The Zookeepers Liberation

The county jail was bursting. It was a small jail, so it didn’t take too many bodies to get it at capacity, Paz knew. Forty-five was considered full. Ninety was considered too full. Paz figured there were probably 180, maybe 200 inmates squeezed in there now.

The law and order crackdown just before, during, and directly after the elite’s abandonment of Earth filled jails and prisons all over the country -all over a lot of countries- with people angry at the state of the world. Some were criminals, sure. Most were protestors demanding action, demanding help, demanding answers. So, they were arrested and locked up in county jails alongside people who couldn’t post bond, drunks, parking violators, petty thieves, assaulters, batterers, drug possessors, illegal firearm owners. They all found a home at the county jail. There was no such thing as no room at the inn. In fact, just before the last vestiges of society finally slipped away and everything truly went to shit, long closed prisons and jails were being re-opened with skeleton crews to meet demands.

That demand was how Paz got her job as a correctional officer at the local county jail.

It was strategic. She’d worked there for the six months leading up to The End, as most people now thought of it, learning everything she could about the inner workings, about the system. So, when the time came for this jailbreak, she was ready.

Paz led a team of three -herself, Janicki, and a young kid named Trevor- into the county jail in broad daylight. This wasn’t Paz and Janicki’s first raid; they’d already cleared out a couple of other jails in other counties, the two of them working together like they’d known each other for a lifetime instead of only a few months. Trevor was new, new to them and new to the cause, but he was eager and willing and Paz hoped that wouldn’t bite them in the ass. There was no guard at the front desk, something that didn’t surprise Paz; the jails and prisons were being abandoned daily now. The trio strolled through the first locked door courtesy of Paz’s keycard copy. No one at the guard station either. The monitors hummed quietly. Static crackled over a radio now and then. With Janicki and Trevor stationed nearby, Paz had a look at the monitors.

All of the cells appeared intact.

“Each cell opens with a manual pass key,” Paz said. “We’re going to have to go through and open each cell one by one.”

“Won’t that take a lot of time?” Trevor asked.

“You got something better to do?” Paz asked.

Trevor shifted his weight and said nothing.

“Any sign of anyone minding the store?” Janicki asked.

Paz looked over the monitors again and shook her head.

“Nope. Didn’t think there would be.”

“Wonder how long the place has been left unattended,” Janicki said.

Paz had no answer for that so she didn’t offer one. She’d quit three weeks ago, said she was going back to Mexico. But even with her absence, the schedule didn’t change; that’s why she picked today for their raid. Paz knew who was supposed to be here, knew that if they did show up, they’d be easily dealt with.

“C’mon. Let’s do this.”

Paz grabbed the passkey and moved towards the door that led to the cells. Trevor stopped her.

“How do we know who to let out?” he asked.

“What?” Paz replied, confused.

“How do we know which prisoners deserve to be free?” Trevor asked.

Paz glanced at Janicki, who was looking at Trevor like he was the most unusual specimen he’d ever seen.

“This isn’t a mission of merit,” Paz said and she turned away from Trevor, unlocking the door. “They all go free.”

Paz led the way.

The county was small, so its jail was small. There were three pods of fifteen cells each, each cell designed for double occupancy. One pod was reserved for women. There were also two segregation cells. The trio entered the first pod and Paz banged on the first cell door she came to.

“How many?” she called.

“Four!” someone inside yelled. “Get us out! Please!”

Paz nodded to Janicki and Trevor. The two men flanked the door, guns ready, just in case anyone decided to get surly. Paz unlocked the door and opened it.

The smell rushed out before the occupants, the ripe stench of body odor, urine, sweat, and shit.

“Walk straight through and on out,” Paz instructed the wide-eyed prisoners. “Doors are open. Get gone as soon as you’re outside. If you’ve got no place to go, stay at the reception desk. We’ll help you. Move!”

The four men, all black, ranging in age from early twenties to early fifties did not need to be told twice. They disappeared through the door and were gone.

Paz, Trevor, and Janicki worked through the pod, finding as many as eight, but never fewer than four in each cell Paz opened.

“How long have you been in here?” Paz asked one of the six women who spilled out of the first cell in the women’s pod.

“Me? Two weeks,” she said. She was sweaty, disheveled, and smelled like a beef stew gone bad. “But there ain’t been anybody by in at least two days. We’re all fixin’ to die of thirst.”

Paz nodded as Trevor muttered under his breath and Janicki shook his head. Nobody had been in for six whole shifts.

“Get gone,” she said, jerking her head toward the door. “If you need help, wait at the desk.”

“I’m good, thanks.” And the woman disappeared.

They emptied the women’s pod and the segregation cells before moving on to the final pod.

“Where is everybody?” Trevor asked quietly. “Where are the other guards?”

“It was only a matter of time before they quit coming in.” Paz paused in front of the cell.

“Most of the guards don’t care about these people, don’t even see them as humans. One of the guys I worked with said we’re zookeepers. In a way, he’s not wrong.”

Trevor nodded solemnly and then a different light brightened behind his eyes.

“Hey, yeah, what about the zoos? All those animals? What about them?”

Janicki shook his head, but Paz smiled at him. “That’s a different kind of run.”

Paz banged on the cell door. “How many?”

“Five!” came a voice. “One dead.”

The trio paused, a kind of stillness that only a feeling of being too late can bring.

Paz opened the cell door.

The men inside shuffled out rather than spilled like the previous cells, their heads down, their spirits depressed.

“What happened?” Paz asked the last man, an older black gentleman.

“He went to sleep and he didn’t wake up,” he said, his voice dried to a rasp. “He never said much. I was in here with him for four days and he never said his name. He was already broken. This did him in. We prayed for him.”

Paz nodded and the man sighed, shuffling past Trevor and disappearing through the pod entrance. In the cell, on the berth bolted to the wall, one of only two in the cramped space, lay a man on his side, curled up, facing the wall, not moving, not breathing. Even from this distance, Paz recognized the eerie stillness of death. She’d seen a lot of it lately.

Janicki turned and walked down to the next cell. Paz followed. Trevor hesitated.

“What do we do about the body?” he asked.

“We leave it,” Paz said without looking back.

“Yeah, but-”

“We leave it.” Paz’s voice kicked off of the metal and cinder blocks, sounding much louder than she’d intended. She looked back at Trevor. With a nod, he hustled to catch up.

The trio worked through the remaining cells in the final pod. Everyone else was alive, though more than a few were in rough shape.

“Doors are open. Get gone,” Paz instructed. “If you need help, wait at the desk.”

“They were gonna leave us to die,” a scrawny young white man said as he stumbled out of his cell. A bigger, older white man elbowed him aside and Paz kept him on his feet. He smelled like he stunk before being tossed in jail. It took Paz’s breath away. “They were gonna leave us to die, weren’t they?”

“Get gone,” Paz said, giving the man a shove in the right direction instead of answering him.

The scrawny young man scampered down the row of cells and disappeared.

“We’re good,” Janicki said.

“Let’s go,” Paz said and she unslung her gun and held it at the ready.

The three of them made their way back towards the front of the jail. Paz took note of how all three of them hesitated just a fraction of a second in front of the dead man’s cell. There were dead like him all over the place now, forgotten in houses and apartments and jails and prisons, no one to investigate, no one to claim them, no one to bury them, no time to bury them.

There’d be time enough for all of that later.

Maybe.

As the trio passed through the guard station, they were greeted with shouts. Trevor started to hustle, but Paz held him back. She signaled to Janicki that she’d take the lead and Janicki positioned himself right behind her, leaving Trevor to bring up the rear. Paz strode through the door with her gun at the ready.

In the reception area, Paz found about twenty of the 200 or so people they’d released huddled together, hands up, pleading not to be shot.

But not by Paz.

Guard Devon Ramsey had arrived for the shift that he used to share with Paz and he held the released inmates at gunpoint, shouting at them to go back into the jail, to get back in their cells. He nearly dropped his gun when he saw Paz.

“Reyes, what are you doing here? What is this?” he asked, confused, and then seemed to find his authority again. “Get these inmates back in their cells.”

“No, that’s not happening,” Paz said calmly.

Ramsey turned his gun on Paz. Trevor and Janicki aimed theirs. Paz kept hers ready, but otherwise made no movement.

“Are you part of this, Reyes? But your job-”

“I quit, remember? You don’t have a job anymore, Ramsey. Jail’s empty now.”

“What?” Ramsey lowered his gun, succumbing to the confusion.

“Nobody’s been in here for two days. There’s one dead in a cell. The zoo has gone bust.”

Paz took a few steps closer as Ramsey shook his head.

“Those were my days off.” And then he looked at her like a man needing absolution. “Those were my days off. I would have been here. I’m here now. I would have been here.”

“I know,” Paz said and she patted Ramsey on the shoulder. She glanced at Janicki. He nodded, lowering his weapon and moving towards the frightened group. Trevor stayed where he was, lowering his AR-15, but not by much. Paz turned her attention back to Ramsey. “And you’re the only one that would have been. You know who was scheduled these past two days?”

Ramsey snorted. “Oh, yeah. I know. The greatest patriots in town. Those bastards. Shouldn’t be shocked they’d leave people to die.”

Ramsey shook his head again. Paz looked over at Trevor and with a nod of her head, indicated for him to help Janicki. As quietly as possible, the two men hustled the group out of the jail. Ramsey didn’t seem to care anymore.

“This is crazy,” he said in disbelief.

“The whole world is crazy,” Paz said.

Ramsey looked at her, really saw her for the first time. He took in her black flack-jacket, her AR-15, her demeanor.

“You know, I really hated this job,” he said, straightening up and holstering his gun.

Paz smiled at him. “Yep. Me, too.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”