Chapter Two:

Mutants

A week had gone by without any incidents. Vince and Howard had visited Salem a few times during the week, mainly to explore her vast collection of music.

Salem was talking to a gorilla named Bollo when Mrs. Giddion called for her assistance in the reptile house. Salem bid Bollo a good day and began walking to the reptile house, passing by a strange mustached man along the way. She felt his eyes on her as she moved by him with a shiver of discontent.

"Yes, Mrs. Giddion?" She said approaching the woman. Mrs. Giddion looked upset and worried. She turned to the younger girl.

"Yes, something is wrong with the snakes." She began.

"It seems as if something has spooked the poor creatures. They are refusing to eat or even allow me to take them from their habitats. And too make it worse, one of my snakes has gone missing." Mrs. Giddion went on. Salem looked at the scaled creatures with concern.

Salem was deep in thought as the intercom came on saying something about an employee going missing or presumed dead and to exercise caution. She looked over to the snakes and knew the disappearance of the employee had to be connected to their strange behavior.

"Mrs. Giddion, could the snakes be upset over the employee's disappearance?" Salem asked. Mrs. Giddion shook her head.

"No, he was never around my reptiles that I can recall." Mrs. Giddion stated. Salem nodded and walked around the various habitats. One of the cobras seemed a bit more on edge than the others, and quickly hid in one of the coves of his exhibit.

Salem sat on a bench and ate her lunch, thinking about the snakes behavior. Mrs. Giddion couldn't be consoled in her worried state of mind. She spotted Howard trying to help Mrs. Giddion with her problems and Vince come over and start talking with the cobra.

Salem sighed as she threw her trash away in the bin and took a walk about the zoo, looking for anything that needed tending to. That's when she noticed the strange mustached man from earlier acting suspicious near the shaman's booth. The door he went through was labeled "Lab".

"I could have sworn that wasn't there yesterday." she thought, but shrugged it off and continued to be aware of what was happening. She walked on, her mind working on what could be going on.

Salem had formed a plan to get to the bottom of the mystery she found herself thrown into. She quickly and quietly made her way to the missing snake's exhibit and began searching for anything that could help her. She looked down.

"Two sets of foot prints?" She thought as she looked closer and also found a trail that looked as if one of the people and a large snake had been drug out of the exhibits door. She followed the trail to to pavement where it seemed to end.

"That's odd." She said quietly to herself as she continued walking along the paved path. She stopped when she saw the lab door again. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her courage and approached the door.

She raised her hand to the door knob, when something hard hit the back of her head, and her world went black.

Howard had told Vince about the plan he had formed to uncover the mystery behind the snake's disappearance, and in turn winning over Mrs. Giddion. Vince had shrugged him off and continued his painting of Howard.

Howard had just begun to start his investigation when he was hit by something and blacked out.

Upon awakening, Howard looked around at the off white color of the room. He tried to move, but found he was restrained on what looked to be a hospital bed. Taking in more of his surroundings, he saw Salem still unconscious tied down to a bed as well. She slowly began to stir. Her eyes blinked open as her eyes adjusted to the lighting of the room.

Howard felt a small sense of relief when he saw she was fine. Salem examined her restraints and the area around her. Sighing, she let her head fall back down against the hard bed.

"This is what I get for being curious, I guess." She murmured to herself.

"That makes two of us." Howard interjected. Salem looked over to the man a foot or two away from her. At that moment the strange mustache man walked into the room. He began monologuing on what he was doing involving animal and human experiments and mutating several of the employees and animals. Salem began to ignore him and think of a way out, catching bits of useful information such as the name "Bainbridge", which appeared to be the mustached man's name.

She glanced around and noticed a scalpel not to far away and began relaxing her body to be able to bend and escape the restraints.

Vince stood outside, painting a picture of Naboo and the shaman's stand and surrounding area. He began to wander where Howard had disappeared, and where Salem had gone to. He hadn't seen either of his friends all night and was starting to worry. Vince began talking to Naboo about his problem.

"The answer is in your painting." Naboo said. Vince, being just a bit thick in the head, took a minute to figure out what Naboo was trying to say. Finally it dawned on him that they were in the lab.

Salem had just about escaped her restraints when a man appeared through the door, he was dressed in complete scrubs. While Howard begged and pleaded for his life, she pulled on her restraints one more time, releasing one of her hands. She discreetly reached for the scalpel and sliced the rest of the restraints just in time to see Vince pull down the sterile mask of his out fit and free Howard.

Vince stared at Salem for a moment and smiled. She gently smiled back at him and looked towards the door. While Howard and Vince began talking about Bainbridge's experiments.

"How do we escape from here?" Salem asked. Vince smiled.

"We just walk out, down the hallway and we're back at the zoo." He said. Salem nodded and followed the two men out of the door. They stopped in front of what looked like a prison cell and listened to the human and animal mutants talk about what they have endured. The trio released them and continued on their way to safety.

Salem walked with the men back to the boarding part of the zoo.

"So, do things like this happen often?" She asked the men. Howard looked at her like she was crazy while Vince just smiled and nodded. She sighed and continued walking until they came to the cross roads.

"Well, good night, gentlemen. It was an adventure." Salem said going on her way to her apartment.

"Good night, Salem." They said in unison and walked off to the house they lived in.