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Historical fiction by Tom Hoerr, October 1982. This is the printed Elliot adventure installment, including the source’s continuation labels; it is not a report of actual events.
(Continued from last issue.) Slowly, ever so slowly, Elliot moved his right hand across the table.
The movement was barely noticeable, which was just what Elliot wanted; no, make that prayed.
For indeed at this very moment as the distance between his hand and the pistol grew smaller, Elliot prayed.
He could feel the sweat building on his forehead, but he dare not wipe his brow.
One drop trickled down his nose and hung, suspended, for an interminable second until it fell on Elliot’s shirt.
His hand was moving so slowly now that he wasn’t even sure that the gun was any closer than it had been a minute ago. Suddenly, with no warning, the snake recoiled straight into the air.
The hood of the cobra expanded as it weaved back and forth, eyeing Elliot’s head and his body. Elliot was frozen with fear. Whatever chance he had of getting the gun and shooting the snake while it lay dormant was now gone. Gone, too, was any possibility of escape.
The cell door was still locked and his left hand was still tied to a bar in the window.
A rusty old bar, perhaps, but a bar nonetheless. “What are the odds?” he wondered.
The snake still moved although a bit more slowly now. Elliot sat, wondering. Cobra venom, while not always fatal, in these circumstances would surely be deadly. Elliot hadn’t eaten for three days—that was as far back as he could remember—so he knew he was weak.
While the gunshot would have stopped the bleeding, Elliot could feel nothing in his leg. Should he try to use his good leg, the right one, in defense? Kick at the snake and hope that it would strike his boot? Maybe, just maybe, the snake fangs would lodge in the leather or rubber sole, discharging the liquid death where it could do no harm. Elliot felt a chill fall through his body.
It surrounded him and absorbed him, like the water absorbs a rock thrown to make a ripple.
The snake had stopped moving.
It sat, erect, no more than a yard from Elliot’s face, looking into his eyes.
He looked at the snake, but the vision began to blur. Slowly the snake faded and instead of being in Yugoslavia, Elliot was home again. accepting the call that had started this venture. Again he was talking to Carl, laughing at the request that he hadn’t taken seriously at first. “London? Of course I’d love to go!
And you’ll provide the transportation, if I just take an envelope for you? You’re sure this is legal now?” he had laughed, not wanting to really know the answer.
The phone call vanished as Elliot was visited by reality.
The snake was striking now, so quickly that he could see only movement. Elliot felt a searing pain in his arms and wanted to cry out, but his mouth was frozen in pain. Out of instinct, because he surely wasn’t thinking, Elliot grabbed the gun and fired. Once, twice, three, four times the gun exploded in the tiny cell.
And then everything was black and silent. “Senor. Senor. Can you hear me?” Elliot heard the voice but he wasn’t sure that it was speaking to him. No, he was in an audience and these were lines being said in a.faraway play on some distant stage. “Senor. Are you alive?” No, the voice was talking to him.
With a great deal of effort Elliot opened his eyes.
At first he could see nothing, just blurs and muted shapes. Then gradually a dark fuzzy shape began to get clearer. Looking down at him, Elliot saw a Spanish man smiling and holding a glass in his hand.
The man was wearing some kind of uniform.
In his other hand the man held an envelope.
He held the envelope. (To be continued.)
Originally published in The Neighborhood Paper, October 1982.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: The source labels this installment continued from last issue, but September’s supplied column concerns bug zappers. The missing preceding story installment has not been invented; the printed ending says to be continued.
Original source: SD_Times1982_10.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
