Taipan

“Oh no.” 

Sun-baked tarmac stretched for miles in either direction. Ahead, raptors hung suspended between the crystal sky and the crimson earth. Their eyes were fastened to a shape writhing below, though Sahara struggled to make it out. It was as if the air itself was fabric, and the heat made it visible as it fluttered.

Sahara eased on the brakes. The Jeep rattled to a stop. You’d never guess it was silver beneath all the grit. The door latch clicked and her boots hit the tar. Immediately, the heat closed around like a coffin, clawing the moisture from her mouth and itching at her eyes, already sunken and rimmed by purple circles from the long drive. The faulty aircon hadn’t seemed like much in the car, but it was arctic compared to this. 

She shuffled toward the creature below the waiting hawks. Tire tracks indented its scales where its neck had been near-flattened. Blood trickled from its wounds and evaporated soon after. Its slender, beige body lashed uncontrollably. From the yellow underbelly and the darker head, she could tell that it was an Inland Taipan—the world’s most venomous snake.

Naturally, it had to be Sahara who found it—a snake rescuer. Her sage eyes gazed into the distance, pleading for someone else to take the reins. But there was no one. Nothing but the hawks. Hungry. Waiting.

The snake was gasping for breath through its crushed windpipe. A forked tongue lolled out between two small fangs. It was too far gone to save, but that didn’t stop the hot tears from welling. Its tail was warm between her fingers as she dragged it into the shade of one of the many magnetic termite mounds, named so because their thin edges always faced north-south and their broad backs east-west. Considering the circumstances, they seemed more like rows upon rows of gravestones.

Ants swarmed the taipan’s weakening body. They marched back to their nests, chunks of flesh held proudly aloft. 

She would have to end this quickly. Decapitation wouldn’t work—snakes could stay alive long after. Blunt-force trauma to the brain was the only way to do it. A palm-sized rock lay waiting. Whichever god had placed it there was either cruel or kind. She couldn’t decide which. Her fingers curled around it. 

No matter what she chose, she would walk away guilty. 

The snake’s eyes fixed on hers. There was no fear in its stare, only pain. Sahara held her breath, raised the stone above her head and—

Thud. 

The sound was not her own, but the slam of a car door. Sahara’s hands were frozen mid-air, inches from the taipan’s head. 

“You alright there, darling?” a man called as he staggered out of his dented ute. He was no Hugh Jackman, that was for sure. Precious few hairs clung to his balding scalp and beer stained his already sweat-soaked singlet.

Sahara wiped away her tears and let him see the wounded snake. 

His bloodshot eyes widened. “Bloody hell! That’s the same blinkin’ brown snake I ran over this morning!” 

Sahara ignored his misidentification. What she couldn’t ignore was the roaring in her ears. 

Her voice came out choked through clenched teeth, “You ran over this taipan… on purpose?”

He finally picked up on her aggressive tone, starting. “Yeah, it’s a f*cken snake, what of it? Mental that it’s still alive, the b*stard. Must’ve been three hours ago I swerved over its head.” 

Incorrect. He’d gotten its neck, leaving it alive and in torment for those three hours. By some miracle, Sahara remained calm. With a deep breath in, she plastered on a patient half-smile-half-grimace and explained that killing native animals was illegal, and that what he had done had caused the innocent taipan hours of suffering.

The man scoffed, cutting her off. “Oh for god’s sake, you’re a bloody greenie aren’t you?” He rolled his eyes, turning away.

Sadly, that was when Sahara’s temper got the better of her.

“Hey!” she shouted, a thing she’d never before done at a stranger. Something about the searing sun spurred her on, made it feel unreal. “You have no idea—" 

Her nose chose that moment to become so irritated by the ever-present dust that a capillary burst. With blood dripping from her nostrils to her teeth, her hair a frizzy mess and her skin caked with grime, she must have looked downright satanic. The man backed onto the road as she advanced. With each word, his lips only pulled back further from his xanthous teeth in revulsion. 

“—what it’s like to be a wildlife carer. If you saw half the things those animals go through, it would knock you off your feet—”

The timing was perfect, really. They were so engrossed that neither of them noticed the truck, and they stepped out so quickly, the driver didn’t spot them either. 

One minute, Sahara was screaming into the man’s face, and the next, he was flying.

The eighteen-wheeler screeched on brakes, but it was far too late. He flipped once, twice, and landed smack on top of the taipan. The poor creature was finally put out of its misery. 

The truck driver took one look at his victim groaning in pain, went white as bleach and floored the accelerator. 

Alone, Sahara dragged the man into the shade, fished the phone out of his pocket and punched in triple zero. Unlike the taipan, he would survive. If he could gasp out his location, the ambulance would arrive in… three hours. 

It sounded like plenty of time to think about what he’d done.

So, she left him to his thoughts and drove away—slowly enough that she wouldn’t hit the wildlife, of course.

by Kayleigh Greig