However, the closer to the door we get, my dog starts to shiver. There’s also a bit of warning in his bark. The low growl comes out, and he ignores the leash I picked up from the hook on the wall for our possible walk down the block. He’s not looking at me, but staring at the wooden door as if waiting for something to appear.
“Quit being silly and sit.” Mr. Pickles looks back but doesn’t listen. “Sit, buddy.” Again, he barks and this time bares his teeth, an action that is very uncommon for him, which puts me on edge. I don’t hear anything or see past the small shade on the windowpane so I pull it up, and everything seems as it does every day: green and more green with a hint of brown from the wooden deck. With him not listening, it’s hard to open the door so I pick him up, squirming and fighting in my hold, and walk us into the laundry room where I keep the travel dog crate. “Sorry, little guy. Let me check everything out, and I’ll be back to release you.”
In reply, his lips curl over his teeth and his eyes shift around. What the hell?
Closing the door to his crate, I step back into the kitchen and head straight for the back door without pause. My hand is on the knob and I turn it, pulling it open, and then let out a loud shriek.
Something falls back with a heavy thud. Its hair grazes my shin and when I look down, every cell in my body vibrates and a scream lodges itself in my throat, yet this time no sound comes out. Fear and shock overtake my senses and my anxiety spikes as wide, dead eyes look up at me from the floor.
His eyes are vacant. His face is a swollen, bloodied mess. The sole identifier on him is a small plastic name tag on his uniform shirt.
I take a step back and then another.
My legs shake. My chest rises and falls fast, not enough air entering its passageways as recognition strikes me.
Tim is dead. The same salesperson who just yesterday accosted me inside the art supply store and Theodore saved me from.
How? Why the hell is he here?
His throat is sliced clear across and the skin around it has what looks like small teeth marks embedded across the marred flesh. Several bites. Not human. He’s pale and tied up—a horror-struck expression on his face as the pain registered before his last breath.
“Call the cops,” I say, ordering myself with a steady voice that is devoid of the true panic building within. Every inhale is becoming harder. Every blink is failing to clear the sudden fuzziness in my vision, but it’s the slithering of something large and white making its presence known that breaks me.
My steps back are clumsy. Like a newborn colt without control of its extremities, and I trip, a helpless cry leaving my throat as I crash to the floor butt first. The sudden impact hurts, the pain shooting up my coccyx shocking me into a frozen state as I take in its appearance.
The animal’s eyes are on mine with its forked tongue flicking in and out, sensing the air around us. Its posture is unthreatening, yet it moves closer as it crawls over the dead body half lying within my home and half on the back porch.
I’ve never seen a snake like this, but I can automatically tell it’s an albino constrictor, though if it’s a python or boa eludes me. Moreover, no matter how hard my heart beats inside my chest, I press my lips hard together and remain still. Its movements are majestic, a predator knowing it has no threat here, and I’ve seen enough animal shows to know snakes sense movement and prey through their tongues.
And the last thing I want is for it to strike.
I want to appear bigger and unafraid. I want to get up and run. God knows I do, but I’m unable to so much as flinch while trapped in its gaze. The large body slides off the cadaver a few inches from me, coiling into itself while the head and a few feet of its body stand upright. Eyes a milky blue, the snake lifts its head and tilts it to the side, then waits. And waits.
No movement. No striking.
The only signs of its menacing power are the dead body and the albino skin wearing splatters of blood along the body and drying across its mouth. How did Tim get here? How did this snake end up here, killing him?
My rational mind isn’t looking at the gash across the man’s neck, but instead focusing on the bite marks and ripped skin straight across. Was it the pressure of a constrictor’s hold that forced the skin to split open, which he then further ripped apart with its jagged teeth?
A possibility? Yes. I’ve seen enough wild animal documentaries to know that they’re powerful and once the teeth sink in, tearing the flesh apart is the sole way to extract them.
Even as my mind conjures scenarios, the snake continues its perusal of me—judging my reactions while flicking its tongue lazily in and out. We stay like this for a while, without so much as a muscle twitching. A few beads of sweat dot my upper lip and brow, and yet, the animal isn’t showing any signs of aggression. His body is unmoving—watching.
I wait for the right time, psyching myself up to run toward the laundry room, when my cell phone rings. The sound is loud and the animal’s reaction is swift, turning away from me and slithering down the back porch area and then disappearing into the trees. This catches me off guard; one second it’s staring at me and the next, it’s gone, completely lost within the greenery and limbs of trees and
