Electric Zoo: and other short stories

By C.M. Hansen

A collection of short stories by C.M. Hansen including Electric Zoo, Death of a Psychic, Doors, A Man in the Sewer and Utopia. This collection of short stories will have you laughing, crying and questioning the world around you. C.M. Hansen is an author from Genoa, Illinois. He has been writing this collection since the age of fourteen and we ar

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. Hansen Publishing
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088076033

Book preview

1

Electric Zoo

The bulb’s explosion and the flash of the light startled the beast, its arms raising in front of its face while it cringed backwards away from the metal bars of the cage which held it. I, being still in awe at the creature’s very existence, laughed happily, as did the crowd around me. I lowered the camera to admire it more closely myself.

It was in many ways like a man, albeit nearly nine feet tall in stature, and six-hundred pounds in weight, and was covered in every region of its body by a thick layer of dark brown fur. To look at the beast was to look at power incarnated, its muscles constantly tensed and firm, but they were in fact the strangest part of the creature. It was their constant tenseness that made me feel almost pulled away from the experience, a certain oddity about it that made me rather uncomfortable. However, I cast the feeling aside and continued to admire the monster which the zoo-keeper I’d spoken to had referred to as a Sasquatch. 

The zoo in its entirety was amongst the most incredible things I’d ever seen, filled with the most bizarre and otherwise unheard of animals, each of them barring stranger features than the last. Just moments ago I’d been greeted by a set of rabbits with antlers, and before that by a genuine Wooly Mammoth! How remarkable this place was, the Cryptid Zoo! One of the finest achievements of the entire twentieth century for that matter!

Having recovered, the Sasquatch took a step forward, back to where it was and unleashed upon the crowd the most magnificent of roars, a cry powerful enough to nearly break my eardrums beneath its very might. Of course, this too was met by thunderous applause and cheers. 

I was just about to move on to the next specimen, perhaps even more wondrous than this one, and perhaps by extension an even better candidate for a picture in the next day’s paper, when the monster suddenly collapsed. The crowd went silent, surprised as the ape, just a moment before filled with power and seeming energy, stopped moving at all, and fell to the ground, its body limp, and appeared almost lifeless. 

In a moment, five men appeared from just beyond the cage, four of which were young and appeared most strong, and the fifth being much older and rather stout. The fifth pulled from his pocket a key that he handed off to one of the younger men, who opened the cage, and with the assistance of the other three, began to get leverage beneath the animal.

Alright everyone, the older man called out. "Let’s all make way now. The beast gets a bit sick every now and again, and we’ve got to move ‘im over to the main building. Come on now, make way!"

The crowd, grumbling as they did, moved off in all directions, going to look at some of the zoo’s other attractions. I was the exception, remaining where I stood, which was out of the way of the young men, and admired their activity. The older man appeared to take note of my interest, and took a step my way. 

You with the paper? he asked, his voice a good deal more relaxed than when addressing such a large group as before. 

Yes, I said, stretching out the hand not holding my camera, and taking his. William Arnold.

Jacob Web, the older man responded. You ought to have quite the story this week, eh? These things sure are the strangest I’ve ever seen. And we’ve got a few more coming in later this week, straight from Africa. All sorts of weird shit over there.

I didn’t think to say that I was by no means going to be bringing the paper a story, only pictures, but I instead chose to listen, satisfying my own interest. 

These Sasquatches in particular are terribly odd. This bugger here seems to have some sort of onset paralysis that hits him every couple of days. I really never have seen anything like it, but we’ve got a couple of fellas that have been taking good care of him otherwise. Giving him lots of shots and whatnot. 

None of the other animals are like this? I asked.

Not a one, Web said. All the rest act perfectly normal, or at least as normal as you can expect from animals like them. Even the ones in the water have been doing alright.

I didn’t quite see why that particular distinction needed to be made regarding animals underwater, but again, decided not to linger on it, even if that was a curiosity of mine. The part of me that did in fact desire the job of reporter was at play, but so was the part of me that was anxious when involved in discussions like this, my confidence weakening by the moment. 

This one from Africa too? I asked, remembering having heard stories about a great ape man from up North near Canada.

That’s right, Webb said. The thing put up quite a fight too, when we brought it in. The boys tell me it was swatting them away like bugs. Five times stronger than a gorilla they say.

Our discussion shortly thereafter came to a close, Webb’s interest shifting back to the activities of the boys moving the creature over to the zoo’s main building, utilizing a large wheelbarrow to do so. Our conversation left me with a few key thoughts, each of which puzzled me, with the knowledge of animals that I’d acquired in the last few years.

The first was this concept of onset paralysis as Webb called it. Never had another zookeeper or biologist colleague (of which I did have a few) mentioned a disease like it, certainly not one that would leave the animal in a state that the Sasquatch appeared to be in, where its eyes didn’t even so much as blink. Weak enough, in fact, for the zoo-keepers to be comfortable using a wheel-barrow to move the animal without first shutting down that section of the zoo.

The second was the man’s statement that the Sasquatch had come from Africa, despite sightings of the creature being entirely isolated to North America, at least as far as I could tell. Of course, I thought that he could very well just be uninformed on the topic, but his confidence made me think this to be rather unlikely. 

And the third and most prevalent was the nerves that filled Webb’s voice when he spoke to me. Each of the paragraphs that he spoke seemed to be almost recited, as if he’d come up with stories instead of hearing them himself. 

Again, the part of me that desired the role of reporter got the better of me, and so I decided to follow the gentlemen carrying the Sasquatch away, of course minding to remain discreet in my doing so. 

The flaw in my plan was of course the locked door which blocked my path into the main building. There were no other entryways that weren’t also locked, and no windows to be seen anywhere in the rather large building. I supposed that the staff didn’t want guests to be watching the work of vets, and couldn’t blame them. Seeing that I had no way of successfully seeing whatever might be occurring indoors, I made up my mind to return to the zoo itself and continue taking pictures of some of the other strange animals. Whatever I was thinking beforehand I don’t know. How silly I was being, as if some strange conspiracy regarding ape-men was at play in this wonderful little zoo. 

***

The wheelbarrow was pushed into Dr. Brand’s office as quickly as the four young men could move it. It was terribly heavy though, and not one of them could balance it on their own, so each of them had to hold on to its sides. 

Oh, Jesus, Brand said when he saw the kids arrive with Web behind them. This one just fall over too?

Yeah, it just fell right over, Web said. What the hell is wrong with these things? I thought you had all of this figured out. I can’t have people coming here and just seeing all the animals collapse out of nowhere!

Yeah, I know, Brand said, just as confused and surprised as Web was. Let me take a look at him.

Brand pulled from his desk a carpet tucker and dug it into the Sasquatch’s lower back. He used it like a lever to pull up the beast’s skin, revealing not blood, but silver paneling with a few screws keeping said panels in place. Drawing out a screw driver next, he removed a small section of paneling immediately below where the skin had been a moment before, inspected technology that Web couldn’t guess the purpose of, and then screwed the panel back into place.

So, what’s wrong? 

Hold on a second, Brand said, beginning to unscrew yet another panel to reveal even more technology that Web didn’t understand. 

Brand fiddled with that for a moment, Web’s patience wearing thinner as he did, until eventually looking up with at least something of a look of satisfaction.

Looks like his Response Drive shut down, Brand said as he removed a small piece of equipment and set it down on his desk. He must’ve been startled by something. The Drive didn’t know how to respond, so it just crashed.

Can you fix it? 

Of course I can fix it, Brand said as he sat back down at his desk and started to pull the Drive apart gently. Damn thing’ll take a while, but I can fix it alright.

Will it do this again? I can’t have-

People coming and seeing the animals just fall over, yeah I know. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure this won’t happen again. Might take a couple of days, but it should be good to go after that. You have any idea what might’ve caused it to get so upset?

Yeah, some jackass from the paper flashed a camera at it. Big thing like him got scared by just a little flash, you think?

Wouldn’t be surprised. Haven’t you ever heard that elephants are scared of mice?

Web grunted. Get it fixed as quickly as you can.

Yes, sir, Brand said, not bothering to look up from his work. "To think, technological wonders straight from the magazines right here in the ‘30s. And some even work