The Human Zoo

by Kolin Wood

  Juliana turned back to the peephole, straining to see. Perhaps she had underestimated the severity of her decision to free the monsters, but nothing could be worse than the incarceration that they had been subjected to, and she would never go back—not alive anyway.

  Another face slammed into the porthole. This time, however, the handle rattled.

  Juliana trod backwards, placing her body between the girl and the wannabe intruder in a motherly, unconscious gesture. So this was it; kill or be killed. She tensed, awaiting the attack. The heavy door swung inward with a crash.

  It took a few seconds to recognise the face of the big man in front of her through the disguise of gore and blood that adorned it. But somewhere under the gruesome façade was Doyle, his black shirt shining in the dim light, slick with a film of crimson. In his hands, he held a large axe, dripping with more of the same. Without acknowledging either woman he turned and slammed the door, trapping them all in the room. Sarah screamed..

  “Please…” she whimpered from behind Juliana, her eyes wild and staring as the axe dripped in a steady stream on the floor. “We didn’t mean it, I swear! We… we were frightened. I’m… sorry.” The begging trailed off into uncontrollable tears.

  But Doyle simply stood with his back against the door and his eyes staring vacantly ahead.

  Juliana walked over and gripped his shoulders hard. “Doyle…?” she said.

  She felt happy that he was still alive; even more so that she had not actually killed him with that nasty blow to the head. But she also knew that if they were to stand any chance of escaping, they were going to need the big brute. She could smell the blood on his breath as he exhaled heavily into her face. His body was rigid and shaking under her firm touch. He continued to stare, looking through her, not quite focusing his eyes onto hers.

  “DOYLE!” She slapped him hard, noticing nothing but a small grit of the teeth.

  His eyes blinked.

  “Doyle, what is happening to them out there?” she asked, more softly this time.

  This time, after a few seconds he spoke, barely loud enough to be heard. “They… are slaughtering us,” he said and coughed. “We… we didn’t stand a chance.”

  Outside, more loud bangs, followed by a smash of glass. Juliana looked at the axe dangling in his hand, and then at Sarah. She knew the answer to her next question but asked anyway, as though needing to hear it said out loud.

  “Who? Who is slaughtering you? Doyle… what the hell is going on?”

  She shook him again, her face up close to his, the metallic tang of his breath stinging her nostrils. Doyle looked at her properly for the first time.

  “The numbers,” he said.

  Bennet Marshall’s face flashed before her eyes.

  ***

  From her hiding place, Juliana had a clear view of the door. It mocked the last few metres of her escape. A table creaked on the smooth tiled floor somewhere out of sight and she instinctively held her breath.

  At first she thought it was an injured animal. It crawled into view, its movements, slow and tired, expelling laboured, rattling breaths. But as it drew closer she could see it was no animal. It was, in fact, one of the guards from the prison. Not anybody that she had ever known ‘properly’, but one of the younger ones that she had seen around. Fear and pain in equal measure, resonated on his face.

  The boy whimpered as a large black boot came down next to his head, blocking him from her line of sight.

  BANG!

  The sound of the gunshot created a shockwave that slammed into her, feeling close in the confined foot space under the desk. The breath was knocked from her by the jolting shock of her own jumping body and forced her eyes closed.

  When she opened them again, the boot was gone. The boy lay still, now missing the best part of one side of his head. The remaining eye was staring, but now vacantly, in her direction.

  Juliana could only sit—trapped and incapacitated like a coma victim—as a big man, dressed head to toe in black, wearing a hood, and holding a large gun, walked calmly to the main door of the prison. On one shoulder he appeared to be carrying a girl; a messy tangle of thick, black hair hung down towards the floor.

  The man took out some keys, fiddling with them one-handed. Then, obviously struggling to see, he reached up and yanked the tight mask up over his nose and mouth, pausing before gently pulling it clear of his head. A large, weeping, red and brown wound covered the eye closest to her.

  The General.

  Juliana gritted her teeth so tight that they hurt. The man she hated more than any other human that had ever walked the face of the planet was stood there, alone, not fifteen feet from where she sat, trapped. He set a key in the lock and pulled on the release handle. The door swung open with a creak. Panic fluttered in her stomach.

  The bastard is abandoning the prison.

  She watched on helplessly as her sworn nemesis reached into the pocket of his big, leather jacket and pulled something out, dropping it on the desk closest to the door with a thud. But, from where she was hidden, it was impossible to make out what it was. The General looked down at the item for a few seconds and then turned and marched out into the darkness, leaving the door open behind him. From outside, more creaking as the huge gates were pulled aside then nothing but the howling of the wind.

  Every muscle in Juliana’s body tensed. She had to do something. She could not let him go, not after everything he had done—the girls, the deaths and rapes and torture. She knew that once he disappeared out there into the city, she may never get the chance again. It was now or never.

  Time to kill the arrogant fucker.

  She took a breath, finding relief in realising that she hadn’t inhaled for an inhuman amount of time. The pungent smell of blood and death hit the back of her throat. She could feel it permeating every pore of her skin. Careful to touch the chair and not the cooling cadaver sitting in it, she reached out.

  Another sound to her right stopped her from pushing just in time.

  A second man, only slightly smaller, skulked into view. Padded steps moved at a steady pace through the small gap between the desks and the far wall. His torso was caked in dried blood, heavy tattoo ink showing in parts underneath. Juliana recognised it straight away, withholding a gasp as she shrunk back into the dark of the recess behind her.

  Prisoner One Six Four’s nose twitched, sniffing for prey like a hunting wolf. Slowly, he turned in her direction. Even through the filth that covered his face, she could see his eyes. They burned like embers, alive on the circus of death that surrounded him.

  Juliana closed her eyes, slowly this time, resigned to the fate that awaited her. The monster was going to finish the job he started all those years ago; there was nothing she could do about that now. He was staring right at her, fuck, he could even smell her. But she would not look. She had seen enough horror, and would not bear witness to the gore of her own death; the evil fucker would have to rip her eyelids off first. Every muscle in her body tensed.

  A breeze coursed across her face. The air was fresh and sweet, strange to her. An old paper cup blew off of a table nearby. Any second now she would hear the snapping of teeth and feel strong hands on her ankles. Her stomach now felt sick from the overload of adrenaline in her blood stream.

  But still, nothing happened.

  She opened her eyes; One Six Four was gone.

  Six years of claustrophobia hit her then, smashing into her like an oncoming bus. Juliana screamed and pushed with her legs, as her hands grabbed at cold flesh, metal, anything she could grasp, now ignorant to the chair screeching across the floor or the danger of her discovery. She no longer cared. She needed to move, to run, and to feel more of the cooling freshness on her skin.

  When the gap was big enough she crawled through it, not heeding the blood on the floor. Her legs, heavy and encumbered, barely supported her skinny, lithe frame as she stood but she refused to fall.

  Looking around, she still expected the psycho to push back into the r
oom at any moment and wrestle her to the floor. Her stiff body shuddered as she remembered his bile-covered tongue licking up her neck; his arms, impossibly strong, pinning her down. Her face had taken a week to return to any semblance of normality after the severity of the beating he had bestowed upon her. But, he had left her alive. Many other girls, including a few that had shared the cell with her over the years, had not been so fortunate. Now however, he had spared her twice.

  Move, you silly bitch. This was her only chance.

  Hurriedly, she pulled the army boots clear from the body on the floor in front of her, taking care to keep her eyes from his half-missing face. She took the socks too, ignoring the stench of the unwashed garments. Their warmth was welcome but alien following the duration of time that had passed since she had last worn anything on her feet. The boots themselves were big, but worn and durable, and when she pulled them tight, were just about wearable.

  Next she turned to the lad in the chair. She recognised him. It was ironic how this piece of shit had probably saved her life with his dying corpse after all he had contributed to these past years. Maybe it was the only decent thing he had done in his shitty little excuse of a life. She pulled on each of his arms in turn, forcing the body up and down as she relieved it of the heavy M65 army surplus jacket. As she did so, more blood splattered on the floor.

  The collar felt wet with tacky blood and heavy with sweat as she drew the large jacket around her shoulders. For years she had frozen in a thin gown, one which left nothing to the imagination, just as the sick fucker had liked it. Now, the coat felt thick and safe.

  In one of the outer pockets she found a large hunting knife with a serrated top edge, and she gripped it tightly. All of a sudden, she did not feel so scared anymore; the tables were turning in her favour. After years of convincing herself that she was going to die strapped to a bed and being used by a feral group of adolescent young animals, the one thing that she had never allowed herself to believe could possibly be true was about to come to pass; she was going to be free. Excitement and disbelief coursed like heroin in her veins, making her unsteady on her feet as she moved towards the partly -open door.

  On a table by the door something caught her eye and she stopped to look at it; a battered and dog-eared book. Scrawled on the cover in black pen were the words The Journal and (probable) Last Will and Testament of Cole Bishop.

  A shudder ran up her spine. A journal?

  How much misery and death was included in those blood-stained pages? How many girls had he detailed? How many names had he bothered to take down? Or had he simply referred to them as he had in the prison—as fucking numbers? Utility Orders; ranked and dispersed in much the same way you might order library books. A human library of degradation. What could possibly have happened in the life of a man that would drive him to create such an arena of perversion in the first place? And why had he left the book? Some sick memento for whoever might be unlucky enough to stumble upon the remains of this slaughterhouse? Left like a flag pitched in an unclaimed piece of wasteland. The thought made her sick to her stomach.

  Stuffing the book into her large, inside pocket, she turned back towards the exit. She owed it to the girls, to herself; somebody would one day know what they had all been through here. The breeze came again from outside, the taste of fresh air, like a secret elixir of pleasure, sweeping through her tight lungs and bestowing a new energy within her.

  Just a few more feet.

  Any fear about contagion from the virus had passed. She was still alive, even after everything. She swallowed hard and walked through the door towards the open gate.

  The wind whipped her greasy hair, stinging her face. She wrapped her arms around her, thanking every step, half expecting a huge arm to suddenly grab her and drag her back—or worse, to feel sharp teeth sinking into her neck. But her steps continued. Outside, the darkness was broken by the strong silvery light of a full moon.

  Just short of the huge, steel gates, which had only been pulled open wide enough for a single person to squeeze through, she stopped. Behind her, the huge and imposing building was black and cast in shadow, the gate like a mouth, an entrance to hell itself.

  Sarah was still inside, as was Annabelle, the daughter that she had promised to rescue. Juliana felt the back her throat begin to burn. Nothing could have survived in there; not with those things. She had heard the screams ringing out from every wall.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled to herself, her bottom lip quivering. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Outside of the gate, decomposing cars lay strewn across a desolate-looking car park. The sight brought a fresh wave of panic. There was nobody; nobody to be seen, nobody to be heard, nobody out there to help her. She thought back to her dead husband, remembering with scary clarity how he had told her to go and find her estranged father. She clutched herself as her heart ached hard. He had been right about one thing; Edward ‘Teddy’ Braydon may not have been a good father, but if anybody was alive and thriving through this it would be him. Surely he would not turn her away… she was, after all, his own flesh and blood. And when she told him that he was a grandfather, he would help her to find John and protect them both. What choice did she have but to try? Tears fell hot on her cheeks. Visions of her little boy, crying and alone and lost in the darkness without her, flashed through her mind. He must have been so scared, so angry and afraid. She wiped her face on the thick and stiff sleeve of the jacket and took a deep and shuddering breath.

  “I’m coming, baby,” she said, gripping the knife tightly in her blood-stained fist.

  The General would have to wait.

  EPILOGUE

  The jeep snaked off into the dark night, the rear lights fading in the rain and then disappearing as they moved completely out of sight. The wind howled, unhindered by cars in the empty and overgrown lot, carrying on it the smell of decay. To the left, at the back of the prison, an old, gated compound sat bloated with refuse and human detritus, spilling its contents out onto the tarmac, the bins no longer visible under the rain-sodden mountain.

  In the sky, thick clouds swirled in front of the moon, blocking any light that it might have cast. But he didn’t care. He liked the darkness; welcomed it, in fact. It gave him a blank canvas upon which to paint his pictures. Red showed up well on black and his eyes had long since become accustomed to the patterns and visions that had danced and moved in the shadows.

  He tensed his muscles as the wind bit; its cold teeth nipping around his torso and between his legs. Looking down, he frowned as he saw that the rain had washed the blood from his body, leaving him naked and unnaturally white.

  A cloak that would need replacing.

  He walked to the pile of rubbish, reached down, and shook a black bag free of its contents. They splattered on the ground at his feet. He pulled the slimy, black plastic around his shoulders and tied the slippery ends with his dirty, thick fingers. The bag flapped out behind him like a cape, snapping in his ears and dripping cold remnants of something putrid on his shoulders and down his back. The dark night offered nothing, the roar of the jeep now lost in the growing tempest.

  Before him, the road that led away from the prison was laid out like a carpet, black and sodden but inviting all the same. Prisoner One Six Four was finally free.

  ***

  The Human Zoo 2 coming soon.