"Smith, Guy N - Snakes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

The Russell's viper's spell might have lasted a second or an hour. Veronica was aware of the others pressed up against her, of Ian pinching her flesh in his infantile terror but she made no move to push him away. Greenish silhouettes all around that might have been statues in some underground temple of snake worship. Bow before your lord and master and beg of him forgiveness and mercy.

The snake's eyes were closed and suddenly everybody was moving, just a flexing of cramped limbs, turning one way, then another, as though they had become so disorientated that they had forgotten in which direction the exit lay.

The atmosphere was heavy with the sour smell of human sweat. The tension had built up to a peak; it might have blown but instead it had subsided. You knew it was still there, though, and you wanted to get the hell out of here before something happened.

'Mam, I want to go home.' A distant muffled familiar cry. She didn't want to hit her bastard son any more; suddenly she wanted to protect him, to shield him from this illogical evil. She thought for a moment that she might cry.

'They're nasty things in cages.' She wished her whispers didn't echo, didn't quaver. 'Shut your eyes and think of something else. We'll be outside in a minute.'

The queue had bottlenecked. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry any more. More glass cages, all lit with that same eerie glow. The horror show isn't over yet, folks.

Oh, Jesus Christ, get a move on! Veronica stole a sideways glance, breathed her relief aloud. This case was empty, thank God. The thick glass acted like a mirror, threw her own reflection back at her.

A little more personal care and she could have been attractive. A perm for that shoulder-length blonde hair; she didn't have the money, but a good combing and brushing would have helped to separate those tangled strands. Cosmetics would have masked the lines in her face, knocked five years off her, maybe even made her feel thirty again. The flowered cotton dress, the one she had picked up for 50p at a jumble sale down at the hall, clung wetly to a figure that was still sensuous. An observer could see that she wasn't wearing a bra, that she didn't really care any longer. The hardness was there in her expression, the compressed lips, the lines beneath the eyes, the resentment towards life.

Once, almost six years ago, it seemed an eternity, she had been happy. Her boyfriend was going to rescue her from a life of downtown squalor and hardship, a man of some means was going to spirit her away from all this, take her someplace else where she could forget the past like a bad dream. Which was why she had let him have his way most nights and had not been too bothered about being careful.

The same week that she discovered that she was pregnant Ken wasn't around. No goodbyes, no sudden heart-breaking parting; she was just on her own again, like it always used to be except that this time she was going to have a baby to look after. Ken didn't leave, he just didn't come any more, faded back into the mists of a background which she had not bothered too much to explore. Not a new story, just another one of many thousands. And the kid was a burden on her, a perpetual memory of what might have been if it had not all been a lie.

Oh God, where was that bloody exit? The crowd had slowed, bunched again, not even jostling one another, staring at the glass cages on either side, transfixed, immobile. So hot you could scarcely breathe, drawing the humidity down into your lungs, holding on to strangers, afraid you might faint.

Faces staring back at you, reptilian features seemingly distorted by the heavy glass so that heads and bodies were out of proportion. Evil masks; things that might have been dead, except that you knew they weren't. They fixed you with those awful penetrating evil stares. Wanted to get to you, to coil themselves around you, let you feel the coldness of their supple bodies as they slid over your flesh. Savoured their sadistic delight before they sank their venomous fangs into you. Slid to the floor with you; writhed with you until you died.

Somebody screamed; another child, not Ian this time. Her son clutched her cold sweaty hand and she felt his sobs, his fear. He was shaking violently.

'We'll soon be outside,' she said and her words echoed, hung in the sultry stillness as though to mock her.

Her anger welled up, temporarily overcame that claustrophobic terror that had engulfed her. She wanted to push these stupid people who stood about obstructing her, bang on those glass cages with her puny fists and scream obscenities at their occupants. I hope you die in there!

Instead she spoke loudly and surprisingly calmly. 'The zoo's closing in a couple of days. All the animals will have to go. These snakes will probably be put down, destroyed. Killed. They haven't long to live.'

Silence. People turned, she was aware of them looking at her in the half-darkness, wondering who she was and how she knew. Sensing relief, jubilation; not a trace of pity. Kill the snakes, kill 'em all.

And then her terror came back. A fleeting sensation but she knew she was not mistaken. She heard the rustling of reptilian bodies behind the prison screens, serpent shapes becoming erect, rearing up and seeking out the puny mortal who had voiced her contempt, dared to issue a threat to the deadly killers from the swamps and jungles of the world.

Veronica cowered, wanted to throw up her hands to shield her eyes from them, but Ian was clinging on to her in a panic-stricken determination. Again she had to look, meet their gazes, found herself muttering incoherent apologies for her blasphemy in this temple of serpents.

We shall not die, Human. Our hour is nigh and soon we shall be free and there will be nowhere for Man to hide. Our vengeance will be terrible.

Suddenly everybody was pushing and shoving, a once-dormant crowd that had awoken from a nightmare and was stampeding towards the dim neon exit sign. You went with them because you had no choice, swept along by a tide of panic, away from the evil green fluorescence towards a shaft of sunlight. Euphoria that it had all been a trick of the mind, your imagination succumbing to the mock swamps and forests and their awful reptilian killers. Staggering, gulping in the hot sunlit atmosphere, looking for a bench so that you could rest and allow your trembling legs to recover. A real live scare show but it hadn't hurt you, just made you appreciate living in a safe world.

'Mam, I want to go home.'

'We're going home.' Veronica glanced about her, spotted a blue-painted arrow with the words 'Way Out' painted on it. 'We're going home right now.'

'Mam, what're they doin' over there?'

She stopped, looked where he pointed. A large covered lorry was backed up to the elephant enclosure, its tailboard down. Several men were trying to coax a lumbering elephant up the ramp. The animal trumpeted once, then shambled up into the trailer. The men hurried to close the doors, bolting them.