The electric worker let us use his bathroom to wash ourselves. As the warm water trickled down my matted hair, I let out a sigh of relief. The steam rose slowly as my messy thoughts crystallized into clear ideas.
Mr. McBell had something to tell us, but he refused to say anything until we were all washed. As the thought flowed through my mind, my hands squeezed my wet hair, letting out a thin stream of water. I couldn’t bear waiting to scrub myself clean. I wiped myself dry and got dressed. Chloe had a few outfits she took from her house when she fled, so she left with one of those: a plain brown polo shirt with a cap on it, a pair of creamy trousers, and a pair of sturdy black sports shoes.
I made my way to the living room, where the others were already waiting. Chloe sat on the carpet, Zach was grinning at the sight of me, and Mr. McBell sat formally on the sofa, his brown eyes fixed on me. I settled down on the comfy couch, eagerly waiting for the announcement.
Finally, McBell sighed.
“I’ve got something very important to say,” he started. “It’s about your mother. Or should I say, mothers?”
I exchanged a quick look with Zach. Zach’s face was filled with confusion and excitement; I bet I looked totally the same.
“You probably don’t know. I used to work at a science lab, researching the link between animals and the weather.” (We all gasped.) “But one day, my director came up with a crazy idea. She thought of using weather to create living things.”
“I thought our science teacher was the most random dude in the world, but your director is a whole new level of randomness,” Zach interrupted.
We (excluding Chloe, who just looked unimpressed, causing Zach to drop his playful gaze) all rolled our eyes.
“So we worked on this project,” Mr. McBell continued as if Zach had never interrupted. “It took us a lot of time, but we made it at last. Rain Ravens, Fog Frogs, you name it. And one of our best products was Storm Snakes. This was supposed to be a private project, but for some reason, the news leaked out, and, yeah.” He closed his eyes. We three looked at him with sympathy.
“Shaun got into a car accident because of the traffic, or I should say, press traffic… Anyway, he did not survive. The director… she got so depressed that she just… disappeared from the world.” The final line was barely audible.
I found myself trying to find words, but I was too stunned to even speak. I had no idea McBell had such a twisting and complicated past. All I knew was that he was just a nerdy man who was a whiz at electrics.
Mr. McBell sighed and pinched his rough hands, but he continued. “Our laboratory shattered into fragments. Members all either joined other biology companies or changed to other jobs… like me. But you may want to know why the director was so depressed—she was Shaun’s wife.”
The man huffed. “Something else… Let’s talk about something else… So the lab is now reworking for some reason. Someone must’ve opened it for reasons… not good reasons… the lab’s in the city.”
“But then no one can reach out to the lab and stop it,” I said.
“Yes, Katina. No, not a single person except us knows that the whole Storm Snake—or I should say, Blacking—thing is caused by the laboratory,” he said.
“Can we break in? My mama showed that it’s possible to climb over the stuff, though her body was crawling with venom then. Do you think that’s relevant?” Chloe asked hopefully, fidgeting and leaning her shoulders forward. How eager she was.
“N-O-no! Are you listening, Co? She was boosted by the poison. We can’t get past the pile of mud unless we’ve been bitten, or we have to be pro athletes,” I snapped.
“Katina is right. We cannot get out of Leafbrook until the landslide has been removed. So the only way to stop everyone from getting bitten is to somehow stop the Storm—I mean, Blackings—from biting people,” McBell put his glasses aside onto the tea table.
“We do have a protective cure under our belt,” said Zach. “I returned to normal after eating holy basil.”
Mr. McBell looked slightly surprised. “Did you?” he asked curiously.
“‘Course. Zach ate some Thai food and turned. I swear,” Chloe answered proudly, as if she just got full marks on a math test. She looked at Zach in a very cute way, who once again blushed beet red. I rolled my eyes.
“Also, when I was on the way to Zoe’s house a few days ago, I got attacked by a nest of them. But they backed off when I reached the treehouse. Do you think that matters, Mr. McBell?” I ignored the happy pair beside me. It wasn’t the time for “BFFs” with Blackings lurking around in the forest.
“Maybe…” McBell replied thoughtfully. “I’m afraid that we need to do some experiments.”
Zach spluttered out a mouthful of lemonade. “Wait, so we are experimenting with these—” he held out his palm, where I could see two ominous black spots peeping through the sun-dyed brown skin. “I don’t want to get bitten again, honestly. It bit through my hand.”
“It will be perfectly safe. I’ll lend you some thick gloves. Also, I did some experiments already, so I have three of them in my storage, so no need to catch a new one,” McBell smiled for the first time ever.
We all made a “phew” face. Who would want to go into the woods and catch one of the snakes that might give you a torturous ending? I wouldn’t wish that on even my worst enemy.
He led us into a small room with three separate glass cages, each holding a viper. For the very first time, I got a close-up look at them.
Their scales were not jet black as I thought they would be; instead, they were a funny color that I couldn’t describe well enough: some kind of deep grey with faint bubblegum pink, tiny bits of neon yellow, and—I don’t know how I found this color—swirls of ocean blue? I couldn’t be sure. All the colors seemed to be constantly changing as though they’d been dripped into a cup of inky water, diffusing silently. But their eyes—a piercing yellow—stared at me innocently. For some funny reason, I felt guilty for experimenting on them. But they deserved it—they’d taken so many lives, turned Zoe and Zach into weaklings, and almost killed me on the way to my treehouse.
McBell made us wear thick gloves, lab coats, and goggles. He dug up a bunch of stuff from his dusty storage room-slash-garage, which smelled like mold and old things. The garage was very old; already, ivies started to creep up onto its walls. McBell laid out two glass tanks, filling one with damp sand and the other with dry sand. He shooed us back a bit and scooped up an Inky (I felt Inky suited them better).
Chloe gasped, and Zach extended his arm in front of Chloe. But his face was lit by recognition and fear. His green eyes flashed a glint of yellow light as the snake stared back at him. I took one step back, nearly crashing into the table behind me. I hit it with a sharp, painful thud. Oof.
McBell locked his gloved hand onto the slimy, slippery scales. He slid the creature into the dry tank. We all watched in horror and curiosity. It twitched a bit, black liquid oozing slowly, mixing with the sand and forming charcoal little lumps. But a few moments later, it stopped completely. Its lifeless body lay limp on the messy sand, its empty yellow eyes staring at us with swears of hatred and vengeance—even in death.
The scientist carefully lifted the Inky out of the tank and said, “It’s dead. You can touch it now.”
“No.”
We said together in unison, as if we had been practicing saying it for all our lives.
“Oh well,” he replied, as if he already knew.
He scooped up the other snake and gently dumped it in the other tank. It slid in fluidly. The Inky was more active this time, moving in circles and thumping against the glass tank. Trying to find an escape route, the Inky thrashed violently against the sides of the glass, smearing it with dark slime. Disgusting.
Zach watched McBell slide the snake back into the tank. “So I guess that Blackings need water in order to move around and survive. They are like an archetype we’ve learned about in class. A fatal flaw.”
