The Human Zoo

by Kolin Wood

  In response to this, I have decided that I am going to release a few of the boys. The prison is too big for me to run and defend by myself; I am going to need help. I have selected three of them, not for their size or muscular prowess, but for their apparent will to cooperate. Maybe they can paint me a picture of some of the lads that are still alive, let me know who will be useful and who to avoid.

  August 10th 2015

  It has been a productive few days. We now number seven.

  My team are living in beds in the office at the front of the prison. I have fed them and allowed them to use the limited wash facilities. I have dressed them in the black guards uniforms I found and given them each a baton and a pair of boots. They actually resemble human beings once again.

  Now we have a few numbers, we need to clear out the bodies.

  Aside from the unbearable smell of death and decay, I still know nothing about the nature of the disease, and figure we should clean house. It will be no small task. There are literally hundreds of them and we will need to drag them outside and burn them. There is a small courtyard for the bins to the rear of the building, and I figure this the best spot to begin as it allows us to maintain our security.

  It seems the boys know about the situation outside, which saves me having to explain it to them. Apparently the guards released a few of them when they finally abandoned the buildings, obviously relishing the opportunity to play the part of judge, jury, and executioner to those who remained. Evil.

  August 12th 2015

  Another three joined the team today.

  We started on the cells. There are plenty of masks, overalls, gloves and bleach, and I am helping alongside them. So far they seem content enough. But the job is a grim one, the bodies are stiff and many of them are stuck to the floor.

  I am surprised at the apparent non-concern at the foulness of the task I have asked them to do. It seems they are simply happy with the sense of purpose I have provided for them. One boy, Harold, appears to have a morbid fascination with the pile of burning bodies outside. He stands there for hours, watching the bins and breathing in the fumes…

  August 20th 2015

  We have cleared the block of corpses.

  I have decided to leave it there for now. I could feel a shift in the demeanour of the boys, and I do not want to lose their support at this early stage. We can lock this block down and properly clean it up, even make it pleasantly habitable and resemble something akin to a home. Perhaps later on, if we need to, we can look to do the same for the rest of the prison.

  August 24th 2015

  The final two boys from my list were today pulled from their cells and added to the group, although these two were of a different calibre than the rest. They are bigger, harder, but still showing some of the intelligent characteristics that I am looking for. This is a brazen move, but one I feel is necessary. We need some muscle and they seem to want to become part of whatever it is I am creating, so for now things are looking up.

  I feel far more confident.

  Soon, I will release the rest.

  September 19th 2015

  The prison block is alive and buzzing!

  The noise now is different, aggressive and jovial, but just as distracting and far more constant. If I am honest, I miss the occasional quiet, but it really does now feel as though there is enough man power here to get things done.

  We are a community… MY community.

  Many of them have taken to the new way of things without question. The main block is clean and orderly.

  Some, a very small few, have asked to leave, and I allowed them to; for I am not their jailer. Although, I made it very clear that once out… there was no coming back. Only a few weeks ago I would never have let any go for fear of a reprisal, but my new community has given me a sense of power like nothing I have ever experienced before. I literally feel like the leader of an army, and I suppose I am! A few of the boys have even started calling me ‘General’, and I do not oppose it.

  Having said all that, the five inmates down in solitary, I have decided, I cannot release. The one with no file, prisoner One Six Four, looks like the devil—all tattoos and evil eyes. He should not be out. None of them should. Not even in this new and bloody, broken world. Not yet. They are killers and rapists and none of them seem, in any way, repentant of their crimes.

  Only my twelve know of their existence, and I forbid any of them from going down there.

  They have taken to simply calling them ‘The Numbers’…

  Pock looked up from the book ‘they are killers and rapists…’ the irony made him feign a smile to himself. This whole world that the General had created was built upon those very traits. To think that, in the beginning, the man had owned such a conscience… or that he had been so deluded. He read on.

  October 1st 2015

  The team seem to be working well. There is a natural hierarchy with Mitchel, one of the older and more sadistic lads, taking the lead, but this is to be expected. Should they all choose to turn on me, I will not stand a chance. In order to remain at the top of the pyramid, I need to procure some REAL weapons, preferably some guns. I know they will not be easy to find, but I have a few ideas.

  I also need someone inside the group I can trust.

  October 2nd 2015

  I tasked one of the first picked, prisoner 408 James Connelly, to watch and report back to me should anything out of the ordinary become apparent.

  He is not like the others; he is softer and acutely intelligent. They all seem to call him Pock Mark which, judging by the state of his heavily acne-scarred face, is cruel but understandable. Reading his file notes last night, the details of his crime were a shock to me… his mother AND two brothers? Really? He does not seem the sort. But it reminded me that I cannot forget who all of them are.

  There are the twelve and the irony of the apostles is not lost upon me.

  These are NOT God’s children.

  Pock stopped reading.

  He remembered when the General had asked for him to spy on the group, and how he had said that he would do so without so much as a moment’s hesitation. Why the General had chosen him over the others, he had not understood at the time. He did, however, know that it had felt good to be picked for something, to be singled out for the first time in the entirety of his miserable life. He had been adopted, welcomed into the top chambers and the ultimate inner circle; even made a personal confident. And all that time, the General had known the true extent and depravity of his past.

  He scanned through further pages. It seemed that the General had given up on his journal some time ago. Later, input into it was more sporadic, but it still stretched through a number of years. He wondered how long it had been in the hands of the prison. References of all types and about many of the different locations, situations and inmates, littered the paragraphs. As he continued to read, he found that many cited him by name, and with increasing frequency.

  December 4th 2015

  Pock tells me that some of the boys are planning to hide any guns they find… I have names and will ensure they are dealt with before they are given the opportunity. The only way I can maintain even a fragile grip on this shit storm is if I ensure I am the only one with the power to scare them properly. I need guns.

  February 12th 2016

  Mitchel is becoming a concern to me. He looks at me with contempt and disrespect which I can feel is growing worse by the day. The boys are all scared of him, and will do pretty much anything he says. I wonder if I should banish him from the walls before he challenges my authority completely. Pock assures me that this is the right thing to do…

  Pock felt the hairs on his neck and arms raise up; ‘Pock assures me…’

  He had always assumed that the nature of his relationship with the General had been the reasoning for his maltreatment by almost everybody else. A bit like bullying the kid in class who always had his hand up. Or maybe, he had thought, it may have been the fact that he was skinny and smaller than most
of the others. This book, however, told a different story. The rest of the prison had known all this time exactly what he was and deemed him lower than the low, even more despised than the police officers who had put them in here, or the screws that mistreated them on a daily basis. They had been reading along this whole time and he had not given them enough credit.

  Pock stopped reading and sat back. Everything was suddenly different now. Even though his existence here had always been wrought with hardship, there had always been a purpose. But there was nothing left for him now. The journal had stripped him of any illusion. One day, the boys in here were going to kill him. The rising trend of violence would not stop until it was done.

  Not if you kill them first.

  The words rushed through his head, and he considered them for a second longer.

  You could kill them first.

  It dawned on him that he was right. He could kill them---all of them. Why not? He owed them nothing, but maybe he owed the world a debt? It was just like the woman Juliana had spoken of; he was now free to choose.

  The longer the idea sat, the deeper it took root and the more obvious the choice became.

  This was his purpose, the reason why he was here and why he had been chosen.

  He closed the book and pushed away from the desk, snubbing out the candle with a hiss. The sheet of darkness was immediate, but for the first time in years he did not care. These wretched people had no idea what was coming. Soon, he would cut their eyes from their heads and slice those sneers off their lips. Then, they would rue the day they mistook his awkwardness for cowardice.

  But this mission would not be an easy undertaking.

  He had preparations to make.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A low moan escaped the naked body of the girl beside him. Mitchel stood, letting the blanket which had been covering them both, fall to the floor. He walked to the other side of the room, tugged on a pair of dirty jeans and, without bothering to do them up at the front, lit a Marlboro Red from a crumpled pack. The cigarette tasted harsh on his already-dehydrated throat, but it helped to disguise the rancid taste sitting at the back of his tongue. He looked over at the curled up shape on the bed.

  The Marshall girl was facing the wall, the skin on her back prickled with gooseflesh, cold and bruised. That first night after their return from the house, Mitchel had gone against his promise, revisiting the cell containing the family in the dark of night. He didn’t care what the General had said about leaving them be. Fuck the General and his sensibilities—-the man didn’t like him and he was going soft. Besides, even though he had managed to bestow some revenge in the form of a good kicking, Mitchel still hadn’t forgiving the knee capping that the father had given him a few nights previous. It now hurt like fuck to walk, and every step brought a painful reminder that thickened the red mist of hate.

  Inside the cell, he had found the family all lying in the dark, still with tied wrists and pillowcases covering their heads. After some deliberation about who was who, Mitchel had set to work on the father, not physically this time but mentally, telling him in explicit detail what he was planning to do with his daughter and then swapping his interests over to the wife. Back and forth he went, first one then the other, laughing as he elaborated further and further. More than once, the man had jumped, utterly enraged, unable to break his own hard fall when Mitchel had shoved him back down. It had taken a while, but in the end the man had pleaded with him, sobbing pathetically.

  Please… please… not my daughter… not my wife…

  Mitchel had patted his head and thrown a punch into the hooded face as he walked out, daughter in tow. As if it mattered that the bitch was his daughter? Every bitch was someone’s daughter.

  But this particular daughter was special. She had been captive in his room for over twelve hours and he had taken his time with her, subjecting her to every kind of humiliation and abuse he could think of, yet the girl had barely moved. She simply lay, almost lifeless, her big brown eyes staring ahead, not succumbing to so much as a whimpered plea. She fascinated him and he was planning on keeping her a little longer. He may not have broken her, but he would; he was going to see to that. They all broke in the end.

  He pulled on a frayed shirt, full of holes, followed by a heavy, dark coloured, hooded top bearing the logo BIG DOG across the front. Then, once dressed, he opened the door.

  “Don’t bother gettin’ dressed,” he snarled, flicking the butt of the finished cigarette past her head, where it exploded in a cloud of red embers on the wall.

  Inside the food hall, it was already busy. The line queuing at the servery was at least twenty-five people long. Mitchel pushed through those that were waiting, stopping to grab a plastic tray and some badly washed plastic cutlery, before making his way to the front. Many of the lads made objections but none were brave enough to make them audible, settling instead for sneers and hand gestures behind his back. Several spat on the floor. The food, the usual slop of anything tinned and at hand, was slapped nonchalantly on his tray and he snarled, ensuring an extra ladle. He figured that he was one of the few in the know. Soon the stores would be receiving a welcome injection, and they could damn well spare him an extra helping. Besides, who the fuck was going to stop him? Turning, he scanned the steadily-filling room for table space and spotted Pock, sitting on his own near the back.

  ***

  Seeing Mitchel approach, Pock groaned. Not again.

  He squinted his eyes as the far larger guy, for once clean of his usual mask of dried blood and gore, slapped a tray down heavily on the table and sat directly across from him, smiling as spray from the watery plate splashed over Pock’s own.

  “So… still sucking on the General’s cock, are ya, spotty boy?” Mitchel sneered, spooning a ladle of gruel-like matter into his filthy, un-kept mouth.

  Pock said nothing. He knew where this was going. Soon others would join in; they always did. The scene would escalate.

  Inside him, anger burned intensely, but he held it in check. This was not the time or the place; there were too many of them to handle at once. Without looking up, he grabbed the edge of his tray and began to stand slowly.

  “SIT… THE… FUCK… DOWN’. Mitchel’s voice was deep and loaded with cruel aggression.

  Like a robot, Pock obeyed, his knuckles turning white as his grip on the tray intensified. He was going to have to play this one out.

  Mitchell held out his plastic knife and placed the dirty tip under Pock’s spot-infested chin, angling it upwards. “Think coz you can read a book or two that you are better than me, don’t ya?” He tilted Pock’s chin still higher. “I should’ve cut you open in the beginning, you soft cunt.”

  With a flick he pulled the knife away, looking at it as if he had dropped it in something particularly unsavoury, and wiped it slowly on the Pock’s shoulder. “Fuck. Getting my shit all dirty with that fuckin’ pizza-dough face of yours. Go get me a clean one… and some bread… NOW!”

  Pock stood again, as many of the surrounding crowd began to laugh and snigger at him. His legs began to shake.

  Maybe it was time. He may well die here today but so be it, he couldn’t put up with this anymore. And if he was to go today, then he would at least try to take this twisted, evil bully with him. Fuck the rest. His fingers tightened further until they hurt.

  “No,” he said, looking down.

  At first, Mitchel continued to smile and look around, feeding from the adoration of his companions and relishing in Pock’s discomfort. But, as the realisation of the disrespect sunk in, the whole room, as one, fell into a hushed silence.

  “What d’you say to me… fucko?” Mitchel said, dipping his eyebrows in a menacing glare.

  Pock swallowed hard as adrenaline coursed through fear-constricted veins, flooding him with its potent effect and leaving his head swimming. His arms shook as his sight began to tunnel, blurring his peripheral vision into non-existence. It was almost serene, tranquil, an out of body episode. Images of his mot
her and brothers screaming flashed before him. It had been the same then.

  “I said… no.’ Pock exhaled slowly, pushing out his chin in clear defiance. It was too late to back out now. Apprehension prickled in the stale air, as boys clambered onto tables for a better view.

  “Go… get… me… some fucking BREAD!”

  The fist caught Pock cleanly on the side of his face, just below the eye. It lifted him off his feet and sent him clattering over the top of the chair behind him. Nobody moved. As his head slammed with a crack into the hard floor, splashes of white danced in front of his eyes.

  Mitchel, pumped up on aggression, advanced, upturning the table between them, plates and cutlery clattering to the floor as he bore down on the top of the felled boy. An excitedly animated circle had by now formed around them.

  “You think you got the stones for me… huh, boy? HUH? Come on then, fucko, get the fuck up!”

  Mitchel kissed against his teeth, spitting from a small gap between them and his tongue. Saliva showered down on Pock’s throbbing face.

  “This is for being such an ass kissing, little fuck.” Mitchel drew back his fist.

  Pock, in preparation for the attack, raised his arms over his face and did not move. With the crowd here to watch, Mitchel was going to ensure that everybody knew the price of such blatant disrespect. He could not be challenged one-on-one, and everyone was about to see that. Unseen to him behind his covered face, Pock however, was smiling. He had stood up to one of the biggest psychos in the prison, and in public, no less. Perhaps, if he survived this, he would see an outcome to his actions; perhaps.

  Uncaring, and with Zen-like control, he closed his eyes.