“It’s very late,” a woman’s voice said.
It came to him, soft and husky, from out of the darkness. Like the sound of the opening door, this voice seemed more imagined than real. It floated in the night like a moth fluttering close to his ear—a light, powdery sound.
“I—umm, yeah . . . yeah, it is late,” Dennis stammered.
He felt a momentary rush of fear that someone would pass by and see him standing here, talking to an empty trailer doorway.
“You must be tired,” the voice said.
Dennis took two or three halting steps forward, his hands jerking uselessly at his sides. “Yeah, I am.” He paused, his breath burning in his lungs. “My—umm, my name’s Den—”
“I know who you are,” the voice said, light and lilting, almost teasing.
And now there was no mistake; the trailer door swung open a bit more, and Dennis could see a long, sinuous arm reaching out into the night. The arm was dark—darker than the night as the forefinger curled up in a subtle beckoning gesture.
“Uhh—Miss LaBelle—my name’s Dennis Levesque. I’m a—”
“And I know
what
you are.”
“Well—uhh . . . I was . . . It
is
you, ain’t it, Miss LaBelle?” Dennis shifted nervously from one foot to the other, then took a single, halting step closer to the trailer. “I mean—well, you see I don’t want to intrude any, but I—”
“Why don’t you come inside my trailer and rest?” the voice whispered softly. “I know how tired you must be. But I can make you feel so much better.”
Dennis’s heart was pounding so hard in his chest every pulse squeezed his throat like strong, cold fingers, making him dizzy. He felt a pressure in his groin that started to tingle as he took a few tentative steps closer to the trailer. Finally he was close enough to reach up and actually touch that dark, beckoning hand.
“Please,” the wispy voice said, caressing his ears like the delicate hiss of skin against silk. “Please, come inside. You
know
you want to.”
M
orning sunlight cut through the bedroom curtains and drilled a hole through Dennis’s closed eyelids. For an instant, he was confused, wondering where the hell he was; but then, as he rolled his head to one side and glanced around the tiny, cluttered bedroom, it all came back to him in a rush so intense it made an audible
whoosh
in his ears.
His heart constricted when he looked to his left and saw the dark mass of curly hair on the pillow beside him. LaBelle was sleeping peacefully. A faint smile touched the corners of her full lips. The thin sheet covering her did little to hide the rounded contours of her body. He stared at the mounds of her breasts, unable to convince himself that last night he had actually touched them, caressed them, kissed them. Looking at her now, so silent and still, all Dennis could imagine—all he could remember—was how her body had pulsated and throbbed beneath him in the pre-dawn darkness. He smiled with dazed satisfaction as he rolled over and reached for the cigarette pack on the bed stand. Shifting forward, he picked his pants up off the floor and fumbled in the pocket for his lighter. On the small table was the empty bottle of wine they had shared last night after—no, between bouts of lovemaking. He remembered, now, that he had drunk most if not all of it.
“No, no, no,” LaBelle said, the suddenness of her voice startling Dennis. Her golden eyes snapped open as she rolled onto her side and, propping herself up on one elbow, waved a long, delicate finger under his nose. The motion made the silky sheet fall away, revealing some of the charms he had enjoyed just a short while ago.
“Don’t smoke,” she whispered huskily.
“Oh, yeah. Sure. No problem,” Dennis stammered.
For a moment, he was unable to stop staring at her breasts. Then, shrugging like a simpleton, he put the cigarette pack and lighter onto the bed stand and lay back down on top of the sheets. He let his hand linger for a moment in the air and then, as if still unable to believe his incredible good fortune, dropped it down to caress the curve of her sleek, black breast. His mind was filled with images of what they had done to and with each other during the night, and he felt another erection growing as he considered that they might start going at it again.
“What’s-s-s the—” he started to say, but then he abruptly cut himself off and bolted upright in bed. His body was tingling with tension as his hand drifted up to his mouth. For a panicked instant, he completely forgot what he had been about to say as he flicked his tongue inside his mouth.
Damned if it didn’t feel . . . funny, somehow.
Too much work, too much to drink, not enough sleep, and yeah
, he thought,
too much screwing!
Chuckling softly to himself, he pressed his tongue against the insides of his teeth. They felt odd, almost as if they were grooved with numerous tiny ridges.
LaBelle sat up in bed and just stared at him with those slitted, golden eyes of hers. A beam of sunlight caught her eyes at just the right angle, making them sparkle like amber marbles. Her dark skin, in stark contrast with the glaring white of the sheets, made his eyes hurt . . . hurt like hell. His mouth was filled with a sickeningly sour aftertaste, as though he had been on a week-long bender.
“No,” he said, forming the word carefully in his mouth. “I was-s-s jus-s-s-st—”
Again, he stopped himself, feeling his eyes widen with a subtle, mounting fear. Almost frantic, he swung his legs out from under the covers.
“Which way to the bathroom?” he asked, fighting like hell to keep his tone of voice casual. The pressure forcing his eyes to remain wide open was almost unbearable. “I jus-s-s-t wanted to s-s-s-ee—”
He lurched suddenly forward and knocked one knee against the bed stand, sending the empty wine bottle and cigarette pack flying as he took a few stumbling steps away from the bed. A jolt of pain from the impact burned up his thigh to his hips. When he glanced down at his injured knee, his breath whistled in his throat with a loud, hissing sound. Covering both legs, from the knees down to his ankles, was a strange brown stuff that looked like . . .
“Oh, Jesus-s-s!
Je
-s-s-sus-s-s
Chris-s-s-s-t!
”
He reached down with both hands and started rubbing his legs. The skin was dry and scaly. Even as he stood there staring at himself, too stunned to say or do anything, the brown growth shimmered and shifted up over his knees and down his feet until it covered the toes of both feet. An indistinct design of triangles appeared beneath his skin, darkening and more clearly defined with each passing second. A cold prickling sensation raced up Dennis’s legs, as if something was burrowing underneath his skin. He imagined dozens—hundreds—of tiny worms, twisting along narrow caverns inside his leg muscles and bones.
From behind him, he heard the bedsprings squeak. Turning, he saw LaBelle, rising slowly from the bed. In slow, liquid motion reminiscent of her erotic dance, she raised her arms and slipped into a thin, nearly transparent nightgown. She stood silently at the foot of the bed and stared silently at him, her golden eyes widening as she watched him staring back at her. Moaning softly, Dennis began to claw frantically at the brown scaly skin as it spread, rippling over his legs.
“What the hell is-s-s this-s-s s-s-shit?” he screamed, clenching both hands into fists and shaking them at her even as he stared, wide-eyed, at her body, made gauzy, like a dream, by the flimsy nightgown.
LaBelle smiled at him, a thin, wicked smile that showed just the edges of her pearly teeth denting her lower lip. The golden gleam in her eyes intensified, becoming brighter than the glare of morning sunlight.
Involuntarily, Dennis clamped his arms flat against his sides. Tearing his gaze away from her, he looked down, watching in mute horror as the thick, brown scales with black and red designs washed like waves up and over his hips, engulfing his arms, stomach, and chest. His legs were suddenly tugged together so violently he almost lost his balance.
“What the fuck’s-s-s-s going on?” he rasped, barely able to speak.
The muscles in his neck tingled as the icy sensation of tiny fingers, squeezing tightly, choking him, got steadily stronger. Air came into his lungs in rapid, hissing gulps. He felt his lips peel back like a silent grimace of pain, and when he opened his mouth again to speak, his tongue flashed out and wiled beneath his nose. In that flickering instant, he had the distinct impression that his tongue appeared to be doubled, as if it were forked!
The scales continued to sweep up over his body. With his legs bonded together, he finally lost his balance and pitched face-first onto the floor beside the bed. Through his blinding panic, he was only distantly aware of the painful impact. Inside his body, he could feel his bones shifting, compressing, crinkling like tissue paper as his muscles and tendons stretched and twisted into new, bizarre shapes. His head was pulled back so, even lying belly-down on the floor, he found that he was looking up at the ceiling. The morning light streaming in through the bedroom window stung his eyes, and all around him—around LaBelle, the bed, the bathroom, everything—he saw bright splinters of luminous light that rippled with subtly shifting rainbow hues. The next time he opened his mouth to speak, the only sound that came out was a deep, rasping
hiss
.
LaBelle stood back with her hands on her hips and watched all of this, smiling thinly as Dennis writhed helplessly on the floor in front of her. Her smile widened as the scales swept up and covered his face and head. Within seconds, his entire body, face and all, was sheathed in glistening scales with a glorious pattern of subtly shifting colors. Without the use of his arms and legs, which were now fused to the sides of his twisting body, he could do nothing but glare up at her with a steady, unblinking stare.
“I told you last night,” LaBelle said, her voice teasing and low as she stepped closer to him. “I know
exactly
who you are . . . and I know exactly
what
you are.” She chuckled, soft and light. “Why, you’re nothing but a . . . a snake in the grass!”
Then she burst into laughter, and Dennis knew that there was a terrified gleam in his eyes that communicated to her that he still heard and understood her. He frantically worked his mouth, but the bone structure of his new body was entirely different. His mouth felt oddly lipless, and without lips, without a human throat, he wasn’t able to utter any of the words that cascaded insanely through his mind. Distantly, he heard a loud, hissing sound, and after a moment or two realized that he was the one making that sound.
“Yes, Dennis, you tasted of things last night,” LaBelle said softly. “Things that no man . . . no
man
now living has ever tasted. They made you become what you truly were all along.”
With a final burst of heartless laughter, she went to the trailer door and flung it open. Leaning out into the brisk, morning air, she cupped her hands to her mouth and called out, “He’s ready now. You can come and get him.”
T
he carnival people were happy that afternoon. Mothers, fathers, and children arrived as soon as the gate was open, and they poured hundreds of quarters into the pony and Go-cart rides. The Ferris Wheel and Scrambler hardly stopped all day, and all of the games, events, and food concession stands made more money than they had at the last three stops combined. LaBelle’s dance, as always, filled the tent every show with leering, horny men.
In front of the FREAK SHOW tent, the barker repeatedly slapped his cane on the podium, making a loud cracking sound as he tempted the crowd with promises of the wonders within. Above him, alongside pictures of TABOO—THE TATTOOED MAN; VINNY—THE PIG BOY; TOM, DICK, AND HARRY—THE THREE-HEADED MAN; LUCAN—THE WOLF BOY; MATILDA—THE FAT LADY and TONY—THE SPIDER MAN with “
COUNT ‘EM, BOY ‘N GIRLS—SIX
” ARMS, was a picture of a coiled snake with a human face. In broad, red letters, still gleaming with fresh paint in the early morning sunlight, were the words:
“SEE DENNIS . . . THE SNAKE MAN . . . HE SLITHERS AND CRAWLS ON HIS BELLY LIKE A REPTILE!”
—for Dave Hinchberger
Y
our wife Ann found you sometime after midnight, out behind the tool shed. You were sitting with your legs pulled up tightly against your chest. There was an empty whiskey bottle beside you, but you hadn’t drunk it all. You must have knocked it over with your knee or something.
Make no mistake; you had been drinking earlier that evening.
Plenty.
It was all part of your Double-A program to help you deal with what was happening in your life.
Double-A . . .
avoidance and alcohol
.
A good “solution,” if you’ll excuse the pun.
But you’d been dealing with a lot of shit that—well, you used to joke with your wife that it would have broken a lesser man by now, and honest to Christ—sometimes you wonder how you hung in there for so long.
In the span of six months—no, actually it was less than six months—you lost your job, your mother died, and the bank, which had been making some not so nice noises before, had begun foreclosure on your house.
You had plenty of life insurance, back from when the money in real estate was good; and quite honestly, you had considered suicide a few times . . . usually at night, when you’d lay there in bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering where the money was gonna come from for all those bills.