Cam - 03 - The Moonpool (39 page)

No boat. Plus, the water under the pier didn’t even look deep enough to accommodate the
Keeper
.

“Okay,” I said. “Now we have to check out that greenhouse.”

“Let’s not and say we did,” Tony said. “I’ve just figured out what’s in there.”

I told him we needed to make sure. As we started back, I noticed a five-hundred-gallon propane tank on the back side of the greenhouse. That side faced west, and the windows were even more opaque.

To our surprise we found the back door, near the fuel tank, unlocked. Surprised until we read the little sign on the door’s window:
THERE IS NO POINT TO LOCKING THE DOORS IN A GLASS BUILDING
, it read.
BUT IF YOU COME IN HERE, THE CHANCES ARE VERY GOOD THAT YOU’LL NEVER COME OUT ALIVE
. It was signed
THE KEEPER
.

That’s all it said. No threats about trespassers being prosecuted or anything else. Seemed clear to me, and more than
clear to Tony, who once again suggested we just spot this little expedition and get the flock out of there. I was tempted, but if this was Trask’s snake house, I had plans for it.

I put the shepherds on a long down not far from the door. I opened the door and we stepped through, guns in hand, to face a wave of warm, humid air. I found a small power panel just inside the door and threw the breakers that were not on; the third and fourth ones turned on lights throughout the greenhouse, although they were very low-wattage lights. There was a round knob on one side of the power panel box, which began to make a noise when I turned the lights on.

The space right inside the door resembled an interior screen porch, with a very fine metal mesh. There was a large water heater with three pumps clustered at its feet, from which ran insulated water manifolds that spread out through the building, or at least into the right wing where we’d come in. There were stainless steel tables and painted metal cabinets along one wall, three refrigerators or freezers, and a glass-fronted cabinet with vials of different things inside, probably antivenin compounds.

“Fuck me,” Tony said, pointing behind the heater. There we could see a separately screened annex, where there were five cages full of rats, and not the pretty white lab rats I was used to seeing in captivity. These were gray and brown Norway rats, some of them big enough to be worrisome and not at all afraid of us. They squirmed and squeaked when the lights came on, as if they knew what the presence of humans meant. There were wooden handles with metal snare loops hanging on each cage, and hand access plates on each door.

Outside the screened-in area, which was perhaps twenty feet square, there was a jungle. Literally a jungle, with huge green plants, vines, some flowers, tropical bushes, low-growing trees, and even thick, wet-looking grass. Then we realized that it wasn’t an open jungle, but rather a series of screened-in cages, some small, some big enough for a horse. We could see the heating pipes running through the grass areas. Both of us stared pretty hard at those pipes to see if any
of them were moving. There was one long black plastic pipe, perhaps ten inches in diameter, which ran the entire length of the screened area on one side and protruded into the jungle part.

There was a three-foot-wide gravel path bordered by four-by-six posts lying horizontally, to which the cages’ front screens attached. Three stainless steel kitchen tables on wheels were parked along the pathway. Some of the riotous vegetation had poked through the screens and overhung the path. The large black pipe ended three feet into the jungle in a blank cap. Some kind of heat exchanger? The whole place smelled like greenhouses always do, moist, composted earth, wet vegetation, and high humidity, but with another smell overlaying it all. I recognized that smell.

“Now what?” Tony said, clearly implying that we’d seen all we had to.

“I’m going to check this place out,” I said. “You can wait here, stand guard if you’d rather.”

“No fucking way, boss,” Tony said.

“You want to go first?”

“Hell, no.”

“Because usually, with snakes, it’s the first guy pisses ’em off, and the second guy who gets bit.”

“I’ll go first.”

We went in single file, stepping carefully, although logic said that the handler, or was it the keeper, had to have one totally safe route through his reptilian kingdom. I’d seen some snake-handling sticks hung on the wall back by the utility room, but didn’t want my hands encumbered by anything but my trusty SIG. I told Tony to fish out his flashlight in case the lights went out.

“Why would the lights go out?” he asked.

“Because the alarm we
didn’t
see summons the owner?”

“Another good reason to get the fuck out of here,” he pointed out.

The cages were on either side, filled with greenery that I didn’t recognize. There were water feeders like the one I’d
seen on the boat in all the cages, and sometimes rock piles or artificial burrows. Each cage had two stainless steel padlocks on its door. And, yes, there were snakes.

Most of them were smallish, compared to the Burmese monster. Some looked plain enough; others were dramatically patterned, with pronounced, flattened triangular heads sporting muscular, protruding venom glands on either side. All of them that we could see were tracking us with flickering tongues and glittering eyes, and I realized that the lights coming on probably meant feeding time to this crew. One thick bastard, which I recognized as a Gabon viper, coiled aggressively as we walked by. I saw Tony’s finger slip down onto the trigger of his Glock, and then realized I’d done the same thing.

About half the cages were empty, or else the inhabitants were enjoying a postprandial coma in one of those artificial burrows. I wasn’t about to open any doors to find out, nor did we have keys. We turned the corner into the base of the U-shaped complex, and came upon some really large cages and some equally large snakes: pythons, anacondas, and some other constrictors I didn’t recognize from my days as a
National Geographic
subscriber. Some ignored us, some watched. I wondered if Trask threw the rats in dead or alive. I’d read somewhere that snakes could live for months after ingesting one good meal.

The final wing had a set of double doors made of clear Plexiglas, which created an airlock. When we stepped through the second door, we encountered a much drier heat. Gone was the jungle. This wing was more like a desert, and the cages were filled with sand, rocks, the ubiquitous water feeders, some deadwood from the beach, and not much else. The temperature gauges read eighty degrees, but it seemed hotter. Even the lights were different, although still not very strong. They’d been greenish in the other section; in here they were more like orange. Strangely, all these cages appeared to be empty, unless the whole crowd was down in their holes.

“
Now
can we boogie?” Tony said.

I was about to say yes when we both noticed that there was no exit door. We’d have to go back the way we’d come.

“What makes a man want to associate with reptiles, and especially snakes?” I asked the air.

Then the lights all went off.

We froze and listened. I hadn’t heard any sounds from the outside except the offshore night wind starting up. I hadn’t felt any pressure changes in the air indicating a door had opened to the outside. The dogs hadn’t barked or set up a fuss outside. We both flicked our flashlights on at the same time. I pointed to the way we’d come, and we started back, keeping the lights down on the gravel just to make sure we hadn’t missed a hissing something.

The airlock was still empty. We paused to listen with our flashlights off. Nothing seemed to move around us. I told Tony to keep his light off so as to lessen the target, and I pushed through the Plexiglas door. We were back in the jungle. I thought I could hear water gurgling through the heating pipes, and it seemed warmer than it had been the first time. A faint glow of lingering daylight came through the glass panes. It was difficult not to just bolt down the path, but one didn’t go running in the dark in a snake house. I felt some vines brushing my face as we moved across the base of the complex and finally into the entrance wing. All we needed was some jungle birds making alien sounds off in the trees.

We stopped on the other side of the airlock door to listen. We could hear sounds out there in the dark, faint rustles and scrapes, but nothing that sounded human. That wasn’t necessarily comforting. Was Trask here? Had there been an alarm we’d missed? He could just as easily have a house nearby where he parked the boat—we hadn’t looked. The heated water continued to gurgle, and a metal pipe joint somewhere clanked in protest. I could hear a low hum, which had to be the water pumps. So it hadn’t been a power failure. Had someone opened the breakers down there?

We listened some more. As our eyes adjusted to the gloom, we could see the ribbon of gravel path stretching out in front
of us. All we had to do was start walking. Get to the screened-in utility room and keep right on going. Two hundred feet and we were out of there.

You can get in, but you won’t get out
, the little sign said. I nudged Tony, and we started walking, me in front this time, him right behind me. I could hear his breathing and then realized I could hear my own as well. I tried to ignore any movement in the cages as we passed them. Metal screens. Two locks. No problem, no matter what was in those cages. I formed a mental image of that thick viper with its murderous head and made sure I was in the exact center of the path

One hundred feet. The humming sound was getting louder.

Something hissed and struck hard against the screen to my right, and I damned near jumped out of my skin. Tony snapped his light on, and we saw a six-foot-long green snake disentangling ivory fangs from the screen, twisting its head to get them loose. Those fangs looked as long as toothpicks.

Tony turned his light off, and we kept moving. It was really hard now not to break into a full run. My mouth was dry and my heart was thumping in my chest. Steel screens. Double locks. No way they could get out.

Fifty feet.

More activity in the cages now. Snakes expecting dinner and now the lights had gone off? With no chow? Small sounds. Leaves moving. Scales against sand. Prolonged dragging sounds. One long exhalation.

Thirty feet to the door, which we could barely see now that we were closer. I focused on the door, trying hard to ignore the angry reptiles on either side, as I recited the mantra: Steel screens. Two locks. No way.

Fifteen feet. No way—and then something black rose up in the visual frame of the utility room door.

Tony collided with me when I stopped short, and we both switched on our lights. Directly in front of us was a dark green snake about ten, maybe twelve miles long. Okay, feet. The front five feet of him were vertical, weaving slowly back and forth as if he were range-finding. I thought it might be a cobra, but there was no hood. I moved my flashlight out away from
my side, and Tony did likewise, going in the opposite direction. The snake’s head stopped when the lights moved, and the base of the vertical part began to bow out toward us. It gave a low hiss and opened its mouth, which was jet black. Then I saw the end of that black pipe, which was no longer capped.

You can get in, but you won’t get out. And here’s why
.

The snake continued its hypnotically slow approach, its head just barely weaving now, its hiss more like a prolonged exhalation. Its top half didn’t seem to move at all, but that bottom half was definitely advancing. The snake wasn’t afraid, just getting ready to take care of business. It opened its mouth again in a menacing gape.

I married the flashlight with the barrel of my SIG in a two-handed grip.

“On three,” I said.

“Yup,” Tony said, and we pointed our guns. I aimed for the juncture between the head and the body, and gave Tony a second to do likewise. The snake kept coming, rising higher on its back half now.

“Three,” I said, and we both fired. A pane of glass shattered somewhere along the line of fire, but the snake’s head disappeared in a red bloom. Its body collapsed on the path into a writhing knot of reflexive coils.

We both shone our lights all around us just to make sure he hadn’t brought a brother into the weeds. Fucking Trask. He’d kept a sentinel in that pipe with some kind of automatic opening device. The whole greenhouse had only the one door in, one door out, and a black mamba for a doorkeeper.

We stepped around the still-moving mess on the path and reached the utility room. We did another sweep of the floor and the tables with the flashlights, just to make sure. The stink of gunpowder was strong in here, and the rat cages had all gone still. I looked at the breaker box. The breakers were still on, but that circular device wasn’t making noises any more. Then I realized what it was: a light timer.

You can get in, but you won’t get out
. I wondered how many teenagers had not come home in these parts after accepting a beer-driven dare.

The shepherds were waiting anxiously outside the door after hearing the gunfire. I was glad I hadn’t taken them inside. The air outside was much colder, headed for the low forties. It felt really good to be outside. I told Tony what my solution to the snake house was. He agreed. We propped the back door open, and Tony went around front to break a bunch of glass panes to improve air circulation in the hothouse. Then we went looking for the main breaker.

It took us ten minutes to trace the underground riser from the last telephone pole, but finally we found it, a big metal box with a lead-seal wire in the middle of the base section. A glass meter looked back at us from above the box. I ripped off the seal and opened the box. A spider jumped out into the darkness when I lifted the lid. I reached in and threw the D-handle. The dials on the meter stopped moving. The humming noise inside the utility room ran down to silence.