Animal Kingdom by Iain Rob Wright Read Free Book Online Page A

beyond. Joe and Danny went in last, slamming closed the door behind them, hearing it lock automatically.
    Mason was waiting for them. “We need to move to the second floor before they get in.”
    Joe’s palms were sweaty and he wiped them against his jeans. “Will we be safe up there?”
    Mason was already moving again. “Something tells me that we’re not going to be safe anywhere soon.”
    Joe peered down at Danny, who was looking right back at him. Worry was etched across his delicate face and it made Joe’s heart twist in his chest. He tousled his son’s blond hair and picked him up onto his hip.
    Mason shouted back and told them to hurry.
    “ Okay,” Joe said. The sound of breaking glass from the staffroom urged him to get moving and he did so quickly, re-joining the fleeing group just as they reached a staircase at the end of the corridor. The steps echoed as Joe took them, two at a time, and more than once he almost lost his balance. Danny’s limp weight in his arms did not help.
    At the top of the stairs was another lengthy corridor, carpeted in a cheap navy-blue pile and lined by numerous doors on both sides. Mason was leading everyone into the nearest door on the left. A bronze plaque on the wall beside it read: ZOOLOGICAL LIBRARY AND SEMINAR ROOM.
    Joe stepped in beside Mason to find a plush room, full of soft furnishings, chairs and wooden tables, all facing forward toward a lectern at the back of the room near a large ceiling-to-floor window. The other three walls were interspersed with overfilled bookshelves and recently-used whiteboards. The musty smell of old, inked pages filled the air.
    “ We need to barricade the door downstairs,” said Mason, “make sure that nothing gets through into the corridor.”
    Joe swallowed a lump in his throat. “I don’t quite fancy going back down there. It sounded like they were about to break through the window just before I went up the stairs.”
    The tattooed man, Victor, approached them. “I’ll go. A bunch of wee monkeys don’t scare me none.”
    “ That’s very brave of you,” Joe admitted.
    “ Aye, well it’s not your fault you’re a pussy.”
    Joe cleared his throat. “Excuse me? I have a son to look after first and foremost. I’ve already risked my life enough times today.”
    Victor sniggered and sauntered away, towards one of the room’s many desks. “Keep telling y’self that, pal.”
    Joe shook his head and put his son down on one of the cushion-backed chairs, then took the seat next to him. I’m not a pussy. I just have other priorities right now. Although, if someone doesn’t go down and barricade that door then we’ll all be in trouble. Maybe I should go…
    Victor dragged a table over to the doorway and the scraping sound against the thin carpet broke Joe away from his thoughts. He sat and watched the man grab a second table and upend it on top of the first, then shove them both into the corridor outside.
    “ Can this situation become any more farcical?” said Randall, complaining again and as upbeat as ever. “A total disaster!”
    “ Think I’d have to agree with you there,” said Bill, rummaging through one of the bookshelves. “Things keep going from bad to worse.”
    “ We should be okay for now though,” said Mason. “Victor is barricading the door as we speak, and there’s no other way to reach this section of the building apart from the staircase we ascended earlier.”
    “ Shouldn’t someone be helping Victor?” Shirley asked.
    “ He can handle himself,” said Randall, and Joe was glad to hear it from someone else. “I’d be more concerned about your own hide and the situation we’re in, my dear.”
    Bill returned a thick text book to its space on the shelf and turned around. “And what situation are we in exactly? I still don’t know.”
    Grace offered an explanation. “I think things are…bad. I mean, really bad. If this is happening everywhere then we could be in some serious trouble. There