The Secret Zoo, page 9
Mr. Darby reached up and touched his cheek, and Noah realized he’d wiped away a tear.
“Mr. Jackson slowly died, bit by bit. I wanted him gone. I found myself wearing the robe all the time, and spending my days with the animals. I cared for them endlessly, and knew them all by name.
“That was when DeGraff seized the opportunity he’d created. He came to me with stories of Bhanu and his magic. I went to India and learned about the zoo I could build—another world just beyond my back door, a place where all of Frederick’s beloved animals could be safe…and a place where Mr. Darby could be free.”
Noah could barely believe what he was hearing. He just stood and stared. Bright light began to glow from a place in his jacket, and he realized a firefly had gotten trapped in his pocket. He let it free.
“They’ll do that sometimes,” Mr. Darby said with a smile that was clearly forced. “They get into a tight place, get comfortable, and can’t find their way out.”
Noah watched the firefly go, glad for the distraction. A few fireflies near it briefly shined bright—a small chain reaction like the other Noah had seen.
“You should go home, Noah,” Mr. Darby said. Then he led the way out of the gallery. Noah, his head full of Mr. Darby’s incredible past, barely noticed the artwork and the fireflies. All he saw were images in his head: the cages in Mr. Darby’s backyard; DeGraff standing on Mr. Darby’s porch; magic and machines slowly bringing the Secret Zoo to life. Then, when Noah came to the exit of the room, a framed photograph caught his eye. When he stopped walking to take a better look, so did Mr. Darby. The black-and-white picture showed a tombstone bearing the names of Mr. Jackson, his wife, and his son. Mr. Jackson’s name was the only one without a date for a death.
“It’s in Clarksville Cemetery,” Mr. Darby explained.
Noah nodded. He knew the place, an old cemetery just outside his neighborhood.
Mr. Darby touched his fingertips to the glass. He smiled in a sad way and said, “A place I think I belong.”
Noah wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the right words.
“Come,” Mr. Darby said as he lowered his hand. He turned and headed out the door, adding, “Let’s go.”
They walked through the gentle firefly storm and then stopped at the staircase to the basement. Mr. Darby said, “You can find your way from here, yes?”
Noah nodded. After descending a few stairs, he turned and said, “Mr. Darby?”
The old man stared at Noah, firefly light reflecting in the dark lenses of his glasses. “Yes?”
“I’m…I’m sorry. For all that happened. To you.”
“Thank you, Noah,” Mr. Darby said. “But the time for sorrow is behind us. Now is the time to protect the Secret Zoo, once and for all.”
His powerful words reminded Noah of a king’s decree. And this thought brought on a memory.
“The Descenders…outside Creepy Critters…why did they kneel to you?”
The leader of the Secret Zoo smiled a weak smile. For a few seconds, it seemed that he wouldn’t answer, but then he said, “I’ll keep some secrets. At least for now.”
Noah wanted to ask more, but Mr. Darby was already walking off, fireflies jumping out from the folds in his jacket and flashing in the air. He rounded a corner and was gone.
“You get what you needed?” someone asked.
Noah turned and saw Sam standing at the bottom of the stairs. Noah considered the question and nodded, but without much conviction.
“Good,” Sam said. He started to leave, saying, “Let’s get you home.”
Home. Noah wondered how much longer he’d be able to call it that if DeGraff succeeded. Then he ran down the stairs, trying to escape the answer that scared him most.
Chapter 14
The Capture
As soon as Noah walked through the portal into his closet, a loud squeal erupted in his ear, and he yanked out his headset. Sam did the same. Someone was jamming the radio waves. Marlo, who’d been on Noah’s shoulder, flew into the main part of the bedroom and touched down on the windowsill. Before Noah could react, Sam grabbed his arm and ordered him to be quiet.
They crept out into the bedroom. Noah’s heart dropped when he saw that dim light from the first floor was filling the upstairs hall.
“Sam?” Noah whispered.
“I see.”
Noah turned his attention to his bed—the mirage wasn’t working. The chameleons were gone, and so was the pile of clothes he’d stuffed beneath his covers. He took a step toward the door, but Sam grabbed his arm, stopping him again. The two stared out into the dimly lit hall, listening for sounds. After a few seconds, Noah heard something—footsteps, coming from downstairs.
Noah flinched as something ran across his foot. He looked down and saw a chameleon—one from the mirage—crawl beneath his bed.
“Follow me,” Sam whispered. The Descender slowly walked across the room. At the door, more sounds came from downstairs—floorboards creaking in the kitchen, and a low growl, like that of a distant animal. Noah could smell something that didn’t belong—the pungent, earthy odor of the air after a storm, and of things that have gotten wet. And something else. Noah thought for a few seconds and then realized what it was. Disease.
Sam got Noah’s attention and pointed to a firefly on Noah’s shoulder. Then he grabbed the winged insect before its light could shine and gently placed it in a pocket in Noah’s jacket. Noah nodded and then buttoned the pocket.
Sam led the way into the hall, his footsteps slow and cautious. When the two reached Megan’s room and faced her open door, panic washed over Noah. The dim moonlight revealed that Megan’s dresser was turned over, and her bedsheets were lying on the floor. The mirror above her desk was shattered, and moonlight was reflecting off the shards of glass.
“No,” Noah said, and he took a step away from the scene. The room started to spin, and Sam squeezed his arm, hard. In another time, at another place, it might have hurt, but now Noah barely felt it. His fear spiked as he thought of his parents. He pulled away from Sam, turned, and took two steps into the room on the other side of the hall. More signs of a struggle: an overturned desk, and books lying open on the carpet. His mother and father were gone.
“This…this is our fault!” Noah said. “Sam—we should have been here!”
Again, Noah noticed the strange smell of moist earth and sickness. He heard another distant grunt, and then something else—a faint caw, like that of a large bird.
Something was downstairs.
“Noah,” Sam said, “keep quiet. We don’t—”
Noah’s attention went to another sound—footsteps on the stairs. Before he could warn Sam, someone slammed into the Descender and drove him down the hall, out of sight. Then the house shook as the two bodies slammed into the wall. The sounds of the fight were amplified in the tight confines of the hallway, and then there was silence.
Noah stood in his parents’ room and stared out into his limited view of the hall, all his attention on the silence, which seemed to stretch on and on. “Sam?” he eventually uttered.
A nearby floorboard groaned and someone stepped into the open doorway, a man with long, lanky arms and a messy mop of hair. Though his face was hidden in shadow, Noah could tell who it was. Charlie Red.
Something swooped down and struck Charlie’s neck. Marlo. When the kingfisher attacked a second time, Charlie batted him away.
“Marlo!” Noah called out.
Charlie smiled a wicked smile. Then he pounced on Noah, put him in a headlock, and pulled him out of the room. As Noah was dragged down the hall, he saw Sam lying on the floor, seemingly unconscious, and Marlo struggling to fly. Noah’s heels banged down the steps, and then Charlie threw him to the floor of the living room. Air gushed out of Noah’s chest, and his side erupted in pain as he was kicked once, twice, three times. He rolled onto his stomach and tried to crawl away.
“Where you going?” Charlie said.
Charlie’s foot connected with Noah’s knee, and fresh pain erupted in his leg. As Noah spun onto his back, the bottom of Charlie’s foot came down on his throat, and the air of the world was suddenly a million miles away. Noah felt something wedged between him and the ground and realized it was the backpack—he was still wearing it. He immediately pulled the cords in his shoulder straps and the tail sprang out of the pack, catapulting Noah into the air and knocking over Charlie Red.
Noah stumbled and leaned against a wall for support, his breath coming in gasps. He smelled the earthy smell, stronger than ever. And then he felt something—wind. He looked into the kitchen and saw where these things were coming from: a portal in the outside wall of his house. Wind from the Secret Zoo was blowing the curtain around, revealing glimpses of the City of Species—dark and stormy, just like Noah had seen from the window in the Institute of Light. DeGraff had built another portal to Noah’s house.
As Noah turned to face Charlie, his tail dragged along the floor and whacked the wall behind him. Objects fell and shattered—the knickknacks Mr. Darby had used in his example of the Multipoint. Charlie stood in the dim light, and Noah realized something horrifying about the zoo security guard. He was taller than ever, and his arms were freakishly long, his hands dangling down by his knees. DeGraff’s magic was continuing to change Charlie, just like the sasquatches and the other animals.
“Why are you doing this?” Noah said, still gasping for air.
“The world has lost order, kid. It needs a new king—a new way of thinking.”
“DeGraff’s a lunatic!” Noah said. “He ruined Mr. Darby!”
“You mean Mr. Jackson?” Charlie said, and Noah could see his smile. “Poor, poor Frederick. And only a boy. But look on the bright side—his mother wasn’t around to miss him.”
Noah balled his hands into fists. He wanted to lash out at Charlie Red, to strike and fight, like a Descender.
“They’ll all die, of course,” Charlie said. “Your friends, I mean. Those who refuse to”—he raised his sickeningly long arms into the light—“change. Your sister, that stubborn brat, she’ll certainly be one of them.”
“We’ll beat you!” Noah said. “We’ll fight, and in the end—”
“The end? You mean tonight at midnight?”
Noah stared at Charlie, unsure what to think. Then he glanced at a clock and saw it was already 10:27.
Charlie noticed his interest and said, “Go ahead—set your watch, kid. We storm your world at exactly twelve o’clock.”
“You’re…you’re lying. Why would you tell me?”
“To watch you squirm, kid,” Charlie answered. “There’s nothing you can do to stop us.”
Noah exploded with rage. He swung his tail like he had in the Institute of Light, and it dragged along the wall, crushing the plaster. Charlie ducked and the tail passed over his head and smashed an armoire to pieces. Noah whipped his tail back around, this time connecting with Charlie and batting him across the room. Charlie rolled, jumped to his feet, and faced Noah again. Drywall dust swirled in the dim light.
“You took my parents!” Noah shouted. “My sister!”
Charlie glanced at the curtain, which was still blowing around as wind from another world forced its way into Noah’s kitchen.
“We were disappointed not to find you here, kid. But we’re glad to see you back.”
We. Charlie wasn’t alone. And just as Noah had this thought, three people stepped through the portal—three hulking figures, silhouettes in the dark kitchen. They lumbered over to Noah, their hands swinging by their knees. These were the men, Noah realized, who had dragged his family into the City of Species. Now they were coming for him.
Noah turned and attacked, but his tail became wedged against the wall. The three men pounced on him.
“The backpack—get his backpack!”
Noah, still standing, was yanked one way, and then another. Someone pulled the cords in his shoulder straps, and his tail slammed against him as it retracted into his pack. Then his Descender gear was stripped away.
“Hold him!” Charlie said.
“We’re trying!” one of his attackers called out in a deep, throaty voice—the monstrous voice of a creature that was no longer quite human.
Noah felt the crook of an arm press against his throat as he was put in another headlock. A fist connected with his stomach, and the air rushed out of him. He wheezed as he took a breath. Then he stopped fighting before another blow could come.
Charlie’s shadow moved across the floor. His unnaturally long, lanky frame made him look like a comic book villain.
Just then, the curtain opened and someone walked into Noah’s world. DeGraff. He moved across the kitchen, his long trench coat beating against his heels and blowing around like a cape. He stopped directly beside Noah, his face just inches away, and Noah felt his warm, moist breath on his cheeks.
“Hello, boy.” His voice rumbled in his throat, revealing again how his fleshy insides were decaying. “You got the other one, right?” DeGraff said to Charlie. “The girl?”
Charlie nodded. “And a couple bonuses. His parents. They got in the way.”
The idea of Charlie putting his filthy hands on Noah’s mother and father, dragging them across the floor, sickened Noah. He struggled to get loose from his captors, but it was no use.
Noah turned his attention back to DeGraff and saw the horrific details of his face. His missing nose and top lip. His black gum line and broken teeth. The empty sockets of his eyes. DeGraff—a creature from a nightmare.
“Are you scared, boy?” DeGraff asked.
“No,” Noah said, but the lie was obvious. “You won’t win—not in the end.”
“I always win. Ask your friend, the old man.”
“Mr. Darby’s stronger than you think!” Noah said. “Look at him—he built the Secret Zoo!”
“No, boy,” DeGraff said. “I built the Secret Zoo. Darby was my pawn. And so was his child.”
Noah filled with new anger. He imagined Frederick’s chubby cheeks and warm eyes—a boy brought to life in Mr. Darby’s stories. He thought of Frederick’s good heart, his compassion for the animals. If Noah had been born a hundred years ago, the two of them might have been friends.
“You killed him!” Noah said.
“People die all the time. For different reasons.”
Noah continued to shake his head. “You’re…you’re sick! Evil!”
DeGraff chuckled, and it was a nauseating sound—a gurgle of watery phlegm. “I’m a leader, boy. Leaders understand the necessity of sacrifice, even when it’s the life of a child.”
Noah shook his head again. How could someone believe such a thing?
“And speaking of sacrifice…” DeGraff said.
He nodded toward the three men, and a second later Noah’s legs were swept out from beneath him, and he fell to the floor.
“Take him to his family,” the Shadowist said as he stepped aside to clear a path to the curtain.
Two of the men grabbed Noah’s ankles and began to pull him along the floor. Noah, on his back, reached out and grabbed a leg of the couch. He needed to get to his family, but not like this—not without the help of Mr. Darby and the Descenders. His hand slipped off the couch, and then his body banged against the frame of the open doorway to the kitchen.
Do something! a voice inside him said. Do something or you and your family are finished!
He felt a cold breeze, and he looked to see the curtain flapping in the wind from the City of Species—a dark, dreary place that had once been filled with color and movement and a better magic. A place that had once been filled with hope and light.
His thoughts stopped. Light. He remembered the firefly Sam had caught upstairs, and he remembered the way the light had hurt DeGraff in the Secret Chamber of Lights. As he was dragged along, he unbuttoned his jacket pocket and softly closed his hand around the still-captive insect.
Hold it, the voice inside him said. Hold it for as long as you can.
The curtain was barely ten feet away. Knowing he needed time for the light to build, he reached out with his free hand and grabbed a leg of the kitchen table. He stopped sliding for a few seconds. Then the men holding him realized what was happening and pulled him away.
The heat against his palm grew more and more intense. It felt like he was holding the tip of a match.
He was dragged closer and closer to the portal—eight feet, seven feet, six. The curtain continued to flap open, revealing the red eyes of the animals on the streets. Someone started to laugh, and Noah knew by the sick sound that it was DeGraff.
He checked his hand, saw light seeping out from between his fingers, and hoped no one would notice.
Don’t let go. Accept the pain. And then his inner voice said something that surprised him: Pain is part of what makes a Descender strong.
But he wasn’t a Descender. At least not yet.
Just as the men who were dragging Noah were about to step through the portal, the curtain swept open and a large animal flew into the room, plowing into the men and knocking them over. The animal lost control, struck the floor, and slid into the dim light, revealing there were actually two animals. One was a penguin—a large emperor penguin. Podgy. And then Noah realized the second figure wasn’t an animal at all. It was a young girl with pigtails and eyeglasses that somehow hadn’t fallen off in the crash. Megan.
Noah, free from the clutches of the men, jumped to his feet. The pain in his hand was worse than ever, but he needed to hold on longer. He only had one firefly, and only one chance to make this work.
“Get them!” DeGraff commanded. “All of them!”
The men stood, looked at Podgy, and seemed to register what had just happened. Megan and Podgy moved behind the kitchen table.
One of the men pointed to Noah and said, “His hand! What’s wrong with his hand?”
