Christmas, Pursued by a Bear

by Ryann Fletcher

  “I know that, but it’s already going viral online. Everyone in a fifty-mile radius is going to be showing up here soon, looking for a bear.”

  “You realize I’ll have to report this to child services. They might decide to send her back.”

  “It’s better that than find her dead. Come on, Dade, please.”

  “Okay, then. Get in the ATV. Where was her last location?”

  Cat was already running for the vehicle. “In the back nine, near where those big pine trees are.”

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Andie pulled into the reserve in time to see Cat jumping into the ranger’s ATV and speeding off into the woods. Well, at least she’d assumed right. Grabbing the camera bag from the passenger seat, she slung it around her shoulders and climbed out of her car, which was double parked in front of someone’s RV. Hopefully they wouldn’t be leaving until the morning. Hopefully she wouldn’t come back to her car being towed.

  She darted for the trail that led the deepest into the forest, camera in hand. She didn’t know what was going on, but maybe if she got it on camera, it might help, especially if it was those poachers again. Assholes. Andie hoped they wound up in prison, sooner or later.

  Her boots crunched on the wet, packed snow as she picked her way further into the trees, using the flashlight on her phone to light the way. Wherever the others were, it must be far from the trail head. She was regretting not sneaking in through the back. If Cat hadn’t managed to pull the ranger away, Andie would have been stuck at the gate. Her stomach churned with anxiety, her lungs burning from the icy winter air. That asthma from her youth never had really cleared up, despite what the doctors had said about growing out of it.

  The trail was empty, no hikers out this far or this late, choosing instead to stay by the cute lit walk at the entrance with the reindeer made out of tiny bulbs. She was alone and growing more terrified with every passing moment. Maybe she shouldn’t have come. Maybe Cat was right.

  Moonlight streamed through the trees, casting cold shadows after every bare tree, the twisting darkness reaching up for her with its spindly fingers. Andie stopped to listen, and heard nothing but the wind. Damn it all to hell, she thought. The reserve wasn’t huge, but it was definitely large enough to get lost in, and she was quickly losing her way now that she’d left the path behind, her footsteps marred by the mud and leaves beneath, leaving no trace of where she’d been. A whole bunch of Bears in the woods, you’d think they’d be easier to find.

  Wind rustled through the pine needles, the tops of the trees invisible amid the settling fog. The tripod smacked against the back of Andie’s legs with every step, and the inevitable bruise it was creating continued to throb. She should have grabbed its strap as she ran out of the apartment, but she’d been so intent on following Cat to make sure she was okay that it hadn’t crossed her mind until she was running through the parking lot. Now, there was probably an angry purple blotch on her thigh, but that would be the least of her problems if she got lost. Or ran into those poachers again.

  She swallowed hard. This act of heroism wasn’t going quite like she’d planned.

  A few steps further and she was standing in that same clearing, blinking widely, willing her eyes to see more detail in the darkness. The full moon was beginning to rise, but the fog was dimming the brightest of the moon’s beams, diffusing them into a smoky haze that played tricks on the mind. Was that someone in the brush, or just the gentle sway of some bushes? The glint of a flashlight, cutting through the thickly forested woods, or a trick of a desperate mind? At least she knew where she was now.

  She shivered in the cold. It was already freezing, and dropping rapidly. There would be ice on the roads in the morning. She should have worn a thicker scarf.

  Andie climbed into the nearby tree stand and buckled herself in, peering into the trees. The fog continued to descend, clipping the trees from view and making it even harder to see. Just as she was about to climb back down and continue her search, she heard voices in the darkness. Holding her camera steady, she began to record, despite not knowing where to focus the lens, and despite the on-board microphone being middling quality, at best.

  “Where did you say it was last seen?” a man hissed. It sounded like the same one who threatened to shoot Andie out of the tree. She stiffened, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

  “Not far from here. It must be around somewhere.”

  “You have that dart ready?”

  “Of course I have the goddamn dart ready, we’re looking for a bear, not a raccoon.” The second one huffed angrily. “Do I have the dart ready. Fuck’s sake, man.”

  “Well last time you didn’t, and we almost got our heads ripped off. Damn, I knew we saw a bear that night. All those assholes at the local will be eating their words now.”

  “Not if you don’t have a way to prove it. Boss said no pictures, no nothing. Can’t have any record of it or the hippie tree-huggers will be so far up our asses we won’t be able to shit for months.”

  The first one shined a light into the trees. “Oh, I’m getting a photo of that thing once we bag it and tag it. They don’t pay me enough to let this one go without a token.”

  “If the boss finds out—”

  “Yeah? And who’s gonna tell her, you? Fuck off, man.”

  “Will you shut up? I hear something.”

  Andie leaned as far forward as she dared in the tree stand, zooming in little by little on the far side of the clearing. A small Bear cowered in the shadows. The same Bear as last month, though considerably more filled out. Delilah.

  The second one held some night vision goggles to his face, staring in the opposite direction, and Andie willed them not to see Delilah. “Man, this is stupid. I bet that bear already hightailed it out of here.”

  “What, and crossed through the local burger joint’s parking lot? With all the eyes on this place right now, we’d hear about it. Besides, we don’t get paid if some other dickhead bags it first. Won’t matter that we’ve been out here almost every night for a month looking for it.”

  “At least we know we weren’t crazy, seeing those two bears,” the other one muttered, looking around. He turned to the other side of the clearing, and Andie’s heart nearly stopped in her chest. “Shit! It’s right here!”

  “Well don’t stand there with your jaw hanging open, shoot it!”

  Andie unbuckled herself. “Hey!” she shouted, desperate to pull their attention. “Hey, assholes!”

  “What the fuck? It’s that goddamn photographer again!”

  “Yeah, that’s right, and I’ve got you on camera! What are you going to do now?”

  “Same thing we meant to do last time,” the second one said, aiming at her with the dart gun.

  “Delilah! Run!” Andie screamed, but the Bear didn’t move. Shit. Something must be wrong.

  The first one walked towards the base of the tree. “You named it? You realize that thing could rip your face off if it wasn’t caught in a trap, right?”

  “You are scum, you know that?” Andie spat. “Fucking bear baiting? You’re both so laughable, a fucking zombie couldn’t find your brains.”

  “You’d be singing a different tune if one of these fuckers had chased you through the woods.”

  “One did, actually, but I’m not obsessed with the idea of killing something that’s more powerful than me.”

  The second one laughed. “This is a job, babe. Maybe if you hadn’t spent so much time in your liberal arts college learning how to take pretty pictures, you’d know what a real one looks like. Now come on down and let’s talk.” He aimed the gun again.

  “No thanks, I’m okay, actually.”

  “I can just shoot you down, you know.”

  “I’ll scream and bring people running. They’ll find that poor creature in the trap you left there. Let her go, and we’ll talk.”

  “Hell no, we aren’t going to let it go.”

  Andie buckled herself back in. If t
hey did shoot her, she didn’t want to fall and break a leg, or worse, her skull. Where the hell was Cat and the others? She couldn’t keep them distracted forever, sooner or later they’d climb up the tree to drag her down. “Pigeon-brained sheep fuckers!” she shouted. “You’ve got faces like three-day-old hamburgers in a parking lot! You couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag, you snot-encrusted toads!”

  “Yeah? Well, you’re fat!”

  “Is that the best you’ve got?” Andie shouted back with a snort. She could see a light dancing through the trees, and desperately hoped it wasn’t more poachers. “Men have been calling women fat for so long, it barely even registers anymore.” She followed the bouncing light, growing closer. “You complete fucking fucks.”

  “I’m going to need to see some kind of identification,” Ranger Dade shouted, coming through the brush with a flashlight that lit up their faces. Poor Delilah looked terrified, shaking like a leaf. “We have reports of poaching in this area.”

  “We’re not poachers. Now fuck off, we already signed your little clipboard.”

  “Craig? What are you doing with a gun? You’re supposed to be here on Syndicorp survey business.”

  “Christ, I should have known the fucking ranger would show up. Listen, Dade, or whatever the hell your name is, this is much bigger than either of us, so I suggest you take a walk back the way you came, and pretend you never saw us.”

  “Firearms are prohibited in the reserve. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”

  “What about my God-given rights?”

  “Sir. If you do not evacuate the park immediately, I will be forced to call the police.”

  Craig barked a laugh. “What do you think they’re going to do? Do you even know how much Syndicorp donated to them this year?”

  “That doesn’t mean they’ll overlook illegal activity.”

  “I think you’ll find that’s exactly what it means. Listen, Ranger, we’re not trying to do anything crazy, alright? We just need to clear the reserve of bears and whatever the hell else is endangered so the ground-breaking doesn’t get held up. We’ve got a schedule to keep, and a few pests aren’t worth stalling progress, right?”

  Ranger Dade rested her hand on her radio. “I never wanted you fucks in here to begin with. I went along with it, because my job depends on it. No Syndicorp money, no job.” She glanced up into the tree, as though she was trying to make eye contact with Andie. “If word got out about this,” she emphasized, “I think the company would have one hell of a public relations mess on its hands.” She turned, seeing Delilah in the brush. “A bear trap? Really? Good God, I’ve met honest-to-Christ poachers who weren’t this heartless.”

  Craig shrugged. “We had a job to do.”

  “You could have reported the bears to one of the rangers, we would have made sure they were safely relocated.”

  “That takes too long. Brings too much attention.”

  “Look around, Craig, half the goddamn forest is filling up with assholes just like you, looking for fifteen minutes of fame and a picture with a dead bear. You’ve got all the attention on this park that neither of us ever wanted.” She bent and released the bear trap, her hand on Delilah’s snout. “Don’t bite me, okay?”

  “Have you lost your mind?” the second one shouted. “That thing is going to kill us all!”

  “It’s a bear, not a machine gun,” Dade snapped. “And to be honest, I’d probably let her eat you. You’d both deserve it.”

  “I don’t think you understand what’s going on here,” Craig said, stepping so close to the ranger that they were almost nose to nose. “It’s above your pay grade.”

  “I’m a Ranger, almost everything is above my pay grade. We don’t show up to work every day, fighting with the county for scraps of budget and hauling drunk hikers out of the woods because we get paid well. We do it because we care about this godforsaken reserve, come hell or high water.”

  “It’s fixing to become a flood, Dade.”

  Andie zoomed in on his face, the camera struggling to focus in the dark. A blurry silhouette would be better than nothing. Delilah still lay on the ground, whimpering softly, and Andie was wondering where the hell Cat was. Or the rest of the Bears, for that matter.

  “Get the hell out of my park,” the ranger said, her voice menacing. “And stay out.”

  “Your supervisor will hear about this, I promise you. We had a contract, and they’re not going to want to see it fall through just because some bitchy rent-a-cop decided she’d rather have carnivores running wild. What will you do when one of those precious campers gets torn to shreds? What do you think will happen to this bear then? Or the whole damn reserve, for that matter?”

  Ranger Dade rolled her eyes. “Bears aren’t carnivores, you ignorant shit. And you know, I’m sure I will hear from the parks department, but I’ll deal with that when it happens. Get. Out. Of my reserve.” When the poachers hesitated, she poked Craig hard in the chest, sending him staggering. “If you’re not out of this park in ten minutes—”

  “What? What are you going to do?” Craig shouted, regaining his footing, hand on his gun. He spun around wildly, aiming his weapon out into the trees. Andie shrank back, trying to make herself as small as possible, and shroud her face in darkness. These guys didn’t seem like the types to let something go, and she didn’t want them trying to figure out who she was.

  “I—” Ranger Dade stuttered, reaching for her radio.

  “That radio isn’t gonna help you now,” he said, inching closer, finger on the trigger. “I came here to do a job, and by God, I’m going to do it.” He stared into the trees, narrowing his eyes. “And don’t think I won’t be coming for you—”

  A huge bear burst into the clearing, roaring so loud that the second poacher covered his ears in desperation. Cat, Andie thought excitedly, and all but jumped off her perch before she remembered that she should still be filming. A second, third, and fourth joined her, forming a circle around the injured Delilah. Cat huffed, and swiped at Craig. He held up his gun, but Ranger Dade knocked it from his hands. When he reached out for it, his fingers scrabbling through the frozen leaves, she kicked it into the bushes.

  The Bears roared.

  Goosebumps tingled across Andie’s skin at the sound, the utter terrifying power they held. The second poacher had already fled into the woods, thwapping against hidden branches that scraped against the nylon of his waterproof parka. Craig kicked his legs out, trying to get away from the Bears. One of them, not Cat, snapped their teeth in the man’s face, a hair’s distance from his skin. He tripped over his own feet as he stood, turning for the path.

  “I said, get out!” the ranger shouted, slinging the rifle’s strap over her shoulder. “If I catch you in here again, I’ll let them eat you!”

  Craig didn’t have much to say now. He scuttled into the night, and Andie watched until he disappeared into the trees.

  “He’s gone,” Andie announced, unbuckling herself once again. Cat stared at her and nodded almost imperceptibly, so she stopped the recording and set the camera gently back into the bag around her shoulders.

  “I hope that camera caught enough to raise a stink,” Ranger Dade said, picking her clipboard up off the ground, dusting off the wet leaves. “Because if not, I’m going to be fired in the morning.”

  “Aren’t you worried about the bears?” Andie asked, clinging to the climbing staples in the tree.

  “They seem very tame, don’t you think? Almost… human.”

  Andie froze. The poachers were gone, but now they had the park ranger to deal with. “Er…” she muttered.

  “Almost seems a shame to send them to a zoo, or have them airdropped into a re-wilding area.” The ranger turned and examined the Bears, who were still gathered around Delilah, who had begun to shiver in the icy wind.

  “Is that really necessary? I mean, you could just let them stay—”

  “There isn’t enough room in this reserve for one bear, let alone five. I need to call
this in immediately, before more poachers show up.” She frowned. “This Syndicorp crap is really going to put a hitch in my budget next year. It’s going to get harder and harder to patrol the forest with no money for staff or resources.” She laid a hand on her radio again, and this time, Cat roared at her, knocking the radio to the ground. It was an oddly human behavior to see from something that looked very convincingly bear-shaped.

  Ranger Dade squinted. “Just as I thought. Bears. Well, that certainly explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

  “Explains what?” Andie prompted, still clinging to the ladder. She wanted the ranger to think she was afraid of the Bears, not taking one of them out for coffee and a romantic hike up to the falls.

  “Maybe you should head back to the front gate. I imagine you have some editing to do, before you get that footage into someone’s hands?”

  “What about the bears?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about them. I assure you, they wouldn’t want to do anything to draw attention to themselves, at least any more than they already have.”

  “Er—”

  Cat stepped back into the brush, the wet sounds of skin reforming and bones popping. “Alright, let’s cut the crap, Dade.”

  “I should have known the sightings were goddamn Weres. Shouldn’t you be out west somewhere? Not in the middle of a small reserve in the middle of the Midwest, for chrissakes?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Bears. I knew I smelled something rotten.”

  “Oh, please. We have a much better sense of smell than you.”

  Ranger Dade scoffed. “I doubt that.” She cast a glance toward Andie, who had finished climbing down from the tree stand. “What about her, then?”

  “She’s fine, don’t you worry about her,” Cat said, stepping out of the brush, tugging her boot on, her dress covered in nettles and branches. “Goddamnit, I really liked this dress.”

  “What are you, an amateur?”

  “Why don’t you just mind your own business, and we’ll get out of your hair?”

  “Are you serious? Every poacher in a hundred miles is parking up here to get their hands on what they think are genuine bears. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve just dumped on my plate?”