Animals

by David A. Simpson

  “Me neither.” Kelly said worriedly. “Where is the man who attacked him?”

  “Still in the bathroom, yelling and beating on the door. He’s gone completely insane. Derek and Will are over there now to make sure he doesn’t get out.”

  “If you have this under control, I’m going out there to see what’s going on.” Kelly said.

  “Go, I’ll try to get his fever down and keep calling EMS,” replied Anna.

  Kelly arrived at the bathrooms and heard for herself the guttural growls and pounding coming from inside. Derek stood by the door but there wasn’t much he could do to secure it. There wasn’t a handle on the outside, it was a push door. She pulled out her phone and dialed 9-1-1. The man sounded completely deranged and they needed professional help.

  “I sent Will to try to find the keys so we can lock it.” Derek said “If there are any. I don’t remember seeing them hanging on the board.”

  She quickly filled him in on the situation as the phone rang and rang. If the virus was that contagious and took hold as quickly as it had with the man at the Nurses station, they should consider shutting the park down.

  “I think you’re right.” Derek agreed. “Something is wrong. Big time wrong and this guy trying to tear the door down kind of scares me.”

  The phone continued to ring then abruptly disconnected, leaving her with a dial tone. She tried again but instantly got an all circuits are busy message. She bit her lip and her eyes held worry, edging on fear.

  A few people had gathered around the bathrooms, curiosity piqued by the banging and growling coming from inside.

  Derek tried to defuse the situation. “Apparently, he ate some bad Mexican food folks, go enjoy yourselves, we’ll have this sorted in a minute. There’s another set of restrooms by the haunted house right over there,” he pointed at the visitors center a couple of hundred yards away.

  He got a few laughs as the people drifted away, most of them dismissing the incident without a second thought.

  Will came hurrying up to them and shook his head.

  “No keys,” he said. “These doors never get locked; they’ve probably been lost for years.”

  “Maybe it’s just the cell phones.” Anna said, hitting the redial button for 9-1-1. “I need to get back to the infirmary to see how our patient is doing and I’ll try the land line. Maybe I’ll have better luck.”

  “I’m going to let the boss know we need to shut this place down.” Derek said, wincing as the man inside the bathroom screamed and slammed against the door again. “Will, make sure no one tries to go in there.”

  “Okay.” Will said and eyed the steel door dubiously. “As long as he doesn’t figure out how to open it.”

  He pulled out his own phone and tried to call his wife.

  Kelly was reaching for the door of the first aid station when the bitten man slammed it open and barreled out. She was knocked off the porch into the hedges as he howled and flew down the steps, blood staining the front of his shirt. He sprang off the porch and launched himself at a young couple staring open mouthed and dumbfounded. With snapping teeth and keens of hunger, he tore into them rending flesh and spraying hot blood across startled faces. It took a moment for anyone to react but when they did, panic ensued and screams echoed through the park. Terrified parents grabbed their kids and ran for the entrance. The fear in the air was tangible and catching. There was something terrible and final about the gurgling screams from the couple and people ran away from the sounds of death and whatever was causing them. Those who hadn’t seen the carnage didn’t have to. They knew a lion or tiger or something equally vicious had escaped and was killing people. They heard it. Heard the horror, the shrieks of sheer terror and ran for their cars.

  The man slashed and bit then leaped away from the dying couple in a frenzy. His infected brain drove him to seek new victims and he took down an elderly man who stood there paralyzed, mouth agape at the brutality and speed of the blood covered man.

  Kelly scrambled from the hedges and dashed into the first aid station. All hell was breaking loose and panic was threatening to overwhelm her. Anna was sprawled on the floor, her throat torn out, her blouse torn open and a huge pool of red soaked into her hair. Anna fumbled for her radio, she had to warn Cody, had to tell him to hide. To get inside a cage and lock the door behind him. Anna twitched and sat up, her eyes were black, her lips were curled and a hissing sound was coming from her shredded throat.

  “Go ahead, mom,” came a voice over the radio and Anna launched herself towards the noise. She flew across the room, easily jumping the fifteen feet, fingers clawing for the fresh blood.

  Kelly screamed and threw up her hands to shield her face as she backpedaled through the door. One of the Anna’s legs tangled in the IV stand and she smashed to the floor, breaking the fall with her face. Teeth skittered across the tiles and she lunged for Kelly again as she tried to slam the door. Hands clawed for her and broken teeth gnashed for tender flesh. Kelly screamed at the monster and with adrenaline charged strength, shoved her weight against the door, finally latching it when Anna’s feet slipped on the blood slicked tiles. The rampaging monster hurtled herself against it, into the safety glass, and it spider webbed into hundreds of tiny cracks. She banged her head repeatedly against it, her skin shredding and black blood splashing across the window. The reinforced door held and Kelly watched in horror at the thing that had been her friend only moments before destroyed her face against the unyielding glass.

  Across the park, Demonio and Diablo shook off the effects of the tranquilizers. They woke up slowly, their noses filled with the scent of the man who hurt them with his pointed stick. They licked at the stinging needle marks and sniffed the ground, followed the footsteps to the gate. Diablo shoved his toothy snout against the bars and it inched open. They slunk out and smelled the wind. The scent of the man and was strong, his aftershave astringent and unique to them. Lips curled in a low growl and they padded towards the smell. Towards the revenge. It was all they knew. They had been trained to fight, trained to kill anyone or anything that tried to hurt them and the man with the strong smell had hurt them both. The shaggy hair on their hunched backs stood on end as they slipped down the trails towards the front of the park.

  Will was really, really starting to get a feeling that things were spiraling out of control when the inhuman shrieks and the banging on the door finally stopped. Thank God for small favors. He could hear screams from other parts of the park now, though. He stared at the useless phone in his hands. Things were going nuts, he couldn’t get ahold of his wife, nobody answered his 9-1-1 calls and the sounds of terror made his blood run cold. He needed to go, to get home. He needed this job too and his sense of duty wouldn’t let him just abandon his post. He needed to check on the guy in the bathroom, maybe he had died. Maybe he had finally knocked himself out or something.

  He pushed the door gently inward and dared a peek. The thing that once was Robert Baynard lunged, sunk his fingers into Wills eyes and bit into his face. Will added his own scream to those all around him as he felt the flesh pulling free. The zombie savaged him viciously then left him dying on the floor as he sprang out of the door in search of fresh prey.

  Moments later, Will’s body lurched upright. An unnatural hunger consumed him and drove him to his feet. He barely noticed his dangling eyeball and a face that was raw, oozing meat as he joined the hunt.

  Derek saw Kelly fly off the porch into the bushes as he was hurrying towards the Visitor center and the offices there. He ran for her, ignoring the man screaming and tearing into an old man when he saw a young couple that had to be dead leap up from the ground. They were covered in bites and slashes and blood and there was no way they could be alive. There was no way they could be running and screaming after a woman struggling to run with her toddler out the front gate. There was no way they were leaping on all fours like animals. There was no way they ran her down and tore into her, sending gouts of blood spraying across the asphalt.

  B
ut they did.

  The parking lot was utter chaos as the zombies fell on the fleeing guests. The blind fury of the freshly turned undead was relentless and brutal. Windows were smashed. People were torn from cars. The fastest runners were easily brought down with inhuman speed and strength. One became five. Five became ten. Engines fired up and revved to the limit joined the sounds of killing and dying. Screams of terror and screams of rage were drowned out by screeching tires and crunching metal as dozens of cars all tried to squeeze through the same exit. Keening, clawing, biting monsters were there ripping into the broken cars and tearing bodies apart in their insatiable hunger.

  Kelly turned away from the bloody glass and the undead thing that kept trying to bite through it as Derek ran up the steps.

  Her eyes were wide, on the verge of panic, but seeing him brought her back from the edge a little. He was something sane in an insane world. Something solid she could cling to. Something that kick started her brain to get it working again and get out of the continual loop of this can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. The last of the bloody, ravaged things had chased the terrified people out into the parking lot and wholesale slaughter was happening out there. But not inside the park.

  “The gate! We’ve got to close the gate!” she screamed and sprinted for the big wrought iron fences before any of the gibbering things in the parking lot came back.

  “Get the left one!” he yelled and ran past her to the farther of the two, his eyes on the parking lot, the smashed, smoking cars and the screaming monsters attacking them like savage animals. They had to hurry, had to get the gates closed, had to keep those things out. Derek grabbed it and started pulling but was slammed from the back. Jaws closed around his knee and he felt it snap, heard the bones break before he realized what hit him. His arms flailed and another toothy maw clamped down hard on one and pulled in the opposite direction. His arm snapped like a dry twig and his shoulder popped from its socket. Useless random facts flitted through his brain as he watched in disbelief, the pain and shock so extreme he didn’t even feel it yet. A hyena’s bite was three times as powerful as pit bulls. With eleven hundred pounds of pressure per square inch, nothing could withstand them. They could snap wildebeest femurs as easily as a human biting into a cracker. His head slammed against the ground and the pain hit him, forcing all thought except desperate survival out of his mind. They ragged him back and forth, pulling on him like a play toy and he saw his arm tear free from the elbow.

  Derek screamed, a raw, throat shredding scream as the pain kicked in and Demonio dropped the arm. His maw spread wide as he clamped his teeth around Derek’ dislocated shoulder. His canines sank deep and more bones snapped and popped as Diablo finally tore his lower leg loose and blood pumped freely from the slashed arteries.

  The hyena let go of the leg, barked his laughing bark then yelped as he was suddenly flying through the air. The impact broke the fiberglass nose of the golf cart and nearly sent Cody tumbling over the steering wheel. Demonio released his hold on Derek’s shoulder and crouched low at the new threat, his gurgling, phlegmy sounding growl drowned out by the keens of the undead in the parking lot, many of them turning towards the movement and noises. Kelly slammed her side of the gate closed and stood paralyzed as she watched Derek’s life pump out of him and the Hyenas crouched to spring at her son. The clanging of iron on iron pulled their attention away from the human on the silent machine. It was a sound they knew. It meant they would be trapped again.

  Caged.

  Beaten.

  Starved.

  They saw the freedom of the trees across the parking lot and as one, turned and ran for them as the undead started running for the humans gathered at the gates.

  Cody wanted to run to his mother, run to Derek and run away all at the same time. Everything was happening too fast; it was too much. He needed a moment to think, to scream, to cry, and to hide but there wasn’t time for any of that. There were only seconds left in his life if those things rushed back inside. He jumped from the cart, grabbed the tall steel gate and pulled. Another boy, a dark-haired Asian kid, joined him and together they got the thousand-pound gate swinging closed on its well-oiled hinges. It slammed into place and Kelly locked the catch as the first of the torn and bloody people from the parking lot smashed into it. They backed away as the gate shuddered when the undead ran into it at full speed, hungry arms reaching through the bars.

  It would hold. It was old and heavy and solid, almost like a prison cell door with the name of the park across the top of the two halves. Kelly only watched for a second before she tore herself away from the screaming mass and ran to Derek. He was a barely recognizable mess, the hyenas had savaged him, literally torn him limb from limb in seconds.

  He was fading fast, his world growing cold and dark as the last of his lifeblood pumped out in a weak trickle. He smiled as Kelly knelt over him, tears streaming from her eyes and tried to tell her not to worry, he was okay. It didn’t hurt. His mind was muddled and he couldn’t remember what happened exactly. Had he fallen off a ladder? She brushed the hair away from his forehead and stroked his face. That was okay, her hands felt warm and he was so cold. He’d just close his eyes for a moment and wait for an ambulance. He was so tired. He should ask for a blanket, he was starting to shiver.

  10

  Kelly

  Kelly had to pull herself together. Derek was gone and the whole world had taken a hard turn into mayhem and insanity. If she didn’t do something, if she didn’t start acting instead of reacting to everything, everyone else was going to die. She felt as if she were in a B horror movie. This is impossible, kept running through her head, this is all impossible. Yet it was happening and she was thrust in the center of it. The blood on her clothes and dripping from her hands, the screaming things reaching for her through the gate and the fire and smoke billowing up from the parking lot told her it was all real. It was all happening and happening fast.

  She forced herself to stop staring into the madness on the other side of the gate and let her training take over. She’d seen ugly before. She’d seen torn up animals, she’d been covered in blood, and she’d been calm under pressure. Nothing like this her mind shrieked. You’ve never seen nothing like this! She told it to shut up. Her eyes darted past the undead gate crashers and found Cody. He was what was important now. He was the only thing that mattered. He stood with a handful of other kids, all of them wide eyed, tear streaked and staring at the remains of Derek or the ripped and ravaged people trying to squeeze through the bars.

  They were shocked and confused, not sure what to do next. They had run towards the noises out of curiosity or maybe to try to help but now what? They couldn’t get out and didn’t know which way to flee. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to clear her head, trying to think. Grasping hands reached for her, only yards away. Biting, snapping faces tried to force their way between the bars to the kids standing there in unmoving fear. There were a few girls, and boys, a kid in a wheelchair, an odd-looking pair of twins and others. Where were their parents? Were they banging on the gate to be let in so they could finish off their own offspring? She shuddered at the thought. Not my child, she decided. He gets out alive.

  There were others huddled near the snack shack staring at the only way out, the only exit to their cars, blocked by snarling, bloody people. Fear was written plainly on their faces. A couple with a pair of teenage boys and a young family with a little girl and a baby in a papoose slung across his father’s chest kept looking at each other, then at the parking lot. None of them knew what to do, they stood transfixed, unable to decide where to flee.

  She had to step up. Take charge. Fix what she could and give these people a chance. The undead slammed and keened at the gate, fresh meat so close, just a couple inches of iron bars separating them from the blood that they craved.

  “Cody, take everyone to the visitors center,” she barked. “We’ve got to get away from them.”

  She looked at the families and kids a
s they all turned to stare at her, hope in their near panicked eyes. She had on a uniform. She knew what to do. She was an official.

  “This is my son, he’ll get you somewhere safe. Lock all the doors behind you.”

  No one moved.

  “Cody!” she yelled and he started, his eyes seemed to come into focus. “Get going, take them to the center. Hurry!”

  “But Mom...” Cody started and pointed towards Derek.

  “No buts, just do it! She shouted, her ‘I’m-not-in-the-mood-to-take-any-crap’ voice cutting through their indecision. “Do it now.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she added, as they started moving.

  “Come on.” Cody said and took off in a jog. “They won’t be able to get in, the doors are solid.”

  The kids stuck together she noticed. The pale white twins grabbed a handle on either side of the boy in the wheelchair and sped him along as the others circled around him forming a fragile wall of protection. It wasn’t much, it was a little thing but it spoke volumes about them.

  As they disappeared around the snack shack, Kelly moved to Derek’s corpse. She checked the time on her watch. Sixteen minutes since Anna had been dead and then came back and lunged for her. Her entire world had been ripped apart in only a quarter of an hour. The man she loved was gone. The country she lived in was being destroyed. Everything she knew about science and medicine had been rendered null and void in a matter of moments. The rules didn’t apply when blatantly dead people were trying to eat living people. It wasn’t just here in this isolated part of Iowa. The virus that cropped up out of nowhere a few days ago had spread at an insanely rapid pace. She couldn’t imagine being in a big city, there was no chance, no escape and no hope. Here… maybe. Just maybe. Her mind raced and she knew she didn’t have much time. This safari could work, could keep them alive. It was fenced and secure, there were plenty of animals for a food supply and there was water. She had to move fast, though. Time was ticking away and things had to be done.