“No kidding, Brian. That’s spooky.” Nancy, too, stared at the tiger’s viscous eyes. “I wonder how they make all of these dead animals look so alive.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” As the two passed the tiger, they felt as if it was still staring at them, thinking of what a nice meal they would make. “That’s strange. I wonder if that thing makes everyone feel that way.”
“No, it’s probably just us.” Nancy’s soft giggle seemed to magically release much of Brian’s silent anxiety. “We’re just paranoid.”
“I guess so . . . Hey, look at that room.” Brian pointed at a large room in which guns and knives sat against the wall and hung from the wall in separate glass containers. The sign above the large pillars that represented the doorway read ‘Antique Weapons of the Early 1900’s and of the Civil War’. Although no one was permitted entrance, Brian spotted American Indian hatchets, assorted muskets, and even a chair attached to a large machine that looked to be from World War I as he stood in the doorway. “Interesting stuff, but why don’t we go catch up with Chris and Sarah?”
On the other side of the antique weapons room stood Chris and Sarah, both staring in amazement at a stream of crystal clear water falling elegantly from strategically placed rocks in the middle of a large pool of water. In the water, large goldfish swam casually, not seeming to mind the concrete siding. Chipmunks scurried along the outside rocks, stopping once in a while to beg for food from onlookers. Chris removed a quarter from his pocket and placed it into a vending machine entitled ‘Squirrel food’. He received a handful of peanuts that Sarah and he managed to feed to the large rodents as they passed by. “This is beautiful,” said Sarah.
“Uh . . . Huh-Huh. Squirrels are cool. Feeding squirrels is kick a- . . . ” Brian managed to thump Chris on the head as he and Nancy approached the waterfall and Chris and Sarah.
“We went into a tent over there that we wanted you two to see.” Sarah spoke with enthusiasm and a wide smile on her face to the rest of group, and then skipped off in the direction of the tents.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Brian quickly followed Sarah, who had already settled herself in a large, six-man tent.
As Chris stepped in, he darted his eyes from side to side, examining the every aspect of the tent. “Whew . . . this must be three times as big as my dad’s tent.”
“Probably because this is a six-man tent, and his is a two-man,” added Brian.
“Good point. Hey, somebody shut the door.” As the rest of the foursome talked blase, Nancy reached behind her to zip up the flap of lycra material that was the front door.
“So, I hear there’s a tornado warning for tonight,” said Brian. “The weatherman claimed that it could possibly hit Sidney, or maybe even hit Cabela’s.”
“As did I, mon fr re,” added Nancy. “You know, I can’t hear a thing out of this tent. It must be completely noiseproof.”
Chris, the most knowledgeable about camping equipment in the group, interjected, “The purpose of the design is to keep all of the rain out, but, as it turns out, keeping the water out happens to also keep the noise out. I like it better this way, but my dad bought the one that doesn’t keep all of the rain out. He says that it’s dangerous to not be able to hear animals or other invaders in the night.”
“I suppose that if there was a fire in the building ten minutes ago, we wouldn’t have known about it until too late.” At Brian’s comment, each looked at the other, and Nancy opened a corner of the door to hear the reassuring sound of the outside world.
Nancy leaned over toward Brian and whispered in his ear, “Make up some crazy story, and tell it to Sarah to see if she’ll believe you.” As Nancy leaned back, Brian began his tale.
“Nancy and I were just talking about something that happened while we weren’t with you two. We had gone over to look at the main exhibit when Nancy noticed something strange. One of the larger birds’ wings was twitching. I don’t mean it had been caught in a gust of air, either. After a while, it seemed as if the entire bird had started to move. We decided not to stick around, but we did overhear some people talking about it later. They said that one of the people who works here took the bird down and took it back into an employees only room. Of course we don’t know the exact scenario, but my best guess would be that whoever stuffed the birds didn’t do a very good job. He probably just froze them and shipped them. So be careful, Sarah, when you walk over by the birds.”
The amazed look on Sarah’s face was enough to make anyone laugh. Chris nearly accepted the invitation, but he managed to cover his mouth and turn the oncoming laugh into a cough. Sarah, with a frightened, confused look on her face, blankly uttered the single word, “Really?”
The entire situation was more than the rest of the group could take, though. The three of them burst out laughing all at once, at Sarah’s expense. After laughing for a few seconds, Brian said, “No . . . we’re just kidding, Sarah. That wouldn’t really happen.”
After the laughter had subsided, Nancy noticed that they had been sitting in the tent for nearly an hour, and it was now after eight o’clock. “Hey, you all. We probably should be getting out now. Somebody must be waiting for us.” Nancy once again reached behind her to unzip the door, but this time no piercing noise of jostling customers was heard. Instead, the noise had been replaced by complete and utter silence. The four looked at each other without saying a word, ultimately making the silence even more magnified.
Brian was the first to break the silence. “I think we should leave now, guys.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” said Nancy. With worried glances, the entire group made their way out of the tent. They were greeted on the outside by nothing but unequivocal darkness and silence. Without a word they made their way toward the front door. Nancy reached the row of tall, glass doors before the others and attempted to push one open. Her efforts, though, were useless. Every one of the doors had been locked from the inside as well as from the outside. “They’re all locked.”
“So let’s break them down!” Chris, in his panic, grabbed a lamp from the desk and hurled it at the huge pane of glass. The small, ceramic lamp smashed as it hit the door, leaving nothing but shards of pottery on the floor.
Nancy broke in to the situation, trying to calm everyone down. “Come on, you guys. There’s no point in panicking! There obviously has to be either someone else in the store who would have a key or a much easier escape route. I mean, look what you would have done by breaking the glass. Not only would you most likely end up having to pay for it, but also it wouldn’t help us get out. There’s an iron fence no more than thirty yards from here, and it goes straight up to the overhang in the front of the building, in case you didn’t notice. All you would have done is let the rain in here.”
Brian quickly broke in with, “The rain! Everyone must have been evacuated because of a tornado. They said it would come right through here. It was probably on a path for the Cabela’s building, and they told everybody to leave and to take shelter in their basements. Oh, no; it seems as if we were just talking about how it could be dangerous not to be able to hear outside the tent.”
“We were.”
“Thanks, Chris. I know that.”
Nancy attempted to take control of the situation at this point. “Come on! We have to find a way out before the storm gets worse! Okay, Brian, you and Sarah go over by the deli and into the employees only room. Look for windows, doors, or anything else that would give us a chance of getting out. Chris and I are going to look around the main area for stuff that we could use to build a ladder to get to those windows near the ceiling.”
“Okay, we’ll be back. Come on, Brian.” As they began walking toward the back of the building, Brian realized that they were headed for the evil looking tiger that had frightened Nancy and him earlier.
“Come on, Sarah, let’s go this way. We’ll look over in the deli, first.” Brian climbed onto the deli counter and jumped over it as Sarah found the swinging door and casually walked through it. “There’s the door to the back. We’ll go in there and look around for a door or a window or something, and then we’ll look somewhere else if we can’t find anything.” Brian slowly opened the door that led to the back of the deli, and then peered inside. “Okay, let’s go. I’ll look for a light.” The room was large, and, for the most part, empty.
“I can’t see anything but the outline of . . . maybe . . . a table or something.”
“Okay. I found a switch box here.” Brian flipped quite a few switches before he finally found one that illuminated the room. The new light was greeted by a scream from Sarah who immediately ran for the door. “Wait, what is it?” Then Brian saw what must have scared her so badly. On the table laid a large bird that looked almost exactly like one of the birds hanging from the ceiling over the main exhibit. Brian’s story must have made her considerably apprehensive. “Well, I don’t see anything of use in here. You?”
“No. Let’s get out of here.” The nervousness in Sarah’s voice made Brian anxious as well. “I should stop believing people so easily. But I always worry about what people will think about me if I don’t believe what they say.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. If what they’re talking about couldn’t possibly happen, just don’t believe it.” During the conversation, Brian failed to realize that he was leading them into the hallway with the Africa exhibit and the sinister tiger. As they approached it, Brian could see nothing but two small red dots through the darkness. He sensed danger as he grew nearer and nearer the ferocious animal. As they passed, though, the impending peril withdrew. In the employees only room, they discovered nothing but a large, neon ‘EXIT’ sign with no door underneath. The other two had about the same amount of luck.
“I think we should just give it up and stay here for the night. What do you think, Chris?” Nancy spoke as if she were weary after losing a hard fought battle.
“Unless Brian and Sarah found something, which I somehow doubt, I think we’re just wasting our energy trying to get to those windows. Oh, there they are, now. Did you two have any luck?” Chris yelled to the other two, and the echoing sent chills up the spines of each of them.
As Brian and Sarah approached, Brian began to speak. “Okay, here’s the deal. You two are going to go back to one of the tents and sit tight while Chris and I try to bust open the switch box to get some light in here. I think the darkness is just making everything worse for everyone.” At this, Nancy and Sarah headed for the tents while Chris and Brian walked toward the hunting gear. “Grab that scope and break the glass, Chris.” Chris broke the glass to the handguns, and, to their surprise, no alarm sounded. He then reached in through the broken glass and picked up two weapons.
“I’ll go look for some ammunition,” said Chris.
“Yeah, good idea. I’ll get one of those big knives from the other end of the counter.” After getting two boxes of ammo for the two guns, Chris walked to where Brian stood, near the large, locked metal box that held all of the light switches. “Try shooting the lock from the side, Chris. Just make sure you don’t mess up the circuitry.” Chris loaded the weapon with six bullets and fired two directly at the lock on the right side of the box. The bullets had absolutely no effect on the lock. Each of the two bullets bounced back as Brian realized there was no way to even make a dent in the steel with such a low-powered weapon. He knew that it was no use to try to break in. The only way they could possibly turn the lights on was to find a key to open the box.
Suddenly, a small, scratching sound was heard from the other side of the counter. “Did you hear something?”
“Yeah,” said Chris, “I’ll go check it out.” Chris looked over the edge of the counter to see a small, white rabbit sitting against the wood of the counter. It moved its head from side to side and then took a small hop forward, causing the same scratching sound. Brian no