I ran after him, trying not to lose sight of him, and heard the shouts of guards and the rising sound of a siren behind me. Atlas did indeed break through the open service gates, and I burst out onto the street of a residential area a second later, just in time to see the huge ginger cat disappear around the corner of an apartment building.
Complete chaos erupted on the street: cars screeched to a halt, drivers panicked and scrambled back into their cars, locking the doors. A woman with a stroller screamed and ran in the opposite direction, nearly tipping the child onto the sidewalk.
A group of teenagers froze by the window of a grocery store, not believing their eyes and filming what was happening on their phones. Atlas was running along the sidewalk, completely ignoring people, as if he were purposefully looking for someone in this area.
Periodically, he would stop, sniff the air, look around, and then set off again. I ran after him at a safe distance, holding the phone to my ear and shouting coordinates to the dispatcher who was supposed to direct a capture team here.
Atlas turned into a small public garden, located just a couple of blocks from the zoo. I saw that there, on a bench under an old oak tree, sat an elderly woman feeding pigeons with breadcrumbs from a paper bag.
The lion noticeably slowed his pace and began to approach her slowly, almost stealthily. His huge paws stepped almost silently on the lawn grass.
I shouted with all my might, trying to warn her not to move and not to provoke the predator with sudden gestures. …
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