Short Story Ending in ‘A Man-eating Snake’

‘And what makes a man?’ wondered Harry Farmer. ‘Is it his actions, or simply four limbs and a head? Is a person a single entity, or a conglomeration of unconscious self-serving impulses?’  These are the kinds of things Farmer liked to think about on his way to the post office—and today was a perfect day for it: the crisp autumn air, the yellow leaves in front of a pale blue sky. Yet he couldn’t help but be distracted by the unwieldy size and shape of the brown paper covered package under his arm; it required constant re-adjustment. Farmer decided that, if for some reason he had to run—if a runaway car jumped the curb in his direction let’s say, the box would have to get tossed.

At the post office, Farmer placed the package on the counter in front of the postal worker, who asked automatically, “Are there any liquids, perishables, or potentially hazardous materials in the package, sir?” Farmer had not anticipated this question, and frowned as he drummed his fingers on the counter. He quickly tried to assess whether or not a hibernating white rat packed in dry ice would fit that description, then simply answered in a tone like a question, “no?” After a tense moment in which Farmer prepared to run, the postal worker grabbed the package, weighed it, stamped it, and Farmer listened as the tiny cargo thumped about within. 

Harry Farmer was relieved; the job was done. He decided this would be the last time he responded to an email with a subject heading like FAST CASH FOR DEAD RAT! But he’d overdrawn his bank account, and the prompt thirty bucks through Paypal put a nice dent in the overdraft fee. Evidently clean rats were hard to come by in Odense Denmark, and someone needed one—badly. 

The little box with the hazardous payload made its way slowly around Planet Earth, until finally it was on the doorstep of Dr. Franz Liebfraumilch, who, after some severe door-knocking by the UPS worker, was supposed to be out. Then, without warning, out of the door came a begloved hand that reached down and tried to grip the package, which was an awkward size and shape, and required help from a second hand. With a furtive wet-eyed glance to either side, in went the package. 

Assembling a human-shaped amalgam of sterile frozen lab rats, in a country where such things are difficult to get at, then trying to revive them simultaneously, is no small task. However, in Liebfraumilch’s modified basement, this was exactly the order of the day. It was a nice, large, clean basement—one could tell by the entertainment center and comfortable chair that it was the preferred room of the house. The real attraction, however, was the laboratory, complete with hard-wood floors and huge upright Plexiglass sheets on wheels. Liebfraumilch entered, rat in hand. He gently pushed one opaque frosted sheet of Plexi to the side, revealing a headless man sitting at a small Formica table, apparently preparing to enjoy a cup of coffee. At least, that was the first impression. Upon closer inspection, at the ankles, hands and neck, places where human bits should have been, one could see lumps of white fur. Upon yet closer inspection, it became clear that this man was made of 50+ white rats stuck carefully together with epoxy, and covered in a conductive milky gel. It seemed Harry Farmer’s package was intended to finish off the ‘head.’

Liebfraumilch twisted the final rat into a kind of head-shaped ball, he then used a fast-acting epoxy resin to attach it to the top of the trunk. A pair of reading glasses were added, which seemed to complete the illusion to Liebfraumilch’s satisfaction. Now came the tricky part. After a short prayer to the Danish Gods, Liebfraumilch wheeled in a 1990’s era defibrillator, lubricated the conductors, and placed them at key points against Rat-man’s back.

With a loud ZONK Rat-man ‘s entire body jumped and began to churn and undulate with life. The figure remained seated, but his skin seemed to writhe and squeak all at once, as though he were a stop motion puppet in a state of panic. It was something to see, to say the least, and didn’t much look like a middle-aged Caucasian sitting down to the morning paper, but the doctor seemed more than pleased. Now things were happening: the lights were faded down to the minimum, Plexiglass sheets were moved into a labyrinthine configuration, with Liebfraumilch hidden safely away at the hear t of it. The doctor was still able to see Rat-man through a transparent section of the Plexi. A button was pushed, a trap door opened, and a charged silence followed—punctuated only by the faint squeaks under Rat-man’s clothing.       

Out of the trap door slithered Mendel, who was more a great black worm than a snake, with a jaw that unhinged in five places instead of two, and a head resembling an aquatic parasite. Mendel licked the air, smelling his way toward Rat-man in the near dark. Liebfraumilch cupped his hands over his mouth, barely able to contain his glee—as it is with anyone who sees the realization of their ambitions. Mendel oozed his way under the Formica table and then between Rat-man’s legs and under his chair. The squeaks intensified, as though Rat-man could sense what was coming. A black form rose behind him, and a star-shaped mouth opened, then slowly devoured Rat-man’s head and shoulders. The movement of Mendel’s throat muscles was apparent beneath his slick black skin; it wasn’t so much eating as reverse regurgitation.

The foot-rats had the worst of it; the head and upper torso rats went quickly, but Mendel had to stop at Rat-man’s belt buckle and rest for nearly three hours before he had digested enough to continue. The foot-rats squeaked themselves hoarse as they watched their comrades slowly dissolve in a cocktail of gastric juices. Liebfraumilch knew this was a delicate time for Mendel; any sudden sounds or movements might startle the beast, who, for the sake of self preservation, might feel compelled to vomit up the lot. Liebfraumilch wasn’t deaf to the foot-rats’ suffering, but he couldn’t see anything for it. After he had been published, Liebfraumilch’s peers often asked during lectures why the foot-rats had to be subjected to psychological stress, on top of being glued to each other and eaten alive. Liebfraumilch always explained that no snake will eat anything dead that they hadn’t killed themselves. “Besides,” he would add, usually to a measure of laughter, “how else does one train a man-eating snake?”