Page 39 of Snake-Eater
It’ll be a couple months to the corn smut season. I guess I could stay that long. Grandma says that’s the good money.
Would it really be so bad, staying here for a few months?
In a few months, Walter will have given up trying to find me. I mean, I told him not to—I sent the email—but it’s not like he would have paid attention to that.She rolled her eyes. At least there was no chance he’d find her out here. The notion that someone might leave the city to come to the ends of the earth, surrounded by cactus, would be so alien to his way of thinking that he would be incapable of imagining her doing it either.
Copper wouldn’t mind. Copper had chased a jackrabbit yesterday, and even though she hadn’t caught it, she was still feeling insufferably proud of herself.
Jackrabbit Hole House was starting to feel like—oh, nothome, maybe, but what was home, anyway? Had there ever been a place that was really home, as opposed to just a familiar place where she kept her clothes?
Maybe my room, growing up. Or my first apartment.
The house felt familiar, anyway, and friendly. Even the ridiculous toilet made her smile in the morning. And unlike her room growing up, or a succession of apartments shared with roommates, this space washers, and if she shut the door, it stayed shut.
And Grandma Billy had tact enough to tell when she was tired, and to take herself off and save Selena the awkwardness of asking her for a break.
She’s a good neighbor. The best. And I’d probably have starved without her.
Granted, it wasn’t easy work, gardening. She’d been amazed that she’d ever thought it was. She lugged water from the rain barrel and pulled weeds and sweated and grumbled. She’d carted a dozen wheelbarrow loads of manure from the pile Connor had delivered to Grandma Billy’s yard, which her neighbor had shared freely. But it wasn’t any worse than being on her feet all day at the deli, and it wasn’t backbreaking, and there were pods forming on the beans now and little green balls in the white hearts of the pepper flowers.
A yawn started somewhere in the base of Selena’s throat and came out wide enough to strain her jaws.
I’ll take Copper out,she thought, yawning again,and then I’ll just have some leftover cornbread and go to bed. I don’t think I’m up for cooking dinner tonight ...
She pushed the front door open—and Copper growled.
Selena’s head jerked up. In the dim light, it took a moment for her to pick out a shape silhouetted against the dark brush. Then it snapped into focus and she was astonished she hadn’t seen it immediately.
Someone was watching her across the road. Someone or something. Not an animal. It was taller than she was, draped in cloth. It had no apparent shoulders or waist, its body a straight line, and it watched her, unblinking. It had huge eyes and its face was very wrong.
Grandma Billy saying,People, but not human people,came back to Selena suddenly, the words ringing in her ears like a heartbeat.
Copper’s fur spiked up along her back and Selena could feel the dog’s growl through her legs.
It’s a person, it has to be, it’s someone from the town, they’re wearing a mask, they’re trying to scare me that’s all—
Oh, yes. Because people from town wearing masks and staring at me ismuchless terrifying.
She couldn’t move. The thing didn’t move. It had no apparent nose or mouth, only the eyes, but those were definitely watching her. Theystared at each other across twenty feet of desert. Did it even have arms? She couldn’t tell. They might be lost in the hanging lines of cloth.
There was a sudden rattle, a series of hollow clacking sounds like bamboo lengths being banged together. Had the thing made it? She couldn’t tell. It wasn’t moving, but where else would the sounds have come from?
The clacking stopped. The desert was silent.
Whether she saw it move or it simply faded into existence, she couldn’t tell, but a second thing appeared next to the first one.
Two of them. Oh Christ, oh Christ, it’s not just some weirdo there’stwoof them—oh god, I think the clacking noisecalledthe other one—
The clacking started again. Copper’s growl modulated into a snarl.
It broke the spell. She took two steps back, hauling Copper by the collar, and slammed the door. She threw the bolt, and turned toward the back door to lock it as well.
There was another one on the back porch.
It was standingright there, on the other side of the screen.
Selena’s back hit the door behind her, but she didn’t scream. If she screamed, it would break the horrible trance and maybe the things would be able to move and chase her down. But not screaming took all her resolve and she made a hoarse, choking sound instead and Copper snarled beside her.
Whatarethey? Who is doing this to me?
