A WILD ADVENTURE - LAURA TIPPINS

 

To celebrate the one year anniversary of Laura Tippins' novel We Bought a Village, we share with you an immersive story she wrote in 2020. The story was submitted as part of our KREST annual short story competition and placed in the top 10. It was, in fact, the story that made us sit up and take notice of this exceptionally talented writer, who also lectures in literature. 

Enjoy!

A WILD ADVENTURE - LAURA TIPPINS

Dr Jenny Johnson hated her job. She loved being a veterinarian. The monotony of going out and treating endless cows and sheep all day, though, when all she really wanted to do was get her hands on a sick hippo would drive even the most resolute vet insane.
After a particularly fruitless visit to Farmer Wessel one early morning, though, Jenny came across a man waiting for her outside the barn. “Are you Dr Johnson?” the man asked anxiously. He didn’t give her time to do more than nod. “I’m Matt Bower, a ranger at the reserve. We need your help. Would you come with me, please?”
Jenny hesitated before following, her grandfather’s medical bag at her side. She didn’t normally get into cars with strangers. But this man wore a t-shirt with the name of the nearby reserve and drove a game vehicle. Besides, her grandfather’s medical bag had enough supplies to do some serious harm to anyone who tried to harm her. Jenny got into the passenger seat of the vehicle.
“The reserve’s had a recent rash of unexplained deaths of our animals,” Matt said over the rushing wind that passed over them in the speeding vehicle. “And our in-house vet resigned last week.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Matt said, as they entered the reserve. “It’s natural for animals to die – nothing unusual there. When you’ve lost three prides of lions in a few weeks, though, you know something’s wrong.
Jenny had to agree. Three prides of lions dying in a few weeks was peculiar. “Poachers?” she asked, thinking aloud.
“We thought so at first. We found holes in our fence. But no. None of the animals have been taken. And none of them have any signs of bullet wounds.”
Matt turned off down a side road and parked near an empty vehicle. He grabbed a rifle from his dashboard. “Follow me and stay close,” he whispered as he got out the vehicle.
Jenny stuck close as she followed him off the road and into the bush trying to look in every direction at once. A lion could be watching her, out of sight, waiting to pounce.
A few metres in, they came to a group of men, armed with rifles. They were surrounding something tan with black spots. Jenny dropped to her knees at the side of a panting leopard laying on the ground. “She’s still breathing,” she declared to anyone listening. “It’s shallow but it’s still there.”
Jenny felt a hand grasp her shoulder. “We need to get out of here before the hyenas start sniffing around. Can we tranqu’ her?”
Jenny shook her head. “Too risky. If we tranquilise her, she may not wake up.” The leopard shuddered. “She’s too weak to move right now so get her to the vehicle like you would if she was tranquilised and keep a dart gun on her, in case.”
The men spread out a tarpaulin and rolled the leopard gently onto it. As Jenny watched, she heard a strange sound nearby. It sounded a bit like a baby crying. Jenny took a step towards the noise and gently peeled apart some long grass to reveal a tiny ball of tan fluff. “Matt,” Jenny said trying not to make too much noise as the little bundle arched in fear. “We have another passenger.” She pulled back the grass to show Matt a tiny leopard cub, still with its downy fluff.
Moments later, the men had the leopard on the back of the one vehicle while Jenny was climbing into the other with Matt, the tiny bundle in her arms.” Should we go to my surgery?” Jenny asked, wondering how she would fit a massive leopard into her surgery when a sheep was a squeeze.
“No, we’ll go to the rehab centre; that’s where we take all the sick animals.”
The rehab centre was a boxy, uninspiring building, with the wilderness encroaching on it, as if to reclaim it. Jenny scrambled out the vehicle, still with the cub in hand, and hurried over as people rushed out to help the team in the vehicle behind. Between eight of them, they carried the great animal round the side of the building and into a stainless-steel room.
The team hoisted the leopard onto the table in the centre and let her huge paws hang over the side. She was awake still but too weak to move. Jenny placed the cub in a small cage nearby and lifted the cage onto a counter so the mother could see her child.
“Right,” Jenny said to the leopard. “Let’s see what’s going on.” She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. She wasn’t sure where to start. She lifted the leopard’s upper lip to check her gums. The animal responded with a low warning growl that exhausted her.
“Any luck?” Matt’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“So many things could be wrong,” Jenny responded, flustered, “and each could take time to diagnose, time she doesn’t have.”
Then Jenny had a thought. “Where are the medicines? Do you have penicillin?”
“In the cupboard here, I think.” Matt walked over to a cupboard above a countertop.
Jenny hurried over and wrenched the cupboard open, fumbling with bottles to check the labels. She found the bottle she was looking for and then wrenched open a drawer below, hoping she could find a big enough syringe. She was in luck and ripping the plastic off the large needle found in the drawer, she hurried back to the leopard, stabbed the seal of the bottle with the needle and filled the syringe in one movement before plunging the needle into the leopard’s neck. The animal shuddered.
Matt looked at her. “What was that about?”
“At least half the possibilities could have something to do with an infection. It could be a cause or symptom.”
“It doesn’t help, though, if it’s a symptom, does it?” Matt looked confused. “Because you still don’t know the cause.”
“We don’t have time. If the penicillin works, we know her problem has to do with an infection. Then we can start investigating the cause as she recovers.”
“How long will it take?”
“The penicillin should kick in soon but the first twenty-four hours are always the test.”
Matt’s eyes bulged at the prospect of twenty-four hours. But before she could say anything about not being able to stay that long anyway, a head peered through the doorway. “We’ve got more on the way.”
Jenny reluctantly left the leopard on the table as she went out to meet the ten people carrying a lion with a great furry mane. “We’ll have to find a space for him,” she muttered as she led them into the room. They lifted the great lion up onto one of the counters, his paws and legs dangling over the edge.
Jenny felt the gasping breath of the lion. She hurried back to find more penicillin. But as she turned, she saw the people carrying a hyena and dropping it onto another part of the counter. “What’s going on?” she gasped hysterically as two more people walked in, each one with a lion cub in hand. The first
lion cub, several weeks old, looked as lethargic as his adult counterpart. But the other cub, smaller and still fluffy like the leopard cub, looked fine. Jenny looked around, uncertain whether she had enough penicillin.
“See what I mean?” Matt said, gesturing to the animals laying scattered on every available surface. “It’s unnatural.” Jenny had to agree. But what was causing this?
Jenny looked around then down at the bottle in her hand. She had no other ideas. Jenny stabbed the top and filled the syringe, hoping and praying there’d be enough syringes and penicillin to go around. A few moments later, Jenny had dosed every animal, except the two fluffy cubs, with penicillin.
Two hours later, after a soothing cup of tea, Jenny stood in the centre’s surgery looking over the animals, now all in metal cages. The older lion had sadly given up and Jenny had witnessed as he breathed his last. But the other animals were doing better. All were asleep and each one breathed more deeply now.
As the sun was beginning to set, Matt drove Jenny back into town. “I know it was last-minute and you weren’t prepared but we could use you at the centre for a bit – just until we’ve solved this.” He paused for a moment. “So, can I pick you up from your surgery tomorrow morning at eight?”
The long intensely emotional rollercoaster of a day had left Jenny exhausted. But she had to visit her grandfather before she could head home and get some sleep. Her grandfather had once been the doctor in the area. But a fall and a hip replacement had put an end to his career as a vet and he’d passed the torch, his surgery and his doctor’s bag to Jenny – his favourite granddaughter. He was supposed to go back to the city to stay with Jenny’s parents since he kept tripping and injuring himself when he lived alone. He’d refused. The noise of the city left him too jittery. Jenny had offered to take care of him but he refused her too. She was much too busy to be worrying about looking after him. So, in the end, he’d checked himself into a nursing home in the area and ended all protests. Jenny had so much to tell him this evening.
“Jenny, thank goodness,” her grandfather said as she walked into the communal living room and sat down beside him. “I think I’m going mad.”
All thoughts of her own left in that instant as Jenny looked her grandfather in the eyes. There was a wildness about them. He looked terrified.
“Listen,” her grandfather said dropping his voice to a whisper. “I think something sinister is going on here. People keep disappearing.”
Jenny felt her eyes grow wide then narrow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, a few weeks back, the nurses started coming around to give flu vaccines. You know I can’t have the vaccine because of my allergies” – Jenny knew it was an allergy to one of the preservatives – “so I told them I couldn’t and they left me. A couple of days later, people started looking ill. They were pale and breathless. Matron said it was residual symptoms after the vaccine. But then people started not coming to breakfast and dinner, then lunch too. And one day, they would just disappear, as if they were never there.”
Jenny had to admit this was a little odd. But people in care homes died. It was always awful to think about, never mind say, but it was natural.
“I know,” Jenny’s grandfather continued. “I shouldn’t worry about a few sick people. There are so many, though. Then, this morning, I fell against a door handle and cut my arm. It was bleeding and Matron keeps the medical supplies so I went to see her for a plaster. But I found her before she saw me and I noticed she had a tool in her hand. It looked a bit like bolt cutters. She didn’t see that I had seen
them but I had. Now I’m nervous. What on earth would Matron need bolt cutters for and why do residents keep vanishing without a trace?”
Jenny had been listening with rapt attention to her grandfather’s story. It was a puzzle. Great! Another mystery. Another mysterious set of circumstances to muddle her brain and keep her up at night. Jenny’s thoughts returned to her first mystery. Then, as though someone had switched something on in her brain, she had an idea. Now she was desperate to get back to the centre to see if her theory proved true.
Jenny was ready long before Matt arrived and she was waiting impatiently as he pulled up to her in his game drive vehicle. “Which animals have died so far because of this?” she asked after greeting him and getting in the vehicle.
“Um,” Matt muttered as his face contorted in thought. “There was a large lion first, then we had a jackal come into the centre. He died. We then had a pride of lions, a hyena, a vulture, more jackals, more lions…”
“No elephants?” Jenny interrupted.
“No, no elephants.”
“What about antelope?”
“Uh, no… Oh wait, there was a dying impala that we found but it had some different symptoms. Limp legs, glossy eyes... Why?”
“I have a theory,” Jenny explained, not wanting to say too much yet. “Do you have any microscopes at the centre?”
When they arrived at the centre, Jenny rushed in to find the animals looking less lethargic than they had done before. She hurried over to the cupboard where Matt had said they kept the microscopes. She hoisted two onto a countertop and set them up, side by side. Then she walked over to the young lion. With some difficulty, she reached into the cage and took some blood. She then did the same, with equal difficulty, to the younger cub. Taking both syringes of blood, Jenny set up each animal’s blood on a slide each. She then peered at one under the microscope.
“Anything interesting?” Matt’s voice came from the doorway as she examined the second slide.
“Actually, yes. Come and look here. This is the blood of the older lion cub.”
Jenny pointed to the first microscope and Matt looked through the eyepiece. “What are those blobs?” he asked pointing to the slide.
“White blood cells,” Jenny responded.
“They’re a sign of infection.”
“Which is why the penicillin had a positive effect,” Matt added perceptively.
“Exactly. Now take a look at this other slide. It’s the blood from the younger lion cub.” She pointed to the other microscope and Matt peered through the eyepiece. “Notice anything different?”
“Those blobs aren’t there.”
“There are no white blood cells which means…”
“There’s no sign of infection.”
“Exactly,” Jenny said feeling more excited.
“So, what does that mean?” Matt asked, not sharing her excitement. He looked confused.
“It means we have an answer to this mystery. And another one, I think.”
“You want to share that answer with me?” Matt asked looking baffled.
“Later. Right now, I need you to call the South African Police Service and have them meet us at Shady Valley Care Home. Then I need you to contact the reserve manager.”
Half an hour later, Matt pulled up to the entrance to Shady Valley. The reserve manager was already waiting for them, along with the police. “Could you get Matron out here too?” Jenny asked Matt as they met with the reserve manager and the police. “I have one last thing to check. Just to tie up a loose end.”
Jenny hurried round the side of the building and towards the dust bin. She lifted the lid of one bin and then the other and found exactly what she was looking for. With an inside-out plastic bag over her hand, Jenny grabbed an object out of the bin and pulled the top of the plastic bag over it. She held the bag out at arm’s length and marched back to the waiting crowd.
“Two mysteries I’d recently got involved in – the disappearance of a group of old people from this home and the deaths of a lot of animals – seemed to be completely unrelated at first,” Jenny announced. “After all, how could a bunch of missing old people and some visibly dying animals have anything in common?
“Then I realised the dying animals were all predators. Every animal that had suffered from this unknown illness was a predator.”
“Wait,” Matt interrupted. “What about the impala? That wasn’t a predator.”
“No,” Jenny responded knowingly. “The impala wasn’t a predator, nor did it die from the same illness as the others. Remember, you said the symptoms were different?
“The problem was, what was this disease that only infected predators and where did it come from? It couldn’t be the water because none of the other animals were getting infected. That left the food. If it was the food, though, why were no antelope sick? Then I realised it wasn’t all the predators and it had nothing to do with the antelope. Only animals like lions and leopards – big cats – were dying, cats that ate large amounts of meat. Also, scavengers like hyenas and vultures and jackals were dying. This meant that whatever the lions were eating, they ate too.
“But if no other animals were getting sick, that meant the meat they were getting had to have come from outside the reserve. Matt mentioned a hole in the fence which they thought was poachers at first. As no animals were taken, though, it couldn’t be poachers. The people making holes in the fence were bringing something in instead.”
“Then my grandfather told me a story of how residents here at Shady Valley were getting flu vaccines, looking ill and then disappearing. He didn’t understand it. And neither did I. The flu vaccine is supposed to prevent illness and any symptoms would not still be around weeks after the vaccine, as Matron claimed. That’s when I realised what was happening.”
Jenny held out the bag to the police that had a used syringe inside. “If you have this tested, I believe you will discover traces of Artbac-15 on the needle.”
“Wait,” Matt interrupted. “Isn’t that the disease that passes between people from contaminated needles?”
Jenny nodded. “Shady Valley, I believe, wasn’t being careful about using new needles. They used the same needles to give the vaccine to several people causing cross-contamination.”
“The disease,” Jenny’s grandfather continued, following her argument, “results in a rapid decline, especially to breathing, and death within a few days or weeks.”
Jenny looked around. Matron was trying to slink away but was caught by a police officer. Matt and the reserve manager still looked puzzled. “So,” Matt said, trying to piece ideas together. “I understand how that relates to the disappearing old people and maybe even the holes in the fence, if they were dumping dead bodies in our reserve. How would that affect our animals, though?”
Because Artbac-15is transferred through blood,” Jenny’s grandfather explained.
“And the animals dying were all predators who ate the contaminated humans,” Jenny continued. “Artbac-15 can be transferred from humans to animals through blood. That’s why any animal that ate the humans was affected. They were infected by the contaminated blood.”
“Our predators were dying,” Matt spoke up again, “because someone made a mistake and was trying to hide evidence?”
“It’s a little more than a mistake, sir,” one police officer responded as he took the bag Jenny held up. “It’s medical malpractice which resulted in man-slaughter. We will have to close this place for a while to investigate.
Jenny felt less irritated by farm life as she returned to Farmer Wessel’s the next day. Yet still, she wondered when the reserve would have their next mystery and whether they would call her to help solve it again. This time, she wouldn’t hesitate. Treating mysterious illnesses of wild animals was one adventure she wanted to live over and over again.

END

If you enjoyed this story, consider purchasing Laura's novel We Bought a Village as either an ebook or paperback from the KREST Online Bookstore.