Chapter 5: The Gorilla

The zookeeper led Jim to what appeared to be a rather unremarkable building in the middle of the zoo. The zookeeper took out his keys and unlocked a side door. The two of them walked inside. The inside looked to Jim like any other regular, cramped office building except that instead of the walls being lined with cheesy motivational posters, they were lined with scientific posters about different animal species. Jim followed the zookeeper through the maze of hallways until the zookeeper stopped in front of one particular office door. The zookeeper paused again before opening the door, as if considering one last time whether he should be doing this. Jim didn't want to overplay his hand so he simply gave the zookeeper a confident, trusting nod. The door was unlocked. The zookeeper opened it and the two of them went inside. Jim was shocked when, inside the office, he saw a wall of televisions showing live footage from security cameras all over the park. Jim knew about security equipment and there must have been tens of thousands of dollars of surveillance equipment linked to that dinky little office. They had cameras covering almost the entire zoo. 

"I guess you guys don't miss much," Jim said, staring at the wall of surveillance equipment, fully aware of irony.

The zookeeper wasn't fazed. He'd already heard the digs. "When shit goes down at a zoo, you kind of expect that it will make some sort of racket. Animals don't normally do things quietly. I don't blame the guys for missing what happened that night."

"You weren't on duty?"

"I feed the animals that I have to feed and go home." Jim looked at the various cameras. They appeared to focus more on the people than the animals. The zoo was relatively crowded that day but there was one camera that caught a throng of spectators. 

"What's that camera?" Jim asked, pointing.

"That's the Lost Forest," the zookeeper answered him. "It's the gorilla habitat. It's been mobbed there ever since Sammy was stolen. I don't know what the people expect to see."

"What's the gorilla's name mean anyway," Jim asked watching the crowd in the little television.

"It's short for Samehe, the Swahili word for saved," the zookeeper responded, "you know, since she was saved from the poachers."

"So you have the rest of the footage?" Jim asked.

"Yeah. Sit down." Jim sat in the swivel chair next to the zookeeper's. The zookeeper pulled the footage up on a computer screen beneath the wall of television monitors. "We actually edited the different cameras together so that we can get a real time picture of the thieves' movement through the park." He hit a button and there, on the screen, were the two dark figures walking up to the door to the gorilla habitat. Their faces were indiscernible behind their masks. Based on the video and the size of the missing gorilla, they estimated the shorter man was about 5'9" and the taller, 6'2". Jim should have been looking for clues like that. He should have been looking at the robbers. He wasn't. He was too busy staring at the gorilla.

Jim didn't take his eyes off the screen. "Does anyone have any theories?" Jim asked as he watched the footage.

"Everybody has theories," the zookeeper replied. "The other day I heard one of maintenance people say that it was the Hexicans."

"Hexicans?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, apparently it's these Mexicans that practice some sort of voodoo or Santeria or something. The theory is that they put a spell on the gorilla and were taking it so they could sacrifice it."

"Plausible theory," Jim said. The zookeeper laughed. Jim kept watching. 

"Scary part is," the zookeeper said, "it makes as much sense as any other theory I've heard." The gorilla was amazingly docile, like she'd been trained. She never even started walking in the wrong direction, not once. She followed right alongside the two men even though they never gave her any signals to guide her. She walked at the same pace that they did; no slower; no faster. It was like the gorilla was an accomplice in her own theft, like she was in on the plan. She seemed to prefer the shorter man, walking closer to him. Jim and zookeeper sat in silence as they watched the last fifteen minutes of footage until the trio disappeared through the side gate. Then the computer screen went dark. They sat there for another few minutes contemplating what they had just watched even though they had both seen the footage, or at least parts of it, dozens of times already.

Then the zookeeper broke the silence. "Have you heard about the others?" he asked.

"Others?" Jim replied. 

"There are others," the zookeeper said. Jim looked at him, amazed that he was hearing about this for the first time. The zookeepers seemed excited, clearly wanting to keep talking, clearing wanting someone to listen to him.

"It's nothing like this I mean," the zookeeper quickly backtracked, "but there are other missing animals. I did some research after Sammy was stolen. There are at least three other zoos that have lost animals."

"Gorillas?" Jim asked.

"No. Let's see," the zookeeper started opening up articles that he bookmarked on his computer. He began to speak more quickly. "A great horned owl in from one zoo. A wild boar from another. An anaconda. And there are other things. Animals stolen from people-exotic pets. A guy had his pet Kodiak bear stolen. Those things are huge. And look at this," he pulled up another article. Jim leaned over and read. The article was about a tiger park in India. "They count the tigers in this place pretty consistently and suddenly, one tiger is missing. I mean it's a wild park so it could have died but they didn't find a body and they looked. The thing is just missing. And there's nothing out there in the woods that hunts tigers besides people." The zookeeper paused to catch his breath. Then he went on, still speaking at a breakneck speed, "And that's just what I could find. I mean, who knows what else is out there."

"What did they say happened at the other zoos?" Jim asked, glancing up at the wall of cameras.

"It's hard to tell. One was in China so you can't really trust anything they say. The owl was from Germany. The Germans claim that the owl somehow got loose. Most zoos don't have the same security that we do. Nobody has footage like this, but..." the zookeeper shrugged. He didn't finish his sentence. He knew how he sounded. He sounded like some sort of conspiracy nut. His theory was about as plausible as the Hexicans. 

"Did you tell the police about this?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, but they didn't buy it." The zookeeper looked down at the floor as he spoke. "They didn't believe that all these things could be connected. You know, they're too far apart and all." Jim's instinct was to agree with the police.

"But you think they're connected?" Jim asked, not sure he should trust his first instinct after seeing what he'd just seen on that video.

"I don't know," the zookeeper said. "But all of this stuff," he waved towards the computer, "the animals that have gone missing, they're not the biggest or the most famous animals or anything. If someone is going to go to all this trouble to steal a tiger or a gorilla, you'd think they'd go all out. But every one of these animals has gone missing in the past two years." He paused again, uncertain if he should continue, afraid of how crazy he might sound, but he couldn't stop himself. "And another thing that they all have in common, they're all adolescent females. Just like Sammy." The zookeeper hit play on the video footage on his computer again to rerun the video of the robbers leaving the park with the gorilla. Jim wondered how many times the zookeeper had watched the footage. The two of them stared at the three shadowy figures walking through the zoo. If you stared long enough, you started to forget which one was the gorilla.

Jim looked at the video again. "That's some fucked up shit," he finally said. He had no idea what to think.

"Yeah," the zookeeper replied. He looked up at Jim. "Right?"