Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

Always to save them.

The door to the main tiger enclosure was triple-locked, secured with two keys and a deadbolt. It had always seemed a bit extreme to Cassandra, especially since there was the concern that some zoo visitor—probably a teenager; it was always a teenager, on the news—would climb over the wall and scale the moat in order to try to pet a tiger. The number of locks involved would just keep any zookeeper who saw the incident from getting to the fool in time.

But maybe that, too, was part of the point. All it took was one mauling a decade to keep people out of the enclosures. It could be seen as a necessary sacrifice, letting the animals devour the one for the sake of the many who would be spared.

Even if that was true, Cassandra didn’t want the sacrifice to involve her charges. Let some other zoo pay the price. Her tigers had done nothing wrong. They didn’t deserve to die as an object lesson.

The day had only gotten prettier while she was inside, and stepping into the tiger enclosure—a place where tourists never got to litter, where snotty little children never got to chase the peacocks and squirrels into the trees, where the air smelled of big cat and fresh grass—made everything else seem trivial and small. She paused to take a deep breath, unbothered by the sharp, animal odor of tiger spoor clinging to the rocks. They had to mark their territory somehow.

The smell of rotting flesh assaulted her nostrils. She coughed, choking on her own breath, and clapped a hand over her nose. It wasn’t enough to stop the scent from getting through. Whatever had died here, it had somehow managed to go unnoticed by the groundskeepers long enough to start to truly putrefy, turning the air septic. No wonder the tigers hadn’t wanted to be outside. This was bad enough that she didn’t want to be outside, and her nose was nowhere near as sensitive as theirs.

Hand still clasped over her nose, Cassandra started toward the source of the smell. It seemed to be coming from the moat that encircled the enclosure, keeping the tigers from jumping out. That made a certain amount of sense. Raccoons and opossums could fall down there, and the tigers couldn’t get to them. If it had fallen behind a rock or something, that might even explain how it had gone unnoticed by the groundskeepers. They worked hard and knew their jobs, but they were only human.

So was the source of the smell.

Cassandra stopped at the edge of the moat, eyes going wide and hand slowly dropping from her mouth to dangle by her side as shock overwhelmed revulsion. There was a man at the bottom of the moat.

He wore the plain white attire of the night groundskeepers, who dressed that way to make themselves visible from a distance. He was shambling in loose, uncoordinated circles, bumping against the walls of the moat and reorienting himself, staggering off in the next direction. He must have been drunk, or under the influence of something less than legal, because he didn’t seem to know or care where he was going: he just went, a human pinball, perpetually in motion.

From the way his left arm dangled, Cassandra was willing to bet that it was broken. Maybe he wasn’t drunk. Maybe he was just in shock.

“Hey!” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth to make her voice carry further. “Are you all right down there?”

The man looked up, turning toward the sound of her voice. His face was smeared with long-dried blood. Staring at her, he drew back his lips and snarled before walking into the wall again and again, like he could somehow walk through it to reach her. His gaze never wavered. He didn’t blink.

Cassandra stumbled backward, clasping her hands over her mouth again, this time to stop herself from screaming.

She had been a zookeeper for five years. Before that, she had been a biology student. She had worked with animals for her entire adult life. She knew dead when she saw it.

That man was dead.

“Now Cassandra, be reasonable,” said the zoo administrator. He was a smug, oily man who smiled constantly, like a smile would be enough to chase trouble away. “I believe that something has fallen into the moat of the tiger enclosure, and I’m dispatching a maintenance crew to deal with it, but it’s not a dead man. It’s certainly not a dead man who keeps walking around. Did you get enough sleep last night? Is it possible that this is the stress speaking?”

“I always get enough sleep,” she said, voice tight. “It’s not safe to work with tigers if you’re not sleeping. I slept, I ate, I drank water and coffee with breakfast, and I know what I saw. There’s a man in the moat. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t breathe. He’s dead.”

“But he’s still walking. Cassandra, have you listened to yourself? You have to hear how insane this sounds.”

Cassandra stiffened. “I’m not insane.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t say things that make you sound like you are.” The administrator’s walky-talky crackled. He grabbed it, depressing the button as he brought it to his mouth. “Well? Is everything taken care of?”

“Dan, we’ve got a problem.” The response was faint, and not just because of the walky-talky: the speaker sounded like he was on the verge of passing out. “She was right.”

Dan blanched. “What do you mean, she was right?”

“There’s a man in the moat.”

“A dead man?”

“That’s biologically impossible. He’s up and walking, if non-responsive to questions. Angela thinks it’s Carl from the night crew. She’s going to get his shift supervisor. But he doesn’t answer when we call his name, and he keeps snarling at us when we try to offer down a hook. I don’t think it’s safe for people to approach him. I think he might get violent.”

Dan glared at Cassandra as he asked his next question: “But he’s not dead.”

“That wouldn’t make any sense. Dead men don’t walk.”

“Roger. Deal with it. I’ll order the path shut down. Call me as soon as you know what’s going on.” Dan put the walky-talky aside. “So you were right about the man in the moat. That’s an unexpected twist.”

“Wait.” Cassandra shook her head, staring at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“About what?”

“About shutting the path to the tiger enclosures. People always get around the barricades. They want to see blood. You have to shut down that whole portion of the zoo. Or wait—we haven’t opened yet. Can’t we just… not open? For a little while?”

“Not open. Are you sure that’s what you want to recommend?” Dan stood. “I can keep people away from that area. I can protect the innocent eyes of children. But admission fees are what pay your salary and feed your precious cats. Do you really want to risk that?”

“No,” admitted Cassandra. “But the man in the moat… something’s really wrong with him. We shouldn’t let anyone in until we know what it is.”

“Everything will be fine. Go back to work.” Dan walked to the door and opened it, holding it for her in clear invitation. After a moment’s pause, Cassandra walked out of his office.

The day seemed less beautiful now, tainted somehow, as if the stranger in her moat had cast a pall over the entire sky. Cassandra walked quickly back toward the tigers, intending to help the rescue crew, and paused when she saw a familiar figure staggering across the grass. Michael was walking surprisingly slowly for a man who had never met a path he didn’t want to jog on. He looked sick. Even from a distance, he looked sick.

“Michael?” she called, taking a step in his direction. “Are you all right?”

He turned to fully face her, lips drawing back. Cassandra paused, eyes widening. His eyes… they were like the eyes of the man in the moat.