by Billy Wells
A moment later, three young couples with phones at their ears rounded the corner of the leopard enclosure. Embroiled in conversation, they were totally oblivious of the carnage that had just taken place. Prying the phones from their ears, they were happily snapping pictures and munching on popcorn when two more hairy monsters emerged from behind a concrete barrier and mauled them. Popcorn and phones flew into the air as blood sprayed the sunglass kiosk behind them. Monkeys began to shriek as a black panther moved toward the front of his cage to get a better look at the slaughter.
In the distance, I heard the sound of gunfire and more people screaming. Police cars burst from around a corner and sped toward the cage where I stood with my mouth agape. A helicopter rocketed overhead and started to descend in a clearing near the hippo tank.
Three werewolves raced by in front of me. One stopped and toyed with the idea of taking a quick bite out of me, and then followed closely behind the others. Moments later, twelve members of a heavily armed S.W.A.T team sped past in the direction the werewolves had headed.
The chaos and the carnage in the park today was much too much excitement for someone like me who had just delivered a bouncing baby…gorilla named Congo. My name is Mambo, and in spite of my condition, the love of my life, Hercules is ogling me seductively from behind a shrub. As he ambles closer with muscles bulging, his erection tells me he’s not here to pick daisies. I start to give him a whack up side the head with my food dish when a burst of gunfire thankfully deflates his ardor for the moment.
In spite of the turmoil, the food truck delivers a medley of greens to our cage just like a normal day. The gunfire is over, and life is returning to normal. Hercules and I have been happy at Dizzyworld. We get three squares a day, medicine when we’re sick, and until today, never had to worry about wild animal attacks. Now, I’m a proud mother with my new baby, Congo. How sweet.
For the last six months, unlike Hercules, who’s never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, I’ve been part of a National Geographic experiment. I’m learning to understand what my trainer, Jeremy, is saying in his language. He holds up an item and tells me what it is so many times I feel like strangling him, but by controlling my angst, I get a special treat when I respond correctly. He wants me to try to speak his language, but so far, I’ve been unable to say one word of English he can understand.
* * *
Now, It’s the middle of the night, and all is quiet except for the intermittent shrieks of the monkeys near the monorail station. It certainly was a crazy day at Dizzyworld, but thank goodness, the police thwarted the werewolves. The full moon over the leopard cage is… what’s the word…breathtaking. Wow! I can’t believe I remembered that word.
What’s that sound? Such a peculiar sound for this time of night. Could that be a key turning in the lock of our cage? A shadow emerges from the dark interior. The security lights along the concourse illuminate a familiar face.
“What on earth is Henry, our zookeeper, doing creeping around in our cage at this time of night? He’s not here to clean up our poop; he didn’t bring a shovel. He’s not here with a late night snack; his hands are empty. Coming into our cage with no whip and no stun gun is a first. Has he been drinking?
Suddenly, the mystery clarifies as Henry’s face begins to change just like the other zookeeper who had tried so hard to attack me. It was now abundantly clear what would happen if I allowed his transformation to take place inside our cage. Wasting no time, I bounded across the few feet, which separated us, and picking up Henry in mid-morph began to cripple him as best I could with uncanny strength fueled by a massive infusion of adrenalin. In a matter of seconds, his wooly body with a mouthful of hideous fangs and a fistful and a footful of monstrous claws lay in a hairy heap of blood and gore. He was still twitching, but completely incapacitated by a broken back and fractured limbs. His severed right arm lay at an odd angle to the side in a pool of blood.
I felt sorry for poor Henry who’d been taking such good care of us, but his imminent transformation into a deranged blood beast left me no choice. After all, what’s a gorilla to do when confronted by a ghastly werewolf?
I didn’t want Hercules and I to get in trouble so I knew we had to dispose of the body before the Dizzyworld crew inspected our cage in the morning. I quickly awakened my love mate, and after stifling his amorous advances, coaxed him to help me carry Henry’s remains to the lion’s den across the way. Luckily, the keys on the ring he’d brought with him conveniently unlocked our cage.
Simba and Samson, the two eternally hungry lions next door, wasted no time in gobbling up what was left of poor Henry as soon as they smelled the fresh blood in their domain.
On our way back to our cage, I noticed the blood and gore matted all over Hercules hairy chest from carrying Henry’s corpse to the lion’s den. I assumed I must look ten times worse since I was the one who’d ripped off his arm to begin with.
We both looked at the keys I held in the palm of my hand and grinned broadly, showing every yellow tooth in our mouths.
The next morning, the park officials had no clue why the flume ride was operating on its own, and how two escaped gorillas had figured out how to take a ride on the monorail.
GHOST TOWN
In 1870, a group of settlers in wagons on their way west saw a stand of buildings in the distance.
“That must be a small town at the foot of the mountain,” Jess said, rolling his parched tongue across his teeth. He could almost taste the shot of whiskey he knew he would order as soon as he found the saloon.
After another hour, the men pulled their seven wagons into the alley beside the Aces and Eights Saloon. The town consisted of eight wooden structures on each side of the street. They didn’t see a single person outside, and no one was visible in any of the windows or doorways. There were no horses tied to any of the hitching posts. Nothing moved except a lone piece of sagebrush tumbling lazily down the rutted street and a rusty weathervane twirling in the wind on top of the hotel.
"What do you make of this, Jess?" Monte asked, surveying the silent, eerie buildings that stood like tombstones in a deserted graveyard.
"Damned if I know. It doesn't look like a ghost town. The buildings look too good for that. Maybe the people are afraid of strangers, and they’re hold up inside."
Monte scratched his head and said, “We don’t look like wild Indians, do we? And no one would take us for escaped convicts; we're not wearing any stripes. Looks to me like whoever was here left in a hurry. I wonder what they knew that we don't. I'm beginning to feel like Custer at the Little Big Horn.
"People or not," Jess groaned with a long face, "I just pray there's whiskey in that there saloon. I could really use a snort right about now, but my hopes are fadin' fast."
Monte looked at the large sign on the wall next to the entrance to the saloon that read "WHISKY-BOTTLE $2.00 and licked his lips.
Jess smiled at the smaller sign on the window upstairs that read “PUSSY, $1.00.” The sour look on his wife’s face in the wagon told him she had already seen it when they rode into town.
Hitching up their britches a tad, Jess and Monte left the others and pushed through the swinging doors.
Entering the space, they saw liquor bottles and stacks of shot glasses lined up in front of a long mirror behind the bar. Playing cards lay scattered about on most of the round poker tables that filled the room. An upright piano stood silent in the corner.
"Just like you said, it looks like everyone stopped what they were doing and left in a hurry,” Jess remarked, turning over the four hands at one of the tables. “This person was the winner of this hand with a full house, but it looks like they never knew who won. They just upped and left the cards and the money on the table and took off.”
“And look at the half-full shot glasses on the bar,” Monte added, “who would walk out and leave good whisky behind? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’d say judging by the lack of dust and cobwebs, they didn't leave so long ago,
" Jess concluded, swiping his fingers along the bar top.
Someone yelled excitedly outside, and Jess and Monte ran out to see what was causing the ruckus.
“I went to the dry goods store and found what was left of a man spread out on the counter,” Henry Farmer said, trying to catch his breath.
“What happened to him?” Monte asked.
“It looked like something ate him,” Henry replied with a somber look.”
“What do you mean ate him?” Lefty Simmons gasped.
“There was almost nothing left but a skeleton. His clothes were in a bloody pile on the floor, and something had eaten almost every shred of flesh from his bones. I don’t think a buzzard could’ve picked him any cleaner.”
“I went upstairs to take a look around, and I found a women’s skeleton in a bed. I guess it was his wife. Whatever ate the man ate her, too. The bedclothes were covered with dried blood.”
Mary Sweet shouted, pointing at a figure at the end of the street, "Look, someone's alive, after all.”
Suddenly, the shambling figure of a young boy fell in a pile in the dust.
When the group of settlers reached him, they found a shockingly skinny boy with bushy, blonde hair, lying unconscious and barely breathing in the middle of the street. They carried him into the livery stable to get out of the hot sun. Immediately, the smell of death and decomposition struck them in the face like a sledgehammer. They discovered carcasses of several horses picked as clean as the bodies they had found in the dry good store. The air was thick with flies buzzing about the bones.
The stench was so unbearable, Monte and Jess had to move the boy to the building next door. The three of them stayed with him while the others returned to the saloon and the wagons to check on the women and children.
Mary determined the boy had a rapid pulse and a slight fever, but otherwise, she had no idea what may have caused him to lose consciousness. She assumed he had fainted from severe malnutrition. He was horribly emaciated, and the bones of his rib cage stuck out like the black keys on a piano.
Mary felt sorry for the waif who had the most angelic face under the grime she had ever seen. She stood up and looking toward the mountains in the distance said, “I wonder if this youngin’ was part of that wagon train we came upon that the Indians attacked.”
Since the boy’s ailment wasn't from a wound or a broken bone, they loaded him into a wagon, took him to the saloon, and put him in a room upstairs. Monte's wife, Carolyn, brought him some food, hoping it would bring him around.
Downstairs, the women watched the men hooting and hollering at the bar, and after they put the children to bed, they began to make merry themselves.”
“Let's hope poison whisky is not the reason the town folk disappeared,” Jess chuckled.
“If it is, I guess, most of us will be in heaven soon,” Roger answered with a wide grin and poured himself another drink.
At about nine o’clock, the settlers decided to return to their wagons to bed down for the night rather than stay in the rooms above the saloon. The strange disappearances of the townsfolk and the horrific deaths at the dry good store had made some of them uneasy, but others simply ignored what had happened and continued drinking their fill of the whiskey.
The next morning, quite a few, both men and women, were hung over as they gathered around a campfire in the alley next to the saloon. The smell of coffee and bacon eventually brought most of them to the table in spite of their inebriation.
Monte savored his last biscuit and carried his coffee to the front of the saloon where Jess leaned in a chair against the wall playing a harmonica. In the distance at the other end of town, Monte noticed a flock of turkey buzzards circling, and then disappearing behind a clump of boulders.
“Hey, Jess.” Marty pointed. “Them buzzards weren't there at sunset.”
“Guess somethin’ died last night.”
“Is everyone accounted for?”
“Don't know,” Jess said, scratching his balls, “I just crawled out of my bedroll.”
After counting the people around the campfire, Jess determined that Lefty Simmons was not among them. He weaved his way to his wagon and called for him, “ Lefty, get your sorry ass up. You’re missing flapjacks and bacon, and Mary Sweet made the coffee.”
Jess waited for a reply, but there was no answer. Pulling back the canvas cover, he saw the blood splatter on the floorboards and called out to the others, “Listen up, Lefty is missing, and there's a lot of blood in his wagon. I've got a bad feeling he's what them turkey buzzards are chewin' on at the other end of town.
The men put down their plates of food and headed to the spot where the buzzards were feasting. They were all thinking the same thing. Something had sneaked into their camp last night and snatched up Lefty right under their noses. Whatever got him could have taken any one of them.
Monte fired a few shots into the air to chase the turkey buzzards away from their morning snack as they drew closer to the grisly remains.
Jeff was the first to lose his breakfast when he saw what remained of poor Lefty. Great slabs of his thighs and his midsection were missing. Something had chewed the flesh from his arms and legs like human drumsticks. Either the buzzards pecked out his eyeballs, or his attacker gouged them out.
Everyone but Abraham Jarvis wretched and turned away from the horror on the ground. Herman Peale removed his flannel shirt and draped it over the pile of blood, bone, and guts that had been Lefty only yesterday.
“I don't know about you,” Herman muttered, “but I think we should get in our wagons and leave this town right now before whatever killed Lefty comes for us.”
Jess and Monte told the others to meet them at the cemetery on top of the hill in two hours. Monte went back to the saloon, got his wagon, and returned to where Jess stood watching the buzzards flying overhead. They placed Lefty’s remains in the wagon and drove to the cemetery. Removing two shovels from inside, they picked a spot under the lone tree that stood just before the crest of the hill and started digging a grave.
When the hole was big enough, they lifted Lefty’s body wrapped in burlap from the wagon and placed it in the grave. It had been almost two hours, and looking down from the hill at the town, they saw the others were gathering in the street for the funeral.
Jess said to Monte, who was wiping his brow, “Go find Robert and tell him to bring his Bible. He can say a few words at the ceremony. He's good at that. Tell the others to come on. Let’s get this over with and talk about what we’re gonna do.”
Monte climbed into the wagon and headed for town.
Jeff picked up his shovel and started pushing the dirt into the grave. He had planned to leave it open until after the service, but the intense, foul smell changed his mind.
By the time the others reached the gravesite, Jess had filled the hole with dirt and piled a few rocks on top.
After everyone gathered around, Robert read a verse from the Bible, and then he prayed aloud with his eyes closed, “Well, God, Lefty has joined you way up yonder. He won't have to worry about Injuns anymore, where the next waterhole might be, rattlers, flash floods, tarantulas, dust storms… you know… all the things you put in our way to make us strong God-fearing Christians.”
Several of the male mourners couldn’t help but chuckle at this remark causing several of the stern-faced women to shush them. The wind moaned in the trees, and the sky looked like a storm was coming.
“He's gone to that eternal land of milk and honey where the antelopes play, and the skies are not cloudy all day,” Robert continued thoughtfully, “I know Lefty wasn't perfect. I don't have to tell you that. You probably have a list of things he done we don't even know about, but he was a good friend to all of us, and we hope you'll take good care of him up there. I don't know what Lefty will do if there's no whiskey in heaven. He was a real boozer. Maybe that stuff they call nectar will do when he needs a snort. Well, I know you got a lot of stuff on your plate so I'm signing off. Have mercy on our souls.”
Everyone in the group said “amen” in unison. Several of the women placed wildflowers on the grave before they started back down the hill.
Jess whispered to Monte as the rest of the mourners thinned out, “Even after I closed up the grave, I can't get the stink of death out of my nose.”
“I don't think that's Lefty we’re smelling,” Monte said. “I think it's coming from over the hill.”
Jess walked to the top of the rise where more tombstones peppered the hillside. Monte followed. When they reached the summit, they saw a steep incline drop into a large ravine. The smell of death was much more intense here. Looking into the gaping hole, they saw the bones of hundreds of bodies of humans, livestock, even dogs and cats scattered in piles below. Rats and other vermin scurried about the putrid abyss like ants.
"Well, Monte, I guess we know where all the town folk went.”
“But what we don't know,” Monte replied, “is what killed them.”
“Whatever did this doesn't just kill a person, they eat him, too.”
Monte’s brow wrinkled as he turned to Jess, “What kind of animal could it be?”
“It wasn't no animal that left that man spread-eagled on the counter, and it wasn’t just one of them that slaughtered the whole town. You saw the half-filled glasses of whiskey on the bar, and the playing cards and the money on the tables. These people left in a hurry, trying to stay alive. They knew something was coming for them, and they took off.
“The poor bastards didn't get far,” Monte replied, heading down toward the wagon.”
Jess stopped and muttered to himself as Monte listened, “What does this tell us? Why aren't they scattered all around the street. Whatever killed them took the time to cart their bones to the top of the hill and dump them in the ravine.”