Riddles and Danger Page 7

  Noah thought about this while Sam checked the landscape.

  “The brothers got worse, and so did their moods. One day, things got crazy. For some reason they had a fight. And if the history of that day is even close to correct, you don’t want to be anywhere near three magical guys when they’re brawling. They destroyed entire sectors, and they just about killed each other.”

  “Why didn’t the Secret Society stop them from growing the Secret Zoo?”

  “They tried. But the brothers refused. And they were too powerful to stop. The Society could only stand back and hope for the best.”

  “Which obviously happened,” said Noah.

  Sam nodded. “A few weeks after their fight, the person now known to be DeGraff was discovered and chased out of the Secret Zoo. The moment he was gone, the brothers returned to normal. The link was completely obvious, though at the time no one understood it. It took years of research to realize that the man who’d breached the borders of the Secret Zoo had been DeGraff. We learned that the circumstances of his birth were identical to those of his brothers, except that DeGraff was born in America, a world away from India.”

  Noah could barely believe what he was hearing. “And all that time, DeGraff was hiding in the Secret Zoo.”

  “Close,” said Sam, “but not exactly right. DeGraff wasn’t hiding—he was hunting.”

  “Hunting? For what?”

  “For the first minions in his army.”

  “What—” Noah stopped himself. Though he was confused about many things, he understood where this was headed. “The sasquatches,” he said. “DeGraff spent the six months that he was in the Secret Zoo assembling them.”

  Sam nodded. “That’s the point I’ve been getting to.” His face hardened, and his mouth twisted into a frown. “The sasquatches and DeGraff—they’re on the same team.”

  Chapter 11

  The Shadows of DeGraff

  “How . . . how do you know all this?” Noah asked at last.

  The wind hissed and howled through the crevices of Fort Scout. Outside, a few snowflakes swept across the sky. On the window frame, P-Dog stood on his haunches, his stare shifting between Noah and Sam.

  Sam leaned in close to Noah. “Get this. One night in the Secret Zoo, two doctors, a man and a woman, were working late. Sometime after midnight, they went for a walk. The entire City of Species was asleep—lights were out, and the city gateways were at a standstill. The sky was cloudless and crowded with stars. At some point, the doctors strolled into Sector Eighteen, a sector for lions, and guess who they came across.”

  “DeGraff?”

  Sam nodded. “They couldn’t see much of him in the darkness—just the circular brim of his hat and the long folds of his trench coat. He was standing just outside a cave, his back to the bright moon, his arms reaching out to the sky. At his feet, an enormous animal lay covered in his shadow. A sasquatch, either sleeping or dead.

  “The doctors ducked behind some bushes and watched. DeGraff continued to stand with his arms raised to the stars, his fingers splayed. A minute passed. Then another. The sasquatch began to move. It rolled away, but DeGraff followed it, his arms still lifted, the moonlight still at his back. His shadow continued to blanket the sasquatch.

  “The sasquatch went into a spasm, kicking and punching at nothing. For a moment, it became perfectly still. Then it hoisted itself to its feet, rising high above DeGraff to stare down on him.”

  Sam paused, leaving Noah to explore the image on his own. In his mind’s eye, Noah saw the sasquatch towering above the Shadowist, moonlight glinting on its fangs. He saw its chest heaving up and down in greedy, shallow gasps. He saw its stare locked on DeGraff.

  Sam continued. “Then the sasquatch simply turned away and entered the cave. Just like that. There was no confrontation, no communication, nothing. The sasquatch just left.

  “That was when one of the doctors moved, snapping a branch. DeGraff jerked at the sound, spotted them in the bushes, then fled across Sector Eighteen, disappearing within seconds.”

  Noah peered out at his dark neighborhood. Now everything about it was creepy: the trees, the peaks of shadowy rooftops, the spaces beneath backyard decks, the sheds and winterized pools. DeGraff could be anywhere, hiding in anything. How could they possibly stop him from getting inside the Secret Zoo? A place with a thousand points of entry—how could that be guarded?

  Noah shivered, but not from the cold.

  Sam continued. “The doctors ran into the City of Species and went straight to Security. Security sent hundreds of police-monkeys into Sector Eighteen and alerted the guards on the Outside. A guard in the Clarksville Zoo spotted him. And get this—the guard said that whenever DeGraff moved into a shadow, a deep one, he immediately appeared on its opposite side. It was like he could portal across them.”

  “That’s . . .” Noah thought about it. “That’s impossible.” Then he remembered what Ella had said about the man she’d seen standing in the shadows of Richie’s house on the night they first discovered the Secret Zoo. She’d said that he had dissolved into the shadows.

  “Once on the Outside, it took only seconds for DeGraff to escape the Clarksville Zoo. Like this”—Sam snapped his fingers—“he was gone.”

  Noah waited to comprehend what had been said. “What about the sasquatch?” he asked at last. “What happened to it?”

  Sam pulled his stare away from Noah. “It became.”

  When Noah realized that Sam wasn’t going to add anything else, he prompted. “It became what?”

  Sam looked at Noah again. In a heavy voice, he said, “Something else. Something . . . different. Somehow DeGraff’s shadow . . . the magic inside it . . . somehow it poisoned the sasquatch.”

  Noah didn’t like where this was going. He stayed silent and waited for Sam to go on.

  “Shortly after DeGraff escaped, police-monkeys captured the sasquatch in the caves of Sector Eighteen. They locked it up in the City of Species. Right away, everyone could tell something was wrong with it. It was stronger and angrier than any sasquatch the Society had ever seen. And there was something in its eyes. An emptiness . . . or a deadness, maybe.

  “The Secret Society built a containment area inside Sector Thirty-seven that became known as CA-Thirty-seven. It was a large area, the size of a park, maybe, with thick perimeter walls. Over the next year, the sasquatch continued to change. It became taller, wider, stronger. Its hair grew long and fell out in patches. It sprouted fangs and claws. It was constantly in a rage and killed anything it could find—birds, snakes, bugs, whatever. It slept in the mud, tossing and turning and kicking its feet, no doubt plagued by nightmares.

  “Incredibly, the world around it began to change. CA-Thirty-seven started to die. Grass wilted, waters muddied, and trees dropped their leaves. Somehow, just by its existence, the sasquatch was murdering the land. I know it sounds crazy, but DeGraff . . . it was like he was spreading his darkness through the sasquatch. DeGraff’s wickedness . . . it’s like a disease.

  “In the end, the sasquatch became a monster—a real monster with full allegiance to DeGraff. And DeGraff didn’t just get to that one sasquatch. In the months that he was inside our borders, he got to them all. And for DeGraff, that’s only the beginning. He doesn’t only want control over the sasquatches—he wants control over all the animals in the Secret Zoo.”

  Noah shuddered at the thought.

  “Think of how the sasquatches have changed, and imagine what the other animals would be like. Think of a lion, a rhinoceros, an elephant. They’d become monsters of unimaginable strength. Think of what millions could do. Not just to our world . . . but to yours.”

  Noah did imagine it. And the ideas and images that formed in his head were terrifying.

  Sam said, “This has been his plan from the very beginning—from the moment he stood on Mr. Jackson’s porch telling stories of Bhanu. DeGraff wants an army of monsters to storm the earth.”

  Noah could feel his heart racing. Some things were
beginning to make sense: Mr. Darby’s stories; the Secret Society’s concern about opening the Dark Lands to rescue Megan; the talk of the entire world being in jeopardy; and the urgent need to keep DeGraff out of the Secret Zoo. How could this be real? How could this be happening?

  Noah suddenly felt very much alone. He scooped P-Dog up from the window and cradled him in his lap. P-Dog tipped his head to one side, then the other, his nose twitching. He stood on his haunches, sniffed at Noah’s chin, then touched Noah’s chest with a paw. The remarkable animal seemed to understand Noah’s hurt—seemed, in fact, to want to share it, so that Noah wouldn’t have to bear it alone.

  Sam said, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. This stuff upsets me, and you need to get back inside.”

  Realizing Sam was right, Noah put down P-Dog and went to the ladder. He took a few steps down and stopped. “What happened to the sasquatch in CA-Thirty-seven?”

  Sam directed his stare to a meaningless spot in the yard and became very still. While searching for an answer, he seemed to have stumbled across a memory, and now he was wandering there. Noah would have given anything to see what Sam was seeing—to live as Sam in a part of his history.

  “Sam?”

  Noah’s voice pulled the Descender back to reality. “Yeah?”

  “The sasquatch . . . the one in CA-Thirty-seven. What did you guys do to it?”

  Without another thought, Sam said, “We killed it. Just like we’re going to kill every last one of them.”

  In the deep shadows of Fort Scout, Sam suddenly looked sinister: his eyes hidden in his bangs, his torso cloaked in his leather jacket.

  “Go inside,” the Descender commanded. “Go to bed.”

  This time, Noah obeyed without question. He fled down the ladder as fast as he could.

  Chapter 12

  Damage in the Python Pit

  “Right here,” Tank said.

  Tapping his fingertip on an impression in the ground, Tank was crouched low, his knees bulging out like boulders. The scouts were crowded around him, Richie peering over his shoulder and leaning against his mountainous frame. It was Wednesday, just two days after Noah’s unnerving conversation with Sam in the tree fort, and the scouts were crosstraining with Tank in the Grottoes again.

  “See the toes?” Tank swept his finger over five adjacent holes. He then traced his finger along a long arch in the imprint. “Sasquatch track. And it’s fresh.”

  “You sure?” Richie asked.

  The big man nodded, then lifted his head to stare down a dimly lit tunnel with brick walls and a dirt floor. A few other footprints were visible. They continued straight, then rounded a bend near a dusty velvet curtain. Tank stood, his bald head nearly touching the ceiling, and began to take slow, cautious steps down the passage, his arm waving behind him for the scouts to follow.

  “Okay,” Richie said in a hushed voice. “I think this is the part where I have a heart attack.”

  Ella whispered, “I’m with Richie this time.”

  In front of his friends, Noah followed Tank, occasionally craning his neck to peer around the big man’s body. When Noah’s foot dropped down a few extra inches, he lowered his gaze to see that he’d stepped into another sasquatch track. The impression was large enough to set a watermelon into. He swallowed back his fear and continued on, his heart hammering in his chest. As the five of them rounded the bend, he noticed the engraving over the curtain: “Platypus Playground.” The tracks didn’t go that way.

  The Crossers continued another twenty feet down the dim passage and then stopped where the sasquatch had, a gateway marked “The Python Pit.” Everyone knew the Python Pit was part of a greater exhibit called Snakes-A-Lot, which was completely independent from Creepy Critters, another building that housed snakes. The Python Pit was a large inground exhibit full of trees and streams, and visitors stared into it from above. The sasquatch prints went beneath the curtain, then came back out.

  “It went in and turned back,” Megan said. “Why?”

  Tank shook his head. “Don’t know. But let’s check it out. Who wants to go?”

  Ella said, “I nominate you.”

  “And I nominate the smallest one of us,” Tank said. “People tend to notice me—even when I’m not walking around in zoo exhibits.”

  “Then it’s got to be Richie,” Ella said. “He’s built like a wafer. All he needs to do is stand sideways to disguise himself as a reed.”

  “Noah . . .” Tank said. “Go with him. Just stay back and keep your head up. When you cross into the Python Pit, it’ll be into a cave in the fake mountainside in the middle of the exhibit. If anyone’s around, just keep back to the cave.” When both Noah and Richie hesitated, Tank said, “C’mon—you got to learn to do this stuff if you want to be Crossers.”

  Noah thought of the Descenders and the way they dismissed him and his friends as weak. Tank was right. If the scouts were going to make it as Crossers, they were going to need to do far more dangerous things than this. Without another thought, he grabbed Richie’s arm, said, “C’mon,” and stepped into the gateway.

  As the curtain dropped down their backs, Noah and Richie appeared in the cave, just as Tank said they would. A slant of light fell through the mouth of the short cave and partially lit the floor and walls. Noah and Richie stepped aside to avoid the light and pressed their backs against the wall. With Noah in the lead, they slid down the wall and then stopped at the opening. Noah held his finger against the tip of his nose, an instruction for Richie to stay quiet. They listened. In the deep confines of the Python Pit, the splash of waterfalls was practically deafening. But there were no other sounds.

  Noah slowly poked his head forward to stare out. About fifty feet away was the wall of the inground exhibit. It rose about twenty feet and then stopped at a railing on the tiled floor of Snakes-A-Lot. The wall ran in both directions and curved back behind the mountainside to complete a full circle. The Python Pit was crowded with small trees, small shrubs, and leafy vegetation. Vines fell from the heights, and a near-still stream eased along the grassy ground, its push provided by a distant waterfall. The moist air was fragrant with a backwoods smell.

  Noah peered in both directions. He listened. No visitors seemed to be around. Just as he turned back to say something to his friend, the head of a python appeared by his feet. The snake slithered into the cave, revealing a bright green body flecked with white spots. It neared Richie, circled his ankle, then coiled up his leg, its tongue flicking in and out. Richie clenched his jaw shut and nervously showed his teeth. When the python reached Richie’s waist, it reversed direction, eased back to the ground, then slithered out of the cave.

  “Oh . . . real nice,” Richie said in a quivering voice. “Tell me—does the Grottoes have a portal to the bathroom? I think I peed my pants.”

  “Follow it,” Noah said, his finger aimed at the python. “It wants to show us something.”

  “Why don’t you follow it? I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think!” Noah yelled in a whisper. “Just do!”

  This jolted Richie into action. The skinny scout slipped past Noah and eased out of the cave, but not before uttering a few mild curses at no one in particular.

  Noah peered out from the cave and watched Richie follow the python as it squirmed surprisingly fast through the tall grass and underbrush. With long strides, his friend tiptoed from one point to the next, the reflective material in his running shoes flashing in the overhead light. As his shoulders rocked, his hat’s bushy pom-pom rolled in circles.

  From the main floor of Snakes-A-Lot came a sound—the creak and groan of a swinging door. Then, through the noise of the waterfall, Noah could faintly make out footsteps. Someone was approaching. Noah watched as Richie, who’d apparently heard the noise as well, splashed across the narrow stream. The python coiled up its long body and became perfectly still. When Richie was ten feet from the perimeter wall, he ducked a low tree branch, and a twig snagged his pom-pom and stripped off his hat. Vo
ices erupted from above, and Richie, unable to reach back for his hat, turned and threw his back against the wall just as three young kids appeared at the rail directly above him.

  In the shadows of the cave, Noah stared out with one eye. The children were laughing and pointing at different parts of the exhibit. One of them saw the green python and, with a wagging fingertip, revealed it to his friends. Some twenty feet beneath the children, Richie waited, his eyes wide with fear, his arms stretched out and his palms pressed against the wall. Ten feet away from him, his hat dangled. Big and bright, it was as out of place as a red tulip in a green pasture. It took only seconds for the children to notice it.

  “Look!” one of the kids said, his voice rising above the sound of the waterfall. “Some dork dropped his hat!”

  The kids laughed and pointed and clapped their hands. After a few seconds, they stared into the reaches of the exhibit, found nothing of interest, and darted off, their excited voices echoing off the hard walls of Snakes-A-Lot. The door squealed open and clattered shut again.

  Noah waited a few seconds and poked his head out to see that Richie hadn’t moved. With his back pressed to the wall and his face ripe with fear, he looked like someone standing on the ledge of a tall building. His hair, free from his hat, stood up in swirls and messy clumps. Noah waved his hand toward himself, a gesture that it was safe to continue, and Richie pushed off the wall, grabbed back his hat, and chased after the python, which had uncoiled itself and headed out again. Within seconds, Richie was led around the far side of the fake mountainside, and he disappeared from Noah’s view.

  As Noah waited, he looked around for signs that the sasquatch had been here. He saw places where the grass had been flattened, presumably by a large foot. Broken twigs dangled by unbroken bark, and some shrubs were partly crushed. He spotted something yellow stretched across the branches of a bush and realized it was a python. By the way its head drooped down, Noah was certain it was dead. Had it attacked the sasquatch only to be killed and flung into the bush? Noah moved his gaze and saw a still tail poking out from the distant end of the stream. Had the sasquatch murdered this snake, too? Squashed it with its big feet and then kicked it aside?