The jackals were stowed in their guillotine-gated kennels at night, yet this made Cuthbert’s task easy because each kennel’s back wall was formed by the main fence of the exhibit. He only needed to cut through one flimsy fence and the jackals would be free, at least to roam the paths of the zoo. They weren’t otters, and nothing sacred, but they were a start, surely.
He got down on his knees and began snipping through the fence. He worked quickly and handily, moving right to left, one kennel to the next. The fence gauge was so light, and his cutters so powerful, he could not feel the slightest resistance.
There were three cages total, with five jackals. On each cage he ended up making three arm-length cuts, creating little flaps, which he pulled back with considerable strain. The fencing seemed easier to cut than to bend. The animals were keyed up, roving in fast ovals in the cages. One of the jackals barked at him with a high, compressed Yip! Yip! It stopped barking and approached him warily and he stopped. He was so terrified he could not move; three of his fingers were still latched into a fencing. The jackal began to lick his fingers. He began to cry. “Soz,* mates,” he said. He pictured the dead stray beside the canal, its blank black eye staring at him, the prickles on his hands as he and his friends gathered furze to hide their crime. “I was evil, evil, evil. Please forgive me, puppies.” Don’t care if the jackal takes off me arm, he told himself. I’m doing what I set out to. So he kept snipping and tugging at the fence, and when he worked each flap open, one or two at a time, the yellow-haired creatures bolted out of their cages, took a few long-legged lopes, and halted. One of the jackals brushed against his hand, and he was surprised by the softness of the hair and the lightness of its frame.
We’re lies, they said to Cuthbert. Lie and lie and lie and lie and lie.
“No,” Cuthbert said. “Now you’re out, aren’t you? You can have all the names you want, see? You can go out into England, you can. We have otters, you know.”
They said lie down lie down lie lie lie sit stay lie down lie lie lie.
Cuthbert felt a bond with the dogs, “a brother to jackals,” like Job, with an anxious, despairing pride in his actions.
He wanted the jackals to keep moving, and for the most part, they did—and seemed to know exactly where they were going, as if they’d done this for years but merely fallen out of practice recently. Each of the jackals traipsed over to an especially flouncy line of daffodils planted along the main path. They sniffed and dug at the flowers, and to Cuthbert they looked both obsessive and surprisingly gentle. A few yellow cups and long leaves flew into the air behind them. Their backs would hump way up, accentuating the shaggy black mane between their shoulders. The daffodils were planted directly across from the sign that described the Golden Jackal exhibit. Cuthbert sat back, delighted. The last jackal urinated on the flowers, and darted off with the others. They were, if nothing else, staying together.
Cuthbert set down his cutters. He pressed one of the fence-flaps back to its original position as best as he could. The repair appeared crude, like an old tin of kippers with its pull-lid breached. He decided not to bother with the other openings. Maybe the jackals will want to return, he thought. He retrieved the cutters and stood.
Cuthbert walked over to the path in an awkward manner. A huge array of lights blazed on with a sound of metal unlatching. It was as if the whole zoo had been opened for night visitors.
“That bloody copper,” he slurred. “Bloody git.” His head was spinning and he could barely balance, such was the perceived length of his legs. He was still spiring on Flōt, a little more than he had expected to be. He collected himself as best he could, holding on to his own jumper’s front for balance, and he staggered ahead, trying not to tumble forward. He felt both vengeful and scared. He would find some monkeys—yes, they needed to be freed next. They were smart creatures, and England needed them to defend it and themselves against the death cult. Then the giraffes. Tall, useful sentinels of the layer of Britain located between ten and twenty feet above the ground. Arr. Any animal he could free—why not? But above all else, of course, the otters—they must be released into the canal!
He heard a stir of animal grunts and screeches, rising steadily around him—the jackals were making their presence known in the world. Cuthbert Handley was going to make his presence known, too.
four
the jackals’ first kills
A FAILING SCREAM ROSE FROM SOMEWHERE BEHIND Cuthbert in the zoo. It was distant and plangent, the sound of a creature losing everything. A series of gross barks cavorted around it. Listening, rubbing his thumb across the foam handle of his bolt cutters, Cuthbert felt a tiny, ugly maggot of grief, weak but true, squirming beneath his Flōter’s stupor. He prayed the otters were not the victims. A swell of mammalian cries mounted for a moment, as if in response to his feeling, and faded. He wondered if Drystan was hearing this, too.
“Drystan? Are yow here?”
Cuthbert thought, for a moment, that he heard a man’s voice, but then the sounds of other animals flooded in.