Margaret always times her walk so that she gets to the elephants at 5:10 p.m., which is usually when the handlers are out in the feeding pen, calling out commands to make the animals go forward and backward and kneel and lift their feet. The handlers say the end-of-the-day routine is designed to check for issues with joints or hooves, but Margaret suspects they enjoy showing off.

She likes watching, regardless. It is a free circus show that no one else in the zoo seems to know is taking place, and she cannot imagine what possesses those sad old people in jogging suits to get their exercise by doing laps around a shopping mall. She comes here every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, walking as briskly as she can manage for exactly an hour, just like the doctor recommended. She always heads back to the parking lot after the elephants are led into their metal-and-brick building.

Margaret is always prompt, but the handlers are not. Sometimes she arrives and the pen is empty of everything but a couple of puzzled elephants. The elephants are more reliable than the handlers. She suspects that the handlers are millennials who care more about yoga and inner peace than about actually doing their jobs.

So today when she sees an empty pen in front of her, it is not the lack of humans that surprises her but the lack of elephants. She can see them at a distance, lumbering through the landscaped savannah. They are off their routine. She waits for a few minutes, standing in the shade of a huge metal crate. She keeps her headphones on – she is only two chapters from the end of her Patricia Cornwell – and she stares up at the sign on the crate that asks, HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW YOU TRANSPORT AN ELEPHANT?

She finally takes off her headphones, sliding her MP3 player into her pocket, and she feels the wrongness immediately. She tenses, although there is no clear reason for it. She decides it is only the silence and stillness that is bothering her. She checks her watch, struck by the thought that maybe she has lost track of time. But, no, there are still a few minutes before closing.

Normally she would see a few other visitors straggling toward the exit. Today she sees no one.

Of course, she is standing at the bottom of a steepish slope at the edge of the elephants’ territory. Between the hill rising in front of her and the metal crate to her right, she doesn’t have much of a view. She starts up the hill, shaking off her nerves, but before she reaches the top, she hears two quick sounds, little bursts of static or cracks of thunder. Almost at the same time she hears a voice, high-pitched, only a single note. She cannot call it a scream.

She takes another step, enough that she can see the thatched pavilion of the themed restaurant, and she hears footsteps coming toward her quickly. She can’t say why, but she spins around and starts back down the hill, turning in a way that makes her bad knee buckle. She ignores the pain and hurries through the opening of the big metal crate, which is darker inside than she expected.

She presses herself against the wall, cold metal against her arms. She feels foolish, but she steps deeper into the shadows, keeping her eyes on the opening of the crate, watching the unchanging view of the sand in the elephant pen. She hears more footsteps, and then she hears hushed voices, and then the footsteps get faster. She hears someone rattle metal or glass. A door slamming. More cracking sounds.

She wonders if elephants ever feel claustrophobic. The turquoise stone in her necklace is chilly against her skin, and she touches it with her fingers. She bought it because it was the exact color of her sweatshirt. There is still a satisfaction in the perfect match.

She does not know how many minutes have passed. She has not moved, because, whatever is happening, Margaret doesn’t believe in acting too quickly. She likes to consider the full context of a problem. This served her well in lightening her hair to a honey blonde that doesn’t show gray, and it served her in buying a newish but uninteresting townhome instead of the pretty Art Deco cottage with roof issues, and it served her in keeping her mouth shut when her daughter decided to homeschool her grandson, who, God knows, could use some social interaction.

Margaret thinks of her daughter’s face, always tired-looking because she refuses to put on lipstick when she leaves the house.

A gnat dives into the crate and gets lost in the dark. She has not heard any noise for quite a while. What felt so real for a moment now seems like some sort of panic attack, and she feels a familiar, clinical kind of concern about early-onset Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor. There are all kinds of explanations for running and faraway screaming. Teenagers, likely. It is possible that she is already locked inside the zoo, bound to run into a very condescending employee, and she cannot bring herself to stand here any longer, hiding in a giant box.

So she steps outside, noticing how the sun has disappeared behind the line of trees. She slowly walks to the top of the hill, giving her knee a chance to loosen: standing still is the worst thing for it. She sees nothing but the same old exhibits – the playground off to her right and the monkeys swinging on their ropes at the primate house.

She has become a nervous old woman.

She looks down the walkway and heads toward the Sahara Snack Hut or whatever it’s called. She can hear her rubber soles on the concrete, and the air smells strange and smoky. She accidentally kicks a baby’s cup that has been left on the ground. She passes under the thatched roof of the restaurant pavilion, and as she steps out from under its shadow, she sees a movement through a hedge of jungle plants. The vending machines are blocking her view. It could have been the plants shifting in the wind, but it might have been a person on one of the other pathways. An employee? She might as well face him.

She starts across the concrete, angling toward the Coke machine. There is a door leading into the restaurant, though, just before she reaches the vending machines.

She only notices the door as she is passing it.

She only notices it as it opens.

She only notices it as a hand flashes from inside, pulling her backward.