Mountain Rampage

by Graham, Scott

  The bear remained still through the video’s next three-second frame, its unmoving head captured from behind by the camera, the fur on its neck standing straight up, its stubby ears erect. A distinctive, V-shaped notch cut deep into its right earflap.

  Over the sound of the bear’s gravelly breaths came unintelligible human voices, those of a young man and woman. The tone of their conversation, relaxed and jovial, was that of co-workers comfortable in one another’s presence.

  A high-pitched peal of laughter from the young woman issued through the phone’s speaker. The bear’s head dropped from view when the next three-second frame clicked past. The animal growled deep in its throat, the pitch so low it rattled the phone.

  The woman’s laughter cut off in mid-peal. “Bear,” she cried out. “There! See it?”

  The bear reappeared on the video feed. The camera captured the grizzly’s entire body, stretched full out as it sprinted toward the sound of the voices.

  Chuck’s heart tattooed his chest as three interminable seconds passed, the sounds from the phone that of the bear’s harsh breaths as it charged, and that of the young man hollering, “Whoa, bear!”

  The next screen shot captured half the bear’s body as it angled out of the picture, still running flat out across the meadow toward the off-screen man and woman.

  The grizzly woofed, a dog-like exhalation of warning.

  “Stop!” the young man cried out. “I said stop!”

  Chuck gulped. The man’s exclamation should have given the bear pause. Instead, the bear woofed again, the sound farther from the camera, while the video feed returned to what it had been before, a serene shot of the meadow and forested hillside beyond.

  Chuck squeezed his eyes shut, dreading what he knew came next. He wanted to plug his ears as well.

  He forced his eyes open, taking in the immutable grass and trees on the phone’s screen as a terrified screech from the young woman came over the speaker, after which her voice and the young man’s joined together in a full-throated, “No!”

  “Stop!” the man yelled a millisecond later. Then, under his breath, “Get behind me, Rebecca. Back up.”

  A savage roar shook the phone’s speaker.