Free Horror Show by Greg Kihn Page A

It was a grotesque melding of the two entities that Albert now beheld, half—snake demon, half-man. The body of a human, the head of a snake. It twisted and pivoted on its slender neck, watching the people and the fire.
    A forked tongue flickered the air around it; the lidless eyes seemed to rotate as it studied the scene.
    What Albert watched was impossible.
    The snake head looked at Albert. Its whiplike tongue danced in his direction. Albert stood transfixed as, one by one, the ropes snapped and the changeling stepped away from the tree.
    The priest remained rooted to the ground, but the others present, including Albert and the translator, faded back, away from the center and closer to the wall of fire. The flame barrier held them, just as the coils of the serpent had held the sacrifice. They were trapped. The snake creature stepped nearer, its tongue darting in and out, and Albert could smell a fetid, unpleasant odor coming from it.
    The priest cried out something, and the translator, shocked from his terror by the urgency in the priest’s voice, interpreted and shouted at Albert.
    â€œStay within the circle of flames!”
    Albert’s back was now hot, the hair on the back of his head began to singe as he pressed closer to the fire. He wanted to run, to jump through the wall of flame and take his chances, but he did not.
    He realized the terrible beauty of what he saw, the heart-stopping monstrosity of it. Without a doubt, without an ounce of uncertainty, he knew he was looking at the face of Satan.
    When, after almost an hour, the serpent dematerialized and the fires burned down, the tribesmen lowered the dazed victim from the stake. He began to weep, and after a short time became hysterical. They dragged him before the priest, who at first comforted the man, then unceremoniously put him to death. “To prevent the demon’s return into the same body,” he explained to Albert through the interpreter.
    â€œDoes the host body have to be human?” Albert asked, concerned for the victims. “Could it be an animal?”
    The priest nodded as the question was translated. “Yes, it can be any living thing, but only man can bring the full power of the demon.”
    That night, as Albert lay in his sleeping bag, his mind raced. The incredible event he’d witnessed had left him shaken but also exhilarated.
    He schemed to get his hands on the tuning forks. He thought about offering to buy them, but quickly rejected the idea. The concept of money meant nothing to these people. He considered various scenarios to trick the priest and the villagers, but dismissed each one.
    All the while the tuning forks tempted him, unguarded in the center of the village.
    He came to the conclusion that he would have to steal them.
    Albert abhorred violence, and he rejected any thought of using force to take them. He had a rifle, but that would not be effective against the entire village if they turned on him.
    He decided that the best approach would be to purloin the tuning forks under cover of night and make his escape. The only problem was the natives, who, better suited to the jungle than he, would quickly overtake him in a chase.
    So Albert devised a plan.
    He noticed that the villagers all drew their water from a single well.
    Albert prepared a narcotic extract of Papaver somniferum gigantus Beaumond and surreptitiously poisoned the well.
    Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, he successfully drugged the entire village. When the natives were all asleep, he put the tuning forks in his pack and left the plateau.
    Knowing that the villagers would sleep for days, he nevertheless hastened his retreat through the jungle.
    Albert opened his eyes as the blaring of an automobile horn awakened him from his daytime nightmare.
    He looked up to see an attractive teenage girl driving a green-and-white Pontiac Star Chief convertible. She had the top down, and her blond ponytail bobbed in the breeze.
    His