Cryptid Zoo

by Gerry Griffiths

  “Finally, yeah.” Until now, Jack and Miguel had been unsuccessful in the past trying to capture a chupacabra and had only been able to bring the scientist a dead specimen they’d found in the desert.

  “This is incredible,” Nora said.

  “What’s incredible?” a man’s voice said from across the room.

  Jack stood and saw Dr. Joel McCabe walking toward them. His beard was bushy as always and his lab coat had a few smudges of blood on the front.

  “We got lucky,” Jack said. “Trapped you a real one.”

  “That right.” Dr. McCabe directed Jack’s attention to a large window with thick laminated tempered glass facing into a small enclosure.

  Jack could see four chupacabras, stooped over, and cowering on the floor with their hands over their heads. They looked identical in every way, somewhat like the creature in the cage. He was surprised to see the bioengineer had been able to replicate the cryptids in such a short span of time from the DNA extracted from the dead chupacabra that Jack and Miguel had supplied.

  “Seems you boys needn’t have bothered.” Dr. McCabe crossed his arms and grinned.

  “There’s still a lot you can learn from this one,” Jack said, always finding the man to be irritating and self-righteous.

  “Like what?”

  “That chupacabras are nocturnal.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then turn down the lights. It’s too bright in there, you’re scaring them. That’s why this cage is covered,” Jack said.

  Nora lifted part of Jack’s coat to get a better look at the chupacabra. “Oh my God, I just realized.”

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “You guys found a female and she’s pregnant.”

  “Really?”

  “Do you realize what this means? I might actually be able to perform a somatic cell nuclear transfer.”

  “You mean...?”

  “This is another creature we can clone. Isn’t that wonderful?” Nora was so excited she jumped to her feet and began to swoon.

  Jack caught her before she fell. “Nora, are you okay?”

  “I just got a little dizzy there for a second.”

  “When’s the last time you ate?”

  Nora gave him a blank expression.

  “Let’s go get you something to eat. This can wait.”

  Miguel looked around the lab. He grabbed a lab coat off a hook on the wall. He slowly removed Jack’s coat, replacing it with the smock, and covered the top of the cage.

  “Thanks,” Jack said, putting on his jacket. He glanced over at McCabe while Nora was taking off her lab coat. Jack could tell McCabe wasn’t too thrilled he was whisking Nora away and was probably the reason she’d been driving herself so hard trying to stay out of the way of the arrogant prick.

  Nora tucked her blouse in the waistband of her skirt and took a moment to brush out her hair. “I’m ready.”

  Miguel held the door for Nora and Jack and followed them out into the hall.

  McCabe watched them leave through the window.

  Once they were gone, he went over to a workbench and opened a drawer. He took out a flashlight and put it inside the pocket of his lab coat.

  Then he opened a medicine cabinet.

  He filled the plunger on a hypodermic needle with a liquid sedative.

  McCabe leaned down and peered at the creature hunkered inside the cage.

  The chupacabra glared at him and hissed, like a snake about to strike.

  McCabe ripped the lab coat off the cage and shined the flashlight directly into the chupacabra’s face.

  The creature squealed and slammed against the bars.

  “Lights out,” McCabe said and jabbed the needle into its arm.

  The chupacabra buckled and collapsed on the floor of the cage.

  8

  THE TANK

  Meg stood in front of the bathroom mirror wearing only her bra and panties and applied her makeup. Her shoulder length hair was damp after her shower. She finished with her mascara and switched on the blow dryer.

  “You better get a move on,” Nick called out from the other room, but he doubted if she could hear him. He went over and sat at the desk. He turned on the reading lamp and pulled open the single drawer. Inside were packets filled with questionnaires and evaluation forms with a five-page instruction sheet and a thin 3-ring binder. He took a moment to read through the instructions.

  Meg turned off the hairdryer. She went into the suite where she had laid out her clothes on the bed and started to get dressed. “I do love our privacy, but do you really think it was smart letting Gabe and Shane share a room?”

  “Bob seemed to think it was okay. Besides, the boys are in an adjacent room. Bob said he could pop in on them when they least expected it to make sure they were staying out of trouble.”

  “And how often would that be?” Meg said, pulling her T-shirt down over her head.

  “I trust Gabe.”

  “It’s Shane I’m worried about.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “If you say so.” Meg gave her hair a quick brushing out. “I’m ready if you are.”

  Nick checked his watch. They had only minutes before they were supposed to be down in the lobby. He made sure he had his key card and brought along the 3-ring binder.

  When they came out of the room, Bob, Rhonda, and the boys were waiting by the elevator.

  “You guys get enough rest?” Nick asked.

  Rhonda nodded with a smile.

  Gabe and Shane looked a little blurry-eyed and their hair was uncombed, as they’d probably stayed up fooling around when they should have been getting some sleep.

  “You bet,” Bob replied. He saw the binder in Nick’s hand and raised his own. “Ready to critique the hell out of this place?”

  “Let’s hope it’s a no-brainer and they have a 5-star restaurant,” Nick said. “I’m famished.”

  When they got down to the lobby, Christine was waiting with the rest of the members of her tour group. “Good, we’re all here,” she said once she saw Nick and the others approaching.

  Christine led the way through the lobby to a large dining area with thirty white linen tables, each with enough chairs to sit four to six people. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The first thing Nick noticed was the chemical, formaldehyde smell of what looked like newly laid carpet. Definitely points off for that.

  Another tour group was filing out a side door. They’d left behind a dozen tables cluttered with dirty dishes. Two busboys were doing their best, busily clearing the tables to get ready for the next batch of diners. They arranged clean plates and cutlery on the last table and carried their full tote bins through the swinging double doors into the kitchen.

  Christine smiled at everyone and graciously swept her arm back toward the dining room. “I’ll leave you to enjoy our wonderful buffet. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes so we can start our first tour.”

  A few people went over to claim a table while their family members got in line to get their food. A long buffet counter with a glass sneeze guard ran along one side of the dining room. Two employees wearing white paper hats and white jackets were standing behind the serving trays, ready to carve up roast beef or delve out turkey slices.

  After Nick filled his plate, he went over and sat with his family. Bob, Rhonda, and Shane came over and joined them at their table. They were so hungry that no one spoke at first as they dove into their meals.

  Once Nick and Bob had finished eating, they pushed their plates to the side and opened their binders to get everyone’s comments on their meals.

  Gabe and Shane had no complaints and had even gone back for seconds. Nick figured their taste buds were so accustomed to fast food they could hardly be expected to be good judges of anything that wasn’t fried or stuffed between two buns.

  Meg said her omelet tasted like it had been made with powdered eggs.

  Rhonda hadn’t been so keen on her eggs benedict as she preferred béarnai
se to the hollandaise sauce and pointed out that her knife and fork hadn’t been thoroughly washed, as there was still crusted food on the silverware.

  Bob thought the turkey was dry and had no flavor and the mashed potatoes were lumpy.

  Nick’s roast beef tasted more like lamb and was a little gamy.

  Needless to say, they weren’t able to give the restaurant a favorable write-up.

  While Meg, Rhonda, and the boys went off to the restroom, Nick and Bob stayed behind to compare notes.

  “Is it me, or does this place seemed understaffed?” Bob said.

  “Yeah, it does. Like they weren’t expecting us.”

  “And what’s with the lousy food. I hope they don’t think hotels guests are going to enjoy this. I’ve eaten better in a cafeteria.”

  “It was pretty bad.”

  “Bit of a bust, if you ask me,” Bob said, closing his binder.

  “I totally agree,” Nick said. He spotted Meg and Rhonda coming out of the restroom.

  Gabe and Shane were clowning around by the drinking fountain, getting each other wet. Meg and Rhonda shooed them along.

  Nick looked across the dining room and saw Christine waving for everyone to come and join her by the side exit. “Let’s hope the tour’s better than the food.”

  They filed out slowly onto a poolside area with rows of chaise lounges surrounding a circular Olympic-size gunite swimming pool. The chlorinated water seemed sparkling clear, but it was difficult to be sure with the black bottom.

  Nick gazed up and had to shade his eyes from the bright lights high above in the girders, which together seemed like natural sunlight and was probably why the lawns and trees looked so healthy. He became quickly disillusioned when he realized a small patch of lawn nearby was actually artificial turf and there was a plastic leaf on the ground under a fake Japanese plum tree.

  Christine led them down a flagstone path toward a windowless building four stories high. Above the entrance door were the words THE TANK in a giant wavy font bordered with stingrays and tropical fish caricatures.

  As soon as they entered the building, Nick could feel the temperature drop a few degrees and was rather chilly. He looked over at Meg. She was rubbing her arms to warm them up.

  “Should have brought along a sweater,” she said.

  Nick looked up and saw that the ceiling was thirty feet high.

  “Check it out!” Shane said, gazing up at the massive mural that had to be at least thirty feet long and twenty feet high. It was an artist’s rendition of a giant squid attacking a sailing frigate on the open seas. The creature’s head was visible below the bow of the ship, its tentacles wrapping around booms and scaling masts. Sailors were jumping into the rough surf to escape being killed, others dangling over the decks, held captive and being crushed by the enormous tentacles.

  Nick thought the depiction seemed rather violent for a family theme park and made a mental note to put that in his report.

  “What is that?” Meg asked, staring at the mural.

  “That’s a kraken, Mom,” Gabe said.

  “Wasn’t there a kraken in that Sam Worthington movie?”

  “That’s right. Clash of the Titans.”

  “I don’t remember it looking anything like this.”

  “This way please,” Christine called out.

  Everyone followed the tour guide around a bend into an observation area where the lights were dimmed low, accentuating the bluish waters inside a gigantic aquarium.

  “Welcome to the Tank,” Christine said loud enough for everyone to hear, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. “Please assemble along the hand railing so that you can all see.” Once everyone was situated, she continued by saying, “The Tank is 120 feet across, 65 feet deep, and 35 feet high and contains just over 900,000 gallons of salinated water.”

  Nick had taken Meg and Gabe to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium a couple of years ago and remembered he was rather impressed with all the exhibits. He didn’t see anything spectacular here; especially not enough to draw visitors to want to travel all the way out to such a remote location.

  Teems of fish were swimming around an 80-foot wide coral reef in the middle of the aquarium: sunfish, dolphins, groupers, rockfish, leopard and sand sharks, stingrays, bluefin tuna, and swarming schools of sardines and shiner surfperch, all disappearing around one end to eventually reappear from the other side.

  There were also large predators: an eighteen-foot long great white shark and half a dozen tiger sharks moving peacefully with the rest of the pack as though they had been mildly sedated or were merely biding their time, waiting to attack.

  “So where’s the kraken?” Shane shouted.

  “Would you believe, you’re looking at it?” Christine said.

  Nick and everyone on the tour stared into the glass. All he saw was the coral reef and the fish swimming mindlessly in a circle.

  “There’s no kraken,” a young boy hollered.

  “What a jip,” a woman griped.

  “Please be patient!” Christine said.

  “Shane, what are you doing?” Bob yelled.

  Nick turned and saw Shane slipping under the handrail. He rushed over and began banging on the glass. “Hey, kraken! You in there?”

  “Young man, step back!” Christine shouted. “Do not pound on the—”

  A gigantic tentacle suddenly appeared and would have grabbed Shane if it weren’t for the thick glass. The appendage was thirty feet long if not more with suction cups the size of hubcaps. Each cup broadened as it adhered tighter to the glass, increasing the suction.

  Nick was afraid it was going to break the glass. He grabbed Meg’s arm and they took a step back. He watched as parts of the coral reef began to transform slowly into a humongous octopus.

  “Oh my God, Nick,” Meg said.

  “That’s so cool,” Gabe said.

  “Everyone let me present Enteroctopus dofleini, a giant Pacific octopus or what we call the kraken,” Christine said.

  “Wait a minute,” Shane said. “Isn’t a kraken a giant squid?”

  “The myth suggests so, yes. But, the word krake is German for octopus. So you decide. Which would you choose?”

  Nobody was up for a debate; they were too enthralled gawking at the monstrous creature staring back at them. Nick could only see one of its eyes. It was huge with a horizontal pupil.

  “This large marine animal is a cephalopod, a Greek term meaning head-feet as the arms are attached to the head.”

  “Don’t you mean tentacles?” Shane said.

  “An octopus has arms as the suckers run all the way down the length of the appendage. Tentacles only have a single sucker at the tip. This particular species has 240 suction cups on each arm, and with eight arms that’s a total of 1,920 suckers. Sometimes when an octopus gets hungry or bored, it might even eat one of its arms.”

  “That’s crazy,” Gabe said.

  “It might sound crazy, but octopi have the same rejuvenating abilities as a lizard that loses it tail: it just grows back a new one.”

  “Oh my,” a woman gasped.

  Christine went on to say, “As you’ve just witnessed this octopus can change the pigmentation of its skin to blend in with its environment, acting as a camouflage.”

  “Sure fooled us,” Bob said to Nick.

  “I’ll say.”

  “This creature is nearly 50 feet long and weighs 2,000 pounds. It has the capability of speeds of up to 25 miles per hour by pulling water through its mantle and ejecting the water through a siphon creating jet propulsion. It can also squirt out an ink smoke screen whenever it feels threatened.”

  “Wow,” someone said.

  Christine continued and asked, “Does everyone see the beak?”

  Nick leaned on the handrail to get a better look. He thought only birds had beaks, but then he saw the mollusk-shaped mouth. “How do they eat?” he asked Christine.

  “They have a paralytic and digestive toxin in their salivary glands that enables them to eat
just about anything.”

  “Can they survive out of water?” a young woman asked.

  “They can, but only for a short period of time. Here’s an interesting note, as octopi are soft-bodied animals they’re capable of squeezing through very narrow openings just as long as they are not smaller than the beak, which is the only hard part of its body.”

  “Kind of like a rat,” Bob said.

  “Yes, but an octopus is more intelligent than a rat, I assure you. Our marine biologist and zookeepers can attest to that. They’ve even given it a nickname.”

  “What’s that?” Meg asked.

  “Einstein. Which brings us to our demonstration,” Christine said. She turned to a speaker pad on the wall and pushed a button. “We’re ready.”

  A door to the left opened and a woman walked out. She was wearing a brown shirt and khakis. She came over and stood next to Christine.

  “Hi, everyone. My name’s Tilly O’Brien. I’m both a marine biologist and one of many zookeepers staffing this facility. As I am sure Christine has already mentioned, our resident giant Pacific octopus, which we fondly call Einstein, is quite the smart boy.”

  “How so?” Shane asked skeptically.

  “Just watch.” Tilly went over to a standup podium where a laptop computer was set up. She typed on the keypad.

  Nick watched as a fifty-five gallon drum, suspended by a cable, dropped down into the aquarium from above. The top was sealed with a screw on lid similar to a childproof cap on a medicine bottle.

  Tilly went up to the glass and gazed at the giant octopus. The colossal creature saw the woman and moved closer to the glass. “As you can see, Einstein has a knack for recognizing faces and knows who I am. You might even say we’ve become quite good friends. He also knows that I have a treat for him. But if he wants it, he’s going to have to work for it.”

  “What’s inside the drum?” Nick asked.

  “It’s full of krill, Einstein’s favorite.”

  “Isn’t the drum sealed?”

  “It is. That’s the test. Let’s see if Einstein can figure it out.” Tilly faced the glass and watched along with the rest of the tour group.