by John Inman
“Joe?” Ned asked again. “Do you think it will be okay? I mean, before it’s all over. The darkness. Everything. Do you think we’ll survive it? I mean, people. The population. The world.”
Joe tensed at his side. His only answer was brief, whispered softly. “I don’t know, Ned. Come on. Let’s go.”
A moment later, they were huffing and puffing up the steep path on the opposite side of the canyon, and darkness reclaimed them. The trees had thinned out, but with the lights from the caravan left behind in their wake, the night was just as dark as it had been before. It didn’t worry them, though. The shadows were a blessing now, not nearly as frightening as that mob of armed idiots back on the freeway. Happily, the zoo was just ahead, and the trail was straight. They were almost there.
As if to prove it, Ned heard the chuff and bellow of a big cat. A panther, maybe, or a lion. It sounded so close that a chill shot up his spine.
Joe seemed to understand. “Don’t worry. Their voices carry. He’s not as close as he sounds. And he’s locked up.”
“Thank God,” Ned said on a shivering breath.
A moment later, Ned heard another sound. This time it was a throaty, stuttering growl, coming from the darkness to their left.
Joe stopped in his tracks, and Ned plowed into him. He instinctively wrapped his arm around Joe’s waist as the two of them stood on the path listening. Both men were ramrod straight and rigid with surprise.
“That didn’t come from far away at all,” Joe whispered.
Another snarl came from their right.
Ned’s words snagged the air like fishhooks. “Neither did that.”
“More dogs!” Joe spat. “Stay close.”
“If I was any closer,” Ned hissed back, “I’d be climbing up your ass.” Suddenly he missed the heavy cudgel he had used the last time he ran into feral dogs.
A scuttling sound arose in the underbrush at either side. Loose stones clattered down the hillside behind them. The dogs were blocking the trail at their backs, cutting off any retreat. By the sounds they were making, they were drawing closer too. Stalking. Preparing an attack.
“Where’s the fence?” Ned pleaded through chattering teeth. He wasn’t sure if they were rattling because of the cold or because of his fear. Probably a little of both.
Joe tensed at his side. “It’s a ways. It’s too dark to run for it, so we’ll have to make a stand here. Still got your knife?”
Ned all but slapped himself in the forehead. The knife he’d taken from the deli! He’d forgotten all about it. He fumbled around at his back and pulled it out of his belt. It felt flimsy and light in his hand. While the darkness was so dense he couldn’t see the blade, he knew it was no more than eight or nine inches long. For it to be any use, he would have to be nuts and eyeballs to the creature he was using it against, and that prospect didn’t please him at all.
When a growl suddenly erupted directly at his feet, Ned instinctively kicked out and caught the beast smack in the head. A lucky shot. A very satisfying yelp of pain accompanied the kick, and Joe chuckled at his side.
The chuckle died quickly enough when Joe cried out, “Fuck!” Joe was no longer at Ned’s side. He had been wrenched away amid a flurry of snarls that erupted around them from every direction. Ned groped in the darkness and discovered Joe a couple of feet away. Ned reached out for him and found him jerking and swaying, clearly in battle with something.
“It’s got my leg!” Joe cried. “Get it off me!”
Ned didn’t think twice. He dropped to his knees at Joe’s side, flailing blindly at the darkness with the knife. Joe was hopping around, trying to keep his balance, while whatever had hold of him kept yanking at his leg, trying to tug him off his feet.
Ned’s hand came in contact with a furry flank, and without thinking about it, he stabbed the blade into the creature’s flesh. A horrific wail split the night as the beast retreated, almost jerking the knife from Ned’s hand. Around them another chorus of growls erupted. Ned didn’t know how many animals there were, but he did know he and Joe were outnumbered.
He pulled himself to his feet and clutched Joe to him. “Dark or not, we have to run for it. There’s too many of them, and it’s too dark to fight. Lead the way, Joe. I’ll follow.”
No sooner were the words uttered than sharp teeth clamped on to Ned’s ankle in a viselike grip. One of his socks ripped loudly as a piercing pain tore through him. He kicked out, but the beast wouldn’t let go. This time it was Joe who dropped to his knees at Ned’s feet, and when the dog let out a mournful yip of terror, Ned knew Joe’s knife had found its mark.
Ned had no time for thanks or congratulations. A second later, Joe was pulling him up the trail. The hillside rose steeply here, so they couldn’t really run. All they could do was try to stay ahead of the pack of dogs snapping at their heels.
Ned snagged his toe on a great tree root that lay across the path. As he fell forward, as if in slow motion, he unwittingly dragged Joe to the ground with him. They hit the trail hard, but ignoring the pain, Ned quickly flipped onto his back and held the knife out in front of him. He could sense Joe doing the same beside him. The beasts moved carefully closer, signaling their movement only by the scrape of stones around them. They were wary of the knives now, but they were still hungry, or crazy, or whatever else had made them decide to attack in the first place.
“This ain’t good,” Joe gasped, scuttling closer to Ned, obviously still hoping to protect him even as the battle had turned in the dogs’ favor.
“Get up!” Ned seethed, suddenly as furious as he had ever been in his life. “We’ve been through too much to be killed by a pack of stupid dogs. Goddammit, I won’t have it!”
In spite of the situation they were in, Joe barked out a laugh. “Well, somebody’s got his dander up!”
He allowed Ned to pull him to his feet. Instinctively, they turned to face the trail they had just climbed, blinded by the lack of light, relying on their ears and reflexes to protect themselves. Again, Ned heard the dogs closing in. They were panting now, their footpads scattering pebbles. Even now an occasional growl tore through the night, clearly aimed at them. Apparently the dogs were as pissed off as Ned. But they were leery too. They didn’t like those knives at all.
Ned was about to give in to his fury and run screaming directly at them, waving his knife like a maniac, when the night sky screamed to life above them. Ned cowered in shock as a roar of sound enveloped them both, all but pushing them to the ground. The bushes at either side whipped and thrashed about in a sudden gale. The wind was so strong, so furious, that a cloud of dirt and grit as sharp as bee stings exploded up around Ned, tearing at his eyes and skin. Squinting through the dust, Ned was astonished to see long streaks of light stabbing down from the sky, crisscrossing the trail and piercing the trees. In their scattered beams, Ned spotted the attacking dogs hightailing it back down the path, a cowardly pack of six or seven of them, terrified by the racket and the light, their bravado gone, their will to kill supplanted by an uncontrollable urge to run from this mysterious new threat.
Ned was sort of feeling the same way. He didn’t understand the noise and lights either.
He looked up as Joe edged in beside him. Together they scanned the sky above their heads, trying to figure out what this noisy, airborne monster was that was making such a racket and had saved their skins by scaring off the dogs.
“A helicopter!” Joe cried, his voice muffled because he had pulled the collar of his coat up over his nose and mouth to filter out the dirt whipping through the air.
Ned did the same, and shielding his eyes with his hand, he squinted skyward. Joe was right. It was a helicopter. It had SDPD painted on its side. The cops had finally shown up!
Before he could stop himself, Ned raised his fists in the air and jumped up and down.
“Give ’em hell!” he screamed. “Blow their asses to kingdom come!”
Joe laughed. “I presume you’re talking about the bad guys.”
“Hell yeah! And the dogs too! Fuck ’em all! Blow ’em to smithereens!”
Ned continued yelling, spinning toward Joe and raking him into his arms. Together, they hugged and laughed and watched the helicopter tilt to the side, then sail off across the sky. At last, when Ned had calmed down and they were both about finished choking to death from the swirling dust thrown up in the downdraft from the spinning rotors, they ducked away from the onslaught of noise and dirt and resumed their trek up the climbing trail.
Ned was still deliriously happy. “I know it will be all right now! I know it will!”
Joe held him close as they once more navigated their way through the darkness.
“I hope you’re right, but until that happens, I still want to get inside the zoo,” Joe said. “I won’t be happy until you’re out of harm’s way. Where nothing can happen to you.”
“Not me, us. Where nothing can happen to us.”
Arm in arm, they climbed on. The trail was really steep here, and it was hard work. Blinded again by the darkness, they crashed into the zoo’s back fence before they ever saw it coming.
Cursing softly, Joe fumbled around in the dark for the secret opening, a loose flap of chain-link fencing that only he and maybe a few homeless people knew about. The moment he found it, he and Ned ducked inside. Joe took a moment to secure the flap behind them. Ned supposed that was so the dogs couldn’t follow them through.
They were on the zoo grounds now, and Ned figured they were safe. He breathed a sigh of relief. They stood still for a moment, listening to the single helicopter thumping away to silence in the distance. As soon as it was gone, the night moved in to take its place. Suddenly noise erupted everywhere. The chitter of crickets in the bushes. The gentle exhalation of Joe’s breath stirring his hair.
And above it all, a cacophony of countless animals shrieking, roaring, snarling in their cages.
A chill shot up Ned’s back. “What’s going to happen now?” he asked in a worried hush.
Joe’s arms tightened around him. “I don’t know.”
Ned stepped closer. “Whatever it is, I’m glad you’re here with me.”
Joe pressed a kiss to Ned’s forehead. “I’ll always be here with you.”
Ned smiled and closed his eyes. “I know,” he softly answered. “That’s because you love me more than life itself.”
Joe chuckled in the dark. “Now you’re catching on.”
JOE WOVE a careful path, leading Ned between rows of long tables filled with potted plants and huge tubs containing seedling trees, all lined up like sentinels on either side. The night air seemed colder here than it had in the park.
“This is the nursery,” Joe explained. “Not the nursery for baby animals, but the nursery for the plants we use on the grounds. This is where I work.”
Ned could smell the flowers and the heavy musk of rich loam, but he couldn’t see a thing. The sweet scent of oleander clung to the frigid air. The moon was still hidden, and clearly the power was still out. Here, away from the fires in the city, the darkness was absolute, as dense and unrelenting as a brick wall. Not for the first time that night, Ned flapped a hand in front of his face and saw absolutely nothing. He sighed, hating the endless darkness more and more as time went by.
Nearby—too nearby—he could hear the shrieking wails and furious bellows of a dozen beasts, each cry different than the other. If he hadn’t known he was within the walls of a zoo, and if he hadn’t known those creatures were penned up behind impregnable moats and walls and bars and screens, the cries would have scared him to death.
“So we’re going to feed the animals?”
Joe reached back, groping for Ned’s hand. “We can’t feed them all, but we’ll do what we can. I’m worried, though. I don’t hear anyone. We may be the only humans here.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe everyone thought it best to stay home and protect their families.”
“But we’re still safer being here than in the city?”
Joe’s squeezed his hand. “Yes, we’re still safer being here.”
Their fingers entwined, Ned followed Joe through the groundskeepers’ compound. Apparently Joe had worked here long enough to have the layout memorized, which was a good thing. Ned would have been plowing into trees and tripping over pots and tables every time he turned around. As it was, he only knew what they were walking through, or around, or between, because he reached out continually to feel what was sliding past. The brittle frond of a baby palm. The velvet blossom of some flower or other. More than once he hissed in pain and drew back from a thorn.
Suddenly a macadam path unrolled beneath his feet. The sidewalk was still rising with the slope of the hillside, as it had in the park. Their footsteps echoed over a small wooden footbridge. The path continued to wind around here and there until it finally leveled off. Somewhere close at hand, Ned detected a gentle splashing. The scent of wet fur and chlorinated water wafted through the air. He heard a grunt in the darkness, and this time it didn’t come from Joe. The air was colder than it had been before, and Ned tried to figure out what they were approaching.
“Polar bear tank,” Joe whispered, as if he could sense the question in Ned’s mind. “We’ll go past this way,” he added, steering Ned around the enclosure.
As the hill crested, the path widened into what, in the darkness, might be a one-lane road, maybe for tour buses to carry zoo visitors through the compound. There were no tourists present tonight, however. By the utter lack of a single human voice, Ned suspected there weren’t any people around at all. Aside from the animals, he and Joe were on their own.
Gentle chomping sounds rose up on either side of them, and Ned edged closer to Joe.
There was amusement in Joe’s voice. “We’re next to the antelope compound. They’re being friendly, hoping we’re going to feed them.”
“Are we?” Ned asked. “Going to feed them, I mean?”
“I hope so. As long as the hay barn isn’t locked.”
Ned reached out his hand in the dark, and sure enough, he touched a rubbery muzzle. A long, hot tongue slipped around his fingers, but no teeth came into play. The animal was saying hello, as friendly as a cow.
“What about the big cats?” Ned asked. “Will we feed them too?”
As if wondering the same thing, a lion in a far-off enclosure roared its dominance over its neighbors. In respect, all other animal sounds fell silent until the echo of the lion’s cry receded. Clearly here, as on the plains of Africa, the lion was offered a begrudging respect. Once a boss, always a boss, Ned thought.
Joe sounded less than impressed. “That’s Namba. He’s always bitching about something.”
“Will we feed him?” Ned asked again. “Him and the others?”
“No. We can only do so much. You have to know what you’re doing to feed the big cats. Some of them have to be hustled into a side cage so the meat can be inserted. That involves keys we don’t have. Others, like the lions, reside in a big pit. We could toss food down to them if we had the food, but we don’t. The meat lockers are locked. We can’t access them on our own. But don’t worry. Big cats don’t eat every day in the wild. They can go a long time without making a kill. They’ll be all right for a while.”
Ned heard the bang and rattle of a metal door squeaking open. He was engulfed in the heady aroma of fresh hay. A beam of light pierced the darkness, shooting this way and that. Joe had snagged a flashlight off a shelf inside the door.
“This is the hay barn. We’ll make it our base of operations,” Joe said, gazing around the large tin shed. “I know it’s not the Ritz, but we can lock ourselves in. There’s also running water in a service sink along the back wall and a porta potty in the corner.”
Ned studied the electric-blue monstrosity Joe was illuminating in his flashlight beam. “Gross, but cool,” he said.
With a kindly smirk, Joe said, “Thought you’d like that. We’ll feed the camels first. They’re at the back of this b
uilding.” He pointed to a wall of baled hay stacked in front of them. Then he aimed the light at a hand-pulled wagon parked against the wall. “We’ll load the bales on the wagon and cart them around. There’s a little tractor, but I want to make as little noise as we can. No sense broadcasting our whereabouts.” He cast an apologetic glance Ned’s way. “I’m afraid I really did mean it when I said we’d be working.”
“Well, good.” Ned grinned. “I like work.”
Spotting a pile of gloves, Ned grabbed two pairs. One for him and one for Joe. He tugged the empty wagon closer and immediately began loading it with wired bales.
“Gee,” Ned said. “They’re light.”
“It’s straw,” Joe explained with a smile, resting the flashlight in a convenient place so they could see what they were doing. Working together, they packed the wagon in no time.
“Come on,” Joe said. He snatched up a pair of cutters to clip the baling wire and tugged the filled wagon toward the open door. “I’ll introduce you to the camels. Don’t get too close. They spit.”
“Lovely,” Ned muttered under his breath.
The next thing he heard was Joe saying, “Hello, you ugly fuckers,” and like pets, the camels came galumphing up to meet them, grumbling happily. They were hungry, yanking the straw out of Ned’s hands before he could toss it over the fence.
And so they worked, proceeding from one enclosure to the next. The frigid night deepened. With only a flashlight to find their path, Ned followed Joe’s directions to the letter. Interrupted by endless reloadings, they pulled the wagon along the roadway, first on one side, then on the other. By the time they were finished a couple of hours later, the camels, antelope, bison, and most of the other hoofed beasts had been fed. They returned the wagon to the barn, and Joe closed the door, sealing them inside.
In a nest of hay, they plopped themselves down to take a break, their backs propped up against the wall of bales with a scattering of loose straw beneath their butts. After a while, the straw helped keep them warm.