The Human Zoo

by Kolin Wood

  She was going to survive this, whatever it took. Johnny was somewhere waiting for her; she knew it in the deep parts of her heart that were hidden but still beating. She would find her way back home to him—with or without her father’s help. But not before she had seen through on a promise she had made to herself long ago. The General would pay for what he had done.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tanner awoke early as he always did, shivering as the cold of the morning crept under the frayed blanket covering him. The damp of the low mist had crept into the shoddily erected and make-shift shelter under which he slept, soaking him and everything he owned. His muscles, stiff and knotted, ached deep within his arms and legs as he rolled from the blanket-covered board and prepared to face the ruined world for yet another day.

  After a hastily-eaten cold breakfast of stale bread and meat paste, he packed the last of his belongings onto a crooked barrow and pushed out from under the low-slung tarp into the thick mud and soaking rain. The day wore a morose mask and it took half an hour to push through the muck and rivers of shit to the trade block, five roads from where he had laid his head. The streets were busy and the going tough; the crudely constructed wooden barrow wheels offering little traction on the slippery surface. Tanner pushed hard, his muscular legs and arms burning with fatigue, finally stopping as he felt the cart bump against the bottom step of the large stone staircase leading up to the entrance of the trading tower. It was here that Tanner aimed to sell off the last of his wares, starting with his perishable items and utensils that he no longer had use for. He reached down and touched the heavy pouch hanging from his belt. Its weight felt comforting and, he hoped, indicative of its value.

  A group of scruffily dressed men stood huddled around a flaming bin at the top of the once-grand staircase. Each of them was wrapped in many layers of dirty clothing in a futile attempt to keep out the unrelenting rain and cold. One, a thin and wiry type with a ratty half-beard and long greasy hair, acknowledged him then scuttled down the stairs two at a time. The rat took one look at the barrow and held out his filthy, scum-caked hand in expectation.

  The cart had to be lifted, and in this weather—no matter what his inner pride told him—this scruffy excuse was his best choice. Tanner pulled out a metal cigarette case and clicked it open; edging a single stick of tobacco toward him, the man took it eagerly and nodded in appreciation. His supply was starting to dwindle and, although he did not smoke himself, he knew that he would soon have to procure himself some more. He set about helping the skinny man to haul the barrow up a steep boarded slope at the side of the staircase. Soon they were at the top, and the rat skulked off.

  A short time later, having provided a more than apt proof of trade and gained entry to the bustling market building, Tanner pushed his way into the first busy trade room on the ground floor. Each square metre of the huge hall was packed with tables and barrows and a full spectrum of people peddling all manner of wares from hand-carved spoons to firelighters and food. The ceiling was high; its once white veneer now blackened by the numerous fires which adorned the walls and peppered the stalls as many people offered an array of cooked treats and delicacies. The floor was slick with mud from the peoples’ shoes, worsened in part by the rain that poured in through the huge, broken windows on two sides of the room.

  A short man approached him, brazenly pushing people twice his size aside. He looked tired and angry, and wore a roughly hewn green tabard, shoddily set over his clothes. Clearly put out from all the effort of the day, he stopped, looked down at the barrow, and then up into Tanner’s face. “Half stand or full?” he said, the stench of booze heavy on his breath.

  “Full,” said Tanner.

  The man scoffed at him and turned, pushing back the way he had just come with the slightest wave of instruction to follow. Tanner took the handles of the barrow. It was a continual stop and start as the room jostled and barged for position around him, and he struggled to keep up. Within seconds of setting out, the man had vanished, swallowed into the industrious crowd.

  Tanner stopped, scanning around. To his right, a woman was aggressively selling plastic containers of all shapes and sizes, from water bottles to the trays that used to be found at the bottom of pre-packaged chickens back before the cull. She had a thronging trade with a crowd two deep surrounding the fragile-looking wooden table that made up the base of her stall. Evidently plastic containers were all the rage.

  Another woman had lined a steel mesh tray with indiscernible steaming meats, which her shirtless husband was busy grilling on a small metal barrel behind her. Both of them had blackened faces and arms covered with painful-looking pink welts. Making a living is painful these days, Tanner thought.

  He felt a tug on his arm and he spun; his fist instinctively closed tight and his arm pulled back a little at the elbow. The small man in the tabard, looking harried, gestured above his head and pointed at the open windows at the far side of the room. Tanner followed the gesture, frowning at the rain that seemed to increase in intensity at that very moment.

  It took another ten minutes of ducking and diving to reach the destination. Two small, empty tables sat lonely against a damp wall, well out of the main throng of the consumer market. Tanner watched as the small man reached into his pocket and withdrew a blue flag which he then tied to one of the table legs.

  “That’ll be two bills… you can square up when you are done,” he said angrily before he pushed off again, leaving Tanner stood by his barrow and squinting as the spray from the rain peppered his flushed face. ‘Bills’ were the common currency in the blocks, transferable and usable on any of the stalls or in any of the bars which were in some way attached to the establishment. They were actually cut pieces of cloth of many varying types; the only common denominator being that they all bore the same stamp—a crown with the letters M J F evenly spaced above the peaks. They were of no use outside the walls, and Tanner knew that, in order to procure the necessary weapons, he would need to bargain hard with what he had on him here today.

  The stall was, thankfully, a little off to one side from the main broken window, but the effect of the damp was only slightly lessened as a result. Tanner began to unload his wares, piling on items until both tables were laden with articles of differing use and value. Once satisfied with the layout, he sat down on the upturned barrow, pulled up his hood, and took out a small bottle of liquor from the pocket of his coat. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

  ***

  By eight o’clock that evening, most of his saleable goods were gone and Tanner had secured himself fifteen bills, far more than he had expected. Thankfully, the rain had stopped after an hour, and trade had slowly picked up once again over his side of the huge market room, facilitating sales and stemming the boredom.

  A siren signalling the ten minute warning for the end of the market sounded. Tanner picked up the upturned barrow and tossed the last of his remaining unsold items carelessly into it. He then headed towards the doorway; this time skirting the outside of the room where the crowd was thinner. He moved left and right, weaving every time one of the cluster stepped in front of him with arms full of reinvented junk, pushing onwards through the heavy din.

  Even though the room was still heaving in a sweaty throng of bargain hunters, he crossed the same distance in half the time. As the door came into view, barely fifteen feet away, a large hand came down on his arm, pulling him off balance. The barrow, crude and rudimentary in its design and barely running in a straight line at the best of times, listed and teetered on the deflated wheel for a second before falling heavily, its contents spilling carelessly in all directions. Everything was immediately pounced upon or trodden underfoot by the imposing crowd.

  A tall man garbed in the same dirty, luminous tabard as the angry fellow before stood to his left, his gnarled hand clamping Tanner’s arm in a vice-like grip. He glanced around as if looking for somebody, put two filthy fingers to his mouth, and emitted a shrill wolf-whistle. Tanner tensed, looking dow
n at the hand on his arm and then back into the face of his assailant staring him dead in the eye.

  “Can I help you with something?” Tanner asked; his voice deep and steady.

  Another two men in identical attire came up and stood guard either side. The grip on his arm relaxed a little.

  “Oh, the goon squad, is it?” Tanner said, and with a tug, he pulled his arm, breaking the grip.

  It caught the man off guard and brought him stumbling forwards, suddenly thrown off-balance. Tanner stopped the falling man with a firm hand in his chest and pushed back violently. “Whoa, easy there, tiger” he said mockingly.

  For a second, the two shoulder men did not move. They simply stood there awkwardly as what had just happened worked through their eyes and fired the synapses of recognition inside their pea-sized brains. They would not be any trouble. Tanner stepped back, entering a fighters’ stance, his fists balled confidently in front of his face. ‘In your own time,’ he said.

  “Enough!”

  A voice barked loudly, cutting through the situation like a samurai sword through soft wood. From somewhere off to the side, a large man stepped forward, aggressively parting the crowd. He stopped in the centre of the group, pushed the leader of the goon squad back, and stepped directly into Tanner’s personal space.

  His nose was not more than two inches from Tanner’s own. Dark tattooed rings circled his eye on one side, emanating outwards, growing larger and more decorative with each layer. His hair, like that of an old London punk, was greased into a slightly lop-sided Mohican, and it tickled the smooth patch of skin between Tanner’s eyebrows.

  “This one was trying to de-bunk, sir,” the first of the goon squad offered up, stepping forward with new confidence to further darken the shoulder of his confident leader. The large man looked at Tanner, his eyes dancing with endorphins and adrenalin.

  “Is that so?” he said, his voice cocksure and challenging. Slowly, he grated his head to one side then the other, the crack of bones audible even over the drum of the crowd. ‘Think you are too special to pay what you owe, huh?’

  The ground provided firm purchase as Tanner stepped back on his left, regaining his balance and distance. Unseen, he stepped up on the toe of his back foot. The situation was going to need dealing with quickly, before the four of them realised that they had the advantage in numbers.

  Tanner threw his right fist, tensing it at the last moment for maximum power. It crunched into his adversary’s chin with a splintering crack. The big man reeled from the blow and stumbled a few steps backwards, a look of surprise spread across his face. The goon squad remained frozen, unbelieving and shell-shocked at what they were witnessing.

  Tanner’s fists were already pulled back in a defensive position, guarding his face. His left elbow was placed slightly lower than his right, sub-consciously protecting the more open side of his body. The room around them, until that moment a chaotic conflux of bartering and animated jostle, stopped as each and every person watched the situation with a mixture of adrenaline and disbelief.

  With over-dramatic effect, the big man touched his bottom lip with one of his shovel-like hands. The tips of the fingers came back stained and tinted red. Slowly, under the gaze of those that had congregated, he put the blood-stained fingers into his mouth and sucked them clean.

  Tanner smiled; he had seen all this before. The man was nothing but a poser, a show boat; just how he liked them. He lowered his guard and jutted out his chin, inviting the trouble.

  The gesture had the desired effect. Infuriated, the big man shook the tired-looking army webbing from his shoulders. Daggers and various trinkets clattered at his feet that nobody moved to touch. For show, the dirty, tight t-shirt came next, revealing a muscular torso. Both his chest and back were covered in elaborate ink; skulls and snakes intertwined in a diabolical ornate orgy down his huge, pumped-up arms. The tattoos were not the crude versions that ordained the arms and faces of every wanna-be warrior in the New Capital; they were the markings of someone who had been a ‘somebody’ before the culling, or at least had thought they were. Good money had been invested in the man’s macho skin-badges.

  He pointed with a thick and dirty finger, his face contorted with hate. “I’m gonna chew on your intestines!” he screamed, suddenly charging forward like an angry bison.

  Tanner dipped his front shoulder and twisted to the right. The unexpected movement sent the charging man into the crowd of observers behind, hitting and scattering them like skittles on an alley. Now with the advantage, Tanner stepped forward to finish the job.

  A sharp pain suddenly exploded on the back of his skull and the edges of his vision flashed white and red. He turned just in time to see one of the goon squad, a thin and wiry fellow, swinging again with a large block of roughly-sawn wood. The hair on the top of his head moved but he managed to duck and it flew past harmlessly, sending the swinger off balance. Now somewhat unsteady, Tanner knew that he was in trouble. He pounced, connecting with a wildly-thrown left into the man’s exposed ribcage. Bones cracked and gave way under his iron-like fist. His victim contorted forward painfully as the breath was knocked instantly from his lungs. The second blow caught the man on the side of his chin just under his ear, putting him out cold in a crumple at Tanner’s feet.

  BANG!

  A gunshot rang out causing everybody in the room to jump and duck simultaneously.

  Tanner looked to his right, teeth clenched, half-expecting to feel the searing pain of a bullet tearing through his skin; but none came.

  The crowd parted and a figure walked confidently through the middle with a shotgun clenched in his fists. Smoke twisted and spiralled towards the ceiling from the chipped barrel. He was older, thin, and weasel-looking; Tanner recognised him as Sal, the man from the bar the previous night. Behind him, a mean—if slightly skinny—Alsatian dog followed at his heel. After them advanced a group of equally-dishevelled men, each brandishing a weapon of some sort, all with their eyes fixed on him.

  Tanner tightened his fists once more and brought them up in front of his chin. If today was the day then so be it; he was not afraid to die.

  Sal ignored him at first, glancing over instead at the Mohican-sporting bullock behind Tanner. “Ahh, Krane, good. I see you have met the fellow I was telling you about.”

  Tanner did not look around, keeping his eyes focused on Sal and his renta-gang. Among them he spotted the guy that he had sent to sleep last night in the bar, sheepishly trying to hide his blackened eyes.

  “This BOY is mine… stay outta it, Sal,” Krane replied hatefully. He was clearly annoyed with the interruption.

  Sal revealed the same cracked tooth smile from the other night and gestured behind him with both arms raised like some kind of messiah.

  “Think you can take them all, Krane? Do we really have to go over this same façade every time we meet? Please, say the word and I’ll let them go.” He held the pose, orchestrating the crowd in a well-versed mannerism. “I am sure all of these good people would like to be granted the privilege of front row seats to see the mighty Krane fight… ain’t that right?”

  Shrill calls and wolf whistles rang out through the crowd. Everyone was tuned in to watch the showdown, many clambering on tables and shoulders for a view. Krane did not move. As Tanner had thought the previous night, Sal obviously had some clout in the New Capital—more than the goon-squad or this Krane anyway. Sal held his hands out in front of him, this time in a more peaceful gesture, moving his eyes to Tanner.

  “My friend, please, relax. No trouble will come to you here; you have my word.”

  Tanner remained tense, fists guarding his face, senses alert and causing the bristles on the back of his neck to go up. “Then why all the weapons?” he said, nodding his head at the posse of would-be killers behind Sal.

  Sal did not look back, keeping his steely blue eyes focused on him. The corners of his mouth were turned up slightly, and there was an air of excitement present. He raised his thin and sinewy arm. All of
the men behind him slowly lowered their weapons on command. “Better?” he said.

  Tanner nodded, lowering his guard. He stood up straight, turned to Krane and gave him a little wink, away from the glare of Sal. Krane bit his lip and Tanner could see every muscle in his thick painted torso bulge, as if ready to burst.

  “You have to forgive Krane here; he is a bit ill-tempered, I’m afraid. Although you cannot really blame him; I would be too… if my mother had blessed me with a face like a mutant arsehole.”

  There was a murmur from the crowd as people snorted and laughed, prompting Krane to turn and face them, looking out for faces with which to attribute the disrespect with the promise of retribution afterwards.

  Still smiling, Sal stepped forward, closing the distance between them slowly and carefully like a hunter cornering a wild dog. Tanner thought about the explosive in the bag on his belt, but did not move.

  “Now, my good fellow—I’ve forgotten what your name was again?”

  Tanner held up his hand, palm flat, firmly letting the man know he had gotten close enough. “That’s because I didn’t tell you… Sal.” He looked around at the man with the black eyes, Krane, and the some of the eager and dirty faces in the crowd. At his feet, the fallen man with the plank of wood moaned for the first time since his felling.

  “The name’s Tanner.”

  Without hesitation or warning, Sal brought his foot down hard on the side of the felled man’s head with a sickening crunch, silencing him once again.

  “Well, Tanner, if you would be so kind, there is somebody that I would like you to meet.”

  This time, Tanner didn’t argue. Without turning to pick up his spilled things or the barrow, he followed Sal from the room and out into the welcoming, yet cold, night air beyond the trading block.