Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies (17 page)

That little factoid jolted me even more than his reference to the reptile god. And after I got out of there, I drove around and tried to figure out what it all meant.

If I let my imagination run amok, I could construct a scenario based on what Horn had told me. After his injury, it had been impossible for him to continue killing in the same way as before. So he’d turned to occultism to learn how to murder women with magic.

It didn’t get him anywhere until Frances blew through and cracked the wall between the worlds. Then, at last, he made contact with the dragon god.

The god gave him the power to reach out with his mind to find reptiles, see through their eyes, and control them. Venomous snakes became the weapons he used to kill. Lizards were the scouts who located his victims, stood watch outside his house, and allowed him to monitor a location after the murder, to gloat over the excitement when the body was discovered.

Yeah, right.

I didn’t need Chief Davis to point out the weaknesses in this particular theory. For starters, if it was true, why the hell—aside from the fact that he was a head case—would Horn even hint about it?

Well, maybe I’d succeeded in convincing him I knew nothing about his past and didn’t suspect him of anything. If so, it might have given him a thrill to indicate his guilt to a dumb cop who didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

In any case, the real objection to my idea was that it seemed impossible even to me. I didn’t believe in witchcraft or unknown gods any more than the next guy.

Or at least I never had. Maybe I wasn’t quite as sure anymore.

The hell of it was, I couldn’t even see anywhere to go, any way to prove or disprove my suspicions. If Horn was finding and guiding snakes by mental telepathy, even putting him under direct surveillance wouldn’t help. I wouldn’t see him do anything incriminating.

So I did nothing but fret and get spooked whenever I saw a lizard. It felt as though they were watching me, although I never caught one doing anything peculiar enough to make me certain. Meanwhile, copperheads killed another woman, and Hurricane Jeanne wandered around in the Atlantic.

The town didn’t worry much about the latter. By that time, people were too busy being scared of snakes. Besides, the forecasters said Jeanne probably wouldn’t make landfall in Florida at all, and even if it did, it would likely only affect the Atlantic coast.

They were still saying it on the afternoon when I walked out of my duplex, came down the steps, and felt a tiny sting on the back of my leg, just above the ankle. It didn’t smart any worse than if a no-see-um had bitten me through my pants and sock, but I glanced around to see what the problem was.

Banded with black, red, and yellow, coral snakes were crawling out from under the porch. The one in the lead had already bitten me. It was hanging on and, if I could believe the National Geographic Channel, chewing.

Maybe I should have seen the attack coming. But I didn’t think Horn believed I was a threat to him. Why should he, when I scarcely believed it, either? I can only assume that over time, he decided it had been reckless to share his story even in the form of hints and insinuations and wanted to make sure I didn’t repeat it.

I tried to spring away from the coral snakes. Somehow, I tripped and slammed down hard on the ground. Before I could scramble up again, the reptiles were all over my legs. I felt more little stings as their fangs jabbed and gnawed their way into my flesh.

I grabbed them and pulled them loose. Ripping their teeth out of me hurt worse than the bites did. I threw them and they immediately started slithering back at me. Some of them bit my hands as I reached and snatched, and ended up dangling from my fingers and palms.

I realized I couldn’t stay where I was until I removed them all. They kept coming back faster than I could get rid of them. I ripped several off, then jumped up and ran with two more still hanging on to me.

The other coral snakes chased me, but I reached my cruiser ahead of them. I scrambled inside, slammed the door, rolled down a window, and tried to deal with the reptiles that were still biting me.

I didn’t have too much trouble yanking the first one off and tossing it outside. The second let me go of its own accord and started to crawl under the seat. I grabbed its tail just before it disappeared and chucked it out, also.

Then I fumbled my keys out of my pocket, started the car, and hitched it back and forth, crushing snakes beneath the wheels. I could just feel the bump whenever I caught one.

The survivors scattered and fled, while I did my best to kill them all, including the ones that crawled from the dirt driveway back onto the grass. My tires cut scars in the lawn.

Finally, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see any snakes that were still alive. Rage and disgust lost their hold on me, fear welled up to take their place, and I realized I had to get to a hospital.

Maybe I should have called an ambulance. But I was already sitting in an emergency vehicle, and according to the National Geographic Channel, it could take hours for the symptoms of coral-snake poison to appear. I turned on the siren and chase lights and pulled out onto the road.

I found out pretty fast that either I was more susceptible than the average victim or the documentary hadn’t been talking about people bitten so many times by so many different snakes. First, my mouth filled up with spit, and no matter how often I swallowed, it came right back. Then my hands got numb.

My eyelids drooped, and I felt sleepy. Once, I actually must have drifted off, because the world seemed to skip, and suddenly the car was left of center.

Not long after that, my vision blurred. Fortunately, by then, the hospital was dead ahead. I stopped the car in front of the ER entrance and stumbled inside.

A nurse hurried over to me. “Coral snakes,” I said, spilling drool down my chin. I hoped she understood. My voice was slurred.

She called for help. She and an orderly walked me into a curtained-off examination area and hoisted me onto a bed. And since I’m still alive, they and the rest of the staff must have gone on helping me, but I passed out and missed the rest of it.

I woke in a dark room. For a few seconds, I was disoriented, and not just because it was an unfamiliar space. Outside the window, the wind roared, and the rain pounded like a jackhammer. It made me feel as if it were three weeks ago, and Frances was doing its best to level the town.

Then I noticed the wires attached to my chest, the round little Band-Aids on my puffy wounds, and the IV
in the back of my hand. I realized I was in the hospital, and that brought my memories of recent events rushing back.

I took stock of myself and decided I felt well enough to get up. I detached myself from the heart monitor and hanging bag of saline solution. Then, feeling awkward in my hospital gown, I headed out into the hall.

It was gloomy there, too. I realized the area had lost electricity, and the hospital was relying on its generator.

A short, plump woman with a pretty round face and shiny black hair hurried out of the nurse’s station to intercept me. “Mr. Santelli,” she said, her Hispanic accent barely noticeable, “you shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“I feel okay,” I answered. “Are we really having another hurricane?”

She frowned. “Yes. Can you believe it? Jeanne came ashore exactly where Frances did and is following the same path. Is that bad luck or what?”

And I thought, you’ve got no idea.

Because, crazy as it was, I now truly, completely believed that Derrick Horn could control reptiles with his mind and was using them to commit murder. The coral snakes had chewed all the skepticism right out of me.

And, believing that, I also had to assume that a second hurricane gave Horn a second chance to commune with the dragon god. He was liable to come out of it with even more power to hurt other people.

Somebody needed to stop him, and since I was the only one who knew, it would have to be me.

I had to talk to a doctor before the nurses would give me back my stuff and let me sign out of the hospital AMA. I told him that as soon as Jeanne blew through, the town would need every available cop, and my dedication to duty won him over.

By that time, it was three A.M. When I stepped out onto the covered porch, the night was as dark as any I’d ever seen, with no moon- or starlight leaking through the cloud cover, and scarcely an electric light burning anywhere. It was only a few yards from the door to the space where someone had parked my cruiser, but my clothes were plastered to my skin by the time I made the sprint. I twisted the key in the ignition, turned the windshield wipers on high, and found they barely helped at all. The rain was pounding down too hard for the blades to clear it.

Poor visibility was only one of the reasons why no one with any sense was on the road. The wind shoved me around as I crept along. I drove through standing water so deep that I was sure it would splash up inside the engine.

Lightning flashed, thunder banged, and sparks fell. A pole toppled in front of me, dragging broken power lines along with it. I stamped on the brakes and realized from the mushy feel that water had definitely gotten inside them. I hydroplaned to a stop just short of a collision. Shivering in my wet clothes, I sat for a moment, waiting for my nerves to settle, then dropped the cruiser into reverse.

By the time I made it to Horn’s place, the weather had gotten even worse. When I climbed out of the car, the rain stung like gravel falling from the sky and made it impossible to see for more than a few feet. The wind howled and almost knocked me over.

I waded around the car and took the Ithaca 37 out of the trunk. I figured that a shotgun blast could kill several snakes at once and also knew that as long as I picked up my ejected shells, forensics wouldn’t even be able to identify the make of scattergun fired at the scene, let alone my individual weapon.

Which was a definite plus. Because if this ever came back on me, I wouldn’t have much hope of convincing anyone that I’d had a legitimate reason to break in and kill a paraplegic sitting alone in his own home.

Deprived of electricity, that home was as black as all the surrounding houses. I slogged toward it, and the rain battered me. Damn, it smarted! I tried to take comfort in the thought that at least it would keep Horn’s lizards from spotting my approach. They couldn’t be standing watch now. The downpour would wash them from their perches.

Something moved at the edge of my vision. I turned and looked directly into the wind and the rain it blew in my face like a stream from a fire hose. Squinting, even blinder than I’d been before, I could just make out a long, low shape. I figured it was either a log or some man-made object floating in the floodwater. The important thing was, I could tell it wasn’t a snake. It was far too big and bulky.

But then I realized it was coming straight at me, faster than even hundred-mile-an-hour winds could explain. I saw the lashing tail and the stumpy legs.

Shock froze me for a precious instant. I’d heard there were alligators in the area, but I’d never seen one, and, since Horn hadn’t used them to kill any of the women, I hadn’t expected to run into one now. The reptile was nearly on top of me before I shouldered the Ithaca and fired.

The blasts tore into its head, and it stopped moving. I just had time to feel relieved before the jaws of a second gator snapped shut on my calf. In the dark and the rain, I simply hadn’t noticed it. It yanked my leg out from under me, and I splashed down in the water.

The National Geographic Channel had told me what
to expect next. The alligator would start shaking me or rolling over and over to tear me to pieces.

I jackknifed up into a sitting position, twisted, and managed to get the animal in front of my gun. Not caring whether some of the scatter hit my leg, I fired at the gator’s snout and eyes.

It jerked at the impact, then flexed its tail to start the death roll. I fired again. That shot blasted chunks from the back of its head and seemed to finish it.

I looked around for other gators. When I didn’t see any, I pried my throbbing leg out of the reptile’s jaws.

It was gashed and bloody, but maybe not quite as bad as it looked—and felt. I stood up cautiously and found I could limp around on it.

Even after I turned on my flashlight for a moment, I could only find one of my spent shells in the floodwater. I’d just have to hope it would wash the others far enough that nobody else would ever find them, either.

As I sloshed on toward the house, I wondered if Horn knew I was coming. If his mind had been inside the gators when they attacked me, then yes. If he’d simply given the animals orders and left them to stand guard, then maybe not. The Ithaca really boomed when it went off, but the hiss of the wind and clatter of the rain might have been enough to mask the noise.

I told myself it didn’t matter if he knew or not. I’d already proved I could handle snakes and now alligators, too. What else was there?

The front door was locked. I had a bump key, though, a souvenir from my years as a detective, and it only took me a few seconds to get it open.

It was even darker inside the house than outside, and as I crept down the entrance hall, I peered for any hint of motion to indicate the presence of a snake. The animal
didn’t have to be on the floor. It could be on a piece of furniture, or even coiled in a light fixture on the ceiling, waiting to drop on me as I hobbled underneath.

But I didn’t spot any snakes or anything else alive. Not until I turned into the room that Horn had turned into his library. There, amid the heaps of books that looked like tombstones in the dark, I could just make out a vague shape inside the wheelchair.

As I shouldered the Ithaca, I caught a rank animal smell competing with the odor of old paper. I aimed, and my target shot out of the chair, thumped down on its belly, and slithered toward me. It gave the impression of a leech or a thick-bodied snake, and it charged with the sinuous speed of a predator built to crawl.