James Patterson - Zoo

“How about a weenie roast, boys?” someone says in a falsetto.

Bowen sits Indian-style beside the fire, zeroing out the rear sight of his rifle with an Allen wrench. He wonders if or when he should tell them the real reason they’re here.

Two nights ago there was an incident. A whole cul-de-sac off Cambridge Turnpike was massacred. He’s seen the photos. Some of the scariest shit he ever saw, which was saying something. One of the pictures he’s having trouble getting out of his mind. A little boy on a racecar-shaped bed, entrails ribboned out onto the carpet.

“Wire that shit tight, ladies,” Bowen says, glancing out at the dark beyond the firelight. “I know this is fun, but this ain’t a frat party. This is a military op, so act like it.”

The attack comes a few minutes north of 0130. Bowen wakes to screaming and gunfire. Between three-round bursts comes howling. Guttural, snarling, inhuman noises. Fairy-tale monster-type shit.

“We got a fuckin’ ogre out there?” he shouts, rising to his feet and grabbing his gun in one movement.

If that isn’t bad enough, Bowen hears the whine and tiny crack of bullets singing by his ears.

“Watch your goddamn shooting lanes!” Bowen barks. “Watch your lanes!”

Someone throws a flare. The sudden light throws long shadows high onto the spindly black trunks of the trees.

Some twenty feet away, galloping on all fours up the shore of the creek, are bears. Four of the biggest goddamn brown bears he has ever seen.

Bowen doesn’t think. He yanks an M67 frag grenade from his vest, snaps off the safety clip, fingers the pin, and pulls the grenade away from the pin the way you’re taught to. He holds the grenade for a moment, thumb off the safety spoon, letting it cook.

“Frag out!” Bowen hollers, and dives to one side as he tosses it.

There is a flashing soft thump. Followed by silence.

When someone chucks another flare, they can see that all four bears are down for the count. Off in the darkness, they hear the sound of other bears retreating, their paws splashing in the creek.

Bowen scans his men, does a quick head count. Everyone in the squad present and accounted for. He puts a hand to his chest, feeling his heartbeat hammering bang bang bang against his ribs like a goddamn elf making shoes in somebody’s basement. Bears in the wire? Good holy shit, that was close. This animals-rising-up-against-man bullshit isn’t bullshit after all.

He turns. Out there in the darkness, beyond the firelight and across the water, Captain Bowen can feel eyes on them.

A lot of eyes.

I’D HAD BETTER mornings.

I awoke that day from a dream. Eli and I had been walking through New York’s Museum of Natural History. The light was eerie, watery, pale blue. We stopped before the diorama of the gray wolf. Eli’s favorite. The wolves were posed in midhunt, racing through timberland snowdrifts in pursuit of an elk. This elk was doing it wrong. You get attacked by wolves, you stay still. Stand your ground, you have a chance of surviving. Run, you’re dead. One of the wolves had his jaws clamped on the hind leg of the elk. The wolves’ eyes flashed winter-moonlight yellow, their lips curled back to show their teeth. I held Eli’s hand. Then the wolves came alive, and suddenly there was no glass in the diorama. The wolves spilled from the diorama and were on the floor of the museum in an instant. Eli’s hand slid from mine, and the wolves tore at his throat.

Then my eyes opened. It took me a long moment to realize who I was and where I was. When I realized these things, I wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe dream better dreams.

It was before dawn. I was in the Alphabet City apartment Chloe, Eli, and I had moved into a year ago.

I sat up. I placed a palm on Chloe’s warm, still back, then looked across the dim room into the corner, where Eli slept soundly in his toddler bed, a curled hand clutching his stuffed bunny to his chest.

I wiped sweat from my face. My hand was shaking. My child and my wife. They were both safe. For now.

Since our return from Washington, things had been escalating. Day by day. Exponentially. Strange, extraordinarily violent animal attacks were on the news every evening now, happening everywhere from New Hampshire to New Delhi, from Sweden to Singapore.

There had been several bizarre animal attacks here in New York. Night before last, two kitchen workers in a chic French bistro in the West Village had been found dead. Mysterious circumstances. A Ninth Precinct cop who happened to live in our building had told us what the papers left out—at the government’s request. The men had been killed by rats that had flooded in through the basement. They had been stripped to the bone. No word yet if this would affect their Zagat rating.

It was being called the Worldwide Animal Epidemic, and even my fiercest detractors were admitting that it was the worst global environmental disaster of all time. The phone rang off the hook with reporters asking me to comment, but I was too tired. I didn’t take any pride in being right, in saying I told you so.

I blamed myself, really. I’d had years to prepare, to tell the world, to figure out why it was happening, to try to come up with a solution. I’d failed at all these things. Sitting there, staring at my son, I realized I had completely failed him—my son, my wife, everyone.

“Where’s Eli?” said Chloe.

She sprang upright beside me in bed.

As I rubbed her back, I could feel her heart beating as hard and quickly as mine. Like me, Chloe was torn up inside, worrying about the increasingly bad news and about how we were going to protect ourselves and our son. Paranoia and sleeplessness were our new normal these days.

“He’s okay. Everything’s fine,” I said. I pulled her close.

You know things are getting bad when you find yourself uttering empty platitudes that you don’t even believe yourself.

“What time is it?” Chloe said, her slender olive-skinned arm fumbling for her watch on the bedside table. She was still gorgeous. That didn’t change. “You can’t be late for your meeting.”

I’d gotten a call from the mayor the day before. He wanted a face-to-face. Though the National Guard had been mobilized for the first time since 9/11, the mayor’s assistant said he needed all the advice I could give him on dealing with this wave of animal violence.

“Meeting’s at eight,” I said. “I’m going to get up in a second. How are we on food? I heard the Union Square farmers market is opening back up today.”

Not just attacks but food was becoming a worry now. Some people said farming and trucking were being disrupted out west. There were rumors on the Internet of massive food shortages on Long Island. But no one really knew, or, in any case, no one knew what to do about it. Every day, people fled the city while others seemed to be flocking to it. We were approaching an end-times state of mind.

“We’re still good,” Chloe said. “We’re out of milk, but that grocery store on Avenue A is still open.”

“Fine, but don’t stay outside more than you have to. And take the bear banger.”

In addition to having an alarm installed and gates put on the apartment windows, I’d picked up some bear bangers from a sporting goods store on Broadway. The device looked like a pen but was actually an extremely loud explosive flare used by hikers to fend off wildlife.

I wrenched myself out of bed, gave Chloe a kiss, and headed for the shower.

Checking the locks on the gated window in the bathroom, I remembered the government code name for the environmental disaster, ZOO.

Why? I stood in the shower, letting the hot water roll over my head, staring at the tiles. Why is this happening? What has changed in recent history—what have we got now that wasn’t here before?