The Wildlands

by Abby Geni

  Ideally, Roy would be able to hold them off until Cora was well enough to leave California. Darlene wanted the storm to break when her family was across state lines. For the moment, Tucker was only named as “the suspect,” “the offender,” and sometimes “a lone wolf.” (According to Roy, the latter was a common euphemism for a criminal who was white. Otherwise the police would have called him a terrorist.) Darlene found the phrase particularly odd in this context, since actual wolves were involved.

  Now she flipped to another page of the newspaper, running her finger down the headlines. Several animals had perished over the past week, some struck by cars, others trampled by panicked crowds. A few were shot by local gun owners. There was an article about a fawn who did not make it across the highway with its parents; they were forced to leave its broken body on the median. There was a photograph of a sun bear executed point-blank outside a restaurant by a passerby with a revolver. A mountain of fur on the pavement. Dead before it hit the ground.

  Worst of all, a giraffe had been struck by a fire engine. Both the animal and the vehicle were destroyed. The photograph was both spectacular and gut-wrenching. The truck looked like a child’s toy that had been stepped on, the dead giraffe sprawled across an intersection. Darlene had never seen one of these animals prone, with the full extent of its height—eighteen feet, in this case—measured out alongside parked cars and sidewalk panels. The black-and-white image did little to diminish the horror. The animal’s carcass was torn and bloodied, the rib cage dented inward, one long leg bent the wrong way.

  As Darlene leafed through the newspaper, she discovered that a surprising number of animals were already back in custody. One elephant was rounded up within hours of the event. While drinking from a fountain, she was approached by her trainer, who rubbed her forehead, fed her a treat, and led her peacefully home to the roar of applause from onlookers. Four zebras were cornered in an alley and herded into a van. The surviving giraffes returned to the zoo of their own accord, exhausted, shaky, and visibly grieving the death of their fallen friend.

  Darlene turned a page, pursing her lips as she read. The warthog, it seemed, was located outside a boutique, lunging at shoppers in a rage and trying to knock the bags of clothes from people’s arms. It was promptly tranquilized. A hyena turned up inside a garden shed. The mountain goats proved to be both deft and wily, clambering on top of a UPS truck, then a Honda. Eventually, though, they were lured down with the promise of food. Goats were always hungry.

  A gorilla appeared on the beach, picking through the litter strewn across the sand, its fur clotted with dirt, one foot badly injured. A serval was discovered stalking pigeons in an alley. An intrepid cyclist tackled the cat himself, wrapping it in a leather jacket and transporting it back to its cage, sustaining a few scratches and an angry bite in the process.

  The squirrel monkeys never left the zoo at all. They made their way into the basement of their indoor exhibit, where they passed the time by breaking into the vending machine, learning how to work the drinking fountain, and generally making the place their own, a replica of the enclosure they had fled.

  Darlene wondered if Tucker ever understood what the final consequences of his actions could be. Did he consider that he might end up cold on a morgue table? Did he realize how many animals would suffer and die with him? Did he imagine leaving Cora to be found in a garbage can by strangers?

  With trembling fingers, Darlene closed the newspaper and pushed it away. The wildness was suddenly too much for her. The situation was surreal enough to make her doubt her own sanity. She removed her glasses and massaged her temples.

  There was a mystery here. Her brother’s previous felonies had been straightforward: blowing up a cosmetics factory to stop animal testing or burning down a ranger station to prevent a rattlesnake hunt. In each case, Darlene could draw a bright line from Tucker’s actions to the goal he hoped to achieve. Increased public awareness. A change in policy. An end to animal cruelty. Punishment for the guilty.

  But the attack on the Pacific Zoo was different. Tucker’s ultimate goal in this case was unclear. In captivity, the animals had been safe, warm, fed, cared for, and given access to medicine. Freeing them from their cages was more dangerous to them than leaving them where they were. As an act of protest, it was incomprehensible. Even Darlene, who knew her brother as well as anyone, could not guess what final lesson he meant to teach the world.

  Then a new thought occurred to her. Elephants on city streets, gorillas on the beach, injured lions, frightened people—all these things came from Tucker’s mind. Perhaps his intent was only this: to make his visions and desires manifest. Rather than releasing the animals from the zoo, her brother might as well have turned his brain inside out, letting the figments of his imagination loose on the landscape.

  47

  After two weeks in the hospital, Cora was able to sit up, eat, and drink. The orderlies brought her trays on which everything was individually wrapped—miniature cartons of pudding and cups of juice with sealed tinfoil tops. Once a day, the nurses injected her with something to prevent blood clots from forming due to her prolonged inactivity. Based on Cora’s expression, the drug burned as it entered her body, but she never protested. Darlene was impressed and unnerved by her sister’s new level of stoicism.

  The best medicine for Cora seemed to be Jane. The two of them napped together and watched TV. Darlene didn’t realize how cautiously everyone was treating Cora (speaking in low voices, refraining from touching her, ignoring her unworldly appearance, asking no questions) until Jane started rattling on about soccer and school as though nothing had changed. Their old dynamic was still there: siblings who shared a bed unwillingly for years, were friendly most of the time, and could get on each other’s nerves at the drop of a hat. It never occurred to Jane to treat her sister with kid gloves. She teased Cora about her new haircut. She promised that their room at home was exactly the same as before. She hadn’t even cleaned it, she said.

  Darlene did not try to join in. She only eavesdropped, pretending to be absorbed in her phone. Jane’s customary bluntness was a godsend now. She barged fearlessly into conversational arenas where Darlene would not have ventured for the world. She asked Cora how it felt to almost die, whether her whole life flashed before her eyes. She told Cora she looked like a boy now—or a tomboy, maybe. She looked weird, for sure. Jane even asked whether Tucker was really as crazy as everybody said.

  By and large, Cora replied in grunts and monosyllables. If she had been quiet before, she was even quieter now. Darlene monitored her constantly but covertly. Cora had acquired a way of staring intently at things that were not inherently interesting—a pattern of light on the wall, the flow of water from the bathroom faucet—as though she were seeing something other people could not. She ate and drank mechanically. The nurses told her to practice walking, which she did, as weak and off-balance as a newborn colt. When she watched TV, her attention often flagged; her gaze would drift to the window. Cora’s hair was a mess, her delicate ringlets shorn into wood shavings, but she did not seem to mind her own appearance. She looked at herself in the mirror now with something oddly like indifference.

  She did not cry. The stress manifested itself in other ways. She chewed her fingernails bloody. She startled at ordinary noises: a dog growling on TV or a car backfiring like a gunshot. Sometimes she would pause in the middle of a sentence as though searching for a word and the silence would stretch out until Darlene realized the conversation was over; her sister was never going to finish her thought. On the surface Cora’s health was improving, but Darlene still felt uneasy. It was hard to figure out what, exactly, had changed.

  Once, long ago, she had been able to read her sister’s thoughts through her expressions and gestures. These days, however, Cora possessed a kind of self-control that hid her like a mask. It was an adult quality, a caution and precision that did not suit her little frame. Darlene did not know how to help her. She was scared to touch her sister
at all, even to brush her hair from her face or take her hand.

  All the while, Darlene continued to follow the story of the zoo. She did her best to shield Cora from it, watching the news on mute as her sister slept and reading articles on her phone in private. She and Roy discussed it in whispers while Cora was distracted. Darlene would have been fascinated by the incident even if it had not been a family matter, a Greek tragedy starring her brother and sister.

  She knew about the many animals that lost their lives, most recently a gibbon and a chameleon, both run over by cars. More had probably perished without anyone knowing it yet, reduced to undistinguished roadkill and swept into the gutters. No humans had been killed—except for Tucker, of course—although a few were injured, some quite badly. One woman tried to hand-feed a capuchin and was bitten so severely that three of her fingers needed to be amputated. A leopard in the street frightened a young boy into hysterics. An elderly man got into an altercation with a brown bear in an alley, ending up with a broken arm. Darlene catalogued all these incidents, carrying them around like stones in her pockets.

  Some of the animals were still out there. A few would probably adapt to urban living, merging into the bustle of the city. The fennec fox might dig a burrow in a cemetery. The macaw might take its place as the leader of a murder of crows. A portion of the zoo’s primates remained on the lam, to no one’s surprise. Apes were clever, versatile. The gorillas and chimpanzees would learn from homeless people and raccoons, ransacking the garbage bins for sustenance and sleeping in alleys. They would learn to be shy. They would learn to be silent. They would come down to street level only at night, discovering how to look both ways and hide whenever headlights appeared.

  And then there were the apex predators. The lions, the anaconda, the arctic wolves—Darlene knew they would not stay in California. They would journey afield. The eagles would find new roosting places by tracing the earth’s magnetic trails. The coyotes would head east, loping down back roads, hiding in garages and gardens until they reached untenanted hills. The bobcats were native to the mountain ranges, experts at remaining concealed. They would climb trees, sleeping above the heads of passing pedestrians, following the currents of their deepest instincts, seeking the life they were built for. The tiger would melt into the redwood forests to the north, camouflaged among the massive trunks, a shimmer in the shadows, a dream.

  IN THE MORNING, ROY SAT Cora down for an official interview. He had been in her presence from the beginning, a figure in the background, and she seemed to accept him as part of the busy, overwhelming whirl of the hospital, one of many strangers in attendance around her. Jane was back at the hotel, watching TV in her room. Darlene got Cora breakfast on a tray, plumped her pillows, and led Roy over to the bed. She explained that he was not just a friend of the family—not just her boyfriend—but a police officer, too. She found herself wishing that there was some other term of endearment to describe what Roy was to her, what their summer together had meant.

  Cora looked him over as he took a seat beside the bed.

  “What kind of cop are you?” she said. Her voice was still phlegmy, and she had to stop every few words to inhale.

  “The regular kind,” Roy said.

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “At work. Not here. I didn’t bring it on the plane.”

  A silence fell between them. Roy touched his pocket, an unconscious gesture. Darlene knew there were no cigarettes there—only nicotine gum.

  “Were you looking for me?” Cora asked shyly. “When I was gone?”

  “Yes,” Roy said. “So many of us were trying to find you. We were worried sick. And we couldn’t be happier to have you back.”

  Cora muttered something indecipherable. She sucked in a rheumy breath, then doubled over, coughing into the crook of her elbow. When she leaned back against the pillows again, she looked exhausted.

  “What did you say?” Roy said, his voice gentle.

  “I was gone a long time,” she murmured. “I traveled such a long way.”

  A breeze gusted through the window, stirring the white blinds. Then Cora held out her fists. Darlene recognized the gesture: her sister was asking to be handcuffed, offering her wrists so Roy could shackle them.

  “No, no,” he said. “Oh God, no. I’m not here to arrest you.”

  Cora lowered her hands into her lap again, her expression quizzical.

  “I just want to help you,” Roy said.

  “Help?” she repeated, as though trying out the word.

  “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” he said. “None of it was your fault.”

  Darlene looked on. Before her eyes, Cora appeared to grow younger. Her lips were pursed, her brow furrowed as she considered Roy’s words, struggling to understand. The hospital pillows dwarfed her. She seemed so little, so weak and weary.

  “I was somebody else then,” she said at last.

  Roy leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “What do you mean?”

  “I wasn’t me.” Cora spoke slowly, figuring it out as she went. “I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want to do those things.”

  A sob rose through Darlene’s chest. She turned away, hurrying out into the hall, stifling the sound of her weeping in her palms.

  THAT EVENING, JANE WAS GETTING on everybody’s nerves, shuffling around aimlessly, knocking things off tables, and whining that she was bored. Finally Roy offered to take her to a restaurant near the beach. Darlene stood at the window, listening to their footsteps recede. From this vantage point, she could see a tiny swatch of sky. The clouds were stretched into ribbons of flimsy gossamer. Cora sipped juice through a straw, now wearing the purple sweatpants and rainbow shirt Darlene brought from home. Overhead, the long strands of cloud were being leached of sunlight. It was as though someone were twisting wet cloth, wringing out each last droplet of glow.

  “Come here,” Cora said, patting the mattress.

  Darlene approached her and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Closer,” Cora said.

  After a minute, Darlene lay down, pinned between her sister’s body and the railing. The pillows were too thin to be of much use, so she folded one in half, doubling it beneath her head. Cora pulled the blanket over them both. A breeze poured in through the window, making the blinds shimmy and buzz.

  “Hi,” Darlene said.

  “Hi.” Cora rolled to face her, their noses inches apart. Darlene could see the constellations of freckles on her sister’s cheeks. Her eyebrows were thin and feathery, her mouth chapped. Her breath smelled sour from all her medications.

  “Tucker’s dead, isn’t he?” Cora whispered.

  Darlene had not been expecting this. Not yet. She started to reply, but her voice caught in her throat. It took her a moment to collect herself.

  “Yes,” she said, as kindly as she could.

  Cora stopped breathing, and a rigidity overtook her flesh, every muscle taut. She squeezed her eyes tight as though trying to block out all sensation.

  “I’m sorry,” Darlene said. “I really am.”

  She began hesitantly to stroke her sister’s hair. Cora did not move. Darlene tried to think of something to add. Something pleasant. A white lie. Everything about Tucker’s demise had been horrific, but Cora did not have to know that.

  “He died quick,” she said finally. “The coroner told me so. Tucker didn’t feel any pain. He probably didn’t know what was happening.”

  The coroner said nothing of the kind, of course. In fact, Tucker’s death was prolonged and violent. Cora raised her eyebrows. There was a flicker of something in her face—an adult emotion, maybe sorrow or skepticism.

  “Oh, he knew,” she said. “He knew everything.”

  Darlene waited for more—for questions or tears—but Cora did not speak again. The overhead light was off, the door shut, the TV blank, the air thick with shadows. As the evening deepened beyond the window, the room darkened by degrees. Darlene continued t
o stroke her sister’s hair. Long ago, Cora loved to be petted this way, though now she seemed merely to tolerate it, or perhaps not to notice it at all.

  “Why did you do it?” Darlene asked, using her gentlest voice. “Why did you run off with Tucker?”

  Cora blinked at her with glassy eyes.

  “I loved him,” she said.

  “More than me?”

  As soon as Darlene spoke these words, she sucked in a breath, trying to snatch them back into her throat. She never meant to voice this secret fear.

  “No,” Cora said. “Not anymore.”

  The darkness was almost complete. A slender current of milky light ran down the wall opposite, the glow cast through the gap between the door and the jamb. Cora hummed a little—her thinking sound.

  “I missed you so much I almost died,” she said.

  Darlene’s eyes brimmed and burned. She did not bother to wipe the tears away, letting them soak into the pillowcase.

  “What happened to you out there?” she said. “What did you see?”

  “So much,” Cora said. “Rattlesnakes. A dead bear. Horses.”

  “A dead bear?”

  “Yeah. Weird stuff.”

  Cora nestled closer, scooting across the gap between them until there was no space left. She folded her body against Darlene’s chest. Sudden, astonishing intimacy. Warmth and fragrance. Her little fingers tangled in Darlene’s shirt.

  “Tucker cut my hair,” Cora said. “He cut my hand.”