WHAT MARY SAW
"No Chris, I don't want to do it!! I can't! I can't do it!" Shaking her head "Don't you understand that I JUST CAN'T DO IT?!", she shrieked, her voice shrill with terror.
"But we have to do this Mary baby," Chris said, his voice smooth and oddly soothing even in this place of danger. But it did nothing to stop her terror. "I can't move her alone. She's big and heavy, and she's YOUR mother."
"I know, I-"
Is Mum that big?
"I just can't do it Chris. I mean, you know very well that I'm afraid of snakes."
The snakes paid them both no heed; they continued to slither around Mary's mother in a well-defined circle, like they were afraid of going an inch closer. Mary's mother lay on the floor, eyes closed, her left leg obviously broken. Their was a cut on her arm, another on her head, but thank God they weren't bleeding so much. She probably was unconscious. Maybe she should try n shout her name, see if she would wake.
"Chris, please help me, I can't do this. Mum. MUM!"
"Careful Mary, you don't wanna disturb the snakes, do you?""
Yelping, Mary shuffled backwards a couple of steps, eyes wide; she could barely think coherently. "Chris hold me please hold me come please."
"Look," Chris said, stepping over the snakes to where Mary's mother was. "I told you they were not gonna do anything. We just have to lift her out of this place, and we can leave here quickly." The snakes continued their circular movements, lazily slithering over and under themselves. Not one seemed to take notice nor raise its head to strike Chris as he crossed. They continued their obscene parody of a Merry-Go-Round; round, round, round we go, high, low, take a go.
Oh God please help me please
"Ar-are you sure?"
"Mary."Chris was on the verge of losing his patience now.
"Okay okay."
"Look," Chris said, his voice becoming softer, "just imagine you are crossing a gutter, okay?"
Mary nodded, eyes large, heart hammering away in her chest so loud that she was surprised she heard Chris. She looked at her hand; she was shaking badly. She walked forward, raised a leg...and almost fell in among the snakes.
Shrieking, she ran back.
"Mary!" Chris's voice stopped her from running and not looking back. She turned, crying now.
"Please don't make me do this Chris, please help me bring her over here. PLEASE!!!" Was there no one else that could help them? But then again, they were all alone here.
"Come on Mary, jump. I'll catch you. I promise. Jump baby, jump."
Mary looked at her Mother again (she still can't believe her mother is this big, but there is no mistaking it; this is her mother. What would people say when they know she could have saved her own mother and had run away instead?) and prayed for strength.
This is your mother girl. The quicker you do this, the faster you can leave here. Now go.
"Okay," she muttered to herself, although she could not figure out who or what was talking to her. But it was enough. "Crossing a gutter, crossing a gutter."
She ran forward.
She jumped.
Everything happened in slow motion.
Her mother sat up abruptly and opened her eyes-WHAT?!-and then she wasn't her mother anymore; she was some unreal being, rippling this way and that. Then she burst open and snakes spewed forth, all kinds, most of them unknown to her.
She felt like she was spending forever in the air...and she prayed she would never land.
And Chris? Oh no God, why?
Chris's eyes became flaming orbs of fire, and then he opened his mouth-was he smiling?-revealing teeth so sharp their points were indistinct. Steam poured out of his nose and ears, and his tongue flicked out, only it wasn't a tongue anymore, it was a forked thin strip of black muscle.
He stretched his arms.
Come to me darling!!!
She heard his voice, but his lips were still stretched in that smile of his and Mary was on the verge of going mad, so mad she forgot about the snakes-
THE SNAKES!!!
Her terror catching up with her, Mary screamed as she looked down. Every one of them had their heads up and fangs out, waiting. And they were everywhere.
Mary was swallowed in the sea of snakes.
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Mary lived with her family in a three-bedroom flat. Everyone was asleep...
...until her screams woke them all up. While their sleep-befuddled brains were trying to come to terms with the source of their sudden wakefulness, it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.
Nkechi, Mary's three-year-old sister whom she shared a room with, watched writhed in bed, fear and pain on her face. Nkechi was scared, but she was held firmly in place by what she was seeing, and she couldn't climb out of her cot. So she could only watch as her elder sister's pyjamas punctured in several places, blood spraying everywhere, the walls, the bed, blood staining her hands as she held onto her cot in a death-grip, her face. She looked at the blood, not understanding what was going on, why her sister was in pain in her sleep, why nobody was coming, why-
Mary's eyes flew open and her mouth opened in a soundless scream, her eyes fixed on Nkechi. Then they burst with little popping sounds.
Nkechi screamed.
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