Zoo 2 (6 page)

We've been trekking along
this jungle trail for less than fifteen minutes and already I'm drenched with sweat.

Kabelo and Dikotsi, and a few other local guides are at the head of our group, hacking away at vines and tree limbs with huge machetes to help clear our path. Still, the underbrush is dense and uneven. We're all lugging heavy gear and carrying firearms. The midday African sun is directly overhead, beating down on us without mercy.

Freitas puts a pair of high-powered binoculars to his eyes, awkwardly shifting the McMillan M1A assault rifle slung over his shoulder. The man may be a brilliant scientist, but he's clearly not very comfortable toting such a bulky weapon.

To be fair, neither am I. Especially since mine has a bayonet.

“Remember,” Freitas says, addressing the team. “These are
people
we're after. Not animals. We have no idea how the sickness will have affected them. Whether they'll be savage or intelligent. Whether they'll attack unarmed or with weapons. Whether they—”

“Oh, give it a break, doc!” I exclaim. “I'm sorry, but I just can't listen to this nonsense. We're facing a serious global crisis here, and you're making us hike through a dangerous jungle in search of the living dead? This is nuts!”

“I don't disagree, Oz,” Freitas replies. “After the order came in, believe me, I pushed back. But when President Hardinson calls you herself, it's not easy to say no.”

Jesus. I've learned by now that Freitas isn't a very good actor. From his expression, I think he's telling the truth. So the
White House
thinks there's a real chance HAC might have spread to humans. Maybe it's not just a dumb rumor after all.

“Fine,” I say. “Let's assume these feral humans really do exist. How do we possibly explain it—scientifically? We'd have to throw out the entire pheromone theory.”

“Not necessarily,” says Sarah. She's blotting her glistening forehead with a bandana. I've forgotten how hot she looks when she's, well…hot.

“
Yes
necessarily,” I reply. “HAC is caused by animals misinterpreting human scents as attack pheromones, which triggers aggressive behavior. And they detect those pheromones through the VNO gland at the base of their nasal cavity. A gland that human beings don't possess.”

“You're saying humans aren't affected by pheromones at all, Oz? Come on.”

“Despite what the makers of Axe body spray might have you believe,” I answer, “the scientific jury is still out on that one.”

“Precisely,” says Freitas. “Perhaps we perceive them in a different way. Perhaps these feral humans aren't using their olfactory organs at all. Maybe they're absorbing pheromones through mucous tissue in their lungs.”

“Right, like how nicotine is absorbed from smoking,” says Sarah. “Simple.”

I exhale a long sigh—and suddenly can't help but wonder what scary, invisible airborne particles might have just entered my bloodstream. I hate to admit it, but Sarah and Freitas have the beginnings of a decent working theory. I just pray it's not needed.

“All right,” I concede. “Maybe it's possible. But that still doesn't explain—”

“Gevaar, gevaar!”
shouts one of our guides, suddenly dropping his machete and whipping out his Desert Eagle handgun. I don't speak Afrikaans, but I understand exactly what he's saying.
Danger
.

Our whole team freezes, and we scramble to ready our weapons.

Something is rushing frantically through the dense bushes to our left. I can't make out what—or
who
—it is, but it's heading right for us, fast.

Kabelo raises his rifle and unleashes a volley of shots in their direction.

“Don't shoot!” Freitas yells, grabbing Kabelo's gun. “We need them alive!”

“I need
me
alive more!” he huffs, shaking off Freitas's grip.

“There may not be many of them,” Freitas pleads. “And they are your countrymen. Please, at least hold your fire until we see what they—”

“They're jackals!” I shout, almost relieved to glimpse some furry paws and pointy snouts through the leaves, instead of human hands and heads. “Let's take 'em out!”

I start shooting my Armalite AR-10 first, and the rest of the team quickly follows suit. We're bombarding the underbrush with bullets, but it's impossible to see how many jackals we've hit—or how many in the pack are still charging at us.

The remaining animals—about five or six of them—finally burst out of the vegetation, all yipping and frantically snapping their sharp jaws. They're fast as hell and impossible to hit, even by over a dozen men and women with semiautomatic weapons.

Three jackals get close enough to attack. Dr. Chang gets a big chunk of his leg bitten off by one before stabbing it to death with a bowie knife. A second jackal lunges at Kabelo, who crushes its head with his rifle.

A final jackal leaps up directly at me—but I shoot it, midair, and it's dead before it hits the ground.

We all take a moment to catch our breath and regroup. Chang's injury is much more than a flesh wound, but he'll survive.

I wipe off the jackal blood that splattered onto my face when I shot the animal from such close range. If I'd missed? I wouldn't have much of a face
left
.

Then another thought enters my head. An even grimmer one.

If a pack of three-foot-long rabid jackals almost managed to kill us…just imagine what a pack of feral humans could do.

Chloe steps out into
the wet Paris afternoon, holding Eli in her arms. She had hoped the rain might have let up by now, but the day is getting late and it's still coming down in buckets.

Screw it,
Chloe thinks, draping a slimy plastic trash bag over her and her son's heads. She'd rather get a little wet than be out on the street after dark.

And they have a hell of a lot of ground to cover.

It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only last night that she and Eli barely made it out of her parents' apartment building alive. She'd flagged down a gendarmerie Jeep, but there was little the exhausted soldiers could do to help. They gave her directions to the nearest emergency government shelter, only a few kilometers away, but warned it was already filled to twice its intended capacity.

It wasn't worth the risk. Chloe ducked inside the first suitable place she saw—an abandoned bakery—and hunkered down with Eli for the night.

Using napkins and pastry boxes as tinder, she started a small fire—not just for warmth, but in hopes that the flames would help hide her and her son's scents from any nearby creatures. Chloe also found a few ancient mille-feuille pastries still in the cracked display case, which she shared with Eli as a little treat. They were hard as rocks but, given the circumstances, tasted absolutely
delicious
.

Early the next morning, the rain came. Chloe considered staying inside the bakery, where it was nice and dry, but decided against it.

Oz would likely be calling the apartment to check in, and he would grow sick with worry when no one answered. Chloe knew she had to let her husband know that she and Eli were all right. She'd memorized his satellite phone number, thankfully, but how could she—

No. First things first. Chloe had to get somewhere safe. That was the priority.

But where? She racked her brain. Government shelters were bursting at the seams, and she'd heard horror stories about the conditions inside. She still had a few old friends and distant relatives in the city, but no way of contacting them or even learning if they were alive—let alone if they'd take her and Eli in. She could try to get ahold of Oz, but even if he pulled every string he could at the highest levels of the American government, an evacuation would take too long.

There
was
one other option.

About a week ago, Chloe had overheard her stepmother speaking with a neighbor, a middle-aged political science professor named Pierre. He'd heard from a colleague that a few hundred people had built a shelter, or a fortified commune, at Versailles—not inside the famous palace itself but somewhere close by. It was open to all and apparently safer, cleaner, and better run than any government one.

Chloe has no idea whether this magical place really exists or not. But the Batterie de Bouviers, an old fortification built in the 1870s, is a few miles from the palace gardens and would make the perfect spot for it.

Versailles is over ten miles from the center of Paris, roughly where she is now. That's a grueling hike with a four-year-old on a perfect day. On a cold and rainy one, with feral animals stalking the streets? Forget it.

Chloe knows she might be insane for putting any faith at all into this too-good-to-be-true rumor. But, really, what other choice does she have?

Pulling the trash bag around the two of them like a shawl, Chloe sets out with Eli.

In the waning daylight, she certainly feels safer than she did last night. But she can finally see in full, stark relief just how hellish things have gotten in her beloved city. The shattered storefronts. The overturned cars and buses. The gutters flowing with human blood.

Clutching Eli even closer, she turns onto Boulevard Saint-Michel. Once one of the city's scenic tree-lined streets, it now looks like a deserted war zone.

Chloe is hurrying along the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings for cover…when she hears something. A low rumbling. Or growling. Speeding toward her.

She tenses. She says a silent prayer. She looks up.

But it's not an animal.

It's a gray Citroën Jumper, a boxy commercial van. It screeches to a halt beside her and its rear doors fly open.

“Mes amis!”
says one of the young women inside, flashing Chloe a clownlike grin and holding what looks like a medieval dagger. “My friends! You must get off the street. It is not safe. Come with us, quickly!”

Like the other seven or eight people crammed inside the van, this woman's head is completely shaved, and she's wearing a flowing brown robe tied at the waist.

Chloe stands completely frozen—terrified, but trying desperately not to look it. She's never seen these freaks before in her life.

But she knows exactly who they are.

“You are…the Fraterre?” she asks nervously.

“Oui!”
the woman happily exclaims. “Now hurry, we don't have much time!”

The Fraterre, short for La Fraternité de la Terre. The Brotherhood of the Earth.

Chloe has heard rumors about this group, an eccentric cult—part Greenpeace, part Heaven's Gate. It sprung up across France over the past few months in bizarre, quasi-spiritual
solidarité
with Mother Nature. No one knows much about them other than that they're a bunch of nut jobs who think HAC is a divine blessing. They have allegedly assaulted and even killed those who disagree with them.

And now a van full of armed Fraterre cultists are ordering Chloe and Eli to get in.

Chloe stutters. Her mind is racing. What about the fortification near Versailles? What about calling Oz? Then again, maybe this group can actually help keep her safe—at least for the time being?

“Merci beaucoup
,
”
she says at last with a big, fake smile.

She climbs inside, Eli in her arms, her heart jackhammering in her chest. The doors are slammed shut and the van peels out.

“Where are we going?”

My back and knees
are killing me. Sweat is stinging my eyes. What I wouldn't give right now just to stand up straight for a few seconds and blot my brow.

But I know that would probably be a death wish.

Freitas, Sarah, the other scientists, and I have been crawling through the underbrush on our hands and knees for what feels like ages. We've been moving slowly, deliberately, painstakingly. We've been careful not to make a sound or get too close.

Why?

We've been following a small band of
feral humans
.

Yup. We found the bastards.

And they're freaky beyond belief.

Freitas spotted them first, though he didn't even realize it. After Chang's jackal bite, two of our guides offered to lead the scientist out of the jungle to get first aid. Less than ten minutes later, Freitas noticed a group of people out in front of us. Initially he thought they were members of our team who'd somehow gotten lost. He nearly called out to them—until I literally cupped his mouth with my hand, grabbed his high-powered binoculars, and took a look for myself.

All I managed to croak was, “Mother of God.”

I counted five of them. Adults. A mix of men and women, black and white, old and young. They were wearing clothes, normal ones, but dirty and tattered, as if they'd been living in the jungle for weeks. One was carrying a bolt-action rifle, the others a mix of knives, shovels, and other tools. They were walking upright but slightly hunched over, their arms swinging unnaturally, almost gorilla-like.

They looked, in a word,
primal
.

Even from so far away, I could see a scary deadness in their expressions. They were regular humans on the outside. But was there any soul left inside?

Freitas immediately gave the order for all of us to crouch down and follow. We crawled behind them, maybe fifty or sixty yards, tracking as the group lumbered deeper and deeper into the nature preserve.

At one point I asked Freitas in a whisper what our plan was. How much longer would we be stalking these “people”? How would we ever capture one? He admitted he didn't know yet. For now, he just wanted to observe them in their natural habitat.

Yeah, right. What we're looking at? Nothing “natural” about it.

Fine, I thought. Let's see where this goes. Let's see where they lead us.

Let's see what they do next.

That was almost half an hour ago. We're still crawling along after them, inching our way through the prickly vegetation. We pass a babbling brook. My hands and face are getting rubbed raw, but I push on.…

When suddenly the five feral humans freeze. They prick up their ears. Their senses switch to high alert. They raise their weapons.

I trade nervous glances with Freitas and Sarah. Do they know we're behind them? Have they picked up our scent? Are we in danger?

The “leader” of the pack grunts something, and in a flash the five humans start running—
away
from us, farther into the jungle.

“Go, go!” Freitas commands. “After them!”

Too surprised to argue, we all leap to our feet and pursue. But, damn, are those rabid humans fast! Even our African guides are having trouble keeping up.

At last we reach the crest of a small hill. Gasping for breath, I spot the five humans in the valley below—and I gesture wildly at Freitas, Sarah, and the others to hang back and duck down again.

I've just realized why they've been running.

They're
hunting
.

But not us. Their target is a kudu, a grayish-white antelope they've managed to separate from its herd and surround.

I expect the animal to start attacking the humans any second. But instead, it nervously leaps and prances every which way, looking for an escape. Carefully, the lead human raises his rifle and fires a single shot—striking the antelope's hind leg. The creature falls to the ground, crippled but very much alive.

Now things
really
start to get weird.

The five humans encircle the animal and all place their hands around its neck. Slowly they tighten their grip, choking the helpless antelope as it wheezes and struggles, finally exhaling its last breath.

In unison, the humans bow their heads. They release a low, guttural moan, almost as if in prayer. I'm reminded of the waiter in Bali, who attributed the island's lack of animal attacks to the Hindu respect for all life.

Then they bare their teeth and sink them directly into the antelope's flesh.

They viciously tear through its fur, exposing the crimson muscle tissue and tendons underneath. They rip jagged chunks off with their mouths, like a pride of lions eviscerating a fresh kill. They gulp down the raw meat whole, without chewing. Their mouths and cheeks are covered in blood.

Freitas, Sarah, the scientists, our guides, and I watch this feeding frenzy with a mix of disbelief and revulsion. It's like something straight out of a horror movie, except it's happening maybe three hundred feet in front of us.

“Still want to try to capture one of 'em?” I whisper to Freitas.

He just flashes me a grim look. Of course the answer is yes.

But we both know the task just got a whole lot scarier.

Before long, the antelope carcass has been reduced to virtually a skeleton. The feeding is slowing down in speed and intensity. The meal is almost over.

We're all holding our breath. Waiting to see what these wild humans will do next…

When a digital beeping noise suddenly pierces the jungle air.

Jesus Christ—my satellite phone is ringing!

The humans all turn and look up in our direction. The leader lets out a deep, furious roar.

They've spotted us.