Read Online Lightning People by Christopher Bollen - Free Book Online

guinea pigs.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” she’d respond, snapping her notebook shut.
    â€œWe’re a team in this department,” he’d lecture, grabbing his raincoat from the communal rack. “It doesn’t matter what college
you went to. We all abide by the same rules. They’re maintained for the safety of the collection.”
    In her years at the zoo, Del had perfected the fine art of the sarcastic smile, which, if executed properly, punctuated every sentence with “asshole” just before the period. “Have a wonderful evening,” she said, smiling.
    In the late afternoon, Del returned from fake Antarctica, pressing send on a text message to Madi: “I need the number of that green card specialist ASAP. Losing my mind.” Madi swore she had the contact for the best immigration lawyer in town. As Del barreled through the darkened rooms of the reptile hall, she felt the vibration of a reply: “Sending now,” Madi wrote. “Want me to phone in a bomb threat?”
    Del hurried toward the staff door marked DANGER LIVE LAB in the carpeted black shadows of the exhibition hall. She avoided eye contact from visitors who often stopped anyone wearing a canvas jumpsuit to lodge a complaint about stroller accessibility or to demand detailed explanations on the feeding procedure of carnivores. Del used her hip to open the heavy metal door, and the bright fluorescent lights of the lab scrambled her vision. She pinched her eyes, and that was when she heard a scream rising from the inner offices.
    Not a soft scream, not a token gesture. A scream that meant what it sounded like.
    Del rushed down the hallway, broke through the lab’s set of swinging doors, and saw five of her coworkers slowly backing away from something on the other side of the center island. Her eyes then passed to Francine Choi, standing glued to the far wall with her left leg raised almost to her stomach. The scream came from Francine, and her mouth had kept the shape of that cry, with eyes open so wide her black irises were marooned in lakes of white. Something was keeping her frozen there. Del whistled at Kip, the playboy of the junior staff with his vertiginously stiff red pompadour. He turned his head and mouthed, “Get the shovel.”
    Del lifted the heavy, steel shovel from its wall hook and held it upright, gripping the handle, as she darted around the island. There Del saw what everyone was staring at, the beautiful four-year-old
western diamondback, curled in a writhing figure eight on the linoleum floor, her head coiled back in the pre-striking rhythm less than a foot from Francine’s ankle.
    â€œI can get her with the hook,” Del said, about to drop the shovel, but Francine screamed again—almost angrily now, because she must have guessed that Del would rather save this animal, this particular specimen of any other in the entire collection, than lose her if there was any chance of recovery. The diamondback’s neck jutted backwards. That move was unmistakable. It’s the backfire just before the bullet leaves the barrel. Del could feel her own heart rip inside of her— fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, no, no, no —as the snake’s fangs arched out from the lower jaw, and the neck hurtled forward. Del swung, crashing the shovel’s weight down on the diamondback’s head. She had no choice.
    The blow shattered the skull, her mouth oozing puss and broken teeth across the linoleum. The shovel fell away from Del’s hands. Francine’s left sneaker returned to meet her right one on the floor.
    â€œOh my god, Del. I’m so sorry ,” Francine wailed as she tiptoed around the dead snake and fell against the chest of one of the older keepers. “I was just holding her. I wanted to feel the babies in the stomach, and she dropped.”
    The fact of the babies came to Del in a flash. Leto was seven months pregnant, not the prize of the department,