DP Tool Club 12/CD_ASCQ_12_0294.iso/vrac/sun9402.zip/FIC2

Text File | 1994-01-26 | 11KB | 252 lines

The Serpents Embrace
Copyright (c) 1994, Daniel Sendecki
All rights reserved



                The Serpents Embrace
                 by Daneil Sendecki



In the eyes of those driven by thirst, the gently rolling dunes of the
humble Sahara must have appeared more welcoming than the parched and
blaring enormity of the flatlands, which, broken and jagged, lined
route seven all the way to the filling station.

This desert was kin to all deserts.  Endlessly, in all directions, lay
silence.  There was no sand here, only a thirsty, shattered crust.
When the wind blew, it kicked up nothing but a dry, blistering heat.
Splintered and popping under the searing sky lay a ribbon of forlorn
asphalt which carved incessantly through the desert.  It was called
route seven.

It was through this emptiness that the Pilot rode, wrenching and
shattering, hewing and hacking, the placid air.  His steed, a Mac
truck, and each of it's antique wheels whined indignantly as they
navigated a bend in the road.  But once the rumbling truck
disappeared, the silence would once again descend upon the indifferent
desert and stretch calmly toward the towering sky.  In the minds of
the peasants, those incredibly simple folk who lived on the edge of
the flatlands, those who lined the boardwalks and stood stupid with
amazement as the Pilot rolled into town atop his mount, the Pilot was
neither malevolent nor benevolent, but the source of immense awe.

Countless miles of broken road separated the Pilot from the town of
Abraxas, a shanty town, on the outskirts of the flatlands.  Moreover,
the truck, empty now, needed gasoline.  As always, there was hope.

And then there was the filling station.

Abraxas would have been a one stoplight town - had the magic which had
once kindled the lamps not gone away.  There were a bootfull of
buildings, the tallest of which was two stories, and four streets,
running from the asphalt of route seven like veins.  Indeed, the town
of Abraxas clung to route seven like a tumor.  One day-cycle had
passed since the Pilot had slipped from his cab into Abraxas, but it
may as well have been a week, as both month and minute wore the same
face as they passed over this archaic, yielding, desert.

The truck came to rest in the center of town.  Once there had stood
here a cenotaph, but it had since fallen, leaving only it's pedestal.
The air was as cold as an outlander.  Stealing into the shadows of the
boardwalk, the Pilot left his truck to brood over the remains of the
statue.

Besides the cenotaph there was a livery and a granary.  A general
store lay on the other side of the route.  None of the buildings were
well kept, weathered and squalid, bent from the torrid sun and moon.

Sardonic show tunes spilled from a dusty clapboard building, which
bounced and writhed in tune like a wineskin full of mice.  A fading
sign proclaimed that it was a "Hostel & Grill".  The Pilot stepped
from the shadows of the boardwalk into the light of the saloon.

The crash of billiards assaulted the Pilot.  A round man clumsily
pounded the teeth of an antique piano that had long since rotted.

"Have you any gasoline?"  the Pilot cried over the clamor of the
saloon.

Eyes turned from card games, beer mugs, and harlots to the Pilot.  The
bat-wing doors swung lazily in the wake of his entrance.

"Petrol?"  he demanded inquiringly.

A pair of well-worn jeans, a faded denim shirt, and spit-polished
boots were all he wore - save the holster that hung from his hip and
the six iron that lay asleep inside.

A haggard man stood and the a few notes escaped the piano.  Grimacing,
the man spoke.

"We've none of your poison," then almost muttering, "madman."

The Pilot's mid - not his eyes - turned toward the reassuring weight
of the six iron that lay against his hip' his eyes remained stolidly
fixed on the weary man.

"Have a seat."  the Pilot prompted.  The haggard man, whose lips
writhed as if each movement pained him, stepped forward.

Effortlessly, the Pilot woke his Pistol, pulling breech and bore from
their bed and startling the gun into consciousness as hammer struck
primer, and gave the gun tongue.  The man, gutshot, doubled over and
stared at the Pilot, glassy eyed and incredulous.


"Mmmmfuuu..."  the man gurgled.  Hand at belly, he fell to the floor.
A pink fold of his entrails slid out from between dirty fingers.

The Pilot sauntered towards the bar and the floorboards groaned as
each, in turn, bore his graceless weight.  The saloons patrons
filtered out.  Nervously pouring a glass of whiskey, the barkeep kept
a disdainful eye on him.

"Put me up for the..."  the neck of the bottle chattered against the
lip of the glass.  Rocking his palsied weight from foot to foot, the
barkeep began to dance a jig completely unaware.

"A room for tonight, you old fool."

"We've no room."  The saloon keeper's eyes lit upon the man whose
intestines slowly cooled on the floor.  Sighing, he took a tarnished
key from his pocket.

The Pilot mounted the stairs.  Relieved, the barkeep sighed.  Slowly,
night returned to the comforting arms of silence when, with a clap
that made the barkeep howl, the looking glass behind the bar cracked
frightfully and crashed to the floor.

"Your whiskey,"  the Pilot hissed, "is weak."  Having hurled a shot
glass through the mirror, the Pilot retired to his room.  Only when
the Pilot disappeared did the barkeep realize, abashed, that he had
soiled himself.  Upstairs the Pilot slept soundly.

Out here, amid the harrowing flatlands, stood the castle of the
blacksmythe's fairy tales - the filling station.  The road undulated
and twisted on indefinitely before the grill of the grunting truck,
finally succumbing to the horizon and heavens.  The filling station
stood defiantly off in the distance.

The Blacksmythe was an old man - surprising, since he had been exposed
to the rigors of the flatlands - a wild shock of silvery hair fell
over his eyes.  He, like all other town folk, had a genius for
superstition which made him thickheaded.  His apron was the tired
color of a bleeding sunset.

"Pilot?"  it was the Blacksmythe.

Uninterested: "what?"

"The flatlands aren't a safe place."

The Pilot sighed.  "Is that so?"

"Ayuh."

And it probably was, to this dumb specimen at least.  The trailer
protested with a shrill scream of rust as the Pilot swung it shut and
secured the hitch.

"Ther're hazards along the way,"  the Blacksmythe ejaculated, "it's
not a safe outing to make lonesome.  No sir!"

"Hazards?"  The Pilot stopped.  His eyes narrowed.  "What kind?"

"Draguns!"  the Blacksmythe blurted.  Upon hearing this the Pilot
stepped into the cab, turning his back on the 'Smythes gibberish.  He
spoke in torrents of fear and awe and wonderment.  "All along route
seven there're draguns!  Scaly and hid-yus.  Ayuh!"  Spittle flew from
his lips as he shouted.  "They spit petrol from their snouts and crawl
along the ground on their bellies!"  The roar of the Mac's engine
interrupted him if only for a second.

"Flames leap from their lips!  They wait!  Ayuh!  They wait in ambush
all along... Beating their wings against the sand."  Dawn had come, a
streamer of bruised light that encompassed the horizon amid
the 'Smythes ravings.

"Calm yourself."  the Pilot said.  Slowing his flailing arms, the
Blacksmythe complied.  He glanced up at the Pilot sheepishly.

The Pilot looked down at him from his cab.  "Do you know of any
gasoline?"

Mortified, he stared at the Pilot.

"Well?"

"There is a filling station.  Many leagues away.  Ayuh!  There is!"
At this, the Pilot slowed.

"A filling station?"  he echoed.  He frowned and his brow wrinkled.

"Ayuh!"  the Blacksmythe nodded.  "But beware!  It is where the
draguns feed and nest.  I've heard tales of them suckling from the
utters that grow from the ground.  They feed on fire and stone and
steam.  Ayuh!  From the center of the earth."

The Pilot had heard enough.

"They spit poison!  Petrol!"

He shot the fevered Blacksmythe before he could take up his frantic
dance again.  The report rang through the town.  It's echo muffled
only by the hoarse moan of the truck as it shuddered into gear.  The
Pilot drove away, leaving the weary saloon patron and the fevered
Blacksmythe to the mortician and the town of Abraxas to the scarred
desert morn.

The Pilot felt no remorse.  The filling station certainly was just
another of the 'Smythes rambling's.  The station, however, lay with
great conviction on the west side of route seven.  A simple, squat
hovel with a low hung roof and sand beaten walls- the imperceptible
naked color of wood.

The day began to bleed night.  Soon, unnoticed it would inevitably
hemorrhage and the gore of darkness would splatter over all.  The sky
was still a grave purple when the Mac - empty and exhausted - came to
rest by the filling station with a wry belch and died.  The air was
tombstone cold. Two red towers of rubber and glass thorax stood
statistical in the dusk.  The Pilot guessed that these were the utters
on which many a "dragun" had suckled.  The simple building and the two
tired tin soldiers at steadfast attention in front of it had not
fallen into disarray.  The world about them was falling apart, and
they were dumb to it.

The Pilot started towards the gas pumps.  The hard packed dust left no
footprints.  The ancient pumps stood one and a half men tall.  Each
wore a glass thorax crown and arms of rubber which were broken and
rotted.  Rusting nozzles hung by the giants sides like cramped,
arthritic hands.  Both pumps were painted cherry red and although they
 were old, old, they spelled promise to the Pilot.

In the dying light of the day, the Pilot took the hand of the gasoline
pump and, like a child leading another, brought it towards the truck.

With fevered anticipation, he unscrewed the gas cap and thrust the
compliant nozzle into the tank, hoping that it would spill it's
petrol.

Nothing.

The Pilot was unstirred and observed his predicament with removed awe.
It was as if he was watching himself from far, far, away.  He dropped
the nozzle and it's rotting arm to the ground.  He started back
towards the second pump, realizing that the last pump, insanely
identical to the first was his final hope.  The Pilot again observed
the ceremony, lifting the nozzle of the pump from it's housing,
bringing it carefully towards the truck, fitting it into the tank and
praying for the sudden rush of fuel.

Night was all over the desert.  It covered everything in it's
darkness.  It cooled the day's fever.  The Pilot lay crumpled on the
ground, the rotting arm of the pump coiled about him in a serpents
embrace.  The ancient gas pumps held no fuel.  The Pilot waited for
the dragons under the night sky.

The constellations rose over a desert that had once known life, but
had since perished.