Story At the Central Park Zoo , Marty the zebra celebrates his tenth birthday but has grown bored with his daily routine and longs to experience the wild. Marty's best friend is Alex the lion , who enjoys showing off for the public and his celebrity status as "the king of New York". Alex attempts to cheer Marty up, but Marty, still unsatisfied, learns that the zoo's penguins —Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private—are trying to escape, and follows them out. Alex, Melman the giraffe , and Gloria the hippopotamus pursue Marty and attempt to convince him to return. The four, along with the penguins and two chimpanzees named Mason and Phil, converge at Grand Central Station where the authorities sedate them using tranquilizer guns . Under pressure from anti-captivity activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a Kenyan wildlife preserve. During their travels, the penguins es...
Story Novelist Jennifer Hills travels from New York City to Louisiana to work on her next book in privacy. When she becomes lost while searching for the cabin she has rented, she stops for gas and to ask for directions. The attendant, Johnny, gives her meandering written directions and embarrasses himself trying to flirt with her. Around the cabin, Jennifer spends the following days writing, tanning, hiking, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. When the cabin's plumbing becomes clogged, it is fixed by Matthew, a stuttering plumber who has social interaction disability. She rewards him with an abrupt kiss of gratitude. Matthew then tells Johnny and his friends Andy and Stanley about his visit. Johnny, whose ego was bruised after the gas station incident, decides that Jennifer is snobbish and needs to be "taught a lesson". That night, the four men sneak into Jennifer's cabin and taunt and assault her, although Matthew refuses to participate out of sympathy for Je...