by Michael Todd
“Because he ate too many berries?” Manny scratched his chin. “I dunno, Ava. I once tried to drug a rhinoceros. It’s a long story, but let’s say the ass-wipe didn’t want me to get a move on, despite me making it quite clear I had a whole weekend planned. I tried to slip him a little beer, then even more in the hope he’d get groggy. Well, that didn’t work. He was too big a bloke, I expect. Eventually, I had to arm wrestle him—horn to arm, really. It’s still the longest match of strength ever recorded in Namibia.”
“If you’re proposing someone arm wrestles the constrictadile, I nominate you,” Peppy said to him.
“I ain’t proposing anything, mate. All I said was it’d take a lot of berries. Did you not listen to my allegorical wisdom?”
Peppy scowled, but Ava thought that perhaps she could detect the faintest of smiles hidden behind the disapproving expression.
“Let’s be reasonable. I don’t think we should go anywhere near the constrictadile,” Gunnar said but nodded at Ava to continue.
“I agree. Not unless we have to, anyway,” she agreed quickly. The soldier swallowed and a smirk crept into his face. Ava recognized the look. He shot it to Manny when he thought he was doing something crazy. Great. Now she really was one of them—and they hadn’t even heard her plan. “But think about what we saw. These people go crazy, then fall into a stupor. That’s the pattern Cort followed, and when we found Abbott, she was like this too.” She gestured to their prisoner. “First, they spread the virus or the toxin or whatever is in the zomberries, then they get all lazy and stupefied and the constrictadile eats them. What could be easier prey than that? They do the hunting for him.”
Peppy and Gunnar nodded. They obviously saw the logic of it. Manny, though, shook his head. “I dunno Ava. It sounds like some crazy shit to me. You’re saying these people are all poisoned or something? Like they ate a bunch of eucalyptus sprayed with instant coffee?”
“Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“No, Ava, I don’t like this at all.” He continued to shake his head like it was on auto.
“So what do you want to do about it?” Peppy said. “Abandon Cort and the rest of the drug-addicts to be eaten by Zoo?”
“Of course not, mate. She’s crazier than that,” Manny said.
“So you think we should wait here and let the berries run their course?” Gunnar scratched his head. “That’s not a good idea. Ask Manny. I’m sure he has a rule for it but staying in one place for longer than absolutely necessary is never a good idea in the Zoo. Besides, we don’t know how long the detox will take. I mean, do you have a guess how long that would even be?”
“Not really, but I know how to make it go faster.”
“What do you mean?” Peppy said.
“Ava, Gunnar’s right about rule number sixty-two,” Manny said and now shook his head even more emphatically. “I see what you’re going for and I gotta say it’s a dumb fucking idea. As stupid as they come. I don’t think I’ve heard one more stupid, in fact.”
“No. It will work. If we speed things up, we can save him and maybe everyone else too. Don’t you want to try?”
“Now, when did ol’ Manny ever say no to a stupid idea? Of course I’m in. Tell us what you need.”
Chapter Fourteen
The concoction began to sear Ava’s nostrils, which meant it had become more acidic, a good sign.
Peppy stepped from the jungle with a bundle of leaves trimmed with black serrated edges.
“Is this the one you wanted?”
“Yeah. I think so…yeah.” Ava took the leaves, discarded some of the younger, more tender growth, and retained only the bigger, tougher leaves. From these, she removed the black edges. She added them to her bowl and marveled at how much better prepared she was this time in the Zoo than the last time.
“Are you sure about this?” Gunnar asked. He stared at the bowl in front of her, his nose scrunched like someone who expected to come home to burgers only to have them replaced by entirely too floppy veggie patties. The color of the concoction was a bright green despite the black leaf-edges Ava had added.
“No fucking way!” She laughed. Maybe their crazy really was contagious. “But I think this is our best chance—or Cort’s best chance anyway. Our best chance would be to desert him and get the hell out of here.”
“Well, we ain’t doing that to the pencil-pusher.” Manny folded his arms. “Not after my stage-dive. He’s gotta live to tell all his friends about how ball-busting awesome I am. Speaking of which, I hope the rest of you will prepare awesome stories about the greatest pilot to ever crash a chopper.”
“I’m glad we’re in agreement,” Ava said before she realized what she’d agreed to.
“Well, thank you, Ava I do appreciate that! You other knuckleheads never show me a lick of respect, but Ava gets me.”
She looked up from her bowl of foul-smelling green liquid to see him beaming.
“And you picked these plants…because they’re poison?” Peppy sounded rather incredulous.
“Exactly. The plants I sent you for are all only mildly toxic.”
“Isn’t that like saying something’s only mildly lethal?” Gunnar asked.
Ava stopped her stirring for a moment to think about that. “Yeah. Maybe. But they shouldn’t kill him, especially blended like this. There shouldn’t be enough of any single compound to cause him to overdose.”
“That’s a lot of shoulds,” Peppy pointed out matter-of-factly.
“Together, his body should notice the toxins and try to get them out of his system. It’s basic biology. The zomberries should mostly leave with the rest of the stuff. They’ll still have to run their course, obviously, but it should mean a lot less time.”
“Again with the should.” Peppy folded her arms, obviously unconvinced. Now, Ava sat and mixed her bowl of green goo furiously, while Peppy, Gunnar, and Manny all stood over her with folded arms. That, very clearly, was the posture of distrust.
Cort groaned, still tied to the tree.
“Breakfast is almost ready, good buddy. I hope you’re hungry,” Gunnar said.
“This reminds me of a hangover cure I learned on an island in Indonesia. Two chicken eggs—the wild ones are better of course—one-part fermented yak milk. That was often imported, of course. Mix that with some spicy red pepper paste, add in a dash of sesame oil, and boom, hangover cured.” Manny grinned.
“That doesn’t sound at all like a bowl of poison mixed salad,” the other man said.
“That sounds like it would make you puke,” Peppy observed bluntly.
“Isn’t that the plan?” Gunnar’s eyes never left the bowl of green slime.
“Basically. The main objective is to kick-start the body’s metabolism to reject the zomberries along with the other poison. It looks like they have to be continually ingested to keep the levels up in the bloodstream, which is why they fall into a stupor when it starts to wear off. Hopefully, enough of this poison will remain to force the body to reject what’s left of the other.” Ava smelled the noxious-looking remedy and grimaced. “I think it’s ready.”
“Here goes nothing.” Manny went to Cort and removed the gag from his mouth.
The lieutenant immediately began to yowl like a wounded animal. Ava had no doubt that if they let him continue, he’d either summon the rest of the people or the constrictadile. She only hoped they’d run far enough to keep both away long enough for this to work.
“Hey, Cort, we have some food for you, okay? Are you ready?” Ava raised the bowl toward him. He wrinkled his nose at the concoction and immediately shut his mouth. At least they’d found a way to stop the racket he made.
“Who has the berries?” Ava said.
Peppy stepped forward. “These were the closest thing I could find.” Peppy held out a handful of reddish berries. They were brighter than the zomberries had been, closer to orange than red, but they looked very similar.
As soon as Cort saw them, he opened his jaws hungrily. M
anny stuck to the plan and shoved a stick in his mouth so he couldn’t close it while Gunnar forced the man’s head back.
“You’ll feel better soon, Cort. I promise.” Ava positioned the bowl so she could pour past the stick and upended its contents down his throat.
The lieutenant struggled and coughed as he tried to prevent the green sludge from going down his throat, but Manny took the initiative. He grabbed the man’s throat and when he breathed, the pilot massaged his throat in a downward motion.
She had seen people do the same thing to dogs too stubborn to take their medicine. “I thought you said you’ve never been to a doctor? That looked like something a vet would do.”
“I’ve never been to a doctor. Honestly, I don’t trust them. Veterinarians, though? True masters of their craft. I have no problem with them. One saved my grandmother from rabies. Now that’s a good story.” Manny looked around and grinned, as always, but Ava turned away from him. Peppy and Gunnar ignored him too. All eyes were focused on Cort and the pilot harrumphed in disapproval.
The prisoner gagged, closed his eyes, coughed in the back of his throat, and gagged again. He looked supremely uncomfortable like he had stomach cramps, bloating, and a bout of diarrhea on the way, but all at the same time. Ava supposed he actually might. She’d given him toxins that might cause any number of effects, after all.
For a moment, they all watched Cort silently and wondered what he would do next. He had stopped moaning and now grunted constantly like a dog who’d eaten too much grass.
Then he spewed and green, slimy vomit went everywhere.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. It looks like he spilled a spinach smoothie,” Gunnar protested and backpedaled with alacrity.
“You got it all over your shirt, mate.” Manny laughed. “Your uniform is all fucked up. You look like you could camouflage at the world’s least-fresh salad bar.” Cort spasmed and puked again and this time, it spattered the pilot. “Oh, come on. I’ve only now got the mud out. Do you know how hard it is to wash out toxic puke?”
Cort moaned, his breathing ragged and painful.
“Is that it?” Peppy leaned in to examine him more closely. “That didn’t seem so bad.”
“You haven’t smelled the shit.” Manny raised his stained sleeve to his nose and gave it a whiff. He grinned and stuck his tongue out. “It smells like someone pushed a vegetarian into a vat of apple-cider vinegar.”
The lieutenant gagged less forcefully this time and more of the green slime dribbled down his chin.
Peppy looked disgusted. “He’s like a giant baby from hell.”
Cort spasmed again but thankfully, had less vomit to show for his efforts.
“We might be done,” Ava said but tried not to be hopeful. It had been far more disgusting than she’d thought it would be. Fortunately, the man seemed to have emptied his system. He dry-heaved a few more times but nothing came out.
He struggled at his bindings once more but after a few moments, he passed out, soaked in his own slimy green puke.
“Make me a promise right now,” Manny said and fixed Gunnar with a hard look. “If I ever get sick, shoot me before you let Doctor Ava try her witchcraft potions on me.”
Peppy raised an eyebrow. “And deny ourselves the pleasure of watching you suffer?”
“It probably wouldn’t have any effect on you, Manny. I’ve seen the shit you eat. That green slime would be an improvement.”
“It’s good to know I have friends,” Manny grumbled. “You won’t even put a man out of his misery when he asks? No honor. I can’t trust any of you.”
“That’s right,” Gunnar agreed. “We’re in the Zoo. All hands on deck. I’ll only put you out of your misery if you decide not to come back in here.”
“To do otherwise would waste a perfectly functional meat-shield,” Peppy reminded him.
“I might decide to stay out if we have to start eating puke-smoothies instead of kibble. Don’t you two have a perimeter to walk or something?” Manny asked the soldiers.
They laughed, or Gunnar did anyway. Peppy merely snorted, but Ava knew that practically counted as a guffaw from her.
“Come on,” Gunnar said. “We’ll get stuff for lunch. We only have to match the color, right?” He pointed to his stained uniform and the duo started their perimeter walk.
Ava and Manny sat on the stone and kept a wary eye on the prisoner-patient. He didn’t move and simply slept, his head lolling and his body tied tightly to the tree. But even in such a strange position, he looked better than he had. She wondered if he’d rested at all the night before. With the zomberry toxin raging through him, he might’ve been awake long before he attacked her.
The sun rose higher in the sky and the drone of insects changed from simply loud to deafening.
Finally, Cort woke up.
“Pencil-pusher! You’re all right!” Manny bounced to his feet like an old friend had arrived.
The lieutenant opened his eyes and immediately shut them again with a scowl. “All right? My head is killing me.” He struggled against the ropes but perhaps even struggle was too strong a word. He barely resisted them before he simply gave up. “Why can’t I move? Christ, I feel like I have the world’s worst hangover.”
“I told you it was similar,” Manny said sagely. “But mine smelled better.”
“What do you remember?” Ava asked.
Cort looked at them and squinted. “I don’t know. We rand from that…constrictadile?”
“Aliconda,” Gunnar said. Ava hadn’t heard him approach. Strangely, that comforted her. It was good to know that not only monsters could move through the Zoo without making a noise.
“No, we settled this, Goddamnit. Ava’s name is better. It’s a constrictadile,” Manny said.
“Pay no attention to them,” she said quickly. “What do you remember next?”
The lieutenant tried to rub his head, but the ropes prevented him from moving. He looked down and seemed to notice that he was tied to a tree for the first time. “Uh…we ran through the jungle? Something was chasing us…hyenamites? No—people. Crazy people.” He shuddered. “And then…nothing. I… Can you tell me what happened? And untie me unless…” A dark, almost haunted expression crossed his face. “Unless I’m infected or something. Jesus, did one of them bite me?”
“Are you kidding me?” Manny demanded incredulously. “You don’t remember my stage-dive?” Ava looked at the pilot, but he only shrugged. “What? It was awesome, and I know you other three won’t tell it right.”
“Am I…infected?” Cort asked.
“The bloke feels hungover and hasn’t eaten in more than twelve hours. If he tries anything, we can handle him,” Manny said and made no effort to answer the question.
“Tries what?” the soldier asked.
“Untie him,” Ava said. “Let’s get you some lunch.”
“And then?” Gunnar untied the ropes.
She looked at the team. Once again, all eyes were on her. “Then, we make more.”
Chapter Fifteen
They followed their own trail back through the jungle. Ava felt oddly embarrassed when she saw the wide swath of boot prints, mud-smeared leaves, and broken branches they had left. She knew they had been in headlong flight and hadn’t made any attempt to disguise their passage, but it was so obvious. If one of the Zoo creatures had somehow figured out how to follow tracks, they’d have found them easily. The thought of an animal following footprints might once have been preposterous, but they currently headed toward a berry patch that made people lose their minds and violently feed others the fruit. Obviously, the Zoo gave no shits about following nature’s basic game plan.
“This is seriously impressive, Ava,” Manny said from the front of the procession. They reached the muddy trench where they’d almost lost Cort and Manny had executed his stage-dive. “I mean, this might be the stupidest damn plan in the history of plans.”
“Don’t remind me,” Peppy said as she worked her way down into the muddy trench.
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“What other choice do we have?” Ava said.
“Run away?” Gunnar slipped and landed in the mud. “Goddamnit. This mud totally clashes with the vomit stains.” He pushed carefully to his feet and followed Peppy, who used other side roots to climb out.
“Fuck running away, mate. We have a chance to do something amazing out there. It’s like that time a whale beached itself in the Sydney harbor. No one knew what to do, right? Science folks wanted to study it, of course, but didn’t have a plan as to how to go about it. Your regular Joe felt bad, but also had no plans. No one thought that dumping a bunch of shrimp chips in the bay and blasting that big mama with the hoses from every firetruck in Sydney woulda worked, but it did. Firetrucks provided the push and the smell of recently rehydrated shrimp gave her the motivation she needed.”
“There’s no way that’s true,” Peppy said from the top of the muddy trench as she helped Ava up. “We would’ve heard about it. The whole world would’ve heard about shrimp chips saving a beached whale in Sydney harbor.”
“That was the headline,” Manny said proudly. “But you’re right. Maybe it was Perth. I get cities confused sometimes. It’s a side effect of growing up in the outback.”
“Bullshit,” Peppy said.
“Are you all right Peppy?” Gunnar said.
“Fuck no. This is crazy. I get that these people need help, but what good will it do if we are all turned?”
“I agree with…er…Peppy,” Cort said.
“Easy, pencil-pusher. We’re not running away,” Manny declared firmly as he scrambled out of the trench and started off through the jungle. Each step brought them ever closer to the field of zomberries, the people whose minds it had taken, and the monster that seemed to lord over them all.
“I’m not talking about running away. I’m talking about making a difference,” the lieutenant responded.
“Saving these people from becoming part of the Zoo is making a difference,” Ava said. “It prevents the Zoo from gaining thousands of more pounds of biomass, and more importantly, it makes a difference in the lives of their families and friends. It makes a difference for all the people whom they left behind to come to this godforsaken place.”