CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN 
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN 
JONAH FELT STALE, warm air seeping into the barrel. Breathing, he could tell, would soon be more difficult. The barrel rolled over and over as it made its way along the behemoth’s great body.
The snake felt full, at least fuller than it had after most of its meals. It was content to leave the spring and return to its lair.
Malcolm jumped up, as if waking from a bad dream. When he heard the crashing of bushes and leaves far away, he knew it had been real. “Jonah!” The raccoon ran as fast as he could toward the sounds of the forest submitting to the monster.
He was panting when he reached the eastern edge of Persly’s Woods. Before him were millions of tiny, thin trees spaced just inches apart. He’d never seen trees like these. He heard the noise of them being trampled in the distance. “Which way did you go, you nasty worm?!” He angrily looked left and right, hoping to see a giant pathway. There wasn’t one. It was hopeless. The snake was too far away. He fell on the ground and started to cry. Guilt had never stricken him this way before. He wanted Jonah back safely more than anything, but knew it wouldn’t happen. “What have I done?!”
JONAH WAS NAUSEATED from his ride down the snake’s gullet, but finally its stomach muscles stopped twisting and the barrel stopped swirling around. He could still feel the bumps the giant snake’s belly traveled over, from rocks or whatever. He had no clue where he was going and he couldn’t see a thing. He was lying on the red light of the walkie-talkie.
The snake covered a great distance across the rolling hills to the east of the millions of tiny trees that prevented Malcolm from giving chase. In the moonlight its large shadow moved with great speed, a helpless pug with one black foot still alive inside its belly. Finally, it disappeared inside a hill, from which the faint sounds of a young girl screaming for help could be heard.