Phobia (10 page)

~ 19 ~

My microwave continued to beep periodically, even though it remained unplugged.

Enough was enough. It was time to get rid of the beeping piece of shit once and for all. I decided to stash it in the garage, where I wouldn’t be able to hear it. My garage adjoined my house, a feature I loved because I was able to get in and out of my car without any danger of neighbors seeing me and starting a conversation. Going out to the garage wasn’t like going outside because the remote-controlled door was securely shut.

Carrying the microwave, I opened the garage door, then froze. The microwave slipped from my hands and crashed to the cement floor.

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

My car was in the garage!

And it was not smashed!

I walked around my beloved Toyota Corolla, my home-away-from-home, looking for dents, scratches, any sign that the vehicle had been in an accident. The car was in perfect condition. In fact, it was cleaner than when I’d last used it, like someone had had it detailed.

But how?

More importantly, who?

Someone had gotten my car repaired and then had it detailed, returned it to my home and parked it in the garage, all without my knowledge.

I peeked through the window and saw the keys dangling from the ignition. I tried the door and found it unlocked.

Salvation!

I was mobile again! With my wheels at my disposal I suddenly felt invincible. I would go and find out what had happened, who had survived and decide what to do from there.

I dove into the driver’s seat, heart pounding. I paused for a moment before turning the key.

What if it didn’t start?

Just do it already, dummy.

I turned the key.

It started!

I checked the fuel gauge and saw that my tank was almost full. My garage door remote was in its holder, clipped to the visor.

“Yes! Freedom, here I come!”

I couldn’t remember when I’d ever felt so thrilled to be leaving my house.

I pressed the button on the remote and the garage door rose, revealing dim daylight with a thick blanket of fog. Fog or not, any daylight was welcome. It concealed the wasteland beyond, and I could almost believe a normal world existed out there.

I backed slowly out of the garage. Near the end of my driveway, my rear wheels ran over a rather large speed bump.
When the hell did they put that in?
It occurred to me that it probably wasn’t a speed bump, but some kind of debris from the blast. I hoped my tires were undamaged.

The vehicle hesitated. My front tires seemed mired in something. I gunned it to get the rest of the way over the bump. I heard something scraping the bottom of my car’s undercarriage, and then felt a second thud as the front tires made it over the bump. I leaned forward, peering over the dash to see what I had driven over.

I shouldn't have looked.

I screamed and screamed.

My absolute worst nightmare lay in the driveway in front of my car.

It was none other than the hissing monster, in the flesh.

Agoraphobia was the biggest of my phobias. Because my agoraphobia discouraged me from going outdoors, it kept me from encountering the object of my second biggest phobia:

Snakes.

Glistening black coils rose, writhing, on either side of my car. A slapping sound on my driver’s side window made me turn my head in time to see the coarse yellow scales of the giant snake's underbelly sliding up the side of my door.

Giant was an understatement. The thing was gargantuan – easily thirty feet long and more than a foot thick around the middle. Luckily, (for me, not the snake) I’d run over its tail end or my car surely would have gotten stuck. The way the monster serpent thrashed about, I couldn’t tell if it was injured or just severely pissed off at me for running over it.

I stomped on the accelerator to get away from the abomination that lay writhing in my driveway.

The engine stalled. This was becoming more and more like every horror movie I’d ever seen.

I cranked it and cranked it until the battery started to wear down, but still the car wouldn’t start. I needed to get back to the safety of the house, but I was surrounded by snake. Black and yellow scales covered my windshield and draped over both sides of my car, all but obliterating what daylight there was.

I curled up on the seat, covered my eyes and sobbed. What was I thinking, trying to leave my nice, secure home? All of my worst fears had come to life. I’d never felt so out of control as I did at that moment.

I didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually I noticed that the interior of the car seemed brighter. I peeked out between my fingers and saw that my car was no longer covered with slithering coils. I looked out each window, front, sides and back and saw no sign of the snake.

What should I do? Drive away or get back into the house? I considered my options for a moment. Out there was a scary unknown wasteland with a monster serpent that could be anywhere. Inside the house was my laptop with its tenuous Internet connection, and Colin.

I turned the key again and the engine turned over slowly, making a dismal
WHUP, WHUP
sound. The car wasn’t going to start, and Triple-A wasn’t coming to rescue me.

Back to the house, then.

I opened the car door a crack, checking carefully for signs of serpent. Once confident the coast was clear, I jumped out of the car and ran for the garage, hoping the snake was far away.

The door was locked, and…

“SHIT!” I smacked my palm against the door in frustration.

The house keys were in my purse, which I had left inside the house in my haste to drive away.

The front door!

I kept a spare key under the planter on the front porch. All I had to do was run to the front door without encountering the snake.

I looked around for a weapon and saw a golf putter leaning up against the garage wall. It would have to do. The odd thing was, I didn't play golf and had never seen the putter before. Presumably whoever had returned my car had left it behind, for reasons I couldn't fathom.

Brandishing the golf club, I edged around the corner of the garage. The thick fog made it difficult to see very far, but I could make out the jagged outline of the picket fence and the gap where I knew the gate was. I reached the cement walkway and with relief, hurried toward the house.

I stopped when my toe connected with something soft yet firm.

I looked down and nearly wet myself in terror. The reptile’s bulbous coiled body looked like a rock, but I knew differently, having already touched it.

It was smaller than the beast that had besieged my car, but to me it was no less a monster. It was at least six feet long with a blunt tail and distended belly, like it had just finished eating a house cat.

It hadn’t moved when my foot touched it and I wondered if it was dead. Somewhat less threatening but no less repulsive.

It raised its head as if awakened from a deep sleep, but didn’t uncoil or rear back to strike. I took a step back and my foot touched another heavy, pliant mass.

No. NO!

My pulse pounded so hard it hurt. I was certain my heart was about to explode. My lungs felt stuffy and the air felt thick and humid. I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen.

The world moved in slow motion. I didn’t want to look down, but I couldn’t not look.

I was surrounded by horror.

Large ones, small ones. Fat ones, thin ones. Snakes of every size, shape and color littered the landscape.

The walkway to my house, which had been empty moments before was now alive with layer upon layer of undulating coils.

I was mere steps to safety, but it might as well have been a hundred miles. There was no place to step without putting my foot on a snake.

A high-pitched ringing rose in my ears and dizziness swept over me. I gasped, desperate for air. I knew I wasn’t suffocating – the opposite was happening – I was hyperventilating. I swayed on my feet like a drunk and leaned on the putter for balance. I was in imminent danger of fainting. When I did, I would collapse into a writhing heap of horror.

Using the putter, I pushed one snake out of my path. Then another. Inch by inch I shuffled forward on legs of jelly onto the clear patches of concrete. The path closed behind me seconds after I passed and the walkway was once again obscured by glistening reptilian bodies. Even though I was making progress, the front door still seemed miles away. It was too far. I’d never make it without fainting.

Push. Shuffle. Push. Shuffle. My progress was slow, but there was nowhere to go but forward, and I was doing it. I was actually doing it!

One step at a time. I can do this.
I recited it in my mind over and over like a mantra as I crept forward, and it calmed me.
One step at a time. I can do this.

As long as I didn’t have to touch them I would be okay. I would make it. I had to – the alternative was far too terrifying to consider. Fortunately, none of the snakes seemed poisonous. Surely I would have been bitten multiple times already. The thought of the creatures being of the non-poisonous variety offered little comfort. Snakes were snakes, and they gave me the heebie-jeebies regardless.

My foot touched the first of the three concrete steps leading up to my front door. The snakes accumulated on the landing at the top of the stairs in even higher concentrations, as if trying to find a way inside.

My gut chilled as a horrifying thought occurred to me. What if they did? What if they had already gotten inside the house?

I ran an inventory of windows, doors and other household openings through my mind. There were no open windows to my knowledge, but what about heating ducts, vents or other such openings? I scolded myself for having such negative thoughts. The house was safe. I’d seen no sign of snakes inside, not ever.

I scraped the reptiles off of the second stair and stepped up.

Then the third.

The area in front of the door was the worst. They were piled easily three feet deep.

I hooked the putter around the edge of my
Go Away
welcome mat and pulled, bringing dozens of snakes with it. I swept the mat and snakes off the side of the porch onto the grass below, then cleared the rest of the slithering bodies from in front of the door.

In spite of feeling faint with terror, I felt kind of proud. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be wading through an ankle-deep quagmire of snakes and even voluntarily moving them out of the way, I would never have believed it. Not in a billion years.

HISS. SUCK.

HISS. SUCK.

The snakes hissed in unison, and the familiar sound filled the air.

HISS. SUCK.

HISS. SUCK.

Strangely, I no longer found the noise frightening now that I knew its source. Even though the source was the bane of my existence.

It reminded me of something Colin had said.

“Light is information. Information helps to alleviate fear.”

He had compared phobias to a darkened room. The unknown was scarier than the known. When you removed the unknown factor from the equation, anything became less frightening.

With renewed energy, I continued to sweep heaps of reptiles off the front porch, cringing at the heavy
plop-plop
sound they made when they landed on each other.

Ew! Ew-Ew-Ew!

Just a few more, then it would be safe to open the door.

There. All clean.

I kicked the planter over, sending it and a small orange snake sailing over the edge of the porch. I bent and retrieved the key that had been hidden underneath.

I looked back once before I opened the door. The steps below where I had stood just moments before were already covered with writhing bodies. The front yard resembled a gigantic bucket of fishing bait, except the squirming mass was made up of snakes instead of worms.

Snakes had already begun to make their way back onto the landing where I stood. I had to hurry.

I flung the door open and dove inside, slamming it shut behind me and then locking it for good measure. I leaned my back against the door, panting in relief, thankful that I hadn’t installed that security chain I’d been considering.

I smiled.

I did it! I really truly made it!

My victory was short-lived.

I looked around the room and then screamed.

The living room carpet was obscured by a slick, slithering mass. Snakes lay coiled on the sofa, on the cushions, arms and back. Others were draped over the drapery rods.

Somehow they had breached my stronghold. My sanctuary was no longer secure. My illusion of safety would forever be tainted by the vision before me.

Even my computer desk was covered in snakes. A small canary-yellow snake lay curled contentedly on the keyboard of my laptop.