You sign the papers in a cramped office that smells faintly of ozone and citrus disinfectant. Clifford Tibbits’ Family Zoo is quieter than the brochure made it sound: no kids’ laughter, no carnival clang—just the hum of refrigerators and the distant pulse of pumps cycling water through tanks. The night manager presses a thick leather notebook into your hands with a look that could be pity or pride. “It’s not exactly babysitting,” she says. “It’s… caretaking. Read the notes. They’ll get you through the nights until you learn the rhythm.”
The previous night guard left those notes in spidery, practical handwriting between coffee stains and a doodled seal. You flip the cover and find neat entries that are equal parts map, medical directive, and personal aside.
“Do not try to outrun a wolf. Don’t hand-feed tigers. Otters will pretend to be cute, then rob your pockets. Sea lions push themselves till they collapse—if they won’t sleep, sedate and warm.” Another page advises: “If orcas and sharks fight, let them hit blood and they’ll calm. Don’t ask why—it’s a thing. Call the vet if more than a pint is spilled.”
It’s absurd and terrifying in the same breath. You weren’t hired only to patrol. Your job tonight—every night for the probation period—is to look after living, thinking residents while the daytime crews sleep: tend wounds, dish out emergency rations, run basic health checks, and keep fights from escalating into body counts. Everyone in the office jokes that the animals “work for pay,” but you’ll be paid in far more than tokens if you manage to keep them safe and yourself unmaimed.
The zoo is a town unto itself. The notebook has maps with the main pathways lit in fluorescent green and handwritten shortcuts across maintenance roofs. It annotates the enclosures—forest line for tigers, the deep basin for orcas and sharks, shallow, winding channels for otters who will watch you with eyes like polished stones—each note a small personality sketch rather than biology. “They’re not caged by day; they wander at night,” one page reads. “That’s deliberate. Keeps them from souring on their careers. Don’t be shocked if a rhino blocks your path or a fox tries to negotiate your watch schedule.”
Before your shift begins, a security bulletin pops on the screen: all exterior gates lock automatically at dusk and remain sealed until morning. Cameras cycle on a delayed loop; emergency overrides require three certifications you don’t have yet. You are, officially, not allowed to leave. The notebook leaves no moralizing: “You can go nowhere. The system’s tight. Best part? You’re not alone.”
Five nights of tests, it says at the back in underlined capitals. Survive five, and the sixth is a party thrown by the animals—strange, jubilant, and probably loud. Survive the party, and on the seventh night you are, as the old guard put it with eat-or-laugh resignation, “a member of the wild society. Either they accept you, or you’re gone by morning.” Then, as if conceding to superstition, a final note: “Mostly you just get lucky. Mostly.”
Your flashlight buzzes as you step into the cool wash of the nocturnal pathways. Somewhere up ahead an elephant trunk weighs the air like curiosity; the iridescent eyes of a fox catch the light and vanish. In the distance, water drums—a sea lion signaling, or an orca testing the surface. Everything is larger in the dark: paws the size of dinner platters, silhouettes that could block whole alleys.
You check your notebook again, fingers tracing the margin where someone once added—half-warning, half-advice—“Begin where you feel the most afraid.” So, where will you go first?