41 – Snake Fry

As soon as Andy heard Lucy’s bow string release, he hurled the bottle of rum at the back wall of the pool. As it hurtled through the air, he saw Lucy’s shot strike true, slamming into the serpent right above its yellow, slitted eye. After that, a bunch of things happened at once. The snake’s weird, translucent eyelid flicked away, making the yellow of its iris even brighter. Its rattle started a buzzing rumble that Andy felt in his guts, and the serpent hissed, uncoiling as fire began to spread over the top of its scaly head.

As the bottle shattered and alcohol and broken glass showered down on the serpent’s body, Lucy cried, “My arrow didn’t go through its skull!”

“Run!” Andy grunted, gripping his spear and bracing himself. The damn snake had moved too fast; the alcohol had showered its body, but not the fiery eruptions tracing over its head from Lucy’s arrow—it wasn’t burning. He’d imagined something a lot more volatile, like gasoline. The snake hissed as it continued to unwind, its top half already slithering up the shallow end toward Andy.

Despite their plan and Andy’s admonition for Lucy to run, another arrow sprouted in the snake’s neck, just behind its massive head. Andy glanced at her, only taking his eyes off the snake for a split second, and saw she was standing about halfway to the porch, already nocking another arrow. All he could think was, good for her. He liked to see that she was conquering her fear.

The snake was fully unwound by then, slithering up the steps, flicking its tongue as its damnable rattle continued to thrum, echoing and buzzing like a crazed, gigantic mariachi player. “Just a little more,” Andy said through gritted teeth, and then the snake cleared the top step, gliding over the lip of the pool and straight over his Scorchmark Glyph.

The glyph came to life, the faint glimmer of its jagged lines blazing from red to white hot in the span of a second. A burst of black smoke and fire erupted from the ground in a great whoomph. The explosion rocked the snake, lifting it off the ground and showering it with thousands of sparkling cinders. It veered to the right, its head and neck fully engulfed in fire, and, as more embers showered down, the alcohol finally caught fire, and the giant serpent’s movement became erratic as it thrashed and rolled, eventually flopping back down into the pool.

The snake continued to shiver and undulate, but Andy could see it was on its way out, and Lucy sped it along with two more arrows to the base of its broad skull. Despite its continued twitching, the System delivered a new message:

***Congratulations, Andy! You worked with a partner to take down an “elite” enemy. You’ve earned enough experience for level 7 in your Pyroglyph Invoker class. Because it was an elite, you’ve also earned a special System-generated reward. It will be delivered when you find a safe space to rest.***

When Andy saw he hadn’t earned another class skill or spell, he couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. Even so, he now had two System awards coming to him when they got to safety. He looked over at Lucy and saw she was staring into space. “Level?” he asked, walking closer.

She nodded, but held up a finger for him to wait. Andy looked at his status page and realized he had six improvement points to spend again. He wondered if he ought to bring all of his attributes up to nine, now that he’d learned that was a kind of soft cap. Or was it? All he knew was that it was a soft cap for his vitality. He also had a ton of new skills he could put points in, so the decision wasn’t as straightforward as it used to be.

“Andy, I got a class evolution. I’m a Monster Hunter now.” When he looked away from his status sheet, Lucy was beaming. “I got to choose a favored prey. I mean, I think I might get to choose others, too, as I gain levels. For my first, I picked gigantic fauna.”

“Gigantic fauna?” Andy grinned, looking at the smoldering snake corpse. “Like this thing and that spider?”

“And the boar! I got the choice because we’ve killed so many.”

“What does it do for you?”

“It said I can see weaknesses, score critical hits more naturally, track them more easily, and resist effects that might ‘impact my will.’ I mean, maybe, like, I won’t be as scared?”

Andy leaned on his spear, wincing as the movement pulled on the puncture wounds on his chest. “That’s awesome, Luce. I hope you get more skills and improvement points than from your hunter class. You’re level one again, right?”

“Yep. I lost the hunter class, but I kept all the skills; I guess because it’s a class evolution, they were all compatible.”

Andy nodded. The System’s class…system was proving to be more and more complex. “Gonna get your arrows?”

Lucy nodded, pulling out her belt knife. He watched as she climbed down and gingerly approached the blackened, smoking carcass. Then, in just a few minutes, she’d collected two arrows and said, “The others are ruined.”

“Let’s go inside, everyone’s plastered to the windows.” Andy nodded toward the house where he could see Sandy and the others staring out, wide-eyed. “By the way, how’d you like that fire trap?”

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“That was nuts!” Lucy laughed, leading the way to the back door. “Like a bomb!”

Before they opened the door, he said, “Hey, uh, I just wanted to say I think it’s really cool that you didn’t run.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, smiling warmly. “Once I shot it, once I saw you standing there, ready to fight… I didn’t feel scared anymore. Thank you, Andy.”

He immediately felt stupid when he held out a fist for her to bump, but when she pressed her knuckles against his, his embarrassment faded, and he grinned. “Hell yeah.”

Sandy was done waiting; she pushed the door open and asked, “Are you two okay? That was a lot of fire!”

“Is that damn thing dead?” Kayla asked, wringing her hands. “You wouldn’t be laughing standing around out there if it weren’t, right?”

“Yeah, it’s dead,” Andy replied. He went into the house, saw the half-filled boxes and open pantry, and then turned to look at Lucy and Sandy. “I think I’ll go help those guys with the trailer. Lucy, can you keep an eye on things here? I mean, in case that guy had some other stinkin’ pet or accomplices we don’t know about.”

“Yeah, sure. I could use a snack and a drink, too.” She started poking around in the grocery bags.

“Right. Be back soon.” Andy left through the garage, and when he walked outside, the first thing he noticed was that the body of the woman he’d killed was gone. Had something taken it? Had she become a damn zombie or something? If it had just been wild animals, they would have eaten it in place, wouldn’t they? Frowning, he gripped his spear and jogged out to the street, turning left and hurrying past the next couple of houses. Hopefully, Jordan and Tyler would know what had happened to it.

It wasn’t hard to find the two men; they’d already made a pair of harnesses out of ratchet straps and were tugging the trailer up the gravel driveway toward the road. It wasn’t a huge trailer, but it was plenty big to haul all the food they’d found.

“What is that—eight feet?” he asked as he slowed his jog to a walk.

“That’s right,” Jordan said. “The only tricky part is keeping enough tension so the tongue doesn’t drop and scrape the road.” He shrugged. “It’ll be easier when we load it. We’ll put more weight toward the back.”

Andy nodded. “Cool. We can take turns pulling it. Um, on another note, did you guys do something with that woman’s body?”

They both looked at him like he was speaking tongues. “Woman?”

Andy shook his head. “One of the Whistler’s—the asshole with the monster pets—one of his accomplices. Her body was in the driveway.”

Tyler shook his head. “All we saw was blood.”

“All right, let’s hurry back. I don’t like the idea of something big enough to take an entire woman’s corpse sniffing around.”

Jordan pointed to the trailer. “Push from the back, bud. We’ll haul ass back to the other house.”

Andy got behind the trailer and pushed while the two men pulled. It hurt like hell to flex his pectoral, so he mostly pushed with his right arm as they jogged down the street. When they got to the house where the others were working, Andy hauled on the trailer, dragging and stomping his feet to slow it down. “That’s gonna be dangerous going down a hill!”

“Yeah, if we do any hills to speak of, we should put the straps on the back.” Jordan pointed to a pile of extra ratchet straps in the trailer. “I can hook those to the back so we don’t have to move ’em around.”

“Cool.” Andy pointed to the piles of boxes and supplies in the garage. “Can you two check that stuff out? We need food and anything that could be made into a weapon. I mean like axes, hammers, spears, and whatnot. You get me?”

“Yeah. Hell yeah.” Jordan thumped Tyler on the shoulder. “Come on, man.”

Andy jogged toward the garage, calling over his shoulder, “And keep an eye out! Something big is out there!”

“Right!” Jordan replied.

Inside, Andy found the others hard at work, piling their bags of food and cases of drinks by the hallway, so he stooped to pick up a flat of water bottles. “I’ll start loading the trailer.”

“Wait!” Lucy said, dropping a bag full of canned goods. “You need something on that cut. It’s oozing, Andy!”

“I mean, your little healing trick would be great…”

“I need to forage for that…” She frowned, looking toward the back window. “Did you see any prickly pear in this guy’s yard?”

“They’re all over the place; I can find one. You just need one of the pads, right?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

“Okay, be right back.” Andy slipped out, spear on his shoulder, and jogged past Jordan and Tyler, glad to see they were already loading the trailer. He scanned the front yard and saw a young mesquite, an ocotillo, a bunch of smallish shrubs, and a very juicy-looking aloe vera plant. “If prickly pear works, wouldn’t that?” He wondered if her spell had just guided her to the prickly pear earlier because it was the closest candidate. He walked over to the succulent, dipped his spear down, and gently sawed off one of the long, spear-shaped leaves.

He picked it up, touching the slimy, sappy ooze coming out of the cut, and nodded. “I bet this will work.”

“What you doing, Andy?” Jordan called from the trailer.

Andy held up the green leaf. “Wound care!” Then he hurried inside to find Lucy depositing another sack near the door. “Think this will work?”

Lucy wiped some sweat off her brow and took the leaf. “Let me check.” Andy watched as her eyes flared with bright green sparkles, and she smiled, nodding. “Yes! Come here, lift up your shirt.”

Andy leaned his spear against the wall and lifted his shirt over his head, wincing as he had to raise his arm. “Damn it,” he grunted, but Lucy wasn’t paying attention; she was busily scraping the soft, gel-like pulp from between the two halves of the aloe vera leaf with her knife. When she had a couple of tablespoons’ worth on the blade, she scooped it onto her fingers and reached toward him.

“Hold still. Remember last time? It won’t hurt.”

“Okay,” Andy whispered, leaning on the wall, suddenly conscious of the other women moving bags to the hallway, watching him and Lucy with interest. Lucy pressed her left hand against his sternum, holding him still while she gently smeared the pulpy aloe gel into the two holes the arrow had made. It was warm from her hand, and didn’t sting at all. When she was done applying it, she held her palm against his wounds and concentrated. Like before, Andy felt a warm tingling sensation, and then much of the acute pain faded.

“Wow!” Lucy whispered. “It worked even better! Look.” She pointed to the smooth, green patch that covered his wounds, connecting to his flesh with delicate-looking green webbing. The flesh was no longer swollen and red around them, and Andy could feel that the puncture wound was much better underneath.

“That’s so cool, Lucy!”

She smiled and gently patted his chest. “Okay, hero. Put your shirt on and help us load that trailer up!”