Chapter 9: 9

Mr Slithers stared at us from beyond the glass. Christian opened the front of the massive terrarium and the snake approached him, flicking his tongue curiously.  He shrank away as Christian reached in to pick him up. 

“It’s me,” Christian told him. His hand hooked around the bottom of the giant reptile and heaved him up and let him gently down onto the floor.

I took a step back as the snake started to coil around Christian's feet and observe the rest of us like prey. Its gaze held steady on each of us in turn.

“How—”I started to ask but the python started to approach me, flicking his tongue.

I froze as he stopped at my feet and started to pull the rest of his body, which slithered mysteriously closer, up to flick his tongue at my knee, then my waist and finally started to coil around my free arm.

My panic rose but I forced myself to be still. “How is he named Mr Slithers?” I managed.

“He’s adorable,” Christian said. He was smiling at the clear terror on my face.

“Can you get him off of me?” I asked as the snake was now sizing up my head in interest. I didn’t think he could swallow me, but I’d seen pictures of how far his mouth stretched to swallow bunnies. Christian came over and Mr Slithers immediately turned his beady gaze over to him. He tightened his coils when Christian lifted his weight off of me and only let go reluctantly.

I shuddered. Even if Mr Slithers wouldn’t eat me, he could still suffocate me with those coils. While I found snakes pretty cool, I didn’t want them near me. Not unless their scales were pitch black and they were small. 

Christian set him back down on the floor.

“Alright,” Lee said. “Are we going for creation-of-Adam vibes or Basilisk from Harry Potter vibes?”

Sierra was observing Mr Slithers curiously. “Do you think he’d eat human body parts?” she asked.

Christian made a face. “People are too big for him,” he said.

“Yeah, but what if you removed the arms and legs and stuff.”

“I think it would still be too messy,” I pointed out flatly.  “The blood would get everywhere.”

Mr Slithers made a beeline, a very slow and squiggly beeline, for the dark space under Chrisitan’s bed. 

“No, Mr Slithers,” Christian protested and attempted to redirect him but the snake simply serpentined its way between his limbs.

I took a deep breath. I was useless when it came to handling animals. I was better with plants.

Sierra started looking under the bed, curiously. She continued to ask Christian questions about the snake’s diet.

I watched them for a long moment, and then looked over at Lee, who was currently frowning with her arms crossed.

“How hard can it be to control a snake?” she grumbled.

I looked back at the snake’s quickly receding tail. “Hey, Lee,” I said. “You know a lot about the urban legends and stuff that surround the asylum right?”

“Sure, what’s your question?” she asked. She seemed glad to have a distraction as she turned her full attention to me. 

“What would the story be… about that thing I saw down in the basement?” I asked.

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“Hm….” She thought for a long moment. “They say that they had a morgue down there, but I’m not sure that’s reliable. It was an insane asylum, not a hospital.”

“Well, was it said to be a demon or something?” I asked.

Lee thought for a long moment. “Shadow figures are pretty common haunting reports,” she explained. “Even with glowing red eyes, they’re reported pretty frequently. Usually, they come about from an abusive or very negative person who died.”

I nodded. That didn’t explain the girl’s presence down there.

“What about with recent events?” I asked. 

“Recent events?” Lee thought for a long moment. “I can’t think of anything notable. Mostly people just get scared and run away. I’ve heard there’s been plenty of people who have seen apparitions and heard voices, even heard blood-curdling screams but other than that, I don’t think people really experience much. I’m not entirely convinced the place is haunted other than what you’ve seen. I know you don’t make stuff up like that.”

“I see,” I said.

“There’s probably public records of the place somewhere. You could look up what happened to make it shut down. It could’ve been something really dark,” she suggested.

We flinched as there was a brief scuffle as Christian and Sierra pulled the bed out to get to Mr Slithers.

“Do you know how long ago the place closed down?” I asked.

She thought a long moment, gazing at the ceiling. “I think my mom said it was in the sixties.”

“Okay.” 

Sierra and Christian were carrying Mr Slithers out from under the bed. They hefted his weight onto the mattress and Sierra made a gesture to me to come over quick.

I booted up the camera and rapidly swapped it over to auto-focus.

I gave her a thumbs up for whatever she was planning.

Christian guided the snake's head to Sierra’s hand. Sierra extended a finger.

I saw my chance and rapidly took a number of photos. Worse case scenario we could merge them into one for the best image quality we could.

Mr Slithers pulled away from Sierra’s hand after a curious flick of his tongue. He pulled back to start climbing up on Christian again, appreciating his owner.

“How’s the photos?” Lee asked eagerly.

I pulled them up and the group eagerly squished tight to view the small screen.

“Nice,” Lee said. The photos were good. The background was primarily Christian’s white wall so there would be little difficulty editing things in or out. The image was very reminiscent of The Creation of Adam, as Mr Slithers tongue just barely touched Sierra’s finger. 

We decided to stick with the concept, as Mr Slithers was now trying to get himself into his enclosure so he could hide away, and Christian decided it was time to leave him be.

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