The Green Hill

This is a work of fiction, no real events, people or places were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.

The Green Hill

By Plot Roach

Jim held the goldfish, in its plastic bag, a few inches from his face. He sucked his mouth inward, pursing his lips to imitate the fish and made squishing noises at it.

“Knock it off!” Henrietta said. As far as bratty little sisters went, he thought that she was the worst. She had a knack for finding out when he was doing something wrong and always reported it to his parents.

“Mind your own bees wax.” he said, flicking the bag, sending shockwaves through the water and disrupting the creature within.

“How would you like it if someone did that to you?” She said, pouting and attempting to save the fish in his grip. She missed after the first swipe and sat back in the booster seat of the car.

“It’s just going to be food anyway.” Jim bellowed. He was going to feed it to his snake, Monster. It was a ribbon snake he had received for his eleventh birthday and the only animal he had not killed within the three months that he owned it. The hamster had gotten loose and was killed by bait that his mother had set out to kill rats in their basement. The canary had escaped its cage to smack repeatedly into his bedroom window, stopping only when it had managed to snap its fragile neck. As far as Jim was concerned, snakes were much easier to take care of: they needed a heat rock and prey. And he loved watching Monster eat. First chasing the fish around its water bowl, then dazing its prey against the side of the glass aquarium to shock it into submission, and then slowly swallowing the fish alive.

He smiled at the golden fish that dashed around the plastic confines of the bag. He could hardly wait to see what Monster did with this one. Maybe I’ll name it after Mrs. Hegewalter, he thought. His smile grew even wider at the thought of his school teacher in the fish’s place: first being tortured by him, then being consumed by his pet snake. He flicked the bag again and snickered.

That was when he felt the car move. At first it was a gentle nudge. “Mommy?” Henrietta asked, turning around in her seat. She shrieked, and Jim turned in his own seat to see what had frightened her so badly. His first thought was that a big green hill was next to their car. But we’re at the grocery store, Jim thought. We’re in a parking lot, and parking lots are flat and black. Then the green hill nudged their car again. That was when he saw that the green hill was really a heap of green, scaly coils.

He dropped the plastic bag and reached out to his door, locking it and rolling up the window. It was big, whatever was bumping the car. And suddenly he understood what the fishes felt when he put them in the aquarium with Monster. Panic closed his throat, but his sister kept on screaming.

Where was his mother? She had only gone into the market for milk. She said she would be back in a minute. He kept looking from the thing at the back of the car to the front driver’s seat. His mother had left the keys in the ignition. Could he start the car and drive away from this thing? He had to try. He unbuckled himself and crawled to the front of the car. His sister kept screaming, her eyes overflowing with tears. The bag that he had dropped had broken open and the goldfish now lay on the carpet gasping for water. He pulled himself to the front driver’s seat and reached for the keys, turning them until he felt the engine roar into life.

That was when the thing behind them struck, wrapping itself around the minivan and hoisting it into the air. It shook the vehicle and Jim was thrown back and forth within the cabin of the car. On the third sway of the car in the creature’s grip, Jim was thrown hard against the driver’s side car door and it opened against his weight. He tried to scrabble across the blacktop and into the safety of the store, but he was not fast enough. The green coils dropped the car back onto the blacktop. He could still hear his sister screaming, locked safely in her booster car seat. He, however, was not so lucky.

A coil wrapped itself around his left ankle and hefted him into the air. His world turned upside down as fire burned across his side from where he had landed on the pavement. His eyes blurred from the pain, but he could just make out an oddly familiar image. His mind tried to make sense of it all as the coil hurled him back onto the pavement, stunning him into submission before he was swallowed whole.