Poison Snake

Poison Snake

Prologue

Snake Island, South America 1070

The fat black snake slithered over the rock in the warm afternoon sun. Two men stood by it, holding long sticks with hooked ends. A large crowd was gathered around the small arena in which the men and the snake were. The men wore long pants and long shirts despite the heat. One man was tall with scraggly long hair and the other quite short and bald.

Snake Island was like a snake zoo. It had many types of snakes, some more dangerous than others and the various staff that worked there specialised in training certain snakes. The staff put on shows for visitors to come and watch. The snake in this show was the ‘Disc Neck’

The bald man stepped forward and tapped the snake on the back, instantly its head jerked up and the tall man pointed at it with his forefinger and little finger. He began to hum and the snake perked it head up into the air. The bald man tapped it again and spikes flicked up from its neck. The tall man continued to hum, to mesmerize the snake. The snake’s neck, with spikes jutting out from it, was extremely deadly. As the bald man tapped it a third time the snake began to twist its head backwards and forwards. It was rotating the devastating spikes on its neck and effectively using them as a razor disc. It hissed sharply at the two men, waring them not to come near it. The crowd moved back a bit even though they all knew that these men had done this show many times and they knew what they were doing. But then, the bald man did something extremely out of the ordinary. He had never done it before but he had had a sudden urge. His stick came smashing down on the black snake’s back which broke its mesmerisation. The snake went psycho. It twisted it head faster and faster until it spikes where just a blur of movement. The snake then moved towards the bald man, and cut his legs to pieces. The crowd started to scream and broke up. People ran in all directions screaming and shouting. The tall man kept his hand up and tried desperately to control the snake but it was no use. By now, two other black snakes had joined the first and they were chasing after the crowd of people that had run off. The tall man was left standing out in the open by himself.

‘Argh,’ he yelled in realisation.

He kicked himself for being so stupid; first he had ruined the show and now he was going to die. He knew this because there was one other snake that he trained. The ‘Spit ball’.

The Spit Ball was an extremely intelligent snake; it used tremendously clever tactics to kill its prey. He knew that Spit Ball had two elements that it can use: an exceptionally venomous poison that it could spit and partial mind control. He also knew, however, that Spit Ball snakes were in constant battle with Disc Neck snakes.

Now, by looking at the position he was in and the tactics that Spit Ball snakes used he knew that during the show, a Spit Ball had been anxiously waiting in a nearby bush. When it felt that the time was right, it had used its mind control to make the bald man hit the Disc neck. The Spit Ball, being intelligent, knew that this would make the Disc Neck become angry and scare off the crowd. By doing this, the Spit Ball had achieved two things: it had annoyed the Disc Neck and it had gotten some prey waiting out in the open to feast on…

Sydney, Australia, 12th of May 2006

Grant Webb stood in front of the audience as they clapped. He had just given a speech about his new snake theme park. Journalists sitting in the front row raised there hands and asked questions like, ‘So, Mr Webb, when do you expect your park to be open for visitors?’

‘Well, we are still building some of the enclosures for the more poisonous snakes so probably early next year.’

Another journalist this time a man, raised his hand and asked, ‘What will be the most popular attraction at your park?’

‘Well I can’t telly you that,’ replied Grant with a grin, ‘you’ll have to come and visit!’

Questions like these went on for about another half an hour and Grant patiently answered them. The crowd clapped again as Grant walked off stage and into a long hallway. With a click, he opened the third door on the left and walked in.

He picked up a glass of water and downed it in one gulp before picking up some papers on his desk and walking out again.

Grant was a snake specialist, he loved snakes. That’s why he had decided to open a snake theme park called ‘Snake Kingdom’. He had been working almost twenty-four seven for the last few weeks. Organising materials, paying builders, getting licences from the government, arguing with the council, getting gardeners, organising staff to work there and a range of other jobs.

When grant arrived home he quickly got himself some dinner and although it was only six ‘o’ clock he got into bed and fell asleep the moment his head the pillow.

He was woken at eight ‘o’ clock the next morning by the phone ringing. Sleepily, Grant leaned over and picked it up, ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, its Gerald Heartman, I believe I worked with you at the snake convention.’

‘Yes, I remember, you were the crypto-zoologist, you study mystery animals.’

‘Yeah, that’s it but I mainly do snakes. I want to call a meeting, it’s urgent and I know that you will want to here what we have to say.’

‘Yes?’

‘We believe that we have discovered an island that has snake species on it that we thought died out hundreds of years ago.’

‘Okay, I’ll be there. Where is the meeting?’

‘I’ve organized it to be in New York City, 21 Yardley Street.’

‘Okay, when?’

’20th of May, ten ‘o’ clock start.’

‘Good, I’ll be there.’

‘Okay bye.’

‘Goodbye.’

Grant hung up the phone and smiled to himself. He was getting the option of a lifetime here. He was going to be able to get some snakes species that no one else would have. He just imagined the lines at the gates of his park, the scientists coming to look and the money falling into his hands.

The meeting was in seven days and Grant couldn’t wait.

Grant pulled back his covers and got out of bed. He went and made himself a quick breakfast before getting ready and heading off to work.

For the next five days, Grant worked extremely hard to get a little ahead with his work as he was going to be missing a day or two.

At the end of the fifth day when Grant trudged into his house, hot and tired, he went up to his room and packed a small bag. He had booked his airline ticket on the second day and with all his gear ready to go he fell asleep thinking about snake rollercoaster’s and souvenir stands.

Grant strolled through the electronic doors of the airport terminal. Rolling along behind him was his small suitcase and on his back was an even smaller bag for the plane. In his hand was a large blue ticket to New York. The line waiting at the counter was he and it took about half an hour for grant to get to the front of it.

‘Hello, how are you?’ said a small lady sitting behind the counter.

‘Fine thanks, New York City,’ replied Grant as he handed her the ticket.

She ripped it in half before taking his suitcase and putting it on a conveyor belt. Grant went up a long escalator. At the top was a long hall of shops and cafés. His plane left at eleven ‘o’ clock and it was ten now so he had a while to browse around. He walked over to the duty free shop and found one of those Chinese puzzles.

‘Hmmm, something to do on the plane.’

He took it over to the counter and put it down.

‘Two-fifty thanks,’ said a young man.

Grant handed over the money and walked out of the shop.

‘Flight fife three four to New York City is now boarding at gate three,’ said a feminine voice over the PA.

Grant grabbed his carry bag and walked down the hall towards a large door. He went through and found himself in a large room with lots of metal detectors and conveyor belts for in it. He walked up to the metal detector, put his bag on the conveyor belt and walked through it.

No beep.

He was clean so he collected his bag and walked towards the end of the room where a row of desks stood. He waited in a line for about five minutes and when it was his turn a beefy man asked him for his passport. Grant handed it over and it got stamped.

He finally got onto the plane and found his seat in the business class section. He was sitting next to a pretty woman with blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hey,’ replied Grant

He sat down in the comfy blue chair and noticed that she was reading a sheet of paper that was titled ‘Advanced after care for snake bites’.

‘Are you going to a meeting in New York?’ began Grant.

‘Yes, tomorrow,’ she answered, ‘for an expedition to Snake Island.’

‘I am too, Grant Webb, nice to meet you,’ said Grant as he put out his hand.

‘Shelly Gardener.’

They shook hands and Grant asked, ‘So what is your job?’

‘I am a medic and Gerald said he needed me.’

‘Oh, okay. I’m a snake specialist and I’m opening a snake theme park.’

‘Yes I’ve heard about that, Snake Kingdom isn’t it?’ asked Shelly.

‘Yeah, that’s it. I’m interested to find out what’s on this island. Gerald said that it has species of snakes that were thought to be wiped out years ago.’

They talked like this for the rest of the trip and Grant found himself liking Shelly a lot.

New York City, America 19th of May 2006

The plane touched down in New York around about seven hours later. Grant caught a taxi to his hotel, The Duxton. He checked in and put his belongings on his bed. Before heading down to have some dinner. It was a buffet, with omelet, soup, meat and fruit. Well fed and feeling tired from the flight, Grant went up to his room and crashed.

Grant was woken to the sound of his alarm clock beeping madly. He smacked the top of it and went back to sleep. In what seemed like seconds later Grant was woken up again by the beeping of his alarm. This time he got out of bed and put on a suit before heading down for breakfast. He had beacon and eggs with orange juice. By nine-thirty he was out the door and into a taxi.

‘Twenty-one Yardley Street,’ said Grant as he got himself comfortable.

‘Okey-dokey,’ chuckled the driver.

The drove around the busy streets of New York before turning into a quieter road where the taxi stopped just outside a small modern looking building.

‘Twenty-five dollars,’ said the driver to Grant.

Grant handed over the money and stepped out. He walked up to the building and went inside.

‘Ah, how are you?’ asked a Gerald Heartman.

‘Hey, nice to meet you again.’

They shook hands and walked into a long room with a big desk surrounded by chairs. Some people already were already sitting in them. Grant recognized Shelly and sat down next to her, ‘Hey.’

‘Hey, how are you?’

‘Good, how about you?’

‘Yeah, good,’ she replied.

Over the next ten minutes the rest of the chairs were filled, there were now seven of them including Gerald.

Grant looked around himself. In front of him were two extremely big men with short hair. To one side of them was a tall woman with brown, curly hair and on the other side was a middle aged man with brown hair. Sitting next to Grant was Shelly and on the other side of him was Gerald.

‘Good morning,’ said Gerald in a formal voice, ‘my name is Gerald Heartman and I work for the SARA Scientific Animal Research Association in Australia. We are a highly secret association so any information you hear today, should not choose to accept the expedition, should not be relayed to anybody outside these walls now.’

‘Why do you keep it secret,’ asked the tall curly haired woman.

‘Simply because the public would get all uptight about the fact that we study animals. We do not casue out animals any harm, we simply watch the way in which they react with each other. They live in a highly satisfactory environment and I’m sure that they wouldn’t prefer to live out in the wild,’ replied Gerald.

‘Well, if you don’t harm them,’ said the curly haired woman again, ‘why would the public think you are hurting them?’

‘The stereotype of animal researchers is to lock up animals and the public just can’t understand what we do.’

‘Okay.’

‘Now, as you already know, we believe that we have discovered an island that has species of snakes that supposedly died out years and years ago.’

The people at the table nodded and Zoey, the tall woman with curly hair spoke, ‘So what does this have to do with us.’

‘Well I have picked all of you for a special reason. I have planned an expedition to Snake Island.’

There were gasps all around the table. Grant raised his eyebrows but then thought of the good it could do him.

Gerald spoke again, ‘I have picked Grant and Zoey,’ he said as he pointed at them, ‘because they are both snake specialists.’

Then he pointed at the beefy men sitting opposite Grant, ‘Harry and Gabriel because they are bodyguards and you will need protection.’

‘Joseph, because he is a safety inspector,’ continued Gerald as he pointed to the man next to the soldiers then he pointed to Shelly, ‘Shelly as she is a medic.’

‘And finally myself because I am a crypto-zoologist.’

‘Why do we need a crypto-zoologist?’ asked Zoey.

‘Well, we are going to be dealing with snakes that we thought died out years ago and there is a possibility that they have strange powers that we are not aware of.’

‘I plan for the expedition to take place on the 20th of July in a month’s time. You needn’t worry about flying home to get clothes; they will be supplied for you by my company as well as accommodation until you leave; if you agree of course.’

‘How long will the expedition be?’ asked Joseph.

‘One week, you should be able to collect specimens of all the snakes that you don’t recognize as well as find out a bit about their diets and habitat.’

‘Okay! Sounds like an adventure,’ exclaimed Harry.

‘I can guarantee it will be one,’ replied Gerald.

If you agree to come, sign the form in front of you. Grant looked at the booklet that was in front of him. On the third page was a contract. He quickly scanned it before signing his name at the bottom and handing the sheet to Gerald. In turn, everyone except Zoey handed there forms in.

‘Aww, come on,’ said Joseph.

Her hand wavered for a moment but then she gave in a scribbled her signature down before handing it up.

‘Thank you,’ said Gerald, ‘you will now be escorted to your hotel.’

They left the meeting room and went outside. Sure enough, there was a minibus parked outside the building. They all clambered in and sat down.

About twenty minutes later, they arrived at the same Duxton Hotel that Grant had been staying at before. They all went in and Gerald got the keys to heir rooms. They had two four bed en suites. Grant, Joseph, Shelly and Zoey took one and Gerald, Harry and Gabriel took the other.

As soon as they were in the rooms Grant ran to his previous room and grabbed his suitcase before going down to reception and booking out. By the time he got back to his room, the others had the TV on and the mini bar open.

‘Dig in,’ yelled Joseph gesturing towards the open cupboard filled with chocolate bars and mini alcohol bottles.

Grant grabbed a mars bar and opened it. He bit into it and enjoyed watched the TV show. It was some game show that had celebrities, microphones and audiences.

Grant was awoken by the sound of Zoey in the shower. He lay in bed until the shower stopped.

‘Argh,’ screamed Zoey, ‘there’s a worm on the bench.’

Grant smiled and Gabriel popped his head into their room. He put his finger on his lips and went into the bathroom, ‘What’s the matter.’

‘There’s a worm,’ squealed Zoey.

Gabriel picked it up and popped it in his mouth, ‘Mmmm.’

Zoey leant over the toilet and threw up.

‘I was only kidding,’ said Gabriel as he took the worm out of his mouth and put it onto the bin.

Zoey punched Gabriel playfully, ‘You disgusting pig!’

‘Ah well. You should try cockroaches, nice and crunchy.’

Zoey vomited again and punched Gabriel again, ‘I hate you.’

‘I know your only kidding,’ said Gabriel, ‘because with a punch like that, you can’t have been expecting to hurt me!’

‘Grrr,’ growled Zoey.

Grant laughed at the scene from his bed. Zoey was such a girl and Gabriel was taking the mickey out of it. Grant liked Gabriel, although he was a bit on the dumb side, he was nice and liked to joke around.

They all went down to breakfast together and Gerald told them about the expedition.

A week later, nothing had changed; they were all still just hanging around all day and taking stuff from the mini bar. On the last day of the week Gerald brought some boxes up to the room, ‘These are you clothes and other gear for the trip.’

Inside the boxes were twenty-one full body suits. They were made of tough cloth and they covered the whole body.

‘Three each,’ said Gerald.

The other box was full of gear such as ropes, harnesses, mosquito spray and snake nets.

‘So, we have to wear these things all day?’ asked Harry.

‘Yeah, pretty much.’

‘But what about when we sleep?’ asked Zoey.

‘We wear them!!!’ came the reply from Shelly.

‘Hurry up,’ yelled Gerald as the seven of them ran across the tarmac of the runway. Up ahead of them was the shiny private jet that was going to take them to Snake Island. It was an extremely hot day despite the fact that it was winter. Everyone hustled into the plane and Gerald shut the door. No sooner then Zoey had sat down, the planes engines roared and the plane took off on its journey. Grant took the time to look around. The cabin was a rather large room with luscious red carpet and had a large flat panel TV up the front. Dotted around the cavern were nice big armchairs in which they all sat in now. There was a bar to one side toilets at the back. Gerald looked at his watch for the millionth time. It was two ‘o’ clock and they were supposed to be on their way by twelve. Grant was yet again sitting next to Shelly. They talked about various things that had happened in their jobs.

Snake Island, Indian Ocean, 20th of July 2006

Day 1

The plane circled around the top of Snake Island for a few minutes looking for a place to land. Grant guessed it must have been about eight kilometres long and two kilometres wide. Its surface was covered in lush green rainforest and a white beach line surrounded it all. It was the typical ‘paradise island’ in all ways- except for the fact that it was covered with snakes.

Finally the pilot found a large clearing to the east side of the island. The nose dived down and the plane touched down on the rough dirt.

Grant, Joseph, Harry, Gabriel, Gerald, Shelly and Zoey stepped off the plane into the hot, humid air. They were all wearing the clothes issued by Gerald. Green overalls made from thick fabric.

‘We will camp over this side of the island tonight and make our way across over the week,’ said Gerald.

It was seven ‘o’ clock and the seven trudged to the beach on the right side on the island to set up camp.

Joseph and Grant finished setting up there tents first and went over to start a fire. They collected kindling and some larger chunks of wood before setting them up in a nice pyramid and lighting it. Soon enough they had a raging fire and were roasting potatoes and chicken from the stock pit in the plane.

Day 2

First light came at about six-thirty and everyone woke up. Grant got out of his sleeping bag and put on a fresh pair of overalls. He was about to get out of his tent when he heard a shout from Zoey, ‘Snake.’

Grant cautiously unzipped his tent and stepped out, Zoey was right. About ten metres away from their campsite was a big fat black snake. She was handling the situation very well, standing back and slowly reaching into a box to grab a snake net. Grant grabbed a tranquilizer dart and loaded it into a gun. He took aim and fired. It was a terrible shot, about a metre off but the dart curved through the air and hit the snake square in the head. Blood squirted everywhere and Zoey ran over to the unconscious snake. She was about two metres away from it when another snake, black with two white stripes running down its back, slithered out of the bushes towards her. Grant loaded another dart before he realized that the snake wasn’t coming for her and put it down. He watched as the striped snake slithered up to the black snake and spat at it. The black snakes scales started to melt away and eventually all the skin was gone. The striped snake grabbed the black snake with its mouth and dragged it away.

Grant and Zoey watched in amazement as the snakes disappeared into the bushes.

‘What the hell just happened there?’ asked Zoey.

‘I don’t know but I think that the striped snake is eating that black snake now.’

‘I have never seen snakes like that before,’ said Zoey.

‘Neither,’ replied Grant, ‘should we name them?’

‘Why not, we discovered them,’ said Zoey.

Grant pulled out a sketch book and began to draw the black snake. It was extremely long and fat for a snake. He wondered if it was venomous or not. He had thousands of questions like what were the ridges in its neck and is it really a snake and how long do they live and how well can they see.

Once he had finished the drawing he looked up at Zoey and said one word, ‘Ziara.’

‘That’s what you’re going to name it?’ asked Zoey.

‘Yep.’

‘Okay, draw the striped one.’

Grant sketched the striped snake and Zoey said, ‘Uchi.’

‘Okay.’

There were footsteps behind and Grant and Zoey spun around.

‘Hello Gerald,’ said Zoey.

‘There was a snake out here,’ said Grant, ‘two actually.’

‘Recognize them?’

‘No, we gave them names,’ said Grant, showing Gerald the drawings.’

‘Well done.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What did you call them?’

‘Well this one,’ said Zoey pointing to the striped on, ‘is called Uchi.’

‘And this one,’ said Grant pointing at the black one, ‘is called Ziara.’

Gerald nodded and went back into his tent to get changed. Grant went back to do the same.

At about ten ‘o’ clock, when they were all ready, had had breakfast and had packed up their tents, Gerald told them, that they were going to move west about two kilometres and then re set up before setting out to search the area they had traversed.

They put their gear on their backs and trudged for a hard fifteen minutes and found a clearing; the only problem was that there was a snake nest in the middle of it. Cautiously Zoey walked up to the nest. Everyone else was silent, holding their breaths hoping to hell that there wasn’t a snake waiting to pounce.

Joseph watched intently with his eagle eyes.

Harry and Gabriel gripped the triggers of their powerful M-16’s.

Grant’s eyes flicked around the clearing searching for snakes.

Shelly but her lip.

Gerald picked up a tranquilizer dart and loaded it.

Zoey took another step. Her heart was beating faster then ever and it was about to pop out of her chest. Another step and she would be able to see inside the nest.

Hisssss.

A Ziara rose out of the nest and, like a bullet, pounced on Zoey.

Hell broke out in slow motion: Gabriel and Harry opened fire on the snake and Gerald fired a dart. Joseph yelled at Zoey but she knew what she was doing. She leapt back and slowly walked away.

The bullets reached the snake and it was ripped apart by their shocking force. The Ziara lay crumpled on the ground with chunks of it ripped out.

Within five seconds of it happening, an Uchi had sped out of the rainforest and into the clearing. It eyed the Ziara and spat on it. Just like before. All of its scales dissolved and the Uchi dragged it off.

‘What in the world?’ muttered Harry.

‘That’s the second time the Uchi has done that,’ said Zoey, ‘it’s extremely abnormal behavior.’

‘Indeed,’ added Grant.

‘Well we’ll keep and eye on it,’ replied Gerald, ‘it’s too dangerous to camp here, we will move on.’

They walked away from the clearing and found a spot about three hundred metres away.

‘These bags are so heavy,’ moaned Zoey and she dropped the big backpack she was carrying on the ground.

‘Oh get over it,’ said Shelly.

Grant hid a smile behind his hand and bent over to unpack his tent. By twelve ‘o’ clock, the whole team had set up their tents and were ready to go out and search the island. Strapped to their sides and backs were snake nets, knives, tubes, poison, radios, water bottles and darts.

Gerald waved his hand and they set off to search the east part of the island. Gerald led out the front, followed by Grant and Zoey, then Joseph and Shelly with Harry and Gabriel bringing up the rear. This was the order that they were to stay in throughout the day.

Gerald had divided the island up into four sections: The far east, the east, the west and the far west. Since they were on the island for five days and they were late yesterday, the plan was to search a section each day. Today they were searching the far east.

‘I wonder why this island was never known?’ said Shelly to Grant.

‘Yeah, me too,’ answered Grant, ‘probably because it’s so small they just didn’t bother to search it.’

‘I guess.’

‘Hey, what the hell is that?’ exclaimed Gabriel.

The team’s eyes followed his finger. About one hundred metres away was a small building made from mud bricks.

‘What the?’

Gerald started sprinting towards it; naturally the team followed.

They arrived at the building twenty seconds later and all gasped. It looked like it was built hundreds of years ago. All the mud was brown and the walls were lined with cracks. Gerald looked at Joseph, ‘Is it safe enough to go in?’

Joseph ran his hand over the wall and looked in through a window that had no glass.

‘Yeah, but be careful.’

Gerald walked in and looked around. The room was four metres long and about two metres wide. There was a brick desk on one side and it ran the length of the building. On the other side of the room was another door. Gerald walked through it saw that there was another building about twenty metres away. This building was different, however, because it had a large clearing next to it. The clearing was surrounding by a low mud brick wall. It was like a stadium of some sort. Gerald looked up; there was another ‘stadium’ about fifty metres away.

‘This is amazing,’ he breathed.

The others came up behind and Harry asked, ‘What are they.’

‘I don’t know, maybe a sports stadium of some sort.’

‘So this place was inhabited by people,’ said Zoey.

‘A long time ago though,’ said Grant pointing to a grotesquely mangled skeleton lying next to the wall around the arena.

‘Let’s investigate!’ exclaimed Shelly.

They walked towards the arena and stepped over the wall. The arena’s floor was just a flat bed of sand.

‘I recognize this set-up,’ said Grant from the back.

‘Yes?’ asked Gerald.

‘Yeah, it looked somewhat like a zoo of sorts.’

‘How?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Well, look at the building behind you,’ said grant pointing to the building they had walked through, ‘that’s the entry, and these here, are the enclosures.’

‘A zoo for what though?’ asked Gerald.

‘Snakes?’

The penny dropped.

Snake Island used to be a snake park, but looking at the skeletons and the fact that snakes roamed the island, the snake park had been taken over by the snakes. Grant shuddered hoping his park wouldn’t come to the same end.

‘Well, there has to be more then two types of snakes if this was a snake zoo,’ said Harry.

‘Yes, that’s why we keep looking,’ said Gerald, ‘lets move on.’

They walked over the arena to the other side. Shelly was about to step over the wall when she froze. A Ziara was curled up on the other side of the wall and it sprang up into the air. Its head swayed around and four more came out around it. Spikes that were flush against their skin flicked out from their necks and the snakes began to rotate their heads. The spikes turned into a whir and the snakes moved forward. Shelly screamed and Gerald picked on of the snakes off with a dart gun. It stopped spinning and dropped to the ground; the other snakes became angrier and moved faster. Harry fired off two shots at the snakes, both missed. Another three Ziara came surging of the bushes and their spikes flicked out. The six snakes moved towards Harry. He tried running but they were too fast for him. The spikes plunged into his legs and he screamed as blood spurted everywhere. Harry dropped his gun as the snakes converged on him chopping him to bits.

‘Noooo!’ screamed Gabriel.

He went mad firing devastating bursts of fire at the snakes. The bullets ripped through the air as he ran. The snakes dropped one by one into pools of dark red blood and then they were all gone. Gabriel wasn’t satisfied. He wanted more, more snakes to kill. Gabriel ran back to Harry’s bloodied body. He bent over it on his knees, looked up at the sky and asked, ‘Why?’

He rested his head on Harry’s chest and cried before looking up and seeing four more Ziara’s coming towards him.

‘Argh,’ he roared, ‘I hate you!!’

The monster inside him ripped out of its cage. With anger powering him, Gabriel picked up both Harry and his guns and ran towards the snake firing madly. They all burst into explosions of blood and he chucked down the guns before dropping to his knees and burying his face in his hands.

The others stood shocked at what the snakes had done to Harry. Shelly walked over to Gabriel and bent down beside him, ‘It’s okay.’

‘No it’s not,’ replied Gabriel, ‘he was my right hand man and the snakes just-’

‘Don’t worry; I’m sure it was for a good cause.’

‘Yeah.’

They both got up and walked over to Harry, lying lifeless in the dirt.

Five Uchi’s suddenly came out of the bush. And six more Ziara’s cam out of a bush opposite them. The Ziara’s spikes flicked out and they started spinning there heads. The Uchi’s charged at the Ziara’s and the Ziara’s waited for them. When the Uchi’s hit, two were immediately chopped to bits but the others kept low. They bit the Ziara’s under their necks and the Ziara’s spikes stopped spinning. The six people watching from behind ran back as they realized that they were in the middle of a snake war. The Uchi’s had successfully disabled the Ziara’s only weapon and then they spat on them and the other dead Ziara. Their scales dissolved and they dragged them away before coming back and taking Harry.

‘Not him!’ yelled Gabriel, ‘not him.’

The Uchi’s continued to push Harry along the ground.

‘NOT HIM!!!’

Gabriel grabbed up the guns and fired at the snakes dragging his best friend away. The bullets didn’t hit them though; they just veered away and hit the ground around them.

‘What the hell?’ exclaimed Zoey.

‘They must have some sort of control over objects,’ replied Grant.

‘But that’s impossible,’ retorted Joseph.

‘No it isn’t,’ replied Zoey, ‘it’s called telekinesis, there have been reporting of it happening.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, there was one in China just this year.’

‘Wow.’

Harry body rolled into the bush and it was gone.

‘I hate snakes!’ yelled Gabriel.

Grant walked over to the snake that they had shot with a dart. The Uchi’s had rejected it and left it behind. Grant now picked it up and put it into a snake net before carefully twisting the top around and putting it in his backpack.

They team was now down to six. They walked slowly mourning the loss of Harry.

They found five more arenas, all of which they carefully avoided. At lunch time, they headed back to the campsite and Zoey grabbed the snake net out of Grants bag and put it on a table that she had set up earlier. She opened the snake net and pulled out the unconscious snake. It was about two metres long and ten centimeters thick. The first thing that she looked at was the spikes on its neck. They were flush against the skin and she put her finger nail under on of them and lifted it. It was a flat spike and when she let go, it flipped back into place like a rubber band. The snake must have muscles that could control the movement of the spikes. This snake had eight spikes in all and they were evenly spaced around the edge of its neck. Zoey grabbed a knife and cut open the Ziara at the neck. The knife sliced through easily and she opened the slit she had made. She looked carefully and saw that there was an extremely large muscle in its neck. This muscle was used for rotating the neck backwards and forwards quickly enough to make the spikes a whir. Secondly she saw that the scales were exceptionally thick; about five millimeters. The acid that the Uchi spat must be exceedingly powerful to get rid of scales this thick!

‘Hey Grant,’ she called, ‘have a look at this.’

He walked over and examined the dissected snake for a while before nodding and saying, ‘Those muscles are huge!’

‘Yeah, I think that they use them to rotate their heads so fast.’

Grant grabbed the knife and cut another slit about a half a metre down. There was another huge muscle here, ‘Just what I thought.’

‘What?’ asked Zoey.

‘This muscle is large as well meaning that it perks it head up high like a cobra does. This muscle is used to hold it up. This tells us a lot. It tells us that this is a very proud snake. It likes to show off. But a snake perking it’s head up, could also be trying to scare away another snake.’

‘So…’

‘So there must be a snake that it is trying to scare off,’ said Grant simply.

‘The Uchi.’

‘Correct,’ replied Grant, ‘didn’t you notice that the Uchi’s were always attacking the Ziara’s and then dragging them off to eat?’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’

‘We are in the middle of a war here, and if we aren’t careful, more of us will die,’ said Grant before walking off. He went into his tent and sat on the ground. What was going on? Harry had already died and it was only the second day. Who else would go?

‘C’mon,’ yelled Gerald, ‘we are going back out there.’

Grant came out of his tent and helped Zoey put the Ziara into an esky.

For the second half of the day, the team looked around the area for skeletons. This would help them understand how the snake park was overtaken.

They walked around the far east and found their first skeleton in the middle of an arena. It was lying on its back with it legs bent over to one side. All the flesh was gone and it looked gruesome.

Shelly walked over to it and bent down next to it. She examined the skull first. It was horribly yellowed and the hollow eye sockets seemed to stare at her. She shuddered and then moved onto the arms and upper chest. Still no clues about how he had died. Then the legs. Here she found some interesting wounds. Firstly, the leg bones had some large slashes across them; wounds from the Ziara’s deadly spikes. She then noticed that the leg bones had some holes in them; wounds from the Uchi’s acid.

‘Hey, come and look at this,’ she said over her shoulder.

Gerald walked up and bent down next to her.

She pointed at the slashes and said ‘These are wounds from the Ziara’s spikes.’

‘And those holes are from the Uchi’s acid?’

‘That’s what I think,’ said Shelly, ‘but if these wounds are both on one person, then that means that the Uchi and the Ziara’s were working together to take over the park.’

‘I am not so sure about that,’ replied Gerald, ‘if you look back at what happened today, the Uchi’s waited until we had killed the Ziara’s before coming and putting acid on them.’

‘So the Uchi’s are scavengers?’

‘Yes. I think that they waited for the Ziara’s to kill this man and then moved in to take the trophy.’

‘Uh huh’

They left the skeleton and moved on. For the rest of the day they searched for skeletons and observed them. The team came to the conclusion that the island had definitely been taken over the snakes that had been held captive.

As the six arrived back at the campsite, Gerald got to work on lighting a fire. Grant walked over to his tent and noticed that the door had been left open. He cursed and popped his head in; only to receive a rude shock. Another snake that Grant hadn’t seen before was curled up on his bed. It was a dark brown colour and was extremely thin. On its tail were four spikes; two sticking out on each side. It was not much unlike a stegosaurus’ tail. He slowly backed away from the tent and walked over to Zoey’s.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘There’s a snake in my tent. I haven’t seen it before. Can you come and have a look?’

‘Yeah sure’

They walked back to Grant’s tent and Zoey popped her head in while Grant grabbed a dart gun.

‘Whoa,’ said Zoey from inside the tent.

Grant ran over with the gun and put his head into the tent too. The snake was perking it’s head up and its dangerous tail was flicking around behind it. Grant quickly took aim and fired a shot. It hit the snake right in the neck and it dropped to the ground.

‘Gerald!’ called Zoey.

Gerald came rushing over as grant went and grabbed the snake, ‘Ouch!’

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Gerald.

‘Argh, this snake has tiny spikes covering its body,’ said Grant

‘We found it in Grant’s tent, never seen one before and neither has Grant,’ said Zoey.

‘Should we name it?’ asked Grant.

‘Yeah,’ said Gerald, ‘why not?’

Grant put the snake down and whipped out his sketch pad. He quickly drew the snake and then hovered his hand above the paper at the top looking suggestively at Zoey and Gerald.

‘What about Scilli.’ Gerald said.

‘Nice!’ replied Grant and he scribbled it down at the top of the paper.

Zoey picked up the snake carefully as to avoid getting spiked and put it in the same esky as the Ziara.

The six had dinner and then went to bed in their tents, all thinking about Harry.

Day 3

Sunlight filtered through the thick trees overhead and penetrated the team’s tents. They all got up and started getting ready for the day. They got changed, had breakfast and packed up their tents.

‘C’mon,’ yelled Gerald, ‘let’s go.’

Today, they were going to search the east of the island, having already searched the far east.

They walked another two kilometres and then set up their tents again. This time, they were right in the middle of the island so they wouldn’t have to move the next day.

With all their gear packed, like the day before, they set off.

After about five minutes of walking Joseph said, ‘Hey, another building.’

Sure enough, about twenty metres away, was another mud brick building. Gerald walked up to it and ran his hands over the walls, ‘What could this be?’

‘Maybe another entry,’ said Gabriel.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Grant from behind, ‘look at the counter, there’s lot of space behind it, so I’m guessing it is some sort of food stand.’

‘Yeah,’ said Gerald, ‘good thinking.’

‘These people must have been more civilized then we thought,’ added Zoey.

‘I guess,’ replied Joseph, ‘but what nationality are they?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Shelly, ‘they were Brazilians.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Gerald.

‘Well from looking at the skeletons; I could see obvious signs.’

‘Like?’

‘Well their teeth showed signs of damage from eating foods that can only be found in Brazil.’

‘Wow.’

They walked on, stopping occasionally for water and food.

About four hours later, they came to a set of about ten small buildings. They were only about two metres by two metres each and were about two and a half metres tall. The strange thing was that there was a large hole that ran all the way around the top just before the roof. Grant walked over to one of the buildings and peered in through the ‘window’.

‘Ah guys, you might want to look at this.’

The five others walked over to the building and looked in too.

‘Argh,’ said Zoey.

Inside the building were about twenty snake skeletons. They were all broken up and scattered around.

Grant ran over to another building and looked in, ‘Same thing here.’

‘Maybe these were holding cages,’ said Zoey.

‘I think so,’ replied Grant.

The hot sun baked their necks, they had stepped out of the cover of the trees about an hour ago and were in a big clear patch covered in sand.

‘Geez it’s hot,’ said Joseph.

‘Talk about it,’ replied Gabriel.

Gabriel was getting his sense of humor back after having it shocked away with the death of Harry.

Gerald turned around and stopped suddenly.

‘Oh oh,’ said Gabriel.

The rest of the team whirled around to see no less then forty Scilli staring back at them.

‘Crap,’ said Gabriel as he reached down to his belt to grab a grenade.

He pulled the pin and tossed it into the middle of the group and it detonated with a satisfying boom. Ten snakes were blown to bits but the rest were too fast. There darted away and formed a circle around the small group. The Scilli started circling them and the circle got tighter and tighter. The deadly spikes on the Scilli tails whipped around dangerously. The circle was only one metre away from the group now and getting closer by the second.

‘We’re done for,’ whined Zoey.

But then, just before all was lost, hundreds of snakes burst out of the bushes all around them, Uchi’s and Ziara’s alike. The moved in professionally and took down the Scilli’s.

The Uchi’s drenched them in spit while the Ziara’s chopped them to bits. It was a complete extermination, a massacre. The team breathed a sigh of relief but then realised that they had an even bigger problem on their hands. Although all the Scilli were gone, they still had hundreds of Ziara and Uchi’s on their hands.

Once all the Scilli were gone, the Ziara’s and the Uchi’s turned on each other.

‘They work together to kill Scilli?’ asked Gabriel through quick breaths

‘Yeah,’ replied Grant, ‘but once all the Scilli are gone, they will fight each other to the death, and if we are in the way, they’ll fight us too.’

‘RUN!’ yelled Gabriel.

The team sprinted off; in different directions. Zoey, Joseph and Gerald went east and Grant, Shelly and Gabriel went west.

The wind rushed past Grant’s face as he ran. They were about fifty metres away from the action now and he risked a look back. Suddenly he stopped, ‘Where are the others?’

‘No time now,’ replied Shelly, ‘we gotta go!’

They ran for another fifteen minutes before stopping somewhere in the far west of the island.

‘So, what now?’ asked Shelly.

‘Well, I guess we wait a while for the battle to finish and then head back to the campsite,’ said Grant.

‘Okay.’

They sat around for two hours drinking the water that they had stored in their bags and talking.

‘Why did this have to happen?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Dunno,’ replied Shelly.

‘I think it will be safe to head back to the campsite now,’ said Grant.

The sun was quite low and there was only about an hour and a half of sunlight left. They walked east for 10 minutes and came to the place that they had been when the team split up. The sand was red with blood and dead snakes lay everywhere and it was eerie and silent.

‘Well, our campsite can’t be far from here, we are in the east of the island.

They searched around for a while before coming to the food store that they had found earlier.

‘Our campsite is this way then,’ said Grant pointing away from the building.

They walked for five more minutes before Gabriel yelled, ‘I see it!’

They broke into a run and arrived at the campsite. The smiled on their faces disappeared as they looked around.

The campsite was totally and utterly destroyed. Tents were shredded to pieces and the material lay everywhere. Table and chairs scattered the area and bottles were smashed up all over the ground. The esky lid was on the ground about ten metres away from where the esky was. Grant ran over to it and looked inside.

‘Damn,’ he yelled as he kicked the ground.

The Scilli that they had captured was missing.

‘The Scilli came to get what we took from them, and they found it,’ said Grant.

‘Hey guys,’ said Shelly, ‘I found some of the canned food.’

‘Great,’ said Gabriel, ‘I’m hungry as hell!’

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ said Grant, ‘we gotta save some for later.’

‘Well there’s five cans here so we can share one tonight, have one fore breakfast, one for lunch, one fore dinner and one fore breakfast the next day.’

‘Okay, we’re loaded for a day and a half so we’ll last until Friday morning,’ said Gabriel.

‘But hopefully we’ll find the other guys before then,’ added Shelly.

‘Our chances are slim,’ said Grant, ‘the island is eight kilometres long and two kilometres wide. They could be anywhere.’

‘Oh well.’

They put the cans in their bags and set off to find a place to sleep the night.

Gerald sprinted to get away from the snakes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grant, Shelly and Gabriel going in the other direction and turned to follow them only to be cut off by three Ziara’s, spikes out and angry. He quickly turned back and ran east. After five minutes of hard running he entered the cover of the trees again and slowed down.

‘Anyone here,’ he yelled.

‘Gerald?’ came the distinctive sound of Zoey’s voice.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Over here,’ she replied, ‘I got Joseph with me.’

He followed the sound of her voice and eventually found her sitting on a log.

‘Have you seen the other guys?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Where should we go now?’ asked Joseph.

‘I think the plane’s the safest place for us now,’ replied Gerald.

‘Okay, let’s go.’

They ran for five minutes towards the southern east corner of the island where they saw the plane. When they arrived they saw that it had been ripped to shreds. The side panels where badly dented and all the windows smashed. The door hung off its hinges and was in serious danger of falling off. The whole plane had been tipped on its side like a see-saw and the tip of the wing touched the ground. The wings had huge scratches all over then and the one in the air was sliced clean in half. The luscious reds carpet that had been on the inside was torn to pieces and the armchair were strewn over the floor. The bar at the side was totally wrecked and the pie warmer was on the floor with its sides smashed.

‘What happened here?’ asked Zoey in amazement.

‘I think I know,’ said Joseph pointing to half a Scilli sticking out from under the fallen plane, ‘they attacked it for food.’

Gerald jumped into the plane and went over to the bar. Most of the packets had been ripped open and their contents over the floor but some remained intact. He grabbed them as well as some pies out of the broken pie warmer.

‘I got some food,’ he said holding them up.’

‘Great,’ said Zoey.

‘It should last us until tomorrow night.’

‘Okay, so what now?’

‘We wait until the others find us,’ said Gerald simply.

‘Don’t you think we should go and look for them?’ asked Joseph.

‘No,’ replied Gerald, ‘because if we are both looking for each other we will be going in circles.’

‘Well what if they think the same thing?’ asked Zoey.

‘If you were lost on some uncharted island and had a plane waiting for you on the other side of the island, would you come looking for it?’ said Gerald.

‘Yes but the plane’s destroyed, there‘s no way it’ll fly,’ retorted Zoey.

‘And how do they know that?’ asked Gerald.

‘Good point.’

‘How about over there?’ asked Gabriel pointing to a clear patch of sand about ten metres away.

Grant walked over to it and looked up. There were no dangerous branches above, no nests around and the ground was level.

‘Perfect,’ he said with a smile.

They walked over and dumped their bags on the ground. The sun was just slipping beyond the horizon and Grant said, ‘We better set up while we have light.’

‘Yeah,’ replied Shelly.

They each started to flatten out the sand where they were going to sleep. Grant had found one of the green overalls still intact and he cut it into three pieces with his hunting knife strapped to his belt. He chucked the others a piece each and said, ‘Pillow.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s going to be a cold night without an sleeping bags or tents so I suggest that you cover your self with sand before you go to sleep,’ said Grant.

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Gabriel.

They finished setting up and Gabriel reached into Shelly’s bag and pulled out a tin.

‘Open this,’ he said as he threw it to Grant.

‘Sure,’ replied Grant as he pulled out his hunting knife and slicing the can around the top. The lid popped off and he looked inside, ‘Corn.’

‘Yum!’ exclaimed Gabriel.

Grant tipped a third into his hand and passed the can to Shelly who did the same before passing it onto Gabriel.

They ate in silence, enjoying the food. Gabriel finished first and said, ‘Who wants a fire?’

‘We don’t have any matches,’ said Grant.

‘True,’ replied Gabriel, ‘but I do have a gun and ammo.’

‘So?’ said Shelly.

‘Hand me your knife,’ said Gabriel to Grant.

Grant reached for his belt and pulled out the knife. Gabriel grabbed a clip out of his bag and took one of the bullets from it. He jammed the knife into the back of the bullet and a gap opened. He tapped the bullet on his hand and some gunpowder came out, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we have out power source, now lets build a fire!’

They all walked off and found bits of wood lying on the ground ranging from to medium sized bits to catch alight to big chunks to last it through the night.

They set the fire and then Gabriel cut open some more bullets and made a mound of gunpowder under the wood. He grabbed two rocks, put one of them behind the mound and said, ‘Stand back.’

Grant and Shelly stood back and Gabriel tossed the other rock into the mound. The rock that was already there collided with the other rock and caught made a tiny spark. The spark ignited the gunpowder and there was a small yet loud explosion. Shelly staggered back at its force and blocked her ears. The wood caught alight instantly from the immense heat and they had a raging fire going. The three went over to their sleeping spot and lay down before piling sand on themselves. It was cold sand but their bodies soon warmed it up.

Gerald cupped his hands to his mouth again and called out, ‘Grant, Shelly, Gabriel!’

‘It’s no use Gerald,’ said Joseph from behind.

He was sitting on the wing of the plane eating a pie. Gerald dropped his hands and walked over to the door. The sun was behind the horizon now and he wanted to get ready for bed. He picked up one of the fallen armchairs and reclined it so it was almost horizontal.

‘C’mon guys, find a bed,’ he called.

Zoey and Joseph walked into the plane and grabbed an armchair each. Once they all had armchairs, Gerald beckoned Joseph to come over and together they ripped the half broken door from its hinges before puling it into the plane and pushing it against the opening. There were some gaps around the edge but it would make do. Zoey was busy cutting sections out of fallen armchairs and covering the windows and Joseph and Gerald joined in.

After half an hour, they were ready for bed. They all hopped onto the armchairs and settled down for the nights sleep.

Gerald had just closed his eyes when Zoey whispered, ‘What about the snakes.’

‘Shut up,’ moaned Joseph.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered back to him, ‘but I was wondering.’

They settled back and then Zoey whispered again, ‘I’m cold.’

‘Shut up,’ yelled Joseph jumping out of his chair.

He grabbed another fallen armchair and ripped a piece of leather off. He chucked it at Zoey and said, ‘Here’s a doona. Happy?’

They closed their eyes and went to sleep.

Wet.

Heavy.

Big.

Snake.

Grant woke up sweating. He looked over at Shelly and his eyes boggled. Sitting on her chest was a big black Ziara. Cautiously he lent over and tapped her on the shoulder, ‘Shelly.’

‘Uh what’s the matter,’ she mumbled.

‘Wake up!’

Her eyes flicked open and she saw the snake.

She screamed an ear-piercing scream and hit the snake. Its spikes flicked out and started rotating. Gabriel woke up and saw the snake. Quickly he grabbed his gun and emptied its clip into the snake. Satisfied, he dropped the gun and put his head back on the portion of the green overalls.

‘Thanks,’ said Shelly.

‘That’s alright,’ he replied with a smile.

Gabriel rolled over and went back to sleep with ease, it took Shelly a little longer!

Day 4

At seven ‘o’ clock, Grant woke up and stood up. He shook all the sand off him and walked quietly over to Shelly’s bag. He unzipped the top and pulled out a tin of dried meat. He slashed a ring around the top and removed the lid. Inside were six round pieces of dried up meat. He grabbed two out and set the can down on the ground before chomping onto a piece. It was quite tasty and he took another bite just as Shelly rolled over, woken by the smell of food.

‘What’s for breakfast?’ she asked.

‘Dried meat!’ replied Grant.

She stood up groggily and shook the sand off before coming over and grabbing herself two pieces. She sat down next to Grant and said, ‘There was a snake on me last night, do you remember.’

‘Vaguely,’ he replied.

‘Gabriel shot it off for me, but I must say that I got a big shock.’

‘Yeah, that was me!’ said Gabriel rolling over.

‘You’re awake,’ exclaimed Shelly, ‘have some food.’

She held out the can of meat and Gabriel grabbed some. He ate the first piece in one mouthful and started eating the next.

‘Mmm, this is good,’ he said through a mouthful, ‘I wonder how the others are getting on.’

‘Well,’ said Grant, ‘talking about the others, we better get to work on finding them.’

‘But they could be anywhere, just like you said,’ replied Shelly.

‘Ah, but we can narrow that down,’ said Grant.

‘Yes?’

‘Well, they ran right which is east,’ said Grant, ‘so that means that there is little chance that they are on this side of the island.’

‘But there still eight square kilometres to search,’ said Gabriel.

‘Yes, but wouldn’t you try and get to the plane?’

‘Now we’re talking!’ yelled Gabriel.

Gerald stirred in the armchair and woke up. His neck hurt and he had a sore back. He looked over at Zoey who was sleeping soundly under her piece of leather. Joseph, however, was not in his chair. Gerald heard noises outside the plane and got out of his chair. He slid the door sideways and stepped out.

‘Morning Gerald,’ said Joseph.

‘Good morning,’ replied Gerald.

Joseph threw Gerald a packet of beef jerky, ‘Breakfast is served!’

‘Thanks.’

Gerald opened the packet and ate a piece.

‘How’s Miss Zoey going in her luxury chair-with-cover she’s got over there?’ joked Joseph.

‘She’s still asleep,’ replied Gerald.

‘Would be with that luxury!’

Gerald laughed just as Zoey came out, ‘Morning guys.’

‘Morning Miss Luxury Blanket,’ said Joseph.

‘I was cold,’ she retorted.

‘I was cold,’ mocked Joseph.

‘Stop it you twits,’ said Gerald, ‘you sound like brother and sister. Nah nah nah.’

‘Did you guys hear that scream last night?’ asked Joseph.

‘Yeah, I was wondering what it was, it freaked me out,’ replied Zoey.

‘I think it might have been the other guys,’ said Joseph, ‘it came from over there.’

‘Well remember what I said guys. They will look for us.’

‘Whatever, I still think that we should be looking for them but you’re the boss.’

‘So we just gonna hang around here all day?’ asked Joseph.

‘Pretty much,’ replied Gerald, ‘until they find us.’

‘What do we do then?’ asked Zoey.

‘We try and capture an Uchi. We already have a Ziara and a Scilli, all we need now is an Uchi and our collection will be complete.’

‘But they are dead,’ said Joseph, ‘what use are dead snakes to us?’

‘We can study them,’ said Gerald simply.

‘But don’t you want live ones?’ asked Zoey.

‘It would be a bonus!’

‘This bag is so damn heavy,’ moaned Gabriel.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Shelly, ‘only another six kilometres to go.’

The three were walking through thick forest, heading for the plane. The sky was blue but the heat of the sun was being held off by the trees.

‘What’s that up ahead?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Looks like a stream of some sort,’ replied Grant, ‘I don’t remember seeing that from the plane.’

‘It’s covered over the top by trees,’ said Shelly.

As they got closer they saw that the stream was about five metres wide. It was dark and murky and they couldn’t see the bottom.

‘What do we do?’ asked Joseph.

Grant stepped up to the river bank and looked in either direction. It went on for ages and he came to a decision, ‘We cross it.’

‘What???’ yelled Gabriel in outrage, ‘are you serious?’

‘Yeah, he’s right,’ said Shelly, ‘there could be anything in that water.’

‘But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.’ replied Grant, ‘Going around this river could cost us hours and hours.’

‘Still,’ said Gabriel, ‘that water looks dodgy.’

‘You can walk if you want to!’ said Grant.

‘Fine,’ said Gabriel, ‘I’ll go in.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ added Shelly.

Grant took off his shoes and lobbed them across the river. Then hurled his bag and belt across and sat on the bank of the river. Slowly, he put his feet into the water and lowered his body in. The water was up to his waist and he still couldn’t feel the bottom. The water was at his chest now and his feet touched the ground. Sharp rocks penetrated the soft skin on the bottom of his feet and he screamed out. Blood seeped out of the wounds. Grant continued across the stream, wincing with every step of the way, with Shelly and Gabriel watching anxiously from the shore.

He was about halfway when something brushed past his leg. It was rough and cold against his skin. He felt it again and hurried up a bit. About three quarters of the way across the smooth surface of the slow flowing stream was shattered and a silver sea snake burst out of the water. Its scales glinted in the rays of sun that filtered through the tree cover and three magnificent spikes protruded from the back of its neck. But it was gone in an instant as it dived back under the surface. Grant frantically looked around but the water was too murky. It brushed past his leg again and this time wrapped its body around it. Grant was pulled under in a frenzied moment and Shelly gasped. His arms flailed around and he beat the sake. Eventually, it let go and Grant swam as fast as he could to the other side. He virtually flew out of the water and lay down panting.

‘What the hell was that thing?’ he asked.

‘I dunno,’ replied Shelly but I ain’t going in that water.’

‘We have to,’ said Gabriel, ‘how else can we get across.’

‘We could build a raft.’

‘With what?’

‘Good point.’

Gabriel grabbed his gun and emptied two clips into the water, ‘There you go!’

The silver sea snake floated to the surface on its side. Blood was coming out of a hole in the side of it.

‘Yuk,’ said Shelly.

‘You go and I’ll give you some cover fire,’ said Gabriel.

‘Okay.’

Shelly jumped into the water and swam frantically to the other side with Gabriel letting off random burst of fire into the water around her. She reached the other side and clambered out of the water without any trouble.

‘Your turn,’ said Grant looking at Gabriel.

‘Cover me,’ he said throwing the gun across the water.

Grant caught it in both hands and put his forefinger on the trigger. He took aim at the water and let rip. Gabriel leaped in the water and swam across quickly. Grant was just jamming in a fresh magazine when he Gabriel arrived at his feet, drenched and cold.

‘Made it!’

‘Okay, let’s go,’ said Grant.

They walked on talking and trying to dry their wet overalls.

At twelve, Gabriel started to get fidgety.

‘Is there any food,’ he said, ‘I’m starving.’

Grant looked at his watch and said, ‘Yeah, it’s lunch time.’

They sat down on a fallen log and Shelly got out another can. It was baked beans and they each took a handful. Their hands were grubby and black but the food tasted alright anyway.

‘So, said Shelly, ‘how far are we from the plane.’

‘About another half an hours walk,’ replied Grant.

‘Great, my legs are killing me!’ exclaimed Gabriel.

Grant put his hand to his mouth and swallowed the last part of his baked beans. He put his hand back on his lap and wiped it on his overalls.

‘Oh damn, not again,’ moaned Gabriel.

‘What?’ asked Grant.

‘Those bloody Ziara.’

Gabriel whipped out his gun and released some fire. Two of twenty snakes dropped. The Ziara’s spikes were already whirring and a wall of blades was slowly moving towards the three.

‘Oh oh,’ said Gabriel shooting down another one, ‘we better do something or we are mince meat.’

Shelly and Grant picked up rocks and threw them at the snakes but that only made them angrier. The snakes were five metres away now and the three were still stationary.

‘Run now,’ yelled Gabriel.

With that, they turned and began sprinting in the other direction. Grant grabbed all three of their bags in quick succession and threw them to their owners, ‘Don’t lose them; they have all our supplies.’

They ran on through the thick forest. Leaves lashed against their faces and branches blocked their path. They had to jump over stump after stump and duck under logs and big branches. Grant looked back and saw the snakes on their tails in hot pursuit but they were falling behind and were a good twenty metres away. The Ziara were fast but lost speed when they were spinning their heads. Suddenly, Shelly tripped over a tree root that was sticking out. She hit the ground hard and broke her wrist instantly. She yelled out in pain and Grant stopped running, ‘Keep going Gabriel, I’ll catch up.’

He ran back to where Shelly was and lent down next to her, ‘Quick, they are catching up.’

‘I think my wrist is broken,’ she panted.

‘You can fix that later,’ said Grant frantically, ‘but right now, we have to run!’

She winced and got up painfully. They both ran hard and eventually caught up to Gabriel. The Ziara’s were way behind now, about seventy metres. Most of them had given up and decided that their lust for blood wasn’t greater then their fitness. The ones that were still going were expertly taken down by Gabriel and his M-16.

‘Congratulations,’ said Grant, ‘we have successfully run one kilometre away from the plane!’

‘Are you serious?’ asked Gabriel in disbelief.

‘Yep.’

‘Better get moving then,’ said Shelly.

Gabriel put a fresh clip in his gun and slung it over his shoulder.

‘How many bullets do you have there?’ asked Grant.

Gabriel unzipped his bag and showed its contents to Grant. It was stacked with ammo. There were at least fifteen clips in the bag and who knows how many he had already used.

‘That’s Harry’s as well,’ said Gabriel sadly.

The others went quiet and they all looked at the ground not sure what to say.

‘Let’s get on our way,’ said Grant breaking the silence.

‘Yeah,’ replied Gabriel.

They walked for another thirty minutes before Gabriel shouted, ‘The plane!’

‘Gabriel?’ came the distinct sound of Gerald’s voice.

‘It’s us,’ replied Gabriel, ‘I’ve got Grant and Shelly with me.’

‘Yes!’

Gabriel broke into a run in the direction of the plane. Grant and Shelly followed behind. When they arrived at the plane, Zoey yelled out, ‘Hey guys, you’re alive!’

‘Yep,’ said Gabriel proudly.

‘Uh, what happened to the plane?’ asked Shelly motioning to it.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Gerald, ‘the Scilli destroyed it.’

‘Really?’ asked Grant, ‘they destroyed our campsite.’

‘What?’ yelled Gerald in outrage.

‘The Scilli came and destroyed our campsite; they came and took away the Scilli that we had stored in the esky. They also destroyed all our radio systems and now we have no hope of contact with the civilized society.’

‘So we don’t have the Scilli anymore,’ said Gerald.

‘No, but we still have that chopped up Ziara.’

‘We don’t want a chopped up one, we want live ones; males and females hopefully.’

‘I wouldn’t be too worried about the snakes anymore,’ added Gabriel from behind, ‘all I’m worried about is getting out of here alive.’

Shelly was nurturing her wrist and Grant said, ‘Shelly’s broken her wrist; grab the medi-kit from the plane.’

Joseph went back into the plane and grabbed out the medi-kit. He handed it to Shelly and she took care of herself.

‘How did you guys survive?’ asked Zoey.

‘We found the campsite, which was totally destroyed, and grabbed our supplies,’ said Grant.

‘Well I’m just so glad to see you guys,’ said Zoey.

The sat down and talked for hours catching up on what they had missed. Grant told Gerald about his close encounter with the sea snake in the water and Gerald seemed pleased to have discovered another snake.

At six ‘o’ clock Grant pulled out two tins of food. He opened them and handed the food around to the others. Gabriel grabbed a bullet and showed the others his fire-lighting trick. The fire flickered and gave off a nice warm heat. The six sat around the fire trying to warm up their freezing hands. The orange light danced around their faces as they talked and laughed. It was Joseph that started to get to the serious business.

‘How are we going to get off this island?’

‘I’m not sure,’ replied Gerald, ‘but I told my company that I would be gone for five days and if we don’t turn p back at mission control, they’ll send in a search party.’

His eyes seemed to gaze into nothingness. He was lost in thought; thinking about his family back home, his job, the nice office he worked in, his house, his bed, his pillow.

Gerald snapped out of it as Shelly offered him another piece of meat. He declined the offer and walked up to the plane. The further he walked away from the fire the colder it got. He could hear the other’s voices faintly now. They were chatting and laughing. Gerald walked stopped in front of the plane door and pushed it backwards. It was dark; extremely dark. There was an eerie silence surrounding him and he felt that there was no body around him.

Not a soul.

He stepped up into the plane, slid the door shut and sat down on his ‘bed’. He closed his eyes and let all the stress of this failed expedition leave his head. The loss of Harry, the loss of the Scilli, everything. He felt something move over his foot; something long and slender. His eyes snapped open and he looked down at his foot. There was nothing there. Just his brown leather camping shoe. He closed his eyes and lent back on the chair. The movement came again and Gerald freaked out a bit. This time when he looked down, he saw a small snake. He looked closer and saw that the snakes scales were see through and he could see the long spine. It was extremely skinny and only about a half a metre long. Slowly, Gerald got up out of his chair and went to leave the plane. But the snake blocked off his exit in a quick fluid motion. Gerald couldn’t believe his eyes. One second it had been on one side of the plane and a split second later, it had moved four metres and was now waiting just next to the door. Gerald yelled out and realised that no one would be here for fifteen seconds and by then, it would be too late. He dived at the snake but it moved away and as he hit the ground he felt the body of the snake slithering all over his back. It had done it so quickly and was now preparing an attack on the back of Gerald’s neck. But he rolled over and attempted to squash the snake. It simply slithered off his back and up to the bar. Gerald got up and walked over to the bar. He saw the snake in one of the cupboards and realised that this was his chance. He took a second dive at the snake and with no where for the snake to go, Gerald clasped his hands around the snake’s neck. Gabriel arrived at the door followed by Joseph.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Joseph.

‘This snake,’ panted Gerald, ‘got the dart gun?’

‘Yeah,’ replied Joseph holding it up.

Gerald held the snake on the floor and Joseph just pushed the end of the barrel into the snakes. The dart pierced its skin and the snake fell unconscious instantly.

‘Speedy Gonzalez I tell you,’ said Gerald pointing at the snake.

‘We’ll have a look at him back at the labs,’ replied Joseph.

They went and put the snake in the spare esky that they had in the plane.

‘Eh Grant,’ called Gabriel, ‘we got another snake for you.’

Grant came running over with his note book. Gabriel opened up the esky and showed Grant the snake inside. Grant looked at it and ran his hand over it.

‘This isn’t a new snake,’ he exclaimed.

‘What is it then?’ asked Gerald.

‘It’s just a baby Scilli. Feel the tiny spikes on its scales,’ said Grant putting Gabriel’s hand on the snake.

Sure enough, there were tiny little spikes that were in the process of growing.

‘It’s bloody quick,’ said Gerald.

‘Yeah, that’s because it’s so small. It doesn’t have so much weight to move.’

‘I see,’ replied Gerald.

Grant flipped to the page where he had drawn the fully grown Scilli and drew a small box in the corner. Here, he drew the baby Scilli and noted that the scales were see-through. He then flipped to a new page and drew the sea-snake that they had found, ‘Name?’

‘The Dragonater!’ exclaimed Gabriel.

‘Um, no,’ replied Gerald, ‘what about Drogon.’

‘I like it.’

Grant wrote the name down and snapped his book shut. The three walked back over to the campsite and joined the others. Grant told them about the baby Scilli and they were all amazed.

One by one the slowly dropped off and went to bed. Grant, Shelly and Gabriel had set up their own sofa beds and now everyone had ‘covers’.

Day 5 (Planned Date of Departure)

The next morning, which would have been the last day if everything had gone to plan, was a boiling hot day. Grant woke up first and went outside to go to the toilet. He walked over to a nearby tree and did his business. He finished and was about to walk off when he looked down at the ground and saw no less then thirty tiny snakes. They were all about ten centimeters long and were a silvery colour. Grant bent down and examined them closer. He noticed three small bumps on the backs of their necks and thought back to te river. The Drogon was silver and had three spikes on its back. Perhaps they came ashore to breed and left their babies until they were ready to enter the water. He put his hand down to feel one of them but quickly retracted it as all of the snakes looked up at him and flicked out their frills. They went back to what they were doing again as if nothing had happened. Grant took a breather and put his hand down again. They flicked out their frills but this time Grant was ready; he quickly picked one of them up and put it in his pocket. He ran back to the plane and put the snake on a log there, ‘Hey guys come and look at this.’

Zoey came over and bent down next to the log.

‘It’s a baby Drogon, very young,’ said Grant.

‘Mmm, looks like it,’ replied Zoey pulling Grant’s notebook out of his pocket.

She pulled out and drew a small box in the corner before drawing he baby Drogon.

‘I think that they come ashore to breed and then leave their young to return to the water.’

‘But that means that the males are on the land,’ said Zoey.

‘Oh oh.’

‘Well we haven’t run into them yet,’ said Zoey.

‘Argh!’ came a yell from behind the plane.

‘Don’t count your eggs before they hatch,’ said Grant running off to investigate.

Zoey jumped up and followed behind him. When Grant reached the plane he saw Joseph surrounded by four Drogon. They were slowly moving in and their spikes glinted dangerously in the sun. One of them suddenly leaped forward and dipped its head down before jerking it up and opening up a long cut in the side of Joseph’s left leg. He screamed out in pain and gripped his leg trying to close the seventy centimetre cut. The blood poured out of the wound and Grant ran over to help. The Drogon moved in for another attack but retracted quickly as a combined army of Uchi’s and Ziara’s came out of the bushes around. They devoured the Drogon before engaging in their own vicious battle. Grant dragged off Joseph and called out for Shelly. She came rushing over with the medical kit and said, ‘Lie him down.’

Joseph was convulsing violently and shelly tried desperately to calm him down, ‘Everything’s going to be alright okay.’

‘Stop the pain,’ yelled Joseph.

Shelly grabbed a bottle of Morphine and gave him some. He stopped most of the shaking but was still covered in dark red blood and screaming. Shelly grabbed some stitches and a needle and began the painful task of sewing his wound shut.

Joseph yelled out in pain but Shelly continued to soothe him. When she had finally finished the job, she pulled out some bandage and wrapped it around his leg, ‘You won’t be fit to move that for at least three days.’

‘Someone’s going to have to stay behind and look after him when we go out today then,’ said Gerald.

‘Yes,’ said Shelly, ‘I’ll do it.’

‘Good idea,’ said Grant.

The Uchi’s and Ziara had finished their battle and the Uchi’s had prevailed, as normal, and were now dragging off the skinless Ziara’s that they had killed. Gerald, Grant, Shelly, Zoey and Gabriel all helped carry Joseph up to the plane and sat him down on one of the armchairs. He grunted in pain and settled in to place.

‘Okay people, let’s move,’ said Gerald.

Everyone except Shelly left and started to get ready for the days expedition out into the forest. At about ten, the four had had breakfast and were all in their gear. Gabriel was carrying the esky and Grant was loaded with darts and a dart gun. Gerald signaled them to move and they set off into the forest.

As the walked Gerald told them what they were doing, ‘We need to find live snakes of each species that we have discovered. Preferably males and females of each species so we can breed them. We need Uchi’s, Ziara, Scilli and Drogon.’

‘So basically,’ said Gabriel, ‘we need eight snakes by the end of the day.’

‘Yes.’

‘But there could be other snakes on this island that we haven’t found yet,’ said Gabriel.

‘Yes,’ answered Gerald, ‘we haven’t really searched the west or the far west sections of the island yet.’

‘We saw a bit of it when we where running through it but not much,’ said Grant.

‘Exactly.’

‘There seems to be a lot of Ziara and Uchi on the east section so I suggest we head there,’ said Zoey.

‘Good idea,’ said Gerald.

They walked for another ten minutes and passed several buildings. They came to the holding cages of the snakes and looked around. The ground was littered with dead snakes from the previous battle that had taken place that had taken place and now, Scilli were milling around feasting on the left over food.

‘Okay, here are some Scilli,’ said Grant.

‘I’ll get the dart gun,’ said Gabriel taking it from Grant’s back pack.

Gabriel took aim on one of the snakes and shot a dart. It soared through the air planted itself into one of the Scilli’s with a small pluck. It collapsed and Gabriel dropped the dart gun and whipped his gun out. He fired some shots into the air around the snakes and they sped away. Gerald ran up to the Scilli and picked it up carefully as to avoid being spiked.

‘Open the esky Gabriel,’ he called walking over quickly.

Gabriel popped the lid of the esky and waited for Gerald to put the snake in. Gerald lowered the snake in and jabbed a needle with a long lasting tranquilizer in it into the snake. Gabriel closed the lid and said, ‘let’s move.’

They walked off past the holding cages. After another half an hour of walking they came to a nest. It was a large brown one like the one before. Gabriel slowly walked towards it with the dart gun up. He breathed heavily and craned his neck to see over the edge. Inside, were about fifteen baby Ziara. They were all about ten centimeters long and were a dark black.

‘Just got some baby Ziara.’

Gabriel leant down and picked one up. It squeaked in protest and flicked out some tiny spikes. Instantly, ten older Ziara came out, replying to the call of their young. These ones had much larger spikes and started spinning them around. Gabriel shot off a dart and it hit one of the Ziara bringing them down. He frantically began loading another one, as the snakes approached him. Gerald ran his hand through his hair and ran over to help. Gerald grabbed Gabriel’s gun and started firing at the snakes. He brought down four of them but they replaced with another twenty. The Ziara now had an army of twenty five and approaching on the four. More and more snakes were coming and soon enough the army was increased to one hundred. With only dart gun and an M-16, the chances of escape were very, very slim. Gabriel finished loading the dart into the gun and brought down another one.

‘It’s no use,’ yelled Zoey, ‘there’s too many.’

The wall of blades moved in on them and they started to run. Gerald continued to fire randomly behind them. The snakes were faster then they were though. And were only about ten metres away. The snakes were screeching and the noise were deafening. Over the noise of the snakes, Grant could hear another noise. It was the noise of an engine of some sort. Zoey clapped her hands over her ears and he other followed her lead. There was now only a mere five metres between them and the snakes. Suddenly a Black Hawk helicopter burst out of the tree cover followed closely by two bulky troop moving helicopters. They landed and unloaded their load of about forty soldiers each. The soldiers formed a circle around the snakes and awaited order. The Black Hawk helicopter was still hovering in the air. Two Gatling guns poked out of the open sides of the Black Hawk which had two chain guns mounted on each side and was armed with Stinger missiles. It opened fire along with the soldiers and the noise was deafening. The snakes were literally ripped apart and blood sprayed everywhere.

‘We’re saved,’ cried Zoey.

Six drop ropes flew out of the sides of the Black Hawk and the team grabbed them but pulled back their hands as they realised that the ropes weren’t meant for them. Six black clad men slid effortlessly down the ropes and pulled out modern looking XM8 assault rifles. The sleek guns made Gabriel’s M-16 look pathetic. They landed lightly on their feet and pointed their guns at the small group of four. It was a well set up raid, obviously professional. Gabriel, with the knowledge of a soldier, knew that these men weren’t here to help them. He guessed it was MI5 or the SAS but got a shock when one of the black clothed men spoke in a strong American accent.

‘Give me the esky, drop your guns and get in the helicopter,’ ordered one of them.

A metal ladder rolled out of the hovering helicopter above. Gabriel put down the esky and flung his gun away, then started climbing up the ladder.

‘Get in the helicopter guys,’ called Gabriel, ‘don’t disobey men with more gun power than you.’

Gabriel popped his head up into the helicopter. He saw, shelly and Joseph sitting, in handcuffs on a seat. He reluctantly joined them and two other men, also covered in black gear, handcuffed him. The others got in and were handcuffed too. The eight men sat down and pointed their guns towards the six people. The helicopter started moving leaving the troops on the grounds to secure the island. The pilot was sitting in the front of the helicopter along with another man. The man got up and came out to speak to the team. Grant’s head was running with questions. He didn’t know what was happened or what to do. The man introduced himself, ‘Hello, my name is John Carlage.’

‘What do you want with us?’ asked Shelly worriedly.

‘I work for ASWI. The American Scientific Warfare Intelligence and I am here to find out about these new snakes.’

‘Why have you taken us hostage then?’ asked Zoey.

‘We wouldn’t want any information of this possibly useful weapon leaking out to other countries would we?’ replied John in a know-it-all tone.

‘We are going to take these snakes and find out how to use them for war,’ he continued, ‘we will breed an army of trained snakes and then let them loose.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ yelled Gerald, ‘its animal abuse. We are taking these animals to study them in their natural environment, but breeding them for the sole purpose of destruction is repulsive.’

John shrugged his shoulders and went back up to the front. Gerald screwed up his face in disgust and put his head in his hands. Grant was busy watching the black clothed men, watching out for an option to escape. Shelly and Zoey were weeping quietly to themselves and Joseph was holding his cut leg in place as the helicopter shuddered from turbulence.

An hour and a half later, the Black Hawk helicopter landed on a heli-pad on top of a building in a compound on the outskirts of Washington. It was surrounded by sharp barbed wire and a sign on the fence stated that it was the animal department of the ASWI. Inside the compound were two buildings. One was quite large and the other relatively small. The six men pushed Zoey, shelly, Grant, Gabriel and Gerald out of the helicopter and carried out Joseph. They were led around the back and one of the men opened a trapdoor in the ground. They were roughly shoved down some steps into a tiny underground room. Joseph was carried down before the men all walked out and shut the door. The room was about three metres by three metres and had stone walls that were growing mould in between them. In the corner of the room were two mattresses and some bunched up sheets. A bench ran along one side of the room and there was a small bucket in the corner for going to the toilet. The roof of the room was slightly above ground level which allowed a small window to be put in. It was covered by a metal grille like the small window that was in the big metal door. It was a boiling hot day, and the fact that they were locked up in a stuffy underground room, made things worse. Their throats were dry and their stomachs rumbled but they held together.

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Zoey.

‘We’ve been taken hostage,’ said Gabriel, ‘and they don’t want any one else knowing what we know. So we’ll probably be killed.’

The team slumped their shoulders.

‘Sorry to put it that way,’ said Gabriel, ‘but that’s what’s going to happen.’

At dinner time, well when it was dark at least, a packet of dried meat was passed through a slot in the door to the team. It tasted like paper, but the team was hungry so they gobbled it down. A large two litre bottle of water was thrown into the room and they took it in turns to have a drink.

‘I wonder what they are doing with the Scilli they took from us,’ said Joseph.

‘They probably had a look at it and then chopped it to bits,’ said Gerald with anger in his voice.

‘They will do anything for a new weapon of war,’ said Zoey.

‘Yeah, they will have the soldiers at the island bring back more snakes tomorrow so they can find a way to breed them and make them obedient.’

‘That’s sick,’ exclaimed Grant, ‘snakes are creatures of the wild, not animals for war.’

‘Well that’s’ obviously what John and his sick and twisted friends think.’

Zoey had retired to one of the mattresses and was laying her head down trying to get comfortable.

‘I’m going to bed,’ she yawned.

‘Yeah, me too,’ said Gabriel walking over to the corner.

‘How are we all going to fit?’ asked Grant.

‘We’ll find a way.’

They all settled into a small spot on the two mattresses covered by a thin sheet and fell into an uncomfortable sleep.

Light poured in through the metal grille in the early hours of the morning and some grubby food was pushed through the slot in the wall. The team was awoken when the tin hit the ground and Grant got up to get it. He passed it all around and everyone took their share.

‘So, how did you guys sleep?’ asked Gerald.

‘Shockingly,’ moaned Gabriel, ‘I was freezing and uncomfortable.’

‘Me too,’ added Zoey.

The day passed on, without much happening except food being passed through the slot in the door and some men coming to empty the toilet bucket. At about lunch time, they heard the sound of a truck pulling up out the front. Grant looked out through the metal grille and saw soldiers unloading case after case of snakes into the building. There must have been at least thirty cases, each case containing about ten snakes. That made three hundred snakes; just for reproduction and tests.

Two more days passed on, with nothing really happening. They were still stuck down in the musty room, were eating disgusting food and going to the toilet without any privacy.

On the third day though the door was pushed open and the team found themselves facing six men all carrying XM8 machine guns. John stood in the middle of them and gave his prisoners a smile.

‘Good morning,’ he said sarcastically, ‘have a good sleep?’

‘What do you think,’ yelled Gabriel at him.

‘I’m willing to offer you a little tour around my lab, before I kill you,’ he said.

‘When are you going to kill us?’ asked Shelly with fear obvious in her voice.

‘Tomorrow,’ he replied.

The team looked at each other and nodded their agreement, ‘Okay, show us around.’

John smiled evilly and gave men a wave.

They were lead out of their cell; Joseph did his best to walk up the steps, and breathed fresh air for the first time in a day. John pointed to the smaller building and said, ‘That’s were all our scientists and protection team live.’

They walked over to the larger building at gunpoint and opened the door. The building looked much bigger on the inside then it did on the outside. A long corridor stretched out in front of them and had about five doors on each side.

‘Welcome,’ said John enthusiastically, ‘to the animal department of ASWI.’

The first room John showed them was the preparation room, ‘This is where we get all the equipment ready for our tests.’

They moved over to the next room, which was storage room. It was lined with boxes packed with weapons, prototypes and various other things. The room next to it was a freezer room where all the things that had to be kept cold were stored. Grant noticed the silver cases containing snakes.

The next room was science workshop. It had lots of benches and tables scattered around. On the benches, Grant noticed, were half dissected snakes and bottles of their blood and other bodily fluids. There was a machinery room in which MRI scanners and X-ray machines were kept. Computer screens showed images of snake skeletons around the room. With the right side of the building shown, John crossed the corridor to the testing rooms. The entire length of the left side of the corridor was all testing rooms. The first room had snakes in cages with cords and wires hooked up to their heads. Grant shivered as he thought of the cruelty of this.

‘Here,’ said John pointing to the cages, ‘we are trying to make the snakes obedient.’

Other snakes were in caged up arenas with men barking order’s at them.

The next room had men trying to harness the telekinetic powers of the Uchi, without much success. Other rooms had strange things such as armored snakes and super enhanced Scilli.

The team was looking into the last room when some commotion was heard outside. The sounds of voices were heard outside and then gunfire rang out. Everyone inside the building instinctively ducked down and the door at the end of the corridor burst open and ten S.A.S commandoes came marching in carrying Uzi’s. Gunfire racked the walls leaving a line of bullet holes at shoulder height around the whole corridor. The men ran over to the team and yelled, ‘Come on, get out of here.’

John tried desperately to stop them but one of the S.A.S commandoes shot him in the leg. He winced in pain and collapsed to the floor. The commandoes helped up the team and carried them out to a truck at the front of the compound. They handed each of them a gun and told them to stay put and guard themselves. The S.A.S commandoes charged back into the building. Ten trained S.A.S commandoes carrying Uzi’s met with twenty normal soldiers carrying AK-47’s. The commandoes dived into side rooms firing madly at the enemy. The soldiers ran through the corridor opening doors and firing blindly inside. Most were shot by the commandoes as soon as they opened the doors but they managed to hit the commandoes a few times too. Of the strong force of twenty soldiers, only five remained and they were hiding out in various rooms throughout the corridor. The remaining seven S.A.S commandoes grouped together and opened the first door. One man opened the door with three pointing guns in from outside and two jumping in and firing and one watching for any soldiers who wanted to escape. The first room was empty but they found three of the soldiers in the next room. The two that dived in pulled off a few shots each before hitting the ground and rolling under a table. The three at the door fired at the soldiers but they held off and hit behind a large counter. The one outside yelled at the others, ‘We have two soldiers running astray.’

He fired on them bringing one down in a fountain of blood but the other one made it out of the door and around the corner. The commando followed him out and burst through the doors. He saw the soldier running towards the smaller building and he knelt down and took aim on the door. He couldn’t see any other doors and knew the man would be coming back out. A few moments later the commando saw a hand flick out from the door of the building and watched a small green grenade bounce across the dirt towards him.

‘Crap,’ he breathed.

The grenade detonated and he was blown to smithereens.

The other commandoes inside heard the blast and cast each other worried glances. There was still one of the three soldiers left and he was putting up a hell of a fight. But the commandoes backed him into a corner and eventually overpowered him.

He died.

The S.A.S commandoes ran out of the building and saw the last soldier scaling the fence of the compound. They all fired simultaneously. The man convulsed violently and dropped off the fence hitting the ground with a satisfactory thump.

One of the S.A.S commandoes grabbed a radio from his belt and spoke into it, ‘ASWI compound under control, four deaths of S.A.S commandoes and three others with minor injuries.’

‘Well done,’ came the reply, ‘I’ll send in reinforcements to secure the area.’

He put the radio back and walked inside to deal with one last problem.

The S.A.S commando stepped on John’s hand to make him look up.

‘Argh,’ yelled John.

‘We have taken control of the compound and you are now under arrest.’

He carried him out to the truck and threw him in the back before shutting the door and locking it.

The rest of the men got in the truck as well as Grant, Shelly, Zoey, Joseph, Gabriel and Gerald.

When they were on their way Zoey asked, ‘So who are ASWI?’

It was the driver that answered, ‘ASWI are the American Scientific Warfare Intelligence. They are a highly secret association but the police forces all around America had known that ASWI had been doing illegal work but as ASWI provided new weapons for America’s army’s the government was happy to give them the right to secrecy. ASWI of course had made millions of dollars and knew that they were breaking the law, but the government didn’t know that. They just knew that ASWI pumped out fantastic weaponry.

But since there was a group of people that had been taken hostage, you guys, the police forces sent us in to, one, get you guys and two, see if there was anything going on. Before we came, they set up a surveillance team up and saw the silver cases being transported to the building. Their surveillance team used X-ray technology and saw the snakes in there. When mission control heard about the snakes they knew that ASWI would have breached the quarantine laws and could nail them for that as well as illegal storage weaponry and animal cruelty. It was then that they sent us in.’

‘Wow,’ said Zoey amazed.

‘How did you know we would be at ASWI?’ asked Shelly.

‘Just after the helicopter left with you guys, a search party that had been sent in to look for you arrived on Snake Island. They searched the island thoroughly and found a discarded gun and an ASWI ID card. They changed course to the one and only animal ASWI compound and did a heat radar scan. They saw you guys in the underground room.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Shelly.

‘It was in our mission briefing.’

They sat in silence for the rest of the trip thinking about what they had just heard. The team was so tried that no body even bothered to ask where they were going or what else was gong to happen, they just left it to the professionals. Everything was going to be okay and they would all be asleep in their own beds tonight.

Epilogue

John Carlage was arrested and charged on a number of different cases, as well as many other leaders of ASWI groups around America. Many of the ASWI compounds were destroyed and the scientists that worked there went under the government witness protection program. Although most of ASWI is gone, it is believed that there are still some compounds up and running and ready to restart the association.

Grant got back to creating his theme park and now has one of them up and running. It is extremely successful and he is looking at building another one in Perth. The park, Snake Kingdom, features Scilli, Drogon, Uchi and Ziara as well as many other known snakes.

Zoey got a job in America working with other extremely talented snake specialists. She is currently in Brazil studying some newly found snake forest.

Shelly was upgraded to senior nurse at the hospital she works in and is studying to become a doctor.

Gabriel was moved up to Commander and is leading his own squadron of men. He continues to strive in all training missions.

Joseph has retired at the age of forty and now lives with his wife and three children in a beach house in Australia.

Gerald received great praise at SARA and got a raise. He recently married a beautiful woman and is on his honeymoon.

Harry’s funeral was held soon after the team got back to their normal lives. A search party found his body and he was given a proper burial.