Winning Stories 2009
Story by Thea Bradbury
“What’s in here then?” Corey comes up beside me and squints into the cage.
“A python.” He watches it with me for about five seconds. It looks sad in there, all curled up on itself.
“It doesn’t do much, does it?” He taps on the glass. The python doesn’t stir. He taps again.
“It says don’t bang on the glass,” I tell him, pointing to the sign.
He narrows his eyes at me, says, “You always follow the rules, don’t you?” It makes me smile, because he’s so wrong. I’m about to turn the world upside down. Upside down and inside out.
Just thinking about it makes me want to laugh. Poor Corey. If only he weren’t so stupid, I could almost pity him.
“What’cha grinning at?” he asks. I shake my head, and it doesn’t take him long to lose interest. “I’m gonna get a drink. You want one?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, which is good because I’m far too absorbed with watching the python to give him one.
I wait until Corey’s out of the building before tapping the glass myself. There’s still no reaction from the snake, which has its head turned away from me and its coils hunched moodily. I smile again and place my palms against the glass. It warps easily under my touch, globules of viscous liquid dripping to the floor, and I slide my hands into the enclosure. It takes a few prods to wake the python, which is still acting like a sulky teenager. It hisses at me, forked tongue tasting the air, complaining at the disturbance. I glance around, but no-one’s noticed. They’re all far too wrapped up in their own petty little lives for that. I pick up a loop of rough, scaly reptile, holding it so that our faces are level. It doesn’t take too long to explain what I want. Humans have a ridiculous habit of looking down on animals such as this, assuming an inherent superiority which, frankly, simply isn’t there. Snakes are just as, if not more, intelligent than most of the people I meet on a daily basis. They also tend to be a lot more agreeable, have better personal hygiene habits and are a lot more fun to be out with on a Saturday night. But I digress. Back to the reptile house, where I’m rapidly winding the python around my neck and settling it carefully along my arm, its head resting against my shoulder. My grin’s so wide it almost splits my face and I can feel the familiar glow of adrenalin beginning to flood my veins. I look casually around, selecting my first target, and begin to stroll across the hard-packed dirt floor.
The first couple I approach are easy bait: a petite brunette in a top so low-cut she’s spilling out of it and a tall, sallow man whose clothing screams ‘Accountant!’ from several metres away. I tap her on the shoulder, wait till she turns, wave cheerfully. Her terrified shrieks as she flees the building, with the accountant not far behind, taste sweet. But this is only the beginning. The girl’s screams have attracted attention, and a burly zookeeper is heading my way. “What the—” he says when he sees the snake on my shoulder. He’s not as easily deterred as the couple, however, and he keeps coming. “How the hell did you get that out, you little punk?” I narrow my eyes at him, letting them glow a little, but he still doesn’t get the message. He’s almost upon me now, and I’m obliged to release the full force of my essence upon him. My eyes burn a brilliant red, shadows writhe beneath the surface of my skin, and my mouth stretches into a new shape to accommodate the second set of teeth. “Go away,” I hiss. He staggers back a few steps, gaping, then turns and flees. His screams are amusingly high. I drink them in.
The snake and I stride down the length of the reptile house together. Well, obviously the snake doesn’t stride, but it certainly rides on my shoulder with a swagger unusual in such a creature. It’s enjoying this. So am I. Before me, people run screaming. That in itself would be good enough, but half of them don’t even know what they’re running from. Panic is infectious, even when irrational, and they’ve got it badly. In fact, one kid, a skinny redhead, has it terminally. I watch as he trips, spidery limbs flailing, and is crushed beneath the feet of the crowd. Most of them don’t notice. The few that do only run faster.
By the time I reach the door, things are totally out of control. The crowd has become a mob that stampedes across the car park, flattening everyone in its way. Anyone not trampled is swept up in the rush. I step outside, stroking the python’s head absent-mindedly. The mob reaches the road and I hear a car screech to a halt. My smile stretches awkwardly around my too-wide mouth. None of them know why they’re running any more, and in their confusion they fall back on a ridiculous herd instinct that does nothing but form ever greater groups of the unenlightened. The crowd provokes a kind of multiplier effect in the confusion and panic, and the whole thing snowballs on from catastrophe to catastrophe, gathering a gravity of its own that makes it almost impossible to stop until finally—
A gout of flame billows up from the road, accompanied by an explosion that shakes the building.
– something terrible enough to shatter the huge ball of fear and inertia into a thousand smaller balls happens. And then each of those balls trundles merrily on its way till the confusion is lifted to a power of two, then three, then four…
I stand in the entrance to the reptile house with my grin so wide it almost splits my cheeks, looking upon what I have created. The python on my shoulder hisses its approval. And just then I hear the thump of footsteps on tarmac, and there’s Corey, holding a can of Coke and gaping at the flames already catching hold of the wooden fence around the car park. Then he sees me, and his eyes widen in terror. Poor, stupid Corey. His ignorance is one of the few things I’ll miss about this God-forsaken planet. It never fails to make me feel wonderfully superior in comparison. “J… Jack?” he asks, shrinking back as though I might bite him. Of course, I would never lower myself to do any such thing. He might give me food poisoning.
As I step towards him, I let the last remnants of my human disguise drop away. Gone is the ridiculous ash-blonde hair that steadfastly refuses to be schooled into a parting. Gone are the pale skin and the foolish baggy clothes. I stand before Corey in my true form, the form I have longed to assume during my wearisome months on Earth. Beneath my skin, shadows swarm and boil like fish. My eyes glow the red of lava, of furnaces, of dragons’ scales. Atop my head, a pair of magnificent ash-black horns rear skywards. I open my mouth, and the voice that answers Corey is a deep growl, not the pitiful treble that has been my lot for the past few months. “I am not Jack,” I rumble, as my every pore drinks in the confusion and panic surrounding me. “That foolish, feeble boy is no more. Henceforth, you shall call me by my own name.” Corey drops his Coke can as he backs away, but the tiny clink it makes as it hits the ground is drowned out by the wonderful cacophony of car horns, sirens and screams from the direction of the road. My smile stretches wide, and now, for the first time in half a year, my mouth assumes the shape it was always supposed to possess. My face splits in half as both sets of teeth reveal themselves and my true, deep laugh echoes out through the stalagmites of my fangs. “My name,” I growl, as Corey turns, half-hypnotised, to run, “is Chaos.”
Thea Bradbury aged 15
Archive - Henrietta Branford Writing Competition 2009 - 10th anniversary year
The Branford Boase Award for authors and their editors
The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition for young writers
