They Will Take Up Serpents

1

            The rattlesnakes gave themselves away and made for easy money; that said, the Copperheads were of greater fortune proportionate to the heightened dangers. The thick canvas bag in Hollis Sturgill’s hands held the easier pickings today, and the rattlesnakes moved their tails in a slow and sedentary manner, letting him know their threat was real, and they were poised to attack once they were released from their cloth cells.

            He wanted copperheads, though. Not only did make more money, but he had a personal hatred of copperheads. He hunted the area in the creek beds and soggy banks looking for the lairs where the copperheads may be hiding. He always wore thick boots that came nearly to his knees, when he went hunting.

            The boots themselves looked a bit silly, but no one would dare to poke fun at a snake hunter, especially not Hollis Sturgill.

            He began hunting snakes when he was only about eleven or twelve years old. He didn’t have any brothers, but his cousin Jimmy Sturgill was as much a brother and best friend as Hollis could want. Their fathers had set up trailers on the land that was left over after the broad-form deed legally obligated the family homestead to annihilation.

            He hated the coal companies.

            He started hunting snakes with Jimmy. Their fathers were drinking beers out of shared cooler one night, tending a little fire between the trailers. The men were discussing religion.

            “Hell now, you boys want to go to church tomorrow?”

            “If you say so,” Jimmy answered his uncle.

            “There is a church out in the south end of the county,” Hollis’ father continued. “It’s a good one too.”

            “How come?” Hollis asked.

 "They know how to come to the Lord right," he said. 

            Hollis’ uncle laughed as brother continued to tease the Hollis and Jimmy, “You see, boy, there are churches around here that handle snakes.”

2

A thick layer of rust covered the tin roof of the Burning Branch Church of God, which made Hollis suspect it must leak during storms and imagined that the worshipers cherished the idea of being covered with rain as they danced and hollered in their revelry. He guessed they all liked being baptized together by sacred water being blessed as it worked through the holes in the rust.

  Still – this church, more than any other, kept his bills paid and ensured he would have food on the table. Other churches bought one or two catches of snakes per years. The Burning Branch Church of God was different. They bought as many snakes as Hollis could catch. It made him wonder what they may be doing with them. Whatever it was, it worked, as they had not only the largest congregation in the state but also the fastest growing. 

            He dropped the canvas bag on the rough lumber porch of the church and waited for the preacher to come outside. These types avoided any denomination. The church looked to be of poor construction with pregnant sections in the walls, looking like they may collapse. He assumed it was damaged caused by the poorness of the roof. There were holes around the foundation of the structure, and he knew the sub-level must be filled with rats. Not field mice, but big fat rats.

 There was one of them just a few feet from the bottom step. It was a thick thing, bloated in death with a swarm of flies feasting off of it. 

            The preacher burst through church door and let the screen door smack against the doorjamb.

            “Praise God!” he announced upon his exit.

            “You know these snakes are pretty well suited to rodent control,” Hollis said, pointing to the dead rat.

            “We use these serpents for a higher purpose.”

            “But, I’ll be goddamned,” Hollis said. “You’re infested.”

            “You will not use the Lord’s name in vain!”

            Hollis decided to get back to business. He nodded towards the canvas bag that moved in an ominous manner, letting anyone who looked that something was alive inside.

            “It’s a good haul,” he said.

            One of the rattlesnakes shook its tail, and a smile spread across the preacher’s face, “No copperheads?”

            “No,” Hollis said, “but I’ll try to get you some for next time.”

3

            It was early August and a good month to hunt snakes.

            During the winter, snakes went into a state of hibernation called Brumation. If he found on of their pits while the weather was cold, it was easy pickings. He could protect his hand in a thick leather glove fortified with a metal mesh wearing a Kevlar sleeve underneath, and pick the snakes up like he was picking up Easter eggs.

            It was easy to lazy in the winter – that is what happened to Jimmy.

            Once the weather warmed the snakes became active. In the days of the late spring and early summer, the snakes were agile and active. His hunting acumen had to be sharp and precise. The snakes would lash out when approached. They could sense him as he approached with their bellies cursed on the ground.

  It was enjoyable hunting, but the most dangerous. The handlers liked these snakes as well. The weather made the snakes the most active during their ceremonies. As they danced around with the snakes in their hands, they would snipe at the worshiper, threating to steal their faith with a fatal bite. Then the snakes would calm: charmed by the sanctified dancing, becoming docile as the preacher's voice boomed over the congregation.

            Hollis had been to one ceremony in Harlan County, just to satisfy his curiosity. Once was enough.

  Now the summer was in its hottest month, and the air was thick with humidity. The snakes were slowed by the heat and the mugginess, but – unlike the cold – they were not dormant. The heat angered them into a state of agitation that made crime escalate in the summer. When Hollis found a snake or a full den, he had to work his snake stick carefully to ensure he was able to secure them into the canvas bag. He wore his boots, Kevlar, and gloves, but the snakes writhed in fury try to dig their fangs into whatever flesh they could find.

            “That’s what happened to Jimmy,” he said.

4

            “Copperheads,” the preacher said. “We agreed to copperheads.”

            Hollis kicked the bag on the ground, frustrated.

            He ran a good trade. He was one of a few suppliers to the church in the area. He heard other snake hunters would use garter snakes to fill out their catches when they delivered them to churches. Hollis made sure that he only provided rattlesnakes and copperheads, but the latter were just in short supply this year. He would search the creek beds and the low spots for their dens. He shoved his hand protected by the glove and Kevlar into the holes that he thought may be dens to see if he could coax a bite out of a disturbed copperhead.

            Nothing.

            He would have to walk the creeks down hollows listening for the rattlesnakes, shaking out their threats to any predator who may choose an equally deadly predator for its prey. He followed the sound of the rattle like a siren’s call to sailors.

            “Ain’t none to be found,” Hollis said. “It’s the rattlers or nothing.”

            “It’s not the same,” the preacher said.

            “Hell,” Hollis said. “Seems like venom would be venom.”

  "That ain't what this is," the preacher said. "The Lord put demons in this world, and they come out in these serpents. We hold them up and handle them. It's how we show the demons that we ain't got no fear as we are consecrated and secure in our Lord. Do you understand?"

  The door to the church opened, and the preacher's daughter walked outside into the thick, wet heat. She wore a long summer dress that was nearly to her ankles, and her long hair was pulled into a ponytail. There was a window unit hanging from a window in the church, but Hollis doubted it was enough to keep the building cool. Sweat beads popped on her nose within seconds of walking outside.

            She had been two grades behind Hollis in school. He hadn’t seen her in years, and she had grown into a woman.

            “Howdy, Shirley.”

            “Howdy yourself,” she said.

            “Do you understand, Hollis? We need a variety of snakes.”

  "No, I don't, Clem," he said. "I guess I haven't had religion since Jimmy died."

5

            “Y’all got to hold him,” Doctor Puckett screamed, “Hold him down.”

            The doctor had thrown his scalpel to the side and worked at the flesh on Jimmy’s leg with a lock-blade knife. His hands were covered with blood deep and arterial in color, oozing out of the gash he continued to widen. The tourniquet seemed too loose no matter how hard Hollis pulled at it.

            “I ain’t never seen anything like it, boys,” the doctors shouted.

            Hollis’ uncle held Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy wasn’t screaming, but rather a deep growl bellowed in his throat. His eyes remained open and filled with the same purple blood that leaked from the wound on his leg.

  The bite happened after they finished hunting. Their goal was to have more money to spend on the senior trip than anyone else. They wanted to out-gamble and out-spend all of those spoiled kids who lived downtown. One of them was the grandson of the coal company owner who enforced the broad-form deed on his family's home, stripping it of the coal and leaving it no-good for generations to come. If couldn't be farmed or work, and they took all the timber. Hollis and Jimmy were determined to bleed that grandson dry.

            Now it seemed to be Jimmy who was bleeding dry.

            “The hospital,” Hollis’ uncle said. “We got to get him to the hospital.”

            “No time,” the doctor said.

  The closest hospital would take an hour driving balls to the wall out of the holler and down the curvy roads of the mountains that were stripped of coal. 

            “What you’re doing ain’t working,” Hollis yelled.

            “Hush up,” Hollis’ father said. “You keep your mouth shut.”

            “I ain’t ever seen nothing like it,” the doctor repeated. The hunks of removed flesh lay on the kitchen floor of the trailer in a wet, red heap. The doctor kept adding to it, as Jimmy convulsed in a cold fury as if his body were bleeding sweat. The doctor was removing skin and muscle from his thigh.

            The bite was on the back of his leg, just below his calf muscle and the doctor had cut everything below the knee nearly to the bone. After that had failed, he went for the lock-blade knife and started working the skin just below the tourniquet.

            “I ain’t ever seen nothing like it,” he said a third time.

            “What the hell does that mean?” Jimmy’s father shouted.

            “The flesh is necrotizing faster than I’ve ever seen. Hell, I ain’t ever seen it necrotize like this. The flesh is dying faster than I can cut it off.”

            “What do we do?” Hollis asked at the top of his voice.

            “Y’all bring me a saw. We’re going to have to cut it out at the pelvis.”

  Hollis father ran to the shed returning with a chainsaw. The doctor took the saw in his hand and pulled the starter for the engine. The smoke filled the kitchen, and the grown men pushed down on Jimmy's shoulders, and Hollis took hold of the good leg. 

            “Y’all got to hold him,” Doctor Puckett screamed, “Hold him down.”

6

            “There better be some copperheads in there,” Shirley said, smiling and pointing to the plastic tote with holes cut in the top.

            “Y’all are killing me,” Hollis said, placing the container down on the ground in front of the church. “I haven’t seen a copperhead all year.”

  The churchyard was filled with parishioners surrounding picnic tables, bowing their heads in prayer, and sitting down to dine from paper plates and cheap plastic bowls. The smell of smoked pork filled the air and a kettle of beans simmered over an open fire. There were several folding tables covered in glass casserole dishes filled with potluck offerings. Hollis let the smell fill his nostrils and remembered the rat.

            “Beggars can’t be choosers,” Clem said approaching Hollis, holding a canning jar filled with sweet tea. “But sinners can become saints.”

            “Clem,” Hollis said. “I serve every church that handles snakes in seven counties, and not a one of them has had a copperhead for their services all year. You’re my best customer and you know I owe you in a way I don’t owe the others. If I find a copperhead, you got first dibs on it. You know that.”

            “I know it,” Clem answered. “Won’t you eat with us, Hollis?”

            “Y’all take care of them rats?”

            Clem threw his head back in laughter, “Now, Hollis Sturgill, you don’t mean to imply we would eat a meal that wasn’t fit for the Lord’s table, do you?”

  Hollis felt himself grow embarrassed and ashamed. The food was being cooked outside, and the dishes were flanked by wadded aluminum foil, suggesting they were brought from somewhere else.

            “No, I don’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

            “No apology is necessary,” Clem said. “Now get yourself something to eat.”

  Shirley took his hand and led him to a table where men stood cutting meat in large metal dishes and portioning it out with massive forks. He looked over his shoulder, as he gripped her hand within his own, to see Clem looking at him with approval in the preacher's eyes. 

7

            The smell of the smoke from the gasoline and two-stroke oil filled the air – there was a far more sinister scent as well. Hollis’ father and uncle stood silent. The chainsaw was covered with blood and laid on the floor. The floor and table on which Jimmy rested were equally spattered in blood. The doctor had finished cauterizing the opening of Jimmy’s hip socket.

  The burning flesh odor filled Jimmy's father's eyes with tears, as the doctor began flaying the skin from Jimmy's torso from just above the waist on the same side of the body as the leg that had just been removed.

  The amputated limb lay on the floor still pulsing with nervous energy. Hollis could hear the leg but didn't dare look at it. It sounded like a sizzle, and as much as he tried to see it, he could tell it was hopping around, like when his mother fried frog legs in an iron skillet. 

            He did the unthinkable and turned his eyes to his cousin’s leg. The skin was bubbling and oozing where it was still attached, then slipping off to the floor. The freshly exposed muscle blistered and seemed to melt as if the entire leg was dissolving.

            “How fucking far do you want to take this?” the doctor screamed at Jimmy’s father.

            He looked at his brother for guidance, and Hollis’ father spoke with a tone that seemed too calm for the room, “I would do it to save my boy.”

            “Do it.”

            The doctor shook his head and wiped the blood from the blade on the leg of his pants. With a clean blade, he emasculated Jimmy. The boy remained quiet. He had lost consciousness halfway through the removal of his leg. Now he laid on the table with blood oozing from his nose and ear as a shallow breath slowly ebbed and flowed from his mouth.

            “God damn, Hollis,” his uncle asked. “What the hell happened out there?”

            “It was just a baby copperhead,” he said. “I killed the damn thing.”

            “You’re going to take me to it,” the uncle demanded.

8

            “It’s not what people think,” Shirley said, blowing a soft breath over a spoonful of beans.

            “What is it people think?”

  He was enjoying the meal more than he could remember enjoying food for a long time. Shirley was good company, and he was still surprised by how lovely she was. He pinched at the pork shoulder with his fingers and dipped it in the barbecue sauce, before putting it in his mouth.

            The churches congregation wandered the yard, laughing and smiling at one another. Little clusters of conversations would begin and end like tracks on a record. To the side of the building, young and old men alike played games of horseshoes, lifting their laughter throughout the hollow.

            “They think we’re just a bunch of ignorant hill people,” Shirley said. “The people in town think we ain’t nothing but crazy people. I can’t begin to imagine what folks in Louisville or cities up north think.”

            “You care what a bunch of Yankees think?”

            “I don’t care what nobody thinks,” she said. “And don’t call them Yankees.”

            “Why not?”

            “It’s ugly talk,” she said.

            “What do you mean?”

  "Well, this is Kentucky, and Kentucky was never part of the Confederacy. And while I'm at it, if ever there was a time the South was in the wrong, it was back then."

            “Now I wasn’t trying to imply otherwise,” he said, breaking his cornbread into pieces and crumbling it into his beans. “I ain’t like that.”

            “We ain’t either. We believe all folks are the same and everyone is free in the eyes of God.”

            “Amen,” he said. “If it ain’t what people think, then what is it?”

  "You have to experience it," she said, "but when you feel the holy ghost rise in you, you know you're being gifted with the strength of the Lord. You lose yourself."

            “Lose yourself?”

 "Whenever it comes over me, I remember the first few syllables, but that is about it. Once you start speaking in tongues, it's because the soul a long-dead servant of the Lord is letting the world know he's still fighting evil. Then you take up that snake, and the demon tries to fight, the soul that is causing you to speak in tongues controls it and lets it know the Lord's in charge. You're possessed by the spirit."

            “That so?”

            “It is,” she said. “Some folks go to church in fancy dresses and listen to quiet sermons. We take on evil nose to nose when we come together.”

9

  Clem held his Bible in his left palm, balancing it in a way that seemed to defy gravity. He held his right hand above his head. His face was closed and turned to the blue sky. The coffin was closed and held parts of a person who had been vibrant and whole a few days earlier. Now the corpse was encased in permanent darkness both mutilated and decimated by cruel venom that seemed to burn it with an acid from within.

  Clem was wearing a thin white shirt. His undershirt showed clearly beneath, and the button-down shirt clung to him in the heat that settled in late spring. The rows of folding chairs splayed in front of the preacher.

            Hollis and his family sat in the front row. His uncle and aunt sobbed with long, arching aspirations, as Clem read from the Bible.

            Clem read from Mark, “They will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will never harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well!”

            The mourners sobbed out “amens” as the sky began to threaten a storm.

            “Those who die by the venom,” Clem preached as the first drops of rain fell. “Will have dominion over the serpents in this world and the next.”

10

  The bass guitar synced with the drum kit at the front of the church. The congregation jumped in unison, and members exited their pews to dance in the aisle. Clem's face was hot and red. He wiped the sweat with a handkerchief as he shouted his sermon over the whoops of the parishioners and the pulse of the music.

            Shirley stood beside Hollis and her body throbbed against his. He could feel her energy and the desire in her religion. She was the one who asked him to attend the service. Calming his fear and assuring him that she would keep him safe and keep the snakes away.

            But she urged him, “If you find the faith within yourself, they will not harm you.”

            He didn’t really know what he should wear to the service. Jimmy’s funeral was the last time he attended anything any remotely similar to a church service. He put on his cleanest shirt and shoes; just in case, he wore his snake hunting boots.

            He could hear Clem’s lungs filling the room and see the fury in the eyes of the church goes who made their way to the pulpit, flanking Clem at both sides. He looked at Shelley again and the passion in her face and rhythm made him want to take her.

            He could see the plastic totes he brought to the church coming through the door at the side of the building. The men were carrying them towards the altar, dumping them out as they reached it with one dark mass of slithering after another. Jars of a clear liquid began working through the pews.

            The men and women held the snakes in their hands, seemingly charming them with their dancing. The rest of them were taking gulps from the jars and passing them amongst them.

            Hollis looked down to his feet and witnessed a river of snakes passing his boots. He looked up and met Shirley’s gaze. He wanted her as she tipped back the jar and consumed the strychnine.

            She held it out to him, “Take it and I’ll know you are pure of heart. Live through it and I’ll know we are meant to be together.”

            He felt the jar was cold to the touch, as he drank from it.

11

            The strychnine worked through his body throughout the night. He laid in bed feeling every drop of moisture within his body rise to a steam and exit his body as a cold and drenching sweat. His stomach turned and Shelley stayed present to catch his stomach’s content as he emptied it. He could hear Clem in the corner of the room belted out incantations that didn’t quite sound to be of biblical origin. The heat rose within him and everything he saw seemed to be bathed in a white and blurry haze. He would feel a small stitch that rose to a writhing pain. He wished for death.

            His mind went to places he never wanted it to go. He could see Jimmy’s skin in his mind, and it seemed so real. His cousin stood in the corner with his skin bubbling and fizzing as if a caustic acid had been poured all over his body. Jimmy’s pupils were like vertical slits in his eyes and his tongue whipped with a serpentine demeanor. He could hear his cousin’s voice coming out like a hiss.

            “Why’d you let them take me, cuz? Why didn’t you come with me?”

            “I told you to wear your boots, Jimmy. I told you never to go hunting snakes without the proper protection.”

            “You let them take my manhood,” Jimmy sizzled. “Maybe I should take yours too.”

  His cousin began to move his body began to contort and coil and soon he was wrapped as a serpent at rest. The snake eyes continued to stare at Hollis, and the pain continued to well up within him. He could see Jimmy drop to the floor and begin to squirm across the carpet toward the bed on which Hollis laid.

            “Keep him away from me, Shirley,” he yelled. “Don’t let him kill me, Clem.”

            Within seconds of his begging, Jimmy’s winding movement crested the side of the bed. Hollis could see the thick, sharp fangs poised to bite. He closed his eyes.

12

  "A man does not choose his wife. A wife does not choose her husband," Clem said. "These unions are made in heaven, and the decision is made by our Lord. He chose for you to be with my daughter."

  Hollis sat upright in the bed with stacked pillows supporting his back. He still felt weak from the poison, but his body felt cleansed in a way he had never experienced before. His mind was at ease too. He felt like something within him had changed, and the poison had set him free. Not only that, but he had survived. He had taken the poison, and he had not died. 

  He assumed there must be a faith within him he could not identify. When he drank the poison, it was out of lust for Shirley, not love of the Lord. Perhaps lust and faith had more in common than he realized. He had been with other women, but he had never felt as drawn to anyone as he was to Shirley. Yes, he wanted her, but he felt a connection he could not quite identify as well.

  "You would become my son, and we would be one flesh," Clem continued. "Is that what you desire?"

            “I can think of no greater honor than to be your son,” Hollis said. “And I can think of no life more fulfilling than being Shirley’s husband. I promise you, Clem, I will treat her with love and kindness.”

            “I don’t doubt that for a second,” Clem said.

            Hollis adjusted himself in the bed, as Shirley entered into the room carrying a plate with Hollis’ breakfast. She sat the tray over his lap and sat on the side of the bed. Hollis began to eat and could feel the food immediately begin to nourish him and return the strength to his body.

            “You and Hollis are to be married,” Clem said.

            Shirley smiled and touched Hollis’ hair.

            “We are,” he said. “There is something I have to do first, though.”

13

            Hollis stood just to the side of the pulpit. He could feel the heat in the room radiating from the audience of eager worshippers. He locked his eyes on Shirley. She was standing in the front row smiling at him. Clem held the bible aloft above his head as the music played and the congregation began to sway and seemed to be chanting something Hollis didn’t understand him.

            “You have to listen without wanted to hear,” Shirley told him. “It’ll just come over you.”

            It occurred to him that possible they were speaking in some tongue he didn’t understand. That is what he expected to happen today – what he needed to happen. The spirit of some long-dead servant of the Lord would fill him and fight the demons in the snakes.

            He saw the familiar opening of the door to his side. The men entered again carrying the large totes filled with the snakes. They were bound to be hungry. The men dumped the snakes on the ground and that rattled and hissed in a spectacular show of anger.

            Hollis knew the time was right.

            He felt his language become that of someone else. His lips began moving and his mind switched to a syntax and alphabet he didn’t know but understood. He didn’t know what he was thinking, he just knew he was thinking it. He knelt down and took up a serpent in each hand.

            They were both copperheads.

            He didn’t remember delivering copperheads to the congregation, but these beasts were long and thick. A bite from them would mean certain death – he could think of Jimmy, but the voice in his head took over. It was fighting from within.

            The copperheads lurched and sniped at him but he moved his body in a way that threw off the balance of each snake. The strange words began filing out of his mouth and he looked to see the snakes had calmed as if hypnotized by the words he was issuing.

            They fell limp, and he dropped them to the floor.

  He looked up at the sea of faces in front of him. They danced as if slithering as they stood. All their eyes had the vertical slit of the reptiles – the pupils that let you know they held deadly poison.

            He looked at Clem and then Shirley. Both of them were gazing at him with same snake eyes as the rest of the congregation.

14

  When he came out of his trance, he could see the multiple teeth marks on his skin. The area around the bits was pink and inflamed, but he felt little or no pain from his wounds. The congregation stared at him with fear, awe, and admiration. His thoughts had become his own again, and he could perceive them clearly. He was still in the same room, and he was still at the same time. 

            Shirley stood still holding her hand over her heart. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she desired him and wanted him to be her husband. He couldn’t help but look at her.

            “Hallelujah!” Clem shouted.

            The congregation remained silent.

            “He has taken up the serpents,” a voice whispered.

            “Hallelujah!” Clem repeated.

            The crowd gave a confused echo of Clem’s exclamation.

            Hollis ran his fingers over the bite wounds and he could see a small trickle of blood and what he assumed to be venom exiting him. He looked at the floor beside the altar. The snakes had been torn to pieces. Their tattered and bloodied remains lay on the ground.

            The members of the congregation reached down and picked up the mutilated carcasses. They held the bloodied things to their chests.

  "We'll harness his energy," Clem said. "Our Lord demanded a sacrifice."

            The parishioners nodded to one another.

            “He is the one who will rule over the serpents,” Shirley said.

            Hollis looked over the crowd with a feeling of pride and accomplishment he had never known before.

            “Where did you get these copperheads?” Hollis asked.

            “We don’t have to pay for them anymore,” Clem answered. “They come to us now.”

15

            The church had been decorated with white ribbons and other gaiety intended to make the place look festive. The pews had been adorned with flowers on both ends and the altar was decked with folding layers of fine cloth and lace.

 The old Bible laid on top of the pulpit. 

  Clem stood behind it, and Hollis walked the aisle by himself. 

            His father had refused to attend. He begged Hollis not to marry Shirley. He said the folks at the Burning Branch Church of God were a strange lot. Strange: even for snake handlers.

            Hollis knew he had found his home and he knew would make a family in this place and with these people. He took his place in front of the altar, and Clem began to speak to the assembled congregation.           

            The pews were filled with faces Hollis barely recognized. The back of the room was filled with a standing crowd. Men and women leaned against the walls along the side of the building. Hollis never began to consider the place could hold that many people.

            “We take up snakes, and we do not die. We drunk the deadliest poison, and it does not kill us. We are truly a people chosen. We are people who should sow our seeds in good fields and spread our kind all over this world. We are a noble people. I am Noble. Noble I am. And that is the Lord we worship.”

            He let his voice calm, and the audience gave loose an enthusiastic, “Amen.”

            “I am not going to officiate this wedding today,” Clem said

            “Amen!”

            “For I am not just the preacher today, but I am also a parent. I am going to exact my right as a father. I am going to walk my daughter down the aisle, and I am going to give my daughter away.”

            The audience clapped, and Hollis felt a smile come over his face. Clem grabbed him by the shoulders and the two of them shared a strong embrace.

            “You will lead a great nation,” Clem said into his ear.

            He walked to the door and threw it open.

16

  There was no wedding march. Shirley took Clem's arm, and the two of them walked down the aisle. They reached Hollis as he stood in front of the altar. No one asked who was going to give the bride away. Clem merely wrapped Shirley and Hollis hands together and stepped to an empty place in front of a pew. 

            “Be seated,” he said.

  The congregation remained quiet, and Hollis began to feel confused. Shirley locked her eyes with Hollis, and she continued to smile. That comforted Hollis.

            The door to the side opened. A figure in black walked through the door that was normally used to bring in the serpents. He approached the altar with a dark, wide-brimmed hat covering his eyes. He took his place behind the altar.

            “Dearly beloved,” he said in a voice that was familiar to Hollis. “We have come here today to take up snakes and start our revolution by the unity of these two serpentine souls.”

            The figure dropped the hat, and Hollis looked at his face with a burning feeling rising in his stomach.

  "Jimmy?" he asked, not believing he saw with his own eyes.

            ‘Those who die by the venom of the snake will rule,” Jimmy said. The burn marks still marked his face and Hollis began to realize by the awkward stance and posture Jimmy took, that most of his body must be prostetic. His skin that wasn’t scarred was a pale gray, and his eyes had the familiar pupil of the snakes.

            “Jimmy?” Hollis repeated.

            “Shirley would have been my bride, kin,” he said. “Sadly, though, I am not able to spread my seed. You and I are built of the same stuff. We too are noble. You are noble, and I am noble. You will live by the venom as I do.”

            Hollis felt the need to run seize him, he dug his grip into Shirley hand and began to run.

            “Shirley, we have to go,” he yelled, but she held firm as an anchor.

            He looked to her to see that not only were her eyes that of a poisonous reptile, but her skin was that of the serpent too.

17

            “And what our Lord the Noble Iam has brought together, let no man tear asunder,” Jimmy said, turning his head to the ceiling.

            “Jimmy, help me,” Hollis screamed.

            The congregation had surrounded him. They all stood with their skins turning to a shined mess of scales and the colors of the copperheads he knew so well. Shirley’s face remained the same as the one he fell in love with and desired, except for her serpent eyes. The rest of her was turning into a great reptile.

            Clem approached him.

            “At the beginning of time, we were punished for offering wisdom to mankind. We have been in their service ever since, wallowing on our bellies through the forests and sands of this earth,” he said.

            He was turning into a reptilian thing too.

            “But now we can walk upright,” he said. “After nearly two centuries of worshiping the serpent of Eden, we have given him strength, and he has given us back our arms and legs.”

            The congregation pushed even closer to Hollis, till he swore he could feel the fanning of their serpentine tongues in the air around him. They held him down. He could smell their hunger.

            “He longs to come back to this world, Hollis. He longs to come back. We took the bite out of your kin’s leg, as we thought we knew how to bring him back, but the sounds of the rattlesnakes you brought us played us the song that showed us the way.”

            The entire room broke out in the sound of a multitude of rattlesnakes.

            “The snakes you brought us weren’t for sacrifice or worship, they were to build our numbers,” Clem continued – his voice little more than a hiss.

  Hollis looked up from the ground where he was being constrained. He could see Shirley crawling on top of him. She flicked her split tongue over the entirety of his body, and he knew a fear more intense than he thought to be humanly possible. He realized he might not be human.

            “We will make you whole with our venom. Then you will consecrate your marriage,” Clem said. “Then the serpent will no longer have to stare at the flaming swords guarding the gates to Eden.”

            The congregations showed their fangs and the venom shined and began to drip.

            “Your child will be his vessel back into this world.”

            Shirley’s fangs were the first to bite him. They dug deep into his neck as her mouth unhinged to take the whole of his throat into her mouth. The rest of them were upon him within split seconds, and he felt the myriad of teeth bite down and release their venom.