by Cassie Cole
Dad wasn’t the safest zoo owner. That was true for a billion different reasons, but it was especially true that day because he didn’t have a scientific way of sedating the tigers. He eye-balled it based on how the tiger reacted. He claimed it was because he didn’t need a fancy doctor telling him how to take care of his cats, but my brothers and I knew it was because he was cheap. He was trying to use as little sedative as possible because it was expensive.
The tiger was named Hans, after Hans Gruber from Die Hard. He was a pretty chill tiger, but it was never a good idea to get complacent around big cats. We had safety measures in place for the photo shoots. I took the money at the outer gate, and then the visitors were allowed into the staging area before seeing the tiger itself. It was kind of like an airlock system from a science fiction movie. They entered the staging area, I closed the gate behind them, and only then did dad open the gate to the tiger’s pen.
But dad always got impatient when there was money involved. There was a line of people waiting to have their photo taken, so the faster we worked, the more money we made. That’s what led to dad opening the inner gate a few seconds too early, before I had closed the outer gate.
Hans must have been waiting his entire life for this moment, because he was ready. He bolted into the staging area and through the outer gate to freedom.
All these years later, and I could still remember the screams. Adults clutching and covering their children. Women shrieking. People ran in all directions while Hans merrily trotted through the zoo, calm and happy.
Rather than keep me safe, dad grabbed me and took me toward the danger.
“Anthony, I need you with me,” he said. “Jake! David! Run and lock the outer gates! Don’t let Hans get out!”
The words filled me with pride at the time. Dad needed me. He was sending my brothers away to lock the gates—which, in retrospect, was horrifying since he cared more about keeping the tiger from escaping than allowing visitors to escape—but he wasn’t sending me away. I was going with him.
“Come on, now!” he said as he grabbed the tranquilizer gun. “We’ve got ourselves a tiger hunt.”
We ran through the zoo together. I struggled to keep up with dad. I was only eight, and his legs were so much longer than mine. But I ran as fast as I could because I didn’t want to disappoint him.
Hans was having a jolly good time. He wandered to the north-east corner of the zoo. It was easy to find him because visitors were running in the opposite direction. By the time we caught up to him both of us were out of breath. Hans was pacing along the outer fence to the zoo, sniffing at holes in the wood. Searching for a way out.
“You ready to be dad’s best helper?” my father asked me.
I was scared, but I nodded.
“Walk over to the side. Not toward Hans, but kinda sideways to him. And give him a call. You know Hans, he’s your buddy. He won’t hurt you. Go on, then. Walk over there and start telling him it’s okay.”
I did as I was told. I walked away from my father and called out to the tiger, waving my hands over my head. Hans stopped pacing the fence and perked up when he saw me. He started walking in my direction.
Dad hit him with one dart on the front leg. Hans let out an annoyed roar, but then dad hit him with a second dart. It took three altogether to take him down. To reward me for helping, dad let me pick out whatever ice cream I wanted from the grocery store that night.
At the time I thought I was the hero of the zoo. I bragged about it to my brothers for years. Only later did I realize the truth of what had happened that day. Dad was using me to draw the tiger sideways, giving him a wider target at the cat’s flank.
He was using me as bait.
The memory tickled in the back of my head as David and I ran through the dark zoo, searching for Mary Beth.
“The enclosure with the two female Bengals is open,” David said into the walkie-talkie. We rounded the corner. “Shit. Same for the wolf pen.”
“What else have you seen?” Rachel asked.
“The chimpanzees are gone. And the entire bird aviary.”
“Already took care of the chimps. Looking for the rest now. Let us know what other open cages you find.” Rachel sounded calm. How could she be so calm?
“I feel like we should have weapons,” I said as David and I kept running.
“We’re too far from the shed.”
“Yeah, but I would feel more comfortable with weapons. Even an umbrella. Something to hold, even if it just makes me feel safer.”
David tossed me the walkie-talkie. “Here you go.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
We reached one of the light poles that were scattered through the zoo, except this one had a grey utility box mounted to the outside. David opened it and threw the switch. There was a crackle of electricity, and suddenly everything around us was bathed in light.
“Could’ve used a warning,” Jake said on the radio.
David snatched the walkie-talkie from me. “There’s no pleasing you!” He glanced at me. “What? You said you didn’t want it.”
Since I didn’t have any other way to feel useful, I pulled my phone out and started taking a video. It would probably look like the Blair Witch Project since I was running and bouncing it around, but if we caught Mary Beth in the act I wanted to have evidence.
“Our zoo is currently being sabotaged,” I narrated in a huffing, out-of-breath voice. “Someone is opening the enclosures. And letting the animals out.”
A flurry of tropical birds suddenly flew by, leaving a trail of colorful feathers floating in the air. It made for a good action shot as I ran by.
“Right now we’re trying not to die,” I continued narrating. “We’re doing a great job so far. But it’s early. And the tigers and wolves are loose.”
“Will you shut up!” David growled at me.
“I want someone to know what happened to me in case we get eaten.”
We backtracked past the visitor’s center. Two of the wolves were inside Caesar’s enclosure, which was now closed. Rachel and Jake must have been this way already.
“Okay, just the tigers are loose,” I narrated while zooming in on the wolves. “If you find this video, whoever you are, check the tiger stomachs first.”
“Shh,” David said.
“I’m just trying to—”
He stopped and clamped a hand over my mouth, then pointed. Up ahead was a figure we didn’t recognize. They passed out of the light of the path and into the darkness by the gate to the lion enclosure. I heard metal rattling around.
Mary Beth.
David turned the walkie-talkie off and put a finger to his lips. We stalked forward, low to the ground like tigers on the prowl. It sounded like Mary Beth was struggling with the key. The lion gate was super rusted, and the individual key didn’t work on it. You had to use one of the master keys. She kept twisting and shaking the lock, as if she could make it work with brute force alone.
David went to the left, and I went right. Surrounding her. I stepped off the path and into darkness. We were getting closer, and thanks to the metallic noise she was making, Mary Beth couldn’t hear us coming.
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” David shouted as he charged her.
She turned and ran in the opposite direction of him… Which meant she ran directly at me. I leaped forward with my arms outstretched, tackling her in the chest. My phone went flying and the two of us fell to the ground. I struggled to hold her down, and it was quickly apparent why.
Because it wasn’t Mary Beth. It was a man.
I tried to pin his arms to the side but he kicked up, hitting me in the groin. I cried out and rolled off him, clutching my junk as waves of pain rolled over my body. The nausea was so strong I thought I would vomit.
Before the man could get to his feet, David tackled him. I was vaguely aware of the two of them struggling, and the sound of someone being punched in the gut. I tried to make myself get up and help but my body wouldn’t respond to my commands.
I was completely incapacitated.
The punching sound stopped, and then David said, “Wait, what? Brandon?”
By the time I had gotten to my feet, David was unlocking the outer lion pen with the master key. He shoved Brandon inside and slammed the gate shut behind him. At the inner gate, which was still closed, the two female lions snarled and gazed through the bars.
I picked up my phone from the ground. It was still recording. I aimed the phone at the gate, where Brandon was clutching the bars like a prison inmate.
“You?” David asked incredulously. “You’re the one sabotaging us?”
The chill surfer guy persona was now gone. Brandon’s eyes were wide and white and intense. “I’m not sabotaging anything! I’m saving them! I’m their savior!”
“God damnit,” David cursed. He turned his walkie-talkie back on. “And to think we blamed Mary Beth.”
Brandon shook the bars. “THE ANIMAL FREEDOM FRONT WILL FREE ALL OF THESE CREATURES, GIVING THEM THEIR FREEDOM TO ROAM FREE.”
David barked a laugh. “That’s a lot of free buddy. You need to practice your messaging more.”
“We’ve got the wolves, chimps, and both tigers safe,” Rachel said on the walkie-talkie. “Aside from the peacock we just saved from a gruesome death, what else is loose?”
David held the walkie-talkie to his mouth and replied, “Not sure. But we caught the saboteur. We’re over by the lion pen.”
“On our way. Fair warning: you might have to stop me from punching Mary Beth in the nose.”
“Yeah, about that… It wasn’t Mary Beth.”
“What?”
“We’ll explain when you get here,” David replied.
Brandon laughed maniacally. “Do it! Open the inner gate and let the lions attack me! I will go down a martyr to the cause!”
“Jesus Christ, dude,” I said. I was still recording with my phone. “We’re not going to feed you to the lions.”
“Although we might let Rachel punch you in the face,” David added.
Jake and Rachel appeared in the Mule a few seconds later. They were just as shocked as David and I were.
“Nice job catching this fucker,” Jake said.
“All I did was get kicked in the dick,” I said with a pained laugh. “David was the one who got him.”
It was early in the morning, so it took the police half an hour to arrive. They took our statements and questioned Brandon. By then he was smart enough to stop talking, but the evidence on my phone was already awfully damning. Video of him trying to open the lion cage, and then confessing to doing the entire thing for the AFF. By the time the police shoved him in the back of the cruiser and drove off, the sky was turning grey to the east.
“That fucker is lucky you saved Caesar,” Jake said darkly. “If he had died… Let’s just say the cops would’ve taken Brandon away in a body bag.”
I hugged my brother. “I don’t doubt it.”
Rachel suddenly smacked her forehead. “I forgot all about Caesar! He’s still in the medical office!”
The four of us crowded onto the Mule—David and I holding onto the back—and drove to the medical office. Before we could rush inside, Mary Beth came walking up the path. She wore pink Hello Kitty pajamas, and held a large macaw under each arm.
“Morning!” she said cheerfully. “I heard the police sirens, and that’s when I noticed all the lights were on in the zoo. Not used to seeing so much glowing light over the trees. So I came right over, and that’s when I found these two guys hanging out on the path! I chased them for a while before remembering what you told me about approaching from their blind spot. Then it was easy.” She looked at each of us. “So, um, why are the birds loose?”
Rachel threw her arms around Mary Beth and hugged her so tightly that she dropped the birds under each arm. David rushed forward to grab them before they flew off.
I pulled my phone out and started recording again.
“I’m so, so sorry for everything,” Rachel said in a rush. “I was so certain you were the guilty person that I didn’t even think to look at anyone else. I’m so sorry, Mary Beth.”
“It was Brandon,” David explained while holding the two macaws. “He was the one secretly recording everything. He let all the animals out this morning.”
“Oh! Oh my gosh!” Mary Beth hugged Rachel back. “I never would have guessed. He seemed like a stoner who didn’t care about the animals at all. I can’t believe he let them all out.”
David took the macaws back to their cage while the rest of us went inside the medical office. If anything had happened to Caesar then I wanted video evidence, in case it needed to be used against Brandon later, so I kept recording with my phone. Fortunately, Caesar was still resting on the operating table, his torso rising and falling as he breathed.
“Oh thank goodness,” Rachel said as she checked on him. “Everything is fine.”
“What happened with him?” I asked. “Did you figure it out?”
She grabbed two round spheres from the table and held them up. “Brandon fed him these two neodymium magnets. They were pinching his intestines together. He’s fine now, but…”
Rachel suddenly sucked in her breath. I realized she was beginning to sob.
“He… he almost died. I’ve never performed surgery by myself and I could have messed up, and he could have died, and all the other animals here could have been injured or worse.” She hugged Caesar around the neck and rested against his fur as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’ve worked so hard… to give them… a better home. To keep them healthy… while we move them to other zoos… and then the AFF comes along… and endangers their lives! I’m so sick… of people misunderstanding… what we’re doing here… We are the good guys! We’re trying to do the right thing… for the animals! We’re better than Crazy Carl!”
Jake hugged and comforted her, and then I put down my phone and did the same. David returned moments later and joined us, hugging Rachel on all sides.
“It’s okay,” I whispered into her hair. “Everything is okay.”
We held her while she wept until there were no more tears to cry.
37
Rachel
I should have been relieved. Caesar was okay, and aside from a few more missing birds all of the animals had been subdued without injury. We had narrowly avoided disaster.
Instead, I had a nervous breakdown.
Panic and despair overwhelmed me. It felt like the entire world was working against us. As soon as we fixed one problem, another appeared. I couldn’t even trust someone like Brandon. Not to mention the intense guilt that Mary Beth really was innocent…
The group hug from the boys helped calm me down. I felt relieved afterward, like maybe I had needed a really good cry. I didn’t even mind that Mary Beth was recording the whole thing on a phone.
We spent the next hour retrieving the sedated animals and returning them to their enclosures. Mary Beth was cheerful as she helped, and didn’t seem to hold a grudge against me. She was probably just really good at hiding it rather than actually forgiving me. For now, that was enough.
We found all the birds. Most had clipped wings and couldn’t go far. Jake and I moved Caesar back to his smaller cage to keep him from doing anything strenuous that might rip open his stitches. Jake insisted he be there when Caesar woke up, so he slept in the cage with him. By the time we were done the sun was rising to the east and spreading orange and purple across the sky.
David closed the zoo for the day so we could get our shit together. Fortunately it was a fasting day for the big cats, so the workload that morning was lighter than normal. David and Mary Beth took care of feeding the rest of the animals so I could go home and sleep.
“You’ve done so much today!” Mary Beth insisted. “Surgery, and collecting all the animals… You deserve some sleep!”
I walked back to the house on exhausted legs, and didn’t even make it up stairs to my bed. As soon as I reached the foyer I curled up in one of the leather c
hairs and fell right asleep.
I woke up with a blanket draped over me and a pillow behind my head. David and Anthony stood by the window, peeking behind the curtains at something. According to my phone I had been sleeping for five hours. It was nearly time for lunch.
“What are you looking at?”
Anthony rushed over to hug me. “You’re up! Do you feel okay? You should keep sleeping.”
“I don’t want to screw up my sleep schedule.”
“Want some food?” Anthony asked. “I can make you a sandwich. Or whip up breakfast, if you feel like that. Just let me know. I’ll fix you whatever you want.”
I was touched by his insistence on taking care of me, and my stomach did rumble loudly at the mention of food, but my curiosity was stronger than my hunger. “What’s going on outside?”
David held the curtain aside so I could look. The circular driveway in front of the house normally held five cars: my Accord, Anthony’s Civic, David’s Jeep, Jake’s truck, and Crazy Carl’s huge monster truck with the cherry-red stripe on the side. Now there were half a dozen news vans and other vehicles crammed along the driveway and on the grass beside it. A cluster of cameras on tripods were aimed at the house, and more than one news correspondent stood with a microphone.
“Guess the word got out,” David said.
“You know, they’re technically on our land,” Anthony mused. “We can kick them off. Make them go all the way back to the main road.”
“Not worth the hassle,” David said. “Better to let them make their story and then leave on their own.”
“None of you have talked to them?” I asked.
David shook his head. “They want a spectacle. Something that will generate website clicks. I don’t want to give it to them.”
I looked at myself in the mirror on the wall. I was still wearing my dirty clothes from yesterday, my face was badly in need of a rinse and some makeup, and my hair was crazy. But after the insane night we had had, I didn’t care. I fished a hair tie out of my pocket, pulled my hair back, and opened the door.