Somewhere on the surface of her brain, she registered thefact that the world and society could be fading away while she sat in the zoo.But that was a secondary concern. Humans were such ugly creatures, and there werealready so many of them. In here, she had creatures who were quite literallygoing extinct because of humanity. She thought of the Amur tigers in theirenclosure, of which there were now less than 400 in the wild. If man were todie, that was sad on some level. But if those tigers should die, that would bea loss that she couldn't live with. There were billions of humans... far toomany for the planet to support. Maybe now the animals would have a chance.
At that moment, Lila broke free of society. She brokefree of the rules that bound her. This was her zoo now. She would protect itand shelter the animals there for as long as she could. Any human that cameonto her property would be considered an enemy. That would include any sort oflaw enforcement. If they planned on arresting her, they would be jeopardizingthe lives of every animal in the park... and that couldn't happen.
Chapter 15: Don't Feed the Bears
It was indeed a lion. The survivors stood still, theirheavy breathing filling the confines of the tunnel along with the battering ofthe dead inside another train in front of them. The lion watched them warily,its ears twitching from the noise that filled the passage. In the light fromtheir flashlights, it yawned and then turned around. Its massive paws paddedslowly along the floor, and they stood still, not daring to move, not daring tomake a sound.
With a quick bunching of its back legs, the lion leapedfrom the floor of the tunnel and onto the train's platform. A faint hint ofdaylight filtered in from somewhere, and they watched as the lion disappeared.
"Holy fuck," Katie said, her breath explodingfrom her. "What the fuck was that?"
"That was a lion," Joan said. "It musthave escaped from the zoo."
Clara put her hand to her head and closed her eyes."Great. That's just what we need. Wild animals to fend off as well."
Mort's voice cut through the darkness, "Least itdidn't eat nobody. That's something."
"Everybody be ready," Lou said. "We gotmore in that train. We get past that, and then we can walk right intoBeaverton."
"Sounds good to me," Katie said.
They inched forward, shining their light in the tunnel.Body parts lay strewn all about on the platform to their right. To their left,the train rocked with the motion of the dead inside... another train, anothergroup of dead trapped forever. Why didn't they just open the emergency door?Katie wondered.
Before she could figure it out, she heard something shedidn't like underneath the pounding of the dead. It was a faint sound, as ofcracking glass. She shined her flashlight in the windows of the train, and thenshe saw it... cracks spiderwebbing across the surface of one of the windows.
"We've got a problem..." she began to say, butthen the window fell completely out of the train and slammed to the ground. Thecracking sound continued as another window fell out. The beams of their flashlightswandered across the train. Bodies began to spill clumsily out of the train andonto the concrete platform of the station. Ahead of them, the dead began to getto their feet.
"They don't make 'em like they used to," Blakesaid.
Seeing that they were trapped with the dead in front ofthem, and who knew how many trailing behind them, they only had one option."This way," Katie yelled as she ran towards the stairs that led up tothe surface.
Clara stepped over severed arms and legs, the ends roughand shredded as if a wild animal had torn them apart. She spotted a head in thecorner blinking at her. As she emerged into daylight, she put her hand up toher eyes to shield herself from the bright sun. Clara caught sight of the lion disappearinginto the woods. Behind her she heard a strange noise, it was indescribable, butit spoke of warning. She turned to see an ape of some sort perching on top of thebuilding that housed the MAX station. Its face featured distinctive blue andred markings, and it had the look of something that didn't much care for herpresence.
She stepped out into the road that led past the MAXstation and into the zoo. The streets were strewn with pieces of bodies, and asthe others emerged from the underground stairwell, a great trumpeting soundedfrom the forest. "What the hell is going on?" Clara said aloud.
****
It had been a week since Lila had discovered that theworld was falling apart. She sat on the roof of the gift shop, enjoying thewarmth of the day. She held the rifle in her hands. Her work here was done. Herheart was broken. The amount of animals that had died under her watch wasdevastating. She thought of the snakes she had let die, simply because this wasnot their environment. Unleashing poisonous snakes into the wild would be asirresponsible an act as any one person could manage, an act of ecologicalterrorism.
But the other big animals... they were loose now. She haddevised the plan of release on the third day, after killing the infected man.She had first-released the non-predatory animals in the hopes that they wouldleave their homes and journey somewhere far away from the remaining predatorsin the zoo. A few marsupials, some vegetation eating apes, and more had beenreleased into the environment.
She hoped they didn't wind up as food for the dead thatseemed to roam the land. The plumes of smoke from the city had become more andmore pronounced, until a haze seemed to hang over the entire zoo.
Opening the enclosures had been the easy part. Chasingthe denizens out had been a little more dangerous, but she had managed the job.The aviary had been the most difficult part. The aviary was a bright, roundbuilding with glass windows all around.
