by Amy Star
“Is it going to happen soon?” she wondered, words partially muffled as she yawned behind one hand.
“Soon enough,” Zeke replied as he started tugging off his shoes. He tossed them into the back seat of the car, and his socks and his belt followed.
“What do you even need to pack to turn into a bear?” Charlie wondered, as Zeke unbuttoned his shirt.
He shrugged the garment off and tossed it into the car. “‘Just in case’ supplies, mostly. The timing of it is never perfectly exact. So occasionally I’ll leave with what I think should be plenty of time, only to basically throw myself out of the car and immediately transform once I park. It’s not great for seams, so I make sure to bring some spare clothes, just in case.”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Does that mean you’ve had to drive home naked before? Because you turned into a bear when you weren’t expecting it and your clothes exploded?”
Zeke cleared his throat and glanced away, busying himself with unbuttoning and then unzipping his pants. He continued to not answer the question as he let his pants fall around his ankles and stepped out of them, and as he tossed them into the car, Charlie was pretty sure she wasn’t getting an answer. She figured that sort of counted as an answer all on its own, though.
By the time Zeke was standing in just his boxer briefs, the sun was just a line of gold along the horizon and most of the sky was a dusty silver-purple color. The moon was clearly visible, and the first of the stars were beginning to creep out, just distant pinpricks of light hiding in the purple haze.
He seemed antsy, but Charlie supposed she would too, if she knew she was going to turn into an animal at any moment, whether she wanted to or not.
She could tell when it was about to happen when at last Zeke slid his underwear down his thighs and let them fall to the ground so he could step out of them. He tossed them into the car and then pulled the keys from the ignition and tossed them to Charlie.
“Typically, I just leave them there, since I have nowhere to hold them.” He gestured down at himself, and while Charlie hadn’t somehow missed that he was naked, she took a moment to give him a once over, anyway. “But since you’re here this time, I may as well take advantage of that.”
Charlie held a hand up like a scout. “I promise to do my best not to toss them into a ravine somewhere,” she swore earnestly.
Zeke rolled his eyes, but other than that he offered no reply, instead looking skywards at the moon.
Charlie could see his pupils dilate, it happened that quickly. And while the transformation didn’t look any different from when she watched it in his penthouse and it still wasn’t the violent, gory process that most fiction had led her to believe it would be, it seemed sharper somehow. Less like something he was simply succumbing to and more like something being ripped from him.
He shook his head once, short and quick, and stumbled forward two steps. He pitched forward as if he was toppling downwards, and by the time he was on all fours, he had changed shape entirely.
He shook his head again, and his ears swiveled and his nostrils flared for a moment. He turned to look over his shoulder at Charlie, and it seemed like there was something expectant about the motion before he turned and began to lumber into the woods, gradually leaving the car behind. Charlie hurried to jog after him, stuffing the car keys into her pocket as she did.
The sounds of the road had still been slightly audible from the parking lot, but once they were well and truly in the woods, surrounded by trees and shrubs and ferns in all directions, it seemed as if the world shrank until it consisted of nothing but those woods. The traffic sounds vanished, muffled by the leaves and branches, and it seemed as if the world consisted of no one but her and Zeke.
She jogged at his side as he lumbered, looking around curiously at everything as they moved. While she wasn’t going to say she had never been in the woods before—that would be absurd—it wasn’t exactly a common turn of events for her. More often than not, her corner of the suburbs was about as far out of the city as she got.
More than anything, the smell was what she couldn’t get over. She didn’t think the city smelled bad—she had largely adapted to it after so many years—but out in the woods, with cars rapidly just turning into a distant memory, everything smelled so fresh, as if with each breath, she wouldn’t ever need to breathe again. It was a ridiculous thought and she knew that, but it brought a smile to her face regardless.
She glanced ahead as Zeke’s lumbering picked up in pace slightly, and she could see a stream ahead. Or rather, she could hear it. It was at the bottom of a shallow ravine so actually seeing it was a bit of a challenge just then.
As they got closer, Charlie leaned over the edge of the ravine, expecting to see little more than a narrow creek. She found, instead, that it was nearly six feet across and happily babbling as quickly as it could. Not a river, no, but still more freely flowing water than she was accustomed to seeing all at once. She prodded Zeke’s shoulder as they came to a halt beside the water. “Dare you to jump in.”
Watching a bear roll his eyes would never not be weird, probably.
Zeke moseyed down the side of the ravine just far enough to get a drink, before he simply swanned across the stream to climb up the other side. Slowly, Charlie looked around for a log or a rock or something to cross with. Upon seeing nothing, and looking up to see Zeke watching her expectantly from the other bank, she heaved a sigh and reluctantly waded across the stream. It only came up to her mid-thighs, but even so, she felt compelled to chant, “Cold, cold, cold,” under her breath the entire way across.
Zeke sneezed out a noise that sounded suspiciously like it was supposed to be a laugh and Charlie watched him with narrow eyes as he turned away from the water and continued on his way into the woods.
*
Truth be told, Charlie had been expecting the night to be a bit more exciting. But Zeke hadn’t been kidding; he really wasn’t any different than he usually was, beyond that fact that he wasn’t electing to be bear-shaped. Sure, he found the remains of a deer at one point and turned it into dinner, but considering he was a bear, it wasn’t exactly strange, it was just sort of gross, and Charlie stared fixedly in a different direction as he ate.
More than anything, though, there was just a lot of walking. Charlie couldn’t complain, though. She liked the sights, and Zeke was good company, even if he couldn’t say anything. If nothing else, he didn’t mind Charlie’s running commentary on everything they passed, and if the way his ears kept twitching in her direction was any indication, he was listening pretty intently.
Being a bear, however, was evidently pretty tiring. A few hours into the night, Zeke found a comfortable spot on the ground, shoved some rocks and branches out of the way with his nose and his front paws, and then flopped down on the cleared patch of ground, laying his head on one front paw as he did. Charlie sat down beside him largely on autopilot, though she couldn’t help but to sigh, “Really?” as he closed his eyes. He snorted at her but otherwise ignored her protestations.
Well, if she couldn’t beat him, she may as well join him. As he got comfortable and fell asleep, Charlie leaned back against his shoulder, slumping down against his side and folding her arms.
Bears, as it turned out, were very warm. Charlie shifted slightly, and though Zeke snuffled in his sleep, he was still sound asleep when she glanced towards his face. His ears twitched, and Charlie covered her mouth with one hand to keep from laughing.
She was pretty comfortable, all things considered. Zeke was large enough that he was a pretty functional couch. And maybe that should have told Charlie something, that she was sitting in the middle of the woods, leaning against a gigantic bear without any fear of him hurting her, and she was comfortable.
She breathed out a quiet laugh and tipped her head back against Zeke’s shoulder to look up at the sky, at the glimpses of velvet black and scattered pinpoints of light through the leaves.
Yeah, it wasn’t so bad. She could ge
t used to it. Pretty easily, in fact. Maybe she really had lucked out.
Even so, she could only sit on the ground and contemplate her circumstances for so long before boredom began to set in, and soon enough, she levered herself back to her feet. She paused long enough to make sure Zeke wasn’t going to wake up, glancing down at him briefly. She had a sudden urge to pet his head like a large dog, but she wasn’t sure if he would appreciate that, so she held the urge in check for the moment and instead simply turned away and started walking ahead.
Somehow, in and amongst everything else that had happened that day, Charlie had forgotten for a little while that Zeke was not the only were-bear that she knew. After all, Richard had more or less been keeping his distance once it became apparent that Charlie had no intentions of being anywhere alone or easy to get to. He had slipped her mind almost entirely, and so it didn’t occur to her that if Zeke had to transform, then Richard had to transform as well, and he would most likely go to a similar place. Zeke had, after all, admitted that he had picked this particular forest mostly for its convenience. His fondness for it had developed later.
So Charlie didn’t think much of it when she moseyed away along the nearest trail. It wasn’t like she was going to get lost. She could just follow the trail back to Zeke in a little while. He was the size of a rhinoceros; he wasn’t exactly hard to spot. If nothing else, if she did somehow manage to get lost, then he would notice that she was gone and come find her once he woke up from his nap.
She just wanted to get a few pictures with her phone. With everything cast in dappled silver light as the full moon’s light fell through the leaves, it felt like she was in some sort of fairytale, and she would be crazy to let the opportunity pass her by. She strolled along the path, taking pictures of anything that caught her eyes as she walked.
When she heard the sound of shrubs rustling nearby, she didn’t think much of it. Plenty of things lived in the woods. There was no hunting allowed; it was a wildlife paradise, for the most part. She had probably startled a deer. Granted, a deer in the moonlight would look pretty amazing, so she slowed to a halt and turned to look.
It was when the bushes continued rustling towards her that she began to find it rather strange. Most wild animals would never just saunter on up to a person unless they were seriously ill. But when a blocky head with a long snout parted the branches, she sighed in relief. It quickly turned to annoyance. Why couldn’t he just take the path? Did he really need to sneak up on her? “Zeke—”
She closed her mouth with a click, falling abruptly silent as she made one very important realization.
The bear in front of her did not have green eyes. In fact, his eyes were rather startlingly blue.
She realized what was happening just in time for the beast in front of her to open his mouth, jaws gaping open as he surged towards her. She threw herself to the side, tossing herself out of the way and catching herself on a tree trunk before she could lose her footing, because she knew that would quite literally be the death of her. She heard the birch sapling that had been behind her snap and go toppling to the ground as the bear crashed into it. Hardly slowed, he rounded on her in an instant.
Charlie scrambled out of the way, heaving herself away from the tree trunk and using that momentum to launch herself straight into a sprint. She stuck to the path, knowing that going through the underbrush would likely slow Richard to some extent, but also knowing that it would slow her even more, and she couldn’t afford that.
Instead, she kept an eye open for low hanging branches as she pelted headlong down the trail, Richard loping after her, slowed by how narrow the trail was but steadily gaining ground on her.
But there, just up ahead, there was a tree with a drooping branch. It was partially broken, but she only needed it to support her weight for a moment. She reached up as it came into range, wrapped her hands around it, and hauled herself upwards. The branch creaked and the bark flaked, but once she was on top of it, she immediately reached up and scrambled up to the next branch up. The partially broken branch snapped and dropped to the ground as she pushed off of it, leaving her legs dangling for a second before she hoisted herself onto the second branch.
Without wasting any time, she dragged herself up to the next branch as Richard reared back onto his hind legs, bracing his front paws against the trunk of the tree and snapping at her heels as she dragged her legs up, out of reach.
She knew she couldn’t relax—Richard was shaped like a bear, but he still had a standard human intellect crammed into that head along with all that malevolence and he would likely think of a way to get to her eventually—but there was also nowhere for her to go. The next branch up was out of her reach, and if she tried to shimmy up the trunk, she was positive she would fall off and land right in Richard’s lap.
She cast about wildly, flinching as Richard threw his weight against the tree, the branches trembling and sending leaves raining down around her. With his next attempt, as he craned his neck towards her, he came alarmingly close to reaching her. Hardly even thinking at that point, Charlie pulled the car keys out of her pocket and stabbed with them, and Richard recoiled with a snarl as she jabbed him straight in the left eye. He stumbled back down to the ground, and Charlie kept clutching the keys in one trembling fist.
Richard was only on the ground long enough to shake his head and paw at his face. He circled around the tree once and then threw his weight against it again. Bark fell away, striking the ground with a sound like rain. He hurled himself at it once again, and Charlie clutched the branch she was sitting on when she heard an ominous crack from below her.
Considering that, she didn’t notice the comparably much quieter sound of the underbrush snapping and rustling. Not until Richard abruptly ground to a halt, his head snapping to one side. His ears swiveled back to press against his head and he bared his teeth, just in time for Zeke to come barreling out of the woods. He tackled Richard clear across the path and they landed in a scrabbling heap of fur and snapping teeth. Charlie stared at them, transfixed, and slowly gathered her legs close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, huddling in the crook where the branch met the trunk of the tree.
Zeke bounded back a pace at last, and he and Richard circled for a moment, eying each other carefully and sizing each other up. Zeke backed off for a second, only to barrel forwards again, coming at Richard from his left, where everything was presumably at least a bit fuzzy from being jabbed in the eye.
Richard toppled as Zeke crashed into him, but he twisted away enough to at least get his hind legs between the two of them, kicking rapidly and forcing Zeke to back off again or else he would most likely wind up disemboweled.
Richard scrambled back to his feet, pausing to glance over his shoulder at the tree where Charlie was still huddled on the branch, only for his attention to snap back to Zeke, as Zeke snagged his left ear in his teeth and shook his head, tearing straight through Richard’s ear.
With a growl, Richard backed off, glancing between Zeke and the tree as he did, before he finally turned away and sprinted away, following the trail for only a few moments before he ducked back into the underbrush and gradually disappeared into the woods.
Zeke watched him leave until he disappeared, eyes narrow, until he was sure Richard wasn’t coming back. Finally, he sagged towards the ground slightly as he heaved a sigh. He made his way over to Charlie’s tree and reared up onto his hind legs, bracing his front legs on the trunk carefully. It made an uncomfortable cracking noise, but it held up, and he prodded at Charlie’s shoe with his nose.
Slowly, moving with sharp, mechanical motions, Charlie uncoiled from her shuddering huddle. She shuffled along the branch and reached down to wrap her arms around Zeke’s neck. Slowly, she hitched one leg over him and dragged her other leg over to join the first, and carefully, Zeke lowered himself back to the ground with Charlie on his back.
She dropped down to the ground once again, stumbling as she landed, though Zeke turned his head to catch her befo
re she could fall.
For a moment, all they did was stare at each other, until Charlie threw her arms around Zeke’s neck again, buried her face against his fur, and sobbed. After a second, he ducked his head to lean his muzzle against her back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Not much else happened for the rest of the night after that. Zeke sat down on the ground and Charlie crowded close to him, and they stayed right there for hours until finally Zeke prodded her with his nose into standing up and he began to lead the way back to the car. Charlie jumped at every noise, as if every rustling branch and snapping twig would turn out to be Richard, barreling through the underbrush at her once again.
By the time they made it back to the parking lot the sun was only just beginning to creep up over the eastern horizon, so it was just a line of molten gold in the distance. They sat in silence until the sun began to climb the sky in earnest, and finally Zeke shifted back to his human shape. The silence lingered even after that as he pulled his clothes out of the back seat of the car and got dressed.