A snake person. A snake woman if the oversized breasts beneath her thick sweatshirt were any indication. She looked female. Pretty, even. The inside of the hood around her head was covered in golden yellow scales and nearly presented the appearance of shimmering hair. Lithely muscled arms reached back in the vehicle as she ducked, still staring at me. She reached over the back seat and grabbed a sleeved robe, and then pulled it on as she glared at me.

Her eyes were wild, jet-black slit pupils surrounded by the most vibrant forest green I had ever seen. Pearlescent white scales covered her entire body, and traces of light pink ran throughout in small patterns. Her lower portion coiled beneath her, but her torso and arms appeared to be the only portion of her that was covered.

She wrapped the robe around her body and tied it tight with a thin rope belt. I could see an oversized hood at the back of the garment.

Then she spoke. “Get enough of a look? I’m tempted to start charging.” I stared at her with bulging eyes. There was no hiss in her voice, I was stunned. If anything, she sounded like an old time debutant, dragging out the end of her sentences. Her scales flushed with color, first pink that gradually grew into solid red.

BuyMort ads popped up, filled with steamy XXX videos and magazines. I quickly closed them. The thought of sex re-entering my life after such a long hiatus did nothing but emotionally paralyze me. It’d been a while.

“I am sorry, ma’am, I uh . . . I’ve never seen someone like you before is all. Are you a snake?”

“I am a priest! A harbinger of BuyMort, come to spread the valued word.” She raised a hand in defiance, clutching at her chest. It brought my vision back to her breasts, which was a bad move. “Seriously, it’s a lot of morties for a peep show, pervert.” Her arms crossed and her tail began to rattle softly.

I stepped back and raised my hands. “I am so sorry. It’s been a weird day and I have kind of a lot of drugs in me right now. I do not mean to stare.”

She scowled in confusion, and the color in her scales dropped back to pink. “I just . . . I didn’t know snakes could have breasts.”

It was at that unfortunate moment I noticed her stance was jutting out what appeared to be a bulging rear end. She wore a sort of skirt around it, with warm furs under thick gray cloth making up the material of the garment. It wasn’t her snakelike body coiling in strange ways either, I stared long enough to verify that and get in more trouble.

Her hand shot forward and struck my cheek, hard. “Pervert!”

“Only on accident, I am sorry! This is all very new to me, and I am easily confused.” I made an effort to meet her eyes only. It was hard, cause she was tall, and her snitties were basically face level. But with some effort and a forced smile, I stared into the snake priest’s face and grimaced. “I do not understand your body, and I am not trying to perv on you.”

She scowled again. Her pearlescent pink scales shifted in color and became a darker hue of red “Now you insult me. Ruffian.”

My eyes went wide. “No! Not my intent. Shit.”

“I am not excrement of any sort!” she shrieked.

I ran a hand over my face and felt the metal plate. “Can we maybe start again? I will try not to stare at your body.”

She glared and then nodded. Her tongue flickered out and back quickly, and she curled her lips at the corner. “You may call me Molls. It is highly unfortunate to meet you.”

“Understandable response. One I’m quite used to. Hello Molls, I am Tyson. This is my car.” I said, making sure to keep eye contact as I gestured to the Lincoln.

“You are Mr. Sada?” Molls raised a scaled eyebrow and turned her head to the side.

“Oh, uh . . . no. You knew this was owned?” I squinted and tried very hard not to look at eye level as she swept back toward the vehicle.

Molls ran an arm along the metal and smiled softly. She seemed to relax, and her coils loosened. “I like this domicile. It was my desire to enter into a pact with the owner, to use it as shelter. I have inordinate value to offer in exchange, as a journeyman priest of BuyMort.”

“Oh. Okay. Umm, I kind of need that car to sleep in right now.” I cocked my head to the side and stared at the car.

She hissed softly and shook her head. Yeah, that made sense. I imagined crashing on the front seat with her strangely voluptuous serpentine body coiled and looped all over the backseat and shook my head to clear it.

“Yeah, that makes sense. You . . . uh, go ahead. I’ll figure out something else and talk to Mr. Sada about you being a tenant.”

I added it to my to do list and started walking away quickly. I needed to get away from this snake priest and her breasts. It was making me crazy. I was not comfortable with the feelings of confused lust that raced through me. I stopped as I realized Mr. Sada would ask how she could pay.

She was bent over fully as I turned back, arranging something inside the Lincoln. Snake booty jutting out of the open door.

Snooty.

I involuntarily snickered at the thought, to my immediate doom. Her face rose in the back window and her eyes instantly narrowed. She exited the vehicle in a rush and crossed her arms at me again. “Sorry! Sorry, I just needed to ask what you would pay in rent. I wasn’t staring!”

Her tongue flickered out again and her tail rattled. “I am a priest, representing The Church of Buymort. Do you not know what that means?”

Molls lifted the oversized hood and draped it around her head. Something lit up from near her chest and spread through the rest of the hood with a soft light. Steam began to rise, in spite of the afternoon heat.

“BuyMort priests travel the stars with our god, to bring the values of BuyMort to new worlds.”

I nodded as she spoke, then narrowed my eyes. My mouth hung open slightly as I stared at her face and slowly shook my head. She narrowed her eyes and heaved a sigh. I saw them move in my peripheral vision and grit my teeth. My eyes remained glued to her face.

“Buffoon as well, of course. BuyMort priests are welcomed and showered with gifts by smart new shoppers. We bring information in exchange.”

Her eyes narrowed even further, and the flesh around her neck and face stretched out again.

“You, I think I will simply watch suffer and die. Tell Mr. Sada I will not speak with you again.” She raised an arm and flicked it at me. “And go away, pervert. I do not wish you to stare at me any longer.”

I went away, my cheeks burning red. Before I could face Phyllis and explain that a buxom snake priest had evicted me, I had to call Mr. Sada.

I pulled up my phone and pressed the button to turn it on. Gray fog flooded the edges, and the strange hidden face appeared behind it again. I thought about my dickhead boss and spoke his name, and the face turned. It stretched down a tunnel of fog and vanished, quickly replaced by Mr. Sada.

He was in town, in his Tesla. His forehead was bleeding, and there was something tall and gray in the backseat with him, holding what looked like a rusted Colt 1911. It turned to face the camera for a second and a wide gray face with thick black stubble glared at me. Then Mr. Sada turned his phone to focus on himself.

“How’s the campground, son?” He wiped at his forehead with a hand, and I noticed he also had a weapon. “It’s fuckin’ nuts in town.” I heard gunfire and other, stranger, more violent sounds in the background. Crunching of blacktop, tearing of metal.

“Stop calling me son. You’re seven years older than me, it’s weird.” I sighed and wiped my hand over my face. “We have a snake priest here, offering to give us valuable information about BuyMort if we let her sleep in my Lincoln. She hates me now, cause . . . it’s a weird situation, what do you want me to do?”

He stopped wiping at his forehead and glared at me. “Snake priest?”

“Yeah. It’s a giant snake-chick, and she’s a priest of BuyMort who is here to offer us help if we let her stay here and probably feed her and shit.” I rapid-fired off the explanation and raised my eyebrows as I sighed. “I dunno what the hell is going on Mr. Sada. She told me, very forcefully, to tell you about her offer.”

Something crunched in the Joshua trees to my side, and I turned to see a mound of slime, peering out at me. “Oh shit, one of those slimes is here!”

He waved a hand. “No! Tyson, calm down. I think the slimes are going to leave us alone from now on. Just don’t antagonize it.”

“Antagonize it? The last one tried to kill me and sold my trailer!” I was moving now, getting further from the slime as I moved toward Phyllis’ site.

“Just . . . Tyson, the slimes are guests. I rented them a part of the campground nobody needs or uses or knows about, it’s fine. Just leave it alone, it’ll go away.”

He scowled.

“Treat it like a guest, Tyson, I mean it.” Then he looked up and blared on the horn. “I dunno about the snake chick, whatever. Sure, she can stay in your car. You can crash in the office for now. I gotta get to my shop. Salvage something. I gotta go. Man up and do your job Tyson.”

He hung up on me and the face in the fog returned. It adopted a shocked and amused expression as it swirled by my screen, then the phone went black.

“Phyllis!” I shouted. “We have a guest to take care of!”

She roused almost at once, her mech coming upright on the deck. It appeared she was right where I had left her, contentedly watching TV in her helmet, and opening it for the occasional sip of laced tea. As she rose, I saw her smiling from within, blinking blearily in the sunlight. She held up a huge metal hand to block out the sun and smiled wider when she saw me coming toward her.

“Oh hello Tyson, dear. There’s a lovely new tenant, you’ll adore her. She stopped by to ask about taking a nap in the old Lincoln, and I knew you wouldn’t mind. Snake-woman, I think. Very pretty.”

“Ahh. Yeah, we met. Hey, Phil. Check out that Joshua tree ridge over there. Need you to smoke another slime.” I pointed behind myself and turned, but the slime was gone. That was disconcerting.

She pumped her arm and the hand spun into her fusion cannon. Waves of heat roiled from the barrel. “Where is the fucker, I’ll nail him good.” She had her tongue stuck out slightly and was grinning like a maniac.

“Phyllis, are you okay?” I stopped and looked at her. Her eyes rolled at me and she huffed.

“I am high. High as a fucking kite, Tyson. It’s what I like to do, get unbelievably high and watch television. You came asking for help, so where is the little fucker?” She aimed the cannon on her arm and fired it at the Joshua tree I had indicated. It erupted in a fireball, chunks of tree and gravel landscaping flying into the air.

“Woah, Phil. You got em, thanks a bunch.” I shook my head and stared at the burning remnants of the Joshua tree. Mr. Sada would probably make me plant a new one for absolutely no reason. And then rent the office to spider people or something.

As I stared, Molls appeared on the ridge in the distance. She had her hood up and arms crossed again and hissed in displeasure when she saw me. The snake priest glared for a long moment, and then snapped her head around and headed back to the Lincoln. I waved, pathetically, too late.

When I turned back, Phyllis was already back in her lounge position, watching TV. I could see it in her mech, displayed on several screens all around her. She delighted in a cup of yogurt, and I could see a fresh joint in the ashtray at her side. Man that chair was tempting. So I shrugged and went to it.

After Phyllis and I shared the rest of that joint, I told her about my crazy day, Mr. Sada’s dead wife, and Doofus learning how to sell his own fur and choosing my name for himself. She watched her TV and nodded politely.

At the end of it, she offered me the Shasta. It was torn up, but I could still close the bedroom door to get some peace and sleep a bit. Night was starting to fall in the distance, and it sounded like a hell of a good offer. I hated the office, it was musty and full of spiders.

But Phyllis insisted I would be safe as a bug in a rug, and I believed her. The nonagenarian was definitely the biggest fish I had met to date in this apocalypse, and I felt safe with her and her drugged up aim. Once I stumbled inside, I just crashed and went to sleep.

That was BuyMort day one. Hell of a day.