Page 83 of Tiger Queen

“Yeah, about that… It wasn’t Mary Beth.”

36

Anthony

The last time an animal escaped was when I was a little kid.

I still remembered it like it was yesterday, because it was one of the first times dad asked me to help him in the zoo. Dad was letting visitors take personal photos with one of the Bengals we had. I was in charge of collecting the money before the visitors went into the cage with him. People paid a lot of money to get their photo taken hugging a real life tiger, and handling all that cash made me feel important.

Dad wasn’t the safest zoo owner. That was true for a billion different reasons, but it was especially true that day because he didn’t have a scientific way of sedating the tigers. He eye-balled it based on how the tiger reacted. He claimed it was because he didn’t need a fancy doctor telling him how to take care of his cats, but my brothers and I knew it was because he was cheap. He was trying to use as little sedative as possible because it was expensive.

The tiger was named Hans, after Hans Gruber from Die Hard. He was a pretty chill tiger, but it was never a good idea to get complacent around big cats. We had safety measures in place for the photo shoots. I took the money at the outer gate, and then the visitors were allowed into the staging area before seeing the tiger itself. It was kind of like an airlock system from a science fiction movie. They entered the staging area, I closed the gate behind them, and only then did dad open the gate to the tiger’s pen.

But dad always got impatient when there was money involved. There was a line of people waiting to have their photo taken, so the faster we worked, the more money we made. That’s what led to dad opening the inner gate a few seconds too early, before I had closed the outer gate.

Hans must have been waiting his entire life for this moment, because he was ready. He bolted into the staging area and through the outer gate to freedom.

All these years later, and I could still remember the screams. Adults clutching and covering their children. Women shrieking. People ran in all directions while Hans merrily trotted through the zoo, calm and happy.

Rather than keep me safe, dad grabbed me and took me toward the danger.

“Anthony, I need you with me,” he said. “Jake! David! Run and lock the outer gates! Don’t let Hans get out!”

The words filled me with pride at the time. Dad needed me. He was sending my brothers away to lock the gates—which, in retrospect, was horrifying since he cared more about keeping the tiger from escaping than allowing visitors to escape—but he wasn’t sending me away. I was going with him.

“Come on, now!” he said as he grabbed the tranquilizer gun. “We’ve got ourselves a tiger hunt.”

We ran through the zoo together. I struggled to keep up with dad. I was only eight, and his legs were so much longer than mine. But I ran as fast as I could because I didn’t want to disappoint him.

Hans was having a jolly good time. He wandered to the north-east corner of the zoo. It was easy to find him because visitors were running in the opposite direction. By the time we caught up to him both of us were out of breath. Hans was pacing along the outer fence to the zoo, sniffing at holes in the wood. Searching for a way out.

“You ready to be dad’s best helper?” my father asked me.

I was scared, but I nodded.

“Walk over to the side. Not toward Hans, but kinda sideways to him. And give him a call. You know Hans, he’s your buddy. He won’t hurt you. Go on, then. Walk over there and start telling him it’s okay.”

I did as I was told. I walked away from my father and called out to the tiger, waving my hands over my head. Hans stopped pacing the fence and perked up when he saw me. He started walking in my direction.

Dad hit him with one dart on the front leg. Hans let out an annoyed roar, but then dad hit him with a second dart. It took three altogether to take him down. To reward me for helping, dad let me pick out whatever ice cream I wanted from the grocery store that night.

At the time I thought I was the hero of the zoo. I bragged about it to my brothers for years. Only later did I realize the truth of what had happened that day. Dad was using me to draw the tiger sideways, giving him a wider target at the cat’s flank.

He was using me as bait.

The memory tickled in the back of my head as David and I ran through the dark zoo, searching for Mary Beth.

“The enclosure with the two female Bengals is open,” David said into the walkie-talkie. We rounded the corner. “Shit. Same for the wolf pen.”

“What else have you seen?” Rachel asked.

“The chimpanzees are gone. And the entire bird aviary.”

“Already took care of the chimps. Looking for the rest now. Let us know what other open cages you find.” Rachel sounded calm. How could she be so calm?

“I feel like we should have weapons,” I said as David and I kept running.

“We’re too far from the shed.”

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