Page 18 of A Malicious Menagerie
“Good work,” Mathis says with an approving nod. I breathe out a surreptitious sigh of relief. “Yes, it’s dreadful that we need things like NDAs here, but you can understand why they would be necessary?”
“Yes, sir,” I agree, and from his perspective, I really do get it.
“Marvelous. Keep up the good work, then.” Just that quickly, his eyes leave me, and I’m dismissed. I grab the edge of the table to support my shaky knees as he turns his attention to Colby. “And you, Colby? How are things going with the guards?”
“All status quo,” he rumbles shortly.
“Hmm. Doing some reading, I see.” Mathis cranes his neck to read the title on Colby’s book. “Irish folklore. Did any of my creatures in particular inspire your research?”
Colby’s hand curls into a fist on the table, his knuckles blanching. “Nah,” he replies with a dismissive snort that belies the tense set of his jaw. “Just learning about my roots.”
He’s lying. I know he’s lying, and from the glint in Mathis’s eyes, he does too.
“Your mother is Irish, yes?” Mathis inquires lightly. Colby’s fist tightens until I imagine I hear his tendons creak.
“Yeah, she is.”
Mathis nods. “Well, all seems to be in order here. I’ll let you get back to it.” He inclines his head to John. “John. Keep up the good work.”
“Of course, sir,” John agrees readily, his usually stooped shoulders ramrod straight.Kiss-ass.
When Mathis leaves, it feels like he takes a black hole with him. I let myself take my first full breath. What is this slimy, panicky feeling that his visit left behind?
Threatened.I feel threatened. He wanted me to know that he’s aware of my soft spots, and I get the feeling that he wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of them.
Just how far would Mathis go to protect his precious menagerie?
I glance at Colby, wondering if he feels the same way. His expression is closed off, confirming my suspicion. He pushes up from the table with a frustrated grunt. Watching him rise, I realize he must be six-five, if not taller, and built like a Mack truck. As he tucks his book under one arm, preparing to leave, I’m sure that he’s going to duck right by me without a word. After all, we both just had our insecurities laid bare by our boss. To my surprise, he pauses long enough to meet my eyes. He doesn’t smile, but his gruff voice is almost pleasant as he says, “It was nice meeting you, Anna.”
“You, too, Colby,” I reply, smiling enough for both of us.
“Bye, Colby,” John interrupts sarcastically. The guard only flips him off over one broad shoulder as he starts back toward his post.
10
The Mothman
After our break, our next stop is the enclosure across from the wolf, the one with the dense trees that seemed empty when I stopped by it the day prior. “What lives here?” I ask curiously, once again squinting into the gloom between tree trunks as we round the enclosure to reach the back. I’m still feeling out of sorts from Mathis’s “check-in,” but the promise of meeting another menagerie resident is almost enough to distract me.
John only smirks. “Now, where’s the fun in just telling you?”
Scowling, I let him lead me to another set of boxes beside the door. One is identical to the freezer outside the dire wolf’s enclosure, but when John opens it, no blast of cool air emerges. Instead, I wrinkle my nose against the sickly-sweet smell of decay. “Looks like the freezer stopped working,” I note, peering in dismay at the collection of pulpy, putrid fruit inside.
“Nope,” John replies casually, pulling on some blue disposable gloves from a box attached to the side of the warm freezer. “This is just how he likes it.”
Bemused and a little disgusted, I watch as he scoops decomposing fruit into a trash bag, some of it liquefying and running through his fingers in red-brown rivulets. God bless the day shift for reloading the residents’ diverse diets and cleaning up the resulting messes each day.
Next, he closes the freezer on the rest of the spoilage and turns to a plain white cabinet with slatted doors next to it. Inside, there are neatly stackedboxes made of fine silver mesh with sturdy white bases and lids. “What’s in there?” I ask, knowing it’s useless to ask John anything but unable to help myself.
To my surprise, he answers. “Aphids.”
“Aphids? Like… the bugs?”
“Yes, like the bugs, what other kind of aphids are there?” he grumps. He thrusts the box into my chest so I have no choice but to take it from him.
I have to resist the childish desire to reply ‘aphids like you.’ Instead, I press my lips firmly together to keep from commenting and watch as he engages the switch beside the door. Like the wolf’s enclosure, this chain-link divider slides directly across, leaving us a small, rectangular space to enter with the enclosure’s occupant locked on the other side. That done, John moves toward a fallen log in the center of the closed-off rectangle, and I notice that part of the top of the log has been carved away to make a flat surface. The wood is splotchy and stained a dark red-brown. It soon becomes apparent why when John dumps the contents of his trash bag onto the makeshift table. That done, he motions for the box in my arms, and I happily hand it over. He pries the lid off, revealing a mass of swarming, pale green dots about the size of the eye of a needle. Without ceremony, he upends the box and dumps the aphids onto the leaf-strewn ground at his feet.
My eyebrows shoot up. “Aren’t aphids huge pests? Is it smart to just… let them go like that?”
