Jim McTooley pulled his long, dirty trench coat tighter, trying to keep out the chill coming from the lake. He had his back to a tree, keeping his eyes out for the beasts he knew would love to tear into him and feast. He had to escape, and get back to civilization, but he barely had any idea which way was up.
He'd never liked the zoo.
They'd taken the kids. The kids liked the zoo, at least. All those animals. They loved watching the monkeys exhibit almost-human tendencies, watching the elephants bathe and play, and the polar bears feverishly try to crack the glass and devour a guest. Tina liked it too. It helped get the kids out of the house and doing something productive with their lives.
Jim knew the truth. He knew how desperately the animals wanted free reign of the nearby concrete jungle, to climb the buildings like King Kong or speed down the highways with their explosive power,finally free of the cage they've been placed in. He knew the feeling. It was no fun not being able to do what you had been born to do; Jim knew.
It was a cold day, threatening rain, so Jim had wrapped himself up in his trench coat and driven all of them to the zoo, aware he was playing with fate. His wife, as she always did, dismissed his worry as nonsense. In fairness to her, he did worry quite a lot, but he couldn't help feel uneasy about zoos. Caged forces like to free themselves.
He couldn't even smoke in the zoo anymore. It was like they were trying to make themselves go bankrupt.
The primate cages were first. They saw hulking gorillas, gangly orangutans, tiny pygmy marmosets, and playful chimps. Of course, not all of them acted they way they should when kids were watching, so little Sam and Brigid's eyes had to be redirected once in a while. Next they explored the reptile bunker, with its glass barriers, dark hallways, and creeping inhabitants. Sam was agog over the snakes and turtles, but Brigid didn't seem to much care for them, instead seeking refuge behind the hem of Jim's coat. It made Jim glad to see someone was beginning to understand.
Emerging back into the drab light of the cloudy day, they wandered to the bird cages so Brigid could look at something she wanted. All sorts of colorful plumage sped by Jim's eyes. He felt it all coming apart. This may have been because of the flask full of beer he'd slipped into one of his coat's inner pockets, but he knew, as his mind began to buzz more and more pleasantly, it could have happened at any time.
Eventually -- as Jim knew it would -- the lights began to go out. The animal revolution had begun, and they were at ground zero. Before he could turn his head, he found Tina and the kids were gone from his side. He heard cracking sounds coming from the rhinoceros exhibit, mad screams from the gorillas, and tremendous roars from the bears and great cats. He could only hope the rest of his family had gotten away quickly, and were running toward the parking lot, past the less-dangerous animals -- prairie dogs and koalas and other small beasts. Tina was a fighter; she wouldn't let the kids get hurt.
Jim took another pull on his flask and forged through the frenzied crowds, pushing and shoving. They all went one way, he went the other. He knew how these escapes worked -- the animals wanted freedom first and then food. If he could get behind the animals, they would leave him be.
The crowds didn't thin as he ran. People turned into blurs as he ran. he thought he caught glimpse of a panda attacking an old man, but didn't stop to gawk. He wondered where it would be safest, and came up with inside one of the animal's encampments. There was no way the animals would go back into them if they could avoid it. A breakout on this scale -- it seemed to be every animal once caged -- would cause mass pandemonium. The animals wouldn't be returned to the zoo for a few days.
If he could get into one of the cages he would be safest, but he couldn't find any ways in. The animals were tricky. They must have been planning this for weeks. It was as if they, each of them, could just bypass the barriers in front of them.
He went with his next best bet: find a quiet, dark corner and stay there until the initial pandemonium had ceased. The animals would either be full and sleepy or running free in the city. Then he would escape.
When he woke up clutching an empty flask, trench coat draped over him like a blanket, the sun down and a sobering chill taking him. His head pounded, but it was clear enough for him to come to terms with what had happened.
He sniffed the opening of his flask and stuck out his fuzzy tongue. He'd clearly forgotten about the whiskey already inside when he topped it off with Miller. The impromptu boilermaker explained his hangover, drunken episode in the zoo, and the late hour.
He'd have to find out what exactly he'd done, presumably while stumbling down the zoo's paved paths, where in the zoo he was, and how he was going to get home. Tina would be furious with him, and for good reason. He stood up, legs wobbling and breath stinking. He thought about how lucky he was he hadn't vomited, but then carefully looked around. The area seemed clean, or as clean as an unknown wooded zone in a public zoo could be.
Jim froze. He looked around carefully, listened carefully, trying to find any creature gazing at him, or loping in the distance. Was he inside one of the animal areas? He didn't think so -- he remembered being unable to get into one before, thank goodness.
What time was it? Was it night? Early morning? He looked around for the moon, and only after finding it did he realize he had no idea what it could tell him. He glared at it for a full five minutes, before shaking himself out of the daze. He took a step and nearly fell face down in the dirt.
He stumbled out of the small wooded area, onto a paved path. A sign in front of him, just barely legible by the moon's light, bore strange symbols, until he rubbed his eyes and took another look. One half of the sign told him the aquatic creatures were to his right, the other half told him a few assorted plains animals were to his left.
He spun in a circle, wondering if he would run into a night guard or a third-shift zookeeper. If he was found, would they accept his explanation and allow him to leave? He feared they would instead levy their lawyers against him instead.
Taking a step toward the aquatic creatures, Jim swayed back and forth, still unable to get his feet from sliding out from under him. He was thirsty, and at first reached for his flask, before realizing not only it was empty, but even if it wasn't, it wouldn't do him any favors to imbibe further, especially if he did run into an authority.
He found his way to the aquatics building and discovered it was locked. He was at first surprised, but then realized it was obvious they would lock up. He looked around, oblivious to the zoo's layout, and which direction was the exit. The lights were off, and it was too dark to read most of the signs telling him which direction led him to what. Reaching for his phone, he instead found an empty pocket in his trench coat Somewhere along the way he'd lost it, or had it taken by Tina as punishment, though he didn't think she would do something out of malice.
His feet led him down a random path, lacking any other option. A good number of the animals were bedded down for the night, but a reasonable percentage roamed their enclosures, making varying sounds Jim could not distinguish. He ended up leaning against the edge of the tiger enclosure, watching the long, slinky beasts prowl back and forth. He thought he could see them occasionally glancing up at him.
After a few minutes, he realized they weren't just occasionally glancing up at him, but staring at him. All of them. All three of the fully grown Bengal tigers were sitting next to each other, watching him from a small outcropping of rock.
"Not gonna feed you anything," he muttered, and turned to leave.
"We didn't expect you to."
Jim stood with his back to the tiger's enclosure, swallowed, and heaved out a sigh. A chill spread into his back. "I'm sorry, did the tiger trio just say something to me?"
"Just one of them, actually," the voice purred. Jim whipped around and glared at the three large cats, each of them sitting in an identical position in a line. The one on the end opened its mouth, and a strong voice emanated forth. "Let's get past all the pleasantries. Yes, we can talk, yes, all animals can talk, yes, other people know but not that many, and that's because we're very careful who we reveal ourselves to."
Jim slowly closed his mouth and lowered his raised index finger. He leaned against the barrier of the enclosure and rubbed his face. "Why-"
"Because we need your help, detective," one of the other tigers said. To Jim, his voice was identical to the first. Jim opened his mouth to tell the tiger he was an accountant, but the tiger continued. "And because we know even if you /do/ tell anyone, they will assume you were still drunk, and refuse to believe you, no matter what you say."
"S . . . what? What?!"
"We understand this may be a lot for you to take in at the moment," the middle tiger said, as Jim collapsed to his butt, out of view of the tigers behind the stone wall of the enclosure. He placed his face in his hands. "I don't think he's taking it well," he heard one of the tigers say.
"Taking it well," Jim muttered to himself. "What a surprise." He propped himself up on the wall. One of the tigers flicked its tail. "Has anyone ever taken this well?"
The tigers glanced at each other, faces impassible. "One of them did," the tiger on the right said. "Didn't he?"
"Yes, one." The middle tiger looked at Jim. "Wouldn't you like to know why we need your help?"
Jim's thirst had come back, and his hangover had gotten much worse in the last thirty seconds. "Yeah! Yeah, okay. Go ahead, tell me why the tigers need my help."
"Well, it's not just us," one of the tigers said.
"It's the whole zoo!"
"Look, there he is!"
Jim looked over his right shoulder and found a Capuchin monkey pointed a tiny finger at him. The voice sounded like it would be more likely to come from a six-year-old child, but the monkey looked at him and opened its mouth again. "Mister, stop running!"
Jim covered his ears and took off, out of the general vicinity of the primate cages. He thought he was heading for the exit when a thunderous trumpeting made him nearly lose his footing. In front of him he saw a thick, long object raise itself into the air and issue forth another air-splitting sound.
"Detective, stop!" a heavy, loud, disruptive voice said, and Jim came to realize the thing he could see was an elephant's trunk. "The zoo needs your assistance!"
"Elephant!" Jim said, half in surprise and half in exasperation.
"My name is Mayweather!" the elephant said back. Unable to come up with a proper response to the statement, Jim stopped. Staring up at the elephant's dark trunk. "Would you please take the time to listen to us?"
"You . . . your . . . the elephant's name is Mayweather."
"That's the name I give to humans, at least," came the voice from below the trunk. It weaved back and forth, and Jim kept his eyes on it. "Mr. Detective, the zoo needs your help!" the elephant implored. "Surely you can stop and help us for a little bit of time?"
"I'm not going to help you escape!" Jim shouted, feeling a chill down his back. He pulled his coat tighter. He looked around him, and felt animal presence on all sides. "So don't even ask!"
"Escape? Why would we want to escape?"
"Because you're trapped in here, maybe?" Jim said, before his mind caught up to the situation.
"We can discuss the very divisive topic of zoo life later," the elephant said. "For now, we need you to help find something for us."
"I'm not-" Jim rubbed his head. "I'm not a detective. I'm an accountant."
"You aren't?" The elephant's trunk wavered. "But you're wearing one of their coats, aren't you?"
Jim looked down at his shabby trench coat "Are you kidding me?" he muttered. "This doesn't mean I'm a detective. You guys watching too much Columbo or something?"
"I suppose it doesn't really matter at this point," the elephant mused. "What's your name, accountant?"
"Jim. McTooley." The man looked around. "Am I still drunk?"
The elephant chuckled. "I'm afraid not. I'm told you're quite sober, if feeling the effects of your earlier bender. I'm also told watching you sink deeper and deeper into your flask was quite interesting to watch. You had some kind of hallucination?"
"Uh . . . yeah." Jim tried to recall what he had been thinking before falling asleep. "I thought all of the animals had escaped, and I was trying to run and hide."
"Well, that explains a few things," he heard the elephant say. "Now then, on to business. On-"
"What makes you think I'm going to go through with this?" Jim cut in.
"Mr. Accountant -- I don't appreciate being interrupted," Mayweather the elephant said. "/As I was going to say/, on the other side of the zoo there is an enclosure for the giant pandas. Now, inside the enclosure-"
"Pandas?" Jim said, unable to stop himself. "I'm going to be looking for pandas?"
"/Mr. Accountant!/ If you mean to continue interrupting me, I will begin to get cross! /As I was saying/ . . . inside the panda enclosure is a small creature called a Seychelles sheath-tailed bat named Ikem. Now I bet you're wondering how an endangered bat from Madagascar got to our zoo. The story is-"
"I don't care!" Jim shouted. "It's a zoo! There are all kinds of animals here that aren't from the states!"
The elephant released an ear-splitting sound from the end of its trunk, aimed straight at Jim. The concussive force of the sound nearly took Jim off his feet, and his eyes began watering. As soon as the sound ended, his mind started to feel like it was splitting open. His ears rang as if someone had clapped cymbals around them.
"Mr. /Accountant./" The elephant's words just barely rose over the painful ringing. "I have tried to be patient with you but you test me. Your task is to find and recover Ikem before sunrise. He has gone missing from the panda enclosure. The zookeepers don't know about him. You will find him."
"And?" Jim said, happy to have a chance to speak. "If I refuse?"
"Then I will drag you into my enclosure until the morning, at which point the zookeepers will find you 'terrorizing' me, and bring you to justice, for trespassing, disturbing the peace, public intoxication, and more, perhaps. To say nothing of what /I/ will do to you."
"You wouldn't."
The trunk snaked closer, faster than Jim thought it would be able to. "Are you sure?"
"How big is he?"
Jim stood leaning against the edge of the panda enclosure, arms wrapped around each other. The two giant pandas, Chao and Ruby, yawned and looked at him sleepily. Word had spread throughout the zoo of his acceptance quickly, passed from one animal to the next via both human speech and animal calls.
"About sixty millimeters," Ruby said. She held her paws a small distance apart to help Jim see the size. "We hope you find him. He's been missing for a week or so now."
"It hasn't been a week," Chao said. "It's been five days. Ruby, the man is trying to find our friend, you can at least think about it for a few seconds."
"I'm /sorry/, Chao, I'm a bit sleepy! Ignore him, Jim."
Jim leaned against the enclosure's outer wall, head in his hands. "What does he look like?"
"Little. Brown. 'S got wings," Ruby said. "It looks like a bat."
"Don't you think he needs a little bit more information than that?" Chao snapped. "There are probably a thousand bats within a mile of here!"
"How do you know he's even still inside the zoo?" Jim said, cutting the argument off at the stem. "Maybe a zookeeper discovered him and had him taken away."
"No dearie, no!" Ruby shook her head. "He's very happy living without their knowledge, and always stays away from them. We don't think that's happened."
"He flies around, right? Eats bugs?"
"Yeah, he does," Chao said. "All that normal bat stuff."
"/Now/ who's giving bad information?" Ruby said. "I suggest talking to Hernandez the koala; he and Ikem are good friends."
"Yeah, I know him," Hernandez said, lazily masticating a leaf. He reached out and grabbed another one. "We talked the night he disappeared. I could tell you . . . for the right price."
"You want money?" Jim asked. He looked at the koala with the kind of face someone gives a clown showing up at your doorstep.
"What? No! Why would I want money? You-You think I'm going to go down to the store and buy myself a beer?" Jim could have sworn he saw the koala roll its eyes. "I want some leaves."
"You literally have leaves in your hand at this moment."
"Not /these/ leaves!" the koala said, "different leaves!" He munched on the fistful he held. "From the Bonobo's pen. They have a few Raphia palms there, but I've never had a chance to taste them. They're supposed to be delicious. Get me . . . three . . . no, /six/ leaves." Hernandez looked at Jim. "They're quite large. Bring me the leaves, and I'll tell you what I know about Ikem."
"Why can't you just tell me /know/?"
"Because I want those leaves, /you/ don't want to get trapped with Mayweather, and I don't trust you to get me the leaves if I tell you the information first. You get me?"
The koala found Jim resting his face on his arms, leaning against the cold stone of the koala enclosure. The human released a loud sigh. "Look, don't be so upset. At least I didn't tell you to get something out of the lion area. Those stuck-up sons of bitches don't help anyone."
"We need something from the lions."
Jim felt a wordless bellow rising from his lungs, but he pushed it down. He was a human, not an animal, and decided he should act as such. The fact he was currently speaking directly to a pair of bonobo chimpanzees was something his brain did not want him to consider for too long. "We normally wouldn't ask you something like this, cuz," one of the chimps said, speaking in what Jim could only categorize as a British accent, "but we're in dire need. It's very important."
Jim watched the two primates, their long, lanky arms dangling over tree limbs. The two bonobos, Simeon and Paul, grinned at him. "Like the chimp said," Paul added, "It's very important. We'd normally just give you the leaves straightaway."
"Fine. What do you need from the lions? Rocks?"
"Rocks!" Simeon laughed. "Rocks, he says! No." His voice suddenly became flat again. "We used to have a ball in here, which our captors so gracious gave to us. A few weeks ago, they took it out and put it in the lion den. They wanted the lazy bastards to get a bit of exercise, and for some reason they thought a small ball would do the trick. The lions don't care, 'course, they just lie in the sun all day no matter how many ill-gotten balls are rolling around."
"You need me to get a ball from the lions. So I can give some leaves to the koala. So I can find out where the bat went," Jim said.
"That's about it cuz. You need to write that down?" Paul asked.
"No . . . no." Jim shook his head. "I think I got it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I will never forget what you've told me."
"Cor. That seems-"
"No matter how hard I try."
"Well, all right then, go on." Simeon waved a hand in the general direction of the lions. "Good luck. We're rooting for you, you know. Good bit of the zoo is. We all want Ikem back."
"If you're rooting for me, why can't you just give me the leaves?"
Simeon and Paul looked at each other. "Hadn't considered that," Paul said. "But we need that ball back. You can't miss it. It's red."
"And small, like a . . . a . . ." Simeon searched for the right word. "Like about as big as his head," he said, indicating Paul. Jim nodded, eyes burning. His breath stank, even to him, and the night was only getting colder.
"Hey! Hey, wake up!" Jim yelled down into the lion enclosure. "Aren't you guys nocturnal? Wake up already!"
It had been fifteen minutes since Jim arrived at the lions, and he'd nearly shouted himself hoarse. The dark caverns of the lion's den exhibited no movement, and his voice had been joined by the dhole across the way, yapping angrily after being woken up. Jim shook his fists and pounded the stone wall hard enough to hurt his hands, but the lions refused to meet with him.
"Arrrgh!" Jim finally announced. "Fine! I guess I'll just have to go back and tell the chimps that the lions are a bunch of sissy babies who don't want to come out into the cold. Probably because they're too scared to come out in the dark, even though they're NOCTURNAL!"
A growl emitted from one of the den's openings. "Finally," Jim muttered. A single, maned lion emerged, padding slowly, and searching the top of the area for him. When it caught sight of him, it stopped and sat on its tawny haunches. He sat very still, tail not flicking, almost like a statue, wind ruffling its fur. They stared each other down. Jim might not have been able to meet the lion's eye had they been at all near each other, or at the same vertical level, but this far he felt no fear.
"Sorry for waking you," Jim said, only part angrily. "I need something. I've been running around for . . . I don't know, two hours? And all I need from you is the ball from the bonobo pen."
The lion's tail flicked, rolling over from one side of his body to the other. "Meat."
Jim wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "What?"
"Get us meat. We're kept fed but we want more. A raw steak each."
Jim decided arguing would be a waste. "How many are you?"
"Five." The lion stood and silently walked back into the hole from which he had appeared, leaving Jim wondering how he was going to get five raw steaks.
"We really should have seen that coming," Simeon said to Paul. "What does a lion want? Food. The lions want food."
"Where do the zookeepers keep the food? Will they notice if any of it is missing?"
Paul and Simeon spun around on their tree limb, put their arms over each others shoulders, and began whispering. Jim found it odd they were keeping their voices down when he couldn't understand their monkey hoots anyway, but allowed them to continue. These two hairy, long-limbed figures were his best allies in the zoo so far, and they seemed to be on his side.
After a few minutes they turned around, their eyes set and determined. "No need to fetch the steaks, cuz," Paul said. "We're here to help. One of us will go with you to the lion pen and get the ball out."
"But there's a cage around you guys," Jim felt necessary to point out.
"That's where you come in," Simeon said. "All you need to do is unlock the door to our cage here and one of us will go with you to climb down into the lion den. They're all asleep anyway; they'll never know we were there."
"How do I unlock your cage? There's no way I'm going to find a way to get the keys. They're probably in the head zookeeper's key bowl right now!"
"All it takes is a little swipe of the credit card, cuz," Paul said, miming the motion. "Just like buying a coffee."
"You want me to jimmy the lock with my card?" Jim looked up at the sky. "What is this, the seventies?"
"It'll be easy." Simeon indicated the direction he should walk. "Just go down to the entrance and I'll show you just how to do it." The chimp left the tree limb, and Jim followed him around to the side of the cage, bushing aside a nonchalant shrub that covered a small cage door. Jim took out his wallet and produced his library card. Simeon nodded. "Go on now, slip it right between the crack there. That's it, right. Wiggle it a bit, get it behind the latch. If you drop it, I can just hand it back to you. What sort of books do you read? Never mind, you should concentrate."
Jim slowly slid the latch out of the lock and pushed the door open. Simeon stepped back and allowed Paul to exit with Jim. "Paul's the better climber."
"Better climber, he says." Jim walked along the dark zoo paths with the chimp. Paul shook his head. "I could climb better than he can today when I was a few months old. Family." The chimp scoffed. "You got any family, cuz?"
"Yeah. I'm married. I have some kids." Jim wondered what they would say if they saw him. "I did when I came to the zoo, a least. Getting drunk in a public place and freaking out don't earn you a lot of brownie points."
"Everyone's human," the chimp said. "I'm sure your wife's made her own mistakes."
"Nothing like this."
"You find Ikem for us," Paul said, as they neared the lion's den. "And you're a friend of the animals." He shot a glance at the dark caves of the lions. "Some of them, anyway. You're a smart man. You can earn some points with that. Here I go then."
The chimp disappeared over the lip, climbing down with quick, dextrous motions. Jim waited for almost twenty minutes, fear growing in his chest, before he heard the sounds of Paul climbing back up. Quickly the chimp reappeared, bearing a small red ball. "Took me too long to find it. The mangy beasts probably gave it single swipe, knocked it into a corner, and then went to nap." He squeezed it, compressing the ball with surprising strength. "Let's get back to Simeon, shall we?"
Back at the Bonobo enclosure, Jim waited for Paul and Simeon to gather the long, drooping leaves of the raphia palm. Passed one after the other through the small gaps in the cage, the leaves filled up his arms even after only six. The tree they'd been taken from dominated one corner of the huge caged area. Nodding his goodbye, an exhausted Jim found his way back to the koala enclosure. He shoved the leaves through the biggest gap he could find.
"I admit, I'm a little surprised you could get them. I heard you had some trouble getting these."
"No thanks to you," Jim said. "Now tell me what you know about Ikem. If you've been yanking me around this whole time-"
"Don't worry about that," the koala said, ripping off a piece of a raphia leaf. He shoved it in his mouth. "Mmm, good," he said around the leaf. "Here it is. Last I saw Ikem, he was going south, toward the aquatics. He said he wanted to get inside the building, said it would be a better place for him to wait out the day. That or the reptiles, but they don't like anyone going into their territory."
"You think he's inside the aquarium?"
"That's all I know. I don't exactly get out much." The koala ripped off another piece of the leaf. "It's up to you know. I may not show it much, but I want to make sure he's found too."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jim said. He turned his head around. "Do you know which way's south?"
"Course I do. All animals have an innate sense of direction, didn't you know that?" The koala pointed over his shoulder. "Thataway."
Jim gave him a raised eyebrow and moved off in the direction the koala had indicated. He found himself retracing his steps back to the aquarium, the building he'd tried to enter shortly after waking up, only to find it locked. He hoped he would be able to jimmy the lock open like he had for the bonobo cage, and wondered how it would look if he couldn't. He succeeded, however, and without embarrassing himself.
The aquarium was dark. Dark enough Jim hesitated, feeling a deep and inherent fear of the unknown down in his stomach. He reached out a hand, touching nothing but empty air. He almost expected something scaly or slimy to land under his fingertips, but there was nothing.
He ran his hands around the nearby wall for a light switch of some sort, but again found nothing. He grumbled to himself, fumbling in the dark and the meager light filtering in from the open door. He shut his eyes to try and let them adjust to the darkness, heard a flapping sound, and then something sharp and light landed on his head.
He froze. It felt like tiny paperclips had gripped strands of his hair. He heard minute animalistic sounds coming from above his head. He swallowed, trying to resist the urge to bring his hands up and bash at whatever was up there.
"Ikem, I presume?" he got out, eyes shut and body still.
"Yeah, that's me." The voice was slight, almost a breath. If it hadn't been mere inches from his ears, Jim doubted he could have heard it. "And who might you be?"
"I'm Jim. The other animals are looking for you. They're worried about you."
The chuckle the bat emitted sent a chill down Jim's neck. He hardly detected it. "Is that right?"
"You've been missing for days."
"I've been missing for days because I didn't want to be around them anymore." The gripping pressure left his hair, and he heard fibrous wings fluttering away, like the crack of tiny whips. "And why-" the sudden volume and power of the voice startled Jim "-do you think I did that?"
"I-I don't know," he said, starting to see a few basic shapes in the darkness. "I don't care about why you did anything. I was told to find you, or my life would become difficult. I've found you."
"I didn't want to be found." The voice shrank, become closer to a normal speaking voice. "I wanted to stay hidden."
"That doesn't bother me. I don't think any of the other animals can get you in here, so I'll just-"
There was a sudden dart of motion, and the door swung shut, shutting Jim into total darkness. "You won't tell them anything."
The bat continued before Jim had a chance to respond. "The fish here don't care about me -- they're in their own little world. Unless someone's feeding them they don't care about the outside world. They can barely get themselves to notice the zoo patrons. But that isn't true of the other animals. They've noticed the dwindling number of zoo patrons, and they have a plan to reverse it. Me."
Jim, holding his hands out in front of him, stumbled forward, looking for the door. "But you aren't even a zoo animal, right?"
"That's their problem," Ikem said, from somewhere above him. The voice continued moving, in circles and loops near the ceiling. "And it's what they want to change. They know if they can notify the zookeepers of my presence, the zookeepers might be able to keep me. It's a low chance, but it's better than just letting me be. Do you know how many Seychelles sheath-tailed bats there are in the world? Less than a hundred, I hear. We're nearly extinct. A random zoo suddenly finding one and having a habitat set up? They'd draw enthusiasts from miles around. More patrons, more money for the zoo, more food, bigger spaces."
"So?"
"So?!" The bat roared. Again, the sudden volume and power of the voice, especially from something apparently so tiny, surprised him. "So /I/ don't want to have to flutter around in a cage for the rest of my life, whether or not they manage to acquire other bats! Surely, you understand that. You wouldn't want to be stuck in a cage, either . . . yes?"
"Yeah. I suppose you're right."
"So now you're left with a choice. Tell the others where I am -- they will be able to notify the zookeepers somehow, believe me. There are a lot of them, and they are all on board with this plan. Aside from the fish. And the lions, I suppose. Your other option is to leave my life to me, and exit the zoo."
"The elephant threatened to make my life difficult if I didn't find out what happened to you. He won't let me leave."
"Ah, Mayweather. He thinks he's in control. If you want to leave without him knowing, just take the back exit, through the employee parking lot. There's a night shift guard but he doesn't pay much attention."
"I can't find my phone, either."
"And am I supposed to help you with that? You're out of luck."
"All right then. It doesn't matter to me what the other animals think of me; I didn't even want to come to the zoo in the first place. Though, maybe I will now that I know they can understand human speech."
"Interpret it, yes. Understand it . . . less so."
"Why wouldn't you just leave the park?" Jim asked the ceiling. "Why come here, and risk someone from the zoo finding you? And why tell the koala where you're going if you're trying to get away from the other animals?"
"I trusted Hernandez, but I guess the trust was misplaced. No matter. I've traveled far on my own and I will continue." Jim found the door just as his eyes began to truly adjust to the pitch dark. "Caged forces, human. Sometimes they like their cages."
Jim waited for the Seychelles sheath-tailed bat to continue, but heard nothing. He pushed the door open, hoping none of the zookeepers would think much of an unlocked aquarium where nothing was disturbed.
He wandered through the park, avoiding the animals as best he could. He passed the little copse of trees where he'd taken his drunken nap, and stopped by. His cell phone lay in the grass on the other side of the tree he'd slept against. Rejoining the path, he wandered away from the front entrance. He almost got through the park without being stopped, but a trio of zebras brayed loud enough to get his attention.
"Detective!" one of them yelled.
"Detective!" another parroted. "Have you found Ikem?"
"Have you found the bat?" the final zebra asked. Jim wondered how he was going to respond before the first zebra continued. It nearly pranced from foot to foot.
"We really want him back!" The zebra snorted. "We don't know what we would do if we couldn't get him back!"
"No, I bet you wouldn't." Jim took a step back. "He's gone. He isn't in the zoo anymore. I won't find him, and I doubt anybody else will."
He walked away as the zebras erupted into shouts, waking almost the entire zoo. He snuck out the back, skirting the edge of the night guard's vision, and found himself on a public street once again. The din from the zoo, changed now into base grunts and roars, reminded him how much power waited behind the walls of the zoo. He was glad to help something be free of it.
He'd never liked the zoo.
They'd taken the kids. The kids liked the zoo, at least. All those animals. They loved watching the monkeys exhibit almost-human tendencies, watching the elephants bathe and play, and the polar bears feverishly try to crack the glass and devour a guest. Tina liked it too. It helped get the kids out of the house and doing something productive with their lives.
Jim knew the truth. He knew how desperately the animals wanted free reign of the nearby concrete jungle, to climb the buildings like King Kong or speed down the highways with their explosive power,finally free of the cage they've been placed in. He knew the feeling. It was no fun not being able to do what you had been born to do; Jim knew.
It was a cold day, threatening rain, so Jim had wrapped himself up in his trench coat and driven all of them to the zoo, aware he was playing with fate. His wife, as she always did, dismissed his worry as nonsense. In fairness to her, he did worry quite a lot, but he couldn't help feel uneasy about zoos. Caged forces like to free themselves.
He couldn't even smoke in the zoo anymore. It was like they were trying to make themselves go bankrupt.
The primate cages were first. They saw hulking gorillas, gangly orangutans, tiny pygmy marmosets, and playful chimps. Of course, not all of them acted they way they should when kids were watching, so little Sam and Brigid's eyes had to be redirected once in a while. Next they explored the reptile bunker, with its glass barriers, dark hallways, and creeping inhabitants. Sam was agog over the snakes and turtles, but Brigid didn't seem to much care for them, instead seeking refuge behind the hem of Jim's coat. It made Jim glad to see someone was beginning to understand.
Emerging back into the drab light of the cloudy day, they wandered to the bird cages so Brigid could look at something she wanted. All sorts of colorful plumage sped by Jim's eyes. He felt it all coming apart. This may have been because of the flask full of beer he'd slipped into one of his coat's inner pockets, but he knew, as his mind began to buzz more and more pleasantly, it could have happened at any time.
Eventually -- as Jim knew it would -- the lights began to go out. The animal revolution had begun, and they were at ground zero. Before he could turn his head, he found Tina and the kids were gone from his side. He heard cracking sounds coming from the rhinoceros exhibit, mad screams from the gorillas, and tremendous roars from the bears and great cats. He could only hope the rest of his family had gotten away quickly, and were running toward the parking lot, past the less-dangerous animals -- prairie dogs and koalas and other small beasts. Tina was a fighter; she wouldn't let the kids get hurt.
Jim took another pull on his flask and forged through the frenzied crowds, pushing and shoving. They all went one way, he went the other. He knew how these escapes worked -- the animals wanted freedom first and then food. If he could get behind the animals, they would leave him be.
The crowds didn't thin as he ran. People turned into blurs as he ran. he thought he caught glimpse of a panda attacking an old man, but didn't stop to gawk. He wondered where it would be safest, and came up with inside one of the animal's encampments. There was no way the animals would go back into them if they could avoid it. A breakout on this scale -- it seemed to be every animal once caged -- would cause mass pandemonium. The animals wouldn't be returned to the zoo for a few days.
If he could get into one of the cages he would be safest, but he couldn't find any ways in. The animals were tricky. They must have been planning this for weeks. It was as if they, each of them, could just bypass the barriers in front of them.
He went with his next best bet: find a quiet, dark corner and stay there until the initial pandemonium had ceased. The animals would either be full and sleepy or running free in the city. Then he would escape.
When he woke up clutching an empty flask, trench coat draped over him like a blanket, the sun down and a sobering chill taking him. His head pounded, but it was clear enough for him to come to terms with what had happened.
He sniffed the opening of his flask and stuck out his fuzzy tongue. He'd clearly forgotten about the whiskey already inside when he topped it off with Miller. The impromptu boilermaker explained his hangover, drunken episode in the zoo, and the late hour.
He'd have to find out what exactly he'd done, presumably while stumbling down the zoo's paved paths, where in the zoo he was, and how he was going to get home. Tina would be furious with him, and for good reason. He stood up, legs wobbling and breath stinking. He thought about how lucky he was he hadn't vomited, but then carefully looked around. The area seemed clean, or as clean as an unknown wooded zone in a public zoo could be.
Jim froze. He looked around carefully, listened carefully, trying to find any creature gazing at him, or loping in the distance. Was he inside one of the animal areas? He didn't think so -- he remembered being unable to get into one before, thank goodness.
What time was it? Was it night? Early morning? He looked around for the moon, and only after finding it did he realize he had no idea what it could tell him. He glared at it for a full five minutes, before shaking himself out of the daze. He took a step and nearly fell face down in the dirt.
He stumbled out of the small wooded area, onto a paved path. A sign in front of him, just barely legible by the moon's light, bore strange symbols, until he rubbed his eyes and took another look. One half of the sign told him the aquatic creatures were to his right, the other half told him a few assorted plains animals were to his left.
He spun in a circle, wondering if he would run into a night guard or a third-shift zookeeper. If he was found, would they accept his explanation and allow him to leave? He feared they would instead levy their lawyers against him instead.
Taking a step toward the aquatic creatures, Jim swayed back and forth, still unable to get his feet from sliding out from under him. He was thirsty, and at first reached for his flask, before realizing not only it was empty, but even if it wasn't, it wouldn't do him any favors to imbibe further, especially if he did run into an authority.
He found his way to the aquatics building and discovered it was locked. He was at first surprised, but then realized it was obvious they would lock up. He looked around, oblivious to the zoo's layout, and which direction was the exit. The lights were off, and it was too dark to read most of the signs telling him which direction led him to what. Reaching for his phone, he instead found an empty pocket in his trench coat Somewhere along the way he'd lost it, or had it taken by Tina as punishment, though he didn't think she would do something out of malice.
His feet led him down a random path, lacking any other option. A good number of the animals were bedded down for the night, but a reasonable percentage roamed their enclosures, making varying sounds Jim could not distinguish. He ended up leaning against the edge of the tiger enclosure, watching the long, slinky beasts prowl back and forth. He thought he could see them occasionally glancing up at him.
After a few minutes, he realized they weren't just occasionally glancing up at him, but staring at him. All of them. All three of the fully grown Bengal tigers were sitting next to each other, watching him from a small outcropping of rock.
"Not gonna feed you anything," he muttered, and turned to leave.
"We didn't expect you to."
Jim stood with his back to the tiger's enclosure, swallowed, and heaved out a sigh. A chill spread into his back. "I'm sorry, did the tiger trio just say something to me?"
"Just one of them, actually," the voice purred. Jim whipped around and glared at the three large cats, each of them sitting in an identical position in a line. The one on the end opened its mouth, and a strong voice emanated forth. "Let's get past all the pleasantries. Yes, we can talk, yes, all animals can talk, yes, other people know but not that many, and that's because we're very careful who we reveal ourselves to."
Jim slowly closed his mouth and lowered his raised index finger. He leaned against the barrier of the enclosure and rubbed his face. "Why-"
"Because we need your help, detective," one of the other tigers said. To Jim, his voice was identical to the first. Jim opened his mouth to tell the tiger he was an accountant, but the tiger continued. "And because we know even if you /do/ tell anyone, they will assume you were still drunk, and refuse to believe you, no matter what you say."
"S . . . what? What?!"
"We understand this may be a lot for you to take in at the moment," the middle tiger said, as Jim collapsed to his butt, out of view of the tigers behind the stone wall of the enclosure. He placed his face in his hands. "I don't think he's taking it well," he heard one of the tigers say.
"Taking it well," Jim muttered to himself. "What a surprise." He propped himself up on the wall. One of the tigers flicked its tail. "Has anyone ever taken this well?"
The tigers glanced at each other, faces impassible. "One of them did," the tiger on the right said. "Didn't he?"
"Yes, one." The middle tiger looked at Jim. "Wouldn't you like to know why we need your help?"
Jim's thirst had come back, and his hangover had gotten much worse in the last thirty seconds. "Yeah! Yeah, okay. Go ahead, tell me why the tigers need my help."
"Well, it's not just us," one of the tigers said.
"It's the whole zoo!"
"Look, there he is!"
Jim looked over his right shoulder and found a Capuchin monkey pointed a tiny finger at him. The voice sounded like it would be more likely to come from a six-year-old child, but the monkey looked at him and opened its mouth again. "Mister, stop running!"
Jim covered his ears and took off, out of the general vicinity of the primate cages. He thought he was heading for the exit when a thunderous trumpeting made him nearly lose his footing. In front of him he saw a thick, long object raise itself into the air and issue forth another air-splitting sound.
"Detective, stop!" a heavy, loud, disruptive voice said, and Jim came to realize the thing he could see was an elephant's trunk. "The zoo needs your assistance!"
"Elephant!" Jim said, half in surprise and half in exasperation.
"My name is Mayweather!" the elephant said back. Unable to come up with a proper response to the statement, Jim stopped. Staring up at the elephant's dark trunk. "Would you please take the time to listen to us?"
"You . . . your . . . the elephant's name is Mayweather."
"That's the name I give to humans, at least," came the voice from below the trunk. It weaved back and forth, and Jim kept his eyes on it. "Mr. Detective, the zoo needs your help!" the elephant implored. "Surely you can stop and help us for a little bit of time?"
"I'm not going to help you escape!" Jim shouted, feeling a chill down his back. He pulled his coat tighter. He looked around him, and felt animal presence on all sides. "So don't even ask!"
"Escape? Why would we want to escape?"
"Because you're trapped in here, maybe?" Jim said, before his mind caught up to the situation.
"We can discuss the very divisive topic of zoo life later," the elephant said. "For now, we need you to help find something for us."
"I'm not-" Jim rubbed his head. "I'm not a detective. I'm an accountant."
"You aren't?" The elephant's trunk wavered. "But you're wearing one of their coats, aren't you?"
Jim looked down at his shabby trench coat "Are you kidding me?" he muttered. "This doesn't mean I'm a detective. You guys watching too much Columbo or something?"
"I suppose it doesn't really matter at this point," the elephant mused. "What's your name, accountant?"
"Jim. McTooley." The man looked around. "Am I still drunk?"
The elephant chuckled. "I'm afraid not. I'm told you're quite sober, if feeling the effects of your earlier bender. I'm also told watching you sink deeper and deeper into your flask was quite interesting to watch. You had some kind of hallucination?"
"Uh . . . yeah." Jim tried to recall what he had been thinking before falling asleep. "I thought all of the animals had escaped, and I was trying to run and hide."
"Well, that explains a few things," he heard the elephant say. "Now then, on to business. On-"
"What makes you think I'm going to go through with this?" Jim cut in.
"Mr. Accountant -- I don't appreciate being interrupted," Mayweather the elephant said. "/As I was going to say/, on the other side of the zoo there is an enclosure for the giant pandas. Now, inside the enclosure-"
"Pandas?" Jim said, unable to stop himself. "I'm going to be looking for pandas?"
"/Mr. Accountant!/ If you mean to continue interrupting me, I will begin to get cross! /As I was saying/ . . . inside the panda enclosure is a small creature called a Seychelles sheath-tailed bat named Ikem. Now I bet you're wondering how an endangered bat from Madagascar got to our zoo. The story is-"
"I don't care!" Jim shouted. "It's a zoo! There are all kinds of animals here that aren't from the states!"
The elephant released an ear-splitting sound from the end of its trunk, aimed straight at Jim. The concussive force of the sound nearly took Jim off his feet, and his eyes began watering. As soon as the sound ended, his mind started to feel like it was splitting open. His ears rang as if someone had clapped cymbals around them.
"Mr. /Accountant./" The elephant's words just barely rose over the painful ringing. "I have tried to be patient with you but you test me. Your task is to find and recover Ikem before sunrise. He has gone missing from the panda enclosure. The zookeepers don't know about him. You will find him."
"And?" Jim said, happy to have a chance to speak. "If I refuse?"
"Then I will drag you into my enclosure until the morning, at which point the zookeepers will find you 'terrorizing' me, and bring you to justice, for trespassing, disturbing the peace, public intoxication, and more, perhaps. To say nothing of what /I/ will do to you."
"You wouldn't."
The trunk snaked closer, faster than Jim thought it would be able to. "Are you sure?"
"How big is he?"
Jim stood leaning against the edge of the panda enclosure, arms wrapped around each other. The two giant pandas, Chao and Ruby, yawned and looked at him sleepily. Word had spread throughout the zoo of his acceptance quickly, passed from one animal to the next via both human speech and animal calls.
"About sixty millimeters," Ruby said. She held her paws a small distance apart to help Jim see the size. "We hope you find him. He's been missing for a week or so now."
"It hasn't been a week," Chao said. "It's been five days. Ruby, the man is trying to find our friend, you can at least think about it for a few seconds."
"I'm /sorry/, Chao, I'm a bit sleepy! Ignore him, Jim."
Jim leaned against the enclosure's outer wall, head in his hands. "What does he look like?"
"Little. Brown. 'S got wings," Ruby said. "It looks like a bat."
"Don't you think he needs a little bit more information than that?" Chao snapped. "There are probably a thousand bats within a mile of here!"
"How do you know he's even still inside the zoo?" Jim said, cutting the argument off at the stem. "Maybe a zookeeper discovered him and had him taken away."
"No dearie, no!" Ruby shook her head. "He's very happy living without their knowledge, and always stays away from them. We don't think that's happened."
"He flies around, right? Eats bugs?"
"Yeah, he does," Chao said. "All that normal bat stuff."
"/Now/ who's giving bad information?" Ruby said. "I suggest talking to Hernandez the koala; he and Ikem are good friends."
"Yeah, I know him," Hernandez said, lazily masticating a leaf. He reached out and grabbed another one. "We talked the night he disappeared. I could tell you . . . for the right price."
"You want money?" Jim asked. He looked at the koala with the kind of face someone gives a clown showing up at your doorstep.
"What? No! Why would I want money? You-You think I'm going to go down to the store and buy myself a beer?" Jim could have sworn he saw the koala roll its eyes. "I want some leaves."
"You literally have leaves in your hand at this moment."
"Not /these/ leaves!" the koala said, "different leaves!" He munched on the fistful he held. "From the Bonobo's pen. They have a few Raphia palms there, but I've never had a chance to taste them. They're supposed to be delicious. Get me . . . three . . . no, /six/ leaves." Hernandez looked at Jim. "They're quite large. Bring me the leaves, and I'll tell you what I know about Ikem."
"Why can't you just tell me /know/?"
"Because I want those leaves, /you/ don't want to get trapped with Mayweather, and I don't trust you to get me the leaves if I tell you the information first. You get me?"
The koala found Jim resting his face on his arms, leaning against the cold stone of the koala enclosure. The human released a loud sigh. "Look, don't be so upset. At least I didn't tell you to get something out of the lion area. Those stuck-up sons of bitches don't help anyone."
"We need something from the lions."
Jim felt a wordless bellow rising from his lungs, but he pushed it down. He was a human, not an animal, and decided he should act as such. The fact he was currently speaking directly to a pair of bonobo chimpanzees was something his brain did not want him to consider for too long. "We normally wouldn't ask you something like this, cuz," one of the chimps said, speaking in what Jim could only categorize as a British accent, "but we're in dire need. It's very important."
Jim watched the two primates, their long, lanky arms dangling over tree limbs. The two bonobos, Simeon and Paul, grinned at him. "Like the chimp said," Paul added, "It's very important. We'd normally just give you the leaves straightaway."
"Fine. What do you need from the lions? Rocks?"
"Rocks!" Simeon laughed. "Rocks, he says! No." His voice suddenly became flat again. "We used to have a ball in here, which our captors so gracious gave to us. A few weeks ago, they took it out and put it in the lion den. They wanted the lazy bastards to get a bit of exercise, and for some reason they thought a small ball would do the trick. The lions don't care, 'course, they just lie in the sun all day no matter how many ill-gotten balls are rolling around."
"You need me to get a ball from the lions. So I can give some leaves to the koala. So I can find out where the bat went," Jim said.
"That's about it cuz. You need to write that down?" Paul asked.
"No . . . no." Jim shook his head. "I think I got it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I will never forget what you've told me."
"Cor. That seems-"
"No matter how hard I try."
"Well, all right then, go on." Simeon waved a hand in the general direction of the lions. "Good luck. We're rooting for you, you know. Good bit of the zoo is. We all want Ikem back."
"If you're rooting for me, why can't you just give me the leaves?"
Simeon and Paul looked at each other. "Hadn't considered that," Paul said. "But we need that ball back. You can't miss it. It's red."
"And small, like a . . . a . . ." Simeon searched for the right word. "Like about as big as his head," he said, indicating Paul. Jim nodded, eyes burning. His breath stank, even to him, and the night was only getting colder.
"Hey! Hey, wake up!" Jim yelled down into the lion enclosure. "Aren't you guys nocturnal? Wake up already!"
It had been fifteen minutes since Jim arrived at the lions, and he'd nearly shouted himself hoarse. The dark caverns of the lion's den exhibited no movement, and his voice had been joined by the dhole across the way, yapping angrily after being woken up. Jim shook his fists and pounded the stone wall hard enough to hurt his hands, but the lions refused to meet with him.
"Arrrgh!" Jim finally announced. "Fine! I guess I'll just have to go back and tell the chimps that the lions are a bunch of sissy babies who don't want to come out into the cold. Probably because they're too scared to come out in the dark, even though they're NOCTURNAL!"
A growl emitted from one of the den's openings. "Finally," Jim muttered. A single, maned lion emerged, padding slowly, and searching the top of the area for him. When it caught sight of him, it stopped and sat on its tawny haunches. He sat very still, tail not flicking, almost like a statue, wind ruffling its fur. They stared each other down. Jim might not have been able to meet the lion's eye had they been at all near each other, or at the same vertical level, but this far he felt no fear.
"Sorry for waking you," Jim said, only part angrily. "I need something. I've been running around for . . . I don't know, two hours? And all I need from you is the ball from the bonobo pen."
The lion's tail flicked, rolling over from one side of his body to the other. "Meat."
Jim wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "What?"
"Get us meat. We're kept fed but we want more. A raw steak each."
Jim decided arguing would be a waste. "How many are you?"
"Five." The lion stood and silently walked back into the hole from which he had appeared, leaving Jim wondering how he was going to get five raw steaks.
"We really should have seen that coming," Simeon said to Paul. "What does a lion want? Food. The lions want food."
"Where do the zookeepers keep the food? Will they notice if any of it is missing?"
Paul and Simeon spun around on their tree limb, put their arms over each others shoulders, and began whispering. Jim found it odd they were keeping their voices down when he couldn't understand their monkey hoots anyway, but allowed them to continue. These two hairy, long-limbed figures were his best allies in the zoo so far, and they seemed to be on his side.
After a few minutes they turned around, their eyes set and determined. "No need to fetch the steaks, cuz," Paul said. "We're here to help. One of us will go with you to the lion pen and get the ball out."
"But there's a cage around you guys," Jim felt necessary to point out.
"That's where you come in," Simeon said. "All you need to do is unlock the door to our cage here and one of us will go with you to climb down into the lion den. They're all asleep anyway; they'll never know we were there."
"How do I unlock your cage? There's no way I'm going to find a way to get the keys. They're probably in the head zookeeper's key bowl right now!"
"All it takes is a little swipe of the credit card, cuz," Paul said, miming the motion. "Just like buying a coffee."
"You want me to jimmy the lock with my card?" Jim looked up at the sky. "What is this, the seventies?"
"It'll be easy." Simeon indicated the direction he should walk. "Just go down to the entrance and I'll show you just how to do it." The chimp left the tree limb, and Jim followed him around to the side of the cage, bushing aside a nonchalant shrub that covered a small cage door. Jim took out his wallet and produced his library card. Simeon nodded. "Go on now, slip it right between the crack there. That's it, right. Wiggle it a bit, get it behind the latch. If you drop it, I can just hand it back to you. What sort of books do you read? Never mind, you should concentrate."
Jim slowly slid the latch out of the lock and pushed the door open. Simeon stepped back and allowed Paul to exit with Jim. "Paul's the better climber."
"Better climber, he says." Jim walked along the dark zoo paths with the chimp. Paul shook his head. "I could climb better than he can today when I was a few months old. Family." The chimp scoffed. "You got any family, cuz?"
"Yeah. I'm married. I have some kids." Jim wondered what they would say if they saw him. "I did when I came to the zoo, a least. Getting drunk in a public place and freaking out don't earn you a lot of brownie points."
"Everyone's human," the chimp said. "I'm sure your wife's made her own mistakes."
"Nothing like this."
"You find Ikem for us," Paul said, as they neared the lion's den. "And you're a friend of the animals." He shot a glance at the dark caves of the lions. "Some of them, anyway. You're a smart man. You can earn some points with that. Here I go then."
The chimp disappeared over the lip, climbing down with quick, dextrous motions. Jim waited for almost twenty minutes, fear growing in his chest, before he heard the sounds of Paul climbing back up. Quickly the chimp reappeared, bearing a small red ball. "Took me too long to find it. The mangy beasts probably gave it single swipe, knocked it into a corner, and then went to nap." He squeezed it, compressing the ball with surprising strength. "Let's get back to Simeon, shall we?"
Back at the Bonobo enclosure, Jim waited for Paul and Simeon to gather the long, drooping leaves of the raphia palm. Passed one after the other through the small gaps in the cage, the leaves filled up his arms even after only six. The tree they'd been taken from dominated one corner of the huge caged area. Nodding his goodbye, an exhausted Jim found his way back to the koala enclosure. He shoved the leaves through the biggest gap he could find.
"I admit, I'm a little surprised you could get them. I heard you had some trouble getting these."
"No thanks to you," Jim said. "Now tell me what you know about Ikem. If you've been yanking me around this whole time-"
"Don't worry about that," the koala said, ripping off a piece of a raphia leaf. He shoved it in his mouth. "Mmm, good," he said around the leaf. "Here it is. Last I saw Ikem, he was going south, toward the aquatics. He said he wanted to get inside the building, said it would be a better place for him to wait out the day. That or the reptiles, but they don't like anyone going into their territory."
"You think he's inside the aquarium?"
"That's all I know. I don't exactly get out much." The koala ripped off another piece of the leaf. "It's up to you know. I may not show it much, but I want to make sure he's found too."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jim said. He turned his head around. "Do you know which way's south?"
"Course I do. All animals have an innate sense of direction, didn't you know that?" The koala pointed over his shoulder. "Thataway."
Jim gave him a raised eyebrow and moved off in the direction the koala had indicated. He found himself retracing his steps back to the aquarium, the building he'd tried to enter shortly after waking up, only to find it locked. He hoped he would be able to jimmy the lock open like he had for the bonobo cage, and wondered how it would look if he couldn't. He succeeded, however, and without embarrassing himself.
The aquarium was dark. Dark enough Jim hesitated, feeling a deep and inherent fear of the unknown down in his stomach. He reached out a hand, touching nothing but empty air. He almost expected something scaly or slimy to land under his fingertips, but there was nothing.
He ran his hands around the nearby wall for a light switch of some sort, but again found nothing. He grumbled to himself, fumbling in the dark and the meager light filtering in from the open door. He shut his eyes to try and let them adjust to the darkness, heard a flapping sound, and then something sharp and light landed on his head.
He froze. It felt like tiny paperclips had gripped strands of his hair. He heard minute animalistic sounds coming from above his head. He swallowed, trying to resist the urge to bring his hands up and bash at whatever was up there.
"Ikem, I presume?" he got out, eyes shut and body still.
"Yeah, that's me." The voice was slight, almost a breath. If it hadn't been mere inches from his ears, Jim doubted he could have heard it. "And who might you be?"
"I'm Jim. The other animals are looking for you. They're worried about you."
The chuckle the bat emitted sent a chill down Jim's neck. He hardly detected it. "Is that right?"
"You've been missing for days."
"I've been missing for days because I didn't want to be around them anymore." The gripping pressure left his hair, and he heard fibrous wings fluttering away, like the crack of tiny whips. "And why-" the sudden volume and power of the voice startled Jim "-do you think I did that?"
"I-I don't know," he said, starting to see a few basic shapes in the darkness. "I don't care about why you did anything. I was told to find you, or my life would become difficult. I've found you."
"I didn't want to be found." The voice shrank, become closer to a normal speaking voice. "I wanted to stay hidden."
"That doesn't bother me. I don't think any of the other animals can get you in here, so I'll just-"
There was a sudden dart of motion, and the door swung shut, shutting Jim into total darkness. "You won't tell them anything."
The bat continued before Jim had a chance to respond. "The fish here don't care about me -- they're in their own little world. Unless someone's feeding them they don't care about the outside world. They can barely get themselves to notice the zoo patrons. But that isn't true of the other animals. They've noticed the dwindling number of zoo patrons, and they have a plan to reverse it. Me."
Jim, holding his hands out in front of him, stumbled forward, looking for the door. "But you aren't even a zoo animal, right?"
"That's their problem," Ikem said, from somewhere above him. The voice continued moving, in circles and loops near the ceiling. "And it's what they want to change. They know if they can notify the zookeepers of my presence, the zookeepers might be able to keep me. It's a low chance, but it's better than just letting me be. Do you know how many Seychelles sheath-tailed bats there are in the world? Less than a hundred, I hear. We're nearly extinct. A random zoo suddenly finding one and having a habitat set up? They'd draw enthusiasts from miles around. More patrons, more money for the zoo, more food, bigger spaces."
"So?"
"So?!" The bat roared. Again, the sudden volume and power of the voice, especially from something apparently so tiny, surprised him. "So /I/ don't want to have to flutter around in a cage for the rest of my life, whether or not they manage to acquire other bats! Surely, you understand that. You wouldn't want to be stuck in a cage, either . . . yes?"
"Yeah. I suppose you're right."
"So now you're left with a choice. Tell the others where I am -- they will be able to notify the zookeepers somehow, believe me. There are a lot of them, and they are all on board with this plan. Aside from the fish. And the lions, I suppose. Your other option is to leave my life to me, and exit the zoo."
"The elephant threatened to make my life difficult if I didn't find out what happened to you. He won't let me leave."
"Ah, Mayweather. He thinks he's in control. If you want to leave without him knowing, just take the back exit, through the employee parking lot. There's a night shift guard but he doesn't pay much attention."
"I can't find my phone, either."
"And am I supposed to help you with that? You're out of luck."
"All right then. It doesn't matter to me what the other animals think of me; I didn't even want to come to the zoo in the first place. Though, maybe I will now that I know they can understand human speech."
"Interpret it, yes. Understand it . . . less so."
"Why wouldn't you just leave the park?" Jim asked the ceiling. "Why come here, and risk someone from the zoo finding you? And why tell the koala where you're going if you're trying to get away from the other animals?"
"I trusted Hernandez, but I guess the trust was misplaced. No matter. I've traveled far on my own and I will continue." Jim found the door just as his eyes began to truly adjust to the pitch dark. "Caged forces, human. Sometimes they like their cages."
Jim waited for the Seychelles sheath-tailed bat to continue, but heard nothing. He pushed the door open, hoping none of the zookeepers would think much of an unlocked aquarium where nothing was disturbed.
He wandered through the park, avoiding the animals as best he could. He passed the little copse of trees where he'd taken his drunken nap, and stopped by. His cell phone lay in the grass on the other side of the tree he'd slept against. Rejoining the path, he wandered away from the front entrance. He almost got through the park without being stopped, but a trio of zebras brayed loud enough to get his attention.
"Detective!" one of them yelled.
"Detective!" another parroted. "Have you found Ikem?"
"Have you found the bat?" the final zebra asked. Jim wondered how he was going to respond before the first zebra continued. It nearly pranced from foot to foot.
"We really want him back!" The zebra snorted. "We don't know what we would do if we couldn't get him back!"
"No, I bet you wouldn't." Jim took a step back. "He's gone. He isn't in the zoo anymore. I won't find him, and I doubt anybody else will."
He walked away as the zebras erupted into shouts, waking almost the entire zoo. He snuck out the back, skirting the edge of the night guard's vision, and found himself on a public street once again. The din from the zoo, changed now into base grunts and roars, reminded him how much power waited behind the walls of the zoo. He was glad to help something be free of it.