The Zookeeper's Daughter, 2

June 14, evening.
Edie was knocking on my door. She was dressed in jean shorts and a tight blue shirt that was unbuttoned a little too low. The skin of her chest was empty and soft like the underside of her arms. There was a hint of blush on her, a dash of red blood swirling behind her little cheeks. Eyeliner was driven in a perfect line across her lids but her lipstick was smudged.

“I need meat,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Can I borrow some money?”

"Didn't your parents leave you any?"

"They're not dead yet."

"No, I meant while they're away."

"Yeah but I'm almost out and I need food. A lot of food. I'm really hungry. You wouldn't believe how hungry I am. I could eat a horse, or elk. I could eat an ostrich. I am so hungry right now."

"I can make you something if you want. Sandwich? Linguini?"

"That's really nice but a $50 bill would be nicer.”

“And what do I get in return?”

She smiled, leaning on the doorframe. “Anything you want,” she said.

“Your lipstick is smudged,” I said.

“Shit. Where’s the bathroom?” She pushed past me into the house and disappeared around a corner. When she came back out, she lifted her glasses to the crown of her head and batted her eyelashes up at me. Her lipstick was perfect, her shirt was unbuttoned even lower.

“So what do I have to do to get some money?” she said.

“Did you just unbutton the top of your shirt?” I asked.

“No.” She took a step towards me. “I really need that meat,” she said.

“But its unbuttoned,” I said. I took a step back. “I can see your sternum.” She giggled a little in a way that seemed like it was supposed to come off sexy and innocent at the same time, but was just fake instead.

“Are you hitting on me?” she said, taking another slow step.

“Are you not wearing a bra?”

“Of course not.” She touched my arm.

“This is getting weird,” I said.

“You’re telling me.”

I handed her a $50 bill.

June 16, sometime before dawn.
There was a scream in the night, a roar that shook the windows like the breath of some dread monster shuddering down the darkened streets. I looked out the window—trying to catch sight of anything that could have made that paralyzing sound—but the street was blank and empty.

A light blinked on in the Owens house across the street, then turned off just as quickly, leaving the neighborhood suddenly bathed in the wet light from the river of stars above, tributaries twisting through the dark.

I left the house, went out to the street. I wondered if I had heard anything at all, if it had been imagined, a figment fluttering across a dream but I could still remember what it sounded like: low, dense and rising, ringed with fangs and sorrow.

I strained my ears hoping to hear anything, to catch some last echo springing back off the houses. Instead I heard movement in the Owens house. The light blinked on again, casting a soft yellow rectangle across the lawn. I ducked close to the garage. A girl’s shadow passed through the rectangle. I could smell something, something thick and wild, bloody almost. It was coming from the garage.

I checked the side door. It was unlocked. The smell inside the garage was rich and dirty. Dark shapes seemed to swing in the gloom. There was a clatter of chains twisting. I blindly searched for the switch. The light turned on to reveal stacks of meat on a tarp, animal carcasses swinging from hooks over pools of blood, waiting to be butchered. Sides of beef, legs of lamb and of pork, streaked with rich veins of fat. What could have been maybe ostrich, maybe elk. What might have been horse. Waiting to be eaten. A large freezer hummed in the corner.

I left the garage and realized that for the first time I could remember the house was silent. Edie’s laugh spilled softly out of the illuminated window, as if to underline the silence.