Deadly Persuit The man walked to the door with a cardboard box under his arm, he laid it down while he unlocked the three bolts and the padlock with the utmost care. The inner room was of an average size, well for a regular household room that is. The entire outside wall was taken up by a huge heavily re-enforced plate glass window, so that the whole room could be clearly seen from outside. The man quickly released the clasp on the box and pulled out a huge buck hare by the ears. He was a big one weighing a good twenty pounds, plenty of meat on him. The hare kicked out furious at being hoisted in this indelicate manner. All the time screeching. His only attack the strong hind legs and his high pitched keening scream. With the deftness that comes of much practise the man swiftly broke the hare�s hind legs over his knee. The animal screamed, a noise sickeningly like a human baby in agony and writhed beneath his immovable grip. He threw it viciously into the middle of the room and quickly slipped out, locking the doors meticulously behind him. He then stood at the window to watch, the wonder of nature at her most cruel. He had seen this countless times before, but the thrill of it never left him. The hare sensed death the instant its feet touched the floor. It touched down and immediately jumped three foot into the air as if the floor was electrified. Despite it�s crushed legs he flew madly round the room dragging his hind quarters limply behind, looking for escape and finding none, it cowered in the farthest corner shaking and trembling. This was the room belonging to the Boids. The twelve foot plus Boas and Pythons. Tessa the Common Boa, had been fed, as had Lotus and Bambi, two of the Burmese Pythons. Ebakaneza a fourteen foot Reticulated Python moved his head slightly. He lazily flicked his tongue sniffing the air with disinterest and bent it to point at the various corners of the massive vivarium until he caught the scent of the hare in the far corner. Then he began to move slowly towards the tantalizing smell of petrified animal. There was nothing lazy about his tongue now. It was flickering with lightning rapidity, sensing out the hare, smelling and tasting the air. He got within three feet of the wounded prey, it jumped high landing on the snakes back. The snake hissed loudly and recoiled in anger. It lunged at the hare, just missing him as the hare bounced all over the room in a blind and furious panic. He landed on Bamboo briefly. She uncoiled and made a half hearted lunge at theterrified creature. The hare found another corner and crouched low, panting, his eyes bulging with fear. He began to sway, never once taking his eyes off the snake, that was making it�s unhurried way towards him again. The hare instinctively knew which of the huge snakes was the biggest threat to him, he never gave the others much of a glance but he kept his eyes riveted on Ebby. The next strike was intended to mean business. Ebby again got within three feet of the hare and he held it with his gaze psyching it out, freaking it. The hare was mesmerized. It gave a few warning thumps with it�s smashed hind legs but it�s eyes never left the snakes. Fourteen foot long and a girth of fifteen inch. He was a big Python, and had a lot of growing still to do. The hare swayed, mesmerised beneath Ebby�s glare. As suddenly as it began the dance of death was over. Ebby took one last tongue flicking smell of the hare and then lunged. Only the last foot of his body moved. His huge mouth, opened over a foot wide to reveal, pure white convex fangs. The strike was as fast as the blink of an eye. He grabbed the hare by the throat, and rapidly coiled his immense body four times round the prey. The hare screamed. It kicked out wildly with its back legs, but it only fought against air. The snake was too experienced and wily to leave part of his body where it could be kicked and clawed. Still holding the hare tightly by the neck, the snake loosened his coils a hairs breadth, allowing the hare the luxury of an inhalation. The hare gasped greedily for air, taking in a huge lungful, then before the hare could exhale Ebby went in for the death cuddle. He tensed all his muscles and increased the pressure upon the creature tightening his coils, and pulling them into a taut blanket around the dying hares body. The hare knew that it was hopeless. He gave up struggling and waited for death to relieve him of his suffering. His eyes bulged deeply out of their sockets as the pressure was increased. The poor animal�s internal organs were crushed long before it went limp. Immense coils gradually increasing the pressure upon its heart. It took the hare ninety seconds to die. The Python increased his hold for a further sixty seconds. A kill was to be savored. From the second he had made the first coil, his gastric acids had begun to prepare themselves for breaking down the flesh, fur and bones of the hare. A minute after the hare was dead, Ebby pulled his long curled fangs from deeply within the hares neck, The fangs are designed like hooks, so that when they enter their prey, they curl forward. This ensures that a secure grip is maintained. The fangs made a loud �plopping� sound as they came away from the kills neck. Then he uncurled himself, and looked at his prize. none of the other snakes paid any attention to what was going on. The next thing the snake did was to glide several times over the recumbent body of the hare. Much as a mortician measures his corpse so Ebby measured his kill. Then he started to nudge it with his blunt nose down both sides, and along its rump. This served two purposes, it straightened the hare out, to make it more streamlined, and it allowed the snake to measure his lunch. When he was entirely satisfied with the position and sizing of his meal, he moved very slowly towards the hares head. Lining himself up he raised his head three inches off the floor and began to open his mouth, slowly. When his mouth was open he moved his lower mandible several times to either side, this enabled him to dislocate his jaw, so that it fell back as though on a hinge. It looked like a yawn as he stretched the now dislocate jaw, his mouth opening wider and wider. The Jacob�s Organ glistening white along the bottom of his mouth. This is a tube that allows the snake to breathe when his windpipe is completely covered by the carcass of his kill. Now he was ready to begin the slow business of swallowing his prize. He took the hare�s nose gently into his mouth. The hares head is three times larger than his own. Gradually by moving his mouth side to side, the hares head moves further and further into his mouth, until its nose has moved into his neck. Then Ebby stops and contracts every muscle in his entire body, as he squeezes down on the body, of the kill, it moves slightly further down his neck. He then opens his mouth stretches it a little further and moves the hare an inch further in. He stops and then repeats the muscle clenching. In this way, alternating between mouthing up the hares body, and using his muscles to maneuver it down his gullet, the hare slowly began to disappear. By the time the snake has reached the hares shoulders, the snake�s skin around, the bulge of the hare is stretched until it becomes translucent. Anybody seeing this for the first time would be convinced that the snake was going to split. All his markings had become elongated, much as the pattern on a lycra dress stretches on a too big body. It takes the snake twenty minutes to swallow the hare and then he lies with an obscene bulge gradually moving down the inside of him. You can trace the hares, head, feet and body, through the skin of the snake. Ebby is now sated, and will not be fed for at least another week, as in the wild a Burmese python may take a deer. This would be enough to feed him for several months, if there was a shortage of food. The black spurs either side of his cloaca dug into the soft substrate. He stretches his dislocated mouth a couple more times. Then an audible click can be heard as it snaps back into position. Ebby slides back into his fibre glass cave. For the next couple of days he is watchful, dangerous. He is at his most vulnerable. He lies in the darkness of the carvern at the far end of the immense room. Now he will sleep. The man smiled as he moved away from the Vivarium. He never tired of watching the Deadly Pursuit.
Copyright © 1999 Sue (Sooz) Simpson |