“The window!”
Harvey ran to the window and threw it open. He stuck his head out to make sure the front of the cabin was clear. “Okay, Amy, go! Hurry!” Harvey handed her the flare gun case and he scooped her up in a cradle carry. Weaving her legs through the open window, it was easy for Amy to slither out into the front of the cabin. Amy was riddled with nerves, knowing herself to be suddenly vulnerable to that killer bear, out in the open, exposed.
Harvey climbed out, took the flare gun case, and led Amy to the SUV. He slid the side door open. “Get in, wait for Camden.” Amy did as she was told, waiting for Camden in the back of the SUV while Harvey climbed into the driver’s seat.
There was a terrible clamor from the other side of the cabin, but no loud human screams. Amy asked furtively, “What do we do?”
“We wait, like he told us.” Harvey hit the engine, but a few hard grinds suggested the worst.
“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, goddamnit! Get off my back, woman!”
Another try finally turned the engine over, rumbling, ready for a quick getaway. Every impulse was to run around to the back of the cabin. Something was happening back there and Amy’s legs were straining to take her back there while there was still time, before the bear tore Camden Adams to pieces. Amy didn’t care about her own life, but she knew if she ran for it, she was just as likely to screw things up, perhaps get herself and Camden killed in the bargain. Harvey was right, all she could do was wait and hope and pray.
And be ready when Camden came through that window in the front of the cabin.
Or the bear did.
Chapter 31
Camden
Once Camden had stepped into full view, halfway between the side of the cabin and the front door, the bear lurched out from behind the SUV. It roared as it charged, teeth white and gums pink, lips curling as it opened its gaping maw.
Camden held his ground, jabbing at the bear with the thicker, broken end of the branch. The bear roared and swatted at the branch, even as he tried to jab her in the eye or the mouth, the snout. He knew he couldn’t hurt the creature, but he was hoping to be able to annoy it enough to scare the thing off. But he knew the risk was that he would only enrage it further, drive it to a vicious and probably lethal attack.
The bear kept swatting, growling and grunting while Camden jabbed at her face. He managed to drive the bear back a few steps, but the bear finally clamped her jaws around the torn branch, a tight grip that he could feel all the way down the branch. She pulled and her strength surprised him. He’d never been so close to something so strong, and he knew she would make quick work of him if she had the chance.
But he was also the best line of defense to secure Amy’s safe passage, that was his mission, and he would not fail, no matter what the cost.
The bear finally managed to pull the branch out of Camden’s grip. He turned scrambling to draw the bear toward him as planned. But the animal was much closer than he'd anticipated, and he was already halfway around the side of the cabin and then around the corner before he could call out, “Now, get outta there!”
But the only response was the bear’s, a bloodthirsty growl that was getting louder fast. His heart was pounding, his mouth dry. He knew what kind of death came at the paws of an angry bear, and that the black bear was no longer the docile cousin of the extinct California Grizzly. Skulls were gnawed, guts eaten out of living victims while they screamed out their last breaths, pleading for the release of death that didn’t seem merciful enough to come. These animals had been emboldened, angered by encroachment on their natural territory, lured into contact with man by garbage cans and careless pets.
But there was no time to think or to worry, only to run toward that opened window and hope he could get through it before the bear could grab hold and pull him back out.
Camden leaped into the opened window face-first, arms pointing forward over his head to narrow his naturally broad shoulders as he launched himself through the opening. But his thick, chiseled torso stopped short against the jab, his tight gut hitting the sill and slowing his progress. Camden reached out but found nothing to grab a hold of, no way to pulling himself back into the cabin.
He braced his hands against the jab to push himself in and away from the bear’s grip, just seconds too late.
The bear grabbed his ankle with her powerful jaws, teeth ripping through his flesh and into his bone. He clenched his jaws tight, silencing his own scream to prevent alerting Harvey and Amy from either coming back into the cabin or just driving away.
Camden kicked the bear with his other foot, landing blow after blow against the bear’s face, pain shooting up his other leg as the bear clamped down, tighter and tighter with every kick from his other foot.
Then the bear began to pull, and he had nothing to grasp onto, no way to stop the bear from pulling him out and gutting him right here and then.
Another few kicks didn’t help, but his hands reached out and found the jab of the window, pushing against the wood to keep from being pulled out of the window. He kicked again and again with his free foot, finally landing a shot in the creature’s eye, her only vulnerable spot. The bear lost her bite on his foot just long enough for him to pull free and topple into the cabin, blood pouring out of his ankle.
Camden stumbled across the cabin, the enraged bear peaked by the taste of human blood. It roared as it tried to push itself through the window, far too small for its mammoth frame. The animal wailed out its frustration as it clapped its jaws, mouth gaping wider, teeth flashing as it pushed its way toward him, inch by fateful inch. He knew it was only a matter of time before the animal breached the window and made it into the cabin.
He pushed himself to his feet, pain rocketing up his leg with the slightest bit of pressure. Those long fangs had dug deep into his bones, a bite meant to deliver excruciating pain and render any prey vulnerable to the death stroke which both knew would come, sooner rather than later.
Camden staggered to the front door and pulled, but the door didn’t give. He gave it a push and the door wouldn’t budge. Another few hard pulls at the door convinced him of what his instincts were already screaming at him.
The bear jammed the door up!
Another glance at the opened window near the door told him where Amy and Harvey had gone, and what his only avenue of escape could be. Camden hobbled to the window and winced as he pushed his wounded leg out and to the outside. He lowered his head down to push through the opened window.
Wooden cracks and shattered glass told him what his head needed to see to confirm. The bear pushed through the window as it crumbled around her. But her massive black body spilled into the cabin like a flood, like the inevitable onslaught of the natural world.
Like fate, like grim death.
He toppled out of the window and rolled away from the cabin just as the bear hit the second window, its tremendous head and neck lurching out of the opening, desperate to consume something, anything … someone, anyone.
Amy ran out of the vehicle and wrapped her arms around Camden to help him up. “Get back in the SUV,” he rasped at her.
“Not without you!”
The bear screamed out to interrupt her anger and rage to devour them, inching its bulk through the second window with a bit more experience, a bit more knowledge, knowledge it was about to use to deadly effect.
Amy and Camden pushed up off the ground and staggered to the SUV while Harvey slid the side door open from inside. Camden and Amy toppled in and Harvey slammed the door, clicking just as the cabin wall gave to the bear’s insistent weight and pressure. Wood creaked and splintered, more glass shattered and the bear toppled out of the shattered cabin, not far from the vulnerable SUV.
The engine already running, Harvey behind the wheel. There was just barely time to throw the vehicle into gear and back away in a scrambling skid away from the cabin, the bear throwing its massive paw at the vehicle in a desperate bid to prevent their escape.
; Crunch!
They skid a bit to the side but kept rolling backward, engine growling. But the vehicle had sustained an injury to its driver’s side wheel, and it was limping heavily, able to go only so fast, especially driving backward.
And the bear was chasing them, on all fours and gaining ground quickly.
Chapter 32
Amy
“Faster,” Amy shouted, Camden in her embrace in the back of the SUV, the bear still closing in on them.
“We’ll spin out,” Harvey said, head out the window to watch the road behind them as he drove the SUV backward down the mountain road, the bear chasing with ruthless determination. The vehicle wobbled, drive unsteady, transmission shaky, but Amy was ready to attribute that to the backward trajectory and the bad mountain road. And Amy knew Harvey was right; they could only go so fast, and they were already dangerously close to passing the point of no return.
The bear veered off the road and into the woods, a beleaguered growl ringing out as that massive black figure disappeared into the woods. Harvey kept driving backward, finally coming to a wider portion of the gravel road, suitable to turn around.
Harvey stopped and began jostling the transmission, into drive for a few inches forward before dipping dangerously close to toppling forward, then into reverse to pull the SUV back and to the side. Once back as far as Harvey dare go, he pulled forward again, craning the wheel hard to the side.
Back and forth, back and forth, they seemed to make precious little progress. Amy shouted, “Can’t you hurry up?”
“I’m doing my best,” Harvey sneered, muttering, Amy looked out the window, scanning the woods, nothing to indicate where the bear was, how close, what it was planning. But the creature had ducked behind the SUV to ambush Camden, so it was a hunter with keen intelligence and the ability to plan, to strategize, to prevail.
Amy looked down at Camden, who was getting pale fast. She looked down to see blood pulsing out of his mangled ankle, and knew instantly that he was bleeding out.
“Keep driving,” she shouted.
Harvey screamed back, “What the hell else am I gonna do?” But when Amy pulled her T-shirt off, Harvey said, “Oh, right,” before turning his attention back to the steering wheel and muttering, “keep driving.”
Harvey finally got pointed in the right direction and hit the gas, but the SUV was still going slowly, a jarring and staggered gait.
“Faster,” Amy said, “what’s the matter?”
“Drivetrain, I think,” Harvey said. “This is about as fast as we can go without losing the wheel altogether.”
Amy turned her attention to Camden, looking up at her with a weakening expression, eyelids heavy. Amy tore the T-shirt down the middle on one side, then another tear down the center of the other side. Leaving one end out, she wrapped one strip tight around Camden’s leg, the big man flinching as Amy pulled it hard and tied off the end.
“You’ll make someone a very lucky man,” Camden said, Amy smiled and said nothing. “And someday, a mother, so loving and protective, so strong … ” Amy said nothing of the little pang she’d felt deep in her gut after their last orgasm together. She almost felt that she should, that she owed it to him, that perhaps it could make a difference to his survival with all his blood loss.
Amy wrapped the second strip of the shirt around the first, tying off the wound with even more efficiency. “I think you’ll be all right if we can get you to a hospital soon. But you’ve lost a lot of blood, Camden, and this isn’t much more than a Band-Aid.”
“I’ll be all right,” he said lazily, head lolling on the jittery floor of the crippled SUV. “As long as I have you.”
Amy paused, but knew her next question had to be asked, though she was dreading the answer. “Is … is that just part of the act?”
Camden looked up at her, a shadow of guilt tracing his expression. He knew as well as she did that they’d begun playing roles, as vital to one as to the other. But things had changed over the course of those two days, at least they had for Amy, she couldn't deny it and she wouldn’t deny it.
But will Camden confess it?
Camden said, “The blood is real, my heart is real, my love is real.” She leaned down and shared a tender kiss with him, despite the jittery ride of the injured SUV and Camden’s fading faculties, their connection was pure and strong and simple, a quiet moment in the chaos, an oasis of tranquility in a world gone mad.
The vehicle jostled hard as the bear charged again, having appeared from out of the woods and marshaled its strength for another assault.
Chapter 33
Amy
The vehicle jostled around them, she and Camden rolling hard to the side. Amy righted herself as quickly as she could and bolted back to Camden, pushing himself up to relieve the pressure on his injured leg.
“Are you okay, Camden?”
“Fine, I’m fine.” He grimaced, and turned his head and shouted, “Step on it, Harvey!”
“It won’t go any faster!”
The bear hit the side of the SUV again, even harder than the first time. They werved hard, very close to dipping into the trench on the other side of the road, the woods stretching out on both sides. Harvey wrestled with the steering wheel, shooting furtive looks at the bear while he returned his attention to the road, back and forth.
“Shit, man, shit,” he called out, “that thing won’t leave us alone!”
“Ram it,” Camden said.
“Right, right!” Harvey looked back and ahead, judging the bear’s proximity. He took a sharp turn to the right and then another sharp left kept them on the road. Harvey tried again, a dull thump on the side of the vehicle telling Amy and the men that their SUV was no good as a weapon, defensive or otherwise.
The bear, on the other hand, was better equipped and getting angrier by the second.
Amy shouted, “Where’s the flare gun? Shoot it with the flare gun!”
The bear roared out what sounded like a pooling of its angry energy before another hard ram hit them from the side. The vehicle jostled again, a hard swerve to the left that almost tipped them over.
It was Harvey’s overcorrection to the right which caused them to tip over. At first, it seemed to happen in slow motion. Amy leaned hard to the right as the SUV tipped around her, holding Camden down as the tilting vehicle reached that point of perfect balance on its two left tires. But the crash came hard and fast, Amy and Camden were thrown hard against the driver’s side. She hit her head hard, Camden falling with her, on top of her, all around her. Her ears were ringing, eyesight blurred and wobbly. The SUV finally skid to a halt across the mountain road, the windshield smashed, a light-blue slab of spiderweb cracks and tiny chunks held together by an invisible film.
Amy tried to push herself up, but her body was aching, her limbs intertwined with Camden’s.
“Camden? Camden!” But he was unconscious and laying on top of her, a new and bloody cut on his temple. Amy cradled his head, pushing his lids open to look into his eyes. “Shit! Camden! Come back to me, Camden!” But there was no reaching him. Amy tried to lean over to get a view of Harvey, who was also unconscious, on his back against the driver’s door window, body crumpled, legs folded over his crumpled torso. “Harvey! Harvey, where’s the flare gun?”
But the bear was the only responsive member of the group, and it was so excited by having brought down the vehicle that it seemed all the more determined to claim its prize. It could smell human blood inside, Camden’s blood, Amy was certain of it. It didn’t take much guesswork once the bear started circling them, sniffing and grunting. The battered SUV rolled a bit as the creature tested each side, looking for the easiest way in.
“Harvey, Camden, wake up!” But the two men lay there, both unconscious. Amy knew if she couldn’t rile the men, they’d both be killed, and she would likely be too. It didn’t matter because she wasn’t about to leave Camden behind. She didn’t want to live without him, and she wasn’t about to stand by and let him be devoured by that enra
ged creature.
Unfolding was a moment of her worst nightmares, the thing she feared most of all, being unwilling and unable to fight.
But everything had changed.
But as Amy tried to push herself up she realized she was pinned by Camden’s bigger, heavier frame, more than two hundred pounds of muscle and hard bone. But even that was no match for the bear, who had found a way into the SUV.
The shattered windshield pushed in with ease, then tore out without the slightest effort from the bear’s long, black claws.
Harvey was only then beginning to stir, groaning, his head lolling on the driver’s door window, his body folded above him. “Www … what the … ?”
“Harvey,” Amy shouted, “where’s the flare gun? We brought it, get it before — ”
But the bear’s roar cut her off, filling the SUV with volume and terror. Harvey screamed, Amy’s view obstructed by the driver’s seat. But she could see his kicking legs and his thrashing arms and head, swatting at the bear as it bit and grabbed at him. “No … no! Get off me, get off!” His high-pitched cries reverberated straight to Amy’s core, and she struggled with all her might to push Camden off her. Amy barely managed to push herself far enough to be able to peer out over the top of the seat and through the opened windshield to see the bear drag Harvey out into the road.
Terrible as it was, Amy couldn’t take her eyes off it.
Harvey screamed as he thrashed at the bear, its jaws clamped on his arm. He tried to yank it free, hissing his agony with every wrench, kicking and punching at the bear’s face until it finally let go. Harvey staggered back as the bear shook it off and advanced again.
Harvey tried to face the creature down, ducking one way and then the other, the bear second-guessing him, deciding where and when to strike. It seemed to know Harvey was helpless and useless, and ready for the taking, and he knew it too.
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