Cryptid Zoo

by Gerry Griffiths

  Jack stepped into the threshold and panned his flashlight all around the room. The shelves were all bare, every cage and terrarium gone.

  “I’ll be right back,” Miguel said and dashed back through the laboratory.

  Jack thought he heard something and pushed open an adjacent door.

  “Ah, Jesus,” he said. Nora stepped beside him as Cam, Tilly, and Burt crowded around to see what had evoked such a strong reaction from Jack.

  They stared at the whimpering chupacabra with the gaping hole in its abdomen, strapped to the operating table, victim of a botched abortion. It tried to raise its head then fell back, heaving its last breath.

  “The bastard,” Nora growled. “He did this.”

  “You mean Dr. McCabe?” Jack asked.

  “Who else.” Nora stormed out and went over to another door. She opened the door and waited for Jack to come over to provide some light. Cam, Tilly, and Burt gathered around the doorway so they could see inside the room.

  Jack shined the flashlight around the small office. A workbag with yellow and orange stripes was on the desk.

  “Hey, that looks like the bag that maintenance guy had, the one that was working on that electrical panel,” Cam said, poking his head through the door.

  Jack stepped up to the edge of the desk. He unzipped the bag and looked inside.

  “There’re some tools. Christ, there’s a block of C4 and some fuses.”

  “You mean Dr. McCabe blew up the power grid? But why?” Cam asked.

  “Most likely for a diversion.”

  “So he could steal the babies,” Nora said.

  “But why?” Jack asked.

  “To get back at Carter Wilde. McCabe figured as he had bioengineered these creatures they were rightfully his and wanted to get a patent for all of his creations. Only Wilde refused. He figured if he was footing the bill, they were his property and legally his.”

  “You don’t think the doctor had anything to do with that gas leak?” Burt asked.

  “He probably figured it was the best way to make sure no one would be around to mess up his plans.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Jack heard Miguel call out his name. “We’re over here!” he yelled, stepping out of the office.

  Miguel came back through the laboratory and stopped. “He must have used the freight elevator. It’s on auxiliary power and wasn’t affected by the outage. Also, the moving van in the garage is gone.”

  “Well, now we know how he got them out of here,” Jack said. “So where did he take them?”

  “I know how we can find them,” Nora said.

  33

  HOME AT LAST

  It had only been 18 hours since Nick and Meg had brought their son home and already every radio and television station was abuzz about strange sightings of bizarre creatures which after an aerial search led authorities to the Cryptid Zoo dome. Nick figured they must have locked the place down once they saw all the bodies.

  Every time Nick flipped through the channels, there would be a field reporter standing in the woods outside the blue, beetle-shaped stadium relaying what limited information was made available as now the theme park was under federal investigation and was completely sealed off from the public.

  There’d been strange sightings populating social media. A cattle rancher claimed a bear as big as a house attacked one of his herds and carried off one of his prize bulls in its mouth. Two campers swore they had seen a bigfoot and posted actual pictures of the creature. A road crew arrived to what was believed a sinkhole that had collapsed a patch of pavement and saw a giant worm burrowing in the earth. The escaped cryptids were becoming an overnight sensation as more incredible accounts bombarded the Internet.

  Nick had ignored the phone knowing it might be someone from his work trying to get him to agree to some bullshit story so as to cover the company’s ass. He’d seen investigative reporters trying to get a statement from Carter Wilde but he refused to comment. Nick wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if he had already skipped the country knowing all the lawsuits that would surely come raining down on the billionaire’s head from relatives of those brutally killed.

  He knew it would only be a matter of time before the press learned about his family and their nightmarish vacation. The last thing they needed right now was for a bunch of reporters to be banging on their door. His poor son had retreated to his bedroom the moment they had stepped into the house, and hadn’t come out since. How many hours of therapy would it take to erase the things he’d seen?

  Nick wanted to get in contact with Bob and Rhonda but hadn’t a clue as to where they were or who could give him that information. It was almost as though Bob and Rhonda Pascale had disappeared off the face of the planet. He still wasn’t sure what he would say if they asked about Shane. For now, it was best to just wait and see what happened.

  He’d showered and changed his clothes and wanted to lie down and rest but knew he couldn’t sleep for fear of what might wake him up in the night. Which was why he was sitting at the kitchen table at three in the morning, nursing a bottle of Michelob Ultra Light.

  Soft footsteps entered the kitchen.

  “You, too, huh?” Nick said as he watched Meg reach into the refrigerator and come out with her own bottle of beer. She twisted off the cap and took a swig before sitting down across from Nick.

  “So, what now?” Meg asked, placing the bottle on the table.

  “Might be a good time to dust off my resumé, what do you think?”

  “You don’t think there’ll be a settlement?”

  “What, to hush us up? You’d be willing to take it?”

  “If it would make our boy well. Have you called your mom to tell her we’re home?”

  “Not yet,” Nick said. “You know what we forgot?”

  “What?”

  “Raise your bottle.”

  Meg picked up her beer and held it out.

  Nick clinked the glass neck of his bottle with Meg’s bottle.

  “Happy anniversary.”

  ***

  “That’s him,” Nora said to one of the FBI agents standing with her by the departure gate checkout counter. The tall agent that reminded her of Vince Vaughn stepped in front of the bearded man wearing a plaid flannel shirt and dungarees.

  “Dr. Joel McCabe?” the agent asked.

  “Uh, yes,” McCabe hesitated.

  “You are under arrest for murder and the possession of stolen goods.”

  McCabe glanced over the FBI agent’s shoulder and saw Nora. “You? How did you find me?”

  “It just so happens you made the mistake of traveling at the same airport.”

  “What do you mean, the same airport?”

  “Jack and Miguel and the FBI are down on the tarmac right now, seizing your shipment for the Ukraine.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure, you do,” Nora said. “What, were you planning on selling them to the highest bidder?”

  “Sure, why not? I certainly wasn’t going to hand them over to that selfish bastard Wilde.”

  “Looks like you both lose.”

  “You still didn’t tell me how you found me?” McCabe said as the FBI agent pulled the doctor’s hands behind his back and slipped on the cuffs.

  “By following your trail.”

  “What trail?”

  “The one left by the cryptids,” Nora said. “I’m sorry, maybe I should have told you.”

  “Told me what?” McCabe asked as the agent started to march him away.

  “That I implanted GPS tracking chips inside each of the babies.”

  34

  FINAL SWEEP

  FBI Special Agent Mark Jennings had been to more crime scenes than he cared to count but had never seen so many dead bodies in one place as this one. Forensics eventually gave up trying to cordon off each victim with yellow tape and decided to treat the entire indoor zoo as one big crime scene. The Army Corp of Engineers had been called to restore
power so the lights were back on.

  Jennings’ assignment was to go door to door in the hotel with the guest list and do a thorough check of each suite. He had two agents with him that were instructed to gather and catalog the residents’ belongings for the investigation, which would be returned if the people were still alive.

  Each time he opened a door, the men would brace themselves in the event a creature was lurking inside. So far they had found nothing.

  “Any chance we could take a break and grab a bite to eat?” one of the lower grade agents asked Jennings.

  “Sure, after we check this next room.” Jennings used the master keycard and slid it in the door lock. He waited for the light to go green, lowered the handle, and then pushed the door open.

  Once all three of them were in the room, the agent that was anxious to take a break said, “Doesn’t look like anyone was even in here.”

  Jennings looked at the guest list. “That’s odd. Says here that a Bob and Rhonda Pascale were registered to this suite.” He looked around.

  The bed was made. There was even a mint on one of the pillows.

  He glanced in the bathroom.

  There were freshly laundered towels on the racks.

  The countertop was spotless with neatly wrapped bars of soap and plastic drinking cups covered with thin, clear plastic.

  Just the way the housekeeping maid had left it.

  “Well, I guess we can...” but then he paused when he spotted a notation on the guest registrar. “Seems there’s an adjoining room.”

  “Is that it?” one of the agents said, pointing to a door next to the dresser.

  “Must be. Says here is it was reserved for their son, Shane, and another boy by the name of Gabe Wells. We better take a look.”

  The second Jennings opened the door he knew something wasn’t right.

  “Jesus, what’s that smell?” gasped an agent.

  “Something’s dead in there,” said the other, repressing the urge to gag.

  Jennings covered his nose and stepped into the room. He felt along the wall with his other hand until he found the switch and turned on the light.

  He looked across the room and saw two beds, one half-made with the sheet partially pulled down, the other bed covered with a bulky blanket, bulging in the center.

  Jennings drew his sidearm and slowly approached the bed.

  The room reeked like a catch that had been left out in the sun too long on the deck of a fishing trawler.

  He could see the comforter was completely soaked—not from a liquid—but with a thick, translucent slime.

  He reached down, grabbed a corner of the blanket, and slowly pulled it away.

  The grotesque gray blob gazed up at Jennings with its two black eyes and pursed its repugnant mouth. It dragged itself a couple inches over the stained mattress with its two tiny arms.

  “Good God, what is that thing?” one of the agents gasped.

  “I have no idea,” Jennings said, backing out of the room. “We better leave it for forensics.”

  Jennings turned off the wall switch and the room went dark. He stepped into the other suite and was about to close the adjoining door when he thought he heard...

  Please...Mister...helppp...meeee...

  He paused for a second then shook his head. “No, that’s crazy,” and shut the door.

  THE END

  Read on for a free sample of The Found World

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Gary Lucas, Nichola Meaburn for her keen eye, and the wonderful people working with Severed Press that helped with this book. It’s truly amazing how folks we may never meet and who live in the most incredible places in the world can truly enrich our lives. And I would especially like to thank my daughter and faithful beta reader, Genene Griffiths Ortiz, for making this so much fun and sharing these bizarre and incredible journeys.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gerry Griffiths lives in San Jose, California, with his family and their five rescue dogs and a cat. He is a Horror Writers Association member and has over thirty published short stories in various anthologies and magazines, and a short story collection entitled Creatures. He is also the author of Silurid, The Beasts of Stoneclad Mountain, Down From Beast Mountain and Terror Mountain as well as the Frank Travis and Rafferty family adventures Death Crawlers and their follow-up standalone novels, Deep in the Jungle, The Next World, and Battleground Earth, all published by Severed Press.

  THE FOUND WORLD

  The man sitting alone at the center of the middle bench seat of the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter barely looked out either window at the jungle foliage as they landed a few hundred feet from the clearing made for the carnival. Six heavily muscled commandos in tactical gear sat three across on the bench in front of him and the one behind. Up front sat the pilot and the also-heavily muscled commander of the paramilitary troop. The man’s name was not Lathrop, but that is what he went by when on assignment. The mercenaries were under his nominal command, but they were not under his employ. The people he worked for had contracted these “soldiers,” much to his dislike. The fact that they were paid by the same entity didn’t mean he had to sit next to the beasts, however.

  If Lathrop had been given his druthers, it would have been himself and the pilot in a much less ostentatious mode of travel. His tasseled attaché, which matched the tassels on his pair of Bolviant Verrocchios, was his weapon of choice. It was loaded with ammunition—contracts and legal papers that served as modern letters of marque, enough to take down entire governments if his employer wished. But not just ammunition: within the galuchat attaché case were untraceable bearer bonds each worth millions of dollars and pre-signed deeds to properties in Dubai and Tokyo worth even more. It contained carrots as well as sticks.

  Lathrop had once been asked by a contracted assassin why he didn’t simply take a few for himself and disappear. Lathrop laughed and told him that owning every single piece of property in Hong Kong wouldn’t be worth losing his life, which would be lost horribly, once his employer found him again. And—make no mistake, he told the assassin, who was erased from existence once his mission was completed just for asking the question—his employer would find him again in short order.

  Just like they had found Brett Russell, the man he had come to see. This man used to work for Lathrop’s own employer before he uncovered a shocking truth, but then went underground, promising to exact retribution one day. This didn’t bother the Organization; one man, or an army of them, or even a nation full of oath-sworn revengers couldn’t do any real damage to those pulling the world’s strings.

  What did bother them was losing a man of Brett Russell’s talents. He once liberated an entire mining village while simultaneously fighting what the Organization believed was an actual living Spinosaurus in the depths of the Congo rainforest. He was the perfect candidate to help them secure an asset so valuable that made the entire contents of Lathrop’s galuchet case look like bag of glass marbles. The Organization would have him hand over the attaché in a second if Brett Russell would accept it for the job.

  But they knew he wouldn’t. All the wealth in the world meant nothing to a man wanting only revenge. So, the man not really named Lathrop would offer him revenge.

  He allowed the commandos to exit one side and come around to slide open the door on the other side for the others to get out. He stood on the soft dirt, the heels of his astronomically expensive buffalo-hide shoes sinking half an inch or so. They would need to be discarded after this adventure, he thought, but others would be waiting for him when he stopped in New York on his way back to Geneva. It would amuse him to have his man drop the old pair of $2,000 shows into a box at the Goodwill. Maybe he’d see a hobo wearing them next time he was in the city and chuckle to himself that the bum could have bought himself a car to live in.

  A small beetle almost immediately alit upon the right lapel of his bespoke Ermenegildo Zegna suit, which made Lathrop very nearly smile; the bug had good taste. He swept i
t off and looked at the spectacle drawing cheers and excited gasps from the loose crowd of farmers and their lead-poisoned children. He believed he was near the “city” of Ipixuna in Brazil, a settlement of about 17,000 and one of the most difficult to reach anywhere in the Amazon rainforest, which was saying something.

  To the Organization, however, nothing was terribly difficult to reach. To get Lathrop and the troops to the spot outside Ipixuna, the 12-seat S-76 was dropped out of an enormous Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane, having first been loaded onto an automated Chase XCG-20 glider, which descended to and leveled off at 5,000 feet, at which time it was slowed to stalling speed. At that moment, a radio signal was sent to set off the bay door’s explosive bolts, which blew off the hatch and allowed the Sikorsky to slide out, its rotors already in motion. The glider crashed somewhere nearby and the helicopter flew the thirty miles or so to the target location, this godforsaken bit of swampland where the idiot carnival was set up to entrance the dullards hired to destroy their own habitat. The Organization had no hand in that, but Lathrop thought it sounded like something they would do if it suited them.

  Some 200 feet ahead was a dome made from chain-link fencing, the onlookers gathering around its perimeter. The two dozen spectators turned and glanced briefly at the sight of a massive helicopter unloading black-clad soldiers carrying assault weapons and a polished white man wearing intentionally incongruous city clothing, but then turned back. Whatever was inside the 200-foot diameter of that fenced dome must have been compelling, indeed. Lathrop knew what was inside the dome: Brett Russell. God knew what he was doing, but it was enough to make sustenance farmers walk away from their crops in the middle of a spring day perfect for planting.

  The dome itself had been erected in such a way that some jungle trees were almost entirely within it, full of weird rainforest creatures that Lathrop, frankly, could do without ever encountering. He spent his days in Geneva, one of the most civilized places in the entire world. His friend the beetle had been a novelty; one just didn’t encounter insects where he conducted Organization business. That said, a poisonous monkey or spitting lizard would be more than a novelty and would constitute something entirely unwelcome on or near his person. He might have to ask one of the commandos to remove it for destruction, and he preferred not to ask anything of the thugs if it could be avoided.