Night of the Animals by Bill Broun

Author:Bill Broun
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

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CUTHBERT WAS SEVERAL DOZEN YARDS FROM THE big cats area when he was sure that he heard sirens. He could swear, too, there was the man’s voice again, a man calling out. His head was playing tricks on him again, it seemed. He wondered what had happened to the jackals. He feared they would come after the sand cats. And how would he himself handle an encounter with them?

He told Muezza of his concern about the jackals, but Muezza only gave a chirpy chuckle.

“I know jackals,” said Muezza finally, and rather pompously. “They are really just East African foxes. They are harmless to me, inshallah, and thus to you. We can kill them all. But I don’t smell them, not anywhere close. I smell monkeys.”

“I don’t see how that could be true,” said Cuthbert. “I found jackal handiwork close to here. Bit of a scene, really.”

Muezza shook his head, knowingly. “It’s kill-play, brother. Just kill-play.” He swatted out with a splayed paw, as if to demonstrate.

Cuthbert realized he was being preached to in terms that applied strictly to the feline universe. It was as if he were getting swim lessons from a shark. Try as he might, he would always lack gills, fins, and a requisite shark brain.

The cat continued: “It’s the fel, the elephant, you must be careful with. This is known to every animal in the zoo. The jackal is only dangerous if you are young, or sick, or old, and there are more than one of them.”

Cuthbert said, “Is that right? How would you know about elephants?”

“How!” the cat hissed. “All the creatures in the zoo know the elephants. I am surprised you would doubt this!”

“I’m still surprised that you’re talking. So we’re even. I don’t even know if you are real.”

Muezza said, “There are three in the paddock—Layang, Dilberta, and Mahmoud. The one called Mahmoud killed his keeper last year. The zoo tried to say it was an accident, but it was not. It was not, after all, Mahmoud who stepped on his keeper’s head, it was Allah. And that reminds me, it should be said, too, that the maimum, the apes, also, are bad, bad ones. Allah has punished certain men by making them apes and monkeys. They are more a spiritual warning to humans than a physical peril.”

“You like to gab a bit, don’t you?” said Cuthbert. “What’s all this cantin’ business? You should be more careful.”

“Thank you, brother. There is our gossip, of a sort,” said the cat. “We—we imprisoned animals—have little else to do, you see.”

A terrible, high-pitched howl went up, followed by another, then a series of barks.

“That’s them!” said Cuthbert.

“Those are not jackals, I tell you,” said Muezza. “They are monkeys—and they are terrifying. The jackals—I sense they are no longer in the zoo at all. They would have left to enter the city. There is news to spread, after all: you are here.”

The cat raised his snout up, somewhat pridefully. He said, “It may surprise you to learn that we chordates all knew you were coming.

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