400 Minutes of Danger Read online

  And then, so quickly Sally almost couldn’t believe it, the mosquito was gone. It dissolved into the writhing mass of ants, leaving nothing behind. A minute ago it had been the biggest, fiercest creature in this forest, and now it was like it had never existed.

  00:25 The column of ants marched closer to Sally. They clambered over one another, layered so thickly that the jungle floor was completely covered. Beetles were consumed. A small bird pecked optimistically at the ants, and then disappeared into the flood.

  Sally’s paralysis broke and she stumbled back, just in time to avoid getting any ants on her shoes. She turned and ran up the trail. Towards daylight. Towards the beach. Towards the plane.

  With the mosquito dead, she might be one of the biggest things in the jungle.

  00:00 But that didn’t make her the scariest.

  ENCLOSURE

  40:00 ‘Come on,’ Icky said. ‘Don’t be a wuss.’

  ‘I’m doing it, OK?’ Brad hissed.

  Icky wiggled his elbows and clucked like a chicken.

  ‘Shut up! Someone will hear us.’

  39:20 Icky snickered. Brad cursed as he tried another key in the lock. The moonlight was pitiful. He could hardly see what he was doing.

  Privately Brad hoped they wouldn’t be able to get the gate open. The wrought-iron fence was four metres tall with cruel spikes at the top and no handholds anywhere. They’d never be able to climb it. If Icky’s keys didn’t work, Brad could go home, where it was warm and safe. Right now the wind was chilling him all the way down to his skeleton.

  Sneaking into the zoo at night. Whose dumb idea was this again?

  The lock clicked.

  38:40 ‘Finally!’ Icky said, as the massive gate creaked open. ‘Come on.’

  He pushed past Brad and disappeared into the darkness of the zoo, grabbing the keys on the way in. Brad followed.

  38:30 It sounded like the trees were breathing, although Brad knew it was just the leaves brushing against one another high overhead. The darkness made ominous black rectangles out of the signs that lined the path. As they passed a mesh enclosure, Brad jumped—a pair of luminous eyes were watching him from the shadows. His cat, Pat, had eyes which glowed like that when it crouched on the back fence at night. What was it that made animal eyes shine in the dark? And what animal did these eyes belong to? An owl? A sloth?

  ‘How far are the lockers?’ Brad whispered.

  37:25 ‘Why are you whispering?’ Icky asked. ‘There’s no-one here. Helloooo!’

  His voice bounced around the dark enclosures and then faded away to nothing. Brad waited for signs that someone—or something—had heard them. But there was only silence.

  36:50 Glad Icky couldn’t see his hands trembling in the dark, he said, ‘Let’s just do this and get out of here.’

  Icky—or Ichabod, when his parents were around—was a volunteer at the zoo. He said his job was ten per cent feeding animals and ninety per cent cleaning up poo. One of the other volunteers, Nancy, was leaving for a job at the aquarium. As a going-away prank, Icky had dared Brad to fill her locker with water balloons. The next day, Icky was going to come in early with his camera. He would be ready to film it as Nancy opened her locker and was buried in a landslide of balloons.

  ‘Water balloons,’ Icky had told Brad, snickering. ‘Because she’s going to an aquarium. Get it?’

  Brad got it, but he wasn’t sure it was funny. Kind of mean, actually. Were going-away pranks even a thing?

  But he had been friends with Icky for a long time. He couldn’t say no. Brad hitched his backpack a little higher on his shoulders. The water balloons inside were heavy. He told himself that if this went horribly wrong, it was Icky who would get in trouble, not him.

  34:25 Splash.

  Brad turned his head sharply towards the sound. But he couldn’t even see the water, let alone the animal that had made the noise.

  ‘Crocodile,’ Icky said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Those two statements didn’t seem to go together.

  ‘It’s in a cage, right?’ Brad said.

  34:10 ‘Glass enclosure. We’ll be fine as long as the zookeepers remembered to close the door.’

  Brad couldn’t tell if Icky was kidding. He scurried through the darkness, trying to ignore the feeling of being watched. The sooner they did this, the sooner he could go home.

  There was something weird about the silence. Brad looked around. In the dim moonlight he could see a litter bin, a park bench and an ice-cream hut with shutters over the windows. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  33:10 Finally he realised what it was. ‘I can’t hear any insects,’ he whispered. ‘Like, no mosquitoes, no crickets, nothing.’

  ‘We’re near the aviary,’ Icky said. ‘The birds eat all the bugs. Worms, too.’

  32:50 Icky approached a low concrete building with a heavy door marked STAFF ONLY. He started fiddling with his keys.

  ‘You should have brought a torch,’ Brad said.

  ‘It’s fine. I got it.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like you do.’

  Will you just—’

  Icky froze. Brad looked around. The zoo was dark and quiet. Bats fluttered in the treetops.

  What is it?’ Brad whispered.

  ‘Look.’

  31:45 Brad followed Icky’s gaze. He was looking at the nearest fence—a green-painted wall of metal sheeting. There was a hole in it, perfectly circular, a little larger than a beach ball.

  ‘That hole wasn’t there yesterday,’ Icky said.

  ‘Could one of the animals have made it?’ Brad asked.

  ‘Are you kidding? That’s steel. And anyway, that fence separates the zoo from the outside world. There are no enclosures anywhere near it.’

  31:00 Brad walked closer to the fence. A chemical smell lingered in the air, like bleach. The edges of the opening were smooth. He reached out to touch them.

  ‘Ow!’ He snatched his hand back. The metal was hot. Someone had cut through the fence with a blowtorch or laser.

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ Icky hissed. ‘Get back over here.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we call your boss? Or the cops?’

  30:15 And say what? We broke into the zoo at night and it looks like someone has vandalised a fence, but it totally wasn’t us? They’ll find it in the morning. Come on.’

  Icky had found the key to the locker-room door. He twisted the handle and pulled the door open. Brad followed him into the darkness.

  He heard Icky flick a light switch, but nothing happened.

  ‘No power after hours?’ Brad guessed.

  29:30 ‘That’s just great.’

  Brad squinted. A little light came through the window, glancing off the tiled floor and the rows of lockers. Coat hooks were mounted on the far wall, where there was another door.

  ‘Nancy’s locker is number 123,’ Icky said. ‘It’s on the right.’

  Brad walked along the right-hand row of lockers, leaning in close to peer at the numbers. There was 93, there was 103, there was—

  29:05 ‘Here it is,’ Icky said. He dug a small padlock and a pair of rubber-handled boltcutters out of his bag. The padlock was the same brand as Nancy’s. Icky was going to cut her padlock off, fill the locker with water balloons and put the new padlock on so she wouldn’t know anyone had messed with it. He would leave the new padlock open—hopefully Nancy would assume she had just forgotten to close it.

  Brad was getting more and more uncomfortable with this plan. The water balloons were harmless, but going through a stranger’s locker felt very wrong.

  28:20 ‘I don’t know about this,’ he said.

  Icky heaved on the boltcutters. Splink. Nancy’s padlock snapped.

  ‘You don’t know about what?’ he asked.

  Brad was about to reply when he heard something. Footsteps, crunching on the path outside.

  He and Icky looked at each other.

  27:40 ‘Hide!’ Icky hissed.

  Brad looked at the back door. He might ma
ke it out in time, but opening it could be noisy. Instead he squeezed himself into a gap between two rows of lockers, heart pounding. Icky did the same in another gap on the opposite side of the room.

  ‘Look,’ a voice outside said. ‘The fence.’

  ‘I see it,’ someone replied. The thieves are back.’

  27:05 ‘We’ll get them this time. You call for backup and start checking the rare animal enclosures. I’ll grab an inventory sheet from the locker room.’

  Brad and Icky looked at each other. Icky’s eyes were wide with terror.

  The front door of the locker room creaked open. Then there was silence.

  26:35 Brad stayed perfectly still, holding his breath.

  Click. An electric hum filled the room and a row of lights flickered on overhead. Icky must have hit the wrong switch before. Brad squinted in the sudden light. He felt frighteningly exposed.

  He heard a slow, cautious footfall. Then another.

  26:10 A security guard came into view. A radio on his lapel was connected to a transmitter on his hip. He was holding a tranquilliser rifle—the type keepers used to knock out dangerous animals so the vet could examine them safely.

  Brad desperately hoped that the guard would walk past the gap without looking over.

  The guard took one more step—and saw Brad.

  ‘Hey!’ he yelled.

  25:45 Brad jumped out from the gap between the lockers. The guard tried to grab him, but Brad dodged out of reach and sprinted to the back door.

  ‘Stop right there!’ the guard roared.

  Brad hit the door at a run, shoving it open and tumbling through into the darkness. He slammed the door shut behind him and hoped it would slow the man down.

  Icky hadn’t told him that security guards patrolled the zoo at night. Maybe he hadn’t known. Now they were going to get caught. Brad could get arrested. Even put in jail.

  25:20 He ran up a twisting path between two enclosures. He didn’t know the layout of the zoo, and had no idea which way the front gates were. Because he’d come out the wrong side of the locker room, he didn’t even know how to get back to the hole in the fence.

  The locker-room door clanked open in the darkness behind him. The guard was yelling into his radio: ‘I’ve spotted one of the thieves. Seal all the exits!’

  24:00 Brad wasn’t stealing anything, but he didn’t expect the guard to believe that. Soon more guards would arrive to block the exits. If Brad wanted to get out of here, he had to hurry.

  The water balloons weighed him down. But trying to take off the backpack at this point would slow him down even more. He would have to find a hiding place before he could ditch it.

  22:50 The path forked up ahead. It was too dark to read the signs. The guard would probably assume Brad had gone downhill to the right, where a maze of enclosures provided plenty of cover. So he went left instead, up a wooden ramp. He slowed down a little so the guard wouldn’t hear his footsteps on the planks.

  At the top of the ramp Brad realised he had made a mistake. This was just a viewing platform—a dead end. There was a narrow bench and some coin-operated binoculars mounted on steel poles, but nothing to hide behind.

  Brad could only hope the guard would keep running down the path towards the other enclosures—

  But he was out of luck. He could hear the guard clomping up the ramp.

  21:40 Brad ran to the far end of the platform, hoping that he’d missed something. But he hadn’t. There was no cover at all. The guard would spot him immediately.

  A fence made of thick wooden planks surrounded the viewpoint. It was a little more than a metre high, so people could see over the top but wouldn’t fall over the edge. If Brad climbed over it and hung from the railing by his fingertips, maybe the guard wouldn’t see him.

  Ignoring the sense of growing dread and the voice in his head that told him this was a very bad idea, Brad vaulted over the fence and dangled there, feet kicking five or six metres above the shrubbery below. If he fell, he could break his legs—or his neck.

  19:50 He heard the guard reach the top of the ramp. Brad’s arms already ached. He wondered if his fingers were visible.

  A torch clicked on. Through the gaps in the fence, Brad watched the beam sweep across the boards.

  ‘I know you’re up here,’ the guard growled. ‘Come on out.’

  That sounded like a bluff. Brad stayed very still.

  The guard walked towards the fence. The torch beam swayed across the bench and the binoculars.

  Go away, Brad thought. I’m not here.

  The beam illuminated the fence, shining through the cracks and blinding Brad.

  18:45 ‘I got him!’ the guard yelled into his radio. He ran towards the fence.

  In a panic, Brad let go of the railing.

  He tumbled backwards through the air for just long enough to regret his decision—

  And landed on something springy.

  18:15 What he had thought were bushes was actually camouflage netting, stretched between two posts. Designed for small animals to climb across, perhaps, or find shade under.

  Brad rebounded off the net and crashed down to the ground. He landed on his back, and his backpack absorbed the force of the impact. A few of the water balloons inside burst with dull popping sounds, soaking his spine. But when he bounced sideways onto his arms and legs, they didn’t hit the dirt hard enough to break bones. Against all odds, he had survived the fall relatively unharmed.

  17:40 The torchlight flickered above him. Brad scrambled to his feet and ran, hoping the guard wouldn’t jump over the rail to chase him.

  16:55 There were no paths down here. The ground was littered with logs and big rocks. Brad leaped over them and dodged around spindly trees as he raced towards what looked like a moat. Beyond the moat was a chain-link fence, about five metres high, topped with razor wire.

  Even if he could cross the moat, how would Brad get over the fence? It wasn’t just a matter of the razor wire cutting up his hands. The top of the fence was bent inwards over his head. It would be all but impossible to climb.

  After a few seconds, the implications of this sank in. Brad was inside one of the enclosures. And whatever animal was in here with him, it needed a moat and a five-metre razor-wire fence to keep it in.

  16:20 Brad jogged along the moat, looking for a place to cross—and then he got the sudden sense that something was watching him.

  15:30 He turned, scanning his surroundings. The darkness was still and silent.

  It was hard to imagine that anything could have slept through the noise he had been making. Maybe there were no animals in here right now. Perhaps the enclosure was still being built, or perhaps the occupants—monkeys? pandas?—were in the vet’s building.

  Or perhaps something had seen him, and was keeping still. It might be more afraid of him than he was of it. Maybe.

  A narrow walkway crossed the moat in the distance. It led to two gates, one behind the other, like an airlock. They were both closed, but they could have been left unlocked. Brad didn’t see another way out. He ran towards it—

  15:05 Then he saw movement from the corner of his eye.

  He whirled around. The long grass swayed gently in the breeze. Looking about, it was easy to forget that he was in an enclosure. The flat-topped trees and broad rocks made it look like an African savanna. He was sure he had seen something, but whatever it had been, it wasn’t visible now.

  If the guard had jumped down into the enclosure after him, Brad would have heard him land. This must be someone … or something else.

  14:55 ‘Icky?’ he whispered. ‘Is that you?’

  14:30 There was no reply. But Brad saw movement again, ten or fifteen metres away. A slow shifting in the long grass, something easing up and down, left and right, like a pair of pistons.

  Brad recognised the movement. It was exactly like Pat’s shoulders, rising and falling when he was getting ready to pounce on a cockroach.

  But this was something much, much larger than a p
et cat. And it was hunting him.

  14:10 The muscular shoulders disappeared into the grass. Once again, the night was still.

  Brad was paralysed with fear. Staying still wouldn’t save him—the animal already knew he was here. But running away probably wouldn’t help either. Pat could outrun Brad—he could only assume that this creature would be even faster.

  It hadn’t attacked yet, though. Maybe he could get to the walkway, cross the river and open one of the gates before it realised what he was doing.

  Heart pounding, Brad took a slow, careful step back.

  There was no movement in the long grass. Perhaps the animal wasn’t there any more. But if so, where did it go?

  13:45 He took another step towards the walkway.

  The creature burst out of the grass.

  It was a white lion.

  Brad shrieked in terror as the creature streaked towards him like a runaway train. It moved so fast that the wind slicked back its majestic mane. Golden eyes glowed. Massive paws thumped against the dirt. Muscles rippled under loose fur. The lion snarled, its dark lips tugging back to expose enormous fangs.

  13:20 Brad’s conscious mind completely shut down. The fear blocked out all thought. Operating entirely on instinct, he ripped off his backpack as he stumbled backwards and held it up in front of his body like a shield, desperate for any kind of protection.

  The lion slammed into him. Its paws hit his shoulders, knocking him down and pinning him. It weighed as much as a motorcycle. Brad screamed as the beast chomped down on his backpack—

  12:15 And several water balloons exploded inside.

  Water spattered Brad’s face. The lion sprang backwards as if it had been burned. It wiped its nose and eyes furiously with the backs of its paws, shaking its mane dry.

  Pat hated water. Big cats must be the same.

  11:00 The lion had recovered and was sprinting at him again. Brad dug another water balloon out of the backpack and hurled it at the animal. Without waiting to see if it connected, he dashed for the moat.

  He heard the lion roar—a guttural noise, like a V8 engine. It sounded like it was right behind him.

  Brad hit the murky water and didn’t stop running until he was in up to his neck. His wet shoes and clothes dragged him down, although the backpack in his hands was suddenly weightless. The water was freezing. He half ran, half swam across the channel to the other side, where he dragged himself out of the water, grabbing the chain-link fence to steady himself.