Claw

by Katie Berry

  At first, Christine thought the bears smelled her, but then she realised they were drawn to the air flow that they sensed moving through the cavern via the vent. The twins looked up toward where she was sequestered, and VanDusen’s light followed their gaze, all the way up this time. The beam stopped when it hit Christine’s tense form, still wedged three-quarters of the way up the wall fissure, but not quite to the vent. She squinted as VanDusen’s torch pierced her eyes with its harsh white light.

  “You!” VanDusen screeched. “I thought you were bear chow by now, you bitch!” He laughed crazily for a moment and said, “Looks like our new friends here find you more interesting than they do me!” He was separated by a distance of fewer than twenty metres from the bears, but thanks to a stream and boiling pool between them he was not as readily accessible as Christine seemed to be.

  The Chief continued to keep the cubs in his light, and Christine studied them as they looked up at her. They didn’t look to be as large Angus, at least not judging by the size of the bear’s tracks she’d been following off and on for the last couple of days. She was sure that bear out there had to be at least a third larger than these animals. But that being said, these twins were still monstrous nonetheless.

  His voice cracking with hysterical laughter, VanDusen said, “Looks like they want to have their dessert before the main course, and they want something sweet to eat!” He giggled to himself for a moment.

  The bruins had reached Christine’s location now, and one of them slowly stood on its hind legs sniffing at the air rushing through the vent and taking in her scent finally, no doubt. It roared as it reached toward her with one razor-clawed paw, missing her thigh by only inches. Though not as large as their mother, these creatures still had a fantastic reach.

  Christine felt a surge of adrenaline and managed to shimmy up another half metre, enough to finally be out of the reach of the creatures.

  VanDusen watched this for a moment and then cackled quietly again to himself, turning away to look for a place to hide or an escape route.

  Christine tried to push herself farther up the vent but felt weakness overwhelming her once more, the adrenaline’s surge dissipating more rapidly that she’d expected. The standing bear roared and swung at her again. Though she found herself out of reach, she didn’t feel confident about how long her height advantage would last -- how much longer she could keep herself wedged into this vent before her legs gave out entirely and she plummeted to the waiting jaws of the creatures below.

  Luck was on her side, however, and the extra distance proved too much for the bear. It roared in frustration one final time taking one more ineffectual swipe at Christine, then dropped down onto all fours once more.

  In the real estate and the business world, location is everything. If a client or customer didn’t find your location particularly appealing or easy to get to for whatever reason, they would just go elsewhere. Predators, when faced with a similar situation for its next repast, will do the same. More often than not, it will choose the prey that’s easier to take down, such as the old and infirm, or the very young, rather than the one that is healthy, swift and agile. But other times, a predator will choose prey that is just plain easier to reach.

  Unfortunately for Chief Reggie VanDusen, this was one of those other times. And even more unfortunately for Reggie, the twin bears must have arrived at the same conclusion at the same time. As one, the beasts refocussed their culinary appetites on the prey that was much riper for the plucking and not located halfway up the cavern wall as their current target was. This new, tasty treat had the added bonus of being very easy to locate as well, thanks to the light that it kept flashing around, blinding both itself and them in a most annoying manner. Suddenly this new prey seemed like a much more appealing target. Yes, location really was everything.

  Christine watched the bears turn and silently make their way toward VanDusen’s twinkling, guiding light. Ignoring the Chief’s predicament for a moment, as he ignored hers, Christine refocussed on her own dilemma. She knew she had to keep going, and up was the only way out. She grimaced in pain; unsure if she had the leg muscles left to do it. She hadn’t had enough to eat today and was feeling weak from low blood sugar as well. Her legs trembled, ready to give out, and she knew there was no way she could go any farther. She had no strength left to shimmy any more. Glancing higher, she could see there was nothing else to hold onto should she start to slip again. Christine figured she would fall back to the ground and be eaten by the bears as she writhed in pain from a broken spine or neck -- if she weren’t lucky enough to die on impact that was.

  Wincing from the leg pain, this was not the way she’d ever seen herself going out. She jammed her hand into a jacket pocket and found the 9mm pistol. Putting it there earlier, she’d completely forgotten about it. Her fingers caressed the nylon polymer body of the handgun, and she briefly toyed with using it as a way out of her predicament but rejected it almost immediately. It wasn’t in her personality to just give up, and she thrust the pistol deep back into her parka pocket.

  Desperately cramming her hand into her other pocket, she came across the Epipen. It was a risk to use it for a healthy person, but she knew the alternative was one that she wouldn’t even waste her time thinking about. She figured that since her legs were weakening first, a boost of adrenaline there would undoubtedly help where she needed it most. It certainly couldn’t hurt at this stage, she reasoned.

  Uncapping the Epipen, she jammed it into the meat of her left leg, feeling the sting of the needle as it bit through the Gortex material covering her thigh muscles.

  Electrified -- she couldn’t think of a better word; that’s how she suddenly felt. She was soaring with energy, but she knew it wouldn’t last. Her mind and senses were racing as well. Suddenly, VanDusen let out the most God-awful shriek from below. It felt like dozens of nails being dragged across her brain.

  ***

  While thinking that the bears had been distracted with the blonde bitch, Reggie had been preoccupied trying to climb a chunk of rock next to one of the large boulders near the entrance. His plan was to try to clamour up onto a smaller rock, then up onto the larger boulder and had actually done reasonably well, or so he thought. He’d managed to climb to the top of the chunk of rock and was trying to drag himself onto the boulder a little over two metres off the ground next to his current perch.

  Things seemed to be improving for Reggie. He hadn’t heard from that conservation cow in a little while now, and he was hoping that she was about to drop into the bear’s drooling mouths from above. If that happened, maybe one of them would choke on her. Then he’d only have to try to cap the ass of one of these bastards as he stood atop his rocky bastion and fired his 9mm at them. He toyed with the idea of bringing the bitch down with a well-placed shot when he’d first seen her clinging up there like Spiderwoman, but he didn’t want to waste his ammo. You can always dream, he thought. He smiled slightly as he studied the rocks in front of him with his light. It looked like he might be able to get a little higher if he grabbed…

  VanDusen’s back exploded in pain when the closest bear’s claws raked through him. Still firmly zipped into his winter parka, he was flung through the air like the rag chew toy he threw around his backyard for his pit bull, Snotty. He skidded across the rocky cavern floor, slamming into some of the larger shards of rock that covered it along the way. They sliced through his gloved hands and jacketed forearms as he tried to protect himself as he slid and rolled.

  Groaning and retching with pain, VanDusen tried to stand, feeling sticky from the blood that now flowed from his torn hands and forearms. Reaching around to his ruined back, he felt around for a moment. Through the searing heat of pain, he probed carefully, finally pulling what he thought was a torn piece of his jacket out of his back wound. Instead, he pulled a large flap of lacerated skin the size of one of those goddamned graphic novels Roxanne was always pouring over at home. He began to feel like retching again but finally made it up onto w
obbly legs, preparing to run.

  Chief Reggie VanDusen quickly discovered he had nowhere to go. He was now on a peninsula of rock between two boiling pools that emptied into the icy cold blackness of the cavern’s main lava tube at his back. It yawned wide like a hatchway to Hell.

  The bears rumbled deep in their throats as they lumbered toward the Chief. “Mother fuckers! C’mon you pieces of shit!” he hollered. His pain and fear were now forgotten, replaced by rage as these beasts from before time approached him.

  VanDusen was choked. Here were these two pieces of shit from the goddamned dark ages coming to take him out. Yes, he was a greedy, arrogant, mean son-of-a-bitch, but he wasn’t a stupid man. He could see the writing on the wall that this was only going to end in three possible ways. A) He gets ripped to shreds and eaten if he stood there and did nothing, B) Go for a swim in one of the pools of boiling water and end up like the catch of the day at Red Lobster, or C) Step off the edge into the bottomless pit behind him and kiss his ass goodbye. Some choice, he thought bitterly.

  With a flash of recall, he remembered his service revolver. He hoped it hadn’t fallen out and felt around his waist. Yes! The Glock was still in his holster! He pulled it out cocked it, alternating his aim between the two approaching beasts, saying, “C’mon you cocksuckers!”

  With a deafening roar, the bears charged VanDusen. He screamed and started firing his 9mm. The shells did little to penetrate the thick hide of the approaching abominations, but he kept firing, pulling the trigger until the gun was clicking empty anyway. He fumbled for a second clip from his belt. The bear on his left took advantage of his distraction, and it crashed into him, pulling him into its arms in a deadly embrace and bringing him down to the ground. It enveloped his head with its mouth and began to stand on all fours, trying to drag VanDusen upright with it. Reggie VanDusen was a big man, over one hundred and sixty kilograms of crooked cop, in fact. He was a ponderous weight, and when the bear tried to stand with him in its mouth, it proved too much for the creature while he kicked and thrashed. Still alive with his face firmly clamped in the beast’s mouth, his shrieks were muffled as he tried to pull free. The bear tried to yank him backward to get assistance from its twin, but the Chief's weight proved too much, and they both toppled into the boiling pool at their side.

  The cavern was suddenly filled with the echoing shrieks of the bear, and Chief VanDusen combined as their respective fur and skin boiled from their bodies in the searing, highly acidic water. As they stewed away, being cooked alive, the bear’s twin stood near the pool roaring in anger and frustration, unable to help its sibling.

  While the drama unfolded below, high above, Christine Moon heard none of it. She felt as if her entire body was being flooded with liquid fire as a tremendous surge of adrenaline coursed through her system.

  She shimmied faster and faster up the vent and soon found herself quite far up inside of it, but grew concerned when it narrowed most alarmingly. After several more tense metres, it widened back out, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  The speed burst provided by the Epipen had only given her a temporary boost, and she felt the burn of power begin to diminish, her feelings of lethargy returning tenfold. She gave herself one more push but felt herself lagging further and further. With the stars just becoming visible, the small slice of dark-blue night sky above her head seemed to taunt Christine in her climb to freedom. So tantalisingly close, but just out of reach now as the last of her energy began to ebb away.

  She wasn’t going to make it and wondered if this might be some of the last starlight she would ever see. Bracing one last time for as long as she could, Christine dug in, mentally psyching herself for her death plummet back into the cavern and its horrors below. There was nothing to tie her rope to in this smooth, volcanic vent.

  Never resigning herself to her fate, she couldn’t stop trying to survive, and was surprised she had gotten as far as she had. It was just part of her nature to keep trying, no matter what the odds -- to be who she wanted to be, and to be who she needed to be, no matter what. She’d made her peace with the world many years before, and now she was ready to be done with everything. Closing her eyes, she said a silent prayer.

  From above, a voice echoed down, “Need a hand?”

  Christine blinked in amazement and looked up. There, outlined by the starlight, the shape of someone looking down at her from the top of the vent.

  “Oh my God, Austin! Yes, please! Thank you! I can’t make it any farther!” Her legs were trembling from the continued strain on them now. “Hurry, please, I think I’m going to slip!” The outline of Austin disappeared from view, replaced by a larger silhouette. Her face broke into a smile when she heard Trip shout down, “Hey Chris! Tie this on, and we’ll pull you up!” A rope dropped down in front of her face. She grabbed it and fastened it around her waist.

  “Thanks, Trip! I’m already on it!” she hollered back.

  After she’d secured the rope around her waist, she gave it two good, hard tugs. With a jolt, she felt herself rising up the chimney, the circle of brightening starlight growing bigger and bigger by the moment.

  And then she was outside.

  Christine took in great lungfuls of the cold night, tasting the frigid air flooding her exhausted lungs and loving every second of its cooling balm.

  The sky was clear up here now, and Christine could see that the ice fog had come off the glacier and settled into the valley as predicted. The full moon shone high above, illuminating everything around her a luminous white. The small mountain town of Lawless, BC lay dark beneath a soft blanket of icy-white fog. Amid the nothingness, colourful high-intensity lights strobed atop emergency vehicles making their way about the valley bottom, appearing as if an alien mothership had just landed and was now picking up its ground crew, preparing for takeoff.

  Her voice still trembling from her recent overload of emotions, Christine said, “How did you get up here?”

  With a smile, his teeth glowing phosphorescently in the starlight, Alex interjected, pointing down the cliffside, “We used the stairs!” She looked to where he pointed and saw they were just above and to the side of the cavern’s now blocked entrance, where the vent came out of the rock. The men had used the assortment of fallen boulders as a giant staircase, allowing them to climb partially up the mountainside to look for an alternate way inside.

  Trip replied, “When we saw the main entrance blocked, we figured we’d better look for another one. Alex saw the vent here, he was climbing around like a regular mountain goat on these rocks then we followed him up. Don’t know if I would’ve seen the hole.”

  “That’s right! My boy loves his carrots,” Austin added, smiling at her warmly.

  Christine looked around -- her friends surrounded her. Austin, Trip, Alex and a man she had never met before all stood near her, smiling. Perhaps they were also pleased at their good fortune of being able to get to her in time to help rescue her, and to have her now standing there in front of them, healthy, happy and whole. If that were the case, so was she. She was overwhelmed once more, and she couldn’t speak. With tears in her eyes, she hugged each man in turn, thanking each one individually for their help.

  “Glad you’re okay,” Trip smiled. Christine tried to wrap her arms around him to hug him, but it proved too much of a challenge. She hugged the part of him that she could grab fiercely, and the tops of Trip’s cheeks that peeked through his beard began turning a lovely shade of red.

  Christine moved to Alex next and hugged this fantastic man-boy hard. She knew that if his father was anything to go by, this young man in her arms was going to grow up into an amazingly handsome, strong, healthy man. Alex smiled awkwardly and said nothing, his face going a brighter shade of red than Trip’s currently rosy cheeks.

  She turned to Austin finally and hugged him the hardest. Speaking quietly in his ear she whispered, “Thank you so much for being here for me. I don’t know what to say.”

  Austin pulled her back and looked into her
eyes kindly. “You don’t need to say anything else, you’re safe and amongst friends here.”

  Christine looked over at Jerry and said, “I don't know you, but what the heck.” She reached over and hugged him hard anyway.

  Jerry groaned slightly as Christine wrapped her arms around him. He introduced himself mid-hug, “Please to meet you, I’m Jerry Benson.” She stood back from the man and smiled up at him, saying, “Jerry! Right! I’m so glad to see you’re doing better!”

  With the greetings out of the way, Austin put his hand gently on her shoulder, saying, “Are you okay, Christine?” Concern was heavy in his voice.

  “I think I need a vacation,” She said, tiredly. “Apart from that, I'm fine. A little bruised, but not bad. I wish I could say the same for the mayor, Ray Chance and the Chief of Police.”

  “They’re down there, too?” Austin asked, incredulous.

  “Yes,” she responded. Then as an afterthought, she added, “Well, they were at least.”

  “What happened?” Trip inquired.