My hearts raced as I was transferred by truck to the zoo, as if they were trying to out-beat each other. Every time the truck came to a stop, I waited with excruciating anticipation for the back doors to open, but then the truck would continue moving, probably through a traffic light. The waiting was actually painful. My muscles were so tense, you'd think they'd just snap. What was worse was being confined to that tiny temporary tank. I had no room to pace, so all I could do was spin around in circles until I got dizzy. Then I'd bounce anxiously on my arms. Then I'd start drumming the sides of my enclosure and hum to myself. We'd probably only been driving for twenty to thirty minutes, but it felt like hours.
Finally, the truck came to a stop and the driver carted me out. I frowned when I read the sign in front of the zoo: Staten Island Zoo.
Right . . . Did I really think that I'd be going back to Central Park? Why would I be transferred back there? I was so overwhelmed I hadn't really thought that through.
But no matter. I was going to escape. I didn't care about the prospect of getting caught. I was going to get there one way or another. Even if I only saw them for a minute, it would be the best minute of my life. And if they weren't back at the zoo, I would start gathering evidence for where they went. I wasn't sure how, but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.
I was carted into the zoo and the night watchman guided him past the dark habitats. They talked as she led us into a building.
"So, how's it goin'?" the woman asked in a nasally Brooklyn accent.
"Eh, nothing much. Heavy traffic tonight, though," my driver replied, his voice gruff and undefined.
"What's the deal with the octopus?" the night guard asked, looking over my transcripts. It was rare that someone actually looked through them — maybe twice in the past year — because it was about thirty pages long. Most just signed it off and forgot about it. "Looks like he's been to a lot of places."
"I don't know, lady. I just drive the truck," the man replied irritably.
The night guard stopped on a page and frowned, her brow lowering in thought. "Says here he got kicked out of Nairobi for emulating some sort of voodoo doll. What's up with that?" she asked, her expression softening with humor.
Despite the driver's indifferent attitude, this got his attention, if only a sliver of it. "Really? What else does it say?" he asked, his pace slowing.
I rolled my eyes and laid an arm across my face. I prayed they wouldn't take too long making fun of me. They could at least do it somewhere else instead of right in front of me.
The night guard flipped to the next page. "Kicked out of Madrid for staring threateningly at children. An octopus with anger issues?" she said with a grin.
The driver laughed. "This octopus sure has a wild past. I'm surprised any zoo is accepting the transfer."
I was getting annoyed by that point. Firstly for wasting my time. Secondly for seemingly not having any understanding that octopuses have ears.
"Eh, it's above my paygrade. I just work here," the night guard replied. "Unload him, I'll get him to his habitat."
Finally.
The driver handed my tiny tank off to the night guard and they exchanged paperwork, then parted ways. She wheeled me through a bunch of paths until I saw a large indoor tank. Past an employee only entrance, there was a locked metal door which she opened to reveal the inside of the tank. After being released inside, I was left to myself.
Or so I thought.
"Hey."
I started at the voice to my right, but saw no one. I didn't have time to think about or investigate this, though.
"AH!" I screamed as another octopus caught me off guard by de-camouflaging himself right in my face.
The other octopus laughed hard while I struggled to regain my breath. "Ah, that never gets old."
I sighed exasperatedly and brushed myself off. "Look, I don't mean to be rude but I'm gonna spare you the pleasantries. I'm getting out of here."
"Oh, don't be like that!" the other octopus said half disappointedly, half annoyed. "It was just a joke, man. Name's Brody. What's yours, bro?"
"Dave," I replied. "And it's nothing personal, I decided on escaping before I knew you were here."
Brody's brow furrowed. "I don't understand."
"I'm not asking you to. I've been through hell and back for so long, I don't have the time, energy, nor willingness to explain it to you. I just need to leave."
"Hm." Brody thought for a moment. "Well, if that's what you've gotta do."
He looked at me as if he knew something I didn't, which made me nervous. I didn't care enough to ask though.
The door I'd come in through was sealed tight. It wasn't like the habitat I'd busted out of in London with Glenne. It seemed much fancier, like there was some kind of lock from outside. I frowned and looked around. Aside from the metal wall in the back with the door, the other three walls were thick glass. Big stone rocks were stacked up against the sides with algae growing bright green on them. I looked up.
At the top, some dim fluorescent lights buzzed over two feet of space between the water and the ceiling. There were no visible openings, vents, nothing beyond the locked door I was thrown into. I sighed.
"Last time I tried to escape, they tased me and kicked me until I was too weak to move."
I turned to see Brody had risen to the surface with me. It took a few seconds for what he'd said to sink in.
"Why?"
"The people here hate animals. I've been here for six long years. When I first arrived it wasn't so bad. 'Till I learned they withhold food if you don't perform well enough to get enough spectators. They make us earn our food. Those that perform the best get the best rations. Those that don't . . . well. Don't."
In all the zoos that I'd been in . . . countless by now. I'd never heard of anything like this. If this was how they treated animals, they'd soon starve me to . . .
"But they wouldn't let animals die of starvation would they?"
Brody studied the floor. "I wasn't sure of that till TJ died last year. He tried to protest by not performing anymore. Thought they'd send him away and he'd be free. He became weaker and weaker. I begged him to give up. He was so sure they wouldn't let him starve. When they fed me they'd use a pole to hold him back. When I tried to save or hide part of my food for him, they'd push me out of the way and take the scraps so neither of us could have them. When he passed, they lied and said he refused to eat. I don't even want to know what they did with his body."
It took me some time to process what I was hearing. This was . . . barbaric. I almost didn't believe him. This seemed low, even for humans. "How have they gotten away with this for so long?"
"Like I said, bro. They lie," Brody shrugged. "And humans are too wrapped up in their own lives to realize they're being manipulated.
I stayed silent while I let the words settle in the water around us. I almost started to feel woozy as a sudden fear took hold of me. I wanted to believe none of this was true, but Brody had no reason to lie to me.
"Sorry for the unwelcome greeting," Brody said, sinking back into the water slowly, like a penny sinking in pudding.
I followed. "Wait, there has to be a way to fix this."
Brody laughed sadly. "You think we haven't tried everything? There have been many attempts to escape this place. There's only two ways out: death, or those lucky enough to get transferred."
I shook my head. "I ain't gonna be here long. I've escaped two prisons. This one's no different."
Brody studied me for a moment. "Well, forgive me for not having any faith in you. But I'm interested to see you try. I just hope you don't get hurt in the process. Or worse."
— § —
My first plan was simple enough. Camouflage myself by the door and wait for it to open. It was an immediate failure. They wouldn't open the door until I made myself visible, then they gave me half the food I was supposed to get for the rest of the day for attempting to escape.
Pretending to be sick didn't work as they didn't seem to care at all. When guests would ask if I'm okay, keepers would feign concern and assure them I'd be taken to the vet as soon as they could.
I even tried to communicate with the guests while the keepers weren't looking, but none of them could understand what I was saying.
I felt like I was running low on options. Brody wasn't much help, nor was he encouraging at all. He made comments like "I told you so" and insisted I just give up like everyone else had. But I wasn't that kind of cephalopod. I'm still not. About a month into being there, I started getting more and more frustrated and antsy.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
— § —
Running low on options, I played nice for a few days. I needed to observe. I needed to see how this place worked.
Breakfast was served at 8:30AM, an hour and a half before the zoo opened. Then they fed us dinner at 5:30PM, about 45 minutes after closing. It seemed intentional to me that they always fed us outside of opening hours.
During opening hours, they just . . . watched. They watched and patrolled the zoo while the guests found themselves entertained. A few would clean up habitats or walkways as needed. Sometimes if an animal wasn't performing well enough, they would become weaker during opening hours from not being fed enough, making it even harder to perform. It was a cruel, vicious cycle. It made me wonder how this place managed to not get shut down.
Before I had a chance to wonder why guests never seemed to notice when animals started behaving weakly or sickly, I realized they did notice. A guest brought up some concerns about the seal across from us to a zookeeper and the zookeeper would merely nod, feign concern, and assure the guests that the animal would be brought to the zoo vet as soon as possible. Whenever closing would roll around, they would take the animal somewhere — I'm not sure where, and neither is Brody — and by the time the animal would return, they would seem . . . different. And their performance the next day would be better.
This was all very strange and creepy to me. I still didn't have a new plan. I needed to come up with something these zookeepers had never seen before. Something completely unexpected.
"Most animals have given up by now, ya know," Brody said one morning while I was at the glass, watching the zookeepers and thinking.
"It's only been a little over a month," I replied, not turning away from my focus. "I don't give up that easily. I just need to think of something they wouldn't expect."
"Most of us have tried just about everything. Like I said, only two outcomes," Brody said.
I stayed silent while I watched a zookeeper throw food into the piranha tank for the amusement of the zoo guests, the only time they would feed anyone during opening hours was if the guests wanted to see it. The piranhas ripped into the meat that was thrown in for them. Then, suddenly, the zookeeper slipped forward and his hand dipped into the tank by accident. I watched in horror, fascination, and lowkey schadenfreude (a word I learned in Germany that I thought I'd never use) while the piranhas dove for the opportunity to grab a bite of his arm. It didn't last long as he immediately retracted his arm with a scream.
The guests gasped with horror as they helped him from the ladder while blood poured from the bite wounds on his arm and hand. The piranhas didn't get to do much damage, but they did enough to cause some bad bleeding. Guests were quick to call 911 and help him wrap and put pressure on the wounds. It wasn't long till they were helping him leave the building to wait for the ambulance.
"Bro, you're freaking me out with that face."
Suddenly, I noticed my reflection in the glass. I wasn't sure when I'd started smiling.
"Brody," I said, turning to look at him, widening my grin deviously, "I love it when a plan comes together."
— § —
Brody listened intently while I explained my plan. It was clear this was certainly something no one had ever tried — if there were any other animals with the capability to. Just what I wanted.
I waited three days to implement my plan. Not only did I want to iron out the details to perfection, I also needed to wait for just the right time. Which meant waiting for our busiest day, at our busiest hour.
Saturday, about 11AM.
For a while, Brody and I played it cool. We did some pretty cool octopus tricks for the guests. Brody was so intrigued about my plan he agreed to join me. He even let me teach him my "arm animal" trick. We managed to build up a decent crowd. Even a few of the zookeepers took notice and stood by watching curiously. We had never performed like this so I'm certain they were wondering where this sudden energy to entertain was coming from.
When a decent crowd had formed, Brody glanced over at me. I nodded. The signal.
Both of us ducked behind the pile of rocks at the back of our habitat. The guests looked on curiously, expecting a new trick was coming. Oh, one was coming all right.
The first time I showed Brody my human persona, he was unsettled to say the least. But that was nothing compared to how unsettled the humans outside our tank were about to be.
Brody looked nervous.
"Hey," I said, "everything is going to be okay. And after I get out of here, I'm going to make sure things change around here."
Brody still seemed unsure but nodded.
It's showtime.
I didn't have clothes, so I had to rely on the privacy the rock provided to hide the truth. I camouflaged my head to look like a human's. Then, Brody started the act.
He backed out from behind the rocks, doing his best to seem shocked and scared. He looked at the humans to make sure they were still paying attention. They were.
He then came back toward me and pulled me up until just my head poked above the rocks, now looking like that of a human. I let my eyes roll back into my head and hung limp.
Screams immediately erupted from the crowd.
"Oh my god!" one guest cried. "There's a dead man in the octopus habitat!"
Some guests fled in terror, hiding their children's eyes. Some called 911. Others turned and started yelling at the nearby zookeepers, who seemed frozen in shock for a moment before springing into action.
You see, the zookeepers could easily explain away sick animals.
Explaining away a corpse? Not so easy. That required immediate action.
Was it morbid? Sure. But they forced my hand — er, arm.
Zookeepers scrambled for our tank as chaos ensued. Exactly what I wanted.
As soon as the tank door flung open, Brody chucked me with all of his strength at the hatch. Nobody had any time to react as I latched onto the first zookeeper I made contact with. Zookeepers stumbled around as they tried to catch me and look into the tank for the corpse at the same time. I think everyone was still processing what was happening.
I was already flinging myself toward the ceiling, grabbing a light fixture and swinging through the rafters towards the nearest window. I caught a glimpse of some of the other animals in our neighboring tanks looking up at me in awe and surprise. Just as I launched myself through the window, the fading cheers of my former neighbors followed behind me.
Freedom.
— § —
I hadn't tasted freedom like this in a long time. It tasted so sweet. What I hadn't known was that karma was about to make it so much sweeter.
Undercover as Octavius, I managed to report to the police and animal rights activist groups what was happening in the Staten Island Zoo. It took about a week to get an investigation started, and only a few days before mounting evidence built up against them. No one could explain away the corpse or find any evidence a human had expired in the octopus tank, so those charges ultimately had to be dropped. Nonetheless, any dozen or two were arrested for their affiliation and accessory to the severe animal abuse that took place there, the head zookeeper facing the steepest charges.
I had planned to dip after getting the reports going, but they wanted me to be a witness on the stand. Of course, I'd have to fabricate some things since I obviously couldn't tell the humans how I actually found out about the goings on in that zoo. But it was simple enough to lie my way through it. I wasn't a slave to whatever "under oath" meant anyway, and besides, it was for a good cause.
It took a few weeks, but it was a cut and dry trial. All involved were found guilty and sentenced to prison. The zoo had to shut down for some time while new staff was hired. I stayed and volunteered so that I could help the animals stay fed and cared for while they waited for the replacement staff. Brody and I snuck conversations when we could. He commended me for my bravery, and thanked me for what I did for all the animals. I reminded him that I couldn't have pulled it off without him. He also told me that he'd found out the reason animals seemed different after returning from the infirmary was because the animals had been drugged. The animal abuse operation ran way deeper than I'd even realized.
Finally, about six weeks after my escape, I was given a medal from the New York State Governor for exposing the heinous way the animals in the Staten Island Zoo were being treated. In addition, I was given a reward check for ten thousand dollars – all the money I'd need to investigate where my penguins had gone. I discovered it had been nearly three years since I'd seen them last. In fact, it had been exactly 2 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, and 16 days. And I did confirm they had not returned to the Central Park Zoo.
I wasn't sure how I was going to find them, but I was going to.
I cashed the money and spent the first few hundred on some needed supplies, dropped about five thousand on a decent boat, and finally spent another few hundred booking myself on a ship that was headed toward the coast of Africa, one that could also tow my boat along. I had done a lot of research into what was known about the missing ship, and I had a good lead.
It was last heard of off the coast of South Africa. The captain of the boat and its crew were found stranded on a lifeboat off the coast of Thailand. Incidentally, they were sent back to America where they were promptly locked into asylums for delusions of grandeur.
They claimed a group of penguins restrained them, commandeered the ship, then sent them adrift on a lifeboat. Of course, no one believed them.
Except for me.
They had swept a large area with planes but no sign of the boat was found until a few months later, where it was found completely abandoned a few miles off the coast of Madagascar. The search was ended after that, as they had noted that the animal's crates were missing. They assumed they'd either perished in the ocean after toppling overboard, or were lucky enough to drift to some shore where they might have had a chance for survival. Either way, the humans washed their hands of it and moved on.
But not me.
— § —
Note: The quotes in this chapter were: "I ain't gonna be here long. I've escaped 22 prisons. This one's no different," spoken by Rocket (portrayed by Bradley Cooper) in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014, though 22 was replaced with 2 for obvious reasons); "I love it when a plan comes together," spoken by Hannibal (portrayed by George Peppard [TV show] and Liam Neeson [movie]) in The A-Team (1983-1987 TV show/2010 movie); "It's showtime," spoken by Alex (portrayed by Ben Stiller) in Madagascar (2005).
