, and exhaled. There was a stink of rodents. Hiss does not describe the sound.

The snake’s swaying head was chest-high. Ten or twelve feet of reptile. A king cobra.

It was aware of me; unimpressed.

In the banana thickets, other reptiles were stirring. On the quarry’s far wall, I noticed snakes exiting crevices. Beyond the swaying cobra, ferns had become animated.

My body remained motionless as my hand moved. It reached without looking and found a carton of eggs. Felt to make certain the carton was full, took it. I began to back away, slowly at first, then turned to run… but stopped. Froze once again.

To my right, shadow had touched earth. A hatchet-sized head lifted off gravel, tongue-testing the molecular content of air, a yard of its lichen-colored body visible. It was an African mamba, the genetic model of ascendency. I looked up. Saw its tail twitching twelve feet above among vines on the quarry wall.

The snake’s head turreted in slow assessment. Swept past me. Paused. Turreted back. Paused once again, tongue probing for specifics. Head lifted another few inches, dusty eyes vague above zombie-stitched lips.

A mammalian heart was beating.

Mine.

Behind me, near the top of the quarry, I heard a sudden thrashing among leaves; heard the gunshot crack of a tree limb breaking, then a shriek. I looked up in time to see a dark shape falling toward me. I thought it was a man, at first, because of the flailing arms.

The Russian?

I jumped and ducked, covering my head. Jumped again when it landed face-first a few yards away. The sound of a primate’s body impacting on earth is distinctive. A cavity containing lungs is percussive.

A gorilla?

The animal was the size of a teenager, big-shouldered, covered with hair. It groaned, stirred. Struggled to get to its knees. Collapsed and rolled, eyes open. It had a black elongated faced, and golden, human eyes.

A chimpanzee.

Its left arm, I noted, was grotesquely swollen. I looked up and saw a gray snake in the tree canopy. A black mamba. Not large.

The chimp groaned once again, head turning as glazed eyes found me. Seemed to focus in recognition-a great sadness to be shared. Lifted its right arm, muscles beginning to spasm, and reached its hand out to me, index finger pointing.

I’ve never felt such a combination of shock and fear. Unconsciously, I leaned toward the chimp, hand extended. Our fingers touched for a moment. Its skin was leathery, warm as my own. The hand fell as the chimpanzee shuddered, grunted, made a rattling sound of exhaustion. I watched its eyes dim, then close.

Dead.

I forced myself to step away, aware that a few more seconds of inattention could be fatal.

The cobra had disappeared among ferns. Where?

The head of the giant mamba was still visible. The rest of its body had arrived at ground level. The snake was moving in my direction.

I pivoted, sprinted, lunged into the doorway.

The woman was sitting, watching as I hurried to the window. She didn’t seem surprised that I’d returned.

Ox-man was life-sized now; he would be opening the door within the next minute. He still held the weapon at combat ready-not an AK-47 but similar. The man was spooked; I could see that, too.