Interdimensional Menagerie

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. The dewy sheen on the rainbow hued grass reflected deeper magenta shades as the clouds passed over the hillside. The only tree in the region, a magnificent oak making up for its solitude with sheer size, was already teeming with activity. Eyes unfamiliar with the denizens of the Wandergone, outer realm of magic, life and joy, might have assumed that they were either hallucinating, or that the forest itself had come alive. Rustling among the thick leaves of the oak tree soon revealed small but intense points of light hiding in its boughs. The mindless fairies of brilliant shades of pink, blue, green and orange drifted away from the center of the tree, signaling the start of the evening’s activities to their neighbors. They spun and danced around the tree, adorning it with thin, translucent strands of strange glowing thread, until the oak was decorated like a holiday tree. As the sentient pinpricks of light spun about in their merriment, every football sized rock scattered around the base of the tree, and there were hundreds, suddenly sprouted legs of stone beneath them before walking out to the edge of the hilltop and plopping right back down, this time arranged in a perfect ring. Moments after the stone stampede, legions of red and blue toadstools rose and followed suite. Every mushroom in the area sprouted two new stocks at their bottom before chasing after the boulders that left them behind and settled back down next to them.

The tree was now alive with activity as her main inhabitants finally decided to reveal themselves to the world. Countless bouquets of flowers, previously hidden among the branches, seemed to empty themselves as flowers began to drift gracefully to the base of the tree. The petalias split the bottoms of their stems into functioning legs and feet. Pollen separated in their petal lined faces to reveal bright, shining eyes, though these plant-based life forms had no use for mouths. The activity of the petalias was nothing short of euphoric. Every night at midnight, after the fairies have set the ornamentation and the ingolots and wandering toadstools have retreated into their proper positions, the petalias began their dance. The Kingdoms of Fae from which all of these creatures hailed have yet to ascertain the purpose of these nightly dances, but the fact that they were finally happening here meant that the faux environment the magical creatures were enjoying was close enough to the real thing to cause celebration.

Some might say that the recreation was too close to the real thing, however, and those nay sayers would certainly be chagrinned to know of the hidden predator lurking in the tall grass lower on the hill. The petalias, dancing, carefree flower people, buzzed with a gleeful hum, unaware of the peril creeping towards them.

The predator oozed its way up the hill, crouching low to the ground, only the occasional pulsating oily tendril poking above the grass. The thin black tentacles wavered back and forth in the air, vibrating. Sensing. The creature was confused at what the tendrils were telling it. The movement of the petalias was reminiscent of animals, but they smelled so strongly of vegetation that the predator hesitated for quite some time before striking. Soon, though, the decision was made.

CHREEEEEEEEEEEAAAAA- The explosion of motion was over in a flash. The hunting monster let loose the distinctive shrieking wail of a kelpie, a flesh-eater from the swamps of the Gravelands. The cry was immediately followed by the form of the oily black horse that had made the screech. Foggy white eyes fixed on the terrified petalias, who tried to scramble back into their tree. The hilltop was wide, the kelpie had a fair distance to cross to the tree, but speed was not a problem for the kelpie. It streaked with hoof beats raising acrid smoke in the earth, faster than any mundane horse. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the petalias, it had a predator’s front facing eyes, and the horse’s susceptibility to tunnel vision. Mid charge, the kelpie did not spot the ingolot in its path. The sentient rock rose on its knobby legs and toddled to a position more directly before the kelpie and waited for the impact. The monster’s front legs struck the stone at the shins.

The kelpie spun away in a momentum fueled arc that would have killed any ordinary horse and nearly went careening off the edge of the hill. The angle of the ingolot’s sheered surface sent it away at an off angle: were the round hilltop a clock and the point of the kelpie’s entrance were the “six” position, it would have landed on the number ten. The offending ingolot made no more moves after it sat back down, its duty to protect the tree fulfilled. The kelpie was back on its hooves in an instant, ready to make another attack. The petalias always had difficulty climbing their guardian tree, an updraft came every night at half past midnight to carry them up. Their struggles would have attracted the renewed bloodlust of the kelpie, had the zookeeper not chosen that moment to announce her presence.

“Hey! Hey hey hey!” she shouted, “Over here, dummy!” Waving her arms for attention while repeatedly pressing the button of a loud clicker with one hand. She was wearing khaki shirt and trousers tucked into jungle boots. Her wide pith helmet failed to hide her tangle of blonde hair just as her loud, commanding voice failed to inspire fear in the kelpie.

The beast charged the zookeeper without a second thought, it was on much firmer ground with humans than flowers. It knew from experience that humans were made of meat. The distance between the kelpie and Senior Keeper Beth Jaeger seemed a lot shorter now that the creature was charging her. She tried to remain calm, look threatening, and have faith in her subordinates.

CHREEEEEEEEEEEAAAAA- The kelpie’s pupilless eyes fixed on Beth with hate as it bore down on her. Trying to distract herself from the wait, Beth idly tried to determine which of her four kelpies this was. Too bright to be Bathys, too dark to be Sepulchre, she thought, trying to remember the names of the new exhibits. Must be either Mire or Murk. She’d only agreed to take the ravenous carnivores a week ago, but she was confident time would clear up little uncertainties like which one was which. Or how to better secure their enclosure.

Like a rubber band suddenly releasing all tension, Beth’s attention snapped back to the matter at hand with another, significantly closer, shriek of the kelpie. The speed was incredible, it streaked across the hilltop like a firehose filled with ink. Beth could feel her knees fill with tension, begging either to flee or at the very least start shaking. Despite her best efforts, she could feel the formation of tears in her tear ducts, though she managed to keep them from reaching her eyes. The kelpie gained speed as it got closer. Muscles tensed from Beth’s ears to her ankles. She could hear the crunching of earth beneath it’s hooves. The acrid stench reached her. Her eyes locked on exposed teeth. Contrasting white shine with the black filth that dripped from the monster. Where a horse would have flat grinders, this had long knives. It was within one hundred yards of Beth, and she could feel those knives digging into her flesh. Seventy-five yards and she could almost fool herself into thinking she could see tiny angry pupils. Fifty feet. Thirty.

The kelpie let out a screech and pounced from twenty feet away. Beth, understandably, winced slightly just before the shot rang out. She still had to jump to the side to avoid the now unconscious kelpie as it sailed past her to land in a tumble ten feet behind her. With a shaky effort, Beth managed to unclench her teeth and take a nonchalant step to the side just before her assistant came over the edge of the hilltop from the four o’clock position, rifle resting on his shoulder. The young red-headed man’s uniform matched his barely older boss right up to the pith helmet. His nonchalant attitude was a lot less forced than Beth’s. He was even grinning.

“You flinched,” he said teasingly.

“Yeah,” Beth scoffed, “and you would’ve shit your pants.” Randy decided not to argue that point. It was long past dinner, and she was probably right.

. . .

A few hours later and the kelpie who turned out to be named Murk was safely snoozing in a private bunker strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast. It was also entirely airtight. Kelpies did not need to breathe regularly, they typically didn’t unless they were mimicking a traditional horse, and it turned out reducing their bodies to an oily liquid was how kelpies snuck into underground burrows to hunt the hibernating bears of their home realm. That was how Murk had gotten out in the first place. Unfortunately, the tranquilizer Randy had used had to be powerful and the kelpie could have remained asleep for another week. He had to be separated from the others, so they didn’t sense his vulnerability. Beth and Randy stood on the other side of six-foot plexiglass, watching the creature.

“I still think they’re beautiful,” Beth said, breaking the silence that held since they’d locked the enclosure. Randy turned slowly to regard her with a look of pure disgust.

“It isn’t,” he said simply, as if it were his decision. “It’s literally seeping oil from it’s face.” Beth looked at the steady trickles of black gold that ran from both nostrils, both eyelids, both ears and even the closed mouth. Murk was lying on a raised platform that allowed the oil to pool around him before flowing over into drains. The kelpies mottled dark coat was always sodden with the stuff, as if he were filled to bursting with it.

“Yeah well, that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful,” Beth said stubbornly. “That’s what I like about it. If you see them in the right light, you can see all the rainbows from the oil. And it’s not like it’s bad for their home environment.” They turned to regard the larger biome around them for this section of the zoo. Kelpies, and the animals in these exhibits, came from a shadowy world of evil and fear called the Gravelands. On the one hand, Beth had always found the description and name to be a little melodramatic, on the other, that was where vampires and werewolves came from.

“That reminds me,” Beth said as if Randy was listening to her inner monologue. “Let’s get a move on to the other exhibits. She swept past the shorter man and walked away from the haunted forest that Murk called home. Randy jogged a few steps to follow before pulling a clipboard seemingly out of nowhere, anticipating his boss’s next question.

“What else is going on out there?” she said, clasping her hands behind her back like a general inspecting her troops. It didn’t take long for the gloomy din of the Gravelands section of the zoo to be replaced with the much more natural gloomy din of early morning. The horizon had only transmuted to pink after the pair left the effects of the Gravelands Environmental Generator that kept the kelpies and the vampires happily devoid of vitamin D.

“The pipe that connected the Gravelands to the Wandergone has been completely removed, rather than made kelpie proof, as you asked,” Randy told her reading from a list of points. “Wasn’t hard. It was a residual pipe from when the Gravelands were filled with goats. They needed extra ventilation, but thankfully kelpies don’t leave any droppings.” He stopped walking and looked up for a moment, suddenly troubled. “Is that where all the oil comes from?” he asked in horror.

“What’s the next item?” Beth asked, having come to the same conclusion much earlier and having determined not to think about it. “What’s going on in the Swamp?” Randy jogged back up and continued.

“A few things,” he said nonchalantly, “A few of the hanowa have gone missing, but Andy and Terra think they’ve just been swallowed by the broga.” No big deal then, Beth thought. The broga was a giant frog that didn’t really eat anything other than photons from the sun, but it did like to swallow things for the feel of it. There was a pocket dimension linked to its throat that let things drift gently and unharmed through some void of empty space for a week or two before being passed unharmed from one of the sphincters dotting the broga’s back. Several researchers had made the trips themselves and described it as a “pleasant break from reality,” but the idea still made Beth’s skin crawl. The hanowa, or magic turtles, being missing from the environment for a long period was the bigger issue here. Beth predicted the next problem on Randy’s list.

“Fewer turtles floating around mean too many frogs and swamp stickers are clinging to the ones that are still there. Josh has already had to retrieve Flotsam, Logger and Detritus from the bottom. Said the stickers wouldn’t release their suction cups even when they were drowning. No fatalities though, Josh was quick.”

“I’ll call Maria at Sparkling Gardens and see if they can loan us a turtle or two to lessen the load,” Beth said as she looked over at the scummy pond they were passing. She saw Logger, pillow sized oval of moss and stone drifting across the surface, sitting noticeably lower in the water with the weight of what looked like a hundred red and white spotted frogs. There weren’t many zoo’s that could attract a crowd before dawn, but the most activity at the Evermore Enchanted Zoological Gardens happened at night. Several parents pointed the other worldly creatures to children gasping with wonder. Beth smiled and nodded at the patrons who caught her eye, waiting until they’d walked out of earshot before asking, “Why is the water so dark?” Swamp waters were, by nature, filthy, but they were usually lighter brown than the abyss Logger sailed through.

“Shoggoths have been clogging the filtration systems,” Randy answered with no hesitation. “They keep wandering in there and gumming up the suction. I’m worried they like how it feels.”

“No,” Beth said rubbing her chin with one hand, pensive. “Shoggoths don’t enjoy any physical sensations other than temperature, and only then because their tentacles will literally melt if they get too warm. Have any gotten sucked up?”

“Not that I’m aware of. There aren’t any less of them, so unless they divided…?” It wasn’t Randy’s fault he knew so little. Shoggoths made less sense the more you thought about them. Literally, their psychic auras lingered in your mind and altered your memories of them. Beth might’ve thought of it as a curse if she wasn’t determined to feel an emotional attachment to all of her animals. If anything was harder to love than kelpies and vampires, it was the shoggoth.

“They’re probably just going down there for protection, to be left alone,” Beth concluded. “Other animals can’t help but picking on them, so they go down somewhere that other animals can’t. Build up some shoggoth shelters at the bottom of the lake and let a few swamp stickers in the filters. They’re small enough to get filtered right through and they’ll keep the shoggoths away.” Randy wrote a few lines before continuing.

“That’s about it with the Swamp. Elsewhere, we’ve got a few fights between the Yeti and the Ice Worm in the Glacier Park. More than a few visitor requests for separate enclosures on that one.”

“Yetis and Ice Worms don’t fight in their natural environments,” Beth said, sorting through the library in her head. “They don’t interact too often, so maybe that is the issue. Get some more information before we do anything expensive. What else?”

“A lot of visitor suggestions urgently suggesting we get stronger fortifications on the grootslang enclosure.”

“Visitors always urgently suggest that,” Beth said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “It’s an elephant mixed with a giant snake. It’s really fucking big and it’s really fucking scary. Those comments are never going to end, but the enclosure is rated strong enough to hold a kaiju. Put up a sign and never bother me about that again.” Randy noted that and moved on.

“The dopplegangers are turning orange, everyone in the Urban Jungle is stumped.” That gave Beth pause. She turned to look back at her protégé. “Orange?” He lifted his pith helmet to reveal the wild crop or carrot colored mess that the helmet protected.

“A little lighter than this,” he said, grinning as he lowered the helmet. “They’re still eating and acting normally but it’s freaking everyone out. Really worth seeing before we fix ‘em.” His eyes focused on her slightly. “How are we going to do that?” Beth pursed her lips and looked away in thought. That was a thinker. Abruptly she turned and continued walking. “I’ll have to think on that one, what else is there in the meantime?”

“Well,” Randy said as he jogged past her. He gestured with both arms outstretched to the next large enclosures, one either side of the trail. One was an ordinary recreation of an alpine forest, the other an ordinary recreation of an African savannah.

“These are the next problem areas, and for the same reasons I’m afraid. Over here in Cascadia,” he gestured to the forest. “The wendigo and the wood crawlers are fight on sight, but what’s worse is that the sasquatches want in on it. They’ve been hiding in the trees and jumping into the fight whenever it looks favorable.” Beth walked up to the railing before the tall trees and took one of the pairs of disposable sunglasses from the receptacle hanging below. The enchanted glasses, seemingly with minds of their own, removed and highlighted specific parts of the viewers vision to make it possible to see animals with unimaginable stealth. Unaided, Beth could see the pile of raw meat a few hundred yards away in a clearing, but only with the glasses could she see the imperceptibly subtle movements of the skeletal deer creature trapsing towards its lunch. Without the glasses, neither she nor the wendigo would have seen the eight-foot, humanoid ape watching from behind a tree fifty yards from the aberration. Lucky there wasn’t a wood crawler nearby.

“I think the best thing to do would be to gently encourage the wood crawlers and the wendigo to keep away from each other. Keep all food and treats on opposite ends of the enclosure. If they don’t fight, I doubt Bigfoot will want to start anything.”

“It’s mostly parents making these complaints,” Randy said. “They don’t appreciate the juxtaposition between these forest nightmares and the kid friendly stuff.” Beth took off her glasses, she didn’t need them to see the sky-blue colored coyotes chasing after the shimmering rainbow crows in the clearing just below the railing. The tumbleweed foxes practically begged for her attention when they bounced up to her wrapped in balls of their own tails, springing out before her hoping for a treat.

“Maybe we could have the hill buffalo walk in lines between these guys and the others,” Beth said as she idly reached into her pocket and produced a bag of biscuits. She flicked one for each of the foxes, then waited for the coyotes to make the walk over after they’d noticed. Their playful yips rang in the air like singing glasses. “Just pour out their feed in a straight line between the groups. None of those bad boys are brave enough to go after a hill buffalo.” As she spoke, several saplings seemed to rise with the ground beneath them as one of the buffalo inquestion rose from where it had been sleeping, taking it’s share of the countryside with it. The enormous herbivore let loose a thunderous yawn before trundling off to find food, perfectly preserved biome on it’s back swaying with its mighty stride.

“As for Nirvana,” Randy said, turning around to regard the savannah behind them, “more of the same complaints but less calls for separate enclosures. I assume they want us to find some magical solution to keep the gryphon from fighting the thunderbird.” Beth looked at the faux mountaintops on either end of the valley, at the two apex predators that perched atop them. They stared at each other like feuding statues. Even from so far away, Beth knew they could make out the ruffles of each other’s facial feathers.

“The gryphon and the thunderbird are intelligent, honorable animals,” Beth said. “Both inhabit the same ecological niche in their respective home environments, which is the ultimate airborne hunter. Interactions between these kinds of animals in the past, like back in 2032 when all captive bred Bengal tigers were accidentally released into African lion country, the clashes have always been more about measuring the others strength. Neither of those birds engage in things like revenge, so once they understand each other, they should keep out of each other’s way. At least they will after they finish.”

“And what about the gnolls?” asked Randy practically radiating innocence with the delivery of another curve ball.

“What about them?” Beth said, scanning the grassland for the tribe of giant hyenas. She found them in the usual spot, which was within a hundred feet of the abada, a double horned horse. Someone with complete disregard from language might have called it a “duocorn”, or perhaps even a “tall goat”, were it not for the abadas only other claim to fame.

“They’re never going to catch it,” Beth said matter of factly, “Faster predators have tried, almost nothing has ever succeeded.”

“But some things have succeeded,” Randy pressed. “So, it’s possible.”

“According to legend,” Beth said with an enormous spoonful of skeptic subtext, “there have been a few impossibly strong monsters that managed to catch an abada, not kill it, and those times always ended in catastrophe.” She turned to look at the strange off-white horse, still munching grass as if it hadn’t noticed the creeping gnolls. Suddenly, the nearest gnoll pounced at the abada from just fifteen yards away. Three bounds and it would have it’s prey, two if it really stretched. It wasn’t enough.

Faster than the naked eye could see, the abada shot away from the position it had been occupying, nearly breaking the sound barrier in the process. It left a trail of scorched grass that buzzed and crackled with residual electricity. The abada reappeared half a mile away from the gnolls on the other side of the savannah’s river.

“Never going to catch it,” Beth said triumphantly. “And if they ever get close, that’s what the Ninki Nanka is for.” She stretched her arm towards a particular spot in the river. Randy could just make out the faint V shaped ripple of a strong swimmer, he could almost see the gargantuan shadow that filled half of the width of the river.

“Guardian monsters are going to turn out to be what’s missing from all these places,” she said. “All you need is something absurdly powerful with an instinct to protect, and you wont need half as much staff.” She watched the monstrous Ninki Nanka circle the riverbed, digging for clams and grazing on freshwater grass. “If only we could get one for Cascadia,” she said wistfully.

“Big enough to scare a wood crawler?” Randy asked. “Maybe we could give the grootslang a try.”

“If you want to get in the cage with that thing, be my guest,” Beth said. “Come on, let’s go see these orange dopplegangers.”

…

The Urban Jungle was a strange bit of architecture to find in a zoo, mainly because it contained reproductions of the very skyscrapers most people came to the zoo to avoid. But times were changing, and there were plenty of examples of rare wildlife that are made most at home by these wretched surroundings. The only animal readily visible were pitch black raccoons that would scamper quickly across the viewing glass before melting, literally melting into a shadow. The background of the faux city street was constantly being crossed by what looked like adult humans who hid their faces. Beth ignored the bogeymen, that was what they wanted anyway, and made for the junior zookeeper crouching in the corner. On the other side of the glass from the young woman was a lump or bright orange goo. As Beth approached, the ooze built up onto itself and morphed until it matched the zookeeper in every detail.

“Well, that’s something,” she said stopping at the glass. “What’s going on, Shana?” Mesmerized, Shana had been fondling the cowrie shells that dangled from her cornrows, eyes fixed on the orange reproduction by the doppleganger. She turned sharply, startled but playing it off as mere surprise.

“You’re looking at it,” Shana said. “No other issues besides the color, diets and activity levels are still normal. Honestly, I’d be tempted to leave them alone since we know they’re not sick, but they’re freaking out some of the guests.” The orange Shana turned slowly to regard Beth. The doppleganger’s features softened and within a minute, there was an orange Beth trapped in the exhibit.

“Can’t imagine why,” Beth said, having always found the dopplegangers a little creepy anyway. If anything, the new color was refreshing. “No new foods?” Shana shook her head with a soft rattle.

“Still just surplus produce, this time of the year that means leafy greens.”

“Has the water been tested?”

“With every kit we have, all normal.”

“What have the shadow raccoons been up to?” That gave Shana cause to pause.

“Nothing unusual,” she said slowly as if she were suddenly worried she was speaking to the wrong Beth. “Running around stealing trash, jumping in and out of shadows before anyone can do anything about it.”

“Have you seen anybody with drink cups in here?” That pushed the penny the rest of the way down. Shana opened her mouth in a silent “Oh,” finally understanding the problem. “They’ve got that new slushie machine in the gift shop,” she said. Beth nodded and smiled.

“No reason you would have known they’re always mysteriously sold out of orange. My guess is that the raccoons have a stash somewhere and the dopplegangers are getting into it.” Pounds of tension fled from Shana’s shoulders as she accepted that it hadn’t been any of her team to make the mistake.

“It’s probably in the police station,” she said, looking up at the empty blue building. “Only place I know of that the mimics don’t like.” Beth glanced quickly at one of the many mailboxes scattered haphazardly throughout the street. If she remained still, she could make out their breathing.

“And I’ll have Mrs. Dennis check the machine. They might’ve gotten a whole bag of syrup in there.” Beth dusted off her hands and turned back to Randy, standing behind her with the clipboard.

“I think that about wraps up- “

She was cut off by one of the loudest noises in recorded history. Thankfully, it was heavily muffled, so the inhabitants of the room were merely roared into silence, rather than had their bones shattered with the resonance. It sounded like a sentient nuclear explosion, a shriek of tearing metal and rage and erupting volcanos. It took a full thirty seconds to die away completely, at which point it had the attention of every human in the room. The doppleganger and most of the bogeymen had subtly retired to the perceived safety of the empty buildings. Beth’s throat, she now realized, had somehow become completely dry in the thirty seconds, and she daintily coughed more saliva into her mouth so she could speak.

“Maybe we should check on the grootslang after all.”