Bear

Chapter 40

Sam and Danny moved against the breeze. The air carried Elena’s voice. As they got closer to her, it brought, too, a growing whiff of that meaty stink, the bear’s rottenness, its stench. They couldn’t see it yet, but it was there. And they were on their way.

The dog moved with them. Its lips were wet. Danny had taken the gun back from Sam, immediately, but not holstered it. He carried it at his side. It radiated power. They were going to take care of this. The bear was not stronger than they were anymore.

Their steps crunched over twigs. Soil compressed underneath. Beside Sam, Danny’s breath was quick. In her own ears, her heart was thumping, so loud it might warn the bear they were coming, as loud as a shouted alarm. Her blood was noisy. She stumbled, once, as they went between the trees, but caught herself. She listened as hard as she could through the clamor of her own body for her sister. Closer now. Proximate.

There Elena was. Holding out her arms. Standing before the beast.

Sam and Danny came at them from the side, a bit to the bear’s back. Elena was in her uniform with her hair tied up. A normal girl, a pagan priestess. She was offering something, and the animal was massive, rippling, bent over her outstretched hands. It snuffled across them. Danny made a sound at the sight. The bear’s enormity. It sat on its haunches. Brown, gold, tipped with white. Its shoulder blades jutted toward the sky.

The dog barked. Elena saw Sam and Danny then. She pulled her hands back, and the bear spun, more agile than Sam would’ve thought possible, quick and muscular as a monster in a horror movie. The dog’s barks shook the air. Sam and Danny were less than a hundred feet away from the bear and Elena; the wind, pushing on their faces, had let them come close without giving signal. The bear stepped away from Elena, paced in place, stepped back.

“What are you doing here?” Elena shouted to them.

Half a loaf of white bread lay on the dirt in front of her. The bear, an arm’s length away, was huffing, letting out blasts of hot noise. Danny’s dog snapped its teeth and kept on barking. The bear stretched open its mouth. Its jaw popped.

At Sam’s side, Danny said, “My god.”

Elena said something. To the bear—too quiet for Sam to hear. The bear stepped away again, turned, and faced them. Its front paws danced.

“Back up,” Elena shouted their way.

The bear’s jaw kept popping. It made a moaning noise. Over its bottom teeth, a line of saliva spilled out. The dog wouldn’t stop barking. They were spooking the bigger animal, Sam could see, and that was good, that was what they’d come to this place to do, they had to teach it to stay away, they had to frighten it that badly. Make it run to the shore it had climbed up off of. Force it back into the sea. Over the dog’s barks, Sam said to Danny, “Shoot it.” He didn’t. She told him again: Shoot it. Now. He wasn’t lifting his arm.

“Do it,” Sam said, her voice raised to carry over the barking and the slobbering, and she grabbed at Danny’s hand. He tried to twist away from her. She got a grip on the gun and pulled. It was cold dense metal under her fingers—it had lost the warmth she’d given. She yanked on it and he tugged away, and though he was bigger, he was less forceful, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, she could tell, but she had had enough of his pretending, she knew he was capable of it, and the time had come for hurt. If he wouldn’t, she would. She was willing to do what she had to, so she pulled harder, she bore down. All around them was wet sound and popping joints and loud dog and struggle. Elena was yelling. Under Sam’s finger, a trigger, a switch. She pressed. It fired.

The bear lunged.