At Whispering Pines Zoological Reserve, the animals were never the only exhibits.
Every zoo has predators. Not all are animals.
🐅🐒🦍🦓🦜🐘🐊🦝🦉🦌🐾🌲🐅
By all accounts, Eli Lim loved his new job as head groundskeeper of the Whispering Pines Zoological Reserve. It suited him to perfection –there were no questions. No voices.No witnesses. Just cages and animals.
But something felt—off. The security cameras around the zoo clicked. Clicked again. Buzzed. Buzzed and buzzed. Then spat static, vigorously. They seemed to resist, then release.
He kept an eye on the cages. They watched him.
Exhibit E? Off limits.
The management told him never to feed the exhibit, but never told him what it was.
Animal-lover Eli brought youthful energy to Whispering Pines- just 22, with a tendency to treat rules as if they were contortionists. The zoo already had its own culture, with norms and regulations firmly in place.
And those were beyond him.
Exhibit E lay under Darkness’ cloak–one that shrouded curses and beings which only appeared then. Eli never stepped into it–he had no reason to.
Until the sounds began. He patrolled the grounds dutifully each night, with the ravenous animals looking forward to his rounds—and their feeds. Then came the scratching. Then, odd screeching.
Then, dissonant howling.
Meat deliveries that he received each week weren’t…in sync. They came at the wrong time, on the wrong day. He had placed an order for 50 cases of pork the day before; 60 arrived.
The zoo was never charged for them.
Deiiveries were–timely. If one considered regular arrivals at midnight timely.
The delivery staff always averted their eyes from his.
As if they knew.
Eli had more than a few burning questions for his manager. She looked up at him as he walked through the door, greeting him with her usual friendly aplomb.
“Eli! What brings you to the catacombs?” She sounded the first syllable with relish.
Eli demurred—he didn’t need his colleagues to think of him as quirky. “Hi Rita. I was hoping that you’ll be able to tell me what’s happening with Exhibit E.”
Her smile slowly faded. “Oh. That doesn’t need feeding–it feeds itself. Do you need help with the other animals?”‘
An adroit change of subject. The other archive staff judiciously avoided eye contact. The shelves leaned forward, listening keenly.
Well, The Lord helps those who help themselves, he thought. He browsed the archive shelves for a few much-needed answers.
Old keeper’s records lined the shelves, each detailing Exhibit E’s establishment. None ever explained it fully. “We never fed it. It looked after itself.”
How did it look after itself?
There was an album of photographs, staring eerily into the archive’s clinical, curated cove. Filled with blank pictures of Exhibit E and scratched out names. Employee files of keepers who had tended to Exhibit E ended, too abruptly.
And he came across a door. A sentry. Bolted.
A faint knock. Faint. Rhythmic. Patient. Behind the wall.
The sounds increased in capacity—more knocking,murmuring, more twittering–and volume. The river of cacophony drove the usually stoic Eli to finally break protocol.
It drew him in on one of his routine patrols.
And he unlocked the exhibit.
All was quiet and dark. Then the murmuring began again–and rose to become a tsunami of noises that flooded the mind.
Covering his ears, he stumbled through the exhibit, almost crashing to the floor.
The gate slammed shut. Eli’s skin crawled, and he froze.
He was now part of Exhibit E. And potentially, whatever was in it.
A pale figure, rising from behind the enclosure’s soiled-filled mounds. With a name tag–Night Keeper Miguel S. In a tattered zoo keeper’s attire.
He raised his lowered head to meet Eli’s gaze–one with dried blood that had once streamed down its sides.
He was what happened to keepers who asked too many questions–no longer a keeper.
He stared at Eli with pleading hollows–not eyes.
“The keys….cages…”
Its bloodshot gaze fell on Eli, shifting —not from fear, but to tell Eli something.
To warn.
Eli turned to run–but a hail of lights greeted him. The other keepers had arrived.
Calm. Ready.
But Eli—Eli was ready too.
And this time, he wasn’t just holding keys.
He gripped them harder. The cages answered.
Eli ran through the enclosures, shepherding monkeys that refused to return to their places in the treetops. Malaysian tigers that refused to enter their caves.
The whole group paused in front of the other zookeepers.
The animals lunged.
The zoo had new exhibits–Exhibit A wasn’t off limits, but always growled:
“I won’t entertain!”
Exhibit B would greet the hoards of tourists who came in tattered pants and a torn shirt, peeking from the trees.
“I should be free.”
No longer zookeepers. Nightkeepers, on show.
🐅🐒🦍🦓🦜🐘🐊🦝🦉🦌🐾🌲🐅