The zoo has a new attraction: a rare specimen of an African mountain lion. The lion was the pet of the deceased Mayor Templeton, who brought him back from Africa and, since he had no heirs, has been donated to the zoo.
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The terror starts one morning when, after opening its gates, the zoo's visitors make a shocking discovery: the lion gnaws on a human forearm, covered in blood!
Possibilities
1 After the first shock it seems that someone has played a terrible joke: the forearm isn't real. Instead it belongs to a window dummy and it's covered in ketchup. It seems that the lion likes ketchup.
2 The lion is more than just an ordinary lion - trapped in its body is the spirit of an evil witch doctor. During his time in Africa, the Mayor saw how (and was horrified by) the witch doctor would take possession of younger men to lengthen his (the witch doctor's) life. The Mayor tried to kill the witch doctor by shooting his new body, but the witch doctor escaped death by possessing the body of the nearest living creature, a lion pup.
Realizing, that the witch doctor's spirit was trapped, but that it was impossible to kill by conventional methods, the mayor took the pup with him and searched for occult ways to end the foul magic. The mayor never succeeded, and when the lion was left to the zoo they did not realise quite how dangerous it was. Now a keeper has been killed. Worse, putting the lion down might set the witch doctor's spirit free again.
3 The animal keeper accidentally left the the door open, so the lion could go hunting for its favourite meal - human flesh. The mayor himself fed it to the lion from an early age, mostly remnants of the victims of his circle of the African Cult of the Bloody Tongue, an avatar of Nyarlathotep. An autopsy of the lion will reveal a silver signet ring in its stomach. The ring belonged to one of the mayor's rivals, a rival who vanished under mysterious circumstances.
© Philipp Mählmann
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