Chapter 2
Two
That night Floy slept on the couch because the spare bed had bean-juice-stained clothes all over it. He kept dreaming he was trying to get out of the water and woke up needing to pee.
Day two of the hunt was even less promising. He was worrying about Elvis as he got out of the shower and began to dry himself off, careful not to start the cuts on his chest bleeding again. He thought about shaving, then eyed the slash on the side of his chin and changed his mind.
He didn’t want to be around anything sharp for a while. He went into the spare bedroom to get some clean clothes. It was only after he began sorting them out that he realized how stained they all were, thanks to Mayrene tossing them in the hall among the glass and beans.
He frowned. There was something fishy about how she was acting. This was the third time Elvis had gotten out of his tank, and she hadn’t acted like this before. He didn’t know what burr she had up her ass, but this was over- the-top absurd.
Cursing beneath his breath, he picked out a pair of pants and a shirt and went back to the bathroom, laid them in the tub like he was dressing Flat Stanley, squirted some liquid soap onto the garments, then turned on the shower to let the spray mimic the agitation of a washer, and went to make coffee.
This was the second time he’d completed a task in the nude, and he was beginning to like it, although the kitchen didn’t look as appealing as it had when Mayrene was in charge.
Coffee was brewing now, but there were no eggs and bacon cooking on the stove, and dishes were piling up in the sink.
When he looked in the refrigerator for an idea of what to make, it became apparent someone needed to go shopping, which meant that would be him.
Mayrene had wrecked her car four months ago, and before Floy knew it was happening, she’d spent the insurance money on a shopping trip to Louisville with her mother, Quilla.
He’d been shocked, then angry, and when she’d whined a week later about not having anything to drive, he told her to put on some of those fancy clothes she’d bought with the repair money and walk herself into town.
The small rebellion had shocked her, then scared her a little. It was the first time Floy had been angry with her. Now, the wrecked car sat in plain sight of the road that ran past their house, and here they were. A one-car family and a python on the loose.
In a fit of frustrated rage for the situation, Floy stomped off down the hall and pounded his fist on the door.
“Mayrene! Mayrene! Wake up and come out here now. We need to talk.”
He heard her mumbling and cursing and knew he’d woken her up, which suited him fine. He put his ear to the door, listening for the sound of footsteps, and then suddenly, she was pounding her fist on the door, right against the side of his head.
Startled, Floy stumbled and fell backward into the hall.
“Go away!” Mayrene shouted.
“Fine! I’m going. And I’m not coming back until I find Elvis, which means you can sulk up in there all you want or come out and feed yourself. You figure it out. I don’t much care.”
He pounded the door with his fist one last time to emphasize his point, then went to get his soaked clothes out of the shower.
He rinsed out the soap, wrung them out as best he could, then shook them out and put them on, even though they were still dripping wet.
It took a while to pull wet fabric onto sweaty skin, but it was hot outside, and his clothes would dry on him.
His stomach growled from a lack of food as he exited the house, but he knew where he could get a good hot breakfast. It was harder to slide into the truck seat in wet clothes, but Floy did it and headed to Edison’s Eats.
Mayrene was aghast at the threat Floy had delivered and began getting dressed.
This wasn’t happening like she’d expected.
Maybe she could make a quick run to the kitchen and bring some stuff back to the bedroom.
She didn’t know what was in the fridge, but she knew there were little cans of Vienna sausages and boxes of crackers in the pantry, and she had a small ice chest she could add multiple cans of soda pop to.
She would feed herself until this shit was over.
“Phooey on you, Floy! And phooey on that damn snake, too,” she muttered.
Once Mayrene was dressed, she slipped into a pair of house slippers, closed the bedroom door behind her, and made a run for the kitchen.
She grabbed a shopping bag from the hook on the inside of the pantry and started loading it up with food she could eat from a can.
She tossed in a full box of butter crackers, then got the cold root beers and Floy’s Mountain Dews and dropped them in the bag before setting it on the island.
Next task was putting ice in the ice chest, but the ice chest was on the back porch beside the old refrigerator where Floy kept his beers. “I might be havin’ myself a cold beer or two with my Vienna sausages,” she muttered, and headed for the back door.
The kitchen door swung inward as she pushed the screen door outward. She had one foot on the step down and one foot aiming for the porch when she glanced out into the yard and froze mid-step, then moaned beneath her breath. “Oh shit. Oh shit.”
Elvis had come home on his own and was lying stretched out across the backyard with something big in its belly. Something really, really big.
She pivoted so fast one house slipper flew off onto the porch as she ran back inside and lost the other shoe as she slammed the door behind her and started running for the phone she’d left in the bedroom.
She was in the hall when she heard her phone ringing, and all but leaped onto the bed to answer.
“Hello?”
Quilla Schultz was sitting on the side of her bed with her shoes off and her unpacked suitcase still sitting on the floor. “Hey, baby girl. I’m home!”
“Mama, you’re home! Thank, God,” she said, then turned on the tears and started to cry.
The last thing Quilla had expected from her daughter was hysteria. “What’s wrong?”
Mayrene let out a wail. “Oh, Mama. It’s been awful.
Elvis is out for the third time, and he disappeared.
Floy has been looking for him since yesterday.
I locked myself in the bedroom. Floy and his buddies couldn’t find him, and they’re still looking, and I was afraid to even go into my own kitchen for fear of being swallowed up whole.
Floy’s all mad about having to bring me takeout food, and this morning, he told me if I wanted to eat, then to get myself out of the bedroom and figure it out.
I was packing up some food to take back to my room when I looked outside.
Elvis is all stretched out in the backyard and there’s something so huge in his belly that it could be a person.
Thank God this is over. Surely, this time he’ll get rid of it.
I was just about to call Floy when you rang. ”
Quilla snorted. “Looks like I came home just in time. You pack a bag and come home to Mama.”
“I can’t. My car is still broken from my wreck. We spent the money . . . remember?” Mayrene wailed.
Quilla snorted. She didn’t like being reminded of poor decisions. Floy had read them both the riot act for spending the repair money on a little shopping trip to Louisville and had parked the wrecked vehicle beside the barn as a permanent reminder.
“Then I’ll come get you. You can stay here as long as you want until he gets rid of that thing.
Forever even, if it comes to that. Him and his snake.
Real men would have a hunting dog or be wasting money on loose women and playing cards instead of keeping a snake in a basement.
I told you he was weird when I met him. You pack some clothes and get yourself down the driveway. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Mayrene thought about it. Maybe absence would make Floy hurry up the extermination of that damn reptile. “Thank you, Mama. Thank you,” Mayrene said, sniffling and blowing her nose so that Quilla could hear her, and forgot she hadn’t called Floy.
Satisfied that she finally had an out, Mayrene packed in haste, leaving a wet towel lying on the bathroom floor, unaware there was also a trickle of water still running in the bathroom sink.
Her bed looked like a wild night in the sheets.
She didn’t know that her cell phone had fallen out of her purse when she’d packed, or that it was still lying on the bed as she made a run for the front door.
She opened it, then turned the button on the doorknob so it would lock behind her and ran. Except for the slight trickle of running water in the bathroom, the house was silent, and the only sign of Mayrene’s hasty exit was one abandoned house slipper lying near the back door.
The dust was rising behind Quilla’s car as she topped the hill, like the exhaust plume from a rocket launch. Mayrene saw the dust before she saw the car, then stepped back, giving Quilla space to slow down without slinging gravel on her bare legs.
As soon as Quilla skidded to a stop, Mayrene threw her bag in the back seat, got in, and shut the door. She felt so relieved that she started to cry all over again as her mother drove away.
“Thank you, Mama. I cannot be in that house anymore if that snake is on the property.” She reached in her purse for her phone, then gasped. “My phone! I think it’s still on my bed, and I forgot to call Floy.”
“That snake’s not going anywhere. It’s just lying there digesting whatever the hell it ate. Let Floy suffer a while longer. He will figure it out when he comes home,” Quilla said. “Buckle up, baby girl.”