The Zoo

"Dude, I'm telling you...You gotta try it. Just come with me once and I promise you'll like it," said Danny.

He was walking behind his cousin Mark, single-file, down the middle of the sidewalk, and was in the process of trying to convince him to come hunting.

"I dunno," Mark stammered. "Hunting? I didn't really think people still did that."

"Course they do! It's the world's oldest hobby. Well, I guess it more started out of necessity, but eventually, it ended up a hobby," said Danny.

Mark walked in front of him, thinking about how Danny was the kind of guy who used words like necessity in everyday sentences. Everything he did seemed easy. He got straight A's, talked to all the girls in school, and could do 100 push-ups in three minutes. Danny's dad, Mark's uncle, worked at the CNSP, or the Center for National Security and Protection, and had some important military job that no one was ever allowed to talk about. At their Sunday dinners, he would use words like confidential and redacted, so in a way, Danny was just like his dad. Mark wondered if he was like his own dad; he hoped not. Mark's dad worked at his high school. Aside from the usual social exclusion that comes from having a teacher for a dad, Mark also dealt with the fact that teachers weren't as valuable after The Uprising. It wasn't unusual for a well-connected kid to swear at a teacher and say there were no better than an Animal, that one day, a machine would be doing his job.

Danny spoke again from behind him: "Look, you just sit in your room every day when we aren't at school. You don't run with us on the weekend, so the only time I ever see you is at Church. I just miss you, cuz."

There was truth to this, but Mark wasn't sure he minded. He thought Church was boring, but he did miss Danny. They were family, after all.

"Okay. Imagine you've got one minute to convince me... Go!" said Mark.

He looked behind him and saw Danny smirk. It was a game they'd been playing for years: Elevator Pitch. They learned about it once from Mark's dad after he'd had a few too many whiskeys. Apparently, in the old days, before the National Security Party took over, people used to actually have to convince other people to buy their business. And they would walk into these huge rooms and make presentations, trying to be as persuasive as possible. They loved it and would sit there for hours, giving each other a minute to convince the other that red was a better colour than blue or that burgers were better than hot dogs.

"Okay. First of all, you have to imagine this: a quiet morning. Out in the forest. The sun is rising, but not out fully. There is that mist that hangs on the horizon. It's peaceful, okay? So you stay there, quiet as you can until the sun comes up. Because that's when the Animals come out. Sometimes. Only if you're lucky. But if one does, you wait until it stops. They can't run for long, you see. And then..." He paused for a moment, stepped outside of the white line on the sidewalk, and mimed holding a rifle on his shoulder and lining up a shot. "You shoot. And hope your aim is true. Because they get spooked, you know. Once they hear the shot. So you only get one shot." He continued walking and froze when he saw a black car coming around a nearby corner. It stopped and the driver's seat window lowered. Danny quickly made his way back to the middle of the sidewalk and the car took off. They continued walking, feeling the exhilaration of a close call. The annoying thing was that they both knew that it wouldn't matter; even if that particular Protector had wanted to write them up, Danny would only have to mention his father's name, and he would be fine.

They walked in silence until they were out of the city and into the Suburbs, a straight road with housing communities on either side of it. Danny, sensing his time running short, tried once more:

"So? What do you think? Just come with me once. If you don't like the quality bonding time with your big cousin, then you'll never have to come again. "

Mark thought about this. He'd wanted to do something interesting for a long time. He just didn't know how to even start. It didn't come naturally to him like it did for Danny. He was an introvert, which was the kind of word that his dad would use in a sentence. Maybe going hunting would make him less like his dad and more like Danny's. Surely, he would get farther in life if that was the case. He stood still and turned behind him.

"Look. I'm just not sure, okay? I don't want to get in trouble. My dad isn't...like your dad. It's against the rules, isn't it? What if a Protector sees us?" Mark asked.

Danny put his hand on his shoulder. "Hey, numbnuts? My dad is your Uncle. Plus, I go early in the morning and take a route that goes along the river and then deep into the forest. Near The Zoo. The Protectors don't really go near the place, anyways. It's usually enough to throw a few scraps of food in there every week."

Mark thought about it again. The Zoo. A place he had only ever heard of. It was where The Animals lived. The NSP wanted to keep them out of the city, something about improving the quality of life for all law-abiding citizens. Whatever that meant. A huge wall, apparently, surrounding it, to keep them from escaping. He sensed Danny's impatience and said: "I dunno."

Danny smiled, a hopeful twinkle still in his eye.

"Well, if you change your mind, I'll be at the river at 5 tomorrow morning. Tons of time to get an hour or two out there and not be late for school. I hope I see you then, cuz!"

With that, Danny walked across the street to his family's housing community, leaving Mark to make his way home and think about what he was going to do.

...

Mark walked into his house and said hello to his parents. His mom was on the couch, watching TV and his dad was at the table marking papers. A glass of whiskey was in his hand. Things had changed after The Uprising: Television, for one, used to be free and unregulated, according to his mom. Now, it only showed approved materials. Lucky for his mom, Jerry Springer was an approved material, so she spent most of her time in front of the screen laughing and yelling, "You filthy Animal!" Lucky for his dad, booze wasn't taken away, as that was all he seemed to do. That, and talk about the book he was supposed to write before that god-damned NSP took over and outlawed publishing new books. His mom would always look at him when he spoke like that, her eyes speaking to how scared she was that someone might overhear them. For these reasons, and more, Mark liked to hang out in his room and draw. He would try and trace the guys from something his dad told him was a comic book; guys that wore weird-looking tights and could fly and had magic powers. He knew they were called superheroes and he thought one day he might be able to make his own.

That afternoon, he lay down in bed and stared at the ceiling. He was sure Danny was just being a good cousin by asking him to come. He sensed some finality in his request, a way of inconspicuously telling him that he couldn't always wait around for him to "get cool" or to "figure it out." He lay in his bed for hours going back and forth over the pros and cons. The worst thing that could happen is that they could be caught outside of city boundaries. Danny's father would have to step in, and there would be some not-so-fun conversations to be had afterward. The best thing that could happen would be that Mark would finally overcome one of his many fears. He felt sick about so many things; breaking the rules, getting bad grades, finding a job that was respectable, and in the very back of his mind, talking to a girl one day. He could see it all, his future, played out in his mind, one success after another, one accomplishment leading to the next, all because he stopped living in fear...If he stopped living like his own dad and started being more like his uncle. It was this thought that sealed the deal for him. A future of early mornings, listening to kids who were connected to the NSP tell him what he could talk about, finding out from the NSP what he actually was allowed to talk about... it just sounded exhausting. Or. Life in the NSP. He had the connections for it. He would just need to get outside of himself a little more. So, he settled it: he would go. Just to try it. After all, if you could eat animal meat, surely you shouldn't mind killing the animal yourself?

...

Mark slapped his alarm off after the first beep. Its infra-red digits read 4:15. He moved through his room slowly, grabbed his bag that he had pre-packed with his school uniform, and made his way quietly down the stairs. After unlocking the door from the inside and locking it again from the outside, he was moving towards the road, his movements bathed in the effulgent moonlight.

The river was located a few kilometers away from The Suburbs and was easy to find if you followed the forest edge. Mark was only worried about the walk to the forest; once he was inside, he knew no one would be watching. If people were roaming around the forest, it probably helped The Protectors more than make their jobs more difficult. Getting lost in the forest would only mean one thing. Once he made it to the forest, he kept close enough to the edge of it to not get lost and was far enough in that he couldn't be seen. After a fair hike, he saw the river, wide and surging, with a solitary figure seated on its bank.

He approached Danny from behind, trying to scare him.

"I hear you coming from a mile away. You're panting like a racehorse. I told you that you should come running with us." He stood and hugged Mark. "Thanks for coming, man. I'm telling you, you aren't going to regret this."

Mark smiled wanly, because, well, everything looks wan in the moonlight, and looked around. Danny was carrying what looked like two long and skinny cases with him. He knelt down and unzipped one, revealing a hunting rifle with a scope, and handed it to Mark.

"Safety's on. Try er' out. Hold it like this."

A short tutorial followed, with Danny playing the patient teacher and Mark the willing student. After a few minutes, Mark knew how to hold and sight something in the distance. They were as ready as they'd ever be.

They waded through the river and continued walking along the forest edge. It was still night, though the sun's first and weakest rays were beginning to push through the inky darkness above them. Mark had been wondering something: "So where do we go? We can't go into the actual Zoo, can we? The walls are too high. And there are guards."

"No, your right: we can't do that. But we can stand near the zoo. See, some of The Animals will escape The Zoo. Happens all the time. The NSP hasn't put any money into it. Just think about The Deep back in the city. Now that's a prison. I think of it this way: The Animals out here, they are a lot like rats in a cage. See, if you put a bunch of rats in a cage, they like it just fine. Because those rat's daddies, and the daddies of those rats, were also all in cages. It's been bred into them. So what happens when you open the cage door? Well, the rats don't run away, do they? They just stay put. It's what they know."

The boys walked along in silence for a minute until Danny continued. "But some of the rats will escape. The ones that aren't like the others. They still have dreams of living in the sewers or whatever. And those are the ones we might see. Those Animals who still remember something about the outside. Those are the ones who find a way out."

By the time they got near The Zoo, the sun was half-risen. Danny told him to lie on his stomach about half a kilometer away from The Zoo. Mark looked at it for the first time: it was a huge structure, about three times the size of the Community center, the place where approved productions and films would be shown on the weekend in the city. The walls were indeed high, and the roof of The Zoo towered above them. Mark wondered how many of The Animals had tried to escape from the roof? That brought on feelings of uncertainty; was he really ready to take another life? On cue, Danny patted him on the back, more gently this time, and whispered: "Dude, if any girls hear about this, you're sooooo going to get laid."

Mark giggled nervously and continued to watch The Zoo. The front gates were barred shut, and as the sun rose higher, he could see it in more detail. The walls were ancient, a type of grey material that he had never seen before, with huge wooden boards spread out between them. The only things that seemed relatively new were the spikes spread evenly throughout the wall. The sun was now up; daylight flooded in around them. Danny made a clicking sound with his teeth and nodded towards The Zoo:

"Get ready," he whispered. "This is when they usually try it. Something about the sun makes them daring."

Mark's body tensed, his finger hovering anxiously over the trigger of the rifle. For how nervous he was, his body was surprisingly calm. A loud thud broke the quiet of the morning. One of the boards landed on the ground, as Mark sensed Danny's body tighten.

"Shit. It's happening. You sure you got this?"

Mark didn't answer. His entire mind was inside of the scope. He had it pointed at the newly created opening and could vaguely see moving shadows inside of The Zoo. Suddenly, something raced out of the hole. It moved quickly, low to the ground and on all fours. He tried to follow it, but it seemed to blur the light around it. He heard Danny whisper: "Just wait. It'll stop."

As predicted, The Animal stopped and stood up on all fours. Mark hovered the sights over it and saw, for the first time, one of The Animals that were being kept in captivity in The Zoo for all of these years. It was a child. A child so dirty that even though its skin was a muddled blend of browns, it was probably white to begin with. A child with a mop of hair and wild, rabid eyes. Its chest was heaving as it tried to catch its breath. The sounds of hooting came from the zoo, but Mark was too focussed to pan the sight back to them. He raised the sight to its head and froze. His finger wouldn't move. Children? They were children? He had been expecting deer, or raccoons or something. And Danny had known this all along? He hadn't told him? But why? Again, on cue- Danny's timing, like everything else in his life, was impeccable, and yes, he was the kind of guy to use a word like impeccable in a sentence- spoke in his ear: "Take it. You know it's their fault, right? They are the reason so many people died during The Uprising. Besides, think how many are in there. What difference is one going to make?"

Mark's mind was going at lightspeed. He was trying to process it all at once, and it was just too much. His sight was still on The Animal, but it seemed to be breathing more normally now. The hoots from The Zoo had become louder. Danny spoke again but Mark didn't hear him this time. Instead, he heard something else: it was the closing of a door. It was him, Mark, closing the door to his parent's house for the last time after he graduated high school and could finally move somewhere. Maybe somewhere interesting like The Stronghold. The sound reverberated throughout his mind and one final thought rose up from the depths of his memory. It was something his dad had told him once: fortune favours the brave. He steadied the sight, took a breath, and squeezed. The sound was so loud that Mark was convinced he had gone deaf. After a few seconds, he knew he was most certainly alive, and not deaf. The child, on the other hand, was most certainly dead. It crumpled and fell, a hand-sized hole in its chest, as the hoots from The Zoo turned to howls. Mark placed the gun on the ground and breathed. Danny stood up, offered him a hand, and they walked onwards to collect their kill.