The Human Zoo

by Kolin Wood

  Outside, the darkness of the room perpetuated into the long, cold corridor. The floor, a tapestry of old polished boards, creaked ominously as they inched along unable to see much. At each door they stopped, listening carefully to the inside, and trying the handle. All of the rooms that they tried were open and mostly empty save for a few pieces of un-burnable furniture.

  Soon they came to a corner. Mitchel felt his heart sink as peered around it and saw that the corridor wound onwards into the darkness, exposing another dozen or so doors. The manor house was huge, and there was no way of knowing where in the fuck they were.

  The sudden sound of voices farther off caused him to freeze in his step. He listened; the voices were moving in their direction. In one swift movement, he clamped a hand over Connor’s scabbed mouth and pulled him in towards his chest. The boy squirmed in his grip. Under Mitchel’s gripping hand, the boy’s mouth felt wet. The pain of skin on his open wounds was undoubtedly agonizing, but Mitchel held tight, easily overpowering him.

  “Keep fucking still or I’ll snap your neck, faggot,” he hissed quietly.

  Knowing better than to argue, Connor stopped moving and fell compliant in his arms.

  Together they watched around the corner as the glow of a candle cut through the darkness and cast dancing black shadows on the floor farther down the hall. Whoever approached was only a few seconds away. Mitchel pulled the pair of them out of view behind the wall and put his lips to the boy’s ear.

  “Don’t even breathe, you little fuck.”

  Adrenaline coursed through his constricted veins. His legs shook. He was unarmed and only had the boy to help him. If they turned and tried to retreat back down the corridor, the floorboards would surely give them away. They were stuck. They could only move forwards. He released the boy and readied himself to fight.

  In the darkness beyond, the voices stopped. There was a sound as a door opened and the people went inside. The murmuring continued, more muffled this time. Mitchel poked his head out. A doorway—three up on the opposite side—had been left ajar. Result.

  He turned to Connor, fixing him with a look that explained the seriousness of the task they were about to undertake. He gestured for the lad to watch him by pointing with both fingers at his own eyes. Connor nodded, a trail of spit falling onto the floor at his feet. The clamped hand had smeared the blood around his face, giving him the look of a killer clown. Good, Mitchel thought. Maybe it would help to freak the fuckers out.

  Keeping tight to the wall, they moved on with purpose towards the room, setting their feet down lightly in an attempt to lessen the chance of a wrong-footed step. They could do without engaging one of the troublesome floorboards; the element of surprise being absolutely vital given their lack of weapons.

  Once at the door, Mitchel held up his hand, slowly pulling down his fingers one at a time; five… four… three… two… one… There was no waiting to be done. He ducked inside silently. Connor followed, crouching low behind him.

  Two people stood directly in front of them and pointing a torch at something crumpled on the floor, seemingly oblivious to their presence. Both were carrying guns, which they had slung carelessly over their shoulders.

  Mitchel gritted his teeth, and the veins in the sides of his temples and down his neck flared and swelled as adrenaline surged through his legs and arms, making his breathing shallow. He quickly assessed the situation. In this muted light, even with time and a good aim, he would be a hard target. Add to that the element of surprise, and it would be possible to hit them before they even knew he was moving. Greased fucking lightening. The odds were as good as they were going to be and that was good enough.

  With a sprinter's start, he rushed headlong at the bigger of the two, slamming a muscular shoulder hard into an unguarded kidney. There was a loud ‘oooompf’, as air was expelled rapidly and violently from the unprepared lungs. The force of the hit sent them both sprawling into the far wall. Mitchel heard the gun clatter to the floor before his head mashed down into the floorboards. Something sharp skinned against his face, causing him to bellow in pain.

  Caught off-guard and suddenly finding himself weaponless and on his back, the fledgling man screamed for help, his voice spiking in high-pitched panic; but it was too late. Mitchel, now in an offensive position on top of his felled victim, opened up like a man possessed. He threw a lightning-quick volley of punches, feeling his fists crunch on bones through the thick wool of the balaclava. The tactic had worked. Mitchel had completely over-powered his foe. He now slapped away the feeble blows that came at him from below.

  Behind him, Connor had followed the charge with a pitchy yell. He leapt with his arms outstretched, the force of his weight crumpling his opponent to their knees and giving them no chance to respond. Watching, Mitchel raised his arms in silent victory. At that point, he didn’t care how many of them there were or what guns they had, he was going to destroy them all. He leaned forward and clamped his mouth down in the middle of the masked face. His teeth tore through cartilage. Hot blood spurted into his mouth. The shouts for help turned into a blood-curdling howl of pain. The man’s hands flailed and grabbed as he tried to pull the incisors from their manic grip. Unable to bite through the gristle, Mitchel released his jaw and pushed himself backwards.

  “Fucking enough already!” he shouted, sending a punch hard into the man’s throat. The din stopped in in an instant, replaced instead with a desperate, clucking gargle as the man tried a last attempt for unobtainable breath. He laughed as he watched the dying man scrabble with the bottom of his mask. There was no saving him now. “Oh, enough of the wining, pussy.”

  On the other side of the room, Connor was sat astride the stomach of his fallen prey. He had his knee down on a thin wrist which was still clutching at the stock of what looked like a pellet rifle. Mitchel watched as the boy smiled, obviously high on adrenaline and soaring with a taste of victory himself.

  “Finish him off!” Mitchel shouted, keen to ensure that any threat had been fully neutralised. “What are you waiting for, do him!”

  Connor raised his arms, screamed, and brought the bottom of his fists down hard on the face beneath him, ceasing any movement instantly. Then, just like that, the huge house fell eerily silent once again.

  Panting and out of breath, Mitchel stood first. He turned and spat on the body before him as the gargling from the man at his feet turned into a staccato wheeze and then stopped altogether. The rifle was a few metres away and Mitchel walked to it, also picking up the torch which had scattered against the wall behind him.

  The cheek that had dragged across the floor throbbed painfully, and he put up a hand to investigate the extent of the damage. There, wedged deep under the skin, he could feel a large splinter of wood. This is going to hurt like a bitch, he thought as he clenched his teeth and pushed to gain purchase with his blunted fingertips. Mother fucker! He pulled. With a small spurt of blood, the splinter came free and he tossed it to the floor before turning and kicking the body at his feet.

  With the torch now in his grip, he shone it down. In front of him lay a heap of what looked like dirty clothing. He nudged the pile gently with his foot and it groaned. Something was in fact, someone. Mitchel dropped down on his haunches. It looked as though this person had been hogtied—just like they had been—from the neck to the wrists. He moved the beam slowly up the torso. Blood, clear and plentiful, splattered the thick, black material of a dark shirt. At the head, he recoiled. There appeared to be no face, just a messy pulp where one used to sit. A lump, bleeding and torn open, protruded from the skull and glistened in the fading light.

  The General.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In the beginning they were kept together in one cell. They were not permitted light, and they were given no bedding. The floor was cold and hard, and the women huddled for warmth behind the solid concrete frame of a desk between two equally solid concrete-based beds.

  Torment poured through the porthole of the door at all hours of the day and
night as young men and boys spat and hissed vulgarities with the flicking of tongues and the banging of eager fists. Only when ‘he’ was about did the feral-acting youngsters appear to show any sort of respect. In those first few days inside the prison, not a single person laid a finger on them; ‘he’ saw to that. However, the solitude was not to last for long.

  Stacey, a young mum and wife from the Home Counties, was the first to be taken. A group of them came in the night and pulled her from behind the desk. She screamed pitiful cries, begging for them to leave her be. But the pleas fell on deaf ears. She was bound and dragged from the room, the fear evident in her tear-filled eyes. There was nothing that could be done. There were too many of them to resist.

  Angela, a pretty girl no older than eighteen, was taken a few nights later, leaving Juliana alone in the pitch black cell. She never saw either of them again.

  The night they came for Juliana, she had tried to fight them even though she knew that it was futile. She lay shivering on the floor, facing the wall. The cold cut into her skin, and a surreal delirium engulfed her brain in a stomach-turning fugue, bringing visions of the dead and the missing.

  The door opened and the sound of heavy boots entered the room. Sniggers and catcalls were shushed as the smell of unwashed bodies shocked her brain into a tepid form of realisation. Unknown hands reached for her in the darkness.

  She spun, teeth barred like a cat protecting its kittens. A painful and guttural wail erupted from deep inside her as her primal rage erupted. Rage at her predicament, at her helplessness. Rage for her husband and rage for Johnny, her little boy, out there on his own because of them.

  With as much energy as she could muster in her weakened state, she clawed with her fingernails, raking them down the soft flesh of somebody’s face. Pain screamed out in a voice not yet properly broken. As more hands came to restrain her, she twisted her head and sunk her teeth into an arm. Hot, coppery-tasting blood filled her mouth before a sharp intense pain engulfed her head and everything suddenly went white.

  She awoke in a daze. A dull ache filled the back of her skull. She could feel a strong grip on her ankle and her scalp stung painfully as her hair pulled behind her on the sticky floor. The flicker of an occasional candle passed by in slow motion; the air, hot and thick and rancid, suffocated her. After another few metres, she stopped moving. The grip disappeared and her leg was dropped with a bang which jarred her heal, but she barely registered the pain. Hands reached down again, this time roughly gripping her by the arms, forcing her upright, and bringing fresh pain to her head, but she offered them no resistance. All of her fight was gone.

  They set her down heavily in a wooden chair. Two pairs of hands pinned her arms at either side of her body. She couldn’t lift her head; saliva dribbled from her mouth and down onto her chest. It was then she heard him.

  “Now, one six four, I have something special for you today.”

  The voice was well spoken and commanding. The soft banging of wood on metal thudded in her aching head.

  “Bring yourself over to the porthole and I will show you what your obedience will buy you.”

  Juliana raised her head and squinted in the dim light.

  The big man stood, peering into a cell, a bandage wrapped low over his eyes. One of the lewd little bastards hovered nearby holding an outstretched candle, eerily lighting his lower face. In his hand he held a club-like piece of wood, which he banged on the large steel door.

  “I assure you… you will not be disappointed,” he said. “Come… see what I have for you.”

  He then stepped back, and Juliana heard a grunt from within the cell followed by a shuffling sound. A pair of eyes appeared at the hole, dark-rimmed and menacing. Fear shook her whole body; they looked like the eyes of a demon.

  When Juliana screamed, a hand suddenly clamped down over her mouth. She pulled frantically against her captors, but they easily held her firmly fixed in the chair.

  “See, one six four? See what you can have if you join me?”

  She looked up at the bandaged man, her head clearing a little. Like the others, he was dressed from head to toe in black. They looked like Hitler’s Nazi youth and sounded just as demented in their logic.

  “There is a place for you in this new world; I can assure you. No longer will you be locked up like an animal.” He motioned at the guards and Juliana felt arms slip under her armpits. She tried to scream as realisation suddenly dawned on her and the two of them began to drag her towards the cell door. No! Fuck, please no!

  “Stand back, please, one six four… Away from the door… that’s it.”

  She watched as the eyes disappeared and she heard a key in the lock. She felt her bladder let go, running warm on her legs. She screamed again, the sound lost in the gloved hand over her mouth. The door slowly opened, and she was bundled helplessly towards its black, cavernous opening.

  Inside the cell it was almost completely dark. The rough hands released her, and she moved quickly against the wall, trying to flatten herself against it. They set a single candle at her feet and then the door slammed shut.

  She squinted, her head throbbing. In the dim light, standing in the corner of the room, she could just about make out the shadow of someone, a body, a dark spectre.

  “Remember, one six four… compliance buys freedom.”

  With half a foot of steel now separating her from her captors, the voice sounded muted. There was some laughter and then the faint sound of boots moving down the hall before another door farther away slammed shut. They were alone.

  Juliana tried to inch herself along the far side of the cell away from the thing in the corner, hindered as her wet feet slipped on the floor. She wanted to scream but, being more scared than she had ever been before in her life, began to hyperventilate instead. Over on the other side of the room, the still figure watched, not moving. Glancing around, she could see other disfigured shapes lying in the shadows on the floor.

  She glanced at the candle; its dim light was the only thing saving her from being plunged into total darkness. A sob escaped her trembling mouth as a deep rasping breath emitted from the shadows. Then she saw them… the dead eyes from before, lit red by the flame.

  “Hello?” Her voice cracked and failed on her and she sobbed again, bringing a shaky hand up to her mouth.

  “Hello! Talk to me… please… please… What am I doing here?”

  Movement, slow and measured, as the thing from the shadows stepped towards her. Limited light from the single candle danced across its face, causing it to appear cracked and marked. Black lips pulled back in a leering smile to reveal a broken set of dirty teeth. The reek in the room was so thick that it choked her and sent a fresh wave of panic rushing in. She tried to suck in a laboured breath which never truly came, leaving her feeling lightheaded. Rotting meat and shit suffocated her, enhancing the dread that closed around her insides like a snake. Another step forward it came, closing the small gap.

  “No! NO! Please! Stay the fuck away from me!”

  She tried to focus, putting a hand out in front of her in horror at the sight of his face. The deep craters that she had thought to be cracks were, in fact, smears of deep red, dried blood. They streaked liberally down his neck and torso, coating him in a black garment of ended life. Tattoos, swirling and dark, poked through the macabre overcoat; strangely, they were the only thing hinting at humanity beneath.

  As the breath finally caught in her lungs, Juliana screamed. The sound that came out was pitiful and more of a wail. Desperate for help, her wide eyes darted around the room, searching the corners. She inched closer to the door. One of the shadows on the floor came into view. A body, its stomach opened like the scene of some back-street cadaver robbery, lay unceremoniously bundled into a dark corner.

  Juliana span and ran the final few steps for the door, throwing herself against it and banging her fists in a desperate flailing motion, delirious with fear.

  “PLEASE… PLEASE… FUCKING HELP ME! SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME
!”

  A hand grabbed the back of her head and pushed, holding her forehead against the cold steel of the door. Her leg kicked over the candle, plunging the room into complete darkness. Without sight, time seemed to freeze. The strength of the hand caused her to stop thrashing almost immediately as its fingers enveloped her skull and crushed it in an icy grip. Her body shook and she gave in, realising that the fight was futile.

  “Please…” she said in barely a whisper.

  The hand pulled her head back and slammed it hard into the door. White flashes marred her vision as pain exploded in her frontal lobe and her legs collapsed from under her. Hands clamped onto her neck and the light began to expand in her eyesight. Warmth filled her face and crept down her body, making her feel almost serene and calm. The last thing she remembered was the tearing of fabric and the sting of pain as her smock was torn roughly from her body. Then, mercifully, she passed out.

  Juliana awoke in a sweat, shivering. She shook her head, trying to nullify the memories of her ordeal from all those years ago. The fucker had fed her to him, to the bloody psychopath in room one six four, with all the care of a kid feeding baby animals at a zoo. She lay, her heart beating, listening to the sound of her sleeping friend, whose breaths struggled through the broken cartilage and dried blood from her shattered nose. A hot cloud of boiling anger moved from her belly and surged through her veins. She screamed, jumped from the bed, and ran at the door, fists clenched in white-knuckled balls of fury and pain.

  ONE… TWO… THREE…

  She fired the punches in quick succession, rattling the door on its thick hinges. Behind her, Sarah shot up in bed, white as a ghost.

  “Juliana, are you okay?” she asked, but Juliana ignored her.

  Years of similar outbursts and purposeful training had left her knuckles hardened so they no longer split as she continued her assault on the door. Her hair, matted with sweat, stung and concealed her face, covering the fact that her teeth were bared and her eyes were dipped. She stared out the open porthole into the sparse expanse of corridor in front of her.