Bill Broun - Night of the Animals

She reached then into her own pocket, and pulled out her old pearl rosary. It was her own most precious possession, and she hung it around St. Cuthbert’s neck.

“There,” she said. “Now you’re a proper apostle, aren’t you?”

She wanted now, dreadfully, to believe this homeless man might somehow be connected to her in a more direct way. And if she couldn’t be “Drystan” or an Otter Messiah, couldn’t she, perhaps, be the lonely granddaughter of the poetical drunkard who had spent a night with her grandmother, and vanished from her and her mother’s lives, so long ago? Could that not be what drew her toward him tonight? Might this peculiar ancient sot not be her grandfather? Was it so impossible? In his state of inebriation and need, she observed, he seemed content to let such questions live in golden unanswerability. But she reckoned she would need more of an answer.

“Why did yow come here?” he asked her.

“To help you, I suppose,” said Astrid. “And maybe for another reason. I don’t know. You have caused an awful load of worry for many people, you know, Mr. Handley.” She put her arm over his shoulder to steady him, and unusually for him, he didn’t fight it. “Do you understand that. Cuthbert?”

Just as the old man seemed poised to answer, an orange-freq unexpectedly flashed across Astrid’s corneas, its flames whipping up in the purple-yellows of a gas fire.

Eep, eep, eep, eep! Zunga-gunga-gunga!

“Fuck!” she said, squeezing her eyes shut.

Astrid read the text. Special notice: Detention and suspension order. RPC Inspector Astrid Sullivan, white female, aged 32, 5'10". Please detain. Considered armed and possibly dangerous. Caution. Possible tie to terrorists.

It felt like a punch in the stomach. Her career, now, was ruined. The orange-freq would have been seen by every law enforcement officer in Greater London.

“Am I. in trouble?” asked Cuthbert. “For trespass? And. quite a few other. things?”

Astrid touched her eyebrows and switched off all freqs.

“Let’s not worry about any of that for now, Cuthbert.”

“But I’m not finished here. Nor are you. Really, you must get down to Grosvenor. Are you nicking me then?”

“Well, no,” she said. “I don’t think that’s quite appropriate.”

At that, the lion Arfur growled with approval.

“We need to get you to a safe place,” she said.

“A’am safe,” said St. Cuthbert. “ Yow’ve come. But the animals of the world are not. Please — go to Grosvenor Square. I don’t need yow— thay do.”

There was some movement in the same spot in the hedges where Astrid had come through, and a new figure came strolling from the shrubbery. He wore a dark orange dashar *on his head. He ducked through the branches, lifting them very high, and looking back a few times as he walked toward them, as if trying to verify that he had indeed just crossed the zoo’s fence. He grimaced at St. Cuthbert and Astrid. It was none other than Dr. Sarbjinder Bajwa.

“Cuthbert!” he called. “You. it’s you!”

It had been only a few weeks since St. Cuthbert had seen Dr. Bajwa, but the doctor looked noticeably thinner and less muscular. It was obvious that his cancer had worsened. There were no magic cures. His eyes were sunken, and there was a pastiness about his clove-colored skin. He wore a curved little kirpan, or ceremonial dagger, on his belt in a scabbard gleaming with purple and green garnets. In fact, he’d just come from his brother’s wedding celebration, where the guests had reveled late into the night.

At least a dozen more constables and Met firearms specialists, tigered in green and black TotalCamou™ suits, filtered out from the shrubs near the fence. They were hard to make out, presenting a visual facsimile of everything directly behind them (in this case, murky foliage). They carried glossy-white tactical autozingers as well as scoped neuralzinger rifles, both of which obviated TotalCamou’s effects. (Indeed, the strange sight of guns apparently floating through the air by invisible beings tended to draw attention.)

“Let’s stop this, Cuddy,” Dr. Bajwa said to his old patient. “Please. I have some — some rather extraordinary news, but it. it will take your cooperation, Cuddy.” He bowed very subtly toward Astrid. It was clear they didn’t know one another, but the doctor must have heard about Astrid’s gambit.

“Officer,” he said.

“Doctor. Bajwa, I presume? You’re the flying GP?”

“Right. I suppose I am. It’s just a hobby. I’m. I’m here. to help? If I can?”

“See, Cuthbert,” said Astrid. “We’re all here to get you help.”

“Cuddy, oh,” said Dr. Bajwa. “I was so worried.” He leaned toward St. Cuthbert, who moved closer to the ledge above the lion pit.

“Lad, please. Can we move away from the edge a bit? Are you all right? You’ve been hurt. There’s blood. On your face, Cuddy. Looks like you’ve been in the wars.”

St. Cuthbert nodded, but he didn’t betray any real appreciation of the words. He said, “Baj — here he is — Drystan. I tell you, this constable woman. She’s Drystan.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, humoring him. “You must listen to me, Cuddy. Listen : that NHS psychiatrist who tested you. Dr. Reece? His recommendations have all been rescinded. He was bloody overruled somehow.” He squinted at St. Cuthbert, as if waiting for a reaction. “I don’t know why. It’s unusual. But it means. it means, it means you can go back to your flat.”

The doctor looked around, as though fearful of a tiger springing down from a tree. “After this, er, incident has been cleared up. You can live at home. And come see me. You don’t need to run, Cuddy. You don’t need to be afraid.”

“But I’m not afraid,” said St. Cuthbert. “Not one little bit. Not for meself, anyway.” It wasn’t quite the truth. He feared death, and he feared Flōt withdrawal, but he feared more the annihilation of all he held dear.

St. Cuthbert turned and said to the inspector: “We and those who know must stop the Neuters. They’re already mixed in with us. I’ve seen a few in the zoo. The lions and the otters say I must make a sacrifice. For the souls of all animals. Or the Neuters will have them.”

“The who?” she asked. She shrugged toward Dr. Bajwa, and he shook his head.

“What’s this ‘Neuters,’ Cuddy?” The doctor smiled cordially. “What do you mean by that? When did that start?”

“The invaders — from outer space. The Luciferians. The animals ’av warned me all about them. They are opening a giant Gate to death. The lions understand. And there’s a little sand cat around here. He understands, too.” He pointed his thumb toward Astrid. “And Drystan does.”

There was a long silence. Astrid motioned with her hand for the camouflaged men with hovering neuralzingers to stay back.

Dr. Bajwa finally said, “Cuddy. Come with me. I will take you to hospital. You need to be seen to, my friend. At the very least, we need to get away from here. The animals, they’re everywhere, they said. You could be hurt. Please, my friend. I care about you, my friend.”

“It’s good advice,” said Astrid.

“I don’t understand,” said St. Cuthbert, pursing his lips. “You talk as if you don’t know a single thing about the Luciferian plan— thay aim to do in all the animals on earth. You’re the one we’ve all been waiting for.”

The officer and the physician shook their heads, wearing a similar pitying expression.

“It’s the Flōt, Cuthbert,” said Dr. Bajwa. “You’ve got hallucinosis, my friend. We can get help — at the hospital. We don’t hear lions speaking with words. We don’t hear otters. We don’t hear little cats. We’re not awaiting anyone. All we hear is a man desperately in need of looking after. A man almost destroyed by Flōt.”