Then it bit me.
Luckily it tried to sink its teeth into my shoulder instead of my neck, so my jacket took the brunt of the bite. I still felt pain and knew it had broken my skin, but thankfully it was a very shallow bite. Of course, it was still trying to crush me to death.
The machete had fallen to the floor, but even if I had been holding it, it wouldn't have mattered because my arms were pinned. The goddamn snake kept hissing in my ear too, as if trying to taunt me in a snake language I didn't understand.
Other men might have given into their fear. Other men might have given up. Other men might have said, "Well, I've had a good life, nothing to be done." I am not one of those men.
Since I still was on my feet, I threw my body at the tile wall behind the tub. I crunched into it with great force, breaking some of the tiles. It hurt like hell, but importantly I had also rammed a bunch of the coils of the snake against those tiles. By hurting myself, I had also hurt it. That's how these things work, right? I picked tile because I figured the regular drywall wouldn't do much. I wanted maximum hurt and of course maximum bruises for when I crawled into bed and regretted my life choices that night.
The constricting coils of the snake faltered for a moment, but then resumed their near-bone breaking tightness. My enthusiasm for staying alive not fazed by the extreme pain, I threw myself into another tile wall. Tiles broke against my shoulder and I winced in pain. I was fairly certain I hadn't broken anything, but it still hurt like hell.
However, the snake's grip on my body loosened. Its coils widened and I found I could move my arms. It still had a death grip around one of my shoulders, but I could actually do something. First order of business was getting armed. I bent forward and grabbed at the machete. It had fallen on the pink rug just outside the tub.
I'm not sure if the snake knew the significance of the machete or just didn't like losing control of the situation, but we started a desperate tug of war where I kept leaning forward to grab the machete and it kept pulling me backwards. I reached forward, almost grabbing the machete handle, then it pulled me back. I reached forward again, fingertips grazing the handle before I was yanked.
In a herculean feat of strength, I finally leaned forward and pulled myself free of the snake's grip. I reached down and grabbed the machete. I let out a triumphant roar.
But now there was a new problem. The snake was trying to beat a hasty retreat. I noticed its length sliding off me and beginning to slither down the drain.
"Oh no you don't!" I shouted. There was no way I was letting this one get away after beating myself against the walls.
With my left hand I grabbed at its length that was close to the tub drain. Normally snakes aren't slippery like some people expect. They're actually more leathery. But when a snake has been travelling through the drainage system for a low income apartment building, it gets slippery to the touch and frankly pretty gross. So even with my hand around it, the snake was slipping through my grasp down the drain. I was just slowing it down.
I had a split second to make a decision. Do I drop the machete so I could use both hands to try to pull the snake back up out of the drain, or do I hack wildly at the still available part of the snake, hoping to actually hit its writhing body and do some serious damage? It was an easy decision. I didn't feel like pulling a snake out of a drain and I wasn't going to miss the chance to be proactive about hacking something to death.
Cursing, I slash my machete at any part of the snake I could see. What followed was a succession of loud hits in the tub and against the tiles. Many of the tiles not already broken by my previous thrashing were now broken. But finally I managed to hit the damn snake. Blood splashed on my face. I kept hacking. Blood gushed all over as I cleaved the machete down on any inch of snake I could.
Finally the creature stopped moving at all.
I was left in silence. I was gasping for breath and covered in blood. I was crouched in the tub, one hand still on the snake's body at the drain and the other holding a machete dripping with the unpleasant ichor of diced snake. I kept breathing, trying to slow my heart rate and come out of adrenaline and shock.
I heard a small voice from across the room. "Szandor! Are you there?"
I pulled my body forward and reached a dripping arm towards my phone on the rug. Staining the pink rug with drops of blood, I grabbed the phone. Mikkel hadn't hung up.
"I'm here," I said, still out of breath.
"Good!" he said. "After all that, I wasn't sure if you were going to answer the phone or the creature was."
"Very funny," I said.
"Hey, I'm always glad when you win, brother," he said. "I need someone to have my back. So what was it?"
"Plumber's Snake," I said, reaching in my jacket pocket for my cigarettes. I paused for a second wondering if I could smoke in Mrs. Ferguson's bathroom. Then I looked around at the broken tiles, the room covered in blood, and the snake carcass in the tub and figured it wouldn't matter anymore. I lit up.
"Plumber's Snake? Shit, it's been a while since we saw one of those," said Mikkel.
We'd tangled with Plumber's Snakes exactly twice before this. They are notably stealthy beasts, as you might guess from the fact this one was slithering through the drains. Plumber's Snake is obviously not its formal cryptozoological name. I'm not sure if it has one. I once asked Paulie about it, but other than the death worms of the Gobi, he hadn't heard anything remotely close to it. So we kept our initial off-the-cuff name of Plumber's Snake.
We named it that because they are very long, but unlike most snakes, they don't get thick when they get longer. So you might have a twenty foot snake that still has the diameter to slither through a narrow pipe, or in this case, aging apartment plumbing. I can't remember which one of us had the idea, but we notice the similarity to the tool plumbers have, which is also a long cord used for removing blockages from drains. The name stuck and we haven't found anything better. Plumber's Snake. It fits.
"Well, it's dead now," I said. "This bathroom is fucked and I'm covered in blood. It's half sticking out of the drain. I'm going to need that backup now."
"Shit, come on, man," he said. "Vanessa's..."
"You did just listen to my entire struggle with the fucking thing, didn't you?"
"Yeah..."
"So get over here. I need the van," I said.
Continued in I Kill Monsters Available Soon!
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[1] I know this from experience. When I puked, I didn't smell any worse. I actually smelled slightly better.
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Eighteen
About the Author
Excerpt from I Kill Monsters
The Lost and the Damned Page 32