The Human Zoo

by Kolin Wood

  I’ll kill every one of you, he thought. The wall was cold, and he banged his head back against it twice, keeping his eyes tightly closed. I will cut your throats while you sleep. You'll all die choking on your own blood. And I promise, my smiling face will be the last thing you will ever see.

  He brought his arm up to his face, wiping it across his dripping nose in one single motion, the coarse heavy material pulling rather than soaking up the seepage, and pushed off the wall.

  Not far along the corridor he heard voices coming from an open door. Barely any light spilled out into the dark, but what little did accentuated the depth of the shadows around him, providing ample camouflage for him to use to gain a view. Curious, he peered inside.

  Tristan, one of the older inmates, and Weaton, one of the quieter ones, were sitting at a desk and drinking from a bottle of dark rum. A single candle flickered between them. Weaton was humming something seemingly incoherent whilst he ran his long fingers through the flame. The thick smell of marijuana hung in the air, pungent and unique.

  A sudden tickle caught in his throat and, unable to stifle it, Pock coughed.

  He froze with terror.

  Tristan turned his head, squinting as his eyes searched the darkness beyond the door.

  “Get in here, Pock” he said, laughing as he spoke and flashing sneering eyes at Weaton.

  The shadows had obviously not offered sufficient cover. With a deep breath and slow steps, Pock entered the room. It was the first time he had ever been invited into Tristan’s personal space. He was tough, physically and mentally, respected and listened to by most. Neither cruel nor sadistic but neither was he lenient, following orders specifically and intently as they were put upon him. Pock did not like him, or trust him. But then, Pock did not like or trust anyone.

  He stood on the far side of the room, his back flat against the wall. Weaton was still staring at the candle, oblivious to his presence.

  “W-what?” Pock stuttered, his eyes fleeting to the open door and back again. He was no good at this. Inside, his anger burned with a bright intensity, but somewhere on its way out it seemed to get lost in translation. He coughed and tried again; this time trying to sound deeper and more confident. “What?”

  Tristan laughed, properly this time, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. He shook his head slowly, grinning with a kind of sympathy one might show a simpleton.

  Keep laughing arsehole, Pock thought.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of here, lad. I ain’t gonna do nothing to you.” Tristan stood, keeping one arm behind his back.

  Pock again glanced at the door, immediately intimidated, as Tristan took a few steps in his direction. He knew better than to trust a single word that any one of them said; years of torment had taught him that much.

  “I don’t need anything from you,” he said.

  Tristan moved directly in front of him, effectively blocking his only chance of escape. He was now within a few inches of his face. The smell of booze on his breath was thick and tinged with tobacco. The glazed, druggie look that Pock had come to know so well was clear in his droopy, jaundiced eyes.

  “I don’t need anything,” he repeated, more firmly. “Leave me alone.”

  Before he could move, Tristan brought forward the hidden arm. Pock looked down, his throat suddenly tight and devoid of saliva, expecting to see a blade sticking from between his ribs. But rather than a sharp pain, there was only a light thump; instead of a knife, in his hands he held a book.

  “Read it and weep, Pock mark,” Tristan said amiably enough before returning back to his chair, ending the exchange as quickly as it had begun. He picked up a half-full bottle of Wood’s Navy Rum from the floor and took a deep swig, spilling some down the side of his face.

  Pock Mark.

  Pock had hated that name since the first day some comedy genius or another had given it to him. He needed no reminding of how badly pitted his face was. The fact that it was nothing similar to his real name James just further enhanced his feeling of solitude and loneliness.

  He looked down at the book. It was greasy and dog-eared with a thick, red leather binding and a slim, dull, metal buckle on the front holding it closed. Without looking up, he turned and walked out into the corridor, a wave of relief washing over him as he found himself once again on his own.

  “Pock,” Tristan called out after him as he left. “Watch your back.”

  The cold air was welcoming and Pock moved quickly, clutching the book to his chest. Questions about its content bounded through his head but he pushed them down, dutifully following the line of sparsely placed candles tactically positioned throughout the pitch black halls. The prison had not been designed and built with lighting ambiance in mind and as a result, there was virtually no natural light to permeate the foreboding darkness.

  At the next junction, he turned into a corridor with no candles. The farther along he moved, the less he could see, until he could barely make out the walls on either side. Just before it became completely impossible to navigate, Pock came to a door with a dirty plaque that read LIBRARY. Without hesitating, he pushed open the door and entered the musty room.

  A thin shard of light permeated the black. The meagre light in the room showed him a row of desk cubicles, each bearing a dust-covered computer. At the first desk in the row, a small candle had been set in the middle and he lit it, welcoming the warm glow which bounced cosily off the three worn wooden barriers to the front and sides. A varied—and by prison standards, eclectic—-selection of books were piled in one corner, some read, others waiting.

  The metal legs rang abrasively on the hard floor as he pulled the chair in, and he sat back with a comfortable feeling of recognition. This was his space, his and his alone, somewhere he could almost guarantee to be left to his own devices, safe from the constant abuse which had become his life.

  He looked down at the book, his heart beating fast, for a reason unknown to him. Whatever it held, he knew it was something important; otherwise, Tristan—who didn’t talk with him ever—would not have bothered to show it to him. Very few of the other boys chose to read, and he was unsure whether this was through choice or lack of education. He believed that it was probably a case of the latter.

  With a slow expulsion of hot breath, he opened the thick, dense cover and pulled the candle close.

  July 2nd 2015

  My name is Cole Bishop.

  I am writing this journal from an office in a young offender’s institution on the outskirts of the city.

  The world outside is dying. Many of the people I once knew are dead, the victims of some disease which nobody has been able to explain. So far, I appear to be immune. In an attempt to save my own life and find somewhere safe to go, I walked in through an open gate to find that this institution had been abandoned, save for the inmates, many of whom still appear to be in their cells.

  I don’t know what is to become of me but I couldn’t stay at home. There is a war happening on the streets outside. People are fighting, slaughtering one another. I have nowhere to go and nobody left that I can trust. For now at least, the best I can do is wait in here and try and work out the next course of action. Things are bad, real bad, and getting worse.

  God help us all.

  July 16th 2015

  I have managed to secure the prison.

  There is no way in or out, and for the first time in months, I feel a sense of security. The main room at the front, which doubles as the office, has become my personal chambers for now. From the high windows I can see out over the wall and into the town beyond.

  The whole building smells of death, made worse by the rotting growth which burns on my face. The nights in here are tumultuous and the screams unrelenting, pounding the walls and haunting the dark corners. It feels as though the building is in the final throes of death, pitiful and in pain.

  On these haunted nights I watch the skyline, painted with destruction from the fires of the burning world. I watch an
d I think. About meaning, about purpose, about life.

  I used to see the world as inhumane, sadistic and violent. Money and greed ruled people’s ambitions leading to corruption and exploitation on all levels, all the way up through to Government; NOBODY WAS TRUSTWORTHY! However, compared to what I’ve now seen, it seems like a gentile society in a peaceful time, with charity and legislation written to defend the weaker elements.

  Back then, life came easy—live in the same house as a thousand other people, in one of a thousand housing estates, and the chance of being targeted for crime drops significantly. It is a natural form of tribal instinct. Most of the time, faced with the threat of violence, a person will resort to simple survival tactics such as bunching together in order to appear less conspicuous and reduce risk; the same reason that fish swim in schools and birds fly in flocks. Fashion was an example of this inconspicuousness, an unconscious choice, made by an unconscious population. People owned the same accessories and wore the same shoes and jackets to try and convince themselves that they were making a statement about their own identities when really they were doing nothing but embodying their own cowardice.

  Today, however, it is every man, woman, and child for themselves. Time is carving a new beast out of us.

  Trust is gone.

  Anybody adverse to violence is gone.

  My old self is gone.

  Was the human race that arrogant to believe that we were the masters of our own destiny? We remain but a speck on the face of the world, a blimp in its history, an illness bearing the severity and duration of that of a common cold—one easily cured and then forgotten about. The depth of our arrogance was staggering.

  But none of that matters now. My foolish mumblings mean nothing. I fear for the future. The darkness, present in all of us, casts us no better than a pack of stray dogs, setting us against each other, ready to fight and kill over food, booze, and the chance to fornicate. Decades of self-servitude have left us cold and desperate with no answers or solutions to our own parasitic nature.

  But we have to try.

  Tomorrow I will venture into the blocks and attempt to bring some order to this chaos. I have uncovered food, water, weapons, and uniforms left behind in the prison stores. It really is a most generous bounty, and I feel privileged to have found it. However, I need manpower to orchestrate an alignment.

  Perhaps, locked away among these wretched and forgotten souls, there are a few which have not been too badly damaged by their situations. Perhaps, I can engineer a team to help me realise my vision for a better future.

  In order to continue, we must challenge everything that we have been spoon-fed, everything we have been taught and trained in.

  The bright day of the human race has ended and night is here—Armageddon is the night and we must continue our journey by the light of the moon.

  Pock leaned back. A journal. The General was a deep man. Having spent many nights in his presence, he had realised early on that he was, in fact, an intellectual; well-read in all manner of topics. It had always seemed weirdly out of character, probably due to his build and gait, the bloody face bandage covering one eye, and his thick leather jacket. In truth, Pock had always thought that he looked more like a horror film villain than an academic. But the General was the only person that challenged him even marginally; something that Pock appreciated more than he let on. Throughout the rest of the prison, the conversation tended to be far cruder; hollow bravado based on physical and sexual conquests.

  He had, however, never seen the General writing anything, much less a journal.

  Pock strained his ear as he heard someone run past, and then, confident that he was alone once more, he turned back to the book.

  July 21st 2015

  There are sixty-five inmates still alive. Most are dead—fallen foul of the disease. The blood around their eyes, noses and mouths is identical to that which I saw on the streets outside.

  Many of them are unaware of me, undoubtedly lost within the madness of their own heads, unable to distinguish between the noise of my boots on the hard floors and the sound of their own teeth knocking together.

  I can see evidence that a vast majority have harmed themselves in some way, probably in frustration at their ultimate pointlessness. I try to understand that feeling; to only know the flatness of a life with no apex, with no dreams, but often I fall short. Every man questions his existence at some point. But to do so locked in a concrete box with only the promise of death as the ultimate reward for all of your soul searching is something I cannot fathom. These boys were not given life sentences and yet here they are, waiting for a rescue that they are sure will never come.

  July 23rd 2015

  I have discovered five inmates locked in confinement in a dank corridor underneath the block.

  It was immediately obvious to me that there was something different about them. I could tell the minute I went down there; nothing specific but a feeling of evil. I can’t really explain it.

  I looked but could not find the file of one of them—prisoner One Six Four. It’s strange because those of all the other inmates have been easily obtainable, and certainly reinforced my initial thoughts. These are the worst of the worst, the un-saveable, and the damned.

  But it is One Six Four that worries me the most. He stares through the porthole, always there, waiting at the door when I go down, those eyes burning pure hatred…

  Pock skimmed, jumping sections in the thick book. He did not need to read about ‘the numbers’. He knew everything he needed to know about what transpired down in those murderous halls and avoided that part of the prison like the plague.

  The early chapters were wordy and heavy with detail; Pock figured it was probably on account of the solitude that the General must have felt wandering alone in those early days.

  Randomly, he stopped on a page.

  July 30th 2015

  I have begun to feed them, all of them, even the ones in solitary confinement. There are not many that I feel, at this stage, are capable of trust. Some of the younger boys are whimpering like lost puppies when I come to watch them. Although I would be inhuman not to feel some sort of compassion, I am still not willing to release them into the prison with me… not yet. I must remember that, whatever they say and however they act, these are boys that have been taken from the streets and locked behind steel and concrete for a reason.

  Pock stopped reading again.

  He remembered those first days clearly enough; the hunger and the desperation, convinced that he was going to die in the cell. After all, who in their right mind would decide to admit themselves into a prison? Much less just as the breakdown of authority was beginning! Yet, in hindsight, with its ready-built defences, weapons, clothing and stores, was it really such a bad decision? Some might say it was nothing short of genius.

  His own initial experiences of the General had been surreal and dreamlike, almost to the point as if they had not really taken place. To begin with, convinced that they had all been abandoned, he had screamed and banged about like everybody else. His vocal chords burned raw and his arms and legs were swollen black and blue. But strangely, as the days wore on, a sort of calmness had descended over him like a silk sheet. Clarity he called it now; a realisation that death was just another part of life, a stepping stone in the race across the great river.

  Finally at peace with himself after a few days of almost trance-like meditation, he had laid down to die. Outside the cell door, the rest of the prison was in its death throes and Pock had laughed at the childish tones of the screams, the pitifulness of the pleas. What had they expected to achieve? Salvation? Everybody dies sometime! Best they shut up and do so with a little dignity, he had thought.

  It was around that time that he had first heard the steel shutter on the door to his cell being carefully pulled back. Sure he was hallucinating, he lifted his head for the briefest of moments, neither believing nor caring about its source. Maybe one of the nutters had got out, or maybe it was a few of the guar
ds back to gloat. And even if it was, why would any of them even consider letting him, the weird kid, out of his cell?

  But it was the next day, during a strangely lucid, pre-death hour, that he had first really noticed the bandaged head with the dark eye staring at him through the narrow porthole in the door. His sheets were wet with urine and the now-cold liquid burned sores into his weak skin and caused him to shiver violently. But the eye just watched him, unmoving. It was soulless and black, and gave nothing away.

  Defiantly, he had turned his back and stared at the wall, not looking around again until he was sure the owner would be gone.

  That was the same day the door was opened a fraction and a bottle of water and a sandwich had been pushed in.

  That was the day that everything had changed.

  August 5th 2015

  It is hot outside. Summer has finally hit and yet this huge complex remains eerily cool. The sunshine teases through the windows, casting lazy and languishing stripes on the bed when I wake. Sometimes it helps me to forget where I am, other times not. The reality is that each and every one of the windows in this place is unable to be opened so the illusion is often short lived.

  I could go out, there is nothing stopping me. The nights have calmed and I can see most of the fires have burned out. Often, after dark, when I look upon the town from the high window in my quarters, I imagine I am on a boat, such is the vastness of the darkness surrounding me. The moon and stars are unusually bright and seem closer to the earth than I have ever seen them before, as if they are watching, eager to see the outcome of the master plan.

  I can only hope that somebody somewhere has one.

  I don’t.

  August 8th 2015

  Today I heard shouting from outside the gate. Perhaps it is people trying to get in, realising too late the potential offered by the huge walls.