“Holy . . .” breathed Shelby. I glanced to the side. She had her hands pressed flat against the passenger side window, and was close to doing the same thing with her nose. I craned my neck, trying to get an idea of what she was looking at.
The road followed a natural curve in the landscape, winding down into a bowl valley of the type that are common in some forested areas. The trees had been cleared within the valley itself, opening up a wide swath of farmable land. In the middle of the bowl was what looked like a small mobile home park. The individual homes were arranged in a circle that mimicked the bowl itself, and would be a great mechanism for reducing traffic jams if they ever needed to drive out of here. They could start up the lead mobile home and unwind the whole community like a vehicular snake, slithering its way up the road and on to some new safe haven.
I chuckled. Shelby turned away from the window, raising her eyebrows.
“Something funny?” she asked.
“Just that I’m already starting to think in really tortured reptile metaphors,” I said. “Don’t let me try to talk dirty until we’ve been away from here for a few hours.”
“Don’t be silly, Alex. I never let you talk dirty to me if I can help it. You’re a great kisser, and you’re better in bed, but your idea of romance has always been way too centered around reptiles.” She pressed her nose back against the window. “I see corn, tomato plants, there’s even a small apple orchard. These people must have been living here for years.”
“At least twenty, I’d say.” The road was well-maintained, but it must have been put in before wide Internet surveillance was possible. If it were more recent, people would have noticed the construction, illusions over the entrance or no. “I wonder if this place appears on Google Earth . . .” I made a mental note to check when I got home.
“I’ve got cell service in here, if that makes a difference.”
“That makes sense, actually. A lot of Pliny’s gorgons go into day trading or technical writing or other professions that don’t necessarily bring them into contact with people on a regular basis.” I smiled a little. “There’s at least one romance writer who never goes to conventions, because she’s actually an eight-foot-tall grandfather.”
“Why do they do that? Dee does fine with humans. I’d never have guessed.” Shelby grimaced. “Although to be fair, I wasn’t looking. I should probably have suspected something.”
“Dee’s very good at fitting in. And as for why Pliny’s gorgons arrange their lives that way, well, it helps them hide the fact that they—the males at least—are a lot taller than humans. Females top out between five and seven feet, but males can be up to nine feet tall. Not so useful if you want to pass for human, so they get jobs that don’t require them to try.”
“So what, they’ve got their own cell tower?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. They probably had DSL before most of the rest of the state.” A surprising number of telephone company technicians are cryptids, or know cryptids exist and have simply chosen not to care. Once you’ve determined that the giant ball of fangs and tentacles isn’t going to eat you, there’s no good reason not to fix its phone service.
“Huh.”
“Pretty much.” We had reached the bottom of the hill. The road continued around the base of the bowl, avoiding the farmed areas, to wind its way into the mobile homes. I kept following Dee. It seemed like the only safe thing to do.
People were starting to emerge from the trailers to either side, looking curiously toward my car. A few of them were wearing baseball caps, and most of them were bareheaded. Why shouldn’t they be? This was their home, and Shelby and I were the invasive species. One little girl had red bows tied around the necks of her snakes. Their scales were so pale that they looked almost white. I wondered whether they would darken as she aged. Immediately after, I wondered how rude of me it would be to ask.
Dee parked in front of a trailer. There was another space next to her, and so I slid into it, killing the engine. Shelby reached for her door. I put a hand on her arm, stopping her.
“Hang on,” I said, and produced a pair of polarized goggles from my pocket. She looked at me quizzically. “The gaze of a Pliny’s gorgon can stun if they’re not wearing specially tinted glasses. These will keep you from getting hurt.”
“And you think you weren’t planning to get me involved in all this,” she said, taking the goggles and sliding them on. “What about you?”
I tapped the arm of my glasses. “I’m already set. These are specially polarized. So is the reflective coating on my car windows. I plan ahead.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
“I try,” I said, reaching for the door. “Come on. Let’s go see how much trouble we’re in.”
The gorgons had started to move as soon as we stopped. By the time Shelby and I were out of the car, we were surrounded. Size didn’t seem to be a factor: even the little girl with beribboned snakes was standing there, clearly confident that she could take us if she had to. Given her natural advantages, she probably could.
“They’re with me,” Dee announced, stepping between me and the rest of the gorgons. That left Shelby alone between the two cars. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with that. We should probably have planned this better.
A thin man with bronze skin and black-scaled snakes pushed his way through the crowd. He was wearing blue hospital scrubs that left the bottom foot or so of his legs exposed. He must have been seven feet tall. My animal hindbrain began a vigorous argument with the rest of my mind over the virtues of running vs. asking if I could perform a physical examination.
“And who, exactly, are ‘they,’ Deanna?” he demanded.
“They’re my guests, Frank,” said Dee, sounding unruffled. She reached up and removed her wig, causing her own brown-and-red snakes to uncoil and stretch to their full length. Several of Frank’s snakes stopped writhing in order to watch hers intently. “If that’s not enough for you—”
“It’s not,” said Frank dangerously.
“—allow me to present Alexander Price, and Shelby Tanner. Shelby belongs to the Thirty-Six Society.”
“Cheers,” said Shelby, solving the “separated from the group” issue by sliding across the hood of my car and landing on her feet beside me. “Nice . . . village? Village works as well as anything, I suppose. Nice village you’ve got here. How often are you doing crop rotation?”
“Every season,” said Frank automatically. Then he scowled. “Hang on. I’m not going to answer any questions about how we’re living. You’re the ones who should be answering questions.”
“Frank.” I could practically hear Dee roll her eyes. “They’re my guests. Behave.”
“They’re humans,” said one of the children—a little boy in a Pokémon T-shirt. Some things are apparently universal. He looked curious. The reason was revealed as he continued, “I’ve never seen humans before. Can we keep them?”
“No,” said Frank. “They won’t be staying. Or at least, they won’t be staying alive.”
“Do you lot always threaten company?” asked Shelby. “Like, is this a normal social thing, and I should start threatening you back if I want to be civil?”
“Please don’t,” said Dee.
“Go right ahead,” said Frank.
“When in doubt, we uninvited humans like to listen to the people who have a known track record of not trying to kill us,” I said hastily, before things could get any worse. “Look: we’re here because I asked Dee to bring us. She’s been a good friend, and I’m really glad to have been able to assist your community by supplying antivenin and other needed medical supplies. I take it you’re the community doctor, Mr. . . . ?”