Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  She hadn’t let go of his finger. Now she pulled hard on it, twisting, grinding the bone. The date rapist yelped and dropped the stun gun. She had to let go of his finger to scoop up the stun gun, but that was an exchange she made gladly, because the SUV was veering to the curb and soon she’d have the driver to deal with.

  The date rapist clutched his injured hand to his chest but dropped his leg. She lifted herself on one knee and drove a kick hard to his unprotected groin. She felt the softness there and knew she’d made contact when he cried out wetly and curled himself up into a ball on his seat.

  She pivoted on the knee and jammed the stun gun into the back of the driver’s neck and held the trigger down for a long time. The smell of burning meat filled the air.

  The SUV was already slowing fast. The resultant electrical spasm made the driver stab the brake hard. The wheels locked and the tires grabbed at the asphalt.

  June was on her knees on the back seat and the change in inertia pitched her over the center console and into the dashboard, which did not feel good on her shoulder and arm. The cuffs were a problem but she kept her grip on the stun gun, managed to get her feet under her, and zapped the driver again, holding the contacts against his shirt until he went limp. When the truck finished lurching, she threw the gearshift into park, then reached over the back seat and zapped the curled-up date rapist hard through the shiny seat of his shitty suit. He jerked and cried out but he was jammed against the door and she held the arcing stun gun until he stopped struggling and the fabric started to blacken at the contact point. His bowels released and the smell made her gag.

  She popped the door and fell out of the car onto the empty sidewalk like waking from a nightmare, but forced herself to open the back door and reach into the date rapist’s pockets. It wasn’t easy with her hands bound, but that was the whole point after all. When she found the ugly little knife with a wicked-looking serrated blade, she immediately cut the plastic cuffs, then dropped the knife into her own pocket. He carried a gun in a shoulder holster, which she didn’t touch, and a wallet and ID folder in his suit coat pocket, which she took.

  The driver was moaning so she climbed back in the front and zapped him again in the chest. She left his gun, too, but his wallet was in his back pocket, and much harder to get to. She had to unbuckle his seat belt and open his door and spill him halfway into the street to take it.

  She wanted their wallets and IDs because she was an investigative journalist and she had experience with the power of knowledge. And she didn’t want these assholes to have the power of their fake IDs when the cops showed up. Leaving the guns would only make the situation more difficult for them to explain.

  By now there was considerable attention being paid to the big SUV, which had come to a screeching halt across two lanes of traffic onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing a low brick wall sheltering a parking lot. Cars were backed up and blocked by the part of the SUV still in the street, and people peered from their half-open doors.

  Through the dark abyss of receding adrenaline, June somehow retained the presence of mind to retrieve her bag. She dumped the wallets and stun gun inside, took out her Cubs hat, and pulled it down low over her eyes with shaking hands before choosing the fastest route off the street and walking away, wondering if she’d killed the date rapist and how many security cameras had captured her face.

  What the holy hell was going on?

  She ran down the service drive beside a car shop, threaded through the ragged plantings that bordered the parking lots, then across Independence to a sheltered mini-mall before allowing herself to walk shuddering into a little boutique called Glad Rags. She beelined to the restrooms in the back, collapsed into a stall with her bag on her lap, and allowed herself to dissolve into silent, convulsive tears.

  She only gave herself a few minutes, but it was all she needed. By the time she’d wiped her eyes on the backs of her wrists, rinsed her face, and reapplied her lip balm, her brain was fully engaged, her professional paranoia in high gear, and her anger like a cold iron bar.

  She was pissed.

  They had broken into her mother’s lab. They’d assaulted June on the street. She wasn’t sure if it was safe to talk to the police, or even where she might go after leaving the relative safety of the ladies’ room. Her mother’s house? Probably not. Her own place, all the way up in Seattle?

  If not there, where?

  She assembled a mental list of places to go, people to call. Then wondered if she’d be putting them in danger, too. Jesus Christ.

  Gathering her self-possession around her like a cloak, she walked back through the store, where she selected a sleek reversible fleece hoodie and a floppy straw gardening hat. If they were watching the security cameras, she could now make herself look like three or four different people.

  June’s crying jag had left her eyes red and puffy. The matronly saleswoman looked at her kindly as she approached the counter. “Dear, are you all right?”

  June had prepared herself for this question with several variations on the truth. “I just broke up with the most awful man,” she said. “He made it so difficult. I practically had to jump out of his car to get away.”

  “Oh, honey,” said the older woman, with such profound sympathy that June knew she had chosen the right way to tell the story. “Men are such complete fuckers, aren’t they?”

  “I’m done with them,” June said, pulling out her credit card. “Completely done.”

  “Like a fish needs a bicycle,” said the saleswoman with a secret smile as she rang up June’s purchases. “Honey, what kind of bag would you like?”

  “You know, I think I’ll just wear them,” said June. “Can I ask a favor? To tell you the truth, I’m a little afraid he’s outside right now. I really don’t want to run into him. Would it be all right if I went out the back?”

  She found an old mountain bike leaning unlocked against a railing, a gift fallen into her lap. She told herself she’d somehow get the bike back to the owner, knowing even then that it was a lie, and rode off just managing not to look over her shoulder.

  At her mother’s house, another official-looking black SUV squatted at the curb. June just kept pedaling. Luckily, her mom’s car had blocked the driveway, June had never found the keys, and she’d had to park her old Subaru wagon around the corner.

  She checked to see if her own keys were still in her bag, along with the rest of her professional existence. Notebook computer in a padded sleeve, phone, notepad, pens. She never left home without them.

  She leaned the bike against a low fence, got in her car, and drove quietly away.

  Where she was going, she had no idea.

  1

  When he rounded the curve on the narrow trail and saw the bear, Peter Ash was thinking about robbing a liquor store. Or a gas station, he was weighing his options.

  On foot with a pack on his back, he was as deep into old-growth redwood country as he could get. Although most of the original giants had been logged off decades before, there were still a few decent-sized protected areas along the California coast, with enough steep, tangled acreage to get truly lost. In the deep, damp drainage bottoms thick with underbrush, redwood trunks fifteen feet in diameter shot up into the mist like gnarled columns holding up the sky.

  But Peter hadn’t counted on the coastal fog. It had been constant for days. He couldn’t see more than a hundred feet in any direction, and it made the white static crackle and spark in the back of his head.

  It was the static that made him want to rob a liquor store.

  The closest one was at least a few days’ walk ahead of him, so the plan was still purely theoretical. But he was putting the pieces together in his mind.

  He didn’t want to use a weapon, because he was pretty sure armed robbery carried a longer sentence than he was willing to take. He didn’t want to go to actual prison, just the local jail, and only for a few da
ys. He’d settle for overnight. Although how he’d try to rob a liquor store without a visible weapon was a problem he hadn’t yet solved.

  He could put his hand inside a paper bag and pretend to be holding a gun. He’d probably have to hold something, to make it more realistic. Maybe a banana?

  Hell, now he was just embarrassing himself.

  Any respectable liquor store employee would just laugh at him. Hopefully they’d still call the cops, who would put him in the back of a squad car, then at least a holding cell. Maybe overnight, maybe for a few days. It was a calculated risk.

  The problem was these woods. They were so dense and dark, and the coastal cloud cover so thick and low, that he hadn’t seen the sky for weeks. The white static wouldn’t leave him alone, even out here, miles from so-called civilization. It pissed him off. He’d wanted to walk in this ancient forest for years. Now he was here in this green paradise and he couldn’t enjoy it.

  Peter Ash was tall and rangy, muscle and bone, nothing extra. His long face was angular, the tips of his ears slightly pointed, his dark hair an unruly shag. He had wide, knuckly hands and the thoughtful eyes of a werewolf a week before the change. Some part of him was always in motion—even now, hiking in the woods, his fingertips twitched in time to some interior metronome that never ceased.

  He’d been a Marine lieutenant in Iraq and Afghanistan, eight years and more deployments than he cared to remember. Boots on the ground, tip of the spear. He’d finished with his war two years before, but the war still wasn’t finished with him. It had left him with a souvenir. He called it the white static, an oddball form of post-traumatic stress that showed up as claustrophobia, an intense reaction to enclosed spaces.

  It hadn’t appeared until he was back home, just days from mustering out.

  At first, going inside a building was merely uncomfortable. He’d feel a fine-grained sensation at the back of his neck, like electric foam, a small battery stuck under the skin. If he stayed inside, it would intensify. The foam would turn to sparks, a crackling unease in his brainstem, a profound dissonance just at the edge of hearing. His neck would tense, and his shoulders would begin to rise as his muscles tightened. He’d look for the exits as his chest clamped up, and he’d begin to have trouble catching his breath. After twenty minutes, he’d be in a full-blown panic attack, hyperventilating, the fight-or-flight mechanism cranked up all the way.

  Mostly, he’d chosen flight.

  He’d spent over a year backpacking all over the West, trying to let himself get back to normal. But it hadn’t worked. He’d finally forced himself outside his comfort zone to help some friends the year before, and it had gotten a little better. He’d thought he was making progress. But they’d gone back to their lives and Peter had gone off on his own again, and something had happened. Somehow he’d lost the ground he’d gained.

  Lost so much ground that even walking through the foggy redwoods in the spring was enough to get the static sparking in his head.

  Which is why he was contemplating the best way to get himself locked up. Get this shit out of his system once and for all.

  He wasn’t thinking it was a good idea.

  Then he saw the bear.

  • • •

  IT WAS ABOUT THIRTY YARDS ahead of him, just downslope from the narrow trail that wound along the flank of the mountain.

  At first all he could see was a mottled brown form roughly the size and shape of a Volkswagen Beetle, covered with fur, attempting to roll a half-rotted log down the side of the mountain.

  It took Peter a few more steps to figure out that he was seeing a bear.

  The trail ran through a deep pocket of old-growth trees in an area too steep for commercial logging. It was mid-March, and Peter assumed the bear was looking for food. There would be grubs under the log, which would provide much-needed protein in that still-lean time of the year. The bear grumbled to itself as it dug into the dirt, sounding a little like Peter’s dad when he cleaned out the back of his truck. The bear was focused on its task, and hadn’t yet noticed the human.

  Peter stopped walking.

  Black bears were plentiful in the wilder pockets of the West, but they were smaller, usually three or four hundred pounds when fully grown. Black bears could do a lot of damage if they felt threatened, but they usually avoided confrontation with humans. Peter had chased black bears out of his campsite by clapping his hands and shouting.

  This was not a black bear.

  This bear was a rich reddish-brown, with a pronounced hump, and very big. A grizzly. At the top of the food chain, grizzlies could be very aggressive, and were known to kill hikers. Clapping his hands wouldn’t discourage the bear. It would be more like a dinner bell, alerting the bear to the possibility of a good meal.

  The most dangerous time to meet a grizzly was in the fall, when they were desperately packing on fat to make it through the winter.

  The second-most dangerous time was spring, with the bear right out of hibernation and extremely hungry. Like now.

  Peter was lean and strong from weeks of backcountry hiking. His clothes were worn thin by rock and brush, the pack cinched tight on his back to make it easier to scramble through the heavy undergrowth. His leather boots had been resoled twice, the padded leather collars patched where mice had nibbled them for the salt while he slept wrapped in his ground cloth.

  He’d walked a lot of miles in those mountains.

  Now he wondered how fast he could run.

  He took a slow step back, trying to be as quiet as possible, then another. Maybe he could disappear in the fog.

  Peter had once met an old-timer who’d called the bears Mr. Griz, as a term of respect. The old man had recited the facts like a litany. Mr. Griz can grow to a thousand pounds or more. Mr. Griz can run forty miles an hour in short bursts. His jaws are strong enough to crush a bowling ball. Mr. Griz eats everything. He will attack a human being if he feels threatened or hungry. Mr. Griz has no natural enemies.

  The bear was still focused on the rotting log. Peter took a third step back, then a fourth. A little faster now.

  Call it a retreat in the face of overwhelming force. No dishonor in that, right? Even for a United States Marine.

  The California grizzly was supposed to be extinct. But this bear looked big, and big males were known to travel long distances in search of mates. He was only sixty miles south of the Oregon border, and in this dark primeval forest, anything seemed possible.

  Five steps, now six. Peter didn’t care how much this particular grizzly weighed, or what he felt like eating. He didn’t want to find out. He was almost back to the bend in the trail. This would be a good story to tell someday.

  Then he felt a slight breeze move the hairs on the back of his neck. The wind, which had been in his face, had shifted.

  He was in trouble.

  Grizzlies have fair eyesight and good hearing, but their sense of smell is superb. And the mountain breeze carried Peter’s weeks-long hiking stink, along with the smell of his supplies, directly to the bear’s brain. The supplies included a delicious trail mix made of cashews and almonds and peanuts and raisins and chocolate chips.

  Much better than grubs under a log.

  The bear’s head popped up with a snort.

  Peter stepped backward a bit faster, feeling the adrenaline sing in his blood, reminding himself of the old-timer’s advice on meeting Mr. Griz.

  You don’t want to appear to be a threat, or to look like food. Running away is a bad idea, because bears can run faster than people. And running away is prey behavior.

  What you were supposed to do, said the old-timer, was drop your pack to give the bear something to investigate, then retreat backward. If the bear charged, curl up into a ball, protecting your head, neck, and face with your arms. You might get mauled, but you’d be less likely to be killed.

  Peter was not exactly the curl-into-a-
ball type.

  The bear stood upright on its hind legs, now a good eight or nine feet tall, swung its enormous head toward Peter, and sniffed the air like a Silicon Valley sommelier.

  Mmmm. Trail mix.

  Peter took another step back. Then another.

  The bear dropped to all fours and charged.

  Peter shucked his pack and ran like hell.

  • • •

  HE’D GROWN UP WITH ANIMALS. Dogs in the yard, horses in the barn, chickens and cats wherever they felt like going. He’d kind of inherited a big dog the year before, or maybe the dog had inherited him, it wasn’t entirely clear. In the end the dog had found a better home than Peter could provide.

  But he liked animals. Hell, he liked grizzly bears, at least in theory. He certainly liked how it felt to know a big predator was out there. It made him feel more alive.

  The backpack distracted the bear for only a few seconds, barely long enough for Peter to round the corner, find a climbable sapling, and jump up. The bear was right at his heels at the end. Mr. Griz chomped a chunk of rubber from the sole of Peter’s boot. Peter was glad he got to keep the foot.

  He scrambled higher, finding handholds in the crevices of the soft, deep bark. This was a redwood sapling, tall and straight as a flagpole. He hugged the trunk with his arms and legs while the bear roared and thumped the sapling with his forepaws, apparently uninterested in climbing up after him. The young tree rocked back and forth and Peter’s heart thumped in his chest.

  Alive, alive, I am alive.

  Would you rather be here, or stuck behind a desk somewhere?

  “Bad bear,” he called down. “You are a very bad bear.”