by Matt James
Andrea can only nod, eyes wide. If I’m not mistaken, Jill may have made the woman piss her pants. While dedicated to her cause in her own right, Andrea has nothing on Jill. In a savage world, Jill is becoming more and more comfortable going the extra mile to protect those she cares about.
I can’t imagine what she’d do to Andrea if I don’t make it back. If I don’t, I hope my spirit gets a front row seat for that slobber knocker!
It’s late, or really early, depending on the way you look at it. The lobby of the hospital is still, and we have to tiptoe through the tiled room as if we’re walking on broken glass. Halfway across the space, my shoe squeaks. While not loud in the usual sense of the word, the quiet around us makes it seem ten times louder.
Off to my left, someone in a sleeping bag snorts in their sleep, startled but not fully roused by the noise. Then, another person incoherently mumbles something on the other side of the room. Andrea looks at me and together, we speed up our steps and quickly shuffle through the front doors. They’re of the automatic sliding variety and need to be pulled apart manually.
Once on the other side of them, I’m assaulted by a crisp breeze. It’s the coldest I’ve felt so far, and without the added layer of my Kevlar vest, it’s one of the first times I’ve genuinely felt cold. Chilled, yes. Uncomfortably cold, no.
The parking lot is as quiet and as motionless as the lobby, minus the gusts, and occasional shrieks somewhere off in the distance. Occasionally, a piece of garbage swirls by us, including someone’s bloodstained, orange University of Tennessee cap. It reminds me of my cousin, Bill. He graduated a Vol twenty-plus years ago, and he’s just one of many extended family members that I haven’t had time to think about.
Andrea guides me to a blacked-out GMC SUV and remotely unlocks the doors. Softly, we pop them open, climb in, and breathe. Just getting to the vehicle was hard work. The only positive thing about what happens next is that we won't be around any humans, so we don't have to worry about who we shoot.
Besides Ty, of course.
“Backseat,” she says.
I turn and smile wide. There, in the backseat of the SUV are my bow and quiver, a combat knife of some sort, and my pistol and shoulder holster—the holster has two fully loaded magazines too. I reach for the gun and confirm that there’s a full one inside—only—it’s not my gun. Andrea seems to have replaced it with something much nicer.
“Glock 17?” I ask, inspecting the pristine weapon. It looks brand-spanking-new! Seriously, I feel like it’s Christmas, and I’m eight-years-old.
Not that I would’ve wanted a G17 when I was eight… You know what I mean. This is one of the best feelings I’ve had in a long time, and something breaks loose inside of me as we pull out of the hospital parking lot.
There, in the front seat of a car, sitting beside someone I’ve just met, with a handgun wrapped tightly in my hands, I weep. It’s not an ugly cry, by any means, but it honestly feels terrific to get it out of my system. I've been scared to death for weeks now, and it's hasn’t just been for my own life. Luckily, my breakdown is here and now and not in the middle of some terrible conflict where people are relying on me to survive.
For her part, Andrea does nothing except quietly sits there until I finish and take a deep breath.
“Sorry about that,” I say, feeling very embarrassed now.
She shrugs. “I’m guessing you haven’t had a lot of alone time lately.”
I shake my head. “Between Jill and Hope—and my parents… Well, it’s been hard, you know?”
“I do.”
I smile. “Thanks, Andrea, for everything.”
“It’s Andy, and I haven’t done anything.”
I look out my window. “You’ve done more than you know.”
“Like?”
I face her. “Confidence? Optimism? Peace?” I don’t know what it is. But this,” I hold up the gun, “makes me feel like I’ve got the edge to get my family where we’re going.”
Andy softly laughs. “You’d make a great spokesperson for the NRA.”
I grin. “Usually, I wouldn’t think so, but now—in this world?”
She nods. “Things have definitely changed.” She nods her chin at the pistol. “I guess that’s like good insurance around here.”
I smile. “If you get hurt and miss work, it won’t hurt to miss work.”
Andy immediately adds, “And they give you cash, which is just as good as money.”
We laugh at the memory of the old Yogi Berra-starred Aflac commercial. Seriously, it was a classic. Look it up if you don’t believe me.
The drive down East 3rd Street is uneventful. Basically, it’s the best thing we could’ve asked for. I’m stunned at the lack of movement within the city as a whole. No people at all—both kinds.
I really need to stop calling the Unseen ‘people.’
Andy and I hold our breath when we skirt by the Confederate Cemetery. There have been no signs of an Unseen-zombie variety to date, but if there ever were one, a Civil War-era cemetery would be the perfect origin story for them. I take my eyes off the spooky plot of land and readjust myself.
My nervousness doesn’t go unnoticed.
“You always this jumpy?”
“No, but with every mile traveled, something new and horrifying usually rears its ugly mug.”
“Burners?”
I nod. “First I’ve heard of them—and I’ve seen a lot.”
Andy glances back and forth between the road and me. “You’re saying that the creatures are regional?”
“Some of the rarer sub-species are, yes, but there are some usual suspects everywhere.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
She shrugs. “In case I decide to leave. I’d like to be prepared for that day. I’d like to know what I’ll be up against.”
“You’d leave Chattanooga?”
Her eyes shift from me to the road. “If I have to, yes.”
With nothing else to do, and not really wanting to sit in silence, I give Andy a quick overview of the Unseen. She doesn’t say a word. Like a good student, she just sits there and takes it all in, soaking up every little tidbit I can remember. Regrettably, with as tired as I am, and with as much as I have banging around in my skull, I know I’m leaving something out.
She’s smart, I think. She’ll figure it out.
A bevy of train cars passes beneath us as we go over a large overpass. There are so many tracks that I can’t count them all. Not that I can see them all. I’ve seen similar rail hubs around the country, but this one is imposing. It’s huge!
“We’re almost there,” Andy says as we descend the other side.
Moments later, we turn off 3rd Street and hang a quick right, and pull into a parking lot, passing a tall sign that reads: Chattanooga Zoo.
I step out of the car and nock an arrow, opting for the quiet approach first. If everything goes south, I’ll be more than happy to shoot my way out of trouble.
I groan.
“What’s wrong?” Andy asks.
“That,” I say, pointing to the word ZOO, “that’s what’s wrong.”
8
The front gates are wide open and deserted, not that I expected there to be anyone here to greet us. Even the most fanatic of animal lovers wouldn’t be stupid enough to be guarding this place right now. Most, if not all, of the zoo’s residents, are either long dead or on the prowl for their next meal. I’ve personally seen what an Unseen-animal can do.
The polar bear back in Manhattan was one of the first nonhuman versions I ever laid eyes on. What sucks the most, is that the meteors did all of their damage during the day, when the animals would’ve been outside in their habitats. The only ones not affected, and therefore normal, are the ones housed in indoor enclosures.
Those would’ve been the first to starve or have been easy prey for something that changed. The front gates being open also tells me that a lot of the creatures, the ones that on
ce called the zoo home, are probably out in the world somewhere, freely hunting whoever and whatever they want.
Yikes.
The first animal I see advertised is the Chattanooga Zoo’s leopard. I don’t like house cats, let alone genetically altered predatory ones. My gun sounds like a better alternative already.
“How do we even know he’s here?” I whisper.
Andy glances at me in the moonlight. “I saw Ty run in here as soon as we were attacked. It’s the best lead I have.”
“But it’s been a few days.”
She stops. “Are you here to help me or not?”
I back off. “Okay, I’m helping, I’m helping…”
“Which way should we go first?”
I point. “Forward.”
Andy rubs her face hard but doesn’t stop to chastise me. Quietly, we weave our way through a series of treelined footpaths until we pop out at our first exhibit. The camel that called this pen home is dead, though. All I can see is a lump in the middle of the fenced-in area.
To the right of the camel encounter are the zoo’s offices. I head for the front doors but find them locked, and with no key, the only way in will be a noisy one.
“We’ll try this last,” I say, turning away. Andy nods in agreement, and we continue off, deeper into the grounds.
Thirty feet later, I step on something that crunches and I look down to see what it was. Andy produces a pair of small LED flashlights, turns them both on, and hands me one. Not being able to hold it and my bow and arrow, I put them away, and draw my pistol. Noisy it is! We focus our beams on the object beneath my foot. The sight of it makes me smile.
“Hello there,” I say, doing my best Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I don’t check to see if Andy gets the reference or not. Instead, I reach down and snag the zoo map. It’s a little tattered and torn, but it’ll do.
“Let’s see…” I say, tapping the full-color paper. “We’re here.”
Andy reads it. “Looks like we can head left toward the Corcovado Jungle, or head right toward the Gombe Forest.”
“Both sound terrible,” I say.
She nods. “Yep.”
I look closer and see that the map has a small overview of each section and the species that headline them.
“Corcovado Jungle… Spider monkey, capybara, jaguar.”
Andy quickly shakes her head. “No thanks.”
“Agreed,” I say, taking a deep breath.
“How ’bout the forest?”
Andy reads off the animals. “African Aviary exhibit, chimpanzee, black mangabey.”
“What the hell is a mangabey?”
She shrugs. “No idea. Still can’t be worse than a jaguar, though.”
She’s right, and we head that way.
A feral cry to our left, back toward the Corcovado Jungle and its jaguar, gives us a little boost and we hurry away. The big cat is still alive, and I’m not in the mood to see if it’s an Unseen version or not. Jaguars are one of the most successful hunters in the world, and we’d be easy targets in a setting such as this. Our flashlights are doing their job, but it’s still very dark. Plus, we’re keeping them pointed at the ground for the most part. We don’t need to roll an ankle right now.
We cautiously pass by an enclosed, cave-like pathway that leads back to the Corcovado Jungle. Both of our lights play over the inside entrance and find nothing, but just as we turn away, the same predatory roar from earlier echoes from somewhere within the creepy-ass corridor.
Andy and I look at one another and take off running further down the Gombe Forest’s footpath. We slide to a stop in front of a sign that fills me with dread.
“Coyote, bobcat, cougar… Really?”
“Sounds terrible,” Andy says, pulling my sleeve. “This way.”
She leads me past another sign that directs us toward the Himalayan Passage. The coyote habitat is a viewing window, and the opposite side of the glass is smeared with blood.
It’s safe to assume the coyote didn’t make it.
We haul ass straight to the Asian-inspired pavilion. The building that houses the rare red panda is built to look like a prayer temple. Beautiful Himalayan prayer flags dangle and billow in the wind as it picks up behind us. The bone-chilling cry of our hunter picks up again too.
And it's close.
“We need to lose it inside,” Andy says, stating the obvious.
Our footfalls pound hard against the wood entrance. It’s a bridge that spans two separate exhibits, but neither one of us stops to see which animals they are. Andy heads right and scales the stairs just beyond a sign that advertises the red panda’s indoor viewing habitat.
We reach the second floor, and I grab the knob—but nothing happens when I try to turn it. It’s locked and won’t budge. Andy dashes around to the back of the second story exhibit and curses.
“No good back here. It’s blocked.”
I see the same thing moments later. The glass partition that separates us from something called a “langur” is broken and has collapsed atop the narrow walkway. The entire area is black, charred. Burner. We’re about to backtrack and find another way, but we hear a low, guttural snarl behind us, back down the stairs.
“Down,” I say, shoving Andy toward the opening into the langur habitat.
“But—”
“Go!” I urge. “We need to hide.”
She doesn’t argue with me, and we both jump through the broken glass, careful not to cut ourselves before we drop eight feet to the grass below. When we land, something squeaks in the shadows to our right, but it sounds more frightened than aggressive. While Andy’s eyes go straight for the opening, looking for our pursuer, I concentrate on finding us a way out.
“Hurry…” Andy says, never taking her eyes off the entrance.
I find an escape route seconds later, just as a shape appears above us. I all but drag her through the constricted opening in the fencing to our right. Andy is complaining about something the entire time while yanking on my arm the whole time.
We’re birthed from the jagged breakage and spill into the next-door enclosure and roll to a stop just as something slams into the partition on the other side. Whatever hit it, jaguar or not, it was big. The creature roars into the opening, but I can’t see what it is through the bushes and shadows. Both Andy and I backpedal and spill into a water source, splashing into the shallow pool together.
The dip is exhilaratingly refreshing, but mostly it's bitterly cold.
My flashlight is floating nearby, and when I gaze into its half-drowned beam, I see something I don’t like. The entire pool is red with blood, and there are furry, bloated bodies floating alongside us.
“Frank?”
“What!” I hiss.
“The habitat.”
“What about it?” I ask, struggling to climb out of the crimson water.
“It belongs to a snow leopard.”
I get one foot out of the pool and turn toward her, keeping my foot planted in the grass beyond its rim. I was kind of hoping that it was the home to another small monkey or something. The last thing we need is another big, hungry cat. But as soon as I fully emerge from the disgusting ice spa, I see that I won't get my wish.
My flashlight slips out of my cold, wet fingers, rolls, and stops next to a corpse of white and grey fur. The deceased snow leopard is of normal size as well. It may not have changed at all, unlike Babe, the giant pig, back in Florida.
The fence shakes from another impact, timed perfectly with a roar so loud that it threatens to pop my eardrums. Metal shrieks as the creature pushes itself further into the opening. The langur hasn’t stopped crying out in fright either. I was hoping the jaguar would’ve turned its attention on the easier-to-catch prey by now, but apparently, it wants the girthier meal more. Us.
And it’s most definitely a jaguar. My flashlight settles on the fence, and I get a good look at its blood-red face. Terrified, I search every square inch of the snow leopard pen for an exit, but our only option is
the broken section we were avoiding earlier and the fence between the two habitats leads up to it. If we can climb the fencing and head right, we might be able to shimmy over the broken stonework and glass and circumvent the red panda viewing area along the other side of the blocked pathway.
“Up!” I shout, rushing forward.
As soon as I grab the fence, it bucks and knocks me away, but I quickly find a handhold and dig the toe of my right shoe in. I scurry up the fence and hang on every time I feel it move. Twice, my feet were tossed, but I kept my grip. Andy is trying to keep up and is having trouble with her hands.
“Keep moving, Andy!” I shout, cheering her on. “Don’t stop!”
She screams when the fence shudders and leans forward, back into the langur exhibit. But as it tips, our angle is made better, and we both start to make better progress. I’m first to reach the opening, and I use my flashlight to clear away some of the glass from the splintered framework. The pieces of the collapsed wall are wedged tight and make for good handholds—as long as I don’t accidentally grab a shard of glass.
From my higher vantage point, I see the back end of the creature, just making out the rear legs and tail of a large cat. It’s larger than usual, but it didn’t mutate like the polar bear in Manhattan or even the dogs on Lake Worth Beach, but it is slightly bigger—girthier really.
Like a well-fed house cat.
The jaguar hasn’t ventured too far from home because of all the easy meals it has here. And now we have just become the next one because we climbed into one of the enclosures.
Stupid decision.
“Frank!”
The fence shrieks in protest and tips like a cut redwood, coming to a jarring halt at a forty-five-degree angle. Andy is bounced hard but somehow keeps her grip on the chain link. But her feet come free and her lower half is flung high into the air almost flipping her over onto her back. For a split-second, she’s doing a perfect handstand, minus her flailing legs.
She’s fifteen feet from me and a couple feet below my perch. Unfortunately, she’s still too far away for me to reach and help her.
