“Should we get out?”

“No, we wait here until they come for us,” sighed Liam Colman, the driver, who was answering the question for at least the 17th time.

He had been taking a safari vehicle with six Gisnep Resort guests through the animal preserve area of Gisnep’s Wild Kingdom theme park. The tour was designed to obfuscate the electric rails powering the vehicles and gloss over the fact that the enclosures were essentially a glorified zoo. That meant, however, that when the power failed, they were stuck mid-tour until the gas-powered tow vehicle could reach them.

Until then, Colman was stuck babysitting four adults and two children in the midst of a grey and rainy day, the sort that never appeared in Gisnep Resort pamphlets. He’d passed out plastic cups of water from the vehicle’s emergency stores, and was now stuck answering inane questions.

“Did you feel that?” said one of the kids in back.

Colman was about to roll his eyes, silently thinking that the rugrat just needed a diaper change, when he felt it too. Ripples were visible in the cups of water still on his dash.

“Maybe it’s the power trying to come back on,” said one of the older tourists, sounding not at all convinced.

Colman gripped the steering wheel tightly. “It’s an…an impact tremor, that’s what it is,” he said to himself quietly. “I’m fairly alarmed here.”

A moment later, the nearby foliage gave way as a mature African bull elephant noisily emerged. Colman’s passengers, white with fright, shrieked even as he tried to quiet them down.

“Keep absolutely quiet,” he hissed. “Its aural acuity is based on sound!”

Despite his admonitions, the elephant continued to walk at the tour vehicle…and straight past it, continuing into the brush further down the trail.

“I thought…I thought it was going to eat us!” one of the kids gasped.

“It’s a herbivore, kid,” said Colman, wondering anew when the rescue vehicle would arrive.

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