They Weren't From The Guard Dogs Pt. 3 (Final)

“This tastes so bad!” yelled Carl after he spat out his piece of meat.

My friends and I went near one of the forests lining the school to hunt for some baboons. Normally, hunting was against school policy, but as the baboon issue continued to grow, the administration would “accidentally” overlook the rule.

“You’re supposed to let it cook more stupid,” said Chris. He snickered until Carl threw a branch at him.

“I didn’t think baboon meat would be this tough,” I commented.

“Yeah, it’s more for the experience,” replied Chris.

 “What should we do with the skull?” asked Carl as he held the bodiless head of a baboon by it’s hair, its tongue sticking out between the fangs.

“We could post it up on a stick or something. It’ll probably scare the other baboons away,” Zach responded while trying to pick a piece of meat stuck between his front teeth.

“Probably beats painting them and letting them go,” Carl tossed the head at Chris, who squealed slightly and jumped back as the head landed right below his heel.

“Does painting them even do anything?” I asked.

“ Obviously. That’s why there’s more of them running around our campus,” Chris snorted.

“The way you cut that head though, I’d bet my money on the paint,” Carl chimed in with a snicker.

“Like you could do better,” Zach spat.

“Even with my eyes closed,” he sunk his jaws into another piece of meat, only to spit it out almost immediately.  

“Piss off, will you?” Zach approached Carl at an alarming pace.

“What? Don’t get pissed at me for cutting a simple baboon like a mungiki,” Carl started to rise up. I rose up along with him, just fast enough to position myself between the two.

“Guys?” Chris pointed behind us.

It took a while for the rest of us to pinpoint where Chris was pointing to, and then we saw. Amongst the thick of the bushes were a couple of pairs of eyes. Right above were more baboons sitting on the branches, jaws slightly open and saliva slowly dripping down from the tips of their fangs.

“I think we should go,” I told the others.

“Dude, they’re just a bunch of baboons,” Carl picked up a rock and threw it into the bushes. “Get out of here!”

Shortly after, three more stones flew at us. Then one of them grunted up in the trees. The rest followed— grunting after grunting, barking after barking.

“Still think we shouldn’t go?” I slowly picked up my hunting knife, panga, and rifle and started to walk away, but made sure to not turn my back on them.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Chris replied as he clumsily picked up his gears.

When we were a distance away, we all turned and ran. I looked back one more time, just long enough to see the baboons coming out of the clearing and down from the trees. Just long enough to see one of the infant baboons reaching for the intestine we had tossed away moments before.

The barking grew louder every night, to the point where a baboon could have been no more than 100 feet away from my window.  I pulled the cover over me and slammed the corners of the pillow into my ears. It didn’t help much. Then I heard the guard dogs. The barking was too mingled to distinguish, until I heard the yelp. Then more yelps. I crawled out of bed to make sure the windows were shut tight.

“Please be wary of any baboons that you may see on campus. Walk to classes and to dorms in pairs of at least two or three. Please avoid staying outside for a prolonged period of time alone. Do not be alarmed if you see some of the guards armed.”

The teacher didn’t throw away the announcement paper this time. Neither did Carl lean back on his chair to whisper. A shot echoed just outside the window. I turned to the sound and saw a flock of birds fluttering out of the forest beyond, scattering like pepper bits between the clouds. That’s when I saw a baboon limping away, dragging his right arm across the dirt ground. A guard was walking right behind it. I couldn’t tell from the window, but it seemed as though he was whistling. Another bang. The guard dragged the baboon back by its tail.

I turned my eyes back to the whiteboard. The thought of being out there with a rifle hunting down the baboons seemed much more entertaining than reading about a world where books aren’t allowed. Another bang. Baboons were tough to kill, but I guessed the guard must have missed slightly.  I started to draw at the corners of my paper, until I heard a shriek in front of me. The teacher looked at her with cleaved eyebrows until he followed her gaze outside the window. I’d never heard him swear. Or fall back on his seat like that. I leaned my cheek on my palm and twirled my pen with the other hand. I didn’t think a baboon carcass was that big of a deal. Then others around me started to turn and scream as well. Even Carl turned and jumped back slightly in his seat.

I rolled my eyes and turned to the window once more. The baboon carcass was still there, its blood filling the crevices made in the ground from getting dragged. Just behind it was another baboon, its body twitching and an eye missing. I saw three more baboons just in front of the first carcass. One of them had its jaws around the guard’s face, drowning out his voice. Another had just ripped off his arm that held the rifle. The third one had its jaw planted on his side. I stopped twirling my pen.

The school called for help a long time ago, but it only lasted momentarily. It took over a week of frantic phone calls and emails to even have someone come from outside to help us; there have been stories of baboons attacking humans, but killing and eating humans as a pack? They probably laughed at us. Even by car, from the closest open road, it took more than 30 minutes to wind down a hardly cemented road and through the forest thick enough to blot out the sun. That probably added to the list of reasons why they took so long to respond. At first, the baboons seemed to retreat, unable to cope with the strangers and their guns, which was hardly better than the ones our guards used. But eventually, they found a way to stop them; the baboons learned to attack the vehicles, especially when they would be driving at a crawl over sinkholes. Help soon stopped. Some of the teachers tried to leave and get help themselves, but without the guards to open the school gates, they would have to get out to open it themselves. They never reached the gate latch. 

It has been a little over a two and a half months since the baboons appeared. The Death count includes 12 guard dogs, 3 guards, 2 teachers, 6 students, and a toddler. The toddler died when a maid had placed him on the kitchen counter while she was trying to clean the juice he had just spilt. A baboon had jumped up to the sill, stuck its paw between the iron grills lining the window, and grabbed the toddler by his head. By the time the maid heard the toddler scream and stood up, the baboon had already put its jaw over the toddler’s head and neck. The maid said that she grabbed the toddler by his legs and tried to pull him back out from the baboon’s jaw. She said that was when the baboon snapped its jaw and she fell backward from momentum. By the time she got up again and looked out the window, the baboon had spat out the head and was playing with it as if it were an orange. That was the least gruesome death among the killed.

It’s been two days since our last emergency food supply ran out. Food supply had been cut off from the outside for a while. The school has been forced to hunt baboons for food, but bullets don’t last forever. There are two things you can never forget: First, the stare of the baboon, with its yellow eyes tinged with red vessels that creep in from the corners. Secondly, its fangs, especially when they are tearing at the window grills. Helicopters have been coming in occasionally to take some of us out. But to get on the helicopters, we need to either get out in the open, the roof, or outside our windows. The baboons are out in the open.

I once saw a teacher running across the soccer field towards a ladder thrown down from the helicopter. As he ran across the field, at times on his feet, at times stumbling on all four, the baboons circled in around him. I must have seen wrong, but it seemed they were pursuing him at a skipping pace from the beginning. They only started to gallop when he neared the ladder. One of them lunged in the air and sunk its jaw into his shoulder just as his hands swung at the ladder.

The baboons are on the roof too. Some of the students had tried climbing up to the roof to reach the helicopters, only to be pushed off or have a jaw crush their throats by the baboons.

As for the windows, there’s a reason why the grills stay on. Carl is lying on his bed across the room, carving the end of a pool table stick with his hunting knife. I’ve finished carving mine a while ago. He turns to me and nods. I jump off my bed and walk toward the window. The baboon screams hysterically, gnashing at the grills even more rigorously and flailing his arms in the room. Carl jumps out of his bed and stands by my side. He pats his knees and straightens his shirt. He twirls his neck once and looks at me again. He nods. I nod back. We turn to the baboon. Carl throws first.