Ashton Memorial (24 page)

The kangaroo whined at them. It hunkered
down on its haunches.

“Now,” Angie
whispered.

She pulled Dalton to one side just as the
kangaroo leapt. Its powerful legs carried it past them in a blur of
hair and muscle. It landed, skidding in the wet dirt. It turned and
hunkered down again.

Angie pulled Dalton hard and they ran for
the other side of the enclosure.

They ran, their feet pounding on the wet
ground. Angie was so focused on the sound of the kangaroo racing
along behind them, she didn't see the shape coming in from the
left.

“Mom!” yelled Dalton. “Look
out!”

Angie stopped, skidding in the dirt. Dalton
jerked to a halt next to her. The shape from the left resolved into
a second kangaroo pounding toward them, baring its teeth.

Angie gripped Dalton's arm. She heard the
first kangaroo pounding closer behind them. She saw the second one
draw nearer. They both growled.

Angie pulled Dalton to the
side. She spun around just in time to see the two kangaroos slam
into each other. The first one had built up more speed, and the
force of the impact sent the second one flying backward. It slammed
into an embankment built into the dirt of the exhibit. Its neck
snapped with a sickening “pop.” It slumped, dead.

The first kangaroo turned to Angie and
Dalton. Blood trickled from its nostrils. It lowered its head and
let out the same weird keening growl.

“Mom,” said
Dalton.

The kangaroo lunged at them. Angie dodged,
pulling Dalton with her. Angie spun to face the kangaroo as it
righted itself and turned toward them.

Angie took a step back, pulling Dalton
along. She was afraid to turn her back and run again, but she
couldn't just keep dodging forever.

Dalton reached down and
wrenched a handful of grass out of the dirt. He flung it at the
kangaroo in a gesture Angie would have found comical if she wasn't
so terrified. “Leave us alone!” Dalton yelled.

The clod of grass and dirt hit the kangaroo
in the forehead. It blinked and for a moment was a normal kangaroo
again. It looked the way Angie remembered them looking, when she
showed them to a very small Dalton.

The kangaroo blinked again and feral rage
flooded back into its eyes. It lowered its head and growled. A low,
gurgling sound.

Pounding came from Angie's left. She shot a
quick glance to the side, then locked her eyes back on the kangaroo
crouching in front of her.

“Shit,” she said. A third
kangaroo was coming up from her right. How many did this zoo have?
She couldn't remember.

She still had hold of Dalton's hand. She
ran, pulling him with her, just as the first kangaroo jumped. It
missed them, passing so close Angie felt the warmth of its
breath.

She kept running, hearing the kangaroo land
but not turning to look. Her hand jerked with every other step
Dalton took. Her heart ached for making Dalton run on his wounded
ankle. But he was either struggling not to cry out from the pain,
or too scared to feel it. Either way, Angie knew he couldn't keep
it up for long.

A far-off lamp lit up the rail at the top of
the nearest fence. Angie bore down harder, Dalton keeping pace
beside her. She could hear the kangaroo pounding the ground behind
them. She could hear a second one getting closer, not directly
behind them but coming in from an angle.

The fence came closer.
“Almost there,” she said, panting as the cold mist in the air made
her lungs constrict. Dalton said nothing. He panted with effort
beside her.

Groans came from their front, growing
louder. As they ran, the dim light revealed a mob of corpses
clawing at them from behind the fence.

“Oh no!” said Dalton,
starting to slow down.

“Keep running!” yelled
Angie, pulling his arm and keeping the same pace as before. She
heard how close both kangaroos were behind them. If they slowed
down, even a little, they would be trampled.

The fence loomed in front of them. The
corpses pawed at them, their wet rotten skin smearing across the
glass fence and leaving dark slimy streaks. An idea formed in
Angie's mind. It was crazy, but at the moment, so was
everything.

“Mom!” yelled Dalton, not
slowing down but sounding terrified as the fence drew very
close.

“This'll hurt,” Angie said.
She let go of Dalton's hand and fell sideways onto him. She caught
him mid-air and twisted to land on her shoulder. Pain shot through
her as she rolled across the ground, carrying Dalton with
her.

As she rolled, she saw things in flashes.
The kangaroo that had been right behind them crashed into the glass
fence, blind in its own fury. The thick glass shook from the
impact. The kangaroo fell backward and struggled to right
itself.

Angie slowed and Dalton fell away from her,
rolling a few more feet. The kangaroo stepped back from the fence,
thrashing its head side to side as if trying to clear it.

“Mom!” said Dalton,
climbing to his hands and knees and crawling toward her.

“I'm okay, baby,” said
Angie. She rolled to her stomach and put her palms in the dirt. She
pushed herself up, keeping her eyes on the kangaroo. It staggered
and made that low, keening growl. The corpses just beyond the fence
bit at the air and reached for them. Thick drool ran down the
glass.

She heard Dalton crawl up beside her. In a
few more seconds, Angie knew, the kangaroo would get its bearings
and come at them again. There was no time to climb over the fence,
even if they could find a spot not lined with corpses. They would
have to...

Her thoughts were cut short as a furious
pounding came from behind her. She swallowed hard as panic clenched
her chest. She rolled, knocking Dalton over. He fell to his back,
looking up at her with wide, questioning eyes.

His eyes grew wider as the second kangaroo
barreled past them, missing Angie's side by inches. She felt the
ground shudder as the kangaroo's legs slammed down.

Angie grabbed Dalton's wrist and stood,
pulling him up with her. She saw the second kangaroo turn in a wide
arc. It collided with the first kangaroo, knocking it aside.

“Run,” said Angie, backing
up and pulling Dalton with her.

“Where?” said
Dalton.

“I don't know
yet.”

She turned and ran, switching hands with
Dalton. Guilt scraped at her insides as Dalton limped hurriedly
next to her. She heard the thumping of another kangaroo behind
them, growing louder over the sound of their footfalls.

“Mom,” said Dalton
nervously from beside her.

“I know, I know,” said
Angie. She sucked in painful gulps of cold damp air. She scanned
the back wall of the exhibit as they ran. It was some sort of
faux-rock, made of painted and roughed-up plaster.

She was looking for a gate, or a doorway.
She knew the zoo had both. Doors for the zookeepers to access the
exhibits. Gates that led to the cages where they kept the animals
in bad weather. She'd seen them during the tour she'd paid for
once.

Then she saw it. Set into the fake rock,
almost a foot back to obscure it from the public, was a metal
door.

“There!” she yelled,
wrenching Dalton to one side and rushing toward the door. She heard
the kangaroo race past them as they turned. She didn't dare look
back. From the sound, it was very close, and it would only take
seconds to correct and come back.

The entryway for the door was narrow, only
allowing room for one person. Angie pulled Dalton around until he
was running in front of her. She almost tripped over him but they
both corrected in time to run, single file, into the entryway.

Dalton stopped when he reached the door.
Angie stopped behind him, the wet soles of her shoes skidding on
the concrete floor of the entryway. Dalton pounded on the door.
Angie grabbed the handle and pulled.

It was locked. Two feelings flooded her. One
was a blind outrage at how unfair it was. The other was a bitter
anger toward herself for not realizing the door would be locked. Of
course it would be locked.

“Dammit!” she screamed,
shaking the door so hard Dalton stopped banging and looked up at
her. Set next to the door was some sort of electronic box. A red
light shone from it.
Locked,
read small raised letters on the light. She
slammed her fist against the box. It rattled.

Pounding and snorting came from behind her.
Angie spun in the narrow entryway. She held up her arms at the blur
of the kangaroo rushing toward her. She braced herself for impact,
dimly hoping her body would lessen the blow for Dalton.

The concrete and plaster around her shook as
the kangaroo hit the edges of the entryway. It bounced back a few
feet, snorted and came at them again. It hit the edges, snarling
and screeching at them but unable to fit into the entryway.

“Mom,” said Dalton behind
her.

“It's okay,” said Angie.
Her voice shook as she stepped backward, deeper into the entryway.
She cast a quick glance behind her. A small window was set in the
door. Through it, she saw an office. No cages. The gate to the
cages was somewhere else, with a wider entryway. One of the
kangaroos could have fit there, if she'd chosen the wrong
way.

A loud thump came from in front of her.
Angie turned back. The kangaroo snarled and stomped its feet,
almost frothing in its desperation to get to them.

It rammed against the
entryway again. A loud “crack” rang out. The kangaroo whimpered and
hopped backward. It was off-balance and limping. It whined and
stumbled, snorting fog into the cold mist. It looked at
Angie.

“Please,” she said, bracing
herself against the walls of the entryway. “You're hurting
yourself.”

It snorted at her and
rushed at the entryway again. It was inches away when a second
kangaroo rushed up from behind. In its blind fury to get to Angie
and Dalton, it completely ignored the kangaroo in front of it. Its
shoulder rammed into the back of the first kangaroo, shoving it to
the side. The first kangaroo rammed into the wall alongside the
entryway. The second one tripped over the legs of the first
kangaroo. It crashed to the ground, its head smacking into the dirt
at an angle that made Angie wince. It stood and moved to shake its
head. It whined and stopped, a sharp “pop” coming from its neck.
The first kangaroo tried to right itself and fell into the other
kangaroo.

The two kangaroos fell backward across the
ground, stumbling over each other. They whimpered and snarled.

“Now!” yelled Angie. She
reached back and grabbed Dalton's hand. Pulling him with her, she
ran from the entryway back into the exhibit.

She whipped her head side to side
desperately, clutching Dalton's wrist so tight she was afraid she'd
leave a mark. The injured kangaroos were struggling a few feet
away. Angie heard their broken bones grinding. They growled and
whined. The corpses surrounding the outside fence groaned and
gurgled.

She spun around to face the wall. Several
bumps and ledges had been built into the faux-rock.

“Climb, baby,” said Angie.
She let go of his hand and stepped over to the wall.

“What?” said Dalton,
blinking at her in confusion. The kangaroos groaned and struggled
behind him. Soon they would regain their footing.

“Climb, Dalton!” She
grabbed his hand and pulled him to the wall. He stumbled, wincing.
Angie's heart ached.
Oh god, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry
.

She grabbed Dalton's waist and hoisted him
up to the lowest ledge. He realized what was happening and took
hold of the wall. He started climbing, doing surprisingly well for
an injured child.

Angie followed, climbing up the wall and
trying to ignore the whining snarls of the wounded kangaroos behind
her. Her hands and feet slipped in the cold mist coating the wall,
but she held on. They climbed as fast as they could, moving from
ledge to ledge as they worked their way up the wall.

The wall shuddered as a
loud “whump” echoed through the exhibit. Angie craned her head
around to see one of the kangaroos ramming itself against the wall.
It snarled and hissed up at her. She turned and kept
climbing.

The wall at the back of the exhibit was
taller than the fences along the sides. The wall shook a few more
times as the kangaroo slammed into it. Angie felt the impacts less
and less as she and Dalton climbed.

Soon they reached the top. Dalton was
sitting with one leg on each side of the wall as Angie climbed up
beside him. She sat on the edge and swung her legs out over the far
side. She panted, her sides aching. Dalton panted next to her,
gulping down air.

Angie slowly became aware of all the noise
behind and below them. The kangaroos were growling and snarling
from the exhibit. A mob of corpses grunted and groaned from around
the glass fence.

She turned her head to look around, finally
settling her eyes on Dalton. He panted and looked back at her.

Angie looked down. Thankfully, there were no
corpses down below. Even more thankfully, a ladder was attached to
the wall.

“Hope you liked climbing,”
she said, smirking at him.

He chuckled back at her.

Ten

Maylee ran, her bat clutched in her right
hand. She had no idea where in the zoo they were. The corpses kept
pouring into the zoo, pushing them farther and farther inside.
Periodically she would turn to swing at one with her bat, but Park
or Ella would yell at her to keep running.