“This is Jeffrey.” Sara said introducing me.
“And you’re Sara, right? Bob’s girl,” He said matter-of-factly.
“Bob’s girl?” she asked.
Brian smiled. “It’s a small community. He must have mentioned it to someone who mentioned it to someone… You know how it spreads.”
“Apparently spreads quickly,” I said with an amused look on my face.
Sara shot daggers at me from her eyes and shook her head slowly. Basically, she was telling me that Bob was full of shit, and I believed her. I have never been this open with anybody about who and what I am, and I was pretty certain that she felt the same.
Brian led us down concrete stairs that were inconspicuously located behind a public restroom. We traveled down about a dozen feet or so before curiosity got the better of me.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To get your dog. The tunnels are faster, and they’ll take us right to the feed door.”
“Tunnels?” I asked as we got to a door at the bottom of the stairs. Brian didn’t say anything, but opened the doors instead to answer me.
Behind that door was a system of tunnels that traveled under the entire zoo. The pathways were dimly lit by low wattage emergency bulbs that flickered a dull amber light on the cold grey cement that encompassed every surface of the hallway. Brian quickly explained that the idea for the tunnels was that employees, trash, and food for the animals could be transported anywhere in the park out of view of paying customers. Clever really, and it might also be our salvation if we have to make a hasty escape.
I looked at the painted lines on the floor, and each led to its own section of the park. A sign on the wall acted as a legend for new employees to help keep them from becoming lost in the jumble of paths. Brian took us along the light brown path that led around the corner to a large double door that had “Africa” written on it along with a cartoon zebra holding a paintbrush. The “clever” concept was that it was in fact the zebra who had painted the line on the floor that brought us to him.
Once inside the door, Brian took us to a very normal-looking door with a series of locks going up the right hand side. When we walked through that door, the transformation was jarring. We were now outside on the Serengeti. The illusion that the zoo created for these animals was near perfect.
About twenty yards away we could see the sleeping Rex still curled up on the thick grey skin of his new friend.
“Rex!” I called out, and his head shot up like a jack-in-the-box on steroids. He leapt off of his bed/playmate and ran full tilt in my direction. To see a dog like that running in the wilds of Africa was surreal to say the least. When Rex runs at full speed directly towards you, there are moments where it looks like he’s flying just above the surface of the ground. His front and back legs fully extend to add to the Superman effect of his simulated flight.
When he got about twenty feet from me, I realized he was moving pretty fast.
At ten feet, I realized he wasn’t slowing down.
At five feet, he was an airborne missile heading straight towards the center mass of my body.
He struck me with so much force that I stumbled back a step or two.
While I was recovering from the jolt, he was already licking my chin, neck, ears, and anything else he could reach. I carried him back inside the cold grey tunnel, and Brian closed the door behind us. I placed Rex down, so I wouldn’t have to carry him, but mostly it was to stop him from licking my face.
When we made it above ground, a brisk breeze skimmed across my skin and gave me goosebumps. I looked off at the sun that was just now starting to touch the horizon.
“The sun will be setting soon, and we still don’t have a plan,” I said.
“Hey, guys! This place is AMAZING!” Terry said walking towards us with binoculars held up to his eyes. He walked with his other hand outstretched, so he didn’t run into the things he was seeing magnified twenty times.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“Observation deck. Did you know there are animals here, man?”
“Yeah…Pretty crazy,” I said trying to brush him off.
“Crazy!” he added while looking Brian up and down with his shiny black binoculars.
Just then, Jack and Bob returned, and Bob looked sick to his stomach. I’m guessing the news wasn’t great.
“Food supplies are solid, and there are golf carts in a tunnel system below ground, so we can transport them anywhere on property,” Jack said with a concerned look on his face. “But no viable escape plan in the tunnels. There are two exits in the tunnels, but they just lead to the surrounding woods.“
“What else do you have for me? Any good news?” I asked, hoping for some silver lining.
“We have plenty of guns, and we still have a decent amount of ammo…” he started.
“But…?” I inquired sensing his hesitation.
“But, nobody here really knows how to use them. I found a handful of guys who are willing to give it a shot, but only a couple of them have ever fired a gun before.”
“What about the woods guys?” Terry chimed in still watching everything through his binoculars.
“What ‘woods guys?’” I asked, almost annoyed with him at this point.
“The guys in the woods,“ He said. “They all have guns, and they look like they know how to use them.”
“Where did you see guys in the woods?” Sara asked.
Terry laughed like she had just asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “In the woods, of course! Duh!”
“Terry, where did you see them from?” I asked very slowly and directly like I was talking to a four year old.
“From the observation tower.“ he said pointing at the magnifying glasses he continued to watch the world through. “I could see a bunch of them!”
“Well shit,” I said, pulling out my gun and checking it. “They’re already here.”
Chapter 40
“Shit!” I said from the top of the lion exhibit as I looked through Terry’s binoculars at the small camp of rednecks hidden about a hundred yards from the zoo entrance.
“Is it bad?” Bob asked with vomit just below his voice.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said honestly.
As if on cue, Jack came running up to us from his intelligence mission at the back of the park.
“I saw two more camps. One at the east, and the other to the south.”
I turned back to Bob. “It’s bad.” Then I turned back to Jack. “Which way is east and which is south?”
He pointed in two directions.
“So south is by the loading docks?” He nodded. “And east is the gift shop?” He nodded again. “So that would make the entrance north?” He nodded a third time. “Got it. But I think it would have been quicker if you just said, ‘I saw two more camps. One in the back and one to that side.’”
“That wouldn’t be accurate enough.”
“I would have understood it without needing a compass,” I said smirking.
“Do you not know where north is?”
“Without a GPS, I don’t know where my ass is.”
“Got it,” he said. “Next time I’ll simplify my directions.”
“Thank you,” I said, slapping the giant on the back. “You’re always so good to me.”
“Guys!” Bob said with a clear annoyance settling into his voice. “You’re making jokes and playing around, and these guys could attack at any minute!”
“Well, probably not anytime soon,” Jack said.
“Soon is kind of relative,” I corrected.
“What the fuck?” Bob exclaimed.
“They set up camps,” Jack explained. “That means they are waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Bob said with his true cowardice showing.
“Four AM?” I said taking a guess.
Jack nodded. “Probably somewhere around then. They will want to wait until most people are asleep. They will probably attack really early
in the morning so that there is minimum resistance and maximum confusion.”
“What do we do?!” Bob nearly cried.
“We make it as hard as possible for them.”
“How?!”
“There’s only one way, Bob…” I said. “We fight.”
Chapter 41
I really don’t know what’s come over me, but I don’t like it.
Bob is a wormy monster. He doesn’t want to die, and I don’t blame him. But, pathetic is in his DNA. I’ve never been a fighter, and I would much rather give the zoo to Axel in exchange for my life, but the intelligent and rational side of my brain assures me that an exchange like that isn’t in the cards. In fact, there is a very good chance that IF Axel actually gets his filthy inbred hands on me, he might try to make Deliverance-style love to me. That thought alone is enough to encourage me to fight to the death.
Jack keeps coming to me, asking me for my thoughts and ideas. People are asking me what we should do, and to tell you the truth… I don’t really know. I’ve never been a leader who tells people what to do. I’ve been a ringmaster who has manipulated things to work out in my favor. All of those manipulations were based in a world of rules where it was easy to see chain reactions because of people’s obedience to rules, or their own moral weaknesses. This was different. People were actually asking for very specific things to do. I just don’t know what to tell them.
“What about the animals?” Brian asked again. I had only been paying half attention to him because I was staring at the map of the zoo and the map of the tunnels under the zoo. Brian’s voice was needy, and annoying me while I was trying to think.
“I’m sorry, what?” I finally asked him.
“The animals!” he said. “What are we doing with them?”
“Give me a minute,” I said, holding my hand up in the air and placing a thumb tack in the map by the loading docks.
“Bob!” I said. He raised his head up from his hands and looked at me with the pathetic look that I knew him for. “How many vehicles are on property?”
He looked up and thought about it for a second. “I think there are two or three Jeeps.” He perked up a bit. “We might be able to put a good number of us in there if we all really pile in.”
“That would never work,” I said, taking satisfaction in the dejected look on his face. “Both streets leading away are narrow and not built for speeding away.”
“Not to mention the fact that there are probably road blocks in place,” Jack added. “These guys have vehicles, and they are probably either blocking the road where we can’t see, or currently bringing more people to the fight. Either way, it’s bad news bears.”
“‘Bad news bears?’” I asked with a look of pure shock.
“My mom used to say it. What are you thinking about doing with the Jeeps?” Jack asked.
“Jamming up any hole that these guys could drive through. If we keep them on foot we have more of a chance of fending them off.”
“Solid idea,” He said. “You were never in the military?”
“I don’t want to brag, but I was a space marine for quite some time,” I said grinning from ear to ear.
“Space marine?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never played Halo.” I said.
“I don’t play video games.”
“Jack, if we make it out of this, we will find a place that has an Xbox and a generator, and I will shove a plasma grenade up your ass!”
“Ass play? That definitely sounds like a Navy thing. I was in the Army.”
We both laughed for a few seconds, forgetting about the impending doom that waited outside the gates for us.
“There’s a big transport truck,” Brian said, interrupting our fun. “We use it when we have to take some of the animals off property for medical reasons we can’t handle here.”
“Could we all fit in there?!” Bob said suddenly seeing a glimmer of hope.
“Not likely,” Brian said. “It’s designed to hold large animals. It has dividers to keep them separated.”
“How many animals can it hold?” I asked.
“We put all ten lions in it once before when we had to do work on the habitat.”
Jack and I looked at each other and realized that all might not be lost.
“Brian…” I began knowing that I was about to make his day pretty terrible. “Have you ever lived anywhere where you have any large scale natural disasters?”
“I went to college in Florida,” He nodded. “They get hurricanes pretty often.”
“Do you know what they tell you to do with animals if you can’t take care of them during a natural disaster?”
Brian’s eyes widened, and he violently shook his head. “Absolutely not!” He protested. “We can’t do that!”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s not safe for them! It’s not safe for anybody!”
“What are you talking about?” Bob asked.
“He wants us to release the lions!” Brian said, beginning to pace back and forth.
“Listen,” I explained. “They say that if you can’t take care of your pet during a natural disaster, to release them because their natural survival instincts will give them a much better chance of surviving in the wild.”
“These aren’t pets! These are wild animals! Just imagine the ecological impact of what would happen IF they make it past that army outside!”
“What do you think is going to happen to them when these assholes get in and take over the zoo?” I asked in a tone loud enough to silence him. “These men are not the type to keep large animals around for their enjoyment. They will either kill and eat all of them, or let them starve until they kill each other. You know just as well as I do that they stand a better chance of survival out there because at least out there, they have a fighting chance.”
Brian lowered his head and then nodded. “Okay,” He conceded. “Just the lions?”
I shook my head slowly thinking about all the animals we could release into Axel’s army. But out loud I said, “We need to make sure all of the animals that have a chance of surviving get that chance.” I laced as much sincerity in my voice to make me a spokesperson for PETA. “How many big cats are there?”
“We have four tigers, two jaguars, and five cheetahs.”
What I’m about to say is NO exaggeration. I would gladly give my left testicle to see the look on Axel’s face when ten lions, four tigers, two jaguars, and five god damned cheetahs come running towards them. I absolutely LOVE watching Animal Planet and National Geographic, and the thought of a cheetah running seventy miles an hour and ripping out some redneck’s throat was enough to make me giddy with excitement.
“Perfect,” I said. “Brian, what do you need for us to do to help you get them in the truck?”
“It’s going to take a couple of hours to get all of the lions in. Then we’ll have to move the truck so that I can get the tigers. That’ll take a little more time. Same for the rest.”
“Shit,” I said. “That’s too much time.”
“What about the tunnel exits?” Jack asked. I immediately looked at the tunnel maps and saw two clear exits. One led to the employee parking lot that sat right in front of the woods that we saw a fairly large group of campers in.
Perfect!
The other tunnel just led to emptiness on the other side of the park.
“Where does this go?” I asked.
“Outside,” Brian said. “I think they put that there, so that when they eventually expanded the zoo, the tunnel system would just continue. Most employees just use it as a place to take smoke breaks.”
Perfect again. I thought.
“Can we put any of the big cats in the tunnels and let them out through there?”
Brian thought about it hard for a second. “Yeah, sure. We will have to close off the tunnels behind them, so they don’t get loose in the tunnels. But the big question is who will stay in there with them to open the door?”
“Not it!” I scream
ed out like an eleven year old who was just asked to play hide and go seek.
“I’ll do the tigers,” Jack said.
“Wait,” I said. “Can’t we just open the doors from outside?”
“Sure.” Brian said. “But the only way to get to those doors is to walk around from the front or back side of the zoo.”
Damn. I thought. I hate when I miss something so blatantly obvious.
“The animals are used to being around trainers,” Brian said. “You should be fine walking through them.”
“Should be?” I asked.
“We haven’t had an incident with any of the big cats in months,” he said proudly.
“MONTHS?!”
“It was nothing,” he tried assuring me. “One of the cheetahs was just trying to be a little too playful, and he scratched one of the trainers.”
“Was he okay?”
“He was fine. Just a scratch…but it did hit a major artery, so it was touch and go for a while.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he said smirking. “It is, after all, your plan.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t as thrilled with this plan as I was a few moments ago.
The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman Page 28