Nate clapped his hands to his mouth again and hummed as he rocked back and forth. “There is no bear, there is no bear, there is simply no bear.” He pinched his eyes closed as if willing himself to make it so.
“Everybody just stay calm,” Leo commanded. “You freak out, even in the slightest, and this could take a turn for the worse.”
“You mean, this situation is not already at the worst it could possibly be?” Glenda cried.
“Everyone back up nice and slowly toward the north trail,” Leo commanded . They all obeyed and drifted backward. “That’s it. Nice and easy now.”
The bear strolled a large circle around them. Watching them. When it left a space free toward the upper trail, they backed out into the outskirts of the camp. The bear cockily regarded them and then the tent they had left behind. It wiggled its nose curiously and then in one lazy swoop, it swung a giant paw and shredded the tent to strings. The contents sprayed out like the intestines of a gutted fish.
“Not my other tent! He broke my other tent!” Nate cried, helplessness splayed his eyebrows up. “Somebody is paying for that one too!”
Leo ordered them to slowly climb a single tree, while the bear occupied itself with slothfully destroying all their belongings. Leo jumped up the tree first and then leaned down to haul up the women immediately after him. He and Mia shared a flicker of uncomfortable eye contact before he made sure she was nestled high in the tree and reached down to Nate.
“Do you think he is going to ruin my spice collection too?” Nate wrung his hands and whimpered as he watched the grunting beast. “I confess I brought it with me, even though you told me not to.”
“Forget about it. Just take my hand, Nate,” Leo ordered. Mia flinched at the strength of his voice. “Now is not the time to be obsessing about your spice collection.”
“If not now, then when?” Nate whimpered.
With unnecessary reluctance, Nate reached up and took Leo’s palm. In one heave, he was up in the tree with the others, watching the chaos unfold from above. As the bear lumbered and rummaged, it became awkwardly clear that the direction it had strolled from squarely blocked the path back to town.
“Do you think Blueflower has a pay phone?” Nate asked.
“It’s a small town,” Glenda gripped a tree branch and steadied herself. “If not a pay phone, then for sure someone there will let us use their phone to make a call.”
“Good,” Nate said. “We can call a rescue team to help Penelope from there.”
“Going back to town will be a lot faster than heading up to Blueflower,” Leo said. “We’ll just stay up here in the tree and wait for the bear to leave. Then we can make our decision.”
As if hearing his plan, the bear lifted its head and blinked at them. Then with a snort, it waddled over to the base of the tree, its lungs wheezing with each step. It looked up again, this time wiggling its black nose. With a sloppy sigh, it paced around the base of the tree until it found the perfect spot to curl up for a nap. Moments later, snores rumbled from its giant body.
“Oh god, he’s never going to leave,” Mia cried. Instinctively, she reached for Leo’s hand, but it held a branch above his head and his attention was fixated on the bear below. So, instead, she put her hand in his pocket to comfort and steady herself. It was then that the tips of her fingers brushed against soft paper inside. Discreetly, she slid it from his pocket while he talked to everyone, and she read it.
I wish you would die, Mia, you wicked bitch.
She inwardly gasped. Why was this in his pocket? She watched him with a curious glare.
Why did he have a note for her on his person?
“We just gotta wait out his nap.” Leo tried to sound encouraging.
Was he writing these notes to her all along and planning to give this to her later?
“How long is he going to nap for?” Glenda cried.
To torment her and force her to be dependent on him?
“Couple of hours max,” Leo said. Relaxed. A little too relaxed. “And after that everything will be fine.”
“Will everything truly be fine, though?” she said to him. He turned to look at her, startled. She continued, “How can you be so sure about that, Dr. Lawson?”
*******
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sunday, September 17: 9:45 a.m.
The sound of a distant gunshot ripped through the air and Leo jumped and looked up at the mountain from where it came.
“Did you hear that?” Leo asked.
“It was probably just a crow.” Glenda shrugged.
For three hours of awkward silence with everyone in the tree, he hadn’t take his eyes off the bear. He gripped the giant gnarled arms of the birch as the bear continued to snore at the base. It rested its massive chin on its even more massive paw, its ribs rising and dropping in slower and deeper frequency.
It must be nice to be a bear, he thought, and not have to worry about predators. Must be a wicked easy life being emperor of the forest. You could just do whatever you want to people and not have any consequences.
Speaking of people who did whatever they want, he glanced at Nate, who was watching the sky for that damn raven he was obsessing about, oblivious to Leo’s anger. Leo’s hands reached into his pocket to touch the note he’d found in Nate’s sleeping bag.
But it was gone.
“When can we go? It’s sleeping now.” Glenda sighed impatiently. “My fingernails are hurting from hanging on to this bark. I’m ruining my chrome nails here. Paid fifty bucks for this polish and now look at it.” She held out her perfectly coiffed hands in despair.
“You mean those weren’t natural?” Nate asked. Astonished.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Leo said, “there’s a fucking grizzly sleeping under us. It’s not like we can just get up and leave. Not if we don’t want to be torn to shreds.”
“Yeah, well if moron here didn’t throw away the damn gun, we wouldn’t have this problem, now would we?” Glenda flashed a resentful glare at Nate. “Threw it off a damn cliff, you say.”
“Yes,” Nate said. “I threw it. It was for the best.”
“Great job. Now we’re all going to be a grizzly’s lunch.”
“Let’s just say I did not feel comfortable with this group carrying a gun anymore. It’s not safe.”
“Not safe, why?” Leo said.
Nate’s eyes flickered to Mia. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
Leo opened his mouth to say something and then caught sight of Mia. Her eyes fixated on him. Her scowling face was framed by a mangled mess of muddy hair. They’d been out in the wild way too long. He reached to touch her arm and she pulled it away. Then she averted her gaze and sighed.
“Mia, we’ll get out here, don’t worry,” he said to her, though he wasn’t even sure that would be possible.
She pulled her hand further away from him and shook her head.
Suddenly, the tree trembled. He looked down and saw the bear getting up and leaving. It waddled and padded softly down the hill to the lake. It slipped softly into the water and drifted away into the deeper waters.
Leo jumped down from the tree and sprinted to the campsite. He gathered what was left of the food and all the supplies, besides the tent that had been shredded.
“Get my spices too!” Nate cried from up in the tree, clearly too terrified to jump down to help.
“Fuck your damn spices,” Glenda shouted at him. “Can’t you see there are more important things right now?”
“No swearing on this trip!” Nate quivered.
“Fuck your no-swearing rule too,” Glenda seethed.
Leo sprinted back up to the tree. “Let’s go,” he commanded and looked back over his shoulder at the grizzly now rolling lazily through the sky-blue water.
Mia and Glenda dropped down from the tree and Leo caught them with one arm, guided them to their feet, and instructed them to run. Nate clung to the branch and watched the ground anxiously.
“Just
jump,” Leo commanded him. “Don’t think about it too much.”
Nate pinched his eyes closed and loosened his body and fell forward as though he were fainting and expecting to be caught. Shit, Leo thought. He chucked aside his supplies and snagged his falling body, just as Nate’s knees crashed to the earth.
“Ow,” Nate complained.
“Will you quit your whining and just run already?” Glenda yelled. “The bear is coming back!”
Leo pivoted toward the lake to confirm. The bear rose its huge body to the shore, globs of water dripping from its fur in sparkling strings. When it saw that the four had dropped from the tree, it growled and picked up its pace to return to them.
Mia threw her bag around off her shoulder in front of her. She thrust it open.
“What are you doing?” Leo yelled at her.
Ignoring him, she reached inside and pulled out her Tupperware container.
“Who the hell brings Tupperware to the forest?” Glenda asked.
“A hoarder,” Mia replied, chucking her sandwiches, one by one, at the bear. The animal stopped and sniffed at the air in front of it, then its nose plunked down to the ground and wiggled it over the soil until it found the sandwich. One by one, it gulped each sandwich down. It looked up at Mia, watching her, as if understanding she was showing it kindness. It stopped following them and lay down on the ground, patiently waiting for her to throw more. She threw every last one of the twenty sandwiches at it.
“Run!” Leo yelled. The other three took advantage of the bear pausing to eat, and they scrambled madly up the hill. Leo grabbed the supplies he’d dropped and bolted after them. If luck was on their side, Leo thought, they just might have a chance at barely escaping this nightmare.
*******
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dream #4
She is walking with the birdcage in her hand down the rocky shore toward the ocean. She intends to use one of the stones from the beach to pound open the cage and set the origami bird free. As she gets closer to the sea, a white and blue sailboat floating in the water catches her eye. Even though it is just a boat, she can feel it’s actually Brendan.
She looks at the bird in the cage, but now just a tiny white mushroom grows on the ground, where the paper-note bird once lay. She places the cage on the ground and walks to the boat. She walks into the sea, the foamy water swirling around her ankles. She pushes in ahead, getting deeper and deeper, to her knees, thighs, crotch, waist. The boat floats and bobs on the waves, watching her. Waiting.
As she gets closer to the boat, she sees there is writing on the side of it. It’s the same handwriting that had been on the mural and on the note in the birdcage. But unlike the mural, she can’t read what this new note says because the waves are splashing up and blocking her view.
She swims toward the boat. She must read what it says.
Just as she swims close enough to finally see it, the boat pulls in its anchor.
You’ve come far enough, it says to her.
But instead of sailing away, it sinks into the water right in front of her. The sea gulps it down with greed and satisfaction. Bubbles come up where the boat once was. Then the bubbles melt into stillness.
She plunges her face underwater to see where the boat went, to catch one last glimpse. But the only thing she sees is the same inky blackness that follows her everywhere.
Suddenly a tiny face appears way down in the black water. A baby’s face. Round and white like a tiny moon. Its mouth is shaped in an O. It’s yelling something at her from under the water.
Mia swims down to get closer, to save it. Her arms burning from the intensity of exertion. It’s like swimming through tar.
As she gets closer to the baby’s face she can finally hear it.
You’re going to die, mother, the baby repeats what was written on the mural. And it’s going to be me who kills you.
*******
Sunday, September 17: 10:11 a.m.
Jessica clutched the gun in one hand and in the other hand she hauled the supplies bag Mark had been carrying. She came down the side of the grassy hill and approached the kid, who was still tied to a pine tree. He watched her with huge, scared eyes.
“Wh-wh-where’s Uncle Mark?” he shuddered.
“Uncle Mark didn’t listen to instructions, and because of that there’s been a terrible accident,” Jessica said. She threw aside the gun first and shoved her flowery bathrobe closed. It got on her nerves how much it fluttered in this damn fresh mountain air.
“Wh-wh-what happened to him?”
“Walter ate him.” She dropped the supplies bag and opened it. Surely to hell Mark packed something besides chocolate bars for food.
“Walter?” he said. “But Walter is a nice bear. I can’t believe he would do that.”
Sure enough, the only food that idiot packed was chocolate. God, she should have shot that man in his brains twenty times, instead of just one. One shot for every headache he’d given her that day alone.
“Eat,” she said and shoved one of the bars at the boy. “You need your energy for what’s going to happen later today.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“What is with all your constant bloody blabbering? You’re worse than Uncle Mark. You know that?”
The boy took the chocolate and quietly nibbled at it, looking at the ground.
“Why are you crying now?”
“I’m not…” he mumbled.
“Good. Because I didn’t raise you to be no sissy-boy. Besides, you’re going to have to do me a favor today,” she said.
“A favor?” The boy’s eyes lit up as though the idea intrigued him.
“Save your smiles, kid,” she said. “Because I have a feeling you’re going to hate this favor. But it needs to be done. So, if you do it the way I ask you, then I’ll make sure Walter doesn’t eat you too.”
*******
Sunday, September 17: 5:15 p.m.
Mia didn’t want to continue with this journey. It didn’t feel safe, not physically, not psychologically. Instead, it felt risky and emotionally cluttered, the same icky feeling as back at her home. Like some really awful, forgotten junk was floating under the surface and would burst out at any moment and make the whole house come down on top of her. Her nerves were beyond tight and ready to crack, one by one, like somebody stomping on a pile of toothpicks.
But neither did she want to turn back and go home.
Not after coming this far and being mere inches away from seeing her son again.
Not at least until she reached that cabin.
“Just another few hours and we’ll be there.” Mia was surprised by how cheerful she sounded. As if her own voice were a recording being played back to her ever so slightly faster than she actually spoke.
Leo glanced up at her over the fire he was making at the new camp and said nothing.
They settled into a clearing that provided enough shelter with low hanging branches to make up for the fact that they now had no tents. Leo silently gathered wood and tossed it into a pit he’d dug with his heels, and Mia hung their clothes from braches for a makeshift shelter from the night mountaintop air.
Mia looked back over her shoulder; the bear had long ago stopped strolling after them. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t hanging back in the shadows, waiting to attack later.
She looked ahead at the walk they had in the morning. The gray stony hill ahead was a familiar knot of boiling snakes twirled together. Tucked under the snow-peaked mountains, the hills flattened for a long span into them. It would be easy walking along the low hills to get there. She missed the comforting chaos of her home. Out here in the simple, uncomplicated wild, she was vulnerable in the open, ready for attack from any angle. Whoever said getting out in the fresh air to clear one’s mind must have been kidding.
“The perception of distance is a lie.” Leo threw some wood atop the fire, sending orange sparks twirling up. The warm flames on Mia’s face felt like a glorious relief. “It’s much far
ther than a few hours. But we'll get there tomorrow.”
“The sooner we get there, the better,” Glenda said.
Nate shuffled over to the fire. Mia watched him with a cautious eye. He’d been acting oddly all day. Hadn’t said more than a word since the day before. He gripped a bucket in his hand, his knuckles whitened from the strain. Water sloshed out the top of it with each lumbering step he took toward the fire. A jumbled-up glare on his face seemed directed at Glenda, who barely concerned herself with him. With bucket clutched in two hands now, he shuffled over to the fire and stopped in front of it, blocking their view. He watched them all huddled in front of the warmth, his eyes scouring each of their faces, as though looking for something that could never be found.
“Can we help you with something?” Glenda finally gave him the attention he was seeking.
He didn’t reply. He turned toward the fire and upturned the bucket over it. A wave of foamy water rolled out of it onto the flames. The fire sizzled, sputtered and popped to a water-logged death. In seconds, it was over, and nothing but black mush filled the pit.
Leo stood and gaped at him.
Mia dropped her face into her hands.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Glenda said. “It took us three hours to start that fire and now you put it out and threw away all the water that we hauled up from the river? You moron.”
“Now that I have your attention, Glenda,” Nate responded with the utmost civility, “may I please speak to you? In private?”
Glenda tilted her head to one side and sneered at him. Like it was the last thing she felt like doing. “What is your problem now?”
“In private,” he repeated, and then he spun and booted toward a tucked away corner at the edge of the forest.
Kiss Her Goodbye: Thriller/Romance with a shocking twist Page 17
