Whenever the question, “What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?” comes up in conversation, I usually just make something up on the spot, because I honestly don’t really know how to answer. You see, the worst job I ever had also happens to be the very best job. I know that’s a bit of a contradiction, but allow me to tell my story from the beginning, and maybe it will make a little more sense by the time I’m done.
When it came to job hunting, I wasn’t in a position to have a more specific employment preference beyond, “someone who will hire me and reliably hand me a paycheck every week”, so I hardly even paid attention to what kind of business I was applying to - I’d just slink up to the reception counter and force my resume into the hands of whoever was foolish enough to make eye contact. Not an exact science by any means, but it usually worked. Someone would eventually give me a job, and life could continue on as usual.
So, there I was in June of 1996, twenty four years old and freshly laid off from a shitty temp job at an equally shitty factory. Once again, I found myself pounding the pavement with a file folder of resumes clutched beneath my arm. I handed out over a hundred of them and received exactly two phone calls from prospective employers. One of the offers was an obvious pyramid scheme involving steak knives, and the other offer was downright bizarre; it was for a position as an assistant caretaker at a zoo.
Now, it’s true I had a tendency to zone out when I was trudging around the city with my resumes in hand, but I definitely would have remembered applying for a job at a zoo. In fact, I was pretty sure our city didn’t even have a zoo.
The gruff-sounding guy on the other end of the line got straight to the point. He cleared his throat and rumbled, “Heya, kid, how ya doing? So, you applied for a job over at my dealership, am I right? Thing is, I don’t need no help over there right now, but I could really use an extra hand over at the zoo. You got a vehicle, kid? This place is way out on the outskirts of town.”
I told him I did, indeed, own a car, a rusty old ‘83 LeSabre that was patiently waiting to die and go to Buick heaven. He said, “Well, I checked some things out, and long story short, the job is as good as yours if you want it.”
I was only twenty-four, but that was plenty old enough to know something’s fishy if an employer hires you over the phone without so much as a brief interview. Even so, I agreed to come out there and give it a shot, because I simply had to see what the hell this guy was all about. How could I resist?
He told me to show up around eight o’clock in the morning. “Ring the buzzer at the gate,” he instructed me, “and ask for Vic Bonicelli. You know, like the commercial on the radio? ‘Come on down to Bonicelli Motors! We’ll give you a steal of a deal and putcha behind the wheel!’ Yeah, that’s me.”
I said, “Whoa, I’m gonna be working for a celebrity!” and we shared a polite laugh. I told him I didn’t have any experience working at a zoo, but Vic assured me that it wouldn’t matter. I would be following basic instructions from the expert, who would always be nearby when we were working with the animals.
“Don’t worry, you’re gonna love it. Everyone loves the zoo, am I right?”
In the background, I heard a man yell, “Hey, Victor! The truck’s still waiting at the gate and the guy’s starting to get mad!”
Vic yelled back, “He just drove for eighteen hours, five more minutes ain’t gonna kill him!” He returned his attention to me and groaned, “Christ, it never stops around here. Well, I gotta go, kid. See ya tomorrow.”
The line went dead. I looked at my phone with a raised eyebrow and a weird feeling tingling in my guts. I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but I’d somehow just become an assistant zookeeper for some shady dude who owned a popular used car dealership. As bizarre as it sounded, however, I was still young enough to consider it an adventure. What the hell, right? What was the worst that could happen?
#
As it turned out, I’d driven past this place literally dozens of times over the years, but I’d always assumed it was a scrapyard. The property was surrounded by an enormous sheet metal fence that must’ve been almost twenty feet high, and I could recall sometimes seeing the mast of a crane poking out over the top of the fence. If there was a zoo behind those walls, it was certainly not open to the general public in any way, shape or form.
I bumped my way along the pothole-infested entrance lane and stopped in front of an intercom on a pedestal. I pressed the button and stared at the gate as I waited for a response. It was made from a large section of the wall that had been cut out and reinstalled as a massive rolling door. The effect was decidedly uninviting.
A tinny voice squawked, “Who’s this and whaddya want? State your business.”
I said I was there to start my training as the caretaker’s assistant, and the voice exclaimed, “Oh, shit! I forgot you were supposed to show up this morning. I’ll be right there.”
A minute or two later, the gate rolled open, revealing a burly, middle-aged man sitting behind the wheel of a golf cart. He was wearing mirrored sunglasses and a baby-blue Lacoste tracksuit. One sleeve was pushed up a bit to show off a gold Rolex. His greying hair was combed straight back and pasted in place with hair gel. It glistened in the sun.
Vic Bonicelli didn’t look like a guy who owned a used car dealership and produced hilariously low-budget commercials for our local radio station. He looked more like a mobster.
He leaned down to my window and said, “This is it, kid. Welcome aboard! You’ll like working here. Every day is an adventure.”
Vic slapped the hood of my car and grimaced in dismay. He hollered, “Just look at this poor old gal! She’s almost ready for retirement! I’ll tell you what - you save up a paycheck or two and come down to the dealership. I’ll give you the employee discount.”
I manufactured a smile and said, “Thanks, Mr. Bonicelli, I really appreciate that. Um, I gotta say, I was pretty surprised this place is actually a zoo. It… well, it doesn’t look like a zoo.”
“We’ll get to that in a bit. And don’t give me none of that ‘Mr. Bonicelli’ stuff. Call me Vic. Anyhoo, just drive straight up to the parking lot and I’ll show you around from there.”
The first thing I noticed when I drove past the gate was a jarring transition in the road surface, changing from pothole-ridden gravel to smooth and flawless asphalt. The driveway was bordered on either side by a wrought iron fence. The grounds stretched out on either side in endless acres of green lawns and exotic gardens. It was almost surreal. From the outside, this place looked like a scungy old junkyard, but a real-life Garden of Eden was hidden away behind the wall. This was definitely no ordinary zoo, and Vic Bonicelli was no ordinary car salesman.
The road led to a small parking lot in front of a massive building. It had been built in a slanting, Postmodern sort of style, replete with an overhang that was supported by concrete pillars. A monolithic, glowing marquee on top of the overhang read:
WELCOME TO BONESAW VIC’S
CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL GARDENS
A ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCE
I stared up at the sign as I pulled into the parking lot, and I wondered if it was too late to just throw the Buick into reverse, turn the hell around and ask Vic to open the gate. Looking at that sign gave me a disquieting feeling in the pit of my stomach. My basic survival instincts were telling me, loud and clear, that I should probably get the fuck out of there immediately.
Vic came putting along in his golf cart and beckoned me to follow him to the front entrance. There was a hulking fellow in a dark suit standing on either side of the doorway. Both of them had an automatic rifle slung over their shoulder. They stared at me with open hostility as Vic ushered me inside.
Vic noticed the nervous expression on my face and patted me on the back.
“Don’t worry about them, kid. They won’t bother you unless I tell ‘em to. I already toldja, you’re gonna like it here. Best job in the whole world for someone like you.”
The entrance vestibule was so big and flashy-looking, I thought it was a lobby. The actual lobby was nothing short of stunning; it was the size of a high-school gymnasium, and the floor was made of polished marble. There was a heart-freezing sculpture in the middle of the room, a hyper-realistic statue of a six-headed, serpentine monstrosity. It stood at least twelve feet high, and it was absolutely horrifying.
I asked Vic what he’d meant when he said, ‘someone like you’, and he barked over his shoulder, “What do you think I mean? Someone with a record. You been busted once for possession with the intent to distribute, and once more for break and enter. You got off with a slap on the wrist for the possession charge, but you got four months in clink and three years of probation for the B and E. You’re still on probation for another eighteen months, am I right? That kind of a record, it’ll keep you from getting a lot of decent jobs.”
I wasn’t surprised Vic had found out about my past transgressions, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled, either. I muttered, “No, it doesn’t help, that’s for sure. I don’t usually go for anything that requires a background check.”
He clapped a meaty hand on my shoulder and boomed, “Well, lemme tell you something! I don’t discriminate against people like you in my hiring process. Just the opposite! I don’t want some crybaby snitch working for me, I want good people who know how to keep their mouths shut. Anyway, we never got a chance to discuss your wages, did we? How about, uh, how does twenty five bucks an hour sound? You good with that?”
Now, I’ll tell you something - back in 1996, twenty five bucks an hour was some good fucking money. As a point of reference, my recently terminated position as a temp at the factory had paid a whopping six dollars and forty cents an hour, which was still above the minimum wage at the time. People with no special training or skills simply didn’t make that kind of money.
I stopped dead in my tracks and sputtered, “I’m sorry, but can you repeat that? How much?”
Vic furrowed his brow and said, “What’s the matter? Not enough? Nah, I get it. I guess I could go as high as, um, let’s say twenty seven bucks an hour. How about that? Are we good?”
I almost fainted from the force of the pure, ecstatic gratitude that flooded every cell of my being. I croaked, “Oh, man. Wow. Yeah, we’re good. Thank you.”
“Hey, what can I say?” Vic grinned, “I’m like that Ford guy. I believe my employees should be able to afford my cars. You didn’t see any junkers out in that parking lot, didja? But seriously, I wouldn’t be paying you like this over at the dealership. This here, this is different. This is a good job, kid, but sometimes it ain’t gonna be easy. You’ll see.”
There was a small group of people waiting for us on the other side of the lobby. They were all wearing what appeared to be some kind of full-body chainmail suit, complete with a chainmail hood. As we drew closer, I could see that it really was chainmail, along with knee-high leather boots and matching gauntlets. Each one of them had some kind of rifle over their shoulder, as well as a utility belt of gadgets that would’ve made Batman envious.
All of a sudden, that warm, fuzzy feeling from the anticipation of a sweet-ass paycheck shriveled up and disappeared. Vic didn’t look like a car salesman, and these people didn’t look like zookeepers. They looked like post-apocalyptic warriors.
A tough-looking older guy with a heavy moustache stepped forward to greet us. He took one look at the expression on my face, shook his head at Vic, and said in a heavy Eastern European accent, “You did not tell him, did you?”
Vic shrugged and sighed, “Nope. Well, shit! Look at the time! I gotta go, kid. This is Kazimir, okay? He knows his shit. He’s your boss. Listen to him and you’ll be fine. Oh, yeah, payday is Friday. Cash only.”
He turned back to the tall, grim-faced stranger and said, “Take care of him for me, Kaz. He seems like a nice young fella, you know? Keep him out of the way for now. Show him the ropes.”
I waved my hand to get their attention and said, “Hey, um, I gotta be honest here, Vic. I don’t really know about any of this, you know? I don’t -”
Kazimir cut me off by seizing me by the arm and swiftly dragging me away. His grip was like iron. He yelled over his shoulder, “Not to worry, boss. I will keep him safe and teach him what he must learn.”
I struggled in his iron grip and snarled, “Let the fuck go of me, weirdo! What the hell is this place? Why are you wearing that shit? The fuck is going on here? Why-”
A feral-looking woman with angular features interrupted my rant with a loud clap of her hands. She said, “If you shut your stupid ass up for a second, he’ll tell you what’s going on. Just shut up, for fuck’s sake.”
The others smirked and nodded in agreement. I counted seven of them in total, all of them clad in chainmail armor and what appeared to be some kind of Kevlar bodysuit underneath. As I looked around, it abruptly dawned on me there were actually eight of them, not seven. I was number eight.
“First of all,” Kazimir grumbled, “you must know that I just saved your life. Tell me, do you have a wish for death?”
I gaped at him and croaked, “Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”
Kazimir curled his lip at me in disdain and said, “You are not an observant young man. Look around you. All these things you see, they cost more money than you could ever imagine. Where do you think this money comes from, the sales of used cars? This place is secret, and for good reason.”
I felt my heart drop into my shoes. My youthful enthusiasm for adventure had fucked me over once again. I said, “This isn’t actually a zoo, is it?”
Kazimir considered my question and made a seesaw motion with his hand. “Eh, the answer is not exactly yes, but not exactly no, either. There are living creatures on display, but only the very rich and powerful may come to see them. They pay a fortune for this privilege. This place is secret. Very few know of its existence.”
I felt dark, absurd laughter bubbling in my chest, and I clamped down on it hard. This wasn’t a joke. I asked, “What kind of living creatures are we talking about? Are you people poaching endangered species or some illegal shit like that? I don’t have a freakin’ clue what’s going on here.”
“They were captured in the wild, this is correct, but I should not have used the word ‘living’,” Kazimir corrected himself. “Some of these things, they are not technically alive.”
I did a double-take and said, “Wait a minute. What?”
Kazimir pointed at a sign hanging above the exit, a reinforced steel door with a small, rectangular window at eye level. There was a sign above the door that read:
CARETAKERS MUST WORK IN PAIRS. ALL CARETAKERS MUST BE ARMED AND SUITED UP IN THE REQUIRED PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT BEFORE ENTERING THIS AREA.
“I wish to make something very clear to you,” he growled. “Today, you are only a visitor. You will stand back and you will do exactly as you are told. Do you understand?”
I gawked up at his stern, hawkish expression and murmured, “Yessir, absolutely.” I felt like a lost child, all alone and very afraid.
The feral-looking lady snickered at me and said, “Poor baby. Look at his face. He looks like he’s gonna cry. Just wait until he sees what’s on the other side of that door.”
Kazimir waved her away and scolded, “There is no need to speak like this, Esmerelda. You were no better on your first day.”
He pulled me over to the door and entered a code on a keypad. The door popped open with a buzzing sound and a pneumatic hiss.
“And there it is,” Kaz said, and he gave me a knowing smile. “It is time to begin your education.”
#
We all filed into a short, brightly-lit corridor, and the entrance swung shut behind us with the clunk of a heavy deadbolt automatically sliding in place. There were two doors on either side of the hall, and a fifth at the end that was labelled EQUIPMENT. The others were marked AVIARY, MARINE, TERRESTRIAL, and OTHER.
Kazimir informed me that we would be in charge of the Terrestrial wing that week. The caretakers worked in pairs, and they rotated to a different wing on a weekly basis.
He punched a code into the keypad beside the door and said, “In an ordinary zoo, they would wish for the animals to become more familiar with their handlers, but such things do not matter here. Most of these creatures will never become fond of you.”
“A lot of them will kill you if they get a chance,” Esmerelda interjected. “They’ll kill you deader than dogshit, and they’ll eat you. Not necessarily in that order.”
I didn’t like the sounds of that, not at all. I ran my hands through my hair and said, “Oh, okay, sure. Cool. So here’s where I’m at right now, okay? I’m not stepping one foot through that fucking door until someone tells me what the ever-loving fuck is going on in this place.”
“Cryptids,” Esmerlda smiled, and she pantomimed scary monster-hands to further illustrate her answer. “Critters from legends and folklore. There’s all kinds of weird shit in here, and it’s our job to take care of them. There, you’re all up to speed now.”
I blinked at her for a few seconds, then wheezed, “What? You’re kidding me here, right? Stuff like that doesn’t… it’s not real.”
Kazimir arched an eyebrow and said, “Come and see.”
He yanked me through the door before I had a chance to scream for help. It swung shut behind us and locked with a muted clunk of multiple deadbolts sliding into place. This new corridor was narrower and much, much longer than the first one. It was lined on either side with more steel doors, most of them set apart at roughly fifty-foot intervals. I gazed down the length of that stark, brightly-lit stretch of corridor, and I thought, this doesn’t look like a zoo. It looks like a prison.
Kaz made a sweeping motion with his hand and said, “This is a service tunnel. The visitors observe the creatures from the other side of their habitat. There are large windows and video screens.”
I leaned against the wall and said, very weakly, “I don’t care. I want to go home.”
Kazimir shook his head. He put his hand on my shoulder and patiently explained that I wouldn’t get even as far as the parking lot. I would be intercepted by security and I would disappear, never to be seen again. The only way to earn Vic’s trust was to go along with it and, in Kazimir’s words, “get paid handsomely to have a wondrous experience.”
I listened to his somber speech and offered a rebuttal; I, as a reasonable and rational person who lived in the real world, was in no way, shape, or form even remotely prepared to come face-to-face with a monster from the pages of a fairy tale. I simply had no interest in doing so, not then and not ever. I pointed out I was being held against my will, and I cautioned him that I was liable to explosively shit my pants if he forced me to interact with said fairytale monster. It wouldn’t be on purpose, of course, but it would probably happen because I wasn’t a freaking monster-wrangler. I was a reasonable and rational person who lived in the real world.
“Do you really want to deal with that?” I demanded. Kazimir gave me an irritated frown and shrugged his heavily-padded shoulders.
“You can defecate inside your own pants if you wish, but it will not help you. Now listen carefully to me, boy. The service tunnel is where the Caretakers gain entrance to the habitats. There is a red button beside every keypad. If something were to go wrong, you must quickly push the button. It will alert the security team, and it will also release a defence mechanism which will subdue the creature inside. The red button is always a last resort. Do not push it unless I tell you to do so.”
There was a brass plate affixed to the door, and the words SASQUATCH, MALE were etched across its surface in bold lettering. Kazimir said, “Have a look through the window. What do you see?”
I swallowed down a hard lump in my throat and peered through the observation window. Much to my surprise, there was a dimly-lit forest scene on the other side of the glass. There were living trees growing in the room, along with various other flora and fauna you would find in any woodland in the Northwest.
I turned to him and gasped, “There’s, like, a freakin’ forest in there! How high is that ceiling? Holy shitballs, they brought in trees and bushes and all that shit, I can’t… hey, what’s that?”
A looming shape detached itself from the thicker gloom of the shadows. It started shambling towards the door, and when it stepped into a hazy beam of sunlight, I let out an involuntary shriek of terror.
It was a furry humanoid that stood at least eight feet tall, a muscular pillar of shaggy hair, dangling arms and glittering eyes. I stood frozen in place as it came strolling up to the door, too terrified to do anything but point at the glass and make a whining sound in the back of my throat. The creature stooped down to look at me through the window. Its eyes were bright, wide, and almost crackling with barely-contained aggression.
“This is a sasquatch,” Kazimir explained. His tone was calm and detached, as if he were delivering a classroom lecture. “His name is Harry. I believe he was captured somewhere in the State of Washington. He is a big boy, this one. He weighs over two hundred kilos, and he is strong enough to tear a man in half.”
I gathered my courage and leaned a little closer to the window to get a better look at the sasquatch’s broad, simian features. His eyes narrowed and he wrinkled back his lips, baring a set of startlingly large canine teeth. At that same instant, an enormous fist slammed into the other side of the door, making a gigantic BANG that sent me scrambling to hide behind Kazimir.
I peeked over his shoulder and yelled, “No fucking way! No! That’s a… that’s a fuckin’ sasquatch, man!”
“Yes, I know,” Kaz said patiently. “The door across the hall is a storage room. It is where you will find the equipment necessary to care for this creature. We do not need to feed this one. He forages from the plants that grow in his habitat. However, Harry must be groomed several times a week to keep him looking handsome for the visitors. You will find a brush in the storage closet. Bring it to me, and take a minute to calm yourself. It will be okay. Kazimir will teach you well.”
I shot a quick glance at the growling brute on the other side of the reinforced glass. He showed his fangs again, and I fled to the safety of the storage closet. I came out a few minutes later with a soft horse brush, which I passed over to Kaz with hands that were visibly shaking.
I cleared my throat and repeated, “That’s a fuckin’ sasquatch, man. Right? It’s a living, breathing, big-ass friggin’ Bigfoot.”
“It is,” Kaz agreed, and he handed me his rifle. “This is a tranquilizer gun. If Harry was to ever escape into the service tunnel, you must not hesitate to use it. Just push this safety switch forward and pull the trigger. Do you see this switch on the wall? It activates a two-way intercom. Make sure it is on whenever one of us enters a cell.”
I shook my head and stammered, “I can’t believe you’re actually going in there with that thing. That’s crazy. I’m no animal expert, but that thing looks pretty fucking mad.”
“Harry is not a thing,” Kazimir corrected, “and he is only showing you that he is the boss. You are new to him and he perceives you as a threat. Now, you should see him when he is actually angry! It is a sight to behold.”
I let out a nervous giggle and said, “Oh, yeah, he’s definitely the boss. Look, for real, I don’t think you should go in there.”
Kazimir gave me a very slight ghost of a smile and shook his head. “Harry is not a very intelligent beast. He is much like a dog. As long as I hold this brush, I will be his best friend. He loves to be groomed. The problem comes when you try to stop brushing him. This requires some teamwork, as you will see.”
Kaz showed the sasquatch the brush through the window. Harry pursued his black lips in an “O” of excitement and moved back to allow Kaz to enter, doing a shuffling little jig of excitement as Kaz stepped into the habitat. I watched with my heart in my throat as Harry hunkered down in a clearing and allowed himself to be brushed. I could hear him cooing and chuffing to himself over the intercom as Kaz carefully worked the knots out of his fur. It would have been kind of adorable, really, except for the fact that I was afraid for Kazimir’s life. If the sasquatch suddenly decided to tear his arms off, I didn’t think there would be much either one of us could do about it. Kaz would be bleeding out before I could even hit the alarm button.
Kaz called out, “Can you hear me?” and I gave him a thumbs-up through the glass.
He yelled, “So, when you are done with the grooming, you must run like hell for the door. Harry often becomes upset when the brushing has stopped. The code is 5-5-4-2, okay? Make sure the door is open. Yes? Okay, I am going run for the door. Right… now.”
He suddenly whirled around and all-out sprinted for the entrance. Harry jumped up with a blood-freezing roar and loped after Kaz on all fours, bellowing in savage indignation at the abrupt ending of his grooming session. Kaz leaped through the open door like a football player diving into the end zone, and I slammed it shut a bare second before the sasquatch hit the other side. The heavy steel hummed with the force of the blow.
“Just a bit too slow, both of us,” Kaz panted. “We will do it better next time.”
I sputtered, “Next time?” and suddenly I was sitting on the floor. Kaz reached down and hauled me to my feet. My legs immediately gave out and I slithered back to the floor.
Kaz put his hands on his hips and grunted, “I think you are being just a little bit dramatic, yes?”
I flailed my arms and screeched, “Dramatic? Next time? Hell, no! Shit all over that! I was almost mauled by a sasquatch, dude! What the fuck? I thought I’d be throwing bird seed to an ostrich or some shit, not getting murdered by a giant fuckin’ ape!”
Kaz closed his eyes, let out a long breath, then leaned down and casually whacked me across the side of the head with a stiff slap. I looked up at him in shock, my head ringing from the brisk contact with his leather-clad palm, and he shook his head at me.
Gently, he said, “That is enough. I will hear no more of this talk. You are making a fuss over nothing. Did something bad happen to you? No. Could anything bad happen to you? If you are not careful, yes. So be careful, and you will always live to see another day.”
“That isn’t the big selling point you seem to think it is,” I snapped back at him.
“Get on your feet, boy,” Kazimir sighed. “There are more wonders awaiting you. Come and see.”
#
Kaz led me down the hall and asked, “What do you know about leprechauns?”
I said, “You gotta be kidding me,” but no, he wasn’t. The plate on the door was labelled LEPRECHAUN.
The leprechaun’s name was Darragh O’Shaughnessy, and according to Kaz, he was “a very angry little man” who thankfully didn’t require much in the way of direct care. The main task with Darragh was to pop in every few days and allow him to wheedle a trinket from our pockets. It was good for his mental health to acquire a shiny new treasure every so often, and he also enjoyed berating the Caretakers for their shortcomings.
“He is not an evil creature, this one, but he is always in a foul mood. Being angry brings him joy. Fetch us an item from the chest in there, but only one. Victor would be displeased if we gave him more than one item at once.”
I didn’t know if leprechauns were dangerous, but I could only assume the average leprechaun would easily kick a human being’s ass, hence the gift to win his continued cooperation. I found a wooden chest nestled in a corner of the storage room, and I was stunned to discover that it was full of gold coins, intricate jewellery, and polished gems of every description. I stared at its contents with my mouth hanging open. I was looking at millions of dollars’ worth of precious metals and gemstones, and it was just casually nestled away in an open storage closet, a stockpile of expensive presents for some asshole leprechaun. The absurdity of it all made me want to laugh, cry, and scream bloody murder, all at the same time. I blindly grabbed a small necklace from the top of the heap and dropped it into Kaz’s hand.
“Oh, he will not be pleased with this at all,” Kaz murmured. “Wait and see. He will have some choice words for me today.”
Kaz made his entry, and I watched with open-mouthed fascination as Darragh O’Shaughnessy came stomping out of his earthen mound to confront his unwanted visitor. The leprechaun was three feet of red-faced fury in an emerald-green waistcoat, replete with matching breeches and a smart-looking tophat. He glowered up at Kaz and shouted, “What unforgivable sins have I committed to be so cursed with your presence, you lumbering horse’s ass?”
Kaz stoically ignored his insults and presented him with the necklace, a simple gold chain and locket combo. The leprechaun sneered at it and growled, “I’m the star attraction of this smoldering dung heap, and this is the best you can do? Bloody fucking outrageous, so it is!”
He asked if Darragh needed anything, and the leprechaun snorted, “I need you to fuck off out the door and stop bothering me. Say, who’s that peeking through the window? Is that your new assistant? Does the sheep-faced bastard know what happened to the last one?”
Kazimir hissed, “Shush!” and started for the door with the cackling leprechaun hot on his heels.
“Oh-ho-ho, no one’s told him? Good Grace, surely the lad deserves to know about the poor man’s tragic fate? Surely, someone should tell him about the-”
Kaz scrambled through the door and shut off the intercom, cutting Darragh off in mid-sentence. We stared at each other for an uncomfortable length of time.
I said, “What happened to the last guy, Kazimir? What was this ‘tragic fate’ the little guy was talking about, huh?”
“He did not listen,” Kazimir said quietly, “and he did not take care. You, however, you will do both, and you will be fine. Okay? Listen to Kazimir and you will be safe.”
“What happened to him?” I asked again. “Is he dead?”
“Yes. He is dead. He did not listen and he was killed.”
“So it was his fault?” I prodded, and Kazimir gave me a reluctant nod.
“Yes. He did not listen, and he paid for this with his life. It was very tragic.”
I closed my eyes tightly and, through gritted teeth, I said, “Okay, sure. It was his own fault. He wasn’t careful. So, how did he die?”
Kazimir jerked his head up at the ceiling, then leaned in close to whisper, “Not now. They are watching.”
A split-second later, a loud click echoed from the speakers in the ceiling, and Vic’s voice boomed, “How are we doing, folks? You good? How’s he holding up, Kaz?”
Kaz looked up at one of the light fixtures and said, “Very well, Victor. He is learning. The whole experience requires some adjustments, as you know.”
“It really rattles the old brain-cage at first, that’s for sure,” Vic agreed. “You get told your whole life that shit isn’t real, and then you walk into this place and bam! There they are. Yep, it’s a hell of a thing to wrap your head around, I get that.”
Vic stopped talking, and during the long pause that followed, Kaz darted a sharp glance at me and shook his head. His look quite clearly said don’t say a word.
“Well, I just thought I’d check in and see how things are going for the new guy, ha ha. Carry on, fellas. Say, why dontcha take an early break? Take the kid outside and show him the grounds. You don’t have any more direct contact work today, do you?”
Kaz told the light fixture, “There is only one more. I saved the best for last.”
“Ah, shit, the goblin,” Vic chuckled. “I honestly kinda hate that fucking thing. Creepy little bastard. Anyway, go take a break and show him some of the cool shit we got outside. Oh, one last thing - send the kid to my office when you guys are done with the goblin. Okay? Talk later.”
Kaz turned to me with a stiff, unnatural grin and said, “Come along then, boy. There is an exit over here. Let us get some fresh air.”
#
We stepped into bright sunshine and fresh air, normal things from the normal world. I breathed in gratefully and said, “How’d he die, Kaz? What happened?”
Kaz growled at me to keep my voice down. “They might hear you. There are listening devices everywhere.”
He steered me down a cobblestone pathway to a gazebo that was nestled beside a willow tree. The grounds were even more impressive up close, when you were walking beneath the elaborate archways and strolling across the rustic, storybook bridges. The grounds had been landscaped to give off a vague Medieval fantasy vibe, replete with small castles, mock-ups of peasant farmsteads, and whimsical statues of mythical monsters… well, at least I assumed they were mythical. After what I’d already seen that morning, I honestly wasn’t so sure anymore.
Kaz sat me down at a table on the gazebo and, speaking very softly, he told me Victor had called my predecessor into his office the previous Thursday and shot him dead. Victor had reason to believe the assistant had been planning, one way or another, to blow the whistle on the zoo and take the whole operation down.
“I do not know how Victor discovered his intentions,” Kaz cautioned me, “but I think he probably keeps his employees under surveillance. Keep your secrets close, your opinions even closer, and never speak of them out loud.”
I turned this information over in my mind, then pointed out that Vic wanted me to come to his office after we were done. Kaz assured me that I would be fine, but added, “You must understand, this place is more than just an investment to Victor. It is his dream and his passion. He will not hesitate to dispose of anyone who threatens to destroy his dream. You must always take care in this place, especially with the others. My last assistant confided in the wrong person, I think, and now he is dead.”
I grimaced and said, “Duly noted. I’ll definitely keep that in mind.”
I felt something gently nudge my leg under the table. I leaned down and came face to face with a large rabbit with antlers growing out of its head. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then it nudged me again with its antler.
“Hey, Kazimir. There’s a rabbit with horns down here. What the fuck?”
“The jackalope,” he said, and he lit a cigarette. “Relax, she will not hurt you. Victor allows some of the more harmless creatures to roam free on the grounds. Her name is Clara, and a very long time ago, she was given as a gift to King Arthur. Now she lives here at the zoo.”
I crooned, “Hi, Clara,” and she stretched up to plant her muddy paws in my lap and sniff at my shirt. She was twice the size of a normal jackrabbit, and her little antlers were adorable.
I said, “I think I like you,” and she responded by crawling fully into my lap, whacking me in the face with an antler in the process. I winced and scratched her behind the ears.
“I think she likes you, as well,” Kazimir observed. “She is normally a very shy creature, this one.”
I joked that maybe I could just look after Clara from that point on, and Kaz shook his head.
“If only it could be so,” he said, and he butted his smoke in a standing ashtray. “We must get back inside soon and attend to the goblin.”
I asked if I could maybe grab my lunch bag from my car first, and Kazimir shook his head.
“I do not think you will wish to eat before we see the goblin,” he said. “You may regret doing so on a full stomach. Come along, and brace yourself for what you are about to witness.”
Story continued in comments below…