ZooFall

by Lawrence Ambrose

"If you want to donate some of your sausage..." Diana resisted another sigh. She was starting to feel like a zookeeper or maybe one of those poor altruistic saps who ran rescue shelters. "How about we both donate one?"

  "Sure. After all, we can always hunt and get food, can't we?"

  "In theory."

  Laurie dug a sausage out of the leatherish satchel she'd taken from the landing craft. Diana did the same, setting the sausage between the dragon's front legs. Laurie, however, held her sausage up to the dragon's nose. The dragon awakened with a blast-furnace sniff, his eyes rotating from the sausage to Laurie and back to the sausage in her hand before her opened his mouth and a red tongue the size of a barbecue spatula rolled out and scooped the offering into his mouth. Laurie giggled. A few seconds later, Diana's sausage suffered the same fate.

  "It probably needs a lot more than that," said Laurie.

  "But it might jumpstart him."

  Diana closed the salve containers and returned them to her backpack. They left the dragon napping on the beach and re-joined Zurzay and Gary, who both seemed to be sulking.

  "Are we ready?" Diana asked.

  Zurzay launched into the air without as much as a glance back at her. Males can be so... Diana shook her head. Finishing that sentence to her satisfaction had always proven impossible – in the way that expressing infinity was impossible.

  They resumed jogging southwest toward the Twin Cities.

  Chapter 13

  IF NECESSITY WAS THE mother of invention, Dan thought, pain was the father.

  It was painfully obvious when he started out pedaling Penny's grandmother's tricycle that even its geriatric requirements were going to tax his sore knee and energy levels to the breaking point within a few miles. Which led him to the humbling notion of an adult bicycle trailer. He knew Morton's Bike Shop carried them. They'd become the rage in the progressive and "green"-minded Glenwald, where people could be seen towing their dogs, children, and even elderly relatives in them.

  And now he was asking Myth about using one – about whether she or Penny would be willing to drag his gimpy ass down the road. Penny thought it was a great idea and volunteered to be the first to tow him. Myth approved the idea as well.

  It's not about my ego, he thought, as Penny pedaled him briskly out of town. It was about doing whatever was necessary to get the job done. By the time they got there, if God or the fates were smiling on him – even if, so far, his pleas for help with his recovery seemed to have fallen on deaf divine ears – he might be strong enough to actually do something. Going up against the Nazrene in a gimpy state struck him as suicidal, even with his guns, two supercharged companions, and a dog-creature the size of an African lion.

  Now they were on their way – at what Dan guessed to be close to fifteen miles per hour. At that pace, they could catch up to Diana and her flying wolf in less than a day - barring unforeseen circumstances. Which was a lot like saying "We'll make it to the big game in downtown Minneapolis at five P.M as long as there isn't a traffic jam!" Dan smiled and released a sharp breath. He'd never fully appreciated the military term SNAFU – situation normal, all fucked up – until now.

  They spotted another landing craft perhaps a mile off the road at the edge of a forest.

  "Should we check it out, Mr. Jensen?" Penny asked.

  "Go ahead," said Dan.

  Normally, he'd pause and wait for her to return, but with Penny that wasn't necessary. She wouldn't have any problem catching up. He watched her and her four-legged companion lope off across the field with meter-eating strides.

  "What did you call that creature again?" he asked.

  "Zemzorik," said Myth.

  "And you say it or he hunted human slaves?"

  "That's what the Keepers told me."

  "Where was this?"

  "Another world. The creatures there had a way of obtaining humans. I can't tell you how, Dan, or anything about the creatures there."

  "Is it my imagination or are you talking much better now?"

  "I don't think it's your imagination. I expected this after I took knowledge from the man."

  "Ah, right. I remember you mentioning something about having more words after killing him."

  "Should I not have killed him, Dan?"

  Dan frowned, listening to the cranking of the bike gears, not sure how to approach that question or even what he truly felt.

  "By killing him, I obtain more ability, more information," Myth continued. "That makes me better able to defend us."

  "Might makes right?"

  "Not sure what you mean."

  "How about the ends justifying the means? Does that make sense to you?"

  "Still not sure. Are you saying a goal could not justify taking steps to achieve it?"

  "Not if the steps are immoral. You said you believe in morality, didn't you?"

  "Yes, Dan. But can we not defend ourselves?"

  "Sure, but you didn't have to kill him to achieve that. You could've just knocked him out or something, right?"

  "I could've, but once he tried to kill me I took choice of self-defense that gave us all the most benefit."

  "You're sure he was trying to kill you?"

  "Yes, Dan."

  Dan released a slow breath. He couldn't see a lot of point in continuing this debate.

  Penny and her curly-haired friend bounded up behind them.

  "The ship was empty," she said, not breathing hard at all. "I couldn't tell what came in it, except there was this weird flowery smell. You know, like an old lady's perfume?"

  "Do they keep old ladies in the zoo, Myth?" Dan asked with a smile.

  "The kept are not allowed to grow old. But I know one kind of zoo creature that smells this way: the Azrene."

  "Related to Nazrene?"

  "They are the Nazrene females."

  "Why didn't they just put the females with the males in the escape pod?"

  "Because the females would've killed them."

  Dan took a moment to swallow that down, like a mouthful of ice-water that made his throat constrict and his brain freeze.

  "The females..." Dan cleared his throat. "You're saying they're stronger than the males?"

  "Not stronger, but deadlier. They have poison fangs and can spit poison. They are more nimble, smarter. They use more tools than the males. They speak words as we do."

  "But they do get together to mate?"

  "Only at certain times," said Myth. "When the female is open for mating – perhaps every few of your months."

  "In the meantime, they don't get along?"

  "The males want the females, admire them, but the females dislike the males. They might not attack them unless they were kept close together. The Keepers kept them in separate living spaces except when the females were open to breeding."

  "When they go into estrus?" When Myth frowned back at him, he added: "A period when females are receptive to mating. Many of our animal species do that."

  "Yes. During that period the females are somewhat friendlier."

  Dan smiled. And we think our women can be hard to get along with.

  "How would they react to us?" he asked.

  Myth thought for a moment. "They would be curious. They are extremely curious about other creatures and how things work. They would try to communicate with us."

  "Interesting." Dan couldn't decide whether to be encouraged or alarmed or simply indifferent. "Could you talk with them?"

  "Yes. I can talk with all who speak variations of the Keeper language."

  "You don't have your own language? I mean your people...whatever you call yourselves."

  "The Amalgam. That's what the Keepers told us. We had our own language, but we no longer know it."

  "The Amalgam." Dan tasted the word with a smiling grimace. "That fits, from what I understand about you."

  Penny had pulled up alongside him, while "Curly" – a name that Dan thought was both laughable and yet fitting somehow – trotted along on his other side. He felt almost like a dignitary or
VIP traveling down the road flanked by security. Neither of them appeared to expend any effort maintaining the pace. Nor did Myth, her muscular back and legs contracting and expanding in a smooth, perpetual motion grace.

  "I never asked how you were taken into this zoo, Myth. Or how many of these creatures were."

  "I was only told we were taken from a variety of worlds. The Keepers said I was born there. I have no memory of being anywhere else."

  "How old are you?" Penny asked.

  "It is hard to say. We all have thought about it many times. Sometimes we were put into a sleep...we don't know for how long. Our seasons in the ship were different from yours. Different spaces had different seasons. I cannot connect them with here."

  "That makes sense," said Dan, with a slight queasiness at imagining a life that wasn't tied to any definite passage of time. It felt more nightmarish than liberating. But if that was all you'd ever known...

  "There is something else I have been thinking about," said Myth, sounding hesitant. "Something...not sure is my imagination."

  "What's that?" Dan suppressed a reflexive dread. These days, new news always seemed to be bad.

  "A feeling." Myth gazed down the road as if seeking its source. "I want to go in this direction."

  "That's good to hear. Though I sort of assumed that."

  "I mean I wanted to go in this direction before we'd even decided which way to go."

  "I'm not sure I understand."

  "I feel I'm being drawn this way. Something pulling me."

  Dan raised an eyebrow. "You mean something besides your will?"

  "Yes. And that may explain why the Nazrene is going this way with such speed. Perhaps the females are, too."

  Dan sat up a bit in his small trailer. "What would be pulling you?"

  "The Keepers can make the kept do things."

  "The Keepers want you to go southeast."

  "Perhaps."

  "Why?"

  "Do not know."

  Dan spent several uneasy seconds wondering if Myth's feeling was something he should be concerned about, but couldn't think of anything it would change even if the "pull" was real.

  "Well, thanks for telling me, Myth," he said. "I guess we'll just keep following the Nazrene and see where it leads."

  The miles reeled by. They stopped occasionally to eat, drink, and relieve themselves. Dan had brought a couple of canteens and iodine pills, but his companions, happily, didn't require any special water purification.

  By late-afternoon, Dan estimated they'd traveled sixty to seventy miles, riding through a parade of familiar small cities, each offering its own version of a newborn ghost town – cars stalled in the road or parked at untoward angles, a few corpses on the sidewalks just past the peak of bloated off-gassing, the stench of death growing and fading – with small variations in the alien fauna: one town featuring killer fairies, another giant scavenger worms, while others no alien zoo creatures at all. One thing they didn't see were cats or dogs or any repeats of Zurzay or the dragon. Myth didn't have an explanation for the lack of dragons or winged-wolves other than to offer that they were solitary creatures who had occupied larger spaces aboard the alien zoo ship. The reason for the missing Earth animals seemed self-explanatory: dogs and cats couldn't compete with the killer fairies or the Nazrene or, for that matter, the massive canine-like creature running with them now that Penny had adopted. Or did it adopt her?

  They were between towns when Myth suddenly stopped pedaling and coasted to a stop. Dan sat up in his trailer, raising the rifle off his chest, seeing nothing down the road. Penny and Curly sprinted a bit ahead before also slowing.

  That was when Dan spotted the small dark speck in the sky directly ahead.

  "Keepers," Myth said in a sibilant whisper that made the word sound that much more sinister to Dan's ears.

  Dan crawled out his trailer to his feet. The speck grew swiftly into the shape of a dark walnut – the closest comparison he could make. It was difficult to know its size or distance, but when it paused above the road in front of them, Dan guessed it wasn't more than a quarter of a mile away. Hovering there, surrounded by a muted golden glow, it seemed close enough to touch.

  Dan raised his rifle, peering through his 10 x 44 Bushnell. The walnut-shaped craft expanded to fill his scope, telling him it was indeed fairly close and not hugely large – maybe around the size of a standard commercial jet. He was pretty sure he could hit it, for whatever good – or bad – it would do.

  "I would not shoot at it," said Myth. "They might not like that."

  "I was thinking the same thing."

  Dan lowered his rifle. Maybe if he had a SAM or a fifty, he'd take the shot. Plinking away with a .308 wasn't likely to do anything but piss them off.

  Meanwhile, the ship hung in the air before them so soundlessly, so motionless, that it was as if it was sitting on an invisible shelf.

  "Is it them?" Penny asked, jogging back to them. Even Curly was eyeing the craft. "The aliens?"

  "Yes, Penny," said Myth.

  "Why are they just hovering there?"

  "They are wondering about us. The Keepers are curious about other creatures – about everything."

  "Since they attempted to kill us all off," said Dan, "you might think they'd be interested in finishing the job."

  "I don't think they want to harm us."

  "Do you know anything about their weapons?"

  Myth shook her furry, insectile head. "No. Only about their power. Their control of everything in the zoo."

  "Did any zoo creature ever turn on them – ever succeed in injuring them?"

  "Yes."

  "So they're not invulnerable then."

  "No. They're no different from us except in knowledge and tools."

  Dan nodded. What he would've assumed to be true, but it was still nice to hear. He was thinking of how much he'd like to show up inside the ship and see if they could stop him when the craft retreated. Not so much retreated as faded out, he thought. In a few eye-blinks, it was gone. Dan released a deep breath.

  Myth climbed back on the three-wheeled bike, and Dan crawled back into his trailer. Only after a mile or two down the road did he realize his hands were shaking and his heart was thumping like a racehorse's and acid reflux burned in his throat. It was the first time since they'd awakened to a new world that he'd wanted to fight with everything he had, to punish those evil sons-of-bitches, and all he could do was watch. Fear had repressed that frustration in the moment, but now the need for revenge was free to course through his body. He supposed he should be grateful they, in their lordly mercy, had seen fit to let him and his crew live. Yet somehow he did not feel grateful.

  The day came to a premature halt when one of the tricycle tires blew out. SNAFU, Dan thought. Or maybe just a dose of Mr. Murphy. He gave walking a go while Myth pushed the bike and Penny ran ahead to the next town in search of a new tire or patch, telling Curly to "stay" – as if the dog-creature might slow her up. To Dan's surprise, Curly did stay with them, trotting slowly and pausing often to match their now-glacial pace.

  Dan didn't think the odds were good that Penny would succeed in her mission, and when she returned an hour later wearing a scowl he wasn't surprised to hear she hadn't found any bicycle shops or patching material in the town's gas stations. By then, Dan was about on his last leg – his last good leg – convinced by his paltry two miles that resting for the night and living to fight another day was the best move despite his anxiousness to catch up with Diana and his family.

  A massive cloud of black flying creatures passed low overhead but kept moving when Penny brandished her rifle.

  "Not so tough!" she cried after them.

  "You know them?" Dan asked. "I've seen them before, but at a distance."

  "They attacked me and Curly on our way back to your house," Penny said. "But we fought them off."

  "The Kinzin," said Myth. "Attack in large numbers and use poisonous tails to kill. I've never known of any creature to defeat them."<
br />
  "Well, we did." Penny reached over and draped an arm over her companion's tree-thick neck. "Didn't we, big guy?"

  Dan thought he spotted a worried glimmer in the creature's upraised blue eyes, which were still tracking the flock across the sky.

  THE ALIEN landing craft or building looked to be the size of a professional sports stadium, Diana thought.

  She, Laurie, Gary, and Zurzay watched from a wooded hill from perhaps a mile away. Rather than a cylinder, this was shaped like a giant mushroom. And from what they could see, there was a lot of alien creature activity around it: a flock of the black "manta rays" circling over the object while a multitude of animals – some familiar, some not – cavorted near its perimeter. The object or craft appeared to have set down in the middle of a city park, judging by the nearby swimming pool and basketball courts.

  "What the hell is going on down there?" Diana murmured.

  "It reminds me of a watering hole," said Laurie. "A place where animals gather."

  "Yet I don't see any water."

  For the nth time, Diana cursed herself for not bringing binoculars or a scope, both freely available at her home. The most urgent focus of her attention was a large tree-studded greenbelt between blocks of homes perhaps a few hundred meters north of the craft or object where clumps of Nazrene circulated like restless ants. Though they had not glimpsed any people among those clumps, Zurzay had indicated, through a variety of gestures and growls that Sonja and Donny Jensen were there.

  "Gary," said Diana, "can you see in more detail what's going on in front of the structure with those animals milling about? I think I recognize the killer elves, but some of the others..."

  Gary was already shading his eyes and squinting. "Uh, yeah, there's a bunch of things that look giant praying mantises...a group of fairies...and some things that look like the monkeys, except they're wearing weird, colorful clothes...they almost look like human...like hairy women. Freaky."

  "Odd that none of them seem to be fighting."

  "Nope," said Gary. "They're checking each other out and that's about it."

  "What about the winged creature on the roof? Looks like one of Zurzay's people?"

  "Yup. Could be." Gary squinted harder. "Smaller, though."