Outbreak: The Hunger (4 page)

Then, something catches my eye at the back of the cage. Up on the hanging tire is what looks to be blood, but this time there is no mistaking it. It is blood, pooling in the bottom of the tire from the rope that fastens it to the top of the cage. 

Okay
, I think.
What the fuck is going on here today
?  This is the third cage we’ve seen  that has had some trace of blood in it. 

By this time, the other monkey has joined its buddy on the mesh.  Both are rattling the metal links, screaming, and trying to get to us.  I take Fiona’s hand and step away from the cage.

“Come on, sweetie,” I calmly say.  “Let’s go see some other animals.”

As we back away from the Patas monkeys, I bump into a man standing behind us, also observing the crazed monkeys, and step on his foot.

“Excuse me, sir,” I say apologetically.  “I’m very sorry, but I didn’t hear or see you standing there.”  He is wearing the same safari-brown khaki shirt and pants that all the zoo volunteers wear.  I saw the name on his shirt.  “Sean.”

“That’s okay,” he says, never taking his eyes off the monkeys. 

“Do you work here?” I ask foolishly.  He has a lean frame, stands about five-foot-eight, and has sandy hair and very distant eyes.  He is still fixed on the monkeys.  “They have some energy today, don’t they?” I ask, trying to force another smile.  Fi is watching me very closely.

“They certainly do,” says the man.  “The question is where they got that energy from.”  His voice is distant and detached.  He may have been standing right in front of us talking, but his thoughts had him a million miles away.

He suddenly snaps his head around to us.  “You notice that the animals are more aggressive today? he asks. 

“It’s kind of hard to miss,” I say.  “We come every week and this is the first time the animals have acted aggressive.”  Fi is hugging my leg.  She looks at the man I am talking too and notices his cane.

“What’s that for?” she innocently asks him, pointing.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize.  “Fi doesn’t mean anything by it.  She’s just at that age where she notices the differences between people.”

“It’s okay,” he says as he smiled at Fi.  “This is a cane.  I was… in an accident a few days ago, and now I need this cane to help me get around.”

I look down at his bad leg.  He is wearing long pants, but I swear I can see an indent in his calf.  Almost like part of it is missing.

“I’ve been walking around all morning feeding and checking in on the animals.  I’m a little concerned with how aggressive they’re behaving today. I’m sure there’s nothing to be worried about.”

Sean is a terrible liar
, I think.  He knows there’s something wrong with the animals. That much I can see in his eyes. But why he is acting so mysterious? 
He probably just really loves animals
, I try to reason.

“Nice to meet you, Sean.  I’m John.  What else is strange,” I offer, “are the odd markings I noticed on most of the animals’ fur.”

This brings him and his thoughts back to earth.  “Markings?” he asks.  “What markings?”

“Well, we saw that several of the Lemurs and Patas monkeys have some kind of odd red marking somewhere on their bodies.  It kind of looks like blood, and with them all being so aggressive, we figured they had been fighting.  You said you noticed they aren’t fighting with each other.”  We both turn to the Patas monkeys.  They are still on the cage, shaking it violently and screaming in our direction.  “It kind of seems,” I continue, “like they want to attack us.”

“You think they want to attack us?” he repeated.

“Look at them,” I say, pointing to the monkeys.  “It sure doesn’t look like they wanna be our friends.  In the Colobus monkey cage, the monkey isn’t even there, but there’s a pool of that red stuff in its cage.”

Sean quickly limps up the incline to the Colobus monkey cage.  He presses his face right up next to the metal.

“See?” I say, pointing to the spot on the floor.  Moving closer to Sean’s ear, I whisper, “It sure looks like blood, doesn’t it?”  Sean is again in a far-off place, lost in thought.  “What do you think it is, Sean?”

He slowly turns to me.  The color in his face is gone and he genuinely looks scared.  “Sean,” I say, concerned. “Are you okay?”  He just stares into my eyes.  My instincts tell me to grab Fi, run back to the car, and get as far away from the zoo as I can, but is that what a hero would do?

“Talk to me, Sean,” I say as I raise my voice.  I actually consider slapping him.  What the hell, it works in the movies.  I put my hand on his shoulder and shake him a little.  This seems to bring him back.

“I… I didn’t know,” Sean mumbles.  “I thought I was helping them.  I only wanted to save them.”

“Save who, Sean?” I ask, confused.  “What are you talking about?  What didn’t you know?”

Sean looks me straight in the eyes, and in a voice barely above a whisper, say, “I think we’re all in trouble.  We didn’t know what they were doing in that lab…”

Before he can get another word out, three men dressed in full combat and containment gear rush out of the nearby thicket of trees.  “Everyone stand where you are, hands over your head, and no one move an inch.”

The men surround us, their assault rifles at point blank and fingers on the triggers.  I grab Fi and drop to the ground, covering her with my body.

“Don’t any of you move,” shouts one man through his gas mask.  Another of the men pulls out a picture, looks at it, and points to Sean.  “That’s our subject.”  The third man places his hand roughly under Sean’s chin and pushes his head up to get a better view. 

“Are you sure it’s him?” asks the soldier with the gun in our face. 

“Positive match,” says the man with the picture.

The soldier then pushes Sean to the ground.  His face hits the dirt and knocks the air out of his lungs.  I look up to see them cuffing his hands behind his back.

“What the hell is going on here?” I yell.

The lead soldier moves his gun away from Fi and me.  “Sir,” he says in a very stern tone. “I need you to stand up.”  He takes a step back, encouraging me to stand.  I start to ask him what is going on again, but he has his agenda and is sticking to it.  “Sir, how long have you known this man?” he asks.

“I met him like five minutes ago,” I say.  I look over and see that the soldier that cuffed him still had his foot on Sean’s back, keeping him firmly in place.

“What kind of contact did you have with this man?” the soldier continues.

“Contact?  What the hell are you talking about?Who are you guys?  What the hell is going on here?”  I’m surprised that I am so angry.  I’m scared shitless, but feeling Fi hugging my leg so tightly inspires a fear that I have never felt before.  I’m angry and scared that I have absolutely no control in this situation.  I have no weapon and no information.  Nothing.

“Sir, we need you to answer these questions quickly and concisely.”  There is not going to be a give-and-take exchange here.  He wants information from me and he was going to get it.  A crowd of people start to gather around us.  The soldier who holds the picture of Sean places it back inside his pocket and turns to the crowd. 

“I need everyone to remain where they are,” he yelled at the crowd.  “This is a private matter and the quicker we can talk to these people, the quicker we will be finished.”  He has   his rifle pointing to the ground, but something tells me that he won’t hesitate to quell the crowd with force if it comes to that.

“Look,” I say, trying to keep calm, “I just met him five minutes ago.  We were looking at the friggin’ monkeys.  I saw that he works here, so I was asking him some questions.  That’s it.”

“What kind of questions did you ask him?”  I can’t see his eyes underneath the gas mask, but I can reasonably guess that he is shooting me a stone-cold glare.

“I don’t know,” I say, trying to remember.  “I was asking about the animals.”

“What about the animals?  What did he say about the animals?”

“I asked him if he noticed how aggressive the animals were acting today.  He told me he did.”

“Is that all?” he asks as he turns to the soldier with his foot still on Sean’s back.

I debate whether to tell them about Sean saying he thinks we’re all in trouble and that he looked scared.  I figure that these guys found who they were looking for, and it doesn’t really matter what I say at this point.

“Yeah that’s all,” I say, my anger rising.  “That’s all until you guys came outta the trees waving around your guns in mine and my daughter’s face.”

The soldier stares blankly at me.

“Who the hell are you guys?” I manage to ask.  “Why the hell is the military ambushing a volunteer who works at the zoo?”  The crowd around us grows larger.  The soldiers all look around and then nod at each other.

“We aren’t military sir. We’re a private security firm.  This man,” he says as he nods to Sean, who is now standing, “is wanted for acts of domestic terrorism.”

Then Sean, who just moments ago was on the ground, grows a pair and retorts,  “Domestic terrorist? Are you fucking serious?  If you call trying to liberate a bunch of ani…”

That’s as far as he gets before the soldier gags Sean’s mouth.

Without saying a word, the soldiers start leaving with Sean in front of them.  I look at the crowd and see a few people trying to use their cell phones, I’m guessing to call 9-1-1.  From the looks on their faces, I’d say they either can’t get a signal, or they can’t get a connection.

I kneel down to hug Fi.  This whole time she’s just stood there, hugging my leg tightly.  She hasn’t shed one tear.  I sure hope I’ve put on a brave front for her.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” I say unconvincingly.  “They’re gone.  We’re okay now.”

“What about that man,” she asks.  “Is he going to be okay?”

“Well, that man may have done some bad things and those other guys are going to take him back and ask him about those things.”  I don’t think she’s gonna let this drop that easily.

“Don’t policemen usually come and arrest the bad guys?” she asks.  I start to answer her and really didn’t know what to say.  Yes, the cops usually do the arresting, especially for civilians.  Who the fuck were those guys?  I think they were telling the truth when they said they weren’t military.  I didn’t see any military rankings or branch insignias on their uniform. 

I have to tell Fi something.  “You’re absolutely right, sweetie.  The police usually go and get the bad guys, but sometimes if someone does something really bad, the police need some help.”  What bullshit.  Sean looked about as dangerous as a house cat.

The crowd starts to break up and go back to the displays.  I look down at Fi and ask, “Do you want to go home sweetie?” immediately regretting giving her the option of staying.

“No, Daddy. I wanna see more animals.”

I knew she was going to say that.  “Okay, Fi, but let’s get out of the monkey area.  Let’s go see the lions and tigers.”  I’d be damned if I let this incident take over and replace all of the good memories in Fi’s mind that we’ve had at the zoo together.

She agrees, saying she’s seen enough monkeys for one day.

Chapter Three

1

Animal Rescue Shelter, Hyde Park

Julie wakes up late to the high-pitched sound of her bedside alarm clock.  She was up late the last few nights trying to care for the new animals she took into the shelter.  She couldn’t believe how many animals those two guys brought around.  They had the typical house cats, dogs, ferrets, white rats and hamsters, as well as some not-too-popular house pets like snakes, baby alligators, and even three bats.  When she asked the guys where they got all these animals, they told her they used to work for a group of veterinarians who went out of business.  These animals, they told her, came from about four different vet’s offices.  She didn’t believe a word of their bullshit.  She suspects the animals came from some university or other kind of research lab, but at the end of the day, doesn’t care. She is about helping and rescuing animals.  They needed a sanctuary, and she would going to provide it for them no matter where they came from.

She slips out of bed and into the bathroom.  She looks at herself in the mirror and almost doesn’t recognize the face staring back at her.  As exhausted as she is, Julie knows that she is pretty.  She stands five-feet-ten and has long legs that she feels are her best attribute.  As she brushes the dirty blonde hair out of her face, her emerald green eyes hit the bathroom light. 
Okay,
she thinks. “
Maybe my eyes are my best feature.
  She smiles.

After a quick shower, she feels revived.  She grabs a quick cup of coffee and heads out to the animal shelter.  She can’t help but think about the odd animals those guys brought around.  It isn’t so much the types of animals that are odd; it is more their behavior.  She’s never seen a group of animals behave in such a way.  When she or any of her helpers weren’t around, the animals seemed calm and almost comatose, but as soon as one of them walked into the room, the animals would lose it and all hell would break loose.  Against her better judgment, she could swear the animals wanted to attack her and the other helpers.  She laughs.  “What the hell is an eight-pound house cat gonna do even if she has the opportunity to attack me?” 

Yet, she couldn’t help but feel creeped out every time she walked into the main room where the animals were kept in the shelter.  She could almost feel their eyes on her. Then, in unison, they would all lose their fucking minds and go into attack mode.  It was creepy. 

For as long as she can remember she has loved animals.  She got along with them and understood them.  They never wanted anything from her except to be fed and to feel safe.  Men, on the other hand, always wanted something.  The trail of losers she’s left behind in her past is proof of that.  She’s always felt, from a very young age, out of place in her own skin.  She has a tomboy mentality encased in a model’s body.  She wants the companionship of a man, but isn’t willing to sacrifice herself or her ideals for it.  Her animals come first.  Most guys can never accept that.  One of her exes actually accused her of fucking some of the animals.  Thinking about that asshole makes her blood start to boil. 

Julie makes the short drive to the shelter and pulls into the driveway.  The shelter is, in fact, an old converted house in the Hyde Park section of Austin, TX.  Her father told her she could get a good deal on some of those older houses.  His intention was for his daughter to buy a house at a young age and build good credit and equity.  Her intention had been to buy a cheap house and convert it into an animal rescue shelter.  Animals always came first, even before her needs.

She pulls into the driveway of the two-story wood and brick house.  When she gets out of the car, she is struck by how quiet it is.  It is past the usual time she feeds the animals and they should all be clamoring in their cages to be fed.  Luckily, she lives on one of the older streets away from the majority of houses.  She rarely gets any complaints about the noise, and when she does get angry calls, she explains what she does, and that usually shuts up the pissed off caller.  It’s good to live in a liberal city.

Julie walks into the house to find her four tabbies walking around and jumping off the counters, hungry and mewing up a storm.  She feeds them, scratches behind their ears, and apologizes for being late.  As she starts to walk into what was the family room before it was converted into the main part of the shelter, she can’t help but wonder why the group of new animals aren’t raising hell to be fed.  She figures they were abused and probably beaten by their previous owners,

As soon as she walks into the room, she gasps.  “Jim…
Jim
!” she yells. “Get in here!”  Jim comes running in.  Jim has been a part of this rescue shelter since the beginning.  He helped renovate it and kept it running by looking for donations and doing the handy work around the place.

“What’s wrong, Julie?” Jim questions, running into the room.  He stops on a dime the moment he looks around.  “What the fuck is this?”

Around the perimeter are cages of all sizes housing all different kinds of animals.  What has them spooked is that every animal is standing at attention and quietly staring at them.  The animals make no sounds or noises.  Tails aren’t wagging, and tongues aren’t hanging out of mouths panting.  The animals just sit there, staring at the two of them. 

“What the fuck is going on, Julie?” Jim asks.  “Why are they all just sitting there?  They don’t even look like they’re breathing.”  Julie notices that, too. She’d thought that her mind had been playing tricks on her. 

“I don’t know, Jim. When I walked into the room, they were all laying down. I thought they were dead.  They weren’t moving or breathing.  Then they all stood up, faced me, and started doing that.”  She points at them.  “They’re seriously freaking me out.”

“I told you three days ago I didn’t like these animals.  Those guys who brought them  were full of shit about that  clinic going tits up.  These animals are seriously fucked up.”  Jim physically shakes as he looks around at the animals.

“Well, what could we do, Jim?” Julie asks, becoming more animated.  “Those guys may have been shady, but those animals needed our help.”

“Look, I checked around with my buddies at the university and there were no recent lab break-ins.  I have some friends in those animal liberation groups and none of them know of any recent liberations.”  Jim is facing Julie.  “I have no idea where these animals came from, but looking at them, I don’t feel safe around them.  I’m actually worried for the other animals we have.”

Julie had placed all the new animals in a separate room, away from the ones that' were already housed here.  She knew those guys who dropped them off were feeding her a line of bullshit.  She suspected, even then, that the animals had come from some lab, and hadn’t wanted to take the chance of them infecting the others.  If that were true, they could have been testing anything on those poor animals.

“Okay, okay, Jim,” she agrees. “I agree that there’s something odd about these animals, but what can we do?  They still need our help.”

Jim shivered.  “They are freaking me out.”

“Well, let’s get them fed.  Maybe that will get them back to acting normal.”  She suspects it won’t.

They both go to the cabinets to prepare the food.   Once it is all portioned out, they return to the cages.  With a bowl of food in his left hand, Jim reaches out to unlock a cage that houses five cats.  Just as he lifts the latch, all five cats attack his hand.  The closest sinks its teeth into the tender flesh between his thumb and forefinger.  Jim yells and drops the bowl,trying to pull away.  By this time, the others  have taken advantage of his fingers.  All five cats are attached to his hand, sinking their tiny, needle-sharp teeth into his fingers and thrashing their heads around.  The ones that come away with flesh seem satisfied they will feast on their prize. 

The cat that has him by the hand has already ripped away two chunks of flesh and is coming back for a third.  This sets off all the other animals in the room.  They are all thrashing against their cages, trying to get out.

Jim screams.  He can’t pull his hand out of the cage.  To Julie, it looks like the cats are pulling him further into the cage.  She grabs his arm around the elbow and tries to pull it out of the cage.  She can’t believe the grip those cats have.  Finally, the main cat must have had its fill.  It releases John’s hand and darts out of the cage.  The other cats follow, leaving behind a bloody cage filled with bits of Jim’s flesh. 

Jim grabs a towel and wraps it around his bloody hand.  Julie noticed that he looks pale and is worried he would pass out.  “Let’s sit you down,” she says as she walks him over to the office chair.

In the other room, Julie hears the screams and screeches from her four tabbies.  She runs in to see the cats that had just attacked John have cornered and are attacking her tabbies.  For a second, she freezes in fear.  The largest of the cats, the one that had captured Jim’s hand, has taken down one of the tabbies as if it were a mouse.  It immediately goes for the throat, and in a fast, fluid motion, tears out the cat’s windpipe.  The cats are completely oblivious to Julie being in the room.  They are focused on the tabbies and won’t stop until they kill them all.

Looking away from her dying tabby in horror, she turns to see that another of the feral cats has already taken down and is eating another tabby.  Tears fill Julie’s eyes as she watches the cat tear into the tabby’s stomach, but these cats weren’t just killing; they are eating their fallen prey. 

Julie grabs a nearby broom and runs at the cats.  They don’t seem scared at all by Julie’s threatening advances.  She gets to the cat  that has torn out her pet’s throat and smacks it hard with the broom.  It doesn’t even move.  It keeps eating her tabby.  She pulls the broom over her head and brings it down hard, but that only makes the cat look up at her.  It stares at Julie as she is about to smack it again, but this time, flees and runs out the door.  The other four cats follow. 

Julie looks around and sees that all four of her tabbies are dead.  Those fucking cats tore her tabbies apart, fed on their insides, and then ran off.

Julie starts crying, but was interrupted when she hears Jim moaning in the other room.  He is still sitting in the chair, holding his hand.  The animals are going absolutely fucking crazy, almost like they picked up the scent of blood and wanted a taste.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Julie screams.  She reaches for the phone to call Austin Animal Control.  She hates herself for doing it, but there is something very wrong with these animals.  They didn’t want to eat dog and cat food. They wanted to eat flesh.

“What the fuck is going on?” she repeats as she dials the phone.

2

“Austin Animal Control, how can I help you?” the bored voice on the phone asks.

“I need to get a few guys out here with cages and trucks.  I have some very odd acting animals over here.”  Julie tries to remain calm, but even she can hear her voice trembling.  Jim is in the other room, passed out from the pain of the attack.  It is killing Julie to have to call animal control, because these people are the ones that put animals to sleep.  After what she has just witnessed, she is scared shitless. 

“Could you please tell me the nature of the problem?” asks the operator.

“The nature of the problem is that I have a room full of psychotic fucking animals and I need help removing them.”  She can’t believe what she is doing or saying.  If someone had told her five years ago that she would one day be on the phone with the city begging them to come out and take a bunch of animals, she would have rolled her green eyes and walked away laughing. 

“I need you to remain calm, please.”  She hears him typing on the computer.  “I need to know the exact nature of your problem.  How many animals are involved, what types of animals are they, and has anyone been injured?”

Julie takes a deep breath.  She is about to fucking lose it.  “I run an animal rescue shelter in Hyde Park.  A guy came around a few days ago with a ton of runaways and strays that needed help.  There’s about a total of fifteen to twenty-five animals.”  She can almost hear that bastard yawning on the line.  “This morning when my partner and I went to feed them, they attacked him.  It’s pretty bad.”  That seems to have gotten his attention.  She can almost hear him bolt upright in his chair.

“The animals attacked you?” he asks, concerned.

“Yes.  Well, just the cats.  When he went to open the cat cage to feed them, they jumped on his hand and really tore him up.  Then those cats killed four of my house pets.”  Julie hears nothing on the other line.  After a few minutes, she hears the man typing and talking into another phone.

“Please hold the line,” he says, very sternly and to the point.

Ten seconds pass before another man answers the phone.  “Thanks for holding. This is George.  You say you work at a shelter with a lot of aggressive animals?” 

The hair on Julie’s arms stand up.  She couldn't explain it, but this guy sounded like he was military.

“Yes,” she answers hesitantly.

“Can you tell me where you got the animals?” George asks.

“A couple guys brought them by a few days ago. I told all this to the first guy.  Who are you again?  Is this still animal control?”  George ignores her questions.  “All the information you can give us will help us help you quicker.”  Something in the back of Julie’s mind tells her that ‘George’ isn’t all that interested in helping her.