The Serpents Embrace
Copyright (c) 1994, Daniel Sendecki
All rights reserved



                The Serpents Embrace
                 by Daneil Sendecki



In the eyes of those driven by thirst, the gently rolling dunes of the 
humble Sahara must have appeared more welcoming than the parched and 
blaring enormity of the flatlands, which, broken and jagged, lined 
route seven all the way to the filling station.

This desert was kin to all deserts.  Endlessly, in all directions, lay 
silence.  There was no sand here, only a thirsty, shattered crust. 
When the wind blew, it kicked up nothing but a dry, blistering heat. 
Splintered and popping under the searing sky lay a ribbon of forlorn 
asphalt which carved incessantly through the desert.  It was called 
route seven.

It was through this emptiness that the Pilot rode, wrenching and 
shattering, hewing and hacking, the placid air.  His steed, a Mac 
truck, and each of it's antique wheels whined indignantly as they 
navigated a bend in the road.  But once the rumbling truck 
disappeared, the silence would once again descend upon the indifferent 
desert and stretch calmly toward the towering sky.  In the minds of 
the peasants, those incredibly simple folk who lived on the edge of 
the flatlands, those who lined the boardwalks and stood stupid with 
amazement as the Pilot rolled into town atop his mount, the Pilot was 
neither malevolent nor benevolent, but the source of immense awe.
 
Countless miles of broken road separated the Pilot from the town of 
Abraxas, a shanty town, on the outskirts of the flatlands.  Moreover, 
the truck, empty now, needed gasoline.  As always, there was hope.

And then there was the filling station.

Abraxas would have been a one stoplight town - had the magic which had 
once kindled the lamps not gone away.  There were a bootfull of 
buildings, the tallest of which was two stories, and four streets, 
running from the asphalt of route seven like veins.  Indeed, the town 
of Abraxas clung to route seven like a tumor.  One day-cycle had 
passed since the Pilot had slipped from his cab into Abraxas, but it 
may as well have been a week, as both month and minute wore the same 
face as they passed over this archaic, yielding, desert.

The truck came to rest in the center of town.  Once there had stood 
here a cenotaph, but it had since fallen, leaving only it's pedestal. 
The air was as cold as an outlander.  Stealing into the shadows of the 
boardwalk, the Pilot left his truck to brood over the remains of the 
statue.

Besides the cenotaph there was a livery and a granary.  A general 
store lay on the other side of the route.  None of the buildings were 
well kept, weathered and squalid, bent from the torrid sun and moon.

Sardonic show tunes spilled from a dusty clapboard building, which 
bounced and writhed in tune like a wineskin full of mice.  A fading 
sign proclaimed that it was a "Hostel & Grill".  The Pilot stepped 
from the shadows of the boardwalk into the light of the saloon.

The crash of billiards assaulted the Pilot.  A round man clumsily 
pounded the teeth of an antique piano that had long since rotted.

"Have you any gasoline?"  the Pilot cried over the clamor of the 
saloon.

Eyes turned from card games, beer mugs, and harlots to the Pilot.  The 
bat-wing doors swung lazily in the wake of his entrance.

"Petrol?"  he demanded inquiringly.

A pair of well-worn jeans, a faded denim shirt, and spit-polished 
boots were all he wore - save the holster that hung from his hip and 
the six iron that lay asleep inside.

A haggard man stood and the a few notes escaped the piano.  Grimacing, 
the man spoke.

"We've none of your poison," then almost muttering, "madman."

The Pilot's mid - not his eyes - turned toward the reassuring weight 
of the six iron that lay against his hip' his eyes remained stolidly 
fixed on the weary man.

"Have a seat."  the Pilot prompted.  The haggard man, whose lips 
writhed as if each movement pained him, stepped forward.

Effortlessly, the Pilot woke his Pistol, pulling breech and bore from 
their bed and startling the gun into consciousness as hammer struck 
primer, and gave the gun tongue.  The man, gutshot, doubled over and 
stared at the Pilot, glassy eyed and incredulous.


"Mmmmfuuu..."  the man gurgled.  Hand at belly, he fell to the floor. 
A pink fold of his entrails slid out from between dirty fingers.

The Pilot sauntered towards the bar and the floorboards groaned as 
each, in turn, bore his graceless weight.  The saloons patrons 
filtered out.  Nervously pouring a glass of whiskey, the barkeep kept 
a disdainful eye on him.

"Put me up for the..."  the neck of the bottle chattered against the 
lip of the glass.  Rocking his palsied weight from foot to foot, the 
barkeep began to dance a jig completely unaware.  

"A room for tonight, you old fool."

"We've no room."  The saloon keeper's eyes lit upon the man whose 
intestines slowly cooled on the floor.  Sighing, he took a tarnished 
key from his pocket.

The Pilot mounted the stairs.  Relieved, the barkeep sighed.  Slowly, 
night returned to the comforting arms of silence when, with a clap 
that made the barkeep howl, the looking glass behind the bar cracked 
frightfully and crashed to the floor.

"Your whiskey,"  the Pilot hissed, "is weak."  Having hurled a shot 
glass through the mirror, the Pilot retired to his room.  Only when 
the Pilot disappeared did the barkeep realize, abashed, that he had 
soiled himself.  Upstairs the Pilot slept soundly.

Out here, amid the harrowing flatlands, stood the castle of the 
blacksmythe's fairy tales - the filling station.  The road undulated 
and twisted on indefinitely before the grill of the grunting truck, 
finally succumbing to the horizon and heavens.  The filling station 
stood defiantly off in the distance.

The Blacksmythe was an old man - surprising, since he had been exposed 
to the rigors of the flatlands - a wild shock of silvery hair fell 
over his eyes.  He, like all other town folk, had a genius for 
superstition which made him thickheaded.  His apron was the tired 
color of a bleeding sunset.

"Pilot?"  it was the Blacksmythe.

Uninterested: "what?"

"The flatlands aren't a safe place."

The Pilot sighed.  "Is that so?"

"Ayuh." 

And it probably was, to this dumb specimen at least.  The trailer 
protested with a shrill scream of rust as the Pilot swung it shut and 
secured the hitch. 

"Ther're hazards along the way,"  the Blacksmythe ejaculated, "it's 
not a safe outing to make lonesome.  No sir!"

"Hazards?"  The Pilot stopped.  His eyes narrowed.  "What kind?"

"Draguns!"  the Blacksmythe blurted.  Upon hearing this the Pilot 
stepped into the cab, turning his back on the 'Smythes gibberish.  He 
spoke in torrents of fear and awe and wonderment.  "All along route 
seven there're draguns!  Scaly and hid-yus.  Ayuh!"  Spittle flew from 
his lips as he shouted.  "They spit petrol from their snouts and crawl 
along the ground on their bellies!"  The roar of the Mac's engine 
interrupted him if only for a second.

"Flames leap from their lips!  They wait!  Ayuh!  They wait in ambush 
all along... Beating their wings against the sand."  Dawn had come, a 
streamer of bruised light that encompassed the horizon amid 
the 'Smythes ravings.

"Calm yourself."  the Pilot said.  Slowing his flailing arms, the 
Blacksmythe complied.  He glanced up at the Pilot sheepishly.

The Pilot looked down at him from his cab.  "Do you know of any 
gasoline?"

Mortified, he stared at the Pilot.

"Well?"  

"There is a filling station.  Many leagues away.  Ayuh!  There is!" 
At this, the Pilot slowed.

"A filling station?"  he echoed.  He frowned and his brow wrinkled.

"Ayuh!"  the Blacksmythe nodded.  "But beware!  It is where the 
draguns feed and nest.  I've heard tales of them suckling from the 
utters that grow from the ground.  They feed on fire and stone and 
steam.  Ayuh!  From the center of the earth."

The Pilot had heard enough.

"They spit poison!  Petrol!"

He shot the fevered Blacksmythe before he could take up his frantic 
dance again.  The report rang through the town.  It's echo muffled 
only by the hoarse moan of the truck as it shuddered into gear.  The 
Pilot drove away, leaving the weary saloon patron and the fevered 
Blacksmythe to the mortician and the town of Abraxas to the scarred 
desert morn.

The Pilot felt no remorse.  The filling station certainly was just 
another of the 'Smythes rambling's.  The station, however, lay with 
great conviction on the west side of route seven.  A simple, squat 
hovel with a low hung roof and sand beaten walls- the imperceptible 
naked color of wood.

The day began to bleed night.  Soon, unnoticed it would inevitably 
hemorrhage and the gore of darkness would splatter over all.  The sky 
was still a grave purple when the Mac - empty and exhausted - came to 
rest by the filling station with a wry belch and died.  The air was 
tombstone cold. Two red towers of rubber and glass thorax stood 
statistical in the dusk.  The Pilot guessed that these were the utters 
on which many a "dragun" had suckled.  The simple building and the two 
tired tin soldiers at steadfast attention in front of it had not 
fallen into disarray.  The world about them was falling apart, and 
they were dumb to it.

The Pilot started towards the gas pumps.  The hard packed dust left no 
footprints.  The ancient pumps stood one and a half men tall.  Each 
wore a glass thorax crown and arms of rubber which were broken and 
rotted.  Rusting nozzles hung by the giants sides like cramped, 
arthritic hands.  Both pumps were painted cherry red and although they
 were old, old, they spelled promise to the Pilot.

In the dying light of the day, the Pilot took the hand of the gasoline 
pump and, like a child leading another, brought it towards the truck.

With fevered anticipation, he unscrewed the gas cap and thrust the 
compliant nozzle into the tank, hoping that it would spill it's 
petrol.

Nothing.

The Pilot was unstirred and observed his predicament with removed awe. 
It was as if he was watching himself from far, far, away.  He dropped 
the nozzle and it's rotting arm to the ground.  He started back 
towards the second pump, realizing that the last pump, insanely 
identical to the first was his final hope.  The Pilot again observed 
the ceremony, lifting the nozzle of the pump from it's housing, 
bringing it carefully towards the truck, fitting it into the tank and 
praying for the sudden rush of fuel.

Night was all over the desert.  It covered everything in it's 
darkness.  It cooled the day's fever.  The Pilot lay crumpled on the 
ground, the rotting arm of the pump coiled about him in a serpents 
embrace.  The ancient gas pumps held no fuel.  The Pilot waited for 
the dragons under the night sky.

The constellations rose over a desert that had once known life, but 
had since perished.

