Zoo City - Lauren Beukes

His arm is caught in the crack and I'm running out of air. Dark spots pop in front of my eyes. I brace my feet against the rock and ease his shoulder loose. It rotates obscenely under the skin, his arm flopping loosely from the socket. I pull again, hard, and he comes away. Only Ro comes with him. I kick out in blind panic as the bulk of the rotting bouncer drifts into me. My foot sinks into his stomach. A stream of thick bubbles erupts from between his lips, and his head flops back and up, his arms dragging, like a man called to the Ascension, the trapped gases sending him bobbing up to the surface.

I kick up after him, but I have the disadvantage of a cracked rib and 95 kg of my one-time lover in tow. The black spots have turned to bright sunflares. My lungs have moved beyond burning to the sear of napalm. And I break into the air and the music, gasping and choking. And it's not even nearly over.

Baby you can drive me crazy, drive me anywhere you please

Huron's voice carries across the water. "Kids, this is my friend, Mr Crocodile. Say hello, Mr Crocodile. He'd like to be your friend too. Your special friend. Because quite frankly, I'm sick to death of the thing."

But baby don't break my heart, baby don't tease

I drag Benoît to the rocks. Sloth tries to help, yanking at his shirt with his teeth. I heave him up, but his legs are still dangling in the water, the current wafting at his pants. I scramble out, crouch down beside him, shivering. I hadn't realised how cold the water was.

Benoît's not breathing. I tilt his head back, squeezing his nose shut with one hand, and press my mouth against his. Two deep exhalations. Then I push two fingers against the artery in his neck.

Sloth whines, seeing the blood seeping through his shirt. "Shut up, buddy."

Please. Please. I count out the faintest of pulses. One alligator. Two alligator. Thirty beats in a minute. That can't be good. And he's still not breathing. And he's bleeding to death.

One thing at a time, Zinzi. I have no idea what I'm doing here. If he has a pulse, do I do chest compressions anyway? Fuck.

We'll keep on moving, keep on cruising,

I tip his jaw back again, press my mouth down, inflate his chest with my breath. "Fuck you, breathe. Fuck you, breathe." Like we're some kind of obscene machine, a conjoined human bellows. "Fuck you, Benoît, breathe."

It's okay baby, just stick with me

"I don't want to," Songweza says in a little-girl voice from across the cavern.

I don't look up. Can't afford to.

"We all do things we don't want to sometimes," Huron says. "It's like a game."

"Like Blood Skies?" S'bu asks, his voice vague and distant, an echo of a human being.

"I don't know what that is," Huron snaps.

"It's a video game."

"Yes, exactly like a video game," his voice turned wheedling.

"Cooperative or non-cooperative?"

"Definitely non."

Baby it's a drive-by, drive-by, drive-by love

I place the heel of my palm against Benoît's sternum, fingers interlaced. Fuck it, chest compressions can't hurt, right? Only when I push down there is a horrible grinding sound in Benoît's chest, like his ribs are cracked. That makes two of us. "Good luck explaining that to your wife," I hiss at him. "Come on, you cheating shit." Sloth puts a paw over my hands.

"Okay, you're right. No compressions." I take a deep breath. Try to calm down.

Baby it's a drive-by, drive-by, drive-by love

"Here's a knife for you, Song. And one for you. Don't worry, they have spells on them. You ready? First to kill the other wins."

"Yaaa!" Song giggles.

We'll keep on moving, keep on cruising, journey through the

Benoît's body heaves against me, his teeth smashing into my mouth as he convulses. I pull away as he starts to choke, coughing up a thin stream of water and vomit. I turn him onto his side. He doesn't open his eyes. Sloth looks at me expectantly, but I don't know if this is it, if this is enough. It's not like the fucking movies. Benoît splutters and dribbles, then takes a deep wet gurgling breath. And then another one, slightly less wet. He doesn't open his eyes. But it's enough. He's breathing.

You stick with me, babe

His arm hangs grotesquely from his side, but if it's broken, it hasn't torn through the skin. Maybe just dislocated. The tooth punctures that run in a massive arc down the right side of his body from his collarbone to his groin are something else. I just hope the fucker didn't puncture an organ. I tie his shirt round his side the best I can to stanch the blood, haul Sloth over to the wound that's bleeding the most, over his appendix, liver, spleen? Christ, why didn't I pay attention in biology?

"Push down with all your weight, buddy. Don't let up on the pressure. I'll be back as soon as I can." He might yet bleed to death. Might still drown from the water on his lungs. Might have already sustained brain damage. We need to get to a hospital. We need machines and doctors. I try to blank the fear as I strike out for the landing.

Be all right, be all right, be all right

The track fades into silence. And then starts right up again.

Song's giggles turns to a shriek of indignation. Unfortunately, now I can see what's happening as well as hear it. The cage is standing open. There is a mound of limp fur and intestines and downy brown feathers lying on the butcher's block. The plastic sheeting is slick with blood. The Aardvark's head dangles off the edge, its eyes glassy as a stuffed toy. The Marabou is holding a Toad down on the block. It croaks in loud desperate gulps, its mottled throat inflated like a blister. She raises the machete and chops off its head. Blood sprays up in a bright gush.

"By these deaths, bind them," she says, wiping the spray of blood off her face with the back of her hand.

The Crocodile is lying on the other side of the platform, its mouth gaping open. Song and S'bu are circling each other, no longer handcuffed together, working around the giant reptile, while Huron and the Marabou watch from the bottom of the stairs. Or rather he's circling her. She's standing there, pressing her hand to the deep gash in her arm. "Ow, what the hell, S'busiso?"

"Die, Cthul'mite!" Sbu shouts, slashing frantically at her, video game-style. He slices her hands, her arms, as she tries to cover herself. She drops her knife. "Seriously, doos. Cut it out. You're hurting me."

It's not even love at first sight, it's love at a glance

"S'bu," I scream from the water, shoving past Ronaldo's bobbing bloated corpse. "It's the drugs. Stop it! Put down the knife!"

The Crocodile turns its head as if about to slide off the slipway into the water. "No, stay," Huron instructs. "It's nearly over." He snaps at the Marabou, "Taken care of, huh?" He pulls the gun out from under his armpit, and aims it at the water. "Never mind, I'll do it my-fuckingself." He points the gun. I dive.

But I can't let you go, I have to take this chance.

Underwater, the gunshots sound like staccato snaps.

Three of them in quick succession. I imagine I can feel them burrowing through the water, leaving silvery trails. Something tears at my ankle. I twist away in panic and blunder into Ronaldo. I pull the rotting body over me as a shield, as a fourth gunshot echoes through the cavern. The trajectory is slowed by the water, by the corpse. Slowed, but not stopped. It rips through the mushy flesh and into my chest, wedging into my collarbone.

I scream into the water, swallowing half the lake. But I stay under. Counting down. Holding my breath. 74 alligator. 92 alligator. 118 alligator. Until I can't anymore. But when I surface, it's under the cover of Ronaldo's armpit. I kick for shore, pushing my Trojan corpse ahead of me, staying low.

But you looked straight past, didn't see me

"Hurry this up," Huron says, gesturing impatiently at the Marabou. She looks at him coolly and then moves forward. The Stork spreads its wings and beats the air behind her. She grabs S'bu's wrist, swats Songweza's arm out of the way and, still holding S'bu's wrist, drives the knife into Song's chest.

Now I'm wondering if the thought of you will let me be

The knife rasps against bone as the Marabou jerks it free. S'bu gives a little shriek of surprise, but he gets the idea. She doesn't even have to force him to make the next thrust. Or the next. Or the next after that. Song's screaming is a jagged counterpoint to the gleeful chorus. Baby, it's a drive-by, drive-by, drive-by love

Songweza drops into a curl on the cement, trying to shield her body. The Marabou urges S'bu down over her. He keeps the knife moving like a darting piranha as Song screams and howls and is finally silent.

"Enough," Huron says.

S'bu looks around, dazed. The Marabou plucks the knife from his hand and passes it to Huron. S'bu smiles at her, uncertainly, and then notices his sister. He kneels down to shake her shoulder. "Come on, quit messing around," he teases. "Re-spawn, you big baby." But the air pressure has changed, and I understand that Song is dead. The Undertow is coming.

A thin howling sound starts up, like wind through narrow spaces. Instinctively, I retreat, paddling backwards in the water.

"Eat," Huron says to the Crocodile, nudging Songweza's body with his foot. "Fucking eat!"

The Crocodile slithers forward and reluctantly rips a piece out of Songweza's leg. It swallows with obscene jerks of its head, its white gullet undulating with the weight of flesh. S'bu moans in horror.

I look away. Shadows are peeling off the walls, congealing in the water. The howling reaches a new pitch, underscored by a dull click-clack, as if of teeth. Huron looks uneasy. All zoos do with the Undertow coming. Even the Marabou has retreated against the white-painted rock closest to the stairs. Huron uses the knife to slice open his left palm and then drags it through the bloodied tangle of animals on the butcher's block. The howling gets louder.

Marabou prompts him, like a priest at a wedding ceremony. Huron repeats the words after her, dully. His hands are shaking. "I offer this boy in my place. Let him not be animalled. Let him take mine. Bound by flesh, bound by blood." He lunges forward and slices across the Crocodile's snout with the knife, as it tears at Songweza again. It yanks its head away in fury and hisses at him with open jaws.

"Now you," Odi screams at S'bu. "Say: I take this animal."

"I don't underst-"

"Say it! Fucking say it!"

"Please." S'bu starts to cry.

"Do you hear that sound? Do you know what that is?" Odi yells. "That's the fucking Undertow, my boy. Now say it, or it's going to swallow you up and drag you down to hell."

"I take this…" S'bu stutters.

"Animal!"

"Animal. I take this animal." He looks to Odi for ap

proval. Odi looks to the Marabou.

"Did it work?" Odi screams. "Did it fucking work?"

The Marabou shakes her head. She doesn't know.

"It better have fucking worked!"

S'bu is rocking backwards and forwards, staring at his sister, his arms hugged around his body. His chest heaves with sobs.

The darkness seethes and boils, like a slick of oil. It separates to flow around S'bu. He waves his hand at it feebly, trying to ward it off. The Undertow rises like a wave, tendrils reaching towards him, as if tasting his skin. I shudder at the memory.

"Song?" S'bu says, his voice trembling.

The Crocodile suddenly bursts forward, its belly rasping over the concrete, snapping its jaws at the Undertow, sweeping its tail through the thick black. The darkness turns to steam instantly, as if it was only ever mirage. S'bu screams as the reptile lunges for him. But it's only moving to lean its massive head against his leg in something like affection. Horrified, he tries to shove it away. The same way I did with Sloth, until I realised he was the only thing between me and the rising dark. Of course, Sloth didn't have my sibling's blood on his teeth.

"This isn't how the game goes," S'bu sobs, bewildered, standing stiff and frozen with the Crocodile nuzzling his leg.

"He's yours now, kid. Congratulations," says Huron. "I'd say enjoy feeding the fucker, but you won't live that long."

"I-" S'bu starts, but Amira steps forward, holding a retro gun. She puts the muzzle of the Vektor to the side of his head and pulls the trigger. S'bu falls onto his knees and tips slowly forward onto the remains of his face. I look away.

Drive-by, drive-by

Without the howl of the Undertow the music is audible again.

"Well, that went well. Turn that racket off, will you?" Huron says. Amira clicks a switch and the music dies, leaving a heavy silence, broken only by the waves lapping at the pier and the muffled thump of the Crocodile nudging at S'bu with its head, as if to make him get up.

"Well enough," Amira replies, sheathing the gun in a concealed holster under the straps criss-crossing her chest.

"Good luck getting that fucking thing out of here."

"Don't trouble yourself. We have a plan. Alive would have been better of course, but you take what you can get." She eyes the Crocodile evaluatingly.

"Shhhh," Odi laughs. "He'll hear you."

I wait until they're both up the ladder and then count out another few minutes, 289 alligator. 294 alligator, until I'm sure they're not coming back. I creep out of the water as quietly as I can so as not to disturb the Crocodile, which is still head-butting S'bu. I've seen animals live for months after their humans have died. But they're never quite the same.

I can't raise my arm, courtesy of the bullet in my collarbone. Every step sends shards of glass stabbing through my chest and causes sunbursts in my head. But I have to get upstairs, have to get to a phone. There's no way I can drag Benoît out of here on my own.

I skirt round the side of the butcher's block, trying to avoid looking at the mess of animals, but the Crocodile sees me. It swings its bulk between me and the stairs in a rapid jerk, faster than should be allowed for something that big. Its mouth gapes, a clear sign of aggression. I hold up one hand, all I can manage, in surrender.

"They're planning to kill you. Chop you up for muti. They've got all the tools waiting." It studies me impassively with slit gold eyes. I persevere. "Monster like you? You're probably worth a fortune. I can help you. I can try to help you. But I have to get out."

It jerks its head at me. I flinch, but it's not attacking, it's motioning towards the stairs. For me to go. I step past it gingerly, still half expecting it to lunge, for those bonecrushing jaws to snap around my body, but it doesn't, and I haul myself agonisingly up the ladder, one-handed, pain screaming through my chest.