Serpent Circles

by J. Clifton Slater

  There was the entrance to a large cavern. I jumped over gaps and ran across four boulders before reaching the fissure. Once in place, I squatted down and waited for the serpents’ morning rush hour to subside. When it did, I leaped from the boulder, dropped to my hands and knees, and crawled into the snakes’ lair.

  ***

  My eyes weren’t accustomed to the dark yet. I started to unclip my flashlight from the shirt but, a beam of light descending through a slit in the cavern’s roof gave me a little vision. I was looking for the eggs of the huge nadreddets. Smaller snakes lived for five to ten years and medium sized ones from fifteen to twenty. But large snakes lived from twenty-five to fifty years. This left the question of how long the giant nadreddets would survive. Not long if I had any say in the matter. But right now, I intended to smash big eggs and stop a generation of the gigantic snakes. At least there would be fewer nadreddets growing up as I hunted down their parents. Then something brushed my pants’ leg and I scooted deeper into the cavern.

  Not wanting to be on the floor if more decided to return, I turned on my flashlight and located a ledge high up on the cavern wall. The face was vertical, damp, and slick. Only by placing a foot on a column of stones was I able to jump and get my fingers on the rock edge. I scrambled onto a narrow ledge, spun around, and looked for the snake who had forced me out of the entrance.

  It was hurt as I could see by the slice along its side. The claws of a big cat or some other sharp object had opened a deep gash in the eight-foot-long reptile. As it slithered, the exposed intestines slid along the rocky floor leaving a trail of blood. I wondered how the wounded and defenseless serpent had gotten by its larger cousins without being eaten.

  The nadreddet, I thought, was seeking a place to die. It slithered through the beam of light and stopped within a foot of a dark pool. Drops of water, probably from a stream higher up the mountain, created slow moving ripples on the surface. Then the injured snake began to eat its own tail. This was the second time I’d witnessed the mythological act and I was mesmerized. Slowly, the tail was gnawed and forced into the mouth. As the sections of the body grew the jaws widened to allow for the additional girth. I have to admit, I retched a little when the tail reached the exposed intestines and I could see the narrow end poking at the stomach lining. After forming a perfect doughnut, the snake stopped moving. Thinking it dead, I glanced around the cavern seeking nests of large eggs to target.

  But there were no substantial eggs. Under the beam of my flashlight, I looked and found only snake eggs the size of my thumb. If there were no huge eggs here, where did the oversized nadreddets breed? As I pondered the thought of looking for another cavern, the snake began to squirm. Each twist moved its body closer to the pond and the closer it got, the more frantic its movements. Finally, the thrashing sent slow moving swells across the pool before the snake vanished below the surface. Reptile suicide? None of my textbooks even hinted at such a thing.

  I must have been lost in thought for a long time because the water smoothed out and the ripples became the main feature of the pond once again. Then the rays of light from the cavern roof softened and rain began to fall. I hadn’t seen any clouds in the sky earlier and decided it was a passing storm. I was dry and safe on the ledge, and it was still morning with plenty of daylight left. Using my flashlight, I peered into the recesses of the cavern.

  ***

  Rain fell steadily from the ceiling. The drops hitting the floor sounded as if a percussionist was tapping lightly on a drumhead. I wondered if the pond would overflow and flood the floor of the cavern or if there was drainage further back. I shined my light in that direction to check the level. Oddly enough, the runoff from the downpour never reached the pond. Every drop flowed into a channel which circled the black liquid and vanished into the darkness behind the pool. Apparently, the cavern did go back far enough for the water to run off from the floor. As I peered at the drainage, a disturbance shook the pond.

  A broad area of the surface bubbled for a minute before two separate areas rose up. I’ve never seen water cling as if it was a gel. Whatever was in the pond acted like a membrane over two distinct objects. I realized the pond wasn’t water when the coating split as it peeled back to reveal two long and hefty nadreddets.

  I’d been hunting snakes for a few years at that point and I’d developed the ability to identify individual reptiles. The two serpents that slithered out of the pond were twins of the injured one who crawled in with its tail in its mouth. And while the snake that twisted into the pond was eight feet in length, the two emerging were well over twelve feet. I wasn’t sure what I just witnessed but it called for an experiment. After the two reborn nadreddets left through the fissure, I slid off the ledge, dangled by my fingers for a second, and dropped to the floor. Then, I collected four eggs from the nest closest to the pond.

  As soon as I left the cavern, the rain began to wash the snake’s blood off me. It was a struggle, but with the snake eggs cupped in one hand, I crawled over boulders and tripped in gaps as I made my way off the rock fall. Once in the woods, I headed to where I left my backpack. It took me two days to cross the mountain and find a wild nadreddet’s nest. Hopefully, one not associated with the cavern. Then I headed down hill toward Crusty Boy to begin the experiment.

  ***

  I had the eggs under lights in a shed when my father discovered them. After a scolding about the idiocy of raising snakes, we reached an agreement. He gave me a wrecked trailer and an old truck in exchange for a promise to move my snake farm to an isolated area far from Crusty Boy and Wakeman’s Lodge.

  The mine operated in three shifts. First and second shifts dug ore and their schedules overlapped shift changes to maintain productivity. Third shift worked on running power lines, air handling tubes, shoring up the roof, and performing maintenance on critical equipment. They worked overnight and the shift ended a couple of hours early. Then they were bused to Wakeman’s before the first shift was even at breakfast leaving no one at the mine.

  Taking advantage of the deserted area which usually had off-road vehicles racing around, I hooked up the trailer, placed my boxes of snake eggs in the front seat, and drove away from Crusty Boy.

  An hour later, I turned up Breakneck Holler, followed the creek until I turned up a hill to a flat area. After sealing holes in the trailer with scrap plywood, to keep out the weather, I placed the eggs in clear plastic boxes. Separated by the length of the trailer, I heated each box with its own woodstove to maintain a constant temperature.

  They incubated for two months. All eight hatched within two days of each other and I dropped in raw, bloody deer meat to insure they had proper nutrition. After eating, each group of four coiled up against the others in their box and went to sleep. Unlike fully grown serpents, of which I no longer had a definition for grown, they woke before a week was up to feed again. They slept, slithered around, fed, and slept some more. I needed them to grow some before I could do the experiment. Hence, I watched the baby nadreddets, cleaned their boxes, and fed them. A month later, they were big enough for testing.

  ***

  I started with a snake from the cavern eggs. An incision sliced the tiny nadreddet from head to tail. When I peeled back the halves, there was a thin line of black matter along its spine. When exposed to air, the matter spread along the meat and soon the divided snake halves began squirming. The halves were dropped into a fire and I watched until the twisting stopped and the body burned to ash.

  When I split a snake from the other cage, it died. No black matter and no post death movement. It also went into the fire.

  I repeated the test by chopping through the center and beheading two other reptiles. With each experiment, the cavern snakes moved and the serpents from the other side of the mountain didn’t do anything except die. The last two snakes were saved for a final test.

  On one of the last warm days of fall, I put the serpents in separate sacks and drove to Crusty Boy. After parking the truck, I hiked into the mountains h
eading for the rock fall.

  ***

  The leaves were rust, gold, brown and red in color and the cool air hinted at the coming winter. Each day, I settled for a quick camp late in the day but rose early to complete the climb. After a summer of building my compound and raising nadreddets, I was anxious to see the tests through to their conclusions.

  At a hundred yards from the edge of the forest, I opened the sack and dumped one of the snakes on the ground. Above me loomed rock fall with the cavern, the black pool, and the baby reptile’s original nest.

  It coiled up, hissed at the laces on my boots, and flicked his tongue. It was tempting to kill the snake to prevent it from growing into a deer and man swallowing monster. But, I choked down the urge and fed it instead. Then I squatted and waited.

  A nadreddet slayer must be tenacious, focused, and patient. At the time, I still considered myself a slayer.

  Ten minutes later, the tiny snake uncoiled and slithered upward in the direction of the cavern. Following, and watching for any of its relatives, I kept his slithering body in sight for most of the trip. I lost him a few times as he passed under branches and bushes. Finally, he broke out of the trees and crawled in among the boulders of rock fall. He may have vanished from my sight, but I knew his destination. With the experimental subject reacting as I suspected, it was time to release the control serpent.

  I moved parallel through the woods before releasing the other snake. After a few minutes of hissing, he wiggled away heading downhill. To me, it was proof the black pool somehow got into the reptiles and gave them movement after death. If there were any doubts before, I now had proof the infection beckoned the nadreddets with the black matter along their spines back to the cavern. And most frightening of all, the matter reincarnated the nadreddets by dividing their DNA and bringing back two snakes heftier than the original.

  The view of my role as a slayer needed adjustment and I needed time to think. Immediately, I left the area and began the trip back to Crusty Boy.

  ***

  Tim Constance switched off the recorder and stared at the mountain man. Then, he smiled.

  “This is a tall tale isn’t it?” he suggested. “I mean really, reincarnated in a pool of matter that mysteriously brings the snakes back to life?”

  “That’s it exactly,” Solomon assured him. “It’s why I eventually stopped killing nadreddets. You see there were no giant species. The enormous reptiles were normal ones brought back larger and longer each time one was injured and died.”

  “And duplicated each time, according to your account,” ventured the researcher. “Mr. Cooper, this story has gone far afield of the history of Crusty Boy.”

  “I’m about to get to the mine,” promised Solomon. “Do you know snakes have a home range? They will range and hunt in a defined area but will winter in the same nesting spot year after year.”

  “No, I didn’t. What does that have to do with Crusty Boy?”

  “It’s why I spent more time at Crusty Boy after the experiment. And why I wear the glove on my left hand,” Solomon stated while waving the gloved hand in the air.

  The mountain man rose from his chair and walked to a rifle rack. Pulling down one of the weapons, he crossed the room and handed it to the researcher.

  “The deep scratch on the gunstock,” Solomon said as he pointed out a groove in the wood. “I didn’t figure out what home range meant until the incident that caused the furrow.”

  Tim examined the rifle stock, then he turned on the recorder and leaned back. The mountain man kept presenting evidence which could be explained by any number of reasons. The researcher was well past taking notes on the saga. He’d let the mountain man ramble on then get out of the cabin, the mountains, and back to civilization.

  Chapter 8 – Nourishment and Destruction

  The first time I realized what constituted a snake’s home range was early in the morning two months after the experiment. My yard was a mess of buckets, sections of board, and odd pieces of plastic and siding. After checking the pitiful state of my pantry and ice box, I decided to go hunting. As I dressed, I heard a commotion from the yard. Something had knocked over a stack of metal sheets. Maybe a deer had wandered close to the house. This would save me a hunting trip, I thought, as I grabbed the rifle.

  Slowly opening the front door, I peered out. No deer was in sight. Maybe another forest animal was rooting around in the back. If it was a bear, I’d come back inside. I’m not big on greasy meat and they were difficult to kill. Better to hide and let it finish rummaging and wander off then get mauled and possibly eaten by a bear. With light footfalls, I crossed the porch and jumped off the side to have a look. Nothing was visible so I began to stalk around my piles of construction materials.

  ***

  I think it was between the plywood and the metal sheets when the first snake struck. With the rifle held at low port, the stock caught one of the fangs. The other punctured my right thigh and the weight of the five-foot nadreddet pulled the rifle from my hands. The fang sank in my flesh before being pulled away. The wooden stock prevented it from sinking in completely and the weight of the rifle dragged the head of the nadreddet to the ground. The bitten leg went numb as the venom was injected and it almost buckled.

  Staggering toward the porch, I saw the second serpent come around the pile of plywood. With a little distance and before my vision closed in, I recognized them. They were twins of the little cavern snake I’d released at the rock fall. As I continued to backpedal, I pulled my belt off and strapped it around my thigh. My vision blurred, my leg gave out, and I tripped. Crawling on my hands and one knee with the poisoned leg trailing in the grass, I somehow mounted the porch.

  Thankfully, I had left the front door open. After crawling over the threshold, I collapsed inside my house. But the venom slowed my reflexes and, before I could slam the door closed, one of the snakes squeezed through. It began following the curvature of the inner wall and I recognized the pattern. The serpent had begun a hunting circle and I was the prey.

  But I had an advantage over frightened deer and ferocious wolves. While they possessed hard hooves and speed, or sharp teeth and powerful jaws, I had a fully loaded 45 on my hip. In the wild and at a distance, the pistol lacked accuracy. In the confines of my home and close up, it was a precision instrument.

  The first shot ripped a hole in the snake’s belly and my flooring. The next clipped it’s head and rolled the nadreddet hard into the wall. Neither shot killed the reptile. Where the pistol had the ability to kill proficiently, the poisoned, fuzzy headed shooter didn’t. To add to my situation, I forgot to close the front door.

  ***

  My head spun and being flat on my belly limited my ability to track the two snakes. Sure, one was injured but it wasn’t as if the serpent would signal for a timeout to get patched up and give me time to adjust my aim. Stuck on the floor with two nadreddets circling, I closed my eyes and, for a second, gave up. Then, panic and adrenaline overcame the venom and I curled up and rolled onto my side.

  With my good leg bent and the foot pushing on the floor, I stretched my back, pivoted on my hip, and fired two rounds at the newly arrived nadreddet. It continued slithering along the wall and, again, I pushed with my foot, crunched, and extended. Repositioned, I located the snake and was rewarded with two solid hits to the long body. Squirming around let me locate the first reptile and, from laying sideways on the floor with my arms extended, I targeted the head. Snake brains, blood, and tissue splattered the wall and the body stopped moving.

  Being on my side put me at eye level with the target. One more wiggle allowed me to bring the second reptile into my sights. Another head shot and, with that, I reclaimed ownership of my home.

  I couldn’t feel my leg below the tourniquet and my pulse, which should be racing from the encounter, was slow. I felt sluggish but I knew the bodies would soon begin to twitch. Not wanting to be trapped between two regenerating nadreddets and disabled by a fever from the venom, I forced myself to
crawl to the wall under the gun rack. Clawing my way up, I pulled down the first long gun my hand touched. It turned out, the shotgun made a passable crutch.

  As if I was a drunken cripple, I hobbled to each snake and sliced off long strips of nadreddet meat. Being injured, I couldn’t hunt or drive. If I survived the snake poison, I didn’t want to die of starvation.

  ***

  I took hold of one tail and pulled the first snake to the porch. Then, I dragged the other out. Slamming and locking the door, I leaned against it and surveyed the cabin. There were yellow-brown streaks on my floor and a few holes in the wall. Considering I was alive, at least for now, I didn’t care about the damage.

  Once the snake meat went into the ice box, I loosened the belt and dropped my trousers. The thigh appeared to have a golf ball under the skin below a single puncture wound. I pulled my knife and stopped. The venom was already in my system. If I cut the skin, I would only be creating another wound.

  Instead, I pulled out a piece of ice and limped to my bed. With my leg dangling off the side to hopefully limit the spreading of the poison, I put the ice on the snake bite. Immediately after closing my eyes, I went to sleep.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke drenched in sweat. Being thirsty, I sat up and screamed. My leg hurt and was so stiff, I barely made it to the kitchen. The only thing supporting me was the shotgun and the countertop as I drew water from my filtration system. After three mugs of water, I tripped, caught myself, and stumbled back to bed. One thought broke through my misery, if the pain was any indication, I was still alive.

  ***

  The next morning, I woke up famished and, although the leg was stiff and painful, I made it to the kitchen. After firing up the propane stove, I buttered up a frying pan, cut a healthy slice of nadreddet meat, and placed it in the pan. At the time, I didn’t think of adding spices, I was too hungry. I finished the meal and carried a glass of water with me to a chair. I sat, stretched the leg out trying to find a comfortable position, and promptly fell asleep.