Impossible Animals: or Other Outstanding Attractions

By JT Wilson

In 2008, a smart, organised historian called Annie-Key and her ex-boyfriend, a poetic activist called Damascus, set off on a mission to capture a cryptid: an unknown or fantastical animal. Only a few things stood in their way: they didn't know if the creatures definitely existed, they couldn't rely on local witness statements, and the tensions from their break-up kept rising to the surface. A decade later, their story remains one of the most-repeated and most fascinating stories in cryptozoology.

Told from both Annie-Key and Damascus's perspective, with contradictions intact, 'Impossible Animals' at last presents their side of the story. It's a globe-trotting adventure, equal parts profound, moving and hilarious.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Wilson
• Release date: Jun 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780992640064

Book preview

Impossible Animals

Impossible Animals

Or,

Other Outstanding Attractions

JT Wilson

FOREWORD

By Daniel Abernathy

Editor, National Cryptographic

Cryptozoology is one of the most popular and intriguing scientific disciplines in the world. Every day, National Cryptographic receives dozens of unsolicited submissions from armchair cryptozoologists keen to contribute to their favourite magazine. While we welcome contributions from all our readers, the majority of the offered articles can be discarded on the grounds of over-familiarity or lack of substantiation: for example, submissions often offer a paranormal explanation for Nessie, or an extra-terrestrial origin for Bigfoot.

Sometimes, however, a document leaps out from the pack, striking enough to demand publication. So it was with two fascinating packages I received in January 2017. Both papers told the extraordinary story of the Walker/Giuliani expeditions in 2008; a familiar enough topic among the papers submitted to the Cryptographic, but in this instance, worthy of further investigation. One was the field report of the expedition leader Annie-Key Walker, the other the memoir of her research assistant Damascus Giuliani. Why the papers were submitted virtually simultaneously, yet separately, remains open to speculation. Perhaps Giuliani got wind that Walker intended to submit her paper and felt he had a right to tell his version of the story. Maybe they agreed to submit their accounts concurrently with the hope of taking up the lion’s share of an issue. Or, it could be that they decided independently that now was the right time to tell the tale. Whatever the circumstances, one thing was clear: both versions had to be published.

After anguishing over the best way of releasing the reports to the general public, I decided that the best way of doing justice to the story was to issue both versions in the same volume. Hence the book that you now hold in your hands.

Verifying the authenticity of the documents proved difficult. Walker particularly was hard to track down due to her complicated living and working arrangements. However, I was thrilled to receive confirmation that both Walker and Giuliani had indeed submitted their papers to National Cryptographic with a view to publication, and both were open to their work being published in a collated volume, with some modifications to make the text accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Where the accounts exactly corroborated, or are similar enough to be repetitive, the more detailed version has been included. In order to distinguish the two voices, the following key has been used:

Annie-Key Germaine Walker’s narrative is in bold font.

Damascus Reuben Giuliani’s version is in plain font.

Finally, after years of speculation and third-party evidence, here are the remarkable events of 2008 told firsthand. At last, the truth.

Daniel Abernathy

June 2019

1. Club 1830 and Other Amusements

CHAPTER ONE

We were halfway up a mountain in Nepal and huddled together, our combined warmth the only deterrent to the endless, blowing gale and the snow that hurled itself at us incessantly. I realised then that I hated Annie-Key Walker, hated her with the incandescence of all the stars in the galaxy and that I would go on hating her until the last beat of my heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were halfway through our university lives and huddled together, our combined warmth the only deterrent to the endless torrents of nonsense and intolerance that I felt we were faced with every single day of our lives. Our housemates created their own universe out of ska-punk CDs and weed. We created ours out of fairy lights, Saint-Saens and absinthe. We lay under two blankets because we couldn’t afford heating this early in the year. I realised then that I loved Annie-Key Walker, loved her with the incandescence of all the stars in the galaxy and that I would go on loving her until the last beat of my heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The start goes like this.

Falling in love with the first reasonable girl you meet at university is generally frowned upon, but I’ve never listened to discouraging voices. It was my first afternoon in Wolverhampton. I was sat on my bed at my halls, reading ‘In Defence of October’ with the door open.

Hi, she announced, strolling in with only a cursory knock on my door. Given that most of the girls in halls were dressing in low-hanging spaghetti tops or awful hooded jumpers, her tweed trousers and waistcoat were a novelty. You just didn’t see people dressing in tweed in September 2000, and certainly none with similar curves.

Have you just moved in? she added.

Yeah, a couple of hours ago. I’ve not met anyone who’s moved in yet.

Well, you have now. I’m Annie-Key, she said, and thus began the next three years of my life.

I’m Damascus.

Damascus?

Yeah. I was named after the place I was conceived. I know, a permanent reminder that my parents once had sex. Damascus Giuliani; Julian if you prefer.

Julian? Nah, forget that. Damascus is an awesome name. But, you were conceived in Damascus?

Damascus, Oregon, yeah. My parents were travelling the States and stopped there on the way to Portland. It could have been worse: it’s down the road from Boring and Wanker’s Corner. Under those circumstances, I’m happy with Damascus.

Yeah, understandably. What are you reading?

Trotsky.

No, I mean... what course are you doing?

French.

Oh, right, so you’re learning about stuff like Robespierre and Danton?

I looked blank.

The Jacobins? The Reign of Terror? When I continued to look blank, she added You’re reading Trotsky and you don’t know the French Revolution? Honestly, you need to sort that out. You’re not one of those guys who have a Che Guevara poster but don’t know anything about him, are you?

No, I lied. I hadn’t put my Che Guevara poster up yet. Anyway, what about you?

History, she said, which explained a lot. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but I figure it’s better that I study that than some dreary course like, I don’t know, Geography. Where are you from?

Manchester. I was – am – from Nantwich but Manchester was far easier to explain.

You don’t sound like you’re from Manchester.

Well, Cheshire. You get the idea.

Sure. I’m from Reading. She sat next to me on the bed. I was starting to wonder if her tomboyish voluptuousness had a hint of the lesbian.

I know what you’re thinking.

Oh?

Yeah. You’re thinking a girl called Annie-Key shouldn’t come from a suburban place like Reading.

Oh. Well, I suppose you have the festival. That’s pretty anarchistic.

Yeah. You know, I’ve never been. Weird, huh? It’s like growing up in Blackpool and never going to the Tower, right? Oh, and as far as I’m aware: I’m not lesbian.

Uh...

Just in case you were wondering.

I’m... I wasn’t...

Not that, I mean, that’s not an invitation or anything either…

No, no I wasn’t-

I mean, I’m not saying you’re-

No.

Still, she hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend in her first two sentences; I took that, at least, as an encouraging sign.

Are you finished unpacking? she asked.

The room was full of unopened suitcases, a half-emptied box of kitchenware and a load of books and CDs I hadn’t done anything with.

I can be.

Awesome. I was thinking of exploring the sights of Wolverhampton.

Like what?

Pub?

Good idea.

CHAPTER TWO

Damascus Giuliani was my first and, realistically, only choice for this mission. I needed somebody that I could trust and that would keep me sane. Things had happened between us, of course, and we had drifted apart as a result of them, but he was the only person who felt right; the only person I wanted working with me. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Lions, tigers and bears: old hat, was the somewhat surprising opening remark of Don Carlton, proprietor of Langsnade Zoo.

Carlton was the British liaison for a shadowy consortium of Russian billionaires, rich from oil and gas investments and (rumoured) black market trading in the days of the Soviet Union. The group held significant sway in the governing of Russia and had chosen to expand their interests into Western Europe. From what I’d gathered from my Google research, they planned to build a series of entertainment resorts across the continent. In the UK, this was the development of Langsnade, a sort-of safari park-cum-Center Parcs. For the purpose they had bought a rambling country pile from Sadogasm, the recently-divorced and cash-strapped singer of Deathsex Bloodbath. Presumably it didn’t say ‘Sadogasm’ on the deeds, but I digress.

As for why I found myself at Langsnade Zoo, sitting in a Portakabin office on an overcast June morning, it was simple. They were offering money and were advertising a role, short-term and freelance, focused on the conservation of rare and mysterious animals. I figured I knew about rare and mysterious animals: I had been in Arizona studying cryptozoology, a branch of zoology focusing on the search for creatures as yet undiscovered by science. Cryptozoologists go where most scientists fear to tread. I’ll explain more later, but for now, know this: jobs in the field were mostly dependent on funding from progressive financiers with a personal interest in curious beasts. Professors usually took jobs as spokespersons on Discovery Channel. Field work generally involved self-financing missions to hunt nebulous animals based on anecdotal evidence from spooked locals. By comparison, working for a zoo in a conservation role seemed like steady employment. But I was telling you about old hat.

Imagine the thrill of the Victorian Cockney being able to see leopards and rhinos for the first time, Don Carlton said, leaning back in his chair. The guy was built like a bodybuilder. His fake tan, bandana and Arabic tattoos suggested some idiotic brute, albeit one with a curiously reptilian radiance: a varnished dragon. Despite the cloudy weather, he was wearing sunglasses, for reasons it seemed impolite to ask. Yet he spoke like a scholar. I had been caught on the wrong foot.

Such a menagerie would be entirely unique, never before seen, he continued. The exotic animals, entirely new and endlessly fascinating. Small wonder that they attracted such attention.

I made some non-committal answer, wondering what point he was coming to.

Now, we face quite a challenge. We face strong local competition and a sluggish global economy. Too many people competing for too few pounds. I think it’s in the local area’s best interests – the country’s best interests – to have a project like Langsnade Zoo. However, there are some commercial challenges. Everyone has seen a lion, an elephant, a camel, from Blackpool to Bristol. At Whipsnade, I visited the tiger enclosure and saw a child yawn. Yawn at a tiger! So, what I want to ask is this: what can we learn from the mistakes of our predecessors, while moving the humble wildlife park into the 21st century?

I was about to answer but it seemed to be a rhetorical question, as on he went: We can hardly resurrect the dinosaurs. The sea holds endless curiosities, but we can’t replicate the pressures needed to home anglerfish or bio-luminous jellyfish. There’s nothing in space. So, the responsibility for populating our zoos falls to the noble cryptozoologist.

You, what, you want me to catch a cryptid for your zoo? I surmised. Okay. I can do that. It’ll be very difficult and it might take me a while. They barely exist: a lot of them are just misidentified animals or urban legends. As far as I can tell, most of the megafauna, or the alien big cats, just don’t exist at all.

Don raised an eyebrow from behind his giant shades. I am familiar with the challenges involved. I grant that cryptozoology is at one of the more... imaginative... ends of science. Your CV, however, suggests you’re a cryptozoology graduate. Surely, in three years, more than one creature must have stood out as being the real deal. I am, after all, right in thinking that some animals were considered mythical, but turned out to be real?

Well, yeah. The okapi, the giant squid-

To say nothing of the coelacanth and the peccary, who were thought extinct. Lazarus taxon, I believe they’re called.

I frowned. I’ve got to be honest with you. These aren’t common phenomena. There’s one in maybe every million creatures like that.

Miss Walker, you know cryptids better than I. I’m sure that, for the money we’re prepared to pay, you’ll be able to find something.

He had said the magic word. I couldn’t stay on my parents’ sofa forever and I was in debt due to my studies. I needed money.

Okay, I said. What about the environmental change? For the animal, I mean.

Naturally, they will be in immersion exhibits with every consideration for their health. We will attempt to replicate their environment with as much attention to detail as possible. After all, we are researchers as well as showmen, Miss Walker, he said, steepling his fingers, which seemed to have the effect of rippling his forearm muscles. His incongruent appearance kept detracting from his words.

How long do we have? I asked. This place is barely built.

"We intend to open in Easter 2009. You have until the end of 2008. Our budget is not exorbitant, but should be sufficient for your needs. We will cover salary, handle visas and cover any expenses accrued during your work, but we must have a cryptid. Already we have an okapi, a coelacanth and a model Fiji mermaid; what we seek is the piece de resistance."

I’ll need an assistant, I muttered. I didn’t intend to traipse round the planet on this mythical goose chase alone.

Yes, yes, we’ll get them on the payroll. Do you have a name in mind?

I thought of my coursemates, of the people I’d met on my travels, of my lecturers, of my business. I had worked with many great, talented, competent women and men. Yet I kept coming back to the same name. He wasn’t a cryptozoologist, nor was he even someone I’d seen in years, yet I had never trusted anyone more. Besides, I had failed to keep a promise to him.

I have a name in mind, I said.

***

I was in Paris teaching English in an inner-city school straight out of ‘La Haine’ and occupying some funky bedsit which had been decorated in the 80s, apparently by Ritalin-deficient blind monkeys. Brown curtains and orange walls grinned down on florescent green carpets the same colour as the vomit in ‘The Exorcist’. In a shared bathroom permanently occupied by the corpses of flies and of rolled-up cigarettes, pink porcelain protruded from terribly patterned tiles. When added to the mandatory wrestling bout you had to engage the shower in to get it working, the bathroom was a hangover’s nightmare. The light fitting had broken months earlier. Nobody had fixed it. Nobody wanted to see that bathroom. We showered by candlelight.

I was at something of a loose end, wondering whether returning to Nantwich was a desirable prospect. My partner, Jean-Marie, had left again and, having evacuated all personal belongings from the bedsit, there was an air of finality to this decision. The combination of their departure and the emptiness of the school holidays had led to stereotypically Gallic existential dilemmas. I felt as though my entire life had been an aimless drift, like a log on a stagnant river. No danger of careening into rapids, or of falling down a waterfall; more a risk of coming to an idle stop at an embankment. I didn’t know what to do, if I went back to Nantwich I’d run the risk of eating my own hand as a result of the ennui that the town invoked. If I stood on the precipice of anything, it was the abyss of mundanity.

Idly checking Facebook during another tedious evening preparing English vocab tests for some of my private pupils and smoking the same roll-ups whose deceased brethren littered the bathroom, I was surprised to receive a message from my ex-girlfriend, Annie-Key, who I hadn’t seen in nearly five years. Officially, I still held a stake in the uni-society-turned-business we had founded together, Club 1830, and occasionally we’d endure email exchanges whose strained syntax and put-on professionalism belied the inner pain between the lines. From what I could tell, Annie-Key had been running Club 1830 well enough out of Arizona. I thought it was a bizarre choice to run a company based on visiting historical curios in a country that had none. Still, weren’t the Death Valley rocks in Arizona? I couldn’t remember.

In her last email, she had been rambling on about using social networking to expand into forming branches in other countries, and about planning excursions rather than day trips, yet this Facebook message contained none of this.

Dam,

Can you call me when you get this?

AK x

She gave a UK telephone number.

My mind raced with apocalyptic, fear-the-worst prophecies. Previously undeclared child? Hitherto undiagnosed condition? Some horrible fate befalling a friend? I tried to think reasonably. Likely it was some business proposition; floating on the Stock Exchange, or simply buying me out entirely. Still, I couldn’t be certain. It occurred to me that I could just ignore it and not call her, but I knew that by entertaining that thought, I was only fooling myself. I procrastinated for a bit, half-heartedly wrote two vocab questions, then picked up the phone.

At the time, the heating was out and an unseasonal cold snap had forced me to wear my coat indoors. I called Annie-Key and reversed the charges, hoping to affect the nonchalance of Rhett Butler or Rick Blaine but looking more like Albert Camus playing Alfie.

Annie Walker? came the reply. The consummate professional.

Part of me hadn’t expected Damascus to return my message. From what I understood from increasingly limited dealings with him, he had a decent job, flat and girlfriend (or was it boyfriend?) in Paris. I was expecting a lot of him to give that up to camp in forlorn places around the world with an ex in pursuit of animals who likely did not exist.

It’s Damascus, he replied. It sounded like he had a sore throat.

It’s Damascus, I said, voice husky, masculine, and mysterious.

Why are you talking like Batman? she said.

Eh?

Don’t they have Strepsils in Paris?

I coughed. Why are you contacting me, Annie-Key?

I need you to be at London Gatwick in 48 hours. I have a cryptozoology assignment for you. We’re going to be catching mythical animals for Langsnade Zoo.

I rolled my eyes. Annie, I don’t know anything about cryptozoology, except its name and vaguely what it is.

Dam, you’re a smart guy, you’ll pick it up. I’ve never caught an animal before, either.

You’ve set them free before though, with the Animal Liberation guys, I said and regretted it immediately.

That was my parents. Besides, you’re one to talk, Mr Teenage Hunt Saboteur.

Alright, alright. I didn’t call for an argument.

Well, you started it. Anyway, let’s get back to the present. We need to catch some creatures that the world’s never seen before. Assuming they exist. Come on, Dam, it’ll be fun. Also, Langsnade are paying for both of us. Salary and expenses. She quoted some figures.

Why me? I asked suspiciously. Surely there are people who could do a better job than me. It wasn’t like Annie-Key to be so insensible.

I know, and there are. But you were the first person I thought of. It helps to have an outsider on this sort of mission. Clarity of thought, outside-the-box thinking, all of that stuff is great when you’re in the field. Plus, we’re the dream team, right? We always collaborated well. Club 1830 was great. So was Triple S. And we always said we’d do something like this. It’s like the journey we always dreamt of when we were at uni.

That was ten years ago, I murmured.

Five. Look, Dam, if you don’t want to come, I’m sorry I asked. I just thought a trip like this, expenses paid, salaried, would be good for you. And you know, you’ve always said you wanted to be part of history: imagine catching a cryptid, what a huge deal it would be. We’d change the world. We always said we would, right? I promised that we would. Consider it our last chance to do so. Together, at least. But I can always call Arizona-

I was looking at the ceiling; the battered mattress; the carpet, more shitpile than shagpile. No, no. It’s just, you know, it’s so sudden. I have my own life now...

I tried to think of an example.

I have summer school... I managed eventually.

What is it, additional classes for exams or something?

What? No.

"Then it doesn’t really matter, does it? Everyone knows that teachers screw around in the holidays as much as the pupils. Summer school, who gives a shit? Just phone in with family issues or something. Compassionate leave. Il y a une petit problem avec ma familie, Monsieur le Headmaster."

"God, enough terrible French already. Directeur, anyway. Look, alright, I’ll come. Where have I got to go?"

The next Eurostar is tomorrow at 12.15 from Gare du Nord. You’ll get in at about 3.15pm. I’ll be staying at the Holiday Lodge at Gatwick so you can meet me there, or at the airport at 7.00am the next day for a 10.00am departure to St Helier.

Do I need to buy a ticket? For the plane?

I have already bought your ticket, Damascus.

Really?

No, not really. I need your passport details for that. I do have the tab open though and it’s about to time out, so come on, tell me.

Obviously the cold of my apartment had frozen the rational half of my brain, as I found myself giving her the details.

Okay, sorted. Call me when you reach London.

What if I’d said no?

You were never going to.

With that, she was gone.

I don’t know why I accepted; even after everything that happened after that, the only question I asked myself is why I accepted. I was giving up my whole life for a girl from my past and a science I knew nothing about. At the time, I asked no questions. I phoned into the school and left a voicemail. I spent the rest of the evening packing. I didn’t doubt myself even when I was on the Eurostar leaving Paris. It was only much later that I asked myself what I was thinking embarking on this mission; by that point, it was too late.

CHAPTER THREE

A bus to the train station, a train to some unremarkable town in Sussex, a shuttle bus to the airport. I’d done longer and more tedious journeys than this while living in the USA and visiting my parents during the holidays: I could handle the travel. I was, however, nervous about carrying other people’s equipment. I had persuaded Langsnade to lend me as much useful gear as I could carry, so I spent the journey with a nervous eye on my rucksack and laptop while documenting the expedition in my notebook. In order to locate and track the cryptid I’d chosen to chase, I had signed out a couple of webcams and a load of audio equipment. To catch it, I’d requisitioned a tranquiliser gun, which had its own case and which made me feel like a gangster. I’d also ordered a cage, which was being delivered under separate cover to the hotel I’d booked in Jersey.

I realised as I reread that if my field notes were to be published, or if I turned this expedition into a Christmas Lecture or something, I should provide some sort of context for the junior cryptozoologists, in an attempt to explain why I had selected Damascus Giuliani, an English teacher in a Parisian lycee, as my research assistant. In order to answer that question, I have to start from the beginning, at Wolverhampton University Societies Fair.

In 2000, Wolverhampton University Societies Fair was held in a hall in the Students’ Union as part of the Welcome Week (which everyone calls Freshers’ Week). For those who have never been to university, a societies fair is where you trundle around a sports hall nodding with feigned interest at the same sort of clubs you didn’t join in school and joining societies that you deem relevant to your interests. Apart from the sports clubs, or the orchestra, university societies are mostly ways to meet like-minded people. You attend two of the meetings for the vegan society, or the goth society or whoever, before starting to hang out with the same people independent of the society.

It was Monday, my first official day as a student. I’d spent the morning registering for my course, paying tuition fees and doing boring admin stuff, and had lost everyone I recognised. I’d enjoyed hanging out with Damascus at the weekend, but I couldn’t be arsed going back to halls to see if he was around, so went to the Societies Fair alone. I milled around, politely pretending to be interested in some of the sports and political societies. I can play the cello, so I joined the orchestra (I went twice) and I joined a rock-climbing society, but I was disappointed that there was no Fabian Society.

At the back of the hall was a table which had pictures of obscure men I had never seen before. The guy behind the table was a shaggy-haired goth. I’d already passed and ignored the Rock and Metal Society so couldn’t tell what this society was supposed to be. Curiosity overcame me.

Who are these photos of? I said.

The guy looked at me as if I should have immediately known the answer and as if actually answering was far more effort than he was prepared to make. That one, he gestured, is Dweezil Zappa. The one in the middle is Rolan Bolan. And that guy is Zowie Bowie. The sixty-four thousand dollar question is: can you guess what the society is?

Celebrity Kids’ Appreciation Society? I ventured, which earned a frown.

I suppose they are all celebrity children. I need to get some other people in there, I guess. Little Richard, perhaps.

Little Richard?

Yeah, he’s got a funny first name, hasn’t he? Little, I mean. The society’s the Sobriquet Support Society.

The what?

Society for people with... weird names, he mumbled. We offer... support, I suppose. It means that people who have unusual names aren’t laughed at, or at least, have a sympathetic support network.

Yeah, it’s difficult having an unusual name, I said, thinking aloud. What’s yours?

Richard.

Richard?!

He nodded. Surname’s Cockram.

Dick Cockram? I tried to disguise my shock at the cruelty of his parents.

What about you?

Annie-Key Walker, I said. Well, I prefer Annie, to be honest.

You definitely shouldn’t, he enthused. With a name like Annie-Key you should be shouting it from the rooftops. Don’t hide something like that away. In fact, I’m going to make you vice-president of the society.

I felt embarrassed by the attention. Erm, should I pay some subs?

No. Absolutely not.

How many people are in this society?

Just you and me.

The first meeting of SSS was held in early October, the second week of term, in one of the seminar rooms in the I.T. block. The block’s access was done on a keycard system: it would have been annoying to let everyone in constantly, if anyone had actually shown up for the meeting in the first place.

I had brought Damascus Giuliani, who had seen Dick’s table at Fresher’s Fair but thought it was some goth society or something. Although Damascus seemed to always be cosplaying as Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was