The crickets had stopped chirping. The air had lost interest in mingling with the eager night leaves. The temperature had plummeted to single digits. It was going to be a long night.
With heavy steps, Addy strolled back towards the tortoise enclosure, the recent events still circling in her mind. Her hand slowly moved towards her pocket and rest over the bulge where the tiny diary was. Nothing added up, everything seemed scattered- she had no idea what her next action would be.
Preoccupied with her own thoughts, Addy had failed to notice the bushes rustling beside her.
Just when she thought she had enough jump-scares for the night, the dense bushes to her right swayed causing a few weak leaves to drop to the ground. A figure jumped out.
"Boo!"
Clutching her chest, Addy jumped a foot back, clearly taken by surprise. "The f*ck?"
"You really are a p*ssy!" Kevin appeared out of the shadows, his laughter resonating in her ears. "That's why ladies don't work at night."
"…" Relaxing her defensive stance from before, Addy stood unimpressed of his straight out sexist remark.
Kevin paused for a moment noticing she hadn't join in on laughing with him. "It's okay. It's dark humour. You won't get it."
Gritting her teeth, Addy shoved his pinching words aside and asked. "Where were you?"
"I went to take a piss."
"What?"
"In the bushes." He said gesturing at the vegetation he had jumped out of. "The nearest staff toilet is like a mile away."
He then made trickling water motions with his hands. "You know. To pee. Urinate-"
"I know what that is!" Addy interrupted him. "But you could have at least told me before leaving."
"You mean ask for your permission?" Kevin snorted. "What is this? Kindergarten? 'Teacher, can I go to the toilet please?'"
"You really to live up to your reputation. A minute with you and I already feel like choking."
"Who? Me? Kinky!"
"I'll show you what kinky is you bas-" Addy stopped herself before she could burst into a fit. She took a deep breath and continued calmly, "Do you know what happened here?"
"Obviously, I don't, you dumb woman. I wasn't here." Kevin pointed at the bushes. "I was pissing."
Addy crossed her arms and clenched her fists, not trusting herself to lash out on him any moment. "But you should have been here!"
"You clearly were not killed." Kevin stated, eyeing her up and down. "I'm not your bodyguard. I chose to help you out of the kindness- pure kindness of my heart which by the way, you don't have. You can't order me around."
Addy inhaled and exhaled deeply. "You are hopeless. Fine. I will deal with everything myself. First, I will fine those damned keys."
With that said, she continued walking back to the tortoise enclosure. However, to her surprise, Kevin followed her steps.
Reaching close to the keeper door, Addy tapped on her phone torch once more and began examining the area, well aware of Kevin's mean eyes following her. Addy turned around to meet his eyes, only for him to avert his gaze to the blanket of stars above him.
Resorting to staying silent, she went back to her search and found herself to be surprised for what felt like the tenth time that night. Her lost keys were lying flat, a few feet away from the keeper door.
Strange! She was sure the ring of keys was not there when she had checked earlier.
"I thought you just lacked balls. I didn't know you were blind as well." Kevin bent down to pick the keys up, not missing the opportunity to taunt her.
Addy pressed her lips and snatched the keys away. Three rusted copper keys dangled from her hand, reflecting her phone's torch light. With a square shaped bow and typical rustic blade, one of them was the actual key to open the keeper door. Second identical one was a spare and the third smaller one was the key to open the locker for tortoise food in the storage area.
"Now that I think of it, I had an aunt who had night blindness, couldn't even find her own home at night!" Kevin continued, laughing at his own words. "Maybe you have night blindness too! More reason for you to leave the night shifts to more capable people. "
"You are rather talkative today!" Addy snapped. "You are right! I must be dumb and incapable if I had to resort to asking help from someone like you!"
Kevin stood frozen for seconds, slowly soaking in her words. "And that's why I shouldn't help people for free! If you weren't a girl, I would have punched your ungrateful face flat!"
With that out in the air, Kevin stormed away.
Addy stood in her place allowing her anger to die away. She wondered how some people possessed such great abilities to infuriate others. He might have been attractive (even with those thick brows of his) but his rotten, entitled personality drove people away. Like Shakespeare had said so many years ago- 'He looks like a good apple but he's rotten at the core' or something like that.
In the midst of their heated argument, Addy had forgotten to ask him about the CCTV situation and could not bring herself to willingly seek for him again. So, she decided she would investigate it herself and set off towards the security room.
( ~ . ~ )( ~ . ~ )( ~ . ~ )
Meanwhile, on the other side of the zoo, Pat and Prissy had reached near the exit.
"Now put me down!" Prissy whined, inflating her cheeks like that of a frog and wriggling in her uncle's arms. "I'm not a baby!"
Sighing, Pat complied and placed her on the ground. "I'm trusting you one last time. If you run off again, I will send you back to the boarding school."
"You will not!" Her eyes widened and voice rose an octave higher.
"You know I won't but you better not cause troubles again." He said as he stopped in front of the hole in the wall and wrapped his scarf on to her once more. "Why did you leave it in the streets?"
She looked down to grab the scarf snuggling around her dainty neck. "I didn't even notice it was gone. It must have slipped while I was following the robber man."
"You should have been more careful. What if you catch cold now?"
"I won't." She assured him and paused, unsure if she should continue but gave in. "Uncle? There really is something fishy going on here."
"I know. " His voice went gentle. "But it's not our headache."
"But-"
"Let's go home."
"Wait! Can you hear it?"
Pat stood puzzled. "Hear what?"
"It's coming from there!" Prissy pointed at the guard's lounge a few metres away. It was built there for stationed guards to relax.
Pat paused and tried to listen and then he did hear it. He heard it alright. Someone was moaning. "Mmm. Uhh!"
"Mmm!" The moaning continued.
His neck turned red. "Like I said none of our business!" Grabbing his niece's hand he crawled out of the hole and dashed home.
Little did he know, Prissy was correct.
A tall shadow moved away from the window in the guards' lounge (which was near the exit door) and loomed over the tied up security guard. "That actually worked." A menacing smile appeared on the figure's face.
"Thanks for the kind help." The figure said to the tied up guard as they stepped on his feet.
"Ugnhmm." The guard's desperate attempt to cry out for help got muffled by the gag that was shoved in his mouth.
"But really, this pizza is soo good." The figure bit into the pizza the guard had ordered and moaned rather noisily.
"Nmmgh." The guard protested again, squirming his tied up limbs.
"Now. Now. Now. You don't want to make this harder for me. Shut up!" The figure warned as they rubbed of a pint of cheese from the corner their lips before grabbing the guard's face between their same greasy fingers, their sharp nails digging into the guard's rough cheeks as he whimpered.
"Didn't I just tell you to shut up?" The figure asked mockingly as their fingers slowly slid down from his cheeks to his neck. "What should I do with a disobedient rat like you?"