by Chesla, Gary
Her heart raced and pounded against the inside of her chest so hard she thought she was going to have a heart attack or pass out.
Fran finally began to breathe again when she realized that the battered snake was no longer moving.
Fran dragged the snake away from the truck door, reached inside and grabbed Snoop.
She trembled nervously as she checked the puppy for any signs that the snake had bit him.
“Sorry Snoop,” Fran said as she hugged the trembling puppy. “I told you this place is dangerous. It’s even worse than I remembered.”
Fran walked back to the front of the truck and put Snoop on the ground and made him sit.
“Stay,” Fran said holding up her hand.
The puppy sat and just looked at her.
“Now just stay there for a few minutes,” Fran said. “Just be good long enough for me to take the battery out of the truck so we can get the hell out of here, OK?”
Fran looked at the dog for a few seconds, when she was satisfied he wasn’t going to run off, she turned back to the truck and reached under the hood until she found the latch.
When she pushed the latch, the hood bounced up a few inches.
Fran was just about to grab the hood and push it open, when she jumped back away from the truck as the sound of a rattlesnake’s rattle started from somewhere under the hood in the engine compartment.
Fran nervously stared at the front of the truck as the sound continued.
“Damn it,” she swore. “All I want is just one battery and to go home.”
Fran glanced across the parking area at the other trucks.
The sun was shining brightly, beating down on the trucks and the parking lot.
Heat waves rose up off the trucks and the gravel.
It was a hot day, just the kind of day that brought out the snakes who loved the heat.
Fran sighed a frustrated sigh.
For a moment, she considered letting the snake have this truck and moving on to one of the other trucks.
“I should just go and try another truck, but it will probably be the same damn thing,” Fran said to herself. Her inner voice telling her to just turn around, run and go home.
But Fran desperately didn’t want to go home without a battery for her radio.
“I’ve killed one snake, I can kill one more,” Fran said to herself. “But I’m not opening that hood until I know the battery is still good.”
Fran thought for a second, then walked to the driver’s door and pulled it open.
She took her rake and reached in and pushed the end of the rake against the horn button in the middle of the steering wheel.
The truck’s horn let out a loud blast.
“OK, the battery is still good,” Fran said as she looked at Snoop who was still lying on the ground where she had put him.
Determined to get this over with, Fran walked back in front of the truck and placed the rake under the front lip of the hood.
The horn blast had the snake worked up and the warning rattle sounded more intense and menacing than before.
She stayed as far away from the truck as she could, then Fran began to push the hood up with the rake.
She pushed until the hood was fully open and Fran could see the large rattler curled up on top of the air filter.
It was huge, the biggest snake she had ever seen.
The body was bigger around than her arms and reminded her of a python that could wrap itself around its prey and squeeze it to death.
Fran could feel her legs trembling.
Fran overcame the chills running down her spine, raised the rake and brought it down on top of the snake.
The prongs went through the snake’s body right behind the head and she dragged the snake out over the radiator, where it fell to the ground twisting and squirming frantically.
The snake’s black eyes glared at Fran as it opened its jaws wide, exposing its long fangs.
Venom dripped form the tips of the snake’s fangs as it lunged at Fran, but its strike fell a foot short, its head landing on the ground in front of Fran’s feet.
Fran shrieked, then quickly raised the rake and began pounding the rake down on top of the snake.
When one of the metal prongs of the rake went through the snake’s head, it finally stopped moving.
Fran stood staring at the snake as she tried to catch her breathe.
Finally, she took the rake and dragged the snake to the side of the truck and placed it next to the first snake.
It was twice the size of the snake that scared Snoop inside the truck.
However, both of the snakes were large enough to scare the hell out of Fran, and still made chills run down her spine as she looked down at their dead bodies.
Fran finally recovered her wits and got her mind back to what she had to do.
For the next few minutes, Fran pounded the rake on top of the engine and radiator, until she was certain that there wasn’t anything else under the hood.
Fran grabbed her wrench and nervously walked over to the bumper and stared into the engine compartment.
Then she slowly reached in to the battery, using both of her trembling hands to get the wrench in place and began to remove the bolts that held the wires on the battery terminals.
Fortunately, this truck had been better maintained than her dad’s truck.
The bolts were a lot easier to remove than the rusted ones on the truck at home.
“Now the hard part,” Fran sighed as she climbed up on the bumper and gripped the battery with both hands and pulled.
Her hands were greasy and bruised by the time Fran had the battery balanced on top of the radiator.
She tilted the battery, it was too heavy for her to lift, and let it fall to the ground in front of the truck.
Fran hopped down off the bumper and started dragging the battery across the ground until she had it next to the bookbag.
In ten minutes, she was able to roll the battery into the bookbag and zip it up enough to hold the battery in place.
She then sat down on the ground and wiped the sweat off her forehead with her greasy hands.
A sense of relief, and accomplishment, came over Fran, knowing that she had survived, got the battery she had come for and could now go home.
“We did it Snoop,” Fran smiled as she looked towards where the dog had been sitting, but the dog was no longer there.
“Snoop?” Fran said as she stood and looked around to find where the puppy had wandered off to.
She became worried when she couldn’t see the puppy anywhere and he didn’t answer her call.
Fran started cautiously walking around the truck trying to find Snoop.
She had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming when she saw Snoop lying on top of the two dead snakes, eagerly chewing on one of the snakes.
Fran grabbed her rake and chased Snoop away from the dead snakes.
“What are you doing?” Fran yelled hysterically, “get away from those things!”
Snoop darted away from the snakes but tried to circle around and get at the snakes again.
Fran ran over and grabbed Snoop and picked him up, looking disgustedly at the blood and bits of snake flesh on the puppy’s mouth.
“You can’t eat those things,” Fran said, “That’s disgusting!”
But as Fran looked at Snoop staring intently at the snakes and heard him whine, she knew the little guy was starving.
She didn’t know how long he had been with Chad and Pete or even how he had ended up with those two, but she was certain that they would have never given him anything to eat.
Snoop was nothing but skin and bones, he was starving, and she certainly didn’t have anything to feed him except a few sour berries if she was lucky enough to find any more.
The thought terrified her and totally disgusted her, but she remembered hearing somewhere that people ate snakes.
She looked at Snoop again, watching the excited look on his face.
Fran didn’t want to deny the poor little guy what he considered to be a feast, but eating a dead bloody snake was just plain horrifying.
But then again, Snoop didn’t have a problem with it and he would starve to death if he didn’t get something substantial to eat soon.
Then an idea hit her, it was still gross but at least it might make the situation tolerable.
“OK buddy,” Fran said looking at the puppy, “I know you’re hungry and I hear that many people consider snakes a delicacy. I’ll let you eat, but we are going to do this right. I don’t want you chewing on a snake’s head and biting yourself.”
Fran sat Snoop on the ground and made him stay.
She grabbed her rake and walked over to the snakes and pounded at the snake’s bodies until she had cut off both of the heads.
Fran then dug a hole with the rake and buried the heads.
After using her little Bic lighter to make a small fire in the parking area next to the truck, she hooked the snake’s bodies on the rake prongs.
She then propped the rake on a rock so that the snakes hung a few inches above the fire.
Fran picked up the puppy and looked at him.
“If you are going to eat those disgusting things, they should at least be cooked,” Fran said. “Maybe they won’t look so disgusting after we cook them.”
Fran dragged the bookbag over near the fire and used it as a seat where she sat down and held Snoop as he eagerly eyed the snakes.
Fran turned the rake a few times to be sure the snakes were cooked thoroughly.
After ten minutes, both Snoop and Fran sat sniffing the air as the snakes roasted.
“That actually smells good,” Fran thought and then almost gagged at the thought of anyone eating a snake.
When Snoop started whining, Fran decided that the snakes looked to be done enough.
“At least they don’t look like snakes anymore and they aren’t bloody,” Fran sighed.
It was hard to tell if they were done or not since she had never thought about, let alone cooked a snake before.
She grabbed the rake with both hands and removed the snakes from the fire.
Snoop danced around Fran’s feet, knowing he was going to finally get something to eat.
Fran made a face as she shook the rake until one of the snakes fell off the prongs and landed on the ground.
Fran set the rake back over the fire and sat back down on the bookbag and watched as Snoop happily tore into the snake.
As Snoop tore the meat apart, Fran watched curiously.
“It really doesn’t look that bad, in a way it looks familiar” she thought. “I know, it looks like fish. It looks like the Trout may dad used to catch and fry up in a skillet. I heard snake meat tasted like chicken, but fish isn’t bad either.”
As she watched Snoop eat, her stomach began rumbling.
She felt disgusted when her mouth began to water.
But the more she watched the puppy eat, the more she realized how hungry she was, she found herself staring at the meat roasting over the fire.
Finally, Fran couldn’t resist the temptation any longer.
She pulled the pliers out of her jean’s pocket and walked over to the fire.
Hesitantly, she leaned over and ripped off a chunk of snake meat with the pliers.
Fran raised the pliers up under her nose and smelled the meat.
Her mouth salivated at the smell.
Slowly she moved the pliers to her mouth and ran her tongue over the meat.
She expected that she would start to gag or even throw up doing something this crazy, but she was astonished to find that she enjoyed the flavor on her tongue.
Finally, Fran took a bite from the chunk of meat on the pliers.
She was shocked at how good it tasted and began to wolf down the rest of the snake meat.
She reached down and took another large chunk.
She was surprised at how fast the meat disappeared.
She couldn’t believe she was eating a snake and liked it.
Before she had finished the snake, Snoop was sitting next to her, begging for more.
Knowing that the poor puppy needed it more than she did, Fran tossed the last of the snake meat to Snoop.
Fran sat on the bookbag watching as Snoop happily ate the last of his meal.
She realized for the first time since she had made the trip to the sawmill to find help for her dad, she felt content.
This was the best meal she had in a long time.
Eating a snake wasn’t as horrible as she thought it was going to be.
It also helped that snakes weren’t cute and she didn’t feel the least bit guilty about killing them.
As her thoughts turned back to getting the battery back home, she heard Snoop start to growl.
She looked over at him and saw his lips parting and his teeth begin to show as a low growl grew in his throat.
Snoop was staring intently at something behind her.
When Fran heard noise coming from behind her, she slowly turned, afraid of what she would see next.
When Fran saw the three mangled bodies struggling to move across the parking area towards her, she jumped to her feet and gasped at the gruesome sight.
“Snoop, we have to get out of here,” Fran whispered.
But before she had finished speaking, Snoop took off, running straight at the staggering bodies.
Fran grabbed her rake and without thinking about what she was doing, she ran after the puppy, “Snoop, No!”
By the time Fran caught up with Snoop, he was face to face with the first of the zombies.
Fran swung the rake as the zombie leaned forward, its two boney arms reaching for the puppy.
Fran looked stunned when the rake hit the zombie on the side of the head and the zombie’s head flew off its body and bounced on the ground.
The body dropped to the ground, one of the arms breaking off as the body landed on the ground.
Fran didn’t have much time to stare at the body because the other two staggering bodies weren’t far behind.
She looked at the two zombies approaching her.
She wasn’t sure, the bodies were so decomposed, but one of the two zombies looked like the receptionist that worked in the office, at least what hair it had left on the left side of her head was blonde and hung to the shoulders like the woman that worked in the office.
The bodies moved a lot slower than the men she had seen fighting at the sawmill when she came looking for help.
They also smelled a lot worse.
The zombies struggled to move but looked determined to get to her.
Fran easily kept out of their reach as they slowly staggered near her.
She raised her rake and quickly decapitated them like she did to the first zombie.
She was impressed with herself, how she had handled the three zombies so easily.
They weren’t nearly as terrifying as fighting snakes and they moved a lot slower too.
Fran picked up Snoop.
“Snoop let’s get the hell out of here before you get us both into any more trouble,” Fran said as she carried the puppy back over and grabbed the bookbag and started dragging it across the parking lot.
“The first thing I am going to do when we get home is to make you a leash,” Fran sighed. “Because you’re a crazy little idiot and you’re going to get us both killed.”
Snoop enjoyed the attention and licked Fran’s face and let out a little whine.
Chapter 10
June 30th, Granite Mountain
Doc stood behind Chervy, looking over his shoulder as Chervy typed on the keyboard and zoomed the satellite’s camera in on the crate of supplies Davis and Roger’s had dropped into the field near Stone, Idaho.
Then Chervy began to scan the area around the crate until he had examined the terrain for fifty miles in every direction around the crate.
Chervy turned and looked up at Doc.
“That’s the tenth time I’ve done this today
,” Chervy said. “I’ve studied every rock and tree in every direction for a hundred miles. I haven’t seen a single movement, let alone any indication that anyone is making their way to the food drop. I hate to say it Doc, but I don’t think there is anyone out there, Maybe we should try a food drop somewhere else?”
“I don’t want to give up yet,” Doc sighed. “I just have a feeling that there has to be at least a few survivors in that area. The terrain there would have given anyone that wasn’t immediately infected by the virus, the best chance to avoid the infected and find a way to live. I was afraid something like this would happen.”
“Something like what?” Chervy asked.
Something like the survivors not being able to hear my broadcasts,” Doc replied. “Remember how I said that when we were at the base, the base may have lost any opportunity to defeat the infected at the start because maybe we had relied on all our high-tech weapons when we should have been looking for something less sophisticated that might have been more effective?”
“I remember when we talked about that,” Chervy replied, “but over the last month as we thought and rethought about what had happened, that we decided that once it all started, nothing could have stopped it?”
“Rehashing the past and playing what if, is now pointless of course,” Doc smiled. “But at this stage in our efforts to try and find any survivors, I think we need to examine what we are doing and change our methods to something that may be more effective while we still have time.”
“So you think there is still some reason that the survivors are afraid to approach the food drop?” Chervy asked.
“No, what I am saying is that if there is anyone out there,” Doc replied, “I don’t believe they are receiving the broadcast. We may be relying, once again on a solution that is too high tech for what we are facing. The survivors don’t have any electricity to power their radios and any battery powered radios, if they had been used to listen to my nightly talks, have probably stopped working by now too. What we are seeing on the monitor, or more correctly what we are not seeing, may be because no one heard the broadcast telling them where we dropped the food. We should maybe try to find another way to contact survivors.