R. Thomas Riley.
phrenetic (adj): excessively agitated; transported with rage or other violent emotion; wildly excited or active; frantic; frenzied.
"...I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them..."
-Deuteronomy 32:24.
"They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth."
-Jeremiah 16:4.
Part 1.
Maynard Tower 55th Floor.
200 Madison Ave, NYC.
Tammy wasn't even supposed to be at work the day the world went crazy. She was filling in for Kara. Instead of being home, safe and sound, Tammy was holed up in an office on the 55th floor of Maynard Tower.
The sounds of her coworkers being ripped to shreds by the roving mountain lions still echoed through her head. They were sounds she didn't think she would be able to erase from her mind, if she lived long enough for this to become a memory. The slurping, the rending of flesh, the cracking of bones. It had only been a few minutes since the halls went silent, but here in the office, time seemed fluid. How much time had passed? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? What was going on outside the steel emergency door?
The lights went out just a while ago. The sunlight that seeped in through the mesh blinds was quickly fading. Shortly, Tammy would be in complete darkness. That realization was slowly tearing away at the vestiges of her sanity more ferociously than a ravenous cat could destroy her body.
It seemed like it had been days since she'd been sitting behind her desk answering Ulysses Maynard's calls. Days since Eric, from Accounting, came hurtling through the double glass doors in the office foyer. The glass had still been tinkling to the carpet when the massive head of the lion slunk into view. Its snout was covered in blood and gore, but it was its eyes that cemented Tammy to her $3,000 chair. The lion wasn't merely following its hunting instincts; it sought her out with an intensity and hatred that was intelligent, aware. It was enjoying devouring these people. A large pink-red tongue darted from its maw as it glanced down at the pool of glass between it and Tammy. It seemed to consider the shards and knew, sweet Jesus, it knew, if it crossed the threshold its paws would be ripped to ribbons.
It was that hesitation that saved her life. At that moment, an eight-inch thick slab of steel slid up from the floor and slammed into place, protecting her from the cat. The fluorescents dimmed and emergency lights lit the room in an eerie red glow. Across the room, the door to Maynard's office disappeared behind a slab of security steel in the blink of an eye..
Since 9/11, Maynard had been obsessed with security and inevitable terrorist attacks. His office was a fortress. When the workers came to install the panic room-like walls in Ulysses' office she wondered how smart having a room on the top floor of the building was, what if there were an explosion somewhere below? She kept those thoughts to herself. Depending on who you were talking with, Mr. Maynard operated on a level well above or below the normal man.
Tammy practically jumped out of her chair when her cell phone chirped in the silence. She reached over and pulled the phone from her purse, pressed Send. "Hello?"
"Tammy! Are you alright?" Gibson's deep voice pounded her eardrum.
"Uh, yeah, I think so," she managed with a shaky breath.
"The building's locked down," her boyfriend said. He was always stating the obvious. Despite what she'd just witnessed, a small laugh escaped her and she retorted, "Really, Gibson? What happened?"
In the back of her mind it puzzled her that she hadn't told Gibson about the roving mountain lion or that pieces of Eric, from Accounting, were leaking into the Persian rug a few feet from where she sat.
"The lions went crazy," Gibson replied in his calm, no-nonsense way. "One of them just started slamming itself against the atrium glass until it shattered, then they all came through the hole and started mauling the guests in the restaurant. There was this one little girl..." his voice hitched, finally showing some emotion, Gibson took a breath and sighed, "It was terrible. You ok?"
"Yeah, the security doors are shut, along with the windows. What about the rest of the building?"
"Far as I can tell, we're locked up tight all around. Bill, Mary and I are in the storage freezer...barely made it in here; one of those cats came right over the bar at us. Good thing Mary was already in the freezer getting something, else me and Bill would've been cat turds-,"
"You're in the freezer?"
"Um, yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time," Gibson quipped.
"Gibson."
"What? What's wrong, baby?"
Tammy cringed slightly. She'd told him a hundred times she hated being called "baby". She let it slide for the time being. "One of the cats is up here," she said.
"What! You ok?"
"The security doors came up before it could get in."
"Sit tight, Bill and I are going to make our way up to you. Is Maynard in the office today?"
"Yes he is...but...Gibson, there are four lions roving around down there, don't be crazy. I'm safe where I'm at. You guys just need to get out of the building, get animal control and come back. Let the professionals handle it."
Tammy screamed as something slammed into the protective shields behind her.
"Tammy? What's going on?"
"Something's trying to get in through the windows!"
National Zoo Washington, D.C.
"Do you think it's happening everywhere?"
"I'm not going to lie to you, Jody, I hope it isn't, but the way those things...those animals...outside are acting? I don't know. It's unnatural."
A crash sounded below them and the group of kids cringed and held their breath. Curt steeled himself as the kids looked to him for guidance. After a few minutes of silence, they relaxed slightly. After today's events, they would never again fully relax, not after witnessing so much death. The world lost its mind during the last five hours. At least this small part of the world. Curt Monroe wasn't sure what was going on in other places, but he'd seen enough to wonder just how sane the rest of the country was at this point.
He peered into the gloom of the crawlspace and made a decision. "Kids," he whispered. "We need to get moving."
"But where?" Jody Test asked as she stroked eight-year-old Tucker's hair. The boy hadn't said a word since an elephant grabbed his mother and crushed her to death right in front of him. Curt had barely managed to grab the boy from the rampaging elephant's path. It was purely happenstance Curt and his group happened on Tucker. It had seemed natural when Jody had assumed surrogate mother status with the boy. Tucker was sucking on his thumb and staring blankly. The look in Tucker's eyes chilled Curt when he glanced at the boy.
Behind Jody and Tucker, the rest of the kids all stared at him wide-eyed as if he were babbling in some strange language. Elisa's mouth moved frantically as she spelled word after word. Curt realized the spelling kept her calm, but some of the words she chose started concerning him. She'd started with death, spelling every conceivable synonym and now was working her way through antonyms. Beside Elisa Warner, Ronnie Brenner clutched her hand and every so often would gently correct her on a word she misspelled. Curt was concerned about the two, but they were pliable and quiet. He thanked God for small favors, kids were amazing creatures.
Curt and his group of spelling bee students were in town for the National Spelling Bee. They were between events and rather than have them pace the hotel rooms obsessing about words, he decided to take them all to the zoo for some relaxation.
He sighed and watched particles of dust swirl in the air as he formulated an answer to Jody's question. But where? She had a point. They'd retreated to the restaurant at the center of the zoo and barricaded themselves in a ceiling crawlspace as the animals broke free of their cages and went on killing rampages. Easily two hundred people were killed in those first few chaotic minutes when it all started. Many stood staring in disbelief as the myriad types of death stalked them.
Not all the animals escaped their cages and enclosures. The silence outside was perforated with sounds of their struggles to gain freedom. Screams and roars of frustration, mixed with pain, filled the zoo as the animals rammed themselves to bloody pulps against their cages and glass walls. The sounds became so constant they sort of faded into the background, white noise. Curt shuddered as he imagined the monkeys letting other animals out. Thankfully, he hadn't seen that happen, but things could always get worse.
Finally, he said, "I think we need to try and make our way out of the zoo."
"These kids aren't going to make it, and you know it, Mr. Monroe," Jody sighed.
In that moment, she looked much older than her fifteen years. She was right. They'd never make it as a group.
He hated leaving the kids alone but Curt knew he'd make better time on his own. He nodded to himself as he came to his decision. He took Jody's hands in his and waited until she looked him in the eye. "I'm going to try and get help-,"
"But-,"
He gave Jody's hands a warning squeeze and continued, "Keep your voice down. It's the only way. I can move faster on my own."
"What if you don't come back?"
"I will."
"What if you don't?" she insisted. "What happens to us? Do we just sit here and wait for something out there to find us and tear us apart?"
Curt sighed and released her hands. He sat back and rubbed his stubbled cheeks tiredly. "I need to move while there's still daylight. Going out there in the dark is suicide. I promise I will come back for you guys. Here, help me move this ceiling tile, keep them quiet Jody, no matter what you hear, keep them quiet. I'm counting you."
"Ok, Mr. Monroe," Jody said, a slight quiver creeping into her tone.
With a final look around the gloom of the crawlspace, Curt lifted the ceiling panel and dropped to his feet.
Maynard Tower 55th Floor 200 Madison Ave, NYC Billionaire Ulysses Maynard had been called many things since appearing on the business scene in the early 90's, most often, it was eccentric. Who else would build an atrium with mountain lions in it and situate a restaurant around said atrium. It became an immediate success. If visitors wanted more, they could go to the 13th and 14th floors and get a room with grizzly bears.
The bear atrium was on the 13th floor with rooms built above and around. The rooms on the 13th floor had observation one-way windows where guests could sit and watch the bears in action. On the 14th, the rooms featured sections of glass flooring. What every guest got was a once in a lifetime experience, the perfect recreation of a mountain setting, complete with a waterfall and stream.
Maynard Towers was a must see attraction and on the day the world changed it was filled to capacity.
Ulysses was a reclusive man and craved his privacy. The few times he appeared in public were tightly controlled events. He wasn't a complete a recluse but he might as well have been. He had no desire for human interaction unless it served some purpose. In other words, he wasn't one for small talk. His people represented him with clients that required face-to-face meetings. The clients accepted this or they didn't do business with him. Of the few clients that had actually met him, most preferred to deal with him indirectly, privately admitting to being intimidated by him. Maynard conducted the majority of his business through net meetings and conference calls.
The building was his home and sanctuary. He had designed it to be his world-within-the-world. The entire top floor included both his office and home. He had everything he needed to survive, like a fully stocked commissary, and everything he needed to be entertained, like an indoor greenhouse constructed to resemble the deep reaches of an Amazonian jungle.
Camera monitors covered the entire east wall of his penthouse. He had views from every floor and every angle at his fingertips via casino style cameras. He spent the majority of his time in front of the monitors. When the world changed he was focused on a very attractive lady in the restaurant below him. It'd been months since he'd had a woman. At twenty-nine he was among the top eligible bachelors in NYC, but it was hard to find a woman who didn't know that fact and wasn't simply interested in his fortune. His fortune effectively strangled him. Gone were the days when he could haunt the night scene without the morning papers linking him to people that hadn't even been in the same club. Investors were tricky creatures and the slightest infraction could send them running. Maynard was cautious of anyone he hadn't known before his meteoric rise to the top. Sadly, most of the people from his former life turned out to be frauds as well.
Whoever said it was lonely at the top sure as hell knew what they were talking about and the genius that said money can't buy happiness was right on the money, pardon the pun. Sometimes, Ulysses wished he could go back to the way things were before he gained his fortune. Almost wished.
He zoomed in tight on the woman's breasts and sighed in contentment. Without looking he reached over and pressed a button on the panel inlaid in his desk.
"Yes," came a crisp voice.
"Harold, there's a lady in the dining area, table twenty seven, I believe. Check her out, would you, please."
"Very well," the voice replied with military precision. "I'll have your information within the next few minutes, sir."
Maynard sat back and reached for his tumbler of whiskey. The ice tinkled in the silence as he watched the woman delicately wipe some salad dressing from the corner of her mouth. He tapped the keyboard on his lap and the screen pulled back to a bird's eye view. Maynard surveyed his domain.
Without warning the scene before him erupted in chaos. His view was wide pan, and initially, he was unsure what was transpiring in the restaurant below. Patrons fled, as ants stirred from their anthill. He pulled in tight and saw the woman he'd been watching leap to her feet and turn to run. The lion was on her before she was able to take a step. A geyser of blood shot five feet into the air spraying a small child seated at the next table as the mountain lion's paw tore through the woman's jugular. The little boy looked at his blood soaked corn dog in puzzlement. The look on his face was almost comical. His mouth formed a small O as he screamed in terror. The lion turned its attention from the flailing woman to the boy's mother as she desperately tried to shield him.
Maynard watched in stunned disbelief as a second lion hit the mother from behind with such force her neck broke, lolling her head like a rag doll. The boy spilled from her lifeless arms into the gaping maw of the first cat.
He didn't see a third lion head for the elevator that was waiting at the promenade floor. The cat slid through the closing door and a few moments later met Eric, from Accounting.
The security board on Maynard's left lit up like a Lite Brite as the security systems came online. If someone read Maynard's thoughts at that moment they would've come away disgusted. He wasn't worried for the safety of his patrons; he was calculating the cost of keeping their families happy.
National Zoo Washington, D.C.
There was so much noise there was no way for him to know which direction danger might be in. Curt glanced up and offered a "thumbs up" as Jody's face disappeared back into the dark square above his head. A few seconds later, the ceiling tile slid back into place. Jody's fingers were encrusted in dried blood. Curt wondered whose blood it was and shivered. The dainty bloodstained fingers were his last image of the girl. He crouched down and surveyed the interior of the restaurant. The plastic tables were made to look like rough hewn wood, previously used to consume hotdogs, wings, burgers, fries and onion rings, were covered in human entrails and meat. Curt didn't want to begin to guess what the pieces of meat had been. The floor was tacky with blood. His shoes made sucking sounds against the linoleum, causing an unpleasant feeling in his gut.
The plate glass window directly in front of him was still in its frame despite the ragged hole in the center. The glass was spider-webbed from the hole it had sustained. The damage clouded the view from outside as readily as eighty years would an eye.
Satisfied that he was alone, Curt rose to his feet and made his way towards the back of the restaurant to the kitchen area. His plan was to get something sharp, to defend himself. He would've given anything for a huge caliber gun. He found that thought strange as he'd never handled a gun in his life, yet he knew exactly what type of gun he wanted. Leave it to his TV education to give him some comfort. He snorted at the thought. Cautiously, he pushed the door labeled "IN" and poked his head through the narrow gap.
A flurry of movement caught his eye and he quickly let the door swing shut. He slowly backed away from the door and waited in anxious silence to see if he would be found.
Through the door, he heard claws click on the floor. Curt glanced around desperately, looking for a weapon, but saw nothing. He glanced up and behind him considering making a run for the ceiling crawlspace, but immediately shot that idea down. He'd only lead whatever was here to the kids.
He had to do something. The thin crack of light at the bottom of the door darkened as something moved on the other side. The animal snuffed hungrily as it caught Curt's scent. A keen sounded, and was answered. The things on the other side started jostling for position at the door. The door swung only one way, from the dining room into the kitchen. Whatever was on the other side pushed against it and the hinges groaned and creaked under the pressure. A roar erupted on the promenade and echoed through the restaurant.
A thin spattering of dust drifted down from somewhere above his head. Curt looked up and immediately squeezed his eyes shut as the dust assaulted them. He squinted and quickly tried to rub the particles out of his eyes. What he had seen sent ice through his testicles.
"Oh shit," he muttered. He had to get the kids out of here. Right now! Above his head a network of clear pipes were teaming with what looked like rats His mind raced as he realized why there were animals in clear pipes above his head and what it could mean. It was an exhibit of a prairie dog colony, designed so observers could see what a colony looked like.
The rooms of the exhibit gave the illusion of being below ground, with Plexiglas viewing portals allowing visitors to see the complicated tunnels and crannies. It was extremely interesting and, and was made more intriguing by the vastness of the network. The rodents could "stroll" from the main exhibit to the adjacent restaurant via a network of plastic pipes suspended from the ceiling. They crawled above the patron's heads. A kind of rodent superhighway in the sky. When he and the kids retreated to the restaurant the pipes had been empty. He didn't think the prairie dogs could break through the plastic, but their weight was stressing the chains that anchored the pipes to the ceiling. He watched in fascination as he realized the rodents were congregating at precise points in the tubes. The points where the anchoring chains were located. "My God," he whispered. "They're doing it on purpose...they understand..."
The children would be safe from the rodents, but he realized if he didn't get them out quickly, they'd be trapped above. Curt ran over to where he'd dropped from the ceiling and jumped on the table. He tapped on the tile, "Jody!" he hissed. The commotion from the kitchen intensified. The door rattled in its frame as the animals started scratching at it fiercely. The tile moved and he was greeted with Jody's terrified face.
"We need to move...right now," he said. "Get everyone out of there, now."
Jody nodded and disappeared into the darkness of the ceiling. A few seconds later a pair of feet appeared in the opening. "I'm lowering Tucker," Jody's called. Curt grabbed him and gently lowered him to the table. "Stay right there, 'lil guy," he ordered softly. The small boy's eyes bulged as he spied the pipes teeming with rodents.
Across the room one of the chains gave way with a groan. The first section of the pipe swayed free from the chains but remained intact. "Hurry," Curt hissed. The next pair of legs popped out of the ceiling.
A few moments later all the kids were huddled around him. "Ok, we need to stick together," he whispered. "Hold hands and don't let go of each other for anything, ok?"
Curt looked at the entryway to the restaurant. He didn't remember much, but he thought he recalled another building close by. He loathed going outside in daylight, but there wasn't much choice. It was either go outside or face the prairie dogs in the observation pipes and whatever was in the kitchen.
Another of the anchors gave way with a crack.
The pipe dipped lower but held. Curt realized their luck wasn't going to last much longer. The animals in the kitchen now knew meat was just out of their reach and it was working them into frenzy. As he finished the thought that the kitchen door wouldn't hold, a tunnel overhead gave way.
Maynard Tower 55th Floor 200 Madison Ave, NYC It took a few seconds for it to register that what Tammy was hearing wasn't something trying to get in but rather the roar of engines rattling the windows in their frames. "Oh God," she whispered. In the distance she could see the plane growing larger by the second as it approached at a high rate of speed. Smoke was billowing from one of its engines. What gave her pause wasn't the approaching plane, but rather what appeared to be birds purposely flying in the direct path of the disabled plane. There were so many birds they gave the appearance of multi-colored clouds.
She got up from her chair and ran across the office to Maynard's door and pounded on the hard steel. "Mr. Maynard! Mr. Maynard!" She screamed as she pounded. "You have to release the security door. There's a plane coming! Oh God, please, open the door!"
The rumbling intensified. Her desk was vibrating across the plastic carpet protector. Pens in a ceramic coffee cup shook violently as papers began to slide off her desk and flutter to the floor. The plane had to be right outside; the roar was so loud she couldn't hear herself screaming.
Maynard Tower 1st Floor 200 Madison Ave, NYC Gibson hefted the meat cleaver in his hand. The blade was wickedly sharp and gleamed in the frost infused air. Bill wielded a two-prong meat hook.
"Are you sure about this?" Mary asked again. "Maybe we should just stay put, I'm sure someone has called animal control and they're on their way to take care of the cats. We're safer in here..."she trailed off.