One Door From Heaven

is "not quite right," as Burt Hooper put it, and Old Yeller is neither yellow nor male, nor particularly old, but they are going to be a great team.
        After refilling the shoe, he puts down the juice container and sits on the edge of the bed to watch the dog drink.
        I’ll take good care of you, he promises.
        He is pleased by his ability to function in spite of his fear. He's also pleased by his resourcefulness.
        Although they're riding the Hannibal Lecter band bus and running from a pack of terminators who have more attitude than Schwarzenegger with a bee up his ass, although they're wanted by the FBI and surely by other government agencies that have more-ominous initials and less-honorable intentions, Curtis remains optimistic about his chances of escape. The sight of his canine companion, happily drinking, draws a smile from him. He takes a moment to thank God for keeping him alive, and he thanks his mother for the survival training that so far has been an invaluable assist to God in this matter.
        A siren arises in the distance. This could be a fire truck, an ambulance, a police vehicle, or a clown car. Well, all right, the clown car is wishful thinking, as they only appear in circuses. In fact, it's certain to be the police.
        Old Yeller looks up from the shoe, juice dripping off her chin.
        The siren quickly grows louder until it's close behind the motor home.

Chapter 21
        
        JAWS CRACKED WIDE as if unhinged, backward-hooked fangs exposed to their full wicked arc, split tongue fluttering, the serpent swam through the air with the wriggle of an eel through water, but faster than any eel, as bottle-rocket fast as a fireworks snake, launched straight at Leilani's face.
        Although she juked, the viper must also have misaimed, because her reaction alone wouldn't have been quick enough to spare her from a bite. She might have imagined the thin hiss as the thwarted snake sailed past her left ear, but the lash of smooth dry scales across her cheek was real. This caressing flick, cold or not, sent chills chasing chills along her spine, with such palpable shivers that she could almost believe the hateful serpent had slipped under the collar of her T-shirt and along the small of her back.
        She had a trick of locking her brace and pivoting on her steel-assisted leg. Even as she heard the hiss or dreamed it, she twisted around in time to see the "treasure out of Eden" as it raveled in a long arc to the floor, the brighter fraction of its scales glinting like sequins in the red light.
        The snake wasn't huge, between two and three feet long, about as thick as a man's index finger, but when it struck the floor and tumbled, lashing angrily, as though mistaking its own whipping coils for those of a predator, it couldn't have been scarier if it had been a massive python or a full-grown rattlesnake. After that brief moment of frenzy, the viper slithered loose of its own tangles and flowed swiftly across the squashed-shag carpet, as if it were a quickness of water following the course of a rillet. Encountering the baseboard under the window, it reeled itself into a coiled pile once more and raised its head to assess the situation, ready to strike again.
        Leading with her good leg, dragging her left, long-practiced grace abandoned, hard-won dignity lost, Leilani clumped in a panicked stagger toward the hallway. Though off-balance with every step, she managed to remain upright, lurching all the way to the door, where she clutched at the knob for support.
        She had to escape from the snake. Get to her bedroom. Try to barricade that door against her mother's intrusion.
        Sinsemilla was highly amused. Words whooped from her on peals of laughter. "It's not poisonous, you ninny! It's a pet-shop snake. You should've seen the look on your face!"
        Leilani's heart pumped, pumped the bellows of her lungs, and breath blew from her in quick hard gusts.
        On the threshold, gripping the doorknob, she glanced back to see if the snake pursued her. It remained coiled under the window.
        Kneeling on the mattress, her mother bounced like a schoolgirl, making the springs sing and the bedrails rattle, laughing, shiny-eyed with delight over a prank well played. "Don't be such a goof! It's just a little slippery thingy, not a monster!"
        Here's the deal: If she fled to her room and barricaded the door, she still