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Nick Harris

The October Selected Story is by Nick Harris

Please feel free to email Nick at

nicolettehh@hotmail.co.uk

Nick Harris

THE SNAKE
by Nick Harris

“Hi! I’m here about the snake.”

Jack tried to keep his voice light as he looked at the young couple that had just answered the door to his knock. He didn’t want to judge them. He wanted to keep his mind free of possible prejudice, of thinking ‘innocent until proven guilty’ but he couldn’t help himself.

The couple standing at the door looked wasted through and through. The man had a skinhead and his neck and arms were covered in horrific satanic-looking tattoos and the young woman had her greasy mop scraped back into a harsh ponytail over a pale, waxy face full of piercings. He hoped his own face looked naturally inquisitive and enquiring and not his usual sardonic self.

Still…he didn’t want to be too harsh in his judgment. He knew what the couple had gone through recently. If they were innocent, then no one deserved what they had endured.

The man hesitated, then said, “Come on in.” He looked cautiously up and down the street, checking for paparazzi before letting Jack inside. Then the man quickly closed the door shut behind him.

Jack took in the surroundings. The hallway was dark and dank and the place smelled of liver and damp and bad plumbing. Jack saw all the crap lying everywhere and wondered if the couple had ever heard of fresh air or a vacuum cleaner.

His thoughts were interrupted when the man said, “The snake’s in here.” He pushed past a stack of newspapers blocking the hall, leading Jack through to the living room.

The living room was tidier. An expensive plasma TV dominated one corner, surrounded by an array of DVDs and on the other side of the chimney wall, there was a four foot by three foot vivarium. Jack peered at it and saw the boa constrictor he had come to ‘purchase.’ It was moving, its muscles rippling in a menacing display.

I’m with Indiana Jones on this one, Jack thought.He hated snakes.

Behind them all, next to the faux leather couches, was an empty crib. Deliberately ignoring it, acting as if he didn’t know, Jack went over to the vivarium and peered in at the snake.

The constrictor was five or six feet in length and began to curl up to sleep under a heat lamp. Its middle bloomed with its latest meal. “Recently eaten, has it?” Jack asked as he knelt to take a good look at the swelling, but he couldn’t tell from the outside what it had consumed.

His own stomach churned at the thought of the possible contents and he had to concentrate hard on controlling his need to turn around and pin them both up against the wall, demanding answers.

“What does this thing eat?” Jack asked.

The man pulled a home-rolled cigarette from out of nowhere and popped it into his mouth, scraping a match on a small box and lighting it. He blew out a plume of smoke before answering. “Rats, mostly.”

“Really?” The swelling was too big for a rat. Unless that rat had been something out of a James Herbert novel and had been a giant mutant.

“Yeah, usually. Though that last meal was a rabbit.”

Jack looked at the size of the snake again. “Big rabbit.”

“It was a house rabbit. Our house rabbit. The missus left the tank open and Feather got out and caught it.”

“Feather?”

The man indicated with his head towards the tank. “The Boa. Feather Boa, geddit?”

Jack smiled without humor, almost a grimace, and glanced at the woman. She looked pale and nervous, he thought. But then she would be, if she’d done what they all thought she’d done. “Did you name it?”

She smiled nervously. “Yeah. Ash, your dinner’ll be ready in a minute. Don’t be too long.”

She hurried away back into the kitchen and Jack’s suspicions were aroused by her behavior. She was definitely hiding something and if that something was in the snake’s belly, slowly being consumed by acidic stomach juices...

Jack turned his attention back to the snake. “Looks in good health.”

“There’s been no problems with it, mate. Good eater, great pet. Very friendly. We just need to get rid of it now. Too much hassle what with all the press and everything, you know?”

Yeah. Jack did know. He knew a lot more than they realized.

Baby gone missing? Yeah, right! Stolen from the house in the middle of the day, the couple had told the police. Nobody saw or heard a thing, apparently.

They’d got papers and magazines offering them money for their story left, right and center—which they’d accepted—and suddenly they’re selling a snake with a massive meal in its belly. The last prospective purchaser had told them he needed to think it over and had gone home and called the police instead with his suspicions.

Sick idea, it might have been, but what if it were true? Some people would do anything for money these days, wouldn’t they? Money and fame, it’s what the young people wanted nowadays and most didn’t care how they got it.

But would they feed their own baby to a pet snake?

Jack didn’t know. But he could see the previous prospective buyer had been right and that the snake had consumed something big. What if it was their baby Jaden?

The police had to check it out. It might be a sick idea, but people might try anything these days. If he had a pound for every parent that had sat and cried their eyes out at a press conference, begging the public to give them information on their missing child, only to later discover that the dad or the mum had done it…

Again he roused himself from his musings. “Two hundred quid, wasn’t it?” he clarified, pulling a wad of notes from his pocket, knowing the sight of the money would spur on the sale so he could get the hell out of there.

“For two fifty you can have the tank as well,” the man answered, his eyes greedy at the sight of the money. Was Jack mistaken, or was there something shifty in the man’s eyes, a guilty look, perhaps?

Jack hoped he sounded business-like. “Really?” Maybe the tank could have something that forensics could work with. “All right, you’re on.”

Jaden’s father shook his hand and it was done. “Got yourself a deal, mate. You gotta car?”

“Yeah, I’m parked outside.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

Together they disconnected the heat lamp and wrapped up the cables and equipment and carried the vivarium containing the constrictor out to Jack’s car. It was too big for the trunk, so it would have to go on the back seat.

As they slid it in, Jaden’s father saw the police radio. He stood up quickly and peered at Jack over the roof of the car, his brow furrowed and anger in his ugly face “What’s that? You the old bill? You a cop?”

Jack faced him, standing his ground. “Maybe. Is that a problem for you, Mr. Andrews?”

His jaw clenching and unclenching, the man suddenly became agitated. “You bastard! You think I fed the baby to the snake? You sick or what?”

“Just following a lead, Mr. Andrews, calm down.”

“A lead? A fucking lead? Where from?”

“I’m not at liberty to reveal the source. Why don’t you calm down?”

“Calm down? Calm down? My wife has nearly gone fucking insane wondering who the fuck has got our baby and you’re accusing me of feeding our child to the snake? And now you’re telling me to fucking calm down?”

“Are you worried, Mr. Andrews, about what we’ll find in the snake?”

“Worried? Man, you got a lot of nerve. All you’re gonna pull out of Feather is fucking Bugs Bunny!”

“Then you’ll be all right, won’t you?”

“Hell no, I’m not all right! I’m gonna sue you!”

“Please do. You might earn some extra money.” Jack closed his car door and got inside his vehicle, leaving Mr. Andrews outside practically jumping up and down with anger. But it didn’t last for long. Mr. Andrews’ worries about the wrong media attention took over and he quickly scurried back inside his own home.

Driving away, Jack felt a little squirm in his stomach as he thought of what they’d find when they opened up the snake.

*****

Back at the house, Ash Andrews stormed into the kitchen and threw himself into his chair at the table. “Can’t believe them! They’re gonna cut up Feather! They think he ate Jaden! Can you believe it?”

She looked at him quietly as she served dinner. “They’ve got to check everything.”

He stared at her. There he was getting all angry again when he had to remember, she was the one who was suffering the most. Jaden might have been their child, but she was the one that had carried him for nine months. She was the one that had gone through over forty hours of labour to bring him into the world.

“Sorry, love.” He reined his temper in and softened his voice. He glanced at the meat on his plate. “How’d we afford this? What is it?”

“We have the money from the paper, you know.” She slid into the seat opposite him and took a mouthful of it herself, her face thoughtful as she chewed. “Do you like it?”

“It’s different. Don’t taste like anything I know.”

She smiled oddly. “No. He doesn’t. Does he?”

Ash stared at his wife. Seconds later, he vomited his son up into the sink.

Nick Harris is the horrific side of author Nicolette Heaton-Harris. She has had many of her horror short stories published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing, Welcome to Wherever, as well as the wonderful The Horror Zine! Nick is also a non-fiction author of six books on health issues, including mental health. Nick is currently working on a horror novel, but occasionally she has other dark thoughts that make it into more short stories. She has a blog at www.horroronhayling.blogspot.co.uk

Learn more about Nick HERE