Gary Braunbeck - Keepers

The animals had been sleeping, but stirred awake when we entered. The sheep bleated and the pigs snorted, both sounding almost human, and circled their small pens. I’d never been so close to either sheep or pigs before, and they seemed enormous, like creatures that the scientist experimented on before accidentally creating a giant spider that broke loose and did all sorts of yeechy things.

Pigs have very human eyes, blue, with round pupils. After staring at you they’ll look away and you can see the whites of their eyes. Something about the pigs and the sheep seemed wrong to me, and I didn’t want to get any closer to them.

The three of us just stood there in the doorway. I remember that things were said, but exactly what and to whom I can’t remember. We’d come this far, we’d survived the Descent into Darkness and the Hallway of Frozen Ghosts and wouldn’t turn back until we had something to show for it.

A tough bunch, us.

As the sheep paced around I saw that sections of fleece had been shaved away in squares for recently sutured incisions. One of them had what looked like a plastic bag sewn to its side. It was filled with something thick and dark and swirling with small chunks. I turned away.

We moved on to the next room, where dogs had started barking. Half a dozen of them in large cages greeted us joyously as we entered. One of them looked sad and sick and ignored us, but the rest pushed all their weight against the bars as we approached.

As I neared the first one’s cage, however, he stopped barking and growled at me. Beth heard this and warned me not to get any closer to the dogs, most of whom looked desperate for attention-just a rub, a touch, a sniff of your hand so I can lick it, please, oh, please-please-please.

At that moment I both loved and despised them, with their shrill yelps and wagging tails and bright eyes. Sorrow and discouragement soaked the room in those loud cries, pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I was overwhelmed. On each cage door was a chart with handwritten details about the dog, filled with alien words and baffling mathematical and chemical symbols. Instead of water dishes they had bottles attached to the cages with tubes they could lick, giant versions of the ones used by the gerbils at school. Despite the warnings and my own confused feelings, I decided to let one of the dogs lick my fingers through the bars. I knew it wouldn’t bite me; it seemed far too lonely.

It was friendly and warm and I just wanted to open the door and take it back to my room. I took a chance and pushed my hand a little farther into the cage so I could scratch the back of its neck. There was a light-blue plastic tag attached to the back of its ear. I bent its ear down, gently, and saw the tag had only three words on it: PROPERTY OF KEEPERS. Below that was a series of numbers. I pulled my hand out and looked back at the silent dog. It was staring at me, unblinking, as if it either recognized me or was waiting for me to figure something out. I smiled at it, feeling sorry for the poor thing, and took a step toward it.

It shook its head back and forth, once, quickly: an emphatic no.

Beth and the orderly didn’t seem to have noticed, so maybe I’d imagined it. Shaking your head no like that was something people did-mostly parents and teachers when they didn’t want you to accidentally have fun; cold stare, tight lips, head back and forth once and once only: No, absolutely not.

I took another step toward the silent dog. This time I watched carefully. This time I did not imagine it. This time it definitely looked at me and shook its head No!

I remained still, then mouthed the word Why?

The dog looked away from me for a moment, making certain that no one else was watching, then with its front left paw reached up and bent forward its left ear, holding it like that so I could see the plastic tag: PROPERTY OF KEEPERS.

A sense of adventure almost emerged for a few seconds. I knew what was really going on here. They were making the animals smarter, smarter maybe than people, and this dog was trying to let me in on the secret. Maybe because the animals were planning a revolt and would need human friends once they were outside and free? Could that be it? I started to mouth the question but then my silent conspirator blinked, suddenly just a dog again, twisted around, lifted its legs, and began licking itself down there.

Beth’s hand on my shoulder nearly caused me to shriek. “Hey, don’t wander off on me, okay? I’d be pretty lonely if I lost you.” Even as a child of ten-okay, okay, nine -I could’ve swum a hundred raging rivers on the memory of those words.

The next room was lined with cages.

The wall directly across from the door was filled with cages containing white mice, and to the right was an entire wall of cats, cage after cage stacked on top of each other. I’d never seen so many cats in one place, yet it was so quiet. The cats crouched in their cages and stared at us. As we got closer, some of them came up to the bars on their cages and rubbed against them, opening their mouths soundlessly.

“Why are they so quiet?” I asked Beth.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, shit-I do!” said the orderly, proud of himself.

He went over to one of the cages and worked the door open with a paper clip he took from his pocket, then pulled out one of the cats-a brown Tom-and brought it over to us.

“Look here,” he said, grabbing its head none-too-gently and pulling it back.

The fur underneath its neck had been shaved all the way across, and running through the middle of the pink skin was a long scar.

“What happened to it?” said Beth, sounding as if she were going to cry.

“You think the folks who work here want to listen to bunch of goddamn cats yowling all day long?” said the orderly, throwing the cat back into its cage and closing the door. “You get this many cats, you cut their vocal cords so they don’t make any noise.”

“That’s terrible,” said Beth, and I could tell she was trying to hold off the tears.

The cats had the same type of water bottles and charts as the dogs, but their cages were much, much smaller. A lot of them had matchbox-sized rectangles with electrical wires implanted in their skulls. The skin of their exposed scalps was crusty and red where it joined the metal. There were plastic blue tags attached to the backs of their ears, as well, only these were much smaller than those worn by the dogs. It didn’t matter; I already knew what they all said.

I gripped my IV pole with all my strength. I looked at all the tubes and wires running into the silent cats, then at the thin clear tube running from the IV bottle down into my arm. I think that was the first time in my life when I realized that, eventually, all of us will be put in a situation where we will be treated as something less than human.

Welcome to puberty, you dumb dork.

One of the cats gently swatted at my hand through a space between the bars, working its mouth as if begging to be petted. I remember how wide its open mouth was, how dark, how if you looked into it long enough you might fall in and be swallowed and then both of you would be quiet forever, never able to ask anyone for a hug or food or to refill the water bottle. I squeezed its paw and quickly let go.

There was the sound of monkeys in the next room, but I wanted to leave. I was scared and sad and my stitches were hurting.

“You bet we’re leaving,” said Beth, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking at the orderly. “Well?”

“Well, nothing,” he said. “You two pussies can leave if you want, but I’m gonna go look at the monkeys. I hear they’re doing some really weird shit with them.”

Beth glared at him. “How are we supposed to find our way back?”