A World Split In Two

Chapter Thirteen!

Chapter 13: A Day At The Zoo, Oh What Fun

"I'm sorry but it sounded like you said your name was Phil, sorry I-I mean Bones," Zack mocked. "But you see, that's impossible because Phil doesn't have giant scars or a mohawk," he concluded. He knew that there was a very good chance that this guy was indeed Phil, but didn't really want the psychopathic Phil to be equipped with a large collection of knives--resting in dual sashes decorating the scared kid's suit.

Unfortunately his scar must have been a touchy subject as Bones screamed, chucking the knife he was holding, which sunk into the wall only inches from Zack's head.

"Would you like me to show you the last person that insulted me?" he offered, not sounding creepy at all.

"You know, I'm going to go with no. But can I ask what you want with us?"

"With pleasure," the maniac agread. "You can actually thank your friend there," Bones informed, gesturing his hand, which now had another knife in it, towards Mike.

This is when Mike would have objected that he had no idea why Bones would possibly want them, more or less, but must have figured that it would be best not to. That and Zack kindly gave him a dark stare, that was probably more of a desperate, 'please don't speak he has a lot of knives' stare.

"You see... After Mike chucked me out the grocery store window..." the maniac continued, apparently not picking up on the silent conversation going on between his guests. Perhaps he was enjoying their discomfort.

Mike started to object again that Bones had matter-o'-factly launched himself, but Zack just elbowed him, knowing it was pointless and not really wanting to get impaled. "Me and my gang decided to explore and have some fun," Bones continued, though Zack knew that Phil's fun was never good. "So we went to that old abandoned lab--You know the one where they made all the monsters?--To see if there were any experiments left.

Zack was now about to ask why anyone would specifically go to that lab in hopes of finding a forgotten experiment. Especially since the last one A. K. A. the RipJaws, turned out so well. But then decided against it.

"There were many things there, and most of the boys had fun taking what they could. Vials of yellow liquid, a bunch of random blueprints and plans that I didn't overly care about, but guarding it all were these huge piranha-like beasts with alligator-like legs," Bones continued. "Now if that's all they were it would have been fine. We could have seen them and left. They were trapped in a bulletproof glass cage."

Zack wondered how Phil knew what type of glass it was. Perhaps he had a vast enough knowledge of glass to be able to distinguish the difference between bulletproof, and normal. That or the psychopath was just stupid enough to try shooting at the glass.

"But Thorax thought it would be fun to mock them in their glass cage." Bones stopped for a few minutes and Zack noticed that a few tears had rolled down the maniac's face. "What we didn't notice was that the backside of the cage wasn't there. It wasn't there because the monsters chewed through it. Still, it would have been fine. We could have made it. But we didn't make it. They didn't make it."

Zack could hear the shakiness in the other boy's voice. He didn't want to hear what Bones was going to say. He didn't even want him to have to say it. But Bones said it anyway.

"Thorax was close enough to the cage when those monsters noticed him with their pitch black eye sockets. They just stared at us. Just stared. Their dark eyes burning into our souls. For a few minutes that's all they did. Then he moved closer. Just a little closer, barely even another foot. It didn't matter. They charged. It didn't matter that the glass was there, they ate through it, and then they ate through him," Bones stuttered shaking, for once showing some sign of human empathy. "I can still hear their screams. They screamed and they screamed. I ran. I couldn't save them. How could I? I ran but I still wasn't fast enough, one got me. It gave me this as a reminder--" Bones' traced his finger across the large gash that ran down the left side of his face.