Snake Fever

"Snake Fever" is a short Cthulhu Mythos story by American author Ron Shiflet.
==Synopsis==
Will Allison, a cowboy in America’s Wild West, takes refuge from a Comanche hunting party at an abandoned homestead said by the natives to be cursed land. While there, he recalls the story of the previous occupants, who made the mistake of killing a nest of strangely-coloured snakes. Thereafter, the head of the household developed a deep-seated psychosis, causing him to believe that his family were transforming into serpent-like creatures and culminating in a brutal murder-suicide. Before going to sleep, Allison discovers a snake with odd markings in his camp and kills it before settling down for the night.
Awakened in the middle of the night by a strange noise, Allison is horrified to find a horde of snakes pouring forth from the old house, led by a grotesque creature which seems to be half man, half serpent: Yig, the creature believed by the indigenous people to be the source of the blight upon the land. Although managing to escape the creatures' clutches, he finds himself beginning to believe that everyone around him is undergoing a reptilian transformation . . .
==Characters==
*Will Allison, a man on the run from from Comanches for unknown reasons.
*Yig, a Great Old One and the Father of Serpents.
==Publication History==
"Snake Fever" appeared in the zines Dark Legacy (April 2004), Lovecraft's Disciples (July 2007), and E'ch Pi El #7 (December 2007), and most recently in the anthology of Shiflet's own work They Thrive in Darkness: Mythos and Madness (2018).
Category:Ron Shiflet works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works