Zoo (15 page)

“
What’s happening?”
Victoria cries. She drops to the ground at our feet and tucks her
knees into the skirt of her dress. She’s crying and covering her
ears. I nearly trip over her.

“
Get up.” I knock her with
my heel.

The screams are distant, but getting closer.
They are distinctly female and littered with curses. They’re
approaching from our left, but something else is approaching from
the right. It’s like the sound you would expect to hear from a
large fan or an air conditioner. The trees start to shake. They
rustle and drop pine needles on our heads, like rain showering down
from the clouds. Then it stops. We look up and wait.

The sounds approach again, and then quickly
fade away. They’re circling us as they search for the screaming
woman. I realize we are stuck right in the middle of a collision
course. “We have to get up in the tree! Now!” I shout to my
companions.

“
It’s too high. We can’t
even reach the first limb,” Kale points out the obvious.

I spin around, looking for
something to help us.
My belt!
“We can use the cord. Hurry!”

Kale is the strongest, so he stays on the
ground to hoist each of us up. He launches the rope over a thick
branch and quickly pulls Victoria up to safety. I go next. James is
impatient and climbs—better than I would imagine in cowboy boots—up
the tree, while Kale is doing all the hard work. There’s no time
for Kale to get up the tree. I’m surprised the three of us made it
in time.

Kale throws himself into a nearby bush as a
person bursts into view. His hiding spot is sparsely covered in
tiny green leaves the size of quarters. They barely cover the bush,
much less Kale. I can clearly see that there’s a person hiding in
there, which has me worried for his safety.

Victoria elbows me in the side, so that I
will look down. A shabby woman stealthily weaves through the trees
toward us, but she’s quickly slowing down. She stops under the very
tree we are hiding in and bends over. She’s panting. I can’t tell
where she originally came from by her clothes, because they are too
tattered. But we know she speaks English with a thick accent of
some kind—Australian, maybe.

Now she hears the sound of forced air in the
direction she was headed. She whips her head around as two Keepers
on foot walk up behind her. The woman doesn’t have it in her to run
anymore, as a small flying machine approaches. It quiets down as it
hovers in place, waiting for her submission. The machine looks like
a motorcycle with no wheels, and on its back, it carries a Keeper.
The ragged woman falls to her knees defeated, as the Keepers on
foot approach her.

She spits at their feet and says, “Damn you!
Damn you all!” She’s trying to be strong and emotionless, but her
fear makes its way up her throat. She lets out a heartbreaking
whimper. To make up for it, she adds, “I would do it again.
Anything for a chance out of here.”

One of the Keepers on foot raises a gun and
says, “Well, now you’ve gotten your wish. You’ll be back dying in
whatever hole we found you in. Won’t be long now. Oh and you’re
welcome.” The cruelty drips from his tongue like venom.

The other Keeper laughs at his co-worker’s
cruel joke. Then the Keeper with the gun aims for the woman’s
throat and pulls the trigger. It only takes a second or two for the
woman to fall over. She lies gracefully on the ground with her hair
haloed around her head, and her lifeless eyes stare straight up at
us.

My eyes immediately shift to Kale, who is
still hidden within the scraggly bush. The Keepers thankfully
haven’t noticed him.

I look back toward the horrible scene as a
net falls from the flying motorcycle thing. The two Keepers on foot
toss the woman’s limp body in the net. They fasten it tight.
“Stupid woman,” one of them says. “They should all know better by
now. But it is fun sending them back. The look on their faces when
they wake up is priceless.”

The Keeper on the flying thing says, “Yeah.
That pirate last week was a real hoot. Put up a good chase. Well,
guess I’ll see you two back at the office so we can get her ready
for disposal.” The vehicle lifts a few feet higher in the air and
jets off into the forest with the woman dangling below.

The two Keepers on foot head off in the same
direction, taking their time and talking about their enjoyment of
catching the woman who was just taken. They disgust me. I want to
throw some of these pinecones at their stupid heads, but I stay
silent instead.

When they’re far enough away and we no
longer hear their horrible bragging, Kale helps us descend the tree
one at a time. I’m happy that they didn’t notice him and also that
my cord was already made useful. I wrap it around my waist once
again.

It’s as if we are all in denial as we set
off to the west. No one addresses what we witnessed. No one
attempts to strategize a new plan. We all simply walk in the
direction we were headed in before we saw a woman sentenced to her
death. We’re like zombies—without the cravings for flesh—lurking
through the woods.

RESOURCES

After walking through the dense forest for
about an hour, we stumble upon the first signs of life outside of
the tree line. Upon first glance, I see that the land opens up into
a large meadow and beyond it lays a shallow, green valley with what
looks like several settlements. Rising up beyond the valley is a
low mountain range with a break on the left, revealing a body of
water that goes on as far as the eye can see. The vibrant green of
the grass takes my breath away. I hate that it gives such a false
sense of security.

There are about a dozen or so people
standing around something that we can’t see. More join them and
others leave in all directions. They are all different, wearing the
clothes of many different times and cultures. Some look well fed
and others look like they are starving. I can see the desperation
flooding the faces of the parched and hungry, as they get closer to
the center of the larger group.

The four of us hide behind a thick tree
trunk to assess the situation. The strangers don’t appear to be
dangerous or angry, just tired and hopeless. There is little
conversation among them. As they move around, we can see that they
are pulling water up from a well. One person winds the crank up and
another pours the velvety liquid into a bucket or an animal skin
pouch—like I used to have. They work seamlessly, changing places,
coming and going.

Dehydration has slowly been taking over my
organs and mouth. It pulls me toward the group of desperate
strangers before I know it. Perhaps I am just as moronic as
Victoria in my lapse of good judgment, but everyone seems harmless
enough. It makes my decision easy. The others follow me, choosing
to believe the same.

As we approach, the
strangers stop their seamless activity to watch us. A small child
runs to her mother’s side and hides her face in her flowing gown.
What is a child so young doing here? How horrible.
The mother pats her daughter’s head and keeps a
weary eye on us, as we get closer.

I raise my hands up, showing them that I’m
not armed. Apparently, this is funny, because a man in the back of
the group lets out a hearty laugh. He is lanky with a black
moustache, thinning hair, and wire rimmed spectacles. I’m surprised
such a scrawny man could make such a noise. “They’re new,” he says
in French to the people that surround him. I know this because I’m
fluent in French. Being from Louisiana, my parents thought it was
important to know my culture. So, it was French classes instead of
Spanish, and I’ve never used it in real life until now.

“
Sir, we mean you all no
harm. Could we please have some water?” My French is rusty, but I
manage to string together the two sentences.

He answers in English now, “Girl, you can
have as much water as you want here. This is the only Safe
Zone.”

Kale is at my side now, and I can see his
tattoo creeping out past the edge of his mostly unbuttoned shirt.
It’s warmer here than where we came from, so he’s rolled up his
sleeves and opened the neck of his shirt to cool down a little. He
must be the one that scared the child, and I can tell by the sad
look that passes over his face that he’s come to the same
conclusion. Maybe the girl thinks he has snakes on his skin.
Children can be funny about those things. He tries to smile at the
little girl, but she covers her face with her mother’s tattered
skirt again. Disheartened, Kale turns his attention back to my
conversation with the man who spoke French. “What do you mean by
safe zone?” he asks the man.

The scrawny man sighs and comes a little
closer to our group. The burden of explaining this zoo to us is
aggravating him. He says, “We can’t fight here. Resources are
valuable. It’s not uncommon to die fighting over food. Here in the
safe zone, if we fight, the Keepers immediately sentence us to
death. Everyone here is allowed to drink, but once you cross those
stones you are no longer protected. And I know what you’re thinking
. . . Why don’t we stay inside the circle? That’s not allowed
either. You can come once a day for 15 minutes at a time,” the man
answers Kale matter-of-factly. He seems like the professor
type.

I argue, “But that doesn’t make any sense.
We can kill each other over there, but not here.” I point in and
outside of the stone circle, like these gestures will make the
French speaking man change the rules.

His answer is just, “I don’t make the rules
here. I figure they know everyone needs water to live, and it would
not be in their best interest to have us all dying of thirst. They
get a better show if we are somewhat healthy. Besides, we fight
better when we are healthy. We protect our family and resources
when we are healthy. We keep coming back here for water and doing
it all again, day after day.” He shakes his head. “Best of luck to
you.” The man bends over and hitches a thick tree branch across his
shoulders. It has two full buckets hanging from each end, and they
sway as he walks away from the well. He steps over the border
stones that I failed to notice in my drive to quench my thirst.

I turn to Kale. “What did he mean by ‘they
get a better show?’”

“
Cameras maybe,” he
answers with a shrug.

Victoria surprisingly waits for permission
to advance. “Can we go now? I’m so thirsty.”

The three of us nod in unison, but then I
realize we don’t have buckets or canteens or anything at all to
carry water in. I verbalize my concerns to my companions. “Wait. We
don’t have anything to hold water so we can take some with us.”

James says, “Victoria and
I have boots. They’ll hold water for a little while. You two have
been barefoot this whole time. I’m sure we could manage.” That was
a nice suggestion from James.
Hot and
smart. That’s a good thing.

Displeased, Victoria says,
“No. I am not walking
anywhere
barefoot.”

“
Aren’t you from the wild
west or something? You act like you grew up in a palace with a
silver spoon in your mouth. We’ve been helping you. Now’s your
chance to help us.” I am surprised to hear Kale reach his breaking
point with her. He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but the message
is still effective.

“
Okay. Okay.” Victoria
concedes, flops herself on the ground, and hikes her skirt up. In
doing so, she exposes her white cotton petticoat and bloomers as
she unlaces her brown leather boots. Once she’s pulled them off,
she surprisingly, forcefully hurls one at me.

James turns his back to Victoria as she
accidentally shows her modest undergarments. He’s giving her
privacy, or maybe he’s just watching all the strangers around us,
but Kale—being from our time—doesn’t recognize the few inches of
skin at her ankle and calf as being indecent. He is noticeably
shocked to be called a “Peeping Tom” when Victoria realizes he’s
watching her.

I look down at my own very
exposed legs and wonder what the two of them must think of me. I
must look like a complete whore.
Fabulous.

James’ boots don’t have laces so they are
much easier to take off. He reluctantly hands one over to Kale, who
takes a sniff and wrinkles his nose. “Dude?” he says in
disgust.

“
Let’s try not to think
about it,” I say to him. It’s really hard
not
to think about it
though…

After we wait our turn in line, drink
greedily, and fill our boots with water, we leave the safety of the
circle and step out to face our new world head on.

NOW WHAT?

We stand at the edge of the plateau, looking
down over the green expanse of the valley. My heart swells at the
beauty of it all. There are small mountains rising up from the
bottom of the valley, which give way to a sparkling blue body of
water. In the distance, the sea is rough and the waves crash
against an invisible barrier. Closer to the shore, the waters are
abruptly still and unmoving. The enclosure’s dome must slice
through the water there, blocking us from escape.

Small boats and large ships with massive
sails dot the water, just as three suburban homes (suburban from my
time), a western town, grass huts, and some type of Asian style
building speckle the valley floor. Nestled in the rocky cliffs of
the low mountains is a medieval castle that is scaring the crap out
of me right now. It screams dark ages and death.

My mind has been completely blown. My brain
is on overload. How can all this be? There’s so much beauty and
diversity in one place. “Wow!” My mouth hangs open in awe of the
landscape.