Overkill : Pure Venom

by Lawrie Jordan

  Just me…and my shadow he sang out loud as he ripped the lid off the complimentary hotel shampoo, emptied the cum-coloured contents onto his palm and rubbed it through his receding grey-black hair.

  There was either too much shampoo or too little hair because before he knew it, some of it had seeped down into his eyes. He shut them tight and turned his moon-face up to the spray hoping to wash it out before it stung too much. Shit, my eyes are sore enough already without…

  AGHHH! WHAT WAS THAT!?

  Something cold, wet and slimy – and heavy, very heavy – had moved across his right foot! Seeing things and hearing things were one thing, but feeling them was another thing altogether. That was no hallucination. But when he looked down through his blurred, burning eyes, he saw nothing bar his own fat feet dancing up and down on the spot, plus the cake of soap he’d dropped in fright.

  Shivering in spite of the steamy hot water (had it got several degrees colder in here or what?) a panicking, hyperventilating Theo Stomann groped for the taps, turned off the water and reached for his towel. He pulled it towards his face, intent on drying his eyes and getting the fuck out of there. Out of the shower. Out of the room. Out of the hotel. Out of Dodge fucking City…

  Out of the blue, the snake struck!

  Launching itself from behind the towel, it covered the 50 centimetres between shower screen and face in the blink of an eye. And that’s all Stomann had time to do. His right eyeball exploded like an overripe grape as the still uncoiling snake sank its hooked fangs through his eyelid, deep into his pupil and injected a stream of ice-cold venom straight into his eye. In that split second, despite the pain and the panic, he could swear he could feel the snake’s thin raspy tongue licking his eyeball. He’d remember that repulsive feeling for the rest of his life.

  Screaming like a banshee, Stomann instinctively grabbed the squirming snake and yanked with all his might. Writhing wildly, the reptile came away from his face, along with what was left of his oozing eyeball, leaving just the twitching raw stalk.

  The snake was no sooner away from his face, when it lunged straight back and bit him on the jugular vein on the right side of his neck.

  Shaking violently, yelling incessantly, Stomann tripped over the bathtub and crashed through the glass wall of the shower recess clutching his disintegrating eye socket, and his neck. He felt like vomiting, but his throat felt like it was closed. The pain that shot through him was unbearable; it was like his entire body had a cramp.

  His heart pounding, Stomann crawled and stumbled over the broken glass towards the door, not even feeling the shards as they bit deep into his pudgy palms and knees. The snake followed. Slowly but surely, its tongue darting in and out. There was no hurry now. Its trembling victim was already incapacitated and could only look back with one wide, terrified eye as the serpent slithered silently closer, in for the kill. Fortunately for him, by the time it reached him again, Stomann could feel nothing. And see very little.

  Nothing but Death staring him in the face, as the snake struck again, and again, and again.

  Chapter 3.

  Questions raised.

  The rotor blades were still spinning when Senior Detective Michael Marr of the Northern Territory Criminal Investigation Bureau zipped open the oversized body bag. As he did so, he glanced at his watch; high noon.

  Immediately after receiving the call from Sergeant Gordon McPhee of the local police force, Marr had dropped everything, commandeered the chopper and pilot at Alice Springs and flown out to the tourist mecca in the south west. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered with something as relatively straightforward as a snakebite death, but the circumstances sounded far too suss to be ignored.

  And now, as he and McPhee viewed the body, packed in dry ice in the makeshift morgue at the Uluru National Park Police Station adjacent to the Helipad, he knew instinctively that he’d done the right thing by making the 30-minute flight out from Alice.

  “Ugh! What a friggin’ shockin’ way to go,” the craggy-faced sergeant said as the detective prised the body bag open and closely examined its contents, namely one Theodore Stomann. Marr studied the body from savaged head to tagged toe for a moment before speaking.

  “Five bites you said? I can only see two. The eyelid, what’s left of it, and the neck.”

  “Yeah, well there’s another right ’ere, under his double chin, another on the poor fat bastard’s left arse cheek,” McPhee pointed out, “and another on ’is right testicle. Christ! Gettin’ bitten on the balls by a bloody great snake - wouldn’t that bring tears to your eyes?”

  “You mean eye, singular” Marr said, glancing back up at Stomann’s blood-caked face. And I’m definitely with you. I’m shit-scared of snakes! Take me through it one more time please, will you Gordy?”

  Although the sergeant had done a good job of filling him in on the phone, there was nothing like actually hearing everything in person, especially while studying the body.

  McPhee retrieved a sweat-stained dog-eared Northern Territory police notebook from the back pocket of his faded khaki shorts and commenced reading.

  “The deceased ’as been formally ID’ed as Theodore Gunther Stomann, aged 39 from Warrnambool, Victoria. He was in Uluru with a group of nine mates all stayin’ at the Desert Gardens Hotel. Stomann checked in at 1.00pm last Thursday and was allocated room 1008 on the first floor. He was due to check out tomorrow. But as ya can see, ’e checked out early.

  “His naked body was discovered by the duty manager at approximately 9.15am today. The manager was summonsed by one of the big fella’s mates, Colin James Caldwell after Stomann allegedly failed to show up for an organised day trip out to The Olgas, and couldn’t be contacted. The local quack, who’s also the actin’ Regional Coroner, was called and pronounced ’im dead at 9.35am. Cause of death is aggravated snake bite…”

  “Aggravated snake bite? Like aggravated assault.”

  “Yeah, well like I said on the phone, it’s the number of bites that’s the bloody worry. One or two hits maybe, but five? Absolute overkill accordin’ to the herpo…herpet…er…snake expert from Darwin, who’ll be here ASAP by the way. Snakes usually only bite humans to defend themselves, ’specially when they’re cornered. Ha! In fact they say that most snake bite fatalities are old blokes brandishin’ shovels.”

  “So, not usually aggressive?”

  “Nah, you leave them alone, they leave you alone. Usually. Plus they don’t like to waste their precious reserves of poison. Apparently sometimes they don’t even inject any at all, or very little when they bite. They call that a dry bite. So unless Stomann kept attackin’ the snake after he’d been bitten…”

  “Unlikely. I’d be trying to get away from it, wouldn’t you?”

  “…what we’re lookin’ at here is more than one snake – which is fairly far friggin’ fetched – or one mean mother of a snake on a mission.”

  “Yeah, nah nothing’s adding up,” Marr said, thinking out loud. “How does a snake, a big one at that judging from the size of those puncture wounds, get up to the first floor of a busy hotel, into Stomann’s room and out again? Did it take the elevator up and knock politely on his door?”

  “You think maybe someone took ’is trained snake up there and let the bastard loose? Then collected it again after it’d done the deed,” McPhee asked sceptically.” He smirked and pantomimed someone rewarding his pet. “Good boy, Fang…’ere’s the big fat rat I promised ya.” Then, after a pause, “Would you like to see the scene of the crime?”

  “Lead on, McDuff.”

  “It’s McPhee.”

  “No, I was quoting Shakespeare. You know…MacBeth? Oh, never mind,” the senior detective said, zipping up the bag and following the local lawman out to the waiting Nissan Patrol.

  He noticed McPhee hobbling slightly. “Got a crook foot, Gordo?” he asked.

  “Nah. Did me back in liftin’ that fat prick onto the examination table. Took four of us and nearly killed me. A croc attack would’ve been better than
a snake. There would have been considerably less of ’im to bloody carry.”

  As they drove the 2 kilometres to the Desert Gardens Hotel, behind a bus ferrying its cargo of camera-toting Asian tourists back from a morning rambling all around the base of the Rock – literally a real slowcoach – Marr tried to ignore McPhee’s attempt at small talk as much as he could. Yes, he had had a good trip out. Yes, it was hot, real hot. No, he didn’t damn well know or care if they’d get a storm. And yes, his missus was fine. As far as he knew, or cared. No point mentioning the recent divorce or that she’d shot through back to Melbourne.

  “So what time tonight or tomorrow is this herpetologist bloke turning up?” he asked, changing the subject.

  The sergeant smirked. He’d been waiting for this. “Nah, Mike…it’s not a bloke, it’s a friggin’ sheila. Name’s Ms Ronda Hartley. Not ‘Miss’, ‘Ms’ if ya please. Didn’t sound overly friendly, in fact a bit surly. Either doesn’t like coppers, or men more like it, if ya know what I mean. Prob’ly a 60-year old confirmed spinster, typical scientist nerd. Anyway, got Ms Hartley on her car’s satellite phone right after I called ya. Should be ’ere within the hour.”

  “A bloody hour!? All the way from Darwin?”

  “Yeah, nah as luck would have it, Mike, she was right next door, catchin’ Joe Blakes up near Wallara. Packed it in and jumped straight in her four-be when I told her what’d happened.”

  Marr smiled at the fact that McPhee had said ‘right next door’ when Wallara, on the road to Kings Canyon, was a good two-and-a-half hours non-stop drive away…what they would have called a ‘six stubby trip’ back in the bad old days when people drove with a beer in one hand and a fag in the other.

  “Wallara for Crissakes,” Marr said after a while. “Like there are no snakes closer to Darwin.”

  “Ha! That’s what I said! But not the right type apparently. If ya ask me, none of the bastards are the right type. Should cull the bloody lot of ’em, startin’ with those friggin’ Taipans. I ’ad a dog once…”

  By now they were in the Hotel carpark. The late morning heat swamped them the moment they jumped out of the air-conditioned Patrol, and they wasted no time hurrying into the cool of the Desert Gardens where it was almost business as usual.

  Nodding to the reception staff, McPhee led Marr over to the lift and pressed the up button. However the detective strode right past the lift and started up the marble-look stairs. “C’mon Gordy, it’s only one flight of steps for crying out loud. You getting soft in your old age or something?” Little did he let on that he was claustrophobic and hated lifts more than anything, maybe even snakes.

  “Yeah nah, mate. I’ll take the lift. Damn steps’ll kill me back.”

  Room 1008 was four doors down from the top of the stairway, on the left. It was marked by yellow and black striped crime scene tape and guarded by a young native constable.

  “Thanks for holdin’ the fort, Davo,” McPhee said, “the detective and I will take over for half an hour or so. Go and have your smoko. Or, better still, go check on them missin’ persons that were called in this mornin’. Old bloke and his granddaughter. See if they’ve turned up yet. The girl’s big brother is stressin’ out about ’em. He thinks somethin’s happened to ’em.”

  “Ha! Maybe missing, boss maybe yalatja, you know just gone plain bloody walkabout,” the constable grumbled, stretching as he went. “You know what them black fellas are like. Just wander off.”

  He wandered off.

  Donning rubber gloves and plastic booties, Marr and McPhee opened the unlocked door and walked into the room. The ubiquitous hotel suite, it consisted of a short hallway, a combined living room and bedroom, and a bathroom.

  “The bathroom’s through here,” the sergeant said, leading the way.

  “Not yet,” Marr answered. “I want to get a feel out here first, take a few mental pictures if you know what I mean.”

  Slowly, carefully the tall, fit fair-haired detective who’d just celebrated forty trips around the sun began to walk slowly and carefully around the suite. His razor-sharp blue eyes took in the mess of mini-bar bottles on the floor and the clothes strewn willy-nilly around the room before settling on the silver serving tray, now covered in white dusting powder.

  “Any good prints?”

  “Yeah,” McPhee answered, consulting his trusty notebook. “But nothin’ but Stomann’s.”

  “What!?” Marr asked, pricking up his ears. “You mean it’s been wiped?”

  “Well that’s the thing, Mike. Normally shiny silver shit like that is a real print magnet, with dozens of old and fresh smudges, but there’s nothin’. It’s as if big Theo was the only person to ’ave ever touched it.”

  “Impossible. Someone must’ve brought it here.”

  By now both policemen were standing around the salver. Once again the sergeant referred to his notes.

  “No one’s taken credit for it,” he said. “Plus there’s no record, verbal or written, of Stomann havin’ ordered anything from Room Service.”

  “Well it sure as hell didn’t just materialise here. Bag it and tag it for us will you Gordo and we’ll send it up to the lab in Darwin. They’ll run their trusty new ‘vacuum gleaner’ over it – it’ll bring up any print that was ever on it, no matter how feint.” Then as an afterthought, although he thought he knew the answer said, “I don’t suppose anyone saw or heard anything untoward?”

  McPhee flipped over to the last page of his notebook. “We checked with all the other rooms on this floor, most occupied by people attendin’ the True Australia Party conference by the way, but most of ’em were already out and about, headin’ out to the Rock and such. Old mate in 1012 thought he heard some screamin’ round about eight o’clock, but he thought it was just…”

  “The TV? What a surprise! Nothing else?”

  “No, Mike. Another dead end. Hey, ya don’t suppose the snake was already in the room do ya, it could have been ’ere for days, even weeks.”

  “Yeah, that thought crossed my mind too. But do you see many hiding places, apart from under the bed of course. And that’s the first place the cleaners look in case previous guests have left something valuable that they can pocket. Plus it still doesn’t explain how it got into and out of the room.”

  Having completed a full roll of mental pictures, plus a few with his pocket digital for good measure, Marr moved on, drawn inevitably towards the bathroom. Even though Stomann’s body had long gone, he could vividly picture where the big man had breathed his last, there among the bloody bits of broken glass.

  He imagined himself as the hapless duty manager, opening the bathroom door to discover the fresh corpse; half suspecting a heart attack victim, then turning him onto his back (wouldn’t have been easy) and having the gruesome truth come crashing down on him hard. Death, particularly violent death, still came as a shock to him even after two decades in the police force, so he could imagine how it would affect a layman.

  “And the Manager didn’t see anything out of place… like a big fat fucken snake?”

  “No mate. Not ’im, or the coroner or Dave and me. No one saw nothin’ and believe me, once I knew there was a snake involved, I was bloody lookin’ high and low!’

  Marr himself was looking high, at the exhaust fan vent.

  “Yeah, we pulled the cover off that too – me with me service pistol cocked and ready to fire at will – but it was as empty as a pollie’s promise.”

  Marr took his time looking around the rest of the room, noting all the numerous scrapings of blood (just in case it wasn’t all Stomann’s) and the fingerprint powder on the taps, toilet cistern, bathtub, sink, mirror, shower, and bathroom door handles and lock. He crouched down to inspect the outside handle.

  “Just Stomann’s and the Manager’s prints,” McPhee said from behind him, pre-empting his question.

  “And the Manager claims this door was shut when he got here?” Marr asked.

  “Fully shut.”

  “Then how did our ‘suspe
ct’ get out of the bathroom?” the detective asked, closing the door, crouching down and running his index finger between it and the floor tiles. “There’s less than a centimetre gap, same as the top. Virtually airtight. No wonder nobody heard anything. I know they’re super-flexible, I’ve cringed my way though Animal Planet, but no large snake on earth could possibly squeeze its way out under that door, under its own steam that is.”

  “It’s the same with the door to the room, Mike,” McPhee pointed out, and both men walked out of the bathroom and over to the hallway to see that it was so. Once again Marr got down on his haunches and ran his finger along the gap at the base of the closed door.