Read Cat People Online

Authors: Gary Brandner

Tags: #Horror

Cat People (9 page)

BOOK: Cat People
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"No, thank you," Irena said. "This is the one I want."

The driver shrugged, took her money, and drove off, shaking his head over some tourists' peculiar ideas of fun.

Irena paid a dollar at the ticket booth and walked through the rusting iron gate into the old zoo. It did not have the open, antiseptic look of more modern establishments, but there was a certain scruffy charm to the place.

The air was cooler in the zoo than out in the city, thanks to the profusion of trees and shrubbery. Irena inhaled deeply, eryoying the raw, wild scent of the animals.

The tourists who wandered about the old zoo were a different breed than the hurrying, anxious crowds that milled up and down Bourbon Street. For the most part they were older, more conservatively dressed, and seemingly under no compulsion to see everything in one day. And there were children here. One group of dark-eyed youngsters was shepherded along by a pair of nuns dressed in the old traditional habit. The children chattered happily in Spanish while the nuns clucked over them.

As Irena strolled past a gift shop near the entrance, an elderly man and woman came out wearing new sun visors that had nicknames stitched on the band.
Deedee
and
Big Sam.
They smiled warmly at Irena. She smiled back, then continued down the path following a sign that read:
Primates.

She passed a large cage where twenty or so South American monkeys clambered about the concrete ledges and swung through the branches of a dead tree. Their bright little eyes watched the people walking by. Irena did not linger. She had never liked monkeys. Their behavior was too much iike that of humans. It embarrassed her. If you stood long enough before a cage full of monkeys you would recognize most of the human foibles. There were the bullies and the cowards, the sneaks and the show-offs. And always there was a forlorn loner, smaller than the rest, that the others picked on. Too much like humans.

Irena walked on until the sound of a voice brought her to a stop in front of a cage containing two orangutans. The voice was coming from a small speaker box in front of the cage, into which a family of tourists had inserted a dime. Irena edged closer to listen.

"... Fewer than three thousand of these playful, intelligent creatures are left in the world today, thanks to the depredations of Man, who continues to destroy their natural habitat."

The voice was that of a young man. The tone had a warmth and sincerity to it that appealed to Irena. She could believe that the speaker truly cared about the animals.

"... The pair you are looking at now, Dante and Josie, were born in captivity. They are products of artificial insemination. This is usually the case today, as civilization does not seem to stir up romantic feelings in the orangutan."

The two adults in the tourist family tittered at this. Irena smiled.

"... The zoo today is like a modern ark. We are fighting to guarantee the survival of the earth's endangered species, and serving when we can as a breeding ground to ensure that our animals will not vanish."

The speaker clicked off and the two orangutans applauded, bringing a laugh from the tourists. Irena continued along the path.

A pair of mandrills, with doglike faces and bright blue rumps, watched her with interest. She passed them without stopping. Also a pair of bored-looking chimpanzees.

At the end of the primate section was the glassed-in reptile house. Irena walked in and joined a group in front of one of the cases to see what the attraction was. Inside a python, twelve feet long and thick as a man's arm, glided toward a white rat that was sitting hunched and paralyzed witb fear. As the snake unhinged its jaws, many of the people watching turned away, shuddering. Irena continued to watch, fascinated, as the python took the rat whole into its mouth and began the undulating process of swallowing it live.

When Irena left the reptile house she stood indecisively for a moment where the path branched off in two directions. Off to her left she could see the bear cages. The heavy animals stood on their hind feet and clowned and waved at the people, begging for peanuts. Bears were the big crowd-pleasers of any zoo.

Irena looked down the branch of the path that went to the right. A few yards along, a sign in the shape of an arrow read:
Big Cats.
And she knew this was why she had come. Ever since she had seen the black leopard on the television news last night, Irena had been drawn here. She could not say exactly why she had to come, but she knew it would have been impossible to stay away.

With no more hesitation she walked down the path toward the cats. The lions were the first she came to. Great shaggy-maned beasts with wide-set amber eyes and placid expressions that revealed nothing of what they were thinking. Irena stopped in front of the cage to admire them. One old male sat on a rock ledge, well above the others. The patriarch. On the floor of the cage a younger male prowled restlessly from one side of the cage to the other and back again. In the jungle he would be nearing the time when he would challenge the older lion for leadership. Four females dozed beside a shallow concrete pool. A pair of cubs batted energetically at each other under the watchful eye of their mother.

Irena moved along to the cage where the tigers were. There were two of them, a male and a female. They padded ceaselessly back and forth, back and forth, moving with a sensual grace. They stopped their pacing when Irena drew near, and turned to look at her.

Irena moved close to the cage. An excitement that was close to sexual welled up inside her. The tigers were both beautiful and frightening, like gods in orange and black. The muscles moved smoothly in their mighty shoulders and haunches.

"Hello," she said softly through the bars. "Hello, my beautiful friends."

The tigers stood motionless a few feet away, watching, waiting.

It seemed to Irena that her senses were more keenly alert than at any time in her life. A powerful feeling of belonging overcame her. It was a feeling she had never known.

Finally she turned away from the tigers and continued along the path. She had not gone far when she spied a small gap in the brush along one side. She investigated and found a narrow trail, faint and partially overgrown, that led away at right angles from the main path. A new scent reached her nostrils, and Irena knew that this was the way she must go.

A short way down the new trail her way was barred by a chain stretched across between two metal posts. A sign hanging from the chain read:

No Admittance
Animal In Quarantine

Without pausing, Irena raised the chain and ducked under it. She followed the narrow trail through a patch of trees. Up ahead she could hear voices. A man was cursing violently. A woman seemed to be trying to calm him. An undertone to the argument was the soft growling of a big cat.

Irena pushed back a last clump of brush and saw the cage about thirty feet away. Beyond it the path led into a small wooded area, then up a grassy slope on the far side to an old brick building. As Irena watched, the man, who was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, headed into the trees. He walked with a stiff and unnatural gait. The woman remained behind, hosing down the floor of the cage. She was careful to direct the stream of water away from the animal inside.

Finally the woman picked up something she had in a plastic bag and followed the man. Irena waited until she saw first the man, then the woman, climb the grassy bank and enter the building. Then she left the concealment of the brush and approached the cage.

Chapter 9

On the far side of the quarantine cage, beyond a dense patch of trees and atop a grassy bank, sat the aged administration building of the New Orleans Zoo. Inside, in a ground-floor laboratory, Oliver Yates was using surgical forceps to assist a poisonous snake in shedding its skin. Oliver plucked gently at the drying husk, taking care not to injure the shiny new skin beneath it.

"Amazing process, isn't it?" he said to the other man in the room. "When they outgrow an old skin they just slough it off, and there's a brand-new one underneath. Sort of like being reborn. It's too bad we humans can't do something like that when our skins outlive their usefulness."

Bronte Judson perched on a stool and carefully kept his eyes averted from what Oliver was doing with the snake. Despite the heat, he wore a three-piece suit, with a necktie severely knotted at the collar of his white shirt. To Judson's way of thinking, the title of Chief Administrator required him to maintain a certain formality.

"Never mind the snake," Judson said. "We've got to make a decision soon about what to do with the black leopard."

"What's to decide?" Oliver said, without looking up from the shedding snake. "Once he's out of quarantine, providing nobody claims him, we free up one of our other exhibits, give him some space to move around, and we've got ourselves a new attraction that didn't cost us a dime."

"Isn't it possible that he's dangerous?"

Oliver put down the forceps and turned to face the administrator. "Dangerous? Hell, yes, he's dangerous. They're all dangerous. What do you think we're running here, a puppy farm?"

"I know, I know," Judson said, "but this one seems ... different. I had a look at him this morning, and I tell you that animal scared me, even with the steel bars between us. He doesn't act like the other cats."

"There
is
something about him," Oliver admitted. "His behavior doesn't fit the normal patterns. That's one reason I wired Dr. Fritch in San Francisco to come down and have a look at him."

"San Francisco?" Judson's voice cracked.

"That's right. Fritch is the best big-cat man in the country."

"But San Francisco! What's that going to cost us?"

"Who knows?" Oliver said. "That's your department. You're the money man, I'm the animal man."

"Damn it, Oliver, you know the trouble we've been having getting any funds out of the city. They want to close this place down and give all the money to Audubon. How am I supposed to justify the expense of bringing a cat doctor all the way out here from California?"

"Don't tell them what it's for. Juggle the accounts around to absorb the expense somewhere else."

Judson shook his head sadly. "Oliver, Oliver, you just don't understand the fiscal problems in running a zoo today. Or the politics involved either, for that matter."

"I understand this much—flying Fritch out here will cost us a whole lot less than buying our own leopard would."

"Who says we need a leopard? We've done just fine without a black leopard so far. Why do we want one now?"

"Because he's here, Bronte," Oliver said patiently. "Whether we want a black leopard or not, we've got one, and it's our responsibility to take care of him. Have you any other suggestions?"

Judson seemed to look at something off in a corner. We could euthanize it."

"Kill him? Are you serious?"

Judson forced his gaze back up to meet Oliver's. "It might be the best solution all around."

'Tell me how it's best for the leopard."

The administrator pursed his lips. "I think you're getting a Dr. Doolittle complex. Let me remind you that this is a zoo, not a shelter for homeless animals. The city expects us to turn a profit here, however small, and your salary and mine depend on that. The animals are, in a sense, our product. They are not our family."

"I will not consider euthanasia of the leopard," Oliver said adamantly.

"Can't we at least discuss it?"

"No, we cannot. These animals are not television sets or boxes of oatmeal. They are living, breathing creatures." Oliver's voice rose as he warmed to his subject. "We brought them here, we have a responsibility to them. It's because of men that they aren't living free in their natural surroundings. Men destroy their environment, then bring them here and put them in cages for other men to look at. It's up to people like you and me to make it as comfortable for these captive creatures as we possibly can. If one of them doesn't act just exactly the way we think he should, we don't shoot him full of poison, we try to find out what's bothering him, and help him."

"Oliver, I—" Judson began.

Oliver ignored him and plowed on. "What the hell do you think I do this for? The money? I've got offers from four universities in this country and one in Mexico City. Any one of them would start me out at twice what I'm making here. I'll tell you why I stay at this relic of a zoo, I stay because the animal here need somebody who cares about them.
I
care about them. That's my job."

Bronte Judson held up his hands in surrender. "All right, Oliver, enough. You've made your point. Go ahead and bring out this California doctor for your leopard. I'll see what I can do about squeezing a few more dollars out of the city fathers. After all, that's
my
job."

Oliver relaxed slowly and grinned at the administrator. "Bronte, underneath that skinflint exterior, I believe you might have a heart after all."

"Don't count on it," Judson said. "I just know when I've been out-talked."

The door to the laboratory burst open, startling both men, and Joe Creigh stumbled in. His face was a mask of disgust. He held his hands awkwardly away from his body. The T-shirt and jeans he wore were covered with a thick fluid full of pulpy lumps. A sickly, sour odor came into the lab with him.

"What happened to you?" Oliver said.

"The sonofabitch puked on me."

"The leopard?"

"Who the hell do you think?"

"What were you doing in the cage?"

"He looked half asleep. I was just trying to get a vitamin pill down him and the sonofabitch puked all over me."

"I told you to let me handle the medication on that cat," Oliver said.

"Believe me, you can handle it from now on," Joe said with feeling. "Black sonofabitch puked on me."

Bronte Judson edged over next to an open window. "Do you suppose he could go somewhere and change those clothes?"

"Go on down to the locker room and shower," Oliver told the young man. "You'll find a pair of coveralls down there you can put on."

"The sonofabitch—"

BOOK: Cat People
3Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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