Zoo

When the Mindroins landed in Toronto, they freed all the animals from the zoo. They said it was a "rights issue". I said it was insane.

For the first time in my life, I was glad to be living in Etobicoke. The people in Scarborough started disappearing first. The lions and the cheetahs and the polar bears had to eat. Sure, the people with guns were safe, but majority of people were defenceless.

Every day I'd ride the subway, wondering if a snake or a spider would come at me. I'd heard stories about the reptiles too, crocs and the like love cold dark places. That's why I kept with the crowd. The more people around me the better. Let them take the young and the old and the sick. I stayed in the middle with my healthy peers.

I begged Julia to move in with me. She lived in North York with her parents. They had a fenced yard, and her father had a hunting rifle and that was supposed to be enough to keep her safe. I didn't buy it. The old man would panic if anything bigger than a coyote came at him. And Toronto had those before the zoo break.

I think the Mindroins planned the outbreak. If they could travel at near light speed, then they could choose the month when they arrived. In April, all the animals were mating. Plus, all the warm-climate creatures would have months to get established before winter came.

No park in the world was exempt. But once CNN ran the story, zoos vamped up security. The Bronx Zoo was probably more protected than the White House. Kinda made me wonder if the Mindroins had other plans.