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length of ash fell from the cigarette between Peter Eversham's lips, powdered
on his shirt. Sweaty hands gripped the gun. Bring it up slowly, don't make a
sudden movement, don't let it even guess what you're going to do. He wondered
what species the snake was, how fast it was capable of moving. Right now it
didn't look to be in any hurry, probably thought it had him for the taking
anyway.
He was trembling so much that he could scarcely draw a bead on the reptile,
the twin barrels quivering, moving from side to side. And still the snake did
not move.
The gun bucked, the heel of the stock hammering against his shoulder because
he held it too loosely. A vivid flash lit up the tiny clearing, forked
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lightning that propelled leaden death, a report that shattered the stillness,
went rolling across the landscape towards Stainforth, its echoes rumbling and
dying when they reached the distant moorland.
The snake slumped forward, a coil of bloodied rope that did not so much as
twitch; pulped, unrecognisable. Harmless.
The gun was still at Peter Eversham's shoulder. He was aware of the pain where
it had kicked him but he ignored it, just stared in disbelief. The patience of
the hunter had paid off; just when you thought nothing was going to show up
your prey emerged. You could never be certain of anything, that was the spice
of hunting, what drove you on just when you had almost given up.
'COMPANY DIRECTOR KILLS TWO OF THE ESCAPED SNAKES' - he saw tomorrow's
newspaper headlines in his imagination, a wad of papers on the desk in his
office. The Sun, Mail, Express, Star. Television interviews, describing how he
went out and lay in wait, lured it with his calling, his expertise, his
knowledge of the ways of the wild. But you'll have to take the dead snake home
to prove it!
His flesh crept and pimpled, a shudder ran right up his spine and into his
scalp beneath the deerstalker hat. Christ, I don't have to touch that thing,
do I? Of course you do. I can't. You must, else they won't believe you and if
you don't take it now you might not find it again. Foxes might come in the
night and eat it. 'COMPANY DIRECTOR KILLS RATTLER, CLAIMS HE SHOT A SECOND' -
Oh, yeah!
He drew on his cigarette, glanced around in the shadows, looking for a couple
of sticks, wondering if somehow he could make a cradle out of them and carry
it at arm's length. Yuk! But you don't often find sticks in the middle of
fields of growing corn. He didn't have a piece of string either with which to
make a loop to drag over it, pull it along behind him. He didn't fancy the
idea, it would be like the creature was pursuing him in the dark, swishing
along behind him. It might not be dead, it might bite!
You're crazy. Just frightened, everybody's entitled to a few fears when it
starts to get dark, aren't they?
He stood up, tried to get his bearings. A landscape of silhouettes in the
gathering dusk, the village on his left, the moors starkly outlined above
them, a mass of deep purple that would merge with the night sky before long
and obliterate everything. And all around him a sea of corn, no distinguishing
features. Christ on a bike, I've got to get the fucking thing home somehow!
It's dead, it can't hurt you. He steeled himself, called on every bit of logic
he could muster in a mind filled with the human revulsion for reptiles, bent
forward and stretched out a hand; make sure you don't touch the head.
It wasn't slimy, sort of dry and rough to the touch, a limp thing that might
have been a perished length of garden hose. Coils of it, he could not even
hazard a guess at its length as he dragged it out of the barley, wondered how
long it would take him to reach the village. As soon as he came to the road he
would drop his burden, leave it there for some other bugger to fetch.
Gun in one hand, a loop of snake in the other, he set off. His progress was
not easy, the corn seeming deliberately to obstruct his passage; once he
tripped on a stone and almost fell, cursed profusely.
And then, without warning, the pain hit him, blinding agony that began in the
calf of his right leg and travelled up his body, had him arching his back,
staggering. Screaming. It was as though every vein were filled with burning
acid, his limbs stretched to breaking point, a fiery haze shimmering before
his eyes like an electric storm lighting up the night. He dropped the dead
snake. It fucking well wasn't dead after all! Oh, Jesus God, it's bitten me!
His brain could not grasp the situation. A lifeless half-coiled reptile
thudded to the ground and in its place was a live vicious serpent, a
multi-coloured assailant that thrashed and struck, a berserk attacker in the
falling darkness, striking, falling back, striking again; pursuing his
shambling movements, hissing its fury.
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Peter Eversham still had the gun, an unfired cartridge in the left barrel. He
tried to bring it round to bear on the snaking shadow but it was too close.
Between his flailing feet, wicked fangs darting upwards. His abdomen seemed to
contract then expand, airborne with the force of the pain, pulling that
trigger in a last gesture of defiance.
He heard the report somewhere beyond the roaring in his agonised brain, the
noise receding, rolling away into the distance. Falling.
He braced himself as the ground came up to meet him, frothing through clenched
teeth, wide-eyed and sightless. Rolling. Now prone, aware of a constant
movement, a sharp needle that injected him repeatedly until his nerves were
numbed and he felt no more. Trying to piece everything together but the
fragmented logic eluded him. A dead snake, so how could it have bitten him? It
was dead all right, he'd seen it, felt it. It didn't make sense. Cynthia ...
she wasn't around anywhere, was she? Or Doyle, the gardener? If Doyle was
around then why was the garden in such a fucking mess, all overgrown like
this?
Then not thinking, lying there stupefied, oblivious to his pain and his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]