‘This changes things,’ said Mike. ‘I was prepared to play your waiting game, but now it is out of my hands. I’m calling base and they can decide how we will proceed from here.’
He left the lab with Bradley following closely behind. Emmy unstrapped Charlie and then sat down with her head hung in her hands. She had blown it. Whilst she tried to think of a way to salvage her career, Charlie walked over to join her.
‘Where did the guys go?’ he asked. ‘I hope we didn’t blow their minds too much.’
Emmy looked up at him and took a deep breath before delivering the bad news.
***
Lucas sat by Kyle’s bedside along with the boy’s mother. Though encounters with snakes in the town were relatively common compared to elsewhere, attacks were not. In all of his years on the job, he could only recall two or three times that anybody had suffered an actual bite.
‘Are you sure there is nothing more you can tell me about the snake that did this?’ he asked. ‘It is important if antivenin is required that we use the correct one.’
Lucas knew that when treating bites, the deadly snakes of Australia are divided into broad categories. There are black snakes, brown snakes and tiger snakes. Each requires a different antivenin. If the wrong treatment is used it can be fatal. Unfortunately, the complications do not end there. A good basic knowledge and ability to differentiate between snake breeds is essential when living in rural areas. For instance, it is useful to know that whilst the colour rule holds true in most cases, there are exceptions. The king brown is classed as a black snake and likewise, the red bellied black snake can only be treated with the tiger snake antivenin.
To cap it all, even if the correct snake is identified and the appropriate serum chosen, there is a further risk of death if the victim was bitten without any venom entering the bloodstream. Statistically, very few bites are initially fatal since the animals prefer to save their poison stock for prey and not waste it on bites that are designed purely to scare away a large aggressor such as a human. The only way to ascertain if poison entered the bloodstream was to wait for symptoms to show. With a child as young as Kyle, this should not take too long.
‘Like I already told you; I think it was a common brown. We have had trouble with them nesting under the house before, but they have never been aggressive. This though, it seemed...’
Her voice trailed off and Lucas sensed that she was holding something back.
‘It seemed what? If you know anything that could help, it would be best to tell me now.’
‘It’s nothing. It’s ridiculous really. I don’t know why I even thought it.’
‘Thought what?’
She sat back and started to massage one of her temples as if trying to mould her thoughts into a more understandable form.
‘The snake seemed smarter than it should. I know this sounds crazy, but there is no other way to describe it. I have a broom that I keep by the door and in the past I have used it to frighten them away. When I reached for it this time, it had gone. Something had moved it to the other side of the yard.’
Lucas quickly repeated her words in his head to make sure he had heard her correctly.
‘You are saying that the snake hid your broom?’
‘Not only that, but I think it deliberately lured Kyle in. He knows not to go near the underside of the house, yet I found one of his toys there. That bloody snake set a trap!’
She broke down into tears. Lucas moved closer and put his arm around her to offer comfort.
‘I’m sure that was just a coincidence. You are obviously distraught right now and it is understandable that you are struggling to make sense of what happened.’
She removed her hands from her face and looked at him directly.
‘You don’t believe me. Some animal tries to murder my boy and you think it was just some accident. Kyle is not stupid; he knows to stay away from danger.’
She brushed away Lucas’s arm and got up from her seat before leaving the room. When she came back she was holding a small plastic action figure. It appeared to be some sort of alien creature.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Lucas. ‘Was this the toy?’
‘Look at it,’ she ordered.
Lucas did not want to offend her further so he did as she requested. At first, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, but as he turned it over in his hand he noticed some strange marks. There were several sets of double pin pricks, each spaced exactly the same distance apart and also some deeper scratches, again in pairs.
‘These look like snake bites.’
‘Exactly,’ she replied, before snatching the toy back from him. ‘Like I told you; the snake lured Kyle in with this.’
Lucas did not know what to say, but luckily he did not need to say anything. They were interrupted by a knock at the door.
‘That will be the doctor,’ said Lucas. ‘He will stay with Kyle until we can determine what action to take next. I will have a look around and see if I can find the snake. They usually flee after an attack, but sometimes they can return to the scene.’
After leaving the house, Lucas began checking the yard. He shone his flashlight into the gap under the house, but could see nothing. The gap was maybe only a foot high, but there was no vegetation underneath. If the animal was still there, he would have seen it.
He was about to leave when something caught his eye next to a bush in the far side of the garden. It was another plastic toy, but it had been discarded quite a distance from the house or where any of the kid’s other toys lay. Lucas started to walk over to it, but remembering the distressed mother’s words he stopped when he was ten feet away. He looked around until he found a small rock.
Taking careful aim, he threw the rock so that it landed close to the toy. An instant after it impacted on the ground a large snake sprung from the bush and struck out at the rock. It was a common brown and a big one too; at least three metres long. Lucas backed away and called the local vet to send someone down immediately to remove it. Whilst he waited, he did not once take his eyes off the snake. Nor did the snake take its eyes off him.
***
‘You did what?’
Emmy hung her head in shame. She had not let her grandfather down so much since that B+ in geography. This time, however, there was more than a trip to Sydney at stake.
‘I’m sorry, I realise now that I made a mistake, but I thought I was doing what was best for the research; best for us.’
The professor turned his chair away from her whilst he considered the confession she had just made. She knew he would be disappointed in her, but she also knew he had the power to make it right. If another scientist was brought in at this stage, no matter how brilliant, it would set the research back months, maybe even years. He had invested far too much into the project to allow that to happen.
‘I will speak to my contact in the military. If they insist on having you removed, I may be able to call in some favours from Canberra. It is an American operation, but they are on our soil and they cannot go against a government directive. There will be consequences, however - there always is. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Pops.’
The professor reacted with a look of distaste.
‘From now on you will address me as sir. I do not need to be reminded of our genetic connection. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
She left his study with her head hung low. Despite the coldness of the professor’s reaction, she knew she had gotten off lightly.
She expected him to be on the telephone for the remainder of the afternoon and probably long into the night. The Americans, meanwhile, were likely to become restless with little to stimulate them at the observatory and she predicted that the lure of the town’s pub would soon keep them out of her way. Officially, the project had suffered a setback, but off the record, she planned on moving forward undeterred. She still had Charlie on her side and the two had a very busy evening ahead of them.
***
; Lucas had seen nothing like it. The animal handler tried every trick he knew to lure the snake into the bag, but nothing worked. It was as if the animal was constantly second guessing them. Of course, he dismissed these thoughts as crazy. It had to be something else. The animal could not be capable of using such a complex strategy. Could it?
‘He’s a smart one, isn’t he?’ said Lucas.
‘Intelligence does not come into it,’ replied the frustrated animal handler. ‘Animals are simple creatures and act on instinct, not insight.’
Something about the animal handler’s words stirred Lucas’s thoughts.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said that animals act only on instinct. They are not capable of processing complex thoughts like you and I.’
That was it, thought Lucas. The snake was acting on some kind of hypersensitive instinct.
‘So what you are saying is that the snake can only sense your movement and react accordingly?’
‘Exactly, only this one seems to react before I even know what my next move is going to be. It is almost as if it can see things before they happen. Crazy, huh?’
Crazy yes, but was it impossible? Lucas was beginning to doubt everything he thought he understood about nature. Cats and dogs were believed by some to possess a sixth sense that warned them of impending danger to come. What if the snake was doing the same, albeit on a highly acute scale?
‘So what do we do if we cannot catch it?’
The animal handler looked him in the eye and then shifted his gaze down to the policeman’s hip where his handgun was holstered.
‘It’s a course of action I always prefer to avoid, but sometimes we have no choice.’
Lucas knew how the man felt. The easiest option was rarely the most satisfactory and working in law enforcement he understood this more than most. He unclipped the holster and slowly placed his fingers over the handle of the weapon. As he did so, the snake abruptly turned its attention to him and let out a menacing hiss through its forked tongue.
‘I don’t think he likes the gun,’ said Lucas.
‘Don’t be crazy,’ replied the animal handler. ‘It was merely spooked by your movement, that’s all.’
Lucas was not so sure.
‘Maybe if he can sense the alternative, he will choose the bag.’
He withdrew the weapon and pointed it at the head of the reptile.
‘What are you gonna do now?’ asked the animal handler. ‘Read him his rights?’
‘Just wait,’ replied Lucas. ‘He may not know what is coming next, but perhaps he can feel it.’
‘This is ridiculous.’
Lucas ignored the other man and took a step forward. As he did so he focused on nothing apart from pulling the trigger and blowing the head of the snake into a thousand bloodied pieces. The animal handler shook his head, but then he too was forced into reassessing everything he believed as the snake slowly, obediently, slithered into the bag.
He quickly twisted the top and sealed it with a loose knot. Rather than carry it back to his truck in his hands, he affixed it to the end of a pole. This was completely new territory for him and he was not going to take any chances.
‘What will you do with it?’ asked Lucas.
‘I have no idea. I suppose I will send it off for testing. No one is going to believe what happened.’
Lucas nodded. He had been there and yet he could hardly believe it himself. It was certainly not a story that he would repeat to just anybody. They would surely think him to be crazy. There was one man though, who he trusted to offer useful insight into the situation. He decided that in the morning he would pay another visit to the observatory. This time he would be the one seeking assistance.
Chapter 9
Friday night in the Sly Fox was not a night of celebration as it would be in pubs and clubs situated in larger towns and cities. This was mainly due to the fact that the passing trade was pretty much zero and the only customers to frequent the bar would be the same locals that came to drink there every night. So when it played host to not one, but three outsiders, it was not an occurrence that could go unnoticed. Some people would be uneasy with the attention this placed upon them, whilst others would lap it up with gusto. The two soldiers from Shady Pines Military Base fell into the latter category.
As soon as they entered the bar, all eyes were on them. Rumours can evolve over a twenty four hour period at a rate that would astound even Charles Darwin. The most advanced theory was that the Americans were sent as part of a mission to cover up a UFO landing. Although it would be more accurate to state that it was the theory most advanced from the truth. Some people believed the hearsay and some did not. Now they would get their chance to find out the truth first hand. The pair seated themselves on stools at the bar.
A dozen pairs of eyes quickly switched from the newcomers to the landlady. She would be leading the interrogation on behalf of the entire town.
‘What can I get you boys?’ asked Mindy.
The eyes moved back to the Americans.
‘Two beers and take one for yourself,’ replied Mike, as he handed over a fifty dollar bill.
‘Is that all; only sometimes out-of-towners buy a round for the bar?’
Mindy kept her hand out, palm faced upwards with the fifty on top. Mike glanced around and quickly did the math.
‘I don’t suppose you take American Express?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Mindy shook her head.
The atmosphere tensed and the American could feel all eyes boring into him. He nudged Bradley, who reluctantly handed him some more notes. Mike placed a twenty on top of the fifty and waited for the response. Mindy’s hand remained outstretched. He added another twenty and when she still did not move, he just gave her the rest of the small wad. She opened up the till and counted it out before handing him back a two dollar coin, which he refused.
‘Call it a tip,’ the soldier said, a tad bitterly.
Not all of the locals went to collect their complimentary drinks right away. They were in no hurry and Mindy would bring it to them when replacements were needed. She had also not yet finished with her current customers.
‘So what brings you boys to Jackson’s Hill?’
Mike dismissed the idea of sticking to the usual cover story. Whether these people were educated or not, they would certainly not be fools. He decided on a less condescending lie.
‘We’re on a training exercise. Desert manoeuvres sometimes call on us to navigate by the stars. Where better to learn than an observatory?’
She nodded, but did not believe him.
‘So you boys are with the army?’
‘That’s right. We’re stationed at Shady Pines. We’ve been here so long we’re practically going native. I even thought about finding me a nice Aussie girl and settling here permanently.’
A local man in his forties sat next to Mike and could not help but join in with the conversation at this point.
‘My granddaddy was stationed with some Americans in World War II. He fought with them in the Battle of Brisbane.’
‘He sounds like a brave man; you should be proud. I only hope that we can continue that strong bond between our countries.’
The local smirked and moved in a little closer until his breath could be felt on the side of Mike’s face.
‘Nah, mate, you misunderstand what I’m telling ya. When I say that my granddaddy fought with the Americans, I mean that they were the enemy. The Battle of Brisbane was little more than a riot, started by your lot coming into town despoiling our city centres and stealing our women. Them boys needed a good hiding and that’s exactly what they got.’
Mike squared up to the man.
‘If the GI’s were stealing your women; how can you be sure that your real granddaddy wasn’t on our side? Hell, you and I could even be related.’
The man looked at Mike like a croc does a water buffalo. The entire bar fell deathly silent as everyone waited for the next move. The only movement was from Bradley who back
ed up a little to provide his friend with more space should he need to defend himself. It was a stand-off that could flare up at any second. Mike raised his chin slightly, tempting his adversary to throw the first punch. The man responded not with his fists, but with his voice; breaking into a loud, all encompassing laugh.
‘I’m only yanking ya chain, mate. A bloke can’t hold a grudge with someone who’s bought him a beer. Thanks for that, by the way. There aren’t many folk that fall for Mindy’s little trick.’
He winked at the landlady, who returned his gesture with a smile.
‘I thought you said that outsiders have to get a round in,’ Mike said to Mindy.
‘You must have misheard,’ she told him. ‘I only said that they “sometimes do”, a point, which you just proved.’
‘So how often has anyone bought a round for this entire bar?’
‘You’re the first.’
When Mike sat back down he was feeling more than a little foolish.
‘Don’t beat yourself up over it, mate,’ said the local beside him. ‘It was still a good gesture and folks here will appreciate it.’
Mike nodded, weakly. Once the fuss around them died down, the pair looked around for a quieter part of the bar to take their drinks. Mike spotted an attractive blonde sitting in a booth alone. She had pale skin and a pretty face that was much too delicate to belong to a native. She wore minimal make-up, which seemed to be intended as functional rather than provocative. Either way, it was not really needed. She was beautiful. She was also the kind of girl that was completely oblivious to the effect she had on men, which was just how Mike liked them. This was more his kind of territory. He gave his wingman a nudge and the two walked over to get acquainted.
Diamond Sky Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 8