Jungle danger

A group of herpetologists, connected to several universities, were planning a trip to the Amazon rain forests to further their knowledge of reptiles; particularly South American snakes. During their preliminary discussion of arrangements, a rumour arose of a very large snake that had been interfering with the lives of villagers in a particular part of the forest. Several villagers had disappeared over the years, but the local opinion was that this was the work of one or more jaguars. The scientists agreed that they should make that area the base for their research. If there was a large snake living in the vicinity they were almost duty bound to find it and do some trials. Their base was located near the village and a week before they arrived, a villager lost a large dog in circumstances that made it unlikely to be the work of a big cat.

Their main work involved searching for and studying the smaller snake species, their numbers, distribution and other aspects of their lives. In addition they looked for, with the aid of the local inhabitants, possible haunts of the large snake, with a view to enticing it into a place where its existence could be recorded. They were shown a place by the locals, which seemed a likely spot, where a stream opened into a small shallow lake, in a clearing. It was decided to set up infra-red cameras around the pond and leave a bait, like a dead goat, to attract the snake to the spot. The cameras would be triggered by significant movement in their field of view. The information sought was 1, what was the species, and size of the creature? 2, how large a prey animal would be maximum that could be devoured? 3, how long did the digestive process last, in relation to the size of prey? The weight of the bait was recorded before it was deployed.

As there was a certain amount of danger, if the snake was even nearly as big as reported, the researchers had armed themselves with tasers and aerosols with a strong chemical repellent, to be taken with them at all times that they entered the forest and never to go singly. They were lucky! They busied themselves with their basic chores, but on the third day the bait was gone. By comparing the weight of the bait with the weight of the dog that had been lost, before they came, an estimate of the rate of digestion was calculable; assuming that the snake had not eaten anything else in the meantime. As it had been about a month, that seemed unlikely. The result for the first bait was six weeks.

Another bait, heavier again, was put down six weeks after the first was taken. This went after the estimated digestion time, so the process was continued until the time set for their more mundane research ended. By that time, some ten months, in all, the snake had learnt that there would be food at the pond as soon as it started to feel hungry. The weight of the bait had reached 65 Kg and the last one still had to be put down. The period for digesting it was calculated to be four months. It was thought worthwhile, for a couple of team members to come back to the site to set the last bait and then to return, in about one month, to retrieve the cameras and their recordings and generally tidy up. It all went to plan but the camera results were disappointing. They showed an enormous snake of the Anaconda species, but it was not possible to see its full length on any of the shots. It was estimated to be at least eight metres long, with a girth of some thirty five centimetres at its greatest. They had to be content with that. Unfortunately it did not end there.

In due course the snake began to feel hunger pangs and set off for the lake. This time no food. Still human scent traces that it had also learnt to associate with the food but this time no food. It returned to its undergrowth hide and tried next morning. Still nothing. By the third morning hunger was becoming more than pangs. Still nothing at the lake, but today it felt the need to search farther a-field.

One of the young women from the village was having serious domestic trouble, in that her husband was beginning to show unpleasant traits that he had hidden before they were married, six months before. In a black mood she went for a walk to try to decide what she should do. In that state she wandered farther from the village than was considered wise, and the snake picked up her scent some 150 metres away. The food he had had for the last several months had been dead meat. Acceptable, because it saved it the effort of hunting it. But here was live prey, and that would be a pleasant change. It settled into cover and let the woman come to it. She was struck by a battering ram that bit her arm and knocked her to the ground. In seconds she was surrounded in massive coils.

She screamed out but that only emptied her lungs and before she could draw another breath the squeezing coils had closed her windpipe. She died in only a few minutes, but the squeezing did not stop. The snake increased the constriction until her collar bones, her ribs and her pelvis had been broken. It was an evolution thing. Any constrictor that failed to reduce its prey's bulk to a minimum, ran the risk of, one day, choking on a meal that was too big and became jammed in its gullet. The teeth were so positioned that regurgitation was almost impossible, with death the result. Once the crushing had been done, the snake opened its mouth to its maximum gape and proceeded to swallow the woman, head first. It took nearly an hour. Afterwards the snake went to the river and followed its course to where the jungle was almost impenetrable by land. There it settled down to digest its meal in comfort.

When the news got out, in a matter of days, it featured in all international news media. That a group of scientists had extended a wild animal's capabilities to attack and kill human beings, and then left the area, apparently doing nothing to ensure that their activities had left no lasting damage to the district, shocked the world. Hunts for this snake were organised, but despite the cooperation of several national armies, the area was too large and the jungle too impenetrable for success. The snake was nutritionally satisfied and had no need to move. That made its capture even more difficult. Like all breath taking news items, after a few days other, more pressing items occupied the front pages. The snake's slipped to the back and soon dropped out of sight all together.

One man, however, saw the events as a means of making money. His name was Bernard, and he had been a successful film maker. He had retired, at the age of fifty, a very wealthy man. He wasn't a particularly nice man. At times he was sadistic. In his mansion there were two secret rooms where he kept two women slaves, to satisfy his sexual urges, not always healthy ones. He had purchased the women, at different times, from a white slave auction house. His first one, named Laura, had been eighteen at the time; now she was twenty five. His first thought had been to buy another slave, cheap, from the auction house. He would make a film in which this slave finished up as the snake's next meal. It wouldn't be the first film that he had made in which a woman had died a slow and painful death, but the advantage with this plot was no problem in disposing of the victim's body. There was a big market for such a film and if things went well there could be a whole series to be made.

Then he thought "why go to all the trouble of buying a new slave, who might not be completely cooperative. The snake will be hungry again in about another two months, so there is not a lot of time. It's time I replaced Laura, she is completely submissive. That would be the ideal solution. And I can take my time in purchasing a younger replacement."

The details of the scientists had been in a number of newspapers. Bernard got in touch with them with a story of making a film of the events in which they were involved, giving their side of the story. They were decidedly against the idea but one of them gave Bernard the location of the lake, which is all he was really after. It took a lot of organizing and even more money, but three days before the two months were up, the pond area had been converted into a film set, although it was not obviously so. They would manage on an absolute minimum of equipment and operators. Laura was in a small dressing room and had been told that they were making a Tarzan type film, where the hero rescued the damsel in peril at the last moment.

Bernard didn't know if she believed him, but he didn't care, he knew that she would do what he told her to do, whatever the consequences to herself. Bernard explained Laura's part to her. She was walking in the jungle and it was hot and very humid. She comes across a pond fed by a stream. She feels the water and it is temptingly cool. After a battle with her feelings she undresses and gets into the water. It is waist deep. When she has cooled down she crosses to the opposite bank and sits at the water's edge with her feet in the water. Bernard had been told by the scientist that that was the side where the bait had always been put. So, it was presumed that that was the direction from whence the snake came. Other indications supported that assumption. Further useful information was that, for the last three trials, the bait had been put out about ten a.m. and it had been taken by eleven a.m. Bernard asked Laura to walk through the scene and they'd call it a day and have another rehearsal tomorrow. All the people involved were staying in a camp set up close to the village; although the villagers were far from happy, after their experience with the scientists.

During the time that the film set was being arranged in South America, pre South-American scenes were shot in Bernard's private studio, to provide a background to Laura's life and a reason for her journey. It included a sequence in which she was propositioned by a young man and spent a night of sexual delight with him. Next morning they went to the lake, where Laura walked through her part again. Bernard gave her some instructions to improve the way she would appear, and she tried again. By this time it was ten thirty. It was taking about fifteen minutes to cover the whole scene, with Laura now sitting on the far bank. Bernard was just wondering whether to go through it all again when a disturbance in the undergrowth on the far side of the clearing brought everyone to attention. The camera men swung their equipment to pick up any developments. Laura sensed the sudden rise in tension. She had become convinced that she wasn't being made into a film star for her own good, and she froze; but she had been so brainwashed, that she had to go along with whatever Bernard commanded. The head of an enormous snake appeared; about as wide as Laura's waist.

From a hundred metres away it had sensed the presence of food, as had been provided those months ago before his last meal. Like his last meal, but not the earlier ones, this one was still alive. It was all mixed with the scent of other humans, but the snake was hungry. It decided that, with adequate caution, the food could be taken. It advanced quietly on Laura's back; something else didn't add up. By now his prey should have, at least shown a sign of life, if not actually tried to run away. It moved to taste her with its tongue. Laura felt something tickling her back and instinctively put her hand back to brush it away. The only sign the snake needed. It grabbed her wrist and tried to lift her to wrap his coils round her. But her arm was wrongly positioned and it dislocated her shoulder.

Her agonised scream, so loud and shrill startled the snake into dropping her arm, but immediately it latched onto her shoulder and continued to lift her upright. She fainted from the pain, so could offer no resistance. The first coil went round her body just below her ample breasts, the second round her hips, the third round her upper thighs and then her calves. Laura regained consciousness but could hardly breath because the coil round her upper body was too tight to allow her lungs to expand. She could only whimper. The thigh bone is strong lengthwise but not so strong in bending. When the legs are together, the femurs touching at the knees, there is a big gap between them, filled only with soft tissue. The snake began constriction with that coil. Laura's femurs started to bend until one broke. She fainted again.

Constriction with the next coil ended with her pelvis breaking, one half came adrift from her coccyx and the two halves closed like covers of a book, crushing the organs between them. And so on with her ribs. She was dead before the last one broke. The snake did not stop until Laura's collar bones were broken. Her body had become significantly less bulky; her breasts had fallen into her chest cavity, her hips were narrower. The snake knew that all life was now extinct. It loosened its coils and prepared to swallow the body. With its jaws unlatched, its mouth first engulfed Laura's head and the jaws began, alternately moving, to draw her body into its maw. Each jaw movement was only a few centimetres so it was a slow process. It took almost an hour for Laura to be swallowed completely, including the distance down the creature's gullet to its stomach. Then it surprised everyone, by taking to the river. They got a good look at it. It was at least ten metres long overall. There was an enlarged central section that was poor Laura. The snake knew that the river was the best and easiest way to get into the impenetrable undergrowth, particularly with a heavy load.

Bernard had chosen his production team well. The harrowing event that they had all watched left them all unaffected. The packing up and return to Bernard's estate was treated with urgency and in less than a day no signs of their presence could be seen, without very close inspection. Even the rubbish bins, still containing the rubbish, went with them. Bernard congratulated himself on a successful result to his efforts. The reels of film were passed to his cutting room for final processing. He wondered about a repeat action, when the snake's hunger returned. He wouldn't mind loosing his other slave; but he might have to write a different plot. Then start at home again with two different slaves.

After a while Bernard decided that his other slave Helen would have to go too and that there was time to repeat the previous scenario, with the snake. Bernard told Helen that he was going to South America with a group of botanists to look for bromeliads. She would be going too, to help. He decided that he would not do another film, after Helen, but, if there was a good result, he would advise the military authority of the country how to kill the snake, thus ridding the country of a dangerous pest and perhaps being a hero into the bargain.

Much earlier in the year, Helen had featured in a film in which she was gang raped and was scripted to be killed “accidentally” by the arm of one of the rapist’s being too tight around her neck. In the event he couldn’t do it, so she lived to die another day. Now those reels could be added to the snake event to make a more saleable product. As with Laura she had to undress and wade or swim in the lake. The cameras were rolling although the shoot had not been officially started. Maybe the camera man just liked filming nude women. She felt pain in her left ankle. Her scream was cut short as she was dragged underwater.

Something had wrapped round her hips as she struggled to get her head above the surface. She managed to take a breath, but there was another wrap round her chest and she was under again. And another round her shoulders and another, smaller one round her neck. She was being squeezed, viciously squeezed. All the air was being forced out of her lungs. The pressure round her hips exceeded the strength of her pelvis and one half broke away from her coccyx and folded over to the other side. The organs contained there, bladder, vagina and uterus were crushed. The pain was so great that she fainted. Almost immediately, she died of asphyxia.

The constrictor did not stop until ribs and collar bones had been crushed, reducing her body width, to make swallowing easier. The cameras saw only much disturbed water to start with, but then the snake appeared, dragging Helen’s body onto the bank. It was no longer enmeshed with coils but trailed behind with only her lower left leg still in the snake’s mouth. The snake spent time twisting and turning and pulling and finally aligned the two bodies. It started swallowing Helen’s leg, but as she was dragged over the ground her right leg, which was loose, projected more at an angle. When its nose reached her crotch the leg was at about 45° to her body. This presented the snake with a sudden increase in size that it would have to overcome by increasing its mouth. This was a problem that it hadn’t allowed for.

However, after some time and obvious effort it was able to enclose Helen’s right thigh and proceeded with the consumption. Eventually she disappeared into its mouth, her arms, which had been forced above her head by her movement along the ground, and her hands were the last that was seen of her. After a few minutes, the snake returned to the stream and its lair. It was all caught on film: its length was confirmed as over ten metres. Bernard was satisfied. The site was cleared, and he made sure that no evidence of the presence of his crew and equipment was left behind.

A month after getting back into his normal routine, Bernard sent a letter to the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces. It gave all the details about the lake and clearing, and when the snake could be expected to return. He suggested that a female member of his armed force be stationed at the lake, at the expected time. She would need to be in a secure cage and armed with an automatic rifle. Several more soldiers with automatic weapons to be hidden close by. There should be no difficulty in killing it, thus ridding the country of a rapacious pest. He sent a copy to the national newspaper.

Of course, the C-I-C thought it was a hoax, but decided that ignoring it was probably more than his reputation was worth, if it wasn’t. In due course the snake became hungry and set off to the place where it had been fed before. At 100 metres it picked up the expected scent of food. There was the scent of other humans, but that was no different to the earlier occasions. It was halfway across the clearing when the woman in the cage saw it. She took careful aim and fired until the rifle ran out of ammunition. The other soldiers joined in. The snake died in seconds. Its body was, with difficulty taken to the University in the capital, where it was subject to intense examination. Its actual length was 10.8 metres, with a diameter of 40 cm at its widest. Nothing of its recent meals was found. Museums round the world clamoured for models. The C-I-C was hailed as a hero, Bernard was given no credit at all.

THE END.

You can also leave feedback & comments for this story on the Plaza Forum

13.06.14