by Amy Star
“Go to hell,” Dylan coughed.
“You first, and I’ll join you,” Arthur grimaced, crossing to where Dylan was held like a snarling dog. “Are you all bears? I know you are. And I suppose your other friend but what about the woman?”
“You stay away from her,” Dylan growled.
Arthur seemed amused by the antics and approached Sarah, who simply stared back at him impassively. She wasn’t even afraid of him, not in the way Dylan was. She felt a great pity for him, the sort you might have for an animal that’s dying slowly and deserves a killing blow. Give me that opportunity, I think I could do it, she realized, surprised at her own conviction now that she was face-to-face with the man that had tried to kill both Chris and Dylan.
He pulled a knife from its plastic sheath in his belt and she felt air exhale sharply from her nose. Gently, he traced the rim of her neck with the flat side, and then drew it downward, over her breastbone and the top of her tank-top. His eyes were full of a lustful hunger as he moved the blade down, stretching the tank-top so that her breasts promised to pop out. He licked his lips and she felt sweat forming on her brow.
“Please stop,” she whispered.
He gave her a look and moved closer, so that she could smell the rankness of his breath, which was like bad coffee. He moved the blade lower, across her stomach, which caused her to tremble, and then against the zipper of her jeans. Now she was afraid, she tried to will herself to stop shaking, should his blade slip. He pressed it harder against the zipper, and she felt it threaten the most vulnerable part of her.
“Please…”
“Leave her alone, you bastard!” Dylan shouted, twisting against his confinement.
Arthur let out an irritable sigh and withdrew his blade and marched back to Dylan. His blue eyes were diamonds cut with a primeval rancor that shook his shoulder blades. It didn’t seem to assuage Arthur in the least as he pulled back and punched his prey across the face with the butt of the knife. Dylan grunted and his head spun on his shoulders.
“Kindly stop talking so much, eh?”
“Fuck… you,” Dylan murmured. Blood was dripping down his chin, and his mouth was like a livid pool of curses. “When… Chris gets here… he’s gonna take your head off… and leave it for the flies.”
“Poetic,” Arthur said with a degree of disdain. “I suppose we’ll see. I just wanted to look at both of you… I feel like a hunter owes that to their quarry.”
“You’re not a hunter,” Sarah was quick to point out, and wondered suddenly where the courage had come from to speak out against him. She winced and swallowed, but kept her gaze leveled on him as he returned his attention to her. “You’re… nothing.”
Something ignited behind his eyes but it petered out almost instantly. He merely nodded his head and licked his lips again. “We’ll see,” he said. “After this is finished, maybe we’ll have more time to discuss it, just you and I.”
Sarah spat on the ground in front of him, even as he reached out to try and touch her cheek. She snapped her jaws at him, wishing desperately that she wasn’t collared. One chance, and I’ll end you, you bastard. Behind her, Dylan had sagged on the ropes, and was still coughing and spitting blood over the front of his raincoat.
In a moment, Arthur was gone and they were alone again. She tried to breathe normally again. “What… what do you think the chances are Chris will come?”
“He’s already on his way,” he said distastefully, and quiet enough that Arthur wouldn’t hear him if he was still lurking around. “There was only one of them… that bastard’s friend is probably acting like a lure again, leading Chris here.”
They were quiet then, both of them testing the air, trying to detect the smallest hint of sound that would give Chris away. An hour passed, then another, and the sun was beginning to creep through the sheltered canopy, warming their damp shoulders and hair. Both of them had unanimously decided on their own that if they saw Chris, they would shout at him to leave, they would try to raise the alarm, regardless of what sort of consequences it would evoke. This is what it feels like to protect something you love, she realized, with an alarming alacrity. Maybe that bump on the head had finally shoved some sense into her. She wriggled against the ropes again but it was useless.
But Chris was safe. Chris had the satellite phone. And it was up to both of them, her and Dylan, to protect him, the same way he had protected them. To Sarah, that time seemed so long ago now, like another lifetime. She tried to get another look at Dylan, wishing there was something she could do to save him, as well. A grim thought entered her head.
Even though the collars prevented them from surviving a transformation, it could still technically be possible to change if she did it quickly enough. She felt a hollow in her stomach, pondering her own death. I can change faster than Dylan, she realized, even if it kills me, it would be enough to break these ropes and free him. It would give him a chance.
“Dylan, I… you…. You never told me,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. Her voice was a quiver, like grass slighting in the wind, rubbing against itself in one direction as though it always meant to sharpen itself. “Can you… can you tell me now?”
He turned his head, cursing the collar. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb, you know what I’m talking about. I asked you… and you said you’d think about it… now…” she wrinkled her lips, “I don’t know how much time we have. Don’t deny it, just… tell me. Please…”
He was quiet for a moment and she heard the scuff of his collar as he tried to turn his head to look at her again. “I’ve thought about it since you asked. I wish there was a better way to understand it… maybe, maybe I just overthink things,” he said, stalling. “What are you to me? I don’t know if I have a word for it… if only because, up until you came into my life, I’d never known it was possible.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand…”
“Maybe it won’t suffice,” he let out a weak laugh, “but I’ll say it anyway. For what it’s worth… I love you. God, I love you Sarah… maybe that’s crazy to say out loud. Maybe… maybe it’s not enough. I’ve known you less than a month. But that’s all I can say… I love you.”
Another silence stretched between them, pending, interspersed only by the occasional slap of water that was quickly perishing on the feathered tree boughs above them. A milky light shafted down through the canopy, and Sarah trembled in her bonds and closed her eyes. In the darkness of her mind, she tried to focus on the bear, channeling the energy and focus. If she were to shift now, it would have to be quick, not the gradual sloughing off of the human part of her, as was her habit. Instantaneous.
“That’s…” she felt tears sliding off her eyes, blinding her, “…I’m sorry.”
That caught his attention. “Sorry… for what? Sarah… why are you crying?”
“I love you, too,” she whispered, and took in a sharp intake of air.
If Dylan had predicted or seen through what Sarah was planning, she would never know, but she heard him cry out her name and struggle against the ropes again. The muscles in his arms aching against them. “Sarah! Stop!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The small candle in her mind became brighter, filling her vision. I love you Dylan, she repeated, preparing to cast off her human form, still painfully aware of the sharp stakes moving closer to her throat. Sarah! Another voice, not Dylan’s, it shuddered against her skull, less a voice than a presence, one which she recognized almost as well.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. The candle was snuffed out in an instant as she looked up the slope and saw a dread brown shape cutting through the foliage like a hair lawnmower, his muzzle raised and open, fangs glistening. Chris was fully in form and seemed oblivious to their warning, even as Dylan and Sarah shouted at his lumbering form to stay away. There was no comprehension in those black eyes, only a directive that seemed to drive him forward, even as Sarah saw one of the poachers, skinny and wiry under his
camo, the one who’d probably lured him here, standing up on one knee and leveling his rifle. Where the other one had gotten to she couldn’t guess, but she screamed until it broke her throat, but still Chris came.
He was less than twenty feet from them when the first shot went off, and Chris’ eyes went wide and some invisible force tried to push him sideways. A confused look spread on his face and he barked at the assailants hidden in the cover of ferns, even as a second shot nipped at his heels.
It took less than a second for Chris to make it to the tree, and he drew one heavy hand down the trunk, breaking the ropes neatly. Dylan and Sarah collapsed to the ground, both trying desperately to rid themselves of the collar.
“Chris, run! Run, goddamit!” Dylan was shouting.
The bear simply grumbled, almost as if playfully mocking his pupil, and turned around on all fours, putting himself like a giant barrier between the two poachers and his island-family. Arthur was standing now and reloading his rifle, which had jammed, while ten feet away perched on a mound of rocks that gave him a vantage, Kyle was aiming again.
“Dylan, we have to go!” Sarah screamed at him, plying the collar off her neck and chucking it away like it was a leech. “C’mon, Chris!”
The bear held his position, anchored to the ground with his burly tree-trunk paws that seemed to be rooted to the soil. His large hump on his back rose, bristling with fur, even as he maneuvered himself to block any incoming shots. Dylan must have seen the resolve in his old friend’s eyes because he was up in an instant, wiping dried blood off his chin and grabbing Sarah’s hand and pulling her back into the woods, trying to put some distance (and trees) between them and the poachers.
“But Chris!” she said, trying to fight back.
Behind them she could see the first poacher, the ugly one with the knife, level a shot. She couldn’t tell if it hit Chris or not. There wasn’t any movement, just a low thrumming growl that followed into the tree branches. The other poacher was nowhere to be seen, and suddenly, Chris turned at last, barreling down one of the side paths, only the snap of twigs and branches under his paws to signal his whereabouts.
Dylan took a sharp right, heading back toward the cabin. Something in Sarah’s periphery glinted and she had just enough time to push her right leg forward, crashing into Dylan’s back and sending them both hurtling onto the path. The sound of a bullet whizzed over their heads, inches above them, shattering a small moss-covered stone beside them. Too close. The other hunter must have been trying to cut them off.
“Up,” Sarah said.
The two of them ran again but somehow they both knew it was useless. Another shot rang out, cracking into a cedar tree beside them with a gaping hole in the trunk and both Sarah and Dylan stopped dead in their tracks and slowly raised their hands. That shot had missed them on purpose – the next wouldn’t.
“Turn around,” they heard a gruff voice.
The other poacher had a sallow look to him, indented cheeks, like the skin had been shrink-wrapped over him. There was the same hard edge to him though, a trained and calculating killer. The rifle was pointed at Dylan, who merely sneered back at him.
“If you let us go right now, you might have a chance,” Dylan warned.
“I have the gun, you have shit,” the poacher retorted, “now turn around. You, boy, it’s the end for you. Girl, move aside.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Collect what we came for. He’s not… not human. He’s a bloody goddamned monster. Turn around I said! I don’t want you looking at me for this,” he commanded, bracing the rifle. “As for you, girl, you stay quiet… maybe we’ll have a use for you.”
Sarah realized what he was planning and took a step in front, opening her arms wide. The poacher hesitated only for a moment. “You’ll have to kill both of us.”
Dylan pulled her aside by both shoulders. “No,” he hissed. “Sarah… listen…”
“I’m not going to let him shoot you!” she half-screamed.
“He’ll kill us both, now stop!” he shouted at her. No, he was no longer a boy at all. There was fear in his voice but the fear wasn’t rooted in self-preservation, or in the expectation of pain, it had elevated itself to something outside of himself: he was terrified for her.
She started to cry, clutching at his jacket, which had ripped in their escape. “No… I’m not… I’m not going to let…” she pleaded, her cheeks scrunched up, tears rolling hot against her skin, and Dylan embraced her, pulling her head under his chin.
“You run… when I tell you, you run,” he whispered through her hair.
“I won’t leave you,” she insisted, but the strength had left her.
“C’mon! Move, back away, or I’ll put a bullet in both of you. Move!” the poacher said gesturing with the barrel of the gun. His face had gone a clammy kind of pale, but Dylan had no doubt that the killer had little compunction about pulling the trigger, whatever part of him that was human had been overwhelmed by the hunt.
Dylan himself had known that kind of pure unbridled instinct. But he had never let it control him so deftly. I’m going to die, he realized, and gently disentangled himself from Sarah’s arms, even as she pulled at him with her fingers.
“No,” Sarah pleaded.
The poacher raised his gun and cocked the trigger as Dylan threw Sarah aside in one harsh movement, causing her to stagger back a few steps and give his murderer an opportunity. He closed his eyes, waiting for the shot.
“You should have listened to him,” Sarah said in a low gravelly voice that didn’t belong to her. It was full of contempt, a bitter rind of syllables that couldn’t have come from such a sweet mouth. Even the poacher arched his eyebrows, confused by the ice in her tone.
Her shoulders were hunched, and her head drooped toward him, eyes thin as shards of flint.
“Shut up!” the poacher said.
Sarah twisted her head. “You might’ve had a chance… but now…”
“Shut up,” he pointed the gun at her instead.
She didn’t move an inch, merely smiled, a cunning smile that cut her lips like a sickle. “If you’re going to shoot something, then shoot. The problem with you,” she paused for half an instant, “is that you talk too much. Missed your chance.”
He was obviously puzzled by her words but there was no time for contemplation. It was all over in an instant. A brown blur flashed behind him, scattering leaves and twigs and neatly severing his head from his neck. Dylan gaped, trying to reconcile the imagery of the poacher’s last expression as his head sailed through the air, landing with an unceremonious thud against the rocks on the path. His trunk staggered, arms going limp as laundry, and the gun clattered uselessly onto the ground. Bright spurts of arterial blood jutted from his neck and drooled down the front of the camo outfit.
The edges of the neck were frayed and the image of an overused rubber eraser on a pencil entered Dylan’s mind. The comparison almost made him sick, even as the corpse plummeted to its knees and landed on its chest. The fingers on the poacher’s right hand pulsed, twitching in the last of his death throes, and more blood clotted against the path.
Less a bear than a shape conjured from the forest itself, Chris plodded from the bushes behind, each movement of his paws an effort that seemed to waste him further away. Blood was stained on his fur in several places and his claws were dark with the ichor.
He turned his head toward Dylan and there was a look of amiable reticence, as if the old bear wanted to say something aloud but had lost the ability to enunciate it in any meaningful way. He simply growled and butted up against Dylan’s leg.
“You pirate, you,” Dylan gasped, rubbing the bear’s head.
“You saved us again,” Sarah breathed, collapsing to her knees and trying to avoid looking at the corpse – or the severed head – which had become dumb as any other artifact on the island.
”He’s hurt, Sarah,” Dylan spoke over the bear’s head, “I think… I think badly. I don’t…”
CRACK.
Sarah ducked, plucking the fallen rifle from the ground even as she rolled to one side and flattened her back against a tree. Can’t get one fucking break, she wanted to scream. It was like a bad joke, some ironic twist of fate that had to keep them on their toes, except she wasn’t laughing. Dylan staggered back as well, trying to coax the monstrous weight of Chris against a sheltering pile of stone and fallen logs.
“Shit! Can you see him?” he shouted across to Sarah.
In her hands, the rifle felt like a toy, large and unwieldly. She’d been trained in the use of firearms but to actually have one gripped against her chest, and the sudden impetus to actually use it against a living creature, a human no less, was too overwhelming. She peered around the trunk, her dark doe eyes scanning the terrain, looking for any color, any movement, that did not seem to belong. A glint of sunlight peeked out at her from under two moss-covered logs and she pulled her head back in just as another rifle round clipped the edge of her tree trunk.
“He can see me,” she snarled, and pulled her knees up. The rifle was a Remington, bolt-action. What she would have given for a semi-automatic. Even a .22. With a bolt action she would have to reload manually each time to eject the empty shell. A good weapon if you were following a prey that didn’t know you were there. For a shoot-off like this, it was a distinct disadvantage.
“Can you shoot?” Dylan asked. He was crouched over Chris, still in bear form. The stubborn man refused, even now when he was bleeding from at least two other bullet wounds, to revert to human form. As long as he stayed in bear form, his healing powers were magnified, but it must have been sheer agony.
She nodded in response, and checked the clip. Ten shots. Ten chances. She cocked back on the lever and shoved another of the large copper bullets into the barrel. Dylan was still watching her, and when she nodded some unspoken accord signaling him, he stood up quickly, waving his arms and giving a loud whoooeee.
He ducked down again, just in time to miss being scalped by an errant shot by the poacher. He hasn’t moved on his hide, she realized. He was used to hunting prey that didn’t think like a human. He should have switched his position the moment he missed her but he’d chosen the same spot.