Zoonami Read online

  Published by StrangeHouse Books

  (an imprint of Rooster Republic Press LLC)

  Copyright © Adam Millard

  Cover Design by D.F. Noble and Nicholas Day

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Printed in the USA.

  StrangeHouse Books Catalog:

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  Tales of Questionable Taste by John Bruni (stories)

  Zombie! Zombie! Brain Bang! A Strange Anthology

  Strange Vs Lovecraft: A Strange Anthology

  Dinner at the Vomitropolis by Jesse Wheeler

  Alien Smut Peddlers from the Future by Kent Hill

  Damnation 101 by Kevin Sweeney

  A Very Strangehouse Christmas: A Strange Anthology

  Re-Animated States of America by Craig Mullins and Andrew Ozkenel (stories)

  Strange Fucking Stories: A Strange Anthology

  Hamsterdamned! by Adam Millard

  Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.” Jack Hanna

  “Mother Nature is not sweet.” John Shelby Spong

  “You can take the lesser-spotted cock-womble out of its cage, but you can’t take the cage out of the lesser-spotted cock-womble.” Anon (in other words, nobody famous)

  1

  Roger Whipsnade didn’t like the way the Humboldt penguin looked at him. From its eyes, he deduced it wanted one of two things. Either it wanted to kill him, perhaps feed his giblets to the younger Humboldts, or it wanted to fuck him, after getting one of the other penguins to film it so they could all gather round and watch it on YouTube later on. Perhaps he was mistaking its stare, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He filled the trays with sardines and got the hell out of there.

  “Still scared of the penguins, huh?”

  Roger turned to find Brandie Stroman observing him from across the path. Beautiful wasn’t the word. In fact, he didn’t think there was a word for Brandie Stroman. She was five foot two of delectable brunette. Even in her ghastly green zoo uniform, she looked gorgeous, which was more than could be said for Roger, who looked like something that sprouted in the springtime.

  “Oh, er, I just didn’t like the way it was looking at me.” As chat-up lines went, it was piss-poor, right up there with “Get in the van,” and “Do you like Rod Stewart, too?”

  Brandie smiled, and it was genuine. That was the thing about Brandie Stroman; she didn’t have a bad bone in her body. At least not yet, Roger thought, and then quickly expunged it from his memory.

  “I don’t know much about penguins,” Brandie said, stepping closer to the enclosure, “but I’m pretty sure no one ever got killed to death by one.”

  As curator of the primates, Brandie Stroman knew nothing at all about penguins, but Roger discerned that she was right. Sure, you might get pecked in the nuts or tripped over by their waddling feet, but you were more likely to be eaten by a gerbil than you were a penguin. Roger was too ashamed to ask if Brandie knew anything about interspecies buggery and changed the subject mighty fast.

  “So what brings you away from your monkeys?” A slightly better chat-up line, Roger thought, but still nowhere near good enough to make her knickers magically fall down, which wouldn’t be good anyway, not with that penguin staring at them through the glass and licking its lips.

  “Actually, I’m here for you.” The smile dropped from her face like an anvil, leaving her looking more contemplative than a fat man at a buffet.

  Roger grinned. “Really? Here for me? Oh, I never thought this day would come.” Why was she not as excited by their newly-established love for one another as he was? Ah, and now she’s frowning because she’s not here to ask you out, you plum. “Chinn sent you, didn’t he?”

  Brandie nodded. “And he sounded pissed. You didn’t forget to feed the caimans again, did you?”

  Roger cast his mind back to that morning. He’d definitely mucked out the Galapagos tortoises, which were right next to the caimans. Only a fool would have forgotten to feed them. “I think I forgot to feed them again,” he said, gritting his teeth. Chinn was going to kill him, or at least give him a verbal warning. In baseball terms, he was on strike five.

  “Oh, Roger!” She sounded concerned. It was almost as if she knew the ice upon which her colleague walked was thinner than the pope’s little black book.

  “I know, my fault, but Chinn’s had it in for me ever since I started here. He looks forward to me fucking up just so he can yell at me. Do you know how difficult it is to keep a straight face when that toupee of his starts flapping about?”

  Brandie shook her head.

  “Well, it’s damn hard. Like watching a wombat swim.”

  “I think he’s just looking for someone to take his stress out on,” Brandie said, as if that should somehow comfort him. “You know what he gets like around Carnival Week.”

  Shit! Carnival Week! Roger had completely forgotten all about Cromer’s annual celebration, which just went to show how much of a hermit he had become. Other than work, he seldom ventured out of his bedsit. In fact, he got out less than Sister Wendy’s tits. His bedsit was a fort of empty pizza boxes and drained beer cans. If those Hoarders people came round, they’d sigh, wish him all the best, and head off back to where they came from.

  “I’d better go face the music,” Roger said, though he knew this particular music would be loud, brash, and full of fucks, like Enya. As he turned, a perfectly-manicured hand fell upon his arm. An involuntary noise escaped him; the exact same noise a teenager might make after ejaculating for the first time.

  “Come find me afterwards,” Brandie said. “Do you finish at six?”

  Roger nodded. Six, or thereabouts. Words caught in his throat, and now that damned penguin was watching again.

  “Maybe we could get a drink after work.” Brandie smiled. Roger shuffled around to where the penguin couldn’t see him, frightened that if it saw him accept her invitation, it would provoke it somehow.

  “Egh,” Roger said, smiling. In his head he’d said “yes” and Brandie obviously got the gist of it.

  “Great. Come find me when you’re done, and don’t forget to sort out the caimans.” She waved and made her way along the path, past the seals, past the otters, past the sign that said “TAKING PHOTOS WITH AN APPLE PHONE CAN INSULT THE ANIMALS – DON’T DO IT!”

  “Well gosh darn, that’s a turn-up for the books,” Roger said. Behind him, the penguin replied with a shrill squawk, which was more than enough to send Roger rushing for the sanctuary of William Chinn’s office, where a reproof awaited him with open arms.

  2

  Mr. Chinn’s office was a small cabin at the east side of the zoo. In fact, calling it an office could be considered offensive to real offices, which had space, desks, computers, and whiteboards with pictures of anatomically incorrect penises scrawled upon them. No, Willy Chinn liked to keep things simple. His idea of an office was a table, two wooden chairs, a map of the zoo, and a box of rubber bands, which he liked to flick at people as they left.

  Roger sat on a wooden chair with three legs, trying his damnedest not to topple over.

  “How long have you worked here at Bingham Zoo?” Chinn asked, stroking the ridiculously long lobe of his left ear. As he talked, his wig flapped up and down, and it was all Roger could do not to look at it.

  “Two years,” Roger said. “But there were those three months where I didn’t, in fact, work here.” Dammit! Why did I have to bring that up?

  “Ah, yes, the suspension. Have you since realised that our elephants don’t enjoy be
ing ridden around the park?”

  Roger nodded. “I have,” he said, though Chinn knew as well as he did that Dumbo loved the shit out of it. “So I guess that makes twenty-one months all in all.”

  “Twenty-one months.” Chinn whistled, relaxing back in his seat. “That must be a record for someone of your calibre. Most numbnuts only last a few weeks, but not you, Mr. Whipsnade, oh no. There’s just no getting rid of you.”

  Roger felt his chair tip to the right. A second later, he was picking himself up from the cabin floor, brushing dust from his thighs and trying to make it look as if he’d meant for that to happen. Retaking his seat, he said, “I apologise for the caimans,” he said. “I could have sworn I saw to them this morning.” Though not in a court of law, he didn’t add.

  “Mr. Whipsnade, your continued incompetence and refusal to acknowledge that you may—and I’m no doctor here, so you might want a second opinion—not be correct in the head, is making it extremely difficult for me to see a future for you here at Bingham.”

  There it was. Roger had heard this speech before on several occasions, and despite his boss’s obvious scepticism toward him, here he remained, unbreakable, unsackable, unable to stay on his seat as he hit the deck with a meaty thump once again.

  As he clambered up from the cabin floor for a second time, William Chinn said, “Have you ever considered a job in telemarketing? I mean, think about it: no face-to-face contact with other human beings; you get a script to follow, so you don’t even have control over the nonsense falling out of your mouth; and the chair you have will no doubt be on castors. You can wheel that shit around the office and never topple over. It’s perfect!”

  Roger considered what Chinn was saying for a moment. If the old bastard wanted him out so badly, why didn’t he just fire him? Then he remembered. The zoo had an equal opportunities policy, which meant they had to employ at least one black man (Cedric Smith over in the bat cave), one Chinese woman (Ah Lam, whose knowledge of giant pandas was borderline Rain Man), and one dummy (that’ll be me). If they sacked Roger, they would have to replace him with another idiot, only that idiot would have to start from scratch, and forgetting to feed the caimans was something that took months of practice.

  “It won’t happen again, Mr. Chinn,” Roger said. “If it does, I will personally train up my replacement before I leave.”

  “The hell you will!” Chinn said. “In fact, my nephew has six toes, which pretty much makes him disabled, so there’s your replacement right there.” He took a deep breath and pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger. Roger didn’t know what it was, but whenever he was around people for too long, they found themselves on the receiving end of particularly painful headaches. “Look, Whipsnade, I’m going to be brutally honest with you.”

  That’s good, Roger thought. It means that everything he’s said so far is untrue.

  “I have never, in all my years as a zoo director, met such an inept muppet. Now, I don’t know whether you were dropped on your head as a child, and if you were I truly apologise, but I don’t know how much longer we can keep you on our books without me losing my temper and doing something that will see me facing ten to fifteen in the nick.”

  If that was a threat, Roger missed it completely. “Like I said, it won’t happen again.” He reached across the desk, steadying himself for a moment on the edge, and plucked up the pen sitting on top of Chinn’s zoo map. He scribbled something on the back of his hand, then thrust it across the desk for his superior to read.

  “Feed…the…caimans.” Chinn shook his head. “You see, that’s what I’m talking about, Whipsnade. As a zookeeper, feeding the caimans on time, without fail, is part of your job, and if you have to write it down on the back of your hand just so—”

  “But now that it’s there, it will be there forever.” Roger grinned. “No more baths, I promise.”

  William Chinn’s patience was now shorter than Lindsey Lohan’s grocery list. “Whipsnade, this is your final warning. I will have it in writing before the end of the day. In the meantime, please continue to bathe. You know what the tigers get like when they catch a bad whiff.” He almost regretted his advice immediately. Being mauled to death by tigers was not the worst thing that could happen to Roger Whipsnade. Sure, it would attract some bad press, but as Chinn’s grandmother once told him, “You just don’t fuck with tigers.”

  “Will that be all, Mr. Chinn?” Roger stood. The chair tottered on its good legs for a moment before toppling backwards.

  Chinn gestured to the door.

  Outside, Roger breathed a sigh of relief. That went better than expected. He still had a job, even if it was only for the time being, and tonight he had a hot date with Brandie Stroman of the Primates.

  Life could be much worse, he thought as he headed back to aquatics, where a whole family of otters with empty bellies awaited him.

  3

  Jessica Hunt stood in front of the mirror, her Carnival Queen dress filling the room behind her like a giant marshmallow. This year she’d opted for bubblegum pink, and it was perfect, revealing just the right amount of cleavage.

  The Carnival Queen competition was all about standing out. It was no good entering if you were a plain Jane. It always surprised Jessica how many sewer rats showed up, sporting jeans and tee shirts, looking like something you’d throw a quid at just to make it go away.

  “I mean, what makes them think they can compete?” she asked her reflection. She waited a moment, just in case the other her had an answer.

  This was her year; she could feel it in her implants. She’d come so close last year, making it all the way to the final, only to be beaten at the last hurdle by that bitch, Lucinda Purdy.

  “Well, not this year, Miss Purdy,” she sneered. “This year is my year. I’ve got two new tits and lips that would make Mick Jagger jealous.” She smiled, pouted, grabbed her boobs as if they were trying to make good their escape.

  “Are you still posing up there or...?” came a shrill cry. “Oh, don’t worry about me, your own mother, not if you’ve got that mirror of yours for company, I’ll just…” Vera Hunt trailed off.

  Jessica sighed. “I’ll be down in a minute!” she screeched. Under her breath she added, “Wouldn’t want you to die of loneliness, you old bat.”

  She took a step back, slipping her arms out of the immense dress. With a lot of make-up and plenty of cleavage, this year’s crown is mine. Lucinda Purdy won’t have a leg to stand on.

  After changing out of her carnival dress, Jessica made her way downstairs, where her mother was preparing tea. Old and frail, Vera Hunt wouldn’t have looked out of place in an exhibition at the National Museum. What remained of her hair was silver. Her russet cardigan was peppered with stains from lord knows what. When she saw Jessica, she hissed like a cat, clicked her tongue like a bat, and made a noise that only giraffes make after a particularly spicy Rogan Josh.

  “And I was not posing,” Jessica said, slumping into her place at the dinner table like a petulant child.

  Her mother turned, placed a bowl of steaming vegetables on the table. “Were you standing in front of the mirror, or…?”

  After a moment, Jessica nodded.

  “Were you stroking your titties, and…?”

  Another nod.

  “Then if you weren’t posing, what the hell were you doing? I swear to the good lord of all that is holy and pure…” She mumbled something inaudible as she yanked open the oven and came out with a tray covered over with foil. As she placed it on the table, Jessica recoiled in horror. She knew what it was, could already smell it beneath its metallic wrapper.

  “Why, Mom? Why do you keep doing this to me?”

  Her mother peeled the tin-foil from the trout and grinned. Down at the bingo they call it—what is it again? Selective hearing or something…

  “You know how much I hate fish, and yet you insist on serving it up.” Jessica pressed a hand to her nose, covering her mouth. She could already feel the bile rising in her throat. />
  “Young lady, under my roof you will eat what I put on this table, do you hear me, or so help me…”

  Jessica glowered at her mother. If she wasn’t very careful, she would have the entire inventory of motherly threats thrown at her. It would start with an “If you don’t like it here, you know where you can…” Then there would be “You treat this place like a hotel! You should be ashamed of…” And she would finish off with “Your father would turn in his grave if…” It was the last one which stung the most, though her father had been cremated and sprinkled over the pitch at Norwich Football Club.

  “I’ll eat the vegetables,” Jessica said, not willing to relent entirely. She hadn’t eaten fish since she watched Finding Nemo at the cinema. Yielding now was out of the question, and there wasn’t a damn thing her mother could do about it.

  “If you don’t eat the trout,” Vera Hunt said, “you’re not entering that stupid competition tomorrow, and that’s my final…”

  “But Mom!” Jessica cried. “That’s not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair, Jessica Hunt, and you will do well to remember…”

  Ah, Jessica had forgotten all about the “life’s not fair” maxim. Now that she thought about it, the ”I’m your mother, not your slave, so…” adage had also slipped her mind.

  “What you're doing to me is probably illegal,” Jessica said as her mom sat down opposite and began to stab at the trout with a blunt knife. If it wasn’t for the unnatural way arthritis afflicted her mother’s hands, she would have dropped the knife completely.

  “What’s illegal is you refusing to eat this beautiful fish, which I’ve spent forty-five minutes…” She dropped a chunk of the trout onto her plate and began piling vegetables around it, blocking it in. Not only was the fish dead, gutted, and charred, but now it was in a mashed-potato and boiled sprouts prison from which its only escape was her mother’s disgusting cake-hole. Nemo had had it easy by comparison.