It took twenty-one days for the last, severely disappointed person to leave the site.
And fifty-seven lonely days after that disappointment…
Inside the cage, a jaguar. A jaguar (Panthera onca), native of Central America; a great snarling beast, breathing hot thoughts of its homeland. Spotted large, with deep black on orange, turning in its own tight circus, bound by the cage, but barely so.
Nobody dared come close; instead a circle of fear formed around the cage. Time and the city slowed to a halt, as though the beast controlled the clock's pace. It took two days to release the creature safely, and even stunned it provoked fear.
The incident was reported around the world, and discussed in Parliament. Crazed pamphlets were published, offering futile explanations; a desperate man came forward to be punished for the incidents. The police dismissed him after two days' questioning. Synopses for books and films were hastily prepared, many of them finding their price. A range of toy cages was put on the market, five in the series, containing exact models of the worm, the mouse, the dog, the horse and the jaguar. Each cage had a different secret mechanism that would unlock the bars and release the creature. They were the most popular gift that Christmas.
And then, nothing. No new cage appeared. Months passed by. People speculated that the process was complete. Talk drained away to memory, and then to dismissal. A few jokes remained, that was all.
Exactly one year on from the very first incident, finally, mysteriously, the next cage appeared. It was four feet square, six feet high. Bars at three-inch intervals. Fixed to the road so rigorously, it seemed to have deep foundations. In all respects similar to the previous five cages, except in this one particular: it had a door. A door that was open, slightly ajar, and a large, heavy, padlock that swung on a reinforced strut. The padlock was unclasped, and the tiny gap between the clasp and lock -it caught the eye, teasingly. There was no key in the lock. Once closed, it would remain so.
Inside the cage, nothing. Nothing, an emptiness. An aching sense of something not being there; and the people, the vast crowd of people who gazed in silence, they thought, at last, at last, something has escaped!
Until they realized.
The cage was waiting…
A man, a middle-aged man (Homo sapiens), dressed smartly as though for an insurance office, stepped forward from the crowd.
CREEPING ZERO
Tonight we caught five. We was pretty good. Mr Bone says we're nearly back on target. I'm thinking that was pretty good anyroads until Clingfilm says it don't mean fuck, we got yards to go before we gets us some bonus. We got some bad days see? We got us some bad days where we nearly didn't catch any at all. But now we're making up. Tonight we caught five.
Tonight we caught three. Pretty good. But not as pretty good as last night was pretty good.
Today we caught none. Some days you do that. You catch none. Sometimes you catch one, most times two. Sometimes three. Sometimes five. Once we caught six, and once we caught seven. That's the most we ever caught in one time, seven. That was a special day, we got prizes. We never caught four, not in one time. I thought this was just strange luck until Mr Bone tells us that you never see four together, they don't like that number. He don't know why they don't like it, and neither does Edie and not even Shiva who thinks she knows everything. But today we caught none, which is the same as saying today we caught four, because you never catch four, not in one time. But Mr Bone says it's cheating, to think like that.
Tonight we caught two. Not good, not bad, just the usual number to catch in any one night or day. I like the dark rides best. Everyone keeps telling me it's more dangerous at night because that's mainly when they come out and that's why we get more wages for the darkshift, but I don't care. I don't mind how much we get just as long as we catch as many as possible. Everyone laughs at me for this, because all they talk about is the wages and the bonus and the prizes, except for Edie who never talks much, and except for Shiva who's a little bit crazy but who cares because she catches more of them than anyone else. So that leaves just Mr Bone and Clingfilm talking about the wages. That's enough. I like it best of all around three or four in the morning when the whole city just belongs to us. So quiet the streets, so quiet and tender almost. It's not like we're driving, more like we're floating through Manchester. Tonight we caught two.
Today we caught another two. That's a lot of twos to be catching. Pretty soon we're gonna have to start catching the threes again, and the fives, and the sixes and who knows even the sevens. The best that any crew ever caught in one time was nine, but that was the Mambo Suicide Crew, they're famous for riding hard, and anyroads they clean the Gorton block. All you've gotta do in Gorton is walk out the door, you've caught five already, they're everywhere. Whereas we work the Levenshulme area, there's not nearly as many, and today we caught two.
Tonight we caught three. One time I would've called that doing pretty good. Now it's doing pretty bad. Mr Bone is cursing, and Clingfilm is saying that's it, no bonus, and Edie's getting quieter by the minute, and Shiva is going crazy in the van for some let-out. There's the five of us. We're the Creeping Zero Crew. There's always five in a crew. I think that's pretty neat, there being five of us, because that means that one can stick with the van, and the four others can go on patrol. So if you stick together out there, there's no chance of you being taken for a gang of them, is there? Because you never see them in fours. That's how Mr Bone explains it, anyroads. Mr Bone is the boss, and Clingfilm is the driver, and Edie's the tracker, and Shiva, well Shiva's just Shiva, ain't she? She's the gun. She's caught hundreds of them. Me? I'm the kid, the apprentice. This is my first ever crew. I've never caught any. I just drag them back to the van, and skin them.
Today we caught none. I don't even want to talk about it.
Today we caught one. What's to say? We just went out there, with Edie leading the way, and we found a loner, and we caught it, and we killed it, and I skinned it, and that was that. The rest of the day we just went around the streets, and I tried to do some talking to Edie, saying that I'd like to be a tracker one day, but she wouldn't talk back at me, just living in her own world, I guess. And Mr Bone says you don't get to be a tracker, kid, you have to be born a tracker, and Clingfilm said that was a pile of fuck. But what does he know? What does anybody know? Today we caught one.
Tonight we caught five. We did pretty good, and we were up for it, except we let one get away. That means we caught four. It's not the same as really catching four, because you never do, and that's that. It's just that one of them got away. That got Shiva mad, you bet. She hates it when they get away. And Clingfilm was cursing about the bonus again, when really it was all his fault that one got away. He was hiding behind the curses, even I can see that. But the strangest thing was when the one got away, and the four that were left went mad like, when they realized there was four of them, I suppose. Usually they come easy once they're caught, but these four went mad on us, and I was scared because I know that's how the Creeping Zero lost Wesley, catching five and letting one get away, and the four what's left going mad. But this time Shiva got them all. Got them good.
Today we caught none. I don't mind it. I was still shaken up from last night, and I can't stop thinking about Wesley now that I've started. I never met him, because I took his place. But all the crew, they go on about him, like he was brilliant or something, even though he got lost. I wish they wouldn't, because them going on like that means I'll have to be brilliant one day. I hope I am, one day, and that I get to be a top-notch tracker, but thinking about it just makes me shake even more. Today we caught none. Good.