That Thing At the Zoo - 01 Read Free Page B

the shots composed with an artistic flair. It was almost as good as being there. The zebra had been flayed just like the lion. Most of its hide was gone. Only tatters of black-and-white-striped skin hung in shreds around hooves, like a cheap zebra costume. The meat of it was clean, shining pinkish gray in the pictures, free of blood. Gashes that looked big enough to stick my hand inside were scattered over the carcass, particularly around the front shoulders and throat area. The same gashes that the lion had.
    There were none of the small piranha bites.
    The gorilla had been left in a similar state from the pictures. The main difference was the condition of the body. The zebra was fairly whole, but the gorilla was mangled like the lion. It looked as if someone had broken every joint and major bone in the monkey before skinning it and tearing it apart.
    The lack of blood bothered me but wasn’t much of a clue, since almost every monster in the world loves the stuff. Yes, I had looked at the photos.
    “I did. What do you think I am dealing with?”
    “Don’t know. It’s something nocturnal. All the animals were killed at night. It may or may not be a flesh eater; I can’t tell from the pictures if the bodies are just mutilated or if there is actual meat missing. I also can’t tell if the wounds were made by tooth or claw. It probably has some limited flight ability or magickal ability. Nothing else explains how there were no tracks and how a five-hundred-pound body got thirty feet up a tree.” She leaned back. I assumed she was looking at another screen with the pictures on it. Knowing Kat she also had other screens running, cross referencing information and data, using her research skills to compile information like magic.
    “It has a thing for blood too. There is none at the scene or on the dead lion.”
    She pondered this information. “Well, your likely candidates are Quetzalcoatl, a gargoyle, a Nosferatu, Spring-heeled Jack, or a pterodactyl.” Kat didn’t smile. She wasn’t joking. Kat never joked.
    “Spring-heeled Jack is still traveling the world with Cirque du Soleil.” I had gotten him that gig. It kept him off the streets and out of trouble. He was actually Spring-heeled Jack Junior and was nothing like the unholy terror his old man was.
    Him, I’d had to kill.
    I ticked off my remaining choices on one hand where she could see over the webcam. “So I am looking at an extinct Aztec winged serpent, a stone guardian of a cathedral, a German strain of vampire that hasn’t been seen since World War II, or a flying dinosaur. Those are my only options?”
    “Or something completely new, but based on the information you have given me; yes.”
    “Well that is extremely helpful.”
    She shrugged. “Not my fault you have shit for information.”
    “Mine either. These people should have called me in when the zebra bit it.” I thought for a minute. Kat waited patiently. I tried to think if there was anything I could tell her that I hadn’t already. Something, anything, that would give me a heads-up on what I was dealing with.
    I came up with jack and shit and jack left town.
    “Okay Kat, triangulate the kill zones and see if you can give me an area to start with and check the crime reports around the first killing.” Her fingers were already typing; I could hear the clicks of her nails on the keyboard. “Look for any sign that this thing was killing humans. It didn’t come from the zoo itself, so it must be an outsider.”
    “No problem.” She was looking down in concentration instead of at the camera, thick blonde ponytail bobbing as she worked. “The zoo is in a sketchy area of town, so it may take me a few minutes.”
    “That’s fine. Put the padre on.” Kat shifted off camera and Father Dominic Boru Mulcahy moved in, blunt face filling the screen. The padre is not a pretty man. His face is heavy and thick, Italian blood competing with Black Irish to give him a bear-trap of a jaw and permanent