Zoo City (33 page)

The knife rasps against bone as the Marabou jerks it free. S'bu gives a little shriek of surprise, but he gets the idea. She doesn't even have to force him to make the next thrust. Or the next. Or the next after that. Song's screaming is a jagged counterpoint to the gleeful chorus. Baby, it's a drive-by, drive-by, drive-by love

   Songweza drops into a curl on the cement, trying to shield her body. The Marabou urges S'bu down over her. He keeps the knife moving like a darting piranha as Song screams and howls and is finally silent.

   "Enough," Huron says.

   S'bu looks around, dazed. The Marabou plucks the knife from his hand and passes it to Huron. S'bu smiles at her, uncertainly, and then notices his sister. He kneels down to shake her shoulder. "Come on, quit messing around," he teases. "Re-spawn, you big baby." But the air pressure has changed, and I understand that Song is dead. The Undertow is coming.

   A thin howling sound starts up, like wind through narrow spaces. Instinctively, I retreat, paddling backwards in the water.

   "Eat," Huron says to the Crocodile, nudging Songweza's body with his foot. "Fucking eat!"

   The Crocodile slithers forward and reluctantly rips a piece out of Songweza's leg. It swallows with obscene jerks of its head, its white gullet undulating with the weight of flesh. S'bu moans in horror.

   I look away. Shadows are peeling off the walls, congealing in the water. The howling reaches a new pitch, underscored by a dull click-clack, as if of teeth. Huron looks uneasy. All zoos do with the Undertow coming. Even the Marabou has retreated against the white-painted rock closest to the stairs. Huron uses the knife to slice open his left palm and then drags it through the bloodied tangle of animals on the butcher's block. The howling gets louder.

   Marabou prompts him, like a priest at a wedding ceremony. Huron repeats the words after her, dully. His hands are shaking. "I offer this boy in my place. Let him not be animalled. Let him take mine. Bound by flesh, bound by blood." He lunges forward and slices across the Crocodile's snout with the knife, as it tears at Songweza again. It yanks its head away in fury and hisses at him with open jaws.

   "Now you," Odi screams at S'bu. "Say: I take this animal."

   "I don't underst–"

   "Say it! Fucking say it!"

   "Please." S'bu starts to cry.

   "Do you hear that sound? Do you know what that is?" Odi yells. "That's the fucking Undertow, my boy. Now say it, or it's going to swallow you up and drag you down to hell."

   "I take this…" S'bu stutters.

   "Animal!"

   "Animal. I take this animal." He looks to Odi for ap

   proval. Odi looks to the Marabou.

   "Did it work?" Odi screams. "Did it fucking work?"

   The Marabou shakes her head. She doesn't know.

   "It better have fucking worked!"

   S'bu is rocking backwards and forwards, staring at his sister, his arms hugged around his body. His chest heaves with sobs.

   The darkness seethes and boils, like a slick of oil. It separates to flow around S'bu. He waves his hand at it feebly, trying to ward it off. The Undertow rises like a wave, tendrils reaching towards him, as if tasting his skin. I shudder at the memory.

"Song?" S'bu says, his voice trembling.

   The Crocodile suddenly bursts forward, its belly rasping over the concrete, snapping its jaws at the Undertow, sweeping its tail through the thick black. The darkness turns to steam instantly, as if it was only ever mirage. S'bu screams as the reptile lunges for him. But it's only moving to lean its massive head against his leg in something like affection. Horrified, he tries to shove it away. The same way I did with Sloth, until I realised he was the only thing between me and the rising dark. Of course, Sloth didn't have my sibling's blood on his teeth.

   "This isn't how the game goes," S'bu sobs, bewildered, standing stiff and frozen with the Crocodile nuzzling his leg.

   "He's yours now, kid. Congratulations," says Huron. "I'd say enjoy feeding the fucker, but you won't live that long."

   "I–" S'bu starts, but Amira steps forward, holding a retro gun. She puts the muzzle of the Vektor to the side of his head and pulls the trigger. S'bu falls onto his knees and tips slowly forward onto the remains of his face. I look away.

Drive-by, drive-by

   Without the howl of the Undertow the music is audible again.

   "Well, that went well. Turn that racket off, will you?" Huron says. Amira clicks a switch and the music dies, leaving a heavy silence, broken only by the waves lapping at the pier and the muffled thump of the Crocodile nudging at S'bu with its head, as if to make him get up.

   "Well enough," Amira replies, sheathing the gun in a concealed holster under the straps criss-crossing her chest.

   "Good luck getting that fucking thing out of here."

   "Don't trouble yourself. We have a plan. Alive would have been better of course, but you take what you can get." She eyes the Crocodile evaluatingly.

   "Shhhh," Odi laughs. "He'll hear you."

   I wait until they're both up the ladder and then count out another few minutes, 289 alligator. 294 alligator, until I'm sure they're not coming back. I creep out of the water as quietly as I can so as not to disturb the Crocodile, which is still head-butting S'bu. I've seen animals live for months after their humans have died. But they're never quite the same.

   I can't raise my arm, courtesy of the bullet in my collarbone. Every step sends shards of glass stabbing through my chest and causes sunbursts in my head. But I have to get upstairs, have to get to a phone. There's no way I can drag Benoît out of here on my own.

   I skirt round the side of the butcher's block, trying to avoid looking at the mess of animals, but the Crocodile sees me. It swings its bulk between me and the stairs in a rapid jerk, faster than should be allowed for something that big. Its mouth gapes, a clear sign of aggression. I hold up one hand, all I can manage, in surrender.

   "They're planning to kill you. Chop you up for muti. They've got all the tools waiting." It studies me impassively with slit gold eyes. I persevere. "Monster like you? You're probably worth a fortune. I can help you. I can try to help you. But I have to get out."

   It jerks its head at me. I flinch, but it's not attacking, it's motioning towards the stairs. For me to go. I step past it gingerly, still half expecting it to lunge, for those bonecrushing jaws to snap around my body, but it doesn't, and I haul myself agonisingly up the ladder, one-handed, pain screaming through my chest.

The stairs lead out into the back of a music studio. A fake back wall behind the mixing-desk, reinforced with foam soundproofing that nevertheless can't mute the smell. The glass doors are standing open onto the garden. Dawn streaks the sky with pale yellows and pinks.

   I edge down the hill towards the pool, hugging the line of shrubs for cover. Amira and Mark are on the patio, Mark rubbing the red lines on his wrists from the cable ties. Amira is stroking the Bunny's head. It trembles violently in her arms. Underneath the upturned metal table, the Mongoose paces and snarls, throwing itself against the ironwork curlicues in fury. Amira's phone bleeps and she glances down at it. "Transfer's through," she says to Mark.

   Huron emerges from the house, freshly showered, wearing a satiny bathrobe. In the distance, sirens howl. He stops to look at Carmen, slumped limply on the deck chair in a pool of blood.

   "You did make a mess of little Carmencita," he says, with only the faintest smack of regret.

   "She was no good to you," Mark scowls. "And now we can use her as bait." He tips the recliner up onto its wheels, to demonstrate, and carts Carmen towards the pool.

   "I'll skip. There's been too much activity around here already." The sirens are getting louder. Sentinel finally catching a wake-up. I crouch in the shrubbery, wondering how to get the Mongoose out.

   "We won't be long," Amira says as Mark tips the recliner, sending Carmen sliding into the water. She bobs up, floating limply, her back like a pale mushroom growing from the surface of the water, her blonde bob drifting in a halo around her head. "It should come right up–"

   The Crocodile is already there, disguised under the leaves. It noses at her body. Odi leans over to look, despite himself. It's a simple matter for the Crocodile to just reach up and fold its jaws on him. It's almost gentle. But then it clamps down. Its teeth rip into his stomach. Huron screams like a slaughterhouse pig in a PETA video.

   The sirens are getting louder. Lights flash between the trees at the bottom of the driveway. Huron fumbles for his gun. "Help me, you fucks!" he yells at Amira and Mark. But they don't move an inch.

   Swearing, Odi manages to reach between the Crocodile's jaws to yank his gun out of the holster. He presses the muzzle to the Crocodile's eye and fires. It bursts in a gelatinous spray and the Crocodile jerks its head back in shock. Odi screams as teeth tear through his gut. A grey coil of greasy entrails is dragged from the wound. The Crocodile thrashes, slamming its tormentor against the side of the pool. Odi struggles, swapping the gun to his left hand. He reaches deep into the creature's mouth. There is a muffled bang.

   The Crocodile goes slack. Its jaw unlocks. Huron starts pulling himself free, but the monster's weight is dragging

them both back into the water.

   "Help me, Jesus, fuck, help me! Amira!" Huron extends a meaty hand.

   "What do you think, sweetie? Should we help him?" Mark muses.

   "I think our business is done," Amira says. "Goodbye, Odi."

   "Please," he begs. The Crocodile slips further back into the pool, its shoulders disappearing into the water. "At least don't let me drown. At least give me that."

   "It's been good working with you," says Marabou, stepping forward. She extends her boot, braces it against Huron's chest, and shoves. The tangle of man and Crocodile slides over the edge of the tiles and sinks into the water.

   A muffled shout comes from the bottom of the driveway. "Armed response!"

   "A pity to lose the Crocodile, but what can you do?" Marabou says, watching as Odi chokes and splutters and goes under. She starts to fray around the edges like the light is unravelling around her.

   "Oh sweetie, there'll be other procurements," the Maltese says. Then he takes her hand and they simply vanish. A smudge of movement against the torchlight as footsteps thud up the driveway towards us.

   Armed response finds me sitting slumped by the pool and the Mongoose bristling at my side, staring at the ripples on the dark water.

The Daily Truth

POLICE FILE

Crime Watch with Mandlakazi Mabuso

The day the music died

They said the music industry had teeth – but who knew they meant literally! Legendary music producer Odysseus "Odious" Huron got himself chowed last night by his secret animal, a moerse white Crocodile after slaughtering twin teen pop sensation iJusi in a gruesome muti murder! Turns out the man behind some of the finest talent in this country was also a bigtime tsotsi, running drugs, killing homeless zoos for muti, feeding others to his Crocodile and cultivating talent only so he could slice them open! Some 20 bodies so far have been recovered from a secret underground lake, including a woman's skeleton that police refuse to comment on, but let's just say my sources on the inside say the investigation into Lily Nobomvu's fatal car-crash is being re-opened! Yoh! Turn to our special eyewitness report on page 10 for all the verskriklike details!

   Police have seized all assets, but I hear there's a moerse sum of money missing from his account. Just goes to show you never know who's a zoo. Rapper Slinger isn't. Odious Huron is. Who else is hiding an animal under their bed?

   Meanwhile, a pretty boy journo has a lot to answer for. Seems one of lad-mag Mach's senior people has been running email scams from his office address! Tut-tut, skat. Don't you know when it comes to porn and fraud, you don't use your work email?

It's 4:30 am and the queue to the Beit Bridge border is already more than a thousand cars long, and that's on the South African side. Never mind the torrent of refugees trying to cross over from Zimbabwe. Barbed-wire fences barricade the dusty scrub on the riverbank from anyone stupid or desperate enough to try to swim across from Zimbabwe. After all, there are crocodiles in that river.

   The high drone of cicadas rises with the heat as we inch forward one car at a time through the carbon-monoxide fug. There is a bus two cars ahead of me loaded down on its axles with bags and chickens and a cram of people. The tangle of lost things on that bus swarms like a cloud of spaghetti.

   And even here, there's that Zoo City hustle going on. Maybe it's not peculiar to Hillbrow. Maybe it's South Africa. You do what it takes, you take the opportunities. Vendors walk up and down the line of cars selling warm cold-drinks and chips, single skyfs or packs of Remington Gold. Two girls in short skirts and dusty high heels lean in the window of a 4x4 flirtatiously. It's a 24-hour border post. People have 24-hour needs.

   Sloth is hidden in a rattan bag full of clothes with a hole slashed in the side for him to breathe. The bag is stacked on the roof amid a jumble of other bags, loaded with the kinds of things returning Zimbabweans bring home for their families. Clothes and canned food, blankets, appliances, toilet paper, sanitary pads. I will dump these on the other side. They're only a cover while I'm still in South African territory. Still in Inspector Tshabalala's jurisdiction. Never mind Vuyo's.

   The Capri has had a paint job. It's now black. The window has been fixed. It has new plates to go with my new Zimbabwean passport in the name of Tatenda Murapata, twenty-nine, full-time nanny going home for a holiday. D'Nice sourced the papers for me, to make up for pointing the cops in the direction of my apartment. But only after I threatened to frame him for Mrs Luditsky's murder. He doesn't need to know I already handed over the knife after I retrieved it from the drain along with the china kitten. He even got me a good exchange rate on my counterfeit notes. Just because they're fake doesn't mean they don't have value, particularly when dealing with border officials who don't look too closely.